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New cookbook ‘The Art of Friday Night Dinner’ is a love letter to Friday nights. It offers food for hosts who would rather spend time talking than cooking, for people who show their love by feeding others, and for nights when only a steaming bowl of pasta in front of the TV will do. Here, author and Daily Telegraph columnist Eleanor Steafel shares her tips for starting the weekend right – as well as three new recipes to try at home.
By Heather Steele
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Photography: SOPHIE DAVIDSON
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I sometimes wonder if even the shoddiest weeks are worth it for the relief that comes with Friday night. With that first sip of something cold, that first frantic handful of crisps, the week begins to retreat. By the time the kitchen is filled with the scent of a good dinner coming together, all is forgiven. It’s the start of a two-day exhale, where everything that has been hazy and difficult slowly comes into focus. It’s the sensory full stop at the end of the week that says: ‘You did it, you made it to Friday night – have an olive, and a gin and tonic.’
For Friday night, I often shop in a way I never would Monday to Thursday. The end of the week seems to bring with it an end to structure and sensible decision-making. Instead, Friday night ushers in a resounding ‘sod it’. After a week spent foraging for leftovers and finding new ways to justify how adding a feeble handful of spinach to everything makes for a balanced meal, I’ll get an urge to go to the posh deli on the way home and splurge a month’s salary on overpriced bits. A piece of English sheep’s cheese, a sourdough baguette, and a paper bag containing three heritage tomatoes for £16? Don’t mind if I do.
I love the intoxicating freedom of a Friday night. That ‘anything is possible’ feeling when you leave work, perhaps with only a vague plan, but with some intangible fizz in the air and a little voice telling you it’s going to be a good night. On nights when I don’t know where the wind is going to take me, I always have one eye on what I’m going to make when I get home in the wee hours, having skipped dinner. A fried mozzarella, salami and honey sandwich; a tuna melt to silence all other tuna melts; a mound of egg fried rice. Tired eyes, sore feet, stupid grin and the prospect of a full stomach. There’s nothing like it.
INSPIRED? HERE ARE THREE RECIPES TO TRY
Party Potatoes With Za’atar Salt, Soured Cream & Onion Dip
Party food is tricky. Do you go full canapé or assemble some sort of Instagrammable grazing board, or is it just a crisps and dip situation? Whether I’m pulling out all the stops or relying on bags of tortilla chips to do the heavy lifting, I have never hosted a party without at least making a tray of potatoes. I truly think party potatoes are going to solve all your problems. The great thing is you can mainly cook them in advance and just have them crisping up in the oven as people are sinking their first couple of drinks. You could even make them entirely in advance if you wanted, though you might lose a bit of crunch in a reheat. Party potatoes bring all the fluffiness of a really good roast potato (you’ll pre-steam and then chuff them just as you would for a roastie), but you’re going to leave the skins on to ensure extra craggy edges. You’ll roast them in olive oil and make a flavoured salt to shake them in too, with za’atar and smoked paprika. When they’re golden brown and have been given a dusting of sweet, smoky, sesame-flecked salt, you’ll tumble them on to a platter around a deep bowl of soured cream, full of lots of finely chopped red onion, soft sautéed spring onions, lemon and chives. Will all your guests burn their mouths on them? Possibly. But it’ll be one of the greatest potato ‘moments’ they’ve ever experienced.
Serves
8
Total Time
1 Hour 15 Minutes
Ingredients
For the potatoes:
2.5kg of King Edward potatoes, skin on
Plenty of olive oil
5 heaped tsp of of za’atar
3 tsp of flaky salt
2 tsp of smoked paprika
For the dip:
1 tbsp of good olive oil
12 spring onions, chopped into 5cm pieces
1.5 lemons
650ml of soured cream
1 red onion, very finely chopped
2 handfuls of chives, snipped
salt
Method
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 230°C/210°C Fan/Gas Mark 8.
Step 2
Set a steamer pan over a low heat with about a 5cm-depth of water. Cut the potatoes into rough chunks. I tend to think you want them smaller than roast potatoes but not quite bite-sized. The more uneven the chunks the better – irregular edges mean more crunch. Steam the potatoes over simmering water for 15 minutes. Then remove the steamer tray from the pan and sit it on the side with the lid off for 5 minutes to allow some of the moisture to evaporate.
Step 3
In the meantime, pour enough oil onto a large baking tray that it’s about 1cm deep. You don’t want to overcrowd the potatoes while they cook, so if you need to, use two trays. Put the tray(s) in the oven for 5 minutes so the oil has a chance to get nice and hot. Put the lid on the potatoes in the steamer tray and give it a shake to chuff them up. Get them nice and craggy. Then take the baking tray(s) out of the oven and carefully tumble the potatoes on to it (them), bailing hot oil over the top of each tattie. Put the potatoes in the oven and roast them for 40 minutes, turning halfway through so they crisp up evenly. You want them as golden and crunchy as possible.
Step 4
While they’re cooking, mix together the za’atar, salt and paprika, and set aside. Then, make the dip. Heat the oil in a small frying pan over a medium heat. Fry the spring onions with a pinch of salt for 2 minutes, then squeeze over the lemon half and set aside.
