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Celeriac

27/10/2020

Aren’t you just tickled pink! Extolling the virtues this time last year of celery, I explained the difference between celery stalks and celeriac - of which root I promised, “more, another time”. Well, guess what. It’s such a suitable autumnal vegetable, that time is now.

It may be because of how it looks - a ball that’s been severely kicked then put through the hot wash bleach cycle, or because it can be dauntingly large - but celeriac doesn’t seem to be much revered. The French make the most of it in celeri remoulade, which is surely on no-one’s Hate List. But celeriac can give so much more.

It’s the same plant as celery, but is cultivated for its root, not its stalks. You can’t swop celery for celeriac and vice versa in recipes that call for them by name. Like celery, it can be eaten raw or cooked, and while it has the same flavour as the stalks, that flavour is sweetened and mellowed when exposed to heat.

You may have assumed it was a cold region vegetable exclusive to the northern hemisphere where it’s grown across Northern Europe, Siberia and North America. But it’s also cultivated in North Africa and Southwest Asia, albeit in their cooler high regions. And a close relation, Cepa de apio criollo (Creole celery root), is a tuber with a similar flavour to celeriac, common in farmers markets from Dominica and Puerto Rico, where it is used to make traditional soups, to Venezuela and other Latin American countries, again, grown in highland regions.

I dare to propose that along with potato, celeriac is the most versatile vegetable we cultivate in the West. You can boil it, steam it, roast it, mash it, grate it, fry it, and turn it into the most soothing of winter soups. All that’s required for that, at its most simple, is a base of finely chopped leek and onion stewed in butter till soft, chunks of peeled celeriac thrown in and everything softened in milk or stock, then blitzed and a generous pour of cream added. Crumble crisp cooked bacon over to serve.

But that’s just the start of it. Look up a Latkes recipe and swop the potato for celeriac. Fry the Latkes not in the traditional chicken schmaltz (chicken fat) but in duck fat for a Perigord take, and dab each golden disc with a blob of creme fraiche to serve, possibly with a teaspoon of horseradish mixed into it.

Celeriac roasted whole has been on hip restaurant menus for a year or two. Scrub the celeriac thoroughly and rub it well with olive oil and the leaves from 6 sprigs of thyme or a spice like finely ground cumin or coriander, or simply salt it well. Wrap it tightly in foil, set in a pan and roast for 2 hours until soft. Spread the foil open and roast 30 minutes more to crisp up the skin. Cut into wedges, drizzle hazelnut oil and lemon juice over it, sprinkle with sea salt and serve with a seared steak, a roast of meat, or just by itself with a vinegary salad.

For a comforting gratin, slice equal quantities of peeled potatoes and celeriac and layer them with thin slices of one onion in a gratin dish. Season, cover with cream and dot with butter. Bake in 180C oven for about an hour or until bubbling and gold.

These wedges marry well with any meat dish - from roast to braise.
Roasted celeriac wedges with sage and walnuts

1 tablespoon olive oil
135ml maple syrup or honey
1kg celeriac, scrubbed clean then peeled
15g fresh sage leaves, shredded
1 teaspoon sea salt flakes
175g walnuts

Preheat oven to 400F/200°C.

Beat the oil and syrup together in a jug. Cut the celeriac into 2.5cm wide wedges, and spread over a roasting pan. Drizzle half the maple syrup and oil over the wedges and toss them with clean hands to coat thoroughly. Roast for 20-25 minutes till the wedges begin to soften, turning them halfway through.

Add the sage, salt and walnuts to the remaining maple syrup and oil, whisk then spoon over the celeriac. Continue to roast for 10-12 minutes more, or until the celeriac just begins to caramelise.

This column written by Julia Watson originally appeared in the October 2020 edition of The Bugle.

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Home-made Nutella

30/9/2020

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When my family moved from Soviet Moscow to Washington DC, we were ripe for food experiences - of any kind. We had lived for four years off cabbage, potatoes, and meat from the local markets that had been butchered with a chainsaw, so came replete with shards of bone. Sometimes the butchers didn’t show up, so we only had cabbage and potatoes.

There was, of course, a wider choice - of glorious vegetables and fruits from the then-Soviet republic of Georgia. But you needed a budget to match. When I told my husband’s editor we needed to renegotiate our food allowance because cauliflowers cost $20 a kilo, he messaged back the single line: “So don’t buy cauliflower.” Cauliflower was the only vegetable available at the time.

The girls were 4 and 6 when they hit American supermarkets and the fridges and store cupboards of their school friends’ houses, impressionable ages. One of the first products they encountered - and the most immediately seductive - was Nutella.

I was persuaded (by the underhand means practised universally by cunning children, of tears, stamping of feet and a refusal to eat) to stock our own supply. I kept it on the upper shelf of a high cabinet for special occasions, and in order not to expose them to their playtime friends as the victims of utter deprivation.

