Squash - not the Robinson's Sort

Diversity being my watchword, I've determined of late to explore the wonderful world of the squash, as few if any vegetable families match it for the range of shapes, colours and tastes. Actually for pedants like me it's one of those annoying vegetables that taxonomically is a fruit. E.L. Wisty had a similar dilemma with the banana, which he pointed out is in fact a whale. Such matters aside, the squash offers the intrepid cook (and cultivator) great opportunities to explore new worlds of flavour.

We have grown the giant pumpkin of Halloween fame for many years, and while some have been sacrificed to lantern use, others have ended up as pie, custard, soup, mash and curry. Sadly the big pumpkins tend to have a rather dull flavour, a bit earthy, pleasantly savoury, but not exciting, so we have branched out into more exotic options. Some - the Turk's Turban for example - is a bit more interesting on the flavour front, and much more as a gardening status symbol. The patty pans we've given a go have been hugely prolific, and rather sweet and green on the palate, to date no disappointments there.

This year the greenhouse and conservatory are nurturing perhaps 20 different plantlets, all grown from seed. We'll be stuck for space, even with an allotment, as they tend to spread far and wide, but if we can select and raise say 10 of the healthiest among them I'll be happy. If I remember I'll report later in the year on the culinary worth of whatever squashes we grow and cook.

The supermarkets appear to be getting in on the act too. Last night we ate a squash, red lentil and chickpea soupy-stew (based on an HFW recipe with plenty of amendments), using a squash that while similar in appearance to the butternut was a different flavour - think marrow with a touch of new potato. Very enjoyable, and as part of our partially reinstated alternative eating programme (all having slipped a pound or three upwards since Christmas) a filler-upper with few calories. It was a one-flame dish too, cooked in phases - onion 5 mins; spices and garlic 5 mins; squash, tin of toms, stock, red lentils 25 mins; orza pasta 10 mins. No need for late-night snacks after such a dish. I leave it to the reader's imagination, however, to contemplate the other night-time consequences of a squash, lentil and chickpea combination.

One Flame Cooking - Vegged-up Style

Vegged-up. Gosh, how demotic as a good friend would probably say.

My one flame cookery has tended to be a meat-centred thing, but inspired it has to be said by HF-W's veg book, and for reasons explored in another recent post, we've cut down on meat (not cut it out) and pushed the veg quota here. I'm a big fan of what our American cousins would call the dinner salad too, so put those factors together with the one flame idea and you end up with some substantial meatless feasts.

Best of those has to be the lentil-centric salad (lentil-centric being like London centric, but different in that one is concerned with a lot of rather greyish vegetables all looking alike with no space between them, the other has lentils. Boom-tish, I'm here all week).

In the trusty Le Creuset cast iron pan a chopped onion is fried gently, with a chopped red pepper for colour, some garlic sliced, then a posh sachet of lentils. Had some been available I'd have added a few cubes of bacon or slices of chorizo (people who pronounce that cho-ritz-o now quite high up my list of those due to die horribly when I rise to supreme power). So long as the onion and garlic are cooked it's just a case of warming the rest through, not even getting them hot (how very continental), as you eat this warm.

Lettuce or rocket or lamb's lettuce on the plate the lentil mix is added, some Parmesan shavings and walnuts put on top (with enough time then for the oil in the nuts to warm through a bit - I am not a fan of toasting them), and the lot dressed with a vinaigrette. It's the basis for further experimentation (adulteration?) - goats cheese or blue cheese are good, tomatoes go nicely, black olives and hard-boiled eggs fit in too. So long as there are not too many ingredients (in which case it evolves into another nice Americanism, the garbage salad) it remains a good solid filler-upper, and one that can be on the table in 15 minutes.

Does this count as austerity cooking? As Merchant Gourmet lentils (for 'tis he) only cost about £1.50, and the rest if no bacon or chorizo used would add another £1.50 tops, that's dinner for two or three for £3.

One Flame Feast - Lamb Boulangere

Taking SC to one of his potential university choices at the weekend made me think about communal student life again.

Musing afterwards on what would make a great student Sunday meal Lamb Boulangere came to mind. In the current cliche it ticks all the boxes (except vegetarian, sorry): almost no fail; can be made to feed six or eight with ease; just one pot to wash up; can be left to its own devices (if you have good security in the flat).

Some cooks suggest pre-heating the meat at high temperature, but the original idea was that in the days before working class homes in France had ovens they benefited from their neighbourhood baker's, after it had done the Sunday bread, the dish cooking slowly in the cooling oven.

There are few ingredients: for six people 1kg to 1.5kg of potatoes, peeled and cut into slices about 3mm thick; 0.5kg to 1kg of onions cut into very thin slices; between 3 and 12 cloves of garlic depending on your taste, thickly sliced; a boned shoulder of lamb (boned makes carving thus life easy) weighing 1.5kg to 2kg; water and salt and pepper (you can use a chicken stock cube to make the liquid more interesting, but it's not needed as the lamb cooking slowly oozes its juices and fat into the veg and the water).

