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.
Wednesday, 18 March 2015
Monday, 16 March 2015
Taste - not Everybody Has It
The title of this post doesn't refer to people who wear brown shoes with navy suits, or think stone-cladding is a good idea. It's about having the ability to actually taste things.
The thought has been prompted by my recent and continuing bout of man flu (if you could find one, it would have killed a lesser man, though I have naturally not made a fuss about it). Clearly serious though that particular emergency is, it's far less so than the situation of a friend going through post-operative cancer treatment. I read recently (in a piece plugging the Royal Marsden Hospital Cancer Cookbook) that one unpleasant side-effect of chemo is that much of the sense of taste goes, and that what's left tends to tell the brain everything tastes of metal. Nasty piled on nasty.
What is suggested to cleanse and please the palate with chemo patients, apparently, is pineapple, which flushes the taste buds and throat and speeds the recovery of the sense of taste. I found that with a mouth that was tasting of mucal grey-green (how unpleasant) fruits cut through that whereas vegetables failed with a whimper, and meat didn't even make that effort. I guess it's the acidity, though I prefer to think of it as nature's way of saying 'eat me, eat me'.
My step-grandmother lost her sense of taste after she banged her head in a fall. She loved her food, as her size evidenced, and the loss of any pleasure derived from meals was a cruel trick of fate. There are of course other aspects to the enjoyment of food. Travels in Japan showed me how that country's people value texture just as much as flavour, with some foods only explicable by their textures - I have a dim memory of some sweet bean cakes whose delightfully smooth centre in no way made up for their jam-gone-off taste. As Proust wrote (making a lot of fuss about tea and cake*), it is the taste that stays in our minds. What he didn't say is that taste is not only central to our memories, but for those of us whose basic needs are met, it is perhaps the core of the sensual part of our nature. An exceptionally cruel psychologist could carry out an experiment on a death row prisoner, offering the choice between a last hour spent with a girl- or boyfriend, or eating and drinking of the finest**.
Intensely selfish and focused on food as I am, I have started to worry about the gradual loss of taste as I age. Now in my very late 30s (my maths may be at fault here, given I was born in the late 1950s) I observe how my elederly father needs to cover his food with half an inch of salt to get any flavour from it. As he gave up smoking many decades back it is hard to blame tobacco for that.
As we are all, if newspaper reports are to be believed, destined to live to 135, loss of taste could be one of the many crosses we have to bear, as it is an embuggeratoin for those undergooing chemo. My sense of taste has started to recover from the man flu already. I intend making the most of it while I can.
(* Actually I loved reading Du Cote de Chez Swann at university, and of the five books I'm reading currently it's the only re-read)
(** May I combine the two?)
The thought has been prompted by my recent and continuing bout of man flu (if you could find one, it would have killed a lesser man, though I have naturally not made a fuss about it). Clearly serious though that particular emergency is, it's far less so than the situation of a friend going through post-operative cancer treatment. I read recently (in a piece plugging the Royal Marsden Hospital Cancer Cookbook) that one unpleasant side-effect of chemo is that much of the sense of taste goes, and that what's left tends to tell the brain everything tastes of metal. Nasty piled on nasty.
What is suggested to cleanse and please the palate with chemo patients, apparently, is pineapple, which flushes the taste buds and throat and speeds the recovery of the sense of taste. I found that with a mouth that was tasting of mucal grey-green (how unpleasant) fruits cut through that whereas vegetables failed with a whimper, and meat didn't even make that effort. I guess it's the acidity, though I prefer to think of it as nature's way of saying 'eat me, eat me'.
My step-grandmother lost her sense of taste after she banged her head in a fall. She loved her food, as her size evidenced, and the loss of any pleasure derived from meals was a cruel trick of fate. There are of course other aspects to the enjoyment of food. Travels in Japan showed me how that country's people value texture just as much as flavour, with some foods only explicable by their textures - I have a dim memory of some sweet bean cakes whose delightfully smooth centre in no way made up for their jam-gone-off taste. As Proust wrote (making a lot of fuss about tea and cake*), it is the taste that stays in our minds. What he didn't say is that taste is not only central to our memories, but for those of us whose basic needs are met, it is perhaps the core of the sensual part of our nature. An exceptionally cruel psychologist could carry out an experiment on a death row prisoner, offering the choice between a last hour spent with a girl- or boyfriend, or eating and drinking of the finest**.
