Dinner at Mine? – In perfect time for an Easter gift, a newly published cookbook -Dinner at Mine? New Inspiration for Everyday Ingredients – presents creative ways to transform 15 fifteen everyday ingredients into dinner. There are six ideas for each ingredient, catering to the growing number of non-nuclear families and households: recipes for one, for two, for four, for six, for future you, and to take with you. Dinner at Mine? is award-winning food writer Kate Young’s invitation to the table. Inside, you’ll find creative ways to transform fifteen familiar ingredients: a couple of courgettes, a block of butter, a whole chicken, a loaf of sourdough, a punnet of tomatoes, and more. Kate shows how to take these everyday ingredients and turn them into dishes you’ll love, such as congee, almond chicken, and the perfect apple pie. There are six ideas for each ingredient, whatever your plans. Whoever’s at your table, Dinner at Mine? is all about sharing delicious, versatile and memorable dishes with the people you love.
Kate is an award-winning food writer, cook and novelist. Her Little Library Cookbooks feature food inspired by beloved works of literature. After a sunny Australian childhood, spent indoors reading books, she moved to London, which suited her much better. She now lives in a converted factory in the English countryside, and loves having people round for dinner. She’s hosted supperclubs, catered weddings, cooked for private clients and worked behind the counter in her local bookshop. Dinner at Mine? was published this week by Head of Zeus: Apollo at £25 for a lovely hardback,
Here is a recipe from the book to whet your appetite:
Cabbage and Herb Pie For six
1 tbsp olive oil
2 brown onions, finely diced
1 tsp caraway seeds
2 tsp fennel seeds
100g cavolo nero, woody stalks removed and leaves finely shredded
1 Savoy cabbage, woody stalks removed and leaves finely shredded
150g butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
250g packet filo pastry
30g chopped parsley
20g chopped mint
10g chopped dill
400g feta, crumbled
100g chopped walnuts
2 eggs
2 tbsp sesame seeds
Equipment
25cm springform cake tin or deep pie dish
“Cabbage, for all its great joys, does not have a reputation as a flashy ingredient. No matter how many restaurants add charred hispi to their menu, it remains a side, something to prop up the main event. Eternally a chorus line dancer – even when it’s the best dancer out there, with the highest kick and the widest grin (I let go of this metaphor’s hand and it’s run away from me, but you know what I mean).
This pie makes cabbage the star. The sort of star people come out for on a Saturday night. One they’ll be happy to see on your weekend table. There’s plenty here to support it, too: a long ensemble (the metaphor still runs ahead, I know) of fragrant herbs, salty cheese, crunchy walnuts, and the dreamy shattering crispness of pastry.”
Warm the olive oil in a frying pan (large enough for the cabbage) and add the onions. Cook over a low heat for about 10 minutes, until softened.
Add the spices to the onion, and cook for a minute or two, then add all the cavolo nero and cabbage. It’ll take up space, so turn it regularly in the first couple of minutes, until it starts to sweat down. Keep stirring regularly for about 20 minutes. Don’t stress if bits of the cabbage crisp and brown a little; just keep cooking until it’s all softened and any water has cooked off. Once the cabbage is cooked, take off the heat and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4 and grease the cake tin or pie dish well with butter. Working a sheet at a time, paint the filo with butter and layer the sheets up in the bottom of the dish. Ensure at least half the pastry is overhanging the edge of the dish, so you can use it to fold over the top of the pie once it’s filled.
Once you have layered up all the filo, finish off the filling. Stir the herbs, crumbled feta, chopped walnuts, and eggs through the cabbage, then spoon the mixture into the filo-lined dish. Working one sheet at a time, paint the overhanging filo sheets as you layer them over the top of the filling, scrunching the last couple to create texture on top. Pour the last of the melted butter over the pie and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
Bake the pie for 1 hour, until a rich mahogany brown. Leave to rest for 5 minutes before serving in generous slices.
Coriander and apple cobbler For four
8 crisp eating apples
50g soft brown sugar
1 tbsp coriander seeds, crushed
50g butter
Cobbler topping
200g plain flour
1½ tsp baking powder
90g soft brown sugar
90g butter, cold and diced
1 egg
50ml milk
To serve
Cold cream, vanilla ice-cream, yoghurt or crème fraiche
This is a lovely, warming pudding for a low-key, mid-week autumn evening. Not miles away from a crumble, but with a tender, cakey sort of topping instead, crisp on top and soft where it sits close to the apples. It looks like something your grandma might make – like my grandma might have made, in fact, the grandma who always had tomato jam in the cupboard, and homemade biscuits in a jar above her fridge. It should be served with plenty of cold pouring cream or yoghurt or vanilla ice cream, eaten from deep bowls while sat beneath blankets on the sofa.
Bramley apples also work here, but they do end up disintegrating beneath the batter, so (as ever with an apple) I prefer something crisper. I’m not sure my grandma would have pulled a jar of usually savoury-coded coriander seeds out for this, but I really hope the finished result might have converted her. It’s a pairing that works deliciously well.
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5. Peel and core the apples and cut them into chunks or wedges. Mix the brown sugar with the bashed coriander seeds and toss it through the apples, then tumble into a large pie or roasting dish. Dot the butter around the apples, then transfer to the oven for 15 minutes.
Make the cobbler topping. Tip the flour, baking powder, and sugar into a bowl, and rub in the butter using your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Whisk the egg into the milk in a jug and pour into the flour and butter mix. Stir – you’ll have a spoonable batter.
Spoon the batter over the top of the cooked apples, leaving gaps for the apples to bubble through, and for the cobbler to rise and expand.
Put the cobbler into the centre of the oven and bake for 45 minutes until it has risen and is a rich gold brown. Serve hot, with something cold.
The Seasoned Gastronome