The Sacred Art of Eating

Two meals, two nights in a row, to give Dougal something to look forward to when studying and keep me engaged in the kitchen.

• Feta, Tomato and Pesto Tartlet
• Nigella’s Nectarine and Blueberry Galette

As you might be able to tell, I’d bought a packet of all-butter puff pastry but wanted it to do two nights. Seemed a bit much to scoff it all in a one-er!

The tartlets I created based on a bit of reading around on the internet. Pesto seemed to be the done thing to line the tart with, and we had a massive basil plant at the time, so I blasted some up in the food processor with pine nuts/parmesan/garlic/olive oil, which did the trick nicely. Then some halved baby plum tomatoes, loads of feta, and into the oven for a bit. Came out looking pretty foxy I think- I especially like the cutting on the diagonal!

Tasted pretty smashing too!

The following night, for pudding, I revisited Nigella’s galette, a hastily flung together pud, no poshness involved. Half the size of last year which made it look rather cute- but also the kind of thing you could polish off between two just fine! (I think we did still spin it out to a couple of sittings though).

We had no apricot jam (I think for the challenge I bought it specially, can you imagine?) but just the day before my mother had presented me with two jars of made-the-day-before raspberry jam (my favourite!) which I felt could hardly hurt the thing. So, pastry lined with a mixture of fabby dabby mummy jam mixed with cream, scattered with slices of fab nectarine (Waitrose Perfectly Ripe) and some blueberries out of the freezer. Again, bake for a bit and serve, well, however you like. We might have gone for greek yoghurt, I honestly can’t remember!

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.