Intensely selfish and focused on food as I am, I have started to worry about the gradual loss of taste as I age. Now in my very late 30s (my maths may be at fault here, given I was born in the late 1950s) I observe how my elederly father needs to cover his food with half an inch of salt to get any flavour from it. As he gave up smoking many decades back it is hard to blame tobacco for that.
As we are all, if newspaper reports are to be believed, destined to live to 135, loss of taste could be one of the many crosses we have to bear, as it is an embuggeratoin for those undergooing chemo. My sense of taste has started to recover from the man flu already. I intend making the most of it while I can.
(* Actually I loved reading Du Cote de Chez Swann at university, and of the five books I'm reading currently it's the only re-read)
(** May I combine the two?)
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
One Flame Cooking - Vegged-up Style
Vegged-up. Gosh, how demotic as a good friend would probably say.
My one flame cookery has tended to be a meat-centred thing, but inspired it has to be said by HF-W's veg book, and for reasons explored in another recent post, we've cut down on meat (not cut it out) and pushed the veg quota here. I'm a big fan of what our American cousins would call the dinner salad too, so put those factors together with the one flame idea and you end up with some substantial meatless feasts.
Best of those has to be the lentil-centric salad (lentil-centric being like London centric, but different in that one is concerned with a lot of rather greyish vegetables all looking alike with no space between them, the other has lentils. Boom-tish, I'm here all week).
In the trusty Le Creuset cast iron pan a chopped onion is fried gently, with a chopped red pepper for colour, some garlic sliced, then a posh sachet of lentils. Had some been available I'd have added a few cubes of bacon or slices of chorizo (people who pronounce that cho-ritz-o now quite high up my list of those due to die horribly when I rise to supreme power). So long as the onion and garlic are cooked it's just a case of warming the rest through, not even getting them hot (how very continental), as you eat this warm.
Lettuce or rocket or lamb's lettuce on the plate the lentil mix is added, some Parmesan shavings and walnuts put on top (with enough time then for the oil in the nuts to warm through a bit - I am not a fan of toasting them), and the lot dressed with a vinaigrette. It's the basis for further experimentation (adulteration?) - goats cheese or blue cheese are good, tomatoes go nicely, black olives and hard-boiled eggs fit in too. So long as there are not too many ingredients (in which case it evolves into another nice Americanism, the garbage salad) it remains a good solid filler-upper, and one that can be on the table in 15 minutes.
Does this count as austerity cooking? As Merchant Gourmet lentils (for 'tis he) only cost about £1.50, and the rest if no bacon or chorizo used would add another £1.50 tops, that's dinner for two or three for £3.
My one flame cookery has tended to be a meat-centred thing, but inspired it has to be said by HF-W's veg book, and for reasons explored in another recent post, we've cut down on meat (not cut it out) and pushed the veg quota here. I'm a big fan of what our American cousins would call the dinner salad too, so put those factors together with the one flame idea and you end up with some substantial meatless feasts.
Best of those has to be the lentil-centric salad (lentil-centric being like London centric, but different in that one is concerned with a lot of rather greyish vegetables all looking alike with no space between them, the other has lentils. Boom-tish, I'm here all week).
In the trusty Le Creuset cast iron pan a chopped onion is fried gently, with a chopped red pepper for colour, some garlic sliced, then a posh sachet of lentils. Had some been available I'd have added a few cubes of bacon or slices of chorizo (people who pronounce that cho-ritz-o now quite high up my list of those due to die horribly when I rise to supreme power). So long as the onion and garlic are cooked it's just a case of warming the rest through, not even getting them hot (how very continental), as you eat this warm.
Lettuce or rocket or lamb's lettuce on the plate the lentil mix is added, some Parmesan shavings and walnuts put on top (with enough time then for the oil in the nuts to warm through a bit - I am not a fan of toasting them), and the lot dressed with a vinaigrette. It's the basis for further experimentation (adulteration?) - goats cheese or blue cheese are good, tomatoes go nicely, black olives and hard-boiled eggs fit in too. So long as there are not too many ingredients (in which case it evolves into another nice Americanism, the garbage salad) it remains a good solid filler-upper, and one that can be on the table in 15 minutes.
Does this count as austerity cooking? As Merchant Gourmet lentils (for 'tis he) only cost about £1.50, and the rest if no bacon or chorizo used would add another £1.50 tops, that's dinner for two or three for £3.
Monday, 2 March 2015
Classics for a Reason
Sometimes there's little space between classic and cliche. Though in the complete OED I bet it amounts to at least 100 pages. The food world seems far more interested in novelty than the established, so what are classics now too often find themselves labelled cliches. How arrogant and short-sighted.
