How hoarding can make you a better cook and save the planet

All you need is a pile of old newspapers and a plumber. Plus this week's recipe: seared scallops with roast pumpkin, cherry tomato and salsa verde on a bed of Castelluccio lentils

This week, my boiler needed repairing, so I’ve been reading a lot of recipes. The two things might not immediately spring to mind as connected. But in order for the plumber to get  anywhere near said boiler, I had to clear away a whole pile of newspaper cuttings; mostly recipes. Which I determined were not going back in the bathroom when he left.

  The cuttings have been sitting there for  – well I don’t think we need to go into exactly how long…  or the fact that some of them come from a paper that hasn’t appeared in print for.  No, I don’t think we need to go into that either, but they are not – definitely not – going back.

The Diva  just turned up  and is saying I should tell you that I moved house with them.  I told her that some things are private and should remain so.  She stomped off, muttering that I will just put them somewhere else.  As if.

But the trouble with this impressive resolve of mine, is the reason they were sitting in a pile in my bathroom, is that I hadn’t read them yet, and in order to throw them away, I have to read them – and I don’t have time.  Or rather, I might have time but I don’t have inclination. At least not till I’m deciding to put them in the recycling bin, whereupon they immediately become must-read material.

Just as well that I can now get all my disposable reading matter digitally or I’d have needed a removal firm to shift it for the plumber.

Not all the cuttings are worthy of anybody’s reading time – something uninspiring to do with a ham hock,  half a hare recipe; that’s the thing about cuttings, you haven’t necessarily kept all the bits, and then you have to decide whether to hold on to it and hope the rest will turn up, or chuck and hope it doesn’t.  It’s like all those keys with no door.

However, I did come  across a page of recipes for scallops; I adore scallops – stuffed full of umami, seared and caramelised in 1min 40secs, and as a bonus, they’re as low-calorie-dense as it gets but it doesn’t show.    

I didn’t find the whole article so no attribution, but one of them involved tomatoes, pumpkin, and salsa verde, all of which is right up my  street.  Actually, it involved sweet potato, but as that is much more calorie-dense – more than three times the calories for 100g – I used pumpkin. In particular, a crown prince squash.   

So here’s the recipe with thanks for inspiration from a nice plumber who comes when he says he will and leaves when everything is working again (and a bill that is only exorbitant in an ordinary, plumbery way), and half an unknown food writer who’s spent the last (- ) years in my loo. 

 

Seared scallops with roast pumpkin, cherry tomato and salsa verde on a bed of  Castelluccio  lentils

Serves 2 – 3

• 8 scallops

• 600g pumpkin

• 300g cherry tomatoes

• 150g Castelluccio – or other very small lentils

• A sprig of rosemary

• 3 cardamom pods

• A small pinch (about a 1/4 teaspoon) coriander seeds

• A pinch (about 1/2 teaspoon) chilli flakes

• 4 teaspoons olive oil

• Salt and pepper

For the roast pumpkin and tomato:

1. Heat the oven to 200º / 400ºf / 180º fan / gas mark 6.

2. Remove the cardamom seeds from the pod, and crush them lightly in a pestle and mortar with the coriander seeds.

3. Remove the rosemary needles from the stem, and finely chop.

4. Peel and deseed the pumpkin, and cut in 2cm thick slices.

5. Put it in a bowl, season well with salt and pepper, and add the rosemary, spices and 2 teaspoons of olive oil; mix really well with your hands so it’s well-coated.

6. Halve the cherry tomatoes and put them in another bowl; season really well with salt and pepper and add the rest of the oil. Mix well.

7. Add the tomatoes to the pumpkin, mix them together, and then tip onto a baking tray with a lip.

8. Scatter over the chilli flakes  and put in the oven for 35 – 45 minutes, turning the pumpkin over after about 20 minutes.

9. Cook till the pumpkin has browned on both sides, and the tomatoes have caramelised.

While the veg is roasting, cook the lentils:

Put them in a saucepan and cover them with plenty of water; add a pinch of peppercorns, coriander seeds, the seeds from 5 cardamom pods, and a teaspoon of salt. Bring to the boil, and simmer for about 20 – 30 minutes.

Just before serving, drain, add some olive oil (or not) and more salt if needed, bearing in mind that most of the salt will have disappeared down the plughole with the rest of the cooking water.

Or open a tin and heat the lentils up just before everything else is ready.

While they are simmering, make the salsa verde.

First, a quick word on the subject:

There’s been a lot of herb-creep in salsa verde recipes – many of the ingredient lists look like they’ve been bought by the metre.      

This is what Elizabeth David had to say about it: ‘Oil, lemon juice, parsley, capers, garlic, salt and pepper… there should be plenty of parsley  .. chopped anchovy fillets are sometimes added’. Italian Food.

It’s not that I can’t see that other herbs might make it taste interesting, but long ingredient lists make nobody’s heart sing, and the simplicity of salsa verde is delicious enough by itself. You can make it with lemon or vinegar, but this recipe works better with vinegar.

You can add more or less olive oil depending on preference, and the degree of downsizing you need in your life.  And feel free to play with the quantity of capers, garlic and anchovy, depending on your taste buds.

• A large handful of parsley

• 1 – 2 cloves of garlic

• 2 – 4 anchovy fillets

• 1 – 2 tablespoons capers

• Balsamic vinegar

• 4 teaspoons olive oil

• Salt to taste

 

1. Wash and dry the parsley and peel the garlic;  chuck  it in the food processor with the anchovy and capers, and pulverise.

2. Add the vinegar, oil and salt.   The amount of vinegar you need will depend on how loose you want the sauce. You may not need much salt – or even any at all – because of the anchovies.

Sear the scallops

1. When everything else is ready, put a smidgeon of olive oil in a (preferably iron) skillet and heat till it’s very hot.

2. Season the scallops with salt and pepper

3. With your timer set to 1 minute at the ready, add the scallops.

4. When the timer goes off, press repeat and flip the scallops over. It takes a few seconds to do this, so if you take them out 10 seconds before the timer goes off again, they will have cooked for the required 1min 40secs.  If they cook for 2 minutes, it will not be tragic.

5. But remove immediately from the pan or they will overcook, which would be Shakespearean. Or Greek.

Put the lentils on a plate or shallow bowl; pile on the roast veg, then the scallops, and finally drizzle-daub the salsa verde.

And the pile of cuttings?

Well obviously, as it’s nearly Christmas, I will use them as wrapping paper. Quite possibly this year. What could be nicer than to have your Christmas present wrapped up in a delicious recipe – and it’s right on message for throw-nothing-away eco-living.

N.b. Do not keep your wrapping paper in the bathroom, it might get soggy.

The Diva is marching round the house singing ‘told-you-so, told-you-so’ to the tune of Jingle Bells at the top of her voice.

If she starts on ‘I was right’, I will not be responsible for my actions.

In the meantime, I shall get on with writing a book on how to repurpose character defects to save money and the planet.

About The Diva

If you are new to this newsletter, you may not have met the Diva yet.     She is a creature of uncertain appearance, very certain opinions, and a great many tiaras.  She turned up one day when I was trying to write a Christmas round-robin – she considered I was making a very dull job of it, and took over.  Since then she has shared my laptop – although the word share implies something rather more democratic than is the case.  I have tried putting my foot down, but she is remarkably persistent in her determination to share her opinions with the world.  And aside from her gargantuan sense of her own importance, she does know her onions where cooking is concerned.