One afternoon, I reached up to fetch the full jar to make sandwiches for the next batch of after-school squealers. Lifting it off the shelf, my hand shot up and banged against the roof of the cupboard, a motion not unlike the over-counting of steps down a staircase causing the ankles to crumple on the floor. Confused, I opened the Nutella and found the insides completely hollowed out, but for a thin and unbroken smear that lined the glass that had convinced me, till I learned otherwise, that the jar was full.

No-one could disagree with children that Nutella is an ambrosia of total delight. Melted chocolate praline to spread on bread? What’s not to love. But it’s not one of the best foods to encourage a child to eat. Not only is it very high in sugar, but it’s very high in palm oil, modified to encourage its spreadability and containing a significant quantity of saturated fats. Palm oil is not the most healthy ingredient for children. But it’s also not a healthy ingredient for the environment. For years, it came from plantations whose management had an enormous impact on deforestation. The pesticides their management required released effluents into the soil and water, and endangered the lives of elephants, orangutans, rhinoceri and Sumatran tigers.

Following a wide public campaign, the makers of Nutella have now committed to a supply of palm oil from sustainable sources. That’s good news. But it doesn’t affect the amount of sugar employed in the spread’s creation.

Nutella’s deliciousness can’t be ignored, however.

We’re about to enter hazelnut season, so you can easily make your own spread, without using sugar and certainly no palm oil, sustainable or otherwise. Enough spread for a good sized jar will only take you half an hour to compose, start to finish. A supply of it is good to have around, not just to keep your children on side, but it makes a delectable icing for a cake.

150g hazelnuts (dried, not milky)
250g chocolate, broken up
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons good-flavoured honey
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 175C.

Melt the chocolate in a saucepan over simmering water and stir until smooth. Cool completely.

Toast the hazelnuts on a baking sheet in the oven for 10-12 minutes until they’ve browned a little and their skins blister. Pour them into a kitchen towel and rub enthusiastically to get rid of as much loose skin as possible. If you take them outside, you can blow the skins off. Otherwise, just try to keep the skin bits away from the exposed nuts.

Cool the nuts then grind them in a blender or processor to form a paste. Add all the remaining ingredients except for the chocolate and blitz again until completely smooth. Then add the melted chocolate and blend again. Pour into sterilized jars. It will thicken as it cools.

Then store on the highest shelf you have.

This column written by Julia Watson originally appeared in the September 2020 edition of The Bugle.

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Marrow Rum

30/8/2020

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I’ve probably said it before, but marrows are the worst vegetables in the world. No! Stuff them, you challenge, and they’re delicious. Yes - because the stuffing is delicious, not the marrow. So why spoil it by encasing it in something the taste and texture of wet wads of sheep’s wool. Yet in our patager every year, our crop of marrows is greater than any other vegetable because I forget to pick the courgettes when they’re in their prime. One day, they’re the size of thumbs, which counts as vegecide if you pick them that small. The very next day, they’ve inflated into inedible torpedoes.

But it turns out there’s a very rewarding solution even for these monsters. One result of lockdown is the manner in which so many people have discovered in themselves a spirit of Victory Garden make-do-and-mend initiative. One of the austerity recipes that have been pressed upon me is for Marrow Rum. It is inspiring enough to make sure that if I do remember to harvest the courgettes while they are still worth eating, I’m going to let two of them expand into marrows, one for each leg. No, not my legs - although it has been said when it comes to alcohol my legs are hollow. The legs of a pair of tights. Read on; you’ll see.

The basic principle is to allow a marrow to grow fat enough that its skin becomes so tough you need a hatchet to break it up. Instead of wrecking it that way, though, you take off its stem end with a bread knife, low enough down to be close to where you can guess the seeds begin to appear. Then scoop them all out and discard them. Pack the hollow with Demerara sugar then stuff a marrow down the leg of a pair of tights - or two legs for two marrows, so long as you make sure neither marrow touches the other. Hang the marrow above a clean bucket in a warm place and leave it to rot. What eventually drips into the bucket is Marrow Rum.

I can’t imagine you aren’t as excited as me to try this out, so full instructions follow. You don’t need to make it immediately. Once a marrow’s skin has hardened, it won’t rot and you can wait until the end of high summer’s exhausting temperatures to begin brewing.

Ingredient amounts depend on the size of the marrow. You need wine yeast but if you can’t find any, at a pinch bread yeast can substitute. Otherwise, you want Demerara sugar and 1 orange per marrow.

