Gratifyingly Good Gratin

Nigel Slater is a cookery writer I find both helpful and annoying. His prissy style gets right up my nose, but he has some excellent ideas. Reading his recipe for baked onions with miso nudged me to make something with onions prepared in the same way - boiled for 40 minutes till soft (he said 25 - 30). My version then diverted from his entirely. Halved across the equator the onions were placed cut side up in a gratin dish, moistened with a dash or six of vermouth, then covered with a heavily peppered gruyere-and-brown-breadcrumb mix, dotted with butter, and baked in a 190C oven for 25 minutes or so (until the top crisped and browned). Does anything smell more appetising than cooking cheese and onions?


The Dear Leader (eternal damnation to those who oppose her) and Sternest Critic both approved, though both later blamed the need to extinguish naked flames in the house on the alliums.


The gratin is one of those culinary joys that seem to have been pushed aside as old fashioned - 'so eighties darling [bro?].' As someone who is a dedicated follower of anti-fashion I prefer, greedily, to keep it in my ever-expanding kitchen vocabulary. Perhaps restaurants avoid them as needing too much checking on, and for the time it takes, though as with the example above you can often pre-cook the vegetables and just need to slide the dish in a hot oven to finish.


It is also a great way of making something substantial that costs very little - especially economic if the oven is used for something else as the same time (the onion gratin was followed by a fish pie of modest size). Some years ago I wrote a paid piece for a culinary website where a cheesy potato gratin was one of (I think) four dishes to feed a family, each with ingredients costing under £2. No cream in that one then, but a stock cube, some dried herbs and a couple of cloves of garlic make a decent moistening, an alternative to milk, and supermarket cheddar browns as nicely as posher gruyere. You can save on pre-cooking too if, like in one cooked last week by Sternest Critic, you slice the spuds and onions to see-through thickness.


That use of vermouth, by the way, is something I'd recommend. I sometimes buy a cheapo bottle just for used in cooking - it gives a herby flavour, keeps better than wine, and makes you feel somehow more generous - as I only had some rather high end Dollin to hand, doubly so then. And its pairing with gin is as sublime as cheese with onions.

Bacon and Cream Make Everything Better

I was reading the excellent 'Edible Seashore' book by John Wright the other day (it's one of the River Cottage series), and was amused by his comment about (if memory serves) a cockle recipe which included bacon, cream and garlic, making the entirely sensible point that with those additions, pretty much everything tastes good. Looking over one of Nigel Slater's tomes shortly afterwards, it was clear that the fringed fop has built much of his style on that very thought. [I enjoy his ideas, but his writing style can be a trial - not everything is comfort food for goodness' sake - though why goodness and rice wine should be linked I have no clue]. Nigella Lawson, it could be said, did the same with buckets of thick cream (and a considerable cleavage).

With our now well-established healthy approach to matters culinary cream is a rare treat, but I had a hankering for lardons during a visit to Aldi for fruit bushes (£2.49 for three, and they're in very good nick, top bargain), and incorporated the pack in what would normally be a vegetarian warm salad, bacon replacing mushrooms. Naturally it worked, the other ingredients of blue cheese, rocket, roasted butternut squash (yes, it's a take on an HF-W recipe) greeting the salty stuff with open arms. As I had the oven on for the squash I cut large toms into thick slices and roasted them too for 20 minutes, half the time the squash got, and included a handful of bashed unpeeled garlic cloves, which roasted to nearly burnt brown were the most garlicky thing I've had in weeks. Cold the same toms are tastless; cooked and warm they are sharp and pleasing, a nice balance to the rest of the dish. Some walnuts warmed in with the bacon proved a bit superfluous.

The question is, would the dish have been, though clearly different, as good or even (whisper it quietly) better without the lardons? I actually think that as they were the overly dominant flavour (the slightly caramelised squash and the garlic equal second), taking a bit of limelight away from the veg, this was something that actually would have been better without bacon. My world view is shaken to the core.

I Wish to Register a Complaint

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is one of my heroes, as I have said previously in this blog. That comes with a few caveats - for what I am sure are good-hearted reasons he has a habit in his TV programmes of being rather condescending to, as it were, the lower orders: wouldn't it be good if the world's workers discovered vegetables, for example?

