The Friday 5 #85
In praise of duck and declassified Bordeaux, a fantastic whisky bargain and two really tasty storecupboard recipes.
After prattling on about how I’m cutting back this month it’s been a massive week of feasting with the epic St John vignerons’ lunch (it’s described as a vignerons’ lunch for a reason) and a wonderful wine dinner at one of my favourite London restaurants Bocca di Lupo.
OK I have been doing my #givingupstockingup challenge, as advertised, in between but those two meals could have kept me going for several days.
I promised you the recipes I’d made so wanted to make one available to you all - an adaptation of one in my book, The Frugal Cook. (The other’s for paid subscribers ‘cos they get extra perks, including my wine recs. Fair enough?)
If you’d like access to everything I write you can sign up for as little as £4.50 a month which is worth doing now as my monthly sub goes up to £5 as of the beginning of February. And if you’re on the £4.50 rate that’s what you keep paying!
Wholewheat spaghetti with stilton, onion and walnuts
I really like chopped walnuts instead of grated parmesan to top this dish. You could also use pangrattato (fried breadcrumbs)
Serves 1-2 depending on appetite and what else you’re eating
15g butter or 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
25g walnuts, roughly chopped
100g wholewheat or ordinary spaghetti - or a short pasta shape if that’s what you’ve got
40g Stilton or other blue cheese, crumbled
3 heaped tbsp chopped parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Heat the butter or oil (butter browns better) tip in the onion and fry over a low heat for about 10 minutes until the onion is browning nicely. Toast the walnuts in a dry pan over a low heat to crisp them up. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the pasta for the time recommended on the packet. Once it’s done, ladle out some of the cooking water and drain the pasta. Add about 3 tbsp of the cooking water to the onion then tip in the crumbled cheese and stir until it’s melted. Add the pasta and the parsley, toss together, adding a little extra pasta water to loosen if you think it needs it and season generously with black pepper. (Shouldn’t need much salt.) Spoon into a warm bowl and top with the chopped walnuts.
There’s not much in the way of wine bargains to report although my fine wine Friday pick this week is a bargain if you consider its provenance …