This is a bit of a cheat in that the cooking starts over a flame then is finished in the oven, but it is one pot, and for those allergic to washing-up liquid that is important.
Sunday lunch this week was a lazy affair, as the weather was too glorious to allow for faffing in the kitchen. So while Ruth jointed a chicken I cleaned and cut up (all just picked on the allotment or garden) some spuds, thick spring onions now looking more like leeks, three small courgettes and a load of fresh herbs - bay, thyme, rosemary, sage, chives, plus a whole (tiny) head of our still greenish garlic.
The chicken was browned in olive oil in a big and solid roasting dish over a moderate gas flame, then the onions added, followed by the small chunks of spud (cut in odd shapes with no side more than an inch long), the thickly sliced courgettes and bashed garlic, and finally the herbs. As this needs liquid to cook the veg a tiny bottle of Babycham leftover from Christmas (Brandy and Babycham a secret seasonal pleasure of one member of the household) was poured in, and a bit of boiling water to top it up. Salt, pepper, bring to the simmer and put in the pre-heated 190 degree oven for an hour or so, taking the pan out twice to stir things about.
Protein, carbs, veg and flavour all in the one pot, with the juices forming a tasty gravy too.
Monday, 26 August 2013
A Tiny Piece of Perfection
Yesterday I cooked the perfect boiled egg. Actually I cooked two, one for my wife and one for myself. Not the greatest culinary feat ever, but very pleasing in its own little way, not least in that they formed the basis of our breakfast, and eventually of some debate.
Firstly, who is to define what constitutes a perfect boiled egg? Had my son been up at that time (not going to happen during the holidays unless fishing is in prospect) he would have pointed out that his perfect boiled egg is hard enough to damage plaster if thrown. These had soft but solidified whites, the very edge of the yolk had hardened, but the rest was liquid and cried out for toast soldiers (or peace women as a distant cousin dubbed them long ago).
Secondly, the comparative value of such small but perfect things. I maintain that I would rather have had that egg than a mediocre but exotic restaurant dish, just as I'd take a Hilliard miniature over any large scale piece of crap by Hirst. The egg would cost less than the Blumenthal crab meat and goat's testicle on rocket and pissenlit salad with dressing made from the distilled tears of a depressed cat, but cost is irrelevant here.
The method, by the way, as this is meant to be a food blog (and chefs have come to blows over their preferred ways of cooking boiled eggs): small saucepan of water brought to the boil, two medium eggs then added, wait till the water returns to the rolling boil, then start the ancient egg-timer going. Remove eggs when the sand has run out (wait a bit for larger eggs, remove earlier for small ones), place in egg cups and leave for a minute to firm up. Cut off top with knife (and like all sensible people I'm a Little-endian), add a few grains of salt and dig in.
Just realised that I left one important factor out of the above: the eggs were from our hens, so at most two days in the basket, and produced by creatures who along with their layers' pellets eat grass, worms, wood-lice (their favourite find), our salad discards, grain and if we don't rescue them in time the occasional little frog.
Firstly, who is to define what constitutes a perfect boiled egg? Had my son been up at that time (not going to happen during the holidays unless fishing is in prospect) he would have pointed out that his perfect boiled egg is hard enough to damage plaster if thrown. These had soft but solidified whites, the very edge of the yolk had hardened, but the rest was liquid and cried out for toast soldiers (or peace women as a distant cousin dubbed them long ago).
Secondly, the comparative value of such small but perfect things. I maintain that I would rather have had that egg than a mediocre but exotic restaurant dish, just as I'd take a Hilliard miniature over any large scale piece of crap by Hirst. The egg would cost less than the Blumenthal crab meat and goat's testicle on rocket and pissenlit salad with dressing made from the distilled tears of a depressed cat, but cost is irrelevant here.
The method, by the way, as this is meant to be a food blog (and chefs have come to blows over their preferred ways of cooking boiled eggs): small saucepan of water brought to the boil, two medium eggs then added, wait till the water returns to the rolling boil, then start the ancient egg-timer going. Remove eggs when the sand has run out (wait a bit for larger eggs, remove earlier for small ones), place in egg cups and leave for a minute to firm up. Cut off top with knife (and like all sensible people I'm a Little-endian), add a few grains of salt and dig in.
Just realised that I left one important factor out of the above: the eggs were from our hens, so at most two days in the basket, and produced by creatures who along with their layers' pellets eat grass, worms, wood-lice (their favourite find), our salad discards, grain and if we don't rescue them in time the occasional little frog.
Monday, 5 August 2013
Humous (Be Joking?)
