A Cook's Library

Poor Sophie Dahl, I read in the paper her television cookery series is to be axed after only one season. It was a little contrived and self-conscious, no doubt about it, and if one more person had said to me ‘you SO remind me of Sophie Dahl,’ I would have punched them – yes, I shop at La Fromagerie, I cook myself indulgent solo suppers, I obviously don’t look quite as luscious in the kitchen (Sophie may glow beneath the heat of the camera lights and stove but I definitely shine) but am reasonably tall, if not so willowy, blond, blue-eyed and have a fashion past – just give me the cookbook deal, the magazine columns and the telly series and I’ll stop hitting you.

But I did feel a bit sorry for Sophie, who by all accounts is lovely, though my mole’s report of her stubbing out her fag before shooting the cheese-buying sequence, sashaying into the shop to finger immaculate, and now un-sellable, cheese for twenty minutes before leaving the film crew to capture the rest alone for the next two hours, did slightly put me off.

Strangely, what put the nail in the coffin for most of the British food-watching public is exactly what endeared me to Sophie. The poetry reading, the simpering sideways glances stolen straight from the Princess Di school of charm, the graveside tea parties and floaty floral dresses; and most of all the premise that food was about mood may have gone down like a lead balloon as far as ratings were concerned but I could FEEL what Sophie, who if you go by the credits was responsible for writing the series, meant.

Because for me, food is all about mood, and I am as guilty as anyone of romanticising past meals, idyllic picnics packed in a tatty wicker hamper complete with mismatched vintage china plates, the perfect Victoria sponge filled with home-made raspberry jam and eaten by the croquet lawn at my imagined 1930s country house party, me in early Chanel, wide-legged trousers, tennis shoes and a neat cashmere sweater … oh and pearls.  I even (cringe) have a weakness for literary references to food, good thing I didn’t get that telly deal, I clearly would have been worse than the delicious Miss Dahl.

I had a pang of wanting food for fantasy and mood when a literary relic from my childhood turned up in the post: the  Moomins Cookbookpromises a ‘mouthwatering, atmospheric meal for friends and family,’ as well as being an introduction to Finnish cuisine. Sadly I couldn’t make the launch so missed Moomintroll in person.

The cooking of Scandinavia has become remarkably fashionable recently, I see Trina Hahnemann’s Scandinavian Cookbook and more recently her The Nordic Diet are doing very well (the recipes are in fact delicious but anything that claims to be a diet book puts me right off).  Moominmamma is not rustling up delicacies for adults aware of their waistlines; there are plenty of biscuits (I’ll sign up for anything that calls itself ‘Carefree Mother’s biscuits’) jams and pancakes of course; those Moomins are always eating pancakes. My only criticism is the offer of margarine in place of butter, never a good way to make baking as delicious as it should be.

It’s a wonderful cookbook for inspiring children to get into the kitchen – something I wholeheartedly support – particularly Moomin-fans (note to self, must dig out Moomin books for my two). As befits a book on Finnish cuisine there are pickles, herrings and soured cream to be had and advice for picnic lunches (honey sandwiches?) and garden parties (marmalade sandwiches?!) Not quite my balmy English croquet lawn but equally as fanciful and as the Moomins themselves put it ‘Everything fun is good for the stomach’. Miss Dahl couldn’t have put it better if she had written it herself.

Today I walked into Neals Yard Dairy and straight into Harold McGee, author of the seminal book on kitchen science McGee on Food and Cooking: An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture. Despite the extreme heat today, and being blindingly star-struck to unexpectedly find a world-famous food authority doing an impromptu book-signing amongst the cheeses, we managed to have a brief, yet inspiring chat; perhaps not quite two-way, McGee spoke knowledgably and sensibly, I blithered like a deranged idiot. But this is the man who has been talking and writing about food for forty years.

