The Sacred Art of Eating

Which is the name of the album Dougal put on after tea and really nothing to do with the authenticity of our eats çe soir.

My dad had kindly gifted us some Gorno’s Merguez (the original and best, as far as I’m concerned) and it seemed fitting to serve them with something cous cous-y. I know nothing about cooking cous cous (I do occasionally have it for lunch but generally just make a crunchy salad, lots of peppers and cucumber and what not, and mix that through cous cous) so deferred to the internet. This apricot and almond couscous was really nice; despite starting out proper boot-leather chewy, the apricots were tender but still a bit meaty (probably literally, seeing as it will have been the addition of chicken stock which redeemed them!) and the toasted almonds added texture and crunch. Sadly we were missing mint which would have really lifted this but the lemony-ness helped.

The sausages were just grilled and tasted great. Some lemony courgette slivers on the side were a vague but directionless attempt at an appropriate vegetable- nice but not really the right result, and not enough of them either!

We finished up with a simple fruit salad of alphonso mango and scottish rasps. It may not be remotely North African but let me tell you, it takes some beating.

A lovely little tea but one which requires good smoke extraction!

The other night we had a little tomato sauce left over from Dougal’s pizzas (I don’t know what he puts in his pizza sauce but it is gorgeous!) and I fancied something a bit italian. I grabbed my wee cast iron griddle pan (50p in a house clearance, best culinary bargain known to man!) and sliced some thin discs of courgette and sides of red pepper. A wee coating of garlic oil and much smoke later and we had some lip-smackingly good griddled veggies.

Then I threw together a batch of pancake batter- feeling italian I used Mary Contini’s recipe for Crespelle from Dear Francesca (more on that book, at some stage I’m sure) but I think in future I’d stick to the Usborne Kids cookery book recipe. These seemed to stick particularly badly in the pan which made cooking them a little fraught.

We served the pancakes with a couple of pieces of griddled veg inside and the remainder of the pizza sauce. Rolled up, topped with parmigiano and served with a big salad with lots of tomato and rocket and avocado this made for an interesting and different tea. Perfect summer eating!

that is Dougal’s home made brioche plus Nutella that I am having for my breakfast this morning, thanks for asking!

…make really awesome chocolate chip muffins?

I made these muffins (and brownies and also fresh cream cakes) for Dougal’s birthday for him to take to work (he was too busy to make it own, although normally he would). The muffins looked awesome (it all looked awesome) but Dougal tells me that they were somewhat lacking. The recipe was a Nigella, from her website, and was dead easy to make, so I’m sad they disappointed. Can you improve?

The cream cakes were also a little disappointing but I’m going to insist on a wee cake masterclass from my mum to fix that. The brownies, on the other hand, were gorgeous, but there were my special recipe, from the Usborne Kid’s Cookery Book, Sweet Things, circa 1988…which takes some beating (and which I might share if you ask nice)!

It seems that Dougal and I are easily bought. We will happily be lab rats (for HarveyNick, or Emily) provided there is cake involved.

When Nick came round to experiment on us recently (who am I kidding…sorry, it’s been a while) there was SO MUCH cake that we had to leave some till the next day. We’d already feasted on Nigella’s Clementine Cake and Cherry Cake but Nick left us with two individual portions of Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake. Sadly, there was no chocolate topping (making it technically only Triple Chocolate Cake), but we coped admirably with the hardship, I feel. Dougal was clearly feeling a bit wanky creative as he got all restauranty in the presentation!

Cake was gorgeous, Nick. Glad to do science, any time!