Jansson's Temptation (or The Scandi Fainted with Delight)

I wanted to try this out for ages but it wasn't until very recently that I found a shop selling the requisite Swedish anchovies, which are actually sprats pickled in a quite sweet brine. Swedish ansjovis (sprats) are, I think, reasonably good on the marine conservation stakes, being mature fish when they are caught.

They are also pretty healthy, containing lots of omega oils. If you frame it with the high levels of vitamin A in the cream, plus vitamin C and B6 in the potato, this isn't a totally unhealthy dinner... but saying that, it's carb heavy and contains double cream so it's probably not an everyday dinner! This would go really well with a lovely side of steamed spinach or broccoli.

So first up, dice two onions and saute them in a little oil and a little butter. While that's cooking, thinly slice several potatoes - it's important that they are really thin or they won't cook through.

Open up the tin of ansjovis and cut each one in half, then butter an oven proof dish and preheat the oven to 180°C. Take the frying pan off the heat and divide out half of the onions, you'll use half now and half in the creamy sauce later on.

Put a layer of potatoes on the bottom of the dish, sprinkle with onion and then lay peices of fish over the top. The, another layer of potatoes, more onion, more fish and so on until all the fish, potatoes and half of the onions are used up.

Put the frying pan back on the heat with the second half of the onions still in there, add half a pot of crème fraîche and half a pot of double cream, stir until melted together and season well with sea salt and freshly ground white pepper. Pour over the top of the potato-onion-fish layers.

Then the crispy topping - I use crackers, as in cheese and biscuits! Left over crackers, water biscuits and so on are perfect all crumbled up and sprinkled over the top. Dot with lots of butter and then bung in the oven for 40-50 minutes. Poke it with a fork to see if the potatoes are done.

* I bought my ansjovis when I went to the Scandinavian Kitchen shop one Saturday. The base inspiration for the recipe above came from Scandalicious by Signe Johansen

Simple Moules Mariniere

Mussels are a pretty good bet if you're looking for sustainable seafood, although it's worth avoiding those collected using dredging methods. The MCS have given them a range of ratings from 1-3 depending on collection method, 1 and 2 is the best place to be.

This is so incredibly easy to make, but you can make it a little harder (and much tastier) by pairing it with some Kingshill Bread!

Take both the mussels and the butter out of the fridge to come up to room temperature.

Thickly slice a white onion and smash/crush a couple of garlic cloves. Heat up a deep saucepan with some olive oil and fry the onions and garlic until soft. Add a finely chopped red chilli and slosh in a glass of white wine.

Pick through your mussels (1kg serves 2 people) giving them a sharp tap, or in my case stick a teaspoon through the opening and giving them a gentle nudge, to make absolutely sure they are safe to eat. If they don't close then they aren't safe - don't eat them.

Make sure the wine mixture is bubblingly hot, keep the flame up high, put the mussels into the saucepan quickly and clamp the lid down.

While they are cooking, slice up some bread and apply outrageous amounts of butter.

Keep an eye on the mussels, it should only take about 8 minutes to cook them but what you are looking for is all the shells to be open. Any that don't open should be thrown away as carriers of instant stomach death.

Spoon out the mussels between two bowls, spooning the oniony, winey sauce over the top. Eat with your fingers and don't spare the butter.

Wild Mushroom Risotto

If you can get hold of fresh wild mushrooms from somewhere, like Borough Market, during autumn and early winter then definitely make the most of it. Otherwise, a lot of shops sell them dried in little tubs or packets, which can be reconstituted in water prior to cooking.

All risottos start with the same basic essentials, or at least mine do: a diced onion and a couple of diced celery stalks, sauteed in butter and oil until soft. 

Add 300g of risotto rice and stir it through, letting it get hot. From experience, it is worth forking out for the pricey arborio stuff, it cooks in half the time of the other, cheaper, short grain varieties I tried using. Slosh in a glass (or teacup) full of white wine and stir through the rice mixture until it's all been absorbed.

Keep 750ml of hot vegetable stock in a saucepan on the heat and pour the first ladleful into the rice. Keep the rice on a medium heat, at least enough to keep it at a low sizzle. Stir, stir, stir and stir again. Keep stirring. Even if your arm is about to drop off, keep gently stirring the rice.

Eventually the stock will be absorbed and you'll need to add another ladle of stock and do it all over again. I mean, don't beat it up or anything, but do keep stirring and adding stock and stirring.

After adding all the stock, the rice should be near cooked. At this stage I turn the heat down very low (or even off), put a lid on the pan and get on with the exciting part.

Pick over and clean your mushrooms, in this case we had a good few handfuls each of chanterelles, trompettes, girolles and ceps. Heat up a frying pan with a little oil and butter, with some crushed garlic. Saute the large mushrooms first, adding in the smaller ones after the chunky ones have had a bit of a start.

When the mushrooms are ready mix them into the hot rice mixture with tons of grated parmesan and chopped parsley. 

If you can get hold of one (and I'm soooo lucky, my husband bought me one as a present!), grate in a lovely load of black truffle - also known as winter truffle. 

Finish with some butter and freshly cracked pepper and some truffle shavings.

