clear­ing the cob­webs again

And so it’s final­ly June.  The month of ros­es, clear­ly.  And but­ter­cups, who open brave­ly each morn­ing, and then fold their tiny petals at dusk.  I won’t let John cut the grass, not until they’ve had a lit­tle chance at life.

And what on earth is this bizarre flower, a com­bi­na­tion of Vic­to­ri­an fash­ion and cake decoration?

‘Tis the sea­son as well for one of Eng­land’s cher­ished ear­ly sum­mer delights, the fresh pea.

I want to like peas,  I real­ly do.  Avery adores them.  So I con­sci­en­tious­ly bought a huge bag of the fresh pods and labo­ri­ous­ly shelled them all, only to end up with a very small num­ber of actu­al peas and a reminder that I am just not a fan.  Still, it’s June, so I did my bit.  I con­soled myself with a beau­ti­ful fil­let steak and a tru­ly sim­ple Bear­naise sauce.  Don’t scare your­self with dou­ble boil­ers and the like.  Just jump in and enjoy.

Sim­ple Bear­naise Sauce

(serves 4)

225g/1 cup (two sticks) butter

3 tbsps white wine vinegar

1 tsp white wine

1 banana shal­lot, fine­ly chopped

12 tar­ragon leaves, fine­ly chopped

3 egg yolks

fresh black pep­per and salt to taste

Put the but­ter in a small saucepan to melt very slow­ly.  Some recipes have you clar­i­fy the but­ter, but I have nev­er known why: the whey is per­fect­ly deli­cious, in my opin­ion.  Mean­while, place the vine­gar, wine, shal­lot and tar­ragon in anoth­er small saucepan and sim­mer gen­tly until the mix­ture reduces just a bit.  Leave to cool while you sep­a­rate the eggs, then put the but­ter, wine mix­ture and egg yolks in a small food proces­sor and blend until smooth.  Sea­son to taste and serve hot.  If you have to reheat any left­over sauce, do it extreme­ly gen­tly, as this sauce will split in an instant if treat­ed harshly.

**********

I’ve been tremen­dous­ly inspired to cook some new things by a vis­it to one of the most sub­lime restau­rants we have ever encoun­tered, Man­ches­ter House.  Oh yes, did I for­get to tell you we went to Man­ches­ter?  For LUNCH.  I’ll explain.

Last year, the BBC aired a pro­gramme called Restau­rant Wars, in which two star chefs arrived in Man­ches­ter to see if they could open a restau­rant that would win a Miche­lin star.  I’ll put in my two cents right at the begin­ning of this tale: I could not care less whether a restau­rant has such an acco­lade.  I can’t imag­ine being dic­tat­ed to by some pro­fes­sion­al crit­ic as to what food deserves my atten­tion, and the idea of com­pet­ing for deli­cious­ness is just ludi­crous to me.

But chefs do care, at least these two did.  So Simon Rogan and Aiden Byrne arrived in the great north­ern city, famous­ly unsup­port­ive of fan­cy places to eat, and set about to wow the pop­u­lace.  Their styles, both per­son­al and culi­nary, were very dif­fer­ent and we felt quite sure that we would love the food pre­pared by Byrne, a mild, soft-spo­ken, pre­cise man who had had pro­fes­sion­al dis­ap­point­ments and was filled with ambition.

I would not prob­a­bly have gone all the way to Man­ches­ter for lunch but for the coin­ci­dence of a tremen­dous art exhi­bi­tion I was dying to see.  Do you know the Whit­worth Gallery, and the divine Cor­nelia Park­er?  Her work is all about tak­ing things apart and putting them back togeth­er in mind-blow­ing ways.

Oh, SO worth a trip almost any­where, Cor­nelia is.  So off we went, leav­ing Avery to her own devices, which in these bor­ing pre-exam days seem to be filled only with index cards.

Ever since our adven­ture in Zurich this win­ter, we’ve been deter­mined to do more things just the two of us, and Man­ches­ter was just what the doc­tor ordered: a few hours on a com­fort­able train, speed­ing north through the beau­ti­ful Eng­lish coun­try­side, end­ing up in a great city with a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent accent to what we hear down South, against a back­drop of indus­tri­al architecture.

