Is There a Nutmeg in the House? (14 page)

JN

AUBERGINES WITH GARLIC, OLIVE OIL AND TOMATOES

2 or 3 average-size aubergines, preferably long rather than round – say about 1.5 kg (3 lb) weight in all – leaves discarded but stalks left intact, 500 g (1 lb) tomatoes, about 4 cloves of garlic, salt, 2 scant teaspoons of mixed ground spice – cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, approximately 8–10 tablespoons of olive oil, fresh basil or mint, sugar.

Slash the unpeeled aubergines lengthways and all round, without separating them at the stalk end, sprinkle them with salt. Skin the tomatoes and chop them with the peeled and crushed garlic cloves.

Put the aubergines into a casserole or baking dish with a lid, in which they will just fit lengthways. Put tablespoons of the chopped tomatoes between each aubergine division until all is used up. Sprinkle in the mixed spice, a few cut or torn leaves of basil or mint, a little more salt, a teaspoon or two of sugar. Pour in olive oil to come at least level with the tops of the aubergines. Cover the pot. Cook in a low oven (170°C/325°F/gas mark 3) for approximately an hour. The aubergines should be soft but not mushy, and the sauce still runny. Taste the sauce for seasoning, and if necessary add more salt and/or spice. Serve cold, with a little fresh basil or mint sprinkled over. Enough for 4 as a first course.

N.B. This is basically the Turkish
Imam Bayeldi
but without the onions characteristic of that celebrated dish.

Unpublished, July 1989

FAGIOLI ALLA FAGIOLARA TOSCANA

(beans in the Tuscan bean jar)

The traditional earthenware
fagiolara
or bean pot of Tuscany [seen on page 35] is shaped like a wine flask, its narrow neck and wide belly ensuring that the beans cook evenly, slowly, and with the minimum evaporation of liquid.

First you need good beans. The very small round Madagascar beans sold as haricots in most English shops are not much use for Tuscan dishes. Ask in Italian delicatessens and groceries for white cannellini or pink borlotti beans.

Soak 250 g (½ lb) of either of these types of beans overnight.
Drain them, put them in the jar with a half onion, a piece of celery, a clove or two of garlic, two or three leaves of fresh sage (the herb traditional to Tuscan beans) or, if you prefer, a sprig of wild thyme and a couple of bay leaves. Pour in about 1.2 litres (2 pints) of water, and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Cook very slowly in the covered jar, starting off over a very low heat and setting the jar over a mat when the water has reached simmering point. In just on 2 hours the beans should be tender. About 20 minutes before cooking time is up, add a tablespoon of salt.

Drain the beans and decant them into a dish. Extract the onion and herbs. Season immediately with more salt if necessary, and freshly milled pepper. Add some very fine slivers of raw mild onion, a generous mixture of fine fruity olive oil and a few drops of wine vinegar. The beans should be served in soup plates and eaten hot, just as they are, or on a slice of bread dried in the oven and rubbed with garlic set in each plate or bowl. They can also be served cold with plenty of fine quality tunny fish in oil, divided into chunks, piled up in the centre of the beans and sprinkled with parsley.

These beans are usually served as an antipasto or first course. They are at their best when freshly cooked, and eaten almost before they have cooled.

Unpublished, 1966

CELERY AND MUSHROOMS

A fresh and quickly cooked little vegetable dish.

You need 1 large head of celery, washed, trimmed and cut in slantwise slices about 5 cm (2 in) long, 125 g (4 oz) of mushrooms, briefly rinsed, dried and sliced, stalks and all; a scrap of crushed garlic; olive oil, walnut oil or sesame oil for frying; salt, freshly milled pepper, parsley or cress.

Warm just enough oil to spread over the base of a 25-cm (10-inch) frying or sauté pan. Put in the prepared celery. Add salt. Sauté for 5 minutes. Add the crushed garlic and the mushrooms. Cook for another 3 or 4 minutes. Grind in a little black pepper. Strew with chopped parsley or cress and serve hot. Enough for three, and good with almost anything as well as on its own.

Unpublished, 1970s

SWEET-SOUR CABBAGE

For this you need a large wide sauté pan, or an old-fashioned deep fryer, more or less in the shape of a Chinese wok. The recipe however is an Italian one.

Ingredients are: a good hard little white cabbage weighing about 1 kg (2 lb), or half a larger one, olive oil, salt, wine vinegar, sugar, parsley.

Cut out and discard the hard stalk part from the cabbage. Slice the rest into thin ribbons. Heat 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil in the pan. Throw in the cabbage before the oil gets too hot. Sauté it quickly, turning it over and over with a wooden spatula. Add salt, say 2 teaspoons, but you have to taste. Cover the pan. Leave it for 5 minutes. Uncover it, stir, and turn again, adding 2 level tablespoons of sugar and 2 of wine vinegar. Cover and leave another 5 minutes. Taste for the seasoning. Turn into a wide shallow serving dish or salad bowl. Strew with chopped parsley.

This is good as a vegetable dish on its own. Or serve it as a salad with ham or cold roast pork.

SWEET-SOUR CABBAGE WITH SPICED PRUNES

Cook the cabbage as in the recipe above. During the final minutes of cooking add 8 or 10 spiced prunes prepared as in the recipe on
page 257
. A beautiful dish. But take great care that the cabbage is still a little bit crisp and that the prunes retain their identity.

