ready-to-eat Agen prunes: 10
medium-dry sherry: 2 tablespoons
butter: 120g
light muscovado sugar: 70g
caster sugar: 70g
eggs: 2, lightly beaten
self-raising flour: 120g
For the sauce:
light muscovado sugar: 50g
double cream: 250ml
Butter and lightly flour four 200ml pudding tins. Don’t be tempted to skip this step, otherwise your puddings may stick. Roughly chop the prunes and pour the sherry over them. Set aside. Set the oven at 160°C/Gas 3.
Cream the butter and sugars together till light and fluffy. Add the beaten eggs a little at a time (introduce a spoonful or two of flour if the mixture looks as if it might curdle), then gently fold in the flour.
Stir in the chopped prunes and any liquid. Divide the mixture between the pudding bowls – it should fill them by two-thirds – and bake in the pre-heated oven for forty to forty-five minutes, until springy and golden. To turn the puddings out, run a tiny palette knife around the inside of the tins, then invert them and shake firmly.
For the sauce, put the sugar and cream in a saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for two minutes. Serve with the puddings.
Enough for 4
Chicken with potatoes and dill
A mild treatment for chicken, with soft flavours. Steamed rice, possibly brown basmati, would work nicely here.
butter: 30g
olive oil: a tablespoon
a chicken, jointed into 8 pieces
small chestnut mushrooms: 250g
small potatoes: 400g
cider: 500ml
double cream: 150ml
a small bunch of dill
Melt the butter in a casserole and add the oil. When it starts to sizzle, put in the chicken pieces. Season with salt and pepper, then leave to cook over a moderate heat until the chicken is pale gold on both sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Halve or quarter the mushrooms, depending on their size, and add them to the pan. Let them soften, adding a little more butter or oil if necessary. Scrub and halve or quarter the potatoes. Add them to the pan and leave till lightly coloured, then pour in the cider. Return the chicken to the pan and bring to the boil. Immediately the liquid is boiling, lower the temperature so that it simmers gently.
Cover with a lid and leave to cook for thirty minutes or until the chicken is cooked right through. Check by pushing a skewer into the thickest part; if the juices run clear, then it is done.
Remove the chicken. There will be a lot of liquid. Turn up the heat and boil to concentrate the flavours, letting the quantity of liquid reduce by about a third. Stir in the cream and the chopped dill, then season to taste. Wait for a minute or two, then remove from the heat and serve.
Enough for 4
FEBRUARY 17
A can of butter beans
There are some who turn their noses up at a can of beans. As indeed I do on occasions, when I am in the mood for soaking, draining, boiling, skimming, testing, draining, cooling and dressing dried beans. But a can or two of butter beans (or the oval, green flageolet; tiny, bead-like haricot; or white cannellini, the dragée of the bean world) has got me out of jail more times than I can shake a wooden spoon at.
Rinsing the beans will rid them of the slimy canning liquor but it is best done under a softly running tap if you are not to mash them to a watery hummus. Butter beans are the meatiest of the canned beans, the ones you can roll over in your mouth like the golden toffees in a tin of Quality Street. They are similar to, but not quite the same as, the delicious lima beans that are so popular in the US.
I wouldn’t argue with those who say a lovingly made bean bake, simmered and then cooked in a low oven, is better than the quick canned-bean supper I made tonight, but I am not after perfection here, I’m after something good to eat following a long day at my desk.
Butter beans with mustard and tomato
onions: 3
garlic: 3 large cloves
olive oil: 3 tablespoons
thyme: a few sprigs
bay leaves: 2
crushed tomatoes (or tomato passata): two 400g cans
butter beans: two 400g cans, drained
medium chillies: 2, deseeded and chopped
black treacle: 2 tablespoons
grain mustard: a tablespoon
smooth French mustard: a tablespoon
Peel and roughly chop the onions and garlic, put them in a heavy-based casserole with the olive oil and cook over a moderate heat till they are soft and pale gold. An occasional stir will prevent them sticking to the pan.
Add the thyme, bay leaves, tomatoes, drained beans and 250ml water and bring to the boil. Season with salt and black pepper and stir in the chillies, treacle and mustards. Partially cover with a lid and leave to simmer gently for thirty minutes or so, until the sauce has thickened a little. Serve hot.
Enough for 4
FEBRUARY 18
Little cakes – getting a good start
It is the creaming together of the butter and sugar that tends to get overlooked by those new to cake making. Yes, the raising agent – baking powder or self-raising flour – plays an essential part in the texture of your cake, but the amount of time you give to the initial creaming should never be underestimated.
The right beater helps. A wooden spoon and elbow grease will work, but things have moved on, and a machine of some sort will give a quicker and frankly better result. A hand-held electric beater or an electric mixer has the power to produce a vastly superior mixture, where the sugar and butter are whipped up into something resembling soft ice cream, like an old-fashioned Mr Whippy.
Little cakes are a good place to start. Individual cakes are usually better-natured than a larger, family-sized sponge, and any shortcomings can be more easily masked. Not for nothing the success of the ubiquitous buttercream-crowned cupcake.
I’m guessing here, but I suspect the world doesn’t need another cupcake recipe, which is why I set about making something with a little more heart and soul. A cake with a backbone, not to mention an interesting texture, which comes from rolled oats and dried apricots. It’s as near as I can get to giving you a cupcake recipe.
Little apricot and oat cakes
You will need about 16 paper muffin cases and a couple of muffin trays or tart tins to hold them.
butter, at room temperature: 225g
golden caster sugar: 225g
eggs: