Something for the train

The English seaside. Not for the faint hearted.

You know those conversations. You’ve had them. Sitting around in the pub with your mates and someone suggests you club together to buy a barge, or take up Morris dancing, or go part shares in a racehorse. It’s going to be brilliant. And then it’s tomorrow and no one ever mentions the barge, or the jingle bells or the horse ever again.

Only this time, Nick was at the table and he’s the most efficient person on the planet. When he suggested a trip to Blackpool, his hometown, to see the Illuminations and we said yes, the tickets were booked and the day planned before the condensation had even dried on those craft ale glasses.

On Friday we took the 8.30am train from Euston. I’d packed a bacon and egg pie and an iced thermos of Bloody Marys. The six of us were in a high old state of excitement and I felt a little sorry for the people surrounding us, clearly on their way to work, hoping to get a few hours on their laptop to catch up with their emails or play games or whatever. We were definitely the people you didn’t want in your carriage. We’d made a good inroad into pie and bloodies and laughing when Kirstin said ‘Is it even 9 0’clock yet?’. It wasn’t. I was worried we’d peaked too early.

Pie on a train.

Pie at midnight – last minute preparations for our train breakfast.

Train picnic: the Eccles cake v Chorley cake taste off, with some Lancashire cheese, naturally.

We hadn’t. We had a blissful day. This is what happened:

Our bus got stuck in the funeral cortege of the man who allegedly kept the Krays out of Blackpool. Inside the vintage Austin hearse, his trilby sat on top of his coffin along with a huge cross of white chrysanths. On the side of the coffin, in foot-high letters, more white chrysanths spelled out ‘MIXIE’.

A delicious fish and chip lunch at Seniors (National Fish and Chip Award winner, 2012). I highly recommend it. The fish is super fresh, the batter light, the chips a proper shade (not the pale, sad things which’ve barely flirted with the fryer you get in the South), and the staff are charming.

Seniors for lunch. Cod, chips, gravy, mushy peas and tea.

Note the correct colour of the chips.

I tried (very hard) and failed to win a pony key ring on the penny falls slot machine.

I got far too goosebumpy at the sight of elderly couples waltzing around the Tower Ballroom in their best shoes, so nimbly and with so much mutual devotion in their eyes, as the Wurlitzer played Sunny Side of the Street.

We whizzed up to the top of the Tower. I loved the views over the frigid North Sea and the rows of colourful Blackpool terraces. Nothing would induce me to step foot on the clear glass floor and look 380ft below to My Certain Death.

Nothing would have got me onto the glass floor.

We skipped across the Comedy Carpet, Gordon Young’s tribute to English variety. A pleasing number of terrible food-based gags.

We saw a murmuration of starlings swirling above our heads as we walked along the wide, wooden pier in the grey, growing dusk.

The Pier

We rattled up and down the sea front on the tram, any city cynicism evaporating as the lights twinkled all around us.

A tram, decked out with lights and dressed as an ocean liner.

We walked along the last part, enjoying the tableaux, listening to grandparents tell their grandchildren about the light shows they remembered from their own childhoods, reciting nursery rhymes, holding on tightly to tiny gloved hands.

Alice in Wonderland.

Wine and cheese at Nick’s mum’s. We all agreed she looks like Helen Mirren.

What didn’t happen…

I didn’t have candy floss, whelks, a hot dog or my fortune told by Madame Petulengro. I also still want that pony key ring from the penny falls. For these reasons I must go back.

Breakfast pie

Breakfast pie – Note the whole eggs.

My great auntie Louie was an excellent baker and made delicious bacon and egg pies. Hers most definitely did not have pancetta in them, but I was trying to use up some things from the fridge and I had a nice chunk hogging a corner of the deli drawer. You can use just bacon if you like – just cook a bit of it to render out the fat to fry the onions in, and leave the rest raw to bake in the pie.