Wipe a roasting tin with butter or oil, then layer up the spuds and onions, with garlic slices and seasoning every now and then. Finish with a layer of potato slices. Pour in boiling water to about 10mm below the top of the veg, then lay the meat on top, cover the lot with foil, and put in an oven at 140C and leave it for at least four hours, preferably six, and if it fits your life better, up to eight will do no harm

Twenty minutes before you want to eat take it out of the oven, remove the meat to rest (rolled in the foil to keep warm, with a tea-towel or two on top for extra insulation). Turn the oven up much hotter, 220 to 230C, and let the top layer of spuds crisp up - this is the only time it needs an eye on it, as soon as the edges start to go from golden brown to black, it's ready.

The spuds and onions are dished up with plenty of juice, and chunks of meat (not slices) placed on top. If you get the last 20 minutes right you'll have a few crispy bits as a pleasant contrast to the melting mass.

Though it is perfect in itself, some peas, carrots or even baked beans would bulk it out a bit if youthful appetites demanded. With 1.5kg of spuds, 1kg of onions, and a whole garlic bulb the veg component would be about £2.80. A 1.5kg rolled shoulder of lamb is about £12.50. So for six people for a Sunday lunch it would be £2.55 each. Go wild with a whole bag of frozen peas and you're still under £3 per head, cheaper than an espresso and a brownie at Costa Fortune.

One Pot Two Dishes - One Flame Rides Again

My son, aka Sternest Critic, has some quirky dislikes. One is that he likes meat that is stewed (let's face it he likes meat), but hates it to come with the liquid in which it cooked. A neat solution to this enjoyed last week was a version of the French Pot au Feu, where the liquid is served as a soup before the rest makes it to table as a main course. Two courses, one pot.

It helped the soup part that the dish was made with stock prepared previously using free bones from the butcher (I've taken to doing this when buying a load of meat, and never get any hassle) and another from the freezer, the penultimate bit of our Serrano ham bone. Those had cooked with some veg and other flavour enhancers, so the stock itself would have done as a soup (some more in fact did at the weekend, with mushrooms, noodles and star anise). But after it had in addition been the cooking medium for chuck steak and shin, with more veg, it was excellent - served without any thickening, likewise sans meat and veg, it was a really really good beef consome.

The original stock benefited btw from a beetroot being one of the vegetables, giving an earthy depth, but more importantly a fine colour.

The solid components were tasty enough, the beef not needing a knife to cut it, but not in the same league as the soup.

I've been trying to think of similar two-dishes-one-pot stuff, with little success. The only one that sprang to mind could in fact be a threefor, doing a similar stew for the soup and solids, but cooking a sweet dumpling or several in with the savoury bits. To modern eyes that may seem odd, but to cooks of centuries past (including the last one) with limited cooking equipment it made sense, and our contemporary separation of sweet and savoury would seem weird to medieval cooks in particular, but even our grandmothers (for those of us in the third decade of our thirties) were not averse to such things.

I have made apple dumplings in this way to eat as pudding, the edge with its meaty tang not putting anyone off devouring them.

While the Oven's On - One Flame Again

Being a mean beast who cuts things very fine (Ratty in Wind in the Willows) I don't like to use the oven for just one thing, especially as ours is one of those with a double-sized space one side and a mini version (only ever used to warm plates) the other. So I try to remember to include a few unpeeled onions to give the makings of a simple onion with cheese veg dish, some beetroot, or baking potatoes, or most often a gratin.

The one-flame cookery idea easily incorporates such economy, as why should one flame mean on dish only? Saturday's party (very enjoyable thanks) included a 6lb brisket dry rubbed with spices and sugar roasted at about 120C for nearly eight hours. That would have been a profligate use of the oven had it been just for one dish. So I also did a big potato gratin, loads of onions, loads of cheddar, slow cooked for two and a half hours, and a toffee-crumb apple and quince pudding, conscious assuaged.

Gratins are such a simple thing to do as I was explaining to hopefully-soon-to-be student Sternest Critic. What they do need is time and thus patience. It's not something to throw together for a quick snack. And they can be very cheap filler-uppers. That was secondary in my thinking for the bonfire bash for which its forgiving nature was uppermost in my thoughts: it was ready a good half an hour before I took it out, but didn't spoil at all (if anything the cheese got a nicer browning) for being left longer, and could have remained at that heat without damage for another hour. Again it could have been cooked at 180C and been ready in less than half the time.

