June 2021: Rémoulade; Marinated Sweet and Sour Fish (and Mejadra); Cheats' Lemon Meringue Pie

Ah, June. The European football championships are in full flow, the sun is occasionally shining between torrential rainstorms, and our landlords have informed us that they're selling up so we need to find somewhere new to live. A pain in the arse generally, but not the worst thing as far as my culinary output is concerned - my library could generally use a good sort-out, and to be perfectly honest, there are some cookbooks that probably won't be making the journey to the new house.

As if they know their days are numbered, two of them duly pop up in this month's random selection. (The third one is the Ottolenghi, and that one is staying, obviously.) Let's see if they make the most of their next-to-last chance at salvation, shall we?

 

◘ THE STARTER ◘

The book: Everyday Novelli (Jean-Christophe Novelli)

The recipe: p228, "Rémoulade"

Yes, just "Rémoulade". I was all set to spin the wheel again, because remoulade (soz, French folks, I can't be bothered to do the accent every time) is just a sauce, and my Random rule is that I skip things that are sauces, condiments, or not really recipes in their own right. But on further reading, what Novelli means here is celeriac remoulade, which - as you might know (I didn't) - French cuisine considers to be one of the classic uses for remoulade and, indeed, perhaps the classic use for celeriac.

I'm not averse to finding something to actually do with celeriac, since (beyond mash and soup) I'm always at a bit of a loss when it occasionally turns up in our veg box, though I'm not hugely enthused by something that basically looks like "posh coleslaw". Still, no less an authority than Mary Berry assures me that celeriac remoulade constitutes a salad in its own right and is "perfect as a side dish or with some leaves for a healthy light lunch", making it sufficiently substantial to qualify as this month's first course. Besides, I've been known to spread spicy ajvar on toast, spoon over some coleslaw and call that an adequate lunch, so I'm hardly in a position to argue.

With only five ingredients, I figure we're unlikely to run into any issues here, but it turns out that late June is not the time to source a celeriac in a Lewisham supermarket. The veg box company have also categorised it as firmly out of season, and I'm all set to either spin the wheel again or look into potential alternatives (turnip with some added celery salt? The internet is amazing) when inspiration strikes. Well, not so much inspiration as a happy accident: In the process of using a rare venture into central London as an opportunity to pop into Scandinavian Kitchen for some herring and foam cars, I realise I'm not far from the Waitrose food hall on Oxford Street. If anywhere can come up trumps, it's that bastion of middle-class consumption. Et voilà! The last celeriac in the shop is mine, and for a bargaintastic 68p.

Lovely jubbly

Once I'm back home and I've already eaten half of the foam cars, I cut the celeriac into matchstick-sized pieces* and toss it in lemon juice to stop it from browning. Every recipe seems to suggest using a mandolin to achieve the necessary julienne-style slices with minimal fuss, but I'm not getting one of those for the two or three times a year I might actually need one, so a paring knife it is. This does mean the pieces aren't as small as they probably ought to be, but I'm not afraid of a bit of crunch.

*ish

Next it's time to prepare the sauce or dressing or whatever you want to call it - the actual remoulade, in other words. Novelli's version involves wholegrain mustard, horseradish, mayonnaise, and salt and pepper. You can imagine what that looks like, but here it is anyway:

This then gets combined with the celeriac strips and we're done. Well, the blurb did say this was quick.

For all the insistence that this could constitute a light meal in its own right, I feel it's far too plain for that. Interpreting it as more of an accompaniment, I serve it on the side of a blinged-up burger and some sweet potato fries - essentially in lieu of coleslaw - and in that context it actually works rather well, giving a sharpness and punch in opposition to the fattiness of the rest of the plate.

There's absolutely loads left over, so the next few days see me experimenting with lunch options, and actually... as much as it pains me to say it, Mary Berry isn't so wrong. I should add that I don't so much serve it "with some leaves" as "in a dollop on top of a whole plate of salad", but in that context, essentially serving as a kind of crunchy mayonnaise with a kick of heat, it's a good fit.

I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to make it again, especially since Novelli warns that it has a fridge life of a mere "2-3 days", but it's certainly an option the next time a celeriac lands on my doorstep. (Not literally - we'd have moved house a lot sooner if that kind of thing kept happening.)

One-word verdict: Crunchy.

 

◘ THE MAIN COURSE ◘

The book: Jerusalem (Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi)

The recipe: p238, "Marinated Sweet and Sour Fish"; p120, "Mejadra"

The fish is the random choice here, the mejadra rice being my chosen accompaniment - I've made it before so I know it goes well with most things. It's basically a rice and lentil dish...

A modest serving

...combined with tons of deep-fried onions.

This is about a quarter of what goes into the final dish

Carbs and oil, what's not to like?

There's the added perk that mejadra is "best served warm but is also fine at room temperature", which is another reason I choose it as a pairing here - because, as counterintuitive as it might sound, Ottolenghi's sweet and sour fish is also a room temperature dish. Indeed, the recipe actively suggests preparing it in advance and marinating it for a day or two in the fridge before bringing it back to room temperature to serve. Sounds like a bit of a faff in principle, but it suits my food planning for this particular week quite nicely, so why not.

