How to Eat (43 page)

I made this sauce once with a very fine pasta, some sort of egg tagliarini, and regretted it. You need the sturdier, but still satiny, resistance offered up by the linguine, which is why I stipulated this very pasta. Good spaghetti or tagliatelle would do if linguine are not to be found. As the sauce is the sort of thing you can throw together after a quick rummage through the shelves of the corner shop, it would be unhelpful to be too sternly dictatorial about a pasta shape that is not universally carried.

As for the Irish tarte Tatin, this is Roscommon Rhubarb Pie as chronicled by Darina Allen in
Irish Traditional Cooking.
The rhubarb and sugar are piled on the bottom of the pie dish, a scone mixture on top, and the whole turned out later in the manner of a tarte tatin. The upended pie with its bronzy pink crown of rhubarb looks beautiful and it is fabulously easy. For this, you’re just mixing stuff around in a bowl, idly and imprecisely rolling it out, and then tucking the large disc of scone like a blanket over the simply chopped and sugar-sprinkled fruit.

Perhaps pastry after pasta sounds stodgy, but it won’t taste like that, I promise. And the scent of lemons followed by the sharp-sweet breath of red and early rhubarb conveys the brisk but tender air of early, still faintly wintry, spring.

LEMON LINGUINE

2 pounds linguine

2 egg yolks

2/3 cup heavy cream

½ cup freshly grated Parmesan

zest of 1 lemon and juice of ½, plus more juice, if needed

pinch salt

freshly milled black pepper

4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter

2–3 tablespoons chopped parsley

Fill just about the biggest pot you have with water and bring to the boil. When friends are coming for lunch, get the water heated to boiling point before they arrive, otherwise you end up nervously hanging around waiting for a watched pot to boil while your supposedly quick lunch gets later and later. Bring the water to the boil, cover, and turn off the burner.

I tend to leave the addition of salt until the water’s come to the boil a second time. But whichever way you do it, add quite a bit of salt. When the bubbling’s encouragingly fierce, put in the pasta. I often put the lid on for a moment or so just to let the pasta get back to the boil, but don’t turn your back on it, and give it a good stir with a pasta fork or whatever to avoid even the suspicion of stickiness, once you’ve removed the lid.

Then get on with the sauce, making sure you’ve set your timer for about a minute or so less than the time specified on the package of pasta.

In a bowl put the yolks, cream, Parmesan, zest of the whole lemon and juice of half of it, the salt and good grind of pepper, and beat with a fork. You don’t want it fluffy, just combined. Taste. If you want it more lemony, then of course add more juice.

When the timer goes off, taste to judge how near the pasta is to being ready. I recommend that you hover by the stove so you don’t miss that point. Don’t be too hasty, though. Everyone is so keen to cook their pasta properly al dente that sometimes the pasta is actually not cooked enough. You want absolutely no chalkiness here. And linguine (or at least I find it so) tend not to run over into soggy overcookedness quite as quickly as other long pasta. This makes sense, of course, as the strands of “little tongues” are denser than the flat ribbon shapes.

Anyway, as soon as the pasta looks ready, remove a cup of the cooking liquid, drain the pasta, and then, off the heat, toss it back in the pot or put it in an efficiently preheated bowl, throw in the butter, and stir and swirl about to make sure the butter’s melted and the pasta covered by it all over. Each strand will be only mutely gleaming, as there’s not much butter and quite a bit of pasta. If you want to add more, then do; good butter is the best flavoring, best texture, best mood enhancer there is.

When you’re satisfied the pasta’s covered with its soft slip of butter, then stir in the egg mixture and turn the pasta well in it, adding some of the cooking liquid if it looks a bit dry (only 2 tablespoons or so—you don’t want a wet mess—and only after you think the sauce is incorporated). Sprinkle over the parsley and serve now, now, now.