As these two things are not made with chick peas can they really qualify as humous (hummus, hummous and probably several other acceptable spellings)? Hence the pathetic play on words of the title. It does sound better than vegetable spread, though, an unromantic if more accurate name.
As so often the inspiration for these comes from the most excellent HF-W, whose books I return to regularly.
With a glut of broad beans to deal with on our return from hols - you can only freeze so many - I made a batch of something like humous: about a pound of podded beans were cooked (boiled for maybe eight minutes) and then skinned - the grey skin has little to offer in the way of pleasure or taste - to leave the little jade jewels that are far more appealing. Four or five cloves of garlic were crushed and added to them, then the lot zapped in the processor with a glug of olive oil (one glug being nine standard dribbles) along with a big pinch of salt, several turns of the pepper mill, and the juice of half a lemon, plus a tsp of cumin seeds that had been reduced to powder in the grinder and a tsp of paprika. Zap again until it looks nice and slutchy and it's ready to serve on toast, with a wrap or on its own.
Another current glut is beet, that before our hols was tiny, after has grown just beyond the tennis ball dimensions that are generally ideal. The process is the same, except the beet (three makes a batch) is boiled unpeeled so it retains the juice and colour for 25 minutes or more, until a knife-point enters easily.
Two slices of stale bread (crusts removed) are wetted with cold water and squeezed, then the pap added to the processor with a handful of walnut pieces and worked to a paste. The peeled beets are zapped with that paste plus olive oil, the juice of half a lemon, sea salt, lots of smoked paprika and two tsp of ground cumin, one of ground fennel seeds, and half a tsp of ground pepper corns. Garlic would be good, but as my wife prefers for diplomatic reasons not to stink out her office (and indeed the entire floor if I had my way with the quantities) that last lot was free of my favourite flavouring. Serve with a lemon slice to add some extra sharpness if wanted. Texture can be according to taste, just process the paste until a fingerful is to your liking - for me it cries out to have some coarse graininess to it, but a more sophisticated smooth style (sounds like a brain-dead late night dinner jazz programme) would only mean running the motor for another couple of minutes.
A bonus with both of those humouses (humae? humice?) is their fantastic colour, especially in the case of the beetroot version, like looking into a deep glass of rich burgundy. For those not used to much beet, your wee the next day will be like a watery version of the same, so don't call 111 or 999 when you see it.
As so often the inspiration for these comes from the most excellent HF-W, whose books I return to regularly.
With a glut of broad beans to deal with on our return from hols - you can only freeze so many - I made a batch of something like humous: about a pound of podded beans were cooked (boiled for maybe eight minutes) and then skinned - the grey skin has little to offer in the way of pleasure or taste - to leave the little jade jewels that are far more appealing. Four or five cloves of garlic were crushed and added to them, then the lot zapped in the processor with a glug of olive oil (one glug being nine standard dribbles) along with a big pinch of salt, several turns of the pepper mill, and the juice of half a lemon, plus a tsp of cumin seeds that had been reduced to powder in the grinder and a tsp of paprika. Zap again until it looks nice and slutchy and it's ready to serve on toast, with a wrap or on its own.
Another current glut is beet, that before our hols was tiny, after has grown just beyond the tennis ball dimensions that are generally ideal. The process is the same, except the beet (three makes a batch) is boiled unpeeled so it retains the juice and colour for 25 minutes or more, until a knife-point enters easily.
Two slices of stale bread (crusts removed) are wetted with cold water and squeezed, then the pap added to the processor with a handful of walnut pieces and worked to a paste. The peeled beets are zapped with that paste plus olive oil, the juice of half a lemon, sea salt, lots of smoked paprika and two tsp of ground cumin, one of ground fennel seeds, and half a tsp of ground pepper corns. Garlic would be good, but as my wife prefers for diplomatic reasons not to stink out her office (and indeed the entire floor if I had my way with the quantities) that last lot was free of my favourite flavouring. Serve with a lemon slice to add some extra sharpness if wanted. Texture can be according to taste, just process the paste until a fingerful is to your liking - for me it cries out to have some coarse graininess to it, but a more sophisticated smooth style (sounds like a brain-dead late night dinner jazz programme) would only mean running the motor for another couple of minutes.
A bonus with both of those humouses (humae? humice?) is their fantastic colour, especially in the case of the beetroot version, like looking into a deep glass of rich burgundy. For those not used to much beet, your wee the next day will be like a watery version of the same, so don't call 111 or 999 when you see it.
Thursday, 18 July 2013
One Flame Cooking - Student Elegance for Pennies
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.
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.
Thursday, 11 July 2013
What Tastes Good?
