Summer cooking

Escalivada, originally uploaded by Lobstersquad.

Summer is coming to an end here in Scotland. How sad. All the more reason to make the most of it, and spend every possible second outdoors. And to pick the last raspberries, and freeze or jam a few.
I also have to empty a bulging freezer that needs a good clean. There is so much stuff there: lamb's liver, red braised oxtail, bags of prawns, tubs of stock, packets of iberico ham bones, boxes of fish fingers, frozen spinach, beans...Endless list. Happy task, but harder than it sounds.

Payback time

Lunch today will have to be a plain, severe bowl of congee. Perhaps I might allow myself a drizzle of soy, a few almonds, and the merest suggestion of spring onions.
Yesterday we had the bright idea of buying some fish and chips and having an impromptu picnic at a nearby park. The shop was famously good. The sun was shining. The fish and chips was as greasy and crunchy as I remembered. And as I had, stupidly, forgotten, it knocked me out with a blinding migraine that lasted all afternoon.
This is what old age will do to you. Sad, but true. And now I still feel a little frail, so congee it is. Here's a blog post from the LA times that will tell you all you want to know about it, and another one from Use real butter, in case you want to use a pressure cooker to make it.
(How do Scots survive frequent ingestions of the stuff? Must go see Brave and find out)

The icing on the cake

The time has come to write about The Icing. 

I hesitate to write about baking, because there are so many beautiful things out there, done by people who combine the talents of Benvenuto Cellini with the colour schemes of Hello Kitty, and that's enough to depress anyone.

I'm not one of those who despise baking. I love sweets, and I do not fear them. I just don't go into the whole decoration thing. It seems the height of silliness to me to try to make cakes and biscuits look professional. It used to be that people would buy things, and, in shame, bash them up a bit so they looked homemade. What happened to that?

My cakes that look glorious in their simplicity,  smell like eggs and vanilla and good butter, usually slump in the middle, but more than make up for their looks with a jug of home made custard and a bowl of good fruit, fresh or poached.

There is no need for more.

Unless there is, in which case, bring out the icing. But don´t go nuts. This one is made in seconds, is very easy to use , as long as you´re cool with a few jagged edges, and can be coloured in pretty pastel shades.

And unlike most icings, which are cloying  and pointless and make your teeth ache, it tastes wonderful, with a salty sweet kick that makes licking the bowl almost the whole point of the exercise.
People go mad for this, I tell you. Even if there are dainty looking cupcakes of utter prettiness on the table, cakes with this icing are devoured, and the recipe is always requested.

Did I mention, it´s so easy you could train a chimp to make it? It is this simple: take a tub of Philadelphia cheese (the full fat version, OF course) and add a packet (200 gr) or equal weight  of melted white chocolate. Mix. Add colouring of your choice. That´s it.

You can cool it so it´s firmer, but it will never be as stiff as the kind that is almost pure sugar. I've certainly never tried to see if it will work inside a piping bag, but if you´re game, try it and let me know.

You can also mix the cheese with milk chocolate, which leaves no room for pretty colours but tastes divine, a bit like salted caramel.

I used it yesterday for my daughter´s fourth birthday cake. It was the chocolate cake from "Relish" and the icing was a pretty soft pink. Topped with hundreds and thousands and pearls, and a pink Disney princess, it looked silly but tasted like the real thing.

Summer salad

Just a salad. Words that strike dread into my heart. I've written about this before, but it bears repeating: if you have artistic tendencies, or think you may have, ask for help. Don't take it out on a pile of defenseless greens, and start flinging things at them until they are smothered in bits and bobs.

Yes, if salad is going to be the meal, it can't just be a sliced tomato.  I know it's too hot to cook actual food, and it makes sense to make the most of fresh summer produce and a couple of tins. Fine. But that doesn't mean it should have seventeen ingredients. It just looks messy and tastes messy, too.

Why don't you make two, or even three, salads instead? I looks beautiful, lavish, fills you up just looking at it, and takes a little more time to prepare, but much longer to eat.

A combination I like is a bowl of green lettuce and ruccola, perhaps. Tossed with this dressing, with perhaps a tiny bit of raw garlic and some chopped nuts.

In another bowl, tomatoes, just like that, with a drizzle of oil and some salt. If they´re good tomatoes, they need nothing more.

A third can have the heavy duty stuff: the boiled eggs, tuna, olives, asparagus, etc. Placed side by side, drizzled with a simple vinaigrette, or perhaps one that you have made creamy by adding some mayonaise.

Doesn´t that look pretty? Toast some bread, open some wine, enjoy the summer. And if you´re somewhere northern and blustery, have a hearty pudding afterwards. See the advantage where you can.

In praise of blenders

Untitled #206, originally uploaded by Lobstersquad.

Why is it that when it comes to ecquipment cookbooks either assume that you cook in a primitive, empty kitchen, or else devote the whole thing to squeezing every possible use out of one particular gizmo?
I wish sometimes they'd include pressure cooking instructions. And I have no wish to bake a cake in a rice cooker, thank you very much.

