The usual suspects

I’ve been cooking food that doesn’t belong to me. No, I’m not confessing to a shoplifting habit. Part of my job is developing, testing and writing recipes. Though they mess up my stove, bubble and spit in my pans, colonise my fridge and – shameful admission time – sometimes fill up my bin, though they’re coaxed and soothed and occasionally bullied into edibility by my own fair hand, they aren’t mine to share until they appear, weeks, months, later in their designated newspaper or magazine. As well as my regular gigs, I’ve also been working on recipes for my friend Mark’s book which will appear in the autumn. So though the Spoon stove has seldom been cold these past few weeks, I’ve made very little I can share with you yet, dear blog readers.
This isn’t helped, either, by the stolen camera situation. Or the hours spent dealing with the insurance company. Or the endless, torpor-inducing discussions of new technology to replace the nicked stuff.
I felt as sprightly as a week-old loaf as I folded myself into the passenger seat last Saturday. We were heading north to the country and Victoria’s fabulous fortieth birthday weekend. This was a big deal. We’ve been hearing about it for months. Something special had to mark this milestone, so a dozen of us abandoned our concrete comfort zone of the city for the opalescent skies and high hedgerows of North Norfolk.
We stayed at Fritton House, where barmen and waiters and chambermaids indulged every whim and fancy of kids and dogs and overexcited townies with charm and humour.
This was the perfect antidote to weeks of double shifts at the stove and desk. Victoria is my dearest friend, the one whose judgment I trust in all things and in whose company I’ve spent most of the happiest times of my life, as well as some of the saddest. And the rest? Well, these are our ‘top table’ the ones who, when my mother calls to ask who’s coming to lunch and I begin reeling off their names, she replies ‘Oh, the usual suspects’.
Back in London on Monday, even the heavy skies couldn’t dampen my spirits. Mark’s recipes are within a within a ping of a kitchen timer of being done. I have my eye on a new camera. Normal service will be resumed.
Oh, and another thing, Mark told me I have to Twitter and I always do what the cool kids tell me. Usually three years after they tell me to do it when they’ve all moved on to something else. So if you’re the Twittering sort, do please tweet along with me at @lickedspoon.

Lady de B and I cling onto each other for warmth, and onto our wine for dear life.

Luca and Leo’s den in the woods.

The birthday girl, with Damian and Brian.

Having dinner.

Victoria proudly sporting the banner Kim bought in Peckham market.

Stuart. Yes, I know he’s our own personal Zac Efron.

Barney takes off across the sofa, pursued by Patrick.

Sunday, 2am. Both the food groups, caffeine and alcohol.

Essential Sunday morning reading.

The next day, Leo tries on his mummy’s hat, also bought by Kim in Peckham Market. The night before we christened it The Hat Of Truth, as we all took turns in trying it on and telling a secret.

The usual suspects, getting ready to go home.

Going home

A snowy walk in the Bishop’s Park

A dozen years ago we were married in this chapel. Catching a glimpse of it in the winter sunshine always makes me smile.

So eventually we got here, the car packed with cat and dog and niece who needed a lift, gifts and galoshes, thermoses of coffee and orange-scented hot chocolate, sharp knives and soft blankets, bottles of port and jars of mincemeat, driving north through the snow and sleet with heating and Christmas carols on full blast.

We took a detour on our 300 mile journey to collect our Essex bird, that most important of Christmas guests. In the pre-Christmas frenzy to meet work deadlines, the one deadline I missed was the last mail order date for the turkey from Kelly Bronze. Years ago, I did a telephone interview with Paul Kelly for a magazine. After 20 minutes, I knew more about turkeys than I did about some members of my family. He was the perfect interviewee – passionate, informed, funny – and writing up the piece was a doddle. The next day, the picture editor rang. She asked, ‘Paul Kelly, did you interview him in person or over the phone?’ Oh God, I thought, the pictures have come in, he looks like Essex’s own Gollum and they won’t run the piece. ‘Erm, no, it was over the phone.’ ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m looking at the pictures now and I’m telling you, he’s the George Clooney of turkeys’.

The turkey collected from TGCOT has been devoured by a happy crowd, leftovers turned into pasta sauce and the bones into stock. Mountains of wrapping paper, so carefully and fleetingly folded around books and sweaters and bottles of scent, have been concertina’d into the recycling bin. The Christmas cake is down to its last, ragged slices.

