National Trust Family Cookbook

By Claire Thomson

Over 100 delicious recipes perfect for a busy family life. Make family meals fun again with this approachable guide to adventurous cooking.

Claire Thomson wants to revitalise cooking for the family – making it less of a chore, with separate meals for children and adults, and more of an enjoyable way to refresh your culinary imagination and make cooking for the family something to look forward to.

The book is divided into timescale sections: quick lunches and suppers that take around 10 minutes, 20 minute reliable recipes, savvy family stalwarts that take 40 minutes at most and unhurried and imaginative recipes that take between 45 minutes and an hour. National Trust Family Cookbook is packed with delicious and colourful recipes for lunches and suppers as well as healthy (and indulgent) breakfast ideas, lunchbox alternatives and food for Sunday roasts and summer barbecues. The dishes include yoghurt, lemon and cardamom chicken wraps, cold Vietnamese noodle salad, quick fish stew and pea and halloumi fritters, as well as smashed tomato toast and coconut, raspberry and lemon syrup loaf. Claire suggests alternative twists and substitutes so you can suit the ingredients to your family’s tastes and what you have in the cupboard – and suggests ways that the kids can get involved in the cooking.

As a mother and a chef, Claire gives real insight into what makes food appealing to all the family and how to shop, cook and eat as a family so that meal times are something for all the family to look forward to.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• Release date: Mar 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781911358305

Book preview

Introduction

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First things first. In writing this book, I would like the notion of ‘children’s food’ to be firmly and finally put to bed. The food I serve my children is food I would also like to eat myself, using a variety of ingredients and enjoying the process – it doesn’t have to be an expensive or elite activity. I believe that making the time to cook and eat together as much as possible is crucial. From scrambled eggs to celebratory suppers, all are of equal importance.

The recipes in this book are an authentic indicator of how I cater for my own family. Some dishes are effortless and easy, mere collisions of ingredients in a bowl. For me, the everyday and accessible are vital anchors for a cookbook. It is these notions that can go on to make a cookbook indispensable, a well-splattered document of family life. That said, I also enjoy the triumph of pulling off the trickier dishes, the one-offs among friends. And so I am making just enough space in this cookbook for those courageous, ambitious moments all kitchens and all cooks are capable of.

I am a professional chef and so have many recipes, cookery methods and techniques to hand. This battle-scarred knowledge of ingredients, seasons and cooking resources is invaluable to me. I still have a caramelised orange-shaped scar on my upper foot – wearing sandals in a kitchen while working with molten sugar was stupid and foolhardy. I was twenty, in a rush and running late with my mise en place for service. Older and wiser now, those days spent as a restaurant chef stand me in good stead as a mother and food writer, and now family food ambassador for the National Trust. Practising what you preach is no mean feat when helping to develop recipes for the supporters and 4.5 million members of the Trust throughout the UK. It’s an exciting challenge and one I am thrilled to be on board with – packing taste, flavour and family appeal into the recipes served up in the many National Trust cafés.

For me, inspiration comes from both nearby and far-flung places. I like that a dish can appear on the table in front of my children and spark conversation about where in the world the ingredients or cooking method might come from. In my cooking, I am also inspired by the serving methods of other cultures, such as offering multiple condiments or accompaniments (hot, cooling, comforting, sweet, sour and so on) to complement a meal. Serving chutneys, pickles, chilli flakes, raitas, chopped salads, herbs, extra salt for those who want it, pepper, flatbreads, limes, lemons, grated cheese, toasted breadcrumbs and more can help to customise a meal while satisfying a variety of appetites within the family.

I think it is important that children don’t see food as a battleground, or something to be venerated. While a certain level of continuity can be reassuring for a child, if your ultimate goal is a more varied family diet and not one built on repetition (thinking of your sanity here), do try to introduce new recipes and ingredients with a certain nonchalance and in the spirit of adventure. Consider ingredients as building blocks, and try to include a wide variety from a young age, moving flavours and textures around to create new tastes and dishes. It is no surprise that young children will often ape their older siblings and adults. If an ingredient – such as chilli flakes, or grated mature cheese – is used commonly on certain dishes by other members of the family, I have found that soon enough the youngest members will want to follow suit. Camaraderie is a powerful thing come teatime.

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I am determined that when my children leave home, we will have spent more hours together eating, talking and laughing around the kitchen table than on any sofa. I also hope that they will all cook well. In their cooking, I’d like them to be generous with vegetables, able to cook thrifty, wholesome ingredients with punch and panache, and be confident in using a variety of spices and herbs. Lastly, I suppose, what I would like most is for them to have a relationship with food that is completely and utterly normal.

About the book

I have divided the chapters of this book into manageable time frames so you can cook what you want, when you want it. This way lies confident cookery. There are days when a quick lunch or speedy dinner needs to be assembled amid the clamour in furious, ravenous moments, and recipes to help navigate these frantic times are a lifeline. With the luxury of time, there are also dishes that, with a minimum of preparation, can be left to their own devices for an hour or more, giving you time to get on with something else entirely. There are also recipes that have the necessary time slots to duck in and out of kitchen preparation, keeping you near enough but not shackled to the stove.