The pre-marinating phase involves two processes that take place in parallel. One is dipping some salted white fish in flour then egg, then frying it for three minutes or so before drying it on a paper towel to soak up the excess oil. I'm surprised and pleased that pollock is the suggested fish here, since it's the British supermarket go-to "white fish that's cheaper than cod", and hence locating some proves unproblematic - though I do have to settle for frozen, which I'm aware (from bitter experience) will make the fish more likely to flake and crumble once cooked. As we can already see here:

Still, going by the rest of the dish, a bit of mess won't be an issue. The concurrent process involves - in separate, defined steps - frying some onions and coriander seeds, then adding one red pepper and one yellow pepper, sliced into 1cm slices. After cooking this for a while, some garlic, bay leaves, curry powder and chopped tomatoes are added. Some minutes later, sugar, cider vinegar, salt and black pepper join the mix, and this is left to bubble for a further five minutes. Given that the whole thing is going to sit in the fridge for a couple of days anyway, it feels a bit laborious to be doing all of this separately rather than in one go, but either way, it isn't difficult, even if the result is... not especially appealing.

Not helped by decidedly average photography

Anyway, I then make space in this dish to carefully add the fish, as well as some water so that the fish is fully immersed in the vegetables and liquid. This then goes into a hot oven for 10-12 minutes - I did say this was a bit laborious - before being brought out to return to room temperature ahead of going into the fridge to marinate.

When it comes out two days later, it looks every bit as attractive as you'd expect of some white fish that's soaked up a bunch of other stuff. 

Yikes

And indeed, as I confidently predicted, the fish has duly flaked and disintegrated even more than it already had before going into the pot.

As such, even with the addition of some hearty mejadra, this plate would not be destined for Instagram if it wasn't for this blog requiring it.

Almost looks like a Chinese takeaway, actually

Still, the flavour is what counts - and this is quite decent! "Sweet and sour" is one of those phrases that really could mean anything, from evil gloopy jar-based sauce to whatever this pseudo-satay concoction was all about. In this case, however - as the ingredients detailed above suggest - it's mainly about the pairing of tangy vinegar and peppers with warming coriander and curry powder. I don't feel like the fish has especially taken on much of that, which is a bit surprising since that's surely the point of the extensive marinating time, but the flavours around the fish are tasty (and an awful lot better than the dish looks).

So while I'm not sure it's quite what I expected (I suppose using fish that actually holds its shape might have helped), I'm not dissatisfied with this. I'm not convinced it's entirely worth the time commitment, even if none of the steps are especially arduous, and I'd be interested to see what it's like as a hot dish, served up straight from the oven, and whether the flavour profile is really all that different. I might give it a try some time. Then again, maybe I won't.

One-word verdict: Acceptable.

 

◘ THE DESSERT ◘

The book: How To Cheat At Cooking (Delia Smith)

The recipe: p214, "Lemon Meringue Pie"

Yes, the random finger of fate has decided that it's already time to give Delia the opportunity to atone for the fairly pointless "Eton Mess" she foisted on us in March.

This take on lemon meringue pie is even odder than most of the recipes in How To Cheat At Cooking, because it involves baking the lemon tart from the recipe further up the same page, leaving it to cool, then making some meringue and baking it some more. I'm no expert but that feels like it's... both lazy and too much effort simultaneously? Still, the recipe is the recipe, so let's see what Delia has in store for us.

The shortcuts this time involve a store-bought sweet pastry case - no arguments here - and, erm, a jar of lemon curd as the filling. Well, OK - it's not just lemon curd, I'll be making a few additions too, but still. The primary ingredient will be lemon curd, and that's not quite the same thing as what normally goes into a lemon meringue pie, is it?

[foreboding intensifies]

The additions in question are the zest and juice of a large lemon, a beaten egg, and two tablespoons of half-fat crème fraîche. These get stirred into the jar's worth of lemon curd, and that's the preparation already done.

I'm worried that the pastry case is already dangerously full here, since the egg has presumably been added to help the filling expand and set as it cooks. Turns out I needn't have worried, because the required 20-25 minutes at 170°C does very little to make the filling actually set.

Also note slight seepage at the edges. What was that about foreboding?

 
Striking a balance between the recipe and reality, I leave the tart in the oven as it cools, which helps to firm things up a little (though not much). After that, I leave it on the side to cool properly "for 1 hour" before it's time to heat the oven a second time while I whip up some meringue. This is straightforward enough - three egg whites and some caster sugar - and it comes out nicely given that I have a slightly patchy history with meringue,

This gets spread across the top of the tart, then the whole thing goes into the oven at 170°C "for 10-12 minutes or until the meringue is a pale biscuit colour".

I take it out after 10-12 minutes and, well. Not only is that a bloody pale biscuit, but when I try and move the pie to judge whether it's sufficiently set or not, this happens:

Now, I have to admit this isn't all Delia's fault; it seems like my pie case had a weak point or two in it to begin with, although I'd argue the baking process has intensified the issue (and double-baking it probably even more so).

Seepage

Anyway, since the meringue clearly needs a lot longer than those 10-12 minutes in the oven to be done, I put the pie back in for a while and hope that this might firm up the filling enough to make it servable when it all cools down.