It's also the sort of cooking I love - no recipe, just a basic idea and method. If you have to weigh the ingredients for a gratin you're trying too hard. Just peeled and sliced spuds and onions (the latter very thin), grated cheese, layered onion-spud-cheese  then repeated, a bit of salt and pepper, and cooking liquid (hot) which can be milk, milk and cream, stock or at a real pinch just water. The alchemy of baking turns these basic staples into a meltingly delicious whole. We have lots of celeriac on our allotment, another grateful for the gratin treatment, and parsnip likewise, so I have no excuse for not doing more and bringing in more variations as autumn turns to winter.

Serendipitous Substitution - One Flame Fish Stew

Once a month or so in the  autumn and winter we have chowder as a weekday supper. Or dinner. Or tea, depending on class, pretension and region.

I am not a believer in strict recipes unless they are needed. Yesterday's chowder had kippers and basa as the majority of the protein, but lacking bacon (the shame) and with some chorizo to use up I added that, a happy circumstance as it gave a nice paprika spice to the dish. As ever it was bulked out with potatoes and sweetcorn, both of which like onions cook beautifully in the milk that forms a good half of the liquid.

We discussed as we always do if chowder is a soup or a stew - this one was definitely a stew - and if, with chorizo, it actually qualified as chowder at all. That takes me back to the point about strict adherence to recipes. Chowder is said to have originated as a one-pot dish cooked by fishermen (the word chowder derived from the French chaudiere, a big cooking pot or in modern French a boiler), with a bit of the catch, some spuds, bacon and onions cooked in water at sea. Some - me included - use milk plus stock now for the smoked fish version, not a luxury that those driftermen enjoyed, so it is already different from the pure original if indeed such a thing ever existed.

This is not to say that you can bung in whatever comes to hand, some discrimination is needed. My version includes garlic, red pepper and carrot, all chopped finely to cook quickly (the onions likewise, the spuds big dice), to add flavour, 'goodness' and a bit of colour. The chorizo helped with that too, the paprika sending the milk a rather fetching pink.

We All Become Our Parents - One-Flame Lamb Shanks

It is a sad fact of life that if we live to middle age we almost inevitably morph into models of our parents. Not completely, we are individuals, but in part. This for me is most noticeable in certain food habits, as the shared diet of my youthful years is the foundation of my culinary experience.

I felt suddenly like my father a few weeks ago when I found my self whingeing to the butcher at Booth's about the price of lamb shanks. They used  to be given away almost, but now cost between £3 and £4 each. Same with several other foodstuffs, like monkfish, crab, and sweetbreads (some butchers couldn't give them away, though that was ignorance on the part of customers). History is littered with such matters, with asparagus and oysters once the food of the poor, now very much the food of the comfortably off if not rich. My father constantly complains about the price of such items as lamb shanks, spare ribs, brisket and so on, as his mother did before him (she was eventually in her 70s banned from a local store for doing this once too often).

In spite of the price I did lamb shanks for us yesterday, braising them at 125 centigrade for five hours, the meat on a bed of our home-grown veg (turnips and kohl rabi for depth and bulk, carrots and onion for sweetness, herbs and garlic for interest). Doing my particular work (at home) I get the chance to try slow-cooking like that, able to keep an eye open in case things dry out. The results showed why lamb shanks are now expensive: meat falling off the bone, rich juices for dipping bread into, and slutchy heart-warming vegetables.

That was yet another one-flame (or pot at least, given the casserole was moved to the oven after meat and veg had browned) dish. I'm becoming increasingly tempted to miss out on cooked starch and rely on good bread (when I can find it), which makes life easy and with tasty loaves makes life more flavorsome.

One-flame Chicken Meal

This is a bit of a cheat in that the cooking starts over a flame then is finished in the oven, but it is one pot, and for those allergic to washing-up liquid that is important.

Sunday lunch this week was a lazy affair, as the weather was too glorious to allow for faffing in the kitchen. So while Ruth jointed a chicken I cleaned and cut up (all just picked on the allotment or garden) some spuds, thick spring onions now looking more like leeks, three small courgettes and a load of fresh herbs - bay, thyme, rosemary, sage, chives, plus a whole (tiny) head of our still greenish garlic.

The chicken was browned in olive oil in a big and solid roasting dish over a moderate gas flame, then the onions added, followed by the small chunks of spud (cut in odd shapes with no side more than an inch long), the thickly sliced courgettes and bashed garlic, and finally the herbs. As this needs liquid to cook the veg a tiny bottle of Babycham leftover from Christmas (Brandy and Babycham a secret seasonal pleasure of one member of the household) was poured in, and a bit of boiling water to top it up. Salt, pepper, bring to the simmer and put in the pre-heated 190 degree oven for an hour or so, taking the pan out twice to stir things about.

Protein, carbs, veg and flavour all in the one pot, with the juices forming a tasty gravy too.

