1 large spring onion, trimmed and finely chopped
Black pepper, gomasio and green nori flakes to taste
Mix the tahini and shoyu in a bowl to form a gloopy paste. Crumble the tofu into the tahini bowl, stirring the mixture to cover the tofu with the paste. Heat the oils in a medium-sized frying pan over a low heat. Add the mushrooms to the pan once the oil is hot enough to make them gently sizzle. Fry the mushrooms, moving them about with a wooden spoon.
After 3–4 minutes, add the tomatoes and spring onions. Keep stirring to make sure the veg doesn’t stick. Add the tofu to the pan and gently cook until everything is piping hot and smells good. Serve with fresh crusty bread and butter, and put the pepper, gomasio or nori flakes on the table so everyone can season their own breakfast to individual perfection.
Suzanne Cook Dorset Hams, Beaminster, Dorset
‘It might sound like a cliché, but quality, not quantity is really the name of the game here at Dorset Hams. We operate from under one roof, where we can control everything. We do things our way, on a small scale, and that’s the way we like it.’
If you’re reading this book, you’re probably a regular lunch eater at your local Fresh & Wild. But what if you’re a full-time mum, freelance, retired person, student or loafer?
And how about the weekend and days off?
You could rustle up a boring sandwich if you want … or try these delicious and nutritious alternatives.
Happy lunch munching!
with Dulse
Big squids, ready to have their tentacles removed and cooked. Their handy ink sacs hidden inside their strange blobby bodies, waiting to be pierced and the black liquid dripped into homemade pasta mixes. These guys really are the B-movie stars of the fish counter.
Of course, the A-list fish counter celebs have to be the guys that know how to prepare the fish and seafood ready for your dinner. It takes years of practice and innate flair to be able to de-tube, de-tentacle and clean up squids. So I’m not going to attempt a ‘here’s how you do it’ paragraph – simply ask your friendly Fresh & Wild fishmonger to sort it out for you, then get it home and into the pan.
If your local store is the Notting Hill shop, chances are the tentacle chopper extraordinaire will be Jeff Rotheram. He’s totally committed to widening your enjoyment of fish and he’ll happily guide you through the more unusual guys on the ice between you and him. Jeff has been a fishmonger for over 25 years and can tell you where the fish on his counter are from, why he likes them and practically what their mothers were called. Before arriving at Fresh & Wild, Jeff worked at Harvey Nichols and before that at a fantastic Cornish fish wholesaler, so he can help you out with your dinner choices, no problem.
Unlike squid, salchichón is easy – just get it out of the packet or ask the deli counter lady to cut you some. Et voilà. Salchichón is a very traditional cured sausage, originally from the town of Cantimpalos in Segovia, but with regional variations now from every part of Spain. It’s a bit like chorizo, which also comes from this town, but is thinner and longer, with more garlic and less paprika, and is dried into a U shape. Catalan salchichón has black pepper in it, while salchichón from the town of Vic in the Pyrenees is thicker than most, at about 5cm instead of 3–4cm.
As with most cured salamis and saucissons, a lot of pork fat goes into this dried sausage along with the pork, so go easy on the butter for this recipe.
You only need a tiny bit of butter to get the sausage started. After that, its own fat will melt and provide enough to fry itself and the squid.
Talking of pork fat, don’t forget that all mammals store the more toxic elements from their bodies in their fat. If you want to eat piggy fat from animals that have been raised in concrete sties without any windows – animals that wade about knee deep in pig poo, attacking each other and constantly getting diseases – then go for it. Personally, I’d stick to eating organic pigs, who are raised with access to fresh air and sunlight, and enjoy a lot more freedom to roam, less crowded quarters to live in, and are only given veterinary drugs if they get sick, rather than as a preventative measure. And that means using organic salchichón in this lovely lunch dish.
The dulse for this recipe comes fresh from seas off the coast of France. It plays a delicate supporting role to the Cornish squid and is a really great local sea vegetable that’s as mineral-rich as some dried Japanese sea veg.
All in all, this is an extremely quick lunch dish that’s full of the freshest sea flavours, plus a special bit of extra meaty spice.
SQUID AND SALCHICHÓN
with Dulse
LUNCH FOR 2:
1 teaspoon butter
100g salchichón slices, snipped with scissors into little pieces
200g prepared squid, chopped into bite-sized chunks
A punnet of fresh dulse, washed and finely chopped or a handful of dried dulse, soaked for 10 minutes and then drained
White wine vinegar to taste
Pepper to taste
Melt the butter in a medium frying pan over a high heat. When it’s hot, throw in the salchichón and fry for about a minute, stirring with a wooden spatula. Then chuck in the squid and the dulse and fry together for about 3 minutes more, coating in the fat from the sausage.
Take the pan off the heat and dish up with some really good bread. Put the vinegar and pepper on the table for you and your co-eater to help yourselves. Treat yourselves to some white wine as an accompaniment.
Tamales (pronounced tam-aaah-lees) are the sandwiches of South America. They consist of a flavoursome filling that is encased in a starchy dough and then cooked inside a husk of corn. Traditionally, special maize flour called masa harina (literally ‘dough flour’) is used to make the masa (dough). However, for this recipe, I’ve used polenta, simply because you can’t get masa harina in the UK – especially not organic masa harina. May this sorry state of affairs change soon. Until it does, polenta is a really good substitute.
Polenta is a maize-based floury substance from Italy that’s usually used to make a thick, savoury porridge. But it also makes a tasty, light dough for tamales when you cook it with half the usual amount of liquid. You can try flavouring the dough with chilli or dried herbs, or try adding other non-authentic flavourings like dried mushrooms, pesto or anchovy paste. You could also use the dough to make Corn Pones – simply bake the dough in muffin trays.
I’ve called this recipe Tomorrow’s Tamales because they can be prepared the night before, ready to be steamed for lunch the next day. But once the tamales have been steamed, eat them up there and then because The-Day-After-Tomorrow’s