Lockdown Edition Week 3: Spinach and Mushroom Salad

The book: The Silver Spoon

The recipe: p585, "Spinach and Mushroom Salad"

Ah, The Silver Spoon. The queen of Italian cookbooks. Nearly 1,500 pages long and practically overflowing with classic Italian cuisine - hearty pasta, meat and fish dishes, decadent cheesy risottos, giant vol-au-vents, live spiny lobsters, it's all in there.

So of course the random number generator gives us a fricking spinach and mushroom salad.

Now, be honest, you've been waiting for this. Outright kitchen disasters are one thing, but part of the appeal of the original Random Kitchen lay in me having to dredge up a thousand words about something so mundane it barely even qualified as a recipe. If that's your particular strand of fandom, then this is your lucky week.

In fairness, I am at least a bit intrigued by this "recipe", since spinach and mushroom don't strike me as an obvious combination to be eaten raw. Sautéed and stirred through a big pan of penne, absolutely, but I'm not imagining them having the nicest texture in the world in salad form. So without further ado, let's find out!

The prep: There really isn't much ado involved at all this week, as it happens - the ingredient list stretches to a whole six lines, two of which are olive oil and seasoning.

I am at least required to make a minor decision on the spinach front. This particular recipe simply calls for 300 grams of "spinach", but an adjacent recipe for a spinach and scallop salad (that sounds like real food why can't we have that instead please) specifies "young spinach leaves, tough stalks removed". Properly big, farmer's-market spinach leaves do feel like they would be too chunky for a simple salad, so a bag of Asda's finest* organic baby spinach gets the nod. Other than that, I pick up a lemon, some pine nuts and the titular mushrooms, and that's that.

And yes, I really do go through a whole bag of spinach leaves - baby spinach leaves, no less - and remove (most of) the more prominent stalks. This is lockdown, folks, you have to take your entertainment wherever you can get it. At least now I understand why the recipe claims a preparation time of 25 minutes for a mere salad. It's not lying.

The making: The mushrooms are thinly sliced, placed in a salad bowl and sprinkled with some of the juice from the lemon. Right from the moment I read the recipe, I've been concerned about the relative quantities involved - there's a lot of spinach and not much of anything else - and nothing I'm seeing so far indicates that this interpretation is wrong...

Lemony mushroom base

Anyway, a buttload of spinach and a handful of pine nuts are added to the lemony mushrooms, then I whizz together the rest of the lemon juice with a healthy slosh of olive oil and some salt and pepper. This dressing is then used to - you guessed it - dress the salad.

A little like with last week's breadcrumbs that refused to stick to some basil leaves because that's how the laws of physics work, diligently tossing this salad isn't going to make it look any less like isolated mushroom slices marooned in a sea of spinach, so here you go, we're done:

Yeah.

The eating: In fairness, this obviously isn't meant as anything more than a side salad to a main meal, or even one of lots of dishes on a table full of goodies, so it would be unfair to expect it to be particularly fascinating.

We do at least endeavour to treat it as a (slightly sad-looking) lunch in its own right, though:

And hey - it's actually quite nice! The acidity of the lemon juice softens the mushrooms a bit without making them slippery and unpleasant, and the spinach leaves, while proportionally dominant, allow you to get a proper forkful of food each time you go in. The flavours are all good, and there's a chewiness and volume to it all that I wasn't really expecting from the kind of ingredients you'd normally use as an excuse to classify a vat of pasta and parmesan as a "healthy dinner".

Nevertheless, if this is going to be remotely substantial enough to keep us going until teatime (well, until our mid-afternoon chocolate break), there's only one thing for it - it's time to call in the reinforcements...

I've never been so happy to see you guys

These duly added, what results is a decently substantial and flavourful lunch that we're both perfectly happy with. It's a cheat, of course - almost everything in life is improved by the addition of cheese, and we're meant to be judging the actual recipe here. But still, it's good to know that the (to me) seemingly unlikely combination of spinach and mushrooms works really nicely as the base for a salad with relatively little preparation involved. (Other than all that stalk removal, of course - but you could get away without that if you're not too fussed about how it looks.)

