Last week I was on a press trip to the Midi-Pyrenees region of France, and very enjoyable too. During the four days we visited six Michelin-starred restaurants. This was a privilege, though the urge to be different produces such horrors as foie gras with raspberry sauce alongside works of perfection like a coddled egg in an asparagus crust, the yolk when cut oozing unctuously into a morel sauce.
But that is clearly not austerity fare (though a variation on that egg dish, effectively a subtle scotch egg, could be). Aligot, however, most certainly is. At the market in Rodez we tried this local speciality, which is simply very smooth mashed potato blended with melted cheese (young Tomme d'Aguiole or Cantal) and garlic. Happily the last Michelin-starred place we visited served some with a beautiful piece of lamb, a real bow to culinary tradition. That I think had a bit of cream in it, not a heresy but a variation, perhaps a refinement, and still traditional. They matched perfectly, unlike the foie gras and raspberry car-crash.
A bit of research shows that the proportions potato to cheese are 2:1, with garlic to taste and likewise seasonings. An acceptable-ish substitute for the Tomme would be Mozzarella, or a mixture of that and a harder cheese like cheddar, melted before marrying. I will be making some soon, either to eat on its own (now that is comfort food Nigel) or to accompany lamb. It forms strings as you try to fork it up from the plate. Huge quantities are not needed, such is its richness.
Wednesday 29 May 2013
Wednesday 22 May 2013
Got Soul
An expedition to Kendal last week prompted thoughts on the way the world is going in terms of character, or lack of it. At lunchtime I went into a little cafe and sandwich bar where I got served immediately, enjoyed a nice piece of clearly homemade Bakewell tart at a very reasonable price, and was smiled at. There were only a couple of other customers. Next door was a soulless Caffe Nerobucks, charging pounds for (in my view) not great coffee, and silly money for plastic-wrapped snacks. It was packed.
From a marketing background I understand this - brand power, the knowledge that quality is never bad,though equally you'll never be surprised or delighted. But given the difference in price, how are they thriving in such times when cheaper independents struggle?
There are rays of hope. In my home city of Preston Bruccianis, an art deco-ish survival where food and coffee are good, is generally full. It has soul. In Kendal I interviewed the manager of Farrer's, a tea-room and coffee house since 1819, the very walls imbued with coffee oils after two centuries of operation. They too were doing nicely, though not as well as the Starnero I saw later.
So it can be done, the little guy can stand up to the corporate bully. Even if the little guy is paying a far higher percentage of his turnover in tax than the giant backed by armies of tax specialists. From managerial days too there is another gleam of hope: such organisations tend to go through various predictable phases, one being departmental empire building. We can look forward to those tax accountants, process facilitators and internal consultants adding PAs (whatever happened to secretaries?), deputies, researchers, administrators, team leaders, IT support and so on until with the centre stuffed with staff black hole-like it implodes back into nothingness. The sooner the better.
From a marketing background I understand this - brand power, the knowledge that quality is never bad,though equally you'll never be surprised or delighted. But given the difference in price, how are they thriving in such times when cheaper independents struggle?
There are rays of hope. In my home city of Preston Bruccianis, an art deco-ish survival where food and coffee are good, is generally full. It has soul. In Kendal I interviewed the manager of Farrer's, a tea-room and coffee house since 1819, the very walls imbued with coffee oils after two centuries of operation. They too were doing nicely, though not as well as the Starnero I saw later.
So it can be done, the little guy can stand up to the corporate bully. Even if the little guy is paying a far higher percentage of his turnover in tax than the giant backed by armies of tax specialists. From managerial days too there is another gleam of hope: such organisations tend to go through various predictable phases, one being departmental empire building. We can look forward to those tax accountants, process facilitators and internal consultants adding PAs (whatever happened to secretaries?), deputies, researchers, administrators, team leaders, IT support and so on until with the centre stuffed with staff black hole-like it implodes back into nothingness. The sooner the better.
Sunday 19 May 2013
Austerity Tart and Student Survival
The title refers to a dish rather than me. Not that I am a dish, clearly.
Circumstances dictated lunch was today's family gathering, the boss off to Ireland later. Travel for her and stuff to do for the rest of us meant something fairly light, so I made a cheaty tart with a pack of mushrooms, three onions, some not great cheddar and a block of Sainsbury's ready-made puff pastry.
