How to Eat (48 page)

Apropos of this, one year I made a summer version of lemon meringue pie, or maybe it would be better to describe it as a cross between lemon meringue pie and pavlova: make a pavlova base—see
page 336
—smear it with some thickly whipped double cream, as if one were spreading some butter on bread, then thickly cover that with lemon curd, then even more thickly with more whipped double cream, and then dot with some raspberries.

LATE-SUMMER SUNDAY ROAST BEEF AND YORKSHIRE PUDDING FOR 8

COLD ROAST FILLET OF BEEF

ROSEMARY AND ANCHOVY MAYONNAISE

WARM CANNELLINI OR CRANBERRY BEANS WITH GARLIC AND SAGE

TOMATO SALAD

YORKSHIRE PUDDING WITH SYRUP AND CREAM

This, I think, is one of my favorite Sunday lunches, but you can get away with it at any time the sun is warm enough to make a cold roast fillet of beef seem a treat. It’s certainly too expensive to produce if you believe people will think cold food a disappointment or an easy option.

Most of this lunch can be made in advance—you can cook the beef the day before and boil some beans in readiness for a quick sousing in sage and olive oil just before you eat. Make the mayonnaise on the morning of the day you’re serving lunch and all that will need doing around lunchtime is a tomato salad or green salad to go with it. I don’t think you need potatoes. You do, you see, have Yorkshire pudding coming too, not with the beef but after, as dessert, served searingly hot with golden syrup (see
page 460
) or honey poured over and thick whipped or, even better, clotted cream (
page 457
). This may sound odd, but remember that Yorkshire pudding is just a kind of popover, which specialty can be served with syrup for breakfast. This heavenly dessert version is not alone in its recasting of the traditional savory pudding. When I was young there was, tucked behind Fulham Road in London, a restaurant called the Hungry Horse where it was considered frightfully fashionable to go for Sunday lunch. One of the high points of its menu was Yorkshire pudding for every course.

COLD ROAST FILLET OF BEEF

I think people tend not to eat as much fillet as other cuts of beef, but I would still make a more generous allocation than the normal reckoning of 8 ounces per person, so instead of getting a 4-pound fillet I’d get one large fillet of 5 pounds. In fact, I’d probably take fright at the idea of skimpy portions once I was in the butcher’s and then nervously settle on the heavier weight. Anyway, who’s going to complain about leftover fillet sliced into cool thick slabs, smeared with mustard, and eaten with warm pebbly new potatoes and alligator-skinned cornichons or an astringent salsa verde (see
page 181
) or with thickly sliced floury boiled potatoes fried till crisp and blistered without, steamed creamily sweet within?

I would give the fillet about 8 minutes per pound, in a pretty hot but not searing oven (425°F). Remember that the beef will carry on cooking as it cools, and you do want it rare (or I do; adapt to please yourself). For exact doneness, roast the fillet to an internal temperature of 120°F for rare, 125°–130°F for medium-rare, or 140°F for medium. You really don’t need to do much to the beef after cooking. Just anoint it with some oil. I have some olive oil that has been infused with bay and rosemary, and this is what I’d use here. Normal olive oil, with no other seasoning, will be fine enough though, or you could make your own rosemary oil, see below. I sometimes add some mashed anchovies to the herbed or herbless oil, which I then apply as the meat-massaging unguent. The meat tastes good, too, simply wiped down with mustard to which you’ve added 2 teaspoons of oil.

So, you anoint the fillet, roast it, let it cool, wrap it in foil, and put it in the fridge. What you absolutely must remember to do is take it out of the fridge a good 2 hours before lunch. Yes, it should be cold, but it should not have the merest smack of the refrigerator’s chill about it. Alternatively, you could cook the fillet early on Sunday morning and let it cool in the kitchen to room temperature, even slightly above, so that you eat it not cold but not hot either. Always a pleasurable possibility.

If you think the fillet looks too spooky or too brown as it sits ready to be sliced, then do sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley or chives—not too many, just enough to lift it—or just carve it in readiness. You should, too, sprinkle with salt, unless of course you’ve mashed anchovies into it before roasting.

