the ultimate in stuffed loaves

I don't know why we don't make one of these more often. I guess if there was always one in the fridge, and they can easily last a few days, it would be the perfect go to snack at any time of the day. That said, this really is picknicking taken to another level, if it ever gets to leave the house that is. There are no rules, no ingredients off limits, and certainly no restrictions on combinations. If it works for you say in a salad, or in a regular sandwich, it will work being stuffed and allowed to settle overnight before tucking in.

The stuffed picnic loaf to take down all picnic loaves

Serves about 4

1 decent round sourdough loaf

About 50g pesto

4 soft boiled eggs, quartered

8 good slices prosciutto

16 pieces of sun-dried tomatoes

1 large handful of fresh basil leaves

200g mozzarella, sliced

2 large roast peppers, peeled

2 courgettes, sliced and grilled

1 aubergine, sliced and grilled

Lots of olive oil, salt and pepper

Slice the top off the loaf and reserve as the lid of the stuffed loaf. Hollow out the bottom without breaking the crust. Keep the centre for breadcrumbs.

Thoroughly coat the inside edges and bottom of the lid with pesto, and season liberally.

Add a layer of prosciutto, then a layer of sun-dried tomatoes. Top with basil leaves, then a layer of your mozzarella. The next layer should be the peppers followed by courgette and aubergine. Finish with the eggs and a bit more basil before topping off with a last layer of prosciutto.

You should have doused each layer with a glug of olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper as you've built it, pressing well as you go. Finish with a bit more of the same before closing with the lid.

Wrap tightly in aluminium foil and place in the fridge with a chopping board on top weighted down with anything hefty to hand. Because we’re using sourdough, this could easily take an eight pack of beer at least, a softer bread vehicle and you’ll need to downgrade to a couple of tins of soup for example.

Leave in the fridge to chill and press for at least a few hours, overnight will yield much better results.

Don’t try to cut in advance, bring the whole beast to your end destination, unwrap, slice, serve and accept admiring nods from the masses.

dragon fruit; no

 

How to ruin a perfectly good fruit salad

 

Step 1; Cut up some wonderful seasonal fruit

Step 2; Add dragon fruit

Hey Bingo; You’re done

 

Words cannot do justice to how deeply I mistrust the dragon fruit. I will give this a go, but do bear in mind every time I even have to type 'dragon fruit' a little bit of me dies inside, and I need to go have a lie down.

A more pointless waste of space on the fruit laden tables of the market I've yet to witness. Give me the heady aromas of a durian over this piece of scentless nonsense and you'll see how desperate a situation we have found ourselves in here. I'll even take a slice of almost equally pointless star fruit before engaging in a lump of this nonsense.

I've taken to a declaration of me being highly allergic to the fruit now, to the point where, if challenged, I will claim to carry a little medical pack not unlike an insulin survival kit. Only my syringe and small penfill vial is charged with orange juice or coconut water or just anything far more palatable for that matter.

Papaya and avocado salad

Vinaigrette for 12 salads
½ cup brown sugar
1 cup water
Large pinch salt
2 tsp red pepper flakes
½ cup lemon juice
½ cup rapeseed oil

Mix sugar, water and salt for five minutes. Add pepper flakes and lemon juice.  Add oil, and check for taste, it may need more lemon juice and salt

For each salad
⅓ large avocado cut into large chunks or slices
¾ cup ripe papaya chunks or slices
2 tblsp shredded basil
2 tblsp shredded mint
1 cup greens, tatsoi and mizuna
Little salt and pepper

Toss the greens with a little salt and pepper and a good splash of vinaigrette.  Place on a plate. Toss the avocado, papaya, both herbs with the rest of the vinaigrette. Scatter the fruit on top of the greens.

If the fruits are too ripe do not dress them but place them on top of the dressed greens and drizzle vinaigrette on them.


 

The humble crumble

It always amazes just how simple things need to be in order to inspire a bit of positive thinking. Last night was yet another odd one. A collection of some very intelligent people coming together and brainstorming ideas of how to raise much needed cash in today's climate to make better lives for those who need the help more than others. Meanwhile those very people in need were being simply guided to prepare and serve the nourishment required to fuel those thought processes. 


The star of the show last night? Other than one of the young lads who has had a life more dreadful than we can comprehend but somehow manages to exude the willingness of a fresh and innocent kitchen recruit? Easy, it was the simple crumble.  Everyone loved it, we loved cooking it, the boys and girls loved being it. Don't change this recipe one single bit, apart from if you're doing this for the kids, replace the liqueur with some orange blossom water if you'd like to.

