Autumn is upon us, and wide, crunchy leaves circle from the plane trees. The low sunlight reflects from the hard glass of the City skyline and lights up our front room from unnatural angles, and the moon is simply magnificent.
The weekend the clocks changed back I was beset by sudden urges both nutty and squashy. I dreamed of roasted pumpkin soups, toasty walnut and sticky fig salads, and pies of all descriptions. I hastened to my local market and came home laden with sea bass fillets, salmon steaks, fat tiger prawns, fresh purple figs, mixed nuts, smoky cured bacon, Scarborough Fair herbs, free range eggs, and a happily bright pumpkin of a modest size.
Having commandeered the kitchen for the day, I started with the roasted pumpkin soup. I carved the pumpkin, not into my usual angular childish grinning-Jack, but into more sophisticated wedges, studded with garlic and rosemary and drizzled with olive oil. I tossed the pumpkin seeds with salt, smoky paprika, and chilli, and spread them out on a separate oven tray. I roasted everything until the wedges were soft and fragrant and the seeds crunchy, the seeds taking less time than the wedges. I sautéed a mirepoix (soffritto) - onion, celery, carrot - until soft, added cumin, curry powder, and a blob of coconut cream, and then scraped the pumpkin flesh from the skin into the pan, added chicken stock, and blitzed until smooth. This I garnished with crunchy spiced pumpkin seeds, toasted walnuts, and a dollop of crème fraîche. Chapter one: lunch.
Chapter three: fish pie. I poached the sea bass fillet, salmon steak, and raw tiger prawns in milk with bay leaf, parsley, and peppercorns (I suppose that using sea bass was slightly decadent but that is what my fishmonger sold me, and it is nice to look after oneself in these darkening days). When the fish was cooked - just cooked - I scooped it all out carefully, leaving the herby milk in the pan, peeled the prawns, and removed the fish from the skin and bones, retaining the structure as best I could (because fishmash pie is no fun at all). I boiled some cubed potatoes and in a separate pan sautéed some chopped onion, adding frozen peas at the end. I made a béchamel sauce by melting butter and adding flour, leaving the roux for too long so that the flour burnt and became bitter and unresponsive, threw the useless mess away, started again more successfully, added the fishy herb milk gradually (having removed the herbs and peppercorns), and finally some grated nutmeg. I placed the fish with love, peas and onions into two nice little pie dishes, topped with the béchamel. The potato I mashed with crème fraîche, salt and pepper, mustard, and parsley, and placed it on the top.
And finally, Chapter two, the best one: sherry-fried figs, toasty walnuts, smoky bacon, and feta salad. I cut the bacon into lardons, fried them and set them aside, leaving the fat in the pan. I quartered the figs (hanged and drawn), tossed them into the pan and decided on a whim to introduce them to a generous dash of sherry, Keith Floyd being my first and forever culinary inspiration. This proved to be an excellent idea because the figs became beautifully sticky and juicy in the sherried bacon fat. I lined two small plates with some nice salad leaves, added the lardons, sherry-fried figs, toasty walnuts, and crumbled some Turkish feta on top (feta likes to be crumbled by hand, because then you find its natural fault lines - it becomes upset and tense if it is cubed with a knife). Meanwhile the fish pies were already safely in the oven and stayed there until the potato tops developed a pleasing crispiness, and after the figgy salad they were swiftly devoured with lemon juice and a crisp Chenin Blanc.
So there they are: three belly-warming autumnal dishes to bring comfort to those who suffer from the ill-conceived notion that is British winter time. If my readers are wondering what I used the eggs for, I had intended to add them hard-boiled and quartered inside the fish pies, but I forgot them in the excitement. Isn’t it fun to read recipes in which the creator sometimes gets things wrong?
The weekend the clocks changed back I was beset by sudden urges both nutty and squashy. I dreamed of roasted pumpkin soups, toasty walnut and sticky fig salads, and pies of all descriptions. I hastened to my local market and came home laden with sea bass fillets, salmon steaks, fat tiger prawns, fresh purple figs, mixed nuts, smoky cured bacon, Scarborough Fair herbs, free range eggs, and a happily bright pumpkin of a modest size.
Having commandeered the kitchen for the day, I started with the roasted pumpkin soup. I carved the pumpkin, not into my usual angular childish grinning-Jack, but into more sophisticated wedges, studded with garlic and rosemary and drizzled with olive oil. I tossed the pumpkin seeds with salt, smoky paprika, and chilli, and spread them out on a separate oven tray. I roasted everything until the wedges were soft and fragrant and the seeds crunchy, the seeds taking less time than the wedges. I sautéed a mirepoix (soffritto) - onion, celery, carrot - until soft, added cumin, curry powder, and a blob of coconut cream, and then scraped the pumpkin flesh from the skin into the pan, added chicken stock, and blitzed until smooth. This I garnished with crunchy spiced pumpkin seeds, toasted walnuts, and a dollop of crème fraîche. Chapter one: lunch.
Chapter three: fish pie. I poached the sea bass fillet, salmon steak, and raw tiger prawns in milk with bay leaf, parsley, and peppercorns (I suppose that using sea bass was slightly decadent but that is what my fishmonger sold me, and it is nice to look after oneself in these darkening days). When the fish was cooked - just cooked - I scooped it all out carefully, leaving the herby milk in the pan, peeled the prawns, and removed the fish from the skin and bones, retaining the structure as best I could (because fishmash pie is no fun at all). I boiled some cubed potatoes and in a separate pan sautéed some chopped onion, adding frozen peas at the end. I made a béchamel sauce by melting butter and adding flour, leaving the roux for too long so that the flour burnt and became bitter and unresponsive, threw the useless mess away, started again more successfully, added the fishy herb milk gradually (having removed the herbs and peppercorns), and finally some grated nutmeg. I placed the fish with love, peas and onions into two nice little pie dishes, topped with the béchamel. The potato I mashed with crème fraîche, salt and pepper, mustard, and parsley, and placed it on the top.
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