How to Eat (45 page)

cloves from 2 heads garlic, unpeeled

1 2/3 cups olive oil

juice of 2 lemons

16 chicken wings

coarse salt

Put the garlic in cold water to cover generously, bring to boil, and boil for 10 minutes. Then drain, push the cloves out of their skins into the processor, and blitz. Then, with the motor running, pour the oil down the feed tube till you have a milky white gloop. Add the lemon juice, pour over the chicken wings, and leave covered in fridge, fleshy side down, for 36 hours.

Take them out of the fridge a good hour before you put them in the oven and empty out into roasting pan. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Then bake, basting occasionally, for 45 minutes to an hour, until they are very well done, crisp and burnished brown. Remove from the oven, arrange on a large plate, and sprinkle generously with the salt.

EGGPLANT SLICES WITH POMEGRANATE JUICE AND MINT

I suppose pomegranates—that carpaccio-red juice, those glassy beads—always seem exotic to us, and that’s partly why I like them. There is something both biblical and almost
belle époque
about them, something both ancient and vulgar. And curiously, I feel rather nostalgically inclined toward them, too. I remember digging them out of Christmas stockings, then sitting for hours with a yellow-mazed half in front of me, winkling the bitter-cased seeds out with a pin.

But they fit best in the time-stamped, opulent Middle Eastern tradition, as here, with the juice steeping pinkly a plate of eggplant slices fried in olive oil, the seeds like jewels glinting out from behind the aromatic leafiness of thickly sprinkled mint. You can fry the eggplant in advance, but don’t do anything with the pomegranate and mint until about half an hour before you eat. After 20 minutes’ steeping, the eggplant is at its heady best.

I don’t, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, salt and soak eggplant before preparing it; if you buy ones that are taut and glossy and feel light for their size, you shouldn’t find them bitter. If you like, you can substitute charred, skinned red peppers for the eggplant, and pomegranate molasses (see
page 459
) for the fresh pomegranates. If using the molasses, make a dressing for the eggplant with 2 tablespoons each of the molasses, extra-virgin olive oil, and water. Drizzle this over the eggplant before sprinkling with salt and the mint.

On the table with this I’d put a plate of cucumbers, cut into 2-inch lengths and then each chunk cut into quarters lengthways. Add a plate of tomatoes and another of raw, scrubbed, and peeled carrots, in chunks like the cucumber, and consider decanting a jar of pickled peppers.

2 medium eggplants

olive oil, for frying

2 pomegranates

handful fresh mint

salt

Slice the eggplant into discs about ¼-inch thick or cut lengthways to form swelling, pear-shaped slices; the bulging lengths look more beautiful, the discs are easier to eat.

Once sliced, start frying. If you’ve got a ridged cast-iron griddle, use that, only brush the eggplant as well as the griddle with olive oil before you start. Or use a frying pan, pouring in the oil to a depth of about ¼ inch (and be prepared to add more as you put fresh eggplant batches in to fry) and leaving the slices as they are. Whichever way, cook the eggplant briskly until the surface crisps and the interior is soft, then remove to plates lined thickly with paper towels and drape some more paper over the resting slices so that the paper absorbs as much oil as possible and the eggplant is as dry as possible. You can eat them warm or, if it makes life easier, just leave them to get cold.

Meanwhile, cut one of the pomegranates in half and remove the seeds; you’ll need just enough to sprinkle over the slices. The easiest way to do this is to hold a half with one hand, cut side down, over a bowl; with the other hand take a wooden spoon and thwack the held half. After the third thwack you will have rubies raining down. Put those aside and squeeze the juice out of the second fruit. I find an electric citrus juicer the easiest way to do this, but an ordinary, old-fashioned manual one will do. (You might, though, need to get more of the fruit if juicing by hand.) Finely chop the mint. Arrange the eggplant slices on a large plate, sprinkle over a little salt, then pour on the pomegranate juice. Now sprinkle over the mint and then scatter over the pomegranate seeds, but go steady; you may find that you don’t need them all. This is one of those times when less is probably more.

