The Sacred Art of Eating

It’s the 25th of January, so that could only mean Burn’s Supper. We did our own twist on things and rather than ending with a dram (although the night is yet young and there’s both Aberlour and Highland Park in the kitchen) we started the night off with a whisky sours. One of my favourite drinks and a great way to start my holiday, thought I do say so.

The meal was a largely traditional fare although the Toast to the Lasses consisted of “Chicks have boobs, wayhey” and the Reply from the Lasses of “Cheers”. Clearly we had worked long and hard on our speeches.

Next year the plan is for a modern Burn’s Supper: deep fried haggis supper and a can of irn bru. Bonus!

This morning I had a rather unsettling dream, which centred around being in a museum shop and suddenly discovering that I didn’t have my bag; that I had put it down on the floor to look at something and some bastard had nicked it. This was distressing for various reasons- I wouldn’t have my wallet to go on holiday with (something of a theme for me) and also my camera had been in my bag so that would be gone too.

However, as I consoled myself in the dream: The camera only had one meal on it, the Quesadillas. It won’t be too much effort to repeat them…

---

Blogging will be light this following week as I am off to the slopes of France to carve up some powder fall over comically. Dougal could cook some stuff, but he’d have no camera to record his endeavours with, so it wouldn’t be official. I shall maybe pick up some ingredients in France; expect cooking to resume with renewed enthusiasm come February!

Easy Mexican madness, but a little heavy on the chillies!

• Quesadillas

We had half a packet of fajhitas in the freezer and prosciutto was half price in Somerfields. It seemed only right that we dived into Nigellas recipe for Mexican Cheese Toasties with suitable enthusiasm. Generally these were a hit but Nigella used three whole slices of pickled Jalapeño in each and that was just too much for me. I wanted to taste the ham, the huge volume of coriander. My only other complaint was that, as these seemed a lot like snack food, we ate them very fast and then suffered for it! Also…it did fill the kitchen with smoke, but we don’t have a decent extractor.

Well, this evening as I walked home through the most dreich, miserable, cold, wet Edinburgh evening (the streets are flooding and we’re about to go back out into it) I realised that, had I not known that Dougal was preparing tea, the thing I would make when I got in the house would be the cheaty Macaroni Cheese. And I would make double so that I could gorge myself on it and then have the rest for breakfast. So I guess that means it was a success!

As it was Dougal made an old old old Delia Smith recipe for a gratin of sauteed leeks, with halves of boiled eggs and a very cheesy cheese sauce all popped under the grill. It did the trick.

A post about Quesadillas will follow at some stage. Now we’re off to the cinema!

Not what you’d call the traditional recipe. But smashing, easy peasy to make, and really good cold too.

• Macaroni Cheese

This is not at all traditional macaroni. There is no roux, no white sauce. Look away now, sophisticated cooks, for it was made with evaporated milk and eggs and I didn’t even grate the cheese, I let the food processor do that for me. (Which if I didn’t have a dishwasher would be a distinct downside to this dish- it wouldn’t be so speedy if you had to grate first.)

The result was eggy and rich. It suited my (ahem, hungover) hungry and tired brain greatly. I munched on the leftovers this evening and the result was like a sort of spanish omelette made with pasta- akin to but an improvement on lunches I used to ‘create’ as a fourteen year old which involved cooking pasta, frying it in egg and topping with cheese.

So. It needs a different name, but otherwise it rightly deserves its place in Nigella’s ‘Holy Trinity of Cheese-Rich Comfort Foods’.

 

On a cold and windy winter’s night you need something hot, meaty, and with a little kick to warm the belly and soothe the soul. This did the trick nicely.

• Mustard Pork Chops

This dead straightforward meal made for an excellent Friday night supper. I picked up the chops from the butchers near my work on the way home (Pigs from Garvald, and outdoor pigs too) and so felt all pious for my local sourcing.

The recipe called for some cider, but was very quick to cook, so I portioned off the required cider and then Dougal and I headed to the living room for crunchies (sea salt and balsamic vinegar crisps) and the remainder of the bottle. Very civilised!

After a relaxing chat, we headed to the kitchen and put tea together. I’d pre-sliced my courgettes and crushed some garlic (in the absence of having yet made any Garlic Oil) so once we started, the food was on the table in 10 minutes.

I loved this dish; the mustardy creamy meat with the stodgy gnocchi and the contrast of the courgettes (although in retrospect I’d have loved some salad or peas in addition- I just can’t get enough veg). I suspect Dougal didn’t like the gnocchi so much, he’s not enjoyed them in the past and I don’t really know how to cook them. Still, quick and easy- you could stick some rice in the oven before going for drinks and it would work equally well. Will probably find itself repeated!