Method for one large inedible marrow

In two tablespoons of cool water from a boiled kettle, dissolve 2 teaspoons of Demerara sugar. Stir it in the juice of the orange. Add the yeast and leave, covered with muslin, for 8 hours or overnight to begin the fermentation.
Saw off the stalk end of the marrow with a good sharp bread knife or a clean saw and set it aside.
Scoop out all the seeds and pith and discard. Hammer a few holes in the bottom of the marrow with a clean skewer. Press Demerara sugar tightly inside the hollow then pour over the sugar-and-yeast liquid and put the stalk lid back on top, securing it with duct tape to seal the marrow container.
Carefully slide the marrow, stalk end upwards, into a leg of the tights and hang it above a clean bowl in a warm place.
After two to three weeks, liquid should start to drip into the clean bowl. It will take around 3 months before the dripping slows down and all you’re left with is the hard shell of the marrow and some squidgy marrow pulp. Squeeze it and whatever sludge remains in the tights, to extract every last drop of juice.
Bottle in clean bottles, cork, and leave until next year’s marrow season - if you can - to raise a toast to the glory of vegetable torpedoes as they expand from courgettes into your subsequent rum supply.

This column written by Julia Watson originally appeared in the August 2020 edition of The Bugle.

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Apricots

16/7/2020

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It’s a truism to say that food is as much about culture as it is about appetite. The chilly north of Europe has never included in its national cuisines the quantities of chillies that go into the dishes of Asia. Nor has the climate east of the Bosphorus, meteorological and religious, encouraged the promotion of cows for the production of cream and butter. The French consider the British pairing of mint sauce with roast lamb a desecration even while they are happy to serve blackcurrant sauce with duck.

What is interesting, though, is when the addition of certain ingredients strays, in the view of the eater, into the zone of possible physical danger. Living in Washington DC for almost 20 years, it was as difficult towards the end of that period as it was at the start to get hold of offal. Most supermarkets - independent butchers are rare - sell a spread of skinless chicken breasts, a lesser stock of thighs and legs, a display of vermillion-red cuts of beef, pork roasts and very thin un-fatty chops - the Other White Meat, as it’s marketed, with its implication of better health attached.

Newly arrived, I drove all over the capital in search of kidneys to make a steak-and-kidney pie, to introduce new American friends to British culture. Finding a complicit French butcher behind the meat country of an upmarket food store, I nevertheless had to sign a Food & Drug Administration form saying I fully understood the dangers of eating offal and another form that exonerated him from liability should any health issue arise.

The kidneys weren’t available at the time. They had to be ordered from some independent location. Nor would they be fresh. They arrived several days later, frozen into a brick. When the guests sat down at the dinner in front of the traditional British pie, they each carefully removed every piece of kidney and set it aside on the rim of their plates.

More recently, we had a friend from another European country to stay. She sat at the kitchen counter watching me make Tarte aux Abricots, chatting away as I rolled the pastry about the joys of French food and how impressive was the French way of using every part of everything, having been served the previous night a warm salad of wilted radish and beetroot leaves. However, she had her limits, too.

When I cracked open the stones of the apricots, blanched their kernels to remove their skins and scatter the nuts over the apricot tart, she rebelled. Surely they would give her cyanide poisoning. Despite my assurance that she would have to eat the weight of her head in apricot kernels before she was in any danger, she was clearly unsettled enough that I had to use almond slivers instead to make her feel safe.

You can use whichever you prefer for the apricot tart below.

I offer this recipe because the method applies to any soft fruit - although you will find that plums leak a good deal of juice in the baking. I don’t find that a drawback, but it does make the pastry a little soggy. In a good plum-y way, in my view. It also works beautifully as an apple tart. Peel and core the apples, then cut them into slices you overlap down the pastry. Baking a fruit tart in a rectangle saves an awful lot of work and avoids that struggle of getting pastry and fruit happily settled into a round tin. Also, it slices more easily.

Serves 4-6

250g plain or puff pastry
500g fresh apricots, halved and stoned
Kernels of apricots for scattering, or almond slivers (optional)
100g unsalted butter, melted
150g caster sugar
Icing sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 200C.

Roll out pastry to a rectangle on a flour-dusted work surface and lay on a large buttered baking sheet. Use the tip of a knife to score a light line all the way round, 1 cm from the edge.

Crack the apricot stones and remove their kernels. Blanch the kernels in boiling water for 1 minute, then drain off the water and skin them. Arrange apricots as tightly as possible over pastry, cut side up. Brush the apricots and the pastry edges with the melted butter, sprinkle the fruit with sugar and scatter almond kernels or slivers over. Bake for 30-40 minutes, till the apricots are soft and beginning to char a little. Charring is important, adding a caramel flavour. Sieve over icing sugar just before serving and eat at room temperature on its own or with creme fraiche, or ice cream.

This column written by Julia Watson originally appeared in the July 2020 edition of The Bugle.

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Blackcurrants

25/6/2020

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A key component of a safe life this summer is not just a supply of face masks and thin rubber gloves. (Has anyone thought about the implications for sea life and the rest of the environment when we come to dispose of these?) It is a megaphone.