A COMFORTING LUNCH FOR 4

FISH AND PORCINI PIE

ICE CREAM, CHERRIES, FLAKED ALMONDS, AND CHOCOLATE SAUCE

Fish pie is not particularly labor-intensive to cook, but it’s hard to get right; if the flour/butter/milk balance is off, the sauce bubbling beneath the blanket of nutmeggy mashed potato can be too runny or too solid. Don’t let nervousness make you scrimp on the milk; it’s better runny than stodgy, and even an imperfect fish pie is a delicious one. What’s important is not to make the sauce taste too floury (using Italian 00 flour sees to that) and not to let your desire for something comforting blunt your appetite for seasoning. I added porcini because I’d been given some by my Austrian aunt Frieda, who was coming for lunch. Perhaps it would be more correct to say great-aunt; the title is honorific but she’s the generation, was the companion, of my grandmother. She was the matron at my mother and aunts’ boarding school and my grandmother, not I think extraordinarily maternal, was so dreading the summer holidays that she asked Matron to stay at home with the children during them. Over forty years later, she’s still here, an important figure in all our lives. I wanted to use the mushrooms because she’d given them to me. But I also thought they’d add a creaturely muskiness, a depth of tone, to the milkily-sweet fish-scented sauce. They did.

This is how I made it. You can change the fish selection as you want and boil and mash the potatoes ahead of time.

FISH AND PORCINI PIE

2 tablespoons dried porcini

½-pound piece of cod

½-pound piece of smoked haddock (finnan haddie)

½-pound piece of salmon

1 cup milk

1¼ cups fish stock

3 bay leaves

4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, plus more, for dotting the pie

½ cup Italian 00 or all-purpose flour

2½ pounds floury potatoes

½ cup heavy cream

freshly grated nutmeg

salt and freshly milled black pepper

Cover the dried porcini with very hot water and leave for 20 minutes or so. Then drain the mushrooms and strain the soaking liquid into the stock. Make sure the mushrooms are grit-free; rinse them, if necessary, and chop them finely.

Choose the dish in which you will cook (and serve) the fish pie and butter it. I use an old, very battered oval enamel cast-iron dish of my mother’s, which has a capacity of about 2 quarts. Put the fish in a wide, heavy-bottomed pan—I use a frying pan, but anything that’ll take them in one layer would do—and cover with the milk, the stock with its mushroom liquid, and the bay leaves. Bring to a simmer and poach for about 3 minutes. Remove the fish to the buttered dish and fork into chunks. Strain the cooking liquid into a large measuring cup, reserving bay leaves.

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the mushrooms. Fry gently for 2 minutes, stir in the flour, and fry gently for another 2 minutes. Off the heat, very slowly add the liquid from the cup, stirring with a wooden spoon or beating with a whisk (whichever suits) as you go. When all is incorporated, put back on the heat. Add the bay leaves and stir gently until thickened. If you’re going to eat it straightaway, pour over the fish in the casserole. Otherwise, remove from heat and cover with waxed paper or a film of melted butter.

Boil and mash the potatoes with the cream and season with the nutmeg and lots of salt and pepper. When you’re ready to roll, preheat the oven to 350°F. Put the fish and mushroomy white sauce in the casserole, if you haven’t already done so, the potato on top, with more nutmeg, pepper and butter (little dots of it here and there) added just before it goes into the oven. Depending on how hot it all is before it goes in the oven, the fish pie should need 20–40 minutes, or until lightly golden in parts on top. Test as you go. This isn’t an untouchable work of art you’re creating; dig a hole, taste, and then patch up with potato.

ICE CREAM

For dessert, buy the best ice cream, vanilla if you can, or make your own (see
page 33
). Buy a ruby-glinting jar of bottled, sourish cherries and some flaked or slivered almonds to go with it and make a glossily dark chocolate sauce (
page 222
).

