Every Day
About Me: Putting food on the table for the family quickly and economically doesn’t mean you have to compromise on quality. This book shows how Hugh’s approach to food can be adapted to suit any growing, working family, or busy young singles and couples for that matter. Breakfast, baking, lunchboxes, quick suppers, healthy snacks, eating on the move and weekend cooking for the week ahead – all these, and more, will be covered in River Cottage Every Day.
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Honey-baked rhubarb
Rhubarb, I confess, is one of my very favourite fruits (though to be accurate, it’s actually a vegetable with an identity crisis). I never tire of finding new ways to enjoy it. This sweet and fragrant breakfast compote is a fairly recent discovery and I absolutely love it. Try it on eggy bread or perfect pancakes, or spooned on to your customised muesli or thick yoghurt. Alternatively, serve with vanilla ice cream for a pretty pud. From January till early April, you can buy elegant, slender stems of indoor-grown ‘forced’ rhubarb. This gradually gives way to the thicker, darker, more robust outdoorgrown crop. Either will work in this recipe.
Lemon sponge pudding
This is a simple, warming pudding for cold days. I love the way the lemon and sugar mixture forms a sweet but tangy goo at the bottom, which then becomes the top of the pud. Fridge-cold double cream is a must – in my house at least.
Ten-minute chocolate chip cookies
This recipe appears in The River Cottage Family Cookbook but I couldn’t resist including it again here because these chewy, vanilla-rich treats are easy-peasy, taking no more than 10 minutes to make, and 10 to bake. Ideal when people turn up unexpectedly for tea, they are also a mainstay of rainy afternoon cooking sessions with the kids. No batch has ever been known to last till the next day.
Pot-roast pheasant with chorizo, butter beans and parsley
Pheasant has a slight tendency to dryness but pot-roasting it like this, with plenty of rich chorizo to provide a little fat and extra flavour, ensures a very satisfying result. The butter beans are a fine addition: they soak up all the flavours of the meat, wine and herbs and then you can mash them deliciously into the juices on your plate. If you prefer, you can joint the pheasants and brown the individual pieces rather than the whole birds. This recipe works brilliantly for a couple of jointed rabbits, too.
Wholemeal drop scones
Once you start eating these, warm and fluffy from the pan, it’s hard to stop. They’re great for weekend breakfasts, but just as good for afternoon tea. The kids love to help me with them, waiting for the bubbles to appear in the hot batter and judging the perfect moment to flip them over in the pan. If you can’t get hold of self-raising wholemeal flour (see page 15), use plain fine wholemeal flour with 2 teaspoons of baking powder added.
Chicken and mushroom casserole with cider
Somewhere between a stew and a braise, this rich and warming dish is perfect to serve in autumn, perhaps with mushrooms you’ve gathered yourself. If you’re feeling wild and gamey, you could do this with a whole, jointed wild rabbit instead of the chicken.
Barbecued Little Gems and spring onions with goat’s cheese
I love cooked lettuce – braised in stock, wilted into a risotto, puréed in soups or, as here, subjected to the fierce heat of the grill. The lettuce softens deliciously, but forms a crisp, charred, pleasantly bitter outer surface. Combined with spring onions and some salty cheese, this makes a wonderful summer starter. If you don’t want to use a barbecue, you can achieve very similar results with a ridged griddle pan indoors – just be sure to get it good and hot.
Tomato salsa salad with capers and mint
What’s the difference between a fresh tomato salsa and a tomato salad? Not much really, but for me, a tomato salsa should always include some kind of raw allium – shallot, onion, spring onion – to give it an edge. And if you chopped the tomatoes more finely for this recipe, you’d have a definite salsa, I’d say – perfect for eating with burgers or spicy chicken. But leave the tomatoes in fat chunks and this is a salad, needing only some torn fresh bread to mop up the juices, and perhaps some buffalo mozzarella or tangy fresh goat’s cheese alongside. Capers are not everyone’s favourite thing, so just leave them out if they don’t appeal. And if you don’t fancy mint, torn basil leaves or roughly chopped parsley are good options, too.
Salad of baby peas, ricotta and spring onions
A stunning, fresh and pretty salad to serve as a starter or light lunch in the summer, when young peas can be popped straight from the pod into the pan.
Lamb chops with garlic, thyme and capers
This is such a good way to serve up lamb chops. They are packed with fantastic flavours and the pan juices make a delicious gravy.
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