accidents and compliments.

well, again it feels like a long while since i posted here (i seem to be having real difficulty with coherent time-scales at the moment, everything feels like it's stretching out a lot longer than it ought). for those not in the know, i have been on a most pleasant trip down to see my former portsmouth cohorts, which involved excessive beer garden drinking followed by rowdying up the crowd at a burlesque evening featuring some of my favourite ladies, before moving onto london to spend two days in ed's company, again with the excessive drinking, but tinged with some seriously surreal moments, such as seeing a cyclist ride through knee deep water. it feels like i was away a lot longer (possibly in part to do with the needlessly long train journeys i experienced at either end; curse being a public transport idealist), and thus coming home to the midlands has felt like i've been away from the workaday rituals that usually get repetitive enough to do my head in, for enough time to render them close to my heart again.

one of those rituals, mundanely enough, is my wednesday night watching of masterchef with my mother and plenty of red wine. i have, actually, been particularly interested in this year's line-up because there is actually a vegetarian involved (as ed said, 'you mean they're allowed on?'). who so far, is still in the running, although last night i thought she was a bit cheeky for passing off one of the desserts in the terre a terre cookbook as her own. i mean, it's not like i go wild with the recipe variants or have posted much of my own stuff here, but it's like if you write an academic essay, you credit the people you quote, you know? especially if, say, you're on national television and armchair critics like me are watching, glass of merlot in hand. i might write a shitty letter to points of view, if it got on there i'd probably put it on my cv.

anyway, as per usual, where exactly, is miss mitchell going with her tl;dr set up? well, the week previous, they actually had a vegetarian episode, featuring none other than contemporary veggie posterboy yotam ottolenghi. if you'll recall i posted about my trepidation at using his pristine vegetarian tome, plenty, which i overcame on my birthday by giving the moroccan carrot salad page a nice coating of oil and spices? before realizing what my night's viewing was going to consist of, i utilized my new confidence to attempt and succeed at one of mr. ottolenghi's recipes. and then sat there smugly watching a load of omnivores freaking out trying to make recipes from the very same cookbook, then coming up with literally the most bizarre, unbalanced vegetarian dishes when left to their own devices. although, weird and unpalatable as some of the dishes created actually were, there was actually a moment when i nearly dropped my wineglass in shock at john torode and gregg wallace waxing lyrical about one guy's mushroom risotto being a brilliant idea for a vegetarian restaurant dish, like it was some radical idea. anybody who has ever been vegetarian for more than five seconds will know that 9 out of 10 restaurant menus concede to vegetarians only in the form of mushroom risotto. i think this episode of masterchef possibly undid any work vegetarians who take food seriously have done in positing the dietary choice as legitimate in the food world, by basically re-rendering it a complete joke.

it didn't actually stop me feeling superior, mind. watching people who are supposed to be better than you at something freak the fuck out about a recipe from a book you just used, or the thought of freestyling something with a dietary constraint you consider on a daily basis? it shouldn't bring a body joy, but the human ego has its dark moments, and it would be deceitful of me to pretend i'm any less suceptible to them than anybody else. so yeah, that episode of masterchef made me decide i must be a pretty sweet cook after all, not least because i watched it whilst full of the awesomeness that was:

Green pancakes with lime butter

250g spinach, washed

110g self-raising flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 free range egg

50g unsalted butter, melted

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cumin

150ml milk

6 medium spring onions, finely sliced

2 fresh green chillies, thinly sliced

1 free range egg white

oil for frying

for the lime butter:

100g unsalted butter, at room temperature

grated zest of one lime

1 1/2 tbsp lime juice

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp white pepper

1 tbsp chopped coriander

1/2 garlic clove finely chopped

1/4 teaspoon chilli flakes

start with the lime butter. put the butter in a medium bowl and beat it with a wooden spoon until it turns soft and creamy. stir in the rest of the ingredients. tip onto a sheet of clingfilm and roll into a sausage shape. twist the ends of the film to seal the flavoured butter. chill until firm.

wilt the spinach in a pan with a splash of water. drain in a sieve and, when cool, squeeze hard with your hands to remove as much moisture as possible. roughly chop and put aside.

for the pancake batter, put the flour, baking powder, whole egg, melted butter, salt, cumin and milk in a large mixing bowl and whisk until smooth. add the spring onions, chillies, and spinach and mix with a fork. whisk the egg white to soft peaks and gently fold into the batter.

pour a small amount of oil into a heavy pan and place on a medium high heat. for each pancake, ladle two tablespoon of batter into the pan and press down gently. you should get smallish pancakes, about 7cm in diameter and 1cm thick. cook for about 2 minutes on each side, or until you get a good golden-green colour. transfer to kitchen paper and keep warm. continue making pancakes, adding oil to the pan as needed, until the batter is used up.

to serve, pile up and add flavoured butter on top to melt.

it really was just as simple as that. i took on mr. ottolenghi's serving suggestions, one being to serve with seasonal leaves (in my case, the closest thing i could get to seasonal was some rather leggy looking but still admirably peppery watercress), and to amp things up by adding some grilled (in my case, slightly overenthusiastically so, but whatever, john torode wasn't coming round for dinner that night) halloumi. like so:

look at that. five pancakes, and four bits of halloumi how i am too small for my size tens these days is a mystery even to me. they were so, so good though. the only thing stopping me getting up and making more pancakes was how full of pancakes i already was, because otherwise i'd have been right back in the kitchen, frying away. speaking of which i didn't use even half the batter, so it went into the fridge and i fried up some more for breakfast the next day. the batter didn't even suffer from the standing, really. these little pancakes are brilliant, i may well have already found myself a classic go-to herbivore recipe (i have been looking intentionally to build a repertoire of favourites for a while, nothing's really clicked until this). they just tasted so...green. and light. and spicy. and they were pleasingly crisp with just the right moussey interior. and they weren't remotely hard to make, although if anybody ever mentions seeing that ottolenghi guy on masterchef, i'm going to milk the fact i make his recipes every now and then for literally all it's worth. hell, everybody's ego needs stroking sometimes. also, before i disappear off to create more chaos in my kitchen, it's worth noting that if there's any lime butter left it would be criminal not to use it on baked sweet potatoes. i'm a devotee of not wasting anything, so it suited me to use up the butter this way before a friday shift, but i was a bit taken aback by how good it actually was.