“pan-basting” if you like

But first, before I tell you about my new approach to cook­ing (I know there’s noth­ing new under the sun, but it’s new to me), just look at our Easter. Snow! I ask you. I am a big fan of snow, but on Easter? It absolutely pelted down for the bet­ter part of the morn­ing, even stick­ing on the grass in the gar­den for a bit. Insane. First we were caught in the hail­storm the day before, and now this. Poor Easter bunny. But our egg-dyeing was a huge suc­cess. As we found on our first Easter in this lovely land, there are no white hen’s eggs to be found, at least I’ve never found any. Blue, green, pink and brown, but no white. And no egg dye, but we have long known a dirty lit­tle secret: just plain food colour­ing works a treat. The colours turn out so intense, as you can see, that they put white eggs and all those fancy dye­ing kits to shame. We had a ball, but Avery’s apron will never be the same. Oh, and you want white eggs? Gotta go for duck.

So, enough about unsea­son­able weather and the ever­last­ing smell of post-Easter sul­fur in the air, what I want to tell you about is my new cook­ing method. It’s some­thing I have seen on all the fancy cook­ing shows like Mas­terchef and Great British Menu (we are pathet­i­cally addicted to these pro­grammes and it’s turn­ing Avery into quite the lit­tle food critic), but I’d never tried it myself. I have named this approach “pan-basting,” because that’s what you do. Now, nor­mally when I cook from a skil­let it’s pretty bor­ing. I heat up some oil or but­ter or a com­bi­na­tion of both, stick the food­stuff in and let it cook. But lis­ten to this: how about if you tip the skil­let to one side now and then to gather up the oil, but­ter and cook­ing juices in a large spoon, and then pour it all over what­ever you’re cook­ing? If you do this con­stantly through­out the cook­ing process, and you don’t just let your meat or chicken or fish sit there while all the bast­ing liq­uid trav­els to the edges of your skil­let into a waste­land of obliv­ion, the flavours are amaz­ing! And it makes cook­ing more fun, as well, because there’s some­thing to do and you can watch and keep track of the juices accu­mu­lat­ing and USE THEM.

I dis­cov­ered this in the Cotswolds with a lovely pork ten­der­loin. The poor lit­tle thing looked so dry and lonely! And then I noticed all that lovely juice and olive oil, plus the chopped rose­mary and grated lemon zest I’d mar­i­nated it in, accu­mu­lat­ing at the edges of the skil­let. So I poured in a dot of white wine and let the skil­let deglaze, tipped the skil­let, scooped up all the lovely glop, poured it over, and my life will never be the same. It’s such a rich, cel­e­bra­tory method! Then, right at what I thought should be the end of cook­ing time, I decided that since it was only us, I’d cut into the fil­let in the mid­dle and just check, and lord have mercy, it was nowhere near done. So I rashly cut each half in half, giv­ing me four tidy lit­tle pork logs, and pro­ceeded with my bast­ing, plus I stood each lit­tle log on its ends so they got seared and juicy too. Oh, it was a rev­e­la­tion. If I were will­ing to go whole hog on the but­ter, it would be even bet­ter, but for some mis­guided health rea­son, I kept it to olive oil.

Well, since then I’ve been “pan-basting” with reck­less aban­don. Salmon fil­let? You bet, baste him with that lovely dill but­ter he’s cook­ing in. Pour it all over the fil­let, then turn it over and do the same again. Lovely! And per­haps the nicest exper­i­ment was this:

Pan-Basted Chicken Breasts with Pro­sciutto, Moz­zarella and Spinach
(serves 4, with a bit left over, prob­a­bly)

4 large chicken breasts, bone­less and skin­less (although skin might be nice)
2 balls buf­falo moz­zarella, sliced thick
8 slices pro­sciutto
2 hand­fuls baby spinach
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsps but­ter
1/2 pound but­ton or chest­nut mush­rooms, quar­tered
sprin­kle dried basil
sea salt
fresh-ground black pep­per
8 tooth­picks (or you could tie them up if you know how: I don’t)

Lay the chicken breasts one at a time on your cut­ting board and flat­ten them out, push­ing that nice lit­tle ten­der bit to the side but keep­ing it attached. Cover the sur­face of each breast with moz­zarella slices, pro­sciutto and spinach leaves. Then roll it all up, or fold it, depend­ing on how thick it is, and secure it with the tooth­picks, fold­ing any strag­gly bits in and catch­ing as much as you can with the tooth­picks. The idea is to keep as much moz­zarella as pos­si­ble inside the pocket, since the ham and spinach won’t try to move.