SERVES 6-8

For the pastry

400g plain flour, plus more for flouring the surface and rolling pin

¾ tsp fine sea salt

100g lard, chilled and cut into cubes

100g unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2-3 tbsps iced water

For the filling

20g butter

80-100g pancetta, cut into small cubes

1 onion, diced

Bay leaf

5-6 new potatoes, cooked and thickly sliced

4 slices streaky bacon, unsmoked or smoked, whichever you prefer, rind cut off and cut into small pieces

4 spring onions, white and pale green part only, finely sliced

6 eggs, plus 1 more for glazing and filling

80ml double cream

2 tbsps finely chopped parsley

1 tbsp finely chopped sage leaves

A few gratings of nutmeg

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

To finish

A couple of pinches of flaky sea salt

1 tbsp finely chopped sage leaves

To serve

HP sauce, if you like

First make the pastry. Whisk together the flour and salt in a bowl then rub in the lard and butter until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs – you still want some lumps of fat in the dough to ensure a nice, flaky pastry. Make a well in the middle and add the eggs a little at a time, using a knife to cut them into the mixture. Add just enough water to bring it together into a dough, kneading very lightly with your hands to bring it together into a smooth disc. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for at least an hour. You can make this a day or so before you want to make the pie if you like. Of course, you can make this in a food processor but be very careful not to over process it – use the pulse button and only work it until it just comes together.

Lightly flour a clean surface and a rolling pin. Cut the dough in half and roll one piece out into a circle of approximately 30cm diameter. Use the pastry to line a 23cm loose-bottomed flan tin, pressing it gently into the corners, then trim and crimp the edges. Put it back into the fridge to chill. Roll the second half of the pastry out and trim into a 23cm circle (use a plate or the base of a flan tin as a template); place on a baking sheet and put it in the fridge. Chill the lined flan tin and the top for at least 30 minutes.

While the pastry is chilling, prepare the filling. Warm the butter gently over a medium heat and when it stops foaming, add the pancetta. Cook until it’s rendered some of its fat and turns lightly golden. Remove to a plate with a slotted spoon. Tip the onions into the pan with a pinch of salt and a bay leaf and reduce the temperature to medium low. Cook, stirring from time to time, until the onions are soft and translucent, about 15 minutes. Put the potatoes into the pan along with the reserved pancetta. Turn everything over for a couple of minutes then remove from the heat and discard the bay leaf. Cool.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/Gas 4. Place the lined flan tin on a baking sheet. Prick the base and sides with a fork. Line the tin with crumpled baking parchment and fill with baking beans and/or uncooked rice or pulses. Bake for 18 minutes. Remove the parchment and baking beans. Return the flan tin to the oven and bake for 7-10 minutes until the base is completely dried out and beginning to turn golden.

Increase the oven temperature to 200°C/180°C Fan/Gas 6.

Spoon half of the pancetta, onion and potato mixture into the bottom of the pie. Scatter on the bacon and spring onions, then spoon the remaining pancetta mixture over the top. Using the back of a spoon, make six evenly-spaced hollows around the edge of the pie. Crack a raw egg into each of the hollows.

In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining egg with the cream. Tip a couple of tablespoons of this mixture into a small bowl and reserve it to glaze the pie. Stir the sage, parsley and nutmeg into the remaining mixture and season well with salt and pepper. Pour over the top of the pie filling and give the tin a little shake to distribute it evenly. Brush the edge of the pie with some of the egg and cream wash. Carefully place on the remaining disc of pastry. It should be a good fit, with no overhanging pastry. Press it down firmly with your thumb or a fork to seal. Brush the top of the pie with the egg wash then sprinkle on the chopped sage and a little flaky sea salt. Cut three short slits in the middle of the pie to allow the steam to escape. Return the pie to the oven and cook for 30-35 minutes, until the pie is golden brown all over. Serve warm or cold, with brown sauce if you like.

From the Comedy Carpet, some food-based gags…

Welcome Home Breakfast Eggs

I spent most of the summer, with a little back and forth, in south west France. You’d think a person couldn’t live on oysters, peaches and rosé alone but I’m here to tell you if you try very hard and put in the hours, you really can. As delightful as that sounds and, hell, is, I miss Hackney – my dearest, dirty, cranky and sometimes just plain weird belovèd – when we’re apart too long. I miss being able to eat lunch whenever you want, a petition on every counter and a pop-up on every corner, I miss the bearded boys and the tattooed girls and being able to buy five different kinds of anything you want at midnight.

