My recipe for ‘caponata’ - the classic Sicilian vegetable dish starring aubergine and tomato and flavoured with olives and capers

Here in London, summer has arrived with a sudden burst. The days are long and sunshiney, the lawns and trees dazzle with emerald green, and there are roses blooming everywhere. As I sit here at 9.30pm, I can hear the birds singing outside, a cool breeze is blowing in through the window and the twilight sky is turning a soft peach and mauve colour. England can be glorious in June, though it pays to make the most of it because the summers are often so brief and the next rainy spell can be just around the corner.

It’s time too for summer food. The queen of the spring foods, asparagus, is still in season but not for much longer, now that English strawberries and raspberries are making an appearance. There are also plenty of aubergines (eggplants) around. This is one of my favourite vegetables and should be bought firm and a glossy dark purple.

To me, caponata is a dish that screams summer. It’s great on pasta or toasted Italian bread, or as a side dish. It’s good when it’s first made but it’s even better after a day or two in the fridge and can be eaten cold or room temperature. It’s great for using up a glut of tomatoes from the garden or bought in bulk at a street market, but it works perfectly well with tinned tomatoes. There are endless variations on caponata - you can use peppers (capsicum) for example - and it’s really a matter of using what’s available and in season.

This is my version of a very simple caponata. I really love the flavours of the meaty aubergine and tomato, the earthy celery and the zing of olives and capers. Some caponatas are very oily - in this version the aubergine cooks mostly in the liquids of the tomato so it’s very low fat and really ridiculously healthy. But good.

Ingredients

2 aubergines
2 celery sticks
600g crushed tomatoes (1.5 tins)
1 onion
2-3 garlic cloves
1-2 tbs olive oil
Dried Italian herbs including 1 bayleaf
24 kalamata olives
1 tbs capers
Salt and pepper

To serve: 5 leaves fresh basil

Method

1. Chop the onions finely and crush or finely slice the garlic. Dice the aubergine into 1cm chunks and slice the celery. Pit and slice the olives (a cherry deseeder is useful or you can simply cut around the seed with a knife).

2. Fry the onion and garlic gently in a heavy pot with a little oil until it is translucent and soft. Add the celery and then the aubergine. Add a little more oil if needed. Cook until the ingredients start to brown slightly.

3. Add tomatoes, dried herbs, olives and capers. Leave to simmer with the lid on. The dish is not ready until the aubergine is extremely tender. It is essential that you don’t get impatient - rubbery aubergine is horrible!

4. Season with salt and pepper. If you have fresh basil, then chiffanade it by rolling the leaves up and slicing it finely. Scatter the basil over the dish to serve. If you have some wonderful ripe tomatoes, you could chop or slice them and add them to the dish as well (but don’t bother unless the tomatoes are especially good). Serve hot or cold.

Another aubergine idea: Simon Hopkinson’s Asian-style fried aubergine with chilli and salad onions. Not quite as healthy but very tasty!

When I was a child, my family had a vegetable garden. I can vividly remember the dark green feathery tendrils of the carrot tops and the paler green ripple of the lettuce leaves, poking out from their bed of straw and compost. I took it for granted as a normal part of life, though if the truth be told I don’t think I was especially interested. When I was very small we had chickens as well and one of my favourite jobs was fetching the eggs, which always seemed like a mini Easter egg hunt (though with less chocolate).

Having a garden is a virtuous circle because, as well as helping to feed yourself - lovely fresh food with an infinitesimally small carbon footprint - you also have a green way to dispose of food waste, whether by composting, keeping a worm farm, or feeding to chickens. Food waste sent to landfill is a major environmental problem because it rots anaerobically and produces potent greenhouse gases like methane. By contrast, food waste that is returned to the soil in the form of compost actually locks CO2 into the soil, in a natural form of carbon sequestering. Some local government areas have separate food waste collections but this is rare.

In yesterday’s The Guardian, Michael Pollan, author of In Defence of Food, has written a passsionate riposte to the ‘why bother’ brigade - the argument that our environmental problems are so insurmountable and the actions we take as individuals are so futile that we’re all doomed anyway and may as well just enjoy the time we have left. I really like Pollan’s piece firstly because it’s inspiring rather than just plunging me further into despair and secondly because I think it advances quite a strong argument for the difference that individuals can make. There is the ripple effect - the idea of inspiring other people and creating a chain reaction of individual responses - and also the salient point that, while fixing the problem takes laws and money, it also takes changes to the way we live. Governments won’t act in any meaningful way until we do. It reminds me of the old Margaret Mead quote* about changing the world that invariably gets trotted out in arguments like these but it’s no less true for that.

