The Kitchen Diaries

Pork burgers with lime leaves and coriander

At first glance, this may seem like a lot of work. It isn’t. The whole thing should take about half an hour, plus a little time for the meatballs to chill. I like this with a salad of crisp, white lettuce, chopped mint and coriander leaves, dressed with lime juice and salt. If you need something to fill, then some plain steamed white rice would fit the bill, or some soft buns between which to sandwich the hot pork patties.

spring onions – 4

hot red chillies and their seeds – 4

garlic – 4 medium-sized cloves

the stalks and leaves from a small bunch of coriander

ginger – a thumb-sized lump

lime leaves – 6

smoked pancetta or fatty bacon – 100g

minced pork – 500g

a little vegetable or groundnut oil for frying

Chop the spring onions, chillies, garlic and coriander and finely grate the ginger. Roll up and finely shred the lime leaves – they should be as fine as you can get them – then put the lot in a food processor and blitz till all is finely chopped and well mixed. Scrape the paste out into a large basin. Cut up the pancetta, then put it into the processor and whiz it to a coarse mush. Now add it, with the spice paste, to the minced pork. Mix everything together – I like to do this with my hands – grinding in some salt and black pepper as you go. Set aside in the fridge for about half an hour for the flavours to mingle.

Squash the seasoned pork into about twelve small balls, then flatten them into patties. Pour a little oil into a heavy, shallow pan, just enough to cover the bottom. When it is hot, add half the meatballs and let them cook for several minutes over a high heat, turning them half way through, till they are cooked in the middle and nicely brown and stickily, sensuously glossy on the outside.

Enough for 4 with rice and salad

March 7

Inspiration

for a lamb

chop

I have no idea what I had in mind when I bought the two lamb chops that are now sitting on the kitchen worktop. Actually they are leg steaks and there’s enough for two. Whatever it was, the flash of inspiration must have got lost on the way home. In the fridge are mixed salad leaves – rocket, baby spinach and some baby chard – and a bunch of mint. I might also be able to rescue a few leaves from the bunch of basil that has got too close to the back of the fridge and burned on the ice. There is also the usual stuff in the fridge and cupboards.

I put the chops into a bowl with a couple of tablespoons of light soy sauce and a crushed garlic clove and let them sit for twenty minutes. I get the grill hot and chuck the chops on it, a couple of minutes on each side. Whilst the meat is cooking, I toss the salad leaves into a bowl. Then I knock up a dressing consisting of a couple of small, hot red chillies, finely chopped, the juice of half a ripe lime, a tablespoon of dark soy, a handful of shredded mint leaves and a wee bit of sugar. I slice the lamb into pencil-thin strips and, while it is still hot, toss it with the salad and dressing, then divide it between two plates.

The mixture of sizzling meat, mellow, salty soy and sharp lime juice is startling, especially with the green leaves that have softened slightly where they have touched the lamb. The few juices left on our plates are stunning, and we mop them up with crisp white rolls.

March 9

Dinner out tonight, so just a quick snack for lunch. The perfect salad sandwich is all about the vitality of the ingredients: the uber-freshness of the watercress, the jelly-soft tomatoes, the crunch of the ice-cold cucumber and the heat of the radishes against the soft, white and impeccably fresh bread. If you are not obsessively fussy about every detail of this sandwich, it won’t hit the spot. You might as well not bother. Lunch today is that perfect salad sandwich, with old-fashioned crunchy lettuce, cucumber, radishes, spring onions and tomato. There is a slick of mayonnaise, a dusting of fine sea salt and bread so soft, thick and doughy it could double for a duvet. For once, something is as it should be, a sandwich to be proud of.

March 11

A fiery way

with lamb

The Ginger Pig has a display of lamb chops that is irresistible even to someone who has had them once already this week. Thick, deep red and meaty, they have been cut from the middle of the loin and have a generous bone on which to chew. Rarely have I seen such tempting pieces of meat.

There are two of us tonight so I buy four out of greed rather than necessity. I am set on some sort of meaty supper with Indian spicing, not a curry exactly, but something vibrant. The chops will do fine for this.

At home I raid the spice jars, a teaspoon each of four seeds: mustard, coriander, fennel and cumin, left whole rather than ground. I fry them gently in two tablespoons of groundnut oil, then stir in two peeled and chopped shallots, two hot red chillies that I have seeded and chopped, and four crushed cloves of garlic. I let everything soften without colouring, then stir in a grated knob of ginger the size of a walnut in its shell and six chopped tomatoes, their seeds and juice. Once everything has come to the boil, I crumble in some sea salt, turn the heat down and let it simmer, partly covered with a lid, for fifteen minutes.

Off the heat I squeeze in the juice of a lime and add a handful of chopped coriander leaves and a little more salt. Once the spicy-red slop has cooled, I dunk the lamb chops in it and leave them for an hour or so.

The chops, cooked under an overhead grill, their marinade still clinging to them, are a fiery, juicy delight. The spices bring heat and savour but in no way overpower the lamb; the fat is crisp and lightly scorched from the grill, the flesh tender and rich with pink juices. Rarely have I enjoyed a chop quite so much.

March 12

A simple

supper

There have been three restaurant meals this week, including sensationally good plates of hot salt cod fritters at Moro in Exmouth Market and a wonderfully elegant dish of kidneys with lentils and potato purée at Locanda Locatelli in the West End. Add to that a bowl of fried oysters in a clear broth at the ‘cheap-as-chips’ Japan Centre in Piccadilly Circus and I have barely had to cook at home at all. I don’t think the kitchen has ever stayed tidy for that long in its entire life. Eating out remains an absolute treat for me; especially so this year, when for one reason or another I have spent so much time at home. Even if I could eat out every night, I wouldn’t. Although I will admit to occasionally getting a bit ‘cooked out’, I cannot pretend I don’t enjoy putting something I have made for someone on the table. To this day, it still sends tingles down my spine.

I have a theory that I love cooking for people after all these years because I rarely attempt too much. Many is the time supper is little more than a bowl of soup and a salad, or perhaps some chicken pieces roasted with butter and served with a handful of green leaves. It is the way I prefer to eat, but it also happens to be a lot less trouble than roast chicken with gravy, spuds and vegetables, followed by pudding and custard. I like to think of it as a love of simplicity, but it could also be a mixture of greed tinged with laziness.

We eat roast chicken, mashed butternut squash and the juices from the roasting tin mixed with a little white vermouth and a shot of lemon juice. Dessert is sliced mangoes and whole rambutans that look like diminutive pan-scrubbers.

March 13

A refreshing

chicken

salad

It’s funny how even on the coldest day people seem to appreciate a salad – if, of course, the ingredients are right. In other words, not tomato, cucumber and lettuce. Hot, spicy leaves such as watercress or rocket go down well, especially when matched with something sharp and bright like orange or grapefruit. With that I would chuck in something meaty, such as bacon, pieces of duck breast (it is almost as cheap as chicken now) or a grilled breast of game. Often as not, though, a big salad like this is made to use up cold roast chicken, or perhaps a game bird from the weekend.

The oranges right now are as fat and juicy as I have ever known them and I will eat them at every chance. This time, they wake up a salad made from yesterday’s roast chicken.

Chicken salad with watercress, almonds and orange

The main-course salads I value the most are those that are refreshing. This, with salty, soy-toasted pumpkin seeds and the clean, fresh taste of oranges, is one of the best. You could serve couscous with it, if you wish, or perhaps a Lebanese tabbouleh.

pumpkin seeds – 3 tablespoons

a little dark soy sauce

whole skinned almonds – 2 tablespoons

watercress – 50g

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