The Kitchen Diaries II. Nigel Slater

      dried apricots: 250g

      softened butter: 175g

      golden caster sugar: 175g

      eggs: 2

      ground almonds: 80g

      self-raising flour: 175g

      ground cinnamon: a pinch

      vanilla extract: a few drops

      For the crumble:

      plain flour: 100g

      butter: 75g

      demerara sugar: 2 tablespoons

      jumbo oats: 3 tablespoons

      flaked almonds: 2 tablespoons

      a little cinnamon and extra demerara sugar for the crust, and perhaps a little icing sugar to finish

      Preheat the oven to 160°C/Gas 3. Line the base of a 22cm round cake tin with baking parchment.

      Put the apricots in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for twenty minutes, then turn off the heat and leave them to cool a little.

      Beat the butter and sugar in a food mixer for five to ten minutes, till light and pale-coffee coloured. Break the eggs, beat them gently just to mix the yolks and whites, then add them gradually to the mixture with the beater on slow. Fold in the ground almonds, flour and cinnamon, then add the vanilla extract. Scrape the mixture into the tin and smooth the surface.

      Drain the apricots and add them to the top of the cake mixture. Make the crumble topping: blitz the flour and butter to crumbs in a food processor, then add the demerara sugar, oats and flaked almonds and mix lightly. Remove the food processor bowl from the stand and add a few drops of water. Shake the bowl a little – or run a fork through the mixture – so that some of the crumbs stick together like small pebbles. This will give a more interesting mix of textures. Scatter this loosely over the cake, followed by a pinch of cinnamon and a little more demerara. Bake for about an hour, checking for doneness with a skewer; it should come out clean.

      Remove the cake from the oven and set aside. Dust with a little icing sugar if you wish and slice as required. The cake will keep well for three or four days.

      Enough for 8

      FEBRUARY 23

      Desperate for dessert

      There are apples that fluff up when they are cooked and apples that keep their shape. But you know that, if you have read the apple chapter in Tender Volume II, or indeed have ever made apple sauce or baked an open apple tart.

      What I find particularly useful are recipes that work with ‘fruit bowl’ apples, the sort you tend to have knocking around. This is such a recipe. It’s a pudding for when you didn’t intend to have a pudding, until someone asked for one.

      Fried apples with brown sugar and crème fraîche

      The apples should be cooked over a fairly low heat so they soften but don’t colour too much before you add the sugar. Once the sugar is added, things happen quite quickly, so don’t be tempted to take your eye off the pan. The Calvados is a suggestion. You can add a straightforward cognac if you prefer, or leave it out altogether. If there is no crème fraîche around, use ordinary double cream – though the result will be a little sweeter.

      a large apple

      a little lemon juice

      light muscovado sugar: 2 tablespoons

      butter: 50g

      Calvados: 1 tablespoon

      crème fraîche: 2–3 tablespoons

      Cut the apple into quarters and remove and discard the core and pips. I don’t peel my apples for this recipe, but it is up to you. Cut the apple into thick slices, put them in a basin and squeeze over a little lemon juice, just enough to stop them browning.

      Melt the butter in a shallow, non-stick pan. Add the apple slices and let them cook over a moderate heat for about ten minutes, turning them as necessary and lowering the heat if they colour too quickly. When they are soft and golden, scatter over the sugar and let it melt in the butter. As it starts to turn to caramel in the pan, add the Calvados and crème fraîche. Once the cream has melted around the apple, serve immediately.

      Enough for 2

      Pumpkin, tomato and cannellini soup

      This is quite a substantial soup and could easily double as a main dish. To make a quick version, use canned beans. Drain them of their canning liquid and rinse them thoroughly, then add them to the soup once the tomatoes have simmered down to a slush. You could use any bean, but the cannellini type has a good contrast of texture to the soft vegetables and tends to stay quite firm during cooking. The soup can be kept in the fridge for several days.

      dried cannellini beans: 250g

      onions: 2

      olive or rapeseed oil: 2 tablespoons

      garlic: 2 or 3 cloves

      rosemary: a small sprig

      tomatoes: 400g

      pumpkin: 800g (about 650g prepared weight), peeled and cut into chunks

      parsley: a small bunch

      a little extra virgin olive oil

      Soak the dried beans in cold water overnight. Drain and rinse, then tip into a large, deep pan and cover them with water. Bring to the boil, partially cover with a lid, then turn down the heat so they cook at an enthusiastic simmer. Don’t be tempted to add any salt at this point, as it will toughen the beans. Skim off any froth that rises to the surface as they cook, and occasionally check the water level and top up from the kettle if necessary. Test for doneness after forty-five minutes or so; they should be tender but not soft. Drain and set aside.

      Peel and roughly chop the onions. Warm the oil in a deep pan, add the onions and cook for about ten minutes, until soft. While the onions cook, peel and slice the garlic and add to the pan, together with the rosemary needles, roughly chopped. Cut the tomatoes in half and stir them into the onions. Continue cooking for five minutes, then pour in 750ml water and bring to the boil. Add the pumpkin pieces to the pan, season with salt and black pepper and leave to simmer gently for thirty to forty minutes, until the pumpkin is tender to the point of a knife.

      Tip the drained beans into the pan and continue cooking for ten minutes. (If you want to cool everything at this stage and put the soup in the fridge overnight, it will be all the better for it.) Remove the leaves from the parsley and chop roughly, then stir them into the soup. Ladle into deep bowls, trickle a little extra virgin olive oil over the top and serve.

      Enough for 4

      FEBRUARY 24

      The old wok

      I have three woks. The oldest is cheap, thin, and has been a friend for longer than I can remember. A purchase from Chinatown, now blackened from years of use and, if I am honest, a little rusty here and there. Its diameter is 40cm, which will make a stir-fry (mushroom and broccoli, prawn and fat, fresh noodles, chicken and choy sum) for two.

      The trendy thick woks with famous names are rubbish. Leave them in the shops. Never pay more than a few quid for a wok. Go for one made from steel no thicker than a ten-pence piece. It will take more looking after (it needs seasoning to stop it rusting) but it will reward you with a better stir-fry. The whole point of a stir-fry is the speed at which the meat cooks. A slow stir-fry where the pan is too thick or the heat too low simply isn’t a stir-fry. It’s a stew-fry.

      Woks