How to read (and adapt) a recipe

With many of us in isolation and some products already hard to find in the shops it can be difficult to cook, especially if you’re trying to follow a recipe.

But the good news is you don’t have to. Or, more to the point, you don’t have be an experienced cook to adapt the ingredients and method. You simply need to use a little common sense.

Most ingredients can be substituted or left out with the possible exception of the main ingredient which inspired the recipe in the first place and even then that’s sometimes interchangeable (think chicken and pork).

So here’s an example - a recipe I made this week from my neighbour Jenny Chandler’s book Pulse after she brought me round a batch of delicious home-cooked chickpeas. (We’ve all been busily swopping ingredients when we have any kind of surplus).

Not to detract from Jenny’s recipe in any way - she’s an absolutely brilliant cook and the end result is delicious - but the main thing to bear in mind, and I’m sure she’d agree, is that a recipe is merely a guideline. Except for baking precise quantities don’t matter that much - something I found hard to believe when I first started to cook and didn’t have much confidence.

My comments in italics

Jenny Chandler’s Catalan chickpeas with spinach

Serves 4 as a side, 2 as a main (reckon you could stretch it to a main for 3 if you up the chickpeas as suggested below)

6 tbsp olive oil (authentic but given your olive oil stocks might be a bit low I’d make it 4. It’s worth it if you can, having a basic olive oil for cooking and a slightly better one for dressings and drizzling. (See the end of the recipe) But the recipe won’t taste as good with vegetable oil or sunflower oil)

2 onions, diced (most of us have a couple of onions but one would do)

4 ripe tomatoes, peeled and diced (no need for it to be 4, I actually had 6 smallish plum tomatoes that were past their best so peeled them* and chucked them all in. The taste of fresh tomatoes is lovely here but you could use tinned tomatoes or passata or even, at a pinch, a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste)

100g (3 1/2 oz) lardons, pancetta or bacon (smoked or unsmoked) (So I only had a couple of rashers of bacon but I did have a couple of small chorizo sausages in the fridge so chopped them up and added them too, as Jenny suggests in the side bar)

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped (Or 2-3 tsp of garlic paste or a good pinch of garlic salt or garlic granules, a product I don’t normally use but is useful to have as a standby in the kitchen if you can’t get hold of fresh garlic)

300ml/10fl oz chicken stock, vegetable stock or chickpea cooking water (Again if you’re trying to get the most out of your ingredients you could just measure out 150ml given the recipe suggests you reduce the stock by half - a technique which works better with homemade stock than stock made from a cube.)

250g home-cooked chickpeas or 1 x 400g can of chickpeas. (I had a LOT of chickpeas so just doubled this amount up which also meant it easily fed 3 rather than 2. You could use cannellini or borlotti beans but chickpeas ARE the main point of the recipe)

250g/9oz fresh spinach, washed and trimmed of any tough stalks (no spinach but I had a handful of chard from a friend’s allotment - only 125g but it didn’t matter. What you need is something green. Shredded hispi cabbage or kale would do though would take a little longer to cook or you could briefly cook it in boiling water first. Or a good handful of parsley if you have neither)

salt and pepper

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (or a little less. Just a drizzle)

Heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed frying pan or sauté pan and cook the onions gently for about 15 minutes until they are really soft and golden

Add the tomatoes, bacon and garlic and cook until the mixture is thick and jammy. I cooked the bacon and chorizo with the onions to get a bit of colour on them before adding the garlic and tomatoes.

Tip the stock into the pan, bring it to the boil and reduce by about a half before adding the chickpeas. (See previous note in ingredients. I didn’t reduce my stock because I used vegetable stock powder) Simmer for about ten minutes - I like to leave my chickpeas at this stage to absorb the flavours for a while and then reheat. (Was hungry so I couldn’t wait for this!)

Just before serving add the spinach to the hot chickpeas - it needs only about a minute to wilt. (Chard or other greens will take slightly longer). Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with the extra virgin olive oil.

So there it goes. You can see how if you ask yourself ‘what do I have that is similar to this ingredient?’ you can still make your favourite recipes - and try new ones during this prolonged lockdown.

