Nourish Me

brick oven: part 4

Back in June of 2011, it stopped raining just long enough one weekend for me to a) take a photo (one which, I think, shows how Dalek-like Peter's design turned out to be) and b) to get things fired up in there. You know, to actually use the thing.

Once again, Russell Jeavons displays a somewhat laid back approach to explaining how to fire up the beast, but we knew to expect that now, knew that it's all about learning how to use your particular oven, and, as such, there's no precise map to follow. So. Make a HUGE fire, get it burning fiercely and tend it for a good 2 hours or so before you want to cook. Longer is better in ours, but maybe not yours. It's one of those touchy-feely things. You'll need to shift it around a bit at that time, to make room for the food, raking out some coals occasionally. It'll take at least 2 barrows-ful of various kinds and sizes of wood. 

Peter took f-o-r-e-v-e-r to grasp that the fire needs to fill the thing. He kept leaving space to cook in, building small fires when, in fact, what is needed is a scary roaring fire (contained by the dome, of course). He is good at making that kind of fire, so once he was ready to listen to me reading out Jeavons' suggested scale, he decided to follow the rules.

I'm glad he finally did.   

Anyway, that was back in June. We made attempts from time to time to get out there and cook in it, but our timings were off, the rain kept pouring all damn year really, and the food coming out of it was, at best, lukewarm. We decided to wait until it was warm, sunny and dry. 

With family from Auckland here for New Year, our timing and the weather were, for once, just right. We got to work, a practice run of sorts, on the 29th of December.

Ta-daaa. First pizza!

(You'll have to excuse the exposure in the photo - too hot to get my lightmeter in there)

(Also, kale, sliced into shreds, arranged on top of your fridge-cleaning pizza then drizzled with olive oil before going in for a 5-7 minute blast is, I think, even better than kale made into chips. Just saying.)       

Pleased with ourselves? Hell yess.

New Year's Eve, Peter got his hat, workboots and kilt out and, despite the 40 degree heat, he had a ball firing it all up. A roaring (literally, considering the singed hairs on his arms) success, I'd say.

Happiness, in our camp, abounds.

The pizza dough I use is a Nigel Slater recipe, one I know by heart and the truly great thing about it is that it doubles as a flatbread recipe, so you'll only ever need this one set of measurements. Of course you can do it by hand, but there's something nice about knowing that the machine does a very fine job indeed. Makes 6 small flatbreads, 2 larger ones or 2 good-sized pizzas.     

Sift 500g (1lb & 2oz) of strong bread flour into the bowl of a standing mixer. Fit the machine with a dough hook. Add 1/2 a teaspooon of salt and about 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Dissolve 2 level teaspoons of active dried yeast in 300ml of blood-temperature water, add to mixer bowl and turn the machine on low. Stand back and let it do it's thing for about 5 minutes or so, give it a quick knead and then pop it back into the bowl. Dust generously with flour and leave to rise, covered, somewhere warm for an hour. Worry not if it's not balloned in that time; forge ahead regardless. Shape, pop on a flour-dusted baking tray and decorate as you like. In a domestic oven I preheat the oven to 220C and keep an eagle eye on things after 10 minutes, but about 20 minutes is how long things will take all up. In the brick oven? No idea what the temperature it gets to actually is - farking hot isn't precise enough, but that's what it is - and will take considerably less time to reach true perfection. If you've a pizza stone in either case, heat it up while the oven comes to temperature.              

lately

I have of late been less enamoured of Nigel Slater than once I was, nothing major, nothing to write home about, just a vague sort of backnote of, hmm, maybe boredom? Can't help but feel he waxed a little too lyrically in his latest books, and some of his flowery descriptions made the No-Bullshit Australian in me squirm ever-so slightly.

Still, I love the man, always will, for it was he who taught me how to really cook, and even though this plum cake from Tender | Volume II was epically boring, he, along with David Tanis, are the only two cookery writers for whom I break a strict no cookbooks on the bedside table rule.  

This morning I found this humble little quote from Nigel,

I still get a buzz out of sharing recipes. Some people write stories, others tell jokes, I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. A meal shared with strangers. And I can't think of anything I want to do more.

