Nourish Me

simple stuff

 

Nigel Slater's simple stuff is where he excels, I reckon, and his latest book, Eat, is a welcome return to form. I've made his Root vegetable tangle 5 times in as many nights, varying the vegetables and, in the interests of getting things to the table faster, using a mandoline rather than a peeler. The rosemary and onion are essential; so is the large quantity of olive oil, I'm afraid, and the pepitas are absolutely non-negotiable but otherwise, play. I like it with a poached duck's egg (god, and how) as much as I like it with pan-fried tempeh or a spoonful of yoghurt.

    

cherry season

My dessert repertoire, alas, grows ever smaller: a (mostly) waning interest in sugar and wheat means you'll get either Lesh's chocolate and date balls or the chocolate cake from Supper For A Song. BUT here it is, cherry season already and occasionally what's required from the kitchen is something more celebratory, something that feels like a proper dessert. Simple and untaxing if possible given it'll probably be hot. A cherry pie at some stage between late December and January feels right; fits the bill rather nicely.

Pitting cherries is, I admit, a chore, but you're probably on holiday somewhere anyway if it's cherry season. Pitting over the kitchen sink could be viewed a kind of meditation, no? Bloody juices a part of the (beautiful) deal. 

Much of the pleasure of reading Nigel Slater lies in his choice of words. Good recipe writing is an artform, one I can only aspire to, and his recipes are excellent writing full stop. Of the pastry Slater uses to top a plum pie (and I chose to cover every single fruit pie I make) he says, "The crust is very short, and it really doesn't matter if it tears as you lower it over the fruit. Some of the juice will probably erupt through the crust as it cooks anyway. At least I hope so." 

I toss pitted cherries in a teaspoon of cornflour and a palmful of whatever sugar is to hand in the base of an enamel pie dish. I then make the pastry using roughly equal measures of oat and barley flours in place of the plain flour he uses to make an even shorter crust, one I squash with the heel of my hand into a thick circle, gently lift on top of the fruit and press out with fingers to the lip of the pie dish. It's very forgiving and very, very good.  

Happy holidays, peoples! Three mad-busy shopping days to go, so, be nice to all the sales staff out there and, if you're stuck for what to buy someone tricky, buy a damned book. One you've loved. Best bloody gift there is, a book. xxx  

 

 

chicken pie

Discussing respective xmas dinners late last year, I mentioned to Cath our now ritualistic chicken pie. She asked for the recipe so this is what I typed out while not eating one fasting day at werk. I am going to assume two things here: 1, that you will buy the best chicken you can afford and 2, that you will read the recipe through at least a couple of times before beginning. This pie is work, there is no other way of describing it, so save it for special occasions or when you have all day to potter about in the fug of your kitchen. Please note that a pie bird, despite the illustration above, isn't actually required, in fact the pie is not deep enough to warrant one, but I dunno, there's something rather charming about a bird bursting through a pastry crust.       

chicken pie

Poach a whole chook very gently with:

The green top of a leek, a peeled carrot, a stick of celery, some parsley and a splosh of white wine (optional). About an hour should do it - don't let it boil, let it putter away instead.

When cool enough to handle, remove the bird from the poaching liquor (but retain this) and tear flesh into long shreds, working with the grain. Spoon a little of the poaching liquor over chook and refrigerate while you make a stock with the bones and skin and remaining liquor. You want a rich, reduced stock of which you'll use but little, however leftover stock both freezes well and makes a nice starter. Strain and reserve when ready. 

To make pie:

Dice 1-2 carrots (peeled), a couple of stalks of celery; the white of a leek. Steam these until tender.

Mix chook flesh with steamed vegetables. Add salt and pepper to taste as well as at least 1/2 a cup of double cream and enough reduced chicken stock to bind things together - you want a loose but not a runny mixture. You will learn to feel your way along with this bit. Think pie filling and you'll know what I mean.

Spread mixture in the base of a ceramic gratin dish. You can pop the whole thing in the fridge at this stage, a  'make ahead' shortcut I rather like, a sheet of cling wrap smooshed right on top of the filling (a skin on anything other than a gratin dauphinoise make me gag). Top with a sheet of puff pastry you've cut to fit the dish. Make it pretty with leaves, etc, cut from the remaining pastry. Go all out here; I use Careme because it is, without doubt, the most luxurious (and puffy and buttery). Brush pastry with a beaten egg and bake at 180C for about 30 minutes - pastry should be puffed and deeply golden.

Super-nice with peas tossed in lemon and butter (thank you, Nigel Slater, for that genius idea).    

 

         

pears, baked

Though I eagerly await - c'mon Harper Collins - the arrival of Nigel Slater's newbie, Eat, thankfully there's a lot of backlist worth trawling. The grocer, whose name suddenly escapes me, on High Street in Woodend had a tray of pears for $1.99 last Friday morning. Snapped them up fast as it's pretty late in the season and they looked, in their plastic wrap, forlorn. Knowing they'd be not quite right, I also knew they'd be best cooked in some way. A cake, however, seemed beyond my capabilities. Often does these days.  

