38 Comments

Have you listened to “off air” with Fi Glover and Jane Garvey? Laugh out loud chat and a good variety of guest interviews 😊

Expand full comment

Your comment about red cabbage feeding a hundred people made me laugh out loud, so true! Thankfully it also seems to stay edible for a good amount of time because one can have too much of a good thing!

I am also obsessed with Kill List. It's quite horrifying what people are prepared to go through with over NOTHING!

Expand full comment

I love the sound of anchovy with red cabbage. Do you think that it would work without the onion? I never put onion in coleslaw but in your recipe it might be necessary/balance the flavours.

Stoned olives; I can never find ones here that have any flavour. I might as well be using cardboard cutouts. Yours at least look decent. If I need stoned ones for a recipe I'll buy soft ones from a Greek/Turkish shop that are easy to disect..

Expand full comment
author

I think you could do it without the onion - and I possibly would if I was going to keep it for a few days. These olives are from the stall in the market where they have beautiful olives. Even the stoned ones are good, for which I am very grateful! I do know what you mean though.

Expand full comment
Nov 16Liked by Debora Robertson 🦀

I am planning to make the slaw tomorrow... It really looks delicious 😋 The Italians don't do bacon well, but I will use smoky pancetta cubes instead.

For podcasts, I really enjoy Angela Hartnett and Nick Grimshaw on the Dish podcast, plus Kirsty Young's 'Young again' on BBC Sounds. Some of the old Desert Island discs episodes are also really interesting.... also on Sounds.

Expand full comment
author

The pancetta will be beautiful. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for your listening suggestions.

Expand full comment

Oh Mondelēz! They killed off my beloved Stoned Wheat Thins during the pandemic, the only perfect cracker on the regular market, and I'm still bereft.

Love this cabbage slaw recipe. I live on "winter salads" like this in the cold months, and the anchovy dressing sounds dreamy.

Expand full comment
author

How dare they ruin our lives so, Charlotte? It is personal. I love salads in winter - am about 80 per cent endive right now.

Expand full comment

Crunchy carrot/cabbage/onion salads are my go to all winter. Our local Hutterite colonies grow nice cabbages (tho we can’t get Savoy for love or money), and we’re in Montana! Seasonal winter veg is cabbage/onion/carrot with maybe some apple … Looking forward to whipping up the anchovy dressing tho. That might just go on everything for a while.

Expand full comment
Nov 16Liked by Debora Robertson 🦀

I transferred my biccie allegiance to Lu ages ago. I’m making the winterslaw this afternoon to have with some baked salmon with a Sicilian inspired pesto this evening. I’ve been away on an intense course for three days and just need something quick and nutritious. BTW, there was an excellent sounding Moroccan inspired red cabbage dish

in the Eat supplement of the Times this morning. It was suggested to serve with Xmas lunch. It had dates and pomegranate seeds in and sounded great.

Expand full comment
Nov 16Liked by Debora Robertson 🦀

This is absolutely delicious and will be made again at Christmas. The salting softens the red cabbage slightly and the nuts and bacon add a salty bite and texture. Wonderful

Expand full comment
author

I am so delighted, Catherine. Thank you for trying it. I will check out the Moroccan inspired recipe in the Times too.

Expand full comment
Nov 16Liked by Debora Robertson 🦀

I have information! They have some chocolate fingers in a little shop on Rue Sebastopol in Paris, almost opposite Rue Salomon de Caus - for any of your readers in the area who may be struggling. They struck me as an oddity, but now I know better. (I tried some about a decade ago as deliberate nostalgia, but was deeply disappointed.)

Expand full comment
author

This is great information, Jill! Though I agree with you that, like Angel Delight, they're probably something that should live best in the imagination.

Expand full comment

Oh, Angel Delight was SOO disappointing when I tried it about a decade ago. Glad it wasn't just me.

Expand full comment
Nov 16Liked by Debora Robertson 🦀

Love that coleslaw - I have been reducing the mayo content over the years but hadn’t thought of trying an anchovy dressing, thank you for the inspiration!

I have been finely shredding and pickling my red cabbage remains - just a standard water vinegar sugar (tiny qty) salt pickle - but it keeps in the fridge in a Kilner jar for about 6 weeks and is good with many things from stir-fries to ploughmans to chicken sandwiches.

Benriner mandolines. Obviously like knives the sharper they are the less dangerous to use, but you need to send the parsimonious side of you into the corner and accept the trade-off for keeping your fingertips is a bit more carrot or cabbage for the stock pot (or the dog) because the finger guard thingies never really work. Little Benriner for carrots and slim wedges of cabbage and celeric and skinny fennel bulbs, next size up (BN 95W - it’s confusing) for fat fennel and big potatoes and big wedges.

