🍂 First Week of Autumn

Method (20 min active, 1h15 on the BBQ)

1. Get the BBQ set up for indirect heat: coals banked to one side, grate on, lid down, vents about half open. You want a steady moderate heat, not a fierce one — if you can hold your hand 15cm above the cool side for 5 seconds, that is right.
2. Chicken on: take the marinated spatchcocked 1.8kg chicken out of the fridge and lay it skin side up on the cool side, away from the coals. Lid down. Cook 65–75 min, moving it only once at the halfway point to even out the browning. It is done when the thickest part of the thigh reads 78–80°C. Rest 10 min before carving.
3. Potatoes on the boil: put 1kg new potatoes into cold salted water, bring to the boil and simmer 18–20 min until a knife slides in with no resistance. Drain and leave in the colander 5 min to steam dry — damp potatoes will not crisp.
4. Aji verde: blitz 50g coriander (leaves and stalks), 120g mayonnaise, 3 tbsp sliced jalapeños plus 1 tbsp of their brine, 1 tsp garlic paste, 2 tbsp olive oil, the juice of ½ lime and ½ tsp salt until smooth and vivid green. Put the liquids in the blender first and the herbs on top — it blends without needing to be scraped down.
5. Smash and crisp the potatoes: tip the dried potatoes onto a baking tray, press each one flat with the base of a mug until it splits, then drizzle with 3 tbsp olive oil and 1 tsp salt. Roast at 220°C fan for 25–30 min without turning them, until the edges are dark and genuinely brittle. Do not pull them early — the crunch is the whole point of them being here.
6. Slaw: shred 300g white cabbage (about a quarter of the head) as thinly as you can and coarsely grate 2 carrots. Toss with ½ red onion sliced thin, the juice of 1 lime, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp honey, the chopped coriander stalks and ½ tsp salt. Leave 10 min so it softens slightly but keeps its bite.
7. Build: pull the chicken into big pieces rather than carving it neatly. Bowls: chicken, smashed potatoes, slaw, and a proper spoonful of aji verde over everything.
8. Taste and adjust the aji verde before it goes out — see the note below for which lever to pull.

Method (30 min active, 1h30 total)

1. Score and dry the belly: pat 900g pork belly slices completely dry, then score the fat side in lines about 1cm apart, cutting into the fat but not the meat. Salt the fat side heavily with 2 tsp flaky salt and leave uncovered for 20 min — the salt pulls moisture out and that is what lets it crackle.
2. Mix the glaze but keep it back: 3 tbsp honey, 2 tbsp Dijon, 2 tbsp soy sauce and 2 tbsp red wine vinegar, whisked. Set it aside — it does not go near the meat yet.
3. Belly on, indirect: BBQ set up with coals to one side, lid down. Pork on the cool side, fat side up, 50–60 min, until the meat gives easily when you press it.
4. Mash: peel and chunk 1.5kg white potatoes, boil in salted water 18 min until falling apart. Drain, steam dry 3 min, then mash with 50g butter, 100ml milk and 2 sprigs 🌱 rosemary finely chopped. Season hard.
5. Roast apples: quarter and core 4 Pink Lady apples, toss in a small tray with 25g butter, 8 🌱 sage leaves and a pinch of salt. Roast at 200°C fan for 20 min until the edges catch and go sticky.
6. Glaze at the end only: in the last 10 min, move the pork over the coals and brush with the glaze, turning and brushing twice more. Honey burns fast — any earlier and you get bitter black patches instead of lacquer. Rest 5 min.
7. Plate: rosemary mash, sliced belly with the crackling side up, roast apples and their buttery sage pan juices spooned over, and 80g watercress alongside dressed with nothing but a squeeze of the pork juices — the pepperiness is there to cut the fat.
8. Pudding: halve and stone 500g British plums, put them cut side up in a tray with 1 tbsp honey and roast at 200°C fan for 18 min until collapsing and syrupy. Serve warm with Marshfield ice cream.