That said, I admire his food and food ethics, love his writing style, he seems like the sort of bloke you'd enjoy a pint with (the highest of praise) and I have found his methodical approach with things like meat timings to be spot on. But. I recently tried his sourdough loaf recipe, making a starter with enormous care, feeding it, scooping the right amount off to make a loaf, kneading as per instructions etc etc. The results were uniformly disappointing, no great flavour, a sad waste of high-grade flour, and rubbish texture however carefully kneeded and risen the loaves were.

So I gave that up, and reverted to my standard method. Unfortunately I took his word as gospel that you can't make bread unless you bake it at a very high temperature, so I ruined another two loaves that were not burned but developed a leathery crust and unpleasant dryness.

When I went back to baking at 180C or 200C depending on style, it worked again. Good bread.

This had me thinking about how much we trust such experts, thinking that when things go wrong with their recipes it must be us/our ingredients/our equipment. The blessed Delia is not without the occasional fault (apparent lack of humour aside), as I twice tried an oxtail and bean dish in one of her books, convinced I must have erred the first time when it failed, only to find it was equally unpleasant the next however great the care with which her fiats were followed.

Other than on certain holidays and business trips (time was) I have cooked daily for more than 30 years. Really I should have the confidence to stick to my own ideas and recipes. There is one major reason why I continue to follow their strictures on occasion, and that is the desire to try new stuff. Left to myself I'd cook many different things, but they would be familiar favourites. So I'll continue to trust HFH and TBD, and if I can get past his annoying writer's tics Nigel Slater too who churns out excellent ideas, along with new demigods to be discovered. But not Jamie Oliver thanks. Nor Nigella Lawson.

That may well be the legacy of the age of the TV cook. Those of us who actually do cook frequently have added to our repertoires, while those who live on ready-meals and takeout limit themselves to enjoying cooking vicariously on TV (and via pristine coffee table tomes).

Don't Waste That Pumpkin

How many of the pumpkins bought for Halloween actually get used for food? Even a good percentage of the many squashes grown on the nation's allotments probably get stuck in a bowl on the table as a nice natural decoration to be thrown away when they fall to bits. I felt very virtuous yesterday using a Turk's Turban squash as part of our Sunday roast extravaganza. And it was lovely.

The fruit, for such it is pedants, had been sitting in our conservatory for a month, picked to avoid being nicked before halloween, then playing the role of something I'd get round to eventually, which turned out to be yesterday.

Thanks to Nigel Slater, as ever fab ideas, annoying writing: I got the basic idea from his Tender Part 1.

The squash was peeled, cleaned of stingy bits and seeds, and cut into one inch dice (that's 2.54cm dice for those of a modern bent), then rolled in loads of crushed garlic, thyme from outside the back door, and Maldon salt (how very Middle Class is that?). Roasted (in a solid Le Creuset dish so piling exotic bourgeois onto solid Middle Class) along with the chicken and some red onions to make use of the oven it smelled fantastic, the outside crisping and garlicky the inside soft and melting.

This was another of those dishes that not only tastes good, but looks superb, a rich sunshine gold, something to raise the spirits at this time of the year when it seems to go dark about 15 minutes after dawn.

Unreal Christmas Cookbook II

As we near Christmas it's time for another Nigel Slater creation to appear in a bookshop near you. Not sure if this one is out this year or next, but it does sound like another sure fire winner: let's hear it for Nigel Slater's Book of Comfort Food. Actually it should really be books, this being a seven-volume magnum opus featuring more than 3500 of Nigel's favourite favourite tried and tested recipes.

Volume the first (the cheeky little aesthete) is devoted entirely to mashed potatoes, the highlight among the 500 or so suggestions being his brilliant take on mash with gravy - you put the gravy beneath the mash, changing the dynamics of the dish entirely.

Bound in hand-tooled leather and using a font derived from an 18th century hermit's laundry list, and oh so thoughtfully sold with a trolley, this is destined to be a massive Christmas hit.

'It's the book I want for Christmas' - the world's strongest man

'Cookbook of the year - available at a special price' The Observer

'Where's my bloody forest gone?' Sven Svenson

Rick Stein

Most TV chefs, even the blessed Delia, I find hard to watch. I want to move Nigel Slater's fringe out of the way and tell him to get a bloody move on; cannot stomach the egos of Gordon Ramsay and Nigel Rhodes (have yet to hear a good word said about the latter by anyone who has met him either); Jamie Oliver has too many annoying mannerisms to list, plus I learned how to fry stuff ages ago anyway; and the popularity of the Two Fat Bikers and the surviving Hairy Lady defies my comprehension.

