Sicilian Soulfood

With the beginning of Spring emulating the middle of a Siberian winter, I have headed this month to the stores. But this particular store cupboard recipe derives from a land of heat and culinary wealth, has a story to tell at its table, and a religious following — which maybe just as well, because it is not exactly a dish that you eat with your eyes. Simon Amstell would find it palatable — might enjoy it— as would many Millennials dabbling in conversions to urban ‘Veganity’; It may be ready to find new followers for new times.

Macco is a Sicilian ‘minestra’ or ‘zuppa’, a thick ‘soup’ of sorts, traditionally served on the Feast Day of San Giuseppe (or St Joseph as we know him) — legal father of Jesus, carpenter, patron saint of workers, and the saint who is credited in Sicily with saving the island from famine following some severe weather conditions (a drought) back in the Middle Ages. His Feast day is celebrated on March 19 and, in Sicily, you would likely be eating maccù (as it is known in the local dialect) on that day in his honour. 

Giorgio Locatelli refers to it as ‘bandit food’, made from the kind of raw ingredient a local bandit could carry in his pocket; it is ‘cucina povera’ at its zenith — dried broad beans, re-hydrated and cooked down to a purée, bitter greens wilted and cooked with garlic and chilli, if you are lucky, may sit alongside, and an Italian onion soffrito atop for additional flavour — the latter cobbled together in my house by adding a few fennel seeds and a cultivated fennel bulb to an onion, adding a hint at verisimilitude — not exactly comparable to the flavour of wild mountain fennel, unavailable much outside of Mediterranean climes, that is infinitely preferable and properly authentic.

The recipe here is an adaption from an original gifted by the late Antonio Carluccio in a BBC4 documentary in which he re-created dishes inspired by Tomasi di Lampedusa’s posthumously published Sicilian-based masterpiece “Il Gattopardo” (The Leopard). 

Method: Soak a quantity of dried fava beans (broad beans) overnight in copious quantities of cold water. Place the drained beans in a pan the next day, cover generously with fresh cold water, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cook, covered, for as long as it takes for the beans to be properly tender (up to 3 hours is quite normal). 

In the meantime, make a soffrito. Peel and finely chop one large onion and one fennel bulb (optional) and cook slowly in a little olive oil with a few crushed fennel seeds (more or less depending on how much you like the taste of aniseed). The soffrito should finish up soft, turning golden, sweet, well flavoured, not unduly coloured; season the soffrito to taste, set aside and keep warm until you need it (or reheat before serving).

In another frying pan (with a lid), and when the beans are already tender, heat some more olive oil over a gentle heat and add some sliced garlic; allow the garlic to cook just enough to reduce the rawness and to start giving off fragrance rather than odour, don’t allow to colour or to burn. Add a few flakes of dried chilli (to taste), and some prepared bitter greens (chicory or mustard greens are ideal; chard, cavolo nero or other type of spring cabbage will do just fine). Add a little water, cover, and cook until they are wilted and tender; season. 

When the fava beans are fully tender, season the pot with salt and allow to sit for 5 minutes. Remove the beans from their cooking liquid (reserve the liquid) and beat, blend, or push through a mouli to make a thick purée — this soup should have a velvety spreading texture like a soft polenta, not be swimming in water — use as much of the reserved liquid as is necessary to help create the desired consistency. Taste for seasoning, adjust as necessary. Serve the soup on a plate, drizzle with olive oil. Serve the wilted greens alongside and spoon some of the soffrito over the top of the ‘soup’. Eat hot, and enjoy or celebrate, as appropriate. Speaking for myself, and having anticipated something merely comforting, if not earthy, I am a convert to a dish with an unexpected taste of the sublime.

#uglydelicious

“… flanked by a pile of plates, swelled the silver flanks of the enormous soup tureen with its cover surmounted by a prancing Leopard. The Prince ladled out the minestra himself, a pleasant chore, symbol of his proud duties as paterfamilias.”

— Tomasi di Lampedusa, 'The Leopard'

A Tale of Two Vegetables

Found hanging on the rafters in FruitWorld last week, large bunches of green chard — stems long and intact, much like you might find them in an average French market at this time of the year — and unlike the more stunted variety you will find in an average English supermarket. The French, in the SW at least, have a bit more of a thing for the white stalks than for the leaves and serve them gratinated or as accompaniment, but with merit in their own right. Closer to the Mediterranean, the leaves become more important, and may be used for a variety of purposes — baked in an olive crust pie or added to a soup for example. I like both leaves and stems (ribs is the technical term) together, and often make a tart with slow cooked chard stalks, brightened up with the green of the leaves and some soft white cheese. This weekend my influences were all over the map — a filo pastry shell and some feta cheese from Greece, a little cream that might be more at home somewhere further north, and a touch of vibrant southern saffron to add a little sunshine.

For an elegant but simple tart the possibilities are various if not endless, and I rarely make the same mix twice. Different cooking containers, varieties of cheese or cream, textures, aromatic flavours, or combinations of ingredients can be added or subtracted from the mix — the guide is what is available to you, your time, imagination, and what you like to eat. 

A container is required, I normally use a pastry crust — butter shortcrust is a staple (and blind baking a normal first step), but this time I used a kind of filo, which is as easy as following the instructions on the packet — no rolling required, and if it rips, you scrunch it up and patch it and it will taste all the better for it; the quality of the filo matters — find one that has not been previously frozen and a brand you feel you can trust.

To make the filling: finely slice an onion, some garlic if you like a more powerful base, and the washed ribs of a bunch of chard (separated from their leaves);  sweat them over a low heat — for what normally seems ages — in a little good oil and/or butter — until they are meltingly soft but not yet taking on any colour; if you want to add colour and additional richness, you can add a little saffron to the mix. Season (very lightly — there are more flavours yet to come) with some salt, pepper and perhaps a little nutmeg for this version that will also accommodate spinach, eggs and cream.  

In the meantime, wash and wilt the chard leaves and a generous bunch of spinach, leave to drain and cool a little, then chop and add these to the (cooling) onion mix.

When the pastry case is prepared, mix two or three beaten eggs into the rest of the prepared ingredients, and crumble in enough Feta cheese to ensure an even colour mix with the vegetables (remember that Feta is super salty — you don’t want the pieces too large, and you only want enough to ensure each mouthful will have a note of Feta); add a little thick cream if you want to enrich it further — enough to help bind, not enough to drown — and then spread the filling in the prepared pastry case, bake in a pre-heated oven (180ºC or equivalents) for as long as it takes for the filling to set and the pastry to be crisp and at least a little golden  — about 10-15 minutes for filo, potentially a little longer for a shortcrust. 

Resist the temptation to eat hot from the oven — this is a dish best served at room temperature, and with a salad alongside, tomato if you can find a hot house cherry variety at this time of year that has sufficient flavour to be worth the bother of putting it on the plate.

Erica 

“In the country, one has no taste for them [the green parts]. The white ribs, which, when cooked, are tender and perfumed, are preferred”

— La Mazille, La Bonne Cuisine du Périgord

Dun, Dan, Dee, Cake

Christmas cake-baking traditions in my recollection start with a recipe clipped and kept from Good Housekeeping magazine, circa 1960-something, pressed into service every year by my mother together with a sturdy Kenwood mixer, pounds of prepared dried fruit, and other richly spiced ingredients. This ritual put Christmas firmly in prospect, albeit not immediately — wrapped and stored in an “air-tight” tin, it would be months before this cake was “mature” enough to see the light of day again, ready to be covered with marzipan and finished with roughed-up royal icing, a plastic robin and a piece of tartan ribbon; too much for the day itself, it was destined to last well into each new year.

The tradition moved, in due course, from my mother’s Kenwood to mine via an updated GH recipe — that is until the year that Dan Lepard shared a Dundee cake in a “bake along” on The Guardian “Word of Mouth” blog.  At 3.30 pm on 29 November 2009, four continents of keen amateur bakers stood ready, willing and (mostly) able to bake-along-a-Dan — their baking skills and enthusiasm for the task far outstripping the ability of most, in a pre-Instagram era, to share with any immediacy their unfolding domestic dramas and proud achievements in photographic form. Using only a comments section still primitive enough to need links to personal galleries, and entirely warm, fuzzy and forgiving, we met as strangers in what either started or finished as the night (depending on geographic location), baking and sharing together our trials, tips and triumphs, and never to meet again.  