Fig and orange crumble

Serves 6

Butter for greasing

2 oranges

About 12 ripe figs

2 tblsp soft brown sugar

2 tblsp Grand Marnier

Vanilla ice cream to serve

For the crumble

175g plain flour

Pinch of fine sea salt

100g cold unsalted butter, diced

75g demerara sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

50g porridge oats

50g nibbed almonds or crushed hazelnuts

Preheat oven to 190C/Gas 5. Lightly grease a deep baking dish and set aside. Cut the top and base off the oranges. Stand the cut side of an orange on a board and cut away all the peel and pith, then cut out the orange segments from their membranes. Do this over a bowl so you keep the juice. Drop the segments into the bowl, then repeat with the other orange.

Cut the figs into quarters. Place them in the bowl with the oranges and gently toss with the sugar and Grand Marnier. Spread the fruit evenly over the prepared baking dish and set aside.

To make the crumble, put the flour, salt and butter into a food processor and blend until the mixture forms fine crumbs. Alternatively, rub the flour, salt and butter in a bowl between your fingertips. Pour the mixture into a bowl and stir in the sugar, ginger, oats and nuts. Sprinkle the crumble evenly over the figs and oranges.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until the crumble is golden brown and the fruit soft. Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 10 minutes before serving with vanilla ice-cream or maybe a ginger lemongrass infused custard if you really want to show off your smarty pants.

Förhandsgranska - Salmon with dill and lime

Stockholm these past couple of days has brought with it an alarming little display of food stuffs I have easily been forced to admit I have never tasted the like of before. From the subtle bleak caviar heaped onto crispy buttered toast, to the rightly acquired taste of surströmming. An extremely heavily fermented herring, quite a flavour I'm still working out how to describe. Next dish planned is the blodpudding, which quite clearly doesn't need an awful lot of translation, but the charm of it being traditionally eaten with lingonberry jam, potatoes and grated carrots has the better of me already.

At this time of year, and in particular back home, pâtés and terrines are particularly useful for what is going to prove to be a summer of many lunches, requiring no last-minute preparation beyond making a few rounds of that buttery toast. Strictly speaking, this dish isn't a terrine in the classic sense, but I serve it as such: the coarse, textured salmon in a china dish together with crisp Swedish inspired rye toast and paper-thin slices of pickled cucumber. It is the perfect light lunch with maybe some salad and cheese to follow. Or, in a more formal meal it would do as a refreshing first course before you move onto the beast that is fermented fish!


Salmon marinaded with dill and lime

500g wild salmon
4 tblsp mild olive oil
2 tblsp dill leaves
2 large ripe limes
1 tblsp capers

To serve - hot rye toast

Remove the skin from the salmon and, using a large, heavy knife, chop the flesh finely. You want it to be fine enough to stick together, but by no means a purée. Scoop it into a bowl. Mix in the olive oil, the chopped dill, the lime juice and the capers. Season carefully with salt and black pepper and pack the mixture into a terrine or china dish and leave overnight. Eat the next day with hot rye toast and pickled cucumber.

Pickled cucumber

Half a large cucumber
4 tblsp white wine vinegar
2 tblsp chopped coriander leaves
caster sugar

Peel the cucumber and slice it very thinly - you should be able to see through each slice. Put the slices in a colander and sprinkle with sea salt, then leave for a good half hour.

Rinse and pat dry with kitchen roll, put in a bowl with about 4 tablespoons of white wine vinegar, a couple of teaspoons of sugar and the chopped coriander leaves. Season with black pepper and toss gently. Set aside for a couple of hours, or overnight.

Tuna and tomato

Not your classic combination when you think of what automatically works, and what does not. But there are times when it is actually a good thing to break out of the mediocre and go bold in the kitchen. Brie on a pizza springs immediately to mind, but that's for another time. Here it's tuna and tomato, odd on the surface, grand underneath.

Tuna tartare with tomato dressing

Serves 4

Tuna tartare

250g sashimi-grade tuna, diced

10g chives, chopped

10g shallots, chopped

5g lemon confit or Moroccan preserved lemon

6 drops of Tabasco sauce

6 drops of Worcestershire sauce

35ml olive oil

Salt and pepper

Toss the diced tuna with all the remaining ingredients, season with salt and pepper and keep chilled till ready to serve.

Tomato pulp

500g red Roma tomatoes

65g sugar

10 basil leaves

Salt and pepper

Cut the tomatoes in half, combine them with the sugar and basil in a large bowl. Season well with salt and black pepper, and allow to rest, covered, for a couple of hours.

Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water, and cook for 1 and a half hours. Let the mixture sit in the fridge for a further 24 hours, then pass the finished pulp through a fine sieve.

Marry up the tuna tartare, the tomato pulp, something cracker like for crunch, something green as in rocket leaves, a sprinkle of the best salt and olive oil you have.

The alternative is - raw tuna, seasoned as you like, cut up some tomatoes, open a bag of pita chips, and the world is already a better place for it.