A little grated lemon peel mixed in with the chopped parsley before it is strewn over the cabbage adds an agreeable tang.

Unpublished, January 1979

CREAM OF PARSNIPS WITH GREEN GINGER AND EGGS

Boil 500 g (1 lb) scrubbed parsnips in their skins, as for the Pastenak and Cress Cream on
page 31
. Drain, purée them in the blender. Season the purée with a little grated green ginger root, salt and freshly milled pepper. Thin with a little of the reserved cooking water and a spoonful or two of olive oil. Spoon into 3 individual egg dishes. On top of each put a halved hard-boiled egg, cut side downwards. Strew with breadcrumbs and a little more olive oil. Cook in a medium-hot oven for about 10 minutes until the purée is hot and the breadcrumbs golden brown.

Unpublished,
c
.1980

ITALIAN POTATO PIE

As I see it, any dish made from left-overs ought to be cheap, easy to prepare, and should not involve the opening of a lot of tins and bottles and jars just so that you can use two sardines or three cherries, or a tablespoon of tunny fish. In their turn, these things become left-overs. You are obliged to use them up whether you want to or not, and the whole operation has become a false economy.

On the other hand, I do think that a dish of left-overs can perfectly well be a good dish in its own right, as indeed is cottage pie, or the famous French
boeuf miroton
, rather than a little concoction of too many diverse ingredients put together without purpose or point.

This Italian potato recipe, typical of the inventive ability which Italian household cooks know so well how to exercise when they are obliged to make a small quantity of ingredients go a long way, is a dish which can be adapted for left-overs without ever seeming to be a makeshift. It looks handsome; and it makes a substantial and original lunch or supper dish for 4 people with quite respectable appetites.

Ingredients for the crust are 1 kg (2 lb) potatoes, 90 g (3 oz) butter, 4 tablespoons of milk, salt, freshly milled pepper, nutmeg, 3 tablespoons of breadcrumbs.

For the filling: 125 g (4 oz) – weight without skin, bone, etc. – of cooked ham, veal, lamb, pork, or chicken, plus 2 hard-boiled eggs, approximately 90 g (3 oz) of cheese which can be Bel Paese, Emmenthal, Gruyère, Parmesan or Demi-Sel cream cheese, parsley or basil.

Cook the potatoes in their skins, peel and purée them while still warm, add 60 g (2 oz) of the butter, the warmed milk, plenty of seasoning – and don’t forget the nutmeg.

Spread a 20-cm (8-in) pie plate or removable base tart tin with 15 g (1/2 oz) of butter and half the breadcrumbs. Line the tin with one half of the potato purée – just spread it out and press it lightly down with your knuckles.

Put in the meat or chicken cut into little cubes or strips, and the chopped eggs. Then the cheese, either grated or cut into tiny cubes. Strew with a little parsley or basil.

Spread the rest of the potato purée on the top, and see that the edges are well pressed together. Brush the top with the remainder of the butter, melted. Then strew with the rest of the breadcrumbs.

Put the prepared pie on the centre shelf of a fairly hot oven, 190°C/375°F/gas mark 5 and bake until the top is pale golden-brown. It will take between 35 and 45 minutes.

Serve it on its own, sizzling hot, and have a green vegetable or salad afterwards.

Unpublished, 1960s

LEMON AND CELERY SAUCE

This is a lovely sauce and very simple, although a bit extravagant, because unless you happen to be using the lemon peel for something else it is wasted. (
See
note over.)

For 3 people you need 1 large lemon, 3 fat sticks of celery, 1/2 tablespoons of sugar, 4 tablespoons of light olive oil, salt. Please note that by tablespoons I mean the present British standard
measuring spoon which holds 15 ml or approximately ½ oz. It is important to bear this in mind.

Clean, trim and chop the celery. Cut away all peel and every scrap of pith from the lemon. Cut the flesh into dice, discarding pips and central core. Put the lemon and sugar into a bowl standing in a saucepan over simmering water, or in the top half of a double saucepan, and let it cook until the sugar has melted. Add the chopped celery, olive oil and a little salt. Cook for 5 more minutes.

Good hot or cold, with chicken or turkey (in treble quantities) and also with fish. Not good for fine or delicate wine.

Note

One way of using the lemon peel would be to grate it into Demerara sugar to be kept in reserve for the lemon and brown sugar cake on
p. 261
. Or use a couple of strips to flavour an apple purée. In that case, wash the lemon before paring it.

Unpublished, 1970s

FRESH TOMATO SAUCE

1 kg (2 lb) ripe tomatoes, 30 g (1 oz) butter, salt, sugar, dried basil, and, optionally, a tablespoon of port.

Chop the tomatoes, put them in a wide shallow saucepan or 25-cm (10-in) frying pan in which the butter is melting. Add a teaspoon each of salt and sugar and dried basil. Cook over a moderate heat until most of the moisture from the tomatoes has evaporated. Sieve, and return the resulting purée to the cleaned pan. Reheat, and just before serving add the port, which is not essential but does have a softening and mellowing effect on the sauce.

Made in this simple fashion, without the thickening of flour so often and so mistakenly recommended by professional cooks and cookery teachers, tomato sauce is delicious, fresh, appetising in colour and of the correct consistence. It is the perfect sauce with fried food such as potato croquettes and fish cakes; good with grilled fish such as mackerel and grey mullet; and combined in various ways with eggs, cream and cheese makes some of the most delicious and attractive dishes ever invented.