There is just some­thing bril­liant about get­ting out of the dai­ly rou­tine, dai­ly chores, and the dai­ly scene, even just overnight.  Freed from the respon­si­bil­i­ties of kitchen, laun­dry, pets, and com­put­er, we gazed around at our new sur­round­ings, hopped on a very for­eign-seem­ing bus, asked direc­tions from strangers.  At the restau­rant, we set­tled down to tru­ly enjoy our­selves, and our gourmet lunch.

Things I could­n’t even imag­ine know­ing how to cook!  After writ­ing a cook­book, that’s a chal­lenge: find­ing some­thing I real­ly could­n’t make at home.  But Man­ches­ter House fed us dish after dish that was just that: unimag­in­able.  “Chick­en but­ter”!  Made by cook­ing a chick­en in a pres­sure cook­er for sev­er­al days to bring it to “chick­en essence,” then blend­ing it with home­made but­ter, and top­ping it with dehy­drat­ed, pow­dered chick­en skin.  heaven!

And a smoked foie gras par­fait, served in a per­fect egg shell, topped with pea puree and tiny, halved fresh peas.

These delights were fol­lowed by a per­fect sea bream fil­let with lan­goustines smoked in pine oil, with the ulti­mate CAR­ROT, blanched in car­rot essence and served with car­rot but­ter.  Heaven.

We had to roll our­selves out of the restau­rant, talk­ing a mile a minute about the meal, enjoy­ing a tour around the city’s mag­nif­i­cent Chi­na­town.  John is so tol­er­ant of my desire to enter every sin­gle super­mar­ket, won­der­ing if I might find a still bet­ter chilli and gar­lic sauce than the one I have at home, pinch­ing heads of gar­lic, assess­ing the rel­a­tive spici­ness of bags of pep­pers.  Food shop­ping: always per­fect fun.

We col­lapsed with cock­tails at the hotel and I enjoyed the rare feel­ing of free­dom from the kitchen: no prep, no tim­ings, no mess.  Very late, we wan­dered out and had a gor­geous, siz­zling, spicy Kore­an meal of “jat bul­go­gi,” a Kore­an bar­be­cued beef, and “bibim­bap,” a mix­ture of fried rice, cab­bage and egg.  We weren’t even real­ly hun­gry, but the fun of eat­ing two meals out in one day was not to be missed.

Next day we braved the rain to walk through the city via the Uni­ver­si­ty, a real­ly love­ly cam­pusy place with a very vibrant feel­ing.  Among its beau­ti­ful build­ings we found the Whit­worth Gallery and the Park­er show.  She is among a hand­ful of artists whose work leaves me speech­less with admiration.

 

The hall­mark of her work is a desire to take things apart, to emp­ty them, trans­form them, flat­ten or wrap them, or often to show what is NOT there.  Take this stun­ning instal­la­tion, for example.

This is an entire room lined in the reams of paper left behind when the Remem­brance Pop­pies are cut from them.  So the shape, of such icon­ic sig­nif­i­cance, is in its neg­a­tive form, the white space left behind after the man­u­fac­tur­ing process.

There is such humor, too!

When Park­er worked as an assis­tant at the Tate Gallery, Rodin had fall­en out of favor and this pre­cious group, “The Kiss,” was sim­ply left in stor­age, for­got­ten.  Park­er asked per­mis­sion to wrap it in a mile of rope, and per­mis­sion was given.

What a show.  “Draw­ings” made from bul­lets melt­ed down and turned into wire, thread­ed through hand­made paper.

The imag­i­na­tion, the sheer love of process, the joy in the unex­pect­ed.  Quite a lot like our lunch the pre­vi­ous day, actu­al­ly!  Ingre­di­ents that have been tak­en out of con­text, treat­ed in a way you’d nev­er imag­ined, pre­sent­ed in a way that high­lights the end­less pos­si­bil­i­ties of every ele­ment.  What an art form, whether in food or in paper, or bullets.

Isn’t that the fun of cul­ture, after all?  See­ing what some­one vast­ly more imag­i­na­tive than I can do with the ele­ments of life that we all have around us.

