LIGHT, BRIGHT AND EASY
9 January 2009
We’ve all arrived at the New Year more or less in one piece. Despite the weather closing in. Freezing nights in Scotland over Hogmanay
with bright blue days. Back in London what sky we can see from the higgle-piggle of east end back-streets is grey and glowering. But time
stretches out and we have a little more light every day.
It’s at times like this when the heart yearns for sun, soft on our toughened skins and the taste of salt sea smoothing chapped lips. But
old, cold days across Britain shouldn’t spell despair. While the instinct is to build up ballast against the winter, we can create a little
al fresco ambiance, set aside stews and brassicas and place the sun on our tables. The mezze is a perfect antidote.
The word emerges from the Persian, meaning taste or snack, so this is an ideal way to eat for those of us resolved to
shake off the lingering effects of festive feasting. You can really create any selection of small dishes you want but my basis is hummus,
roasted tomatoes, baba ganoush (or aubergine caviar as it is rather prosaically known by the French), feta cheese and gigandes.
To make the hummus, add a tin of drained chick peas to a third of a jar of tahini, juice of a lemon, dose of olive oil (more or less for
preferred texture), a few cloves of garlic to taste, salt and fresh cracked pepper. Puree, however.
Tomatoes from shops are usually a disappointment. Cooking all of the water out of them is the only way to reach down into that intense
flavour. Take 4 large beef tomatoes. Core them and soak in boiling water until the skin can peel off. Get rid of all the insides and
slice up the skin as thinly as possible into a dish. Sprinkle with salt, olive oil and a herb to bring some light fragrance. Thyme,
sage, rosemary, oregano, bay, are all fine. Leave in the oven for many hours at a low heat until you have a much gentler version of
the sun-dried. Keep what’s left in the dish for later.
For the aubergines, it’s even easier. Slice 3 down the middle and lay some garlic cloves whole on the flesh. Wrap in foil and bake
in the oven until the insides are a gooey mush. Mix with oil, lemon, salt, pepper and a decent handful of flat-leaf parsley. Whizz
or whatever to get a nice texture.
Gigandes are a giant white bean mostly found in Greece. Like most beans, which tin nicely, you can buy them ready made in
tomato sauce. But if you’re up for it then soak some in water overnight. Then boil them until soft. In a pan mix garlic, oil and onion.
Season and when soft throw in the beans and merge. You then add a strong tomato sauce (see previous post Squashed Tomatoes and Bloody
Mary sorbet December 2007) and bake them in the oven.
On a flat plate, lay a slab of feta, drizzle oil and sprinkle some thyme on it. Serve the lot cold with thin slices of focaccia or
somesuch, toasted in the oil from the bottom of the tomato dish.
This will do for a lunch, post movie supper or just to pick at from the fridge all week. You can add anything you like. We had grilled
sardines. Given I have two regular eaters who have respectively acquired diabetes and high cholesterol, this Mediterranean hotch-potch
is ideal. No sat-fat, no meat, no sugar and bursting in flavour. Happy heart and light of foot, ready to take on the year with gusto.
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