There is a way.

In China when they ask me what I like to cook, and I don’t respond with ‘Chinese food’, I receive a kind of incredulous stare and barely suppressed snort of laughter. ‘You cook English food then?’ Because there cannot be an alternative. Describing that cooking is not totally about culturally- accepted and well-known dishes and more about putting together ingredients that have a natural affinity with each other, is, it seems, conceptually too difficult to grasp. If it doesn’t have a name, it isn’t worth bothering with. I could say, ‘Italian food’ and then there are the sighs of approval, the knowing looks: ‘Ah yes, pizza and pasta.’ It’s really not that simple….

Yet in Italy too there exists a similar culinary snobbery. There is a way of making things. There is a way, and there is no argument. On my recent trip I stayed in Arezzo with some friends and, on the first night, Gloria, a feisty Florentine, made us caponata. A Sicilian dish, yes, but the way I was invited to watch the procedure left me in no doubt this was the correct cooking method.

‘You should always blanch the celery first. Shouldn’t you.’ She was not asking for my approval.

Over the nine days I spent in the Beautiful Country I ate cappellacci di zucca in Ferrara, cacio e pepe in Rome and many delicious seafood antipasti in Pescara but that caponata, the mingling of the sweet and sour, was the one that tingled my tastebuds the most. Even better when we had it cold as part of a picnic lunch high in the Tuscan hills the following day.

So it was the first meal I made when I came back. Sourcing the ingredients was not difficult, a cycle down to Twin’s was sufficient and pop to the greengrocer’s. And what I wanted most of all, was craving actually, was to have celery as the star. Controversial, perhaps, as the vegetable gets a poor press, relegated to a support act in various sauce bases and derided usually for its lack of flavour. However I noticed that, on the Adriatic coast, as a motif through many of the fish dishes, from insalata di mare to the stock for the mussels, little ridged pieces of celery came to prominence.

In my recreation of the Sicilian speciality I stuck as close as I could to how I remembered Gloria go about it. The tedious woman in the newspaper put chocolate in hers, and I wasn’t going to do that. There is a way, after all.

First job was to cook the aubergine. I could only find one of the large round varieties, but I guess it doesn’t matter, as long as the veg is cut up into bite-sized chunks and salted for at least half an hour then patted dry.  Did it in batches, frying the pieces until brown in very hot oil – I used a shallow pan – before removing. At the same time the celery, chopped up into similar-sized briquettes, was blanched in boiling water for about thirty seconds.

I think the original recipe calls for shallots, and now I remember Gloria used a leek, but I had an onion and so that’s what I used. Diced and gently sautéed in the same oil with the celery. Then I basically jumbled most of the other ingredients in, the olives – green, which I hate on their own, but seem to enjoy in things these days – capers (Gloria said to only use the ones in salt as the vinegar-soaked variety have little flavour – but, again, I didn’t have/couldn’t find any of those), raisins and finally the passata which I made myself by combining a tin of chopped tomatoes with some olive oil, salt and pepper and reducing for about fifteen minutes. I was salivating. Then the aubergines got their welcome return, the lid was closed and I walked away to watch an episode of this, leaving the – what would you call it – the stew, I suppose, on a low heat to combine in a heavenly way.

My friend from Firenze bemoaned slightly the lack of a vinegary finish to her dish, and perhaps she was right. I had something on hand to add if necessary. But first, the caponata was ready and I toasted some pine nuts and tore up basil leaves as a garnish. Tasting, I realised that a little acidity was needed to offset the agrodolce. Splash of apple cider vinegar and the dish was ready.

And I have some left. Those Tuscan hills are only memories now though.

 

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Assembly line

As the days get sunnier, the evenings warmer, I find I am less inclined to stand at the kitchen stove, stirring and ruminating. Much more likely to be sitting outside somewhere, watching the world go by.

Any cooking I have done recently has been of the quick and necessary variety: a swift dish of aglio e oglio perhaps, that failsafe combination of spaghetti, garlic, oil, parmesan, chilli flakes and, in my version, chopped parsley: steak or chicken breasts, grilled with seasoning and herbs and served with a salad. Indeed, it has become less about cooking and more about assembling. Jumbling things together that require little or no actual stove-time but just some judicious chopping, slicing and adding of condiments.