One Flame Cooking - Student Elegance for Pennies

Personal circs meant I had to cook us a quick meal last night, and having four small lamb chops to hand I resorted to a de Pomiane classic: he was a doctor, nutritionist and gourmet in Paris in the first half of the last century, and his books are a delight of unpretentious sense and no little style. Check out a dramatised series of his French cooking in 10 minutes on You Tube.

The dish is simple: heat a wide and deep frying pan; sear both sides of four lamb chops (not neck chops or chump, which need longer), then turn the heat down medium-low and add the drained and rinsed contents of two tins of flageolet beans, four cloves of garlic chopped finely, a few (several) dabs of butter and a small glass of liquid - white wine, cider, light stock or water all fine (not red wine). Let this cook through gently for five minutes or so, then season and serve. It needs no spices or fancy touches, it's perfect in itself, the liquid, meat juices and butter make a sauce that must not be left in the pan.

With a roll or some French stick to dip up that juice you have a sustaining and tasty main course. The same thing works with good pork sausages, though they need to be cooked through before you add the beans etc, and as there's less meat juice the banger version requires more butter. The lamb dish for four would be about £5.50, with a large pork sausage each just £3.50.

As de Pomiane writes (and the actor playing him in the series shows), while that is cooking through you can make a salad to follow it, dressed with salt, oil and vinegar, slice a little cheese for each diner, and wash some fruit for pudding. The French btw don't share our obsession with cheese biscuits, enjoying un fromage is just that.

Four courses in 10 minutes, or if you offered a few slices of salami and a handful of olives at the outset it would be five. With just one pan involved. We had Parma ham and olives, the lamb and bean dish, a tomato salad with basil, and cheese, which eaten outside in tropical Preston with a large glass of wine was thoroughly enjoyable thank you.

So that's French elegance with little effort, and something that a student who shopped intelligently could do for friends for a special occasion. They could (should) bring the wine, or chip into the kitty for the ingredients. Or both.

One Flame Super Student Soup

That's a soup for students, not made from, to be clear.

At a university visit with SC on Saturday the guided tour took in accommodation and a shared kitchen. I loved the community of the kitchen at my alma mater, though the very occasional disappearance of food from the fridge was annoying. As with my experience so today as regards the cooker - electric hob, doubtless to avoid yoots blowing themselves and others to bits.

A wonderful and easy shared meal if students band together to share cooking duties is a fish soup, easy, quick, nutritious and more than a bit virtuous. We had a version last week made with proper ham stock, but a chicken or ham stock cube (I avoid the fish and veg ones) is an OK substitute. Again this is really cheapo for four people, and there's just one pan to wash up.

In a large saucepan gently fry two chopped onions in oil. Don't let this brown. Chop the veg finely, they cook quickly and keep their flavour better. Add a selection of veg chopped finely: carrots are cheap and flavorful, so are turnips, maybe a Basics pepper or a courgette if there's a glut and they're cheap, plus two or three garlic cloves sliced thinly, and sweat them for two minutes. Boil 1.25l of water in a kettle and add this with two crumbled cubes (I like Knorr best), to the pan and up the heat until it reaches a bubbling simmer, then turn the heat down to maintain that simmer (easy with gas, a bugger tbh with electric hobs). Add either (or both) a couple of potatoes cut into small dice, or 100g spaghetti broken into very short lengths, and cook until they are just about done - about 10 minutes. At this point add your fish - cheapest in frozen packs of whitefish fillets or those bricks of pollock. When they are defrosted and cooked through, adjust seasoning and break up the fish into smaller chunks, then serve with bread and butter.

The economics: 520g pack of frozen whitefish fillets £1.75; vegetables if using Basics red pepper £1.25; spag 20p;  stock cubes 20p. Bread and butter according to hunger, but you can get excellent bread from Morrison's really cheaply - two small loaves for £1 so you can have white for most of us and brown for the saintly. Even with a ton of butter that's still going to be well below a fiver for four people.

If you want to push the boat out or play tunes with the idea a pack of smoked salmon bits for £1.50 added at the very end of cooking, or frozen prawns £2.25 for a 400g bag bunged in with the fish make this into a feast (that would actually feed six with another turnip, carrot and spud and half a litre more water). Or cube some 'cooking bacon' and add with the veg. Or throw in a few frozen peas or sweetcorn. This is more an idea/method than a recipe.

I wondered about mentioning that a dash of leftover cider would be good, then I remembered that this is meant to be for students, who tend not to leave much cider.

One Flame Student Survival - Curry for Pennies

The one flame idea partly comes out of my experience living in France for a year as an assistant, when I had a single Calor Gas burner on which to cook, and partly from the fact that the less washing up there is the more likely people are to make their own food, which means eating better than you would from the chippie, and brings a social aspect with it. So how about this for a student meal for three, a common number in shared houses?