I like nothing more than reading cookbooks as well as cooking from them and, with this in mind, I urge you to take a good look (cup of tea, glass of wine?) at these recipes before embarking on the cooking of them. Knowing your way around this book will equip you with enough recipes to cater for your family day in, day out, in all eventualities, with your sanity preserved and cooking like a professional.

Unless stated otherwise, each meal is intended to serve four people. This will obviously depend on how big your family is (or how hungry they are feeling!) so the quantities can be adapted accordingly.

Chapter 1

Quick-fire food, made in minutes

For those moments when everyone is hungry and the food you make needs to be filling, nutritious and flavoursome. In the writing and cooking of this family recipe book, I would like to show how good food is easy to make and needn’t be all that expensive or elite. This first chapter contains quick, simple and achievable recipes that will take 10 to 20 minutes tops!

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Courgettes and White Beans with Smoked Mackerel

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For a super-quick and nutritious lunch or supper, this dish of smoked mackerel with soft lemony white beans and courgettes heaped on brown buttered toast is a lifesaver.

3 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

½ celery heart (pale leafy inside of celery), finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

400g tin white beans, such as cannellini or haricot, drained and rinsed

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

500g firm courgettes, cut in half lengthways

Small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

Juice of ½ lemon – cut the other half into wedges, to serve

Smoked mackerel for 4 people (about 4 fillets or 730g), skin and bones removed, then roughly flaked

¼–½ tsp dried chilli flakes (optional)

Hot buttered toast, to serve

Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a large frying pan over a moderate heat and cook the onion and celery for 5–8 minutes, until they begin to soften. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the beans and cook for about 3 minutes until heated through. Season with salt and pepper and put to one side.

While the onion and celery are cooking, slice the halved courgettes into 2cm pieces.

Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan, add the courgettes and fry for 5–10 minutes until coloured and tender but still with some bite.

Stir the courgettes into the beans. Add the parsley and lemon juice.

To serve, add the flaked mackerel and season with the chilli flakes if using. Pile onto hot buttered toast and serve with lemon wedges.

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Pea, Bacon and Spring Onion Pasta

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Peas and bacon are a classic combination. Here with linguine and spring onions, this is a dish that you can make in the time it takes for the pasta to boil. My children love this for supper – there’s certainly never any left over.

350g dried pasta, such as linguine or penne

2 tbsp olive oil or butter

100g unsmoked streaky bacon, finely sliced

4 spring onions, finely sliced

1 garlic clove, very finely chopped

300g frozen peas, defrosted

Small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Freshly grated Parmesan, to serve

Have all the ingredients ready and bring a large pan of salted water to the boil.

Cook the pasta as instructed on the packet.

Heat the olive oil or butter in a frying pan over a moderate heat and fry the bacon for 3–5 minutes until it begins to brown a little. Add the spring onions and garlic and cook for about 1 more minute.

Add the peas and cook for a minute or two, then add the parsley and check the seasoning, adding salt and pepper to taste (the bacon will provide some salt).

Drain the pasta and add to the pan with the bacon. Mix well and serve with grated Parmesan.

Egg Fried Rice with Gingery Cabbage, Prawns and Spring Onions

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Egg fried rice is the dish of champions, and made with very little planning. If you cook rice for supper one night be sure to cook plenty so you have enough left over in the fridge to make this. It’s a dish that can easily swell to feed extra kids and the super-hungry. Just use more rice and eggs, and add frozen peas with the prawns and spring onions. If you prefer, use cold leftover roast chicken, pork or beef instead of the prawns. Egg fried rice is a perfect dish for using up leftovers or ‘fridge-raiding’, as it’s sometimes known.

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp fish sauce (optional, but it really does make all the difference)

6 tbsp groundnut, vegetable or sunflower oil

5cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated

½ small pointed or spring cabbage, core removed, finely sliced into ribbons

Salt

250g medium prawns, peeled and deveined

6 spring onions, finely sliced

750g cooked long-grain white rice, cooled

50g peanuts, roughly chopped, to serve

Beat the eggs together with the soy sauce, and fish sauce if using.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a wok or a large non-stick pan over a medium-high heat for about 30 seconds. Add the ginger and fry for about 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the cabbage and stir-fry until the cabbage is wilted and soft; this should take about 5 minutes. Season with a pinch of salt to taste (soy sauce and fish sauce are both salty). Using a slotted spoon, remove the gingery cabbage to a plate and wipe the wok with kitchen towel.

Put the wok back over the heat and add another 2 tablespoons of oil. Add the prawns and spring onions and stir-fry for 2–3 minutes until the prawns are cooked through. Transfer the prawns and spring onions to the plate with the cabbage.

Add the remaining oil to the wok and heat until just beginning to smoke. Add the cold cooked rice and stir-fry, ensuring all the grains get coated in the hot oil and the rice is heated through. Add the beaten eggs and fry until all the egg has been absorbed by the rice. After the egg has been absorbed, stir vigorously and fry for about 3 minutes or until the eggy rice begins to caramelise, with some of the grains and egg turning crunchy and golden.

Return the cabbage and prawns to the pan. Toss the rice, prawns and cabbage together until everything is heated