Robin Ellis's Mediterrean Vegetatarian Cooking

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I have long been a fan of British actor Robin Ellis, best known for portraying Winston Graham’s hero, Captain Ross Poldark in the seventies BBC adaptation of the saga (which eventually ran to 13 books!) In the recent version on Masterpiece, Robin returned—40 years after the original version-- to play Rev Dr Halse in all five series, and he was fabulous in that, too.



But these days Robin's primary passion is not acting, but cooking, and I am as big a fan of his cookbooks as I am of his performances. I have the first two, which I use all the time, and the new one is ordered!

He lives in the a village in the south of France with his American wife, and has written four cookbooks based on low-carb Mediterranean cuisine.There is a history of diabetes in his family (his mother died from it) and he himself was diagnosed with Type 2 in his fifties—so all his cookbooks feature simple, fresh recipes that are suitable for anyone wishing to eat healthily but also well. 

His latest book, Robin Ellis’s Mediterranean Vegetarian Cooking is due to be published June 25 in the UK and Aug 18 in north America.

Here's Robin as the dashing Ross Poldark:

Here's Robin as the Reverend Dr. Halse, with Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark, in the remake of the series.

And here's Robin to share a recipe with us today!

ROBIN ELLIS: Sunday evening at home in North London (leafy Hampstead Garden Suburb) in the late forties, early fifties, was my mother’s night off. The rest of the week she would cook dinner for Dad and me and we would eat it together sitting at the kitchen table—an old pine number with a scrubbed top.

But Sundays in winter we were in the sitting room in front of the coal fire (no central heating, no TV) with a tray table between us, on which would be a simple supper--macaroni cheese, toast with homemade marmalade and I guess, tea. Comfort food before the week started over on Monday morning.

Robin with his parents and younger brothers

We’d sit there listening to Mary Martin "washing that man right outta her hair" from South Pacific (thereby hangs another tale) on Dad’s state of the art gramophone (78rpms with a wooden needle.) Some Sundays she’d encourage me do my special--buttered toast with grilled cheddar cheese and slices of tomato, finished off under the grill. Never occurred to me until writing this; that must be where my penchant for slices of ripe tomatoes on pretty much anything originates!

In the difficult make do and mend years (rationing lasted until 1954) after the war, Ma made do and cooked too. There was always something going on in the tiny kitchen just off the parlour and always a bowl to lick out.

Ma was a cake maker—fruit cakes, chocolate cakes, sponges, and a cake for CHRISTMAS started, with the Christmas pudding, in September. A spoonful of brandy trickled over each week.

That marmalade too, in February, home-made with bitter oranges from Seville. The kitchen was an everyday part of my life. A place where things-that-tasted-good came from--and within feet of the cooker, in the adjacent parlour, was the pine table where the family sat together and ate those good tasting things.

Thus Ma established in me a love of simple food eaten together round a table—tray or sturdy pine. As a bachelor in my tiny mews flat in Kensington, London, I’d cook myself breakfast —eggs, bacon and of course, fried slices of tomato, before going off to rehearsals. In the evenings after work I’d spend an hour cooking a curry and 10 minutes stuffing it in my mouth, while trying to stuff the lines in my head—sitting at my own sturdy pine table.

Molly Ellis’ love of food and dedication to serving it to her hungry family not only gave me a taste for good food but also taught me, by osmosis, that food did not arrive on the table magicked out of thin air; it came via a kitchen and there was work involved. A valuable lesson as things turned out.

This classic soup first appeared in my second cookbook, Healthy Eating for Life. It is a regular at lunches in the garden in August. Delicious and simple to make, it requires no cooking at all. 

I include it again in memory of my mother, whose cooking inspired me to get in the kitchen. It’s a fair bet my mother first tasted this traditional summer soup from Andalusia in 1953, when my parents took my brother and me to the Costa Brava for a fortnight’s holiday. (Dad worked for British Railways and got a certain amount of concessionary travel in Europe.)  There were five hotels in Lloret de Mar. Now there are over five hundred. It was there that I first tasted an egg fried in olive oil—a memory that never left me.

Ma’s Gazpacho

Robin's gazpacho with his mother's recipe

SERVES 8

1kg/2lb 4oz ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped, juice reserved

1⁄2 large cucumber, peeled and roughly diced

1⁄2 large red pepper, deseeded and roughly diced

2 spring onions, chopped

3 garlic cloves, pulped in a mortar with 1 tsp salt

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to serve

a few drops of Tabasco (optional)

salt and freshly ground black pepper

a few parsley or basil leaves (optional), chopped, to serve

8 ice cubes (optional), to serve

1. Put the tomatoes, cucumber, red pepper, spring onions and garlic in a food processor. Pulse to combine until you have a not-too-smooth. Tip the purée mixture into a large bowl and season with salt and pepper.

2. Stir in the red wine vinegar and olive oil and add a few drops of Tabasco if you wish – it’s a matter of taste. Chill for a couple of hours or overnight.

3. When you’re ready to serve, pour a ladleful of the gazpacho into each bowl, add a whirl of olive oil and a pinch of chopped parsley or basil, if you wish. On a hot day, I sometimes add an ice cube to each bowl, too. 

DEBS:  Robin is also featured in the Merchant Ivory adaptation of the Henry James novel, The Europeans (recently re-released). And one of best performances—though little known—was in a superb Granada adaptation of Ford Maddox Ford’s seminal novel, The Good Soldier (well worth seeking out.) 

Robin will be stopping in to chat with us today from the south of France, where his village is home to the annual Pink Garlic Festival! He blogs about cooking, food, and life in rural France here.

His American wife is the photographer for his two most recent cookbooks. 

 
To get his latest cookbook before the north American release, try The Book Depository (free delivery worldwide):