Roast Grouse with Red Currants & Skirlie

August 12th - The Glorious Twelfth - is the start of the grouse shooting season in Britain. It also signals the beginning of the end of summer and indicates that pretty soon it'll be woollies and stews for 6 months. Tasty, lean and dark, the meat almost tastes like liver. It's a bit disconcerting to have something in front of you that looks like a chicken (albeit a small one) but tastes like red meat.

I took a really traditional approach to this one - skinned them (they weren't cleanly plucked), wrapped them in streaky bacon, tucked a sprig of rosemary in the cavity and roasted them at 180C for half an hour. I served them with the leftover carrot puree from the Oeufs à la Crécy, skirlie (medium oatmeal fried with onion and bacon fat - brought half way to the twentieth century with a good handful of chopped parsley) and a sauce of redcurrants, beef stock, red wine and some wine jelly. The red currants provided just the right sour counterpoint to all the rich meaty flavours.

Friday night fish - clams

Ever since April, when Jude & I went to St John, I have been wanting to have a go at razorshell clams. And for quite some time now, Paul has been complaining that I never cook linguine vongole for him. A Friday night - when skillful sourcing is more appealling than elaborate cooking - seemed like the perfect time to pull out the clams for a very simple, quick but impressive meal.

To fend off hunger, I made a quick razorshell appetiser. I made salsa verde, roughly following a Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall recipe. I dolloped the salsa verde into the razorshells and stuck them under the grill for a couple of minutes. After fortifying ourselves with that, we had the strength to cook the pasta.

After draining the squid-ink fettucine, I fried a lot of sliced garlic in a good dollop of olive oil. I added some dried pasta seasoning (garlic, parsley and chilli flakes), the venus clams and the rest of the salsa verde. A good splash of white wine and then the drained pasta got a good shake around so that all the strands were coated in the herby juices.

Barbecued vegetables (and a bit of lamb)

We haven't done much barbecuing this summer. Although the weather has generally been better than last year, there has been a lot of afternoon rain. But last week we had several consecutive hot, dry days. Far too hot to cook indoors, we ferreted around in the fridge to see what we could put on the fire. Some lamb leg steaks came out of the freezer, a couple of globe artichokes (I know - just after I said that all artichokes in our house become fritters!), a couple of courgettes and some nice flat portobello mushrooms.

I pared back the artichokes to the base and scooped out the choke, cut them in half and dunked them in acidulated water, before rolling them in a bit of olive oil. The courgettes also got the olive oil, and the mushrooms got some chopped garlic and a little oil.

Then Paul stepped in for the actual cooking. The vegetables all needed a lot longer than the thinly cut lamb.

I made a dressing of garlic, a bit of bought bearnaise sauce and some white wine vinegar. A drizzle of the dressing over the (very brown) plate. A grinding of pepper. And it was a very comfortable way to end the day.

Meat-Free Monday - Oeufs à la Crécy

Some days I think that I could have a useful career as a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon, if only I had less food in my head and more useable information.

Take my HSC (Higher School Certificate, the matriculation exams in Australia). I did very well. But what can I now remember of the text Educating Rita? That Rita makes a joke about liking Ferlinghetti served with Parmesan cheese. That the tutor (whose name I forget) likes his lamb "done to the point of abuse", that "you can incinerate ratatouille and it still wouldn't burn" and that his relationship finally ends because of a dish of Oeufs à la Crécy. Eggs with carrots. See what I mean? So much wasted memory-space.

Anyway. For the last 3 weeks our vegetable box has contained carrots. And it reached the point where some were beginning to be floppy, some were still firm and all of them had to be eaten. So eggs with carrots it is.

Strictly speaking, I think it is supposed to be poached eggs, but I really wasn't in the mood to try to poach 5 eggs, so I used boiled. I made a thick carrot puree - just carrots and a couple of onions boiled in vegetable stock, seasoned with nutmeg and put through the food processor - spread it in my oven-proof dish, topped it with the peeled eggs, coated each egg with a dollop of dill hollandaise and flashed it under the grill until the hollandaise bubbled. It was good! Don't know how I achieved it, but the eggs were delicious. The yolks were cooked through (Paul doesn't like runny yolks) but very tender and creamy and the whites firmly set without being rubbery. The flavours worked very well together and it was extremely filling.

So next time your kids say "Why do I need to read this? I'm never going to need to know about it" you can tell them that in 18 years time, that book might make you dinner.

Golabki - Polish cabbage rolls

For some reason recently I have been craving Polish cabbage rolls just like grandma used to make. Or would have, if either of my grandmothers had been Polish.

Polish Cabbage Rolls (serves several)

1 head of green cabbage
500g beef mince
500g minced pork
1 cup cooked rice
1 egg
1 onion, minced
salt, pepper & grated nutmeg
1 onion, sliced
1 cup beef stock
1 cup passata
Sour cream to serve

Cut the core out of the cabbage and simmer the whole thing in a pot of lightly salted water, peeling off leaves using tongs as they loosen (only takes about 10 minutes). Mix the beef, pork, rice, egg and minced onion and season well with salt and much more ground pepper than you think it needs and then a little bit more. Roll spoonfuls of the filling in the cabbage leaves.
Place the sliced onion in the base of a heavy oven-proof pot and layer in the cabbage rolls. Mix the beef stock and tomato passata and pour over. Cover the pot with foil or the lid and bake for about an hour. Serve with sour cream on top.