In particular, Pollan suggests that as individuals we should make a single, meaningful contribution to the solution, and goes on to make the case for a vegetable garden. Did you know that during World War 2, victory gardens supplied as much as 40% of the produce Americans ate?

I recommend reading the piece in full but I have extracted a few quotes. He writes:

“Measured against the Problem We Face, planting a garden sounds pretty benign, I know, but in fact it’s one of the most powerful things an individual can do - to reduce your carbon footprint, sure, but more important, to reduce your sense of dependence and dividedness: to change the cheap-energy mind.

“A great many things happen when you plant a vegetable garden, some of them directly related to climate change, others indirect but related nevertheless. Growing food, we forget, comprises the original solar technology: calories produced by means of photosynthesis. Years ago the cheap-energy mind discovered that more food could be produced with less effort by replacing sunlight with fossil-fuel fertilisers and pesticides, with a result that the typical calorie of food energy in your diet now requires about 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce. It’s estimated that the way we feed ourselves (or rather, allow ourselves to be fed) accounts for about a fifth of the greenhouse gas for which each of us is responsible.

“Yet the sun still shines down on your garden, and photosynthesis still works so abundantly that in a thoughtfully organised vegetable patch (one planted from seed, nourished by compost from the kitchen and involving not too many drives to the garden centre), you can grow the proverbial free lunch - CO2-free and money-free.”

He goes on point out there are physical and psychological benefits as well:

“You will probably notice that you’re getting a pretty good workout there in your gardenburning calories without having to get into the car to drive to the gym. (It is one of the absurdities of the modern division of labour that, having replaced physical labour with fossil fuel, we now have to burn even more fossil fuel to keep our unemployed bodies in shape.

“Still more valuable are the habits of mind that growing a little of your own food can yield. You quickly learn that you need not be dependent on specialists to provide for yourself - that your body is still good for something and may actually be enlisted in its own support. If the experts are right, if both oil and time are running out, these are skills and habits of mind we’re all very soon going to need.”

Finally:

“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.”

It’s been many years since I have been involved in growing my own food. The closest I have come in recent years has been keeping a few pots of herbs on my kitchen window sill that died when I went away for a month. However, it’s certainly a family tradition. My mother and several of my aunts keep extensive vegetable gardens and two of my aunts are trained designers and teachers of permaculture - a type of organic gardening that relies on design to mimic natural eco-systems and create self-sustaining systems. One runs an organic gardening supplies, Green Harvest, based in Queensland, while the other has a garden design business in Cardiff, Edible Landscaping. My aunt in Scotland also has a rather lovely garden near Inveraray on the West Coast and last year I went up north to pick blackcurrants and make jam.

Currently I live in a rented third-storey flat in London so the opportunities for me to either grow my own food, or avoid sending waste to landfill are limited. Friends of mine in north London have recently acquired an allotment, a UK scheme to give city-dwellers a patch of land for growing their own food. I don’t think I could devote the time to an allotment - it’s a major hobby - and I don’t drive so it would have to be literally around the corner from my house in order to make it feasible for me. But I am hoping that my next home might have a small courtyard garden or balcony so I can at least grow some herbs and flowers and keep a worm farm for my food scraps.

Sinc I don’t have a garden, I do possibly the next best thing, which is to buy locally grown, organic fruit and vegetables. I order a weekly box from Abel and Cole and I’ve always had a very good experience with them, both for fruit and vegetables and also for dairy, bread, coffee, meat and fish, cleaning products (I could almost do a complete weekly shop with them!). It’s very reasonable - we spend £25 a week with them and our total weekly grocery bill for two people is about £40. I particularly like that I can set likes and dislikes - useful in winter to control the amount of potatoes, parsnip and swede I let them send me! I’ve heard very good things about Riverford Organics as well

Do you have a vegetable garden? Do you grow any of your own food? What environmental factors, if any, do you consider when shopping for food?

* The Margaret Mead quote I am referring to is of course: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” I’m sure you’ve heard that one before.