Eating the last of the British asparagus I'll get to taste this year made me think about cultural taste differences, as the French, Spanish and Germans all go for the flabbier white asparagus, that has to my palate an insipid taste nothing like the green stuff. There are innumerable other such differences of national opinion: the various rotten fish dishes that Iceland and Scandinavia offer are at the extreme end of the scale - as far as this Brit is concerned anyway; but then I never liked the bitter gourds that I tried in the Far East either; or the nasty Japanese sweets made with bean paste.
That is not to say that they aren't good, just that I for reasons of custom, upbringing, and experience found those gourds and bean sweets unpalatable.
Our national tastes do change over time, however. Witness the shift from bitter to lager. Witness more pertinently as regards food at least the shift from salads where the only ingredients were lettuce, mustard and cress and cucumber, to the many bitter leaves you'll find in your supermarket pack today - endive, radicchio etc. Doubtless foreign travel has been one driving force; commerce another - add a bit of chicory to a salad bag and increase the price by 20p; simply being able to try these things is another factor.
Which makes me wonder what we will have in store, as it were, to taste in future. There are many vegetables and fruits never seen here: young coconut I've never seen in Britain; Durian (thank goodness, musky flavour but it smells of sewage); Kalamansi, lovely little limes with a bit of sweetness to them; so many varieties of banana.
Sadly as we add these exotics, and we doubtless will, we are losing much of our native produce. I'm working on a piece for Cheshire Life about local apples, and find there are at least 33 still around, though many lost already. Will I ever try a Withington Welter? Or a Millicent Barnes? In an ideal world we'd keep those and add the others. Variety is the spice etc. Happily some bodies are fighting to keep the old varieties, and more power to them. When we get to plant an orchard, as we one day hope to, it is the obscure ones - though those with reputedly good flavour - that we'll go for. Even there we have differences between nations, the Japanese fruit I've tasted so bland as to leave no taste memory at all - Golden Delicious (which the French actually like) a feast of flavour by comparison.
Tuesday, 9 July 2013
It's All Kicking Off
From despair at how slow everything was in the kitchen garden and allotment to a sudden abundance in just two weeks. With the summer weather (worth noting again, summer weather) we are having to water lots of the crops, but that's a small price to pay for within the last two or three days a glut of strawberries and redcurrants - now seven jars of jam; the first small courgettes, tender enough to eat raw; loads of tiny turnips, our most under-rated vegetable; more lettuce than we can handle, so the chickens are happy; a pick of little artichokes for a starter; handfuls of spring onions nothing like the hard ones you get from supermarkets; and reasonable pickings of broad beans, again picked when small and tender and sweet. And above all, lots of new spuds.
We are not vegetarians by any means, but when you have veg that good there is less call for big lumps of meat.
We pick things young and tender, whereas commercial growers and outlets want to maximise the weight. Take those turnips: we have four varieties, each with their own characteristics. The purple top Milan are my favourites. Great raw in crunchy salads; as half-starch half-flavouring in last night's chicken dish; as a soup (creme a la vierge, lovely with small sweet roots, horrid with overgrown woody things that smell like school cabbage when cooked), or glazed to accompany a little lamb chop.
It's nice to have your menu dictated by the season too. A Navarin of lamb is now called for, with the broad beans instead of peas, and those little turnips stewed gently with new potatoes. Salads various, but the plain green (for which read green, red, bronze and pink with the different lettuces we grow) at least every other day. There is no reason to limit yourself to one salad with a meal when the crops are so full of flavour.
We are not vegetarians by any means, but when you have veg that good there is less call for big lumps of meat.
We pick things young and tender, whereas commercial growers and outlets want to maximise the weight. Take those turnips: we have four varieties, each with their own characteristics. The purple top Milan are my favourites. Great raw in crunchy salads; as half-starch half-flavouring in last night's chicken dish; as a soup (creme a la vierge, lovely with small sweet roots, horrid with overgrown woody things that smell like school cabbage when cooked), or glazed to accompany a little lamb chop.
It's nice to have your menu dictated by the season too. A Navarin of lamb is now called for, with the broad beans instead of peas, and those little turnips stewed gently with new potatoes. Salads various, but the plain green (for which read green, red, bronze and pink with the different lettuces we grow) at least every other day. There is no reason to limit yourself to one salad with a meal when the crops are so full of flavour.
Monday, 8 July 2013
One Flame Super Student Soup
That's a soup for students, not made from, to be clear.
At a university visit with SC on Saturday the guided tour took in accommodation and a shared kitchen. I loved the community of the kitchen at my alma mater, though the very occasional disappearance of food from the fridge was annoying. As with my experience so today as regards the cooker - electric hob, doubtless to avoid yoots blowing themselves and others to bits.