Method (25 min)

1. Broth base: slice 1 brown onion into thin half-moons and soften in 1 tbsp oil over medium heat 6 min until translucent and sweet. Add 300g chestnut mushrooms, quartered, and cook 5 min until they have given up their water and started to colour.
2. Stock in: add 1.6L stock (3 Kallo very-low-salt vegetable cubes) plus 1 tbsp grated ginger. Bring to a bare simmer and cook 5 min.
3. Dissolve the curry properly — this is the step that matters: break up the 100g Yutaka Japanese curry block. Take a ladleful of the hot broth into a separate bowl, drop the pieces in, and mash them with a spoon until completely smooth with no lumps at all. Then pour that back into the pan and stir. Never drop the block straight into the pot.
4. Season the broth: stir in 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar and 1 tsp soft brown sugar. Add 200g frozen spinach (freezer) and simmer 4 min until it has broken up and wilted through.
5. Eggs: lower 4 eggs into boiling water and cook exactly 6½ min, then straight into cold water. Peel and halve — the yolks should still be jammy.
6. Gyoza: fry 12 veg gyoza (freezer) flat side down in 1 tbsp oil over medium-high heat 3 min until deeply golden, then add 3 tbsp water and cover for 4 min. Uncover and let the base re-crisp 1 min.
7. Noodles: boil 6 blocks (1.5kg) frozen udon in a separate pan of water for 1–2 min only, until they separate and loosen. Drain well and divide between bowls — cooking them in the broth would turn it starchy and claggy.
8. Build and taste: ladle the broth over the noodles, then top each bowl with gyoza, half an egg, 2 sliced spring onions and a generous scatter of crispy fried onions. Set aside a small bowl of plain noodles and a splash of broth for Hamish’s lunch tomorrow before you dress the rest.

Method (15 min active, 45 min oven)

1. Oven and tray: heat the oven to 220°C fan and put your biggest roasting tray in to get hot. A hot tray is the difference between roasted and steamed.
2. Chop: cut 1 butternut squash into 3cm wedges — leave the skin on, it goes soft and sweet when roasted this hard and saves you ten minutes of peeling. Cut 500g white potatoes into similar-sized chunks and 2 red onions into thick wedges.
3. First roast: tip the squash, potatoes and onions into the hot tray with 3 tbsp olive oil and 1 tsp salt, toss, spread into a single layer and roast 20 min.
4. Add sausages and apples: quarter and core 2 Pink Lady apples. Push the veg aside, nestle in 12 pork sausages and the apple quarters, and scatter over 10 🌱 sage leaves. Back in for 20–25 min, turning the sausages once, until the sausages are burnished and the potato and squash edges have properly caught and gone dark. Do not pull it while everything is still pale — the caramelised edges are the flavour.
5. Sharp dressing over the hot tray: whisk 2 tbsp honey, 1 tbsp Dijon and 2 tbsp red wine vinegar and pour it straight over the tray the moment it comes out of the oven. It hisses, catches the sticky bits on the base, and turns a plain traybake into something with a proper edge. Toss everything through it.
6. Salad B: separate 250g chicory into leaves. Toast 100g walnut pieces in a dry pan 4 min until they smell nutty. Dress the leaves with 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp Dijon and ¼ tsp salt, then scatter the warm walnuts over.
7. Serve straight from the tray with the chicory salad alongside, and check the seasoning first.

Method (40 min) — the library version, followed exactly

📖 Read this first. This scored Flo 2★ / Joe 3★ on 12 August, well below its 5★ record, and the diagnosis was that it got rushed on a weeknight. Three things went wrong: the lentils still held their shape, the tarka was not hot enough when it went over, and it was under-salted. All three are written into the steps below. Do not improvise this one.

