decant each of the ingredients into once they have been prepared: roughly chop the tomatoes into eighths; deseed the pepper and slice into strips; peel and roughly chop the cucumber, complete with seeds; peel and dice the onion and peel and chop the garlic cloves. Pour the extra virgin olive oil, sherry vinegar and cumin into the bowl and mix everything up with your hands. If you have a strong hand-held blender, give it a really good purée, but it’s better still if you have a Magimix, which you can decant the lot into and pulse away on.
When it is a smooth thick soup, you are ready for the next stage. Find a large sieve, place it over another large mixing bowl and pour the gazpacho into it (though Raf recently picked me up an amazing mouli-légumes in Barcelona, which is the real deal in blending a perfect gazpacho). With a metal spoon or a spatula work the soup through the sieve so that it becomes ultimately smooth. You will need to scrape the bottom of the sieve from time to time, to remove the thicker bits. By the end, you will be left with just the woody parts of the vegetables and seeds in the sieve, which you can then discard. Now give the silky gazpacho a thorough mix with a whisk, and season according to your taste, with a little sugar to bring out the flavour of the tomatoes, and also pepper and salt. Serve with a few ice cubes in each mug and a drizzle of excellent Spanish extra virgin olive oil.
Raspberry Risen Pancakes with Clotted Cream
Makes 10 pancakes
These should really be cooked on a griddle pan, like my mum has, but I’m still fruitlessly trying to prise it away from her. A griddle pan is one of those entirely flat iron pans that has a handle running up and over and round to the other side, almost looking like one half of a weight and measure. And because I don’t have this wonderful tool, and you probably won’t either, I just cook them in a big flat frying pan. The warm raspberries are absolutely delicious with thick clotted cream, and are reminiscent of a good old-fashioned cream tea. I’d just as easily cook these for pudding, with some delicious vanilla ice cream to serve.
British raspberries are in season during July and August, so this is naturally a summer brekka. If you stumble upon a good supply during these months, buy a fair few punnets and freeze whatever is surplus to your requirements. Raspberries lend themselves very well to freezing, and your conscience will be clear too. At other times of the year, you may choose to vary the topping. In deepest winter, try finely sliced ripe pears as a substitute.
1 medium free-range egg
130g self-raising flour
50g caster sugar
a pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
150ml full-fat milk
2 tablespoons butter
170g raspberries
a dusting of icing sugar clotted cream
Preheat the oven to 100°C/Gas 1/4. Line an ovenproof serving dish with a clean drying-up cloth, and place in the oven to warm gently. You will decant each batch of pancakes on to this to keep warm. Thoroughly beat the egg in a mixing bowl. I use my lipped batter bowl, but a wide jug would also do. Add half the flour, the sugar, salt and baking powder, beating with a whisk. This will form a thick elastic batter. Then add the milk, making sure there are no lumps but that the batter is now light and smooth. Now add the remaining flour. It may need a little water to loosen it further. The consistency should be thick but creamy and entirely lumpless. Set aside for an hour if you can stand the temptation, as this makes for a better pancake in the end.
Heat 1 tablespoon of the butter, or some vegetable oil, in a large flat-bottomed frying pan, so that it is silky with fat but not verging into deep-frying territory. Allow the fat to become melted and hot and slippy when the pan is tilted, and then pour out some batter, or add a spoonful of the batter if you are using a bowl, and drop over this 6 or 8 raspberries. The pancakes should be about the diameter of a wine bottle. You will get 2 or 3 in the pan. Allow them to really brown and go golden on the bottom. They are ready to turn when the top side is bubbling and beginning to firm up around the berries. Flip each one over with a heatproof spatula or palette knife, and colour the other side. They should rise a little and firm up, and each side should take just over a minute. Remove to the warm dish before going on to the next batch. They are best after 10 minutes drying out in the warm oven. Finally dust the pancakes generously with some icing sugar if you like. Serve with a smudge of clotted cream on each.
Colombian Scrambled Eggs with Frills
For 2
There’s a great bona fide Colombian restaurant in Brixton market called Como y Punto, and they do an epic breakfast. Their proud kitchen is reassuringly evident from the café, and little pots of salsa sit at every table for you to help yourself to. The last time I ate there, we entirely demolished the salsa, because it’s so jolly delicious.
Luckily there are wonderful shops in Brixton where you can buy and even see corn bread being made. Though in case you haven’t any Central or South American shops near you, I’ve added a cornmeal pancake recipe too, from Raf’s mum, Maggie, and her epic cookery book collection. This colourful and tangy breakfast is all about finely chopping everything. It is best with milky Colombian-style coffees.
The Salsa
1 big juicy tomato
a few stalks of fresh coriander
1 spring onion
1 big red chilli
2 teaspoons white sugar
3 dessertspoons white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon table salt
First prepare the salsa by seriously chopping the tomato, coriander, spring onion and chilli finely with a large sharp knife. For best effects, you want to get a swinging rhythm going by holding down the pointed end of the knife and chopping all over the vegetables. However, if you have a little hand-held blender it would be helpful here to make this a thin and fine salsa. Then add the sugar, vinegar and salt. Decant this into a ramekin for the table.
The Corn Cakes
100g coarse or medium cornmea
40g plain white flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 large free-range egg
200ml soured milk (soured by squeezing 1/2 lemon into the milk, and leaving to rest for 5 minutes)
4 teaspoons vegetable oil
Measure out the cornmeal, flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda, and thoroughly mix together. Then beat together the egg and soured milk, and gradually whisk this into the dry ingredients. It should be a sloppy cake-mixture type of batter. Heat a teaspoon of oil in a medium frying pan on a high heat to bring the heat of the pan right up. When the oil is rippling and ready, turn the heat right down to low and wait a moment before pouring in enough batter to form a 12cm round. Fry for a few minutes, so that the edges are quite brown and crinkled and the surface is smattered with rising bubbles and is nearly dry. Release the cake around the edges with a palette knife or flat frying flipper, and turn it over. You will only need to fry the second side for a moment, to seal it. The cake should be speckled brown and a little risen if fried correctly.
Remove from the pan to a kitchen towel, to absorb