Romantic romanesco

This alien looking vegetable a joy to photograph, but even more importantly it is absolutely delicious. Several years ago I first saw these trifid-esque brassicas in New York at the Union Square farmers market. Their delicate, pale green spirals caught my attention and started an unrequited love affair. I say unrequited because the things are so darn hard to find here in the UK! I can't wait to have a go at growing my own.

For the mathematicians or the trance kids among us romanesco is fascinating because the vegetable actually approximates a natural fractal. Each of the 'cones' are arranged in a classic logarithmic spiral and each 'cone' itself is composed on smaller buds arranged in the same formation. Like galaxies, hurricanes and nautilus shells, the romanesco's spiraling formation is really quite beautiful to look at. I was not entirely surprised when I found jewellery made from romanesco casts on display at the Collect exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery earlier this year.

My favourite way to eat romanesco is one of the simplest. Try to find a hard, sharp pecorino cheese, ideally a pecorino Sardo, but a creamier pecorino Toscano will still be delicious.

a romanesco
pecorino cheese
half a lemon
a really good quality extra virgin olive oil
sea salt flakes and black pepper

Bring a small pan of water to the boil. While you wait, break off individual cones from the romanesco and then slice them quite thinly from top to bottom. I like making lots of weird yet lovely shapes and leaving some of the tips whole so they look like little trees in profile.

When the water is boiling, throw in a couple good pinches of salt and then add the slices of romanesco. Cover the pan and keep the heat high. As soon as you can hear the water coming to the boil again immediately take it off the heat and drain under cold running water to stop further cooking. You could be super professional and dunk the drained slices into a bowl of iced water, but a cold tap will also do fine.

Scatter the romanesco over a large wide plate and squeeze lemon juice all over. Drizzle liberally with olive oil. Top everything off with shavings of pecorino cheese. You can use a vegetable peeler to peel off thin shavings of cheese, or just grate it finely with a microplane.

Season with salt and pepper and tuck in, probably with your fingers.

Marinated cucumbers

I’m back in Tuscany, celebrating a glut of cucumbers and getting reacquainted with flavours that took a backseat during the winter months. Eating here feels like emerging from some kind of taste-hibernation, remembering forgotten pleasures and rediscovering dishes as though meeting old friends. None of the artisan tomatoes from farmers markets in the height of summer in London tasted as richly delicious as the sun drenched examples from Sibilla’s garden. We feast on them every morning, sprinkled with a little red wine vinegar, torn basil and a splash of fruity olive oil. Yesterday there was creamy sheep’s milk ricotta from the dairy to go with our tomatoes. Sitting in the sunshine listening to cicadas I wondered why anyone would ever want to eat anything else.

We used home-grown Italian cucumbers with quite a tough, thick skin and spiky nubbins, so peeling is essential, however if you might decide not to peel yours if their skin is thinner.

Serves four as part of a summer's lunch

3 cucumbers, peeled and sliced into rounds about as thick as a pound coin (roughly half a cm)
One medium sized white onion, peeled and sliced into rings as thick as the cucumber
A generous teaspoon of sea salt
Half a teaspoon of sugar
A small clove of garlic, crushed
Good quality white wine vinegar
Fresh basil and mint
Extra virgin olive oil

Black pepper

Combine the cucumbers and onion rings in a bowl large enough to let you toss and mix around your ingredients. Add the salt and sugar and mix everything up. Taste a piece of cucumber – it should taste a tiny bit too salty. If not add a bit more salt. Add the garlic, toss again, then pour over enough white wine vinegar to just about cover the cucumber. The salt will draw moisture out of the cucumbers and together with the vinegar this will be your marinade.

Cover the bowl with cling film and leave it in the fridge overnight.

The next day, just before you serve the dish, tear up a small handful of basil and mint leaves and scatter them over. Add a good splash of olive oil, grind over some black pepper and give the whole thing one last toss.

The cucumbers are lovely and refreshing eaten on their own, perhaps with a slice of cold roast pork and chilled glass of white wine. Or add them to chopped up tomatoes, and throw in some cubes of dry, stale bread for a more substantial panzanella-style salad.

Squished squash soup

The wonderful thing about squash is each type tastes noticeably different, from the creamy mild butternut to the denser, nuttier red onion and the rich, sweet kabocha. Its worth making a soup out of every variety you can get your hands on at least once, so it's a while before this recipe will start to get boring.