Fish curry in 30 minutes, with the cost well below £1.50 each again. This hits the protein spot too, not easy for budget meals. It's not authentic, but it is tasty.

Use a large and deep frying pan, heated quite high. In a couple of spoonfuls of vegetable oil fry three sliced onions until they start to brown a little - don't turn your back - then add a red chilli cut fine (stand clear, it's pepper spray time), and an inch or so of root ginger cut into teenie strips, and turn the heat down to medium. After a minute for these to cook through add two cloves of garlic chopped fine, then pour in a tin of chopped tomatoes and a tsp of sugar, plus a tin of coconut milk. When this is bubbling gently add a pack of frozen whitefish fillets (cheapo and they're good, it's pollock - no honestly). Cook till they are beyond defrosted and into cooked, and gently break them up. At the end season with salt, pepper, and spices - buy a plastic packet of garam masala - nicer than 'curry powder' and it costs less - from the ethnic shelves for about 60p and it will last all year, this only needs a tsp. When it is all cooked through serve with basics pitta bread in place of far more expensive naan.

The economics: (all Sainsbury's unless stated, so Morrison's would generally be cheaper still) 520g frozen whitefish fillets £1.75; tinned toms (Lidl) 31p; coconut milk on offer now 50p; 3 onions 15p; garlic 8p; chilli 15p; ginger about 10p; 6-pack of Basics pittas 22p. Spices 3p. The lot for £3.29 give or take a few pence. And the fish alone gives you about three quarters of your protein GDA. A veggie version of this can be made easily and more cheaply still, substituting two 69p tins of chick peas for the fish (so for three that's less than £1 each).

Mean beast that I am I buy Lidl chopped toms in bulk - they won an Observer taste test a while back (or one of the other Sundays) and at 31p each are maybe 40 per cent cheaper than own brand elsewhere, and 1/3 the price of advertised stuff - and I dare you to find a difference in quality.

One Flame and Three Courses for under £1.50

Doing the university visit round with SC made me feel firstly terribly sad - it is only about three weeks since my first day at uni in 1977 - and secondly inspired to share a few things about student food survival learned - annoyingly - after my student days.

Student finances are tight. But however fun the cheapo fried chicken thing briefly is, most students not in fully catered accommodation want a proper meal now and again. There is something civilised and satisfying about sitting down at a table with cutlery and plates, the mealtime spreading before you. This got me thinking of how to do a de Pomiane (several courses very rapidly prepared) for not very much money, and with the one flame proviso. The first result is as follows, a three course meal for under £1.50, ready in about 10 minutes.

First step is get a big pan of hot water boiling - pasta for the main. Little pans don't do it. You want a big volume of water so when the pasta goes in the water is only below boiling-point briefly. Pasta done in water not yet boiling, or in too little, goes gluey.

Put spag for (hungry) one in the water, then prep your first course, tomato salad. One large tomato or two medium ones should be sliced quite thinly (easy with a serrated blade), the slices laid in one layer on a plate big enough for them all. Dress with just a couple of drops of oil per slice and a tiny bit of salt, plus pepper if you fancy. Add wafer-thin slices of raw onion, or garlic, to pep it up if you want, and to increase the vitamin C content. First course is done, but as the toms have probably been in the fridge, let them warm for a minute or two before eating, and this allows the salt to work too.

Grate a small amount of Parmesan - a little goes a long way. My tip is buy Lidl's for price and quality. This with a thin slice of butter and a crushed clove of garlic is your pasta sauce.

Eat the tomato salad, then when the spag is ready (don't buy quick cook, it's pointless and not as nice), about eight minutes, drain the water off (but leave it moist), and in the hot pan mix with your cheese, butter, and crushed clove of garlic (peel the clove, put it under a broad-bladed knife turned sideways, and thump it hard).

Pudding is an apple. Granny Smiths are tasty, crunchy, and you can get seven or eight for £1.50 if you look in the right place.

Not too much protein in this, though the cheese has about 7g, and the spag 11g, so roughly a third of our daily need, but I'll post another three-course cheapo menu later in the week to address that.

The economics: Two medium toms from Sainsbury's £1 pack with seven in cost 29p. 500g of own-brand spag £1, they suggest 100g for a main course, to fill up I'd say 150g at least so 30p. 10p for butter, and about 40p for Parmesan (200g for £3.75, so 21g for 40p - you need the flavour and the calcium). An apple for 22p. Garlic two cloves 4p. Half a medium onion 5p. Total £1.40.

One Flame Cooking Super Rapido

Last night a combination of poorly child and electrical work meant I couldn't get to the kitchen till late, or late for us. Something rapid was thus required, and thanks to the rich stock from slow cooking a flat-rib of beef this was no prob. Stock skimmed of fat was heated through in a pan to which I added a drained tin of bamboo shoots, the few remaining bits of beef cut small, and two sheets of noodles (from a pack bought ages ago in local Chinese supermarket - bargain). Flavoured with soy sauce and five-spice powder and a brutally crushed garlic clove to give it a bit of depth it was ready in five minutes.