In an effort to ween myself off my diet of lunchtime sandwiches at work I’ve spent some evenings preparing large and fairly elaborate salads which serve not only as an effortless supper option but a ready-made lunchbox the next day. I took a leaf from the good people at Leon and adapted their Original Superfood Salad to something that I could replicate with what was at hand. I found some asparagus and mange-tout, walnuts, pine-nuts, feta, chicken and bundles of fresh herbs – basil, mint and parsley. The chicken I lathered in ras-el-hanout and fried until golden and sticky. The nuts I chopped and toasted lightly. The whole lot I threw into a bowl and mixed with oil and lemon juice. Turned out to be pretty good.

Next time I was a bit more ambitious and, to that end, possibly less successful.  Went for a meatball-based melange this time, with spiced aubergines, tomatoes and cucumber as well as those nuts and herbs. I used beef and meant to run some chermoula through it, though I forgot. Result was a little dry due I think to the predominance of lean to fat in the mince. Still it was a worthy and fairly tasty affair and the feeling of being able to produce it at lunch – look what I made – made up for what might have been lacking in flavour.

Oh, and I also made pesto. Quite a good vibrant one with plenty of salty cheese, the way I like it. I ate it over four days with gnocchi and nothing else. I didn’t make my own pasta because I couldn’t be bothered although I feel sure, as the days darken, you will find me once again hunched over the metal worktop, head in the simmer, mind on the boil. I think I will use these warmer months to experiment a little more, to post some more abstract pieces and I’m also preparing something musical which, I hope, should emerge soon….

Two Thai

Two recent cooking explorations have been influenced by Thai cooking and encouraged by an inclusion in my sister’s spice send of a Thai spice rub. I don’t make any claim to authenticity here and there is no attempt to recreate any kind of dish I found on my recent travels there. Both dishes were concoctions I’d had a hankering for and so set out to make – from where that impulse comes I do not know and am less willing to analyse; that it exists is, I think, enough to make me want to follow.

I had a stick of lemongrass in the fridge I’d included in my luggage when I returned home here after the Christmas holidays. The best before date claimed a time around January but numbers can be deceptive and I’d rather judge things on how they look, smell and taste. Indeed, this particular aromatic showed no signs of having lost too much in the way of freshness. The rest of the staples were relatively easy to obtain: fresh herbs  – mint, basil, coriander – and coconut milk from Twin’s as well as red chillies (which, I have found, keep for ever if left in the freezer), ginger and garlic from the greengrocer’s next door. The owner of which greets me with a slightly sardonic ‘Halloooo!’ whenever I show up. It is the only word of English he knows I think.

Also compartmentalised in the frozen cabinet were salmon steaks and thin slabs of beef skirt, both of which I’d bought at some earlier time with no clear plan of how to use them. With the arrival of the Thai rub I had ideas.

I tackled the fish first. I smothered it in the spice mix, knowing that on previous occasions my lack of liberal generosity had resulted in dishes that were lacking in flavour and intensity. Then I fried it skin-side in a wok, gently, only to crisp up the skin. Removing the fish I tipped out most of the oil and wiped the wok down before pouring in the coconut milk – in the event only three-quarters of the tin – and adding the sliced and chopped aromatics. The idea was to poach the fish in this liquid until pink and falling apart, the flesh taking on the subtle but pungent flavours therein.

Meanwhile I had the rice on. A long time ago a Sri Lankan colleague in the bookshop where I worked taught me the perfect way to cook rice on the hob. A gas flame is essential as is a bold approach to a minuscule amount of it. How much water to rice? The eternal question. Soak the rice first, put it in the saucepan then add the water. The liquid level above the grains should be equivalent to the length of your thumb. Bring it to the boil, add a pinch of salt then after a quick stir turn the heat down to the lowest level possible and cover. Leave it for ten minutes then turn the heat off. Leave it a further ten minutes and then, finally, remove the lid. Result should be fluffy rice and all the water evaporated. Mine turned out more or less like that and I am grateful for that conversation I had next to the Mind, Body and Spirit book section some fourteen years ago.

The dish itself was a success although I think I could have been even more daring still with the spicing. The fish can stand it.

Note artful attempt at posh presentation; I didn’t have one of those rice rings you see on cookery programmes. At one point I considered a coiled belt.

The second dish involved fewer processes and was essentially about jumbling together things that harmonise naturally. Beef, tomatoes, the usual Thai aromatics, fresh herbs, cucumber, peanuts, lime. The cooking method used to amalgamate all the flavour was stir-fry and before attempting the dish I watched a brief video featuring Ken Hom explaining the rudiments. If I’ve had a problem with this methodology in the past it’s because I’ve been sceptical about frying off the garlic and ginger first in the hot oil; in my experience they’ve just ended up burning really quickly, tainting the oil and therefore the entire dish. But when I watched Hom he didn’t seem to have that problem (dress sense apart, brown does not age well) and I realised that I’d missed a fundamental aspect of the method. The clue is in the name. Stir-fry.