It looked great (I must remember to take some food images again), with the cheese browning and the edges, the surface just cut through to make a border, rising to hold in the ample filling. It could have fed six, but didn't. The meal was made for its taste not price, but afterwards I worked the cost out at around £2.75.
I told SC that it's a dish worth remembering for when he's a student - it would make the main for four yoots, and bulked out with chips in the same oven (we virtuously had salad), or boiled spuds, would still come in under the £1/head mark. Especially useful if feeding vegetarians.
Back in my own student days vegetarians were rarer animals, not perhaps the most appropriate description. A couple I knew lived (very badly) on baked potatoes, and were unhealthy because of it. And not even baked potatoes with. Just BP. Basically they'd removed the meat from the already unhealthy meat and potatoes regime. Even at that time people thought they were daft, lazy and unimaginative.
It is the 'with' bit that makes the difference. Reading about Tuscan peasant cookery of a couple of generations back brought up the description of most evening meals as pan e companatico, bread and something that goes with bread. Filler and variation. Starch and vegetable matter, or on good days protein. Things would have to be really extreme in our times for the companatico to be absent. The only excuse today for a carbohydrate-only diet would be the direst poverty, though variation would be possible even on a really tight budget: lentils, onions, garlic, beans, chilli peppers, all cheap and if not cheerful then certainly not cheerless.
Circumstances dictated lunch was today's family gathering, the boss off to Ireland later. Travel for her and stuff to do for the rest of us meant something fairly light, so I made a cheaty tart with a pack of mushrooms, three onions, some not great cheddar and a block of Sainsbury's ready-made puff pastry.
It looked great (I must remember to take some food images again), with the cheese browning and the edges, the surface just cut through to make a border, rising to hold in the ample filling. It could have fed six, but didn't. The meal was made for its taste not price, but afterwards I worked the cost out at around £2.75.
I told SC that it's a dish worth remembering for when he's a student - it would make the main for four yoots, and bulked out with chips in the same oven (we virtuously had salad), or boiled spuds, would still come in under the £1/head mark. Especially useful if feeding vegetarians.
Back in my own student days vegetarians were rarer animals, not perhaps the most appropriate description. A couple I knew lived (very badly) on baked potatoes, and were unhealthy because of it. And not even baked potatoes with. Just BP. Basically they'd removed the meat from the already unhealthy meat and potatoes regime. Even at that time people thought they were daft, lazy and unimaginative.
It is the 'with' bit that makes the difference. Reading about Tuscan peasant cookery of a couple of generations back brought up the description of most evening meals as pan e companatico, bread and something that goes with bread. Filler and variation. Starch and vegetable matter, or on good days protein. Things would have to be really extreme in our times for the companatico to be absent. The only excuse today for a carbohydrate-only diet would be the direst poverty, though variation would be possible even on a really tight budget: lentils, onions, garlic, beans, chilli peppers, all cheap and if not cheerful then certainly not cheerless.
Thin Pickings
The title could suggest bad times, but it really refers to using salad thinnings. One of many gardening disciplines we have not been good at is thinning crops out early. Do so and the remaining plants thrive; delay and they are weakened by the competition (an interesting thought for free market dogmatists).
There's a second good reason for the task, as far as salad-stuffs are concerned anyway, and that's the small plates of tasty leaves it produces. Yesterday we had a starter that used such greenery picked and washed minutes before we ate it.
Much though I shrink from the modish 'micro-crops' espoused by Raymond Blanc, who makes claims to the effect that they offer the essence of a plant, they are undoubtedly good to eat. Dressing could be oil and salt alone. Last night I added a few slices of cucumber and a handful of little (cheap) prawns with a pinch of paprika, cooked in butter with a bit of chopped apple, the two then flambeed with a spoonful of apple brandy. In the spring and summer I probably cook with spirits more than drink them. The juices formed the dressing, good enough to be mopped up at the end.
That starter for three cost at most £1.50. It not only tasted good, but with red and green leaves, pink prawns and orange-brown paprika it brightened the table and on a miserably wet day was cheering. Austerity cooking need not - should not - be dull.
There's a second good reason for the task, as far as salad-stuffs are concerned anyway, and that's the small plates of tasty leaves it produces. Yesterday we had a starter that used such greenery picked and washed minutes before we ate it.
