The Greasy Spoon

The Bay Leaf

Every Christmas, instead of the usual Nordic fir tree, my parents used to bring our bijou Bay Tree indoors and decorate it. Slightly weird behaviour- and I'm not sure why they did it; but there is no doubt that the tree looked the part, and as we were not aware of what we were missing out on, it became an integral part of our family Christmas. Ignorance is bliss.

I use bay leaves quite a bit in cooking; who doesn't?  The Bay Leaf is the aromatic leaf of the Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis). It originated in Asia Minor, and spread to the warm Mediterranean countries, where it became a symbol of honour in the Ancient World. As with many other herbs, it was also considered to have magical properties.

It has a flowery, aromatic scent and is, of course, wonderful to add that je ne sais quois to stocks, soups and stews such as the Marseille bouillabaisse. It's also an essential ingredient in the bouquet garni, which as I am sure you know is a sprig of parsley, thyme and a bay leaf tied together, traditionally with leek leaves, but more often or not these days, a piece of string.

Image via Wikipedia

Soufflé Heaven

I'm amused by soufflés. There's just something terribly camp about them, isn't there?  I'm not exactly sure what it is: the acute accent on the e? Or the high drama of 'The Rise", perhaps? The fact that the Table has to wait for the Soufflé, rather than the Soufflé having to wait for the Table- giving you the chance to fuss dramatically around the kitchen, and then to have queeny hysterics when your soufflé collapses. 

Control Freaks love them, too. There's all that stuff about the right temperature, the correct way to beat the egg whites, the proper way to do this, the proper way to do that. So I was quite happy to leave this one to The Girl, who came up with a fabulous aromatic soufflé, flavoured with tarragon.

I will go as far as saying that I think her soufflé was the best one I've ever had.  Tarragon, as you will remember, has an intense aniseedy, licoriquey, Pernod-y taste, and is considered by le gratin to go extremely well with poultry. It worked well with the cheese in the soufflé, and gave the dish a punchy, herbal flavour. If you like tarragon, you're going to love it. Not that I want to patronise you in any way; I am aware that most subscribers to The Greasy Spoon have probably made more soufflés, than I've had hot dinners:

First you need to turn on you oven. It's really important that you get your oven really hot (200C) as this sudden heat is what makes ths soufflé rise. Get hold of a soufflé dish, and smear the inside with the greasy bit of a butter wrapper. 

Next, it's time to make a roux. You'll remember how to do this. Flour cooked in a large knob of butter, stirred until smooth, and then turned into a sloppy kind of sauce with the addition of milk. Keep the pan on a gentle heat and stir or whisk like crazy, until all the lumps have been removed.

Remove from the heat, and let the white sauce cool down a bit (you don't want the eggs to cook as yet). Whisk in three egg yolks, add a dollop of mustard, grate in some Gruyère cheese, and throw in a good handful of tarragon leaves. Season with salt, pepper and lots of grated nutmeg.

Whisk up three egg whites until they're stiff. It's very important not to get any fat in the mixing bowl (ie egg yolk) as this will prevent the egg whites thickening up. The mixing bowl needs to be extremely clean. Finally, mix the egg white into the cheesy, herby, white sauce, using gentle hand movements. Use a metal spoon.

That's about it. The soufflé mixture, not surprisingly, goes into the soufflé dish, and the dish goes into the hot oven. Half an hour later it should be ready. If it hasn't risen properly, you can blame me, this blog, the cat's mother, and the world in general. Nothing like throwing a tantrum to clear the air, is there?

Sage

One of the fun things about writing The Greasy Spoon is thinking up new ways of describing the various tastes.  On wikipedia ("it's in wikipedia so it must be true) Sage (Salvia officinalsis) is described as having a peppery taste.  I'm not sure that's right?  I've been a bit off-colour for the last week (with what women call "Man Flu") and The Girl (God Bless 'Er) cooked me up a divine chicken stew laced with copious amounts of sage.  The sage and chicken combination worked well. with the velvety, aromatic, oniony and slightly sweet flavours of the sage helping to create a rich, smooth sauce.

Traditionally, sage was used in the cooking of Merrie Olde England. It works well with pork, beautifully in stuffings, is the perfect match for onion and an essential ingredient in bread sauce. I love it.

Here's my recipe for bread sauce. In England, we serve bread sauce with game, such as partridge or pheasant. It really is the genuine taste of this country, with the rather Medieval flavours of sage, nutmeg, mace and cloves. It's also a good 'un with poultry. Some strange people out there like their sauce thick. Personally, I prefer my bread sauce to be a bit sloppy.