Make the most of the all-too-brief English asparagus season by devouring the succulent green stems by the plateful - plus some cool trivia about ’sparrow grass’

It’s a foodie cliché to declare your love for asparagus, particularly here in Britain where asparagus lovers are so passionate they even have a two-month festival devoted to it. English asparagus is widely considered to be the best in the world - though I rather suspect the secret is freshness and it’s good anywhere as long as it doesn’t have long to travel from plate to fork.

But cliché or not, love it I do. And whether it’s the Englishness of the asparagus or its freshness, I won’t have any truck with imported asparagus in the depths of winter, because apart from the nasty business of food miles, it’s just not the same. At this time of year, the markets and shops are positively bursting with bunches of fat spears of asparagus. I buy as much of it as I can afford and eat as much of it as I can. I never seem to get sick of it but the asparagus hit is enough to keep me going until next May.

There are many recipes involving asparagus and of course it’s good with butter or hollandaise sauce (what isn’t?) but I usually eat it very plain - lightly cooked and sprinkled with salt and pepper, often with scrambled or poached eggs at breakfast time. I don’t really see the point of an asparagus steamer since it can’t be used for anything else (if you saw the size of my kitchen you would understand why). I either simmer it in a few inches of water, or if it is particularly thick and woody I cut it in half and cook the tips in a steamer and boil the bottoms in the same pot (which is basically what an asparagus steamer does anyway but without having to cut the stems). Asparagus is also good barbecued, which I only recently discovered at Sunday lunch at my friend Emme and Jon’s house. If you want inspiration for some fancier recipes, then look no further than May’s In the Bag seasonal cooking blogging event. There’s a further 26 asparagus recipes on the official British Asparagus website.

Now asparagus is never trivial but it is associated with some cool trivia:

• * Asparagus is also a member of the lily family, along with onions, and has been cultivated since ancient times. The name “asparagus” comes from a Greek word meaning “sprout”.

• * It’s also called ‘Hadley grass’ or just ‘grass’, particularly in Massachusetts. ‘Grass’ is sort for ’sparrow grass’, a 17th century corruption of ‘asparagus’. The best stuff was grown in the Mass town of Hadley (and still is, if you live in New England).

• * It can make your pee smelly funny. About half the population experience strange smelling (and sometimes green!) urine after eating asparagus due to sulphur-containing amino acids in the veg that break down during digestion.

• * Asparagus can be purple or white as well as green, but the white effect is achieved by growing it in the dark. The white type is popular in mainland Europe but can occasionally be found in the UK - be warned it takes twice as long to cook. I think the white stuff is nice but the flavour is more intense with the green variety, so it depends whether you prefer a more subtle or vibrant flavour. I prefer the green stuff, personally.

• * Asparagus grows from a crown planted a foot deep in sandy soils and in ideal conditions it can grow 10 inches in a day. Oh and it has virtually not calories or fat and is full of vitamins and minerals.

This is my version of pasta primavera - food to celebrate spring. You could make this at another time of year using good quality frozen peas and broad beans, or you could vary the recipe by using other spring vegetables such as leeks, spring onions, asparagus, snap peas.

This is vegetarian but if you prefer, you could make it with bacon and omit the feta. I prefer it this way as it tastes fresh and wholesome.

Ingredients

Penne, 2 cups
Olive oil, 1 tbs
Onion, 1/2
Garlic, 2 cloves
Peas, 1/2 cup
Broad beans (fava beans), 1/2 cup
Zucchini (courgette), 2 medium
Feta cheese, 70g
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Fresh mint, 2-3 tbs
Salt and pepper

Method

Cook the penne in boiling salted water until al dente, then drain. Transfer the penne to a bowl, stir in the lemon juice and set aside.

Meanwhile, chop the onion finely and crush the garlic. Top and tail the zucchini, then slice lengthways into thin, flat strips.

Heat the oil in a frypan, add the onion and garlic and cook on a low heat until translucent. Add the zucchini and keep frying on a low heat, stirring occasionally until it softens and browns. Add the peas and broad beans and cook for a few further minutes, until everything is warm and cooked. Mix the vegetables with the penne.

Chop the feta into cubes and chiffanade the mint (by rolling the leaves and then slicing to make long thin strips). Mix the cheese and mint into the pasta mix, season with salt and pepper and serve.

