SURVIVING THE WINTER

Something about New Year marks the onset of real winter. Cold. Wet. Miserable. Looking forward now to that wonderful March day when our lovely long light evenings return. But in the meantime, we close the shutters and head for the light box. This weather urges me to re-stock the larder. After a month of festive eating, I want to load up the kitchen with practical foods that will help us through these dreary months. Like Ratty’s pantry in Wind in the Willows. Full of delightful treats that will emerge as the year progresses.

First things first. Order a ham from your butcher. Half a leg will do a family of two. A whole for more. Check if it needs soaking beforehand. Most don’t. You need a big pan for this. Same for the marmalade. Throw in a few carrots, an onion studded with cloves, and some celery. Boil for 2-3 hours. Take it out and let it cool. Remove veg and freeze the stock in useful portions for soups and risottos. Lakeland make very handy foil bags for freezing hot liquids. Remove the tough outer skin carefully from the ham, ensuring you keep the layer of gooey fat and then spike it with some cloves and little rosemary matchsticks.

Cover all that with a paste of honey, ground red pink peppercorns, wasabi and dried english mustard. Bake for an hour. Remove cloves and rosemary. There is an immediate joy to serve slices of ham hot with mash and cavalo nero stir fried with sesame oil and seeds. We had ours followed by home made banana and custard ice cream. The ham will last in the fridge for a couple of weeks and make the first sandwiches of the year the envy of your workplace. Once finished, boil the bone again for an hour with green split peas and an onion. Ditch the bone, after removing the remains of the ham on it. Whizz up liquid, add chopped fresh mint and the ham bits.

At some mysterious moment in early January, the seville oranges appear in a wooden box on the street outside our local grocer. Time for marmalade again. Twelve oranges makes enough marmalade for two of us throughout the year. Though our guests sometimes get a little greedy. If you have an electric juicer, squeeze juice, pith and pips out. Otherwise do it by hand. Then scrape out the shells of the oranges. The correct thing to do is to tie this ‘pomace’ into a muslin cloth and put it in the pan. But I’ve used a plastic seive that sits just submerged at the top of the waterline. The idea is to get the natural pectin out, so whatever works. Next slice the orange into whatever thickness you like. Thick is best. Then boil lightly in water for a couple of hours til the orange is soft. Remove the muslin and add the sugar. Dark muscovado gives it a really strong, grown up taste but you need to use some granulated to get the right syrupy consistency later.

For measurements, which I’m never very good at, but for every half kilo of orange you need more or less half a litre of water and then half a kilo of sugar. Get this sugary, dark orange mixture bubbling like a witches cauldron. You’ll know when it’s ready. Check with some expert recipes if you are nervous. Jar it. The great thing is that it comes out a bit different every year. Mine is a little too robust - like membrillo from leaving the pomace in too long. But it tastes mighty fine. Whatever you do, don’t give it away. You’ll regret it in October when you have to buy your first jar of the year.

I had my first Canard à l’Orange in Normandy during our one rather painful family holiday. I remember thinking how sophisticated I was, enjoying this delight. The sourness of these oranges makes the Duck skin pucker up when left to marinade and thus delightfully crispy when roasted. So pick up a farmed duck from your butcher. Aylsebury’s are good. Take a knife down the back and carefully remove the breasts. Score the skin lightly. Slice two of the oranges and place them under the duck in a nice tight dish. In a pestle and mortar bring together about four large garlic cloves, salt, peppercorns, bay leaves, marjoram and thyme. Remove half of this mixture and set aside. To the rest add the orange rind and juice. Smear this over the skin of the breasts, cover and leave in the fridge for a couple of days. Next remove the legs from the carcass, taking with it as much meat from around the thigh joint as possible. Rub the skin with rock salt and then smear the garlicky herb mixture all over them and leave in the fridge for 2 days.

Roast the carcass. You should find that enough fat comes off this to make your confit. Pour off and leave in the fridge until you need it. Throw the carcass into your big pan with some more veg and simmer for a couple of hours. More stock in the freezer.

After the two days are up, clean the paste off the legs and pour over the melted duck fat to cover them completely. Cook for 2 hours in a medium oven. When done, put the legs into a jar and cover in the fat. They’ll keep for ever and some day when you need that cheering up, you have something special right there. Of course you havent eaten any of this duck yet so get your breasts, and roast them quickly in the marinade for about 15 minutes. Serve with something like a chicory and walnut salad.

So you should have confit, ham, marmalade, green split pea soup and more stock than you know what to do with. Feel better?

Happy New Year!

TENDER WORDS

Tender (2009) tells the story of Nigel Slater's love affair with his garden in Islington and the many seedlings he has raised in his box-hedged vegetable patches. It’s a magnificent volume, like a medieval knightly treatise with pictures of his Eden, its produce and many of the recipes he has created from them.

23 May, 2010

FOOD FROM THE HEART

Cooking is a basic human instinct. We’ve been eating, chopping, shaping, flavouring, enticing ingredients into something delicious since time began. But as the way many of us live has changed, the basic skills we require to cook, are no longer valued and it’s often easier to let others take control of what we eat.

21 April, 2010

IN A RIGHT FISH STEW

This week we had sustainable fish stew. It’s a quick and easy way to feed a gang of hungries on a Friday night and doesn’t need much else but some good bread and wine. Like all stews, you need balance, rich liquid and a range of potent flavours steaming from your pot.

15 March, 2010