Rather than moving the ingredients around the pan I had simply added them and watched them toast and blacken. So this time I stirred. Another essential is to have every ingredient chopped and ready so there is no danger of any burning. Bigger things get added first and I did not forget to keep things on the move: rotating the pan, thrusting with the spoon, generally getting shaky with it all. I’d marinated the beef with the spice rub and it cooked in no time at all. All the things added at the end gave the dish a zing my head needed.

 

In readiness

No ingredients were burnt in the making of this dish

 

Busy with risi

 

I lived in Italy for nearly ten years but not necessarily in regions where rice dishes cause a big stir. But risotto is in many ways the quintessential meal of this blog. A mostly one-pot affair with plenty of wooden spoon action and time for rumination needed as the stock is absorbed by the grains. The joy of adding things to impart more flavour and texture. Music on, glass in hand, it is perhaps the perfect contemplatory supper.

I don’t remember exactly when I received this cookbook, either a birthday or a Christmas  present, but it must have been in the mid ’90s, around 1996, when I left University and, twenties, clumsy and shy, I went to London and tried.

Perhaps I’d shown some small glimmer of enthusiasm for stovetop shenanigans, although I can’t recall it, because my mother thought it was a good idea to make sure that, on the first step on the road to so-called independence (which led initially to Balham), I carried with me at least one volume of recipes. Actually I think I had a Delia Smith book too, and perhaps one other.

I wandered through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

Yep, Will, your ghost probably passed me at some point. Not a totally joyous eighteen months in England’s capital. I did start cooking though, for the first time in my life.

The risotto recipe was one of the first I really remember enjoying doing. I can’t link to it here but it was a creamy affair with a roast chicken substance. I remember Slater, considerably less hirsute in those days, pointing out his disfavour with the popular addition of white wine to the process, due to the alcohol’s tendency to linger unpleasantly on the palate. This is a rule I have followed since and frankly do not feel like discontinuing. Besides, if a bottle of wine is to be opened just for a soupçon then, my friends, that bottle is not going to stand idly by while I stand, stare and stir.

This is also another process which I think is made easier with a gas cooker. That flickering wisp of flame needs a steady hand and eye because, during the stock-pouring procedure, it is important the liquid doesn’t over-boil. One needs a solid simmer so that everything comes together properly. And anyway it is a pleasure to watch it all happening in its own time.

The stock I made last time round was defrosted, arborio rice ready – the packet nicely weighted in my right hand – the cold roast chicken unsealed from its temporary home of clingfilm and brought back to room temperature. There were also some button mushrooms knocking around I might have bought with something else in mind but, hey, nothing like over-egging the pudding. I had parmesan and parsley from Twin’s, a cold beer to hand and music playing, probably this.

The practice is so pleasurable I was almost sad when I realised the last ladleful was approaching and that, after a few minutes and a sprinkle of seasoning, the dish would be ready. Making risotto basically just consists of standing over the hob, doling in the stock when any liquid currently in the pan is almost evaporated, making sure the rice doesn’t get stuck. To say that the grains have to be al dente is to add another question to Sybil Fawlty’s round on Mastermind.

Apart from the parsley and parmesan I added, suddenly nostalgic for Italy, some chopped sun-dried tomatoes if only to recreate the colours of the bandiera italiana.

Here’s some more nostalgia to enjoy with your risotto. Here, here, and here. Un abbraccio forte a tutti I miei amici italiani. Spero di rivedervi presto x

Taking stock

Once again at the kitchen confessional. This is my tenth post. Where have I been and where am I now?

I have a habit of starting things but not seeing them through, so that they end unsatisfactorily,  sort of limp to a finish. A failure to commit leads to an unnatural death perhaps.  This shortcoming, as I see it, stems from an ingrained notion of self-doubt, a lack of faith in my own ability. It also comes from a desire to seek others’ approval and a focus on their potential expectations, as I imagine them. So a reason, maybe the main one, for doing this blog is to explore both of those things. Publishing online raises the stakes. There is an audience so I am aware my writing and my ideas are being scrutinised. It’s been interesting to notice how, as I publish, I am concerned (or not) with wanting to please anybody who might be reading, looking at that desire to somehow satisfy a vague and vast collective (and possibly extending my readership at the same time).