Those of us fortunate enough to have outside space will be sitting in it the requisite 2 meters apart. I don’t know about you, but my ears have found it a baffling experience adjusting to unfamiliar sounds or the lack of any sound at all. First, the disappearance of traffic and overhead plane noise (particularly those wretched fighter planes that rip through the sound barrier without warning). The empty echo in the eardrums has felt not unlike tinnitus. And now the silence has been replaced by such a joyful cacophony of liberated birds, I can’t hear a thing unless whoever I’m talking to is illegally well inside the authorised isolation zone of self-protection. So I’m investing in two megaphones - one for me, one spare for guests who haven’t brought their own.

If you’re querying why I’m having guests on the premises at all, I assure you I am following all the requisite guidelines about not allowing them to come through the house and dusting it with the contaminating impurities of their exterior social connections. They go round the edge. If I had a balcony accessible only through an interior room, I would also have invested in a ladder, so my guests could perform a Cyranno or Romeo from the street.

These stalwart friends will be greeted, as is the season, with a kir. Lost for distractions, I have been making Crème de Cassis by the gallon in anticipation of a bit of garden social life. Blackcurrants are about to become available fresh in the markets. But you can generally find them frozen in most supermarket freezers all year round. They are a fine investment, not just for making Crème de Cassis, but for making blackcurrant sorbet which, along with lemon, is probably the most effectively refreshing sorbet flavour.

Kir was invented by Canon Felix Kir, a hero of the French resistance who died in 1968 aged 92. His goal was to improve the livelihoods of the blackcurrant growers of Dijon, where he lived.

Just in case you’re new to the uplifting experience, Crème de Cassis topped up with chilled white wine makes a ‘Kir’. Topped with Champagne or Crémant, it’s a ‘Kir Royale’. A spoonful of Crème de Cassis poured over blackcurrant sorbet or vanilla ice cream lifts both to a higher plane the Canon would surely approve of.

500g blackcurrants
570ml eau-de-vie, vodka, gin or brandy
340g sugar

Defrost if necessary and mash blackcurrants with a fork, or squeeze hard with clean hands. Mix ingredients together in a large bowl then ladle into bottling jars and leave in a warm sunny place for at least a month, the longer the better, so make it in twice the quantity for the months to come. Strain through doubled muslin cloth, squeezing out the juice, and re-bottle. While you can buy an eau-de-vie at the pharmacy, cheap vodka makes a perfectly good stand in.

To make blackcurrant sorbet, you need

500g blackcurrants
Dessertspoon lemon juice
285g sugar
425-565ml water
2 egg whites
4 tablespoons creme de cassis (optional)

Puree the blackcurrants with the lemon juice in a blender or processor the sieve to remove the seeds. Make a syrup with the water and sugar. Cool then add enough to the puree to make a puree the consistency of an apple puree that isn’t too solid. Pour into a container and freeze. Every now and then, stir the frozen edges into the centre of the puree until the puree is firm all through but not a hard block.

Whisk the egg whites in a large mixing bowl until stiff, using an electric beater. With the beater running on a modest speed, add a large spoonful of the frozen puree and whisk in. Very gradually, spoonful by spoonful, whisk in the remaining puree and finally the Crème de Cassis, then scrape into a container and freeze till required. You can serve this with small sweet biscuits, like Langues de Chat or biscotti, and more Crème de Cassis poured over.

If you want to make a lemon sorbet, use 285ml lemon juice to 285g sugar and 565ml water and proceed as with the blackcurrant sorbet.

This column written by Julia Watson originally appeared in the June 2020 edition of The Bugle.

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Jugged hare/Civet de lievre

8/6/2020

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March is the month of mad hares when Lepus europaeus, the European hare, dazzled by the excitement of the breeding season at its peak, behaves in a bizarre and unpredictable fashion. Sneak quietly into an early morning or early evening field and stand stock still and you might catch them leaping vertically in a triumphal jump, or boxing at other hares. Not unlike some of our own mates’ behaviour, really.

The English may have ceded the hare as a cooking ingredient to the French, focusing Anglo Saxon attention on the more commonly available rabbit. But they are just as fond of the hare and use the same approach to the cooking of them. Civet de lievre, menu mainstay of Paris’s most popular brasseries and named for the ‘civettes’ - chives - that were originally part of its preparation, is no more than the jugged hare from over the Channel. The recipes and methods are almost mirror images the one of the other.

Hannah Glasse, venerable author of The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, the seminal English cookbook published in 1747, is credited with opening her recipe for jugged hare with the memorable instruction, “First catch your hare.” This, though, is thought to be inaccurate. What she is actually believed to have written is, “First case your hare,” ‘to case’ meaning to slit the skin of the creature and separate it from it in one piece, much like rolling your sock down your leg.

Her cookbook went into 20 editions during the remainder of the 18th century alone (and included what is thought to be the first English recipe for a curry). Glasse was a plagiarist, as later cookery writers became of her work, and pinched her recipes from all manner of sources. This might explain why her jugged hare recipe runs so closely to civet de lievre.

