If anyone tells you that it’s no more trouble to cook for eight as two they are full of nonsense. How can it be as quick to finely chop (deliberate split infinitive) four onions as one; four garlic cloves, zest four lemons. You get the message? On Monday I cooked cod with white beans, a receipt from Lindsey Bareham’s Just One Pot cook-book. She gives the ingredients for two and suggests that fifteen minutes preparation time is sufficient. After 2 1/4 hours of slicing and dicing I fell into a gin and tonic. I should have done all this the previous day and just added the last ingredients (cod and chopped parsley) on the day. But it’s a simple and rather delicious dinner so I will instruct you.
Ingredients (for two): 3 rashers rindless streaky bacon, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 onion, 400g tinned cannelloni beans, 1 large garlic clove, 1 lemon, 1/2 chicken stock cube, Tabasco, 2 plum tomates (why not buy them in a tin), flat leaf parsley, 250g cod, salt and pepper.
Chop up the bacon and put it with the cooking oil in a heavy-based saucepan ( I have a French one made by Le Creuset). While that’s sizzling chop the onion and when the bacon is beginning to look crisp add the onion. Give it a good stir and start chopping the garlic, zesting the lemon and rinsing the beans. Chop up the lemon zest finely. Chuck the garlic and lemon zest in the pan and cook for a couple of minutes. Next add the beans and season with pepper, salt and Tabasco. Now add 250 ml of chicken stock and the tomatoes and leave it to simmer. If you are preparing this in advance this is the moment to stop.
When it’s almost lunchtime cut the cod up into bite-sized chunks and season with salt and pepper. Chop, there is no end of chopping in this recipe, the parsley. Add the cod and parsley and voila! It might be a good idea to throw in some prawns if you want to make it look a bit posher. I cooked some runner beans to add a bit of green to the palette. I should have served some crusty bread too.
Spoiler: we have watched two films on a laptop in the last few days – Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket. We watched an episode of Fleabag, gave Line of Duty a miss and are keeping up with University Challenge. I have selected thirteen Proms which need to be whittled down – booking opens at 9.00 am on Saturday.
It’s a sad week – Lindsey Bareham has just written her last column for The Times.