Serves 2-3 people.

Spring is well and truly here in the northern hemisphere, which means that we suddenly have a whole lot more fresh, locally grown food to choose from. Here in the UK we are coming into asparagus season, which is very exciting. English asparagus has a worldwide reputation for its succulent texture and strong, fresh flavour. Its harvest season is very short but it’s worth gorging yourself on it for a couple of months and then not bothering with the imports at all, which may be inferior and will certainly be less fresh.

Right now it’s all about spring greens - as well as asparagus, there’s spring onion, peas and beans, and we’re still getting purple sprouting broccoli. I love the look of this spring ragout on 101 Cookbooks. It uses fava beans, which is what we call broad beans in the UK and Australia. Last year I got a lot of broad beans in <a href=”http://www.abelandcole.co.uk” target=”_new”>my organic vegetable box</a> so I’m looking forward to that.

The seasonal ingredients in April’s In the Bag event on A Slice of Cherry Pie were watercress, feta cheese and Jersey royal potatoes. There is a small but excellent round-up of creations on the site - my personal favourite is the watercress soup with feta, potato and thyme bread from The Pie Times.

I didn’t enter this month - I was away for half the month and have been really busy with work since my return. Instead I took inspiration from the event and used similar ingredients for a simple packed lunch. I didn’t find any Jersey Royal potatoes but I steamed some lovely new potatoes and served them cold with a thick fillet of spicy smoked salmon, a handful of watercress, a couple of spoons of natural cottage cheese, and salt and pepper. It was heavenly! It spent a couple of hours in my lunch before I ate it, which actually enhanced the flavours because it meant the juices had time to run into each other and marinate. I would definitely make it again - it would also work with smoked trout or mackerel and perhaps with different greens such as rocket or baby spinach.

Forced rhubarb is available in England at this time of year. It’s notable mainly for the stunning colour, which ranges from pale pink to fuschia. The main crop rhubarb, which comes later in spring, is a darker, cherry red.

This month’s In the Bag event, which focuses on seasonal eating, has forced rhubarb as the star ingredient, along with orange and sugar. (Last month, the theme was pears, almonds and lemon and you can see my effort here and all the other recipes over on the A Slice of Cherry Pie blog, which hosts the event).

There is a debate among cooks about the best way to cook rhubarb and what the desired consistency is. Some cooks go to great lengths to ensure that rhubarb holds its shape. Recently I had a rhubarb trifle at Alastair Little’s in London, which featured small, defined chunks of rhubarb. Angela on A Spoonful of Sugar recommends oven poaching rhubarb to ensure this effect.

“This is the only way to cook rhubarb in my opinion. It preserves the gorgeous colour of the rhubarb and also keeps the shape of each piece intact - I suspect that many a child has been put off rhubarb by being served stewed rhubarb which is generally a rather dubiously coloured puree with stringy bits in it.”

I don’t subscribe to this school of thought. There’s certainly an aesthetic difference and some people think it is prettier with the rhubarb intact. However, I think that it compromises the flavour. Rhubarb is very tart and requires sweetening. I believe the rhubarb needs to fall apart in order to blend properly with the sugar - otherwise you end up with chunks of tart rhubarb sitting in syrup.

To my mind, the best and simplest way to cook rhubarb is to slice it into small chunks about 2cm long. This counteracts the stringiness, which usually comes from the cook trying to stew huge long chunks of rhubarb. Then put it in a pot with the juice of half an orange, stirring occasionally to prevent it sticking to the bottom. Do not add any water as the rhubarb will release water when cooking. If you are not using the orange juice, you could add a couple of tablespoons of water but that’s all. When the rhubarb is soft and starting to lose its shape, add sugar. How much sugar depends on your personal taste and the flavour of the rhubarb, but I used about 50g (half a metric cup) for 400g rhubarb and that seemed about right. Adding the sugar at the end, rather than during cooking, helps preserve the colour (as you can see in the picture).

The cooked rhubarb is lovely served hot with vanilla ice cream or cooled and mixed with custard or whipped cream (or yogurt if you’re trying to be healthy!) to make a rhubarb fool. The blend of tartness and sweetness is sublime, and fruit and cream is a classic that is hard to beat.