Such a success was the resulting cake in my house that I have baked a version of Dan’s Dundee every year since then. Not too heavy, not too difficult, but time and ingredient-consuming enough to feel special and to look appropriately decorative.  It’s not my recipe, but just so that we none of us lose it to the vagaries of the internet - the ingredients list and my version of its basic method are as follows: 

Ingredients: 175g butter; 150g caster sugar; 1 x orange (zest, grated); 250g plain flour; 1 tsp baking powder; 3 x eggs; 100g marmalade; 100g ground almonds; 375g mixed dried fruit; 200g glacé peel/cherries (chopped, halved or quartered); 100g blanched almonds (for decoration).  Have ready: a buttered and lined 20cm round baking tin (three layers of baking parchment); a pre-heated oven, 170ºC.  Method: Cream the butter and sugar together; add in the eggs — one at a time — beating well between additions (and adding up to a third of the flour if there is any danger of curdling). Fold in the orange zest and marmalade, followed by the almonds and the flour+baking powder. Finally fold in all of the dried and glacé fruit.  Put the batter into your prepared tin and cover loosely wth a scrunched up piece of foil (you don’t want the top to “set” at this stage); bake for 45 minutes. Meanwhile: cover the blanched almonds with hot water; soak for 10-15 mins; drain and leave to dry on a cloth. After the cake has been baking for 45 minutes, remove it from the oven, lower the temperature (150ºC), and arrange the almonds on the top of the still unbaked cake in a pattern that radiates out from the centre. Put back in the oven for another hour.  Dissolve a tablespoon of sugar in a tablespoon of milk while you wait, and find a pastry brush. After the hour is up, test the cake with a skewer in the centre; if it comes out almost clean, then brush the almonds with the sugar and milk mix and give the cake another 10-15 minutes to set its glaze.  Leave the cake to cool completely in its tin, turn out, wrap, mature for as long as you want -  like richer fruit cakes, this one improves with age, but it is also very forgiving if you don’t have time to wait.

I change something most years  — this year I have included some richly perfumed, hand-carried, Iranian sultanas gifted by a friend, let them keep company with a handful of dried mulberries, and my marmalade was, frankly, a “mistake” from earlier this year, made with blood oranges rather than Sevilles — perfect for baking, imperfect on toast; otherwise I don’t think the people of the marmalade capital of Dundee (of which my mother was once one) will have too much to quibble with. An international exchange that I look back on with great fondness, from a time when the internet still felt like a challenge if not a novelty, and shared baking ambition like community not competition.

For anyone who wants to know exactly how Dan baked and worded his original, or to hear the wisdom that he shared with various non conformists among the group (the gluten-free, the vegan wannabes, the loaf and bundt tin users, …) the day is still on record for anyone who cares to read it.

The picture is of mine for this year, and here’s hoping it may inspire some more in the local community to bake-along too.

Erica

“…forgot the comma in that sentence … have lined round tin not laptop…”

— zebbydoodah, Word of Mouth blog, “Comments”, November 29, 2009

For, Living Within, December, 2017

Sloe Gin

[Living Within: October 2017]

I have had a few foraging firsts this year; mulberries in July, courtesy of the eagle eyes of an Iranian aficionado - sadly the rest of this year’s crop from that particular source sacrificed to the locals once they discovered the bounty their tree had been harbouring in plain sight.  They had wondered, and were curious enough to ask an interloper as they witnessed her atop a ladder, dressed in black, carrying tupperware and dramatically dripping scarlet rivers of mulberry juice down her elbows.

Just getting started … !

More recently, I found a rich seam of sloes growing above a ditch at the side of the road - tiny blue-black plums in a variety of states of maturity, checking out with thorns and leaves that assure they are the genuine article; the fruit of what is also known as a blackthorn bush or tree.  With a disregard for health and safety norms, I allowed my companion to harvest enough for two bottles worth of sloe gin that I anticipate should be about ready for the holiday season.

A sloe gin virgin, I will admit I am taking a lot on trust.  I did some research, of course, to find myself a method, and discovered that some folk prick the fruit all over before soaking them in gin, which sounds tedious and probably messy, although not as messy, I imagine, as the beating others give them with a rolling pin; some insist that the fruit is only ready to do its job once it has encountered a frost or two - or has become “bletted”  (the correct term for what happens when the structure of the plum has been broken down by sub zero temperatures allowing the sugars to increase and the astringency and tannins to reduce).  Often this is mimicked in a domestic freezer - purists insist on two or three frosts worth of freezing (freeze: defrost: repeat - once or twice); I didn’t get that memo until too late, so my sloes were frozen for 24 hours and decanted into (sterilised) bottles like blue-black ball bearings.  

The norm is to layer them up with both sugar (to counter any bitter, tannic notes) and gin - good quality is recommended by those who care about their gin, “the second cheapest in the shop” by those who perhaps are a little less inclined to worry at all the nuances of flavour.  I took my advice from one of the finest London-based hipster distillers and opted for good gin and no sugar at all (at this stage), to allow the fruit its best chance of breaking down uninhibited by the sugar and aided by the spirit.  I weighed out my fruit and measured out the gin, but found in the end it was easier to fill the bottle not quite half full with sloes and use as much gin as necessary to fill the bottle to almost the top.  The advice given is that the bottles need turning, for a while, and while you remember, until the liquor starts to take on a burgundy hue and to help the sugar (if you are using it at this stage) to dissolve and distribute evenly; I am going to wait until the three month period is up before I add sugar (as a syrup, and to taste) to make the resulting gin appropriately palatable as a warming sweet winter tipple.

There are, of course, other things that you can do with sloes - jams and jellies for example - and boozy chocolates you can make with the fruit after the liquor has been strained away.  It is important to understand how stages of ripeness and external environment affect the fruit, witnessed most immediately via colour and feel - from early stage blue-tinged, firm and bitter/tannic, through black, shiny, softening, easier on the palate, to the dull, a bit wrinkled and more jam appropriate; each stage has its own characteristics that can bring an element to the party or for which adequate compensation needs be made.  I might have made jam with the wrinkliest of my fruit, only I couldn’t quite face the thought of de-stoning the fruit first (or even second) and opted for the easy peasy boozy alternative instead.  The bottles look interesting, beautiful in fact; the blue of the fruit magnified by the purity of the clear liquid in which it is steeping.  I will keep posting pictures on the blog of developments; the liquor should begin to change colour as the gin matures, and I will keep my fingers crossed for a toast to and with a little of the result before the new year - 3 months maturing is a minimum, but it seems the longer you can leave it, the better it will be.

“For a drink that has only three ingredients … there is a surprising and rather intimidating wealth of advice available on precisely how to make the stuff. To this burdensome bounty I will add the most important advice of all – be patient, very patient”

— John Wright, The Guardian, October 2011

Apple cheek

[for "Living Within", September 2017]

Meterologically speaking, autumn is official - as of 1 September.  We can expect the usual mists and mellow fruitfulness: apples, pears - quinces too if we are lucky - warm toned, potentially complex in flavour and longer-lasting than many of the softer fruit of summer; good to bake in a pudding, a pie, a tart, or a cake, or good to keep for a while too.  I reached a tipping point this last weekend where the remains of a windfall of pretty pink-toned, small eating apples, originally gifted in large quantity by a friend, and lacking strength in flavour to match their beautiful appearance, had mellowed enough to need some preservation if they were not to risk slow demise under my eye (#blessedbethefruit).

To intensify their delicacy of flavour into something a little more interesting, and maybe also to try and counteract the dampening effect on spirits as the rain started to fall (again) outside, I learned how to dry them and made them into apple rings.  I won’t lie, there is a bit of work in the preparation, but I also enjoyed the quiet contemplation afforded by the simple challenge of peeling each apple via one continuous spiralling strip. 

If you are of a mind to give drying a go (and the results make very good snack material), the method I used follows.

First peel your apples (incidentally, you can also keep and dry the peel separately and use it to infuse with, or as a type of, tea).  Then core with an apple corer - a simple but dedicated tool that pushes a cylinder of apple core out of the apple in one (or two) neat, clean pushes but keeps the outside shape of the apple intact. 

Slice the apple as thinly and evenly as you can with a sharp knife, or a mandoline, to create cross-sections of apple with a hole in the middle.  There is more than one method of drying: you can thread the rings on strings and do them the old fashioned way - hung up in garlands somewhere airy, not too light and not at all damp, and leave them for a week or more, until they are dried and still a bit chewy.  Or you can dry them in a dehydrator if you happen to have one (I don’t). 

The method that I chose was to dry them in a very low oven (not higher than about 100ºC).  I put the rings that I had sliced in one layer on a sheet of baking parchment and sprinkled them with spice (cinnamon is often used with apples), left them for an hour before I checked them, and then checked them regularly until they had dried, were taking on a bit of a golden colour and would lift easily from the baking parchment (depending on your oven, the thickness of your apple slices and the result that you want to achieve - on a spectrum from: soft; chewy; not taking on too much colour, to: dried; golden; crisp - there is a certain amount of “more or less” to factor in). 

Then I would have stored them in airtight jars - ready to be snacked on during the weeks ahead - only the family caught sight of them, were curious to try them, and as their curiosity turned to enjoyment, they somewhat absentmindedly, and over the course of a few hours more, polished them all off instead - which I guess is a testament to their success.  They “should” keep for at least a week, or more; much will depend on how dry they start and how airtight the method of storage.