And I definitely miss Turkish food. When I come home, I like to have breakfast at one of the many cafés on Stoke Newington High Street. In summer, I’ll take the trad plate of olives, feta, tomatoes, cucumber, tomato, boiled egg and simit bread with honey. Around about now, I choose menemen, a combination of hot peppers, tomatoes and chillies with scrambled eggs.

Even on cold days, I sit at a pavement table. This isn’t just because I usually have my dog with me, but because it’s all the better to watch the neighbourhood theatre: the boys in the barbers’ having precise and elaborate patterns shaved into their hair, skateboarders whizzing past (cue Barney: ‘BARK BARK BARK’), young couples with buggies, old ladies wheeling bags of laundry, the women in the flower shop arranging their pavement display and old men absent-mindedly working colourful tesbih, or worry beads, through their fingers. If I’m really lucky, I might see a Turkish wedding – so much mascara, so much hair, so much satin, so many metres of ribbon looped into festive decoration on newly-polished cars.

This weekend, as I sat over my breakfast menemen, I thought about how I always feel more inclined to make new resolutions in autumn than I do in the dreary milk-thistle-laced days of January. I may not have name tapes, new socks and sharpened pencils but I have new ideas and intentions. One of these is to post more here about my favourite things: daily life here in east London and all of the time I spend in France. I hope you’ll come along with me, jump in, comment, and tell me about some of your own favourite things. I’d love to hear about them.

Autumn in East London

Graffiti in Abbot Street, Hackney.

Tree with a hole in it, Clissold Park.

The beginning of the football season, Emirates Stadium, when we still dare to hope.

Chillies, autumn flowers and leaves in the kitchen.

Yellows and Golds at Columbia Road Market

Yellow mums.

Chinese lanterns.

Turkish Breakfast Eggs

You can add spicy sausage or bacon to this if you like. You can also poach the eggs in the sauce rather than scramble them. You sometimes see this described as menemen, but it’s really shakshouka. If you’d like to make a poached version, make small wells in the thick sauce with the back of a spoon, tip an egg into each well and put a lid on the pan for a few minutes until the whites are just set.

1 tablespoon olive oil
A knob of butter
2 red onions, halved and finely sliced
2 red peppers, halved, cored, deseeded and sliced (it’s more usual to use a combination of red and green, but red its what I had and I prefer it anyway)
3 garlic cloves, finely grated
1 red chilli, finely chopped – leave in the seeds and membrane if you like a little heat
4 large, ripe tomatoes, cored and finely diced – don’t bother to skin or deseed them
A good pinch of sugar
Some chilli flakes (optional)
4 eggs, seasoned and lightly beaten
A small handful of parsley, tough stalks removed and chopped
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper

Warm the olive oil and butter in a frying pan approximately 20cm diameter over a medium heat until the butter has melted and stopped foaming. Add the onion, peppers, garlic, chilli and a pinch of salt and fry, stirring from time to time, until everything is softened. This should take about 10 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and sugar. Stir and continue to cook, stirring from time to time, until the mixture is thickened – you want it to be rich, and not watery at all. Taste, season and add a pinch or two of chilli flakes if it’s not fiery enough for you.

Season the eggs with salt and pepper and pour them onto the vegetables. Don’t stir them at this point. You want them to set a little before you stir them into the eggs. At the last minute, just before serving, give everything a brief stir, scatter with parsley and eat with bread.

Miss Scarlet’s Vittles

Dutch rhubarb and Sicilian lemons by the counter.

I’ve been a bad food writer. I was passing through my favourite greengrocer and second home, Stoke Newington Green, the other morning, picking up a basket of mushrooms and pumpkins, clementines and walnuts. So far, so orange and brown and seasonally correct. I almost made it out. There, by the counter, was my temptress and seducer. A box of definitely-out-of-season Dutch rhubarb so spectacularly scarlet it was in my basket quicker than you can say crimson. Reader, I was weak.

