Green Onions

When I nipped to the shop this morning I spotted a basket full of bunches of green onions. I assume these are the first of the new season and they looked so delicious that I bought a bunch, thinking immediately of lunch.

 

There’s a small squash lurking in the nether quarters of the kitchen. I chop it and put it into a medium hot pan with a tablespoon of fermented black beans, a quarter of an inch of crushed ginger, some crushed chillies and a large clove of garlic, sliced. When the squash begins to brown, I add the chopped greens from the four onions, some mixed salad leaves and eight crab sticks, chopped roughly into pieces of a similar size to the squash. Tossed quickly over the heat, I enjoy a warm salad.

The onion bulbs will go into my store cupboard to be used as normal. Yesterday, I baked a batch of homity pies and dinner tonight is one of them, served cold, with some salad.

Rafi’s Oven Kebabs on the Braai

I’ve been trying to avoid going out at midday recently. Today, however, I dash into town during my lunchbreak. The hot sun doesn’t seem to have deterred the tourists though: demure ladies in light, floral dresses are buffeted by individuals whose jowly jostling bastes their lard white rolls, which their too-tight t-shirts are inadequate to conceal. My own shirt adheres to my chest and shoulders by the time I reach my destination. I’m heading for Rafi’s Spicebox, on Goodramgate, and here, too, there’s evidence of the sun-worshipping multitudes: normally Rafi’s has a fair selection of Indian savouries on their fresh counter – samosas, pakoras and bhajis. Today, they’re gone already: I assume there are a lot of people who fancy a picnic lunch. My own shopping list is more simple: half a pound of paneer, some pineapple chutney and some wholemeal chapattis.

When I get back I quickly fry a chopped half onion (left in the fridge from the other night) with olive oil in a hot wok and, when it begins to caramelise, I add the florets from a small broccoli. Poured over half a sliced avocado and some chickpeas with lemon juice, black pepper and paprika it’s a quick, light and savoury lunch.

In the evening, I realise that the only onions I have are the sharp, white kind, so I nip around the corner to Amma’s Oven in Lowther Street. Lowther Street is in the heart of one of York’s poorer residential districts – three or four minutes’ walk from both York St. John University’s main campus and their primary halls of residence it backs onto several blocks of council-owned flats. It’s often used as a rat-run by commuters eager to avoid bits of the inner ring road by the city walls but, at its northern end, it has a single row of retail units. One of these is Amma’s Oven and I’m blessed to live less than five minutes walk away: I have no hesitation in describing it as one of York’s hidden gastronomic gems. Where Rafi’s might be described as an Indian deli, Amma’s is an Indian grocery store. They have a huge range of spices, dried goods, meat and fresh vegetables; today I pick up a bunch of Asian type shallots.

When I get back, I mix two tablespoons each of ground cumin, chilli powder and garam masala with four each of lemon juice and oil and half a tablespoon of turmeric to make a paste. I thread a shallot onto a skewer, then add a slice of green pepper, a piece of paneer, a piece of tomato, a chunk of aubergine, another piece of paneer, a slice of red pepper and another shallot; repeating to make eight small kebabs. These are then smeared with the paste and left to marinate. After an hour or so, I put the kebabs on a hot braai for about ten minutes, turning them a couple of times. At the end of this, I warm some chapattis at the back of the grill where it’s cooler – about twenty seconds on each side. The kebabs are pulled off the skewer onto a chapatti with a dollop of the pineapple chutney and folded in half.

Leftovers Two Ways

Is the sun abating already? Talk on the BBC of a heatwave seems a little premature to me – a weekend is pretty meaningless in itself and, besides, it hasn’t been that hot yet. The thermometers have barely tipped thirty degrees. In late afternoon I’m laid low with a thumping headache, which I attribute to a change in pressure and, as clouds begin to gather in the sky, I wonder if a thunderstorm is on its way.

Lunch today was a layered salad: starting from the bottom I put the leftover salad leaves from last night into a shallow bowl, add some sliced cucumber, some thinly sliced radish, half a sliced avocado, some quartered baby plum tomatoes and the leftover fish. I dress it simply with a little good olive oil, lemon juice and black pepper.

I don’t much feel like cooking come the evening; something simple, in both cooking and eating, is in order. Scrounging around the back of the fridge I find a piece of thick Italian ham and a tub of double cream about to go past its sell-by-date. I dice half an onion and put it in a medium hot pan with a little olive oil and some cracked black pepper, when they’ve turned translucent I add two sliced cloves of garlic and, when they’ve reached the same state, I deglaze with a splash of white wine vinegar. I tear the ham into relatively small pieces and toss it with the mixture in the pan, after a minute or so, I add a handful of frozen peas and broad beans. When they’ve warmed through I stir in half the pot of cream and turn the heat down low, under the pan. At the same time I put some spaghetti on to boil in another pan, when it’s cooked I add it to the other pan with a little of its liquor and a generous handful of roughly chopped basil. The sauce has reduced almost to a paste and clings to the pasta, the other ingredients and, finally, with a satisfying note of sweet and savoury, my stomach.

Grab Your Tin Foil Hats

Like every British man, the moment the sun peaks out from behind the clouds I make a mad dash for the braai. They can come in many shapes and forms – open fires, disposable foil containers of charcoal briquettes, oversized wok-shaped things… on one memorable occasion, I even found myself grilling over a bucket of charcoal in a sunny Sheffield garden – in February. It was a good day; even if it wasn’t quite so warm when the sun went behind the trees, leaving my guests clapping gloved hands in a shady garden, or else sheltering inside.

I picked up some very fresh Cornish plaice fillets yesterday. They’re not the classic barbequing fish, which are typically oily and, therefore, better able to withstand the application of direct heat. Where I’m staying though, there’s a gas braai, which is a very different way of cooking to wood or charcoal, giving a more precise control of heat (even if approximations can be made with the other types).

After I turn the gas on to heat up, I put some new potatoes in a tin foil parcel with some roughly chopped parsley and a little olive oil. On a second piece of foil I place two crushed stems of lemongrass, a crushed clove of garlic and about half an inch of sliced ginger. On top of this goes two of the plaice fillets, skin side down (plaice, like all flat fish, produces four fillets), then a fistful of parsley before I put the other two plaice fillets on top, skin side up this time. A second piece of silver foil goes on top and the edges are folded up to make another parcel. The first parcel goes onto the grill for about twenty minutes – as I put it on I turn the gas down to its lowest setting, but keep the lid closed down – and the second one for about ten.

When everything’s cooked through I gently mix some watercress and baby spinach with the potatoes and a little more olive oil on the plate I’m going to serve it on. Next I turn to the fish. The glory of cooking it this way is that it stays wonderfully moist and flakes beautifully; falling away from the skin. I flake it onto the plate and fold it into the salad. That’s it; any further dressing would only detract from this delicate fish.

Salad Days

Today is, once again, humid without being hot: the sun is fighting the clouds for possession of the sky and neither seems to be winning.

For lunch, I finely slice the whites of four spring onions and a sprig of lemon verbena, chop some red pepper and some coriander, then flake two pepper smoked mackerel fillets and mix with some chilli oil and a splash of white wine vinegar. I add some cannellini beans, chopped cherry tomatoes and torn salad leaves then mix again. It’s a lazy lunch we enjoy together in front of the TV before getting back to work.