James Murphy of the band LCD Soundsystem is to launch his own brand of coffee, but he’s not the first musician to be lured by the beverage

Should we be surprised that LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy is trading his beats for beans and planning to launch his own brand of coffee? Not really – the surprise is that someone usually so ahead of the curve would have left it this long. After all, Will Oldham announced his own Bonny Billy Blend of coffee in January (overtones of “chocolate, leather and non-wacky tobaccy”, apparently). And David Lynch, who released his debut album last year, has his signature on bags of coffee sold through his website.

Mr Scruff’s organic English Breakfast tea was a labour of love, involving trips to Assam to choose the leaves. Moby founded a Lower East Side teahouse called Teany (teaNY, get it?), and Billy Corgan wants to follow in his footsteps by opening one in Chicago, making opening teahouses a favourite pastime of annoying bald musicians from the 90s.

Why warm beverages? The obvious answer would be that it’s just an expensive folly, the credit-crunch equivalent of Roger Daltrey’s trout farm. But having tried both Lynch’s coffee and Mr Scruff’s tea, I can confirm that both are fine products, so maybe they are on to something. Are you listening, Lady Gaga? There’s a gap in the chai market you’re not exploiting here.

Scrolling down a recipe on screen during hands-on cooking is a mixed experience

My favourite cookbooks show the scars of countless mealtimes: the singed flyleaf from the time I panicked with a hot roasting tray; the dubious gravy stains; the dried fingerprints of flour from that ill-fated Victoria sponge.

So how practical is it to use recipes on cookery apps? Can a phone or iPad cope with the splatters of the kitchen? And how do you scroll to the next stage of a recipe when your hands are covered in flour or lemon juice or potato peelings?

First, I try out Epicurious, the app attached to the popular American foodie website. With more then 30,000 recipes, it’s much more comprehensive than the average book, and it’s free (though it costs £1.49 to sync the app with recipes you may have stored on the site). It’s easy to navigate: there’s an index featuring everything from “weekend brunch” to “bubbly cocktails”, and useful graded sections labelled “I can barely cook” and “I cook like a pro”. There’s also a nifty “shopping list” function: select a recipe, and the app imports the ingredients into a list, which you can then tick off as you go round a shop.

Many of the recipes sound exotically American (savoury pumpkin pie soup with cinnamon marshmallows, pepita streusel and whipped crème fraiche) or Hispanic (salmorejo; tacos al pastor). The measures, too, are all US-style – cups, 15-ounce cans – so when I do finally select a recipe (butternut squash and cannellini soup with bacon) and get cooking, I waste a good while frantically Googling the conversions.

I’ll blame this – as well as the fact that my phone keeps going to sleep, meaning I’m forever jabbing at the screen with squash-covered fingers – for the fact that I put in double the correct quantity of chicken stock, and the soup bubbles out all over the hob.

I fare better the next day with a British-designed app, Dishy (priced at £2.99). It has only 95 recipes, but you can search by course, ingredient, time or dietary requirements; there’s a shopping list tool; and the step-by-step guides are easy to follow. I make a rustic sausage casserole for dinner; not only is it delicious, but a built-in countdown timer ensures that I fry the sausages for exactly the right time. Best of all, the app somehow manages to override my phone’s sleep function, so I don’t keep having to rinse my hands to avoid slathering the screen with gunk.

Day three is the turn of Great British Chefs (also £2.49), a much-praised app featuring around 180 recipes devised by Michelin-starred chefs such as Marcus Wareing, Nuno Mendes and Tom Aikens. It looks fabulous – lots of sumptuous photography – but most of the recipes are pitched far above my basic skill level and budget (since when were cheese beignets and a burrata, pea, grapefruit, caviar and leek salad classed as “easy”?).

But Daniel Clifford’s cheese scones sound good, so I have a go; the method is easy enough, and there’s a handy voice-activation tool, so you can shout at your phone rather than cover it with sticky dough. The scones turn out almost perfect.

Last I try another British chef known for keeping things simple. Jamie Oliver has a number of apps out. I go for Jamie’s 20 Minute Meals. At £4.99, it’s pricey, but it’s well-designed and simple, and the videos are definitely pitched more at my level. The pea and prawn risotto recipe makes an easy and delicious weekday lunch (though it takes me a lot longer than 20 minutes). But there’s no voice activation, so I’m back to having to wash my hands every few minutes to scroll to the next stage.

Pheasant can be tough if not cooked correctly. This quick method keeps the bird tender

The next week or so offers the last opportunity to eat pheasant, as the season is drawing to a close. Pheasant has a tendency to be quite tough if not cooked correctly. I’ve adapted the usual way of pot-roasting it whole to make it quicker and keep the bird tender.

