138: Cabbage with orange and juniper, p385, and 139: Potatoes with duck fat and garlic, p377

A Christmassy veggie side and potatoes to go with the pork served for dinner tonight. I made a full batch of the cabbage, foolishly, using a whole (small) red cabbage. I'm going to be eating it all week, since T almost certainly won't... Enough to serve 12 as a side, not 6, but anyhow... :)

The juniper berries weren't too overwhelming which was a good thing and the lemon and orange juice added a lovely citrusy zing which stopped the cabbage being too dull. Not sure about the function of the celery, didn't really add much, but the apple was a good thing and onion always is.

I cheated with the potatoes. The recipe says duck fat, and I used goose fat. Well, I needed it earlier in the year for a recipe, and bought a jar, which has been sitting untouched in the fridge ever since. I didn't really want to go out and buy another jar, this time of duck fat, which would also sit untouched in the fridge... so I cheated... duck/goose, how different can the fat taste? Is that cheating too much?? The garlic knocked your socks off - only one clove, but still, immediate repetitions all through dinner, curious! I wasn't sure about sauteeing the potatoes in so much fat, they took forever to cook and then suddenly started to brown which was a bit alarming, and I had to drain them on kitchen towel before serving. But they were rather tasty...

So the pork was served with the red cabbage and sauteed potatoes, with some gently sauteed baby courgettes on the side, and delicious gloopy winey oniony gravy. Yum! Finished off the strawberry water ice, and some more of the melon sorbet for pudding.

130: A salad of red mullet with lime and ginger, p246

Delicious! What a weekend for food! Along with the clams, I also purchased two red mullet from Sandy's. Quite pricey, and with four red mullet recipes in the book to get through, lets hope red mullet doesn't have a short season...

I was a bit nervous about this one, and probably will be about all the red mullet recipes actually, it being pricey and me not having cooked it before - it's a bit worrying, trying not to ruin it! However, this was easy peasy, and the fish took 2-3 mins on each side in a pan before it was cooked just so - was very pleased! The 'salad' comprised a cooked up Vietnamese style mixture of thinly sliced carrot and onion, with allsorts of lovely flavours - the lime juice, chilli, white wine vinegar, ginger and star anise being particularly notable. It went beautifully with the fish, which was meaty enough to hold it's own against the salad, yet delicate at the same time. And again, T, who I expected to leave most of the salad (not liking carrot or onion much, in any form), cleaned his plate!

88: Roast tomatoes with anchovy and basil, p236

Baked these tomatoes at the same time as those for yesterday's tomatoes with cheese, but these ones are served at room temperature, so left them for part of today's dinner. Mmm, yummy they were too. Tasty basily, roasted tomatoes with meaty, fishy goodness of the anchovies mixed in.

Why did Nigel Slater have so many tomatoes during the summer he wrote this book?? There are five recipes in July alone involving roasting large quantities of tomatoes... I've been cutting the quantities down massively so I'm not eating each one for days on end for lunch...

56: Bean shoot salad with corianer and mint, p378

Jeepers!! I only used one chilli instead of two, and left it all for 5mins, not 15mins, and this was darned fiery!! Served with garlicky chilli prawn linguine, this made enough for at least four as a side dish. Can't think of an enormous amount to say... crunchy, tasty, but not the most substantial or filling of dishes so don't think I'd make this as a main course on it's own.