The Simpsons Movie

Saw the Simpsons Movie last night, and it's mightily good - everything I expected and much more.

At just 90 minutes or so in length, it doesn't outstay its welcome, and the storyline has a little more room to breathe. It's not a clunker either, in fact I can't think of any other TV show that translated to film so well. The animation is fantastic, in fact perhaps a little better than an average Simpsons TV show.

I really haven't enjoyed a film in ages, let alone laughed heartily throughout. Recommended.

King of fish soup

My own eccentric take on the Spanish 'sopa de pescados'. I find that the best time to buy fish is at the end of the day at a good fishmongers, when the prices go down, so you can often pick up a few scraps for pennies if you're prepared to use them immediately.

The secret is a good, strong fish stock, which, for the sake of authenticity, does not come from a cube. It takes real time to make, and a complete change of attitude to recycling your waste food. This recipe is not for the squeamish: If you're afraid of fish guts, do not read on!

• 1 litre fish stock (see recipe, below)
• 1 kg mixed prepared fish and seafood to finish the soup with. Monkfish and prawns are nice, but use whatever comes to hand.
• 4 tomatoes
• Tomato purée
• A fresh red chilli, chopped small
• One large onion
• Two cloves garlic
• Bay leaves
• A liberal helping of mixed herbs
• A dash of brandy. Pastis also works nicely.
• Some two-or-three-day-old bread

To make the fish stock:

I saved and froze all my fish waste over a two or three week period. Of course, this will be different every time, but on this occasion I took a load of prawn shells, along with the shell from a dressed crab, leftover skin from some smoked mackerel, some sardines I managed to blag from the owner of the fish stall as she was shutting the stall up (she was only going to throw them away, anyway) and some dried shrimp. For extra fishiness, add some Thai fish sauce, which basically is a distillation of fermented anchovies.

Boil all the fishy bits up in a covered saucepan for an hour or so with a few bits of carrot, tomato and celery, and open all the windows in the house because cooking your own fish stock really stinks. Honestly, it honks. No kidding.

After an hour or so, strain the stock; twice to remove any nasty bits, and put to one side.

To make the soup itself:

Chop the onions and tomatoes finely. Fry the onions in a little olive oil in a saucepan, followed by the garlic, tomatoes and tomato puree, the herbs, chilli and finally the fish stock. Simmer for half an hour or so. Strain once more, before adding the mixed prepared fish and a good slug of brandy or pastis. Taste the soup, add seasoning as necessary and taste again.

Cut the bread into large croutons. Any left-over bread can be crushed into breadcrumbs and added to the soup. For authenticity, serve the bread with aioli (garlic mayonnaise).

Finally, once the fish is cooked – but not overcooked – hook it out of the soup and into a bowl, then using a ladle, add enough soup to fill the bowl. Sprinkle with fresh parsley and crumbled boiled egg.

Pear Crumble

Or "how to make a fantastic and cheap dessert for four out of things you didn't know you had in your cupboard". Makes bleeding loads.

• Six pears
• A handful of chopped pecan nuts
• 200g self-raising flour
• 50g butter, broken into small pieces
• Sugar to taste
• Hazelnut syrup (the magic ingredient!)

Peel the pears. Take off the tops and tails, and slice lengthways, discarding any pips you find. Place in a saucepan, adding enough water to cover the pears, and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and add a dessertspoon or two of sugar, and a good glug of hazelnut syrup. The hazelnut syrup's actually quite important. I use the type you can get which is meant to be added to coffee, except I think it's disgusting that people adulterate their coffee in this way! I think it's much better used in desserts, or on your morning porridge. But I digress...

Now to the crumble. Some people swear by beating the crap out of a packet of digestives and adding a load of melted butter. Personally, I think that's enough to give anyone a heart attack, so I prefer to take some flour, and add the pieces of butter. Rub between fingertips until the flour absorbs the butter and the mixture resembles small breadcrumbs, as if you were making pastry. Add a tablespoon of sugar, as well as the pecan nuts, which are crucial to the recipe.

When the pears are soft, drain them and lay in a dish. Pour crumble mixture on top and cook until golden. Serve with cream.