ROSEMARY AND ANCHOVY MAYONNAISE

Anchovy really does give something to meat (though this mayonnaise is also wonderful with crab cakes or indeed, any fish cakes).

You can use bought rosemary-infused oil, or make your own, or leave the rosemary out and let the anchovies speak eloquently for themselves.

9 anchovy fillets in olive oil, drained and minced

½ garlic clove, peeled and minced

3 egg yolks, at room temperature

1½ cups peanut or sunflower oil

squeezes lemon juice

8 scant tablespoons rosemary oil or olive oil infused with rosemary (see recipe below)

freshly milled black pepper

salt, if needed

Mash the anchovies and garlic to form a paste and then whisk together with the egg yolks in a large bowl. The egg yolks should be at room temperature. You can use an electric hand-held mixer (or, indeed, a free-standing one) but what you can’t use, and I’m sorry to be a bore about this, is the food processor. Drip by slow drop, pour in the sunflower or peanut oil, whisking all the while. The mayonnaise should slowly emulsify. Squeeze in some lemon, going carefully. Don’t worry if it still doesn’t taste lemony enough now. Keep whisking and now add the rosemary oil, still pouring slowly. Taste and add the pepper, some salt—if, after the anchovies, you need it—and more lemon juice as wished. Cover with plastic film.

It’s best not to keep mayonnaise in the fridge but rather in a cool place. If the mayonnaise develops a greasy, glassy top (this tends to happen when it’s refrigerated), just skim this off with a spoon before serving.

ROSEMARY-INFUSED OIL

Put about 12 tablespoons of olive oil in a saucepan and add 3 tablespoons of rosemary leaves. Put on the heat and shake while warm and then let sizzle for a very short while, about 10 seconds. Pour through the finest mesh strainer. Don’t use the rosemary-infused oil in the mayonnaise until it has cooled, though it’s fine to massage a few warm tablespoons of it into the meat before roasting. This should give you enough for both.

WARM CANNELLINI OR CRANBERRY BEANS WITH GARLIC AND SAGE

It really doesn’t matter whether you use cannellini or cranberry beans here. I tend, more often, to use cannellini, just out of habit, I think, but adore the soft pink specklediness of cranberry beans, too. I suppose it’s just that I associate them more with soups. No matter; choose which you prefer.

1 pound dried cannellini or cranberry beans

1 large onion, halved

1 medium carrot, peeled and halved

7 sage leaves, 3 whole, 4 minced

7 tablespoons olive oil, plus more, for serving

salt

4 garlic cloves, minced

2–3 tablespoons chopped parsley (optional)

Soak the beans overnight in cold water. Drain them, and put them in a heavy-bottomed large saucepan along with the onion, carrot, and the whole sage leaves. Cover by about 6 inches with cold water, bring to the boil, and simmer for 1–1½ hours or until done. How long it actually takes depends on the age of the beans, but start tasting after 50 minutes and keep a beady eye on them, as you don’t want them to melt into fudgy rubble. When they are tender, drain them, reserving some cooking liquid for later. Stir in 3 tablespoons of the olive oil and some salt. When they are cool, remove the onion, carrot, and sage. Cover the beans and leave in a cool place or refrigerate.

When you want to eat them, get a heavy-bottomed or, even better, terracotta dish and pour in the rest of the olive oil. Add the garlic and the minced sage leaves, then sprinkle over some salt and cook on the stove, sizzling gently and stirring all the while to prevent the garlic from coloring. You don’t want it to brown, just soften. Stir in the beans, add some of the reserved cooking liquid, and warm through. Pour some more olive oil over and serve, sprinkling with the chopped parsley if you like (I always do).

TOMATO SALAD

There is no recipe to follow here—no one needs to be told how to slice tomatoes. But there is an injunction: leave them plain. You can peel them if you are up to it, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t. Get the best tomatoes you can and make sure they aren’t cold before you start (they should never be kept in the fridge, anyway). Slice thinly, arrange on a plate, sprinkle with salt, pepper, sugar if you think they really need it (but even so, just a pinch), some finely chopped scallions, a drop or two of balsamic or else good red wine vinegar, and a drizzle of glass-green olive oil. Small cherry tomatoes should be halved or quartered and tossed with the other ingredients in a shallow bowl.