I'm actually reasonably happy with it when it comes back out, except now the filling has finally expanded a little, leaving a weird disconnect between the pie and the meringue topping.

Would this be avoided by doing it all in one go like in a normal recipe? Maybe it would; I've actually never made a lemon meringue pie before, so I have no way of comparing.

"Leave to cool before serving" is the final instruction from Delia. On this particular day, and with the time and hassle of having had to twice-bake the thing, the pie is actually still a bit warm when we do get round to trying it.

Elegant

That might help to explain why it's not a great eating experience. As expected, the modified lemon curd filling isn't really right for the purpose - it's too rich and sugary and sticky, and not at all refreshing like you'd want a citrus dessert to be. Admittedly, a portion of that refreshment comes from it being cool/chilled - you don't encounter many warm lemon desserts (though I'm sure there are some) - but still, the objective is for the lemon flavour to cut through the gloopy sugary meringue, and here it really doesn't.

However... served from the fridge a day later, it works a lot better. The filling and the meringue have properly set now, in a way they wouldn't have done even if they'd had the time to cool to room temperature like Delia wanted, and the different elements of the dish - crust, filling, topping - are more distinct and do what they're actually supposed to. The filling is still too rich really, but it just about gets away with it now. Not quite a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, but a scrappy 0-0 draw, at least.

The "cheats" here are mostly pointless, though, and that ultimately condemns the concept to failure as far as I'm concerned. Baking the pie in two phases makes no real sense and just wastes valuable time and oven heat. And given that it risks actively torpedoing the whole thing, I can't say that the lemon curd filling justifies the ease of not simply making your own.

The pre-made pastry case, though? That's fine. Just, you know, check it for cracks first

Two-word verdict: Okay, eventually.

May 2021: Beetroot and Rhubarb Soup; Kothu Parotta; Quick Strawberry Ice Cream

Just sneaking in under the wire for "May", but they all count, right?

Besides, I've been distracted. There was the small matter of a pan-European music event to obsess over for several weeks (no, really, they rehearse for several weeks). Wasn't it ace though? With a live audience and everything. A true glittery beacon of hope for people all around the continent as we re-emerge, blinking and wide-eyed, into this thing we once called normal life.

Speaking of normal... [checks notes] Sorry, erm, beetroot and rhubarb soup?

OK, well, maybe things are still a bit strange in The Random Kitchen...

◘ THE STARTER ◘

The book: A Soup For Every Day (New Covent Garden Food Co)

The recipe: p78, "Beetroot and Rhubarb Soup"

Rules are rules, though - and so I really will be making a soup containing beetroot, rhubarb, and not a whole lot else. At least it's straightforward.

Despite it notionally being the start of rhubarb season, I can only assume the autumnal weather we've been having these last few months has had a knock-on effect, as finding the fresh stuff proves problematic within my limited local scope. So while the recipe calls for fresh rhubarb and cooked beetroot, guess what I'll be using?

That's right: the exact opposite

Ah well, I suppose it's all getting boiled and blended in the end, isn't it? I give the peeled and diced beetroot a blast in the microwave in a vague nod to the "cooked" criterion, and on we go.

Butter is melted in a big pan, then the rhubarb is added and cooked "gently until softened". Being tinned, it already is soft, but I give it a few minutes anyway. Next, the diced beetroot is added - and I'm sure you'll agree things are already looking appetising:

Next, some vegetable stock goes into the pot and things are left to simmer for 10-15 minutes. (I make it more like 20 to account for the beetroot having started out a bit less cooked in the first place.)

And that, folks, is it. Well, not quite: First I have to let the soup cool a bit, then blend it. I wish I could share some video footage of me using a hand blender to achieve this; suffice it to say that's a light blue T-shirt I won't be wearing again.

Got there in the end though

At this point the soup looks "silky" to the point of "mushy", but once it's had some sour cream and a few generous dashes of Cholula added for the serving - that counts as "season to taste", right? - it takes on a less rustic consistency, and all for the better.

Not forgetting the mandatory croutons

I'm actually just eating the leftovers as I type this up, and my - our - verdict remains the same: This is pretty good! You could happily eat this chilled on a hot day too, I reckon. It has that kind of freshness to it.

As suggested by my comments above, I was initially a bit sceptical about the flavour combination, although I've been known to use rhubarb in unusual places before (steady on, I'm talking about sticking it in a curry...) and it's always worked quite well. And so it does here, too, offsetting the earthiness of the beetroot to produce a pleasant overall effect. Just not the kind of overall effect you'd want anywhere near your soft furnishings.

One-word verdict: Vivid.

◘ THE MAIN COURSE ◘

The book: My red recipe folder

The recipe: "Kothu Parotta"

Like so many of the recipes in my folders o' random stuff, this one was downloaded on a whim and promptly forgotten about again. The inspiration will undoubtedly have been a takeaway from Everest Curry King on Loampit Hill - despite the name, actually a Sri Lankan restaurant, and the secret (though nowadays perhaps not-so-secret) star of the local food scene. Affordable, friendly and generally bloody excellent, it's the eatery we frequent perhaps more than any other, if only for the anecdotes:

And while I certainly can't be bothered to make mutton rolls at home, it makes sense that I'd have downloaded a recipe for kothu parotta (or kottu roti, or any number of variations and transliterations). It's simple street food - as the blurb here says, often served "for breakfast, brunch or just a snack" - and while my go-to Everest order includes spicy lamb, its origins are as a simple vegetarian dish and one that feels very achievable even in a home kitchen.