Grandad's Apple Pie (V)

My grandad, God rest his soul, made the best apple pie in the world. Forget what you know about apple pie, because this is the real deal.
I learned most about cooking from Grandad. He always claimed that he learned from scratch when my nan died, but he always cooked the most delicious meals and knew how to make the most of the resources available - home-made steak and kidney pie, with really crispy roast potatoes, boiled cabbage and marrow with a gravy made from the previous day's stock; pork chops with stuffing; bread pudding and the finest apple pie, made from windfall apples from the trees that stood in his garden.
Apple filling

• A good half kilo of apples. Cook more if you like - they'll store in the freezer for ages.
• 6 to 8 cloves
• Juice of a lemon
• Few spoonsful of sugar

Pastry

• 100g of butter, cut into small cubes
• 200g of plain flour, sieved
• A pinch or two of sugar for dusting

Peel and slice the apples. Cut right down to the core - no point wasting any! - and cover with cold tap water. Add the sugar and cloves, and boil for five minutes before setting aside for a while.
Meanwhile, gently using the tips of your fingers, mix the butter and flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add water until you have a pastry dough consistency, and mix well to work some air into the pastry. Roll to 2 or 3mm thick.
Line a pie dish with the pastry and cut away the excess. Roll the excess into a ball from which you will make a lid later. Don't blind-bake the base - for authenticity you need a slightly soggy bottom to the pie. Drain the apples, retaining the juice and cloves into a glass which you can refrigerate for a tasty drink later. See - nothing wasted!
Gradually layer apple pieces into the pie dish, building up a slight peak in the centre. Roll out the remaining pastry and coat the pie, making two holes in the top from which steam can escape. Bake until golden. Best eaten cold with Rossi ice cream.

Bacon and Onion Pudding

One of my Dad's favourite recipes. I think his mum used to make it but I have also seen Keith Floyd cooking it under the soubriquet 'Norfolk dumpling'. Good old-fashioned stodge, just the thing on a cold day.
 
Suet pastry

• 225g self raising flour
• 150ml cold water, to mix
• 110g shredded beef suet
• ½ tsp salt

Sieve the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add suet and mix lightly. Mix with sufficient water to make a soft but firm dough. Turn out on to a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth.
Place a pudding basin, upside-down, on the pastry and trim round it. Set the pastry disc aside, knead the remaining dough, roll and line the basin with it.
Bacon and onion filling

• 750g bacon offcuts, chopped. Smoked or unsmoked, it doesn't matter.
• 3 large onions, chopped into large pieces

Fry the bacon in a little oil until cooked. If the bacon's quite fatty, don't use the oil. Fry the onion in the remaining fat.
Turn the bacon and onions into the lined pudding basin. Cram in as much as you can, and keep going until it reaches the top. Wet the rim of the basin with a little water, re-roll the suet disc - it will have shrunk slightly - and lay it over the top of the basin, pressing gently on the rim to seal the pudding.
Now cover the pudding in a clean white teacloth, and tie with a tight knot using some strong string around the lip of the basin to seal.
Make a bain-marie by boiling a pan with a few inches of water - not quite enough to cover the top of the pudding - and stand the pudding in it. Place a lid on the saucepan and simmer for two hours, adding more water to the bain-marie as needed but never letting the water reach the top.
Turn out, while piping hot, onto a plate and serve with boiled potatoes, peas and English mustard to taste.
Serving suggestion: You can use a mixture of steak, kidney and oysters - yes, oysters - instead of the bacon if you like!

5-minute sponge pudding

Impress your guests! A delicious sponge cake with jam and custard, all in just over five minutes flat? But it’s a miracle! Yes, friends, with practice, it can be done! Serves 2

Sponge cake:

50g butter
50g self-raising flour
50g sugar
1 egg
A drip of almond essence (optional)

Fruit compote:

Half a cupful of fresh berries
Sugar to taste

Start the clock!

Microwave the fresh berries (I used blueberries) on full power for one minute in a large bowl. Add sugar to taste and leave to cool. The berries might unleash a seemingly endless torrent of boiling juice. I improvised by soaking it up with a handful of dried strawberry pieces, the kind you might find in those breakfast cereals with “berry pieces” and dubious health improvement claims.

While the berries cook, cream together in a bowl the butter and sugar, and gradually add the egg, the flour and, if desired, the almond essence. Pour the cake batter into a large pre-buttered microwaveable dish, cover with clingfilm and cook on high for 3 and a half minutes.

With luck, the sponge cake will have miraculously risen! Turn it out onto a plate, all in one piece if you can, and pour over the fruit compote. Serve with custard or ice cream.

Stop the clock!

Minestrone soup (V)

A great way to use up elderly vegetables in your fridge - provided there's lots of tomato and onion, you can do anything with the recipe. Why bother buying expensive soups with loads of added salt and sugar, when you can make this tasty nutritious soup at home?