Jugging a hare is an English method, not a French one, ‘to jug’ meaning to set jointed and marinated pieces of meat in a jug into a bath of boiling water and leaving it to cook slowly for three hours.

French records show the hare being hunted for food back in the Middle Ages when it was cooked with spices, verjus, onions and wine, burnt toast being incorporated at the end of the cooking to induce the rich black colour of the gravy. These days, the toast has been lost along with the most of the spices, and the gravy of the civet often made with white wine and stock so that its gravy is clear not opaque.

Only at the beginning of the 20th century was blood added to the gravy - if it was added at all.

Spoiler alert (in the sense of the detail possibly spoiling your appetite): To prepare a hare for jugging or for a civet, its entrails having been removed, it is hung in a cool place by its legs until its blood has gathered in its chest cavity. This blood is drawn off and mixed with red wine or red wine vinegar to prevent it from coagulating, then added last thing to the cooked dish before serving. Jugging, like any slow cooking, is a good cooking method when a hare might have passed the pinnacle of its youth.

Jugged hare/Civet de lievre
Serves 8
For the marinade

2.5/3kg hare, jointed
1 bottle of robust red wine
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1 carrot peeled and chopped
3 sprigs thyme
6 juniper berries, lightly crushed
1 bay leaf
4 large fresh sage leaves
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

For the casserole

olive oil for sauteeing the onion
1 large onion, peeled and sliced
150g lardons
25g butter
2 tablespoons plain flour
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
1 bouquet garni
300 ml hare blood (optional) or stock

Put the hare into a china or glass bowl. Add all the marinade ingredients. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for 24-48 hours.
Drain the hare in a colander over a bowl, discard the vegetables and pat the hare dry with kitchen towel. Season the hare.

Add oil to a heavy bottomed saute pan and brown the onions, lardons and pieces of hare. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Wipe the pan clean of oil and add the butter to melt over low heat. Add the flour and stir till it turns gold.

Pour in the marinade wine and bring to the boil. Return the hare and onions to the pan and add the bouquet garni, reserving the lardons Season to taste, cover and simmer over low heat for 2.5 hours. 10 minutes before the end of cooking, add the lardons.

If you are using the hare blood, pour it into a warmed bowl. Add several tablespoons of the hot sauce from the saute pan, beating all the while, then whisk the contents of the bowl back into the saute pan and simmer until thickened a little. If adding stock, before returning the hare to the pan, bring the liquid to the boil and boil fast to reduce and thicken it a little.

Serve with potato puree or buttered tagliatelle.

This column written by Julia Watson originally appeared in the March 2020 edition of The Bugle.

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Store cupboard supplies + drying tomatoes and mushrooms

8/6/2020

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If we listen to the scientists and the medical profession, we are in for a much longer Covid 19 haul than the politicians would prefer us to believe. Three to four months ahead of us now, followed by a brief autumn break before a further period of quarantine, is the science community’s prediction.

I don’t want to be the harbinger of that depressing news. But if this is the case - and even if it isn’t, we should brace ourselves in a practical fashion. We hear about the UK hoarding loo paper and pasta, an intriguing combination. My email inbox is crammed with videos of strangers’ children doing unbelievably dangerous things indoors without apparent parental intervention because Maman or Papa is busy holding the camera, and video entreaties to join online ballet lessons (what?) or send a thoughtful poem to a chain of 20 people, and invitations to virtual cocktail and dinner parties. (Sorry, not dressed for it.) I don’t plan to come out of this proficient in a pirouette or having memorised the Bhagavad Gita. But I do think it could alter my approach to stocking the kitchen.

Four years in Moscow during the Soviet period of deprivation taught me never to throw out any leftovers but to convert them into another meal. When a glut of fruit or vegetables appeared in a battered cardboard box tied in twine and hauled by some smallholder from the countryside to sell on a city pavement, we bought as much as we could fit in our shopping bags and worked out only later how to preserve the treasure for the barren months.

It’s back to a blitz existence.

It doesn’t have to be. We are assured by supermarkets there is plenty of food. We do not need to hoard more than we can use immediately ourselves. The problem is logistics - how to sort and stack it on shelves when self-isolation is affecting staffing numbers. Working in a food bank, I notice the food we are being sent by supermarkets, growers, and restaurant suppliers is all fresh, not dried or tinned. Crates of excellent vegetables, fruits, cuts of meat, fillets of fish, are all being delivered because their Best Before dates - the confusing indicator that doesn’t mean the food has become dangerous to eat but only that it's no longer at its peak condition - were about to expire. But we aren’t being sent any tinned or boxed or bottled provisions. There aren’t any of those going spare. Even before it needs to, the general public is filling every household nook and cranny with non-perishable products against the future.

