The Sacred Art of Eating

• Roquamole
• Red-leaf, Fig and Serrano ham salad
• Spanish omelette

New Year’s Day saw me inadvertently begin The Challenge (Mike didn’t lay out the details until the 3rd) when, on Hogmanay, I had a Nigella-like moment and ‘discovered’ I had people coming to supper.

The situation was thus: my mum had mentioned her and my dad popping in on the first, and us all going for a walk up the Union Canal before taking in a movie and perhaps food at Chop Chop, our nearest (and best in Edinburgh) Chinese Restaurant. However, whilst I was at work on the 31st, a flurry of emails revealed that Chop Chop was to be closed on the 1st. I gaily offered to ‘do food’.

Theoretically, whipping up some sort of light bites for my family, particularly when any empty stomachs could be filled with ice cream at the cinema afterwards, was not a demanding undertaking. But I was heading into the beginning of a rubbish cold, and Waitrose was heaving as I made my way round at 3pm. Heaving, but pretty light on stock. I felt bewildered and overwhelmed by ingredients and recipes and possibilities; I’d not made any plans for what precisely to cook and as such didn’t really know what I was doing. However, I had read through some of Nigella Express by this stage and so I had an idea of what to make, grabbing ripe avocados and manchego cheese (eek it was expensive) and soft goat’s cheese. I had a vague notion of doing some salads and some dippy-crisps thing.

The roqualmole was an almost resounding success. Dougal made it up, rather than me, but I think it was fairly straightforward to create. We let the side down slightly by not having any of those sliced jalapeno chillis to put through it and give it oomph, but nevertheless the ingredients were good and the result was flavoursome. My family ate it with gusto, my brother announcing that it was really good, ‘like guacamole but not quite’… unfortunately the very moment I revealed that its secret ingredient was blue cheese, he magically lost his taste for it. Even at 21 he can be a total child sometimes. Sadly we couldn’t manage blue tortilla chips (we barely managed real tortilla chips, but I was resolute that I would not have it with doritos!) even though I have eaten them in Scotland before so they must be available somewhere in Edinburgh.

The serrano ham salad was something I’d known I wanted to make when I walked into the supermarket, and as such I’d shopped specifically for the ingredients I needed. Sadly, I was let down by the lack of deliveries/frenetic panic buying of the other shoppers, because try as I might I could not get any redder than average salad leaves. In fact, in Waitrose I couldn’t get any salad leaves at all and had to buy them in Somerfield when I got back to the flat. I didn’t include any figs in my salad because I’ve only knowingly eaten fresh figs once in my life and wouldn’t know where to start when buying the things. Also, we didn’t have any sherry vinegar, so I used a mixture of cooking sherry and white wine vinegar. Whether this was to the detriment of the dish I doubt I’ll ever know, as I’m not sure there is really room in my life (or my condiments cupboard) for sherry vinegar. Lastly; I think Nigella must have a sharper potato peeler than I do because I found that only 1/2 of my manchego slices had an artistry to them. The others had chunks at one end. I enjoyed this salad (cheese AND ham in the one dish, hurrah!) but I think I’d better make it again, for so as not to be accused to failing to take the challenge seriously enough. And also because I’d like to eat it again.

The spanish omelette was a last minute addition to the menu and suffered a little a lack of planned shopping. We had no caramelised peppers in the house and so I made a hopeful New Year’s Day trip to the corner shop at the end of our road. It has always seemed quite big; however I discovered that in fact most of their stock is alcohol and dogfood. Further to that you can buy anything as long as it is in a tin or pickled. (Except for jalapenos!). So the spanish omelette was in fact made fairly traditionally in that there were no caramelised peppers in it. However, despite misgivings, I used only the weight of new potatoes the recipe called for, and used them halved (as directed) rather than sliced any smaller. I felt that there was rather too much space between the potato, that the omelette lacked structural integrity. One certainly wouldn’t have sliced a wedge off and taken it in one’s lunchbox, for it would only have fallen apart. Perhaps it would have been better with slices of potato, or perhaps it merely needed the addition of the magic 75g of peppers to bulk it out. Either way I was a bit disappointed by this one; I’d have made an equally good, if not better, spanish omelette without taking her advice on the matter.

Sadly I don’t have proper photos of the above, as we didn’t start out photo taking in earnest until the challenge had been laid down. However we made the same salad a couple of days later (although in a bowl rather than artily on a plate) so you get that picture.

The finishing touch to our little New Year’s Day supper was a tray of Neapolitan cakey things I’d picked up from the Italian cafe across the road. Perhaps now my dad will be convinced to come and take me out for coffee! Pastry filled with sweetened ricotta and cream and crystallised fruit… brilliant, and suitably decadent for a festive occasion.

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