Serendipity and the Death of Creation

The title is my entry to this year's pompous and pretentious git awards [three time winner here]. But it does mean something, namely that the classic combinations of ingredients that cooks come to know can stop the arrival of new ideas. Don't get me wrong, I hate the sort of experimental cookery that pairs totally incompatible things - in my view at least - like steak and blackcurrants. Turbot and coffee foam (foams collapse the instant you touch them anyway and are the epitome of cheffy pointlessness) . It is good to try new directions though.

I thought about this while planning this evening's starter. We have just harvested the last of our beetroot before the slugs become interested in it, so I have about 4kg to use up in the next week or so, beetroot keeping well. Our hens are for some reason laying without pause at the moment, thus I have eight eggs to hand. Eggs, beetroot = to this cook a lovely salad with the cooked root, thin rings of raw onion, and slices of boiled egg (with or without anchovies - this evening with).

A bit predictable, almost an automatic choice. That won't take away from it being tasty and healthy, but there is a corner of my brain that says 'branch out', as I will need to do if the rest of the stuff is not going to be wasted.

Such default choices - or signature dishes as some would prefer - include seeing leeks, carrots and spuds in the rack and immediately thinking potage bonne femme. Again, lovely but not exciting. Or having chicken stock and mushrooms, which signals a risotto.

I don't always follow these obvious choices, but now I'm in my late thirties (the 25th year of that decade actually) they tend to rush to the front of the brain and try to crowd out other more creative impulses. At some point the consistency of such tried and tested things has to morph into boring, for me even if wife and son are too polite or hungry to say so. Yet.

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. 

Creamy Austerity

There is no reason why austerity cooking shouldn't get a little luxurious lift every now and then, especially if it doesn't cost much. Last night we used as prime ingredients two vegetables from our allotment, the ever dependable kale and a whole bunch of small leeks - planted a bit late to make big fatties, but they haven't suffered and we still have loads to pick.

Luxurious kale? By adapting a Sara  Raven (and I think HFW) idea I cooked a rather delicious even if I say so myself first course: thick slice of toasted bread loaded with a mix of steamed kale, garlic, a tin of anchovies, boiled egg, and grated cheese, all chopped up together with a bit more cheese on top. Very robust flavours, and a feeling of virtue from that iron-rich greenery.

The main was leek and potato soup, with an onion, carrot, two big spuds and about 20 small leeks, sweated in a slick of butter then simmered with the water from cooking the kale, a small carton of double cream added at the end just to warm through before everything was zapped with the hand blender. More bread to dip and the meal was both enjoyable and filling. You don't need a protein-fest every day, though with the egg, anchovies and cheese (and grain in the bread) it wasn't without either.