The Family Cook Book

Hummus is a fine thing, but home-made hummus takes this fridge staple to another level. According to Michael Solomonov of Zahav it’s a kind of religion in Israel, in his new book Israeli Soul he has all kinds of dishes that are partnered with hummus.I am particularly partial to a combination of lamb meatballs, chopped salad and flatbread. The recipe below is for ‘5 minute hummus’ of which  Solomonov & Steve Cook claim "We believe 5-Minute Hummus to be a medium step forward for mankind.   The other thing about this recipe is that it is a ‘two-for’ deal because on the way to hummus you have to make tehina which is one of our favourite dressings. You will spend more time cleaning your food processor than putting this recipe together. It calls for two cans of chickpeas and a standard-size jar of tahini (or Tehina) , so there’s no measuring, extra bowls, or utensils to clean ( I actually halved the recipe and have used jarred chickpeas which raise the hummus to another level) M...

 During lockdown we have tried to keep our meat intake down, eating red meat around once a week. The rest of the time it’s chicken or fish and we make sure that we regularly go for a completely vegetarian main meal of the day. Given we are in the heart of winter and the height of lockdown we are also fairly limited on the choice of appropriately sustainable vegetable choices, having said that there are still plenty of delicious root vegetables to choose from.  This recipe is from the excellent ‘f rom the oven to the table’ by Diana Henry  which has a wide variety of very easy and tasty recipes. What I love about this recipe is the umami taste delivered by the unusual warm dressing. For me the discovery of the fabulously umami-ish taste of the dressing (why am I so late to the miso party you may ask?) and the delightful crunch and nuttiness of the walnuts. The choice of vegetables is one of taste, availability and roast-ability. I did a combo of cauliflower, fennel, carrot...

I made this last night, principally because we had a batch of red peppers that were beyond date code and getting to the stage where they had lost their shine and developed a severe case of the wrinkles. It was then a case of using up whatever else we had in the fridge or the larder. By a process of elimination, aided by online search, I ended up with a sort of Spanish/Mexican style dish, so really mozzarella was the wrong cheese but it still worked pretty well. The jar of nduja was just sitting there in the fridge, with a couple of tablespoons left in the bottom, begging to be used up and the flavours worked well together. The verdict was that it was pretty good. We also had a pile of home made oven baked skinny fries, to use up the bag of Maris pipers that were starting to grow in the larder. We coated them in a combo of sweet and spicy Spanish paprika, crushed garlic granules and salt and pepper.  INGREDIENTS 4 small to medium red peppers  1/4 teaspoon salt, plus more for th...

This recipe was born out of availability, not the seasonal variety, the ‘it’s in the fridge and the date code is running out’ kind. Since making it I have discovered via overheard whispers that this is not everyone’s cup of salad, but what the hell? I like it, so here it is. April’s recipe from ‘A girl and her pig’  This is my Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon salad. The two main ingredients—carrot and avocado—might not seem compatible or connected, but your first bite will convince you otherwise. The carrots are roasted with cumin and paired with orange, both classic pairings for the vegetable. The citrus goes great with cilantro, and both are a fine match for avocado. Before you know it, you have this fresh, vibrant salad. I love the carrots roasted to the same creamy softness of avocado. The contrast comes not from the texture but from the fact that one's warm from the oven and the other's cool from the fridge. Sorry if I got your hopes up, but despite the salad's nickname, the...

Yet another recipe from the excellent NYT food app, this one by  Martha Rose Shulman  I think toasting the Freekeh first makes a significant difference to the taste and texture of the Freekeh which can be a bit chewy for some tastes. This is great as part of a mezzE of different salads with some grilled chicken or fish alongside for the carnivores amongst us. The recipe There is a lot to love about freekeh, an earthy grain that I’d like to see catch on in more kitchens. It cooks up in about 25 minutes, and it’s light, like coarse bulgur, which it resembles, except that the color is darker and greener. But freekeh has a more complex flavor than bulgur. What stands out is its smokiness, a result of the production process, in which durum wheat — the type used for many pastas — is harvested while still green and soft, and carefully roasted in the husk over open fires. The wheat is beaten to remove the chaff, and in the Middle East it is sold whole or cracked. The cracked version i...

  I found this very simple recipe from Martha Rose Shulman on the NYT app but there are versions of it everywhere. It is one of those, quick to bung together, hearty but good for you, recipes that you can put together at the drop of a hat. You certainly could use any tomato sauce that you had sitting in the fridge or freezer and if you don’t have orecchiette then any of the short pasta that hold sauce well like fusilli or penne would work. I added a Spanish onion to the sauce and used a mix of cavolo Nero and English kale. The recipe This is true to the Apulian tradition of serving chopped greens with orecchiette, those little ear-shaped pasta, though the greens might be different in Apulia and the combination doesn’t always include a tomato sauce. Since I’ve always got tomato sauce in my freezer, it’s an easy dish to throw together. This winter version is made with canned tomatoes. INGREDIENTS 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 Spanish onion finely chopp...

This recipe comes from a book I was given by our lovely friends Liz and Helen. It’s the story of the restaurant Neni. It’s of those cookery books that makes for a good read too, charting the story of the impossibly attractive team behind this Israeli restaurant that very much taps in to the current culinary zeitgeist. Freekeh is not something I have cooked with much but I really like its slightly chewy nutty flavour as an alternative to the usual rice or lentils. The addition of the nuts and dried fruit and the quite complex dressing makes for a really satisfying dish on its own but it would also be nice paired with some grilled fish or chicken. Ingredients For the freekeh: 500g freekeh 25ml olive oil, plus extra for drizzling ½ teaspoon cumin seeds 2 tablespoons sea salt 100g walnuts 100g pecans 150g Medjool dates 1 celery stalk, with greens 50g flat-leaf parsley 50g coriander 25g mint 1 aci sivri (cayenne) pepper 1 small red onion 500g Greek yoghurt For the dressing: 40 g (1½ oz) fre...