And that is why I adore him. Boring plum cake 'n all.  

radishes

Guests one late May weekend, Peter's sister and her husband Steve. Fossicking in the garden turned up perfect, tiny radishes, the kind reserved almost exclusively for chef platings and highly stylised food shots, each globe no bigger than a fingernail. Choosing just the right moment to tease your radishes from the soil is crucial. Nigel Slater's advice is the best I've found:

"Radishes are ready to pick when you see their shouders nudging through the surface of the soil".

As with anything so utterly beautiful, the less you do, the more you reap. The larger, spikier leaves can go into dinner, but leave the smaller, sweeter ones in tact. Entirely edible handles. Loathe as I am to say this, say it will: shop-bought here simply will not do. 

Eaten, rather unstylishly given how pretty it all looked, at the sink, tasting and adding and enthusing as we went.

radishes for a crisp appetiser (or a girlie sort of lunch for one) 

Arrange just-picked-and-washed-and-dried radishes in a single layer on a wide, shallow plate. Drizzle with some good olive oil - something you like the taste of, raw - squeeze over some lemon juice, add coarse sea salt generously and, Michelle and Steve thought this key, some cracked green olives.

Later I thought that tiny snippets of anchovy might be good, but they'd need to be nice, i.e. probably expensive. Also, I am slowly making my way through Andrea Reusing's "Cooking in the Moment" (it's o-kayish - don't rush out) and she uses ume vinegar in some of her salads, which reminded me how much I adore ume vinegar, and, in tiny droplets, it'd be worth a thought in place of some of the salty things above.

Out of step

Hard though it is to type these words, type them I must: Nigel Slater's new fruit book, the second volume of his seductively presented Tender series, was a disappointment. When it arrived, I fell upon it, hungry for his words, his food, for him, but there's some beat I've missed in his writing this time around, something that means we've fallen out of step a little.

Saying it aloud (well, the internet equivalent of aloud) feels wrong, as though it diminishes the utmost respect I harbour for him, but it's good to know he's not, well, entirely infallible. There are others of his to adore.    

The makings of the cake above are from Appetite, a recipe called, "a simple cake to serve with summer fruit" which is the one cake I find myself thinking of most often. It's perfect, as the name suggests, with summer fruit, but it's actually just plain old perfect with any fruit. The cake below is, "A frosted marmalade cake" from The Kitchen Diaries, my frosting being made with blood orange juice, as that's what I had, and if there's one thing Nigel has taught me, it's to not fuss about such things. Gives it a dark glow which I quite like anyway.

So while I concentrate on building stronger wrists to hold Tender | Volume II (and Volume I whi I'm at it), I'll start working at cracking the spine by lusting, as I am wont to do, over Jonathan Lovekin's extraordinary pictures. For me, the charm - and he's very charming - of Slater lies equally with the imagery of his long term collaborator. There's a photograph of elberberries - a cluster of tiny, shiny, deep black pearls, held together by a delicate crimson stalk - on page 865 that makes my heart leap for the possibilites that the tree AOF and I planted in the country a few weeks ago will bring.

Friends that come bearing trees are most welcome.       

And with an orchard of my own now, I suspect I'll be pulling the book out more often as things swell and ripen up there.

I think Nigel and I will weather this one out, or at least I hope we will. 

50 Best

Jo, fellow Guardian- AND list-lover, emailed me this morning with a link to The Observer Food Monthly's 50 best cookbooks list. Thank you. I love these sort of things, and the top 10 is, I think, interesting.

Thoughts:

There's very little Elizabeth David on the list, which I find curious given it has such a very british bent to it and only one (really?) Nigel Slater. Kitchen Diaries is, for me, the best food book ever published - beautiful words; beautiful to hold; beautiful, beautiful photographs by Jonathan Lovekin printed on (beautiful) matt paper. Farking gorgeous. Easily my number one. 

Pleased to see Madhur Jaffrey make an appearance. Her Eastern Vegetarian Cooking is one of the most useful books I own. I love the Book of Jewish Food (# 3) by Claudia Roden because she offers an eloquent, sephardic, way into understanding the culture of the blokes around me, and her shakshouka is why I'll be planting lots of peppers and tomatoes in the next garden. 