(Serves six)
6 pheasant legs
Groundnut oil
2 carrots
1 onion
2 sticks celery
1 bulb of garlic
2 sprigs of thyme
2 tbsps chopped parsley
3 crushed black peppercorns
½ tsp tomato puree
200ml red wine
300ml chicken stock

In an ovenproof pan add a touch of groundnut oil. Season the meat and sear in the pan till it colours lightly. Remove and set aside. Add the vegetables, garlic, herbs and spices to the pan, then the tomato puree, and cook for two minutes. Put the pheasant legs back into the pan, add the wine and reduce.

Add the chicken stock and enough water to cover the meat and place in the oven for 10-20 minutes at 180C/gas mark 4. The legs will be ready when you can bend them easily. If the sauce is too thin, reduce on the stove (having removed the vegetables and meat).

Serve with crushed swede or mashed potato and finish with chopped parsley.

• Angela Hartnett is chef patron at Murano restaurant and consults at the Whitechapel Gallery and Dining Room, London. Twitter.com/angelahartnett

Whether you fancy sushi, noodles or top tempura, it’s easy to find good, cheap restaurants in Tokyo, says Robbie Swinnerton

• As featured in our Tokyo city guide

Kanda Yabu Soba

In a city that has celebrated the understated flavour of soba (buckwheat noodles) for centuries, no restaurant is as revered as Kanda Yabu Soba. Founded more than 100 years ago, it’s a handsome, free-standing wooden villa in its own tranquil garden courtyard with the feel of a traditional tea house. Kimono-clad waitresses bustle about, ferrying food and drink from kitchen to table (either with chairs or on tatami mats). Locals prefer their noodles cold, as zaru soba (plain noodles with a dip) or ten-zaru (the same with batter-fried shrimp). In winter the classic dish is kamo-nanban, hot soba in a rich broth with slices of duck breast and leek.
• 2-10 Kanda-Awajicho, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 3251 0287, norenkai.net/english/shop/yabusoba/index.html, soba noodles from around £6. Open daily 11.30am-8pm. English menu

Tsunahachi

Tempura – batter-fried morsels of seafood and vegetables – is one of the supreme delicacies of Japanese cuisine and, like sushi, at the upper end it can cost a prince’s ransom. Hidden away on the upper restaurant floor of a mall close to Shinjuku JR Station, Tsunahachi proves it doesn’t have to. Bright, modern and drawing a youngish demographic, it brings some innovative nuances to the tradition, such as serving a choice of four different kinds of salt with the tempura instead of just the standard soya-based dipping sauce. Drop in for a quick, affordable lunch of tendon (shrimp and a few cuts of vegetables served on rice), or settle in for a leisurely dinner, picking from the considerable side menu of sashimi and other Japanese delicacies.
• Lumine 7F, 3-38-1 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, +81 3 3352 1012, tunahachi.co.jp, lunch from ¥1,260 (£10.50), dinner from ¥2,625 (£22), English menu. Open daily 11am-11pm

Sushi-Bun

Tokyo’s central fish market is an essential part of most visitors’ itineraries, and so is breakfast at one of its legendary hole-in-the-wall sushi counters. The seafood could hardly be fresher, and the sushi is as good as you’d expect at places charging four times as much. Sushi-Bun is one of the best in the market – it’s just as tiny (10 seats at the counter at a pinch) and as tasty as the others, but it’s left out of most guidebooks so the queues are usually shorter. Most people go for the set sushi menu (from £22 for eight servings of whatever seafood is in season, plus soup), which includes their succulent house-special, anago sea eel. The rough sake they serve with it, though, is far from premium.
• 8 Chuo Shijo Building, 5-2-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, +81 3 3541 3860, tsukijinet.com, sushi chef’s menu (omakase) from £22, English menu. Open Mon-Sat 6am-2.30pm, closed Sun and holidays

Kushiwakamaru

Yakitori – bite-sized cuts of chicken (and some vegetables) skewered, grilled and then seasoned with salt or slathered with thick soy sauce – is classic blue-collar fare: cheerful, affordable and best washed down with flagons of lager, sake or shochu. The cheapest places tend to be raucous and smoky, and often specialise in offal, but Kushiwakamaru hits just the right note. The feel is casual and accessible, while the charcoal-grilled chicken is well above average. There are always a few specials, such as duck or quail. And don’t miss the negima (chicken and leek), the tsukune (balls of minced chicken) or the tebasaki chicken wings (forget chopsticks – these you pick up and gnaw with your hands).
• 1-19-2 Kami-Meguro, Meguro-ku, +81 3 3715 9292, r.tabelog.com/tokyo/A1317/A131701/13003193, yakitori from £1.60/stick, English menu. Open Mon-Fri 5.30pm-midnight, Sat-Sun 5pm-midnight

