a bit of food philosophy

I’ve devel­oped the begin­nings of a life phi­los­o­phy: con­trast brings happiness.

After a week of sol­id rain, there is noth­ing so wel­come as a dose of sun­shine.  But by the same token, after an unbro­ken peri­od of blue skies, wak­ing to the pat­ter of rain on the win­dowsill is inex­press­ibly cozy.

Or take soli­tude.  Today I am on my own all day because John’s gone off on one of his archi­tec­tur­al jaunts, Avery has a long school day with play rehearsal at the end.  And it’s strange­ly pleas­ant here with no one to talk to, no dis­trac­tions from what­ev­er my agen­da is.  But come tomor­row and I’ll be glad enough to dri­ve down to Southamp­ton with John and spend the day with my dear friends Lilith and Janice.

And what could be bet­ter after a long day’s blog­ging, cook­ing and laun­dry than a lit­tle cat­nap with Hel­lo! mag­a­zine open beside you?  If you had­n’t worked so hard, the nap would­n’t be any fun.

Con­trast.

So nat­u­ral­ly, being me, I’ve extend­ed this phi­los­o­phy to my pri­ma­ry job: think­ing about food, shop­ping for food, cook­ing, eat­ing and then talk­ing about food.  And what more stir­ring con­trast can there be than…

VEG­ETA­BLES ver­sus MEAT.

Don’t you some­times just crave a meal entire­ly of veg­eta­bles?  Crunchy and soft, bright­ly col­ored and stim­u­lat­ing, that plate full of vit­a­miny good­ness is not to be under­es­ti­mat­ed.  In that spir­it, I can only point to the pho­to­graph above.

Roast­ed Autumn Veg­eta­bles (these hap­pen to be beets and cauliflower)

(think a big hand­ful for each person)

Go wild: car­rot chunks, but­ter­nut squash with a sprin­kle of sage, parsnip rounds, swede batons, what­ev­er your heart desires.  Driz­zle with chilli oil, salt and pep­per, maybe even a touch of brown sug­ar, and roast for 30–40 min­utes at 220C/425F.  You can’t go wrong.

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If you’re like me, your veg­etable draw­er in the fridge is filled with all sorts of scraps, a bit unas­sum­ing on their own, but con­tain­ing a rich­ness of poten­tial.  I can’t bear to throw food away, so I find myself stash­ing away a red pep­per and half a yel­low one, five broc­coli flo­rets, a smidgen of red onion, a bit of a leek…

Clean-Out-The-Crisper-Draw­er Couscous

(serve 4 as a hearty main dish)

2 cups dry couscous

3 cups hot chick­en stock

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

3 cloves gar­lic, minced

all the veg­eta­bles you can find!

In a large, pret­ty bowl, pour the hot stock over the cous­cous and cov­er with a big plate or pan lid.  Let sit for five min­utes, then fluff with a fork.  Sprin­kle with a lit­tle more olive oil if it’s a bit dry.

Heat the oil and but­ter in a large fry­ing pan and saute the gar­lic and all the veg­eta­bles till slight­ly soft, then mix with the cous­cous. Done.

This dish has every­thing to rec­om­mend it.  Cous­cous is prac­ti­cal­ly free, and you can plan ahead and have a pot of home­made chick­en stock ready to hand.  Or veg­etable stock if you pre­fer!  Home­made stock makes me hap­py because it’s tak­ing advan­tage of what oth­er­wise might just be thrown away: chick­en bones, the ends of onions.  And you’ve res­cued all those veg­eta­bles who thought their use­ful days were over.

Now, after a few meals like this, a young lady’s thoughts nat­u­ral­ly turn to mat­ters of a car­niv­o­rous nature.

Slow-Braised Shoul­der of Beef with Sausages and Mush­rooms in Stout

(serves 4)

2 tbsps olive oil

4 cloves gar­lic, rough­ly chopped

1 large white onion, quartered

4 large sausages (believe it or not, mine were fla­vored with black olives and figs)

4 size­able chunks beef shoulder

1 bot­tle Stout

1 cup beef stock

8 large mush­rooms, quartered

1 cup sour cream

hand­ful chives, chopped fine

Heat the olive oil and throw in the gar­lic, onions and sausages.  Fry till the sausages are cooked through and browned.  Remove them to a plate and throw in the beef shoul­der.  Brown on all sides, nev­er mind­ing that the gar­lic and onions are carameliz­ing.  That’s a good thing.  When the beef is browned, put the sausages back in, pour on the Stout and stock and throw in the mush­rooms.  Turn the heat as low, low, low as you can get it, using a heat dif­fuser or pad of fold­ed-up alu­minum foil on the gas if you must.  Cov­er as tight­ly as you can.  Walk away for 5–7 hours.  Give it a stir once or twice dur­ing this time, turn­ing the beef over to sub­merge each side in turn.

When you’re ready to eat, pour in 1/2 cup sour cream and turn up the heat to get a good sim­mer.  If you find the sauce too thin, pour a bit in a small bowl and mix in 2 tbsps flour, then pour it all back in and mix well.

Serve with egg noo­dles, an extra dol­lop of sour cream for each por­tion, and a sprin­kling of chives.

Again, the virtues of this dish are many!  Butch­ers prac­ti­cal­ly give away shoul­der of beef because it’s unfash­ion­able.  It requires long cook­ing, peas­an­ty cook­ing.  And dear read­ers, the ARO­MA that will fill your entire house as they day goes by.  I wish I could offer smell-a-blog.

You must stand well away from the peo­ple you feed this to if you are at all shy of bear hugs, tears of grat­i­tude, open dis­plays of awe.  This dish is sim­ply the epit­o­me of rich car­niv­o­rous delight: it’s a dark, com­plex gravy, the meat falls apart, the mush­rooms have soaked up every bit of beery, beefy good­ness they can, and the sour cream adds an East­ern Euro­pean sophistication.

And of course, on the side you could serve a pile of roast­ed veg­eta­bles, just for… contrast.