As for the green salad: buy a package of the ready washed and chopped stuff or assemble your own as you wish. But keep it green; by all means add raw sugar snap peas if you like (a good idea, indeed) and some whole, tender basil leaves (equally so), but remember the idea is to provide something clear and refreshing between the pasta and the pie. A soft, round, pale green lettuce like Bibb is just right for this—nothing else, just that, in a plain vinaigrette, no interesting oils.

IRISH TARTE TATIN

Bright-hued, early spring rhubarb is indicated here, but I’ve used the later stuff with good results. But be stern when inspecting it before buying; there’s no point in making this dessert if the fruit’s woody and acrid. If it looks as if it’s rusting and wilting, then don’t bother.

Darina Allen specifies a 9 × 2-inch round pie pan and remarks that she also uses a heavy stainless-steel sauté pan. I use my regular stainless-steel pie dish. It’s about 8 inches in diameter, 2 inches in depth, and has sloping sides. Because of the sloping sides, the pie, when turned out, looks rather celebratory, as if it were holding up the rhubarb as an offering.

2 pounds rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

1¼ cup sugar, plus additional, if needed

FOR THE SCONE DOUGH

2½ cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons superfine sugar

1 heaping teaspoon baking powder

pinch salt

4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsweetened butter, cut into medium dice

1 egg

¾ cup milk, plus more, if needed

1 egg, beaten, for the wash

sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Put the rhubarb into a pie dish or a sauté pan (see headnote) and sprinkle it with the sugar. Taste the rhubarb and add more sugar if needed. Into a bowl sift all the dry ingredients for the scone dough. Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. (Not hard to do by hand, but I tend to use my free-standing mixer.) Whisk the egg with the milk. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, pour in the liquid all at once, and mix to a soft dough. Turn out onto a floured board and roll into a 9-inch round (or the size of the dish you’re using) about 1 inch thick. Place this fat disc on top of the rhubarb and tuck in the edges neatly. Brush with a little of the beaten egg and sprinkle generously with sugar.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 350°F for about 30 minutes more, or until the top is crusty and golden and the rhubarb soft and juicy.

Remove the pan from the oven and allow to sit for a few minutes. Put a warm plate over the top of the pan and turn it upside-down so that the pie comes out on the plate. It is almost impossible (or I, naturally impatient and clumsy, find it so) not to burn yourself with some of the escaping hot liquid. The trick is to find a dish that is flat at the bottom with slightly upturned edges. I’m working on it.

Serve warm with, Darina Allen recommends, light brown sugar and cream. I can think of nothing nicer. For those who cannot contemplate rhubarb without custard, a good cold dollop of the stuff would be an obvious, but rewarding, choice.

ANOTHER SPRING LUNCH FOR 6–8

PROSCIUTTO, FRESH RICOTTA OR MOZZARELLA, AND BASIL

GRILLED ZUCCHINI OR ROAST ASPARAGUS

SALAD AND BREAD

RHUBARB MERINGUE PIE

I love rhubarb; a quick glance at the entry for it in the Index will suggest how much. But my real passion goes deeper; at home I use it whenever I can get away with it. Maybe it’s the relatively short season (although I find I can go from the hothouse stuff to the hardy outdoors-reared stalks with hardly a hiccup) that makes it so attractive, but if it’s in the shops, I want to cook with it. I make rhubarb fool (divine used to wedge together the two vanilla-scented halves of a Victoria sponge), rhubarb and raspberry crumble (the rhubarb fresh, the raspberries always used to be from the freezer case, but more recently they’re fresh too, flown in at great expense from distant points), plain stewed rhubarb, rhubarb custard pie—the pie, indeed, above—all the other rhubarb-rich recipes in this book; and my absolute tear-inducingly comforting favorite, rhubarb meringue pie.

It isn’t nostalgia that drives me—such desserts, such ingredients, were not a part of my childhood—or a kitsch longing for the retroculinary repertoire. It’s the taste, the smell, the soft, fragrant, bulky stickiness of this that seduces. I cannot pretend any form of meringue pie is easy and because it takes a bit of effort, I have suggested a picnic before it.