As the stock was rich and delicious so was the soup, which in a way was posh pot-noodle. If I'd had any in the freezer I'd have added sweetcorn for more fibre, but hadn't so didn't. Don't care, it was still really good.

One Flame Navarin and Alice B Toklas

My culinary reading currently is The Cookbook of Alice B. Toklas. It is usual to follow her name with a put-down something like 'the lover of Gertrude Stein', but as her memoirs-cum-cookbook is far more interesting than stream of consciousness rubbish by the latter, let's not.

I read cookbooks for ideas, and historic cookbooks for a real feel for period. Parson Woodforde was on a daily basis far more concerned with tracklements than treaties. Food history is demotic. Alice B's work gives a nice insight into the world of arty (and rich) Americans in Paris in the first half of the 20th century, and the section dealing with their struggles in the countryside of Eastern France in WWII is fascinating.

As with other works though, including some contemporary hits, you do wonder if some of the dishes were ever cooked. Chicken browned briefly in butter then roasted in a medium oven for 35 minutes invites food poisoning. And her Navarin recipe is far too complicated. This is country cooking. It did inspire me to make a Navarin of lamb, however, which is another one flame dish worth noting.

The vital ingredient in Navarin of lamb (apart from the lamb) is turnips, young, small, sweet and something we don't make enough of in this country. On the allotment we grow several varieties, my favourite the purple topped Milan ones, but Snowball is elegant too. Elegant turnips. They are wonderful raw in salads (a salade de racines the best hotel fodder I ever tasted in France), glazed as a vegetable in their own right, or as Creme a la Vierge (still can't do accents here), a delicate soup.

So to the Navarin.

Five small turnips were peeled, quartered and browned in olive oil then removed. I had bought three leg chops for the meat cut into big chunks and likewise browned along with an onion diced small. Flour stirred in followed by boiling chicken stock (I cheated with a cube, ok) and a small glass of brandy (no wine open) made a thin-cream-consistency  sauce. Seasoned with salt, plenty of pepper and a pinch of nutmeg this was left to simmer for 45 minutes with a few bay leaves and twigs of thyme from the garden, then four carrots sliced thinly, a few smallish new potatoes in walnut-sized chunks, and the browned turnips added to cook for 20 more. At the end a big handful of frozen peas was dropped in, left to heat through and then the thing was ready, with a bit of corrective seasoning.

Classic one pot cookery that is forgiving of time until the veg go in. The meat could have cooked for twice the time, but not the potatoes which must retain a bit of bite.

Cowboy Hotpot - Historic One Flame Ingenuity

Just back from spending a few days with my father in Norfolk. As tradition demands we were met after our horrible A17 journey with plates of cowboy hotpot. This is a dish of family legend, though it only dates back one generation.

My mother was an infants' school teacher who would rope my father in to help with school trips various. On one brief camping expedition he was volunteered to do the cooking, and faced with limited resources (big pot and big camping stove) came up with the ideal meal for kids, or at least kids 30 or 40 years ago. Ideal in both its name and consistency. He had as ingredients potatoes, onions, corned beef, carrots, and baked beans, plus some stock cubes. The veg were diced very small - say 5mm wide, the corned beef likewise, and the lot simmered briefly in not a great deal of stock before the beans were added to warm through.

Kids are picky, especially away from home, but my father overcame all such thoughts by dubbing it when asked 'Cowboy Hotpot'. The reflected glamour and adventure of the food, surely cooked over open fires in the Badlands by John Wayne and James Stewart, saw it eaten - with spoons - to the last morsel. And the moist, almost sloppy consistency is great for kids too, they tend to hate dry foodstuffs.

Since then it has more often than not been made with fresh beef rather than corned. What would Randolph Scott have said?

What name for the plateful would have the same effect today? Sadly the horrific 'Celebrity Stew' springs to mind.

One Flame Spanish Dish

Though food in France and Indonesia have special places in my heart, of all the countries where I have travelled Spain is probably in culinary terms my favourite. A meal that consisted of a whole leg of lamb to myself, with a tiny salad and a few chips, served in a sign-less restaurant near Badalona; about half a pound of jamon de serrano on a warmed plate in Vitoria-Gasteiz;  percebes eaten very messily in a restaurant looking down on pre-Guggenheim Bilbao; suckling pig in Barcelona; innumerable tapas.

One dish that I came across several times in different regions of Spain, and that I have made for myself since, is perfect one flame cooking. I don't know what it should be called, memory failing me for that detail. Let's say spicy Spanish beans.