That thoughtlet came to mind last night as we ate what were the best crab cakes I've ever cooked, and it's something I've had a go at often. The outside crispy, the inside quenelle light and (important this) with the crab flavour central, they were simple, quickly done and delicious.
But they were not ground-breaking, so had they been served to a restaurant reviewer I'm sure the phrase 'gastro-pub cliche' would have appeared. That in itself suggests the reviewers in themselves have become cliches.
To quote Montaigne (has anyone else noted the great man quoted far more often of late than for many years?) 'The art of dining well is no slight art.' Chasing the new tends to make it so, however.
For anyone who wishes to know, the cakes were just three slices of stale ciabatta whizzed to crumbs, two tins (yes, tins) of white crab meat, 1/2 tsp of sweet smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and two beaten eggs. Formed into crab patties (when was the last time Montaigne and Spongebob made it into the same piece?) and fried over a moderate heat in a little olive oil they puffed up a treat, were toothsome, and tasty. But no guava, fermented Peruvian bogie-juice, or crushed dung beetles, so what was the point?
That thoughtlet came to mind last night as we ate what were the best crab cakes I've ever cooked, and it's something I've had a go at often. The outside crispy, the inside quenelle light and (important this) with the crab flavour central, they were simple, quickly done and delicious.
But they were not ground-breaking, so had they been served to a restaurant reviewer I'm sure the phrase 'gastro-pub cliche' would have appeared. That in itself suggests the reviewers in themselves have become cliches.
To quote Montaigne (has anyone else noted the great man quoted far more often of late than for many years?) 'The art of dining well is no slight art.' Chasing the new tends to make it so, however.
For anyone who wishes to know, the cakes were just three slices of stale ciabatta whizzed to crumbs, two tins (yes, tins) of white crab meat, 1/2 tsp of sweet smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and two beaten eggs. Formed into crab patties (when was the last time Montaigne and Spongebob made it into the same piece?) and fried over a moderate heat in a little olive oil they puffed up a treat, were toothsome, and tasty. But no guava, fermented Peruvian bogie-juice, or crushed dung beetles, so what was the point?
Monday, 23 February 2015
Thirty of your Eighty-seven a Day
We learned some time back that the five-a-day tag was the health Stasi wimping out. Seven was the original thought, and when it comes down to it, as much variety as you can get in fruit and veg in terms of types and colour has to be good. That simple principle if adhered to would put several thousand nutrition writers out of work btw.
I've not given up meat (nor will I), but have gradually cut back as we're filling up on loads of other stuff. Breakfast chez nous nowadays nearly always includes a homemade smoothie (the bought-in ones tend to be horribly sugary), blitzing fruit (but not too smoothly) with freshly squeezed juice (I have a lime addiction) and some milk/yog. That starts us off with about three servings (what is a serving? Depending on the way the wind blows, 3oz, two tablespoons, a good handful, a decent-sized fruit - not too much science there), but generally seven or eight fruits.
As ever the great HF-W has been a godsend. His RC Veg Everyday tome is brilliant (the Fruit one is I think his worst, but still a good read). He has the knack of providing enough info to let you prepare something, but also to spark ones curiosity about what if I do this, add that...?
One of his ideas I adapted to make a particularly fine and simple pasta sauce: a chili chopped finely after deseeding, three garlic cloves bashed to bits, and a tin of artichokes (yes, tinned) drained, the lot processed with a trickle of olive oil, plenty of paprika and some seasoning until it makes a puree that can be warmed and stirred into spag or pretty much any pasta. A few fresh tomatoes roughly chopped and added at the end brightens it and gives a bit of sharpness. His uses white beans in addition to the artichokes and is primarily a dip that I've also tried. Either way, it is simple and delicious. And a quick way to add another vegetable to the rotating list.
Behind the switch to more veg less flesh lie several factors. It's greener. It's cheaper. We've lost weight. And it promises to be healthier. In 2012 a friend whose lifestyle was not perhaps the healthiest, but who was apparently fit and well, had a fatal heart attack, no warning given. Another very good friend was diagnosed with cancer last year. Along with humour and energy (and medical science), as it fits her beliefs she's fighting it with the power of prayer. Old sceptic that I am while energy and humour and doctors make sense, nutritional changes appeal to me more than the god stuff. Each to their own.
