Personal circs meant I had to cook us a quick meal last night, and having four small lamb chops to hand I resorted to a de Pomiane classic: he was a doctor, nutritionist and gourmet in Paris in the first half of the last century, and his books are a delight of unpretentious sense and no little style. Check out a dramatised series of his French cooking in 10 minutes on You Tube.
The dish is simple: heat a wide and deep frying pan; sear both sides of four lamb chops (not neck chops or chump, which need longer), then turn the heat down medium-low and add the drained and rinsed contents of two tins of flageolet beans, four cloves of garlic chopped finely, a few (several) dabs of butter and a small glass of liquid - white wine, cider, light stock or water all fine (not red wine). Let this cook through gently for five minutes or so, then season and serve. It needs no spices or fancy touches, it's perfect in itself, the liquid, meat juices and butter make a sauce that must not be left in the pan.
With a roll or some French stick to dip up that juice you have a sustaining and tasty main course. The same thing works with good pork sausages, though they need to be cooked through before you add the beans etc, and as there's less meat juice the banger version requires more butter. The lamb dish for four would be about £5.50, with a large pork sausage each just £3.50.
As de Pomiane writes (and the actor playing him in the series shows), while that is cooking through you can make a salad to follow it, dressed with salt, oil and vinegar, slice a little cheese for each diner, and wash some fruit for pudding. The French btw don't share our obsession with cheese biscuits, enjoying un fromage is just that.
Four courses in 10 minutes, or if you offered a few slices of salami and a handful of olives at the outset it would be five. With just one pan involved. We had Parma ham and olives, the lamb and bean dish, a tomato salad with basil, and cheese, which eaten outside in tropical Preston with a large glass of wine was thoroughly enjoyable thank you.
So that's French elegance with little effort, and something that a student who shopped intelligently could do for friends for a special occasion. They could (should) bring the wine, or chip into the kitty for the ingredients. Or both.
Showing posts with label salad dressing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label salad dressing. Show all posts
Thursday, 18 July 2013
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Foams, Flutes and Filling Up
Yesterday we had as a separate course a plain green salad fresh from the garden. Except that it wasn't green or plain. Plenty of green in there, but with oak-leaf and other lettuce varieties included it had brown and purple too.
There can be few simpler or more perfect combinations than fresh lettuce and a sharp vinaigrette, the crispness of well-grown lettuce resisting any descent into sogginess. Yet which name chef these days would have the courage or humility to put them together without further adornment?
This prompts the further question, what do we actually want when eating out? Are we in a restaurant to be amazed at innovation, dazzled by technique, or to enjoy really good food perfectly prepared? There are other reasons for going to specific restaurants: fashion, being seen, bumping into the rich and famous and watching them assault their wife, to name but three.
Not forgetting the fuel aspect of the whole thing. Except plenty of chefs plainly do. On my recent Michelin-starred tour of Midi-Provence I only felt really replete at breakfast - nobody buggers about with that - and after the last meal of the trip, which also happened to be by far the best, and after lunch at an un-starred place. Though I am undoubtedly a bloody peasant, I am not solely concerned with filling up. But it should be part of the deal, part of the chef's skill and judgement. Diners should be satisfied with the standard, freshness, interest, tastes, combinations, contrasts, variety and volume of food.
Missing out quantity in a main meal seems like an orchestra without the brass and the percussion. Personally I can do without the flute (it's just a personal prejudice) which I'd equate to the stupid foams decorating cheffy dishes these days. I'd not be sad never to hear another twittering flute piece for the rest of my life, or to forego those foams forever.
And in case that seems to have nothing to do with austerity cooking, our massive homegrown lettuce and vinaigrette course maybe cost us 15p for the oil, vinegar and mustard.
There can be few simpler or more perfect combinations than fresh lettuce and a sharp vinaigrette, the crispness of well-grown lettuce resisting any descent into sogginess. Yet which name chef these days would have the courage or humility to put them together without further adornment?
This prompts the further question, what do we actually want when eating out? Are we in a restaurant to be amazed at innovation, dazzled by technique, or to enjoy really good food perfectly prepared? There are other reasons for going to specific restaurants: fashion, being seen, bumping into the rich and famous and watching them assault their wife, to name but three.
Not forgetting the fuel aspect of the whole thing. Except plenty of chefs plainly do. On my recent Michelin-starred tour of Midi-Provence I only felt really replete at breakfast - nobody buggers about with that - and after the last meal of the trip, which also happened to be by far the best, and after lunch at an un-starred place. Though I am undoubtedly a bloody peasant, I am not solely concerned with filling up. But it should be part of the deal, part of the chef's skill and judgement. Diners should be satisfied with the standard, freshness, interest, tastes, combinations, contrasts, variety and volume of food.
Missing out quantity in a main meal seems like an orchestra without the brass and the percussion. Personally I can do without the flute (it's just a personal prejudice) which I'd equate to the stupid foams decorating cheffy dishes these days. I'd not be sad never to hear another twittering flute piece for the rest of my life, or to forego those foams forever.
And in case that seems to have nothing to do with austerity cooking, our massive homegrown lettuce and vinaigrette course maybe cost us 15p for the oil, vinegar and mustard.
Thursday, 6 June 2013
Thick Pickings
A week or two on from enjoying salads made with the thinnings from our salad beds and the results of a task well done are clear to see: luscious growth of mizuna, lettuce, pak choi (I think) and mustards various. So last night we had the polar opposite of that earlier offering, a load of mature greenery, so mature that I decided to cook it.
Actually Ruth steamed it, having followed the noise to find out where the kitchen is. Dressed with salt, olive oil and garlic (the greens, not Ruth, though...) and served as a course in itself warm rather than hot they were excellent, though next time the stems will need to be trimmed.
