A feast for friends

It’s reached that point in my plans for leaving London where I’ve had to start saying goodbye to friends. Although I’m having a big party next week, it’s inevitable that, thanks to the summer holidays, some people won’t be able to come.

Last week, I invited my friends Lea and Nicky over for dinner, because they decided that going to Camp Bestival was more important than waving off their dear friend who’s going to a far and distant land and may never return… Okay, I’ll drop the drama queen act. It’s fine that they’re going away for my last weekend in London, really, it is.

Anyway, back to the point of all this – the food. I decided to cook my favourite saffron poached chicken for the meat-eaters, some grilled whiting sprinkled with pul biber for the pescatarians, plus a Moroccan vegetable stew (which included baby turnips, courgettes, carrots, red onions, chickpeas, turmeric, cumin, and lots of garlic) and couscous for all of us to eat.

This is a dish my mum made regularly when I was a child, and I would always eat far far too much of it. What is it about couscous that allows you to stuff your stomach so full of it? Well, this meal was no exception, and I was left groaning by the end of the evening.

For pudding, I made Dan Lepard’s chocolate honey meringues, which was in last week’s Guardian magazine. In his instructions, Dan said not to make one big one as it would collapse. However, I wanted to slather it with mascarpone and fresh figs, in the manner of a Pavlova, so decided to ignore Mr Lepard and make it whole.

The result was a rather soft, incredibly chewy, almost brownie-like meringue, which, in my humble opinion, was delicious. And the creamy, fruity topping made it extra special.

All in all, it was a pretty indulgent evening, and hopefully I have left Lea and Nicky with some happy foodie memories of me until we see each other again.

Chocolate chestnut brownies

Last September, for my birthday, a friend gave me a little tin of that delicious French chestnut purée. I’m not usually one for leaving delights like that in the cupboard, but for some reason I hadn’t got round to using it.

So, this weekend, I was determined to come up with something chestnutty. Obviously, the perfect accompaniment to chestnuts is chocolate (well, it’s obvious to me), and, as I also had a bar of 100% pure cacao sitting around, I started searching my recipes for something that combined the two.

When it comes to baking, my first port of call is always Leith’s Baking Bible, and once again, it didn’t let me down. The recipe I actually found was for chocolate peanut butter brownies, but I thought the chestnut purée would be a perfectly workable substitute for the peanut butter.

Brownies always work best when they’re slightly undercooked, so they stay good and moist in the middle. If anything, the purée added to that moistness, and the resulting squares of chocolatey unctuousness really stick to the roof of your mouth – a surefire sign of a good brownie, in my books!