In this critical time, if we don’t support now the people who work to provide us with fresh produce by buying it in the measured manner we do in normal times, they won’t survive this crisis to supply us with fresh vegetables, fruits, meat and dairy goods once it’s over.

However, I suspect you won’t take the slightest bit of notice of this entreaty. So here is a shopping list for an emergency store cupboard of ingredients that if you don't stray from it, will help create delicious meals, will prevent the shelves from being unnecessarily stripped of everything, and will leave grocery supplies for others to buy. Then you can hunker down in self-isolation, emerging only to buy fresh food from those dedicated people producing it:
One tube each of tomato paste, anchovy paste, and garlic paste; tomato passata and tinned tomatoes; basic spices like black peppercorns, fennel and coriander seeds, and cinnamon sticks; curry powder, turmeric and coconut cream if you like a curry; instant coffee (for drinking in extremis - but can you make tiramisu without it?); cocoa powder; Pruneaux d’Agen and dried apricots; oatflakes; flour (learn to make your own pasta - it’s easy and passes the time); mustard; oil and vinegar; salt, sugar, honey; capers; tinned tuna; dried pulses and legumes, from chickpeas and lentils to butter beans and flageolets; rice and couscous; Knorr’s jellied bouillon pots.

Meanwhile, you can make a personal contribution to your store cupboard by drying your own tomatoes and mushrooms. Both cheer up a soup or stew with their intensity of flavour. Drying often tasteless supermarket tomatoes makes more of them, and of the summer glut about to arrive.

Take the oven racks out of your oven and preheat it to 50C or the lowest setting possible. Remove the stems of the tomatoes and slice them in half lengthways. Lay the halves side by side, cut side up, on cake racks, making sure they don't touch each other. Set the cake racks on top of the oven racks. Sprinkle very lightly with salt. Bake until the tomatoes are shrivelled and feel dry but flexible. You don't want them brittle. This will take from 6 to 12 hours, so keep checking. Once dried, take them out of the oven and let them cool completely on the cake racks, then store them in clean glass jars or in ziplock plastic bags. They should last indefinitely.

The same principle works for mushrooms, especially cepes. But check them regularly as they contain less water for their size than tomatoes.

This column written by Julia Watson originally appeared in the May 2020 edition of The Bugle.

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Eggs

11/5/2020

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When she worked as a copywriter, British novelist Fay Weldon created the slogan, “Go to work on an egg”. It was a brilliant punning directive that my mother took as a command. Every morning for breakfast before school, my sister and I were presented with a hard boiled one. As soon as I left home, I vowed never to eat another boiled egg again.

But this April is a special month for eggs. Easter is observed and the shops are stacked with chocolate versions. Hens are happily, as opposed to unhappily, back outside, producing what’s expected of them. Everywhere, eggs are being celebrated.

I may have rejected eggs that had been boiled but what my mother concocted with eggs in other cooking directions that the whole family and guests did relish was make wonderful fluffy souffles.

There’s more myth and fear surrounding the making of souffles than any other recipe. How to make them rise? Why didn’t they rise? Was the eggwhite over-beaten? Was the mixing bowl greasy? Was the whisk greasy? What mistake was made? So much unnecessary wringing of hands...

Forget all that. They are a doddle to cook and an excellent choice for a light lunch, a starter, an impressive dessert or a quickly assembled meal for unexpected visitors. All that’s necessary is to stop being impressed by them and remember they are merely a bechamel sauce with added flavour and puff.

If there’s a trick at all, it’s that you should always add one more egg white than you have egg yolks. Two, if you’re feeling trepidation or the eggs are small. Equally, for a cheese souffle you should add a good deal more grated cheese - preferably from the strongest and cheapest Cheddar or Cantal - than most recipes call for. When she made a souffle for four, my mother used at least 250g grams of whatever in the fridge was going stale (and sometimes needed some blue scraping off). Recipes other than hers can cite as little as 100 grams for the same number of servings.

A souffle doesn’t have to be cheese or chocolate. For a savoury one, you can fold in shards of smoked salmon or crab, or a duxelle of mushrooms, a pea puree or anything you like. On the sweet side, the same cooking method produces a chocolate souffle, a pistachio souffle, a Grand Marnier souffle, an apricot souffle and on and on...Once you have the knack, you can progress to Twice-Baked Souffles, a boon for the show-off dinner party cook since they’re made partly ahead.

Here’s my mother’s cheese souffle recipe: Make a fairly thick bechamel sauce from around 200ml of warmed milk. While hot, take off heat and add 300g grated strong cheese. Stir till melted, season with grinds of black pepper, a little grated nutmeg or some cayenne pepper, then, one at a time, drop in four egg yolks whose whites you have separated off into a large clean bowl. Add one or two extra egg whites to the mixing bowl contents and whisk to firm peaks. Dump a quarter of the froth into the cheesy bechamel and briskly incorporate to loosen the sauce. Then carefully fold in the remainder, making sure no egg white remains to be seen. Pour into a greased souffle dish and bake for 20-30 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 200C which you turn down at once to 180C. The length of time depends on how runny you like your souffle.