And so that's what we're going to make for today's main course - not a bad thing, after a hearty soup starter.

The key ingredient here is the parotta/paratha/roti/flatbread. While the recipe suggests you take three and break them into small pieces, one of the beautiful things about living near a row of Sri Lankan businesses is their well-stocked freezer units that contain things like this:

Yep, this dish is sufficiently ubiquitous that you can buy pre-shredded frozen parotta. So, of course, I do. I'm lazy like that - plus it's one way of making sure you've cut it to the right size, given the recipe doesn't have a lot to say about that...

Said "recipe" is mainly just a collection of spices and accompaniments added as we go. For instance: Oil goes into the pan and is heated, followed by some mustard seeds until they pop, followed by some curry leaves, followed by a finely chopped onion, followed by some minced ginger, followed by some finely chopped green chillies "to taste". I'm wary about going too extreme here so I opt for two chillies, seeded. Often I'd leave the seeds in, but I don't want to overpower things unnecessarily.

A diced tomato goes in next. Once that's softened, some chaat masala, garam masala, red chilli powder ("to taste" again) and salt are stirred through. And then it's time to tip in the packet of chopped parotta, stir it to mix, and cook it until it's heated through.

While this is happening, I take the opportunity to chop some coriander, some of which is going to go in the dish and some of which is going to garnish it at the end. No actual quantity is given in the recipe (a theme is developing here, isn't it?), but I already know the only correct amount of coriander is "lots":

A modest portion

Most of that goes into the pan, and once it's wilted down a bit, things begin looking very promising indeed:

O hai

And finally, the part that makes this more of an obvious breakfast/brunch dish: two eggs! These are just broken straight into the pan and scrambled/cooked/tossed until little bits of egg are coating pretty much everything. Again, super simple.

Because I'm serving this in small bowls (by our greedy standards, anyway) and there's still plenty of coriander left over as a garnish, I'm afraid the photo of the end result doesn't especially do it justice, since all you can really see here is a bunch of leaves.

But the eating definitely does do it justice. This isn't quite Everest quality - I suspect using ghee and more salt, as a restaurant inevitably will, makes a taste difference as well as a waistline difference - and I actually could have gone a bit harder on the green chillies and/or the chilli powder. But all in all, this is a warming, tasty and incredibly straightforward dish that I'd recommend anyone to have in their armoury.

(Or if you're looking for a post-Covid career change, you could stick three prawns on top and easily charge £8 for it at the Model Market.)

One-word verdict: Easy-peasy.

◘ THE DESSERT ◘

The book: Riverford Farm Cook Book

The recipe: p355, "Quick Strawberry Ice Cream"

Don't worry, it's not going to be all good this month.

I shan't waste too much time on this relentlessly disappointing excuse for ice cream, not least since it's yet another dessert based around mushing up some strawberries, and there's really only so much you can write about that. But I owe it to the cookbook to at least dissect its mistakes to some extent, so here goes.

First of all: This isn't ice cream, it's frozen yoghurt. Sure, there's double cream involved too, but - at the risk of channelling Holly and the Talkie Toaster - the prevailing mood is decidedly yoghurty.

For a dessert, it's not especially sweet, either.

Anyway, let's start at the beginning. That means whizzing some strawberries in a food processor with a little honey, a dash of orange juice and a couple of spoonfuls of red wine, because red wine is obviously the first ingredient that comes to mind when you think "ice cream". This then gets set over a sieve to sift out some of the more sizeable seeds.

Meanwhile, I take the aforementioned double cream and full-fat yoghurt and beat it using an electric mixer until "soft peaks" are formed. My mixture never seems to reach peak peak (so to speak), which might be one reason for the subsequent problems, but there's only so much patience a man can have, so I press on.

The white stuff then gets folded into the red stuff until combined. Now, I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure that folding is meant to be gentle and not too protracted or vigorous, lest the air I've just whipped into the cream and yoghurt get beaten straight out of it again. 

So it's not altogether surprising to me that folding, in this case, leaves me with... well, there's no way around it: Doctor, there's lumps in my ice cream.

With further folding doing little to alleviate the situation, I decide there's only one thing for it: Stick it in the freezer and hope for the best!

Several hours later, and...

The best has not magically occurred. It's still lumpy. And looking delicious! [sarcmark]

Whether it's because of the inadequate mixing process or something else, the texture of this "ice cream" clearly isn't what it ought to be either. At least, I'm assuming it's not meant to have crystallised to such an extent that it only comes out of the container as one big lump or many glassy shards.

Ahh, the two main food groups

Now, it does taste all right, I'll give it that. Could be sweeter, but using riper strawberries would have helped there (beggars can't be choosers where Lewisham shopping is concerned), and I could have anticipated that and made adjustments.

But ultimately... well, as Sam puts it, "I'm sure ice cream isn't meant to be crunchy".