Plus you can do what The Silver Spoon does - supplement the dish with its Italian name, namely insalata di spinaci e funghi, and kid yourself into thinking you're getting something far more exotic. Just don't look elsewhere on the double-page spread that houses this particular recipe, or you might shed a quiet tear at the cruelty of the random gods.

Two-word verdict: Surprisingly okay.

Lockdown Edition Week 2: Crunch Lunch Cod and Mash

The book: Ainsley Harriott's Meals In Minutes

The recipe: p85, "Crunch Lunch Cod and Mash"

Obviously it's Ainsley. Who else could come up with a recipe name that's equal parts ludicrous and irritating? I've actually put on some Chopin, courtesy of the Berliner Philharmoniker's own lockdown edition, in the hope that a dose of high culture might offset some of the lows I'm having to endure here.

The random selections from Ainsley's repertoire were a mixed bag last time out, from some vegetable burgers that were pretty brilliant to a tarte tatin that definitely bloody wasn't. Looking beyond the titular tweeness, it turns out that the slightly unprepossessing "cod and mash" hides a more interesting prospect - the accompanying photo is colourful and attractive, while the blurb provides some useful lockdown wiggle room with its opening statement that "you can buy all manner of smoked fish". Why yes, yes I can! So let's hotfoot it over to Asda (while keeping a safe distance) and see what we can rustle up.

I'm still a bit sceptical about the "crunch" part though. If your fish is crunchy, doesn't that just mean you've forgotten to debone it?

The prep: Not many of the ingredients are already in the house (just potatoes, milk and breadcrumbs), but there's nothing in here that appears too problematic, and so it proves. Black olives are hidden away in an unlikely corner of the shop, while basil is only available in a pot, but that's fine - what else are kitchen windowsills for? Meanwhile, the free choice of smoked fish ends up with me picking up two fillets of basa, that recent(-ish) supermarket staple for the undiscerning consumer who can't really tell the difference between types of bland white fish anyway. Hey, that's me!

The making: "Serves 4", the recipe says. Normally this is where I laugh and make the full quantity in the knowledge that it'll just about be enough for the two of us. In this case, though, two basa fillets each would be a bit OTT, so I'm halving everything. Well, everything except the potatoes, which are staying more or less as is. My excuse is that this "lunch" is actually going to be our dinner, but let's be honest, it's also because potatoes are lush.

I grease an ovenproof dish then whack the fish in there. The white parts of several spring onions are chopped and scattered over the cod, the green parts being reserved for later. Sliced tomatoes are then arranged on top (one tomato per fillet, folks), ditto a handful of sliced olives. I then drizzle on some olive oil and sprinkle on some torn basil leaves, thereby defacing the only plant (of sorts) we're allowed in this hay fever-cursèd household.

Next, I'm asked to take more basil leaves and toss them with some breadcrumbs. Well, okay, but basil isn't exactly moist and sticky, so I don't really see how this will achieve anything. Indeed:

Sigh.

Anyway, this "mixture" is scattered over the fish, and then there's another drizzling of oil. This recipe does involve a great deal of scattering and arranging and layering for something that's - I quote - "snappy and ready to serve in a flash". Still, the outcome isn't unpromising:

...and into the oven it goes "for 15 minutes until the fish is cooked". (More of an either/or statement than Ainsley makes it sound, but I'll allow it.)

Meanwhile... ah. It's time a return for one of my biggest recipe bugbears! Meanwhile, you see, I'm supposed to be boiling some chopped potatoes (the recipe never asks me to peel them first, but I'll let common sense prevail) for 10-15 minutes, draining them, putting them back into the pan, adding some milk, mashing them, pushing the mash to the side of the pan, adding some butter, melting the butter, chopping the green parts of those spring onions I mentioned earlier, adding them to the pan, frying them, then stirring them into the mash. All of this needs to happen in the 15 minutes the fish will be in the oven, even though the potato-boiling part alone might take up to 15 minutes. Can anyone spot the problem here?