There are of course no silver bullets, and there's no such thing really as a superfood. But as my insides nowadays regularly enjoy the fibrous equivalent of a steam clean, and we surely cannot be deficient in any micro-nutrients, we're hoping it does some good. And even if it doesn't we will have felt far better before meeting our maker. Were he to exist.
I've not given up meat (nor will I), but have gradually cut back as we're filling up on loads of other stuff. Breakfast chez nous nowadays nearly always includes a homemade smoothie (the bought-in ones tend to be horribly sugary), blitzing fruit (but not too smoothly) with freshly squeezed juice (I have a lime addiction) and some milk/yog. That starts us off with about three servings (what is a serving? Depending on the way the wind blows, 3oz, two tablespoons, a good handful, a decent-sized fruit - not too much science there), but generally seven or eight fruits.
As ever the great HF-W has been a godsend. His RC Veg Everyday tome is brilliant (the Fruit one is I think his worst, but still a good read). He has the knack of providing enough info to let you prepare something, but also to spark ones curiosity about what if I do this, add that...?
One of his ideas I adapted to make a particularly fine and simple pasta sauce: a chili chopped finely after deseeding, three garlic cloves bashed to bits, and a tin of artichokes (yes, tinned) drained, the lot processed with a trickle of olive oil, plenty of paprika and some seasoning until it makes a puree that can be warmed and stirred into spag or pretty much any pasta. A few fresh tomatoes roughly chopped and added at the end brightens it and gives a bit of sharpness. His uses white beans in addition to the artichokes and is primarily a dip that I've also tried. Either way, it is simple and delicious. And a quick way to add another vegetable to the rotating list.
Behind the switch to more veg less flesh lie several factors. It's greener. It's cheaper. We've lost weight. And it promises to be healthier. In 2012 a friend whose lifestyle was not perhaps the healthiest, but who was apparently fit and well, had a fatal heart attack, no warning given. Another very good friend was diagnosed with cancer last year. Along with humour and energy (and medical science), as it fits her beliefs she's fighting it with the power of prayer. Old sceptic that I am while energy and humour and doctors make sense, nutritional changes appeal to me more than the god stuff. Each to their own.
There are of course no silver bullets, and there's no such thing really as a superfood. But as my insides nowadays regularly enjoy the fibrous equivalent of a steam clean, and we surely cannot be deficient in any micro-nutrients, we're hoping it does some good. And even if it doesn't we will have felt far better before meeting our maker. Were he to exist.
Monday, 27 October 2014
Now, where was I?
For many reasons I have not written anything on this blog for some considerable time. Blame in no logical order a) writing a contract magazine; b) too many holidays (I can feel the wave of sympathy already); c) finding there are many great English comic novels on Kindle for free (Surtees, HH Munro, the less well-known Jerome K Jerome stuff...); d) seeing Sternest Critic off to university (where he continues to prosper).
As this blog is ostensibly about food and its joys the first post (like the last post but not anywhere near as sad) of this new era (with new title suggested by a friend wise to the ways of the modern world) will be about the thing that has brought most culinary joy to the household of late, and we are convinced it is good for us. As so often, I need to take pictures - will do so the next time I make the simple but delicious dish/course - salade de crudites, which even without the accent sounds better than raw veg salad.
We grow a lot of beetroot, this year three varieties and in good quantity. Some is used in soups and stocks to give body and colour (especially if a little grated beet is added to a stock near the end of cooking, so the colour stays fresh and purple. Most is eaten raw in salads. Needing a first course to serve to some friends round for pot-luck, and with beet, carrot, red onion, a few leaves of rocket, one tomato and a kohl rabi to hand I thought about a plate of crudites (I wish yet again I could do the accent on this thing), then with a bit of a nudge from HF-W tried my hand at using different textures and a nice arrangement to prepare a pretty plateful. It worked well on that level, and was delicious when mixed up: kohl rabi peeled and sliced into discs piled at the bottom centre of the shallow bowl; strips of carrot peeled lengthwise and piled on top of the former; a rim of rocket leaves on which small chunks of tomato were placed, then coarsely grated beet of two varieties, one purple one pink and white rings, dropped on the carrot and similarly treated red onion atop the tomato. It was a little flower-arrangement of a thing that brightened the table beautifully, then when mixed and dressed with a mustardy vinaigrette tasted fresh and bright and healthy.
Variations on the theme have been eaten several times since then, with ingredients like avocado, little gem lettuce, boiled egg, and cucumber appearing and others like rocket if not to hand disappearing. It's just a salad, but the presentation (that takes mere seconds longer than lobbing everything together) makes it more special, and when mixed up in serving the textures remain as a reminder of the tiny bit of extra care and imagination.