I wanted a picture of my grandmother in her nurse’s uniform. This afternoon, mum and I hauled out boxes of old photographs and sat by the study fire going through them. A picture of my great grandfather, darkly handsome with his waxed moustache, stout great aunts in their Sunday best, my grandfather, smiling, in tennis whites, my parents looking impossibly young cutting their wedding cake, my mother in her fur-collared leather coat with me, a symphony to the 70s in a brightly coloured kilt and horizontal striped jumper, my brother with his first, miraculous, salmon, longer than his own arm. Time passing in the length of a hem, the curl of a fringe, the narrowing of a collar. Decades apart, a familiar curve of a brow or tilt of a nose, the same strong hands.

Sometimes, it’s the unpresents that are the best. My mother is more likely to cook up a good story than she is a cake. She cleared out a whole cupboard of glass cake plates, jugs and butter dishes and gave them to me in a big, glittering pile. Years ago, with two young children to care for, an old house to furnish and little money, my parents used to frequent the local auction house, where a book case might come complete with the previous owner’s Penguin classics, a sofa as a job lot with a box of china. These plates and jugs have graced tea tables not our own and have been hidden away for 30 years. I’m looking forward to giving them a brand new life in the big city.

I hope you shared some old stories this Christmas, and made some new ones too. My great grandfather sent my great grandmother hundreds of postcards from France during the First World War. He always signed off in the same way. ‘I hope this finds you as it leaves me, in the pink.’ And I do. And I am.

Chocolate, cherries and secrets

My gorgeous nephew is coming to stay for a few days. We have a busy itinerary – a football match, a comedy show (Tom, we’re expecting big laughs. No pressure.), restaurants of course, and a day strolling around some of Oxford’s beautiful colleges. Naturally, there will be food, lots of it, given that this is the 4,000 calorie a day boy. Angus loves chocolate, so I’m planning on revisiting a pudding we made together in France. It’s decadent, delicious and easy. If you’re not on a 4,000 calorie a day diet, then my tip is not to eat the whole thing at once.

Chocolate and cherry clafoutis

I’ve tweaked this recipe from one I discovered in a heavenly book I bought on our trip to France, Le B.A-ba du Chocolat by France’s own Nigella, Julie Andrieu. I overcooked it slightly as I was waiting for the slivered almonds to brown a little. When I make it again, I’ll either leave them out altogether or toast them a bit before sprinkling them over the top.

Serves 4-6

80g of plain chocolate, about 70%
200ml single cream or crème fraîche
50g caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
30g plain flour
100g ground almonds
40 cherries
1tbsp Amaretto, kirsch or crème de cacao (optional)
20g slivered almonds, very lightly toasted (optional)
A little butter, softened, for greasing
A good pinch of salt

Whisking…

Stirring…

Folding…

Pouring…

Serving.

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas mark 2. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water.

Beat together the cream and sugar in a bowl, then stir in the eggs and liqueur if using. Fold in the flour, salt and ground almonds, then the melted chocolate. Butter four ramequins or one baking dish and distribute the cherries evenly in the dish/es. Do not stone them, unless you are serving them to children or the very absent minded – the cherries are much more juicy and flavoursome cooked whole. You could even leave the stalks in, as they look quite marvellous sticking out of the batter, though I’d only do this if I weren’t adding the slivered almonds. Pour over the chocolate batter, sprinkle on the lightly toasted almonds if using, and cook for 18-20 minutes, until just set but still a bit wobbly. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

And now for the secrets. Two of my favourite bloggers, Catherine at The Unconfidential Cook , and Lady P at Madly Creative recently passed onto me these two lovely awards, the Kreativ Blogger Award and the Honest Scrap Award. I’m supposed to share seven things about myself and then pass on the award to seven bloggers I admire.

I hope you all enjoy my nominees as much as I do. They are:

Cookie Pie, because her blog is a warm, friendly place to land on a frantic day.
Gratinée, because she writes exquisitely and her deep understanding of and love for food shines from every paragraph.
Nora the Kitchen ‘Splorer, because I love her recipes and am near addicted to her Wednesday Round Up of Deliciousness.
Real Food Lover, because she makes you think, she makes you cook, what could be better?
Syrian Foodie in London, because I want to make every single one of his recipes.
Through My Kitchen Window, because Mariana is just wonderful, even though every trip to her blog gives me a severe case of lifestyle envy.
Writing Junkie, because Avril writes so inspirationally, so clearly, so beautifully about the writing life.