And finally the 'but'. I find HFW very watchable, and likewise Rick Stein. Maybe it's a cultural thing, they are both well educated for a start (but then so is Nigella Lawson, and I can't stand her cream and cleavage frenzies). Or the fact that green issues are at the forefront of their thinking. Anyway, I watched Rick Stein's programme on Mumbai this week and was inspired to cook a curry. Now the house has an all-pervading smell of curry spices (especially fenugreek).

Unsurprisingly given that it is the food of more than a billion people, most very poor, the curry is a great weapon in the austerity cook's armoury. Last night's was actually a prawn curry, so £2.50 for the king prawns, but the plentiful rice was for pennies, I bought the tin of coconut milk for 50p from the exotic shelves at Sainsbury's, added a basics red pepper and a couple of chopped onions, so pennies there too, made quickfire dal with a 79p tin of lentils and some garlicky spiced butter, and we had our fill for not very much. The spices again came from the 'ethnic' shelves, good-sized bags a fraction of the price of pretty Schwarz bottles, and JS naan breads at 80p were about half the price of Sharwood's.

The inspiring thing about Mr Stein's curry was that it was made quickly without in any way being thrown together. I didn't follow his recipe, though I did take his tip of frying my spices more than I would normally have done, with some liquid to hand to prevent burning. No complaints, and next to nothing left, so I think it was a success. When we are in Cornwall this summer if I bump into him in Padstow - we will definitely eat at one of his places - I will shake him by the hand.

A note of praise for Sainsbury's: a week ago I tried to make dal from yellow split peas. Soaked for 32 not 24 hours, they were boiled for the requisite 10 minutes, then simmered for 30 more; then another 30; then another 20, by which time we had waited for the rest of the meal long enough. The peas were bullets, utterly useless. I took the pack and some evidence next day as I was so annoyed, and they gave me my money back and a £5 voucher for the inconvenience.

Austerity and Aligot

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.

One Flame Cooking Part Deux

The post on my experience as a student in France, where I had one Calor Gas burner and a kettle as the only means of cooking, has generated some traffic, so maybe the topic is one of specific interest. I wonder if at this time of year students new to university and now coping with the colder weather are having minds turned towards culinary survival strategies? Whatever, I thought another idea I used at that time would be of potential value.

With the one burner and the need to minimize gas usage or face high costs a dish I developed was a quick soup. Not cuppa soup - though I did at times add one of those to the pot - but a proper soup rapidly cooked. The logic behind this is the same as for stir-fries - if things are cut small they cook quickly and retain good flavour. A pot of soup is also cheap and generally nutritious, and offers the chance to incorporate interesting ingredients, though when I lived in France my version varied little.

The basic idea was a potato, a carrot, an onion, garlic, and maybe a mushroom or two, all cut into tiny dice - really tiny, just 2mm or 3mm across. That takes time, but not too much, and I still find chopping veg to be therapeutic - when I worked in industry the more stressed I was the smaller the onions were cut. The tiny veg - and if you are cooking for one as I generally was you don't need much - are fried briefly in butter or oil, then a cup or two of boiling water from a kettle poured over them (my electricity was covered in my rent then, the Calor Gas I had to buy, and a kettle anyway costs about 1.5p to boil). A stock cube was added, or on occasion a cheapo cuppa soup packet, the lot simmered for a couple of minutes until the potatoes were done (no problem if the onion or carrot has a bit of toothsome  resistance still). A sort of (to echo 10CC for those of us old enough to remember) mini-mini-mini-minestrone.

It was nicer than a packet of soup, promised freedom from scurvy, and importantly made a great partnership with heavily buttered French stick. These days I'd hope to use my own chicken stock, though only saints never reach for a cube, and would cut the dice a bit chunkier, simmer the soup a bit longer. And when I did a variation on this the other day I added spag broken into tiny lengths and the still good remnants of a white cabbage cut very small.

One of my culinary heroes, Edouard de Pomiane whom I discovered much later, suggests something very similar to the bedsit soup in his Cooking in Ten Minutes, a witty and clever book written decades before Nigel Slater, Jamie Oliver et al got onto the same topic.

Winging It

There is no reason why an austerity cook should not find great ways to tickle the taste buds - survival is not enough. That is one of the gripes I always have with healthy eating gurus, who forget that a nutritious diet of brown rice and cabbage water (or whatever the current fad may be) is bloody miserable - the soul and spirit need nourishment too.