If that lack of precision is a bit daunting, try this:

Serves 4

50g butter
50g plain flour
200-300ml milk, heated
300g leftover hard cheese, grated
4 large eggs, separated plus one extra egg white
grating of nutmeg
pinch cayenne pepper
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 200C.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Grease a 20cm soufflé dish with some of it, then, if you wish - my mother never did - dust with grated Parmesan. In the saucepan, stir the flour into the melted butter, stir till it turns a light gold and sandy. Very gradually, a little at a time, pour in the heated milk to make a bechamel sauce and stir till thick over low heat, cooking out the flour taste for around 3-5 minutes. (The difference in the quantity of milk cited relates to different types/freshness of flour and types of butter whose water content can affect the sauce. What you want to finish with is a thick one sauce. Start with 200ml milk, adding the extra 100ml if the sauce is too stiff to introduce the cheese into it.) Stir in the cheese to melt. Draw off the heat, then one by one beat in the egg yolks. Season to taste, then add the nutmeg and cayenne pepper.

In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff. Beat a quarter into the cheese sauce, then carefully fold in the rest, making sure there’s no white showing, then pour into the soufflé dish and place in the centre of the oven. Turn the heat down to 180C. Bake the soufflé for 25-30 mins until puffed up and golden, 20 minutes if you like the base a little runny.

Serve with a salad and some crusty bread on the side.

For more than 4 servings, to the same amount of sauce and cheese base, the ratio is one egg per person plus one extra white for the whole number. If you want to serve 6 to 8 (limited by the size of the souffle dish!), add 2 extra egg whites not 1.

This column written by Julia Watson originally appeared in the April 2020 edition of The Bugle.

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Nuts

3/2/2020

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You might be confident that the only feast day of any concern during February is St Valentine’s Day, with its promise of chocolate, roses and, possibly, romance. But if you lived in the US, the 14th of February is only the start of it.

2nd February heralds the Big Game day, as in the Super Bowl, the championship game of the National Football League, that game where some music megastar performs during half time and loses track of their underwear or singing reputation. Almost incidentally, two football teams duke it out for the title of league champions. That’s followed two days later by Homemade Soup Day, which I’m guessing the Food & Drug Administration made up, or Heinz or Campbell sponsored. 10th February is Oatmeal Monday, the purpose of which may be to stoke you up with enough porridge to permit you to cope with the demands of Valentine’s Day. But I may be wrong.

Once Valentine’s Day is over and done with, there is Almond Day on the 16th, followed by the rival Pistachio Day on the 26th, then the double whammy finale on the 27th to wind up February of Chili Day - and Strawberry Day, in case you ever questioned whether Americans eat seasonally.

Of course, if you go into In Depth research, you’ll also discover that, along with other US national days in February allocated to Nutella, Chopsticks, Frozen Yogurt, Fettuccine Alfredo, Molasses Bars, Bagels and Lox, Pizza, and Chocolate Fondue, the whole of February itself is Berry Fresh Month, Celebration Of Chocolate Month, Great American Pies Month, National Canned Food Month, National Cherry Month, National Fiber Focus Month, National Fondue Month, National Grapefruit Month, National Heart Healthy Month, National Hot Breakfast Month, National Snack Food Month, and National Potato Lovers Month.

And you still think how and what we eat is under the control of us consumers?

It’s enough to drive you nuts. So let this February column provide a focus on those. Almonds (whose day, remember, is the 16th) and Pistachios (the 26th) are the treats allotted to people on diets in need of something tempting that raises energy while not entirely ruining sensible eating behaviour. But only in small quantity. Nuts are high in calories - around 400 in 85 grams, which amounts to two handfuls of nuts absolute tops.

Strictly speaking, a nut is a fruit. The word ‘nut’ implies that the fruit lies inside a shell which doesn’t open unless forced.

Almonds are full of healthy fats, fibre and protein, magnesium and vitamin E. They can lower blood sugar levels, cholesterol and blood pressure. A few of them can also reduce hunger pangs, which is why they’re proposed by dieticians to encourage those on diets. Pistachios have similar properties while also containing antioxidants, vitamin B6, and thiamine, and can promote gut, eye and blood vessel health.

Here’s a recipe for a moist cake in which you can use either almonds or pistachios, although pistachios will give it a more pronounced flavour. But where it reads ‘pistachios’, use almonds if you prefer. Stick a rose on the cake to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a slice, or bake it any day of February to mark the whole month.

Pistachio or Almond Cake

100g pistachios, chopped
200g golden caster sugar
150g butter, softened, plus extra for the tin
125g soured cream
3 eggs
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 limes, zested and juiced
200g icing sugar
2 tbsp pistachios, thinly sliced

Heat the oven to 180C/ fan 160C/gas 4 and butter and line a 20cm x 10cm x 7cm 900g loaf tin with a long strip of baking paper.

