I’d heard about these gorditas (“little fat girls”) ages and ages ago and then forgot all about them. I was recently reminded they exist and decided to make them straight away. They are little cornmeal pancakes that you can use to top with anything, but with some leftover veal from Farmers Choice to use up I went for a fruity, sharp salsa and a salty feta for a really zingy combo. This is one of those recipes you can dump pretty much everything from, the key part is the gorditas themselves – tasty little breads you can use for a canape, starter or main course as I did here!
Gorditas with apple salsa (makes 16 pancakes):
250g polenta
250g plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon baking powder
700ml hot water
200g cooked veal, sliced
200g feta, diced
For the salsa:
1 apple, finely diced
3 tomatoes, peeled and diced
4 spring onions, sliced
1 teaspoon hot sauce
Red wine vinegar
Mix the flours and baking powder together in a bowl with a pinch of salt. Gradually add the hot water until the dough comes together. Split into 16 and squash into small discs. Dust with flour and put aside while you make the salsa.
For the salsa mix together all the ingredients and balance with salt, sugar, vinegar and hot sauce until you get a lovely tang.
To cook the gorditas get a frying pan very hot and with a dash of oil cook them on both sides until puffed up. Serve with the veal, feta and salsa. If you have some a little shredded coriander would be great too.
I spotted this little gem on the pages of an Ottolenghi article in Waitrose magazine and made it immediately: it’s a squidgy and sweet Turkish cake. Surfing around it seems to be a very popular and traditional dish and when you taste it it’s not hard to see why. It’s kind of like a drizzle cake in that you bake a sponge, then slice it up and pour over a syrup while it cools. And definitely follow Yotam’s advice: it improves immeasurably overnight as the cake soaks up more and more of the lush, sweet juice. Perfect with a cup of tea.
You are supposed to use marmalade in the batter but I used some leftover orange jelly.
You know the other clever bit? Cutting the cake into diamonds. No messing about with even slices, just merry little diamonds which are easy to eat and cute for the virtue of being different.
Revani (makes about a 20 piece cake if cut into diamonds):
5 eggs, separated
100g caster sugar
50g plain flour
100g semolina
Zest of 1 orange
50g butter, melted
50g marmalade / jelly
For the syrup:
250g caster sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
1 orange, halved (the one you zested above)
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a 21cm springform tin and line with greaseproof paper. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until pale and then incorporate the flour, semolina, pinch of salt, zest, butter and marmalade. Continue beating until smooth.
In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and then gradually fold into the batter. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
While the cake is in the oven make the syrup. Put all the ingredients in a saucepan with 300ml water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes.
While the cake is still warm and in the tin, slice it into diamond shapes about 3cm wide. Pour the syrup over the cake – it will look like too much but it will take it all! – and leave to cool and let the cake soak up the juice. You can eat it straight away but it’s so much better if left overnight.
Sunday lunch is when you want to just go for it. I grew up in one of those lucky houses where my Mum cooked a Sunday roast every week without fail, and recently it’s been nagging at me to do this much more regularly for my own family. But my Mum didn’t have Twitter to distract her. Or Facebook. Or Dave Gorman’s Absolute radio show. But I’m trying.
This is a fairly typical roast for me, and when you do more involved roasts with a few side-dishes, I think you should forgive yourself a few shortcuts. Why not use packet stuffing, or frozen yorkies? We all know you can make them, but the extra timing, oven space and graft is more worthwhile concentrating on getting the big stuff right. So I took a few liberties.
And I know what some of you are thinking. “Yorkies? With chicken?” Yes. They were made to float on gravy of any description. Try and stop me.
The chicken here was excellent, from those fine chaps at Farmers Choice. It gave brittle, savoury skin with plump and flavour-packed meat. A real treat.
If the thought of making a Sunday roast scares you, and just seeing that list of things is too daunting, don’t panic. I bet you could cook all those things on the list individually. So it comes down purely to timing. If it helps, write a list. Start with the thing that takes longest to cook, and count things in from then – see below for a guide. Don’t forget to allow the roast time to rest. But be bold, and always remember that the gravy will heat everything back up again 🙂
Sunday roast chicken with roast potatoes, carrots and brussels sprouts (serves 4 – 6, + leftovers):
1.6kg chicken
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 onion, quartered
20g butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon parsley, finely chopped
500g white potatoes, peeled and diced into golf ball-sized chunks
1 tablespoon fine polenta
25g butter
2 bay leaves
Dash of red wine vinegar
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
250g brussels sprouts
100g cooked chestnuts
4 rashers back bacon, rind removed and reserved and sliced
1 tablespoon maple syrup
A few hours before, sprinkle the marjoram over the bird. Spread it all over generously with salt and black pepper, then place on a rack over a roasting dish and pop in the the fridge for about 3 hours. This step draws flavours down into the chicken, while at the same time drying out the skin to make it super-crispy.