We came home in a haze of appre­ci­a­tion, and the very next day popped off to the divine “Old Vic” with Avery to see one of our fam­i­ly’s absolute favorite movies, only on stage, LIVE!  High Soci­ety, what a joy.  The Old Vic is now com­ing to end of its tenure under Kevin Spacey’s direc­tion, and this was a mas­sive­ly fit­ting cel­e­bra­tion.  Staged in the round, and we had front-row tick­ets!  The dancers’ dress­es brushed our knees.  Oh, the music.  “True Love,” my child­hood in a song.

Isn’t it won­der­ful to watch and hear incred­i­bly tal­ent­ed peo­ple at the top of their game?  Joe Stil­goe, a mind-bog­gling­ly tal­ent­ed pianist and singer, opened the musi­cal with a com­plete­ly clever, spon­ta­neous mash-up of ANY song that an audi­ence mem­ber might sug­gest!  Can you imag­ine the tal­ent?  Go, if you can.

All this expo­sure to cre­ative peo­ple push­ing the enve­lope led me — don’t laugh — to enter the kitchen with a renewed sense of pur­pose!  Why com­plain about the qual­i­ty of things I buy in the gro­cery store, when I can make them myself, and SO much bet­ter?  I began with a fam­i­ly favorite.

Gravad­lax

(serves 6)

450g/1 lb fresh salmon fillet

85g/5 tbsps gran­u­lat­ed sugar

70g/4 tbsps Mal­don salt

2 tbsps vodka

juice of 1 lemon or lime

2 tsps fresh black pepper

100g/3½ ounces fresh dill

Lay the salmon fil­let in a plas­tic box with a close-fit­ting lid, or a Ziplock bag.  Mix all the oth­er ingre­di­ents well and pour over the salmon.  Cov­er, or zip shut, and refrig­er­ate for at least 48 hours, turn­ing once.

When you are ready to eat the gravad­lax, remove the salmon from the mari­nade and lay on a cut­ting board.  With a very sharp knife, cut in very thin slices, at an angle across the top of the fil­let.  Serve plain, or on a bagel with all the trimmings.

***********

The qual­i­ty of this fish was beyond any­thing I had ever pur­chased, for the sim­ple rea­son that I was able to buy the high­est qual­i­ty pos­si­ble fresh salmon.  Who knows if com­mer­cial pre­par­ers are will­ing to spend for the best, when the per­cep­tion may be that the cur­ing process will cov­er any defi­cien­cies?  As well, the fresh slic­ing is a boon.  The fish was soft as could be, and high­ly flavorful.

But.

The bagel was just awful.  A super­mar­ket vari­ety, since I had no oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it a spe­cial­ist del­i­catessen or a Jew­ish neigh­bor­hood.  And sud­den­ly I thought, “What on earth is stop­ping me mak­ing bagels at home?”  The answer to that ques­tion was “absolute­ly noth­ing.”  Because this was a bak­ing project, and there­fore sci­en­tif­ic and requir­ing strict fol­low­ing of instruc­tions, I did just that, and you should too.  Easy-peasy, from this love­ly blog, “The Sophis­ti­cat­ed Gourmet.”  I’ll repro­duce the instruc­tions here, with my lit­tle adden­dums.  You’ll need to have what’s called a “stand mix­er,” in my opin­ion, unless you’re a tru­ly expe­ri­enced knead­er.  I bor­rowed my friend Fion­a’s Kitchen Aid, and now I’d real­ly like one of my own.

Clas­sic Bagels

(makes 8)

2 tsps (one enve­lope) active dry yeast

1 ½ tbsps gran­u­lat­ed sugar

355 ml/1 ¼ cups warm water (you may need ¼ cup more, depend­ing on cli­mat­ic conditions)

500g/3.5 cups strong bread flour or high-gluten flour (will need extra for kneading

1 ½ tea­spoons salt

In a cup, place the yeast, sug­ar and 125 ml/1/2 cup of the warm water.  Leave for five min­utes with­out stir­ring, then stir thoroughly.

Place the flour in the bowl of the stand mix­er, and make a well in the cen­ter.  Pour in the yeast mix­ture, low­er the bread-mak­ing blade into the bowl and turn on low.  Grad­u­al­ly add the remain­ing warm water as the mix­er works, scrap­ing the sides of the bowl as need­ed.  After sev­er­al min­utes the dough will be so stiff that the mix­er makes small thump­ing move­ments and nois­es.  Don’t wor­ry!  The goal is to incor­po­rate all the flour for a very stiff dough, so add more warm water as you need to, to form such a dough.  It was such fun, using my friend Fion­a’s machine and my moth­er’s flour can­is­ter, a wed­ding present over 50 years ago.