SERIOUS LUNCH FOR 8’ NO HOSTAGES

CHOUCROUTE GARNIE

QUINCE SYLLABUB

In our enthusiasm for all things Mediterranean, some more northerly specialties have got lost. I love Scandinavian food, perhaps because I spent a lot of time in Norway as a child (taken by an adored au pair, Sissel), but I love too those robust, spicily sour Germanic constructs:
pflaumenpfannekuchen,
great solid pancakes bolstered with plums and weighed down with a thick layer of granulated sugar; plum tart made with shiny dark quetschen, sliced, and cooked till a reddy, coppery cinnamon on thick banks of
hefeteig,
a yeast dough; a long-steeped sauerbraten; stuffed cabbage; wurst
mit senf
(with mustard); and—we’re getting there—an astringent, tangled heap of sauerkraut with boiled potatoes, juniper berries, frankfurters, the works. The choucroute garnie of the title makes this sound Alsatian rather than uncompromisingly German. But, whatever, we’re talking about the same hangover-salving thing.

QUINCE SYLLABUB

You can leave all the sausages in this whole, or halve or cut them into chunks as you like. If you are going to cut them, you can reduce the amount you get; you just need everyone to be able to take some of each.

CHOUCROUTE GARNIE

¾ cup goose fat

2 medium onions, finely sliced

3 smoked ham knuckles

3 medium carrots, peeled and halved

1 bouquet garni made of 1 bay leaf, 8 juniper berries, 2 cloves, 3 sprigs thyme (see
page xx
)

¾ pound sauerkraut

freshly milled black pepper

3 cups dry Riesling

8 Toulouse sausages or bratwurst

8 frankfurters

Melt or heat ½ cup of the goose fat in a heavy casserole—I use a large cast-iron rectangular one that fits over a couple of burners—and cook the onion in it over medium heat, uncovered, for about 10 minutes or until soft. Add the knuckles, the carrots, and bouquet garni and stir. Then add the sauerkraut and a good grinding of pepper, and mix well so that all is combined and the knuckles are blanketed by the sauerkraut.

Pour over the Riesling and bring to the boil. Add the remaining goose fat in teaspoon-sized dollops over the top of the sauerkraut. Put the lid on, turn the heat down to very low, and simmer for 2½ hours.

Grill the Toulouse sausages or bratwurst and set aside till needed. When the knuckles are cooked, remove, let cool a little, then carve and slice into chunks (neither delicacy nor finesse are exactly required), getting rid of the bones (or keeping them to flavor soup), and return to the casserole along with the sausages or bratwurst and the frankfurters, halved or cut up, if you like. Put the casserole back on the heat, covered, and let simmer for 20 minutes till all’s heated through.

You can serve straight from the casserole or decant everything to a vast oval plate. With this, I like plain, that’s to say unbuttered, boiled floury potatoes with some juniper berries bashed and sprinkled over on serving.

If I have leftovers, I put everything back in the casserole, stash it in the fridge, and reheat it up to 3 days later—a little something for the week.

You cannot want much of a dessert after this, but the syllabub will seep comfortably into whatever small space is left. Turn to
page 113
for the recipe, adjusting quantities as necessary.

If this sounds like too much hard work, then bring out a vast tub of yogurt, a jar of, preferably, Greek honey, and some flaked almonds you’ve toasted in a fatless pan over medium heat.

FINALLY, THE BASIC ALWAYS - WELCOME LUNCH FOR 8

SAUSAGES AND MASH WITH RED WINE, CUMIN, AND ONION GRAVY

SEVILLE ORANGE CURD TART, OR LEMON CREAM WITH SHORTBREAD

Sausages and mash—sausages with mashed potatoes—have to be the most gratefully received lunch ever. For the mash, work on 8 ounces of potatoes per person, adding lots of butter, lots of cream, lots of pepper; as for the sausages, I exhort you not to be seduced by interesting-sounding combinations. I always regret falling for the wild boar and ginger, the venison and mint sausages; sausages should be just sausages. I do, though, buy my butcher’s Cumberland sausages, porky, herby links, now that he makes individual ones, not just the traditional yard-long spiralled kind. A reliable choice is any honest pork sausage that is without distracting flavors.