Aubergine & Eggplant

Ocado iPhone app

I've long been dependent on Ocado for harder to find, and heavier, ingredients delivered to my door by friendly drivers who talk to my dog nicely and hardly ever have substitutions. Until recently, no flat of mine has been near a grocery store larger than a train station Sainsbury's. Makes it challenging to find anything out of the ordinary, like, say brown sugar or more than one kind of lettuce.

So when I was browsing through the iPhone App Store this morning and discovered the Ocado app, new yesterday it seems, and not officially released until 13 July, I was maybe a bit too excited. 

Brilliantly, you can do your shopping from your iPhone, check and amend an order you've already placed, or just keep a running list on it and book a delivery slot when you're ready. When you open the app, it shows you the earliest delivery appointment available right away. I was able to check an order I had already placed when I was out in one of those 'did I order lemons or not?' moments. The interface is clean and easy to use too.

The only downside I can see initially is if you've never used Ocado before and aren't sure they deliver to

your area - there's no way to find out without downloading the app and creating an account etc. 

If you've used them before, however, it's well worth a try.

Balti lamb burgers

I've been trying to prepare extra food and freeze it for the impending birth of my first little one, as everyone tells you you should. However, it taunts me there in the freezer, yummy lasagna, curry sauces in little containers.

So needless to say we've nearly eaten it all, already. But I have a few weeks to replenish it. One of the things I have stashed in there are quantities of a basic curry sauce that can go several different ways quite easily by adding ground almonds and cream for korma, chopped tomatoes and some spices for balti or rogan josh. I had defrosted a container for a chicken curry that didn't quite happen, and then happily decided to get some mince lamb from the Ginger Pig the other day. The balti lamb burger was born. 

I would definitely make the curry sauce at some other point, freeze it in batches, and then whip one out for the burger recipe. Making it just for this might be just too much faffing. Follow the basic curry sauce recipe here at delicious. magazine, definitely worth using a frozen then defrosted one for the intensity of flavour. I split my curry sauce into 6 quantities as there's only two of us I usually cook for.

Balti lamb burgers with quick cucumber raita

Makes 5 burgers

For the burgers

1/2 medium onion

2 garlic cloves

1 quantity of basic curry sauce, defrosted

1 tsp of garam masala balti (mine comes from Seasoned Pioneers and I'd highly recommend them)

500 grams good quality lamb mince

Groundnut oil

For the cucumber raita

(These quantities are approximate, taste as you go)

plain Greek yoghurt

cumin seeds

cucumber

Pitta breads and halved cherry tomatoes to serve

1. Whizz the half an onion and the garlic cloves in a food processor until they're essentially finely chopped, whatever size you're happy to find in a burger. 

2. Add the onions, garlic, curry sauce and garam masala balti into a bowl and mix it with your hands until it's well combined. Form into 5 burgers and leave on a plate to settle down. Put a grill pan on high heat.

3. Chop the cucumber into small chunks and add to the plain yoghurt in another bowl. Dry fry the cumin seeds until they smell fragant, tossing them often - this should only take two minutes or so, so don't wander off. Add cumin seeds to the yoghurt and cucumber.

4. Your grill pan should be nice and hot by now. Pour some groundnut oil into your palm and massage the burgers gently. Brush them if you're squeamish about this kind of thing. Put them on the grill pan and leave them alone for a good 4 minutes. Flip once, leave them for another 3-4 minutes. Cooking time depends on the thickness of your burgers, so adjust as necessary.

5. Take the burgers off the heat and let them rest for a couple minutes, and use the flaming hot grill pan to heat up the pitta breads, push them down on the pan using your hand if you're brave or whatever tool is to hand. You'll have to do this in batches. 

6. I served this with a pitta per burger, with cherry tomatoes and the cucumber raita in two bowls and we went at it. Make sure you have plenty of napkins to hand, these are messy.

Recipe organisation

There are many ways to organise your recipes - handwritten cards, software like SousChef or BigOven, or websites like Allrecipes. 

None of these particularly work for me, as many of the recipes I want to keep come from magazines or the newspaper. I had been hauling around my own bodyweight or more in old food mags from flat to flat - every time we move my husband holds up a battered and splattered four-year-old copy of Food Observer Monthly and asks plaintively: 'Do you really still want this?'