* to peel a tomato easily make a small cut in the skin by the stem place in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave for a minute, drain and cover with cold water. Once the tomato is cool enough to handle the skin should slip off easily

What to drink: this is as interchangeable as the ingredients to be honest. I'd personally go for a young rioja or other hearty, simple unoaked red but a strong dry rosé or even a full bodied white (white Rhone or white Rioja rather than an oaky chardonnay would be fine too)

Pulse should be available from independent booksellers who are still operating a mail order service or for download via hive.co.uk. Jenny has also written a follow-up called Super Pulses which you can also download on Hive or Amazon. Do follow Jenny’s instagram feed @jennychandleruk too which contains lots of great tips for using pulses.

Beetroot, goats cheese and walnut salad

One of the most useful things you can have in your cupboard at the moment is vac packed cooked beetroot which you can buy in the fresh section of most supermarkets. Fortunately it doesn’t look that appealing so there hasn’t been a run on it despite the fact it’s relatively inexpensive (90p in my local Co-op).

You can use it to make a salad, as I’ve done here and, with the same ingredients, turn it into a dip. Or a borscht if you’re so minded (which would create a use for the liquid in the pack though you would obviously need to add stock too.)

In terms of ingredients - and this applies to all the recipes I’m posting at the moment - just remember you can always substitute whatever you’ve got. You could make this salad with ANY crumbly white cheese - or blue cheese come to that. And substitute hazelnuts for walnuts - or some chunky crusty croutons if you haven’t got or are allergic to nuts.

Beetroot, goats cheese and walnut salad for 1

25g or so of walnut pieces or toasted hazelnuts

Half a 250g pack of cooked beetroot

40-50g hard goats cheese, feta or other white crumbly cheese

A handful of rocket or other salad leaves

2 tbsp salad dressing (see below)

A few chives if you have them

A few grinds of black pepper if you're a bit of a pepper fiend

If you have the oven on for something else pop the walnuts in for 3-4 minutes to refresh them otherwise toast them for a couple of minutes in a dry pan. Remove one or two of the beets from the pack and break roughly into pieces with a teaspoon. (Just looks a bit nicer and more natural than cubing them.) Crumble the cheese with a fork. Arrange the leaves on a plate, arrange the beetroot pieces on top and spoon over half the dressing. Scatter the cheese and nuts over the top and spoon over the remaining dressing. Grind over some cracked black pepper (why the plate is looking so messy) and sprinkle over a few snipped chives.

For the dressing

1/2 tsp Dijon mustard

1 dessertspoon red or white wine vinegar

3-4 dessertspoons of olive oil

Salt and pepper

Put the mustard in a jam jar with the vinegar, 3 dessertspoons of the olive oil and salt and pepper and shake vigorously. Add a little more oil if you find it too sharp.

Beetroot, goat cheese and yoghurt dip

Serves 2-4 depending what else you’ve got on the table

Half a 250g pack of cooked beetroot

40g hard goats cheese or feta, cubed

1 small clove of garlic crushed or a pinch of garlic granules (optional)

1/4-1/2 tsp ground cumin

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp natural unsweetened yoghurt or kefir

Salt

Chop the beets roughly, put in a food processor or blender and pulse a few times to break up. Add the cubed cheese, garlic, if using, cumin and salt and whizz into a thick purée. Trickle in the oil while the motor is running as if you were making mayonnaise then add the yoghurt and briefly pulse. Tip into a bowl and serve with pitta, flatbread or crackers.

What to drink: Partly because of the goats cheese but sauvignon blanc goes really well with both of these. For other suggestions see

The best wines to pair with beetroot

Porridge, honey and raspberry loaves

The perfect weekend breakfast bake from Richard Bertinet's lovely book, Crumb.

Richard says: I love this bread lightly toasted the day after it’s made with fresh raspberries and goat’s milk yogurt for breakfast.

MAKES 2 MEDIUM TIN LOAVES

50g porridge oats, plus extra for dusting and coating

100g goat’s milk

40g honey

300g cool water

450g strong white bread flour

10g fine sea salt

10g fresh yeast

250g frozen raspberries

a little vegetable oil or butter, for greasing the tins

1 Bring the oats and milk to the boil in a pan. Stir in the honey, then take off the heat, scrape into a bowl and leave to cool.