A regular treat for us is chicken wings done with various different sauces or marinades. Here btw is another point on which I agree with Nigel Slater, the wing for me is the best bit of the chicken. I ask for them rather than breast when we eat a roasted bird.

Last night's version was a £2.85 cartonful from Sainbury's cooked in a roasting pan that can go on the hob. I fried them in minimal oil, as the pan is non-stick and the chicken skin gives out plenty of fat. Once they had started browning I poured in a glug or two of soy sauce and a good shake of 5-spice powder, tossed the chicken in this and then put them in the oven (already had other stuff in it) at 180C for 30 minutes. They came out sticky, fragrant and sweet, the best finger-food there is, part of the treat being that we ate them in front of the TV instead of at the table.

A farm shop butcher I use sometimes, a bit out of the way so not as often as I'd like, gave me a whole bag of wings one time, must have been 30 in there, as they couldn't sell them (and I was buying a shipping load of other meats). Free is good. Another even more distant shop (was on my route home when I used to work in industry) threw in free ox kidney and liver, pig's trotters (wonderful things), and fat for use in making pate. Not something that many supermarkets will do.

Onions and Le Creuset - Both Bargains

We had our annual bonfire do last night, feeding I think 19 in all. The biggest culinary hit was a simple accompaniment to a big bit of plain boiled gammon, onions in a cheesy bechamel. The idea was lifted from Nigel Slater, though I think his version was without cheese. I love the breadth of his ideas, and his frequent focus on things other than meat, but can't abide his writing style as it has evolved over the last few books. Still, he is probably not worried given I have at least five of his tomes.

The dish was made by peeling medium-sized onions and cooking them in boiling water for about 25 minutes, then halving them, placing them like little domes in two Le Creuset cast iron oval dishes, and covering them in a bechamel sauce before finishing in the oven for half an hour at 180C, by which time the surface was starting to brown and bubble.

Milk for the bechamel was infused in the morning (thinking ahead as it was a party) with onion, carrot, bay and nutmeg, and the sauce made in the usual way, on the thin side as the cheese then added would give it extra body anyhow. At the end of the evening there was some gammon left, about half the pate (too much bacon in it, a sin Elizabeth David railed against), but not a scrap of cheesy onion (nor a single sausage, that standby of the bonfire party). Sternest critic rightly said later that the onion was a touch watery, so I'd probably cook them for just 15 minutes in future and rely on the oven to finish them off.

Ten onions cost about £0.75, the milk and cheese maybe £1, so it was a cheap and tasty success, a bargain. As were those Le Creuset dishes about 25 years ago. Good cookware lasts, and helps the cook. I have two sets of pans, one stainless steel, the other LC cast iron, both bought in the late 1980s, and both pretty forgiving of wavering attention. They cost quite a bit back then, but had we chosen cheapo options with thin bases and delicate lids they'd have died at best three years later, and would have burned half the things cooked in them.

Biggest firework hit btw was Molten Madness from Sainsbury's, brought by a friend. It was roughly the size and weight of a fridge, and effectively laid down an artillery barrage for five minutes. Le Creuset Soup Pot with Lid, 2-3/4 quart - Cherry (Google Affiliate Ad)

Everyone Loves Noodles

I was going to call this post something like 'a quick supper', which the dish was, but that would have been too Nigel Slater - good ideas, prissy-fussy writing style.

Those nearly straight to wok noodles - softened in boiling water for a minute or so - are a godsend when you need to get food on the table quickly. Work had kept me from preparing anything, and both Joe and I were hungry, so a noodle dish was the simple solution. Or as Nigel would write: Work had kept me at my desk facing a pale antique-ivory screen, looking out over the trees shedding their leaves of medieval gold. Both Joe and I were hungry. So a noodle dish made a quick and comforting supper. At this time of year noodles call to me etc.... And we're back again.

Quick tends to mean with little or no meat, thus cheap-ish. In this case I defrosted a bag of tiny prawns for the protein component, so not for pennies but still economical. Chopping veg into matchsticks in order that they cook at the same speed is easy when they are peppers and carrots, but onions are trickier, a case for judgement - you want a bit of browning, thus thin half-moons here. A red chilli cut into fairly wide slices perked the dish up, and added a touch of colour.

Thursday and not a lot of fresh veg in the kitchen, so I defrosted some broccoli florets (top bargain by the way and these were not mushy as I had feared when buying as an experiment) and when drained added them to the stir-fry that with soy sauce and a dash of sesame oil had a touch of braise about it at the end. Not a scrap left over.