Kitchenella: The secrets of women: heroic, simple, nurturing cookery - for everyone. Rose Prince
On other matters she was spot on. When my grandmother sold up and moved back to Britain, after 40 years in France, Jacqueline was gloomy. ‘England is a horrible place,’ she warned (she had never been there). ‘Madame will die if she lives there.’ She did, within two years. Jacqueline came to the funeral in London, her first sad visit. ‘I told her she would die,’ she said, crying furiously. Going into the kitchen of my grandmother’s London flat after her death, I noticed there was still a sticker seal across the door of the microwave, bought for her new kitchen. It had never been used.
Jacqueline’s great dishes were many. Her roast chicken with its dark juices, her skinless tomato and fine bean salad, her pommes frites which she cooked in small crisp batches, her violently red raspberry ice and her airy circle of choux pastry that she filled with tiny mushrooms cooked in cream. Everything she made I have cooked again and again throughout my life, but without her direct instructions. I have tried to recreate that twist in her method that made the particular thing so good: the extra tang of Dijon mustard in her salad dressing and the generous quantity she would use, for example; there was always a pool of it in the bottom of the olive-wood salad bowl, with delicious skinned tomato segments and leaves of butterhead lettuce – floppy English-style not crisp curly types – literally drowning in it. She always served chicken with its natural cooking juices, none of that last-minute gravy-making nonsense. Looking back, I think her talent lay in tasting her food, seasoning it properly and using herbs. She also adhered to a fairly classical road – tarragon went with chicken and nothing else, for example. There was a lot of safety and comfort in this approach for us.
I tried to get her mashed potato right on many occasions and could make a passable potful, but it was not 100 per cent. It did not have that slightly baked taste that made hers so good, or the sloppy, almost pourable texture. Then one day I rediscovered it, thanks to my son Jack.
Jack’s mashed potato is puréed, strictly speaking. He watched it being made in Anthony Demetre’s modern bistrot, Arbutus in London’s Soho, where he did a few days’ training, and came home and made it. It had that unmistakable Jacqueline-ness. It is almost more dairy than it is tuber, rich and slightly runny with the creaminess cut with the hint of lemon that the right potatoes will give. Always try to buy the red-skinned types for mash if you can; they have perfect texture and acidity. Here are the secrets of Jacqueline’s mash, excavated by Jack.
SERVES 8
2kg/4lb 8oz red-skinned potatoes, such as Desiree or Romano
1 litre/1¾ pints wholemilk
250g/9oz butter
sea salt
Peel the potatoes and boil in salted water until tender. Some people cook them with skins on and peel them afterwards, but this is more time-consuming; as long as you let the potatoes steam-dry after boiling, peeling before cooking will make as good a purée.
Allow the potatoes to sit in the colander for 10 minutes. They do not have to be kept warm. Clean out the pan and add the milk and butter. Heat until the butter is melted. Turn off the heat. Place a food mill (sometimes called a mouli) over the pan and grate the potato into the milk.
Place back over a medium heat and whip the potato slowly with a spatula. It will begin to heat up and eventually to cook a little, puffing out great bubbles and leaving the sides of the pan. Continue like this – it can be an achy few minutes. Be careful not to overheat the pan and actually burn the potatoes – you want the mash to become only hot enough to erupt with pockets of steam. This is a dish you need to stand over, but not for long.
You can add more butter and even cream if you want, for even richer potatoes, but make sure any addition is well heated through. Season with salt to taste. Keep hot in the pan, with a teacloth placed over the top, and the lid on top of that.
Eat with anything from cheese to hot ham, grilled gammon or bacon, sausages, frankfurters, faggots, haggis, grilled chops and roasts.
MORE MASH
You can use the above method to make mash from other roots. In most cases it is always politic to add a peeled potato or two, to help the texture become velvety and smooth. Each quantity serves 4 generously:
• Parsnips with clotted cream – peel, dice and add 2 peeled potatoes for texture. For 1kg/2lb 4oz parsnips, use 200ml/7fl oz clotted cream.
• Swede and butter – this is my favourite alternative mash. Just add about 175g/6oz butter to 1kg/2lb 4oz mashed swede. Peel and dice the swede before boiling.
• Carrot and crème fraiche – peel and slice 1 kg/2lb 4oz carrots; boil with 2 peeled, diced potatoes until soft and add 100g/3½oz butter and 150ml/¼ pint crème fraiche.
• Beetroot and sour cream – bake 1kg/2lb 4oz whole beetroot until tender (oven set to about 200°C/400°F/Gas 6). Put through the food mill and reheat with 150ml/¼ pint sour cream.
The purée route can be for purists. Roughly crushed, boiled floury potatoes, with an invading force of melted butter penetrating some but not all of their flesh, is as satisfying as the most refined gratin dauphinoise.
Look out for the traditional varieties, now in supermarkets as well as sold by specialist growers at farmers’ markets. Arran Victory are one of the best, with bluish skins, or Red Duke of York.
Roughly mashed haddock and potato with spring onion
A sort of lazy fish pie, which all happens in one pan.
SERVES 4
1kg/2 lb 4oz floury potatoes
150g/5½oz butter
2 tablespoons double cream or crème fraiche
600g/1lb 6oz smoked undyed haddock
2 spring onions, chopped into small rings
sea salt and black pepper
Peel the potatoes, then boil in salted water until soft. Drain them and while they sit in the colander, steaming, melt the butter in the same pan. Add the cream, haddock and spring onions. Cook over a low heat until the haddock flakes, then add the potatoes. Roughly stir, then season with some salt – watch the amount because the haddock will be salty – and plenty of black pepper.
Mashed sweet potato with green chilli and coriander relish
Bravely growing in our cold climate, the sweet potatoes I pick up in weekend markets deserve to be eaten for supper. I like their slightly sticky, floury flesh, even their alarming colour. When I was at school I knitted a fiery sweater with unflattering raglan sleeves in my needlework class. At the time I was unable to place the colour, chosen by my mother to ‘match my green eyes’ – it was darker than orange, lighter than terracotta. Now I realise it was definitely sweet potato.
SERVES 4
4 sweet potatoes
200g/7oz butter, melted
sea salt and black pepper
2.5cm/1in piece fresh ginger, grated
2 spring onions, chopped into small rings
2 red chillies, deseeded and chopped
6 sprigs coriander, plus roots if possible, chopped
Boil the sweet potatoes whole in salted water for about 15 minutes or until tender, then drain, cool a little and cut in half. Place on plates and mash the flesh while it is still in the skin, just roughly – it really does not matter if it loses its shape. Pour over some melted butter, add a few pinches of the other ingredients and eat while hot.