Nogizaka Uoshin

Five minutes’ walk from the opulent Roppongi midtown complex, the Nogizaka branch of the Uoshin group sets the template for the genre that’s come to be known as fish shack dining. Fresh seafood served any which way you like, at prices that reflect the rudimentary decor: bright lights, colourful fishermen’s banners and no-frills seating. Uoshin’s parent company is a seafood wholesaler, guaranteeing freshness and a great variety of seasonal seafood. You can’t go wrong here: generous sashimi platters; whole squid or other fish grilled to order; warming winter fish stews; and humongous portions of sushi.
• 9-6-32 Akasaka, Minato-ku, +81 3 3405 0411, uoshins.com, full meals from around £30, including two hours of all you can drink. Open Lunch 12-2pm on weekdays; dinner 5pm-12am; Sunday and holidays 4pm-11pm

Maruni

Maruni does barbecue in a style all its own. The building is an old converted rice merchant’s store that somehow got left behind among the modern office buildings close to Shinbashi Station. The decor is all gaudy black and red. Instead of tables and chairs, there are half a dozen oil drums, each with a charcoal grill set into the top. You just order a plate or two of meat, then grill it yourself. The beef is all from the famously pampered Japanese wagyu cattle. Maruni doesn’t serve the super-premium steak grades so it’s all highly affordable.
• 1-11-1 Shinbashi, Minato-ku, +81 3 3572 1129r.gnavi.co.jp/gar6100/lang/en/, grilled beef from around ¥550 (£4.60 a plate. Open Mon-Thurs, Sat 5pm-midnight, Fri 5pm-4am. English menu

Ippudo

Ramen is Chinese in origin, but it’s unquestionably Japan’s de facto favourite late-night fast food. You find ramen counters on virtually every street corner, serving up nourishing, steaming hot bowls of wheat noodles in rich, meaty broth, invariably topped with slices of chashu pork, half a boiled egg and chewy strips of menma bamboo. Within the genre, though, numerous regional variations have evolved: all are available in Tokyo. Where to start? You can’t go wrong with Ippudo, a chain (now with a New York outlet) that flies the flag for Fukuoka ramen. The noodles are light and the tonkotsu soup (made from long-simmered pork bones) rich and satisfying.
• 1-3-13 Hiroo, Shibuya-ku, +81 3 5420 2225, ippudo.com/store/tokyo/ebisu.html. Open Mon-Sat 11am-4am, Sun 11am-2am　

Shin-Hinomoto

There’s nothing in the West quite the equivalent of an izakaya: neither pub nor restaurant, it’s a place for eating — often well and always cheaply — as much as for drinking; and, just as importantly, for de-stressing after work. Shin-Hinomoto is a classic example. It looks unpromising, a cramped room full of noise and cigarette smoke shoehorned in under the railway tracks in Yurakucho. It’s a typical izakaya in all but one respect: the master of the house is British. Known to one and all simply as Andy, he married into the business and now runs it. Seafood is his speciality, which he sources each day from Tsukiji market. But you’ll also find chicken, cooked vegetables and simple salads alongside the tempura and sashimi.
• 2-4-4 Yurakucho, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 3214 8021, andysfish.com/Shin-Hinomoto. Open Mon-Sat 5pm-midnight, English spoken

Little Okinawa

The food and drink of Japan’s southernmost prefecture are so distinctive they could be a totally different cuisine. The Okinawa archipelago is far closer to China than to Tokyo and the influences are marked. Little Okinawa is a welcoming, long-time (yes, and very compact) bastion of this subtropical culture, and it serves all the island exotica. Start with umi-budo, seaweed resembling miniature grapes, and jimami-dofu, a tofu-like custard made from peanuts. Continue with goat sashimi and pig’s ear (crunchy, but served with a nice vinegar-sharp sauce). And don’t miss the goya-champur (scrambled egg, tofu and bitter gourd) and rafutei, pork belly soft-simmered till you can cut it with a chopstick. Wash it all down with shots of awamori, a fiery liquor that can pack a wallop.
• 8-7-10 Ginza, Chuo-ku, +81 3 3572 2930, little-okinawa.co.jp, ramen from £6.50, English menu. Open noon-1.30pm, 5pm-3am Mon-Fri, noon-1.30pm, 4pm-midnight Sat and Sun

Tonki

The first thing you notice about Tonki is how bright it is: it’s as spick and span as an operating theatre. The chefs wear spotless white uniforms, the kitchen gleams and the wooden counter and tables are scrubbed smooth. Quite remarkable for a place where the only form of cooking is deep-frying. Tonki’s speciality (in fact the only thing it serves) is tonkatsu: cutlets of pork that are dipped in breadcrumbs, then fried till the outside is a crispy golden-brown and the meat inside perfectly tender and juicy. You have two basic choices: rosu (blubbery-rich belly meat) or hire (lean loin “fillet”), though the latter is also offered as kushi, bit-sized cuts cooked on skewers. Most people order the set meal, with rice and miso soup on the side, leaving as soon as they finish.
• 1-1-2 Shimo-Meguro, Meguro-ku, +81 3 3491 9928, tonkatsu from £7, set meals from £14. Open 4pm-10.45pm, closed Tues and third Mon of the month

For more information go to the Japan National Tourism Organisation’s website: jnto.go.jp/eng

• Robbie Swinnerton writes the Tokyo Food File column for The Japan Times

Does the Labour power couple have a secret culinary weapon as they (allegedly) scheme their rise to the top?

Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper have been accused by Labour conspiracy theorists of plotting to seize the party leadership, not on the conference platform or in the smoke-filled rooms of yesteryear, but in the kitchen. Their secret weapon, according to one weekend report, is lasagne. How unscrupulous can an MP get?

Much more unscrupulous and more extravagant in the bad old days, when much of elite politics was conducted over dinner, drinks or both, in private houses in SW1 or in West End clubs. In those days the inter-war Tory politician and diarist Sir Henry “Chips” (a nickname, not a diet) Channon would regard dinner with a couple of exiled monarchs, Winston Churchill and the Duke of Windsor as a quiet night in. Such habits faded after 1945, and gave way to Harold Wilson’s HP sauce, John Major’s peas and Margaret Thatcher’s famous home-made shepherd’s pie, all much more democratic. Nowadays even David Cameron, an Etonian who felt obliged to resign from White’s Club, the poshest in St James’s (Dad had been chairman), courts Tory MPs with lasagne. Not just any old lasagne either, but lasagne allegedly cooked by himself.

Anything Cam can do, so can Balls. The ferociously aggressive shadow chancellor has been rebranded as a chap who weeps during Antiques Roadshow and wants his wife, the shadow home secretary, to become leader after Ed Miliband (er, um) retires. More new man than New Labour, his new golden rule is crisping the delicious cheddar bechamel sauce he makes for his oregano-kissed lasagnes.

Does this amount to a plot? Yes and No. Balls’s mentor, Gordon Brown, lost the Labour leadership to Tony Blair over Italian food in north-London restaurant Granita (says he) and personally preferred bonding over pizza, beer and football with favoured MPs at Geoffrey Robinson’s Park Lane pad. Successive “curry house plots” were launched, for and against Brown, by Labour colleagues, an updated version of the Indian Mutiny.

All Ed and Yvette are doing is raising battered party moral by hosting MPs and activists in their lovely London and Yorkshire homes, say culinary loyalists. Pull the other slow-cooked pork leg, whisper surviving Blairites, who fear the ambitious power couple is running the show. The truth is that charismatic loners can capture a party without ever consulting Delia’s Summer Collection. Gregarious plotters can over-reach themselves. And Blairites, who have never tasted Ed’s delicious “stiff sponge” with its growth-orientated dollops of caster sugar, double cream and eggs, may just be jealous.

Readers’ favourite photographs, songs and recipes

Snapshot: The hop years of our lives

This photograph of hop-picking was taken in 1924 in Paddock Wood in the Weald of Kent, where my gran, Annie, (pictured, on the left) moved after her marriage. Like many generations before her, she was born near Cranbrook, deep in hop‑growing country. Her father and both grandfathers worked on hop farms, and probably their fathers and grandfathers did too.

This is the area where it is thought Flemish weavers first introduced hops to England in the 1300s, and I like to think that our family may have been involved even then. Sadly, the hop-picking tradition in our family finished with my sister and me in the 1960s, when mechanical harvesting was introduced, and there was a new fashion for lager, which needed fewer hops than traditional English beer.

My dad, Bert, at the time of posing for this photograph, wouldn’t have known that later on, as a teenager selling sweets to hop-pickers, he would meet his future wife, my mum, as she was picking hops with friends. You could say that I owe my life to hops. Dad never left Paddock Wood, where he was born, and neither did his younger sister, Dorothy, also known as Babs, who is beside him in the photo. As well as hop-picking, one of the jobs she regularly did as an adult with other local women was hop-tying, done in May to train the new bines.

The other hop-picker, their cousin, Ethel, was probably dreaming of a new life as she picked. Not long after this picture was taken, she sailed for a new life in Australia, where she died in 2006, aged 100.

September was hopping month and schools didn’t restart after the summer break until all the hops were harvested. My sister and I still refer to those times in late summer, when misty dawns develop into warm sunny days, as “hop-picking weather”.

We remember the canvas-covered folding wooden bins, into which we put the picked hops, and the bushel baskets that measured them. We also recall hands blackened with picking, the call of “Pull no more bines!” at the end of the day, and the pay packets collected from the farmer’s kitchen at the end of the harvest. It’s well known that Londoners flocked to Kent every year at hopping time, crucial to the harvesting of hops, but the farm where we picked just employed local people, so we were surrounded by friends and neighbours. My first new bike was bought with hop-picking money.

