Welcome to autumn
Borough Market is a place where the shifting of the seasons plays out as a vivid multi-sensory experience, an ever-evolving palette of colours, scents and tastes. Autumn brings with it a muted palette: deep greens, earthy yellows and rusty reds. Foods that are deep, rich and comforting. Foods that provide a gentle hug as the air cools and the nights draw in.
The shopping suggestions in this short guide are just the tip of a vast iceberg. Hopefully they’ll serve to inspire a more thorough exploration of the Market’s seasonal offerings, which change day by day. Not everything will be available throughout the season, with different products coming in and out – but that’s part of the magic. Don’t hesitate to ask traders for their suggestions. They’re the real experts, and they won’t ever be short of a tip or two.
Explore more autumn content
Fruit & veg AUTUMN
Look out for: Beetroot
Chard
Cobnuts
Figs
Kale
Leeks
Marrows
Pears
Quince
Squash
Sweetcorn
Turnips
Wild mushrooms
Explore our fruit and veg traders
Nuts in September
Charles Tebbutt of Food & Forest on the annual rush to harvest
Kentish cobnuts
Mark Riddaway
So, what exactly is a cobnut? That, says Charles Tebbutt, founder of Food & Forest, is probably the question most often asked of him and his colleagues at their Borough Market stall. The simple answer, he continues, is that a cobnut is a just hazelnut. But it’s a hazelnut with a very strong sense of time and place.
Around the world there are many species of hazel tree, from which numerous nut cultivars have been developed over the centuries, each one adapted to the microclimate and soil of its native region and the preferences of the local population. The cobnut is an English variety synonymous with the county of Kent, where Charles and his colleagues maintain a beautiful orchard.
“The reason so many are grown in Kent is to do with the climate – it’s the Garden of England, after all – though there are producers elsewhere,” Charles explains. But while cobnuts would once have been a common sight in the shops and markets of London, production has in recent decades fallen off a cliff. “The reason it’s not more commonly grown today is that the nut has a peculiar shape and a very tight husk which makes it quite difficult to process mechanically. This adds an extra stage to the processing that you don’t get with other varieties.”
It also doesn’t help that the orchard’s entire bounty of cobnuts needs to be picked by hand in a matter of days, making harvesting
hugely labour intensive. “Every year at the start of September, we harvest all our nuts in about two weeks,” says Charles. “The reason we work so quickly is that if you leave cobnuts on the trees for much longer you start losing catastrophic amounts to squirrels, which can genuinely be the difference between the year’s crop making or losing money.”
The 130-year-old orchard, managed in partnership with Gillian Jones under license from the National Trust, is located in the countryside close to Sevenoaks, bordered by high woodland. Like most of the other products sold at Food & Forest, the cobnuts are grown using agroforestry – a method of farming that limits soil erosion and encourages biodiversity by combining the cultivation of trees with that of other plants or animals. “The common practice in an orchard is to keep growth right down, mowing it every month or so, but we let ours grow up with bluebells and primroses,” Charles explains. The team have also been experimenting with using poultry to keep pests at bay.
For the first three weeks of September, the cobnuts kernels are sold in their fresh state. “When they’re fresh, they’re super creamy, with a kind of milky sappiness to them,” he says. “They have a lightness which is not there in dried or roasted nuts. I really like them –I find them refreshing, with a distinctive taste –
but they have such a short window.”
THE REASON WE WORK SO QUICKLY IS THAT IF YOU LEAVE COBNUTS ON THE TREES FOR MUCH LONGER YOU START LOSING CATASTROPHIC AMOUNTS TO SQUIRRELS.
Once that window is closed, the stall sells its cobnuts in their dried and roasted forms. Dried cobnuts are sweet and crunchy, with less of the milkiness of the fresh nuts – and that natural sweetness is intensified even further by roasting. “Roasting them creates more layers of flavour. It makes them great for cooking. We sell roasted cobnuts to bakeries for their cookies, cakes and patisseries. I’ve known people make dukkah – a Middle Eastern condiment made with herbs, nut, and spices – which I found really interesting. Personally, I like a bowl of good Greek yoghurt and some great honey, with roasted cobnuts sprinkled on top.”