When the dough is ready, place it in an oiled bowl at least twice as large as the dough.  Turn the ball of dough so that it is all cov­ered with oil.  Cov­er with cling film or a damp tea tow­el and leave in a warm place for at least an hour (I left mine for over six hours as I was out of the house).  Punch down and on a floured sur­face, divide into eight equal portions.

Roll them into as per­fect balls as you can attain, then with a flour thumb, make a hole in the cen­ter and spin the dough around your thumb until you have a… bagel!  Place them on an oiled bak­ing tray.

 

Cov­er them with a damp tow­el and let rest for 10 min­utes.  Heat your oven to 220C/425F.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, then place as many bagels as can fit in a sin­gle lay­er into the bub­bling water.  Boil for 2 min­utes, then turn over and boil for anoth­er 2 min­utes.  Remove with a slot­ted spoon to the oiled bak­ing tray and con­tin­ue until all bagels are boiled.

Now, while they are wet, you can choose whether to bake them plain, or sprin­kle them with top­pings.  Sea salt is per­fect, of course, but oth­er won­der­ful ideas are:

pop­py seeds

sesame seeds (black or blond)

dehy­drat­ed minced onions, garlic

The clas­sic New York “every­thing bagel” is just what it says on the tin: every­thing on this list.

Bake the bagels for about 20 min­utes, to the brown­ness you like.  Sit back and feel home­sick for New York City, then dig in.

Now of course you’ll note that by the time I made my bagels, I had run out of my pre­cious gravad­lax, and so resort­ed to very posh plain smoked salmon from Fort­num’s.  Next time I’ll time my projects so I have both ele­ments of the per­fect brunch in place, all at once.

And while you have that bor­rowed Kitchen Aid mix­er, go on.  Do some­thing spe­cial for your daugh­ter study­ing for her exams.  Make her prop­er dough­nuts.

New Orleans Beignets

(makes about 4 dozen, so you can pop some of the dough in the freez­er, or share with your friend who loaned you the Kitchen Aid mixer)

2 tsps (1 enve­lope) active dry yeast

125 ml/1/2 cup water at pre­cise­ly 46C/115F

1 tsp gran­u­lat­ed sugar

250 ml/1 cup evap­o­rat­ed milk

2 large eggs, beat­en slightly

1 tsp salt

112g/1/2 cup gran­u­lat­ed sugar

250 ml/1 cup water at pre­cise­ly 46C/115F

55g/1/4 cup butter

900g/7 cups plain/all-pur­pose flour

In the bowl of the stand mix­er, place the yeast, warm water, and 1 tsp sug­ar.  Mix well and leave to sit five min­utes.  Add milk, eggs, salt and sug­ar and mix well.

Microwave sec­ond quan­ti­ty of water until the pre­cise tem­per­a­ture is reached, then melt the but­ter in it.  Add to the yeast mix­ture and on low pow­er, mix well.  Grad­u­al­ly add the flour until a sticky dough is reached (you may not need the last 125g/cup or so).  Place in an oiled bowl and turn the dough so it is all oiled, then cov­er tight­ly with cling film and refrig­er­ate for at least 4 hours, but up to 1 week.

Grab a hand­ful of this dough and place onto a well-floured sur­face, then flour the dough fur­ther.  Roll out to half-cen­time­ter/1/4″ thick and cut into squares of your desired size, with a piz­za cut­ter.  Bring oil in your fry­ing pan or deep-fry­er to 180C/350F and fry the beignets on one side for about 1 minute, or until gold­en brown, then turn and fry anoth­er minute, or until gold­en brown.  Remove to a cool­ing rack and dust with icing sugar.

At this point, you can see that the beignets are a bit hol­low inside, so if you feel inclined you can pipe in some Nutel­la or whipped cream, or slip in a slice of ripe peach or two.  I have a mind to sub­sti­tute some melty cheese for the evap­o­rat­ed milk in this recipe, and pro­duce some savoury beignets, per­haps filled with sausage?

You see, once you get out there, see what oth­er bril­liant peo­ple are mak­ing with their ener­gy, it’s but the work of a moment to make some­thing your­self.  Go on, be inspired.