The ideal is to cook this in a flattish and flame-proof terracotta dish, and to serve it in the same. But as my flame-proof terracotta dishes never actually are, and last just months, a good deep frying pan serves. Chop a large onion into small pieces and fry it gently in olive oil until it starts to colour, then add plenty of thickish slices of chorizo (and again, anyone pronouncing that chor-itso should be ashamed) cut from a stick rather than wafer-thin jobbies from a packet, and allow them to char a little here and there. Add a drained tin of beans - butter, flageolet, borlotti or haricot, it doesn't really matter, a tin of chopped tomatoes, and cook until heated through, the tomato starting to bubble and reduce a little. Add a good teaspoon of smoked paprika, four cloves of garlic crushed brutally beneath the flat of a broad-bladed knife, and cook for five minutes longer. Check for seasoning and sweetness - if it isn't sweet to the tongue add a few splodges of ketchup or failing that a bit of white sugar. There should be paprika heat in it too, and it would not be wrong to add a chopped chili seeds and all when you have started to char the chorizo, if you have a nice chilli to hand and like a bit of fire in your belly.

This is pleasant enough as it is, but to make a full meal of the thing add halved hard-boiled eggs yolk-side up,  and/or a drained jar of white asparagus spears. Yes, a jar, they were always preserved when I had this in restaurants and hotels in Spain.

Served with the (cliche alert but it is right) best crusty bread you can lay your hands on it is a filler-upper and a treat. And it accounts for several of your five to seven a day depending on your conviction and purse.

One Flame Fishy Dish

My favourite evening meal fishy dish is the flexible fish pie, generally made with mash as a topping and with a mixture of white fish and tinned kippers (no bones, loads of flavour). Next to that comes tonight's fish fest, the equally flexible chowder, another one pot and thus one flame extravaganza.

As with just about every soup I make it begins with frying some chopped onion in butter, to which equally finely chopped veg as available in the fridge and shelves will be added: tonight I'd guess carrot, red pepper, and celery. As the garden still has a little stand of par-cel some of that will be chopped super fine with a mezzoluna to be added near the end of cooking. A mixture of chicken or veg stock (if I stir myself I can actually defrost some ham stock which goes equally well, otherwise it is from a cube today) and milk is added, then chunky diced potatoes (either waxy to keep the shape or floury to collapse nicely, it doesn't matter) dropped in to cook (best not to fry them even briefly with the veg, they seem to take longer to cook in the liquid that way) for about 15 minutes, along with defrosted pollack fillet and about a cupful of frozen sweetcorn. A crushed garlic clove gives a nice edge, and lots of pepper.

It is economical - I will only use about £1.25 of fish, and the rest of the ingredients won't take the total above £2.50 - and pretty virtuous, made with  semi-skimmed milk, but the juices are fabulous, perfect to soak up with thick slices - more like slabs - of buttered brown bread. Three of us will easily see off a small loaf, so add £0.50p (Morrison's offer on exceedingly tasty seeded wholemeal, £1 for two small loaves).

This will be the New Year's resolution (at least) once a week fish dish for our evening meal; as Saturday's homemade Chinese was veggie I only have one more non-meat dish to keep to my programme. We won't be short of protein, however, Sunday lunch was top rump wet roasted, and a turkey thigh joint (top bargain and very tasty) plain roasted beside it.

That latter meal was not exactly Parson Woodforde, who would regularly have rabbit smothered in onions, chicken, pig's face, a leg of mutton with caper sauce, and a piece of bacon or similar for workaday dinners, but two joints for £12 can seem more generous than one for £15. And we have the remains left for sandwiches, though the thicker of two leftover pieces of turkey removed from the table at the end of the meal didn't make it intact to the kitchen, mysteriously.

Cooking for Teens - No Flame Cooking

Cooking for teens and by teens. My son is more than capable of fending for himself now (as those who read a post some time ago will know, when I left home for university my repertoire consisted of badly made omelette and nothing else), but has to be bribed to do so unless he is close to fainting. Something I picked up from the site Lovefood.com caught his imagination, however, and he has now had three goes at it: Cake in a mug. And this goes beyond the one flame cooking thread of recent times - it is done in seconds in the microwave.

This is actually very close to the microwaved sponge that Ruth does every now and then, but the gimmick of the mug and the simplicity of the thing grabbed him. Here is the link in case anyone fancies a very quick chocolate pudding, or wants to interest his or her teenager in post-parental-home survival cookery.

http://www.lovefood.com/guide/recipes/16990/cake-in-a-mug-recipe

Sternest critic is not a fan of coffee (I had to buy some Nescafe for him to try it in the recipe, which demanded instant muck) so his second and third versions have reduced or omitted that flavouring and the chocolate in favour of jam. Their timing of 5 mins prep and 5 mins cooking is way out, it takes about 5 mins total now including a minute's wait for the pud to cool down.