1. Lentils on: rinse 800g Laila red lentils until the water runs clear, then put them in a big pan with 2.4L water, 2 tsp turmeric and 1 tbsp garlic paste. Bring to the boil, skim the foam, then simmer uncovered.
2. Cook them longer than feels necessary: 25–30 min, stirring now and then, until the lentils have completely lost their shape and the whole thing is a thick, loose puree. If you can still see individual lentils, it is not done. This is the step that failed last time.
3. Tomato and onion base: while that goes, slice 2 brown onions thin and fry in 2 tbsp oil over medium heat 10 min until genuinely golden, not just soft. Add 1 tbsp grated ginger, cook 1 min, then 2 × 400g tins chopped tomatoes and simmer 10 min until thick and jammy. Stir this into the lentils.
4. Season harder than feels right: add 2½ tsp salt to the pot and stir. Taste. It will still want more — dahl absorbs salt like nothing else and under-seasoned dahl tastes flat and earthy, which is exactly what happened in August. Add up to 1 tsp more until it tastes properly savoury.
5. Split the batch NOW: ladle half the dahl into containers and set aside to cool for the freezer — do it before the tarka goes on, so the frozen half gets a fresh tarka when you reheat it. Also set aside 1 small portion for Hamish’s lunch tomorrow.
6. The tarka — it must be violently sizzling: heat 4 tbsp oil in a small pan until it shimmers and a mustard seed dropped in cracks instantly. Add 2 tsp black mustard seeds and wait for them to pop audibly, then 2 tsp cumin seeds, 1 tbsp garlic paste and 1 tsp chilli flakes — 30–40 seconds only, until the garlic is pale gold. Pour it over the dahl while it is still spitting. Poured over gently, or stirred in early and slowly, you get dusty muddy dahl instead of that hit of toasted spice.
7. Butter and lime, off the heat: stir 30g butter through the pot — dahl loves fat — then the juice of 1 lime. Both, or it tastes flat. Acid at the end, never cooked in.
8. Raita and serve: coarsely grate ½ cucumber, squeeze out the water in your hands, and mix with 250g Greek yoghurt, 2 tbsp chopped coriander and ¼ tsp salt. Warm 4 flatbreads and serve with the raita, a scatter of crispy fried onions and garlic pickle from the fridge door.

Method (30 min)

1. Seeded crumble first (it needs to be cold and crisp when it goes on): toast 3 tbsp flaked almonds and 2 tbsp sesame seeds in a dry pan over medium heat 3–4 min until the almonds are golden. Off the heat, stir in 1 tsp ground cumin, ½ tsp chilli flakes and ¼ tsp salt, then tip onto a cold plate and roughly crush with the back of a spoon.
2. Base: slice 2 brown onions and 2 mixed peppers into thin strips. Cook in 3 tbsp olive oil in a wide, deep frying pan over medium heat 12 min — longer than you think — until both are properly soft and starting to caramelise at the edges. This is where the sweetness comes from.
3. Spices: add 2 tbsp harissa, 1 tbsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp ground cumin and 2 tsp garlic paste. Fry 90 seconds, stirring, until the oil turns deep red and smells toasty.
4. Tomatoes and spinach: add 3 × 400g tins chopped tomatoes plus the 400g pantry tin of Mutti, 200g frozen spinach and ¾ tsp salt. Simmer uncovered 12–15 min, stirring occasionally, until thick enough that a spoon dragged through leaves a channel that holds. A watery base means the eggs sink and poach into soup.
5. Eggs: make 10 wells in the sauce with the back of a spoon and crack 1 egg into each. Season the yolks lightly.
6. Lid on, low heat — and leave it alone: cover and cook on the lowest heat 7–9 min. The steam sets the whites gently while the yolks stay soft. Lift the lid once to check, no more, and do not stir once the eggs are in.
7. Finish: crumble 200g feta over the top, scatter 3 tbsp chopped coriander and then the seeded crumble from step 1 — the crunch has to go on at the very last second or the steam softens it. Serve straight from the pan with 6 warm flatbreads for scooping.

Method (15 min, plus 35 min in the oven)

📖 Deliberately low-risk. The last two bakes went wrong the same way — the banana-tahini loaf was underbaked and the miso-cheddar cookies were stodgy, both from too much liquid and pulling them early. A flapjack is very hard to get wrong, and the only two rules that matter are in steps 3 and 5.

