I changed my mind

"When in doubt, choose." Lily Leung

I'm a bit late for this post because it's about a dinner at home with friends on Saturday. Not so much about what we actually ate, in terms of what it was like - besides I, of course, took no photographs, but more about the selection process. And I know I have written this kind of thing before, but never mind. At least it's a way of introducing a few dishes you might like to try.

So - steps one and two which were simultaneous. Two of my dinner guests - there were to be six of us - were vegetarians, so whilst I was searching for recipes I was also trying to decide whether we would all go vegetarian or whether I should also cook a non vegetarian main. And if I decided to go that way, would I try to cook two dishes that were similar in terms of genre or not care? I dithered over vegetarian or not for some time, but in the end decided to do both - (a) because I suspected the male partner of my non vegetarian guests was not all that keen on vegetarian - and (b) it meant I could try out two new recipes. Always fun.

The decision about whether to go for the same kind of thing or not, was thrashed out in my head when I got to my short list.

Step three - where to look for recipes. Well it's somewhat overwhelming isn't it? I suppose a basic start might be to decide between books and internet. I do use the internet when looking for recipes, but mostly that's when I have an ingredient, or ingredients that I need to use up - especially a not obvious combination of ingredients.

But for this kind of thing I prefer books - of which I have many. So which books to look at? Those from one author, those that feature a particular cuisine, those that feature ingredients? Ater all one always wants to use what one has to hand. In the end, because of the vegetarian aspect, I'm ashamed to say I sort of chickened out and went for the Ottolenghi camp. So I gathered virtually all of those books - Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi, Noor Murad, Ixta Belfrage and the OTK crew, and spent a pleasant afternoon browsing through them - bookmarking potential recipes as I went. Which numbered far too many of course.

So then I ruthlessly deleted those I had made before. I wanted something new. A characteristic I think that is hard-wired into my brain in all manner of ways. When I choose 'my' book for bookgroup for example I choose one I have never read before - always being conscious that others have read 'their' book before deciding on it to present to the group. I like to go to new places, new restaurants. Known ones are favourites too of course, and Known and Unknown can sometimes be the same - for example - France but some part of France to which I have never been, and if I have been to that part - a village or town which I have never visited. I confess I get somewhat bored, for example with walking the same walks every week, even though I could get in my car and drive just a short distance to somewhere new. For I am lazy like that. A degree of familiarity is comforting but there also needs to be an element of new, of suprise. And so although I may be favouring the same cooks over and over - there are still recipes of theirs that I have not tried. The best recipe writers and cookbooks have many more than one recipe worth trying. And time takes care of the favourite authors too. Yesterday's favourites are not today's - nor tomorrow's. It's a human trait - the search for the new - we are not generally content with the known, even though we will look back at the previously known with massive dollops of nostalgia, even regret.

I've just finished reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin for tonight's book group. which I highly recommend. It is superficially about a group of video game writers creating games, but one of the metaphorical aspects of the book is the fact that when playing one of those games and you die - the player usually does not then give up but tries again, doing things differently the next time. Mistakes and failure can be reprieved.

And here's a somewhat amazing coincidence. I'm sure you all recognize the Hokusai great wave painting. Well yesterday it turned up on my art desk calendar. It was a slight shock to see it there, when it was so current. For that too comes up in the book as well. The chance of disaster.

I have strayed. Step four - well to get to a short list after compiling a long list so let me break it down into courses.

Dessert. I start at the end, because this was fundamentally the easiest choice. I did look at a variety of cakes but in the end did not feel like cake. And in the end I only gave myself two choices here: Skillet berries, bread and browned butter - Ottolenghi/delicious. and

Baked custard cream affogato with coconut and hazelnut meringue - Ottolenghi/The Guardian. The first is in his OTK Shelf Love book and the second is in Comfort.

I should add in here that for all the recipes for the meal, I was looking for ones that could at least be partly made the day before or that took only a minimum amount of preparation on the day. Both of these could be largely made the day before, requiring only a last bit of assembly. I have to say I was very tempted by the affogato one. I love affogato and although I am hopeless at meringue I thought I could possibly manage this type of meringue. It's the pavlova kind that are impossible for me. I did like the idea of the kind of crumble dish but thought it was perhaps unadventurous. So here I chickened out and asked David which he would choose, and unsurprisingly he went for the crumble. He doesn't like coconut or creamy things much I think. And people it was surprisingly different to your average crumble. The toasted bread, and the ground star anise flavouring were the stars here I think. Very simple. The berries are frozen and just tipped in when you are ready to bake. Can't be faulted really - even though I forgot the final sprinkle of ground star anise. But then I put slightly too much in with the baked apples, so I guess that made up for it. No real change of mind here, just a choice made early on.