One-word verdict: Disappointment.

April 2021: Roquamole; Salad of French Beans and Grilled Leeks with Tapenade Dressing; Lemon Caramel Strawberry Nests

No need for smoke and mirrors this month: I really do make all three of these dishes on the same day and serve them as part of the same (extended) meal. A true Random Menu for once!

Of course, it helps that the starter is basically a dip, the main course is basically a salad and the dessert is basically some sugary air topped with fruit.

So without further ado, let's get dipping...

◘ THE STARTER ◘

The book: Nigella Express (Nigella Lawson)

The recipe: p243, "Roquamole"

"Naturally, I know Roquefort does not come from Mexico." Nigella kicks us off this month by stating the absolutely bleeding obvious. But she sells this one well: As awesome as guacamole is in its own right, the idea of adding blue cheese to it (a) wouldn't have occurred to me, and (b) sounds pretty fantastic. Though also pretty rich...?

Nigella actually recommends standard supermarket Saint Agur for this one, making the ingredient list gloriously easy to assemble:

I begin by stirring a couple of generous tablespoons of the sour cream into the crumbled blue cheese. The avocados then get mashed in too - they're ripe enough for this to be done with a fork (and a bit of effort), which is nice.

Now, this is never going to be an attractive-looking dish even once it's done, so I suppose we might as well start as we mean to go on.

Appetising

Next, a welcome bit of texture joins the mush in the form of some chopped spring onions and jalapeño pepper slices. Pretty finely chopped, it must be said - the end result still needs to be smooth enough to scoop up easily without the risk of it falling straight off your tortilla chip or carrot baton.

Speaking of which, Nigella waffles on about blue corn tortilla chips in the blurb - even going so far as to describe them as "subfusc", which is exactly the kind of pretentiousness that put me off her until I finally tried some of her recipes and realised she's all right really. But come on - "subfusc"? I expect that kind of thing from Jacob Rees-Mogg and I'm definitely not buying his cookbook.

Perky peppers and springy onions added, anyway, all that remains is to "arrange" the dip - i.e. put it in a bowl, like you do with a dip - and sprinkle some paprika on top.

Inevitably, the end result is an odd-looking thing. Green avocado mixed with white cheese makes for a "pistachio ice cream" colour palette, rendering the slash of bright red spicy paprika even more arresting.

Fortunately, it eats very well indeed, so much so that I'll forgive it being called "Roquamole" (I mean, really).

Rich and indulgent, you'd want to stop yourself having too much of it, as moreish as it may be - Nigella's admission that this can be a "greedy solitary dinner" as much as a dip with drinks makes me worry for her bathroom porcelain, frankly. But framed in its true role, well, let's say that if you come round to our house for a Eurovision preview party any year soon, you're likely to get this and a bowl of tortillas shoved under your nose at some point.

One-word(-ish) verdict: Roque'n'roll.

◘ THE MAIN COURSE ◘

The book: Riverford Farm Cook Book

The recipe: p170, "Salad of French Beans and Grilled Leeks with Tapenade Dressing"

We haven't been in Riverford territory since an abortive encounter with baked custard last year, and this month's random selection could hardly be more different.

I'm not normally one to try and present a salad as a main course, but given that this recipe mainly comprises leeks and green beans, it's really more of a side dish. Indeed, the introduction suggests serving it with chicken or a meaty fish. That seems like a fine excuse to do a couple of tuna steaks and flesh this out into more of a main, albeit one that's still light enough to be part of a three-course meal.

I vaguely recall a tapenade as involving olives in some way, and that's the first thing I need to assemble here. It's all very straightforward: Black olives, garlic, a couple of anchovy fillets, a spoonful of capers (still in the fridge after last month) and an "optional" chilli (no such thing in this household) are blitzed in a food processor until they form a rough paste, then olive oil is added until a "dressing with a coating consistency" emerges.

Not that I really know what that means, but I think that's about right. It's certainly not pourable in any way, but "coating consistency" implies a certain viscosity and this is still a bit smoother and oilier than the kind of tapenade you might dig out of a jar with a knife and smear on some chunky bread.

"At this point the chopped herbs can be added", the recipe says. In our case, that means parsley, so:

Looks more like some plants I'm trying to grow from seed than something I'd willingly put in my mouth, but let's face it, nothing involving mushed-up black olives is ever going to look gorgeous. Let's roll with it.

So, on to the vegetables. 300g of (British) French beans and 500g of leeks are trimmed accordingly then briefly cooked in boiling salted water (separately, not together) until starting to soften. The beans are already done at this point and are set aside so they can cool, whereas the leeks are cut in half lengthways, brushed with oil and popped on the Foreman grill until "just tender and lightly charred".

And with that, we're already into the final stages of preparation, so I take the opportunity to get the tuna steaks cooking.

The last step is to mix the beans and leeks together then stir in "enough dressing to taste". Short of actually eating the dish, how am I supposed to know what proportion of tapenade to veg is to my taste? Do people just know this kind of thing?

Anyway, I go with this and it feels about right. I guess we'll see!

Tuna duly prepared, it's a simple assembly job and away we go.