The essence of the conversation is summed up by his parting words, that ‘there has never been a better time to be into good food’. How right he is.  I started this blog a mere three months ago (can you believe it?!) because I felt I just HAD to start writing about food; the thought of returning, post-children, to my old fashion-writing career wasn’t appealing and not just because the intervening years of cooking and children’s leftovers have left me somewhat larger than sample-sized. Once you’ve got kids, you realise how important good food is. If no-one read it that would be a shame but at least I would have released the pressure-valve of feeling and conviction about food that had been building up inside me for so long.

I spoke to McGee about how much things had changed since he first published his encyclopaedia of kitchen science, history and culture and why he added a full two-thirds of new information when he revised the edition twenty years after its first publication in 1984.  Our food culture has changed unrecognisably, for better and for worse; olive oil, balsamic vinegar and cappuccinos (to cite just a few of McGee’s new additions) are commonplace but so is a fast-food culture that has left millions unhealthy and obese.  We all need to get excited by a bit of kitchen science and learn to cook a bit more, and that is most true of the new, young and cosmopolitan generation of twenty- and thirty-somethings (I’m still just in there!) who have been raised to expect new tastes and flavours, new food experiences and all of it FAST and preferably easy.

This is why Quadrille’s ‘New Voices in Food’ series is so timely. This week I received what at first appear to be two fat notebooks, pleasingly rough and ready and full of delicious and varied recipes from two twenty-something cooks.

Alice Hart in her eponymous debut volume Alice’s Cookbook (New Voices in Food) builds her recipes around occasions: lazy brunches with friends, picnics in her trademark camper van, shared suppers and special occasions. Each recipe is designed to fit into the busy social lives of her readers, hands-on cooking times are provided for each dish and menus are adaptable to seasons and availability; a perfect volume for a new generation of cooks.

The second volume by Stevie Parle, one of London’s youngest and most exceptional culinary talents is particularly exciting in its kaleidoscopic journey of the world, inspired by Parle’s travels and entitled My Kitchen: Real Food from Near and Far (New Voices in Food). This book is clearly written by someone who both is possessed of excellent culinary skill but also has a nice turn of phrase. Anecdotes are woven into recipes; ingredients mix with memories. The focus is seasonal (something I always like in a cookbook) and the book is divided into twelve monthly chapters for each month of the year. This makes it extremely useful. Unusually for a book that trots so rapidly around the globe (a Sri Lankan supper gives way to a Middle-Eastern, then a Ligurian meal) it doesn’t seem bitty. The recipes are absolutely my kind of thing, with straightforward technique advice and tips on what to do with a glut of any one food and an allotment bounty. All in all an excellent book.

Most cooks have in their repertoire a dish they rarely cook because it is a little too special, a little too time-consuming, demands expensive or just many individual ingredients. But sometimes this dish suddenly makes itself easy, half the ingredients are in the fridge, a good friend is coming round, the weather has hotted up enough to eat in the garden. Today this happened to me. The dish is vitello tonnato.

Vitello tonnato, a classic Italian dish of cold sliced veal with a tuna-flavoured mayonnaise sauce is something I rarely cook but I was reminded of it when I leafed through Skye Gyngell’s A Year in my Kitchen looking for inspiration for a supper for friends.  I’m on a bit of a mayonnaise streak at the moment, having got a source of super-fresh eggs and excellent olive oil; I always have lemons and capers in the fridge and happened to have opened a jar of sublime Sicillian anchovies; then the organic box delivered French beans which made me think maybe salad niçoise, as I had black olives, but am supposed to be economising and fresh tuna is CRIPPLINGLY expensive (not to mention environmentally iffy, at least my can of Ortiz white tuna has good fishing credentials).

What swung it in the end was British veal being half price per kg at Wholefoods Market. Ok, confession, I actually bought osso bucco, cooked it then stripped it off the bone; I admit a slightly odd adaptation of vitello tonnato, which should have rosy fine slices to show off, but it was a third of the price of the veal rump I would otherwise have used and have specified in the recipe. And so supper was born, I’ll call it vitello tonnato because it is centred around the veal and tuna mayonnaise but there is a definite hybrid niçoise dish going on as I am using olives, beans and potatoes to serve with it.