YORKSHIRE PUDDING WITH SYRUP AND CREAM

Follow precisely the instructions for Yorkshire pudding (
page 253
), only instead of using dripping, use vegetable oil or shortening.

While the Yorkshire pudding is cooking, pour some golden syrup or runny honey (or honey warmed to thin it) into one pitcher and some heavy cream in another, or, if you’re using clotted cream, just put it in a bowl. The best vanilla ice cream you can find would also be heavenly with the blisteringly hot pudding and gooey golden syrup.

Fillet of beef is also useful when you want to make a special lunch for just a few people. Instead of fillet, you could also buy top rump roast.

A PERFECT PLAIN SUNDAY LUNCH FOR 3

TOP RUMP ROAST OF BEEF

NEW POTATOES WITH TRUFFLE OIL

YOUNG PEAS AND SNOW PEAS, OR DARK-LEAF SALAD

RICE PUDDING

For three, I would buy a roast weighing about 3 pounds or even 4 pounds. I love it cold the next day, cut into thick chips and put into a salad, with lettuce, cucumber, sliced gherkin, and scallions, with a mustardy dressing and topped with crumbled, finely chopped hard-boiled egg. And any leftover potatoes can be halved or thickly sliced and profitably thrown in, too.

Preheat the oven to 425°F. While it’s heating up, put in the dish in which you’re going to roast the beef; then, 5 or so minutes before you want to put the beef in, add a small dollop of dripping or vegetable oil. Work out the roasting time for the meat, based on 15–17 minutes per pound—that’s if you like it bloody (see also
page xviii
), or cook to an internal temperature of 120°F or higher for less rare meat (see
page 257
). Put the meat in the dish and in the oven along with a tomato, cut in half, an onion, ditto, and 2 unpeeled garlic cloves.

When the beef is ready, remove it to a carving board or plate and let sit for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, make a thin gravy by putting the roasting pan on the stove, removing the tomato, onion, and garlic if you can’t be bothered to sieve later. Add about ½ cup beef stock and the same amount of red wine and let bubble away, adding salt and pepper and maybe a pinch of sugar. Strain into a warmed jug.

NEW POTATOES WITH TRUFFLE OIL

The potatoes I choose are those small, buttery, waxy-fleshed, thin-skinned ones, which can be available even in darkest winter. New potatoes, unlike baking ones, should be put into a saucepan of boiling water, salted, and cooked for the 30 minutes or so they need. Drain them and return them to the pan with a fat dollop of unsalted butter. Shake the pan gently so the potatoes are all glossily covered. Grind over some white pepper (though, of course, black pepper wouldn’t be a catastrophe) and add a few drops of truffle oil, tiny bottles of which can be bought at specialty food stores. You don’t need much; if you have too heavy a hand, you will begin to notice a positively barnyard fragrance wafting from the pan. I like these potatoes warm rather than hot, so leave them with the heat turned off but the lid on before decanting them into a warmed bowl.

In winter, I’d make a buttery mixture of peas—good frozen young peas—and just-cooked snow peas. In summer, I love a peppery salad with the soft, pink, sweet meat. Any strong dark leaves in more or less any combination would work: tender spinach, watercress, arugula, mizuna, or unchopped, robust flat-leaf parsley. Use oil—stick to olive if you’ve made the truffle-scented potatoes, or else a nut oil—and lemon juice for the dressing; nothing fancy, but remember to add salt while tossing. I think a salad like this is better on a large flat plate rather than in a normal salad bowl.

RICE PUDDING

Everyone is convinced of the importance of getting a rice pudding absolutely right, but unfortunately no one agrees what that means. Definitely it shouldn’t be gummy, though neither should it be watery; the rice shouldn’t be too firm, but it shouldn’t be mush either. And between those two extremes, there is room for intense disagreement. For me there is indeed such a thing as a too-creamy rice pudding; I like it milk-white, sugary but pure tasting. I live with someone who regards an almost butter-yellow, fat-thickened, rice-beaded soup as so much perfection attained. I loathe and detest skin on rice pudding (but rather less than I hate and fear skin on custard)—just writing the words makes me shiver. I concede, though, that for most people, in Britain at least, the skin is almost the best part.