Alison Doody’s Coconut Flapjacks

This is a recipe for those of you with a sweet tooth. It comes courtesy of sister-in-law Alison, whose company we are currently enjoying, the first time in two years. As most of you know, baking, bread excepted, is not really my thing, so I’m forever grateful to the guest contributors such as Alison who…

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Saltimbocca alla Romana

Or, if you want to translate literally, jump in the mouth as the Romans do. You can see why, even on British menus, they stick to the original. I mention it in today’s Tom Eats! so I thought I might include the recipe. It’s incredibly easy to make. The fact that my last attempt wasn’t…

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Ice Cream

Well, I couldn’t tantalise you with a brief history of the stuff (see Wednesday’s On The Side column) and not give you some to eat, could I? You know by now about the cream allergy, so you’re not going to be getting any of the rich stuff, nor one of these unctuous ones where you start…

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Crispy Duck Lettuce Wraps With Pickled Carrots

Yesterday was the so called Glorious Twelfth. Depends on your viewpoint, I suppose. Less than wonderful if you’re a grouse, as it’s the start of the shooting season. I came to grouse late in life, and I can certainly see what the fuss is about, but prices are always inflated immediately after twelfth in the…

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Two Fine Tomato Dishes

At this time of year, many of you may be enjoying (or suffering) a glut of tomatoes. Here are a couple of recipes. The first is for a soup which is good at any time of year, but has a beautiful summery colour. A word of warning: the tomatoes need to be quite sweet, though…

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Cranachan

Scotland, we are told, produces the finest soft fruit in the world. We do, do we? Well, not on the basis of the strawberries I’ve had this year. At the beginning of the season the quality  could be forgiven because of the lack of sunshine: no such excuses now, and I still haven’t had any…

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Invisible Ingredients

An invisible ingredient? I hear you repeat in wonder. How can this be? Now, I concede that, out there, there exist people with palettes so refined, that they can detect everything. Some of you may be among them: but you are rare. Alice Waters of the legendary Chez Panisse in California set a challenge to her…

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Recipes From The Wee Fat Lawyer’s Diet Book – Part 5

Stews and Curries If you stop and examine closely the contents of many of our favourites, the ingredients by themselves aren’t all that sinful. There are two things which hike up the calorie count. Firstly, in this comparatively affluent age, we are likely to include a much higher proportion of meat, chicken or whatever than…

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The Wee Fat Lawyer’s A – Z of Food Part 5: T – Z

Well, the final instalment. At last, I hear you cry. One of the main purposes of this section has been to try to ensure you don’t die of ignorance, in other words to point out the truly horrendous number of calories to be found in processed food. Takeaway See also under Curry and Pizza. This…

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Recipes From The Wee Fat Lawyer’s Diet Book – Part 4

Well, the food A – Z is (gently, I hope) suggesting that pasta and pizza shouldn’t feature on your regular menu. Here are a couple of lower calorie options which may fool the brain slightly. Spiralised Courgettes All’ Amatriciana Now when spiralisers hit the market, I was right up there voicing my contempt at this…

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Poached Salmon With Green Sauce

I used my May sabbatical to get a few articles in the can, as it were, to be able to roar back as fresh as, well… a very fresh thing. At the time of writing I was fairly unsure what the rules would be about entertaining, but it surely can’t be too long before we…

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Recipes From The Wee Fat Lawyer’s Diet Book – Part 3

The thing, said Kenny, is that everyone who wants to lose weight will tell you that they hate salads. Until I started going to France regularly, I was probably among their number. Remember the Scottish attempt at a “salad”? A piece of cold meat, or worse. Possibly a birstled three day old Scotch egg whose…

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The Wee Fat Lawyer’s A – Z of Food: Part 3 – E to L

After a couple of weeks of depressing you with lots of foodstuffs best avoided, there’s some more positive news this week. A lot of people say they give up on diets because the food is boring. You just have to look at your fridge or store cupboard from a slightly different angle to realise that…

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The Wee Fat Lawyer’s A – Z of Food: Part 2 – D

After Part 1 was published, one of my daughters took me to task that it was terribly negative, containing things you really shouldn’t touch. While I’m not sure that was entirely fair – I did after all extol the virtues of bread – it certainly can be applied to today’s warnings. Never mind, there’s some…

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The Wee Fat Lawyer’s A – Z of Food: Part 1 A – C

Should The Wee Fat Lawyer’s Diet Book ever see the light of day as a complete volume, it will contain this A – Z, a random compendium of some foods and thoughts on where, if at all, they can fit into your dieting programme. Recipe names in Italics will feature in Tom Cooks! Once the…

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Recipes From The Wee Fat Lawyer’s Diet Book – Part 1

As I mention in the book, for all calorie counting I refer to the My Fitness Pal app. If I am cooking something substantial, such as a piece of meat or fish, or using an ingredient with a very high calorie count such as butter, then I will weigh it. Otherwise it’s an approximation; however,…

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Two Interesting Rice Dishes

Avgolemono For today’s recipes, my thanks are due to two remarkable ladies. The first comes from from Sarah Wyndham Lewis, who featured in this Wednesday’s Food Producers feature in On The Side. Sarah Wyndham Lewis’s Avgolemono Sarah’s Introduction Avgolemono is the ultimate in simple, nourishing comfort food, quickly made and very sustaining. (The g is pronounced…

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Asparagus and Gruyere Flan

Certainties in life? There are many. In central Prague, for example, they come in the form of young men dressed as Mozart selling tickets to Vivaldi concerts. (No, I don’t understand that either. Though come to think of it, maybe the ones flogging tickets for the Mozart gigs are in fact dressed as Vivaldi.) Anyway,…

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Braised Ox Cheek

From this… This is such a simple recipe that I thought hard about including it at all. But when you have a meat dish which can feed up to six people with the main ingredient costing less than a pound a head, it is irresistible. Equally so is the transformation from something so tough that…

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Smoked Haddock Omelette

Many will have heard of Omelette Arnold Bennett; fewer, I suspect, will have eaten it; and fewer still will have made it. Invented at The Savoy Hotel in London for author Arnold Bennett, who resided there for a number of years, it features on the menu of The Savoy Grill to this day. Provided you…

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Halibut with Mussel and Leek Sauce

I didn’t follow a recipe for this anniversary routine masterpiece, but it worked quite well. You  make it slightly backside foremost, as you have to cook the mussels first. The sauce for the fish is wine based (or in this case vermouth). Traditionally you would thicken this with a splash of cream, which I don’t…

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Trout Fillets En Papillote

I hope you didn’t miss Wednesday’s On The Side column featuring Galton Blackiston. The daft customer experience involving the guest whose filo pastry in her en papillote dish was tough is a classic. Confused? Read on. En papillote simply means cooked in a paper bag. (Incidentally, that ridiculous little paper frill you used to see…

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