WHOLE ROASTED STUFFED MARROW Bettina Campolucci Bordi
Serves: 4-6 | Prep: 10 mins | Cook: 1 hour
The marrow is such an underestimated vegetable and not used or praised enough. It can be daunting because of its size and mysterious spongy flavour. Cooking it low and slow is the key here!
INGREDIENTS
— 1 large marrow
— ½ red onion, finely chopped
— 2 tbsp olive oil
— 75 almonds, blitzed
— 1 tbsp barbecue spice
— ½ tsp chilli flakes
— Dill fronds, to garnish
METHOD
Heat the oven to 200C. Prepare the marrow by slicing it in half and scooping out the insides with a spoon, then set aside the two halves. Chop the scooped insides into small pieces (about 2cm cubes) and add to a bowl.
Add the onion, olive oil, blitzed almonds and spices to the bowl of chopped marrow and mix well. Start adding the mixture to one half of the scooped-out marrow shell.
Once the marrow is filled, place the other half on top to close and shut the marrow. Seal the marrow securely with string (making sure you use a double knot) or wrap tightly in aluminium foil if you are barbecuing it.
Place the marrow in a large baking tray (pan) lined with baking parchment and cook in the oven for 45 mins to 1 hour.
Once the marrow is cooked, it will be nice and soft, and easily sliced into lovely pieces to be eaten as a side dish or as it is.
Recipe from Celebrate: Plant-based Recipes for Every Occasion (Hardie Grant)
Where to buy
Marrow Hickson & Daughter
AUTUMN BEETS & SQUASH SALAD
Rosie Birkett
Serves: 2 | Prep: 30 mins | Cook: 75 mins
This recipe has a few different stages to it, but you can prepare almost everything while the beetroots are roasting. It’s certainly worth giving the elderberry vinegar a go, but you could also use a fruity red wine vinegar mixed with 1 tsp caster sugar and the berries.
INGREDIENTS
— 100g puy lentils, rinsed
— 4 large beetroots, skin on, cleaned
— 4 thyme sprigs, leaves picked
— ½ large butternut or kabocha squash, peeled, de-seeded and sliced into wedges
— 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
— 1 fresh bay leaf
— 100g purple, red or mixed kale
— 2 sprigs of tarragon, leaves picked
— 2 sprigs of flat leaf parsley, leaves picked
— 50g fresh goat’s cheese, torn into chunks
— 1 handful of blackberries
For the elderberry vinegar dressing
— 150g red wine vinegar
— 150ml water
— 80g golden caster sugar
— 1 fresh bay leaf
— 1 tsp salt
— 150g ripe elderberries, picked from their umbels with a fork
METHOD
First make the elderberry vinegar. Combine the vinegar, water, sugar, salt and bay in a pan and bring to a gentle boil. Once the sugar has dissolved, turn down to a simmer and add the elderberries, pressing half of them with the back of a wooden spoon to burst them, and stirring for 3-4 mins. Strain through a fine
mesh sieve, discarding the pips and skins and reserving any whole berries to add back in.
Heat the oven to 180C. Soak the lentils in cold water for 30 mins. Meanwhile toss three of the beets in some rapeseed oil with salt, pepper and half the thyme leaves. Wrap them individually in foil, leaving a little space for air to circulate, then place in a roasting tray. Roast for 1 hour, then leave to cool. Remove the skins, then slice into wedges.
In another roasting tray, toss the squash with some salt, pepper, the remaining thyme and some more oil. After the beetroots have roasted for 20 mins, put the squash into the oven for 30 mins, then scatter with the pumpkin seeds and pop back in the oven for 10 mins more. Remove and allow to cool.
Drain the lentils then place in a pan with double the volume of water, a bay leaf and a large pinch of salt. Cook for about 30 mins, until tender. Drain, rinse and toss with a little rapeseed oil and 1 tbsp of the elderberry vinegar dressing.
Peel the remaining beetroot and slice very finely into ice-cold water. Put the kale into a bowl, pour over ½ tbsp rapeseed oil, then season. Massage the oil into the kale until the leaves darken and become more floppy.