Much though I shrink from the modish 'micro-crops' espoused by Raymond Blanc, who makes claims to the effect that they offer the essence of a plant, they are undoubtedly good to eat. Dressing could be oil and salt alone. Last night I added a few slices of cucumber and a handful of little (cheap) prawns with a pinch of paprika, cooked in butter with a bit of chopped apple, the two then flambeed with a spoonful of apple brandy. In the spring and summer I probably cook with spirits more than drink them. The juices formed the dressing, good enough to be mopped up at the end.
That starter for three cost at most £1.50. It not only tasted good, but with red and green leaves, pink prawns and orange-brown paprika it brightened the table and on a miserably wet day was cheering. Austerity cooking need not - should not - be dull.
Wednesday 15 May 2013
Missing, Presumed Dead Good
I could recite a litany of tasty and tasteful products that I or my whole family have come to love, but that have been removed from the shelves in one way or another. Yet vile perversions like cheese with candied mango remain. When I see shoppers buying such things I give them a cold stare that would have made Paddington Bear envious.
Take for example Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire Cheese in my local Booth's supermarket. It is one of this country's finest cheeses, and beyond sensible argument its best Lancashire. Yet the shop, perhaps eight miles from the farm where it is made, has dropped it, presumably because of poor demand.
Or the giant Greek beans in sauce that were sold by Sainsbury's, expensive but delicious they were a perfect part of a mezze.
It is tempting to resort to thinking along the lines of the mother at the passing out parade: 'Look at all those soldiers out of step with my son.'
There are ways round the problem. For Mrs Kirkham's I will try the local Waitrose, or call on the farm myself - Graham Kirkham is a top bloke, great storyteller, and cheese genius, I'd hope he'd sell direct if asked.
For the beans I have just made my own, taste-memory harnessed to try to mimic the ingredients of their sauce, and butter beans the nearest equivalent of the gigantes ones in the long lost jars. SC tried some, and thought them good, but the bean texture wrong. So the next step is grow our own. Maybe.
Update: the gigantes bean jars are back in Sainsbury's, not on the fancy gourmet shelves but with various preserves. Excellent.
Take for example Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire Cheese in my local Booth's supermarket. It is one of this country's finest cheeses, and beyond sensible argument its best Lancashire. Yet the shop, perhaps eight miles from the farm where it is made, has dropped it, presumably because of poor demand.
Or the giant Greek beans in sauce that were sold by Sainsbury's, expensive but delicious they were a perfect part of a mezze.
It is tempting to resort to thinking along the lines of the mother at the passing out parade: 'Look at all those soldiers out of step with my son.'
There are ways round the problem. For Mrs Kirkham's I will try the local Waitrose, or call on the farm myself - Graham Kirkham is a top bloke, great storyteller, and cheese genius, I'd hope he'd sell direct if asked.
For the beans I have just made my own, taste-memory harnessed to try to mimic the ingredients of their sauce, and butter beans the nearest equivalent of the gigantes ones in the long lost jars. SC tried some, and thought them good, but the bean texture wrong. So the next step is grow our own. Maybe.
Update: the gigantes bean jars are back in Sainsbury's, not on the fancy gourmet shelves but with various preserves. Excellent.
Sunday 12 May 2013
The Hungry Gap Part 2
The hungry gap, the period when little or no new produce is available from the garden/allotment, is nearly over. We have new-growth sorrel for wonderful sorrel and potato soup; the first thinnings of salad seedlings for a tiny but tasty salad; and Welsh onion aplenty to brighten up a variety of dishes. But we also have the carry-overs from last year, namely the last of the leeks and a sudden glut of purple sprouting broccoli.
Both of those crops are expensive in the shops, the latter painfully so. But both are easy to grow if you have a bit of decent land.
Leeks are one of the crops we major on, with several varieties grown to give different harvest times and a touch of flavour difference, though that should not be exaggerated. Yesterday's picking (with maybe three to go) made leek and potato soup bulked out with carrot and enlivened with our own parsley, another carry-over.
Our PSB has done really well this year. The huge panful we enjoyed as a course on its own, served on toasted sourdough with chopped garlic and chilli oil, would have cost by my reckoning £6 in the shops if you could find it. Ours cost about £1 for the seeds and a bit of effort over the year. That is the third lot gathered so far, with another two of similar size on the plants already.