Deborah Madison's 'Greens' is there, but Local Flavors is, I reckon, better. The Savory Way has my all-time favourite dish of zucchini cooked with cloves, crushed basil leaves and fresh, early-summer organic cream. Simmered with new garlic and super fresh corn. Jesus, it's early summer on a plate, that dish.

Madison is the sexiest seasonal eating gets, especially if you have a garden. Olney, at # 1, means that we are living in an age of vegetable-loving and that's a very good thing in my opinion.

I love peasant food and always have.  

I remember unpacking Fushia Dunlop's Sichuan Cooking in the shop and thinking, this is a keeper. Too much pork for us, but it's still a keeper. Australian David Thompson's book Thai Food came in at # 7 and is, I think, a glaring omission from my own shelf but again, I wonder how useful it is to someone who cooks neither pork or shellfish? David Tanis - a true artist - deserves to be there, but as much for the stunning photographs by Christopher Hirschimer as Tanis' lovely words.

Next on my list? An original (g'ah) 1965 copy of Len Deighton's Action Cook Book is something I want very, very badly now, and that's what a good list offers, you see. My current reading includes Kingsley Amis' Everyday Drinking which I am enjoying immensely. What are you enjoying?

Roast onion soup

Autumn is pottering, puttering weather. After months of feeling disinterested in the kitchen, and despite the bounteous nature of summer produce, the arrival of the first cool weekend changes everything. I want the smell of slowly cooking vegetables – especially onions, baking to a deep, deep gold – to fill the house, but I’m not ready quite yet to spend all day tied to the stove even though skies are grey. A simple soup then, as Nigel Slater says, to invigorate. Adapted from his whimiscal and lovely book, Real Cooking. 

Roast onion soup
Though it won’t win any prizes for good looks – it’s all a bit, well, brown – there’s a lot of complexity, fragrance and texture happening here that will convince anyone to dive in. The photo above might suggest that red onions are the kind to use here, but no, brown are best. The washed-out shade of violet-grey that roasted red onions take on won’t win anyone over - this I know. Enough for four.

4 brown- or white-skinned onions
4 fat cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon of oil
6 kaffir lime leaves
A thumb-sized knob of ginger
1 red chilli
1 litre of vegetable stock (see below)
1 tablespoon of fish sauce (nam pla) or tamari
The smallest tin of coconut milk you can find
½ - 1 cup of rice milk
1 lime

Heat the oven to 200 C (400 F) and halve the onions, skin and all, from root to tip. Tip them into a baking dish with the garlic and toss to coat lightly in the oil. Flip each onion half so it sits cut-side-down and roast for 45 minutes, maybe a little longer. Turn them at about the 30 minute mark.

Start the vegetable stock (see below) if you’re making it yourself. You’re in the kitchen anyway, and the onions will take at least 45 minutes...  

Remove the spine from each lime leaf and, very carefully, very patiently, shred them into fine ribbons. Peel and grate the ginger. Halve the chilli and deseed it; you want warm heat, not searing pain, here. When the onions are ready, peel them – the skins come away easily – and slice the softened layers very roughly. Spiking them with a fork and using a serrated knife helps this procedure along enormously. Remove each garlic clove from its skin.

Pop the onion, garlic, lime leaves, ginger, chilli, stock and fish sauce (or tamari) into a deep saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a burbling simmer and cook for 20 minutes. Tip in the milks, squeeze the lime over the pan and bring back to a simmer. Discard the chilli. Taste for seasoning, adjusting with more fish sauce or tamari, before ladling into deep bowls. Your house will now smell wonderful.  

A basic – very – vegetable stock

Roughly chop the following: An onion; 2 small carrots (no need to peel if they are young and sweet); 1 or 2 stalks of celery (including a few of their leaves); and a few cloves of garlic.

Fry these with 2 bay leaves and the stalks of a half a bunch of parsley in a teaspoon of oil over a high heat, letting it all catch here and there on the bottom of the pan. Add a big sploosh of white wine or mirin, let it evaporate (seconds, really), then pour in 1 ½ litres (6 cups) of water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes. I add 1 teaspoon of an excellent, low-salt vegetable stock powder, but, honestly, a pinch of sea salt is just as good. Set a colander over a large saucepan or bowl and strain the stock. Press with the back of a spoon to get the most out of things. Easy, but only if you have the time. 

