Necessity, Simplicity and Invention

Returning from Anglesey yesterday to an under-stocked fridge I had to rely on the garden, what little we had left by way of supermarket veg, and the store cupboard. I enjoy such petty challenges, making something with not very much to hand. It also seems healthy, using what is in season, and enjoying (relative) simplicity.


What resulted was what we decided was a sort of Mexican bean soup. Onion, garlic and carrots as the major part, Swiss chard (I guess not very Mexican at all) stalks and leaves, and a big handful of herbs - basil, parsley, sage, tarragon and chives - plus what was the defining ingredient, a green chili picked fresh from the conservatory. It was surprisingly hot, maybe because unlike previous pickings from that plant the chili was used in seconds, rather than kept for later. Liquidised carefully to make a satisfyingly velvety bowlful, and eaten with that staple of serving suggestions, good bread, the meal only needed a bit of cheese to round things off.


Prompted by the Dear Leader, we again discussed cooking and education, this time musing that given our litigious culture it would be very difficult now to teach large groups of kids the basics of cookery, even were the schools to have the teachers required, and the facilities. Little Jimmy gets a minor burn from a hot pan and his parents see the prospect of a six figure payout. Sad. So school reports will feature media studies instead of meal-making skills.


I missed a trick with that soup, I decided today. The fridge did (and does) have a packet of cooking chorizo tucked away at the back, and still in date. Adding fried slices of that as croutons would have finished it nicely, added to the nutritional range, and been in keeping. As my own school reports so often said, must try harder.

Serendipitous Substitution - One Flame Fish Stew

Once a month or so in the  autumn and winter we have chowder as a weekday supper. Or dinner. Or tea, depending on class, pretension and region.

I am not a believer in strict recipes unless they are needed. Yesterday's chowder had kippers and basa as the majority of the protein, but lacking bacon (the shame) and with some chorizo to use up I added that, a happy circumstance as it gave a nice paprika spice to the dish. As ever it was bulked out with potatoes and sweetcorn, both of which like onions cook beautifully in the milk that forms a good half of the liquid.

We discussed as we always do if chowder is a soup or a stew - this one was definitely a stew - and if, with chorizo, it actually qualified as chowder at all. That takes me back to the point about strict adherence to recipes. Chowder is said to have originated as a one-pot dish cooked by fishermen (the word chowder derived from the French chaudiere, a big cooking pot or in modern French a boiler), with a bit of the catch, some spuds, bacon and onions cooked in water at sea. Some - me included - use milk plus stock now for the smoked fish version, not a luxury that those driftermen enjoyed, so it is already different from the pure original if indeed such a thing ever existed.

This is not to say that you can bung in whatever comes to hand, some discrimination is needed. My version includes garlic, red pepper and carrot, all chopped finely to cook quickly (the onions likewise, the spuds big dice), to add flavour, 'goodness' and a bit of colour. The chorizo helped with that too, the paprika sending the milk a rather fetching pink.

One Flame Spanish Dish

Though food in France and Indonesia have special places in my heart, of all the countries where I have travelled Spain is probably in culinary terms my favourite. A meal that consisted of a whole leg of lamb to myself, with a tiny salad and a few chips, served in a sign-less restaurant near Badalona; about half a pound of jamon de serrano on a warmed plate in Vitoria-Gasteiz;  percebes eaten very messily in a restaurant looking down on pre-Guggenheim Bilbao; suckling pig in Barcelona; innumerable tapas.

One dish that I came across several times in different regions of Spain, and that I have made for myself since, is perfect one flame cooking. I don't know what it should be called, memory failing me for that detail. Let's say spicy Spanish beans.

The ideal is to cook this in a flattish and flame-proof terracotta dish, and to serve it in the same. But as my flame-proof terracotta dishes never actually are, and last just months, a good deep frying pan serves. Chop a large onion into small pieces and fry it gently in olive oil until it starts to colour, then add plenty of thickish slices of chorizo (and again, anyone pronouncing that chor-itso should be ashamed) cut from a stick rather than wafer-thin jobbies from a packet, and allow them to char a little here and there. Add a drained tin of beans - butter, flageolet, borlotti or haricot, it doesn't really matter, a tin of chopped tomatoes, and cook until heated through, the tomato starting to bubble and reduce a little. Add a good teaspoon of smoked paprika, four cloves of garlic crushed brutally beneath the flat of a broad-bladed knife, and cook for five minutes longer. Check for seasoning and sweetness - if it isn't sweet to the tongue add a few splodges of ketchup or failing that a bit of white sugar. There should be paprika heat in it too, and it would not be wrong to add a chopped chili seeds and all when you have started to char the chorizo, if you have a nice chilli to hand and like a bit of fire in your belly.

This is pleasant enough as it is, but to make a full meal of the thing add halved hard-boiled eggs yolk-side up,  and/or a drained jar of white asparagus spears. Yes, a jar, they were always preserved when I had this in restaurants and hotels in Spain.

Served with the (cliche alert but it is right) best crusty bread you can lay your hands on it is a filler-upper and a treat. And it accounts for several of your five to seven a day depending on your conviction and purse.

Free Pizza!

Ok, so not actually free. But bloody cheap, and a whole lot better than the nasty cheapo versions (and some of the dearer ones too) that the supermarkets have to offer.

I think I've posted about this before. Or written as we used to have it. The pizza base is made in my bread-maker, the recipe an adaptation of the one that its book gives - and a simple adaptation too, two tablespoons of olive oil replacing the one of melted butter in the original. This makes the dough nicely elastic, and the finished product is crisper I think.

And this is an austerity thing, with last night's three pizzas toppings included costing by my guestimate much less than £4. All were topped with tomato, a tin thereof plus a teaspoon of sugar and some salt reduced to what my accurately wife called a jam. One fishy: anchovies and little prawns, plus very thinly-sliced onion and strips of red pepper; one meaty: half a spicy chorizo sausage (I know it's Spanish but frankly don't care - and please do not pronounce it cho-ritzo or we cannot be friends), plus a liberal dusting of Parmesan and more of the same veg; and one with chicken (leftover from the weekend) and sweetcorn, plus Parmesan again. Oh, and lots of see-through-thin slices of garlic on the first two.

I don't give a tinker's that they are not 'authentic'. They were made with what we had to hand, and seemed suitable. Which probably makes them definitively peasant-fare.

The secret, which is far from secret, is to have the oven at its highest temperature, and not open it for at least 10 minutes while the pizzas (on flat metal pans) cook to crispness. When the edge is brown, they're done. And another well-known secret is that you don't need rubbery mozzarella. Good stuff is fine if you can get it, grated over the tomato or topping if you prefer, but tomato paste and a tasty topping makes for almost rustic simplicity.

I love the relaxed intimacy of eating pizza, or at least good pizza. Use a knife and fork and you look ridiculous, though we needed to with the salad afterwards. Pizza is finger-food, with finger-licking to follow.