Liver, Onion Gravy & Colcannon

I used to hate liver, really really hate it. I think a lot of people do. The taste and texture of overcooked liver, as often served in schools or by grandparents, is not dissimilar to that of soggy cardboard marinated in angostura bitters. 

Properly cooked liver is brilliant though. Even high-welfare organic offal is cheap as chips and, cooked with care, is tender, juicy and delicious.  It's also full of vitamin a, iron and vitamin c.

There are three different kinds of (non-poultry) liver that you can commonly get hold of: pig's, lamb's and calves'. I've had all three and they all cook up a treat, simply prepared as in this recipe.

However, a little note on buying liver... organic liver generally is fine in most cases but be cautious about where you get calves liver from. Make absolutely sure it hasn't come from veal calves whose treatment you wouldn't want to subsidise. Where possible, I'd look for liver from British raised pink or "rose" veal calves. I'll post more on this, rather touchy, subject in the future when I have time to do it justice.

Thickly slice a couple of onions, fry them up until really nice and soft and put them to one side. Make up your gravy using some stock thickened with cornflour and enhanced with a little red wine and redcurrant jelly.

Slice up the liver and fry for literally a minute or so on each side. Be really, really careful not to overcook it, you just want it tender and barely cooked through.

Basic colcannon is just mashed potato with cabbage in. I had leftovers from dinner the night before, so I just mashed them up, added a bit of seasoning and butter and heated them through.

The mash goes first on the plate, then the liver, onions and finally the gravy. Fabulous old-style food at its best.

Fajitas

Fajitas are a great weekend dinner, something I always look forward to and enjoy eating immensely. I love eating with my hands, it's simply a lot more fun than using cutlery.

Up until a few years ago, I really believed I could only make fajitas using those pre-made packs from the supermarket. In fact, I'm frequently surprised at how easily I've been brainwashed into believing I need to buy pre-made products, to create what is usually a pretty simple meal to prepare from scratch.

I used to think that making items which are commonly sold pre-made wasn't possible without an endless supply of time, until I tried it. So that's all I'm saying, give it a go; it's not as hard as the manufacturing companies would have you believe and it always tastes better. It's often cheaper too, and it means you can really control where your ingredients come from. The primary concern of food manufacturers is profit margin, not the ethical or long-term health implications of the raw ingredients they use.

First, put the tortilla dough together, I originally got a recipe for these from Daniel Steven's "Bread" book, but have adjusted it as I prefer the texture and taste of most bread products with some wholemeal flour, plus I find the dough easier to roll out with a little strong bread flour added to the mix.

The dough is just 250g flour, 5g salt and 150ml water, kneaded together for a few minutes and left to rest for half an hour. Seriously, that's all there is to it.
Just for an interesting aside, here are the ingredients in a well known brand of tortillas: Wheat flour, water, vegetable oil, humectant (422), salt, emulsifiers (471, 472[e], 481), raising agents (450, 500, 541), dextrose, preservatives (282, 202), colour (171), food acid (297), flour treatment agent (223), antioxidants (306, 304).
 

While the dough is resting, put together your fajita seasoning mix: a fresh chopped long, red chilli, a very finely chopped onion, 2 crushed garlic cloves or (at a push) half a tsp of garlic powder, half a vegetable stock cube, 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp dried oregano, 1 tsp cumin, a big pinch of cayenne pepper, chopped coriander, 1 tsp each of salt and sugar, the juice of a lime, a shot of tequila.
Again, here is a list of the ingredients from a well known brand's seasoning sachet: Soy sauce powder, salt, bell pepper, sugar, herbs and spices, modified corn starch (1422), onion, garlic, food acid (330), oil, anticaking agent (551), vegetable gum (412), natural flavours, antioxidant (320).


Next step, cook your tortillas. Have a clean teatowel standing by and a clean, dry frying pan on the hob. Divide the dough into 8 peices and one by one, flatten, coat in flour and roll out really thinly with a rolling pin. Pop each one in the hot pan for half a minute each side and wrap in the teatowel while you do the next one. The whole process should take you about 10 minutes, but it might take longer the first time you do it, just while you get a feel for the process.

Reuse the same frying pan for the filling, add a bit of oil and fry the onions until almost cooked, then add your protein, the peppers and the seasoning mix. We tend to use quorn* in fajitas, because it's lighter than meat, in a meal that's otherwise quite heavy. For a vegan version, bulk out the filling with some aubergine and courgettes.

Salsa is just tomatoes, chilli, spring or purple onion, coriander, salt, olive oil and lime juice.
Guacamole is just an avocado, chilli, coriander, lime juice, salt and pepper.
Sour cream is just wonderful.

* A note on quorn: although this product once had a bad reputation, due to its use of battery eggs, it has been made with free range eggs since 2004. It's currently believed that the environmental impact of quorn vs its meat equivalents comes out in quorn's favour. 
Here is interesting report analysing mycoprotein's (in particular the brand quorn's) alignment with food sustainability. Warning: it was written by an employee of Marlow Foods Ltd, the owners of the Quorn brand, however it is an interesting insight into how they plan to grow their business, including recommendations on how to further improve the sustainability, and lower the environmental impact, of their products. Vegans will be pleased to note the R&D recommendation to find an alternative for egg whites as a binding agent: http://www.mycoprotein.org/assets/timfinniganfood2030.pdf