Our eggs are not of the hundred year old variety (but then, paradoxically, nor are hundred year eggs), but fresh from our own hens. I make a point of using up all we have in the basket every now and then to ensure what we have is always less than a week old. they are, then, a wonderful ingredient for any cook with half a brain - and I nearly qualify.
In many of the Chinese banquets I enjoyed in my previous career omelettes were a feature, and why not - they are quickly made, nutritious, and very adaptable. One that left an impression on me was with crab, and I have since made versions of this with - sorry but it's convenient - tinned crab meat. Not too austere really as the white meat stuff with some texture left is more than £2 a tin, but given the eggs are near as dammit free I don't feel guilty.
The usual method applies - beat the eggs really well with loads of air, but instead of the breakfast or lunch omelette cooking medium of butter for the Chinese dish I use vegetable oil with a dash of toasted sesame oil. Start the omelette cooking, wait till nearly done then add the drained crab meat and a teaspoon of soy sauce, a shake of 5-spice powder, and we're done once they've heated through.
This is a light meal in itself, but better as a dish in a banquet, thin wedges cut ready to be taken by diners.
Thursday, 14 March 2013
Monday, 11 March 2013
Kenneth Williams and Salmon
It is not that the late great Kenneth Williams - as far as I am aware - had any special instructions for cooking fish, but that his most celebrated Carry On line 'stop messing about' surely applies perfectly to good fresh examples of that ingredient.
This came home to me on Sunday when for Mother's Day (Mothers' Day?) we enjoyed the simplest of dishes: a beautiful big fat fillet of salmon, firm and glistening, baked uncovered in the oven for half-an-hour at 160 centigrade, the only additions a good sprinkling of salt, plenty of black pepper, and a glug or two of olive oil. No basting, no sauce, no cheese, no herbs, no garlic, no glaze, no jus, no extra spices, no onions, no complication or adulteration of any sort.
Served with a salad of chicory, rocket, toms and cucumber, and it being a special occasion washed down with champagne (a cheapo bottle left over from Christmas) it was nicely moist and tasted beautifully of salmon.
Not exactly austere I grant you, but my wife had asked to eat at home rather than dine out as we have been disappointed in the past on such days with silly prices for special menus that are not special at all. On which it feels only right to conclude with the words of the great Mr Williams himself: "Hors d'oeuvres, ma Crepe Suzette."
This came home to me on Sunday when for Mother's Day (Mothers' Day?) we enjoyed the simplest of dishes: a beautiful big fat fillet of salmon, firm and glistening, baked uncovered in the oven for half-an-hour at 160 centigrade, the only additions a good sprinkling of salt, plenty of black pepper, and a glug or two of olive oil. No basting, no sauce, no cheese, no herbs, no garlic, no glaze, no jus, no extra spices, no onions, no complication or adulteration of any sort.
Served with a salad of chicory, rocket, toms and cucumber, and it being a special occasion washed down with champagne (a cheapo bottle left over from Christmas) it was nicely moist and tasted beautifully of salmon.
Not exactly austere I grant you, but my wife had asked to eat at home rather than dine out as we have been disappointed in the past on such days with silly prices for special menus that are not special at all. On which it feels only right to conclude with the words of the great Mr Williams himself: "Hors d'oeuvres, ma Crepe Suzette."
Friday, 8 March 2013
The Anti-Health-Fascist Hero
Writing about the Jersey-based thriller writer who dined (dines perhaps, it may be that the author in question still lives) on eggs, bacon and champagne daily brought to mind another gourmand hero, Viscount Castlerosse, who in the thirties and forties of the last century wrote a celebrated gossip column for the Sunday Express.
Castlerosse and austerity were not bedfellows, but my excuse in writing about him is that his most famous regular lunch (or it was reported to be so) is the antithesis of the joyless fare and attitude becoming so prevalent today. Pleasure has to be a part of eating for me, or it is just re-fuelling and only machines run on fuel.
The lunch for which he gained notoriety was a magnificent statement about enjoying life, and about how some things are so good they need no adornment. He would eat a whole York ham, washed down with half-a-dozen bottles of good claret. Superb. I spent 20 years in a previous career travelling the globe on expenses, but would never have got away with that, which is what he in fact did - his caviar and foie gras predilections were paid for by his paper, such was the pull of the 'Londoner's Log' society guff he churned out (and it cannot have hurt that he was a friend of the proprietor).
