An autumn crossover
Slipper weather hasn’t really arrived, but the colder mornings mean cold cereal won’t cut it for much longer, writes Anna King Shahab. Crisp-up the last of the summer herbs Pimp your porridge
The last summer produce lingers, but we’re on the autumnal slope to winter. There are fewer of those sweltering days, when parched taste buds only have eyes for those particularly quenching fruits and vegetables: melons, cucumbers, tomatoes, stone fruit, and thick, crunchy iceberg lettuces.
But that doesn’t mean we’re ready to lug the casserole dish out, or to labour away at making the smoothest mashed potatoes just yet.
There are plenty of ways to bridge the seasons, by wintering up summery food, or lightening comfort food.
The salads I crave in summer are those that sing with the simple goodness of ripe, raw, juicy ingredients, with a thin, sharp dressing.
As autumn sets in, I think about adding a bit of bulk to salads, while retaining an element of freshness.
Often I combine raw and cooked for balance. Think roasted ku¯ mara, red onion and whole garlic cloves cooled to room temperature then combined with delicate greens such as baby spinach, watercress or mizuna and, if you like, some crumbled feta, peelings of parmesan or cubes of fried halloumi. Add cooked quinoa or barley to go full meal.
For the dressing, I like something with a little creamy richness, so yoghurt or creme fraiche thinned with olive oil, lemon juice and then jazzed up with fresh chopped herbs: tarragon, basil, dill – whatever you have to hand.
Sprinkle beetroot wedges with a little salt and pepper, wrap in foil and bake until tender (or as I did last weekend, just let them cook alongside brisket in a kamado barbecue for several hours).
Combine cooked beetroot with various raw tomatoes – bigger ones sliced into chunks and small cherry ones kept whole, finely sliced raw red onion, goat’s cheese, and fresh and sizzled herbs (more on that later).
If you’re not a beet fan, you could make that same salad with a combination of roast tomatoes and raw – the balance of tart, sweet and juicy umami is brilliant. With many herbs going to seed, or starting to thin out in preparation for winter hibernation, now’s the time to use them for full, last-hoorah effect.
One flavour bomb trick you might have noticed in restaurants is garnishing dishes with translucent, crisp herbs.
Try it at home. It’s a good way to add instant depth to a dish, compared to the sharpness of fresh herbs. Sage’s hardier leaves means it lends itself particularly well to it, but try it too with basil (all varieties), mint and parsley.
Here’s how you do it: Remove the stalks and sizzle the leaves in a hot pan with a generous amount of spitting butter or oil, making sure they don’t burn, or they will taste acrid.
Sizzled herbs are the perfect season-bridging garnish for salads, roasted meats and potatoes, and are great to top an oozingly ripe, or smooth fresh cheese.
Make more of a salsa verde with them by adding chopped capers and garlic to the sizzle, and spoon this over cooked whole or filleted fish, juicy slices of perfectly cooked steak, or through cooked pasta along with plenty of grated parmesan or pecorino for a quick autumn meal.
Another way to gently slip into more wintry cuisine is to let certain cooler-month produce sing a raw – or at least lighter – tune.
Brussels sprouts are great sliced finely as the raw star of a salad. Try them with thin slices of orange or apple, fennel, and walnuts or pecans. Add some crumbled blue cheese if you like, and a lemony dressing.
I’m not ready for wedges of baked pumpkin yet, but I’ll happily cook it, season it and puree it thinned down with some apple cider vinegar, for use to paint the bottom of a plate on which to stack a grain-based salad – the cooked grains soak up the puree like pasta does a sauce.
And ku¯ mara can be excellent when allowed to keep a little crunch. (See the recipe below.)
Summer berries might be finished, but luckily the growers made sure to slip some into the freezer for us to use all year around.
Berries give an instant summery note to desserts, baking and smoothies.
And with the last of the stone fruit still holding on, and the arrival of crisp new season’s apples, adding fresh, raw fruit as a garnish to baking and desserts is a good way to brighten them up. These slightly colder mornings have me thinking porridge all of a sudden.
The classic of gently cooked rolled oats topped with a dusting of soft brown sugar and a splash of milk is pretty hard to beat but, for variety’s sake, here are a few other ideas:
❚ Top with dried fruit of your choice, which you’ve steeped overnight in freshly squeezed orange juice.
❚ Top with maple roasted nuts: mixed nuts combined with maple syrup and cinnamon and roasted until crisp (you can even add a pinch of cayenne to the mixture to give your metabolism a morning zap).
❚ Add some quinoa or amaranth flakes with the