Charlotte Pike

Food & Drink Expert

Niçoise salad

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This is such a delicious classic salad that is so satisfying and refreshing in hot weather. It’s pretty straightforward to make, and I usually have most ingredients available. Sometimes, I add thinly sliced red peppers or red onion, which are a nice addition, and sometimes, I omit the potatoes, as you can see from the photograph.

 

Niçoise salad

Serves 4

Ingredients

6 small waxy potatoes, boiled and cooled

2 hard boiled eggs, cooled

1 can best quality tuna, drained

50g green beans, cooked and cooled

2 large tomatoes, chopped or 8 cherry tomatoes, halved

12 pitted black olives

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tsp red wine vinegar

Salt and pepper

Method

You can cook the potatoes, egg and beans at the same time in one pan. Place the potatoes in a large saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil. Once the potatoes come to the boil, set the timer for 8 minutes. After 8 minutes, add the egg, and set the timer for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, add the beans and set the timer for 4 minutes. After 4 minutes, drain the lot well and let everything cool before using.

Cut the boiled potatoes in to quarters and place in a large bowl. Peel the eggs and cut into quarters lengthways and add to the bowl, with the drained tuna, cooked green beans, olives and tomatoes.

To make a dressing, take a separate bowl, whisk the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper together, and drizzle over the salad. Stir gently to combine all ingredients evenly and serve immediately.

Apple Tarte Tatin

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Apple Tarte Tatin

This is a gorgeous dessert to make, but really does have the wow factor. Although it looks fancy, it’s very simple to make.

Serves 8

Ingredients

50g salted butter

50g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

6 ripe apples, peeled, cored and halved

200-250g ready made, ready rolled puff pastry

Method 

Preheat the oven to 200C/180 Fan oven/ Gas Mark 4. Take an 8”/20cm springform tin and grease very well with butter

Place the butter and sugar in a large frying pan. Melt the butter over a low heat, and then turn the temperature up to high, allowing the mixture to bubble away until it turns a rich, reddish brown in colour

Turn the heat right down as soon as the sugar caramelizes as it can burn easily. Add the vanilla extract and stir into the caramel.

Add the apples to the caramel, cut side facing up and cook in the caramel sauce very gently over a low heat for 10 minutes. Spoon the caramel over the apples whilst they are cooking

Arrange the apples, again, cut side up, in the bottom of the cake tin, and pour the caramel over the top.

Take your puff pastry and cut out a circle to fit in the tin. Place the pastry over the fruit and tuck the excess pastry around inside the tin. Prick the pastry a couple of times on the top using a sharp knife.

Place the cake tin on a baking tray and bake the tarte in the oven for 25-30 minutes.  The puff pastry should be golden brown.

Leave the tarte to rest for 5 minutes in the tin before removing the sides of the tin. You may wish to run a sharp knife around the edge first.

Now, place a plate over the tarte and flip it over to turn the tarte out onto the plate.

Remove the base of the cake tin and serve immediately with double cream.

Roasted Rhubarb

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At the start of each year, forced rhubarb is a fruit I always look forward to arriving in my kitchen. It is particularly pretty to look at and tastes wonderful. There are so many ways in which to enjoy fresh rhubarb. It is delicious for breakfast with yoghurt and perhaps a little granola. It is a wonderful addition to so many puddings too, from meringues to pannacotta to Basque cheesecake, just to name a few. I am quite happy to eat a bowl of it on its own too.

Cooking rhubarb, however, is very simple, but benefits from adhering to some guidance. Most people enjoy eating rhubarb when it has been cooked and sweetened a little, perhaps with sugar, or honey. There is a very fine line, however, between it being cooked and tender and it turning into mush. I find roasting rhubarb helps to cook rhubarb quickly, but reliably resulting in pretty, neat pieces. Cooking on the hob in a pan, in my experience, tends to lead to overcooking much more easily.

So, here is my preferred way of cooking rhubarb below, and a photo of the rhubarb just out of the oven, ready to serve. I am deliberately showing you an unedited photo of the finished product, as it took me a fair bit of testing to work out how to achieve perfect-looking pieces of rhubarb as I had seen in so many photos elsewhere! I hope you will be encouraged to cook rhubarb this way and make the most of it this season.

Roasted Rhubarb

Serves 6

Ingredients

4 sticks of rhubarb, cut into 5cm-ish pieces
150g sugar (feel free to adjust if more is needed, or less is preferred)

Method

Pre heat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4.

Take a large oven proof dish and lay the rhubarb slices in the dish in a single layer, sprinkle over the sugar and then cover with foil.

Bake in the oven for 8 and 15 minutes until just tender. Watch it like a hawk after eight minutes, as it can turn into a mush if you leave it just a couple of minutes too long. The rhubarb is cooked when a sharp knife can be inserted in the stalk without meeting resistance. Set aside to cool.