“… unbroken
concentration, this spiral
of making while unmaking while
the world goes round, …”

— Mary Jo Salter “Young Girl Peeling Apples”

Young Woman Peeling Apples ~ Nicolaes Maes, Metropolitan Museum 

[Full Poem, based on this picture  here]

Hot soup, cool salad

[for "Living Within", June 2017]

I am just returned from a week in Sicily where the climate and the produce is ahead of the curve of our summer in almost every sense.  Generous, flavourful, raised in heat, influenced by conquerors from ages past; presented to us in theatrical settings often in shades of a glorious sunset - pink, red and gold - and tasting divine were seafood, tomatoes, blood red oranges, strawberries, apricots, … .  Having access to a market and unable to resist the temptation to look, taste, touch and buy, I picked up some vivid pink striped borlotti beans (lingua di fuoco - tongue of fire variety) and some datterini tomatoes - so named because of their similarity in shape to small dates, so beloved because of their flavour (so perfect in fact that they were offered to us as an appetiser at one restaurant still attached to the vine but otherwise unadorned and unaccompanied).

Today I made soup with these ingredients - simple, tasty, healthful, hearty - and bringing with it, on a grey toned English Bank Holiday Monday, a burst of sunshine.

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Bean Soup with Tomato Salad  

Chop some small cherry tomatoes into halves or quarters; finely dice about a quarter of a red onion; shred a few fresh basil leaves - mix together these three ingredients with some salt and a generous drizzle of good olive oil - set aside. 

Take a quantity of feshly shelled beans - borlotti or cannellini will both work fine - (enough to make about 250g cooked beans - or the equivalent of the contents of a can); boil, gently, in enough water to cover them by about 2½cm until they are just tender (adding aromatics like garlic, bay leaves, thyme, celery, parsley stalks, will give you a richer stock to use in your soup); salt the water once the beans are cooked.  If you need to drain the beans, reserve the cooking liquid; discard the aromatics.

In a saucepan large enough to comfortably hold at least a litre of water heat a little olive oil and gently fry some finely chopped garlic with a little crushed dried chilli (according to taste).  Add the cooked beans with their cooking water and allow to cook for about 10-15 minutes (cover partially with a lid).  You can crush a few of the beans in the pan in order to thicken the soup if you want to at this stage.

Add in about 50g of small pasta shapes (I used tiny stars) together with 750ml water; season to taste with salt and allow to cook gently until the pasta is tender.  Test for seasoning; adjust if necessary.

Serve the soup in bowls with a spoonful of the tomato and onion salad on top, sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper; drizzle with some good olive oil, serve with grated parmesan.

“Mancia càuda e vivi friddu”

— Sicilian Proverb (“Eat warm and drink cold”)

Sauce Vièrge

[for "Living Within", May 2017]

I have been working recently with a diverse group of women cooks hailing from many corners of the globe. There is much to note in the difference of the cuisines of their various cultures, but in among the marvelling at ingredients never encountered before, there are a few that recur and are common to all - certain fresh herbs among them.  So as the herbs in my garden are using the current Spring blend of the sun and showers to their advantage and growing lushly verdant, it seems an appropriate moment to freshen up the plate and the palate with something drawn from relatively close to home.  A version of a French sauce vièrge (literally a “virgin sauce”), inspired by a Brittany chef, and keeping the green ascendant.

Take equal quantities (a tablespoon or two) of the fresh leaves (washed and dried) of some: mint; tarragon, and coriander.  Use a large, sharp cook’s knife to chop these leaves together (if the cutting is clean the flavours will stay fresh and the sauce will look at its best).  Finely chop some spring onions (the end result should give you slightly more of these than each individual quantity of the herbs), then mix all these ingredients together in a bowl with some salt and pepper (to taste), some good olive oil (enough to create a thick sauce), and a squeeze of some citrus juice - this can be lemon, lime, or anything else that will provide a little sweet/acid balance - choose your citrus according to how sharp or sweet you want the flavour, and use it like a seasoning; lemon will give you the strongest acid hit, lime is more gentle, but you may be able to find other varieties to play with.  Use enough to enhance all the flavours, but not so much that any or all risk being overpowered.  It is especially important when the recipe is simple and involves a mix of fresh and delicately aromatic ingredients to taste as you go along and be discriminating.

Allow all to sit together for a while so that the flavours can mingle properly - taste and adjust until the balance seems right.  Serve at room temperature to accompany almost anything savoury - use to help dress a salad, or some boiled new potatoes, or to accompany some grilled or fried fish, or something from the barbecue or out of a roasting oven.  Enjoy - with sunshine wherever possible.

“Pungent the mint trodden underfoot … Irresistible the bunches of herbs sold in the market place … Holy the Byzantine perfume of coriander leaves…”

— Patience Gray, The Guardian of the Temple (Honey From a Weed)

Optimistic Orange Cake

[for "Living Within", March 2017]

Blood oranges are in season - beautiful, thin skinned, subtle - mainly grown in Sicily or Spain, they appear in about February and disappear about the end of March.  The French word that describes their colour, “sanguine”, is also by English dictionary definition a word that can describe a certain confidence or optimism.

Finding myself in possession of a bag of small red-tinged oranges and a French recipe for an orange gâteau with a light touch (shaped like an English “cake” but more of a “dessert” really), I clung to my own optimism in the face of a recipe that both involved caramel (which can be a bit tricksy) and not enough easily apparent structure to see what holds it all together.  But nothing ventured, and all that, I opted for confidence in my source.

The results were a success, so I am going to share a, lightly adapted and heavily annotated, version here.  And while it might be a bore, I would also recommend that you read through the instructions to the end before making - it is important to understand the equipment and the method when dealing with something a little different from the norm.

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Equipment: a soufflé dish and a tin or other oven proof container big enough to sit the soufflé dish in and hold water around it.  

Ingredients: Blood oranges (three large, or four small); sugar cubes (15 of them); butter, soft (80g); caster sugar (150g); eggs (x5), separated; plain flour (45g); Cointreau or Grand Marnier, or other orange liqueur (3 tablespoons approx).

Method: 1. Boil your oranges.  Put them (whole) into a boiling pan of water; remove just one after a single minute of boiling and set aside; leave the others to boil for 20 minutes, then remove from the water, allow to cool, cut into pieces (remove any pips you see, although blood oranges are not noticeably pippy) and either blend in a robot—chef or chop as finely as you are able with a sharp knife - skin, pulp and all.  Pre-heat oven to 180ºC (or equivalent)

2. Make caramel. This particular method was a revelation to me; put your sugar cubes flat on the bottom of a heavy-based saucepan suitable in size to just accommodate them.  Have your soufflé mould/dish sitting alongside.  Using a low (diffused if necessary) heat, allow the sugar cubes to “melt”, trying not to stir or agitate them too much as they get on with so doing (messing around with them at this stage allows the introduction of imperfections that create crystals and can ruin your chances of a clear non-gritty result).  Raise the heat once you have an obvious “proto” caramel liquid, and watch like a hawk, swirling the pan gently from time to time so that all the sugar cooks evenly and until the caramel is an even amber gold.  Take off the heat immediately when it gets to this stage and pour as evenly as possible over the base of the soufflé dish.  Don’t leave the cooking sugar unattended; caramel cooks fast, burns faster and, even without direct heat, will continue to use residual heat from the pan deepen in colour, and burnt caramel is a truly bitter disappointment!

3: Create cake batter.  Cream together sugar and butter until light and fluffy.  Add in egg yolks, one at a time, and beat together well.  Fold in the flour, the orange liqueur and the puréed orange pulp.  Whip up the egg whites separately, until they just hold peaks - not so stiff that they start to look granular, but not so soft that the peaks are too droopy either.  Fold these carefully into the batter so that you keep as much air in the mix as possible; the batter must be homogenous, but it shouldn’t be over worked.

4: Pour the finished cake batter over the caramel in the soufflé dish, and place the dish into the larger dish that will hold water around it, and fill that to a level about half way up the side of the soufflé dish with boiling water. Bake in the oven in this bain marie, to give it a technical name, for about an hour (until the normal things hold true for testing a cake - golden brown on top, puffed, a skewer will come out clean of raw mix from the centre).  Leave the dish to cool, completely, before attempting to turn out onto a serving plate.

5: Take the reserved orange (the one cooked for just 1 minute); halve it lengthways, and slice it finely, and use to decorate the top of the cake (ie the caramel topped “bottom” that was).

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Serve with coffee, tea or sweet liquorous something.

““Yea, though the breath of disappointment should chill the sanguine heart, speedily gloweth it again, warmed by the live embers of hope.”

