COOKING IN: Hugo Arnold will have paprika with everything these days. Well, almost.
On these long and languorous evenings, the urge to cook the food of the southern Mediterranean has me skipping off-shore from Italy to the likes of Lebanon and north Africa for inspiration. My favourite spices are cumin and fennel, coriander and cardamom. But I am becoming increasingly addicted to paprikas (there are two distinct varieties), and liberally sprinkling sumac over pretty much anything from barbecued lamb to fish. This latter spice, from a bush that grows wild throughout the Middle East and in parts of Italy, is lemony and sour in flavour.
I am cooking pilafs and tagines, paellas and fattoush, the latter a refreshing bread salad that turns up all over the southern coast of the Mediterranean. And there's very little chilli, so the heat quotient is kept low. If you are looking for heat, proper paprika - you can forget the supermarket offerings - comes in hot and sweet varieties.
Along with my spice box, the pestle and mortar come into play. Mine is a massive version, which has grown dark with regular usage, and is heavy, which helps with the grinding. In this, I combine almonds and garlic, paprikas and lots of parsley, and turn the green mass into a heady concoction with a generous slug or three of olive oil. I use this to marinade and then slow-roast lamb, or half-bake and half-poach fish - red mullet is a real winner.
Potatoes are a good accompaniment, but so are couscous, rice, bulghur wheat and quinoa, the latter an ancient grain from south America. It is handled much like couscous, yet has a rather attractive pod-like structure, so is quite crunchy to eat. Like everyone else, I am restricted to using instant couscous, which is no match for the real thing. It is improved however, by gently drying it in a scantly-oiled frying pan over a gentle heat. Then I add cumin and mustard seeds for added crunch and flavour.
I am going through a packet of chickpeas a week at the moment - puréed to make hummus, braised with spices and spinach, fashioned into a salad or turned into a soup laced with garlic and spices, finished off with a slick of yoghurt and spiked with lemon juice.
For dessert, pastries are favoured in this region. I'd rather shop for them, however. Where I weaken is on the ice-cream front - rum and raisin if I am making my own. A slug of delicious Pedro Ximenez sherry poured over shop-bought tubs is a fine substitute.
PICK PAPRIKA Paprika comes in hot and sweet varieties. Both deliver that sweet, smoked flavour, but one leaves a delicious roundness and the other an additional chilli kick. Used together, they give you the best of both worlds and leave the heat-control in your hands. Good delicatessens, healthfood shops and ethnic stores are the places to find this kind of paprika.