I love red. I can’t resist it. The late, legendary American decorator Albert Hadley believed you should have a touch of red in every room. (His powerful client list reads like a roster of libraries, museums and hospital wings with all its Astors, Paleys, Rockefellers, Gettys and Whitneys.) A cushion, a rug, a vase of roses or berries, a pot of amaryllis, an enamel colander or a lacquer tray. Just a shot. It shakes up a room like a slick of red lipstick against a pale face. It’s also my emergency prescription for anything that looks too wearyingly tasteful.

So anyway, this is my long-way-around attempt to explain my food writer apostasy. Rhubarb in November. So shoot me. It will leave a lovely stain.

Kentish plums.

Kentish quince.

Egyptian pyramid.

So pretty.

Stoke Newington Green, 39 Stoke Newington Church Street, London N16 0NX

Open every day, 7am – 10ish pm

Rhubarb and vanilla jam

Sundae breakfast.

If there is a prettier way of starting the day than a spoonful of this jam swirled through some Greek yoghurt, I don’t know what it is.

Makes 4-5 340g jars

1kg rhubarb, trimmed weight, cut into 2.5cm chunks
1kg jam sugar with added pectin
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways
Juice of a small orange
Juice and pips of a small lemon

Macerating in the pan.

Pour a layer of sugar in the bottom of a preserving pan or large saucepan and then add a layer of rhubarb. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod with a small, sharp knife and place the seeds on top of the rhubarb with the pod. Continue layering the sugar and rhubarb, finishing with a layer of sugar. Cover and leave overnight to macerate.

The next day, place a couple of saucers in the freezer. Pour the juices over the rhubarb and tie the pips from the lemon in a small circle of muslin with kitchen string. Place the bundle in the pan too.

Warm the jam gently, stirring it slowly from time to time to dissolve the sugar without breaking up the chunks. Once the sugar is dissolved, bring to a rolling boil and boil rapidly until the setting point is reached. This should take about 8-10 minutes. This is a soft-set jam so don’t wait for it to get too solid. A droplet of the jam on one of the chilled saucers should just wrinkle when you push it with your finger.

Remove from the heat and let it sit for 5 minutes and remove the muslin bag. Seal the jam in warm, sterilised jars. Either discard the vanilla pod or snip a little bit into each jar. Unopened and kept in a cool, dark place the jam should keep for a year.

When life gives you lemons (and butter)…

After the wedding, I had lots of lemons and some lovely French butter left over so I decided to make a few jars of lemon curd. Is there anything more delicious, spread onto hot toast or spooned under a pillow of meringue in a pie? Is there anything more cheerful than a line of golden jars stacked up on a shelf? And I’ll be honest, I was in need of a bit of cheering up.

Oscar
3rd January 2000 – 14th September 2009

Our little cat Oscar died. He’d been ill for quite a while, his sturdy frame diminished so he was light and bony as a bird, his once-plush fur rough and dull. A few weeks ago, he jumped down from his chair and his back legs gave out. He sprawled across the floor. I stayed up all night with him cradled in my arms, his head damp with my tears. In the morning, Séan nestled him into a carrying basket, lined with his Arsenal towel, for his final trip to the vet. I busied myself with mindless tasks, loading the dishwasher, folding the laundry, sweeping the floor, my skin prickly with grief.

An hour later, Séan called to say ‘We’re coming home’. So, despite having said goodbye to him, there he was back in the kitchen, walking like a slightly drunken sailor but happily tucking into his breakfast. He’d had some kind of stroke but the vet said he was in no pain and would adjust, could improve. We treasured the bonus of his final few weeks. He nudged up beside us on the sofa, licking our hands with his sandpaper tongue. On bright days he would find a patch of sunshine on the terrace and stretch out his skinny frame on the warm slate.

Colette wrote ‘There are no ordinary cats’. Oscar wasn’t the least bit ordinary. He was beguilingly handsome, with cashmere-soft fur in the richest shade of chocolate brown and bewitching jade green eyes. He had a profound sense of his own importance and would call nosily if he felt that his court (Séan and I) weren’t sufficiently attentive.