— Henry Ward Beecher

rhubarb and cobblers

Living Within, February 2017

A bit of comfort and love might not go amiss this month; your kitchen may be a haven of tranquility, but I am not hermetically sealed from newsfeeds in mine, and it feels like there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.  So in search of the sweet, the soothing, the not too bad to look at but not out to impress either, or perhaps just a signifier that the rhythms of the world are still familiar and reliable in at least some parts of the landscape, this may be the perfect moment to pair the prettiness of pink forced February rhubarb and a little sugar coating with the glory of a name we can shout at the telly should the need arise.  I am talking, of course, about the family of deserts know as cobblers. Their origins an apparent mystery, but as far as I can discover, a good old-fashioned US import - and a very welcome one too - with plenty of scope regarding how it came about its moniker; cobbled together, cobble stones, cobblers awls, … I could keep going.

But here’s the “how to …”, for those who are still with me.  Grab some sticks of pink or red rhubarb, 6 or 7 should do.  Wash and cut into short lengths then toss together with 3 tablespoons of plain flour and about 150g caster sugar (this will be quite sweet - you can add a little less if you prefer your tastes tart).  Leave to macerate while you get on and do the rest (the rhubarb will start to give off a little juice and to work with the sugar while you do).  

Turn on your oven and pre-heat to 180ºC  (or equivalents).  

For the dough/biscuit topping: In a large bowl, weigh out 180g plain flour, add a pinch of salt, 4 teaspoons of caster sugar, and 2 teaspoons of baking powder - mix together with a fork or a whisk until the all the ingredients are blended roughly evenly.  

Cut 80g cold butter into small cubes; toss into the flour and then, using only fingertips, squeeze the butter with the flour (like you would for pastry, keeping your actions light and your hands high out of the bowl), just until the butter and flour looks a bit like breadcrumbs.  Don’t work too hard, don’t allow the butter to get hot and bothered, keep everything as light and airy as possible.  Now add in about 180ml of fluid cream or buttermilk - any cream will do, but a sour cream will help these biscuits (as they are known in the US - we would think of them more like little dumplings or scones) to have a nice rise - some acid in the mix helping the baking powder do it’s job.  Mix the cream through the flour and butter using a knife, or a pastry blender, or lightly use the fingers of one hand - until the mix just adheres as a shaggy dough (don’t overwork it, and it doesn’t matter one bit if the mix looks a bit rough around its edges - or even all over, so long as, broadly speaking, its centre will hold.)

Take the rhubarb and toss once again with the sugar and flour (so that it is all evenly coated) and place in an oven-proof pie or gratin dish that is of a size to allow the rhubarb to form a generous layer.  Then you can either take generous dollops of the dough and just dot them all over the top, or pat or roll the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface to a nice proud inch or so in height, and cut out small scone like shapes - being careful not to twist the dough as you remove the cutter or to overwork anything.  I cut mine in fluted heart shapes - although the shape, once they are cooked, is always going to be a little fuzzy, so I wouldn’t worry too much about how you put these together.

Place the biscuits on top of the rhubarb - the biscuits should not touch each other, and can form any pattern that you like, bearing in mind that they will expand on cooking and may join up a little as they do so.  From here they whole dish goes straight into the oven - you can brush the tops of the dough with a little more cream and sprinkle with a little sugar first if you want to help the colour develop to its full potential, but you don’t have to.

Bake on top of a baking sheet (don’t be surprised if the juices bubble over the edges of the dish if you have filled anywhere near to the top - and these bubbled over juices will, if your oven is left undefended by said baking sheet, otherwise stick to the bottom of your oven!).  The cobbler should be done - golden, bubbling, looking and smelling divine - in about 40 minutes, but start checking after about 30.

Eat while not piping hot, but at least properly warm, and I like mine with a dollop or a drizzle of cream on top.

Erica

“Ne supra crepidam sutor judicaret ”

— a shoemaker should not judge beyond the sandal (lit.) Pliny the Elder

“Cobbler stick to your last”

— English Phrase

b'stilla

Living Within, December 2016

It is normal at this time year for a cook to consider what they might put on the table as the season turns festive.  But in a year where the verb “to normalise” comes with sinister undertones, I am putting my focus on bidding this year adieu - head down, hoping for no more shocks - literal or figurative - and safe passage out of 2016.  

Remembering how I welcomed this year in, I recall a wave of goodwill and B’stilla (aka Pastilla) - a sweet, salt, enfolding, enobling, Middle Eastern feasting dish - the recipe generously gifted in a gilt-edged cookbook.  Its authors warned that it would take time, effort and fine ingredients - a leap of faith was a part of the mix too - but the skills required are well within our grasp if basic principles are adhered to.  Read the instructions in advance, know what to expect, prepare all the various pieces in their own good time, allow their flavours and seasonings room to mingle; remain optimistic.  The recipe aims high, and hits its mark.

It’s not mine to share here, and my expectations and hope for 2017 in general are, in any case, a little lower than they were last year, but any b’stilla is based on years of tradition, history, experiment, and confidence, together with an expectation of a crowd.  It is a dish that requires a party and a celebration and, as it is well documented elsewhere, I have researched and adapted and am offering a more “back to basics” version below.  Traditionally made with a game fowl, it is sometimes adapted to be made with chicken, which is what I have done here - choose your fowl as you wish however.  

Thinly slice a couple of onions, sauté with a cinnamon stick in some olive oil over a gentle heat, until the onions start to soften; add in a some sliced or chopped garlic, a little salt and pepper, and cook until the garlic no longer smells raw.  Add in a scant teaspoon of powdered ginger, stir and allow to cook a little more.  

While the onions are cooking, take a handful of blanched almonds or pine nuts, and toast until just golden in either a dry frying pan or with a little oil.  Cool, drain on kitchen paper (if you used oil), and chop coarsely (no need to chop if you used pine nuts).  You can add some seasoning, a sprinkle of sugar even, and a little ground cinnamon if you want to up the sweet and spice of the dish; lay aside for later.

Back to the onions; add some bite sized pieces of chicken (bone free) to the onion mix (thighs are probably best as breast fillets may dry out).  You can season as you add them; all the better if you have thought ahead and added seasoning to them overnight, or at least a few hours earlier.  Stir to coat in the onion and spices and allow to take on a bit of colour, then add a small cup of liquid (stock or water) if the chicken is not likely to give off much water of its own, (you can also add some saffron here- pre-soaked with a few tablespoons of warm water - if you want some colour and additional flavour nuance; maybe also a non traditional bay leaf).  Bring to a point where you can leave all to simmer slowly (partially covered) for about half an hour ( or until the fillets are cooked through).  Remove the chicken at this stage, allow any remaining liquid to cook off (the mix needs to be relatively syrupy thick to avoid soggy filo layers later). 

Chop a bunch of coriander or parsley leaves and add to the onion mix - add the chicken back in, taste for seasoning, adjust as necessary, and leave to cool until you are ready to assemble the finished article.

Oil a 24cm/9” round oven-proof dish or pan, then start laying strips of filo pastry across it (read packet instructions to make sure they don’t dry out while you work).  Lay one base layer, then add - in petal formation - four or more additional layers to cover all sides of the dish (with excess filo overhanging).  Make sure you brush each and every layer generously with melted butter before you lay it down.

When the filo base is prepared, spread the chicken and onion mixture over the base, sprinkle over the nuts, then finish off the top of the b’stilla with another couple of layers of filo (buttering them before you add them).  Finally trim the edges to tidy, then fold them over and tuck them in, butter as you go, as you seal with a final layer of filo (which will eventually become the base of this pie).  Put it in a pre-heated oven, (180ºC or equivalents), for about 30-40 minutes (until golden brown), then give a further 10-15 minutes on the floor of the oven to allow the base layer a chance to crisp (cover the top with foil so it doesn’t overbrown) - the base will become the top layer later.  Once the pie is out of the oven, and you are ready to serve it, turn it over onto a serving dish.  Dust with icing sugar - in fancy patterns if you like - and serve, in wedges, to an appreciative audience.

Erica 

www.acooksblog.com

“Middle Eastern food was in fashion a long time ago. Interest in the cuisine has … depended on war and peace, on politics and commerce and also on the spirit of Europe…”

— Claudia Roden, 1968

cornbread in the UofK

Living Within: November 2016

sunny side up? or …

As we enter the final stretch of an election that, by now, almost dare not speak its name, the USofA is enabling at least some of the rest of the world to distract itself from its own worries.  I had toyed with writing about festival food, or pumpkins (at time of writing the latter are very much moving into the “culinary” part of the news) but instead I am distracted too with this US bias - they may not put on an election that I fully comprehend, but they sure do know how to put on a compelling show.  

So, while the US is leading from the front - not, sadly, in the field of highbrow political debate, but in psychological medicine - election anxiety being now very much “a thing” - it may be my safest moment to enter a different debate and give a UK take on a US comfort staple; cornbread.  

Cornbread can be served, like other kinds of bread, as part of, or with, almost any meal at any time of the day, and it exists, so my sources tell me, in various forms - north and south notably differ in whether to add wheat flour and, if so, how much - but the version that I am going to approximate is one from the southern states where cornmeal, in quantity, is essential.  And they mind, by the way, about the quality and the freshness of the cornmeal!

