On toast

A spot of brunch. This is a great pumpernickel style rye bread made with pumpkin seeds (I didn’t make it). Very savoury and slightly sour. You have to toast it to get the best out of it really. In fact it’s pretty gross unless you toast it. Perfect for melting some good cheddar on with some grilled tomato and pesto or for some lemony avocados with toasted sunflower seeds, or anything else for that matter. 

Oh, and don't forget the tea.

Broccoli and cauliflower

After a few days of not feeling so good something healthy and wholesome was called for. Fitting the bill in this instance was a warm salad of saffron infused cauliflower, garlic and chili broccoli, grilled peppers all mixed up with some organic rocket leaves, a handful of coriander and topped with some toasted pumpkin seeds. That’s better. 

The cauliflower is just blanched for about 3 mins, then loosely drained and cooked off with a little oil saffron, and a sprinkle of sugar for another 5 mins or until all the remaining liquid has gone and the florets have gained some colour. The broccoli is blanched for just 1 min and then finished off in a wok with some garlic and chili. The leaves are lightly coated in a thin french dressing that's been seasoned with a tea spoon of tahini. 
 

Brunch

Last weeks Sunday brunch.

Started off with a little fruit salad – figs, greengages, red grapes, segmented orange, pear.

Followed with mushroom, poached egg, bacon and roasted cherry tomatoes on toast. The bacon's cooked in the oven flattened and weighted down between 2 baking sheets which keeps it totally flat while it cooks also makes the fat and rind crispy but strangely soft at the same time. Use a decent bacon – preferably a dry cure or you’ll just end up with puddles of water and flabby fat. The poached eggs are cracked into little ramekins lined with squares of cligfilm. Twist up the edges and cook in the little bags in boiling water for a 3 mins then drop into iced water. Drop back into boiling water for a min before serving. This is a really easy way of cooking poached eggs – especially if you have a few to cook to be ready at the same time and if you don’t want to be messing around cooking them and getting the timing right at the last minute. They just pop out of the cling film at the end. The mushrooms are just done in the oven with melted butter, garlic and parsley brushed into the gills before hand.. The green on top of the eggs is matcha tea salt.

What better way to finish off brunch than with a clafoutis. The simplest thing to make. I swear by Julia Child's recipe for the batter. She also recommends cooking a thin layer of the batter in an oven and hob proof pan first and then adding the fruit, sugar followed by the rest of the batter before putting in the oven. This creates a barrier between the base of the cooking dish and the fruit. Best served cooled a little rather than  straight out the oven. The one in the photo here is an apricot clafoutis with sugared almonds and lavender infused cream.

Crab cakes and pea soup

The sweetness of the crab and the peas are a great match.

The knack to good crab cakes is to keep the potato to a minimum. Restaurants always seem to overdo the potato to stretch out the crab. Pointless. I came across a big batch of fresh peas on special offer but frozen peas are a pretty good substitute.

So for the crab cakes it’s potatoes, boiled and put through a ricer, a little chili, spring onion and garlic fried and all mixed together with the fresh crab and little parsley, lemon and seasoning. Shape in to small flat rounds and fry in hot butter. The peas are just boiled and then liquidized with some stock and spring onions softened in a little oil. For serving this I fried a few pieces of bacon to sit in the soup. The flower on top is a bit unnecessary but figured I needed to to do something with my nasturtiums.