Growing your own food is not for everyone - health reasons and mobility exclude some, time commitments and travel make it awkward for others. There are of course many who have no opportunity, or can't be bothered, and sadly lots who give it a go and get put off when the weeds come back - I'd guess about one-in-three of those who get an allotment at our site only last a year or less.
Those who stick at it gain in so many ways: fresh food, interesting varieties spurned by the shops, savings on the shopping, and even on gym membership - if you dig for an hour, or shift 30 barrow-loads of horse-muck, you don't need the rowing machine.
Friday 10 May 2013
The Unbuyables
The definition of fraud in this country used to run along the lines of 'gaining pecuniary advantage by deception'. Now it apparently reads 'those who are not rich and powerful gaining pecuniary advantage by deception.' So 'unbuyables' does not refer to British justice.
No, the unbuyables is Sarah Raven's term for the stuff we food gardeners grow that you just don't find in the shops. To which for us now add asparagus chicory, or Catalogna/Catalonia. I read about it in Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book, and fancied trying some as I'd seen it or similar in Mediterranean food shops. I don't for a minute expect asparagus flavour, but those leafy Greek dishes dressed with oil, lemon and garlic enjoyed in some island taverna should be repeatable here. Seeds have now been obtained from Seeds of Italy, and it is hoped the results will be on our plates within a couple of months or so.
There are lots of other things we grow or have grown that you're very unlikely to see outside of Fortnum and Mason's: like asparagus peas (note the recurring use of the enticing word asparagus to propagandize the unusual), which are not really worth the effort; or Par-cel which is - leaf celery, perfect for the stockpot and casseroles. Or Celtuce, a bit like lettuce on a long thick stalk, that stalk the point of the thing, used in Chinese cookery for its crunch; or the incredibly easy to grow hot mustards like Komatsuna, which has the added benefit of self seeding for next year, an easy salad when leaves are young and small, a hot leaf for cooking when older. Too many clauses Martin.
With a bit of imagination and a patch of land then austerity cookery does not need to be restricted to beans and rice. I say again, what a pity we used £13 billion for the big school sports day instead of improving the lives of millions of our citizens with a little piece of land on which to grow stuff. Except this generation of politicians clearly prefers circuses to bread, unless as slang for money. See opening comment on attitudes to fraud.
No, the unbuyables is Sarah Raven's term for the stuff we food gardeners grow that you just don't find in the shops. To which for us now add asparagus chicory, or Catalogna/Catalonia. I read about it in Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book, and fancied trying some as I'd seen it or similar in Mediterranean food shops. I don't for a minute expect asparagus flavour, but those leafy Greek dishes dressed with oil, lemon and garlic enjoyed in some island taverna should be repeatable here. Seeds have now been obtained from Seeds of Italy, and it is hoped the results will be on our plates within a couple of months or so.
There are lots of other things we grow or have grown that you're very unlikely to see outside of Fortnum and Mason's: like asparagus peas (note the recurring use of the enticing word asparagus to propagandize the unusual), which are not really worth the effort; or Par-cel which is - leaf celery, perfect for the stockpot and casseroles. Or Celtuce, a bit like lettuce on a long thick stalk, that stalk the point of the thing, used in Chinese cookery for its crunch; or the incredibly easy to grow hot mustards like Komatsuna, which has the added benefit of self seeding for next year, an easy salad when leaves are young and small, a hot leaf for cooking when older. Too many clauses Martin.
With a bit of imagination and a patch of land then austerity cookery does not need to be restricted to beans and rice. I say again, what a pity we used £13 billion for the big school sports day instead of improving the lives of millions of our citizens with a little piece of land on which to grow stuff. Except this generation of politicians clearly prefers circuses to bread, unless as slang for money. See opening comment on attitudes to fraud.
Thursday 9 May 2013
Chicken and Memories
In about 1988 I was visiting a customer in the hills above Bourgoin Jallieu, about half an hour's drive east of Lyon. My appointment was in the afternoon, so I found the place then looked for somewhere to eat. This was in agricultural country, not blessed with choice. The one I did find has stayed in my memory though, and epitomizes what I love about basic French food.