The alcohol in that single lunch by my reckoning comes to 54 units, so almost exactly double the upper recommended weekly limit set forth (with good reason of course) by doctors now. And if we are to be limited to one rasher of bacon a day or the equivalent in other preserved meats, I hate to think what a whole York ham works out at - several months' worth surely?
It is hard not to admire the man.
Such tales usually end with something along the lines of 'and he lived to a ripe old age.' Not this: he died in his early fifties, extremely fat. But I bet he crammed more pleasure into his curtailed span than an entire conference hall of mirthless brown-rice-and-sandals advocates.
Castlerosse and austerity were not bedfellows, but my excuse in writing about him is that his most famous regular lunch (or it was reported to be so) is the antithesis of the joyless fare and attitude becoming so prevalent today. Pleasure has to be a part of eating for me, or it is just re-fuelling and only machines run on fuel.
The lunch for which he gained notoriety was a magnificent statement about enjoying life, and about how some things are so good they need no adornment. He would eat a whole York ham, washed down with half-a-dozen bottles of good claret. Superb. I spent 20 years in a previous career travelling the globe on expenses, but would never have got away with that, which is what he in fact did - his caviar and foie gras predilections were paid for by his paper, such was the pull of the 'Londoner's Log' society guff he churned out (and it cannot have hurt that he was a friend of the proprietor).
The alcohol in that single lunch by my reckoning comes to 54 units, so almost exactly double the upper recommended weekly limit set forth (with good reason of course) by doctors now. And if we are to be limited to one rasher of bacon a day or the equivalent in other preserved meats, I hate to think what a whole York ham works out at - several months' worth surely?
It is hard not to admire the man.
Such tales usually end with something along the lines of 'and he lived to a ripe old age.' Not this: he died in his early fifties, extremely fat. But I bet he crammed more pleasure into his curtailed span than an entire conference hall of mirthless brown-rice-and-sandals advocates.
Thursday, 7 March 2013
Processed Meat is Coming to Get You
The story about the dangers of processed meat is leading on the radio, TV and though I don't buy a daily paper so can't be sure, doubtless in the press too. Sadly from the interview with one of the researchers on whose report the story is based quality is not the issue, but the presence in all such meats of preservative chemicals.
Apparently the safe level of consumption is deemed to be one rasher of bacon, or one sausage, per day. That is each rather than for the entire country, but it is only a matter of time.
I don't doubt the science, and will take it into account in my cooking, but am saddened that yet another of life's pleasures now has a safe daily limit. We have limited our alcohol consumption to Fridays, Saturdays and some Sundays, though not without the occasional sip midweek when circumstances dictate. I now await with dread the announcement on Today that reading more than two pages of PG Wodehouse a day is thought to be carcinogenic.
On reflection, however, I am pretty sure that we don't exceed that limit of one rasher/link a day, even taking into account occasional enjoyment of Mortadella, Parma Ham, and salamis various. That researcher said it wasn't a matter of quality, but if we are to limit our consumption of such things, surely we (if we have the means) should seek out the very best, so that this now slightly guilty pleasure should maximize said pleasure? As ever a bad meal is a wasted opportunity, and within that meal wet and tasteless bacon, or foully bready sausages, wastes our ration of preserved pork.
Yet again, btw, nobody on Today mentioned enjoyment as part of our dietary benefits. I recall (as I may have done previously here, but never mind) the thriller writer whose name escapes me who retired to Jersey and every day there ate the same lunch at the same table in the same restaurant: eggs and bacon and champagne. Setting aside the monotony that doesn't appeal, the decision to enjoy to the utmost a glorious obsession is clear and for me laudable. That writer may have died of cancer eventually, (then again he may not) but for the years in which he tucked into his favourite meal he packed a vast amount of pleasure. Which would you judge preferable - his perhaps somewhat shortened but pleasing existence, or someone who lived five years more lunching on brown rice and cabbage water?
Apparently the safe level of consumption is deemed to be one rasher of bacon, or one sausage, per day. That is each rather than for the entire country, but it is only a matter of time.
I don't doubt the science, and will take it into account in my cooking, but am saddened that yet another of life's pleasures now has a safe daily limit. We have limited our alcohol consumption to Fridays, Saturdays and some Sundays, though not without the occasional sip midweek when circumstances dictate. I now await with dread the announcement on Today that reading more than two pages of PG Wodehouse a day is thought to be carcinogenic.