Yet the spectators remain, somewhere. I should take care with my prose, and write as well as I can, while remaining true to the ethos of this project which is to be creative using cooking as a springboard. To see where I go and enjoy the uncertainty of not knowing.

During the week or thereabouts between posts ideas simmer away on a low bubble. Last time I mentioned my spice project and what I got up to this time can be an extension of it. I have to follow my instincts and go with my gut. The body rules the mind in my case anyway.

I reckon no self-respecting home kitchen cook can be without a decent stock, freshly-made or ready to defrost. This I found out to my cost recently when I attempted a chermoula-inspired chicken dish which had all the promise of full flavour but was let down by an insipid liquid finish. I used water (bottled – tap water is a no-no here) with a stock cube crumbled in. And while the finished dish looked appetising, rich in red pepper, sweet potato and tomato (judge for yourselves below) all the taste had actually been washed away.

Appearances can deceive. This was not a delicious dish.

So on Thursday I did things properly. I bought four chunky chicken legs which I roasted in my little oven with lavish slatherings of lemon, chermoula, perfect salt, thyme and rosemary. Once these were cooked I removed all the flesh to use in the next two days’ cooking and put the bones along with shreds of skin and meat and of course all the fragrant, lemon, herb and spice rich juices from the roasting pan into a saucepan. I added a carrot, celery and an onion, filled to the brim with water and let the whole thing putter away for a couple of hours on a low heat. The apartment was filled with its aroma all day and I felt better for having done this.

Some of the meat I have already used. Once, in a curry which I ate with my last flatbread, then, the next day in a well-stuffed sandwich which I took to work. I had intended to make a mayonnaise to accompany the chicken in its bread-cased heaven and yet, having followed this simple video for instructions, I managed only to make a yellowy and ultimately tasteless liquid. A case perhaps of over-frothing the eggs and/or getting the oil-egg ratio wrong. Anyway a lesson learnt.

This evening the last of the chicken will go into a risotto and, yes, that stock will play a major role.

That stock, looking stocky, ready for its chance to simmer and shine

 

 

Spice of life

Recently my sister sent me a box of spices. It arrived neatly packaged, six jars, all in their separate compartments. I resolved to construct six dishes featuring at least one of the aromatics playing a central role. So far I’ve managed two, one of which I will proceed to document here, the other at a future uncertain time.

One of the spices, or to be more accurate, spice blend, was ras-el-hanout. Perhaps appropriate she should send me a Moroccan mix as we visited this country together when she was still at University and myself a callow youth of fifteen or so. I remember basically nothing about what we ate. We must have eaten something. I do know that I wore the same clothes, unchanged, for four consecutive days.

The trip was memorable for many reasons. Firstly there was the nightmarish crossing from the southern tip of Spain, in a rolling wooden tub of a ferry with water sloshing through the cabins and the sea reaching up and over the portholes at which we were sitting, transfixed with terror, the fear allaying any possible seasickness. Then there was the midnight arrival in Tangiers and the way we allowed ourselves, weary from the journey, to be hustled by a chap who took us to eat and then found us a hostel of some kind. I remember the ornate, high ceilings and the sounds of doors opening and closing through the night, the sound of women giggling. Then there was the English fellow, tall I recall with a moustache, who’d latched onto our party (with us were three of my sister’s Uni friends) on the ferry. John? Peter? Anyway, he became something of a pest, always showing up somehow and dogging us. When we left Tangiers for Fez we lost him – but I also lost my Walkman on that train, snatched by a dashing child as we pulled away from a station. The song playing at the time was this. There wasn’t any time (or money) to get to Marrakesh as we’d planned and we rushed back to Tangiers to find our return vessel a rather more luxurious liner. Hungry, broke, bewildered, the captain took pity on us in his cabin, feeding us fruit.

Also included in the package was something called Perfect Salt, a bird’s eye of which I include below, the idea perhaps to make the mineral even more ‘perfect’ by adding things to it. In the image you can spot flecks of pepper and mixed herbs of which marjoram and oregano are the most fragrant. So far I’ve used it to season virtually everything.

Apparently the word kofta is the noun form of the verb meaning to grind, or pound. So ground meat, made into a meatball. It’s not hip though to talk of lamb meatballs, never mind rissoles…..It’s always lamb kofta. In any case, whatever you want to call them, these are what I made this time. The ras el hanout would go into the aubergine accompaniment.

