the spinach leaves, tear them into small pieces, then stir them into the rice. Break the fish into large, juicy flakes and add them to the rice, folding them in but keeping the flakes as whole as possible. Check the seasoning and serve.
Enough for 2 generous servings
FEBRUARY 9
A little brown stew for a little brown day
A certain calm comes over the kitchen when there is any sort of grain simmering on the stove. The steam from brown rice, spelt or pot barley brings with it a quiet benevolence that I am grateful for on a grey-brown day like today. With a house in turmoil (I remain holed up in my tiny study while the plasterers plaster, painters paint and welders weld) the homely smell of boiled rice is somehow reassuring.
All the grains appeal to me but I am becoming partial to the quiet pleasures of pearled spelt (think pearl barley but made from wheat). The pale-brown wheat grain makes a pleasing change from Arborio rice in a risotto and adds a chewy note to a herb salad, but is something to consider for bulking up a casserole, too. The small, oval grains plump up like Sugar Puffs with the aromatic cooking liquor from a stew, taking on a velvety texture whilst making the dish both more substantial and more economical.
The mushroom stew on the hob today is rich and earthy enough but is hardly going to fill anyone. A couple of handfuls of spelt, boiled in lightly salted water and drained, will help turn what is essentially an accompaniment into something resembling a main course. Mushroom sauce becomes mushroom stew.
Spelt is said to be easy on the digestion and I have to agree. Some of us who find modern wheat heavy and soporific have no such trouble with the modern versions of ancient strains such as spelt. The ancestors of this mild, nubby grain spread across central Europe during the Bronze Age and were in common use in southern Britain by 500BC. Available for years in the sort of food shops that smell of brown rice and massage oil, spelt has recently taken a step towards the mainstream.
The sense of peace and humble bonhomie you get from simmering grain (akin, I think, to Chinese dumplings steaming in their bamboo baskets) is slightly lost when pearled spelt is stirred into a risotto but is there in spades when it is simmering in water, its steam rising in soft clouds. Like brown rice, it has an affinity with mushrooms, onions and the more earthy spices, but has less of the hardcore ‘wholemeal’ character.
A little brown stew of mushrooms and spelt
Use fancy mushrooms if you wish, but I rather like this made with an everyday mixture of flat ‘field’ mushrooms and the small chestnut variety. Add the mushrooms according to their size and thickness, leaving anything particularly small and delicate till last. By field mushrooms I mean the wide, flat variety that are usually served on toast.
dried mushrooms: a tablespoon (8g)
pearled spelt: 250g
a medium onion
olive oil: 4 tablespoons
garlic: 2 cloves, crushed
assorted fresh mushrooms: 850g
tomato purée: a tablespoon
plain flour: a tablespoon
dried chilli flakes: ½ teaspoon
Put the dried mushrooms in a heatproof bowl, cover with 500ml hot water from the kettle and set aside.
Boil the spelt in lightly salted water for fifteen minutes, then drain and set aside.
Peel and roughly chop the onion. Warm the olive oil in a large pan. Add the onion and leave to soften, with the occasional stir to stop it burning, over a moderate heat. When it is pale gold – a matter of ten to fifteen minutes – add the crushed garlic and continue cooking for two or three minutes.
Finely slice the fresh mushrooms. Stir them into the onion and continue cooking for about five minutes, till they are starting to colour.
Stir in the tomato purée. Cook for two or three minutes, then stir in the flour. Pour in the dried mushrooms and their soaking water and bring to the boil. As soon as the liquid is boiling, lower the heat, season with salt and black pepper and stir in the dried chilli flakes. Leave to simmer for ten minutes, then add the cooked spelt. Cook for a further ten to fifteen minutes, until the mushrooms are soft and silky and the sauce is rich and lightly thickened. Serve in shallow bowls.
Enough for 4
FEBRUARY 10
Down to the bone
Having work done on the kitchen has given me the privilege of seeing the bones of this house. Not just the oak laths and plaster but the long joists that form the skeleton of the old girl. Peering beneath the sagging ceilings, walls and floors has given me a clue as to how the building, and particularly the kitchen, was built. There is something empowering about knowing how something was put together – a toy plane (yes, I was one of those Airfix kids), a house, a car and most of all, a recipe.
I get pleasure from cooking with the bits of an animal that clearly show their function – what they do and where they fit in. The neck, tail, shanks and shoulders all allow you to see form and function (I particularly like cutting the string on a neatly butchered ring of oxtail and sorting the strong, broad bones from the tiny cartilaginous ones at the flicking end). Getting to know what a piece of an animal did can help us cook it appropriately. It is probably a generalisation to suggest that the more work a joint of meat had to do, the longer it will need to cook, but it is true that the hard-working shanks and neck will take longer to come to tenderness than the fillet, which never did a day’s work in its life. A chop from the loin will cook quicker than a chop from the ever-bending neck.
The butcher had some neck of lamb this week. This is a joint that gets much use – I have rarely seen a sheep that wasn’t eating. Awkward and lumpy, the neck is a cut to be valued for its cheap price, sweet fat and almost indestructible nature. The fact that I can make a fragrant, even luxurious supper out of something some people boil up for the dog makes me warm to it all the more. Tucked up in a heavy pan with earthy spices and sweet onions, the untidy lumps of meat can cook on a low heat for anything up to a couple of hours, its tough flesh and gristle breaking down to soft, spoonable meat and wobbly fat. Did I ever tell you my name is an anagram of lean gristle? Well, it is. I was slightly saddened this week to find the major supermarkets shunning this richly flavoured cut in favour of the neck fillet at over 12 quid a kilo. A decent butcher is always the best bet for the tougher cuts, until they become fashionable again like shanks.
As good as slow-cooked meat on the bone can be, it’s the gravy that forms in the pan that is the real prize. I invariably start with onions, but this time I am throwing the spice rack at them, with whole cumin seeds, ground coriander, a cinnamon stick and just a pinch of crushed chilli. The weather being as it is, I am keen to add some sweetness, and do so in the form of dried apricots, though it could have been figs or raisins.
Sometimes, I drop a few floury potatoes into a slow-cooked supper to bolster it up a bit and make it even more economical, but I am also tempted by other starchy fillers, such as couscous, barley and spelt. My starch of the moment is the fat, pearl-like mograbia, occasionally known as Lebanese or pearl couscous. It responds best to a spirited boil rather being steamed like the usual fine couscous. Some of the supermarkets sell it labelled as giant couscous, and it is easy to find in Middle Eastern grocer’s shops.
If mograbia remains elusive, then this rich, bargain-basement stew will feel just as comfortable with steamed fine couscous, quinoa or rice. I would add a little cinnamon to these, maybe some black pepper and some finely grated lemon zest and melted butter.
Braised neck of lamb with apricots and cinnamon
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