Rhubarb & Orange Cream Pudding

The whole point of these events is challenge and innovation, so I decided to try something new. (It also requires the rhubarb to be puréed, thus side-stepping the whole texture debate). I based this dessert on my aunt’s orange flummerie but I had to alter the recipe to accommodate the stewed rhubarb, which is not pure liquid. I also decided to made this with agar agar rather than gelatine. Agar agar is a flavourless Japanese gelling agent made from seaweed and it’s a vegetarian substitute for gelatine.

This recipe is also surprisingly low in calories and fat. There is sugar and cream but the recipe serves 4, so each person is getting 12.5g sugar (50 calories) and 12.5g double cream (55.6 calories; 5.9g fat).

Ingredients

Forced rhubarb, 400g

One orange, juiced and half zested

Caster sugar, 50g (adjust quantity to taste)

Agar agar, 2 tablespoons

Water

Greek yogurt, 50g

Double cream, 50g

Blanched almonds or hazelnuts to serve (optional)

Method

1. Wash and chop rhubarb into 2cm chunks. Cook with half the orange juice, according to the instructions above, then stir in the sugar. Leave to cool. (This step can be done in advance).
2. Blend the rhubarb in a food processor.
3. Pour 1 cup (250ml) water into a small saucepan and sprinkle with agar agar flakes without stirring. Heat and then simmer for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Add the rest of the orange juice and one teaspoon of orange zest to the rhubarb and top up with a little water to make 1 cup (250ml)
5. Pour the hot water and agar agar into the rhubarb and orange mix and stir thoroughly. Leave to cool.
6. Once it is tepid to cool, spoon in the yogurt and cream, and fold it into the jelly mix, which will be starting to set.
7. Transfer to 4 serving bowls or glasses, and cover with plastic food wrap before transferring to the fridge.
8. Serve with a garnish of blanched almonds or hazelnuts.

Notes

This was my first time using agar agar and it worked very well but it sets a lot more quickly than gelatine. You can’t fold in the dairy until it’s cool (or the dairy will curdle), but leave it too long and the jelly will already be solid. Check after about 20 minutes.

If you prefer to use gelatine, then you will need to read the instructions as the ratio of liquid to gelatine may be different. You will need to add enough gelatine based on the rhubarb being liquid, but dissolve the crystals in boiling water. You could also use packet jelly if you prefer but would suggest lemon flavour is best as it is not too sweet.

Results

The pudding was a pretty pale pink and tasted sweet and tangy. The texture was creamy and mostly smooth, with the occasional fleck of orange zest or titbit of rhubarb. It reminded me a little of the mango puddings you get in Chinese restaurant, though not quite as sweet (I believe they use sweetened condensed milk).

This is my entry for the monthly Waiter There’s Something in My… event. This month it is hosted by Andrew at Spittoon Extra and the theme is salad. He’s called for the salad to be seasonal if possible and for me in England that means a winter salad.

I eat a lot of salad at any time of year and I don’t generally follow too much of a recipe. The joy of a salad, as with a soup, is that I can use whatever is to hand. I recently made a fabulous salad with roast beetroot (following the Sophie Grigson method), clementine (small, sweet citrus fruit similar to mandarins), roast red pepper, pine nuts, lettuce, shallots and salad cress in a lemon and olive oil dressing. I have also been eating bufalo mozzarella with avocado, sweet green tomato, basil and a drizzle of olive oil on crisp bread, for lunch.

This week I bought some delectably creamy and sharp Devon Blue cheese from the deli and I wanted to base a salad around that. My mind leapt immediately to the ripe pears we had at home. My favourite variety is the conference pear, because it has the best flavour and it seems to stay in an optimal state - ripe but firm - for days, while other varieties seem to move from crunchy to slushy or brown too quickly.

What else would go with the blue cheese and the pears? Walnuts, of course, and the nice green lettuce with the wavy leaves in the fridge at home. Then, at the last minute, the addition of the roast parsnip and celeriac chips leftover from last night’s dinner. (I had  parboiled handcut wedges of parsnip and celeriac and then roasted them with vegetable oil, salt and pepper). The salad was lightly coated with dressing of balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Balsamic vinegar is an attention seeker and should be used in moderation. Most people, restaurants included, use too much of it and end up overpowering the other ingredients. You need just a hint of it to add to the bouquet of flavours - I mixed equal parts of olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a jar and then used just two teaspoons of the mix for the salad. You need enough to coat the leaves, but if you end up with liquid at the bottom of the bowl, then you’ve used too much.