I was born in Paddock Wood, too. Then a village, it is now a town, with houses built in the former hop fields. The only reminders of the past are a few roads named after varieties of hops, and oast houses, formerly used to dry hops and now converted into dwellings. Even the Hop Pocket pub, named after the large sacks in which the dried hops were stored, has now gone. My dad’s work took him on a daily commute into London, but he remained a country boy at heart. In his last years, he and I made an annual pilgrimage to a hop field, even though it became increasingly hard to find one.

I now live by the Bristol Channel, but in my garden is a hop plant. I only have to crush a hop in my fingers for the familiar scent to transport me back to Kent, the hop gardens and my roots. Liz Youngs

Playlist: Easy money from the Seekers

I’ll Never Find Another You by the Seekers

There’s a new world somewhere / They call The Promised Land

Many years ago there was a wonderful theatre in Glasgow called the Alhambra. My mother, sister and I had the good fortune to run a snack bar backstage for three years – up until its closure in 1969. During our time there, we met many famous artists such as Frankie Vaughan, Max Bygraves, Marlene Dietrich, Betty Grable, the Shadows and my favourite group, the Seekers. Each night as they performed, I would stand at the back of the wings and listen to their music.

One night, the theatre housekeeper asked if I could help out. Apparently, the Seekers’ manager was fogbound at the airport in London and wouldn’t be able to get back to Glasgow. The manager usually helped Judith Durham, the lead singer, to change dresses halfway through the act. The housekeeper asked if I could lend a hand. I can remember how excited I felt. I was told to wait until the end of the song I’ll Never Find Another You, and then rush along the corridor to the dressing room.

As Judith Durham came off stage, I followed her into the room and opened the wardrobe. There hung three or four beautiful, sparkling evening gowns. I can remember commenting that it must be wonderful to wear such glamorous clothes. She was such a lovely person and very friendly.

I did this for two nights and the housekeeper handed me an envelope with 15 shillings in it as a thank you from Judith. That was quite a lot of money in those days – but I would happily have done it for nothing.

Consequently, every time I hear that song, it brings back memories of the easiest money I ever earned. Elizabeth Nicholson

We love to eat: Doorstep elevenses

Ingredients

One doorstep

A tin of Brasso

Newspapers

Several old rags

Two soft yellow dusters

A good friend (most essential)

In the early 1950s, to get my weekly pocket-money, I had to clean my mother’s brass collection – a job I loathed so much that I offered Kathleen from next door half my earnings if she would help me. As she didn’t get any pocket money she jumped at the 6d.

The brass collection itself had begun, unwittingly, during the war, when we children one day gleefully picked up from the pavement shell-cases that had rained down from German planes, as we walked to Sunday school – the target was a bus factory opposite Garner’s bakery, where we sheltered (a shop with little more than bread on sale in those days). Like a fool, I would go on to give my mother brass knick-knacks for birthdays, Christmases and even holiday souvenirs. There was far too much of it.

Our back doorstep faced Kathleen’s, and dividing us was a low wire fence that dipped where Kathleen would climb over and join me once the brass was set out on opened newspapers. From the moment we dipped our rags into the Brasso, while all the time talking and sharing confidences over our week’s happenings, this normally loathsome task was transformed into a really pleasant one.

We didn’t rush, for we knew that by the time we’d rubbed and polished all the assorted brass objects until we could see our mirror images in them, my mother would return from shopping – her last port of call having been Garner’s bakery.

As she pushed her laden bicycle up the path, we knew what was in the greaseproof bag she carried teasingly over our heads and into the kitchen. We heard the kettle boil and cups rattle. Mother then appeared and handed down to each of us a cup of tea and a tea-plate. Spread across the entire surface of the tea-plate was a huge choux pastry cream-filled bun topped with soft, sweet chocolate. One bite and we were in heaven as cream oozed and clung to our lips, cheeks and chin. Should Garner’s be out of choux buns, we were just as happy with a many layered, jam and cream-filled vanilla slice topped with pink and white soft icing.

My mother’s home-baked cakes were to die for, but these Saturday morning indulgences were actually bought! And somehow that made them special. There was as much pleasure in sharing the hated task with Kathleen as there was in sacrificing half of my one shilling for such a treat. Sheila Isherwood

guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle

It’s time to take advantage of one of our great native harvests – and, best of all, it’s free, too. But get your skates on before the squirrels take the lot

If you go down to the woods today, I can’t guarantee a big surprise, but there’s a very good chance of a delicious little snack. For it’s about this time of year that I rev up my efforts to gather hazelnuts and cobnuts before the squirrels get their mercilessly efficient little paws and jaws on them.

Hazelnuts can be found all over our ancient woodlands and hedgerows, and down the centuries they’ve supplied so much more than sustenance. They have long been associated with wisdom, even druidic magic, and everything from witches’ wands, royal sceptres and water dowsing rods were made from their precious and pliable wood.