Having read ahead, I start the potatoes off five minutes before the fish goes into the oven, and it all turns out fine as a result - but seriously, cookbook authors, could you please stop springing surprises on us and expecting us to warp the laws of physics in order to achieve the desired outcome? "Meanwhile", my arse.

Anyway. Once I've got everything ready more or less simultaneously, I divide the mash between two plates - adding a side of some roasted asparagus, since it happened to be in this week's veg box and I thought a bit more substance wouldn't hurt. The mass o' mash is already less elegant than it looks in the book, partly because I've made a bit more than I should and partly because I completely forgot to cut down on the number of spring onions when I was tweaking my numbers earlier. (And they weren't exactly small ones, either.) Ah well, it's all good.

What's green and lumpy? (Write your own punchline.)

All that remains is to carefully remove the fish from the dish and slide it on top of that indoor ski slope of mash, then "spoon around the fish juices". Um. What fish juices? Maybe I cooked it for a few minutes longer than I ought to have - not that there's any sign of that in the eating (spoiler alert) - but even with fish, tomatoes and olive oil in the equation, there's basically nothing left to add to the finished dish other than some rogue spring onions (yes, more of the bastards).

Between them and the mash that's spilling out from underneath due to my portioning decisions, the end result is a wee bit more rustic and, well, tall than in the book, but it's reasonably pleasing on the eye all the same.

 
Even if it does look faintly reminiscent of one of those legendary 70s dinner party cards. You know the kind of thing I mean.

The eating: Hey! This isn't bad, you know? It's a little bit confusing - the tomatoes, basil and olives give the top half of the assembled dish a bright, Mediterranean flavour, while the mash (which would have a lumpy consistency even with the right quantity of spring onions) is reminiscent of colcannon, rumbledethumps or one of those other winter staples from these fair isles. It could also be a little more decadent - I'd add more butter to the mash next time. Still, the flavours go together pretty well, the fish is lovely and juicy (told you), and every bite has plenty going on to keep you interested. It's a good dish, Brent.

What it isn't, despite Ainsley's "charming" title, is crunchy. I suppose the crunch is supposed to come from the spring onions (which do still have a bite to them) and the breadcrumbs (which have been drizzled in oil so are hardly going to crisp up much given a mere 15 minutes in the oven). I'd consider just whacking on a whole load more breadcrumbs next time, or maybe even tossing the tomato slices in oil and breadcrumbs so that they form a proper top layer.

What it also isn't is a "meal in minutes", frankly. I'm no slouch in the kitchen - I peel potatoes for speed, and if some perfectly usable bits of spud get sacrificed along the way, so be it - but even I need 30 minutes of preparation time here (the recipe confidently claims 15), and we've already talked about the whole cooking time issue. I suppose you could prepare pretty much everything in advance and just whack it all in the oven as lunchtime approaches - even the mash could be made ahead and reheated that way, at a pinch - but it hardly satisfies the "lightning-fast food" criterion of the book series. Just call it a dinner and be done with it.

It's a very decent dinner though. Two weeks into this lockdown project, and things have turned out pretty well so far. To the extent that Sam utters the immortal words: "I hope we get something really shit soon!" Careful what you wish for...

Two-word verdict: Decidedly un-shit.

Lockdown Edition Week 1: Ice Cream Cake

The book: Nigella Express

The recipe: p222, "Ice Cream Cake"

Now now, don't roll your eyes and give up on me already. I understand that part of the appeal of Random Kitchen - perhaps even the bulk of the appeal - lies in the terrible and ludicrous things I end up having to cook and eat. As such, an ice cream cake might seem disappointingly tame. Pleasant, even. But this is Nigella we're talking about. Last time round she gave us a tagine that used a whole bottle of wine and no stock and a chowder that tasted of self-defence weaponry, so there's no telling how she'll manage to mangle even a straightforward treat like this.

As the finger of fate lands on this particular dessert, it strikes me that I don't really know what an ice cream cake is. I mean, obviously the clue is in the name to an extent, but I have visions of something like... a cheesecake, perhaps, with a biscuit base and a layer of ice cream on top? The photograph in the book suggests an even simpler beast, however, with "cake" referring to the shape as much as anything else. I suppose you get cakes of soap, after all, and it's not like they come with a layer of digestive crumbs unless something's gone very wrong at the factory.