Pre-heat the oven to 220°C. This temperature will really blast the skin and make it golden.
Get the chicken out of the fridge and add a few more flavourings: put 2 quarters of the onion inside the carcass and the other two on the base of the roasting dish you’re going to use. Mix the butter, parsley and garlic together. Work your fingers under the skin of the chicken to release it from the meat, then slowly push the butter into this little pocket you’ve created. Put into the oven and leave there for 15 minutes, before turning the heat down to 180°C.
Meanwhile, get the potatoes on. Get a large pan of boiling water on and salt generously. Par-boil for 10 or so minutes, until a knife can slide in and out easily (I usually jab a knife into a wedge then suspend it above the water – when it can fall off within a few seconds they’re ready). Drain well and leave to sit in the warm pan without a lid for a few minutes to steam dry. Put the butter with a splash of rapeseed oil into another baking dish and place in the oven to heat up. Toss the potatoes in the polenta and then tip out into the now hot fat. These are going to need about 45 minutes, which will cross over with removing the meat from the oven. When you remove the meat, turn the heat back up to 200°C for the potatoes’ sake.
When the chicken is cooked (look for juices running clear when probed), remove to a wooden board and cover loosely with foil. Pop the roasting dish on a high hob and add a tablespoon of flour, stirring well. After a minute add about 300ml boiling water to cover the bottom of the tray and get scraping to get all that good stuff. Sieve into a jug for serving, and give it a short blast in the microwave to keep the heat up right at the end.
If you’re using packet stuffing like me, you’ll probably need to do the boiling-water-and-stick-in-the-oven thing here. Let the instructions on the box guide you.
When the potatoes have had about 20 minutes, add sea salt, a little white pepper, the bay leaves, red wine vinegar and the bacon rind. Return to the oven.
Get the carrots and sprouts on to cook. When you are cooking multiple veg I recommend a multiple-tier electric steamer. It gets everything going at once and frees up a space on the hob. The carrots will need around 15 minutes.
While the sprouts cook, get a frying pan on medium hot and add a little oil. Throw in the bacon and wait til it colours on one side before adding the part-cooked sprouts and chestnuts. Stir fry well for five minutes.
The potatoes might need a final blast of seasoning, otherwise they’re good to serve. Take the chicken to the table, pouring any spare juice into the gravy jug, and get someone else to carve. You’ve done enough.
If you’re using frozen yorkshire puddings, they’ll need their 2 minutes in the oven now.
When the sprouts are tender, take them off the heat and add the maple syrup. Toss well to coat and serve, and don’t forget the carrots!
It’s probably the worst translation in the world, but Google tells me the title of that dish is the Italian for Toad in the Hole. Which is kinda what this is. I was cleaning out the cupboards / freezer and had enough for stodgy, creamy polenta with pockets of herby sausage. This is really good fun served with a punchy tomato sauce.
Rospo nel buco (serves 4):
8 quality sausages – Lincolnshire would be good here
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
80g polenta
240ml chicken stock
Few sprigs rosemary, leaves picked and finely chopped
4 tablespoons creme fraiche
Some grated parmesan
For the tomato sauce:
1 tin good quality tomatoes
1 clove garlic, crushed
Balsamic vinegar to taste
Halve the sausages and squeeze out the meat into little balls. Fry in a hot pan with a little oil and the fennel seeds until the sausageballs are browned on all sides.
Meanwhile, do the sauce: fry the garlic gently in a dribble of olive oil for a minute and add the tomatoes and half the rosemary. Simmer gently.
Get the grill on hot. When the sausage is nearly done get the stock on to boil. Add the polenta and remaining rosemary, whisking all the time to avoid clumping. When it starts to thicken whisk for another minute and then take off the heat. Add the creme fraiche, parmesan and check for seasoning. You want it to be fairly sloppy so add a little more boiling water or milk to thin it down if needed. Pour the polenta around the sausages and pop under the grill.
Check the seasoning of the tomato sauce and add vinegar for twang. When the polenta is bubbling and brown on top get it out and leave to stand for a minute, then serve with tomato sauce on the side.