Lay some raw and roasted beetroot on the plates along with the squash and pumpkin seeds. Toss the kale with the lentils, herbs and some more of the dressing and place on top. Divide the cheese between the plates and dress with the blackberries and a final splash of elderberry vinegar.
Where to buy
Puy lentils
Le Marché du Quartier
Fish AUTUMN
Look out for:
Brill Clams
Cod
Cuttlefish
Dover sole
John dory
Native oysters
Plaice
Pollock
Red gurnard
Sardines
Squid
Turbot
Explore our fishmongers
The quality of Mersea
Tom Haward of Richard Haward’s Oysters on cultivating oysters on Mersea Island, the difference between natives and rocks, and why interest in these briny bivalves is starting to soar
Tomé Morrissy-Swan
At Richard Haward’s Oysters in Borough Market, Tom Haward is guiding me through a selection of briny bivalves. There are three sizes: small, medium and large. I’m instructed to eat the small one with lemon, the next two with shallot vinegar. Each one is delicious – and remarkably different. The small oyster is sweet, the medium creamy with hints of vanilla.
The largest is intensely salty, and certainly needs the oniony vinegar to cut through the salinity. “It’s a much older oyster, so it’s been absorbing the salt for a few more years,” Tom explains. It’s eight years old and has filtered 100 litres of water a day for its whole life. “That’s a lot of salt,” says Tom. It’s an eye-opening introduction to the world of oysters.
The Richard Haward’s Oysters stand is a market stalwart. Here, they sell 2,500 oysters a day (plus a few clams) to locals, shoppers, tourists and a significant number of social media influencers, who opt for the giant ones. “They absolutely love them, but it’s too much even for me,” says Tom, as we sip on a dark ale from Mersea. Along with stout, it’s one of the best pairings for the salty oysters.
The Haward family have farmed oysters on Mersea Island on the Blackwater estuary in Essex since at least 1769. “We think it goes back further,” says Tom, who took over
the business last year when his father, the legendary Richard Haward, passed away. Tom, at least the eighth generation to oyster farmers to work on the same stretch of water, explains that the Romans discovered a rich source of oysters on Mersea, shipping them across their empire. By the 1700s, the Hawards were helping fuel huge demand in London. Oysters were once so quotidian that you can still see their shells tossed on the shores of the Thames. One contemporary report estimated that 124 million were sold at Billingsgate Market in 1851. “There were millions of oysters a year going into London out of Mersea, and there are still millions a year now,” says Tom proudly.
Not much has changed, though the oysters are now driven to London rather than sailed. Tom still sends them to Billingsgate and local food sellers around the city, but half go through Borough Market. The growing method is similar, too. There are 15 acres of oyster beds with very low-intervention farming: the seeds are sown in certain areas and left to grow until ready to harvest. The beds are rotated, to allow them to flourish, like a farmer rotating his crops. “My dad used to hate it when people said it was farming. ‘Oh no, we cultivate,’ he’d say. I’m not so precious about that term, though, because we do farm in many ways.”
While embracing the idea of being a farmer, Tom also describes the company’s oysters as ‘wild’. Most oysters, he explains, are hatched in labs and, once they hit a certain size, put in bags, cages or trestles and grown on in the water. The Hawards’ oysters, by contrast, are gathered from wild areas around the British coast – areas where the nutrients aren’t as optimal – and moved to Mersea, where the shallow tidal creeks bring in from the marshes the nutrient-dense water, filled with phytoplankton. “That’s plumping the oyster up and giving it that unique flavour,” he says.
Tom believes Mersea is the only place where this system of wild farming happens in the UK. “There’s a crossover between cultivating and farming. We’re letting Mother Nature do what she does best. We’re just giving her a helping hand. If I went back in time and saw what my greatgreat-grandfather was doing, I think he’d be doing it pretty similarly to how we’re doing it now.”
