still life with cats

It’s warm, sun­ny sum­mer in my Lon­don gar­den so I’ve picked up my com­put­er and a nice glass of iced herbal tea, to soak up the love­ly atmos­phere this Sat­ur­day after­noon.  Of course, this being Barnes, in the heart­warm­ing path of land­ing air­craft to Heathrow, it’s nev­er qui­et.  But after a few years of liv­ing here, the din starts to be a com­fort­ing hum, and I find myself imag­in­ing where all the peo­ple over­head are com­ing from, and feel­ing glad that I’m not one of them.  Hap­py to be on the ground.

I’m joined by the cats, one by one, embold­ened by  my pres­ence to come out, stalk a bird or two, sniff the new-mown grass (thank you, John) , even eat a bit of it.  Hermione feels com­fort­able enough to take a nap in the dusty sunshine.

Tacy, not to be out­done, con­sents to per­form her lit­tle danc­ing trick for me.  First, she strikes a pose.

Then, she goes through her rou­tine.  “What’s that in your hand?”

“Tricked again.  It’s just a hand.”

“I love you anyway.”

“Here’s a lit­tle move to prove it.”

On days like this, what bet­ter idea for sup­per than to bring out the pier­rade and cook some divine duck breast and sir­loin, served up with a trio of sauces — spicy satay, creamy bear­naise, fruity plum.

This is one of our favorite sum­mer sup­pers, and the siz­zling meaty bites (“hey, that one splat­tered me!”) seem to bring out the best in our con­ver­sa­tions.  We sit around the table long after the last mouth­ful has been enjoyed, the last bits of sauce mopped up, since these June days are very, very long.  Sun­set long after 9.

This morn­ing brought a trip to the farmer’s mar­ket for me, after ring­ing prac­tice, and oh my, the Isle of Wight tomatoes!

These lit­tle juicy beau­ties are John’s lat­est snack­ing craze, and they are well worth a trip to the mar­ket.  The Isle of Wight pro­duces the UK’s first crop of toma­toes each sum­mer and they are divine.

I was then seduced by a pop-up Thai cafe, Boe’s Kitchen.

My good­ness, the aro­mas that stole through the crowds: kaf­fir lime, coconut milk, gin­ger, gar­lic.  I sam­pled every­thing, of course, and came away with tonight’s din­ner: green chick­en cur­ry with galan­gal paste, tiny aubergines, and who knows what else.  To be spooned onto a bed of the most mag­i­cal fried rice ever: with exot­ic mush­rooms and some kind of cab­bage leaves.

You all know how I dear­ly love to cook our night­ly din­ners, but I’m ter­ri­bly excit­ed about this evening’s for­ay into fla­vors I can­not dream of pro­duc­ing at home.  I stood hun­gri­ly watch­ing the cooks stir­ring their pots, ask­ing ques­tion after ques­tion, but not real­ly under­stand­ing the answers.  “Kaf­fir” fea­tured high on the list of words I heard over and over, and my kitchen boasts a jar of its leaves, and there was an uneven green ball on a plate below the cur­ry labeled “our secret weapon,” but how my leaves and that ball of mag­ic are relat­ed, I real­ly could­n’t say.

Some­times, though, mir­a­cles of fla­vor can emerge from my kitchen, and I can say hand on heart that this week’s stand­out exper­i­ment was a sort of French-Jew­ish fusion.

Chick­en Thigh Ril­lettes with Gribenes

(serves over 20 as canapes on toast or crackers)

6 bone-in, skin-on chick­en thighs

2 tbsps duck or goose fat (or ren­dered schmalz, even olive oil in a pinch)

1 1/2 cups/375 ml chick­en stock

glug Marsala or Madeira wine

1 stem rose­mary, leaves only

4 cloves gar­lic, minced

sea salt and fresh black pep­per to taste

This is French-Jew­ish fusion food.  What could be better?

To make the gribenes, remove skin and fat from thighs.  Place in a fry­ing pan in a sin­gle lay­er, or over­lap­ping as lit­tle as pos­si­ble, and add 1/2 cup/125ml water.  Place over very low heat and cook at a tiny sim­mer until the skin is crisp.  This will take at least 90 min­utes.  Remove skin to paper tow­el and pour ren­dered fat, “schmalz” into a jar to use in this recipe, or to save for anoth­er recipe in the fridge.

In a deep saucepan or wok that can accom­mo­date the chick­en thighs in a sin­gle lay­er, melt the fat, stock and wine togeth­er.  Add the rose­mary and gar­lic and sea­son to taste.  Place the chick­en thighs in the liq­uid and cook at a sim­mer, cov­ered, for at least 2 hours.  The meat will fall off the bones.

Remove the chick­en thighs to a cut­ting board and allow to cool so you can han­dle them.  Reserve the cook­ing liq­uid.  Remove the bones, car­ti­lege and any sinewy bits until you are left with pure chick­en.  With two forks, shred the meat to a con­sis­ten­cy you like, then place in a large bowl.  Strain the cook­ing liq­uid into a cup and pour in as much of it over the shred­ded meat as you need to make the chick­en mix­ture nice and juicy.

At this point, it’s about pre­sen­ta­tion.  If you’d like to give the ril­lettes as gifts, pack about a hand­ful of the chick­en mix­ture into lit­tle ramekins and top with a bit of the crisp skin, the gribenes.  If you’re hav­ing a par­ty, serve lit­tle bite-sized por­tions of the ril­lettes on toast or crack­ers, or tucked into tiny let­tuce leaves, topped with chopped gribenes.

*******

So com­plete­ly afford­able, so sim­ple (it all cooks itself).  I made so much, with­out a par­ty in sight, that I packed up sev­er­al lit­tle gift ramekins and went off on my bicy­cle, deliv­er­ing some unex­pect­ed lit­tle appe­tiz­ers around my beloved neigh­bor­hood as the beau­ti­ful after­noon wound itself down into evening.

Sum­mer pleasures.