As I received two awards at around about the same time which require me to do the same thing, please take your pick of the one you would like to receive. If you don’t participate in awards, then do accept this as a very small thank you for the pleasure your blogs have given me over the past few months. If you would like to participate, then post the award, link back to me and send it on to seven more people. Finally, and most interestingly, list seven curious, crazy, interesting things about yourself…

Here are mine…

1. In 1990 and 1991, I lived in Moscow. I watched tanks roll down the street, heard Pavarotti sing in a sports hall, bribed policemen with cartons of red Marlborough and learned that -20C in dry-aired Moscow feels less cold than -1C in damp old London town. I went to tea parties at embassies and met jittery young anarchists in Gorky Park. I watched Soviet statues being pulled down and Tesco supermarkets going up. And this is where I really, really learned how to cook.

2. My secret vice is vice. If I hadn’t followed the ink-splattered path into journalism, I would have loved to be a detective. Instead, I’m addicted to cop shows, crime shows, and have an unsavoury weakness for anything billed ‘based on a true story’. If I go to bed before my husband, it’s testament to his courage that he’ll curl up beside me as I fall asleep watching Snapped: Women Who Kill.

3. I have a difficult relationship with change. Hot, angry tears pricked at my eyes when the balsa-headed philistines at Hackney Council replaced the lovely old lampposts in our high street with hideous modern ones. I realise this attitude has its drawbacks. If all humankind were like me, we’d still be living in caves. But what wonderfully appointed and well catered caves they would be.

4. Sean and I met and married so quickly, when I went to apply for our marriage licence, I had no idea what his middle name was.

5. After a lifetime of owning cats, two years ago we got a dog. When he snuggled onto my lap, I found myself questioning whether he was happy or not. Subconsciously I was waiting for him to purrrrrr.

6. I’m a pretty easy-going person but I feel primal, violent, seething rage when I see people dropping litter. Come the Licked Spoon Revolution, they’ll all be buried in a pit of their own filth.

7. As a young graduate working in the slave-wage environment of book publishing, my idea of wealth was being able to afford black taxis, good cheese, cut flowers and hardback books whenever I wanted them. Twenty years on, this is still my definition of luxury. I pinch myself every time I jump into a cab with a slab of Colston Bassett, a bunch of billowy roses and some artfully jacketed tome tucked into my market basket.

In memory of Ma

Last week, we went to Sean’s grandmother’s funeral. There is a strange symmetry to someone who was born on 11/12/13 being laid to rest on 07/08/09. There’s a neatness to it which I am sure would have appealed to her steel-trap mind.

Sheila had a quintessentially Edwardian childhood and went on to live a thoroughly modern life. Her father was an eminent Harley Street ophthalmologist . The family lived in a Marylebone mansion block, Mr and Mrs Mayou occupying one flat and Sheila, her sisters and their nanny living in the flat next door. It was a case of the children being not seen and not heard. She was bright and destined for medical school when a bout of pleurisy derailed her plans. Still, a life of genteel indolence was not for her. Her father encouraged her to go into the family eye business.

A young Sheila gives an even younger Queen an eye exam on a visit to Moorfields Eye Hospital

At 19, along with another young woman, Mary Maddox, Sheila set up the Maddox-Mayou Orthoptic Training School in Devonshire Street. At 20, she was invited to deliver two papers at a medical conference in Melbourne and she made the 14,000 mile trip by boat to America, by train across it and then boarded another boat to Australia. When she arrived, the medical establishment was astonished to see this girl before them. The conference was taking place in licensed premises and she was too young to speak there, so another hall was hastily arranged and she delivered her papers, and an impromptu third as an encore. She put British orthoptics on the medical map and students from Australia began coming to London for training. After the war, she ran the Orthoptic Department of Moorfields Eye Hospital and became the first chairman of the British Orthoptic Society. She retired, reluctantly, at 70. Still, it gave her more time for her other great passions, golf and gardening.

