The New English Kitchen: Changing the Way You Shop, Cook and Eat

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Put the lentils in a bowl and add the oil, vinegar and three-quarters of the coriander. Season with salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Spoon on to a flat dish and arrange the eggs on top. Scatter the remaining coriander leaves over them.

kitchen note

You can use a few pinches of a good curry powder to devil up the eggs a bit.

spiced green lentils with buttered spinach

Scoop this rich, green stew up with strips of hot flat bread – either bought naans or bread made using the recipe on here 22 (#u8e6f119f-8ddb-472c-a3de-c5c0d68f0785).

Serves 4

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 white onion, chopped

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon turmeric

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teaspoon cayenne pepper

12 heaped tablespoons of cooked lentils (see here (#ulink_d1cc4bbe-3f55-5506-81de-c5e6550eb724))

150ml/

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pint water or stock

150g/5oz unsalted butter, melted

480g/1lb frozen spinach leaves, defrosted, the water squeezed out

salt

Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the onion and fry over a low heat until it turns the colour of fudge. Add the spices and heat through, then add the lentils and cook for 1 minute, stirring slowly. Add the water or stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, then remove from the heat and season with salt.

Melt the butter in a large frying pan. When it foams, add the spinach and cook for 1 minute, until it wilts. Pour the spinach on top of the lentils, with the butter, and take it to the table without stirring.

braised red lentils with lime juice and fresh ewe’s milk cheese

A meal in itself – soft hulled red lentils, citrus, lots of spice as for dal and lumps of fresh, lemony ewe’s milk cheese – feta is best – added at the end. Serve in big bowls and abandon forks, giving everyone a big spoon instead. It can also be stored in the fridge for a few days and successfully reheated.

Serves 4–6

240g/8oz red lentils

1 onion, chopped

a pinch of ground turmeric

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 garlic cloves, chopped

2 hot green chillies, chopped

2cm/

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inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped

juice of 1 lime

2 kaffir lime leaves, slightly torn

240g/8oz feta cheese, broken into lumps

Put the lentils in a pan with the onion and turmeric, cover with water (or stock) and bring to the boil. Simmer for 45 minutes, then strain.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan, add the garlic, chillies and ginger and cook over a medium heat until singed light brown, but not burnt. Stir in the lentils, lime juice and lime leaves, then bring to the boil and add the cheese. Take to the table when very hot – the cheese will soften as it heats through.

beans

Beans are the pasta of Spain and the Latin American countries where they come from, but they do not share pasta’s convenience-food factor – unless bought in cans. Dried beans bought in the UK take a seeming age to cook and there is a reason for this. In countries where beans are really valued, they tend to be fresher even when dried, since they are taken from the new-season crops. Ageing beans, dry as can be and probably years old, are sent to those who care less about them – to, er, places like Britain, where everyone happily consumes chicken breasts and tiger prawns for their protein fix. So we get the old beans – the ones that take ages to cook. No wonder everyone prefers pasta. Chick peas are the worst – I once waited seven hours for a pan to produce a batch soft enough to eat. The energy cost must have run to the price of a rib of beef. You can buy better beans (there are specialist varieties in Spanish groceries), and patience – or a pressure cooker – will deliver nice tender beans eventually. It’s not that you have to do anything while they go through their eternal simmer, just that you have to be around – and most people would prefer to be doing something else.

It’s because of this that I am a fan of canned beans. I buy my haricots, cannellini, flageolet and black-eyed beans in cans. They still go a long way – averaging 30 pence per helping – and are perfectly cooked and ready to use. They keep for ever and, apart from being damned heavy to carry back from the shop, are a practically perfect food.

windowsill bean sprouts

Not the oriental sprouts but mung bean sprouts, left on damp paper. This is a lovely, crunchy little sprout that gives its liveliness to open sandwiches made with cold meat and mustard. Children can be put in charge of production – the biology lesson alone is healthy stuff.

Use an old wooden or plastic seed tray with drainage holes and put it on something leak proof. Cover with four layers of kitchen roll and dampen with water. Scatter mung beans on top and leave to germinate, moistening the paper again if necessary. When the sprouts are about 2cm/

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inch high, after about four days, they are ready to eat.

You can do the same with herb seeds, and slavishly follow the current fashion for pointless but fun infantile plantlings. Frankly, bigger leaves have far more oomph. But there’s no harm in them, and buying big packs of coriander seeds will produce coriander babies in a matter of days, to chuck on to green salads, open sandwiches and shut ones.

butter beans marinated with shallots and watercress