Mussaman Beef Curry

For the last six weeks, Paul and I have been glued to BBC I-player for Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey. Long-time fans of Rick Stein, and big fans of Oriental food, we've been fascinated by his travels through Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Bali, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Amazing locations, fascinating markets, larger-than-life characters and delicious-looking dishes.

And then the joy-filled discovery that the BBC had some of the recipes up... I decided that the first thing to try would be the Mussaman Beef Curry. It's a staple of Australian Thai restaurants, but it isn't as common in the UK and the couple I have tried have been pretty horrible, with tough slices of "stirfry" beef in watery sweet coconut milk with non-descript seasoning.

This curry was something else again. I followed the recipe pretty closely (for me) - left out the potatoes, used a couple of hot Thai dried chillies and a spoonful of paprika instead of the mellow Kashmiri chillies, and a spoonful of tamarind paste with no additional water instead of the tamarind pulp and water. Practically word for word!

It's an unusual technique. You simmer the chunks of beef (I used brisket instead of blade or chuck) in coconut milk with black cardamom and cinnamon, adding the spice paste and other seasonings when the beef is cooked and tender.

I served it with plain jasmine rice, and some aubergine stir fried with garlic, green chillies, loads of basil and a splash of soy sauce. Absolutely delicious. And as a strange side-effect, we both found ourselves in an extremely relaxed, blissed-out frame of mind after we'd eaten it. Not the usual langour of a large, heavy meal, but something more mellow. Opiates in the spice mix?

A Tale of Three Chicken Pies - with pretentious musings

It may not be a good number for little girls playing together, but there is power in a trio. Father, Son & Spirit, Goldilocks' bears, the Moirai, the Norns, the Maiden, Mother and... the Other One; folklore imbues a trinity with a fillip of meaning that a pair or a quartet doesn't have.

Anyone given to reading children's stories (except possibly the ones re-written in bleach by the Disney Corporation) will be familiar with the stories of three brothers. It doesn't much matter which one. They all follow the same pattern. Three brothers set out on a journey. There are obstacles to be overcome - they don't recognise the fairy, or the saint, or the witch, or the infant Jesus. The eldest brother falls at the first hurdle through overconfidence and pride, the next brother falls at the next hurdle and the youngest, with humility and hard work, carries the day/ gets the treasure/ tastes the water of life/ wins the maiden.

And so it is with chicken pies.

Not long ago, Paul and I had a date night. At one of our favourite restaurants we ordered the "chicken pie for two". We've had many delicious menus there, and several really lovely pies, so expectations were high. And our overconfidence was punished. When the thin, crispy crust was broken, there was no rush of savoury steam. The filling was frankly sweet, to the point that I wondered if they swapped the salt and sugar bowls. I could see celery but I couldn't taste it and while the texture was reasonably good, it just wasn't the flavour I wanted in a chicken pie. Where were the herbs, the alliums? I felt a bit let down.

Fortunately, just 40 hours later I got another go. Another favourite place had a chicken pie on their Sunday lunch menu, and having not been satisfied with my previous pie experience, I had to order it.

This one was an individual pie dish. The crust again was thin and crisp. The steam issuing forth was rich and savoury. It was a good pie. And yet. And yet. It just didn't quite nail my echt pie yearnings. It only had a top crust. It had chunks of bacon which were good, but the pieces of chicken were a little small, a little stringy and the broth lacked body.

There was nothing for it. I had to take the "Third time's a charm" approach and make a chicken pie for myself.

The first thing I settled on, was that my pie would have both a top and bottom crust. There is something about sealing the filling completely that adds so much to a pie. And for the filling I decided to work from Nigella's coq au riesling, because that is always so delicious and I knew that there would be no lack of savour. I also knew I wanted to go from a raw filling, rather than a stew because I wanted all of the steam of the preparation to be sucked up into the pastry, to really combine the pastry and filling.

Ultimate Chicken Pie

500g shortcrust pastry
250g puff pastry (I feel no shame at all in using bought pastry, but it must must must be all-butter)
250g smoked lardons
500g chicken thigh fillets
2 leeks
250g oyster mushrooms
1tbs parsley, chopped
black pepper
1tbs cornflour slaked in 1/2 cup riesling
1 eggyolk for glazing

In a bowl, combine the lardons, diced chicken thighs, chopped leeks and torn oyster mushrooms. Season with black pepper and chopped parsley, then stir through the cornflour slurry.

Line a pie plate with the shortcrust pastry and pile in the filling, heaping it up in the centre.

Brush a little of the beaten eggyolk around the rim and cover with the puff pastry. Press down well to seal. Glaze the top with more of the egg, then cut a small hole in the top.

Bake in a 175C oven for about an hour, or until the pastry is richly coloured and the steam smells enticing.

Serve thick slices in deep dishes to catch the delectable full-bodied juices. Drink the rest of the bottle of riesling with it.