But there is one key difference between today’s oysters and those of Tom’s ancestors. Due to overfishing, pollution, disease and the introduction of invasive species, there has been a 95 per cent drop in native oyster populations around the UK and Ireland since the mid-19th century, according to the Native Oyster Network. There have been several attempts to reintroduce them in the wild, including 10,000 released last year on a man-made reef off the northeast coast. The oysters Tom serves me today are rocks, also known as Pacific oysters, a species introduced from abroad in the 1960s to keep the industry going. Natives, Tom explains, are “basically extinct, and I don’t think we’ll ever see the stocks of native oysters come back.” The water, he continues, is now too warm, and they haven’t evolved to acclimatise.
Natives represent just one per cent of the business (and two per cent of oysters sold overall in the UK) and are also sold at The
THERE’S A CROSSOVER BETWEEN CULTIVATING AND FARMING. WE’RE LETTING MOTHER NATURE DO WHAT SHE DOES BEST. WE’RE JUST GIVING HER A HELPING HAND.
Company Shed, the family’s restaurant on Mersea Island. Unlike rock oysters, which are available all year round, they’re only available from September to April, and are left alone the rest of the year to allow stock levels to recover. “We do it because it’s part of our heritage and tradition, but there just aren’t the stocks there. I only want to do a small amount, because we need to leave them alone, and give them a chance to maybe find a way to replenish.”
Native oysters have a distinctive flat, round shell – think of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus – and are creamier and less briney, as they don’t filter as much water, thus absorbing less salt. Rock oysters have a sweeter flavour with a brinier finish. Some swear by natives and deride rocks. “That comes from many years ago, when rocks were an inferior product in this country, but personally I prefer rocks over natives,” says Tom.
Yet even within rock oysters there are considerable variations. The shores off Mersea are muddy, it’s one of the saltiest stretches of water in the country, and nutrients wash in from the surrounding marshland. The saltiness makes them among the briniest in the country, and the nutrients provide a deeper flavour and longer finish. “Oysters are like wine – they taste of the environment they grow in,” Tom explains.
“Our oysters taste like they’ve been aged in the marshes; there’s a different depth of flavour.”
Back in the 1980s, oysters were considered a “yuppie thing”, says Tom. Now that’s firmly changed. Oyster stalls can be found at most markets, holidaymakers in seaside towns post pictures of their half-dozens, and there’s barely a restaurant that doesn’t feature them as a starter. At Borough Market, they’re among the most accessible snacks. For Tom, there are multiple reasons why we’ve fallen in love again. They’re environmentally friendly, helping filter the water, and can create complex reefs that provide habitat for juvenile fish, crabs, sea snails and sponges. Around the water beds on Mersea, the water is “so clear”, says Tom. Even some vegans eat oysters, due to their environmental benefits and the fact that, like mussels, they’re not sentient beings.
“There’s been a real awakening that oysters are fantastic products,” says Tom. “There’s a younger generation who are really passionate about food, about trying stuff that isn’t mass-produced rubbish. Some of it is down to the quality of the product. Not just us, but around the UK, there are passionate oyster producers who are trying to prove this is a wonderful thing to eat, and we should be proud of it in the UK.”
OYSTERS WITH MARKET GARNISHES
Ed Smith
These three simple garnishes utilise striking condiments from around the Market. Each garnish recipe makes enough for a dozen oysters.
INGREDIENTS
— 12 oysters
For the raspberry & shallot mignonette
— 3 tbsp sweet raspberry vinegar from Fitz Fine Foods
— 1 tbsp very finely diced shallot
— 3-4 grinds of a black pepper mill
For the aged balsamic vinaigrette
— 1 tbsp aged balsamic vinegar from Condiment Pantry
— 3 tbsp peppery extra virgin olive oil
— ½ tsp flaky sea salt
— 4 chives, finely chopped (optional)
For the hot sauce
— Scotch bonnet hot pepper sauce from Pimento Hill
METHOD
For the raspberry and shallot mignonette, combine the ingredients in a small bowl. Add 1 tsp mignonette onto each oyster.
For the aged balsamic vinaigrette, combine the balsamic, olive oil and sea salt in a small bowl. Stir vigorously to emulsify the liquids. Add 1 tsp vinaigrette onto each oyster, and garnish with the chopped chives.