A wonderful and easy shared meal if students band together to share cooking duties is a fish soup, easy, quick, nutritious and more than a bit virtuous. We had a version last week made with proper ham stock, but a chicken or ham stock cube (I avoid the fish and veg ones) is an OK substitute. Again this is really cheapo for four people, and there's just one pan to wash up.
In a large saucepan gently fry two chopped onions in oil. Don't let this brown. Chop the veg finely, they cook quickly and keep their flavour better. Add a selection of veg chopped finely: carrots are cheap and flavorful, so are turnips, maybe a Basics pepper or a courgette if there's a glut and they're cheap, plus two or three garlic cloves sliced thinly, and sweat them for two minutes. Boil 1.25l of water in a kettle and add this with two crumbled cubes (I like Knorr best), to the pan and up the heat until it reaches a bubbling simmer, then turn the heat down to maintain that simmer (easy with gas, a bugger tbh with electric hobs). Add either (or both) a couple of potatoes cut into small dice, or 100g spaghetti broken into very short lengths, and cook until they are just about done - about 10 minutes. At this point add your fish - cheapest in frozen packs of whitefish fillets or those bricks of pollock. When they are defrosted and cooked through, adjust seasoning and break up the fish into smaller chunks, then serve with bread and butter.
The economics: 520g pack of frozen whitefish fillets £1.75; vegetables if using Basics red pepper £1.25; spag 20p; stock cubes 20p. Bread and butter according to hunger, but you can get excellent bread from Morrison's really cheaply - two small loaves for £1 so you can have white for most of us and brown for the saintly. Even with a ton of butter that's still going to be well below a fiver for four people.
If you want to push the boat out or play tunes with the idea a pack of smoked salmon bits for £1.50 added at the very end of cooking, or frozen prawns £2.25 for a 400g bag bunged in with the fish make this into a feast (that would actually feed six with another turnip, carrot and spud and half a litre more water). Or cube some 'cooking bacon' and add with the veg. Or throw in a few frozen peas or sweetcorn. This is more an idea/method than a recipe.
I wondered about mentioning that a dash of leftover cider would be good, then I remembered that this is meant to be for students, who tend not to leave much cider.
At a university visit with SC on Saturday the guided tour took in accommodation and a shared kitchen. I loved the community of the kitchen at my alma mater, though the very occasional disappearance of food from the fridge was annoying. As with my experience so today as regards the cooker - electric hob, doubtless to avoid yoots blowing themselves and others to bits.
A wonderful and easy shared meal if students band together to share cooking duties is a fish soup, easy, quick, nutritious and more than a bit virtuous. We had a version last week made with proper ham stock, but a chicken or ham stock cube (I avoid the fish and veg ones) is an OK substitute. Again this is really cheapo for four people, and there's just one pan to wash up.
In a large saucepan gently fry two chopped onions in oil. Don't let this brown. Chop the veg finely, they cook quickly and keep their flavour better. Add a selection of veg chopped finely: carrots are cheap and flavorful, so are turnips, maybe a Basics pepper or a courgette if there's a glut and they're cheap, plus two or three garlic cloves sliced thinly, and sweat them for two minutes. Boil 1.25l of water in a kettle and add this with two crumbled cubes (I like Knorr best), to the pan and up the heat until it reaches a bubbling simmer, then turn the heat down to maintain that simmer (easy with gas, a bugger tbh with electric hobs). Add either (or both) a couple of potatoes cut into small dice, or 100g spaghetti broken into very short lengths, and cook until they are just about done - about 10 minutes. At this point add your fish - cheapest in frozen packs of whitefish fillets or those bricks of pollock. When they are defrosted and cooked through, adjust seasoning and break up the fish into smaller chunks, then serve with bread and butter.
The economics: 520g pack of frozen whitefish fillets £1.75; vegetables if using Basics red pepper £1.25; spag 20p; stock cubes 20p. Bread and butter according to hunger, but you can get excellent bread from Morrison's really cheaply - two small loaves for £1 so you can have white for most of us and brown for the saintly. Even with a ton of butter that's still going to be well below a fiver for four people.
If you want to push the boat out or play tunes with the idea a pack of smoked salmon bits for £1.50 added at the very end of cooking, or frozen prawns £2.25 for a 400g bag bunged in with the fish make this into a feast (that would actually feed six with another turnip, carrot and spud and half a litre more water). Or cube some 'cooking bacon' and add with the veg. Or throw in a few frozen peas or sweetcorn. This is more an idea/method than a recipe.
I wondered about mentioning that a dash of leftover cider would be good, then I remembered that this is meant to be for students, who tend not to leave much cider.
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