Mark Hix's cauliflower cheese
Serves 4
This is one of those old favourites that has had a bit of a revival – everyone likes a bit of cauliflower cheese. You can either make it really well or really badly – I remember the bad version from my childhood. But it’s up to us to take the classic dishes and improve them. I cook the cauliflower in the milk so the flavour isn’t lost. It is comfort food like this that I turn to in winter – I also love braised dishes with cheaper cuts of meat, like ribs or neck. I always want simple, good honest food like this after the excesses of Christmas. The best thing about cauliflower cheese is that it is cheap, quick to make and you are sneaking a bit more veg on to your plate, but in a luxurious way.
1 medium cauliflower
1 litre milk
1 bay leaf
60g butter
60g plain flour
100ml double cream
120g mature Cheddar cheese, grated
1-2 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Cut the cauliflower into florets, reserving the leaves. Place the milk and bay leaf in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Season well. Add the florets and leaves, and simmer for 7-8 minutes until tender. Drain in a colander over a bowl to reserve the milk.
Melt the butter in a heavy-based pan and stir in the flour. Stir over a low heat for about 30 seconds, then gradually stir in the reserved hot milk, using a whisk. Bring to a simmer and turn the heat down very low (use a heat diffuser if you have one). Continue to simmer very gently for 20 minutes, stirring every so often to ensure that the sauce doesn’t catch on the bottom. Add the cream and simmer for a couple of minutes. The sauce should be of a thick coating consistency by now; if not simmer for a little longer. Strain through a fine sieve into a bowl, whisk in three quarters of the cheese, then taste and adjust the seasoning.
Preheat the oven to 220C/gas mark 7 (or the grill to medium-high). Make sure the cauliflower is dry – you can use kitchen paper to pat it dry if necessary. Mix the cauliflower with half of the cheese sauce and transfer to an ovenproof dish. Spoon the rest of the sauce over and scatter the parsley and the rest of the cheese on top. Either bake in the oven for about 20 minutes until golden, or reheat and brown under the grill.
Mark Hix: the Collection by Mark Hix (Quadrille Books, £25)
Gwyneth Paltrow's lamb tagine with squash and chickpeas
Serves 4-6
Hearty and warming, this slowly cooked dish makes lean lamb seem the most comforting food in the world. Serve with cooked millet, which has the texture and appearance of couscous but with none of the gluten, to absorb the tagine juices.
900g boneless lamb top round, cut into 5cm cubes
60g coriander leaves, plus two tablespoons roughly chopped for serving
6 cloves of garlic, peeled
A 5cm knob of fresh ginger, peeled
1 small red onion, peeled and roughly chopped
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
a pinch of saffron
480ml chicken stock
A 400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
675g squash (you can use butternut, acorn or kabocha), stemmed, seeded and cut into 5cm pieces
1 small preserved lemon, finely chopped
Combine the 60g coriander leaves with the garlic, ginger, onion, cumin, pepper and olive oil in a powerful blender along with a large pinch of salt. Blend everything together until completely puréed. Place the lamb in a large bowl and pour the marinade over it. Using your hands, make sure every bit of meat is completely covered with the marinade. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and set it in the fridge for at least six hours, or as long as overnight.
Take the lamb out of the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for half an hour.
Preheat the oven to 160C/gas mark 3 and place the lamb, along with all of the marinade, in a large, heavy pot (we use a Le Creuset dutch oven for this) set over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring now and then, until completely browned all over, a solid 15 minutes (do this in batches if the lamb doesn’t fit into your pot in one layer). Once the lamb is just browned, sprinkle it with the saffron, stir to combine, and add the chicken stock. Bring the mixture to a boil and use a wooden spoon to scrape off any bits that might have stuck to the bottom. Turn the heat off.
Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit inside the pot, crunch it up into a ball, and wet it. Smooth out the damp parchment and lay it over the lamb like a blanket (this will help keep in the moisture). Put the lid on the pot and tuck it into the oven for 1½ hours. Take the lid off the pot and set aside the parchment. Stir the chickpeas and squash into the pot, put the parchment back and the lid on, and return the pot to the oven for a final half an hour. The lamb should be meltingly tender and the squash should be cooked through but not disintegrated. Season the tagine to taste with salt and serve immediately, scattered with the preserved lemon and the chopped coriander.