You can find cornmeal here in various “grinds” - from coarse to fine - and each will make a difference, but it is probably easiest to find as polenta - which is misnamed as an ingredient; it is more accurately the name of the cooked Italian dish.  However, it is a coarse ground cornmeal, and can be used to make a coarse grind cornbread.

Cornbread is cooked in a skillet (frying pan); it needs strong heat, and strong fat (fat that, even if it doesn’t add flavour, will take high heat) - bacon grease is often recommended.  The cream of the mostly tattoo-sleeved chef brigade who currently dominate much of the conversation about Southern cuisine disagree among themselves on whether to mix any flour or sugar with the corn, and the disputes and debates have extended in the past to whether eggs are allowed in the batter.

But as Brits we can probably avoid most of the controversy and do exactly as we please - nobody is likely to be looking; we have no grandmothers to disappoint, no family tradition to uphold, no heirloom recipes; so we can assimilate and appropriate and, even if we get it badly wrong, so long as we like the end result, nobody is likely to get hurt.

Weigh out your ingredients.  In a large bowl, add about 300g of cornmeal, 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), and a teaspoon of salt, and whisk all these dry ingredients together.

In another bowl, beat together 1 large egg with 350ml of buttermilk (or sour cream, or a mix of any kind of dairy that includes some “sour” - the acid helps the rise).  

Choose a skillet wisely - black, heavy, well-seasoned, preferably cast iron - render down some finely chopped bacon (smoked is good) - cook until the bacon is crisp, scoop the crisp bacon out of the pan and put to one side, and leave the rendered fat (topped up with a little oil or even butter if you haven’t got a generous coating).  Put the pan in a hot oven, for the fat to get “properly hot” (think “smoking” like for a Yorkshire pudding; remember that this bread should be beyond golden on its under side).  Meanwhile, mix your wet ingredients into the dry just like for any other batter - carefully,  so that the mixture does not become lumpy.

When the batter is ready; put your skillet over a flame (NB remember, it’s just come out of the oven; the handle will be HOT!), pour in the batter and listen to it sizzle.  Finish in a hot oven (200ºC or more); as for your Yorkshires, it will take about 20 minutes (it will be done when a fine skewer prodded into the centre comes out clean), and you want to serve it pretty much straight away, fluffy and warm.  You can cut it straight out of the pan - flip it upside down first if you want to see it’s crackly bottom - serve with butter, or whatever else you fancy - bacon bits and maple syrup went down well in my house - a true Southerner might prefer molasses.  It is a bread almost like any other, in that it will mop up juices well!

…world turned upside down.

Erica

“I… got up from the table to take my plate to the kitchen, it was clean as can be, sopped to a sheen with my last bit of cornbread”

— John T Edge, Southern Belly

Plum Tart

From Living Within, October 2016

It may be autumn, but the last stone fruits of summer are still in season - plums notably - and where I have been recently not only do they form a large part of the scenery but also of the livelihood of many in the locale.  I learned something new about them this year.   Having grown used to the annual harvest with its all-enveloping “bat capes” fastened around the base of tree trunks accompanied by a mechanically assisted shakedown, giving this delicate crop both a nudge and a safe landing, what I had not understood were the niceties of timing - which are entirely plum dependent.  Plums not yet ready may shimmy and shake but will not drop from the tree.  You can put a skirt on a tree and make it dance, apparently, but the rhythm still belongs to nature.

I happened upon some beautiful blue-black Quetsches.  These Look a bit like large damsons, and taste like sweet plums, but any plum can be substituted for them in the tart that I have made here with them.

You will need a shell of sweet, crisp (blind-baked) pastry.  The pastry that I used was a pâte sucrée - a rich mix of flour, butter, egg yolks, sugar and a pinch of salt.  An admittedly hard-to-handle pastry, but you can substitute a simpler sweetened shortcrust without losing too much finesse.

raw ingredients; pâte sucrée (7oz flour; 3.5oz (each) sugar, butter; 3 egg yolks; salt)

bringing it together: pinch the middle to a paste; cut the flour through the paste

Formed and ready to rest and roll (between sheets of clingfilm helps with the handling)

just chilling

Cut in half, lengthways, enough plums to make a pattern on the base of the tart shell; put them, skin side down, in a roasting tin, sprinkle with a little fine sugar, and roast in a pre-heated hot oven (at least 180ºC) for about 5 minutes - until the juices just start to run - make sure to remove them from the oven long before the plums might lose their shape.  Leave to cool on a rack, cut side down, allowing them to drain a little.

prepared plums in a prepared pastry

At the same time make a kind of custard by whisking together 1 whole egg (or, better still, 3 separated egg yolks to create a richer mix) with about 55g sugar; then whisk in approx 200ml crème fraîche (or thick cream) and 35g ground almonds (adjust quantities up or down and roughly in proportion according to the size of your tart shell and your own taste).  You can add other flavours if you like at this stage (vanilla, or a tablespoon of brandy or armagnac, for example), but you don’t have to.  Place the plum halves, still cut side down, around the base of the tart; pour over the custard so that it comes near to the top of the tart shell (it mustn’t spill over the top), then place, carefully so as not to tip the filling, into a pre-heated oven (180ºC or equivalent). 

oven ready

Bake until the filling is set, and golden on the top (about 30 minutes).  Leave to cool; serve warm or at room temperature with additional cream to hand round.

Erica

“What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of the courage to shake the tree”

— Logan Pearsall Smith

Berbere Brexit Blues

From Living Within: July/August 2016

Blood on the carpet, Vadot

In a week where politics dominate, cooking may be as relevant to the discourse as anything else.  Food is often the subject of the political but cooking seems to have entered the fray more recently too; there are flame wars going on around the world in areas of special interest that are divisive, deep-rooted and create difficult conversations - not my battles to fight, although their blueprints are reflected in the world I see around me.  

My recent interest has been closer to home.  I have been volunteering in a social enterprise where migrant and refugee women, from all parts of the globe, work together to provide employment opportunities, to educate each other, and to share their rich, developed food cultures via a roaming restaurant kitchen; a mutually beneficial exercise in generosity that enables all participants to live better lives in an inclusive world.  I have been proud to lend my hands to these hardworking, multi-talented, mutually supportive women whose lives have not been easy, whose interests and ambitions are far-reaching, and for whom kindness and compassion seem instinctive.   

On first meeting them I felt humbled and admiring; this last week or two I felt shame.  Cultural mix and exchange have always been a part of our history and I am sad to see the results of the referendum include a rise in racism and xenophobia.  A simple in/out referendum we are told has given a clear answer, even if the questions it answers are not yet clearly understood.

In response to all this I offer you not European fare - which is already a well established part of our food landscape and culture,  the UK is European by geography regardless of any EU treaties - but instead an Ethiopian favourite, inspired by one of these inspiring women - a refugee from Ethiopia many years ago, now living in the UK as a proud European citizen, although one also now understandably concerned for her future here.

Berbere Lentils start with a simple unassuming ingredient - the everyday lentil - and owe their nuance and depth of flavour to multi-layered ingredients, careful preparation, a little time and commitment, and a wealth of history - they seem appropriate right now.  I will keep the instructions to a minimum - this is not my recipe to give, I am borrowing it from those who are willing to share their culture and their skills and I am grateful for their generosity in so doing.

Wash and cover lentils generously with cold water, bring to a boil and simmer until they are on the al dente side of tender.  I used green lentils, but you can choose red, brown etc. - any lentils that will yield and soften eventually are appropriate - their cooking times will vary. 

Berbere Spice Mix

Prepare some Berbere spice mix (it’s complicated!  I won’t give you a recipe here - there are many online to pick and choose and learn from).  When the lentils are cooked and with your spice mix ready, chop an onion and sauté it in lots of olive oil until softened and translucent.  Grate some garlic and fresh ginger root to create a rough paste and add this to the onion mix and sauté gently until these two ingredients lose their raw pungency and start to turn fragrant.  At this point, add a couple of tablespoons of Berbere spice, cook all together for a minute or two, add the drained lentils and a glass of water; season to taste, then cook, bubbling gently until you have a well homogenised stew that has absorbed most of the liquid (about 10 minutes).

Serve with a squeeze of lime, garnish with chopped coriander, and accompany with some salad or vegetables of your choice.  In Ethiopia they eat with injera (a kind of bread), but serve and share any way that you would like.

Erica

“The complexity of our debate shows the difficulty of putting the matter to a referendum”

— Ian Taylor, MP for Esher 1987 - 2010, Points of Order: Treaty of Lisbon, 30 Jan 2008, House of Commons.

Sicilian Sardines

From Living Within, June 2016

A creature of habit as a rule, travel-wise, I have just returned from a rare trip off my beaten track, meeting old friends in new scenery.  SE Sicily is Montalbano country (you would be AMAZED how much he gets about there); the commissario, so urban legend has it, has almost single handedly rejuvenated the local tourist industry by highlighting the Baroque architecture (molto barocco), fabulous scenery, and sublime food of the region.  It is hard to get food wrong in Sicily; great ingredients are plentiful, Sicilians know what they like, and what they like is very, very good.