The prep: I'll say one thing - this is a most useful choice for the first week of a lockdown project. If I'd been tasked with tracking down obscure Italian cheeses or a serrated bundt mould while minimising unnecessary journeys, I might have had a low-key strop and abandoned this project before it even began. But vanilla ice cream and a bunch of stuff to go on/in it? That's something even the Asda in Lewisham can manage.

In fairness, at no point does Nigella say that the ice cream has to be vanilla. It's implied by the photographs and the general concept, though, so that's what I go with. Similarly, there's no real consensus as to what I should be using for most of the other ingredients. "You can choose different biscuits, different nuts and nobbly bits to mix in", the recipe says - and that's probably for the best given that one of the suggested ingredients is something called "Nestlé swirled milk chocolate and peanut butter morsels", which:

The internet suggests that this is an American product - v. helpful in a cookbook whose price tag is unquestionably in pounds sterling - so I go with the "chocolate chips of your choice" option instead.

All of this is quintessentially Nigella, somehow managing to complicate what is essentially "stirring some stuff into some ice cream you've bought from the shop". However, it does give me scope in terms of catering for Sam's aversion to peanuts, so it's not all bad news.

The recipe also requires one or more hot sauces, the ingredients for which are miraculously all to be found in my cupboards already, as is the springform tin we'll be using once everything's been assembled! Hey, a win's a win.

The making: First things first: while I am, of course, following the recipe slavishly (within the parameters of the options provided), I make a unilateral decision to scale things back a bit. There's no real need for an ice cream cake that serves 8-10 (sorry Sam), especially knowing Nigella's penchant for richness and indulgence, so I end up doing about 60% of what the recipe calls for. My receptacle is a bit smaller than it's meant to be (as the bishop said to the actress), so it should all work out okay.

I leave the ice cream to soften in a bowl while I channel my inner Flo Capp and take a rolling pin to, in turn, a handful of honey-roasted mixed nuts (a sop to minimising the peanut content), a Crunchie bar, and several Bourbon biscuits. Along with the chocolate chips, these all get mixed into the ice cream once they've been smashed and smushed. At first this process seems like it's going to be difficult - you don't want the ice cream to melt too much, as it'll end up all crystallised and gritty when you refreeze it, but it needs to be soft enough to actually take on board what you're trying to stir into it. Eventually, though, working the ingredients in with a couple of spoons produces something with the malleable properties of a wet dough, and it turns out to be similarly satisfying to work with. Even if it does look a bit like coronation chicken.

Floured bap, anyone?

The springform tin is lined with clingfilm (bottom and sides) and the ice cream mixture is added. At this stage, we have at least progressed from "baked potato filling" to "fruit cake" in the appearance stakes.

The top of the "cake" is then smoothed with a spatula and into the freezer it goes, until it's ready to be eaten! (Not a great deal later, it must be said. Working with ice cream and chocolate gives you quite the appetite for ice cream and chocolate.)

Carefully extracted from the tin and placed on a plate, it actually looks all right. The cling film marks down the side are a bit inelegant, but they're there in the photo in the book too, so they would appear to be unavoidable. If there's one criticism, it's that my version of the cake does look a bit squat, but that'll be because I cut down on the quantities. And let's be honest, it's going to be plenty rich as it is.

Looks worryingly like it ought to

It needs 5-10 minutes to soften before it'll slice easily, so I sprinkle some more chocolate chips and biscuit shards over the top as per the recipe, then use the remaining time to quickly prepare what Nigella describes as the "crowning glory" - not one, but two hot sauces to dribble lazily over the top (her filth, not mine). And I do mean "quickly" - the butterscotch sauce at least involves two steps, but the chocolate sauce is literally some dark chocolate, double cream, Camp coffee and golden syrup melted together simultaneously, and the result is... well, let's be generous and call it gloopy. Even heated extremely carefully, the double cream in particular means it ends up closer to a seriously rich chocolate mousse more suited to being applied with a trowel than anything you could dribble, drizzle or drool.