It gets really annoying when it's all embraced in a spirit of simplicity, back to a happier time before we were the slaves of electrical machines. Machines that turned up in kitchens just as servants were exiting them.
Except from restaurants. Funny, that.

So I'm not impressed by entreaties from chefs to use volcanic rock pestles and mortars. As for mayonaise by hand...well. Really. Mayonaise was the very first thing I learnt to make, ever. It is ridiculously easy, as long as you have a blender. Crack an egg, add salt and vinegar, pour over a cup of oil, lower the stick blender into the mess. Pulse as you slowly raise it. In a few seconds, you have mayonaise.
Although these days I just use bottled mayo and add lots of lemon juice and a bit of good oil, and it's excellent.

So anyway, here is a song of praise to the humble hand held stick blender, hero of countless gazpachos, pureed soups, smoothies and milkshakes. And if you get one of those with a small bowl with a fierce chopping blade, also home to hummus, small chopped vegetables for sofrito or soup, spice pastes, and pesto.

And since we're on the pesto theme, don't be blinkered by the classics. The Genovese version, heady with basil and peanuts is wonderful, and certainly, make it in a mortar if that's your thing. Myself, I take the broad, sweeping view. Cooked vegetables, or even fresh tomatoes, or ruccola, or leftover pisto, blended with a bit of garlic, a handful of nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, or pine nuts) a bit of parsley, some cheese and a good glug of oil...that's a pesto. And it's not just great on pasta, but on sandwiches and in soups and quesadillas

So I'm very happy with my blender. I could live without it, yes, but why would I?

Fruit salad

In all of my many many cookbooks, there are always a bunch of recipes I flag, and some that I try. They are usually the ones where I spot a sensible new way of doing something complicated. I care more for tips and methods than for actual recipes, and more for ease of handling than for time cuts.

Lucky for me, or not, maybe, that this book by Alice Medrich has every single sweet recipe of that sort that you could ever want. Crusts that don´t need rolling, one bowl cakes, cookies that use melted butter, and tequila poured over shop-bought lime pops, sprinkled with salt. Pure, undilluted genius. Buy it inmediately.

There is only one omission, because it is a very hip book: there is no fruit salad. And yes, I hear the collective groan that springs from memories of those boring, boring apple-pear-banana-orange fruit salads from winter bowls of yore. That is boring. But a good fruit salad is a joy, the easiest, most comforting way to eat fruit, and it is a bowlful of love. Making fruit salad is a generous, selfless task. Nobody is going to say "oh wow, did you really make that?", as they would over a daintily piped cream cake. They will not be impressed by your skills, because a six year old could make it (in fact, train your six year old to make it). But they will eat it, and be pleased.

So go on, make fruit salad. Especially in a place like this, where the fruits that arrive can be a little bit short on flavour (ahem. A lot, most often). And yes, it really is the best way to make a couple of wrinkled nectarines and a  woebegone pear look good.

Cut them up, squeeze an orange over them, dot with strawberries, don´t forget a bit of banana for heft, and let flavors mingle in the fridge for a bit. 

Sweet Sherry, vanilla extract, mint leaves, whipped cream...yes, you can add them, but don´t forget to give in to the simple pleasures.

Kedgeree risotto

It seems that every minute two or three cookbooks are published that have the word "seasonal" in the title. Or at the very least, the subtitle.

Which is all very well, if you´re in California, or Spain, where things grow plentiful under the generous sun. But see, now I live in a place that has two seasons: bad, and worse.
The calendar says I should be going for the salads and the first gazpachos, the bowls of cherries, the lightly grilled fish, the ice cream. But my eyes see clammy fog, and my stomach says to hell with all that. I want stodge.

Kedgeree risotto is a beautiful dish. The real thing is a sort of pilaf, served with boiled eggs, but this is much better. A creamy risotto, light yellow and faintly smoky from the haddock, flecked with parsley and topped with a runny five-minute egg. Really good stuff. And if you can find it, samphire, that weird crunchy seaweed, is a great last minute addition.

When I make it in Spain I have no smoked haddock, of course, so I proceed as for a normal risotto and add smoked salmon or trout at the end.

The method is as for a normal risotto, except that you start by poaching the smoked haddock for a very short while, and setting it aside. This fishy smoky water is the stock for your rice.

Start with onions in butter and oil, as always, and when they´re transparent, add a spoonful of curry powder. You heard me. Curry powder. None of your fancy freshly ground spice pastes, please. The yellow stuff from the jar.

When that smells good add the rice, then the stock, etc. As you know, I always use a pressure cooker for this, so just give it double the volume of stock to rice, lock, cook five minutes at high pressure and there you are.
If you do the normal method then it´s the stirring, adding stock, etc. A very soothing, gentle way of relaxing after a long day and enjoying a glass of wine, if you must.

While this is happening drop eggs into boiling water, and simmer them for five minutes, too. Chop parsley, and when the rice is done, add the flaked fish and the parsley.