We breakfasted on granita and brioche in Modica, we dined on seafood on the beach at Marina di Ragusa, where the locals found our English voices exotic (something that has never happened to me before).  They also laughed as we laughed at hand towel tablets that enlarged when anointed with a little water (viagra translates directly) - some reassurance there that they were laughing with and not at us.

The stage is set for an early bird.

One of our most memorable lunches was the one we had sitting on a traffic island - not an uncommon place to eat in Sicily apparently, but perhaps only in a quiet corner of a seaside Sicilian town could such a venue not only be almost entirely devoid of traffic, but also utterly charming in every detail; I long to go back for more. 

The real McCoy

We ate, among other things, sardines flavoured with oranges - stuffed; rolled; tails fetchingly pointing upwards; bookended by orange slices - a little bit moorish, in every sense of the word.  I have tried to recreate a feeling of them for you here although oranges, I will caution, are just ending their long season in Sicily about now; you can, of course, always ignore that fact or substitute lemon instead.  We may not be within striking distance of a charming fishing village, but we do have Williams and Bunkell on The Parade in Claygate who can provide the necessary in terms of fresh fish of high quality prepared by experts - which is, perhaps, the next best thing.

You’ll need about a kilo of sardines - heads removed, cleaned, deboned and opened out butterfly style. Marinade them in the combined juice of one orange and one lemon (or either, or even neither, as you prefer) while you prepare the stuffing.  Zest the citrus before you juice it, and keep to one side.

For the stuffing: finely chop one medium onion and leave to soften gently in some good olive oil over a low heat.  Roberta, who looked after us and whose husband Antonio was our chef, explained that you should not be able to easily recognise onion as one of the ingredients - they need to sweat down so that they are almost melted before they are ready to play their part.  “Sudare” is the Italian verb denoting, in this case, a sensuous dissolve over plenty of time and a low, slow burning flame, as opposed to a frazzling experience played out with any sense of undue heat or urgency.  Add in a small handful each of breadcrumbs, pine nuts, and sultanas and cook until the former are beginning to look golden around the edges and the last is softening and sweetening the mix.  Finally stir in the reserved citrus zest and some chopped fresh parsley and mint leaves - combine well and adjust the seasoning (NB: it’s nearly always best to season gently as you add ingredients, then all you will have left to manage at this stage is minor adjustment).

Lightly oil a gratin dish and take your sardine fillets from their marinade - dry as best you can with kitchen paper, season very lightly if you think your stuffing is not seasoning enough, and add a spoonful of stuffing to what was the head end; roll carefully and as tightly and tidily as possible, and place into the prepared dish one by one so that all are packed together in traditional sardine style.  Sprinkle with a little more oil, or with some more breadcrumbs first (or the remains of the stuffing) if you want extra texture on top, and bake in a hot oven (at least 180ºC or equivalent) for about 15 to 20 minutes.  Serve warm from the oven or at room temperature, as antipasto, with citrus slices tucked all around.

sardine, caponata, pane

Buon Appetito!

Erica

“Before it passed from Persian into Arabic, “orange” was a poetic Sanskrit word meaning “where the elephant loves to go”… ”

— Roberta Corradin

heart of an artichoke

I’m keeping it relatively simple for April with some stars of the culinary firmament just coming into season.  Artichokes are entering their first flush (and have been spotted already in FruitWorld), and Jersey Royals are nearly always worth the money during their short showing - waxy, flavourful - a special spud with a “slow food” pedigree.

The spuds (half a kilo is a respectable amount) take almost no preparation, other than a good rub under running water to remove soil and papery outer skins, but artichokes can give a moment’s hesitation for those without experience of them - especially as they are not cheap.  I want to use what some call their hearts and what others call their bottoms - call them what you will, they are shaped a bit like a cup and to get at them you will need some equipment: two sharp stainless knives (a large one and a small parer), a large container for the debris, and a teaspoon and a cut lemon to hand too.  Choose artichokes that look fresh - two to three medium large ones will probably be enough.  

Trim the stalk a little, if it helps, but start by pulling off the outer leaves, until you hit a line that divides the soft pale yellow base from the tough green leaves above - stop at this point.  Use the large sharp knife to cut off the tips of the leaves above this plimsoll line (quite a sizeable chunk) and rub the cut edge of what remains with the lemon.  

an unfocused look

Now take a look inside - packed into the middle of your averagely sized artichoke (very small ones will be immune) is a silky fibrous mass that would flower if it were allowed - like a thistle.  To eat any of this is unpleasant to say the least - akin to eating feathers - so we want to take this part out and discard.  A teaspoon works best for me - dig it in somewhere in the densely packed soft centre, then start scraping out the bottom of the bowl of the artichoke and around the inside edges until there is no remaining trace of the “choke” (the “official” name for this embryonic flower).  Squeeze some lemon juice inside and allow to cover all the newly exposed yellow flesh - to stop it from discolouring.

upturned bottom

Trim the stalk end to the base of the artichoke, unless you want to keep a little tail (not necessary for this recipe), rub cut surface with lemon.  Now take your paring knife and pare off all the surface green tough bits from the base of the artichoke - it should look pale and clean when you are finished - rub again with lemon.

Melt a generous knob of butter in a sauté pan (an earthenware cooking pot - tagine even - is actually best; so the spuds don't stick to the bottom), throw in the potatoes (whole if they are small, cut into large chunks if they are large) and stir to coat in the butter.  Cut your artichoke hearts into appropriate sized pieces - “appropriate” will depend on the size of the artichoke - but what you are trying to achieve is that the artichoke pieces should be roughly the same size (and so take roughly the same time to cook) as the potatoes.  Season with salt, turn the heat down low, put a lid on the pan, and allow to cook for between about 30 and 40 minutes (stir, or shake the pan, OFTEN!) until the vegetables no longer resist a knife tip being inserted; at this point they are cooked.  

As they near the end of their cooking time, take a clove of garlic and a small handful of parsley leaves; chop both, separately, finely; then chop them again together.  When the potatoes are cooked, throw in the “persillade” (to give this mix of garlic and parsley its “official” name too), and stir and cook for about a minute.  Add pepper before serving - serve immediately - enjoy!

Erica

“Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke.”

— Margo Channing/Bette Davis, “All About Eve”

chacun ses oignons

from "Living Within", March 2016

roscoff onions, well tressed

Since the early 1800’s there has been a vision of French commerce abroad that has become a part of legend in certain parts of the country.  Stripy shirted Breton men, in berets and on bicycles, bearing onions to sell door to door in Blighty.   Mostly long since consigned to history, there has been at least one surviving example of the species - once widely known as the “Onion Johnny” - who used to call at the doors of Esher, Molesey and Walton, as well as a fair few other venues not so far from our south coast.  He would sell strings of onions to my mother and to me, amongst other loyal fans - quite a highlight in fact as he made his tri-annual rounds, each one at just about the time the last string had given up its last onion.

What a lovely surprise a week ago when Pascal returned - he has been absent for about a decade!  A one off for the house to house, he informs, but he will be at various local markets in the weeks and months to come - do look out for him.

The onions that he sells are particularly special - sweet, pink, Roscoff, AOC branded - in a class of their own and tressed to thrill.  Long strings of them, in the traditional manner, suitable for shoulders and handlebars, should you ever need to transport them.

In honour of this rather special visit, I have baked a French speciality involving onions; this one from the Mediterranean end of France rather than the Northern coasts.  It is a Provençale Pissaladière, otherwise known as an onion tart.

northern light, but you get the picture.

Traditionally made with a bread dough base, I have substituted short crust pastry; I prefer it this way - it is also probably easier to make.  I will assume you have your favourite method for pastry (I will turn a blind eye if it is to buy it ready-made).  Whatever it is, make a quantity of pastry for a tart, roll it out - into a round, a square or a rectangle - place it on a baking sheet (lined with baking parchment) and then crimp up the edges in whatever way works best for you - turn it over, create a rope effect, use a fork or your fingers but give it a little ledge.  Chill (in the fridge) until needed.

Take about 1kg of onions - any variety will do, I, of course, used my newly acquired Roscoffs.  Peel and slice as thinly as you can.  Warm a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy based sauté pan (one with a lid), add the onions and a pinch or two of salt.  Cook, covered, on a low heat for an hour or so.  Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon or spatula.  The onions need to soften to almost a purée consistency, but you don’t want them to colour to anything more than a very pale gold.  It’s not necessarily traditional, but I like to add some thyme leaves to my onions while they are cooking too.  When the onions are soft and melting and very much reduced in volume, remove the cover from the pan, and allow any remaining liquid to cook away.  Allow to cool.

