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We believe that the whole experience of reading about food and cooking should be as pleasurable and inspiring as eating it, and we want to help promote the people and places doing that best.
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Summer Of Salads – The Parlour Panzanella Recipe
The time for summer salads is here.
We at KP are looking forward to a long and glorious summer ahead with plenty more opportunities to spend time with friends and family, and of course to cook and eat together again.
For us summer means salads. Fresh, exciting and healthy options often direct from the garden or from local producers. It’s the actual taste of sunshine.
When we think of salads of course we think of Gillian Veal of The Parlour Cafe. Gillian helped define and map our journey into cookbooks way back with our first publication – The Parlour Cafe Cookbook.
Throughout the lockdowns of the last year Gillian continued to express her love of good food and fresh produce through her home delivery Mezze menus which were highly popular and universally well received.
Gillian continues to dedicate a lot of her time to the cafe she runs at Cambo Gardens in Fife, where the focus is on taking fresh, seasonal ingredients direct from the estate’s wonderful gardens and delivering it onto the plate.
We are so excited to be working with Gillian and the team at Gambo Gardens on an amazing new cookbook project about this food journey and this highly creative and organic approach to cooking.
Meanwhile, we thought we would throwback to an inspirational seasonal salad recipe from Gillian’s first book The Parlour Panzanella (Bread Salad) just to whet your appetite for the new book to come and to inspire you on your own personal journey into summer salads.
Enjoy this wonderful salad from The Parlour Cafe Cookbook and over to Gillian now to explain just how you make it.
Parlour Panzanella (Bread Salad)
There are loads of recipes out there for this Italian classic, but this is how we like it. It’s a brilliant dish for using up old bread and other leftovers – try adding some torn up buffalo mozzarella, or some sliced and cooked spicy Tuscan sausage. We roast our own peppers and use our own tomato sauce, but if you are pushed for time you can use shop bought.
Ingredients
1 ciabatta loaf (approx 270g) or any other rustic style bread
1 small red onion, finely sliced
50ml olive oil
2 tablespoons dried oregano
500g tomatoes, diced
1 bunch spring onions, sliced diagonally
2 tablespoons capers
1 red pepper, roasted, peeled and cut into strips
1 stick celery, chopped
handful of pitted olives
handful of basil, roughly chopped
handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
40ml vinegar (white or red or balsamic or sherry – whatever you fancy or have to hand)
200ml tomato sauce (see page 101)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to 190ºC.
Tear up the loaf into bite-sized pieces and put on a baking tray with the sliced onion. Toss with the olive oil and oregano and bake for ten minutes.
Meanwhile, put the diced tomatoes, spring onion, capers, pepper, celery, olives, basil and flat leaf parsley in a large serving bowl. Get in there with your hands and mush it all together to get the flavours going and add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
Take the toasted bread out of the oven and immediately sprinkle on the vinegar – you should hear it sizzle. Tip the contents of the baking tray into the tomato sauce, and then mix through all the other ingredients.
This is good served with either some simply dressed rocket alongside or with rocket mixed through it.
And for those keen to make their own tomato sauce Parlour style. Here’s how to do just that.
Tomato Sauce
This is very useful: you can use it as a simple sauce for pasta, in a vegetarian lasagne, to stuff vegetables, to add to soup or as a pizza sauce. I like to dip good bread in it. It keeps so well in the fridge (about a week) or the freezer (indefinitely) that you may as well make a big batch – it doubles or even triples up really easily. This amount makes about twice what you need for our Aubergine Parmigiana, so you could have that one night and keep the rest for an easy pasta dinner for two some other time. If you have some string, tie the thyme and bay leaves neatly together before putting into the pan, and it will be easier to remove them at the end. And if you like your tomato sauces really garlicky, separate and peel all the garlic cloves before adding them and blend along with everything else at the end.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
1 large carrot, diced
handful of fresh thyme
a few bay leaves
1 whole head of garlic
800g chopped tomatoes (2 x 400g tins)
1 tablespoon Worcester sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1½ – 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
salt
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Once it’s hot, put in the onions, carrot, thyme, bay leaves and the whole head of garlic and give a good stir, then fry until everything starts to take on a nice golden brown hue. Add the tomatoes, Worcester sauce and half of the sugar and bring to the boil, stirring regularly.
Turn down the heat to low, half cover and simmer for 1 to 2 hours – the longer the better. Stir every so often to ensure the sauce does not catch and burn. Once most of the liquid has evaporated, the vegetables are absolutely soft and the sauce has deepened in colour and amalgamated nicely, stir in 1½ tablespoons of the red wine vinegar and season with salt. Simmer for a few more minutes and taste, adjusting with more vinegar, sugar or salt if necessary. Leave to cool, then pick out the whole garlic head, thyme and bay leaves before blending the sauce in a food processor or with a hand blender.
And enjoy your summer of salads!
Kitchen Quiz Episode 5
Kitchen Quiz: With Dina Begum (Brick Lane Cookbook)
Food writer and chef Dina Begum, author of Brick Lane Cookbook, is a woman who lives and breathes what she cooks and writes about.
As a child she would visit the Brick Lane market with her Dad and purchase lamb kofta rolls at the Sweet & Spicy Cafe.
She was absolutely the perfect person to author Brick Lane Cookbook, her debut book which paid tribute to the multicultural essence of the East of London.
Brick Lane has served a role for many, many years now as a hub for newly established immigrant communities – Huguenot, Bangladeshi, Jewish – arriving in the capital city making their home there, establishing communities and businesses, while expressing themselves and their cultural traditions via food.
An area packed full of city boys, art students, curry house touts, models and tourists, the story of Brick Lane is truly a snapshot of London at its authentic, multi-cultural best.