There’s something wonderful about the way one has to mix the lamb mixture together then toss it into jelly-like balls which then sit in a momentary state of quiver. I combined lamb mince with one beaten egg, chopped coriander, zest of a lime and a rather delicious gently fry of onions and crushed cumin seeds, as well as the aforementioned sodium compound –  all played from hand to hand until spherical then left to cool in the fridge.

Meanwhile the aubergines were chunked and given a very generous dousing of the spice blend (almost too generous, as it happened). On another day I might have salted the veg first to get rid of excess moisture but I was planning a hot treatment for them this time. Into the sizzling pan they went, spitting and greedily hoovering up the oil. Fabulous aroma. Once they’d coloured almost to the point of burning I turned the heat down and threw in a few chopped cherry-like tomatoes, leaving the two things to create a kind of wonderful North African garden fusion.

In the other pan the kofta were sputtering peacefully. As with frittata, it pays I think to set the heat quite low to ensure a gooey, sticky seal on the meat, turning the globules only once. This way meant about 12-15 minutes on either side although I paid no attention at all to how long anything took to cook.

To finish I baked another flatbread – different recipe this with fennel and coriander seeds, and that slightly citrus tang came through – and mixed up some Greek-style yoghurt with a squeeze of lime. I’d been hoping to buy some mint at Twin’s shop but they only had parsley – which came in handy as a sprinkling over the aubergine mixture – and thyme, and something else, neither of which I needed this time.

Probably the best thing I’ve made for a long time. Full of flavour – helped no doubt by the different condiments, the salt being, indeed, a perfect seasoning, although the zest was lost (not that it mattered) – and just as good cold the next day when I ate lunch in front of the kitchen window in the midday sun, straight from the pan with a can or two of Japanese lager.

As for my memory of the holiday, I can look back with fondness, through sunset eyes perhaps. It was my first time outside Europe, first proper adventure abroad, first glimpse of what can be done given the right attitude. It’s taken me quite a long time to let myself go in this respect, to give myself up to new experiences without worrying if I was doing the right thing, whatever that is….When I got back to the UK, my mother picked me up from the airport. At that time I was aloof as a teenager, backward in coming forward, but she said for the entire journey from London to Somerset I talked non-stop, out of excitement from the experience. Here, finally, that narrative continues.

Prove it

Twin hobs, toaster and an un-proven cupboard. Ever since I moved in to this apartment I’ve been intrigued by a certain fitting in the kitchen. The cupboard beneath the principal chopping area, usually used to house saucepans and most of my crockery, has behind it a radiator. Now I should say that I have no input in the heating situation in my apartment, as it is centrally controlled throughout the entire building. It is turned on in mid-November and switched off mid-March, virtually regardless of the outside temperatures. Beginning of the third month and the weather is getting milder, yet the heating pulses on.

Said cupboard, in its usual state

Well. The idea occurred to me relatively early in my tenancy this cupboard, as well as an invaluable storage space, could at times double as a kind of proving drawer for bread products, such as one finds in some ovens. The temperature within is consistently warm, about that of a disappointing bath. Never mind it’s taken me over two years to try this out (lack of oven a key factor), my enthusiasm for this blogging project has given me the oomph – aided by the dull weather on a day off – necessary for the experiment.

Waking up I was initially sceptical of being able to easily locate yeast within the environs  of my apartment. I live in a quiet and unfashionable district, well away from the expat communities who might have better access to better-stocked western-style supermarkets, and I didn’t fancy my chances of finding said raising agent in the local shops – although, thinking about it, that was shortsighted given its presence in various bread products, including these.

Never mind. I got to cycle down to my favourite local, run by a woman I will call Twin, and found a sachet. Bonus exercise. Recipes I read for bread call for, variously, strong, or hard flour. I bought a packet of something called all-purpose flour and, obviously, the proof will be in the eating….

Actually I had no idea what kind of bread I was going to make. My preoccupations lay virtually solely with the aforementioned experiment meaning, typically, I was more concerned with the process than the result. And yet. As I went about the morning, doing laundry, tidying up, ideas began to formulate, as they will. I thought about what I had in my other cupboards, and in the freezer, and eventually I had a picture in my mind. A picture of beef stew and flatbreads. Slow Saturday cooking.

The scene was set. Not only did I have the ingredients, the time and the methodology, I also had things to listen to. One of these days I will publish a post about the things I have on in the background while I am cooking. At the stove and the train window are my favourite places to listen, to music or other. Today I had albums by these old favourites and this marvellous new discovery as a soundtrack but, best of all, piping in from sunny climes over eleven thousand kilometres to the south-east, this. If there’s anything better than cricket commentary on the radio I don’t want to know about it.