The entrée. There were eventually three choices here. Cheesy baked crêpes with orange rayu - Ottolenghi/Chez Mary B. (who didn't like the choice of the rayu sauce), which came from the OTK Extra Good Things book - crêpes with cream cheese and flavoured with turmeric, a filling of cream cheese and spring onions, and rayu sauce which contained orange, soy sauce, more spring onions, garlic ... Then there was Halloumi with spicy olives and walnuts - Noor Murad/Nigella.com. This was very tempting with only the last minute frying and baking of the cheese against it. Well David is not a fan of olives or walnuts, but tough - he had his preferred choice already. And I had some halloumi that needed using. But again I chickened out probably in favour of David. Or - Pan-fried tomatoes with za'atar pine nuts and halloumi - Noor Murad/Homes and Gardens - a similar concept really but with different ingredients. I chose this one - buying some heritage tomatoes as a treat. She does say in her introduction that you need firm tomatoes - which proved to be the case, because a couple of mine sort of collapsed. They certainly didn't look as beautiful as hers, and there was a lot of cheese sprinkled over the top - no this did not look super great. My cheese was not as clumpy looking, because I deliberately forked it into flakes, which was perhaps a mistake. I also added a few leaves of oak leaf lettuce, but they looked a bit bedraggled, and really weren't necessary. However the tomatoes did indeed taste good and the sliced baguette was perfect for sopping up the juices. There weren't quite enough juices because I think I cooked the tomatoes at two high a heat when I turned them over. A minor problem though.

I possibly should have gone for the halloumi. Next time perhaps.

The mains. On Thursday I had definitely settled for two traybakes - having decided on going for different dishes from the same genre. Root vegetables with harissa, chickpeas, tahini yoghurt and dukkah - Ottolenghi/Lucas Estrada or you can watch Ottolenghi make it on TikTok and Citrusy chicken, fennel and potato traybake - Ottolenghi. Both of them were easily prepared. The chicken one required a proprietary Ottolenghi spice mix but Woolworths had it, so why not? I also had some of his rose harissa for the vegetable tray bake. And yes fennel is expensive at the moment but never mind - this is a special occasion.

I was still set on this on Friday, but I began to think that tray bakes were a bit ordinary in appearance, although I have to say they are much easier to make look good than other things. However, for some reason - maybe that spice mix which is a bit of a commercial cheat - I changed my mind and decided instead on Beetroot and feta galette with za'atar and honey - from Sami Tamimi's book written with Tara Wigley, Falastin. I mean it looked pretty spectacular, even though I had a slight worry that they might not like beetroot.

I made the pastry and cooked the beetroot the day before and then assembled it all earlier in the day, so that all that it needed was cooking just before the meal. I am told that it was as delicious as it looked, but foolishly I did not try it myself, and I gave the remains to my vegetarian friends as a parting gift. They were delighted. So I shall have to make it again sometime.

Now that was pastry so I had to begin again with a search for something pastry based - preferably chicken because I had taken chicken Marylands out of the freezer by then - and so I turned to Nigel Slater - king of pies and tarts to my mind. And this time I took the easy way out and just trawled the net for a bit - Nigel Slater, chicken, pie - and came up with

Chicken, bacon and leek pie - Nigel Slater/Sarah Cooks - although you can watch him make it on the BBC website - which I chose because so many people had tried it online - as you can see from the samples below:

The first two photographs are from Sarah Cooks, whose recipe I used because she had little tips along the way. Like her I lashed out on the Carême butter puff pastry which I have to say is streets better than the Pampas one. It was a supremely comforting dish if not spectacular in taste - other than that pastry - which separated out into layers as it cooked. My only minor quibble would be that you scattered Parmesan over the pastry at the end, and so I probably used too much for it melted and obscured the diamond pattern underneath - like some of the others - including Nigel's. I used two sheets of the pastry and three Marylands instead of the suggested two, and two leeks. I'm not quite sure why now, but it meant that the quantity was far too much - so I cut the remains in half, froze one half and we ate the other on Monday. I would definitely make it again. And it was easy. You poach the chicken in milk first - which took longer than the recipe says - but that's pretty normal isn't it? Everything always takes longer than they say. But like the galette it could also be assembled well before you need to cook it.

And I served the mains with a salad of broad beans and peas - tossed with rocket and spinach in a garlicky mint oil.

No pictures - which is probably just as well. I'm not that good with presentation - although I don't think you can really go wrong with the pies - or the crumble come to that.

I haven't done this for a while, and it has made me want to do it more. It's that always wanting something new thing.

POSTSCRIPT

When I was looking for suitable quotes I found this, which I thought you might like. Don't show it to your children or grandchildren however, because it really doesn't tell you how much fun that can actually be.

YEARS GONE BY

May 13

2025 - Nothing

2024 - "Finland is the green vigour of the forest"

2023 - I love salami

2022 - Doing without gladwrap

2021 - Missing

2020 - Missing

2019 - Nothing

2018 - Nothing

2017 - Smoked garlic