On reflection, however, I am pretty sure that we don't exceed that limit of one rasher/link a day, even taking into account occasional enjoyment of Mortadella, Parma Ham, and salamis various. That researcher said it wasn't a matter of quality, but if we are to limit our consumption of such things, surely we (if we have the means) should seek out the very best, so that this now slightly guilty pleasure should maximize said pleasure? As ever a bad meal is a wasted opportunity, and within that meal wet and tasteless bacon, or foully bready sausages, wastes our ration of preserved pork.
Yet again, btw, nobody on Today mentioned enjoyment as part of our dietary benefits. I recall (as I may have done previously here, but never mind) the thriller writer whose name escapes me who retired to Jersey and every day there ate the same lunch at the same table in the same restaurant: eggs and bacon and champagne. Setting aside the monotony that doesn't appeal, the decision to enjoy to the utmost a glorious obsession is clear and for me laudable. That writer may have died of cancer eventually, (then again he may not) but for the years in which he tucked into his favourite meal he packed a vast amount of pleasure. Which would you judge preferable - his perhaps somewhat shortened but pleasing existence, or someone who lived five years more lunching on brown rice and cabbage water?
Wednesday, 6 March 2013
Demitarian - Honestly?
I love meat, but understand that it is hard to square eating it several times a day with our knowledge of the world and the way it is heading. Not on moral grounds about our rights to eat animals, though anyone with a mind at least considers that aspect of the thing; but for environmental reasons. Producing meat takes up a lot more of the earth's resources than its benefits justify.
But as with every moral dilemma there is complexity here. Meat raised on grain is frankly daft, we use about 4kg of food that humans could eat to make 1kg of meat. But there are many marginal places - hill farms, sparse grasslands - where not much else can be farmed. Then again, it is such a good source of the protein we need to thrive that meat makes life easy for the nutritionally aware cook (vile phrase but useful). Add to that the damage cow farts etc do to the atmosphere and stir. But don't forget to include the sensual side of the argument - for the carnivore there is nothing more toothsome than a well-hung piece of sirloin griddled rare.
A half-way point between vegetarianism and its opposite is now being touted and it seems made trendy (though philosophically eating a bit of meat makes you a carnivore still), the idea of demitarianism - eating meat occasionally, and not in massive lumps if that's not putting it too technically. I just wonder about such a position: practical yes, but honest? Nevertheless it is, though I loathe the ugliness of the word, kind of where I intend heading in dietary terms. More fish (sustainably sourced etc etc), more vegetables (with our own to the fore), more mushrooms and other fungi, more tofu if I can find the good stuff locally (the honeycomb variety not the nasty soggy slabs). And, though they may be a concern for the cholesterol in them, more eggs given we have our own hens.
The practical worry I have about this is that as many have lost the ability to cook for themselves in any meaningful way (i.e. they may feed themselves, but it is by reheating what another has cooked) and a slab of protein is so simple to serve, a lot of people will be considering themselves demitarians, but like a few vegetarians I've known who have the occasional burger, they really won't be. Which leaves the environment just as knackered as it was before the idea started to trend - moreso as we will surely soon see a flood of celebrity demitarian tomes ("Film actress Lula Schachter-Bonk tells us she has always been a demitarian, and her new book [by Lula and someone who can write and cook] gives her favourite recipes."
But as with every moral dilemma there is complexity here. Meat raised on grain is frankly daft, we use about 4kg of food that humans could eat to make 1kg of meat. But there are many marginal places - hill farms, sparse grasslands - where not much else can be farmed. Then again, it is such a good source of the protein we need to thrive that meat makes life easy for the nutritionally aware cook (vile phrase but useful). Add to that the damage cow farts etc do to the atmosphere and stir. But don't forget to include the sensual side of the argument - for the carnivore there is nothing more toothsome than a well-hung piece of sirloin griddled rare.
A half-way point between vegetarianism and its opposite is now being touted and it seems made trendy (though philosophically eating a bit of meat makes you a carnivore still), the idea of demitarianism - eating meat occasionally, and not in massive lumps if that's not putting it too technically. I just wonder about such a position: practical yes, but honest? Nevertheless it is, though I loathe the ugliness of the word, kind of where I intend heading in dietary terms. More fish (sustainably sourced etc etc), more vegetables (with our own to the fore), more mushrooms and other fungi, more tofu if I can find the good stuff locally (the honeycomb variety not the nasty soggy slabs). And, though they may be a concern for the cholesterol in them, more eggs given we have our own hens.