To finish you will need some anchovies and some olives (small, blackish niçoises if you can find them).  You can use both to decorate the top of your tart, but I prefer to chop two or three anchovies very finely (you could also use anchovy paste as substitute), and spread them evenly over the bottom of your pastry shell - this way you can distribute their flavour most evenly.  Top with the onions spread evenly into the pastry case, and decorate with a few olives.  Bake in a moderate oven (about 180ºC) for 25-30 minutes - until the pastry is cooked, and the onions look golden brown.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Erica x

“For those who believe that an onion is an onion is an onion, the pink onions from Roscoff are a revelation.”

— Country Life, 1997, via http://pascalonions.pagesperso-orange.fr

hair shirts and hummus

from "Living Within", February, 2016

It is becoming traditional for the start of the year to bring encouragement to “atone” for excesses, perceived or otherwise, of the preceding festive season.  “Dry January” has become “a thing”, the papers link words like “health” and “detox” to their conversation about food and drink, and I may even have read somewhere this year something that equated veganism to virtue!  I try not to engage in ways of thinking that focus on fads or factoids - a little of what you fancy doesn’t have to be bad, and a balanced diet is not based on any form of deprivation in my book.  My normal instinct might be to voice such contrary opinion, loudly and boldly, but it rarely makes me popular, and as I am also having trouble this February working out what season we are in, I am going to write about something that feels like comfort and is unlikely to challenge anyone; it also happens to be weather proof - as comforting served in the depths of cold weather as it can be refreshing on a warm day - and, maybe importantly, it’s a long way from extravagant.

The humble chickpea - easily available in cans or jars, otherwise simple to cook from dried, albeit requiring a day’s forethought (and, like nearly everything else in cooking, with the end result likely to be at least marginally superior to its ready-to-go alternative) - is the staple ingredient for hummus; the “dip” that has come to dominate sections of the chilled cabinets in our supermarkets, and over which, if you have read your Yotam Ottolenghi you will know, wars have been fought and peaces negotiated.

It is very easy to make your own - although it does, almost always, require a food processor.  If you are cooking rather than buying in jars/tins, take a quantity of dried chickpeas - 250g will make a reasonable amount for a few people or a few days, and leave to soak overnight with a generous covering of cold water.  Drain the following day, and place in a saucepan covered with an equally generous amount of fresh water; bring to a boil.  You can, if you like, throw in a split garlic clove or two (or half a head even).  Skim off any scum that rises to the top, and then leave all to simmer skimming off later any loose skins that float to the top.  The chickpeas are cooked when they are soft but not mushy - start checking them from about 20 minutes onward, although they are likely to take more than 40 minutes and can take an hour and a half or more (much depends on how long they have been dried and/or hardness of cooking water).  Drain them but reserve their cooking water.  If you are using ready prepared chickpeas start from here by draining them and reserving their liquid.

Whichever way you have come by your cooked chickpeas, put them now into a food processor and blend until almost smooth.  At this stage add in some tahini (sesame seed paste) - you can start at about 4 tablespoons or go up to a part of tahini for every four parts of cooked chickpeas (everything about hummus is “according to personal taste”), and a clove or two of garlic (crushed to a smooth paste first with some salt).  Garlic will chop in a food processor but it will not be smooth unless you pre-crush it.  If you don’t like the strong taste of raw garlic in your hummus and you have cooked your own chickpeas with garlic cloves in the cooking water, don’t tell any purists that I said so, but you can either use the cooked garlic as substitute for raw, or just let the garlic taste that has already permeated the chickpeas be sufficient - it will be subtle, but that may suit your tastebuds.  Add in salt, and the juice of at least one lemon and blend again until the hummus is the consistency that you want - add in some of the reserved liquid if it is not looking smooth enough - it is OK, however, to like it thick and chunky or to want it super smooth.  Remember also to taste it, and adjust all of your flavours as seems right to you.

Serve dressed with olive oil and garnish with any or all of chopped parsley, lemon wedges, a sprinkle of paprika, cumin or sumac and some toasted or fried pine-nuts.  It should be left for at least half an hour to let the flavours find their level before serving, but can be kept in the fridge (covered closely with cling film) for a few days.  Serve at never less than room temperature and with crudités and/or bread.

Erica x

“When I started out in restaurant kitchens, I didn’t think hummus or a chopped salad could ever be cool”

— Michael Solomonov

lady marmalade

from "Living Within", January 2016 (abridged and adapted from earlier blog post, but with new method edit attached)

As the new year begins and summer jam supplies start to look a little depleted the preserving British faithful turn their thoughts to marmalade.  In spite of the fact that there are some countries where the word “marmalade” pretty much translates as “jam”, marmalade, at its bitter orange best, is pretty much exclusively a British obsession.  Seville Oranges - sour, coarse, pippy - arrive fleetingly on our shores from the beginning of the month; the Spanish seemingly happier to sell their crop to us than to use their own harvest.  No other oranges will really do to make proper marmalade, the bitterness of a Seville being essential to a sophisticated marmalade palate.

Marmalade making, like all preserving, is more science than art. A certain proportion of fruit to liquid to sugar is necessary, with the natural pectin of the fruit also put into service to provide a set; method and detail, however, will allow the maker to exercise both choice and skill.  The shred can be coarse and chunky or fine and delicate; marmalade can be very tangy with pith included in its body, or it can be clear gelled, pithless and shredded fine or, in extreme cases, shredless (although I think the fans of this last variety probably buy theirs off the supermarket shelf).

There are numerous techniques, preferences, and conflicting tips: there are those who boil whole oranges and then cool, peel and shred them before adding sugar, and there are those who juice and peel or slice raw fruit; there are fast workers who will typically have their marmalade made in a day and others who may take a couple of days over the affair.  There are those who swear by unrefined sugar to avoid ‘toxic froth’ (although I think that this may in fact be toxic tosh and the unrefined and brown sugar contingent simply prefer their marmalade darker and more caramel tasting); the opposing camp profess that a better colour and flavour will be created by white granulated sugar (never caster or icing which will give you problems), and there are those who warm their sugar while others think that this is a waste of time.  I am yet to find anyone who recommends using preserving sugar (with added pectin), although the choice is, of course, yours to make.

Having tried long drawn out methods in the hope of a superior product, I am now of the opinion that as long as the desired effect is achieved, there is no need to draw out the whole affair.  Recipes abound - you will find them in books and Sunday supplements, online and via supermarket giveaways - so long as you know the important principles to bear in mind there is more than one way to skin an orange.  The best advice might be to know what end result you want to achieve before you start and then set out to find a suitable recipe.

A basic recipe requires 1kg oranges to 2kg sugar to which you will add about 2 litres of water and the juice of a lemon*.   Before you start also make sure to have ready some sterilised jars (with lids or other suitable covers), and some small plates in the freezer together with a few frozen tea spoons.

A basic method might look like this:  squeeze the juice from the oranges and the lemon into a pan suitable for making preserves (ie large, wide at the top, and not made from aluminium or other reactive metal).  Gather together the remaining pulp and all the pips and put them into a muslin bag - tie it together with kitchen string leaving a longish tail.  Cut the orange peel into strips slightly bigger than the size you want to see in your marmalade (they will shrink during cooking).  Put the muslin bag into the pan along with 2 litres of cold water and all of the orange peel; bring to a boil and simmer for a couple of hours, or until the peel is softened.  Squeeze the muslin bag to extract as much pectin as you can from the pips and then remove it.  Add the sugar and, over a low heat, allow it to dissolve completely.  Turn up the heat, and boil rapidly for about 15 minutes before you start checking for a set - or alternately take its temperature and start to check for the set once it reaches 103ºC-104ºC.  A set is reached when a small drop of marmalade put onto a cold saucer with a cold teaspoon will wrinkle when pushed with a finger.  When your set is achieved, turn off the heat and move the pan away from the heat’s source; allow the marmalade to cool for ten minutes or so before transferring it into your waiting jars.

Erica x

“I came all the way in a lifeboat, and ate marmalade. Bears like marmalade.”

— "Paddington Bear" ~Michael Bond

* Later edit:

This year, my marmalade making did in fact take three days, and my quantities were 1.6kg seville oranges (9 oranges); 1 large + l small lemon; 2.4kg white granulated sugar (proportions 1 x fruit : 1.5 x sugar); 20cl water (approx) per citrus fruit (I counted 11), plus the juice of all the fruit (about half a litre).

Method: 

Day 1:  Halve and juice all the fruit - reserve EVERYTHING! (including pips).  Slice the peel finely; put the pips in a muslin bag (made with bits of string and imagination), put juice, peel, pips, water into a large bowl - cover and leave for 24 hours - somewhere not too warm.  Do not leave a tail of muslin hanging over the bowl - it will siphon water onto your worktop. #Ilearnthelessonsoyoudon'thaveto

Day 2:  Bring all to the boil in a Maslin pan (or equivalent), and allow to simmer for about 20 minutes; transfer to a bowl, cover and leave for an additional 24 hours.