1. Oven and tin: heat to 170°C fan and line a 20 × 30cm traybake tin with baking paper, leaving an overhang so you can lift the slab out later.
2. Melt: gently melt 250g butter with 200g soft brown sugar and 4 tbsp honey in a big pan over low heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves and it looks glossy. Take it off the heat.
3. Squeeze the apple — this is the one that matters: coarsely grate 2 Pink Lady apples (skin on, core discarded), then squeeze the grated apple hard in your hands over the sink until no more juice comes out. Wet apple is exactly how you get a stodgy, underbaked middle.
4. Mix: stir 400g porridge oats, the squeezed apple, 1 tsp cinnamon and a pinch of salt into the buttery pan until every oat is coated. Fold in 150g blackberries at the very end with two or three turns only — more and they bleed and the whole tray goes purple.
5. Bake: press firmly into the tin with the back of a spoon. Bake 35 min until the edges are properly dark golden and the middle still looks slightly soft. It sets completely as it cools — a flapjack that looks done in the oven will be rock hard cold.
6. Cool completely in the tin before lifting out and cutting into 16 bars. Cutting it warm turns it to rubble. Keeps 5 days in a tin, and freezes well if half will not get eaten by Friday.

🥗 The week’s salads

Three distinct shapes plus Friday’s warm bowl, so nothing repeats. Nothing leafy is stretched past two nights.

Salad A — Cabbage, carrot & lime slaw make Sat · use Sat + Sun

1. Shred 300g white cabbage as thinly as you can — thin enough that a piece bends rather than snaps.
2. Coarsely grate 2 carrots and slice ½ red onion paper thin.
3. Dress with the juice of 1 lime, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp honey, the chopped coriander stalks and ½ tsp salt. Toss hard with your hands.
4. Leave 10 min before serving. Dress only what you need on Saturday and keep the rest undressed in the fridge for Sunday — dressed slaw is limp by morning.

Salad B — Chicory & toasted walnut make Tue · use Tue

1. Separate 250g chicory into individual leaves, rinse and dry properly.
2. Toast 100g walnut pieces in a dry pan over medium heat 4 min, shaking, until they smell nutty. Not optional — raw walnuts taste of nothing next to a sweet traybake.
3. Whisk 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1 tsp Dijon, 2 tbsp olive oil and ¼ tsp salt until it thickens.
4. Dress the leaves at the last moment and scatter the still-warm walnuts over. The bitterness is the whole job here — do not sweeten the dressing to soften it.

Salad C — Cucumber & coriander raita make Wed · use Wed + Thu

1. Coarsely grate ½ cucumber and squeeze the water out in your hands — skip this and it is a watery puddle by the time it reaches the table.
2. Mix with 250g Greek yoghurt, 2 tbsp chopped coriander and ¼ tsp salt.
3. Chill until needed. This would normally be Flo’s garden dill — the plant is spent, so coriander stands in this week.

Friday’s bowl salad built into the dish

The charred sweetcorn, black beans and lime-pickled red onion in Friday’s steak bowl do the salad job — warm, composed and sharp. No separate side needed.

Ocado basket — Fri 4 Sep 7:00–8:00am delivery

Order total £151.27 — 78 items. £119.64 of that is this week’s plan; the rest was already in the trolley (milk, butter, cheddar, yoghurt, kefir, bananas, fish fingers, frozen sweetcorn and a few of Joe’s own bits), and the plan leans on those rather than rebuying.

Three substitutions made at shop time. Aji amarillo paste — not stocked at Ocado at all, so Saturday’s marinade was rebuilt around the chipotle in adobo already in the fridge. Pak choi — the only packs available were £23–25/kg, so it was dropped and the udon uses frozen spinach and spring onions instead. Apple juice and parmesan — dropped as unnecessary; Sunday’s glaze works on honey, Dijon, soy and vinegar.

Five items silently failed to add and were caught on the final audit (cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, squash, spring onions) — all re-added and individually verified in the trolley.