Baking calls for some precise measuring. That’s what the baking people will have you think. I found a basic recipe and adjusted the quantities to fit a smaller amount because as much as I wanted to try this out I didn’t want to be eating flatbreads for the next seven days. Not having any scales I wasn’t sure of the flour-yeast-water ratios so improvised by using measuring spoons my mother had thoughtfully given me at Christmas – figuring out that 1 millilitre equals 1 gram.

To make the flatbreads a bit more funky I augmented the dough mixture with a good couple of teaspoonfuls of za’atar, and once everything was combined I placed it, covered, in the un-proven drawer….

….approximately an hour later, or could have been less, or more (I fell asleep), the dough looked like this….

A proven success!

Buoyed by my small triumph I set about the stew with zeal. The beef was cubed and sprinkled with smoked paprika, salt and pepper, before being quickly browned then removed so that the carrots, red onions, garlic, star anise, thyme and rosemary could jostle for flavour favour in the pan. Once these had softened I added a tin of tomatoes, some stock (a cube) and the beef again. Lid on, heat to a simmer. I rinsed and chopped some kale in preparation as obligatory green addition.

I still had to cook the bread. After a bit more kneading – I don’t mind that – I oiled up the baking tray and set the oven dials for fifteen minutes on the highest heat. Rolling the bread out proved (ha!) to be interesting. I used, first, a bicycle pump and then a hand mixer to achieve the desired stretched flatness. The pump gave a more even roll but was basically inadequate because of its appendages which didn’t permit a direct contact with the bread surface after the initial roll. The mixer did not roll evenly but was more generally efficacious.

While the bread puffed up in the oven I cooked the kale in salted boiling water and threw in with the stew, now ready. The flatbread turned out to resemble a piece of driftwood but, fortunately, tasted pretty good – crisp exterior and soft inside, with the za’atar taste nice and mellow throughout. A grating of clementine peel over the stew was a perky afterthought.

Nice and mellow sums up the day.

 

 

Cheddar stands for comfort

Just got back from the Land of Smiles. I did a lot of that while I was there, and other people reciprocated. I also, unsurprisingly, ate a lot of food. Despite its proliferation, also depressingly at times paired with beer as a kind of backpacker ‘meal deal’, I only had Pad Thai twice. The first time on my first night in Bangkok’s Chinatown, at a streetside stall on plastic chairs with a large cold Chang beer. On this occasion they folded the noodle mixture up into a kind of omelette and served it so. The peanuts and accompanying sauces were on the side, to be added at one’s discretion. The second time was at Yam’s Kitchen on Koh Phangan, and this was a more sprawling, but perhaps more delicious, affair, with all the trimmings artfully arranged around the side of the plate. Contrasting atmospheres too: the first was a vibrant night scene, with vendors and pedestrians jostling alike for alley-space and the scent of fish sauce in the air; the second was a calmer affair, alone, with a glorious pink sunset and the dusky breeze hushing over the waves. Chang beer the only constant.

pink light near night

Yam’s Kitchen presided over by the indomitable lady herself. My eating house of choice on Koh Phangan.

Other culinary highlights included the barbecued tilapia fish at Lert Ros in Chiang Mai – a literal step away from the front of my hotel – a Beef Pha Naeng at the same Yam’s which was all sweet and sour liquid deliciousness, the food made by ‘Mom’ at the resort where I stayed on the island and, my final meal enjoyed with the boon of unexpected companionship, Khao Soi, a northern curry topped with crisply-fried onions on Ram Buttri road in Bangkok.

All these flavours of red and green chilli, fish sauce, coconut, peanut and lime, could have influenced my palate to the extent I might have been craving more of the same on my return. And yet. I believe in more transitory experiences, as a certain piece of music heard at a particular time cannot have the same effect when re-listened to, so the my eating experience in Thailand shall, for now, stay there too, elbow to elbow on fold-up tables, before a collide-oscope of colour, under the sinking salmon sun.

When I arrived yesterday late morning I was weary, having managed only a restless pair of hours on a lightly padded set of chairs at Macau Airport while screaming children ran amok around the deserted departures lounge. In this instance I fall back on an old favourite, something that requires little thought or imagination, that can be prepared more or less eyes closed which was, more or less, how I was anyway. I have no desire to go into pointless discussions concerning how this simple dish can be served and, apparently, the best way to eat it, on what type of bread, grate the cheese or slice the cheese, what make of cheese, cha cha cha.

