Sophie Dahl - Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights

photographs by

For Jamie, at whose table I wish to grow old. With all my love.

Title Page

Dedication

Cook’s notes

Introduction

Autumn

Autumn breakfasts

Poached eggs on portobello mushrooms with goat’s cheese

Rice pudding cereal with pear purée

Omelette with caramelized red onion and Red Leicester

Tawny granola

Musician’s breakfast (home-made bread with Parma ham)

Indian sweet potato pancakes

Baked haddock ramekin

Autumn lunches

Spinach and watercress salad with goat’s cheese

French onion soup

Squid salad with chargrilled peppers and coriander/cilantro dressing

Baked eggs with Swiss chard

Chicken and halloumi kebabs with chanterelles

Spinach barley soup

Buckwheat risotto with wild mushrooms

Autumn suppers

Peasant soup

Sunday roast chicken and trimmings

Paris mash

Sea bass in tarragon and wild mushroom sauce

Lily’s stir fry with tofu

Aubergine/eggplant Parmigiana

Grilled salmon with baked onions

Winter

Winter breakfasts

Pear and ginger muffins

Scrambled tofu with cumin and shiitake mushrooms

Kedgeree with brown rice

Scrambled eggs with red chillies and vine tomatoes

Winter fruit compote

Porridge with apricots, manuka honey and crème fraîche

Hangover eggs

Grilled bananas with Greek yoghurt and agave

Winter lunches

Warm winter vegetable salad

Chicken soup with chickpeas

Spelt pancakes filled with cream cheese and butternut squash

Pasta puttanesca

Hollers’ curried parsnip soup

Chargrilled artichoke hearts with Parmesan and winter leaves

Chestnut and mushroom soup

Winter suppers

Brown rice risotto with pumpkin, mascarpone, sage and almonds

My dad’s chicken curry

Monkfish with saffron sauce

Fish pie with celeriac mash

Cauliflower cheese

Buttermilk chicken with smashed sweet potatoes

Christmas done as healthily as it can be

Spring

Spring breakfasts

Grilled papaya/pawpaw with lime

Coquette’s eggs

Bircher muesli

Scrambled tofu with pesto and spinach

Lemon and ricotta spelt pancakes

Grilled figs with ricotta and thyme honey

Rhubarb compote with orange flower yoghurt and pistachios

Spring lunches

My mama’s baked acorn squash

Crab and fennel salad

Teddy’s lettuce soup

Asparagus soup with Parmesan

Courgette/zucchini and watercress soup

Baby vegetable fricassee

Broad bean/fava salad with pecorino and asparagus

Spring suppers

Sea bass with black olive salsa and baby courgettes/zucchini

Pan-fried orange halibut with watercress purée

Hortense’s fish soup

Crusted rack of lamb for Luke

Chargrilled scallops on pea purée

Turmeric tofu with cherry tomato quinoa pilaf

Chicken stew with green olives

Prawn/shrimp, avocado, grapefruit, watercress and pecan salad

Summer

Summer breakfasts

Cinnamon roast peaches with vanilla yoghurt

Blueberry strawberry smoothie

Cold frittata with goat’s cheese and courgettes/zucchini

Scrambled eggs with watercress and smoked salmon

Breakfast burrito

Home-made muesli with strawberry yoghurt

Summer lunches

Avocado soup

Quinoa salad with tahini dressing

Beetroot soup

Pea soup

Summer squash with tomato sauce and pine nuts

Salad niçoise sans anchovies and potatoes

Fish cakes

Summer suppers

Linguine with tomatoes, lemon, chilli and crab

Warm ratatouille

Chicken and fennel au gratin

Coconut curry with prawns/shrimp

Grilled vegetables with halloumi cheese

Barbequed salmon on a cedar plank

Wild rice risotto

Puddings

Ginger parkin

Baked apples

Lemon Capri torte

Lemon mousse

Clover’s Carnation milk jelly

Blackberry and apple crumble

Flourless chocolate cake

Cardamom rice pudding

Elderflower jelly

Flapjacks

Eton mess with rhubarb

Banana Bread

Chocolate chestnut soufflé cake

Orange yoghurt and polenta cake

Acknowledgements

Index

Suppliers

Copyright

About the Publisher

I long to learn about grams and kilograms—perhaps one day I will. Having lived in America for so long, I am used to cooking in American measurements of cups and sticks of butter, etc. However, this book has been cleverly translated so that you don’t have to.

All spoon measures are level unless specified otherwise.

1 tsp = 5ml; 1 tbsp = 15ml. An American tablespoon is slightly smaller than the standard British tablespoon.

A British pint = 600ml; an American pint (2 cups) = 500ml.

All pepper is freshly ground black pepper. I also use good-quality sea salt, such as Maldon.

Eggs/Dairy/Stock/Poultry: try to use organic, free-range where possible. If you are pregnant, avoid raw or lightly-cooked eggs and unpasteurized cheeses. For stock I use either fresh or vegetable bouillon; Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon Powder is very good.

Citrus fruit: if the zest is to be used, buy unwaxed citrus fruit.

Crème fraîche: American readers can substitute soured cream.

OVEN TEMPERATURE CHART

Oven timings are for both conventional and fan-assisted ovens. However, use oven temperatures and timings as a guide: get to know the temperatures of your own oven, since individual ovens can vary quite a bit.

The second word I ever spoke was ‘crunch’—muddled baby speak for fudge, which should have alerted my parents to what lay ahead. As a small child, food occupied both my waking and nocturnal thoughts; I had clammy nightmares about dreadful men made from school mashed potato wearing striped tights, chasing me into dense forests.

A welcome dream was a cloud made of trifle, a slick spring bubbling with chocolate or a fountain bursting with forbidden Sprite or Cherry Coke. My dolls had the fanciest tea parties in London and I kept a tight guest list, so the only person actually benefiting from the tea was me. My first (and last) rabbit was named for my then favourite breakfast food, the pancake. Pancake was a brute, and he performed an unnatural sex act upon his hutchmate, Maple Syrup, who was a docile, blinking guinea-pig. The shock killed Maple Syrup immediately and Pancake was banished to the country to live out the rest of his days in shame and isolation. It seemed unfair that his strange peccadilloes were rewarded with buxom country rabbits and fresh grass, but the karma police intervened and he met a gruesome end in the jaws of a withered fox.

I have always had a passionate relationship with food; passionate in that I loved it blindly or saw it as its own entity, rife with problems. Back in the day, in my esteem, food was either a faithful friend or a sin, rarely anything in between. Eating as sin is a concept more pertinent than ever before in this tricky, unforgiving today. I realized at an early age that I was born in the wrong time, food-wise. I would have been infinitely more suited to the court of Henry VIII, where the burgeoning interest I showed in food would have been encouraged and celebrated. Alas, in my London of the eighties it was simply cause for family mirth, sullen trips to the nutritionist and brown rice diets. Oddly enough, I was reasonably skinny with a great round moon face; just perpetually hungry like a baby bird. I got rather chubby and unfortunate-looking when I was about seven, and there are some rather sinister pictures of me looking like a grumpy old woman (I had a penchant for coral lipstick and any church-type hat), always with a large sandwich hanging out of my mouth.