Add the following ingredients to a saucepan: 300ml milk, 50g butter, a chopped small onion, a crushed garlic clove, a bayleaf, two cloves, a blade of mace and some chopped fresh sage. Heat. Once the mixture is warm, stir in 75g of fresh white breadcrumbs and cook until thick and smooth, stirring the whole time.

When you're happy with the consistency, remove the bay leaf, mace and cloves, and pour in 150ml of single cream. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper and grind in a decent amount of nutmeg.

Reheat the sauce, but to stop it going thick- mix in a knob of unsalted butter and some more milk, to taste.

Still on the subject of sage, a simple Italian sauce I'm rather fond of is Sage and Butter Sauce. This is just butter, heated until it turns a golden noisette colour (ie not burnt), lots of fresh chopped sage, salt and pepper and a decent squeeze of lemon juice. Very simple. I like it.

Colonel Skinner's Mango Chutney

At Dotheboys Hall, I remember being fascinated by an ancient copy of Hobson Jobson which I found hidden away in the school library.  First published in 1903, Hobson was an etymological glossary of Anglo-Indian words and language. A study of words such as Pajama, Veranda, Bungalow, Tiffin, Kedgeree and of course, our very own Curry.

Anglo-Indian food is another fascinating study, in its own right.  One of the best books on the subject is David Burton's The Raj at Table, published by Faber & Faber.

Here's a recipe for Colonel Skinner's Mango Chutney.  Today, there are various brands out there using this name. Actually, Colonel Skinner's Mango Chutney is something that you will find in the old Anglo-Indian cookery books and the original recipe involved leaving the chutney outside in the backyard to fester under the hot sun for a few days.  I tried to find out who the original Colonel Skinner was (sounds Irish?), but without success.

Chop up the following ingredients in your Magimix or otherwise trendy food processor: twelve ounces of dried mangoes, half a pound of  brown sugar, ginger, rasins, chillis and garlic to taste. Once they're chopped up, spoon the mixture into a large preserving pan.  Add two and half pints of vinegar and season with salt.  Bring to the boil and simmer for an hour. Transfer into sterlilised jars and store in a dark cupboard.

Dr Kitchener's Curry Powder

I was leafing through a paperback copy of the original 1861 edition of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (Oxford World's Classics) and came across her recipe for Indian Curry-Powder, founded on Dr Kitchener's Recipe.  William Kitchiner (1775?-1827) was the author of the Apicus Redivivus, The Cook's Oracle, first published in 1817.

I'm quite fond of these historic Anglo-Indian curry powders; the sort of thing we chuck into stews and then have the nerve to call "curry".  Here's my version of Dr Kitchener's curry powder, as described by Mrs Beeton.  I've slightly adapted it for the modern kitchen and added cardamom and black pepper.

Add the following ingredients to a mixing bowl: two teaspoons of powdered turmeric, two teaspoons of powdered cinammon,  two teaspoons of powdered ginger, two teaspoons of powdered fenugreek, a dash of cayenne pepper and a good grinding of black pepper.  Mix them up so they form a powder.

In a pestle and mortar, grind up the following ingredients until they form a fine powder: two teaspoons of coriander seeds, two teaspoons of mustard seeds, and a few cardamom pods. (You will have to discard the cardamom's outer shells).  I love grinding up spices: all those lovely, aromatic smells. When you reckon the ingredients are ready, mix them in with the other spices.  

Keep the finished curry powder in an air-tight container. It should keep reasonably well. Obviously, if you want to make more of the stuff, you will need to increase the quantities. Half the fun of this sort of thing is to play around with the proportions, to suit your own tastes. Secret recipes and all that.

Cardamom

Yesterday, I wrote about a white chocolate mousse flavoured with a hint of cardamom. Did you know that cardamom was a member of the ginger family?  There are two types of cadamom: green cardamom (Elettaria) and black cardamom (Amomum). The type you buy over here in little jars is more likely to be the green variety.  It's quite likely to have come from Sri Lanka too.

Cardamom has a deeply aromatic smell, which reminds me of menthol, or perhaps even mint.  The pods contain seeds, which quickly loose their flavour once the pod's broken apart.  It's also used to cure toothache, digestive disorders and skin conditions. According to Kew Gardens, it's the third most expensive spice in the world.

I like the fact you can use cardamom in both savoury and sweet dishes.  If you're cooking basmati rice, try throwing in a few cardamom pods and a squeeze of lemon juice to give it an extra lift.

Amazing Dill

As I'm interested in Eastern European food, I use quite a bit of dill in my cooking. I bought a cheap packet of dill seeds a few weeks ago, and was amazed, after sowing them in a small terracotta pot, when they started sprouting in abundance. Herbs are difficult to grow in London, usually due to the lack of clean air, sun (like others, I've got a shady garden), and all the usual problems that come with city gardening.

