From Season to Season: A Year in Recipes. Sophie Dahl
Tzatziki
Radishes with truffle salt and mint and olive oil
Ceviche with prawns/shrimp and avocado
Grilled octopus with potatoes and fagiolini bean pesto
Kebabs
Raw golden beetroot/beets with cayenne and lime
SUPPERS
Ricotta tarts with creamy pecorino sauce and shavings of black truffle
Chicken summer stew
Roasted tomato mascarpone soup with basil oil
Courgette/zucchhini flower risotto
Miso black Colin
Hangman’s Suppers
Rowley Leigh’s Parmesan custard with anchovy toast and a herb salad (all mine)
Broad bean/fava risotto
Puddings
Roses
Marbled rose petal ice cream
Chocolate meringue biscuits
Pineapple and mint granita
Poached winter fruits with crème anglaise
Uncle’s chocolate soufflé with brandied cherries
Earl Grey and lavender ice cream
Rice pudding cake
Almost mother-in-law cake
Panettone bread-and-butter pudding
Coconut sorbet
Ruby Frais strawberry semifreddo
The Nutcracker
Armagnac apricot pannacotta
Christmas sugar plum syllabubby mess
Index
Suppliers
Acknowledgements and resounding thanks
About the Author
Copyright
All pepper is freshly ground black pepper. I also like to use a coarse sea salt like Maldon.
I’m a big believer in free-range, cruelty-free produce. To that end, try and buy dairy and meat from a supplier you trust, one who treats their animals with respect.
We are overfishing our painfully understocked oceans. To get a list of what fish are sustainable and plentiful, please go to the Marine Stewardship Council website (the MSC) www.msc.org.
Stock: I use fresh or, if being lazy, Marigold Vegetable Bouillon or Kallo’s Organic Free-range Chicken Stock.
Good usefuls to have in the larder and fridge, in no particular order and given in haphazard fashion:
Belazu Balsamic Vinegar (really thick and syrupy)
Miso paste (for dressings and marinades)
Rice vinegar
Tahini
Pomegranate molasses
A good, strong mustard
Tamari
Mirin
Marsala
Horseradish root
A bunch of fresh herbs
Tarragon
Parsley
Coriander
Chives
Argan oil
Pumpkin seed oil
Some good-quality dark chocolate
Some cheap chocolate for eating on the spur of the moment or when miserable
Lemons for zesting
Chickpeas
Lentils (both Puy and yellow)
A good home-made garam masala
Star anise
Cardamom
Arborio rice
An onion
Some garlic
Pearl barley for soups and stews
Arrowroot for thickening gravies or sauces for the gluten-free
Spelt flour
Good vanilla extract
Runny honey
Fresh coffee
Stock in ice-cube trays in the freezer
Sunflower seeds to toast and add to salads and bread
‘It’s a question of discipline,’ The Little Prince told me later on. ‘When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend to your planet.’ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
In my last book, Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights, I began with writing that many of our grandparents ate healthfully and seasonally before there was a name for it, eating with an innate common sense and practicality that somehow, along the way, many of us have forgotten. This doesn’t stand for everyone’s grandparents, as I discovered on a book tour to Denmark. A journalist there asked me if I knew what her grandparents were eating fifty years ago. I knew from her smile I was on treacherous ground and took a deep breath of preparation.
‘No,’ I demurred politely. ‘What did they eat?’
‘LARD!’ She said. ‘They lived on lard and potatoes! I eat far better than they would have ever dreamed! What do you think of that Miss home-grown-seasonal-vegetable-garden-have-a-walk-every-day?’
I immediately morphed into a filmic parody of Hugh Grant and said something very English and vague like, ‘Well, yes, I don’t know what everyone’s grandparents ate, hmm, easy to generalize, mutter, ho hum.’ And blushed.
Under the gaze of watchful Danes, I stand corrected then, and speak only for my own grandparents, who grew fruit and vegetables in their garden, buying fish from the local fishmonger, meat from the local butcher and dairy from their local farmer. Every meal on their table came to fruition with an unspoken nod to seasonality and availability.
I am keenly aware that if you are a busy working parent, or if you live somewhere isolated, sometimes all that is on offer (or is bearable) is a one-stop shop. I am sometimes guilty of it myself. But I also believe that if each one of us makes a concession towards being a conscious consumer, we are in turn making an active contribution to looking after our lovely planet, which has enough exterior torment going on in it without us adding to it.
We are blessed in England to have our very definite seasons. Sometimes they feel never ending, dragging winter in particular, but the reward is tangible, both in the garden and on the plate. There is a finite certainty to the seasons that I, as a neurotic