The practical worry I have about this is that as many have lost the ability to cook for themselves in any meaningful way (i.e. they may feed themselves, but it is by reheating what another has cooked) and a slab of protein is so simple to serve, a lot of people will be considering themselves demitarians, but like a few vegetarians I've known who have the occasional burger, they really won't be. Which leaves the environment just as knackered as it was before the idea started to trend - moreso as we will surely soon see a flood of celebrity demitarian tomes ("Film actress Lula Schachter-Bonk tells us she has always been a demitarian, and her new book [by Lula and someone who can write and cook] gives her favourite recipes."
Monday, 4 March 2013
The Joy of Simple Chicken Dishes
It is strange to think that a chicken in every pot (an ambition ascribed to Catherine the Great, Herbert Hoover, Francois IV and doubtless others) was once a dream. Nowadays the meat is something too easily taken for granted. The cheapo white and nasty supermarket 'bargain' stuff should not be taken at all, but a good quality butcher's bird or free-range ones from the supermarket can still be made so easily into delicious dishes. At the weekend we had two such.
The first was wings marinated (if that is the right word for something relatively dry) with a paste zapped in the blender - cumin and fennel seed, garlic, a green chilli, pepper (slightly too much, you forget how potent quite new peppercorns can be) salt and star anise - then left in the fridge for three or four hours covered with clingfilm. Rolled in a bit of oil and baked at 190C for 30 minutes, turned regularly, they were sticky and spicy and delicious, one part of an oriental (-ish) meal. I love wings, the sweetest and cheapest chicken on the shelves. The fennel gives it a hint of the KFC, though the Colonel's changeless recipe may oxymoronically have changed since the last time I dared try it in about 1995.
Second was another dish that is simplicity itself, and a reliable way to perk up an uninteresting bird. How very Sid James. The herbs are looking healthy again in the garden, though the bay has never looked less than perfect all through the winter. I took the scissors to par-cel (leaf celery), the first decent-looking rosemary of the year, a load of sage, 8 - 10 leaves of bay, and what thyme I could cut without the operation being terminal to the plant, and rolled a jointed chicken in them once they had been snipped small. With olive oil poured on and seasoned with salt, pepper and some smoked paprika, I again baked them in a roasting tray (or roasted them in a baking tray, with meat the terms are almost synonymous, doubtless to the annoyance of terminological purists) for 50 minutes or so. Nice and moist, the herbs were very much to the fore and the golden skin was fantastic.
How much KFC would I have got for £7, the price of the chicken if memory serves? Useless factoid out of nowhere, Preston my (adopted-)hometown was the site of the first KFC in Britain, opened in 1965. Still doesn't endear the food to me.
The first was wings marinated (if that is the right word for something relatively dry) with a paste zapped in the blender - cumin and fennel seed, garlic, a green chilli, pepper (slightly too much, you forget how potent quite new peppercorns can be) salt and star anise - then left in the fridge for three or four hours covered with clingfilm. Rolled in a bit of oil and baked at 190C for 30 minutes, turned regularly, they were sticky and spicy and delicious, one part of an oriental (-ish) meal. I love wings, the sweetest and cheapest chicken on the shelves. The fennel gives it a hint of the KFC, though the Colonel's changeless recipe may oxymoronically have changed since the last time I dared try it in about 1995.
Second was another dish that is simplicity itself, and a reliable way to perk up an uninteresting bird. How very Sid James. The herbs are looking healthy again in the garden, though the bay has never looked less than perfect all through the winter. I took the scissors to par-cel (leaf celery), the first decent-looking rosemary of the year, a load of sage, 8 - 10 leaves of bay, and what thyme I could cut without the operation being terminal to the plant, and rolled a jointed chicken in them once they had been snipped small. With olive oil poured on and seasoned with salt, pepper and some smoked paprika, I again baked them in a roasting tray (or roasted them in a baking tray, with meat the terms are almost synonymous, doubtless to the annoyance of terminological purists) for 50 minutes or so. Nice and moist, the herbs were very much to the fore and the golden skin was fantastic.
How much KFC would I have got for £7, the price of the chicken if memory serves? Useless factoid out of nowhere, Preston my (adopted-)hometown was the site of the first KFC in Britain, opened in 1965. Still doesn't endear the food to me.
Sunday, 3 March 2013
One Flame Cooking Fish Soup
Fish soup, or fish stew? The terminology is not really important, though the different words trigger different responses and attitudes. So if served as a starter or accompaniment to an oriental meal say soup, if it is supper or lunch on its own go with stew.