The hot sauce method could not be simpler! Simply add 2-3 drops of hot pepper sauce per oyster.
TURBOT TERRINE Elliot Hashtroudi, head chef of Camille
Serves: 10 as a starter| Prep: 20 mins | Cook: 40 mins
This is a recipe that my sous chef Sam Smith and I came up with, using every element of a beautiful turbot and some seasonal British veg. Turbot has got this real nice gelatinous nature to it – a little bit like pig, in a way –where all the collagen binds itself together. It’s a vibrant, light, herby starter that really opens your palate to the next courses.
INGREDIENTS
— 1 turbot
— 4 large leeks — 1 shallot, roughly chopped — 1 sprig of thyme — 100g butter — 2 tbsp capers
— Parsley, dill and chervil, to serve — 2 lemons, zest and juice, for dressing — Extra virgin olive oil, for dressing
METHOD
Skin and fillet the turbot and remove the gills from the head. Reserve the head and bones for your stock. Trim the leeks and reserve their tops.
Break up the turbot offcuts into chunks. Transfer to a pot with the chopped shallot and herbs, barely cover with water and bring to a gentle simmer. Simmer for 30-60 mins.
Strain, then reduce the stock until roughly a fifth of its original volume. Season well with salt and pepper.
Melt half the butter, toss the leeks in the butter, then steam for 8 mins until skewer-soft.
Use the remaining half of the butter to coat the turbot. Season, then steam the fish for 10 mins until just cooked.
Split the leeks lengthways with a knife, cutting down only as far as the core. The outer layers should open up into large rectangles, with each core remaining as a tight cylinder.
Lay out clingfilm so that it’s the same length as your terrine mould and four times the width. Lay out the leek rectangles on top so they cover the whole of the clingfilm, overlapping each other slightly. Transfer the leek-covered clingfilm into the terrine mould – it should be overhanging the mould on the two long sides. Add the remaining leek rectangles to fill in the ends.
Now layer your steamed turbot meat into the mould, scattering capers and leek cores throughout. Season accordingly with salt, lemon zest and lemon juice. The terrine should be slightly bulging out at the top. Pour in the warm fish stock, then wrap over the overhanging edges of the leek rectangles to seal the top.
Press overnight in the fridge. Once pressed, serve the terrine with a salad of parsley, dill and chervil. Toss the herbs in lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil. Finish with the lemon zest.
Furness Fish Markets
Turbot
Meat AUTUMN
Look out for: Grouse
Partridge
Pheasant
Venison
Wild duck
Explore our butchers
Game mode
Darren Brown of Shellseekers Fish
& Game on the sustainability and ethics of hunting, and why buying venison helps us “eat our problems”
Thea Everett
As a home cook, there are a few ingredients I’ve always been tentative to take on. Game – a source of protein I’d previously thought the preserve of Michelin-starred restaurants and MasterChef contestants – was one of these. But I’ve often found that trying my hand at a new ingredient makes the kitchen a more exciting place. And so, this autumn, I’ve decided to open my heart to game. After some experimentation, I now know that pheasant and grouse are not scary. They’re for us all. Hear me out…
The word sustainable gets thrown about a lot in the food world, and you might have heard it said that game is one of the most sustainable sources of protein in the UK. But the proof is in the prehistory: humans have hunted wild animals for sustenance for thousands of years (and we still do). It’s an ecosystem that works. For most of our history, game hunting has been strictly controlled by the upper classes, who limited access to certain breeds of animal. Royals and the nobility would get the best – fallow and red deer – while peasants were left with roe. Happily, those days are over – game is available to anyone with a good market or butchers at their disposal – and if you’re going to eat meat, it’s one of the tastiest and most eco-friendly ways to do it.
I bring up game’s environmental credentials only because they can be backed
up by cold, hard facts. Game is plentiful, doesn’t deplete the same natural resources that traditional meat farming does, and is usually sourced more locally. It’s also not pumped with chemicals and antibiotics in the same way that a lot of intensively farmed meat is, with all the associated implications for human health.