The salad was a wonderful mix of flavours and texture. The star ingredients were the blue cheese and the sweet, firm pear, which made a glorious combination. The walnuts, which I crumbled with my hands, were creamy and sweet, and the substance of the root vegetables was a nice counterpoint to the light, crunchy leaves.

The lettuce, parsnip and celeriac were organic from my weekly vegetable box. The pears were British grown from Waitrose, though not organic. The blue cheese is from Devon and bought from a small shop in my local area. The only imported ingredients were the olive oil and balsamic vinegar, both from Italy, though the olive oil was organic, and the walnuts, organically grown in India.

For more winter salad inspiration, I like the look of this beet salad on Sugar Plum.

When I grew up in Australia in 1980s, beetroot was something that came on a hamburger and it was always canned. Even now, I think fresh beets are quite rare in Australia.

I’ve always loved beetroot but it wasn’t until I came to the UK that I realised quite how good it can be. When I first came I was quite impressed with the vacuum packs of beets because of the freshness and sweetness of the taste, compared with the canned product, which is generally boiled in malt vinegar. This is because vinegar is a preserving agent but food writer Sophie Grigson calls this “abuse” and she has a point as the vinegar seriously affects the flavour of the beets, which are naturally sweet.
However, if you really want to know how good beets can be, you need to make your own - the results are far superior. I get a weekly box of organic fruit and vegetables from Abel & Cole and beetroots make a regular appearance. I have also discovered other varieties of beetroot on my forays to Borough Market (one of my favourite places in London). As well as the deep red-purple variety we all know, there are also golden beetroots and candy beetroots with an exquisite pattern of white and pink cocentric circles (pictured). The other cool thing about beetroot is that the stems and leaves are also edible and make a nice substitute for spinach or chard (silverbeet) in most recipes.

One of my favourite things to do with beetroot is to make a salad. All you do is chop the ends of the beet and peel it and then grate the beet. You also grate a carrot. Then you toss the grated beet and carrot together with a lemon and olive oil dressing and two teaspoons of sunflower seeds. You get the deeper flavour of the beet combined with the sweetness of the carrot, the nuttiness of the seeds, the acidity of the lemon, all coated in a light layer of extra virgin olive oil. Delicious and healthy too.

I also often roast beetroot. Usually I peel the beet and cut into chunks, then toss with oil, salt and pepper and perhaps some rosemary, before roasting it in the oven. Half a beetroot takes about an hour to cook using this method and smaller chunks closer to half an hour. It’s far quicker than roasting potatoes or most other root vegetables.

I did try boiling beetroot in salted water once and it worked fine but was nothing special.

Tonight I had a bit of time on my hands so I thought I would try Sophie Grigson’s method of oven roasting whole beets wrapped in foil and then peeling them afterwards. I’ve wanted to try this for a while but it does take quite a bit longer than other methods, so this was the first time. This is from her 2006 book Vegetables, which is an excellent accompaniment to any kitchen but particularly useful for households who participate in a vegetable box scheme. This is from the general introductory section to the chapter on beetroots.

Beetroot - Cooking

“Although it is not the only way to cook beetroot, by far the best general method is to roast them, guarding all their juiciness and flavour. For most purposes, the process is as follows: wash the beetroots well (but don’t scrub brutally, which will rupture the skin) and trim off the leaves, leaving about 2cm (3/4 inch) of stalk in place to minimise bleeding. Do not trim off the root. Wrap each beetroot individually in foil, place in a roasting tin or ovenproof dish and slide into a preheated oven. For the finest results the temperature should be fairly low - say around 150C/300F/Gas 2. You should allow 2-3 hours for the beetroots to cook. They will still turn out well at a higher temperature if you want to speed matters up a little, or have something else cooking in the oven - anything up to 200C/400F/Gas 6 will do nicely. To test, unwrap one of the larger beetroot and scrape gently at the skin near the root. When it comes away easily, the beetroots are done. Take them out and cool slightly, then unwrap and skin each one…”