Sean and I spent the first year of our married life in the flat at the top of her London house which had once been the nursery floor for his mother Sue and her sister Carol. When Sheila sold the house seven years ago to live permanently in the country, lots of the furniture was distributed amongst the family. Each afternoon, I sit down to read on her cane-backed bergère. When we have dinner in the dining room, I reach into the mahogany linen press that was once in her bedroom to grab tablecloths and wine glasses. The richly patterned Chinese silk rug in my study was once in the hallway at Hallam Street. Much as I love all of these things and the stories attached to them, there is one possession of Sheila’s which I treasure and use at least once a week, more in the winter.

It’s her potato masher. Compared to the other lovely pieces, it’s a rather humble thing, but I love it. It is perfect. Chefs will tell you that to make perfect mash, you need to pass the potatoes through a mouli or ricer – and then perhaps through a tamis, in the most obsessive-compulsive kitchens. This is true, but who has the time? Particularly if you’re making mash for a crowd as we often are. Sheila’s little masher has round holes in it like a mouli and its surface is slightly concave so it rocks in the pan, delivering perfect mash every time. If I ever go into the kitchen equipment business, replicas of this great piece of kit will be my first product.

How to make perfect mashed potato

You know what will make a bowl of mash even better? A little more butter…

You know why restaurant mashed potato tastes so good? Because it’s essentially a butter sauce held together with the odd potato. Delicious though this is, it’s not something for everyday, though butter and whole milk are essential to creamy, dreamy mash.

I was once on the judging panel of a mashed potato competition – yes, I know, my life is unutterably glamorous. Plates of mash were presented to us made with crème fraîche, olive oil, Greek yoghurt, with the addition of garlic and other fripperies. But the best one, the lightest and fluffiest one, was the simplest. It’s the one I present to you here.

Serves four.

1kg floury potatoes such as Desiree or Wilja, peeled and halved
100g unsalted butter
120-150ml whole milk
Salt and a grind or two of nutmeg and black pepper

Potatoes steaming in the sink. I include this only because our friend Beth loves the colour of this colander.

I love the dinky little grater that comes with the jar of nutmeg.

Ma’s masher does sterling service, once again. You can see how it mimics the action of a much-more-labour-intensive ricer.

Heat a large pan of salted water until it’s almost boiling and add the potatoes. Bring back to the boil and cook until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain in a colander and leave to steam for a couple of minutes. While they’re steaming, heat the butter and milk in a pan with some nutmeg. It’s very important that the milk is hot. If it’s not, your mash will be gluey – fine, if you’re planning on a little light wallpapering, not so good if you’re intending them for dinner. Tip the potatoes back into the pan and mash the bejesus out of them. Pour in the hot milk mixture, some black pepper and a bit more salt if you like and beat them with a wooden spoon until smooth. Serve immediately.

TIP

If you want to make your mash a little ahead of serving, spoon it into a heatproof bowl, cover it with cling film and place it over a pan of barely simmering water. It will keep quite well like this for about an hour.

Summer on a plate

Summertime, and the eating is easy. Crisp frisée lettuce glistening with mustardy, garlicky vinaigrette, mussels in every way, almost every day, merguez on the grill, earthy Puy lentils tossed with last night’s leftovers and transformed into lunch. These are the things I love.

And now, I have an accomplice. My lovely nephew Angus is here in France with us and he wants to learn how to cook. He is 16, sweet, clever, funny, kind. He is also a keen rugby player, over six feet tall, and tells me he has to eat no fewer than 4,000 calories a day. Apparently not all of these can be in the form of Nutella. This is a new challenge for me, as I spend most of my time trying to figure out how I can stop myself from eating 4,000 calories a day. At least he’s strong enough to help me carry mountains of food up the hill, (almost) without complaint.

We spend our mornings reading the regional newspaper, the Midi-Libre, together. This is of mutual benefit. He’s improving his French and, as we always seem to start with the sports section, I’m improving my knowledge of rugby. Want to know anything about the French back row? Ask me. This is not something I ever thought I would say.

By the time the newspaper is folded away, we’re on to the really big issue of the day: what shall we have for lunch? If it were up to Angus, it would probably be roast chicken. This is the recipe I’ve promised him will impress the girls. I hope you like it too.

Angus’s perfect roast chicken

We buy most of our meat from M Greffier’s Boucherie Artisanale on the rue Jean Jacques Rousseau. I asked M Greffier for a nice, roasting chicken and he enquired how many it was for. I said five, but explained that the towering teenager beside me was included in that number. He raised an eyebrow and came back with the plumpest bird I’ve ever seen, which he wrapped in pink checked paper and then placed in this highly appropriate bag.

