Nigel Slater - The Kitchen Diaries

a handful of mint leaves

Soak the beans overnight in cold water. I use mineral water for this. The next day, drain them, put them into a deep saucepan and cover with fresh water. Bring to the boil, skim off the froth and simmer for about forty minutes, or until tender. Turn off the heat and leave them in the cooking water.

Warm the oil in a flameproof casserole and add the meat. It should sizzle when it hits the oil. Let the meat brown slightly all over. You may have to do this in two batches, depending on the size of your casserole. Remove the meat from the casserole and set aside.

Set the oven at 150°C/Gas 2. Cut the leeks into 5cm pieces, then put them in the casserole, with a little more oil if need be. Leave them to cook till soft and silky. You will have to give them an occasional stir to ensure they do not colour. Stir in the garlic, thyme and bay leaves. Sprinkle the flour over the top and continue cooking for three or four minutes, stirring occasionally.

Pour in 570ml water and return the meat and any juices to the pan. Drain the beans and add them too. Then bring everything to the boil. As soon as the liquid boils, cover the casserole with a lid and put it in the oven for an hour, until the lamb is completely tender. Remove from the oven, stir in the cream, parsley and mint and warm through gently on the hob before serving.

Enough for 4

Tonight it’s bento boxes all round from a Japanese place in town – crystal noodles with coriander, red chilli and sesame seeds with tubs of crisp green edamame. I love these bright green beans and cannot stop popping them out of their pods straight into my mouth. There are crab rolls too with dipping sauce and crunchy matchsticks of cucumber.

It has taken me years to figure out that when it rains I invariably make (or think about making) soup. I never noticed this till I started to write everything down.

a medium onion

garlic – 2 plump cloves

butter – 50g

pumpkin – 900g

coriander seeds – 1 tablespoon

cumin seeds – 2 teaspoons

small dried chillies – 2

chicken or vegetable stock – 1 litre

smoked bacon – 4 rashers

single cream – 100ml

Peel and roughly chop the onion. Peel and slice the garlic. Melt the butter in a large, heavy-based saucepan and cook the onion and garlic until soft and translucent. Meanwhile, peel the pumpkin, remove the stringy bits and seeds and discard them with the peel. You will probably have about 650g of orangey-yellow flesh. Chop into rough cubes and add to the onion. Cook until the pumpkin is golden brown at the edges.

Toast the coriander and cumin seeds in a small pan over a low heat for about two minutes, until they start to smell warm and nutty. Keep the pan to one side for later. Grind the roasted spices in a coffee mill or with a pestle and mortar. Add them and the crumbled chillies to the onion and pumpkin. Cook for a minute or so, then add the stock. Leave to simmer for twenty minutes or until the pumpkin is tender.

Fry the bacon in the pan in which you toasted the spices. It should be crisp. Cool a little, then cut up into small pieces with scissors. Whiz the soup in a blender or food processor till smooth. Pour in the cream and taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper as necessary. Return to the pan, bring almost to the boil and then serve, piping hot, with the bacon bits scattered on top.

Enough to serve 4 generously

I also make a salad dressing tonight with 4 tablespoons of sake, 100g miso paste, 2 tablespoons of groundnut oil and a couple of teaspoons of sugar. I use it to dress a salad made from the following raw crunchy things: a couple of big handfuls of bean shoots, a handful of mint leaves and another of coriander, half a cucumber and a couple of carrots, shredded into matchsticks, four shredded spring onions and three red chillies, seeded and chopped. I toast 150g peanuts till they smell warm and nutty, chop them roughly, then toss the nuts, salad and miso dressing together. It makes a great, scrunchy, nutty, knubbly salad for two of us.

There is something romantic about falling snow. This is the first decent fall we have had this year, in two hours covering the box hedges and settling on the grey branches of the plum trees. By mid afternoon, with a single trail of fox prints to the kitchen door, the garden looks like a Christmas card. The cats, huddled together round the Aga, look as if they are not amused: ‘Oh, that stuff again.’

Every sound is muffled, the grass across the road sparkles in the streetlights, not a soul passes the front door. It is as if everyone is asleep. It takes something magical to make this stretch of road look as it does now, like a scene from a fairy tale. There is a leg of lamb in the fridge that I intended to roast as usual, with mint sauce and roast potatoes. With each windowpane edged in snow, I now want something more suited to a world white over. I put the leg into a deep cast-iron casserole with a rub of ground cumin, salt and thyme and let it bake slowly, occasionally basting its fat, as it turns a deep, glowing amber.

a leg of lamb, about 2.3kg

For the spice rub:

garlic – 2 cloves

sea salt flakes – a tablespoon

a pinch of sweet paprika

cumin seeds – a tablespoon

thyme leaves – 2 tablespoons

olive oil – 2 tablespoons

butter – a thick slice

Set the oven at 160˚C/Gas 3. Make the spice rub: peel the garlic cloves, then lightly crush them with the salt, using a pestle and mortar. Mix in the sweet paprika, cumin seeds and thyme leaves. Gradually add the olive oil so that you end up with a thickish paste. Melt the butter in a small pan and stir it into the spice paste.

Put the lamb into a casserole or roasting tin and rub it all over with the spice paste, either with the back of a spoon or with your hands. Put it in the oven and leave for thirty-five minutes. Pour in 250ml of water and baste the lamb with the liquid, then continue roasting for three hours, basting the meat every hour with the juices that have collected in the bottom of the pan.

Remove the pan from the oven and pour off the top layer of oil, leaving the cloudy, herbal sediment in place. Cover the pan with a lid and set aside for ten minutes or so.

Carve the lamb, serving with the mashed chickpeas below, spooning the pan juices over both as you go.

Chickpea mash:

chickpeas – two 400g tins

a small onion

olive oil – 3–4 tablespoons

hot paprika

Drain the chickpeas and put them into a pan of lightly salted water. Bring to the boil, then turn down to a light simmer. You are doing this to warm the chickpeas rather than cook them any further. Peel and finely slice the onion, then let it soften with the olive oil in a pan over a moderate heat. This will seem like too much oil but bear with me. Let the onion colour a little, then stir in a pinch of hot paprika. Drain the chickpeas, then either mash them with a potato masher or, better I think, in a food processor. Mix in enough olive oil from the cooked onion to give a smooth and luxurious purée. Stir in the onion and serve with the roast lamb above.

Enough for 6.

Cold lamb, sliced thinly and tossed into a salad of tiny spinach leaves, Little Gem lettuce and baby red chard leaves. The whole thing looks pretty pedestrian until I add chopped fresh mint leaves to the olive oil and lemon dressing. Suddenly everything lights up. We eat it with bought focaccia and follow it with slices of commercial gingerbread spread with lemon curd.