And actually, at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, doesn't that look dangerously close to an actual dish? I'm not going to say "restaurant quality" here, but if I was served that at a touristy beachfront eatery in Lanzarote, I certainly wouldn't send it back.

Especially if it tasted as good as this does, because this is nice. You have to like your challenging flavours, of course - even in smaller quantities, the olives and capers and anchovies would be very present in the tapenade, and the "optional" chilli even more so - but it's worth taking the plunge, because the contrast with the quite meaty veg is a rewarding one. To my surprise after my initial cynicism, then, I'm happy to call this main course an unqualified success.

(It's still definitely not a salad though.)

One-word verdict: Inyerface.

◘ THE DESSERT ◘

The book: Ainsley Harriott's Meals In Minutes

The recipe: p168, "Lemon Caramel Strawberry Nests"

I went to lunch with friends last week - I know, right? What is this "socialising" thing? - and there transpired something awkward but ultimately amusing.

Remember the life-sized cardboard cutout of Ainsley Harriott that showed up on my doorstep anonymously last summer? Well, it turns out I blamed the wrong friend for sending it to me. It was so obviously the kind of thing that the person in question does, his blunt denial so clearly a coded admission of guilt that it hadn't occurred to me that he might be telling the truth.

As if that wasn't enough, the friend who was actually responsible forgot all about having sent me the original Ainsley... and ended up ordering me another one for my birthday in November. Cue a slightly awkward lunch conversation in which we danced around the issue before figuring out what had happened.

Now I've never claimed my life was normal, but I can't say I ever expected to be the kind of person with two cardboard Ainsley Harriotts in his garden shed. Anyway, one of them has since been regifted - to the friend I originally accused, naturally - so all's well that ends well. Except for those of us whose Amazon suggestions now consist entirely of Celebrity Standees.

Anyway, given all the above, it's appropriate that random.org brings us to Ainsley's Meals In Minutes for this month's dessert. And usefully, having waffled on about cardboard cutouts for several paragraphs, there's not a huge amount to say about this one given that it's basically a rehash of last month's Eton Mess from Delia, only without the part where Delia ruins a very basic concept for no obvious reason. It doesn't even have an irritatingly twee Ainsley recipe name (feels curiously suspicious, doesn't it?).

This version of Strawberries x Meringues (as a modern song credit would put it) involves leaving the meringue nests intact, which already seems like a good start. Half of the strawberries are chopped (not puréed, Delia) and stirred through a mixture of mascarpone, single cream and icing sugar. This mixture is spooned over the individual meringue nests, then the remaining strawberries are halved and arranged on top - "attractively" is a bonus but, as always, not something that can be relied on.

And then there's the part I nearly forget. The dish is called "Lemon Caramel Strawberry Nests", after all, and so I'm called upon to make caramel. From scratch.

Having seen this be the downfall of many a Junior Bake Off contestant - and that's my skill level at best - there is some degree of trepidation on my part here. But the meringues are only going to get soggy if I don't crack on, so crack on I do.

Caster sugar and lemon juice are heated in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves, then the heat is turned up so that the mixture bubbles for several minutes. "Until golden" is the instruction here, and I'm sceptical about whether that's ever going to happen...

...but, lo and behold, a certain degree of goldenness starts to emerge over time. Mindful of not burning the caramel (a famous Bake Off error), I take it off the heat perhaps a little early - it could be thicker, not least since the next instruction is to add a tablespoon of water, but never mind.

This done, some chopped toasted hazelnuts are stirred through the caramel and it's poured over the meringue nests immediately before serving.

See? Could definitely be a bit gloopier. Still, ignoring the pool of caramel that's slowly forming on the plate there, it's not an unattractive end product once you lower your expectations to allow for my presentation skills.

Unfortunately, the eating is a bit underwhelming by comparison. It's not bad, not at all, and I'm possibly being harsh because Sam is definitely more enthusiastic than me. But I feel like the recipe promised more (there's some "if you like toffee apples, you'll love this!" waffle in the introduction), and I might have expected a bit more indulgence from something involving cream and caramel, even butter-free caramel. 

Perhaps most disappointingly, there isn't much of a lemon zing to it - if you're going to put "lemon" in the title, I want to know it's there. Maybe adding the zest would help, to give it a bit more of a kick.

Still, it's a lot more satisfying than what Delia came up with last time - and if the least impressive component of a three-course meal is perfectly decent, I suppose I can't grumble! Ainsley, you're all right, and so are your many cardboard cousins.

One-word verdict: Sufficient.

March 2021: Prawn Balchao; Korv Stroganoff; Cheats' Eton Mess

◘ THE STARTER ◘

The book: Indian Food Made Easy (Anjum Anand)

The recipe: p80, "Prawn Balchao"

We begin this month with what Anjum Anand describes as "an accompaniment rather than a main dish", making it something I'm happy to co-opt as a starter for Random Menu purposes. There's no photo accompanying the dish, but it seems to be a dry curry that ought to suit being served like a bhuna on a puffed-up puri - a reliable "feels a bit 80s but still dead tasty" Indian restaurant choice as far as I'm concerned.