Yet again this is something that would be hard to duplicate if the supermarket was our only source of veg, or even the market. Yet again I wonder what the health benefits could have been of spending one tenth of the money used for London's Big School Sports Day on buying land for allotments.
Actually Ruth steamed it, having followed the noise to find out where the kitchen is. Dressed with salt, olive oil and garlic (the greens, not Ruth, though...) and served as a course in itself warm rather than hot they were excellent, though next time the stems will need to be trimmed.
Yet again this is something that would be hard to duplicate if the supermarket was our only source of veg, or even the market. Yet again I wonder what the health benefits could have been of spending one tenth of the money used for London's Big School Sports Day on buying land for allotments.
Tuesday, 4 June 2013
The Other Benefit of Good Food
My English reticence fights against what I want to say here, but the topic is one worth mentioning, so apologies and onwards.
Good food isn't just about the minerals and vitamins that it puts into our bodies, but the way it helps take out the unwanted stuff.
On the Michelin-starred restaurant trip last week we ate some very creative and superbly cooked food, drank excellent Gaillac wines, and lived well. Except that my innards felt left out of the fun, and though they didn't strike they certainly worked to rule. No wonder, as though I was eating perhaps 15 different fruits and vegetables a day, one leaf or a paper-thin shaving of asparagus doesn't hack it on the fibre front.
Yesterday I calculated our evening meal alone - Salade Nicoise of a sort, and fish baked in a crumb and Parmesan crust - had seven full portions of good f&v. French beans, lettuce, peas, sweetcorn (ok it's a grain, but...) tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and a few other salad leaves into the bargain. The plates did not resemble late period Monets, but they did satisfy stomach, soul and my digestion.
It isn't just the posh plates that lack fibre. On a long airport bus trip in Florida in 2007 we were horrified by an early morning phone-in programme. A 'nutritional expert' was promoting his expensive wonder-tablets for American women who only troubled the sewage-system once a week.
This chap's pitch was the miracle drug would solve all their problems. Having watched such women eating nothing but meat, starch and sugary stuff during our stay in the sunshine state it was clear they actually needed an occasional piece of fruit, or a salad worthy of the name. If they'd only opened their minds it would have opened their bowels. And it's all in the best possible taste, as Kenny E used to say.
Good food isn't just about the minerals and vitamins that it puts into our bodies, but the way it helps take out the unwanted stuff.
On the Michelin-starred restaurant trip last week we ate some very creative and superbly cooked food, drank excellent Gaillac wines, and lived well. Except that my innards felt left out of the fun, and though they didn't strike they certainly worked to rule. No wonder, as though I was eating perhaps 15 different fruits and vegetables a day, one leaf or a paper-thin shaving of asparagus doesn't hack it on the fibre front.
Yesterday I calculated our evening meal alone - Salade Nicoise of a sort, and fish baked in a crumb and Parmesan crust - had seven full portions of good f&v. French beans, lettuce, peas, sweetcorn (ok it's a grain, but...) tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and a few other salad leaves into the bargain. The plates did not resemble late period Monets, but they did satisfy stomach, soul and my digestion.
It isn't just the posh plates that lack fibre. On a long airport bus trip in Florida in 2007 we were horrified by an early morning phone-in programme. A 'nutritional expert' was promoting his expensive wonder-tablets for American women who only troubled the sewage-system once a week.
This chap's pitch was the miracle drug would solve all their problems. Having watched such women eating nothing but meat, starch and sugary stuff during our stay in the sunshine state it was clear they actually needed an occasional piece of fruit, or a salad worthy of the name. If they'd only opened their minds it would have opened their bowels. And it's all in the best possible taste, as Kenny E used to say.
Sunday, 19 May 2013
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.
Monday, 31 December 2012
Christmas Austerity Cannon
A Christmas austerity cannon is made with the tube from a used cracker, and propellant made from three of the unused strips that go bang from same, loaded with plastic hair-slides, miniature packs of cards, and nail-clippers that break within a day. Alternatively it is a spelling error. Mea culpa, I blame it on Michael Gove because he has a face like a constipated frog.
Top leftover tip and compliments of the season to you: made some stuffing to go with chicken yesterday that used up several odds and sods. Three slices of bread past the first flush, four tiny sausages that should have been breakfast two days earlier, some walnuts (who ever finishes one of those string bags that are a legal requirement of the British Christmas?), a handful of dried-ish prunes and the one ingredient not on the to-do list, a big juicy onion. All zapped then moistened with oil and cooked in a dish alongside the bird, firstly covered with foil to keep it soft, then without to brown the top.
The oil I used was walnut, which doesn't sound like it is part of the austerity thing, but is relatively cheap and for me fits as it is one of the best bang-for-you-buck flavourings you can find. A few drops in dressings or as a flavour enhancer in cooked dishes is all that's needed.
Top leftover tip and compliments of the season to you: made some stuffing to go with chicken yesterday that used up several odds and sods. Three slices of bread past the first flush, four tiny sausages that should have been breakfast two days earlier, some walnuts (who ever finishes one of those string bags that are a legal requirement of the British Christmas?), a handful of dried-ish prunes and the one ingredient not on the to-do list, a big juicy onion. All zapped then moistened with oil and cooked in a dish alongside the bird, firstly covered with foil to keep it soft, then without to brown the top.
The oil I used was walnut, which doesn't sound like it is part of the austerity thing, but is relatively cheap and for me fits as it is one of the best bang-for-you-buck flavourings you can find. A few drops in dressings or as a flavour enhancer in cooked dishes is all that's needed.
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