This is now - until the debt mountains around the world bury us beneath an avalanche of demands for payment - a post-austerity blog. But that dish suits either tough times or good, costing pennies but looking like pounds.
As this blog is ostensibly about food and its joys the first post (like the last post but not anywhere near as sad) of this new era (with new title suggested by a friend wise to the ways of the modern world) will be about the thing that has brought most culinary joy to the household of late, and we are convinced it is good for us. As so often, I need to take pictures - will do so the next time I make the simple but delicious dish/course - salade de crudites, which even without the accent sounds better than raw veg salad.
We grow a lot of beetroot, this year three varieties and in good quantity. Some is used in soups and stocks to give body and colour (especially if a little grated beet is added to a stock near the end of cooking, so the colour stays fresh and purple. Most is eaten raw in salads. Needing a first course to serve to some friends round for pot-luck, and with beet, carrot, red onion, a few leaves of rocket, one tomato and a kohl rabi to hand I thought about a plate of crudites (I wish yet again I could do the accent on this thing), then with a bit of a nudge from HF-W tried my hand at using different textures and a nice arrangement to prepare a pretty plateful. It worked well on that level, and was delicious when mixed up: kohl rabi peeled and sliced into discs piled at the bottom centre of the shallow bowl; strips of carrot peeled lengthwise and piled on top of the former; a rim of rocket leaves on which small chunks of tomato were placed, then coarsely grated beet of two varieties, one purple one pink and white rings, dropped on the carrot and similarly treated red onion atop the tomato. It was a little flower-arrangement of a thing that brightened the table beautifully, then when mixed and dressed with a mustardy vinaigrette tasted fresh and bright and healthy.
Variations on the theme have been eaten several times since then, with ingredients like avocado, little gem lettuce, boiled egg, and cucumber appearing and others like rocket if not to hand disappearing. It's just a salad, but the presentation (that takes mere seconds longer than lobbing everything together) makes it more special, and when mixed up in serving the textures remain as a reminder of the tiny bit of extra care and imagination.
This is now - until the debt mountains around the world bury us beneath an avalanche of demands for payment - a post-austerity blog. But that dish suits either tough times or good, costing pennies but looking like pounds.
Tuesday, 5 August 2014
Mother Knows Best
My son will learn his cooking from his dad, as I am the one who lives in and for the kitchen. I learned some of what I do from my mother, though far more was gleaned from books and (hard to admit) TV chefs, and from business and holiday travel. That imbalance means that I can sometimes be guilty of thinking we've moved beyond what my parents' generation did - and there are some horrors that reinforce that idea (Christmas turkeys weighing as much as Venus, for example). But often what she did is just how things should be done.
Take for example runner beans. I've tried various sexy ways to handle our glut, and with no great success. So at the weekend I did what she did, put them through a slicer lengthwise, steam, and serve with a dab of butter. They were superb, a vast quantity of them shifted with the beef.
As we don't manage to get to the allotment every day we end up with a rogue giant marrow now and then - the buggers can double in size if you turn your back for a minute. I've been feeling guilty about chucking them on the compost heap, as they don't fit in with any of the ways in which I do courgettes. So maybe it's about time I did the dedicated marrow dishes she used to bring to table. One method was to stuff and bake the marrow, the stuffing making up for the marrow's watery flavour; the other was steamed in cubes and served with a light and simple white or cheese sauce.
What a pity that for some kids now their memories of how mum 'cooked' will be limited to re-heating ready-meals and ringing for take-out, doing oven chips and micro-waving burgers.
Take for example runner beans. I've tried various sexy ways to handle our glut, and with no great success. So at the weekend I did what she did, put them through a slicer lengthwise, steam, and serve with a dab of butter. They were superb, a vast quantity of them shifted with the beef.
As we don't manage to get to the allotment every day we end up with a rogue giant marrow now and then - the buggers can double in size if you turn your back for a minute. I've been feeling guilty about chucking them on the compost heap, as they don't fit in with any of the ways in which I do courgettes. So maybe it's about time I did the dedicated marrow dishes she used to bring to table. One method was to stuff and bake the marrow, the stuffing making up for the marrow's watery flavour; the other was steamed in cubes and served with a light and simple white or cheese sauce.
What a pity that for some kids now their memories of how mum 'cooked' will be limited to re-heating ready-meals and ringing for take-out, doing oven chips and micro-waving burgers.
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