There was no menu. The bovine waitress brought a carafe of water, another of red wine, a basket of sliced baguette, and a serving plate of charcuterie with sharp knife for me to cut a few slices of sausage and grab a couple of cornichons before she collected it for the next table. Next was the main course, a roasted chicken-joint served with gloopy beans that tasted of the chicken stock and garlic. Lots of garlic. Then a plain green salad, just fresh lettuce dressed with vinaigrette. 'Un fromage?' meant that, the choice of a piece of good cheese, eaten with the bread, or a petit suisse. And pudding was a plastic tub of supermarket creme brulee.
It cost FF50. That's 50 francs to the Euro generation, about £5 then. For five courses. They doubtless made their money on simplicity, ease (hence the tub of pudding) and volume. Not gourmet stuff, but it filled me like it filled the blue-overalled farmers at the other tables, and it was really enjoyable, though not being able to drink more than a glass of wine was a pain. The chicken indeed was more than enjoyable, it was perfect of its type: robust flavours, pleasing texture of tender meat and soft beans, the kick of garlic.
Last night I tried to recreate that chicken dish, with some success, roasting a cut-up bird (dusted with plain flour) with lots of onions, a few cloves of garlic, a bay leaf and a little dash of wine. Near the end of the cooking time two tins of flageolet beans rinsed of their canning liquid went in, plus some cheaty chicken stock. Inflation having taken its toll the bird alone was more than £5, so call it £7.50 with the beans and onions. But it fed three, the scraggy middle bit of the chicken and a wing made my lunchtime sandwich, and there is a breast that will go on a pizza tonight, so not exactly profligate. And what price re-living a pleasure of 25 years ago?
There was no menu. The bovine waitress brought a carafe of water, another of red wine, a basket of sliced baguette, and a serving plate of charcuterie with sharp knife for me to cut a few slices of sausage and grab a couple of cornichons before she collected it for the next table. Next was the main course, a roasted chicken-joint served with gloopy beans that tasted of the chicken stock and garlic. Lots of garlic. Then a plain green salad, just fresh lettuce dressed with vinaigrette. 'Un fromage?' meant that, the choice of a piece of good cheese, eaten with the bread, or a petit suisse. And pudding was a plastic tub of supermarket creme brulee.
It cost FF50. That's 50 francs to the Euro generation, about £5 then. For five courses. They doubtless made their money on simplicity, ease (hence the tub of pudding) and volume. Not gourmet stuff, but it filled me like it filled the blue-overalled farmers at the other tables, and it was really enjoyable, though not being able to drink more than a glass of wine was a pain. The chicken indeed was more than enjoyable, it was perfect of its type: robust flavours, pleasing texture of tender meat and soft beans, the kick of garlic.
Last night I tried to recreate that chicken dish, with some success, roasting a cut-up bird (dusted with plain flour) with lots of onions, a few cloves of garlic, a bay leaf and a little dash of wine. Near the end of the cooking time two tins of flageolet beans rinsed of their canning liquid went in, plus some cheaty chicken stock. Inflation having taken its toll the bird alone was more than £5, so call it £7.50 with the beans and onions. But it fed three, the scraggy middle bit of the chicken and a wing made my lunchtime sandwich, and there is a breast that will go on a pizza tonight, so not exactly profligate. And what price re-living a pleasure of 25 years ago?
Wednesday 8 May 2013
One Pot Cooking and Attention Spans
Unlike many old farts I think that attention spans have not changed over the years. There are more things to do maybe, so people flit from one to another, but they pay attention while doing them. I do wonder if the exception is in the kitchen, where if the TV ads are to be believed we all want something that can be reheated in seconds. Or maybe prefer to have something greasy delivered to our doors (is it harsh to believe that in a sensible world those involved in the Just Eat campaign would be disemboweled? maybe a tad).
I did a one pot main course yesterday that did need looking at. It wasn't a one flame jobbie though, as it started on a burner, moved to the oven, then was finished on the hob again. It could not just be forgotten.
In an oval Le Creuset dish I browned three teeny lamb chops. When their fat had run a little I added some quartered mushrooms, then into the 180C oven for 15 minutes. Out of the oven, drop in a handful or two of frozen peas, a splash of boiling water and a few scraps of butter, and onto the hob to simmer until the peas are done. The sauce if such it was with the lamb fat and the liquid that had come out of the mushrooms proved tasty enough that our bread dipped it all up.