Suffice to say: some sort of cheese. I had some in my fridge, bearing a colour that should make a man such as myself, from the home of Cheddar, ashamed. I had bread too, cheap stuff that toasts poorly. And I had chutney, brought back from the Christmas holidays. An unpromising set of ingredients. And yet. The bread toasted the best it could, the cheese melted sloppily: I ate it in less time it’s taken me to write this paragraph.

I lay on my bed with the early afternoon sun slanting in over me and slept like the proverbial.

I Am The Hero

Leaving tomorrow for ten days so a quick inventory of my fridge’s contents: a potato; some old celery; herbs – dried bay, thyme, rosemary; palmful of button mushrooms; half a large onion; a third of a stale-ish baguette; one egg; block of cheddar cheese.

Nothing much to do with the egg unless I make a large potato cake and have a fried egg on top. There’s the issue then of keeping it for when I return. It seems to me that it won’t freeze well and, anyway, I don’t much fancy a big potato tablet today. The egg can wait.

It’ll be another soup then and, to this end, I have augmented my solid if unspectacular set of fridge-bottom staples with a leek from the greengrocer’s around the corner and a large clove of garlic from beside the stove. My one reservation in making soup is the lack of any handy stock. One of the reasons why my previous effort was so successful was the chicken broth used; I had the foresight to use the bones of a roast I had made for that purpose. I have learned how to make a scratch chicken stock, and I’ll include the features of that in a future post, but for now it will be a reliance on the flavours I already have, some careful seasoning and judicious use of a stock cube.

All this weighing up of what I have to hand, working out what it can be used for, puts me in mind of one thing, and then another.

At the beginning of many fantasy role-play gamebook series, most notably Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson’s Fighting Fantasy line and the Lone Wolf sequence, the protagonist, the YOU, is given a run-down of what possessions he/she already has and what others, within certain and changing limitations, might be added at the outset of any particular quest as suitable supplements determined by their potential usefulness.

Typically, at least in the early Fighting Fantasy books, it was along the lines of ‘leather armour, sword and backpack’, plus provisions, and the adventurer got to choose one of three potions for boosting either of the Luck, Skill or Stamina values which made up YOUR profile. As the series grew, and different authors involved, so elements such as spells and other special features were included, depending on the type of adventure about to take place and the hero profile required. Early example of adventure sheet below, something of a blank canvas:

Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf was different in that the protagonist was always the same character, the titular hero no less, and so a progression through the books, which followed a linear narrative of sorts, meant a gradual acquisition (and therefore casting off) of various pieces of equipment, items, disciplines and skills. The books differed also in the sense they specified where the various pieces of equipment and items could be carried: in the hand, in the belt-pouch, in the backpack, and so on.

Cooking is a kind of journey, as is this blog, and it’s natural before embarking on any meal preparation to take stock of firstly, what one has, and, then, what one needs. Sometimes I wear an apron, and I carry a wooden spoon in one hand, knife to chop and slice in the other. Like today I size up what is available and make a dish on that basis, adding as appropriate.

This moreover is a new adventure, a new quest. In the recent past I might have been tempted to look contemptuously at the contents of my fridge and decide there was nothing worth using, or nothing I could be bothered to use. I may well have gone shopping, purchasing sundry other ingredients – the point is, this conglomeration of objects is what I have, so I should make the best of them. Just as I possess various skills and disciplines of my own that, in the past, I have not fully appreciated or utilised. In the gamebooks you learn to use what you have wisely, whether it be in your hand, in your belt-pouch, or even in your head; such care and respect does not necessarily mean a positive outcome, because some things are out of your control – the dice rolls against you, for instance – but, by arming yourself in the best way possible, by recognising what you have, you are at least better able to deal with things.

In the past few years interest in the Lone Wolf and Fighting Fantasy series, to name but two, has been resurgent, leading to reprints, greater discussion (especially online), electronic versions of the books for iOS and android, and much more. Joe Dever allowed almost the entire back catalogue of Lone Wolf to be republished online, here, to create a ‘lasting legacy.’ For Fighting Fantasy there have been various print runs, containing some, but not all, of the original set. The most recent seems to be dumbing down slightly, especially in terms of the artwork (an index of the original artists can be found here), and in if you have a mind it is worth scouring charity bookshops across the UK for the original series, some editions of which fetch a pretty penny.

Failing that there are now quite a few blogs dedicated to playthroughs of one or both series, of which the most readable and dedicated can be found here, here and here.