This tea came about on one of those evenings when neither of us could be bothered cooking and both were almost contemplating takeaway.

• Golden Goat’s Cheese

We didn’t have it with the suggested lentils because we’d none pre-cooked and wanted tea NOW rather than once some pulses had cooked. We also deviate a little from the instructions. Not having Japanese Panko (not likely round here!) wasn’t a problem as we had two remaining little rolls from the weekend which were beyond eating but perfect for breadcrumbs. We also took issue with the volume of cheese suggested- 25g per person seemed measly and anyway that’s not the sizes they sell in our shop, so we just made it up. The end result wasn’t as beautiful as in the book; the photographed ones must have been fried rather than baked, giving them their deeper colour but also getting them cooked before they burst and oozed.

Not that it mattered. With a hefty plate of salad this was yummy, albeit cheese overload. Would definitely consider it again.

In pictures….

       

This was a repeat purely for photographic purposes….not that we have the whipped cream or requisite wanky mugs yet….Not just because we liked the Kahlua…

• Mexican Hot Chocolate

Lunch: brought to you by the denaturing power of Lemon!

• Tuna and Beans
• Linguine with Lemon, Garlic and Thyme Mushrooms

Both of these recipes were firmly in my ‘not so sure about these’ category, and so it might seem odd that I cooked them so soon in the year, or indeed when we had friends coming for lunch. Their crime was, in both cases, containing an ingredient about which I am firmly sceptical- or downright negative.

In the case of the Tuna and Beans, this was the red onion. I am not a fan of raw red onion. In a restaurant I will sit and pick out slivers of red onion from salads in what I am sure is a most irritating fashion. However I decided to press on with the dish because a) I liked the general premise of beans and tuna fish, very Italian, and b) the onions had to steep in lemon juice for some time and that can make raw onion edible (think of the ones you put on poppadoms).

Whilst eating it, I enjoyed the salad. Dougal wasn’t a fan; the borlotti beans fell into his category of beans which don’t seem properly cooked (too firm with tough skins). Unfortunately, the onion was simply too raw. I spent the rest of the day burping horrendously and complaining of indigestion. So I think we’ll give that one a miss in future (unless I’m asked to do a salad for a barbeque, because I do think this is a salad other people would enjoy).

I was sceptical about the pasta because it calls for mushrooms but then does not cook them. Raw mushrooms are in fact used by the CIA as an implement of torture. They are just wrong, wrong, wrong. However, I went along with it, partly because Helen at AOYP (fellow challenge-ee) has made it and enthused, and because I reasoned that if I sliced my mushrooms very finely perhaps the heat from the pasta really would cook them adequately.

What I hadn’t reckoned on was the power of the lemon juice over the mushrooms. The finely sliced mushrooms got a wee bath in some lemon juice and olive oil and hot damn if that lemon juice didn’t ‘cook’ the mushrooms nicely. Nigella suggests that the mushrooms in their juice might make a nice salad and I’m inclined to agree.

I do wish though that I had had fully faithful ingredients for this. Despite the lunch date being planned a fortnight in advance I didn’t get round to planning the meal till the morning and so shopping was done locally. I would have liked to have had proper linguine (I find the shape very satisfying to eat) rather than spaghetti, and whilst Nigella says not having Chestnut Mushrooms is not an excuse to not make this dish, I’m annoyed I didn’t. Without cooking, button mushrooms are somewhat insipid in colour. Chestnut mushrooms would have made this dish generally more appealing on the eye. Nevertheless, a surprise hit.

You can see some of Dougal’s yummy little rolls (from Feast by Nigella Lawson) by the side.

Guest post written by Dougal Stanton.

The thing about most of Nigella Express is that it’s supposed to be good food made easily. Which generally translates to “with as little fuss as possible”. Sometimes she achieves this aim of “easily” by making the fuss more concentrated.

• Mirin-Glazed Salmon

This dish appears in the chapter called Against The Clock. She means it this time. It’s one of those dishes that requires hundreds of little bowls with sauces and dips and marinades and such, all prepared and ready to go. Then at the last moment — like when your girlfriend gets back from the gym — you frantically soak it and throw it in the pan and oh-my-god-it’s-burning! what’ll-I-do-now? quick-panic!-panic!-panic! it magically all comes together.

I am becoming better at organising myself with the relaxed pace of most of Nigella’s recipes but this had me completely terrified. Inevitably I’m halfway through doing three things at once when I realise there’s no salad or whatever, and by that stage there’s nothing I can do about it.

The result was pretty good though, and the spring onion shreds really made a nice flavour contrast.

There’s a certain relaxed familiarity that comes with experience. I don’t know what it is, but something in the back of your mind that lets you concentrate on background tasks as well as the main task. I am still at the stage where, when things get tough, all my multitasking ability goes out the window.