Now heat your oil and but­ter in a large skil­let and sprin­kle in the basil, salt and pep­per. When it’s all siz­zling and bub­bling and lovely, place the breasts care­fully in. Throw the mush­room quar­ters in as well. Cook the chicken on one side until it becomes opaque and white, no longer pink (about five min­utes, per­haps). Turn and do the same on the other side. By this time some juices will have been released and turned into a deli­cious liq­uid with the oil and but­ter. Don’t taste it, though! Too raw. Wait till it’s thor­oughly cooked before you taste it for salt. Tip the skil­let and spoon up the juices in a soup spoon, and driz­zle it over each breast in turn, con­tin­u­ing to tip the skil­let when the spoon’s empty.

What you’ll find is that the moz­zarella melts and some of it escapes into the cook­ing juice, which means you’re pour­ing INTO and on top of the deli­cious pocket of chicken a com­plex ambrosia of oil, but­ter, cheese, basil, salt, pep­per and chicken juices. Turn the pock­ets on their sides, too, and brown all over. It’s hard to over­cook this dish because the ham and cheese mois­turise the chicken, so don’t worry too much. Keep spoon­ing those juices as often as you like. It’s fun!

When you’re sure the breasts are thor­oughly cooked (you can ver­ify this by look­ing at the bit of inside pocket that’s vis­i­ble, and make sure it’s no longer pink at all), taste the cook­ing liq­uid and add salt or more pep­per as needed. Finally, lift the breasts and mush­rooms out care­fully with tongs and just leave all that oil and but­ter fat behind: it’s done its job. Lovely.

***********************

I’m devoted to this method now. It would be a won­der­ful way to cook a beef fil­let, as that cut can run to dry­ness. A rack of lamb would be sim­ply fab­u­lous this way, with fresh chopped rose­mary and lemon juice added to the oil or but­ter. Sadly, a by-product of our lovely Cotswolds hol­i­day and visit to the Mecca of Baby Lambs has meant that Avery is no longer will­ing to coun­te­nance lamb as FOOD. But there will come her school hol­i­day to Nor­mandy next month and you can bet that hard-hearted John and I will be reach­ing for that rack. “Mummy, how CAN you? After you fed it with a bot­tle!” Needs must.

Right. We must run Avery over to her friend Sophie’s house for a sleep­over and tomorrow’s mati­nee of “The Jer­sey Boys.” I’m cel­e­brat­ing the only good thing about hav­ing her gone: eat­ing things she doesn’t like. It’s crab­cakes and that lovely scal­lop dish I told you about a bit ago, with beet­root and pota­toes. We’ll see if the first time mak­ing it was a fluke… I think I’ll pan-baste them! And then I promise to stop talk­ing about it. Seriously.

Oh, and I nearly for­got to tell you about the dessert Avery invented on Easter Sun­day. We had an absolute ball cook­ing together, but I must con­fess: she’s rub­bish at wash­ing up. I guess great chefs have peo­ple to do that sort of thing for them (mothers).

Avery’s Straw­berry Nests
(one per person!)

8 sheets puff pas­try, cut a lit­tle larger than the size of your indi­vid­ual tart pan
3 tbsps melted but­ter
hand­ful choco­late chips, melted
home­made straw­berry whipped cream (recipe below)
2 straw­ber­ries, halved
1 tbsp rasp­berry coulis (recipe below)

Brush but­ter on each sheet of puff pas­try in turn and pile them up. Then nes­tle them into the tart pan. Spread the bot­tom with melted choco­late, and fill up the tart with whipped cream. Arrange the straw­ber­ries on the cream and driz­zle with coulis. Gorgeous!

Straw­berry Whipped Cream

1/2 pint whip­ping cream
dash vanilla extract
2 tbsps sugar (less if you like)
3 straw­ber­ries, quartered

Place all the ingre­di­ents in your Mag­imix and whizz until the cream is whipped, tak­ing care that you don’t whip it too long and end up with straw­berry butter!

Rasp­berry Coulis

1 pint rasp­ber­ries
2 tbsps sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon

Sim­mer all ingre­di­ents in a small saucepan, press­ing on the berries with a spoon. Cook down until liq­uidy, then pass through a sieve into a cup, to elim­i­nate the seeds. Return to saucepan and cook down till reduced by about half.

******************

Enjoy!