Ingredients:

• 1 thinly sliced leek
• 1 diced onion
• A stick of celery
• Garlic
• At least one carrot
• Four finely chopped tomatoes
• Tomato puree
• A small amount of Savoy cabbage
• A few chilli peppers, whole
• A well-stocked spice rack
• A small quantity of dried spaghetti or other dried pasta

Heat some olive oil in a large saucepan, and gently fry the sliced leek, onion, and the celery, sliced small. Fry until the ingredients start to brown, then reduce the heat and add a pint of cold water, followed by two crushed cloves of garlic, a diced carrot, four finely chopped tomatoes, a small amount of Savoy cabbage, then a small can of tomato puree, a generous pinch of mixed Italian herbs, the chillies (don't break the skin of the chillies, and take them out when you're happy with the heat of the soup!) and, if desired, a vegetable stock cube.

Bring to the boil before reducing to a simmer, and cook for an hour or so. Taste the soup regularly, and adjust the seasoning as necessary; add diced potato for thickness, or more tomato puree or vegetable stock for a stronger flavour. A spoonful of tamarind will add some nice heat and a few fruity notes.

You could serve the soup after an hour's cooking; I find that the taste really matures if the soup is allowed to cool overnight before reheating it when you're ready to serve, taking care to make sure it's piping hit of course.

Before serving, strain out all the vegetables. Keep back a few bite-size chunks, which you can add back to the soup if desired. Chop up or blend the rest of the chunks and add those back to the soup, which will not be a bit thicker. Take care to remove any inedible pieces like bay leaves or whole chillies. Break a little spaghetti into small strands and add to the soup, cooking for another ten minutes (or long enough for the spaghetti to soften.)

Truita (V)

During a week in Catalonia 1999 during my spell as a vegetarian, I enjoyed a selection of the delicious local omelettes, or “truita”. With the exception of the eggs and milk, you can substitute any of the other ingredients with pretty much whatever you like. Truita is also delicious eaten cold the day after preparation.

Serves 2 as a main course, or cut into cubes and serve cold as a tapas

• 4 eggs
• 1/2 pint milk
• 1 Spanish onion (of course!)
• Garlic
• Red chilli
• A tin of cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
• Mushrooms
• Spinach
• Frozen peas

In a large frying pan, fry some onions in olive oil. Add garlic and chillies to taste. Add the beans (some recipes substitute this for potato) and, after cooking a little longer, add some mushrooms and fresh spinach. You could, if you like, add a handful of frozen peas.

Meanwhile, beat in a bowl four large eggs and a splash of milk. Add generous amounts of salt and pepper, and add the cooked vegetables straight to the bowl (not the other way round!) Stir well to prevent the eggs from congealing.

Now add more oil to the frying pan, and return the mixture to the heat. Start preheating a grill.

Cook the omelette slowly, until the egg starts to solidify. The omelette may still be a little runny inside, but this won’t be a problem since instead of turning it over as you would a French omelette, you now need to put your frying pan under the grill, taking care of course not to expose any plastic handles to any heat!

In the above photograph, I have added a topping of sliced goat’s cheese.

Continue until the entire omelette is solid, then turn out onto a rack. Eat hot or cold.

This omelette is traditionally served with a thick sauce – this could be a tomato and pepper sauce like that used in ‘patatas bravas’, or perhaps some aioli (garlic mayonnaise). I also recommend serving it with “pa amb tomaquet” (fresh bread, rubbed with tomatoes and olive oil and seasoned with lots of salt and pepper); Arbequina olives if you can get them, and fresh almonds prepared the Catalan way (fried in olive oil and salted.)

Petit salé

Fast food? Pah!!

Here's a delicious slow-burning winter warmer from my ancestral homeland, the Pas-de-Calais. Serves 4.

• A knuckle of gammon
• One large onion or a leek
• A chopped carrot
• A stick of celery
• A bayleaf
• A pack of puy lentils

Place the gammon in a pan of cold water with the vegetables and bayleaf. Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and leave for one hour.

Remove (and discard) the vegetables and add the lentils. Cook for half an hour. By now, the gammon will easily fall off the bone. Drain, reserving some of the cooking juices to pour over before serving.

Serve on a bed of with boiled Savoy cabbage and fresh French bread and butter.

Crema Catalana

A tasty dessert for four.

Ingredients:

• 450 ml milk
• 200 ml double cream
• pared zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp fennel seeds, crushed
• 6 egg yolks
• 175 g Caster Sugar
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Place the milk, cream, lemon zest and crushed fennel in a heavy-based saucepan. Heat to boiling point, then set aside to infuse for 30 minutes.

Beat the egg yolks, 125 g of the sugar and the cornflour together in a small bowl until light and fluffy.

Strain the infused milk on to the egg yolk mixture, a little at a time, stirring constantly.

Pour into a saucepan. Cook over a low heat, stirring constantly, until the cream thickens and almost comes to the boil; this will take 6-8 minutes. Immediately remove from the heat. Pour into small dessert dishes or a large bowl. Allow to cool, cover loosely with tin foil and place in the refrigerator overnight to set.