It’s All Good by Gwyneth Paltrow (Sphere, £20)
Florence Knight's steamed apple pudding
Serves 4-6
The food I eat and cook reflects the season and my mood. In winter it’s soothing shallow bowls of soup or comforting slowly stewed meats. A steamed pudding with custard is almost like a warm blanket on cold dark afternoons.
My grandma used to make steamed apple pudding when I was little and I remember the smell of the apples and spices as the basin was lifted off – and that’s a memory that never quite goes away. It’s the perfect homely comforting thing that you can make, so satisfying – knock one up very quickly and leave it to bubble away and simmer. This is one of my father’s favourite puddings – and mine too. I still get the excitement of pulling off the basin; I think you do get that from anything you’ve loved as a child. I sometimes find that winter puddings can been overly sweet, but with this one the apple and the lemon cut through the sweetness. This dish for me is something I cook on a weekend; I pop it in the oven for after my husband and I have had a roast. You can have it cold with custard, but in our house, it usually all disappears while it’s still hot.
3 apples
3 tbsp golden syrup
140g butter, at room temperature
125g caster sugar
The zest of 2 unwaxed lemons
2 medium eggs, at room temperature
125g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp milk
Butter and lightly flour a 1.2-litre pudding basin.
Peel, core and roughly chop the apples into small pieces. Melt the golden syrup with a tablespoon of the butter in a saucepan on a low heat. Cook for a couple of minutes until the buttery syrup begins to froth and bubble, then fold through the apple and cook for another five minutes.
In a large bowl beat together the rest of the butter, the sugar and the lemon zest until pale and fluffy. In a separate bowl loosely beat the eggs. Slowly trickle the eggs into the butter and sugar mixture, beating all the while. Fold through the flour and baking powder, then fold through the milk until the batter reaches a dropping consistency.
Pour the syrupy apple mixture into the greased basin, then spoon over the batter.
Cut two squares of greaseproof paper and one of foil, each large enough to overlap the edges of the basin by about four centimetres. Layer the squares, greaseproof first then foil on top, and fold into a pleat across the centre. Place on top of the basin with the pleat across the middle, and fasten tightly with a rubber band or string.
Half fill a large, deep pan with water and place an upturned heatproof plate at the bottom. Place the pan on the stove and when the water is simmering, lower the wrapped pudding on to the centre of the plate. Cover the pan with a tight-fitting lid and steam the pudding on a medium heat for one hour and 15 minutes, or until a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean. Check on it as it cooks, topping up the water if need be. If you use the skewer test to check and it is not quite ready, make sure you reseal the hole before continuing to cook or the sponge will become soggy from the steam.
Remove the pudding carefully from the pan and leave to stand for at least 10 minutes before unwrapping and turning out on to a warmed plate. Best served with custard or cream.
ONE: A Cook and her Cupboard by Florence Knight (Saltyard Books, £26). Also available as an ebook.
Simon Hopkinson's beef tripe with spring onions, ginger, chillies and coriander
Serves 2 generously
Whenever I choose to cook a dish of tripe, it is always with the greatest pleasure. Come the cold weather, a pot of it puttering away, offering up its unique scent over a few hours is, for me, that which absolutely defines the goodness of a kitchen task done well. Over the winter I like nothing better than huddling up over a steaming pot of tripe.
I first tasted the tender ripple of a little cooked cow stomach with ginger and chilli as part of a dim-sum feast in London’s Chinatown in the late 1970s. The taste and texture both shocked and delighted me at one and the same time. I have never forgotten it. This recipe is my version of that memory, tried and tested over many happy hours until as near as possible to the original.