If you look up dill on wikipedia, you will find lots of info about this fascinating herb. Apparently, it was used to ward off witchcraft and evil spirits.

I use it with fish. It goes beautifully with salmon, and marinated haddock; and many dishes with an East European slant will benefit from its aniseedy, liquorice flavoured taste.

Capers

Thinking about what on earth I was going to write about for today's post, I opened my storecupboard to be greeted by a jar of salted capers winking up at me cheekily. It occurred to me that I didn't really know what capers were- okay, we all buy them in little tubs, or salted and in glass jars, but I bet many people out there couldn't say where they come from.

So, I did some research. The caper (Capparis spinosa L.) is a perennial spiny shrub that bears rounded, fleshy leaves and big white to pinkish-white flowers. The capers that we buy in the shops are the pickled bud of this plant. The bush is native to the Mediterranean region, growing wild on walls or in rocky coastal areas.

A classic British dish is Mutton with Caper Sauce. My dear ol' grandma used to eat mutton. It disappeared from the shops in the '70's, when lamb took off. Remember all those ads for New Zealand lamb?

But a properly cooked mutton is a noble old thing, indeed. To make caper sauce, make a white sauce in the usual way- (if you remember, a roux of butter and flour, with added milk, stock, and salt and pepper, to make a smooth sauce). Add a handful of capers, and adjust the seasoning, Make sure that the flour is cooked properly, and serve with the mutton.

The Miraculous Garlic

I tend to use a lot of garlic in my cooking. It's supposed to be terribly good for you, though I'm not sure if this has been scientifically proven. For those of you with a botanical bent, garlic is a species of the onion family, Alliacae, and it's latin classificaton is Allium sativum L.

I've recently discovered smoked garlic, which you should be able to find in any decent supermarket. For some reason, I find that the raw, pungent taste of the garlic bulb is neutralised by the smoking effect, and consequently, you end up with a smoother taste.

This morning, I've decided to give you a recipe for Smoked Garlic Soup. It's not something you're going to want on a regular basis, but it's ideal if you're feeling a bit under the weather- a shot of this garlic infused soup can do wonders for the soul! This recipe will make enough soup for six to eight people.

Drop a head of smoked garlic (yes, a head- that's about sixteen or so cloves) into boiling water. Take it out after thirty seconds, and peel.

Pour three pints of water into a large pan. Add a few cloves, some chopped sage, a bayleaf, a sprig of thyme, and a slug of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, and add the smoked garlic heads. Bring to the boil, and simmer slowly for about thirty minutes.

In a soup tureen, beat three egg yolks, and then add a thin stream of olive oil, so that it forms an emulsion- like making a mayonnaise. Beat in a ladle-full of the hot soup, and whisk. Once the egg yolk, olive oil, and liquid have combined, strain in the rest of the garlic liquor. You will finish up with a delicate, light, cream-coloured soup. Serve with crutons, or hot toast, and grated Parmesan cheese.

The strange thing is that when the garlic is cooked properly, it will loose it's raw, pungent flavour, and take on a more delicate twist. And yes, you do need to use a whole garlic head. Trust me on this one...

Saffron

Yesterday, I gave you Patricia Wells' Chicken Stewed with Fennel and Saffron. I'm fascinated by saffron. It's expensive- scarily expensive; but luckily you don't need that much of the stuff to bring out the deep yellow colouring and the distinctive, metallic, oily, and petrolly flavours.

The history of Saffron goes back over three thousand years, when it was an important spice in the Ancient World. The name comes from the 12th century Old French word, safran. It's made from the flower of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), a species of crocus in the family Iridaceae. Historically, it's also been used both as a medicine and as a dye.

What about the saffron you can buy in the shops today? Where does it come from? Spanish saffron tends to be mellow in flavour and aroma. Italian varieties are stronger. Even stronger still is the saffron grown in Greece, Iran, and India (although the Indian government has banned the export of its high-grade saffron).

The pungent "Aquila" saffron (zafferano dell'Aquila) is grown exclusively on eight hectares in the Navelli Valley of Italy's Abruzzo region, near L'Aquila; introduced to Italy by some Dominican monk. But in Italy the biggest saffron cultivation, for quality and quantity, is in San Gavino Monreale, Sardinia.

Another superb saffron is the Kashmiri purple-coloured Mongra or Lacha saffron (Crocus sativus 'Cashmirianus'), which is almost impossible to get hold of, and when and if you do, you'll need to take out a second overdraft.

I'm going to finish off by giving you an interesting link to a website I've just discovered: Vanilla Saffron Imports. I know nothing about this company (they're American importers of high-grade saffron), so if you decide to use their services- on your head be it...