With Liberty.

With Delphi and Liberty. Another day, another sofa…

When we first brought him home, a tiny kitten you could fit into one hand, we already had two cats, Delphi and Liberty. They weren’t too thrilled with this interloper. He was desperate to play with them, edging towards them unabashed by their hissing hostility. So I was delighted one morning when, as he tumbled about on our bed, Liberty jumped up and gave him a tentative lick. Did he stretch out with pleasure? Give her an affectionate nudge? No, he jabbed her clean across the nose with his paw. In later life, his favourite game was to lurk on the stairs when we had visitors, seducing them with his glorious good looks so that they would ruffle his fur through the banisters. He would purr, his whole body vibrating with pleasure, until the moment when he had drawn them in sufficiently so that they would press their faces against the wooden rails. At this point, invariably, he would give them a quick swipe with his paw and, on one notable occasion, bite them on the nose.

In his final weeks, Oscar was too frail to climb the stairs and spent his time on the ground floor. One evening, as I was making dinner, I couldn’t find him. I searched the dining room and sitting room. Séan looked upstairs. He discovered him three flights up at the top of the house. He had scaled his personal Everest and died on our bed. And that was Oscar. Get where you need to be or die trying.

I still look for him in the house, wait for him to swirl his way around my ankles when I come in the door, jump onto my desk and head butt me as I type. But his chair is empty. Kiddo, I miss you, you furry little fury. Living with you was a ten-year seminar in the fierce pursuit of pleasure, in hunting down the sunniest spot, the cosiest blanket, the tastiest morsel and the highest branch. It was an honour to be your devoted friend and servant.

Our lovely vet Caroline sent us a card following Oscar’s death: ‘It was a real pleasure and privilege to treat Oscar over the years. He was a real character and was always so stoical …’

Bramley lemon curd

This recipe is from River Cottage Handbook No.2: Preserves. It’s been my great pleasure to meet the book’s author, Pam Corbin, a couple of times. She teaches wonderful preserving classes down at River Cottage, where she’s known affectionately as ‘Pam the Jam’. She says of this wonderful curd ‘It’s like eating apples and custard: softly sweet, tangy and quite, quite delicious’. She is quite, quite right. I hope you’ll enjoy it too.

Makes 5 x 225g jars.

450g Bramley apples, peeled, cored and chopped
Finely grated zest and juice of 2 unwaxed lemons (you need 100ml strained juice)
125g unsalted butter
450g granulated sugar
4-5 large eggs, well beaten (you need 200ml beaten egg)

Put the chopped apples into a pan with 100ml water and the lemon zest. Cook gently until soft and fluffy, then either beat to a purée with a wooden spoon or rub through a nylon sieve.

Put the butter, sugar, lemon juice and apple purée into a double boiler or heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. As soon as the butter has melted and the mixture is hot and glossy, pour in the eggs through a sieve, and whisk with a balloon whisk. If the fruit puree is too hot when the beaten egg is added, the egg will ‘split’. One way to guard against this is to check the temperature of the puree with a sugar thermometer – it should be no higher than 55-60 ̊C when the egg is added.If your curd does split, take the pan off the heat and whisk vigorously until smooth.

Stir the mixture over a gentle heat, scraping down the sides of the bowl every few minutes, until thick and creamy. This will take 9-10 minutes; the temperature should reach 82-84 ̊C on a sugar thermometer. Immediately pour into warm, sterilised jars and seal. Use within four weeks. Once opened, keep in the fridge.

Bottling joy, an every day experience

What do you do when you have loads of fruit? Make jam. Lady de B and I bought most of the fruit for Stuart’s party at New Covent Garden Market as it was cheaper to buy a whole tray wholesale than a few punnets retail. This meant we had lots left over. So on Tuesday night, we got together for our own little preserves festival. In a few hours, we had a shelf full of strawberry jam, raspberry jam and apricot and vanilla jam, along with peach and almond chutney to go with the cheeses at Paula’s wedding in September. We were a two-woman WI.