2 To make the dough, transfer the porridge mixture to a food mixer, add the water, then the flour and salt and roughly break up the yeast on top on the opposite side of the bowl to the salt. Mix for 4 minutes on a slow speed, then turn up to medium for about a further 12 minutes until you have a dough that comes away cleanly from the sides of the bowl.

3 Lightly dust a work surface with oats, then turn out the dough. Also dust a clean bowl with oats. Fold the frozen raspberries gently into the dough but do not knead. then form into a ball and rest for about 45 minutes–1 hour until just under double in size.

4 Divide the dough in half using your scraper and re-shape each piece into a ball as above. Cover as before and leave to rest for a further 10 minutes.

5 Grease two medium loaf tins with oil or butter and place on a baking tray. Have some more oats in a large shallow bowl. Brush the top and sides of each ball with water and dip into the oats to coat, then put into the tins. Cover with a baking cloth or a large freezer bag and allow to prove for 45 minutes–1 hour until just under double in size.

6 Preheat the oven to 230°C. Fill a clean spray bottle with water. Using a sharp serrated-edged knife, make a cut along the length of each loaf, then put the tray into the preheated oven. Just before closing the door, quickly mist the inside generously with a water spray, pumping it for about 5–6 seconds, and avoiding spraying the loaves as much as possible.

7 Bake for about 15–20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 210°C for 10 minutes (leave the oven door very slightly ajar for the last 3–4 minutes to allow some steam to escape in order to enhance the crust) until the tops of the loaves are golden and the oats are light brown.

Extracted from Crumb by Richard Bertinet, published by Kyle Books. Photography © Jean Cazals.

Monkfish, chorizo, saffron and chickpea stew

One of the things I’ve been trying to do in the current crisis is to support local producers and importers who are obviously affected by the closing down of restaurants and pubs.

So I ordered a box of goodies from Bristol-based Mevalco which imports gorgeous produce from Spain it’s up to now being supplying to Spanish restaurants and tapas bars.

One of the ingredients was a kilo of monkfish and this is what I built around it using two other ingredients in the box - cooking chorizo and tomate frito - a really natural tasting jar of tomato purée.

It basically makes enough for 8 which you can either eat at home if you’ve family staying with you, stash away in the freezer or share with neighbours, which is what I’m increasingly doing - particularly those that work for the NHS.

Don’t feel bound to follow the recipe religiously - it’s always possible to vary a recipe depending on what you’ve got.

Serves 8

250g cooking chorizo (or you could use cubed pancetta or bacon and add pimenton to the stew)

4 tbsp olive oil

1 kg monkfish (or cod though it will break up more) cut into generously sized pieces

150ml glass of dry white wine

A good pinch of saffron

1 large or 2 medium onions

2 large cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped or crushed

Half a large jar of tomato frito or passata or a tin and a half of chopped tomatoes

1 jar or 2 tins of cooked chickpeas or an equivalent amount of freshly cooked chickpeas

A dash of nam pla (Thai fish sauce) if you have some

Chopped parsley or coriander (see method)

Salt and pepper

Cut the chorizo into chunks unless it’s already cubed. Heat two tablespoons of oil in a large casserole and fry the chorizo until it starts to brown. Remove from the casserole with a slotted spoon and set aside. Brown the monkfish pieces in batches in the fat that remains in the pan, removing them as they cook. Deglaze the pan with the white wine, working off any stuck on bits of fish or chorizo. Pour into a bowl, add the saffron and leave to infuse. Heat the remaining oil in the pan and cook the onion over a low heat until soft. Add the chopped or crushed garlic and cook for another minute then tip in the tomato frito or passata and simmer for a couple of minutes*. (If you use whole or chopped tomatoes break them up a bit). Add back the chorizo, monkfish, saffron infusion and the drained, rinsed chickpeas and bring back up to simmering point. Season with salt, pepper and a dash of nam pla which accentuates the fishiness of any fish dish then cook gently until the monkfish is tender (about half an hour. If you’re using cod only about 10 minutes). If you’re serving it straight away check the seasoning then stir in a good handful of chopped parsley or coriander, otherwise portion up and freeze and add the parsley at the last minute.

* I also added half a glass of water so as not to make it too intensely tomatoey

What to drink: Well there’s dry white wine in it so makes sense to drink a similar wine with it. Albarino, picpoul, muscadet, most dry Italian whites. A dry rosé would work too or even an inexpensive basic rioja