Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights

Freshly ground black pepper

50g/

/

a cup of grated strong/sharp Cheddar

Fresh parsley, to garnish

Don’t make this in the first throes of love or when you have people coming over. Haddock is not, and never will be, a sensory aphrodisiac. It is, however, delicious.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/Gas 4. Preheat the grill.

Butter two ramekins. Halve the haddock and put a piece in each ramekin. Pour the milk over the top and add a bay leaf and black pepper to each. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, top with Cheddar and blast under the hot grill for a few minutes. Chop some fresh parsley and sprinkle on top.

Autumn lunches (#ulink_0138b335-6af8-5ef9-909b-31a1a0e87acc)

Spinach and watercress salad with goat’s cheese (#ulink_42e5f59e-7102-5e04-b54f-c9e356c9ee78)

SERVES 2

2 eggs

90g/3 cups of spinach

1 small bunch of watercress

110g/

/

a cup of soft goat’s cheese, crumbled

70g/

/

a cup of toasted pumpkin seeds (or as many, or little, as you prefer)

For the dressing

1

/

teaspoons of harissa paste

2 tablespoons of olive oil

This is an easy salad, so I suggest buying harissa for the dressing! You can find really good harissa in any good deli or Middle Eastern shop, and all you have to do is mix it with some smoky olive oil (see below), pour it on your salad and luxuriate in being a bit damn lazy.

Hardboil the eggs for about 5 minutes. Wash the spinach and watercress leaves and put in a salad bowl. Peel the hardboiled eggs, add them to your leaves and mix in the goat’s cheese. Mix the harissa with the olive oil to form a dressing. Scatter the pumpkin seeds on top of the leaves and dress.

Easy peasy!

French onion soup (#ulink_53a38e0d-fd0e-5db8-9632-c45750b7922a)

SERVES 4 GENEROUSLY

3 large yellow onions

1 tablespoon of butter

Slug of olive oil

2 litres/8 cups of stock—I used 4 cups of chicken stock, 4 of vegetable. Beef is the traditional choice, but I think this is as good

1 tablespoon of good aged syrupy balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper

100g/1 cup of grated cheese—Gruyère is delicious, but Parmesan will do as well

Purists will argue this is nothing like the real thing, which should be made with beef stock and have a great molten island of bread and cheese on top. I use vegetable stock and lose the bread—it’s not as heavy, yet still as decadent and comforting. The trick is slooooooooow cooking the onions, so they impart their rich caramelly flavour to the soup. A drizzle of good balsamic vinegar also gives it a rich enigmatic taste, perfect for a blowsy autumn day.

Roughly chop the onions. In a large pot (I use a heavy-bottomed Le Creuset), melt the butter with a few glugs of olive oil on a low heat. You don’t want it to burn. Make sure the bottom of the pan is covered, by swishing it around.

Pour in the onions, mix them into the oil with a wooden spoon and sweat gently for about 40 minutes. If your heat is kept to the lowest setting they won’t need more oil. Sometimes this is helped by using a heat diffuser pad. Towards the end of the cooking, turn up the heat a bit; you want the onions to brown and caramelize, not to be charred to a crisp.

When the onions look golden and browned round the edges, pour in the stock. Turn down the heat to low again, stir, and add the balsamic vinegar. I don’t know why, but this gives the soup a mellow, sweet earthiness. Let it simmer for another 15 minutes, taste, add salt and pepper if needed and then, using a ladle, pour into bowls.

Pour the cheese in when you are about to serve.

Squid salad with chargrilled peppers and coriander/cilantro dressing (#ulink_ae76ed65-f8a3-513b-ba48-7502a3a34faf)

SERVES 4-6

1 large red pepper, chopped into four lengthways, seeds removed

1 large yellow pepper, chopped into four lengthways, seeds removed

Olive oil

Roughly 100g/4 cups of cleaned baby squid

For the dressing

1 bunch of fresh chopped coriander/cilantro