An acknowledgement here to Nick Fisher (now there's a name that helped determine a career) whose River Cottage handbook on fishing inspired a change to a recent version of my own one-pot oriental fish soupy-stew, namely the addition of miso paste, which worked beautifully to give a bit of depth to the broth.
In a medium/large saucepan fry a chopped onion and a carrot cut into small dice, plus a chili in the thinnest possible rings - a minute or so is enough to give them a bit of a start on cooking and a touch of the caramelised surface that adds flavour. Add about a litre of light chicken stock. I am not a huge fan of fish stock, hitting the golden moment between insipid and gluey is not easy. If I want some fishy depth I'd add a tin of anchovies to the onion and carrot at frying stage. Or you can use boiling water and a cube if that's what you have to hand, but then a tsp of miso paste is extremely useful to make the stock more interesting.
Simmer for a couple of minutes only, then lob in noodles that can cook this way - one purchase made during my recent expedition to the local Chinese supermarket - Preston has a big Chinese student population - was a big packet of flat wheat noodles for £2.25, a steal compared to Sainsbury's. How many noodles depends on your needs and space in the pot. Use your imagination.
When the noodles are just about cooked add your fish - I used tilapia but pollock would be fine too, or any other good firm white fish that is from a sustainable source - in large chucks, you want it to hold together and be recognizable.
Season with soy sauce, pepper, and a dash of sesame oil if you have some. Five spice powder helps too. Taste to see if it is interesting enough, and if not add more of those enhancers, and maybe a touch more miso if you feel it is needed. But be quick, the fish should be just done, not overdone - once it is nicely opaque you are there, but taste a bit to be sure.
This is more method than recipe. There are innumerable tunes to be played on it - the most recent version had at the noodle stage half a tin of matchstick thin bamboo shoots added and the whites of six very thin leeks cut into thin rings, and with the onion-carrot-chili mix I added an inch of ginger cut into thin slivers.
I made this as one of three dishes for our evening meal, but had we not just had brunch that day it would have done on its own.
Noodles btw are a wonderfully social ingredient to a dinner: you cannot eat them stuffily. Slurping is the order of the day; spillage and shirt-stains are unavoidable. I would not like to know someone who could eat them and remain entirely dignified.
An acknowledgement here to Nick Fisher (now there's a name that helped determine a career) whose River Cottage handbook on fishing inspired a change to a recent version of my own one-pot oriental fish soupy-stew, namely the addition of miso paste, which worked beautifully to give a bit of depth to the broth.
In a medium/large saucepan fry a chopped onion and a carrot cut into small dice, plus a chili in the thinnest possible rings - a minute or so is enough to give them a bit of a start on cooking and a touch of the caramelised surface that adds flavour. Add about a litre of light chicken stock. I am not a huge fan of fish stock, hitting the golden moment between insipid and gluey is not easy. If I want some fishy depth I'd add a tin of anchovies to the onion and carrot at frying stage. Or you can use boiling water and a cube if that's what you have to hand, but then a tsp of miso paste is extremely useful to make the stock more interesting.
Simmer for a couple of minutes only, then lob in noodles that can cook this way - one purchase made during my recent expedition to the local Chinese supermarket - Preston has a big Chinese student population - was a big packet of flat wheat noodles for £2.25, a steal compared to Sainsbury's. How many noodles depends on your needs and space in the pot. Use your imagination.
When the noodles are just about cooked add your fish - I used tilapia but pollock would be fine too, or any other good firm white fish that is from a sustainable source - in large chucks, you want it to hold together and be recognizable.
Season with soy sauce, pepper, and a dash of sesame oil if you have some. Five spice powder helps too. Taste to see if it is interesting enough, and if not add more of those enhancers, and maybe a touch more miso if you feel it is needed. But be quick, the fish should be just done, not overdone - once it is nicely opaque you are there, but taste a bit to be sure.
This is more method than recipe. There are innumerable tunes to be played on it - the most recent version had at the noodle stage half a tin of matchstick thin bamboo shoots added and the whites of six very thin leeks cut into thin rings, and with the onion-carrot-chili mix I added an inch of ginger cut into thin slivers.
I made this as one of three dishes for our evening meal, but had we not just had brunch that day it would have done on its own.
Noodles btw are a wonderfully social ingredient to a dinner: you cannot eat them stuffily. Slurping is the order of the day; spillage and shirt-stains are unavoidable. I would not like to know someone who could eat them and remain entirely dignified.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)