We caught up with Dina recently in London for our latest episode of Kitchen Quiz.
Q: Hi Dina, we hope you are doing fine. So tell us was there a cookbook that really inspired you?
A: Cookbooks that have inspired me are classic ones, such as books by Siddika Kabir – Bangladeshi author, television personality and nutritionist. My favourite cookbook of hers is the Bangladeshi Curry Cookbook, which focuses on traditional recipes and home cooking. I also love Delia Smith’s writing and recipes – especially her baking books.
Q: What is your favourite item in your kitchen that you simply couldn’t do without?
A: I can’t live without my kitchen scales. I’m an avid baker and this is essential for baking cakes, pastries etc.
Q: Do you have a favourite song, type of music or podcast you like to cook to?
I usually listen to Nina Simone, The Eagles, Paolo Nutini or Classical music – both Eastern and Western.
Q: If you could cook anywhere in the world in any location then where would you choose?
A: I would love the adventure element of cooking in the Sundarbans – the mangrove forest which lies in the Bay of Bengal – across Bangladesh and West Bengal. Perhaps on a boat with freshly caught fish!
Q: If you had to give one single piece of advice about cooking to someone then what would that be?
A: I would say cook what you love to eat and try and cook by instinct instead of focusing on recipes by the letter. This is great when you’re baking – as precision is required but general cooking should be joyful. It’s the best (and tastiest) life skill.
Massive thanks to Dina for sharing her thoughts with us.
And if you haven’t done so already, then don’t forget to check out her cookbook for an amazing snapshot of multi-cultural East London at its finest and tastiest.
You can order the book direct from us right here.
Kitchen Quiz Episode 4
Kitchen Quiz: With Kitty Pemberton-Platt (Eat Bike Cook)
Illustrator Kitty Pemberton-Platt is a cyclist and the founder of her own sports wear and culture brand Aprés Sport. Her witty, illustrated sports food diaries have lit up Instagram with their honest visualisations of what female cyclists really eat.
Eat Bike Cook is the first in our Food For Sport series on KP. The book brings together her illustrations of diaries from women who bike from around the world with tips and hacks for what works for them.
The diaries are accompanied by 40 corresponding recipes by Fi Buchanan created to meet the energy demands of cyclists.
As well as providing inspiration on easy and tasty ways to fuel for days on the bike, Eat Bike Cook is a celebration of the female cycling community: of the great chat in a cafe mid-ride, of the handful of Haribos that gets you through the last 25km and the shared beer and burger at the end off the day.
Kitty’s wonderful illustrations are at the beating heart of this terrific book and we were very excited to catch up with her recently for the next episode of Kitchen Quiz.
So take the ride and find out something about what makes her tick.
Q: Hi Kitty, so was there an illustrator or illustrated book that really inspired you?
A: One of my first creative obsessions was Penny Crayon – a fictitious animated character from the 80s/90s. She had the enviable superpower of transforming anything she drew into reality. Over the following years, I soaked in inspiration from everywhere – my mum’s fine art, photography, typography, graffiti or my young niece’s fantastically fearless creations. I discovered the witty world of Waldo Pancake. Through to the emotionally sharp Charlie Mackesy. There’s reference points everywhere but it’s often been a simple and truly innate love for putting pen (a good thick one) to paper supported with playful social commentary, that was my motivator.
Q: What is your favourite item in your kitchen that you simply couldn’t do without?
A: The kitchen is a superb room in the house. Whether it’s cooking to music or chatting to my boyfriend Joe whilst we are cleaning the dishes, it’s a space bursting with possibility and taste. I’m not the most sophisticated cook – even though I enthusiastically try to be – so my cooking utensils are relatively simple. In fact, in our current London flat, I’ve selfishly taken up 30% of it with a coffee corner. Filter machine, espresso machine, grinder, V60 and a collection of French presses. Those items mean so much more than coffee, they’re symbolic of a daily moment of pause and simple focus that’s hard to replicate elsewhere.
Q: Do you have a favourite song, type of music or podcast you like to bike to?
A: My favourite audio during a ride is good conversation – when else do you share hours of thoughts and a listening ear without distraction. If I’m by myself, what I enjoy varies incredibly. I’m quite a patchwork quilt of interests – from EDM (electronic dance music) to americast (the BBC podcast). A short commute is often fuelled with fast beat music whereas long adventures lend themselves to a podcast. I’ll choose one that discusses a perspective or subject I’m deeply interested in (eg How I Built This) or have zero idea about (eg a 3 hour Joe Rogan with Elon Musk).
Q: If you could bike and refuel anywhere in the world in any location then where would you choose?
A: This is one of my favourite questions because it instantly evokes a spectrum of visceral memories. There’s one specific location that holds an incredibly fond spot in my heart – a humble restaurant in Palma de Mallorca that my boyfriend (Joe) and I stumbled across after a long mountainous day in the sun. We savoured crisp cold shandies and the saltiest home made chips we’ve ever tasted. I’m pretty sure they were cooked in magic sauce, or maybe the special ingredient was the conditions and the company. It was perfection, wrapped up in après surroundings – tired legs, salty food and sharing a sense of reward with a loved one.
Q: Do you have any interesting pre-ride rituals you could share with us as advice for the budding riders out there?
A: Pre-ride rituals are an escape before you begin moving. Over ten years ago, I self printed my first book of life advice entitled ‘Oats taste better when soaked overnight’. That’s still the best guidance I can give – soak those oats, slowly brew that coffee and read up about where you’re about to ride (and make sure there’s sufficient ingredients waiting in that fridge you’ll dive into when you get back).
Thank you so much Kitty for your thoughtful ands interesting replies. We can’t wait for you all to get your hands on the marvellous Eat Bike Cook.
You can pre-order the book and guarantee to get it first right here.