Put the pistachios and sugar in a food processor and whizz until fine. Add the butter, soured cream, eggs, flour, baking powder, bicarb, vanilla extract and lime zest, and whizz until smooth. Scrape into the prepared tin and bake for 50-55 minutes or until a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean (if it browns too quickly, cover with a sheet of foil). Cool for 20 minutes in the tin, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing, mix enough lime juice into the icing sugar to make a drizzle-able icing. Spoon over the cake then finish with the pistachio slivers.

This column written by Julia Watson originally appeared in the February 2020 edition of The Bugle.

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Jerusalem artichokes

2/1/2020

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In the years when we lived in the capital of the then Soviet Union, Moscow’s farmers markets were divided into different sections. One, reeking of brine, was a barricade of wooden barrels in which sliced cabbages, heads of garlic, or small cucumbers pickled and fermented away in sour water flavoured with dill and peppercorns. In the vegetables section, burly women wrapped in shawls against the winter chill of the building stood behind mountains of more cabbage heads, piles of onions, their green shoots emerging from flabby bodies, and snow-rotting potatoes scarred by spades. Butchers in the meat section sold lumps that had been attacked without much control by the Soviet equivalent of the ruthless slasher of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie.

One January, hidden in the plants, flowers and bulbs section, I came across the gnarled roots of Jerusalem artichokes. Why are you selling them in this part of the market? I asked. The Russian babushka favoured me with a look that said, Another crazy Westerner who knows nothing: Because this is the plants area. But, I protested, they’re vegetables!

It’s rare to provoke laughter in a Soviet farmers market. She brought her associates in to share the joke. Apparently, Jerusalem artichokes, sold under the fudged-French name and pronunciation as Tuppinumboor, were grown for privacy.

True, they can soar to astonishing heights, far outgrowing in proportion their tiny floral versions of the sunflower to which they are related. Despite their name, Jerusalem artichokes are not artichokes. ‘Jerusalem’ is a corruption of the Italian word ‘girosole’ - ‘follow the sun’, and, like regular large-blossomed sunflowers grown for their oil and seeds, turn their heads with the sun crossing the sky.

They are easier to grow than to prepare for cooking, though it is less of an effort to prize the thick skin from the white flesh beneath than it used to be. They have been developed to be less covered in knobs so you no longer need to boil them before peeling them which made their white flesh unpleasantly grey after cooking. Stewed with some onion melted in butter and thinned out with milk, or water, or a light stock, Jerusalem artichokes make one of the most comforting of winter soups, served sprinkled with crisp crumbs of bacon. They can also be dropped peeled, around a joint and roasted. But this version with cod shows them off as a real star vegetable.

Jerusalem Artichokes with Sautéed Cod
Serves 6

2kg Jerusalem artichokes
Juice of one lemon
55g shallots (1 large), peeled
200g carrots (2 or 3), peeled
200g bacon
60ml olive oil or duck fat
8 cloves of garlic (not peeled)
24 pearl onions, peeled
5 sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
1/2 litre Chablis or other dry white wine
1/2 litre chicken stock
30 mussels, cleaned and de-bearded (optional)
6 x 170g cod (preferably loin, about 4 pieces)
Olive oil or duck fat
Salt and freshly milled black pepper to taste

Peel Jerusalem artichokes and drop them in a bowl of water acidulated with the juice of one lemon to keep their colour. Dice bacon, shallots and carrots into small cubes. Cut artichokes into 2.5cm cubes. Brown bacon in a pan with 2 tablespoons of olive oil or duck fat over medium-high heat. Once bacon begins to colour, add garlic, pearl onions and carrots, and saute 2 more minutes. Add shallots, thyme and bay leaves. Cook 2 minutes, stirring. Add white wine and reduce until pan is almost dry.

In a separate pan, add remainder of olive oil or duck fat. When the pan is very hot, add artichokes and sauté, shaking regularly to brown all over, then add them to the first pan and pour in chicken stock. Bring to a boil and cover pan with a lid. Cook for 10 minutes at high heat.

After artichokes have softened, sieve liquid content of pan into a clean pan, reserving artichokes, and reduce liquid by half with a fast boil. Season to taste, then add mussels. Cover pan and cook on a high flame about 1 minute. Discard any mussels that remain closed. Incorporate artichokes and mussels and set aside.

In another pan, sauté cod skin side down in a small amount of butter, 3 minutes. Turn and cook other side, 3 minutes depending on thickness. The fish will continue to cook when off heat.

To serve, spoon artichokes and mussels onto the plate and place cod on top. Strain garlic, thyme and bay leaves from stock and pour a little of this sauce around the fish.

This column written by Julia Watson originally appeared in the January 2020 edition of The Bugle.

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