Prawn Balchao is a Goan dish, so I'm not surprised to learn from Wikipedia that we're missing a diacritic and it should really be the more Portuguese "Balchão". Wiki goes on to explain that this is as much a pickle as it is a curry in its own right, and indeed Anjum herself describes it as "how those living on the southern coast take advantage of the fresh, seasonal and cheap prawns that come their way before the monsoons set in and their supply run dry". As you're probably starting to gather, there's a lot of context for this recipe - so much so that the blurb is longer than the method. Which at least suggests it'll be simple enough to make!

I start by making a paste out of some ginger, garlic, dried mild red chillies (a misreading means I'm using fresh ones, but it doesn't really matter) and a whole load of spices - cloves, peppercorns, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, turmeric - plus a splash or two of water.

Appetising start

Next, I heat some vegetable oil in a saucepan before frying a chopped onion until golden brown. Meanwhile, I prepare two medium tomatoes and a green chilli...

Not like that, you child

...and add them to the onion, frying for 10-12 minutes "until the mixture becomes a deep burgundy colour".

Attempts to document this colour prove initially unfruitful.

This is the standard of photography you come here for

But eventually we get to something acceptable and, I guess, approaching burgundy in colour?

(For the eagle-eyed among you, yes, there is an extra chopped red chilli in there - I decided I'd been a bit stingy on the chilli front when making the paste, Anjum having given me some wiggle room in the shape of the phrase "depending on your tolerance".)

After this, the spice paste goes into the pan too and is fried for another five minutes "until the oil leaves the masala". I'm not sure this ever really happens (or indeed exactly what it means), but I give it five minutes anyway before adding some sugar, some salt... and several tablespoons of malt vinegar. So this is where the "tangy" part of the recipe comes in. It's certainly potent on the nose, and remains so even after the prawns are added and the whole thing is cooked for a couple more minutes until done.

Prawns in a pickle

Inevitably, it's not the most attractive dish - throwing in some coriander or curry leaves would have helped in that respect - but it looks and smells pretty promising to me. 

Despite what I said earlier about serving it with a bread as a starter, I actually end up using it as part of a curry main meal instead. (I realise this also breaches the Random Menu ethos somewhat. I'll be handing out refunds at our front gate; form a socially distanced queue.) This makes the visual presentation even less impressive - is there any elegant way of plating up curries and rice if you don't own a thali set? - but it does at least allow me to use the Prawn Balchao as an accompaniment and a pickle, just like the recipe suggested.

The height of style

And hoo boy, in that role it is good. Exactly as the recipe promised, in fact - spicy, sharp, and full of flavour. It probably would be all right on its own as I originally envisaged, but paired with a slightly milder main, rice and bread, it's an excellent team player and, frankly, the highlight of the plate. "The gravy is moist and clings to the prawns as an envelope of flavour", apparently. There's certainly plenty inside that envelope, anyway.

If I were making it as a curry in its own right, I'd probably use king prawns to make it feel a bit more substantial - and indeed a Google image search for Prawn Balchao suggests that I'm not the only person to feel that way. But "small" prawns are what's called for in the context of a pickle-slash-accompaniment, and this is spot on. I will definitely be making it again (by which I mean I'll forget all about it until I stumble across this blog post in three years' time and think "oh yeah, that").

One-word verdict: Niiiice.

◘ THE MAIN COURSE ◘

The book: The Little Swedish Kitchen (Rachel Khoo)

The recipe: p122, "Korv Stroganoff" (Smoked Sausage Stroganoff)

We didn't get off to a great start with this book, and you'll be pleased to hear that Rachel Khoo's "changing perfectly good Swedish recipes for no reason" tendencies make themselves known right from the start here, too.

As she says in the introduction, this smoked sausage stroganoff is a Swedish comfort food classic - the kind of thing you'll encounter at home or in a workplace canteen, but hardly the stuff of high-end restaurants. As such, she seems to feel the need to put her own stamp on it by making a couple of basic tweaks to the recipe and serving the thing with pasta instead of the usual rice. 

Fine. Okay. I'll try to be open-minded and withhold my wrath (for now).

The sausage that's central to the dish is typically a classic Swedish falukorv. I haven't done a Scandinavian Kitchen order since the back end of the first lockdown, when the initial hoarding instinct slowly gave way to that need to find something to treat ourselves with even when we weren't actually allowed back on trains yet. (I mean, personally I consider stocking up on Bilar and Kalles Kaviar and Leksands Knäcke to be a very essential journey, but I suspect the law would view things differently.) 

So we're not going to be getting falukorv today, but having used it extensively over the years in one of those "even you should be able to manage this" dishes my mother armed me with when I left for university - a "Hungarian" sausage sauté that's probably nothing of the sort, it just has paprika in it - I can testify that the trusty Mattessons smoked pork sausage you get in every British supermarket is a pretty decent substitute and I'm happy to go with that here.

Other minor compromises I'm having to make: a medium-strength Polish mustard (actually not too far from its Swedish counterparts flavour-wise) instead of the Dijon called for in the recipe; and regular capers, which the recipe permits as an alternative to its preferred "eldercapers" (basically pickled elderberries, which: nope, not likely). Otherwise it's all mercifully standard stuff.