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:

roughly 800g cubed and peeled squash: butternut, kabocha, red onion or any others

a medium to small onion, chopped

olive oil

ground cinnamon

nutmeg

salt and pepper

Split your squash in half and scoop out all the seeds. Chop the rest into chunks, slicing off the skin as you go along, until you end up with pieces that are roughly similar and bite sized.

Place the onion and a pinch of salt into a puddle of olive oil in a saucepan, cover and set over a low heat. Let the onion sweat gently until it turns soft and translucent and then starts to colour and caramelise, this should take up to ten minutes or so.

Turn the heat up to high, add the squash, some salt and pepper and give it all a good stir. Pour over enough water to just cover the squash, cover the pan and bring to the boil. Let the squash bubble away for 15 to 20 minutes, depending on how much you have. You'll know its done when your cubes have melted into soft pulp.

Turn off the heat and blend everything into a soft, velvety consistency. Adjust the seasoning by adding little sprinkles of cinnamon and grated nutmeg to the hot soup, blending and tasting after each addition. Every squash is different and I find the amount of sweet cinnamon or fragrant nutmeg that I want varies each time so I prefer to add it at the end. Finish with freshly ground black pepper and more salt if needed.

I love eating this soup on its own in big steaming spoonfuls, then reheated in the following days and garnished with a dollop of crème fraîche, a scattering of paprika or cayenne powder and a squeeze of fresh lime.

Cobnuts

Whoa, its been a while. September sped past in a haze of summer holidays and job interviews and suddenly it is officially Autumn. I can tell because the sky has become a low hanging ceiling of dense grey cloud for several days now, and the rain keeps coming, and coming.

On a better note this also marks the arrival of cobnuts. Cobnuts are to hazelnuts what Cox's Pippins are to apples - a cultivated variety. Young cobnuts have green shells and husks and taste almost milky, with a fresh acidity. These are the ones I like best, picked before they turn brown, when the nut dries and tastes more like the familiar hazelnut.

Crack open a bunch and toast them in a dry pan until they brown and smell inviting. Then drop in a small knob of butter to finish them with a sizzle. Tip the hot nuts into a bowl and sprinkle generously with sea salt. Eat them straight away while they are toasty hot. If you like, add some lemon juice and cayenne pepper to spice them up.

Melted marrow

You may have seen enormous marrows at a market recently. Or perhaps like Sibilla you have been growing courgettes this summer and left the patch untended for a few days, returning to discover that your sweet little courgettes, left unpicked, have swollen into humongous Mr. Hyde versions of themselves.

"We'll feed them to the pigs." was our first reaction, but wait! These are summer squash, related to their winter cousins pumpkin and butternut, which are also capable of reaching gargantuan sizes. Surely there must be something we can do?

I am very fond of marrows now.

They do need some gentle love and attention, but you'll end up with the perfect comfort food. We ate this with roast chicken, braised rabbit and on its own in big steaming bowlfuls.

The trick is to separate the pale, creamy yellow flesh inside from the rest of the monster. Once cooked, marrow has a delicate, clear flavour than reminds me of Chinese winter melon and the consistency of softened butter.

First cut the marrow down into manageable sections and remove the dark geen skin with a sharp knife. These blocks can then be sliced into rounds and chopped into cubes. I throw away the spongey, seedy parts as I find them stringy and chewy.

Serves 6-8 as a side dish

Ingredients:
One or more marrows cut into cubes roughly 5cm wide and 3cm high, 2-2.5kg
5 large cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed with some salt
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
A cup of water

You'll need a big pot that can hold all the marrow, preferably heavy based. Generously cover the base with about 1cm of olive oil, add the garlic and sprinkle liberally with salt and ground pepper.

Add a third of the marrow cubes and then stir well until every cube is coated with oil and seasoning. Repeat with the remaining two thirds of marrow and finish with a final glug of oil and a scattering of salt and pepper. Pour over the water and cover with a tight fitting lid.

Place the pot over a low flame and forget about it for 45 minutes. When you lift the lid the cubes should be almost submerged in bubbling golden liquid. Give it another 15 minutes if not. Then remove the lid and leave the marrow to simmer for another 20-30 minutes, or until you can only see a little liquid left.

Coax the marrow into a large serving dish, or ladle into deep bowls straight from the pot. Eat with a spoon.