The common wild hazel grows in abundance all over Britain, and seeking out its nuts is perhaps one of the easiest foraging jobs going, (alongside blackberrying, which you can often do at the same time). Fresh, green hazelnuts are quite different from the crunchy dried nuts you buy in the shop. Their flesh is crisp, slightly sweet, and I can run through a stash of them with a brisk and squirrel-like efficiency myself.

If you don’t have time to gather your own, at this time of year some greengrocers and farmers’ markets sell cobnuts, as commercially cultivated hazelnuts are known. Cobnuts are bigger than wild hazels, and just as delicious when very fresh – check the frilly casing is still sprightly and not too dried out.

Cobnuts were first cultivated around Maidstone in Kent probably as far back as the 16th century. Plantations, as growers called their nut farms, spread out as far as Sussex, Devon and Worcestershire, and by the time of the first world war there were 7,000 acres of hazelnut orchards, or “plats”, in Britain. By 1990, this had declined to 250 acres and today most of our hazelnuts come from Turkey.

All the more reason to keep alive the tradition of our seasonal cobnut harvest. If you’d like to track some down, kentishcobnutsassociation.org.uk gives details of pick-your-own places, farm-gate and mail-order sales, as well as advice on growing your own trees, should you have the space and inclination.

As well as cobnuts, there are also filberts about. If you want to make a distinction, cobnuts (Corylus avellana) are round with short, frilly husks that expose the end of the nut (their Latin name comes from the Greek for helmet, korys, because of the shape of the husk), while filberts (C. maxima) are longer, thinner and covered by their husks – they take their name from St Philibert’s Day on 22 August, the date by which hazelnuts are meant to start ripening. And just to keep you confused, one of the most widely available “cobnuts” is C. maxima ‘Kentish Cob’, which is actually a filbert.

Once you’ve had your fill of fresh hazels, dry any you have left over. Store in a dry, airy room or shed in shallow layers in slatted boxes, or hang them up in mesh bags. Turn them regularly, or give the bag a shake, to ensure they’re drying evenly and, once dry, remove the husks and store in a cool, dry place. And then you’ll have hazelnuts!

Dried hazelnuts are a great addition to all kinds of savoury and sweet dishes – toasting brings out their complex flavours. Whole or roughly chopped, they add crunch to autumn salads and stuffings; ground, they’re very good in biscuits and cakes, particularly when paired with chocolate (see today’s recipe). Look out for hazelnut oil, too – its distinctive flavour is good in dressings and baking, though it turns rancid quickly, so refrigerate after opening and devour swiftly and greedily.

Chocolate and hazelnut cake

This rather splendid-looking cake is really quite easy, and demonstrates perfectly the seductive combination of hazels and chocolate. Serves eight.

For the cake
400g shelled dried hazelnuts
1 tsp cocoa powder
250g dark chocolate, about 70%, broken into pieces
200g butter, plus a little more for greasing the tin, softened
200g caster sugar
5 egg yolks
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp brandy (optional)

For the chocolate glaze
100g caster sugar
50g dark chocolate (about 70%)
20g butter

Heat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Put the hazelnuts on a baking tray and roast until browned, checking regularly they aren’t burning – about five minutes.

Turn down the heat to 150C/300F/gas mark 2. Tip the hazelnuts into a clean tea towel, wrap them up and leave for a minute, then rub vigorously with the tea towel to loosen and remove their papery skins. When cool, reserve about 30g of the nuts to garnish the cake at the end and pulse the rest in a food processor until fine.

Grease the bottom and sides of a 23cm springform tin, then dust the insides with cocoa powder. Line the base with baking parchment and butter the parchment.

Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place over a pan of barely simmering water – the water should not touch the bottom of the bowl. Melt the chocolate, remove the bowl from the pan and leave to cool.

With a stand mixer or hand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition and adding a pinch of salt with the last yolk. With a rubber spatula, fold in first the hazelnuts and then the chocolate and alcohol, if using. Spoon into the tin, smooth over the top and bake for about 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Place the tin on a wire rack and leave for 20 minutes before releasing the sides of the cake tin and leaving to cool completely. Invert the cake on to a plate, and remove the base and the paper.

To make the glaze, tip the sugar into a small pan with 100ml water and warm over a low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a boil and boil hard for three minutes. Remove from the heat and cool until it’s very warm, rather than volcanically hot (you can put the base of the pan into the sink filled with a couple of centimetres of cold water to speed this up). Stir in the chocolate and butter until it’s melted, blended and glossy. Pour over the cake and finish with the remaining nuts.

Pear and hazelnut salad

Sweet, ripe pears and hazelnuts are a classic and delicious combination. Serves two as a starter.