Before relegating the vegetables to the compost, I sift carefully through, blowing on burning finger tips as I go, picking out large lumps of carrot. A quick rinse to remove any onion, and I put them aside for the dog’s dinner. Poppy quite likes cooked carrot, you see, and I feel far less wasteful. A win-win situation.

P.S. Don't forget our An Honest Kitchen flickr comp! Entries close this Sunday.

P.P.S. I've just realised (thanks, Johanna!) that this soup fits perfectly with Jacqueline and Lisa's No Croutons Required event of this month. This, therefore, is my submission.   

Summer progresses

Our shed looms reproachfully at the end of the garden, a shiny, unused pitchfork propped against the wall, and bags of pea straw and manure wait, unopened, inside. Seeds that should now be thriving summer plants lie dormant, sealed in yellow envelopes, third shelf down in the fridge. A spicy stench of blood and bone is carried on the wind on warmer days, and, like the dog, I find it oddly alluring. The garden’s been calling.

Dark clouds are gathering this afternoon, and the tantalising promise of rain proper – thunder, so they say - hangs heavily in a still, expectant air. Waiting for the sky to rumble, then burst, on days of wading through humidity is something of a national obsession. My mother and I speak of rain in hushed, revered tones during phone calls. Rain is near religious. Rain is sheer bliss.

Tomatoes from the market have been spectacular this year, though my own are late to start. Nigel Slater says, ‘A tomato’s character is enhanced by a rough life, a certain negligence, a gasping thirst and the occasional drenching downpour’, most of which I’ve been able to supply in abundance as summer progresses. Unsure of Tender at first (though I think it photographer Jonathan Lovekin’s best work), thanks to two dishes, I’m coming ‘round.

The first was a dish of frankly beautiful pale green banana-shaped peppers, halved and stuffed very simply with nothing more than stellar cherry tomatoes, quartered or halved according to their size. Drizzled with oil and roasted in a furnace of an oven until their edges were charred, they were drowned, at the table, with a sauce of emerald green; handfuls of basil, garlic and oil blitzed to pouring consistency.

(Ganga has a beautiful version, here)

The second was even easier. Perfectly ripe, red tomatoes cut into large chunks, a bunch of basil leaves and a handful of grated parmesan. Tossed gently in a bowl with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, they get dumped in a gratin dish and baked at 200 C (400 F) for 25-30 minutes. It was stunning and stupidly simple to assemble, but somehow made the kitchen smell like heaven and me wonder why that particular combination, cooked in that particular way, had never occurred to, well, me.

Genius. And that, you see, is why we love him. However unwieldy the book.  

Tea

Gorgeous day.

I ate well-chilled, leftover Ajoblanco in the sun for lunch today, hat and sunnies on, legs left bare.

Then I made tea, as you do, after cleaning out the pantry, doing what Nigel Slater calls 'the lentil shuffle'. Lemon verbena, a few crusty slices of dried ginger and a fat pinch of licorice steeped for three minutes. The licorice was just right, so it's been shuffled to the front again. Fennel and a rice pilaf for dinner, with lentils on the side, cooked with fennel seeds, star anise and cardamom.  

This friday evening

There's a chicken in the oven, one I, yes I, spatch-cocked using a large pair of scissors and a curious eye, a chermoula-rubbed test recipe from the summer edition of AHK. Flesh-recipes are best photographed when the flesh-eaters are actually here. It's a full house, tonight.

There's the almond cake above for later, a simple but astounding one with dried apricots from Nigel Slater's Appetite. The book I'd save in a fire, that one. In place of raspberries, there are poached peaches, fat yellow-fleshed ones, perfumed with vanilla, their bottoms blushed pink. I found a stash of vanilla pods at the back of the pantry, so our kitchen smells rather good this Friday evening. 

But what I really dropped in to say is that I'm developing a huge crush on Matthew Evans. Best telly all week, is he. Only thing worth watching. Brilliant.    

Happy weekend.