Frittering Time Away

In the world of retail, your annual calendar can go quite awry. January trade shows are full of
Christmas stock, we're about to take a trip to Copenhagen to buy spring and summer stock from Rice, and this week on Monday we put up a tree, had a feast and took it all down again in one day for a magazine photo shoot I was asked to help style with props from the shop.

In the here and now it is, of course, harvest time and whilst I was chatting to Kirstie, the photographer, and Lia, the journalist, on this photo shoot we discussed school harvest festivals. Apparently canned goods ready to be donated to food banks are "trending" at harvest festivals - a great charitable idea but canned goods rather misses the point of harvesting things to me. Harvest festivals are about the time of food abundance we get now as crops are bought in from the fields - about being in touch with the seasons; how food is produced, stored, shared and celebrated. All those things and, of course, making loaves which look like sheaves of wheat with mice climbing up them. And squashes. Lots of squashes.

But Kirstie, it turns out, isn't at all keen on the eating of squashes, claiming they taste of nothing whilst she does concede they look quite snazzy in an Autumnal picture. So in an attempt to convince her, I have written a recipe designed to make you want to eat those beauties as well as look at them. After they've adorned the harvest table at school, try taking them home and doing this to them. We'll skip over the fact that this recipe is designed to make them taste of mint and feta, rather than of themselves. And don't worry - if you go squash crazy and buy more than you can stomach - if the beauty of these beasts overcomes you and you strip the greengrocer clean of them - you can always spray paint them silver, tie a red bow on top and shove it on the Christmas table when we get there. You can't deny they look good.
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By Mark Fletcher

Squash and Feta Fritters

For the Batter

100g plain flour
Pinch of Salt
2 eggs
200ml semi-skimmed milk

For the Filling

500g squash, grated
125g feta, crumbled
25g mint, chopped
2 shallots, finely diced
1 tbsp sunflower oil or vegetable, plus extra for frying

For the sauce

200g Greek yoghurt
25g mint, chopped
juice 1 lemon
1 clove garlic, crushed.

Make the batter first as it's best left to rest for 30 minutes. Put the flour in a bowl. Whisk the eggs with half of the milk. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the egg / milk mix. With a balloon whisk or fork slowly pull the flour into the egg mix as you whisk so it forms a smooth batter. Add the rest of the milk to thin the batter.

Next make the sauce by simply mixing all the ingredients together.

Finally, add the filling ingredients to the batter and mix through. Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat until it starts to smoke. Then add three or four table spoons of mix to separate corners or the pan to form the fritters. Fry for 2 minutes then turn and fry for a further 2 minutes. Put the fritters in a low oven to keep warm as your fry the next batch.

Fig and Goats Cheese Tart

It wakes me up at night, it's finger buns nudging my thoughts as I sleep, it whispers in my ears like the gentle sizzle of a frying egg, sometimes building up to something more like the shrill whistle of a boiling kettle when I'm really hungry. Food is definitely an obsession. I plan meals days in advance sometimes, thinking what I have in store, what is seasonal, what allotment vegetables need cooking, what will be good and healthy and what will be an indulgent treat.

These fig and goats cheese tarts tick the seasonal box, but probably not the good and healthy one. I'm a natural feeder too - I made the recipe first as a large tart (below) for a Friday night after work drinks get together, but the smaller versions picture above where made as an extra indulgent treat for my little sister's 30th Birthday celebration. Because food for me, is also about who you share it with.

The smaller versions were made with Paul Holywood's quick rough puff pastry - because you're littlest sister only turns 30 once. They also had a spoon of home made pesto in the bottom. The recipe below is for the larger version - easier to make because you can get the egg custard and the pastry all cooked more evenly on a larger tart, but the small ones were a particularly good indulgence with the lighter pastry.

Fig and Goats Cheese Tart

Ingredients for the short crust pastry:

250g flour
125g butter
60 - 90ml water to bind

This will make slightly more pastry than you need but I think it's always best to have more than to be desperately trying to find enough. Crumb together the butter and flour in a mixing bowl until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Put the water in a jug and using the fingers of one hand, bring the pastry together as you add a little water at a time until it forms a dough. Do not overwork the pastry. Wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Grease a 25cm diameter dish. Roll the pastry thinly and line the dish letting the pastry overlap the dish. Trim back but leave it overlapping as the pastry shrinks during the blind backing and you can trim off the excess afterwards. Prick the bottom of the case with a fork Fill the case with a layer of grease proof paper and some baking beads / dried pulses to weigh the pastry down. Blind bake 190 degrees 15 mins then remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before trimming back the pastry to the rim of the tin.

For the filling

3 medium eggs
75ml single cream
75ml milk
100g grated goats cheese
4 figs, halved and peeled if the skins are tough

Lower the oven to 180 degrees centigrade. Whisk together the egg, milk and cream in a jug and season with salt and pepper. Put the goats cheese in the base of the case. Lay the figs around the edge on top and place the dish on the shelf of the oven. Pull the shelf out a little and carefully fill the tin, then slide it into the oven. The tart isn't deep filled as the figs can over cook if there is too much filling. Bake for around 20 minutes, checking after 15 minutes. The tart is cooked when there is still a little bit of a wobble in the middle when you give it a shake as the egg custard will continue cooking for a few minutes once it is out of the oven.

Tartlet Variation

The tartlets took a little more goats cheese than this and weren't blind baked but instead were made with the lighter rough-puff pastry to help the pastry cook through. The were cooked until the pastry was golden, which also took about 20 minutes but was checked by running the knife around one and lifting it out gently for a visual check of the base. I also added some home made pesto to the base of each for a little extra flavour.