30g dried hazelnuts or cobnuts (prepared weight)
1 pear
5 tbsp ricotta
2 tsp hazelnut oil
2 tsp runny honey
1 tsp sherry vinegar
Freshly ground black pepper

If using dried hazelnuts, toast them (see the preceding cake recipe); fresh hazels or cobnuts can be used as they are or fried lightly in a little olive oil with a sprinkling of flaky sea salt. Chop the nuts roughly.

Core the pear and slice thinly. Divide the slices between two plates. Scatter on the hazelnuts and then dot with ricotta. Trickle the oil, honey and vinegar on top, and finish with a few grinds of black pepper.

Honeyed hazels

This recipe is from my friend Pam Corbin, who runs our preserving courses at River Cottage, and is one of my great autumnal favourites. It’s a great way to squirrel away fresh cobnuts, for spooning on yoghurt for breakfast or ice-cream after dinner. Makes two 225g jars.

500g hazelnuts or cobnuts
340g runny honey

Crack all the nuts and remove the kernels. Heat a frying pan over low heat, and toast the shelled nuts in batches for four to five minutes, jiggling and shaking the pan to make sure they don’t burn. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Pack the nuts into sterilised jars, adding a tablespoon of honey every third or fourth layer. Continue until the jars are tightly packed with nuts and completely covered with honey. Seal securely with a lid and store in a cool, dry, dark place. Use within a year.

Hazelnut meringues

Hazelnuts are a great addition to a meringue, making a chewier, more substantial pud than the usual light-as-air concoction. Serves six.

5 egg whites
200g caster sugar
75g light muscovado sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
100g toasted hazelnuts (see preceding cake recipe), half finely ground and half roughly chopped
220ml double cream
2 tbsp icing sugar

Heat the oven to 110C/225F/gas mark ½. Line two baking sheets with parchment.

In a scrupulously clean bowl, whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks. In a separate bowl, whisk the sugars and cinnamon. Add the sugar to the egg whites a couple of tablespoons at a time, whisking as you go; once you’ve added half the sugar, you can begin to add the rest more swiftly. Keep beating until the meringues are stiff and glossy. Use a metal spoon or spatula to fold in the ground and chopped nuts.

Drop large tablespoonfuls of the mixture on to the parchment, leaving some space between them so they can spread out. Bake for about an hour and a half, until the meringues peel easily away from the paper and sound hollow when tapped. Turn off the oven and leave to dry out in the cooling oven for a couple of hours.

Whip the cream with the icing sugar until thickened, and use generous dollops to sandwich the meringues together in pairs.

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‘It’s still surprising you don’t tend to find people enthusing about inexpensive bordeaux the way they do about rioja’

Given the hype that surrounds the annual release of the top growths, it’s easy to forget how affordable most Bordeaux is. Or how much of it there is – its vineyards cover 10 times the area of Alsace and five times that of Burgundy.

True, modern tastes seem to run more to lusher cabernets and merlots from, say, Chile which is perhaps why so many producers are now releasing wines at 14% abv plus, a level of alcohol I don’t really think suits this traditionally medium-bodied, food-friendly wine. But it’s still surprising you don’t tend to find people enthusing about inexpensive bordeaux the way they do about rioja.

Tasting my way through 30-odd wines under £10 for this article, I’d also say it was more reliable than it’s ever been. Admittedly, most were 2009 and 2010 – both good vintages – but there were surprisingly few dud bottles.

I even found two sub £5 bordeaux that were perfectly drinkable: Lidl’s 2010 Bordeaux (12.5% abv) at the ridiculously cheap price of £3.69, which would be fine with plain English food such as shepherd’s pie, and Aldi’s easygoing Bordeaux Supérieur 2009 (£4.99; 13% abv), which is made in a softer, more contemporary style.

If you’re prepared to overlook the slightly naff label, Wine Rack branches have the well structured supple La Vieille Tour de Seguin 2009 (£7.69, plus another 10% off if you buy any six bottles; 13.5% abv). And Adnams Cellar & Kitchen shops stock the fragrant Chateau du Pin Bordeaux 2009 (£7.99; 14% abv), which you might be able to kid less knowledgable (or sozzled) friends is the iconic Le Pin. They also have an “Affordable Bordeaux” offer on at the moment – £99 for a 12-bottle case – which you might fancy if you want to explore what bordeaux at this price has to offer.

Just nudging the £10 mark, I’d recommend the supple, graceful Chateau Tour de Biot 2008 from Berry Bros & Rudd (which should be back in stock again next week at £9.15; 13.5% abv) and Chateau Civrac‘s Element 2009 (£8.75 at Wadebridge Wines, £8.91 at The Sampler and £8.95 at Vinoteca – check wine-searcher.com for other stockists; 12.5% abv), a fresh, fruity versatile merlot you could easily drink with a robust fish dish such as roast cod and bacon or seared tuna.