So, to solve the problem, I invested in five A4 portfolio books with clear plastic pockets inside. I spent about a week filleting all my old food magazines into piles. I only separated the recipes into high-level categories of sweet things/baking of all kinds, Asian and Asian-inspired things, pasta and related and then a catch all of meat and veggie main dishes. One of the things I love about food magazines is the joy of flipping through and becoming randomly inspired. I use the internet for specific searches mainly, it's just not as satisfying to skim loads of blogs and recipe sites. The plastic pockets keep the pages clean too, which is a nice, because I'm a bit messy.

How do you store and organise your recipes?

Bolognese amplified

My husband loves spaghetti bolognese desperately, and I have a soft spot for it too. I usually make it from scratch, in a haphazard way, with whatever I have to hand. Sometimes there are carrots, sometimes not - you know. One day I was idly reading the box my harissa paste bottle came in, and it suggested adding a spoonful into a bolognese. Sure enough, I had half a jar languishing in the fridge the next time I made bolognese... And what a revelation. It's like worchestire sauce in gravy - it disappears, taste-wise, but somehow makes the flavour deepen. I find a couple of teaspoons is all you need, but taste as you go because harissa is spicy stuff.

Simple Mint Fizz

Mint in your garden is one of those things that seems like a good idea at the time, but then one morning you go out there and notice that you have not a patch of mint, but a field. When I was 12, my mum and I discovered such a field of mint on the little hill shaded behind the carport, where we never went. It stretched for about four metres, and the mint was waist high. Hmmm. We harvested piles of it and made tsatsiki to go on Greek burgers (Mum, please post the recipe!), we preserved the leaves with egg white and sugar... everything. 

So when I was presented with an ever-widening patch of mint leftover from previous tenants, I decided to hack it back right away. The simplest thing to do with my pile of mint was to make some simple mint syrup. I'm nearly seven months pregnant now, and getting incredibly sick of insipid options for non-alcoholic drinks, so I wanted to make something interesting to drink. I completely underestimated how incredible fresh mint syrup would be... this is not so much a recipe as a starting point. It would be brilliant with vodka, not that I would know. *sigh*. I made up a jug of this for a garden party and everyone came back for more. 

You could use the syrup over a cake, ice cream, all sorts of things. 

Simple Mint Fizz

Simple Mint Syrup

1 cup water 

1 cup granulated sugar

Three big fistfuls of fresh mint leaves, washed

-

Tonic water

1. Boil the water with the sugar, stirring continuously until it's dissolved. 

2. Take the pot off the heat, and push the mint into the sugar water, reserving a few leaves. Leave it - as long as possible, but at least until it's cool.

3. Strain the liquid into a container. You can now keep this into the fridge for quite awhile. Mine has been in the fridge for weeks, but don't quote me on that. The syrup works best after it's had a night in the fridge really.

4. To make the fizz, put some ice in a highball glass, pour in half a finger of mint syrup, then fill with tonic water. Taste it, add more syrup if you like it sweeter. Garnish with a couple mint leaves and you're good to go.

Growing your own vegetables

 

I've never been good at growing things, so when we moved into this new flat with a raised bed in the back garden, I didn't think I could do much with it.

But the lure of trying out this gardening thing in the privacy of my own back garden so no one could see how many mistakes I made was too much... and so I went a bit, well, crazy.

I did all the things you're supposed to do: watch too many episodes of Gardener's World and Beechgrove, order random inappropriate and outlandish seeds and have dreams about a bounty of vegetables instantaneously. Patience has never been one of my best qualities, so some would say gardening isn't really the best kind of thing for me.

Anyway, I've gone ahead and planted a bunch of things anyway, some of them by following the proper instructions and some things by just chucking a pile of seeds on the compost and hoping for the best. Thankfully, the seeds I've thrown out there - lettuces and salad crops - are sort of meant to be thrown.

We've got tomatoes I've grown from seed - Moneymaker and Gardener's Delight, lots of potatoes both in the garden and a couple patio bags - Charlottes and Foremosts, mint leftover from before, some struggling rocket, flat leaf parsley, two pak choi which we've already eaten, some thyme and a big patch of assorted lettuces - some Lolla Rosa, some random bowl lettuce, some random salad seeds I got free with a catalogue or something. There's also some mangetout and climbing french beans I've just put in, and some courgettes are sprouting on the window sill. 