The first line of this recipe reads: "I don't think a cook's job should be to deceive". I'll say no more.

The butterscotch at least resembles a sauce, however, so I get to dribble it on just the way Nigella likes it.

One sauce, one cement

The eating: I mean, obviously it's pretty good. Like with every Nigella recipe I've encountered to date, the problem is there's just TOO MUCH of everything.

I recently re-made the sausage, halloumi and pepper dish from the original Random Kitchen with half as many sausages, minimal added oil and a ton of brown rice to offset the excess, and it was so much better that way. Similarly, the chocolate chips or equivalent here, both in and on the "cake", are superfluous when you've already got some nice chocolate biscuits in there, and there's really no need for more than just the butterscotch sauce, crowning glory or not (especially since that particular sauce is seriously good in its own right).

Sam ventures the opinion that vanilla ice cream with the other ingredients strewn on top would be no less nice, and he may have a point. I do think the texture makes this worth the effort, but it's not like you can't buy ice cream with stuff in it these days (someone needs to introduce Nigella to two gentlemen called Ben and Jerry, for a start).

If I was making it again (and let's be honest, I probably will), I'd throw in at least another Crunchie bar, go easy on the chocolate chips, and definitely not bother with the hot chocolate gloop. Indeed, since the recipe offers plenty of wiggle room on the ingredients anyway, I think the best thing to do with anything like this is treat it like Rocky Road in ice cream form - just add the stuff you like best and let the freezer do the rest.

Which begs the question: is that really enough to constitute a "recipe" in the first place? I'm not so sure it is. Still, if nothing else, this experience has taught me how easy it is to make a decadent butterscotch sauce. Which is useful. Dangerous, but useful.

Two-word verdict: Deceptively excessive.

Random Kitchen: Lockdown Edition

"By popular demand" is a loaded phrase, but I can't deny what's right there in black on white.

On Sunday I innocently posted a photo of my dinner on Instagram like the Instatwat I am. Almost before I knew it, the possibility of Random Kitchen making a return had been firstly raised, then swiftly endorsed by several of my friends.

I issued a weak protest or two, of course. Sourcing the necessary ingredients (and sometimes even the necessary implements) for Random Kitchen had been a pain in the arse the first time round, and that was before we were living under lockdown rules and I'd limited myself to one big weekly shop, rather than the daily stroll around Lewisham's finest stores that I'd previously permitted myself as a homeworker lacking on the human interaction front. In other words, this would clearly involve more planning than I'm used to, not to mention a healthy slug of improvisation along the way. I would also need a right of veto for those dishes containing ingredients that can't be reasonably substituted (but then I always did have one of those where live lobsters were concerned, say).

Still, I can't deny that my cookbooks have been gathering dust again since 2016's original Random Kitchen adventure - even the two (two!) new additions in the meantime, Rachel Khoo's The Little Swedish Kitchen and Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's Jerusalem, haven't been getting the use they ought to. And there are still countless pages of recipes, good, bad and ugly, across the 25-ish tomes in my collection that I've never even looked at, let alone considered making. So why not fire up random.org and spin the wheel again?

Truth be told, I'd been idly thinking about it anyway. After all, what else am I going to do while we wait for things to return to some kind of normal? I'm only too aware of the pitfalls - making your own lockdown life more difficult with a self-imposed cookery challenge is one thing, but there's also that slightly eerie feeling you get from doing something frivolous while the world around you is going through something horrendous. On the other hand, times like these are about finding ways of preserving your sanity too.

Or preserving other people's sanity by undertaking ridiculous tasks for their entertainment. Whatever works.

So let's do it. I'll unleash the finger of fate before our next big Asda shop. A cookbook will be chosen at random, a recipe will be chosen at random from within that cookbook, and we'll see how it all pans out in terms of actual feasibility. The less feasible, the more entertaining, I suspect. It's all good.

I am not doing live Random Kitchen sessions on Zoom though.

Well, perhaps some celebratory meringue swans when we're all finally released from captivity...

Anyway. Random Kitchen: Lockdown Edition. Bring it on! I think...