The Sacred Art of Eating

I realised whilst preparing this meal that, for the course of this challenge, my friends will have to learn that “just supper, nothing fancy” only goes as far as to mean we’ll be wearing jeans, and they won’t be given cocktails. Beyond that, anything goes.

• Halloumi Bites
• Moonblush Tomatoes, and
• Slow-roast Tomatoes, Goat’s Cheese and Mint Salad
• Pollo alla Cacciatora
• Budino di Cioccolato
• Chocolate Macaroons

Two friends for supper, to really grasp the challenge by the horns, and to get some recipes under my belt as insurance for the working week ahead. I think managing five (six!) was pretty good going. The only pre-planned part of the meal was the salad, which you can currently see gracing the banner of this blog. I’d bought the special soft goat’s cheese on the 31st, intending to make this salad for my folks on New Year’s Day, but then I forgot to put the tomatoes on to cook in advance.

Not to be beaten a second time, I merrily (very!) prepared the tomatoes on Friday night, a little after 1am, after we got back from Fife. Easy peasy- heat the oven up, slice toms in half, sprinkle with good things, bung in oven, turn oven off, go to bed. I was concerned that the measurements were going to be a problem- I would personally have used half as much salt and twice as much olive oil- but decided to Trust Nigella.

The following evening, I scattered my salad leaves on the plate, dolloped about the goats cheese, and arrayed the now Moonblushed Tomatoes. Instant show-off salad!

(Instant- apart from the mint. My local supermarket failed me on fresh herbs. Thankfully our guests were able to bring us some and I’m really glad I decided to ask, as the mint really lifted the flavours and added that important je ne sais qois.)

All the other dishes were chosen on the basis of what I might feasibly find ingredients for in our local, small and grotty supermarket. I’ll pretend that I was doing the cooking in the true Express ethos, but actually I just couldn’t be bothered shopping the day before and left it till two hours before our friends arrived. Perhaps that is the true Express ethos anyway. I chose reasonably well too, seeing as the only ingredients I couldn’t get were the aforementioned fresh mint, and some fresh rosemary for the Pollo alla Cacciatora.

The Hunter’s Chicken was nice enough, but no great shakes. We had (over-)faithfully followed the recipe with Dougal boning chicken thighs for fillets (it was the only way I could get free range chicken, and anyway the recipe called for thigh fillets. The bones and skin will make great stock!). Nigella describes this as a dish she can construct from scratch in comfortably under half an hour; we had more time and so cooked it for longer, reasoning that no stew ever suffered a bit of slow simmering. It was nevertheless a bit thin (needed reduced) and just not very exciting. But I reckon I’d be happy enough with it after a lousy day at work, so I’ll not write it off altogether.

Perhaps the chicken seemed dull because it had followed on from such a fabulous starter. A starter which I’ve just realised I took no photos of; damn, I’ll just have to cook it again. Halloumi is one of my favourite nibbley foods, in the whole world and there are TWO recipes using it in this book. This was dead straightforward: dry fry your cheese and then toss it in citrus juices, oil and herbs. My only complaint was that I couldn’t eat the whole lot myself.

For pudding we served Budino di Cioccolato with Chocolate Macaroons; the macaroons use the two egg whites left over from the egg yolks that go into the choccy pots. I nearly didn’t make the macaroons, thinking them unnecessary additional effort, but the fact that they only need baked for 11 minutes spurred me into action. I’m glad I did as they were perfect; chewy and chocolatey and really good for dipping into the pots. I don’t feel so glowing about the Budino themselves, despite them turning out really well. Perhaps this is the fault of our lousy electric cooker, or perhaps it was the recipe, but Nigella’s cooking and whisking for about 3-4 minutes until the mixture thickens took well over half an hour for me. This took me firmly out of Express zone and into argh, why am I wasting so much time making sure the pudding doesn’t burn (the macaroons were finished and out of the oven by this point). I would also quibble with the illustration on the book, which was clearly taken before the things had been chilled. Mine weren’t quite so exquisitely shiny, but I think my take on her serving suggestion was pretty funky, in a cute and modern way.

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