Beetroot - Partners

“Despite, or perhaps even because of, its distinctive presence, beetroot has an affinity with a remarkable number of other ingredients. In eastern Europe, where it is used most famously to create borscht - beetroot soup in several different forms - beetroot is often combined with aniseed flavours (fennel seed, aniseed, dill and so on) and with soured cream. Try serving cubes of hot cooked beetroot tossed with fresh dilland butter, or fry it briefly with cubes of eating apple and bruised fennel seeds, then serve topped with a spoonful of soured cream (or stir creme fraiche, not soured cream, which will split, into the pan to make a light sauce). Cooked beetroot (puréed or finely diced) is also a brilliant addition to mashed potato, turning it a startling bright pink, which will wow children as much as it amuses parents…”

Road test

Of course, Sophie has far more to say on the subject of beetroot but I thought that was a good starting point. I followed her instructions on roasting the beetroot to the letter and then I interpreted her suggestions for how to serve it, according to the ingredients I had to hand. I went with the suggestion of fennel as a good flavour partner and used mayonnaise rather than creme fraiche or sour cream. There’s no point doing this with cheap mayonnaise as that would ruin the flavour - you need to either make your own or buy the most expensive, unadulterated product you can find.

Ingredients
3 beetroots, including one candy beetroot
1 head of fennel
1 shallot
Tablepoon of mayonnaise (I used Delouis Fils brand of French mayonnaise)
Salt and pepper

Method
Sophie’s instructions were very easy to follow. I had the temperature at 160C for one hour and then moved it up to 200C for the second hour. They peeled easily though I should have waited a few more minutes before I did this, as it was very hot.

Meanwhile, I chopped the fennel and shallot finely, mixed it with a tablespoon of mayonnaise and added salt and pepper.

I sliced the beetroots and served it with the mayonnaise and fennel as a condiment.

Results
The beetroots cooked beautifully using this method. Roasting them in foil and with the skins on preserves the flavour and colour but, unlike boiling, does not add an element of wateriness or acidity. They were good with the mayonnaise and fennel, though I think creme fraiche or sour cream would be even better.

I served this with a frittata, a green salad, and oven-roasted celeriac and parsnip chips. Look how pretty it is with the two varieties of beetroot - almost like a dessert!

Verdict

I would do this again when I have the time. It’s not a method that is practical for making dinner after work since it takes at least two hours to make it. But for weekends, it’s fine - the actual preparation time is minimal and the beauty is that you can put them in the oven and then more or less forget about them - perfect for pottering about the house on the weekend.

I had never considered fennel as an accompaniment but will definitely try that again. Overall it contributed to a delicious meal and was a hit with everyone in the house.

Julia over at A Slice of Cherry Pie is running this month’s In the Bag competition, which challenges us cooks and food bloggers to cook and eat more seasonal food. The ingredients for January are pears, lemon and nuts. For example, Julia has created a pear, smoked cheddar and walnut salad, while at new food blog A Forkful of Spaghetti we are treated to pear and hazelnut brioche toasts.

I decided to put my baking hat on and make some muffins, flavoured with pear, lemon zest and almond. I’m very pleased with how they turned out, especially considering that I was adapting a recipe and I wasn’t sure it would work. They were light and fluffy, with yummy crispy bits on top, and the combination of flavours went together very well. The only thing I would do differently is possibly to tone down the lemon. It tasted great but it did overshadow the pear. I used zest of one lemon; I would say zest of between half and one lemon would be perfect.

Ingredients

All measurements are metric, so 1 cup is equivalent to 250ml.

First bowl: 1 large pear, peeled, cored and diced
Zest of 1/2 to 1 lemon
1 tablespoon almond flour
24 blanched almonds, sliced in half
1 egg
100g vegetable oil
1 cup milk

Second bowl: 2 cups self raising flour
1/2 cup sugar

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Grease a 12-cake muffin tin with butter. Mix together the contents of the first bowl, then slowly add the flour and sugar, stirring as you go. When the batter is thoroughly mixed, spoon into the muffin tin, aiming for an even quantity of batter, pear and almonds in each one. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until golden-brown.

Right now, London is having a jelly moment. The wobbly dessert we all knew and loved as children is turning up on all the best menus, but it’s suddenly become terribly sophisticated. Jelly with green tea, anyone?

At the Taste of London in Regent’s Park, a litmus test for the capital’s restaurant scene, every fifth dessert was a variation on jelly. Greenhouse coupled strawberries with water chestnut jelly and something called momosa espuma (see below), while the National Dining Room had strawberry and basil jelly with ice cream, and Umu offered green tea and grapefruit jelly. As well as all this, there were no less than two versions of strawberry and Champagne jelly - and they were completely different.