Serve with the peeled eggs on top.

Cookbook review: "Every grain of rice"

For all the fuss about authentic recipes, I think they aren´t all that useful. I prefer true recipes.

Take  lamb, for example, done as they like in Castilla: roast in a wood fired bread oven, in an earthenware dish, with nothing but water and salt. That is the authentic recipe. The true recipe, however, would read something like this:"get into your car. Drive on the N-I until you get to Burgos. Get out, order lamb in a good restaurant"

Often, traditional, authentic dishes are weekend food, or restaurant or village fiestas food. Spanish people don´t have paella for dinner on a Wednesday at home, they have a couple of fried eggs.

Which is why I recommend Fuchsia Dunlop's latest book, "Every grain of rice". Her two other books are a lot of fun, great reads, and her memoir, too, is excellent. They are one hundred per cent authentic. But this one, which has been out just a few days, has got me cooking straight away. I had to do a quick razzia on my Chinese market to complement my already bulging store cupboard. Yes, I already had sesame oil, soy sauce, chili bean sauce, chili oil, black bean sauce and several types of rice and noodles. I even had preserved mustard greens, but dried shrimp, where have you been all my life?

I am going to cook my way through this book, I can tell. It´s full of doable, quick, really great recipes, simple, chock full of flavour. True home cooking, see? 

It´s reasonable: for every last-minute stirfry there is a long simmered braise or cold dish you can make ahead.  The emphasis is on vegetables. It´s beautifully photographed, very well written, and the design is awesome.

It even made me buy a block of tofu, so help me. That´s very powerful powers of persuasion, let me tell you.

I am also doing my favourite cookbook game, which is to see which recipes I can adapt to the pressure cooker, to the Thermomix, and which to the steamer in the rice cooker. Yesterday we had rice (duh), over which I cooked some spectacular steamed chicken with Chinese sausage and shiitakes (pg 114). Spring greens with dried shrimps (pg 172). And an omelette with spring onions (sort of pg 132). My kids wouldn't touch the vegetables, of course, dammit, but they did wolf down the chicken and rice.

I had meant to write about a whole other lot of cookbooks. Claudia Roden´s "The Food of Spain", for example. Great book. Or David Tanis´"A platter of figs", which I´d assumed would be smug and annoying but is a lot of fun, and full of things you might use for entertaining. Joanna Weinberg´s "Cooking for real life". Not as good as "Relish", but then again, nothing is as good as Relish. Dan Lepard´s "Short and sweet", a gorgeous, gorgeous book that I will surely be cooking a lot from. "Animal, vegetable, miracle", which I´d resisted for years, fearing it would be worthy and sanctimonious, but which turns out to be a great read. "Family life", a memoir by Elizabeth Luard, which I loved. And Béa´s "La tartine Gourmande cookbook", which is beautiful and warm and full of delicious stuff. And which makes me all smug when I say, "my friend, the author...".

I won´t go into any of them at length, and I won´t write about the ones I haven´t liked, since I feel happy and positive today, because it´s sunny and summer solstice means different things when you live in the north pole.

Going off to make some fried rice for lunch.

How to eat out (with kids)

Hear this from the lips of your wise aunt lobstersquad: once you have kids, restaurants, as you know them, are over. Yes, they are. Just face it. None of this pious "oh, it's just different, no worse or better, just different". Because it is. Worse, I mean.

Don't get me wrong; my kids are astonishingly beautiful, wonderful, charming, funny and bright, and I love them to bits. They are also two and three, which means they are impatient, loud, fidgety and extremely annoying. 

Sounds bleak? Take heart from this most beautiful of words: babysitter.

And whatever you do,  don't fall into the so called "family restaurant" trap. Unless run by an actual family, like my favourite place ever, Virginia´s. Otherwise, family restaurants are bottomless pits of hell, constructed around luring you in with promises of crayons and balloons, while holding you hostage for ages until you cave and order overpriced nachos and brownies. And don't get me started on "kids' menus".

So, then: dim sum. Chinese restaurants don't discriminate by age. They treat everybody with the same gruff indifference. No crayons, true, but also, no sigh of despair at the sight of very young customers.

Kids don't like to wait, and things arrive quickly. Kids don't like to share, and dumplings are ideal single serving portions. Kids like variety, so lots of little plates keep them entertained, and everyone gets to choose several things. 

Kids like familiarity, so there is no better option when out of town; they see dragons, chopsticks, Chinese characters on the wall and are instantly at home.

By the time their best-behaviour span is over, so is lunch. Pay, go, smile, and wipe their little soy sticky selves before you get to the car.

A few links

I´m preparing a cookbook post, but because I consume a staggering amount, it might take a while. In the meantime, since it´s June, here are a few links for picnickers, wether they are bundled up in fleece and windbreakers, like me, or barefoot and chasing away wasps.

Empanada gallega, an imposing pie.

Empanadillas, little pies that fit in any lunchbox or picnic basket.

Tortilla española, that old standby.

 Venus is in transit, enjoy!