Day 3:  Strain the liquid from the peel (top up the liquid in the bowl first if it is looking a little dense in your bowl and you lack faith that there is enough - allow the liquid to just cover the peel to get the quantities about right).  Put strained liquid back into the Maslin pan; add the sugar - (Keep the faith! even at this scant ratio, the sugar looks monstrously generous, but Seville oranges are super bitter!). 

Over a gentle heat, allow the sugar to dissolve (stir from time to time - tap the bottom of the pan with a metal spoon to "hear" when the grit has softened).  Add the peel back in.  Squeeze out the muslin bag into the mix - extract every last bit of gelatinous pectin that you can, and then leave aside; it should have done it's job by now.  Pick out the bits of peel that cling to its sides.  You can leave it in for the final boiling if you like, but I find it gets in my way.  Bring all to a nice rolling boil - get your jars ready - and finish off as per usual - checking the temperature, testing for a set, etc, etc, etc …

mushroom tart

from "Living Within", December, 2016

With recent world events making feeling celebratory “a bit soon”, I am going to talk mushrooms this December.  Typical autumn fare, and still widely available, I found wild specimens this week in a market in SW France, via a man with a blink-and-you-might-miss-it seasonal stall dedicated to his forest foragings.  Life going on as normally as possible in this part of the world where the locals are trying to summon up the necessary to switch on their twinkle lights.

Sporting a large handlebar moustache - one that I am pretty certain predates any single “Movember” - my vendor asked how I intended to cook the chanterelles and black “trompettes de la mort” (trumpets of death) that I was selecting (and given that he was a man who clearly knew his mushrooms, I was prepared to take it as read that they were safe to eat).  He suggested a “persillade”, and asked if I knew how to prepare one; I made the error of offering what I thought I knew instead of asking him what he did.  Parsley and garlic was what I said and, raising an impressive, almost moustache matching, eyebrow, he gently shook his head.  For these two delicately flavoured mushrooms, shallots instead of garlic - garlic will overwhelm them.  We were, after all, closer to Bordeaux than Provence, and to cook mushrooms “à la Bordelaise” the subtleties of shallots are preferred; it is in the true south that garlic gets thrown about with more wanton abandon.

I bought a mixture of ‘shrooms - cèpes and “pieds de mouton” (the French call them sheep’s feet, we call them hedgehogs) added to my bill of fare, and used them all to fill a tart.  First I cooked each variety according to its own needs, which are, for the record, as follows:

Cèpes (and other mushrooms capable of holding their shape, their water, and their own in terms of flavour): pare the base of the stems to remove any dirt, wipe the caps, and anywhere else that looks like it needs a wash, with a damp piece of kitchen paper, then gently remove stems from caps.  Cut the stems in two (lengthwise), and discard any part of the interior that is either wormy or spongy.  Chop half of what remains of all the stems into fine dice and put to one side; slice the rest of the stalks into thick slices.  Slice the caps in thick slices too.

Chop some shallots very finely; have a fistful of breadcrumbs to hand; chop a bunch of parsley.  Heat a large pool of olive oil in a generously sized frying pan (large enough not to crowd your ingredients).  When the oil and the pan are both hot, throw in all of the cèpes, except for the finely diced stems, and add salt.  Toss or stir the mushrooms in the oil until they start to take on a little colour, then turn down the heat and let them cook through for a few minutes.  Turn the heat back up again, throw in the shallots, the finely diced stems, and stir and cook for about 5 minutes more until the shallots no longer seem raw.  Finally, add the breadcrumbs, two thirds of the chopped parsley, and some freshly ground black pepper.  When the breadcrumbs have absorbed the oil from the pan you can serve the mushrooms with a sprinkle of lemon juice and the remainder of the chopped parsley added as garnish.

Pieds de Mouton/Hedgehogs:  prepare in similar fashion to the cèpes - wipe, trim, cut or slice appropriately to their size.  Fry, seasoned with salt, in hot oil (you can add a clove or two of whole peeled garlic if you like - to be discarded at the end of cooking and avoids the harshness of chopped garlic), add in a sprinkling of parsley toward the end, and pepper and lemon juice to serve.

Chanterelles and Trumpets of Death:  mushroom experts advise, for the most part, against washing mushrooms - wiping is the order of the day.  However, if you don’t want to be chewing on grit, these mushrooms need a bath in the form of a large bowl, or sink, filled with cold water.  Remove what you can see of excess bits of woodland or forest floor first, then dunk the mushrooms into the water and give them a few seconds to let the dirt float out of them.  With your finger splayed apart, gently lift them from the surface of the water by hand, and put them to drain in a colander; from there tip them onto clean tea towels and, delicately, pat them as dry as you can.

trompettes de la mort; chanterelles

These mushrooms will give off a lot of water while cooking.  If you attempt to fry them and let the water evaporate, they are likely to end up overwhelmed with liquid and will stew, becoming overcooked and rubbery.  Instead, have a large heavy-based pan with a lid and put a high heat under it; add the mushrooms to it with a sprinkling of salt, clamp on the lid, allow them to come rapidly to a foaming boil in the liquid they will give off almost immediately, then drain into a colander sitting over a clean bowl (you can keep the liquid and use it as stock for another time).  Once these have drained and cooled, they can be fried in a bit of foaming butter, or oil if you prefer.  Finish as for the other mushrooms - with “persillade” (ie the shallots and parsley - breadcrumbs if you like) or, like me, you can mix them with the other mushrooms already cooked and use them all together.

I put mine, all mixed together with a squeeze of lemon, into a pastry lined tart shell; the pastry should be blind baked, and the filled tart finished in a medium hot oven for about 15-20 minutes (the mushrooms, remember, are already cooked).  You could add chestnuts and/or other nuts (walnuts, pecans, pine nuts, you decide), ditch the pastry case and serve as a stuffing for a festive bird - either pushed into its cavity, or my choice would be baked separately in a, lightly buttered, oven-proof dish.  You can serve them as a fricassée, on toast, or as accompaniment to a main course, you can stir them through pasta or add them to an omelette; you can add a splash of cream, and/or eggs and cook them in a quiche.  There are many possibilities and there are more than these varieties of mushroom - cultivated as well as wild.  Methods of washing and cooking can fall into one or other of the camps outlined - all you need decide is which is appropriate for the particular mushrooms available to you and of your choosing.

oven ready

Erica x

“Why did the mushroom go to the party?
Because he’s a fungi!”

— One Direction

walnut cake

from "Living Within", November 2015

For those of you who may have a walnut tree in the garden, you will already know that walnut season has been taking place since the end of September.  Unmistakeable in the litter of blackening shells on the lawn (if you fail to harvest your walnuts from the tree that is) and also, if you have ever tried to wrestle them from their fleshy green outer coatings with your bare hands, from the almost indelible stains that doing so will leave on your finger tips.  For the rest, they are now easily available in markets and supermarkets, in both shelled and unshelled form, ready for laying down for the winter.

willing hands, and specialist equipment, may be helpful

Amongst all the nuts in the nut kingdom, walnuts are often considered sovereign; full of all kinds of “superfood” goodness, distinctive in taste with their slightly bitter after notes, and rather magnificent in looks with their brain-like form (which also adds to the challenge of cracking them in trying to keep the kernels whole!).  Make sure you buy your walnuts from somewhere you trust to have them fresh and well looked after - carelessly handled or stored they can turn unpleasantly rancid very quickly.

To celebrate the season, I have baked a walnut cake - a dense, moist one, with a bit of beta carotene added to the superfood mix in the form of a grated carrot and a little orange zest.  This cake will hold its own against a strong cup of coffee, or you may prefer a glass of something to compliment the complexity of the walnuts and their accompanying sweeteners - a dessert wine would be just perfect.

Ingredients:  110g unsalted butter (at room temperature); 225g caster sugar; zest of an orange; 5 eggs; 280g shelled walnuts, ground to a coarse meal in a food processor (or chopped with a sharp knife), plus a few extra whole ones to decorate the top (optional); 1 medium carrot (peeled and finely grated); 80g plain flour.

Pre-heat an oven to 160ºC; butter and base-line a 25cm cake tin.

Method:  Rub the orange zest into the sugar, then cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time (if you add them all at once, the mixture will curdle).  Fold the ground walnuts and the grated carrots into the batter, and, finally, fold in the flour.  

Pour all of the mixture into the prepared cake tin, decorate with the whole nuts (if you have reserved any for that purpose), and bake the cake in the preheated oven for between 35 and 40 minutes - until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean of mixture.

Leave the cake to cool on a rack in its tin, but un-mould it while the cake is still warm.  You can eat it while it still retains some heat, although I prefer it at room temperature, and sprinkle with some fine sugar or icing sugar before you serve it if you want to add a final flourish.

Erica x

“A thing which I regret, and which I will try to remedy some time, is that I have never in my life planted a walnut.”

— George Orwell