A Rich Cabinet

Some purple sprouting broccoli in the shop this week. Pretty and tasty (tastier than the usual green broccoli). It’s not the season for it (that’s in spring) so I’m not quite sure how it’s got there and what it’ll be like, but it claims to be locally grown, and I like it too much not to give it a try.

This sort of simple recipe with pasta and anchovies (or bacon) works well.

It’s good in equally simple stirfries too.

Or of course you can simply steam it to serve as a side vegetable. Try a squeeze of fresh lemon when you serve it.

More suggestions from Google.

Dammit, you virtually have a meal. Especially if you’ve got some cream or milk as well.

I love potato gratins and bakes. (I love almost everything that involves potato, but let’s focus here.)

Take your waxy potatoes, slice them fairly thinly (about 1/4″) and boil them for a few minutes until cooked (but still firm - you don’t want them overcooked). Then you can layer them in a ovenproof dish of some kind, with plenty of grated cheese (cheddar is good, or similar types of hard cheese) between the layers. That could quite easily be it, especially as a side dish. Just spread a bit more grated cheese on top, put it in a hot oven or under a grill for perhaps ten minutes. Yum.

But even better, you could pour cream (or creme fraiche diluted to pouring consistency with water or milk) or even just milk over the potato/cheese layers and cook it for slightly longer at about 200C till it’s bubbling all the way through and golden brown on top (the liquid should only come about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way up the layers so you get a crispy top layer) . If you have excess liquid, mop it up with some bread.

Then you could layer the potato and cheese with other things to make a more substantial meal - finely sliced mushroom is very good; sliced leeks that you blanched with the potatoes; flaked tinned fish; diced ham. You can slice tomatoes and put them on top too. (Tomatoes, cheese and potatoes is another of those heavenly combinations.)

All very simple and satisfying.

This is a recipe from Claudia Roden’s wonderful book, Mediterranean cookery. It does scale down pretty well for a couple of servings. (In any case I hardly ever weigh anything…)

(serves 8.)

1.5kg (3 1/4lb) courgettes
2 large onions, chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
250g (9 oz) short-grain rice [in fact I always use long-grain, and it’s fine]
3 eggs
8-10 chard leaves or 125g (4 1/2 oz) spinach, shredded
small bunch of basil, finely chopped [I use dried]
large bunch of parsley, finely chopped [and I don’t worry too much if I don’t have any]
3 rashers lean bacon, finely chopped
50g (2 oz) grated Parmesan cheese
pepper

Trim the courgettes but leave them whole and unpeeled. Boil them in salted water for about 20 mins or steam till tender. Chop then mash with a potato masher in a colander and let the juices drain away.

Fry the onions and garlic in 2 tbsp of the oil till golden.

Cook the rice in boiling water until it’s almost done, then drain.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 200 C/400 F/gas mark 6. Oil a large earthenware dish with the remaining oil.

Beat the eggs lightly in a bowl, mix in the chard/spinach, add the herbs, bacon, parmesan and pepper. Then add the mashed courgettes, fried onion and garlic and the rice. Mix well. Taste and season if required.

Pour the mixture into the oiled dish. Bake for about 40 minutes or until firm and browned on top. Serve hot.

Notes: You can also do a cheat’s version of this, in which you don’t boil and mash the courgettes, but simply chop them finely and put them straight in the mix. It will give a somewhat different texture, but either way is tasty. If I do boil the courgettes, I save the water and juices from the mashing to cook the rice in - just put them back in the same pan and you save some washing up too. (Also, I wouldn’t salt the cooking water, but that’s a matter of preference.)

You can leave out the bacon and it’ll still be very good, although you’ll also need to find a substitute for the parmesan for it to be a proper vegetarian recipe. (I have in the past replaced the bacon with anchovies and I thought that worked quite well.)

Final afterthought: Claudia says to serve hot, but leftovers are extremely good cold for lunch.

And because a food blog should have pictures:

Er, I was too hungry to photograph it when the dish was still full.