PROSCIUTTO

FRESH RICOTTA

MOZZARELLA DI BUFALO

ASPARAGUS

ZUCCHINI

For eight people, I get 1 pound of prosciutto (San Daniele or Parma), sliced thin, thin, thin and draped over a big plate like rumpled silk lining. Add a mound of fresh ricotta or provide fresh mozzarella di bufalo drizzled with basil oil (see recipe below) or just milkily plain and barely sprinkled with salt and pepper and olive oil. Make a salad of lamb’s lettuce and romaine hearts with a light but astringent dressing; if it’s in season, lay on some asparagus just rolled in oil and coarse sea salt and spread out on a baking sheet in the hottest oven you can muster, for 5–10 minutes a side, and then left to cool to room temperature or just above, and put on a plate with either some lemon wedges bundled alongside or just a sprinkling of good balsamic vinegar over. If asparagus isn’t around, then get some zucchini (about 5 should do for 8 people), slice them thinly lengthways, brush them lightly with oil, and cook on a hot griddle till blistered brown. As they cook, remove them to a large plate and pour over glass-green oil, a good squirt of lemon juice, and a carpeting of just-chopped herbs—parsley, mint, marjoram, basil, some or all. Make sure there’s lots of bread and you might, as well, leave some tomatoes whole in a bowl on the table, so that people can take them as they like.

BASIL OIL

The book from which this recipe comes,
Recipes 1-2-3
by Rozanne Gold, is a clever idea. All its recipes contain just three ingredients, though further ones in the form of suggested “add-ons” are posited.

Leaves from 1 very large bunch basil

6–10 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Blanch the basil leaves in boiling water for 30 seconds and then refresh by plunging immediately into ice water. Squeeze out as much moisture as you can and then put in a blender or processor with a small bowl and whizz with the oil until you have a thickish green purée, like liquid pool-table felt. That’s it.

This makes enough for 3 balls of mozzarella.

Slice the mozzarella thickly and dribble the basil oil over it. You could equally use the basil oil over sliced tomatoes, pasta, soup, anything.

RHUBARB MERINGUE PIE

for Horatia

I don’t go in for flavored mashed potatoes, flavored pasta, or flavored pastry. I think that mashed potatoes, pasta, and pastry are meant to be the base line, the comforting neutral blanket against which other more sprightly tastes can be set. But orange, in pastry, does work, and subtly. Orange, famously, sets off rhubarb—and it is used also to bind the fruits beneath the meringue topping.

Because I quite often make rhubarb jelly, I tend to have pulpy bags of frozen, poached, sweetened fruit in the freezer. For a 8-inch tart pan, about 2 cups of cooked fruit should be fine. And if the purée is already sweetened, you’ll need only 1–2 tablespoons of extra sugar rather than the 3⁄4 cup specified.

If you’re using raw fruit, proceed as below.

FOR THE PASTRY

1 cup Italian 00 or all-purpose flour

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut in small cubes, or 3 tablespoons lard and 3 tablespoons butter

juice of 1 orange

pinch salt

Make the pastry by following the instructions on
page 37
, freezing the flour and butter for 10 minutes and chilling half the orange juice with the salt, which you will use later to make the floury, buttery, breadcrumby mixture cohere. You will be using the remaining juice for the filling, so keep it. Go slowly, adding ice water if needed. When the dough can be formed into a ball, stop, roll it into a ball in your hands, and then press it into a disc, wrap with plastic film, and put in the fridge for 20–30 minutes. Roll it out and line a deep tart/quiche pan of 8 inches in diameter. Put back in the fridge, if possible, for about another 20 minutes and preheat the oven to 400°F.

Bake blind (see
page 39
) until the pastry looks cooked but not brown. Remove from the oven; you don’t want the pastry hot when you put all the other ingredients in it.

FOR THE RHUBARB

1¾ pounds rhubarb, trimmed, halved lengthwise if wide, and cut ½-inch thick