I begin by bringing a pot of salted water to the boil; it's later going to be used to cook some tagliatelle, though apparently pappardelle would work just as well too. (If I were already committing Swedish culinary sacrilege by using pasta instead of rice, I would reel it in when it comes to being picky about the pasta required, but there we go.)

Meanwhile, I take that pile of smoked sausage and dice it "very finely" before frying it with an chopped onion in plenty of butter. This is another of those deviations from the usual Korv Stroganoff approach - as with the Prawn Balchao, a Google image search clearly shows that fairly big chunks or strips of sausage are typically used. The dicing is fiddly and time-consuming - as an all too relevant point of reference, it takes about as long as a big pan of pasta water needs to come to the boil - but as the cooking process continues, I start to appreciate the benefits of doing it this way: more sausage surface area coming into contact with the butter and heat means more browning and more flavour.

Once I'm happy with how "golden" everything is, I add some tomato purée, mustard, paprika and single cream, stir it all together and let it simmer - on a very low heat, or else it'll burn - for a further five minutes while the pasta is cooking.

I'm terrified of absent-mindedly messing up the next step, which involves reserving a "small mugful" of the pasta water while draining it, but mercifully I remember and all is well. (A small mugful, incidentally, is described as "around 80ml". Bloody small mug, that.)

The pasta water is added to the sausage sauce - or more accurately, the pasta water is what makes it a sauce, as previously it was just some rapidly drying sausage in the bottom of a pan - then two tablespoons of capers are stirred through and it's time to plate up!

For once, my preferred method of just chucking everything together in a pan even if that makes it look horrible is what I'm actually supposed to do. Hurrah! So I toss the sauce through the pasta until it's all well coated, I sprinkle over a "handful" of chopped chives, and we're ready to eat.

As predictably unphotogenic as the results are, there's no denying the taste here. The tiny sausage pieces were a pain in the arse to prepare, but they give the whole thing a deeper flavour than it would have had otherwise, and using a mixture of cream and starchy water for the sauce means it's less cloyingly rich than it might have been.

Even the capers or "eldercapers" - neither of which feature in a standard Korv Stroganoff recipe - win me over, and I find myself grudgingly admitting that adding something tangy to cut through the more comforting flavours is a good call. 

 
The recipe says that this "serves 4", which usually means there'll be just about enough for the two of us - but no, we even end up with a reasonable quantity of leftovers for once.

And like a lot of good comfort food, it's possibly even better second time around as a quick microwave lunch. Giant bra!

One-word verdict: Hearty.

◘ THE DESSERT ◘

The book: How To Cheat At Cooking (Delia Smith)

The recipe: p235, "Cheats' Eton Mess"

It would be far too easy to begin this section with a wry comment about how we're all living in an Eton Mess nowadays...

...so I won't.

Anyway, we remember "How To Cheat At Cooking", right? It's where Delia Smith makes shortcuts to classic recipes that aren't really much of a shortcut and that make the recipe a little bit less good than it ought to be in exchange for no real benefit.

Not that I'm foreshadowing anything here.

It may not be summer yet, but the clocks have gone forward and the weather is showing distinct signs of turning, so that's a good enough excuse for a berry simple dessert. And Eton Mess is always a favourite - although surely it's not so difficult to make that it requires significant corner-cutting? 

Delia's cheats this time: using Greek yoghurt instead of whipping up some cream (certainly a time-saver, definitely an indulgence downgrade), and using pre-made meringue nests instead of making your own. I'll be honest, Delia - I wouldn't do the meringues from scratch even if I was making a non-cheats' Eton Mess, and not just because I have history with the genre.

Anyway, this does make for a delightfully simple ingredient line-up:

And we begin by [checks notes]... oh. By taking half of those strawberries and puréeing them with a spoonful of icing sugar, apparently. That seems a little off-piste, but okay.

Yum

That done, we enter more familiar territory: The meringue nests are broken up "into small pieces" in a large mixing bowl, the rest of the (halved) strawberries are added and the yoghurt is folded through.

Next, Delia wants me to take most of the strawberry purée and carefully fold it through the mixture "to give a sort of marbled effect".

A little less "marbled", a little more "bloodied"

So yeah, that's not a massive success. No matter how carefully I fold it, the purée starts blending with the yoghurt (it's full-fat, I didn't make that mistake this time), and I'm quickly left with a bowl full of what I can only describe as off-pink mush.

In fact, I don't really see how you'd escape the sloppiness factor here - using yoghurt instead of whipped cream and adding a load of berry juice all but guarantees it. What's more confusing is the photo accompanying the recipe shows no signs of purée, marbled or otherwise, just some strawberries resting on a couple of meringue chunks and a glob of unsullied white yoghurt. So even the publisher's design team clearly thought this was a stupid idea.

Oh well, time to plate up and make the best of it, anyway.

Yep - it's already basically disintegrated into one big old bowlful of mush, not helped by the requirement that the rest of the purée be spooned (not even "drizzled") on top. Lovely.

It eats fairly well - it's sugar in various forms, how wrong can it be? - but the liquid content from the yoghurt and fruit makes it feel more like an Eton Mess-flavoured smoothie with lumps in it than a dessert-time treat.

Not especially authentic, not all that much of a time-saver, not Delia's finest moment.

One-word verdict: Bleh.