Inn the Park combined Champagne jelly with strawberries and Jersey cream on a meringue base. The jelly was translucent gold with a subtle hint of tartness, partnered with thick cream, in a modern incarnation of trifle. It was mid June and the English strawberries sang with seasonal sweetness. By contrast, the Champagne jelly made by Pearl was so potent, it conjured up memories of downing jelly vodka shots at my 21st birthday. The sharpness was barely softened with custard and almond crumble and as if to underscore the point, the dessert came served in a shot glass.

I have a soft spot for jelly the old-fashioned way, which to me means 1980s packet jelly made in a ridged mould. I can’t say I enjoy the flavour any more but it always brings back happy memories. When I was a child jelly came in traffic-light flavours - red, orange and green and we all knew the words to the Aeroplane jelly TV jingle (the link is to the 1940s version of the ad). We kids were adamant that red jelly had the best flavour, the same as red jelly beans and red snakes. Our mothers thought the red food colouring made us misbehave but we knew it was just a good excuse. Later we graduated to blackcurrant jelly, just like red, but dark and a bit more grown up. Orange was okay, but we hated the lurid lime green variety. Anything green was a bit suspect and it tasted like grass cuttings. We still ate it though - jelly was jelly, after all. It was a double score if it came with vanilla ice cream, which we’d mash it up so the cream would coat the jelly.

I love trying new flavour combinations when I’m out but if I’m cooking at home I enjoy recreating the classics. I do like a good trifle made old style with jelly and that most retro of drinks, sherry. My grandmother made lovely fluffy sponge cake but if I’m pressed for time, a good quality shop-bought cake will do the trick. If I have to choose, I would rather spend the extra time making creamy, eggy custard, infused with vanilla. I layer the cake, jelly and custard with berries and a good quality whipped cream.

NB It’s taken a bit of sleuthing to figure out what ‘momosa espuma’ is. It’s not in the 1,350-page cookery encyclopaedia Larousse Gastronomique and I couldn’t find a complete explanation on Google. ‘Momosa’ could either be this drink or perhaps a typo for ‘mimosa’, which is either edible yellow flowers or sieved hard-boiled egg yolk, according to Larousse Gastronomique. ‘Espuma’ is apparently Spanish for foam, though prepared slightly differently to the French method.

Orange Flummerie

(Serves 4-6)

If you are feeling adventurous, but don’t want to replicate some of the more exotic jelly dishes on restaurant menus, try this fantastic creamy orange jelly invented by my aunt Frances, who runs organic gardening supplies business Green Harvest. Use lemon jelly crystals as orange jelly can be too sweet or if you are confident you can substitute gelatine or, for a vegetarian option, use agar agar.

Frances has been making this dessert since I was in primary school and we kids christened it ‘orange flummerie’. A crowd pleaser for all generations, the citrus flavours are cut with cream, while yogurt adds a slight sour note to stop the dessert becoming cloyingly sweet. You have to keep a watchful eye on the jelly to make sure you add the cream before it fully sets.

Ingredients

Lemon jelly crystals, 2 packets
Boiling water
Two oranges
Cointreau, 1 tbs (optional)
Natural yogurt, small tub (200g)
Cream, small tub (200g)
To serve: Dark chocolate (optional)
Coconut strands (optional)

Method

Prepare the jelly according to the instructions but substitute half the boiling water for freshly squeezed orange juice. You can add more juice and less water if you like but you do need some boiling water to dissolve the jelly crystals. If you are making the dessert for adults, you can also add a tablespoon of cointreau. Orange zest is also a great idea for more flavour but Frances warns that you should do this only if you are using organic fruit. (Apparently withholding periods for using pesticides on citrus fruit tend to be shorter because they assume people do not eat the skin).

When cool, poor the jelly liquid into a serving bowl and refrigerate. Meanwhile, whip the cream until soft peaks form.

After about 45 minutes, when the jelly is half set, remove it from the fridge, stir in the natural yogurt and gently fold in the whipped cream. Return to the fridge to set firmly; this will take two to three hours.

Serving

My suggested topping is a round of orange and shavings of dark chocolate. Alternatively, Frances suggests toasted coconut strands.