Expect more dramatic offers on bordeaux in the runup to Christmas, but be wary. They may be from lesser vintages and won’t necessarily drink better than these regular stalwarts.

fibeckett@live.com
Photographs: Full Stop Photography

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When best to eat new potatoes? Plus how to spend a gastronomic birthday with family and friends

Monty Don says to eat new potatoes straight after digging, before the starch turns to sugar. But I’ve also read you should leave them for a day before cooking. Which is right?
I’m with Monty on this one. New potatoes are actually immature tubers. They are sweeter and less starchy than the grown-up potato harvested later and benefit from being dug, cooked and eaten asap, preferably with butter and a little salt.

My 30th birthday is approaching and I’d love to have a week’s scenic, foodie indulgence with family and friends – sadly, my birthday’s in February and the location has to be in the UK or very-near Europe.
You could try a course at L’Atelier des Chefs, which will cater to your specifications in London, Lille or Paris. Or you could take yourself to Wakefield for the Rhubarb Festival, or to Rye for the Rye Bay Scallop Festival. More liquid would be the Battersea Beer Festival. More scenic and more exotic would be to hop on Eurostar to Lille or Bruges, which are both picturesque and stuffed with notable eateries. However, if it were me, and I wanted the warmth of friends and family, food and fun, I would head off for the Marmalade Awards & Festival at Dalemain Mansion in Cumbria, for a spot of fell walking, baking, competitive marmalade making and general high jinks.

Got a query for Matthew? Email food.for.fort@guardian.co.uk
Follow Matthew on Twitter: twitter.com/matthewfort.
Or visit his blog, Fort on Food

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A squash paste that’s incredibly moreish, plus a classic Lebanese and Syrian take on roast potatoes

Butternut squash and tahini spread (V)

Tara Wigley, who assists me in my recipe testing, emailed me about this one with “I could eat this by the bucket” in the subject field. And she’s right – once you start eating it, it is hard to put aside. Once made, and assuming you can keep your mitts off it that long, it will keep in a jar in the fridge for a few days, in which case allow it to come back to room temperature before piling over pitta or fresh bread, just like hummus.

Date syrup is a natural sweetener that has wonderful richness and treacly depth; I drizzle it over semolina porridge. It is available from many healthfood shops, but it’s not the end of the world if you can’t get hold of it – this spread is perfectly fine without it. Serves six to eight.

1 very large butternut squash, peeled and cut into chunks (net weight 970g)
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
70g tahini paste
120g Greek yoghurt
2 small garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 tsp mixed black and white sesame seeds (or just white, if you don’t have black)
1½ tsp date syrup
2 tbsp chopped coriander

Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Spread the squash out on a medium-sized baking tray, pour over the olive oil and sprinkle on the cinnamon and salt. Mix well, cover the tray tightly with tinfoil and roast for 70 minutes, stirring once during the cooking. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Transfer the cooled squash to the bowl of a food processor, along with the tahini, yoghurt and garlic. Roughly pulse so that everything is combined into a coarse paste – you don’t want it too smooth (you can also do this by hand using a fork or masher).

To serve, spread the butternut in a wavy pattern over a flat plate and sprinkle with sesame seeds, a drizzle of syrup and finish with chopped coriander.

Batata harra (V)

This Lebanese and Syrian dish is probably my favourite way with potatoes. It is spicy and soothing at the same time, and is wonderful served on its own or as a side dish; I particularly love it with grilled fish. You can adjust the degree of heat to suit your threshold; just remember, it’s meant to be pretty spicy. Talking about heat, chilli flakes vary widely, so test how hot yours are before adding the full amount. Serves four.

1 kg charlotte potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm dice
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp sunflower oil
7 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 tsp pul biber (Turkish flaked chilli) or ½ tsp another flaked chilli
2 red peppers, cut into 2cm dice
30g chopped coriander
Grated zest of 1 lemon, plus 1 tbsp lemon juice
Maldon sea salt and black pepper

Heat the oven to 240C/465F/gas mark 9. Bring a saucepan of salted water to a boil, throw in the potatoes and cook for three minutes. Drain and leave in a colander until completely dry.

Mix the potatoes with the oils, two teaspoons of salt and some black pepper, and spread on a medium roasting tray lined with tin foil; the potatoes should fit in snugly in one layer. Put them in the oven to roast and, after 10 minutes, stir in the garlic, pul biber, red pepper and half of the coriander. Return to the oven and roast for a further 25-30 minutes, until the potatoes are nicely coloured and completely tender. Stir once halfway through the cooking.

Remove the potatoes from the oven and transfer to a large bowl. Stir in the lemon zest and juice, taste and add salt and pepper if needed.

Serve warm or at room temperature, stirring in the remaining coriander at the last minute.

• Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron of Ottolenghi and Nopi in London.

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