200g unsalted butter
1 small bulb of garlic
A good handful of herbs – tarragon, parsley, chervil
A nice, plump, free-range bird of about 1.5-2kg
A bay leaf
A small onion, peeled and cut into quarters
2 lemons
A small glass of white wine
Salt and pepper

You will, if you read this blog, almost certainly want:
Some potatoes

Take the chicken out of the fridge a good 30 minutes to an hour before you want to roast it. Preheat the oven as high as it will go.

Chop most of the herbs and two cloves of the garlic very finely and pound them into a paste with about two thirds of the butter. Carefully loosen the skin of the bird with your fingers and stuff most of the butter underneath it (save a piece about the size of a large walnut), massaging it between the breasts and the skin. Season the inside of the bird with salt and pepper and place the remaining herby butter inside, along with a few sprigs of parsley and tarragon, the bay leaf, onion and the rest of the head of garlic, unpeeled but cut in half horizontally to expose the centre of the cloves. Spread the rest of the butter over the skin of the chicken, season with salt and pepper and place in a roasting tin. Cut the lemon into quarters and squeeze them over the bird. Place the squeezed-out quarters inside the cavity too. Pour the glass of wine into the roasting tin and put the bird into the oven to sizzle for 15 minutes. Turn the oven temperature down to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4 and cook for about an hour – Remember to baste it every 20 minutes or so – depending on the size of the chicken, until the juices in the thigh run clear when pierced with a knife. Squeeze over the juice of the remaining lemon, cover loosely with foil and leave to rest for 15 minutes or so before carving. Any you do not eat at the first sitting will remain perfectly flavoursome and moist for leftover sandwiches and salads.

Stuffed under the skin

If you want to make some roast potatoes to go with the chicken (and let’s face it, why wouldn’t you?), peel about 1kg of potatoes, cut them into quarters and parboil them for five minutes in lightly salted water. Drain them and let them steam for a bit in the colander so that they lose some of their moisture. When the chicken is about 25 minutes from being cooked, remove the tin from the oven and place the potatoes around the bird, turning them over in the fat. Return to the oven and when the chicken is done, squeeze over the lemon, put the bird on a warm plate to rest and put the lemon pieces in with the potatoes. Turn up the oven to 200C/400F/Gas mark 6 and cook until golden, giving the tin a rattle once or twice. These potatoes won’t be as crisp as the ones I describe in my classic roast potato recipe but they will be deliciously lemony and bathed in the chicken’s herby juices.

Green beans with onions and garlic

It’s a common misconception on our side of the Channel that in France, all vegetables are served crisp, al dente (an Italian expression, sure, though I’ve found no greater love of crispness there, either). Certainly, when I’m adding French beans to a salad I want them still to have some bite to them, but when I’m serving them hot as a side dish, there’s something very comforting about cooking them until quite soft and allowing them to take on the flavour of some good stock. Even the queen, Elizabeth David, advocated boiling them in lightly salted water for 15 minutes and then tossing them in about an ounce of butter per pound of beans.

This is not a French recipe exactly, rather one made by me from the contents of our French larder and they went rather well with the chicken.

1 large onion, finely diced
2tbsps olive oil
A knob of butter
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
About 400g green beans, topped and tailed
About 350ml chicken stock
About 50ml crème fraîche or whole milk Greek yoghurt
Small handful of toasted pine nuts or flaked almonds
Some finely chopped mint (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Warm the olive oil and butter in a large pan over a medium-low heat. Fry the onions gently, with a good pinch of salt, until soft and translucent, about 15 minutes. Add the garlic and fry for another minute or two before pouring over the stock and simmering, partially covered, for about 10 minutes. Add the green beans and simmer, with the lid on, for about 5 minutes. Remove the lid and boil vigorously for a further 5 minutes until the beans are soft and most of the liquid has evaporated.

In a small bowl, whisk together the crème fraîche or yoghurt with a good pinch of salt (you can add some finely chopped mint at this point if you like). Pour a few spoons of the hot liquid remaining in the pan into the crème fraîche or yoghurt and whisk until smooth. Pour back into the beans and stir to coat and warm through. Stir in the toasted pine nuts or almonds and serve immediately.