So, what actually makes a meat ‘game’? The key criterion is that the meat comes from wild or free-to-roam animals, which exist on a natural diet. That diet means the meat is typically leaner and lower in saturated fat. During the autumn, it’s also a competitively priced source of protein. But despite all this, game still hasn’t broken through to the mainstream. Don’t you think that’s a shame?
For Darren Brown, founder of Borough Market’s Shellseekers Fish & Game, providing game meat to the public is driven by a sense of duty. “There is a big problem in our country,” says Darren. “We are overrun by deer.” Because there are no natural predators for deer remaining in the UK, and new breeds have been introduced from other countries, the numbers are out of control. This has negative effects on the environmental regeneration of woodlands, as Chris Packham has argued in his (perhaps surprise) support of deerstalking. The
solution, Darren says, is not to introduce more wolves into the wild (which would come with its own issues) but to “eat our problems” and make venison part of the big four or five meat sources that we regularly consume.
When it comes to the birds, pheasant and partridge are bred by gamekeepers, and typically live up to three years, free to roam, unlike their popular cousin the chicken, which is often bred in appalling conditions in cages and only allowed to live for a few months. Grouse are still completely wild, and can’t be bred. Is it any wonder that chefs go wild for a bird whose unique flavour comes from a natural diet of heather?
Controversial though hunting might be,
Darren says that “the public don’t see the infrastructure and conservation that goes into shooting”. There are still misconceptions that game meat constitutes “killing bambi”. When most people have no problem eating pigs, sheep and chicken, it’s undeniably a hypocritical stance that the gamekeeping community wants to help address.
As shoppers, we are keener than ever to know about where our food comes from. Surely a source of protein where the provenance is traceable and animals are not bred to be big and tasteless but given the opportunity to live a more natural life should be taken seriously? No air miles or battery-farmed consumer guilt necessary.
REGULA
PHEASANT TIKKA MASALA Thea
Everett
Serves: 4 | Prep: 15 mins + marinating | Cook: 50 mins
Pheasant lends itself brilliantly to a tikkastyle cooking method, as the marinating and grilling enable the smaller pieces of meat to stay tender and not dry out. This recipe tastes even better eaten the day after you make it.
INGREDIENTS
— 6 pheasant breasts
For the marinade
— 250g yoghurt
— 2 tsp coriander
— 2 tsp cumin powder
— 1 tbsp Kashmiri chilli powder
— 1 tsp garam masala
— 2 tsp turmeric
— 5 cloves of garlic, finely grated
— 2 tbsp finely grated ginger
— 1 tsp salt
For the sauce
— 1 tbsp chilli oil / sunflower oil
— 2 tbsp butter
— 1 onion, finely chopped
— 1 bay leaf
— 5 green cardamom pods
— 2 black cardamom pods (optional)
— 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
— 1 tsp garam masala
— 1 tsp turmeric powder
— 4 cloves of garlic, finely grated
— 1 tbsp finely grated ginger
— 1 small green chilli, sliced
— 2 tbsp tomato puree
— 1 tin of tomatoes
— 200ml double cream
— 1 handful of fresh coriander, chopped
— Juice of ½ lemon
— 1½ tsp kasuri methi (dried fenugreek)
METHOD
Make the marinade by mixing the yoghurt with the spices, ginger, garlic and salt in a large bowl. Cut the pheasant breasts into three pieces each and use your hands to coat them well in the mixture. Cover and refrigerate overnight or for at least 4 hours.
In a heavy-based saucepan on a medium heat, melt the butter in the chilli or sunflower oil then add the chopped onion and a pinch of salt. Add the bay leaf and cardamom pods and cook slowly for 8 mins until the onion is fully translucent.
Add all the dry spices and give everything a good stir. Next, lower the heat a little, add the garlic, ginger and sliced fresh chilli and cook for 2-3 mins, stirring frequently until the raw garlic and ginger aroma disappears.
Add the tomato puree, tinned tomatoes and 100ml water and stir well. Season with salt and pepper and cook for 10 mins, stirring regularly. Add the cream and 2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander and cook for 30 mins on the lowest heat, stirring once or twice. If desired, you can blend the sauce at this point with a stick blender to create a smoother gravy.