Step 5
Mix the soured cream with the finely chopped red onion, the juice of the remaining lemon, and the chives, half the fried spring onions and a good seasoning of salt. Spoon the dip into whatever bowl you’re serving it in and scatter the remaining soft, lemony spring onions on top.
Step 6
When the potatoes are cooked, leave them to cool for a couple of minutes when they come out of the oven. Drain the oil from the baking tray (getting as much as you can out of the tray). Scatter the spiced salt over the potatoes and shake the tray, tossing the potatoes in the salt. Scatter the potatoes on to a large serving dish or into a serving bowl and serve them piping hot with the bowl of dip easily accessible for dunking.
Bloody Mary Rigatoni
There are some pastas born entirely out of a combination of profound hunger and happy accident. This is one such pasta. It follows a similar set of principles to the New York/Italian classic pasta alla vodka, but with a few notable additions: celery seeds, a healthy dash of Worcestershire sauce, and as much hot sauce as you can take. At its core it’s just a pretty simple tomato sauce, the kind you’ve made a thousand times. But then there’s the peppery thwack of a really good, hangover-beating Bloody Mary. She’s a happy accident of a dinner that quickly became a failsafe I’ve returned to again and again. I favour a fruity hot sauce for this, so using something like a bottle of Frank’s would be perfect. You could, of course, use fresh or dried chillies, though I find the slightly sweet, vinegary tang of a bottled chilli sauce adds something. I use rigatoni, because it will really catch the sauce. Serve the pasta under a cloud of parmesan and black pepper.
Serves
1
Total Time
25 Minutes
Ingredients
1 tbsp of butter
2 tsp of olive oil
1 red onion, finely sliced
1 celery stick, very finely chopped
100g of rigatoni
1 large garlic clove, grated
½ tsp of celery seeds (or 1 tsp of celery salt and reduce the flaky salt)
3 tbsp of tomato purée
2 tsp of Frank’s hot sauce (or other, to taste)
A good few dashes of Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp of vodka or gin
½ lemon, juiced
50ml of double cream
Flaky salt
Grated parmesan and ground black pepper, to serve
Method
Step 1
Put the butter and olive oil in a heavy-based saucepan over a low-medium heat. When the butter has melted, add the onion and celery and a good pinch of salt. Cover the pan with the lid and cook the onion and celery for 15 minutes, or until both have turned properly soft.
Step 2
Meanwhile, put the pasta on. Cook the rigatoni in plenty of well-salted boiling water, until al dente. Reserve a couple of tablespoons of cooking water when you come to drain it.
Step 3
Add the garlic and celery seeds (or celery salt) to the onion and celery and cook, without the lid, for 1 minute. Turn the heat up a little and add the tomato purée, hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes, then add the vodka, lemon juice and a good pinch of salt. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring, until the sauce has come together, and looks smooth and glossy. Take the pan off the heat.
Step 4
Tip the pasta and the reserved cooking water into the pan with the sauce and add the cream. Put the pan back over a low heat and mix everything together, tossing it thoroughly to make sure the sauce is clinging to the pasta. Serve with plenty of parmesan and black pepper.
Still-Hot Flapjack & Very Cold Cream
When I first made this, I realised I’d been eating flapjacks wrong all my life. I’d thrown together a tin of flapjacks in a fit of ‘Why is there nothing sweet in this house?!’ hanger, and rather than wait for them to cool down and be sliced, I shovelled a still gloopy and hot heap of sticky oats into a bowl and covered it with fridge-cold cream. It isn’t elegant, it isn’t a great feat of culinary genius, it just hits the spot in the way that only an emergency pudding could. Add extras to the mixture if you like – dried fruits or some chopped-up stem ginger. I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to flapjack and just like it to taste of toasty oats and golden syrup.
Serves
8
Total Time
30 Minutes
Ingredients
180g of unsalted butter
220g of golden syrup
140g of dark brown soft sugar
½ tsp of ground cinnamon
½ tsp of flaky salt
255g of oats
Plenty of cold pouring cream, to serve
Method
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/Gas Mark 4.
Step 2
Put the butter, golden syrup, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt in a saucepan over a low-medium heat. Stir occasionally as the butter melts. It’ll start to foam up – let it simmer for 2 minutes, watching the pan and occasionally stirring so it doesn’t bubble over.
Step 3
Put the oats in a big bowl and pour over the butter mixture. Stir so everything is well combined.
Step 4
Line a 20cm square tin with baking paper. Scrape the oat mixture into the tin, put in the oven and bake the flapjack for 15 minutes.
Step 5
By then, the flapjack will have firmed up at the edges and still have some wobble in the centre. Remove it from the oven and leave it to cool for 10 minutes, then scoop it – still hot – straight from the tin into bowls and pour over cold cream.
Step 6
Leave any leftovers to cool completely in the tin, cut into chunks and put them in a biscuit tin or plastic container for tomorrow.
The Art of Friday Night Dinner by Eleanor Steafel is available to buy here.
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