How to Eat (58 page)

Lightly oil a 4-cup jelly mold by dabbing a paper towel in some suitably flavorless oil and then rubbing it over the interior of the mold. Soak gelatin leaves in a dish of cold water until softened. Put 2 ladlefuls of rhubarb and muscat syrup in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Squeeze out the gelatin leaves and whisk into the syrup. When they’ve dissolved, pour the contents of the pan back into the measuring cup. If you want to make sure everything’s well enough blended, you can pour from the cup to the pan and back into the cup again. Pour into the jelly mold and place in the fridge to chill and set, about 6 hours or overnight.

An Italian red, preferably a 1997 or 1998 Dolcetto d’Alba from Giacomo Conterno or Bruno Giacosa, would be perfect here.

EXTRAVAGANT BUT STILL ELEGANT DINNER FOR 8

HOT SAUSAGES WITH ICE-COLD OYSTERS, OR CEVICHE WITH HOT GARLIC POTATOES

THE TENDEREST CHICKEN, WITH GREEN SALAD AND GARLIC POTATOES

CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY PUDDING CAKE WITH RASPBERRIES AND YOGURT

This is the sort of dinner I dream of, the perfect birthday dinner party for someone who likes oysters and whose birthday (like mine) falls on a suitable date. You can get oysters all the year round now (or some types), but they’re still best in winter. Buy an oyster knife at the same time as your oysters, 6 per person. Ask the fish seller for proper instructions as to cleaning (if necessary) and opening. And you’ll need either coarse salt or crushed ice to set them on. I used to eat oysters and sausages at chef Alastair Little’s first, eponymous restaurant in Frith Street in London. He served the most inspired starter in town—cold, cold oysters with hot, spicy Chinesey sausages.

My way is to get cocktail sausages from my butcher and then roll them in a roasting pan in chili oil to spice. (You can also “make” cocktail sausages by twisting thin-diameter regular sausages to divide them into smaller links.) If the chili oil isn’t ferociously hot, add some drops of Tabasco. Cook them for about 35 minutes in a 350°F oven. Fabulous. But don’t forget finger bowls. Cooking them in the oven is the easiest way, but if that creates problems with the chicken, cook the sausages in a frying pan on the stove.

If you balk at oysters, replace this course with something that strikes some of the same notes, such as ceviche, in which the cold, soft flesh of the fish is offset by some searingly hot and salty crouton-sized cubes of garlicky roast potatoes. If you’re making this potato-spiked ceviche, you will have to miss out the potatoes with the chicken.

CEVICHE WITH HOT GARLIC POTATOES

Ceviche—fish that is “cooked” by the acids of a citrus marinade—is about as effortless as you can get. Often, the fish is served with avocado, but I feel that the texture somehow is both too samey and too squashy. I prefer it like this.

The recipe lists turbot, scallops, and salmon, but you could use a cheaper combination of fish if you wanted, substituting brill, sole, or flounder for the turbot if, in any case, the latter is unavailable. You must, anyway, get the fish from a fish seller rather than a supermarket, and explain that you will be eating it raw. The fish seller will tell you which fish are fresh enough and suitable. And don’t be put off by the idea of raw fish; it does actually taste—and look—cooked by the marinade.

¼ pound very fresh salmon, cut into ½ × 1½-inch strips

½ pound very fresh turbot, brill, sole, or flounder, cut into ½ × 1½-inch strips

4 sea scallops, each cut into 3 discs

juice of 3 limes

juice of 2½ lemons

juice of 1 orange

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

¾ pound new potatoes, cut into large dice

3 tablespoons olive oil or 1 tablespoon olive oil and 2 tablespoons garlic-infused oil

3 garlic cloves, if not using the garlic-infused oil, peeled and smashed or minced

1 bunch watercress

salt

3–4 tablespoons chopped coriander, for garnish

Put the fish and scallops in a large dish, cover with the citrus juices and balsamic vinegar, and leave in the fridge for 6 hours. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Put the potatoes in a plastic bag with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and the garlic, or the garlic-infused oil only. Transfer to a roasting pan and bake for about 40 minutes, or until the potatoes are brown and crisp.

While the potatoes are cooking, put the watercress on a large plate, and take the seafood out of its marinade and arrange it on top. Take out 3 tablespoons of the marinade, put in a cup, and stir in the 1 tablespoon olive oil and make a dressing (add more oil if you like) to pour over the creviche and watercress. At the last minute, sprinkle some salt on the potatoes and toss them over the watercress and among the seafood. Sprinkle the coriander on top.

THE TENDEREST CHICKEN

The title tells no lie. The buttermilk marinade stops the flesh from drying and turning stringy, even after it has been blitzed in a hot oven. Although I would advise getting a proper free-range chicken, this method will work miracles on inferior supermarket birds. Incidentally, despite its name, buttermilk is very low in fat, which makes it useful if you want to keep a skinless portion (for virtuous reasons) as moist as possible.

1 quart buttermilk

10 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 large chickens, about 4 pounds each, each cut into 8 pieces

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

3 tablespoons olive oil

salt and freshly milled black pepper

Pour the buttermilk into a large bowl and stir in the garlic, mustard, and soy sauce. (You may find this easier to do in 2 batches in separate dishes.) Add the chicken pieces, turning to cover, and then pour the entire contents into 2 plastic bags and tie with elastic bands. Leave in the fridge for at least 8 hours.

Remove the chicken from the marinade and wipe totally dry with paper towels. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Combine the butter and olive oil; season with salt and pepper. Arrange the chicken, skin side up, in 2 oiled baking dishes, brush over with the butter mixture, and bake. It’s difficult to say exactly how long it will take; evidently it depends on the size of the chicken. Poke and test. I tend to give the dark meat portions 30–40 minutes, breasts 20–25. Either take the breasts out first and keep them warm, or put the thighs and legs in 10 or so minutes before the breasts.