Of course, at the moment there's not a whole lot to actually eat from the garden yet. Waiting, waiting, waiting. I'm not always good at this part.

Edgware Road Yoghurt Sauce

I used to live in Paddington, around the corner from the mainline rail station and a quick walk from the hundreds of Lebanese restaurants on Edgware Road. We always meant to visit them more than we did, but every time we made it into one, I fell a little bit more in love with the tongue-numbing garlic sauce served with the grilled meat. Somehow it didn't have that sharp edge that hummus can have, and it goes so incredibly well with well-spiced grilled lamb or chicken. 

I tried to recreate it in spirit, more than texture, because the sauce you're served in those places is much denser than this is. I use my version to marinate chicken and pork in as well, serving a fresh batch on the side. And really, the coriander is my own addition... so you're seeing how far this is from the original but trust me, it's a bbq/picnic staple in my house and once you try it you'll be shocked how good yet how simple it is.

This is a taste-as-you-go recipe, so adjust to your needs.

Edgware Road Yoghurt Sauce

200ml of plain yoghurt (I like using Greek yoghurt, but runnier kinds work too)

1 lemon, both for zest and juice

1 tsp granulated freeze-dried garlic (in London, I buy this at Whole Foods - adjust this to your taste)

3 tbsp whole cumin seeds

1 bunch fresh coriander

Sea salt to taste

1. Pour the yoghurt into a bowl and zest the lemon into it. Then juice the same lemon into the bowl as well and mix it to loosen the sauce.

2. Smash the coriander seeds and cumin seeds with a mortar and pestle until the seeds are smashed up a bit and you're smelling the heavenly scent of cumin. Dump it in the yoghurt bowl. 

3. Chop the fresh coriander and add to yoghurt mixture. Taste it and see if it needs more garlic or salt. 

Serve it with warm flatbread, alongside grilled meats or use it as a marinade. 

It's really flexible and I add chopped cucumbers sometimes, chives, mint, finely chopped red onion. It's the lemon-cumin seed-garlic triumvirate that gives it that wonderful taste. 

The joys of frozen lemongrass

 

I love making a good thai curry, but I find having the necessary ingredients around for a truly good one a bit of pain. I can never just rustle one up without a trip to fairly large local shop. I mean, why bother if you're not going to dump in some lime leaves and lemongrass right?

I've inherited my mother's healthy fear/irritation/unwillingness to pay for pre-packaged and cut up ingredients. However, I am now officially in love with these frozen chopped up lime leaves and lemongrass. There's also chopped up garlic and shallots in the same line, and I've got them all in my freezer. For £1.20 or so it's really worth it, considering I never get through fresh lemongrass before it goes soggy in my fridge and I've paid at least that.

Taking it slow

I've always wanted a casserole dish. Hang on, when I say casserole, I mean what some call a dutch oven, a camp oven or a cocotte. 

As much as I wanted a lovely flame red Le Creuset, I just can't afford it, so Ikea came to the rescue with a nice blue one half the price. It's first day in our house it's busy braising some lamb shanks. I'm not as familiar with this slow cooking recipes as I've never had the equipment, so I started simply with this recipe from Anthony Worrall Thompson to get the quantities right. I know everyone goes on about how these cuts are cheaper, but I have to admit I was really surprised to get two nice sized shanks from Waitrose for £5. And boy have I fallen in love....

The basic recipe is here. I think next I'll try this one for Braised Lamb Shanks with Ginger and Five Spice. Any other slow cooked casserole recipes I should try?

Dennis' Cornbread

  When I was a kid, weekend mornings meant CBC Radio and my dad in the kitchen making either waffles or cornbread. My dad was a refiner of recipes, rather than a restless cook like me. He would work on his versions of cornbread, jerk marinade and coconut rice until he had it perfect.

Now cornbread is a contentious issue I know, everyone having opinions about yeast-raised or not, with chili pepper bits or not. I don't feel particularly concerned with these arguments as my cornbread was passed down through my dad's Jamaican family and I grew up in Canada, not exactly a hotbed of cornbread activity - so it's not like there were arguments about what is or is not cornbread in my frozen neck of the woods.

So to me, this is cornbread... made into muffins or in a square glass dish. Serve it warm with a bit of butter and honey drizzled on top. Recipe after the bump.