Often summer presents me with a problem in that my favourite method of cooking is the slow braise. Why? Because it’s almost fool-proof. Unlike grilling, frying, even barbecuing where seconds either side can mean the difference between soft buttery meat and old shoe leather, long, slow cooking tenderises and can survive an hour extra of being forgotten about.

But braising usually means stews and casseroles, hearty winter dishes that put a fire in your belly and some warmth in your heart. But my whole body is already on fire, me being a delicate English creature (I won’t humiliate myself by saying ‘rose’) who thinks it’s a hot summer once the thermometer climbs past 23°c, and the last thing I want is a bowl of hot meat and gravy. So, back to my original point, even the weather is nudging me towards this smart supper; vitello tonnato calls for braised veal, but cooled and sliced and served in a salad. And that means, last tick for tonight, I can prepare it ahead of time and just assemble before we sit down to eat (by that time in the evening, kids wrestled into bed, glass of wine on an empty stomach and I am rendered incapable of cooking much accurately anyway).

Satisfyingly, as I’m on my local kick, this is one Mediterranean dish where most of the main ingredients are actually British, despite it’s Italian bent.  The veal (now pink, humanely raised and enjoying a renaissance amongst ethical cooks) is British, the rocket comes from the garden, the egg yolks for the mayonnaise from local chickens and though I have included french beans from er, France (Riverford’s call, not mine this week!) our equivalent bobby beans will soon be harvested over here.

Of course that still leaves a lot of ingredients that are entirely imported, the piscine ones in particular: tuna and anchovies, but also olive oil and capers. But as the body of the dish is really the veal and I will serve it with English new potatoes I am giving it a moderate thumbs up on the local front and a resounding one for seasonality. And, for a special-occasion dish it has actually come in as quite economical too. My kind of cooking.

(Bear in mind when you look at the photo of this dish that I used osso bucco so had to pull chunks of veal off; it tasted great but a carefully-carved slice might look slightly better!)

Variations on a theme: Skye Gyngell uses tomato, olives and basil oil, I used green beans, olives and potato, as you can see the possibilities are as bountiful as the contents of your fridge.

Vitello Tonnato with green beans, new potatoes and olives. (Serves 4-6)

Braised veal

1kg topside or rump of free-range rose veal

1 onion

1 carrot

2 sticks celery

3 bay leaves

bunch parsley

splash of wine

light chicken stock or water

salt and pepper

Lightly season the veal then place in a heavy-based casserole with the vegetables, cut into large chunks and the herbs. Add enough stock/water to completely immerse the meat.

Bring to the boil then place in a 160°c oven for 2 hours or until the veal is tender (longer for on-the-bone cuts). Allow to cool in the stock to keep it moist.

Tuna Mayonnaise dressing

1 quantity of my lemon mayonnaise (click here for recipe but make it without salt)

1 x 115g tin fine tuna, well-drained

juice of 1 lemon (you may not need it all)

2 tbsp capers in salt, well rinsed and drained

3 fine anchovy fillets in oil, drained

black pepper

Put the mayonnaise with the tuna, capers, anchovies and lemon into a processor and whiz to a smooth sauce – you may need to thin it with a little water. Adjust the seasoning, adding maybe a little more lemon and pepper; you are unlikely to need any salt as the capers and anchovies are so salty. Refrigerate until needed.

To serve

500 g french/bobby beans, topped and tailed

100g rocket

2tbsp small black olives

300g small new potatoes, scrubbed

Blanch the beans briefly, you want them crunchy, dress with a little olive oil. Boil the potatoes, allow to cool and half or quarter depending on their size.

Remove the veal from its stock and slice thinly.

Arrange a small pile of rocket, some beans, a few potatoes and slices of veal attractively on a plate then scatter some olives over. Finally spoon the tuna mayonnaise on top. Serve immediately with plenty of ground pepper.