Finally, turn your grill on to its highest setting. Take the marinated pheasant and arrange on a piece of foil on your grill pan. Grill for 4 mins on each side, until charred. Add to the curry, along with the lemon juice and kasuri methi and stir, cooking for 1 min more.
Serve garnished with a few leaves of coriander. Enjoy with rice and Indian breads.
Halloween & Bonfire Night AUTUMN
Look out for: Apples
Baking potatoes
Drinking chocolate
Halloween biscuits
Pumpkins
Pumpkin spice
Trick or treat sweets
Explore our confectionery traders
NO-WASTE PUMPKIN SOUP
Nadja Auerbach
Serves: 4 | Prep: 5 mins | Cook: 1 hour
Pumpkins at Halloween aren’t just for lighting candles inside. This recipe turns roasted pumpkin flesh into a delicious, gently spiced soup, topped with crunchy pumpkin seeds. Make sure you’re using a pumpkin of the culinary variety, as opposed to an ornamental gourd or a pumpkin meant for carving!
INGREDIENTS
— 1 medium pumpkin (approx 800g)
— 1 medium red onion, roughly diced
— 2 large or 3 medium cloves of garlic, crushed
— 1 tbsp cumin
— 1 tbsp ground coriander
— ½ tsp turmeric
— 1 can of full-fat coconut milk
— 1 vegetable stock cube
METHOD
Heat the oven to 200C. Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds. Set the seeds aside for later. Drizzle the pumpkin halves with olive oil and place on a large baking tray, cut-side down. Roast for 30-40 mins, turning halfway, until very soft and beginning to caramelise.
Meanwhile, separate the pumpkin seeds. Add the seeds to a mixing bowl with a drizzle of olive oil and pinch of salt and pepper. Spread them out on their own small baking tray.
When the pumpkin is halfway through roasting, add the seeds to the oven, either next to or below the pumpkin tray, and roast for around 15 mins, until golden and crunchy.
When ready, remove both trays from the oven too and leave to cool.
Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the diced red onion, the crushed garlic cloves, 1 tsp sea salt and several grinds of black pepper. Sauté until soft, then add the cumin, coriander and turmeric and stir for a further 3 mins, until the spices are aromatic. Add the coconut milk and stock cube and stir to combine. Simmer for 20 mins, then remove from the heat.
Once the pumpkin is cooled, roughly chop into 6cm pieces. Transfer to a blender and pour over the coconut milk and the onion mixture. Blend until smooth. Pumpkins can vary in water content, so if your soup is too thick, keep adding water, a couple of tablespoons at a time, until it reaches your desired consistency.
Garnish with fresh black pepper, parsley or coriander, and top with the crunchy roasted pumpkin seeds.
Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.
Coconut milk Raya
SPICED HOT CHOCOLATE WITH CINNAMON, PEPPERCORNS & CARDAMOM
Mallika Basu
Serves: 4 | Prep: 2 mins | Cook: 10 mins
This rich, molten chocolate has all the promise of a warm hug. Steeped in fragrant spices it takes its inspiration from masala chai to provide a heady version of hot chocolate. Add a dash of rum for a boozy, grown-up version.
INGREDIENTS
— 6 green cardamom pods
— 1 tsp mixed peppercorns
— 6cm cinnamon stick
— 600ml whole milk
— 70gm dark chocolate chunks, chopped into small pieces
— Agave nectar or honey, to taste
— Dark rum (optional)
METHOD
Lightly bash the mixed peppercorns and green cardamoms in a pestle and mortar until they split. Add to a heavy bottomed saucepan along with the milk and cinnamon. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring regularly.
Lower the heat to a simmer and steep the spices for five minutes. Now mix in the chocolate, stirring well until it melts, then turn the heat off. If you keep cooking it, the chocolate will turn grainy.
Strain into two cups, adding agave nectar or honey to taste. For a grown-up vibe, add a little dark rum. If reheating to enjoy, add a splash of milk to loosen the drink while warming it.
Our traders are here to provide the seasonal ingredients. The amazing chefs and food writers who find inspiration at the Market can help you decide what to do with them. Search now at