GARLIC POTATOES

The chicken can be kept warm, but the potatoes most definitely cannot wait; they must stay in the oven till the very last minute, so put them in the oven 35 minutes before you plan to eat the starter. For 8 people, I’d get 8 decent-sized (about 8-ounce) baking potatoes, and leave them unpeeled but cut into square chunks of about 1 inch. Get 2 heads garlic and throw the cloves, separated but unpeeled (or use garlic-infused oil), with the potatoes into a roasting pan. Slick the potatoes and garlic with oil and cook at 425°F for about 45 minutes. When you take them out of the oven, sprinkle with coarse sea salt and fresh chopped parsley.

GREEN SALAD

As for the green salad, go for one with plenty of crunch and absolutely no garlic in the dressing. And I’m presuming you’ve had bread on the table since the first course, so we needn’t even mention it now.

Now, for dessert. First, the logistics. You want this warm, not hot, so you can cook it before putting the chicken in, taking it out in time to allow the oven to get hotter for the poultry. The sausages can go into the oven with the dessert at 350°F, but for 10–15 minutes longer than if they’re cooked at 400°F. Reheat them on the stove and they’ll brown up in the pan then.

CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY PUDDING CAKE

I call this a pudding cake because its texture is simply a mixture between pudding and cake, though lighter by far than that could ever imply. Think, rather, of a mousse without fluffiness; this is dense but delicate. And it’s heavenly tepid, when the cakiness of the chocolate sits warmly around the sour-sweet juicy raspberries embedded within, like glinting, mud-covered garnets. This should be eaten an hour or so after it comes out of the oven. It gets more solid when cold, and loses some of that spectacular texture. If you have any left, wrap it in foil and heat it up in the oven, or warm it up a slice at a time in the microwave before eating it.

Use fresh raspberries or well-thawed frozen ones, adding more if frozen. But the cake works unfruited, too. Just replace the raspberry liqueur with a tablespoon or so of dark rum and serve with coffee ice cream.

This is so easy to make (a little light stirring, that’s all) that it’s almost more work to type out the instructions than to make the cake itself. Serve it with lots more fresh raspberries, and yogurt, whipped heavy cream, or crème fraîche.

1½ cups all-purpose flour

1½ teaspoon baking powder

pinch salt

1/3 cup best-quality unsweetened cocoa powder

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 tablespoon framboise

½ cup superfine sugar

½ cup light muscovado sugar or light brown sugar

8 ounces best-quality bittersweet chocolate

¾ cup black coffee and ¾ cup water, or instant coffee made up with 2 teaspoons instant coffee and 1½ cups boiling water

2 eggs, beaten slightly

8 ounces raspberries plus more, for serving

confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Butter an 8-inch springform pan and line the base with baking parchment. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder together in a bowl and set aside. Put the butter, framboise, sugars, chocolate, and coffee with water in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and stir over low heat until everything melts and is thickly, glossily smooth.

Stir this mixture into the sifted flour and cocoa. Beat well until all is smooth and glossy again, then beat in the eggs. This will be runny—don’t panic, and don’t add more flour; the chocolate itself sets as it cooks and then cools.

Pour into the prepared pan until you have covered the base with about an inch of the mixture, and then cover with raspberries and pour the rest of the mixture on top. You may have to push some of the raspberries back under the cake batter by hand. Bake for 45–50 minutes, until the top is firm and probably slightly cracked; don’t try to test by poking in a skewer as you don’t want it to come out clean—the gunge is what the cake is about. When it’s ready, take the cake out of the oven and put on a rack. Leave in the pan for 15 minutes and then turn out.

When you’re just about to eat, dust the cake with the confectioners’ sugar tapped through a strainer. Serve with the additional berries, piled in a bowl.

Sancerre, the perfect wine with oysters, will not be overawed by the spicy sausages; a good Bordeaux has the harmony and complexity to suit the garlic and buttermilk-marinated chicken.

TARTED-UP HOMEY DINNER FOR 6

ENDIVE AND MUSTARD SALAD

HAM WITH PEA ORZOTTO AND ROAST LEEKS

POACHED PISTACHIO-SPRINKLED APRICOTS STUFFED WITH CRÈME FRAÎCHE

One of the reasons I love this menu is for its central side dish, if this is not a contradiction in terms. The pea orzotto is a kind of barley risotto or stew, only this is better, sharper, smarter. Because pearl barley has less gluten than rice, it doesn’t get sticky if it stands around after it’s been cooked. It’s true that the actual stirring and whole process of the absorption of the stock to make a risotto takes longer with pearl barley than with rice, but an extra fifteen minutes’ effort in advance is nothing compared to the hell of having to get everything ready from scratch at the last minute.

But another reason I’m keen on this menu is that it shows how by changing the details you can change the whole; with boiled potatoes and carrots, the ham in cider is a not particularly partyish weekend lunch (which, indeed, is where you’ll see the recipe; turn to
page 212
, only lose some of the veg); with the orzotto and oven-charred leeks, the endive salad and the pistachio-sprinkled apricots, it is dinner-party food that knows not from trinked up and tweaked. The ham takes some time to cook, so you’ve either got to get home from work early or do it on the weekend.

The endive salad is just the right starter; the salt-sweetness of the ham, peas, and barley needs the near-wincing astringency of those sword-sharp leaves; the soft-bellied tenderness of the poached dried fruit and its Arabian Nights aromatic muskiness complement and elevate what’s gone before.

ENDIVE AND MUSTARD SALAD

1 tablespoon sherry or cider vinegar

1 scant tablespoon Dijon mustard

large pinch salt

2 tablespoons crème fraîche

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

leaves from 6 small or 4 large heads Belgian endive