Everything old is new again

 It's March and I'm thinking about lockdown. Of course it is, of course I am. It's been three years since my last pre-pandemic work trip. I have been spending too much time and money at the Vault Festival, a wonderful, threatened fringe theatre event which is the last place I reviewed before etc etc and I'm glad to have it back but scared it's about to vanish again. Covid is all over the news, though in the rearview mirror perhaps. It's still rippling across our lives. I lost a wonderful colleague ten days ago, not to covid, but who we have not seen nearly enough of in the last years of his life because of viruses and vulnerability.

And yet, we roll on, with a veneer of normality and an apparent acceptance we'll be bouncing around this virus forever. It is getting me down, chaps. Distinctly.

Anyway, I pop up to talk about food, because we continue to need that sort of thing. And because empty shelves are also a powerful reminder of those terrifying times. Luckily last month was Franco-Belgian month in my kitchen, a friend to seasonal eating. This month is Far Eastern which is similarly light on tomatoes, green leaves and such. It is also low on dairy, unlike February, where veganish week was even isher than usual. 

There was mushrooms on brioche toast with vermouth and cream; leeks vinaigrette with mash [deconstructed soup, effectively]; the good veg stew), and long-cooked carrots with... mash again.

 

 

No regrets about this way of doing leeks. Except it is blodgy and ugly so you can't see how excellent it tasted

 

Vegetarian week? Included a Grand Aioli (evidently from before the veg shortages), and a Three Cheese Dauphinois which is almost unforgiveable but a very good way of coping with February.

Before ovening

After. Cor.

Fish 'n' chicken week was a bit of a rest from the dairy, with things like fish with lentils and capers, or chicken braised with [tinned] tomatoes and mushrooms. The frugal macronade (pasta with leftover gravy) was a genuinely prudent meal; and the tuna-with-white-beans gratin is proper hungry-gap tins cookery.

There are better ways to remember Liz, but lentils are definitely one part of that

Fairly sure this is the beans and tuna gratin. The spirit of it, certainly.

Plus I made chicken liver pate for the umpteenth time, with a raisin-onion marmalade which is very easy and satisfying: onions, raisins, sugar, red wine, cinnamon, yum. Both are very easy - the pate super quick, the "marmalade" just needing cooking down.

Before: lots of liquid

 

And after. Sticky.

 

And finally, meat week. In which I not only cooked a proper Flemish beer stew, but used leftovers for a hachis parmentier. Now that's a Franco-Belgian combination. I also did a tomato soup with tiny meatballs which were just pork mince with salt, pepper and nutmeg, pinched into little balls and poached for 3 minutes before serving with the soup. So simple I did them from scratch each time, and that is unlike me, especially in a busy week. Which all weeks currently are.

Did not brown the meat enough alas. Always an issue.

There is going to be so much less mash in March. Which is good, but I kind of miss it already. I do hope the rest of the month is less redolent of the past, and less in need of potato-based comfort.