When ready to serve, preheat the grill until very hot. Mix the remaining sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle over the custard. Place under the hot grill until the sugar has caramelised.

Seychellois fish curry

A tasty and easy-to-prepare curry. Serves 4.

• About 1kg of mixed fish, scaled and gutted
• 500g mixed seafood - scallops, squid and tiger prawns are good
• A pint or so of good, strong fish stock, fresh if possible
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• A little fresh ginger
• 1-3 tbs curry powder, depending on desired strength
• 1 onion
• 1 tin coconut milk
• Half a kilo of peeled potatoes
• Fresh limes and coriander to garnish

In a large pan, brown the onions in a little oil. Reduce the heat, add the curry powder and cook for a minute or so before removing from the heat.

Now add the fish stock and the potatoes. Throw in a bay leaf for good mesure. Reduce the heat, add the garlic and ginger, and some chopped red chilli if desired, as well as the coconut milk. Simmer gently, tasting often, until the sauce thickens. You may wish to get some rice on whilst doing this.

When the rice is almost ready, add the mixed fish, which should take just over 5 minutes to cook. Add the seafood, which should take a further couple of minutes to cook.

The finished curry will be like a thick soup, so it's a good idea to serve it in bowls, adding a little of the cooked rice and garnishing with the juice of the limes and a little chopped coriander.

Pissaladiere

A traditional French tart and a close cousin of the popular Italian dish, "pizza" (which, in turn, is not to be confused with the popular American dish, "pizza".)

Serves 4.

• A little olive oil
• 750g onions, chopped. Substitute one onion for some chopped leek, if desired
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• Pack of ready-to-roll puff pastry
• 100g anchovy fillets
• Black pitted olives to garnish
• Mixed dried herbs to taste

Preheat an oven to 220 degrees/gas 7. Heat the oil in a large pan and add the onions and garlic. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for half an hour until the onions are soft and golden. Season with freshly-ground pepper.

While the onions are cooking, roll the pastry into a square and cut into four smaller squares, each about the size of a CD case. Place on a baking sheet.

Spread the onion mixture over the pastry, leaving a border around the edges where the pastry will rise. Garnish with anchovies, olives and mixed herbs and bake until golden. Eat hot or cold.

Melanzane alle parmagiano (V)

A distant relative of ratatouille.

Ideal vegetarian meal for two. Preparation 25 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 1 aubergine, cut into thin round slices
• 1 can tomato purée
• A lot of fresh basil
• Celery seed
• Bay leaves
• Parsley
• Freshly milled pepper
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Freshly grated Reggiano cheese

Preheat an oven to 200C. Sprinkle the aubergine slices with salt and set aside for 15 minutes before rinsing under the tap and patting dry. This firms up the texture, ensures it won't soak up too much oil and removes the bitter juices from the aubergine.

Meanwhile, heat the tomato puree and fill the can with water to dilute it. Add the celery seed, half the basil (roughly torn), bay leaves, parsley and pepper. Add a little red chilli if you like. Set aside once it comes to the boil, and once it's cooled down a little, taste it. You may need to add a little sugar to offset the sourness of the tomatoes.

Now fry the aubergines in a little olive oil until golden. Pat dry.

Take a little of the tomato sauce and line a shallow casserole dish with it. Add about half the aubergine, cover with a layer of basil leaves and a few slices of cheese, then cover with more tomato sauce and another layer of aubergine, basil and cheese. Top with the remaining tomato sauce and bake for 15 minutes.

Sea Spicy Aubergine

A traditional Oriental starter with a unique twist. Takes no time at all to prepare. Serves 2.

• One ripe aubergine
• 1 spring onion
• Half a red chilli, sliced but not de-seeded
• A piece of fresh ginger, about as big as your knuckle
• A quantity of salt
• Thai fish sauce (optional)
• Soy sauce
• A few leaves of fresh basil
• One free-range egg
• A few teaspoons of flour
• Splash of milk

Slice the aubergine, vertically or horizontally. Sprinkle liberally with salt, cover and leave for 10 minutes or so (the salt will draw out the bitter juices from the aubergine.)
Break the egg into a bowl, and add the flour. Whisk all the lumps out of the flour and add the milk to produce a thin batter. Meanwhile, chop together the onion, chilli, ginger and basil to make a dry sauce. Wash your hands thoroughly to remove any chilli residue. You will be sorry if you touch your eyes, nose or open wounds with chilli on your hands! Don't say I didn't warn you!
Now rinse the salted aubergines in cold water. Place them in kitchen towel and squeeze to remove excess moisture. Coat with batter and fry in hot oil until golden. Sprinkle with the dry sauce, and add fish sauce and/or soy sauce to taste. Lovely grub!!