I've found Slater's Tender: Volume II a bit hit and miss, and frankly I've been a bit of a cow about it publically, but his baked/roasted/bloody simple fruit recipes have, without exception, been perfect. A poached pear leaves me cold, something not helped by having a partner who deems fruit for dessert as Not Dessert, but, sometimes, I happen to like a fudgy baked pear. Slater's idea is simplicity itself, doctored a little to suit what I have in my pantry:

Preheat your oven to 200 C. Take 4 pears and peel them. Slater says not to halve them, but the seductive accompanying picture defied that instruction, thus I halved mine. Besides, this made it much easier to dig out the cores later, but over to you. Nigel knows of what he speaks. Halve longitudinally, or not, at will. In a baking dish that will fit them snuggly, mix 4 tablespoons of Pedro Ximinez sherry (or Marsala, as Slater does) with 3 tablespoons of caster sugar and a 50g slice of unsalted butter. Arrange the pears on top in a single layer and bake for 1 hour until "soft as butter".

Possibly the sexiest thing to pass these lips all year. I'm keen to try less sugar and butter next time, and while they were wonderful alone, if you dig out the cores with a teaspoon then scatter crumbled amaretti over the top, your partner may just be able to suspend disbelief.  

 

medlar jelly* 

Best bit about werking again? Seeing all the beautiful things that get published.

An array of goodies arrive constantly and they beg to be talked about. Two Simon and Garfunkel paper doll books turned up the other day (hah! i hear you scoff, but the truth is they are actually very lovely); I have just finished Patrick Ness' More Than This and I am BURSTING to talk to about it, but as it's not due until September I'll have to bite my tongue; but it's Luke Slattery's "Reclaiming Epicurus" that I'm loving most right now. Epicurus was a 3rd century bc(e) Greek philosopher and the word epicurean - derived (obvs) from his name - is a word we generally associate with gourmets (ergo, greed) right? But Epicurius himself, you see, embodied a far more ascetic idea of pleasure, believing, "that genuine happiness comes from the quieting of desire: from less, not more."

I'm eight weeks into Dr Michael Mosely's fasting thing and though not quite a miracle (but bloody close to), let me simply say this: learning how to employ restraint and to desire the quieting of desire has changed my entire outlook on life, and it, combined with twice weekly sessions of yoga? Restraint, it turns out, can be a thing of astonishing beauty.  

*didn't really work out, mr slater...i am so sorry, but i think it needed a much longer boil at the end. a missed step ?...  

 

quince & cardoon

Raw, a quince will win no-one's heart, poor lass, in spite of the exotic perfume she brings to the kitchen, but cook a quince and she will morph into a thing of utter, seductive beauty. There are a tonne of recipes for poaching them, each with its own transformative merits, but the best quince recipe by a mile this year came via Nigel Slater's Tender | Volume II. Simmered in a syrup of cassis and vanilla, the combination makes for a deep, dark bruise of purple on the plate and in the pan, an extraordinary and rather grown-up sight to behold. Crème de cassis, a liquer made from blackcurrants, is surprising here, a real winner I reckon; a tiny drizzle lifts disappointing berries to the next level; you can try it in a salad dressing if you dare and, if all else fails, a Kir Royale is no bad thing.   

nigel's quinces poached with cassis  

Dissolve 2/3 cup sugar in 1 litre of water with a vanilla pod, split down its length with the tip of a knife, in a heavy, deep pan, stirring all the time. Add 1 cup of Crème de cassis and bring to a boil. Thickly peel, then core 3 quinces. Slice as thick as you like, immerse in the syrup, reduce to a simmer and, in Nigel's own words, "leave to cook for a good 40-60 minutes till the fruit is soft and full of juice, like a canned pear."

Utterly divine.

Cousin of the globe artichoke, cardoons, like the uncooked quince, make little culinary sense at first, for it is not the pretty thistle head we eat, but the fleshy mid-ribs of the leaves. Given enough space to spread out, you'll get more food from a cardoon plant than an artichoke and that makes good garden sense to me. Have I cooked with them yet? No. But soon. Very soon. If you have, and you have a great idea for using them, let me know?

 

how to make an apple cake

Head out into the garden, along the boggy side where the mint grows in its almost wild state. If you're lucky, the cockatoos may have left some fruit on the secret tree in the back corner.  

You only need three, maybe four just to be safe,

but pick the tree clean anyway, 'cause they'll be back soon enough.

Little blighters always are.

Peel, core, then weigh those apples, because Nigel says so. (Sarah, darling, scroll down to the very bottom of the page) His wholemeal, apple and marmalade cake from Tender | Volume II is worth taking your time over. Trust me.

Break the eggs. Faff around with your lightmeter and the laundry sink for a bit, before whisking, and continuing on your merry baking way. 

And there you have it; a sophisticated, lusciously damp cake with the kind of crumb that people will chase around a plate, that also keeps very well, and owes quite a lot of its charm to the dedicated use of wholemeal flour. 

The kind of cake I love.

 

(the suggestive tomato is just a bit of fun...)

 

 

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.