Preparing peach and almond chutney. to this.

One of the (many) things I love about Lady de B is that she’s my autodial person for produce. When rhubarb, blackcurrants, quince, medlars or walnuts arrive in the market, I can call her in a high state of excitement and she doesn’t think I’m mad. And it’s a reciprocal agreement. In January, I got a near-breathless call from her announcing she’d seen Seville oranges in Borough Market. The marmalade season was upon us. I dug out the preserving pan, stocked up on sugar, fished out a box of jars from the cellar.

The day before our planned marmalade extravaganza, Séan was admitted to hospital and my life of gentle, joyful domesticity vanished for five sombre weeks. The ping of the kitchen timer was replaced with the beep-beep-beep of monitors. I was in a foreign land of blue linoleum corridors and waiting. Waiting for tests, waiting for results, waiting to speak to consultants, all the time my mouth filled with the sour taste of fear.

Our friends and families were wonderful. His room was filled with cards and visitors. Flowers and fruit arrived in amounts that would have done New Covent Garden proud. We watched movies, reruns of Friends, Obama’s joyful inauguration. We played Scrabble, read, held hands. Lady de B even smuggled Barney into the little garden at the back of the hospital so man and dog could share a few happy hours together. Friends invited me for supper, picked up laundry, walked the dog, fed the cats.

But each evening, home alone, I felt raw with longing for our ordinary life together. Eating dinner, going to the flower market, planning parties and holidays. It seemed like a distant country. Looking back was too painful; looking forward too full of terrifying uncertainty. Every night, as I spooned chopped fruit into Tupperware boxes and washed pyjamas for the next day, I felt numb.

Now he’s home and well and I feel a small rush of happiness every day at 7pm when I hear his key turn in the lock. He still drives me mad. Within a one metre radius of the laundry basket is not the same as in the laundry basket. Unless we’ve received some sort of nature reserve status of which I’m unaware, that lawn needs cutting. A few light bulbs in the hallway chandelier would be nice. It’s normal.

On Tuesday night – as Vanessa and I chopped and stirred, filling the kitchen with sweet, spicy clouds of steam – I felt joyful, as if I were bottling happiness. Forget fancy cars, diamonds and designer shoes. Curling up under our Moroccan blanket on the sofa to watch a film, breakfast together in the park on Saturday mornings, Sundays spent reading the paper, drinking tea and talking nonsense with friends, a few jars of jam. These are my riches, my bounty, my daily blessings.

Apricot and vanilla jam

Apricot jam on my homemade raisin and walnut bread.

We created this recipe from Lady de B’s copy of Mrs Beeton which was given to her mother by her grandmother and then passed on to her. I couldn’t resist adding a few tweaks, as I prefer French-style softer set jams which contain less sugar and really allow the fruit to shine. If you prefer a thicker, English-style jam, simply increase the weight of the sugar so you have the same amount of sugar as fruit and boil a little longer. We also added some vanilla because, well, how can that ever be a bad thing?

Makes about 20 jars

2kg apricots
1.8kg sugar
Juice of a lemon
250ml water
2 vanilla pods, split lengthways
A small knob of unsalted butter

Halve the apricots (reserving a small handful of kernels) and layer them in your pan with the sugar, lemon juice and vanilla pods. Pour over the water and leave to macerate for an hour or so. While you’re waiting, put a few saucers in the freezer and crack the reserved kernels. Blanch the white, almondy bit inside the kernels in some boiling water for a minute and put them on one side.

Warm the apricot mixture over a low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar then boil rapidly until the setting point is reached. You know you’re there when a dollop of jam on one of the chilled saucers wrinkles when you push it with your finger. I like to take it off the heat when it just starts to wrinkle as it’s so hot it continues to cook a bit afterwards. Add the blanched kernels. Don’t bother skimming off any scum that forms, just stir in a bit of butter at the end which will disperse it. Spoon into warm, sterilised jars and seal. We also retrieved the vanilla pods, snipped them into smaller pieces and added the pieces to some of the jars.

Our little harvest festival of chutneys and jams.