Hot Under the Covers - Sandwiches as Art (And One Flame Opportunity)

San Francisco 1979

It wasn't as if I had never eaten a hot sandwich before going for the first time to the USA, but then again it was. Our sausage sandwich (Danny Baker's Saturday morning programme on Radio 5-Live reviving its fortunes), or bacon butty are all very good, but the Americans do the thing so much better. Which also means bigger.

The hot sandwich is of course a one flame cooking opportunity par excellence, and something that surely fits the austerity bill.

Travelling on Greyhound buses with an old school-friend, though by that time we were university students, covering vast distances with diners and bus-stations the only options at times to grab a quick bite, burgers quickly lost their attraction. An alternative on one menu was a chicken sandwich, duly ordered. I expected two slices of white bread with some dry chicken. I got a stack of moist chicken, salad, pickles, a serving of fries, some onion rings and some nicely toasted bread, if memory serves. A meal in itself, and it even had vitamins and fibre!

A Now Sad Reminder of a First Visit to New York

Further discoveries on that trip and others were the Philly cheese steak and the hot corned beef sandwich (is that the Reuben if it comes with sauerkraut?). Whether on a round roll, a sub roll, toast or bread the hot sandwich can be a wonder - and a rather blokey wonder too.

Last night with my wife returning late Sternest Critic and I had a simple steak sandwich, Topside from Waitrose a bit tough but very toothsome, with a couple of slices of bacon left in the pack from the weekend on top, mayo on mine, a thin onion slice or two, wholemeal bread, and a side salad (authentically with Iceburg lettuce, the least-worst looking in the supermarket) the meal was on the table in minutes, and very satisfying. The steaklets were I think £3.50 for 3, the third in the fridge to be part of a Chinese dish tonight), so it was not too expensive.

Ian and I up the empire State Building

 Man v Food has highlighted the joys of such simple feasts, though tending to gluttony too often. Some of the sandwiches Adam Richman gets to eat look magnificent, and the culinary tip (subject of a recent post) you pick up from the top places making such things is use the pan juices, don't waste that flavour. Some dip the entire sandwich in a pan of stock/cooking liquid.

I'll buy the steaks again, but next time slice them thinly post-cooking to build up some structure, make it easier to attack, and create some spaces for mayo to fill and to hold the pan-juices better.

One Flame Chinese - Take-out Made in

Chinese food is one of my favourite cuisines, or several of them - there is, after all, not one single style of Chinese cookery. What I have eaten as Chinese food has changed over time and geography. In the Seventies when the first Chinese takeaways opened in my hometown there was a preponderence of really gloopy stuff, like sweet and sour sauce in which a spoon would stand. Today the dishes available from such places are - often - subtler. In the Gorleston of 1975 Peking Duck never featured on the menu.

I was lucky enough to visit mainland China about a dozen times and Taiwan far more often when I worked in industry, so had the opportunity to try authentic Chinese food. On the mainland I ate in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Shanghai, the food in the latter - especially in the countryside beyond the city - very different from the first two. Taiwanese food was different again, perhaps for economic reasons then with meatier dishes to the fore, and fantastic seafood (barbecued chilli whelks one of the best things I ever tried). 

Travels in the USA meant trying their version, again with its own characteristics. I still don't get the point of fortune cookies. 

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I love food made in a Chinese style. So I make my own attempts at it. One of my favourites, and something that qualifies as austerity cooking and one flame cookery, is fried rice, which was the core of last night's meal, and we would not have been deprived had it been all of the meal. 

White rice carefully and lengthily washed in a fine sieve to ensure the grains keep separate later was boiled quickly (boiling water covering it and a half inch more, slow simmer in covered pan for five or six minutes, then taken off the heat and left to steam for another ten minutes). While it steamed finely chopped carrot, red onion, yellow pepper, and a red chilli seeds-and-all were fried gently in rapeseed oil, then the boiled rice was added with about three tablespoons of soy sauce, the mixture stirred together and allowed to fry again very gently for five minutes. Defrosted sweetcorn and peas, and a handful of basics prawns were thrown in, and two brutally crushed garlic cloves to max their impact. A shake of 5-Spice powder completed the flavour enhancement.

I did enough for six, and the three of us ate it. Which when you think about the millions who have to survive on a bowl or two of plain boiled rice a day gives pause for thought.

Another no-flame dish complemented this, a way of using a bit of leftover (uncooked) white cabbage - the Chinese love their brassicas. The thick stalky bits were removed, leaves rolled together like a cigar and chopped very finely, then with a few spoons of boiling water and another of soy added to their bowl along with another smashed garlic clove it was cling-filmed and cooked on medium-high in the microwave for a couple of minutes or so to steam it. Virtuous and delicious.