For my final week here, Ithought I'd get a bit more cheffy on you, but not too much – there's only so much effort anyone wants to put into making tea. Mind you, today's recipes are more a case of just seeming more cheffy, rather than actually being so.
The starter – more a nibble boosted by a super-tasty yet ridiculously easy salad – features one of my favourite herbs. Lovage is hugely aromatic, and a bit like a cross between parsley and celery, albeit with slightly spicy, anise undertones (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall wrote about it here afew years ago). I'm lucky enough to have it on my farm, which supplies both my restaurants and home; if you don't grow your own, you're unlikely to find lovage in the shops, so use celery leaves instead.
I'm very partial to dishes that usurp the meat and two veg norm, and today's main course is a case in point: the cabbage is the star of the show and the protein elements the support acts. Veg and two meat, you could say. Please don't be scared of the chicken skin idea – it's just chicken scratchings, for want of abetter description, and that golden, crisp skin is a favourite part of the Sunday roast, so why not use it in another way? And, to round things off in fitting style, there's a show-stopper of a white chocolate pud.
Stuffed mushrooms with dill salad
The anise in the stuffing is mirrored by flavours in the salad. Serves four.
For the salad
75g diced apple
75g diced fennel
75g diced celery
75g diced red onion
Juice of 3 limes
1 small green chilli, finely chopped
100ml good-quality olive oil
1 good handful fresh dill, shredded
For the mushrooms
150g cream cheese
1 tbsp lovage (you don't need much)
Salt and pepper
24 small cup mushrooms
2 tbsp caraway seeds
70g polenta
70g or so plain flour
2 eggs, beaten
Oil, for deep-frying
Sour cream
Mix the salad ingredients in a bowl and leave to stand for 25 minutes.
Combine the cheese and lovage in a bowl, and season well. Cut off and discard the mushroom stems, and trim a little extra off the flat side. Divide the cheese mix between 12 mushrooms, then sandwich the filling by popping the other 12 mushrooms flat side down on top, toform 12 little mushroom "balls".
Mix the caraway with the polenta and put in a bowl. Put the flour in a separate bowl and the beaten egg in another. Dip the mushroom balls first in the flour, then in the beaten egg and finally in the polenta mix. Deep-fry for 30 seconds, until crisp, transfer to a plate lined with kitchen towel and season. Serve with the salad and some sour cream as a dip.
Roast oxheart cabbage with clams, crisp chicken skin and wild garlic
It's worth asking your butcher for chicken skin. You never know, he may even give it you for free, because it's a by-product of all those naked fillets in his cold counter. Serves four.
2 litres chicken stock
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced fine
1 bay leaf
1 sprig fresh thyme
2 small oxheart cabbages, outer green leaves discarded
The skin from the crown of 1 corn-fed chicken, scraped free of fat and flesh
Salt and pepper
4 tbsp rapeseed oil
75ml white wine
1.2kg clams
300ml double cream
25g butter
Wild garlic shoots (optional)
Put the stock, one sliced garlic clove, the bay and thyme in a pot and bring to a simmer. Poach the cabbages until cooked but still slightly crunchy, then drain and cut in half.
Heat the oven to 140C/285F/gas mark 1. Season the chicken skin on both sides, then lay out flat on asheet of baking parchment. Put this between two baking trays, to weigh it down, and roast for 50 minutes, until crisp. Break into shards and set aside.
Meanwhile, heat two tablespoons of oil in a large pan, add the rest of the garlic and stir over a medium heat. Add the wine, season and bring to a boil. Add the clams, cover and cook on high heat for a couple of minutes until they've all opened. Lift out the clams with a slotted spoon, leaving the liquor to bubble away and reduce by half. Add the cream, cook until slightly thickened, then season to taste. Pick the clams from their shells and add them to the sauce.
Heat a saute pan with the butter and remaining oil. Once hot, lay in the cabbage, cut side down, and cook until caramelised to a nice golden colour. Season, drain and place a half-cabbage in the centre of each plate. Pour over the sauce and garnish with shards of chicken skin and, if you can, a few young wild garlic shoots – they should be starting to poke their lovely heads out of the ground around now.
White chocolate pudding with hot white chocolate mousse
As I said last week, we chefs have all sorts of kit that makes our lives easier, and in an ideal world I'd use acream whipper (a kind of mini soda syphon) to make this mousse; you get a similar effect whisking by hand – it's just more effort. Serves four.
For the mousse
100g white chocolate
75g cream
75g egg whites
For the pudding
150g white chocolate
75g unsalted butter
2 yolks
2 eggs
60g sugar
125g flour
10g corn flour
15g apricot puree or compote (Bonne Maman make a good one)
First, make the mousse. Melt the white chocolate in a bowl set over apot of barely boiling water (make sure the base of the bowl doesn't touch the water, otherwise the chocolate will split), then add cream and egg whites. While the mixture's still warm, whisk briskly until it doubles in size and is just starting to firm up – the idea is to have a runny-ish but still airy mousse, not a fully set one – then set aside over a pan of warm water (no more than 68C) while youget on with the pudding.
Heat the oven to 185C/365F/gas mark 4½. Melt the white chocolate in a bowl over boiling water, as for the mousse, then stir in the butter. In afood mixer, beat the egg yolks, the whole eggs and the sugar until they form thick ribbons, sieve in the flour and corn flour, then stir in the apricot puree and melted butter. Coat the inside of four souffle dishes with butter, pour in the mixture and bake for 12 minutes.
Tip each pudding on to a plate – you may need to run around the edge with a knife, to loosen it – spoon hot mousse over the top and serve.