As I love cooking (and eating) that was not a chore. Indeed time in the kitchen is for me a pleasure. But it did require attention, and my presence for most of the process.
I did a one pot main course yesterday that did need looking at. It wasn't a one flame jobbie though, as it started on a burner, moved to the oven, then was finished on the hob again. It could not just be forgotten.
In an oval Le Creuset dish I browned three teeny lamb chops. When their fat had run a little I added some quartered mushrooms, then into the 180C oven for 15 minutes. Out of the oven, drop in a handful or two of frozen peas, a splash of boiling water and a few scraps of butter, and onto the hob to simmer until the peas are done. The sauce if such it was with the lamb fat and the liquid that had come out of the mushrooms proved tasty enough that our bread dipped it all up.
As I love cooking (and eating) that was not a chore. Indeed time in the kitchen is for me a pleasure. But it did require attention, and my presence for most of the process.
Tuesday 7 May 2013
The Hungry Gap and One Flame Pasta
For those unfamiliar with the term, the hungry gap is the time of year when the winter crops have pretty much ended and the spring plantings not reached maturity. We have shops to get round the starvation problem these days, but for food gardeners it's an annoyance.
There are things like the pea-shoots mentioned the other day that will grow under cover year round, but you really crave fresh stuff smelling of outdoors if you love veg. Yesterday we had a dish that we made in our first home in Norfolk in the mid-eighties, when we had even less spare cash than today. It's just pasta (ideally penne or similar with a bit of substance) cooked al dente then drained (but leave a spoonful or two of liquid behind) and mixed while still hot with a good serving-spoon of butter and a load of freshly picked herbs from the garden.
We gathered little leaves of new-growth sorrel, a few sprigs of rosemary, some crispy tubes of Welsh onion, plus chives, sage and marjoram and a handful of over-wintered parsley, cut them fine with a mezzoluna, mixed into the pasta along with the butter and a good grating of Parmesan (Sternest Critic asked the other day is there any vegetable that doesn't go with Parmesan?), seasoned with crunchy salt and wolfed it. Still cheap, still good, still very quick and easy, ideal after a tiring day.
On Sunday a similarly rapid restorative dish met with approval, pasta puttanesca - pasta whore-style, so called apparently because it could be made on one burner (hmm) in minutes as trade allowed, though the strong flavours and smells masking others is an alternative explanation. This for me needs spaghetti or linguine, cooked until right at the point of being ready, then well drained. To the pasta pan add a few good glugs of basic olive oil (extra virgin somehow inappropriate) that has had a load of crushed garlic and a finely chopped chilli or two infusing in it for a few minutes or an hour if you think ahead. Stir together over a very low heat (don't fry the spag) until the garlic scent rises and the chilli fumes make your eyes water, then season with plenty of salt and lots of pepper. It is coarse and satisfying and the perfect thing to serve with a glass of ropy red wine - you could be drinking the finest Barolo for all your taste buds will be able to tell.
There are things like the pea-shoots mentioned the other day that will grow under cover year round, but you really crave fresh stuff smelling of outdoors if you love veg. Yesterday we had a dish that we made in our first home in Norfolk in the mid-eighties, when we had even less spare cash than today. It's just pasta (ideally penne or similar with a bit of substance) cooked al dente then drained (but leave a spoonful or two of liquid behind) and mixed while still hot with a good serving-spoon of butter and a load of freshly picked herbs from the garden.
We gathered little leaves of new-growth sorrel, a few sprigs of rosemary, some crispy tubes of Welsh onion, plus chives, sage and marjoram and a handful of over-wintered parsley, cut them fine with a mezzoluna, mixed into the pasta along with the butter and a good grating of Parmesan (Sternest Critic asked the other day is there any vegetable that doesn't go with Parmesan?), seasoned with crunchy salt and wolfed it. Still cheap, still good, still very quick and easy, ideal after a tiring day.
On Sunday a similarly rapid restorative dish met with approval, pasta puttanesca - pasta whore-style, so called apparently because it could be made on one burner (hmm) in minutes as trade allowed, though the strong flavours and smells masking others is an alternative explanation. This for me needs spaghetti or linguine, cooked until right at the point of being ready, then well drained. To the pasta pan add a few good glugs of basic olive oil (extra virgin somehow inappropriate) that has had a load of crushed garlic and a finely chopped chilli or two infusing in it for a few minutes or an hour if you think ahead. Stir together over a very low heat (don't fry the spag) until the garlic scent rises and the chilli fumes make your eyes water, then season with plenty of salt and lots of pepper. It is coarse and satisfying and the perfect thing to serve with a glass of ropy red wine - you could be drinking the finest Barolo for all your taste buds will be able to tell.
