Mum & Dad come to London

As I mentioned in my previous post, Mum and Dad were popping over from Oz to check out our London lifestyle. There would be much eating and drinking in the two weeks ahead!

After about 36 hours of travel time, they arrived at 10am on Sunday 15 February - which meant they had to stay awake for a quite a while or risk never-ending jetlag. We started our two week 'Food Fest' with Nigella's Christmas breakfast option of Triple Cheese and Onion Strata followed by a refreshing fruit salad of blackberries, raspberries and pomegranate with lime juice. It is prohibitively expensive to just eat berries in Queensland, so I knew this would be a treat.

After a trip on a London bus, the London Eye and a couple of drinks in a London pub, we headed home for dinner. I had given this meal an enormous amount of thought. I wanted yummy things that I could make in advance and also had the bottle of Billecart-Salmon champagne Kyle had bought me for my birthday to match with a starter.

I decided on Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese rolls to start, champagne and smoked salmon being a classic combination. As they were part of a Delicious magazine picnic article, these could also be made easily the day before and were on the table in minutes. They were very tasty and the Billecart-Salmon was every bit as good as I remember from my one glass in France.


I have to say - this picture does not do justice to the Lamb and Date Tagine with Pomegranate Couscous we had for main. I have made this dish before - it keeps very well made a day in advance. The lamb is so tender and the dates actually melt into the dish and make the sauce all sweet and yummy. I don't think you really need the pomegranate in the cousous, it would be fine just made with chicken stock instead. This is certainly a tasty dish and one of my new favourites.


Despite Mum and Dad really starting to flag now (Mum actually did that head dropping thing at the table and knocked over her wine while Dad started slurring his words - it is interesting to see how extreme fatigue resembles drunkeness!), we pressed ahead with dessert. One of my other new favourites since coming to London is rhubarb and particularly this Apple and Rhubarb Crumble with oats and ground hazelnuts in the crumble. It was served simply with single cream and a bottle of French dessert wine Domaine de Grange Neuve Monbazillac recommended by the very knowledgable Sean from Highbury Vintners.

Hopefully a fitting introduction to their visit - at the very least, I certainly enjoyed it!

Lamb and Date Tagine with pomegranate couscous (From Delcious magazine - Jan 2009)
Serves 6-8
Takes 20 minutes to make and about 3-3 1/2 hours to cook

2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
1 large knob of fresh ginger, chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cinnamon stick
1 tbsp coriander seeds, crushed
1 tsp cumin seeds, lightly crushed
1.5kg boned shoulder or leg of lamb, cut into cubes (I use shoulder)
200g medjool dates, pitted
400g can chopped tomatoes
400ml lamb or chicken stock, hot
1 lemon and 1 lime, cut into wedges, to serve

For the couscous
500g couscous
1 tbsp olive oil
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
Handful fresh mint, roughly chopped
Seeds of 1 pomegranate

1. Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based pan and gently cook the onions, ginger and garlic for 10 minutes, until softened. Add all the spices and cook for 5 minutes, then add the lamb and cook for a further 10 minutes.
2. Add the dates, tomatoes and stock. Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer gently for 2 1/2 - 3 hours, until the lamb is very tender.
3. Place the couscous, oil and lemon zest and juice in a bowl and cover with 600ml boiling water. Cover and leave to cool completely, then use a fork to fluff up the couscous and stir in the mint and pomegranate seeds.
4. Serve the couscous with the tagine and garnish with citrus wedges.

Delicious recommends an Australian Shiraz with this - we had an Argentinian Malbec, which was also nice.