But I was making soup. To maximise flavour I make sure to give each ingredient enough cooking time before adding anything else. So I cook the potatoes, seasoned, gently in olive oil to brown slightly, then every other component in turn: the leeks and celery, washed and rinsed; onion and mushrooms, coarsely chopped; rosemary and thyme, finely: bay leaves, cast in. Water to cover with half a chicken stock cube crumbled in. I simmer until the potatoes have more or less dissolved then blend, before cooking down potentially to thicken more.

As in many of my attempts at the role-play adventures, I make a mistake, in this case forgetting to remove the bay before blending. This error has not led to instant death, I am pleased to say, and the results would have been worse had the herb been of the fresh variety, yet I am concerned the soup will be overpowered by its taste nonetheless.

The result is a light green and grey, gently bay-flavoured mellow soup which, jazzed up by some quickly-fried croutons and a grating of cheddar makes a more than satisfactory meal. The absence of proper stock is evident, as the overall savour is mild rather than robust. What I started with appeared a meagre selection yet, with some dedication and care, I was able to transform the ingredients into a tasty and hearty soup. Lunch made and a lesson learned (and barely a flicker of meat). Also, the day drab, an atmosphere more befitting to the making.

Day of the Soup

Almost the perfect day for making soup. Many of the ingredients necessary for this most Sunday of Sunday activities, along with a long laundry cycle and a second cup of tea, were present: indolence of a day with nothing particular to do; cold symptoms – the muzzy head like some good hangovers; the afternoon drear outside and perhaps chilly too, dissuading any plans for a long walk.

I had the first two but the day itself was wonderfully clear and filled with sunshine, the air clean and fresh, the route around the park beckoning. I had a walk, to get the items I needed, indeed, the ingredients I had woken up thinking about. As the shop which sells fresh thyme, generic Italian-style cured ham and any kind of cream is a fair trek away, 8860 steps round trip my doting mobile app informs me, I now no longer felt guilty spending the rest of the day indoors, involved largely in the preparing, cooking and consumption of soup.

So I shlepped about the apartment, making soup in stages. It was always going to be a squash or pumpkin-based affair, though still not sure of the difference. In the greengrocer I pointed to what looked like a huge squash, certainly not the classic pumpkin shape one recognises from the commercialised approximation of the ancient and mysterious celebrations at Winter’s Eve. My translation app had it down as that, however, rather than squash, and so, after some inter-linguistic kerfuffle, I got the man to slice off a large portion with his shiny cleaver.

I had in my fridge a nice dirt-bejewelled carrot which would give depth to the orange colour and the aforementioned ham would add the required saltiness. The soup would work equally well without any meat and indeed, for some months now, I have been conscious of the amount of meat I consume, after reading an article by George Monbiot. His take is that the amount of land given over to grazing is disproportionate to the amount of meat actually consumed, at least in the UK. It is a phenomenal waste of resources, he argues, a needless ruination of countryside areas which could be left to their natural wild states, thus encouraging micro-systems to thrive and endangered species to return.

Not to mention the ethical questions regarding meat production. It seems as though more questions are being asked of meat’s place on our tables, with many meat-eaters going through trials of abstention, including a friend of mine, here. I’m still playing around with the issues, wondering where I stand. Certainly I think for now an awarenesscan lead to a gradual reduction in meat consumption and I am pleasantly surprised that, so far on this blog, I have included no recipes which have meat as the main focus.

In the meantime I mooched. The squash was to be roasted with three cloves of garlic (added halfway through the cooking) and added to a pan-cooked conglomeration of carrot, rosemary, thyme and ham. What? Roasted? But how….It’s here I have to admit to leading you a little up the garden path. When I started this blog and decided on its name, describing the mean amenities to hand, I did not possess an oven. Now I do. It’s a portable affair, limited in its scope but more than handy. It sits on top of the fridge in place of the microwave which came with the apartment and which I used but once.

The squash took about an hour to soften and colour sufficiently. Mixed with the other cooked ingredients, the garlic squeezed sluggishly from its crackly skin, I poured in a Tupperware-tubful of chicken stock I had prepared some days previously and brought all to the boil then simmer with a lid for about twenty minutes.

When I felt things should be ready I had a taste and decided I was right. Last but one addition was about 25ml of cream to thicken and then I smoothed it all gently with the whirring of a hand blender. Chopped parsley and trickle of olive oil to finish and there it was. Immensely satisfying to both make and eat, it brought the day together, from concept to conclusion. I have enough for three large bowlfuls.