Thursday 2 May 2013
Fresh and Nearly Free
People struggling with food bills often complain that vegetables are expensive and that they have to buy processed rubbish on their budget, so salads are beyond their means. Given that a 1kg bag of carrots at Sainsbury's cost me 90p the other day, that is at best moot. Carrot sticks, grated carrot, and various cooked carrot salads - though these tend to need spices - and all for pennies.
Even better is salad grown for free, or very nearly. Not everyone is lucky enough to have land for growing salads. But this simple alternative is possible for just about everyone.
You can buy seed trays from Wilkinson's very cheaply, or if you have left over plastic trays (with drainage holes in the bottom) from bought fruit and veg you can use them. A bit of compost to fill it to within about 2cm of the lip. Buy a seed-pack of peas (the best are sugar snap and mange tout but ordinary Feltham First etc would be fine), push the peas a cm below the surface, add a little water, and if the tray is near a source of natural light - the kitchen window, a bedroom windowsill... and they are kept just moist not wet, within a week or so you have peas shoots ready to pick - just the end couple of leaves and the little wispy tail between them, but as you will have planted 100 or more peas you will have plenty. This is cut and come again, so another few days and you have another little crop. In all you can rely on three crops, four if you are lucky. then root out the remains, refill the tray and start again - you should get two plantings from a pack of seed-peas.
Two days ago we had a salad of two boiled eggs with a tiny bit of mayo and two spring onions cut into rings, served on a bed (how chefy) of pea shoots with just a sprinkle of salt and a few drops of oil. The shoots had been cut about 5 minutes before we ate them. Simple, quick, fresh, cheap.
Completely free would be the dandelion leaves growing on what should be our lawn. I feed these to the chickens at night, but in France salade de pissenlit - pissenlit translates as wet the bed, referring to the diuretic properties of the leaf (in Welsh likewise I believe one name - forgive the spelling - is pi-pi in gwelli) - often appears on country restaurant menus. The leaf is slightly bitter but very tasty. It's high time I tried a full salad foraged from our garden - dandelions, wild garlic, maybe a few rose petals, the hop shoots from a plant curling up a tree... Watch this space.
Even better is salad grown for free, or very nearly. Not everyone is lucky enough to have land for growing salads. But this simple alternative is possible for just about everyone.
You can buy seed trays from Wilkinson's very cheaply, or if you have left over plastic trays (with drainage holes in the bottom) from bought fruit and veg you can use them. A bit of compost to fill it to within about 2cm of the lip. Buy a seed-pack of peas (the best are sugar snap and mange tout but ordinary Feltham First etc would be fine), push the peas a cm below the surface, add a little water, and if the tray is near a source of natural light - the kitchen window, a bedroom windowsill... and they are kept just moist not wet, within a week or so you have peas shoots ready to pick - just the end couple of leaves and the little wispy tail between them, but as you will have planted 100 or more peas you will have plenty. This is cut and come again, so another few days and you have another little crop. In all you can rely on three crops, four if you are lucky. then root out the remains, refill the tray and start again - you should get two plantings from a pack of seed-peas.
Two days ago we had a salad of two boiled eggs with a tiny bit of mayo and two spring onions cut into rings, served on a bed (how chefy) of pea shoots with just a sprinkle of salt and a few drops of oil. The shoots had been cut about 5 minutes before we ate them. Simple, quick, fresh, cheap.
Completely free would be the dandelion leaves growing on what should be our lawn. I feed these to the chickens at night, but in France salade de pissenlit - pissenlit translates as wet the bed, referring to the diuretic properties of the leaf (in Welsh likewise I believe one name - forgive the spelling - is pi-pi in gwelli) - often appears on country restaurant menus. The leaf is slightly bitter but very tasty. It's high time I tried a full salad foraged from our garden - dandelions, wild garlic, maybe a few rose petals, the hop shoots from a plant curling up a tree... Watch this space.
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