5-6 dried shiitake mushrooms, left whole
800ml chicken stock
1kg beef tripe, cut into thick strips, briefly blanched in boiling water, then drained
200ml Shaohsing Chinese rice wine
75g fresh ginger, peeled and cut into thick slices
1 large onion, quartered
4 cloves of garlic, unpeeled and bruised
2 star anise
To finish
2 small spring onions, trimmed and cut into slivers
1 thumb-size piece of fresh ginger, peeled and cut into thin matchsticks
1 mild green chilli, thinly sliced
1-2 tbsp coriander leaves, roughly chopped
a dash or two of light soy sauce, to taste
1 tsp cornflour or potato flour, slaked with a little rice wine (optional)
Put the shiitake mushrooms in a bowl, boil a ladle or two of the chicken stock and pour it over them. Leave to soak and swell for 30 minutes. Put the tripe in
a solid-based lidded pot, add the rice wine, the mushrooms with their stock, the remainder of the chicken stock, the ginger, onion, garlic and star anise. Stir together, bring up to a very quiet simmer and cook for at least two hours, or until very tender indeed (you could cook the tripe in a very low oven, 140C/gas mark 1 if you prefer).
Using a slotted spoon, lift out the tripe and put into another pan. Strain the cooking liquor over it and discard all debris. Reheat the tripe and add the finishing spring onions, ginger, chilli and coriander leaves.
Season with a little soy sauce and, if you think it necessary, very lightly thicken the sauce with the slaked cornflour or potato flour.
Serve at once, with plainly boiled rice.
The Good Cook by Simon Hopkinson (BBC Books, £25)
Allegra McEvedy's richest chocolate cake in the world
Easily enough for 10, it’s that rich
This is the recipe that’s all about my childhood. My mum would have fabulous dinner parties, and this was her show-off dessert. I remember it being in the oven as the guests were arriving, then
I was sent up to bed. In the morning I would come downstairs, open the door to the dining room and see the rich gooey leftovers, because it was so rich people often couldn’t finish it. My sister and I would eat bits of cake from the plates. It was so chocolately it almost gave you a little high. Now I’m about the age my mum was when she made it. I didn’t have the recipe from her – Mum wouldn’t cook this for a family dinner and we didn’t make it together – but my book is all about recreating her lost recipes [McEvedy’s mother died when she was 17] so it took me about eight goes to get it right. I make it for dinner parties – because it’s incredibly easy and I’m not very good at puddings – or when I need cheering up. It still makes me smile (and feel a bit naughty) as it reminds me of a wonderfully idyllic time.
300g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
220g caster sugar
180ml boiling water
220g butter, cut into smallish pieces, softened
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp instant coffee granules
6 eggs, separated
To serve
Whatever dairy you fancy: whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, crème fraîche, Greek yogurt
Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4 and pop the kettle on. Grease a 26cm round springform tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.
Either by hand or in a food processor break down the chocolate into small pieces. Tip the chocolate into a heatproof mixing bowl, then stir in all but a heaped tablespoon of the sugar and pour on the boiling water to melt the chocolate. If there’s not enough heat for the chocolate to melt, then just sit it over a pan of gently steaming water for a minute or two (making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water), but take it off again as soon as the last of the chockie has melted. Stir well, then mix in the butter, vanilla and coffee granules, sitting it over the pan of steaming water again if the butter is not melting. Turn off the heat, then add the yolks one by one, stirring after each.
Put the whites in another, bigger bowl for whisking (or do it in a mixer) with the last heaped tablespoon of sugar. Once they are firm and starting to hold shape, fold them into the chockie mix in three loads, making sure each one is fully incorporated before adding the next. This mix needs to be light and airy to balance with the sheer weight of chocolate, so try to do the folding-in quickly, without overworking.
Pour the mix into the prepared tin and bake for 40 to 45 minutes until the cake is cracked and a little crusty on top, with a bit of a wobble still going on in the middle.
Leave to cool in the tin completely – two hours should do it – and don’t worry if it collapses in the middle a bit... it’s that kind of cake and all will be forgiven later. Once it’s cooled to room temp, stick in the fridge to chill down and firm up. When cool, run a little sharp knife around the edge and unbuckle the ring. Flip on to a plate, peel off the greaseproof, then flip it again on to your serving plate, so the nice crusty top is uppermost.
If you’ve opted for whipped cream, you can spread it all over the cake if you want, like my mum did – she finished it with grated chocolate too. Or just do the dairy on the side. It doesn’t matter; nothing really matters once you’ve tasted it. Slightly transcendental.
Big Table, Busy Kitchen by Allegra McEvedy (Quercus, £25)
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