Expand full comment
author

Gloopy mayonnaise-y coleslaw have their place, but I like the sharpness of this one. Must pickle some of that cabbage - thanks for the inspiration. I remain terrified of mandolines. We have history. I know me. I love my fingers.

Expand full comment

I am so very clumsy that it is a miracle I retain my fingers - I have used cheap ones and been terrified which is why I was recommending the Benriner!

Expand full comment

I love the idea of bacon in a coleslaw. Bacon makes everything taste better (says the woman who's just spent two months in a bacon desert - I am already planning my bacon/sausage/gammon-heavy menu for when we get back at the end of the month. I will only just be over it when it's time for the Christmas pork fest. Oh dear, perhaps I'd better stay here, it might be better for my arteries.

Expand full comment
author

I love small bits of bacon as a condiment.

Expand full comment
Nov 16Liked by Debora Robertson 🦀

Great sounding red cabbage recipe. Thank you. Red cabbage is one of those vegetables I buy about once a month and am always surprised that it’s still in the crisper when I’ve seemed to use it a lot but somehow it Is still just ‘there’

Expand full comment
author

Honestly, one large one could last you a lifetime.

Expand full comment

I once remarked to my husband, after we'd had braised red cabbage left over from Christmas Day for about the tenth time, that I was certain it was somehow reproducing itself. And how is it that we look at it in the saucepan and think 'oh, that won't be enough for ten people', then shred the other half, and end up with a cabbage mountain?

Expand full comment
Nov 16Liked by Debora Robertson 🦀

Love how the reporter describes les Finger as "cigarettes"! Old habits die hard.

Thank you for the great red cabbage-using recipe.

Expand full comment
author

I can't quite remember now, but I think she may have been talking about Mikado biscuits there, the long thin chocolate-y ones, which have also gone missing from the shelves. But you have made me think about when I was a child - you could actually buy little boxes of candy 'cigarettes' in the sweetshop, complete with pink tip so they would look like they were lit. Seems incredible now.

Expand full comment

Yes!! I remember those!

Expand full comment
Nov 16·edited Nov 16Liked by Debora Robertson 🦀

I love your interpretations of recipes, totally different to what I would normally make. I like Coleslaw, my husband loves it, so next time I will make yours and see what he thinks, I know I will love it. I’m like you re the biscuits, not that I eat them very often anyway, but I reckon they would be a bit boring. If I had to choose just one biscuit to buy it would be Walkers Shortbread, or if the family are lucky it would be my Yo Yos joined with lemon or lime infused butter icing.

Expand full comment
author

I do hope you enjoy the coleslaw - generally, I prefer the ones in a sharp dressing rather than a creamy dressing. Do add more anchovies and garlic if you want to punch it up a bit. I love shortbread too. I don't make it often enough.

Expand full comment
Nov 16Liked by Debora Robertson 🦀

Nice to hear your Walkers enthusiasm. I live a few miles from where it's made. There's also a whisky distillery in the same village, and on frosty winter mornings the aromas of baking shortbread and maturing whisky mingle in the air.

Expand full comment

Walkers shortbread is the best. We used to get the round shortbread with Demerara sugar sprinkled on top, but here in Australia for some reason our Supermarket has stopped importing that one. I’m not a whisky drinker but I can imagine the wonderful aromas coming from both the biscuit factory and the distillery.

Expand full comment
author

Goodness, that sounds blissful.

Expand full comment
Nov 16Liked by Debora Robertson 🦀

Another lovely Saturday read…..thank you. I’ve recently discovered the Rosebud podcasts by Giles Brandreth where he interviews a variety of well-known people. Very enjoyable listening…..if you like Giles !!

Expand full comment
author

I do like him, so thank you!

Expand full comment
Nov 16Liked by Debora Robertson 🦀

Our children used to bite off each end and then use the finger as a drinking straw for milk. It really works- well it did in the 90’s!

When they were at the Maternelle, custard creams were much coveted by their class mates.

Expand full comment
Nov 18Liked by Debora Robertson 🦀

We were taught to do this with Tim Tams when visiting cousins in Australia!! Delicious!

Expand full comment
author

How interesting about the custard creams. Still one of the most charming looking biscuits.

Expand full comment

LES DOIGTS DE CADBURY

Expand full comment
author

OUI!

Expand full comment