Kitchenella: The secrets of women: heroic, simple, nurturing cookery - for everyone. Rose Prince
Cheese omelette – see the recipe for omelette on page 104, and add cheese halfway through cooking, choosing from various suitable types. I prefer the gentle nut flavour of Gruyère, but Cheddar, Cheshire, fresh goat’s curd and feta are also good. Basil is a flavour children seem to like with eggs; add it with the fresh cheeses.
• Soufflé – with a supply of white sauce (béchamel) in the fridge (see page 413), it is easy to make small soufflés within a few minutes. To make 2 supper-sized soufflés, butter 2 average-sized ramekins or individual ovenproof dishes. Add 2 egg yolks to 200ml/7fl oz béchamel and 100g/3½oz grated Gruyère. Mix well, then, using a table knife, lightly fold in the 2 egg whites, whipped until stiff. Fill the ramekins almost to the top, and bake for 15 minutes at 200°C/400°F/Gas 6.
Little dumplings, made with fresh ricotta, not potato, to serve with sweet cooked tomato (page 400) or a little melted butter and Grana Padano. Handling the soft dough takes a little practice but they are surprisingly sturdy in the pan. The sage in the butter may not be to all tastes but most children taste it and think it is ‘sausagey’.
SERVES 4
500g/1lb 2oz fresh ricotta, drained on a cloth for about 15 minutes
100g/3½oz Grana Padano (similar to Parmesan, but less mature), grated
pinch of grated nutmeg
1 egg
2 tablespoons flour
about 200g/7oz semolina flour, for dusting (available from Italian food shops)
salt
100g/3½oz unsalted butter
2 sage leaves (optional)
extra grated Grana Padano, to serve
Mix together the ricotta, Grana Padano, nutmeg, egg and flour until you have a thick paste. Scatter semolina flour on the work surface and more on a dish. Take two dessertspoons and scoop up a spoonful of ‘dough’ with one, then transfer to the other spoon, cupping one spoon inside the other. Repeat to make a neat lozenge shape. Drop gently onto the work surface and lightly roll in the semolina. Lift and place on the plate with the semolina. Repeat until you have used all the dough. You can store the gnocchi in the fridge for up to a day before using.
To cook the gnocchi, fill a large pan with water and add a little salt. While it comes to the boil, melt the butter in a second pan and add the sage leaves if using – then keep warm. When the water boils, drop in half the gnocchi, one by one (you are unlikely to be able to fit them all into the pan at once). They are cooked when they float to the surface. Place them on a plate, spoon some melted butter over, scatter with some cheese and serve.
Kitchen note
You can also serve gnocchi with sweet cooked tomato (see page 400) and grated cheese. Alternatively, put the cooked gnocchi into an ovenproof dish, cover with sweet cooked tomato, add a few halved cherry tomatoes and bake until lightly browned.
Eggs
As with cheese, there are dozens of ways in which eggs can be cooked to please children. Providing they like eggs. It is easy, perhaps in retrospect, to see how many children develop a hatred of eggs, however. If not cooked properly, gelatinous stringy raw bits in fried or boiled eggs can do it for life, with some. Be sensitive to squeamishness, which is absent until a child is three, then suddenly hits. Again, like cheese, fortunate are families with children who eat eggs, because quick, cheap, healthy meals are yours.
Go as far as you dare with these, in terms of adding other ingredients. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6. Butter a ramekin and place a slice of ham in the bottom. Crack in an egg. If it is for me, and I have some, I add 3 or 4 tarragon leaves. Cover with single cream and bake for 12 minutes until a little prod with a teaspoon indicates the whites are done. Eat with toast.
You can add many things to egg pots, choosing from these or combining: roast pepper, sweet cooked tomato (see page 400), undyed smoked haddock, slices of black pudding or even haggis.
This was a favourite of my childhood, and one my children always ask for. A gammon (raw leg of cured pork, which is a ‘ham’ when cooked) or even a half gammon is a treat, however. On ordinary days I use hock – the cured shin of pork that rarely costs more than £5 and has enough meat on it, on average, for three. My mother studded her hams with cloves, and I do this too, but I remember how I hated to bite on a clove so I always make sure to remove them from this children’s meal, in sympathy, before serving it.
SERVES 2–4, DEPENDING ON APPETITE
1 ham hock
1 star anise
1 bay leaf
4 juniper berries
To glaze: 1 tablespoon English mustard, 6 tablespoons Demerara sugar, 6 cloves
Put the hock in a good-sized casserole, cover with cold water, bring to the boil then drain, discarding the water. (See Kitchen note for an alternative method.) Cover with water once more. Add the spices and bring to the boil. Simmer for 1½ hours until the meat becomes tender but is not yet falling off the bone. Another way to tell if ham is cooked is to insert a skewer and pull it out; if the skewer pulls out smoothly, the meat is cooked. If the meat seems to hold onto the skewer, it is still undercooked. This is always a good way to test larger cuts like half gammons and whole ones.
Lift out of the casserole and throw away the water. Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/Gas 7 and place a piece of foil in the base of the casserole. Use a small sharp knife to cut off the rind, leaving behind as much fat as possible. Spread the whole surface of the hock with the mustard. Put the Demerara sugar on a plate and roll the hock in the sugar so it is well coated. Stud with the 6 cloves. Put back into the pan and bake until the surface of the hock is glazed with a layer of bubbling sugar: 15–20 minutes. The foil is there to protect the pan from drips that might burn. Take the hock out of the pan – remove the cloves whatever you do or there will be strong protest. Carve it from the bone and eat hot with mash.
Kitchen note
Instead of this quick method, you can soak the ham/hock overnight. Discard the water after, then boil with the spices and follow the recipe.
The Chinese paradox
Nothing surprises me any longer. The hours spent arguing over likes and dislikes throw up some astonishing contradictions. The child who is shy of ‘mixtures’ like stew, also loves Chinese food. Terrified of finding a button mushroom or a herb leaf in a casserole, they are quite content to put away bowlfuls of food made with fermented beans, black cardamoms, star anise and spring onion. There is a genius to the flavouring in all Chinese dishes that, while weird in concept, is very sensual. Umami, the ‘fifth taste’, is a characteristic of Chinese cooking. Umami foods contain natural glutamates (not to be confused with the chemical MSG), flavours that have a way of invading the whole mouth. It is found in a lot of fermented foods (including cheese, Parma ham and wine) and it is very much present in soy sauce, red bean curd and various other Chinese ingredients, which explains why kids eat Chinese meals unquestioningly.
I cook Chinese food for the children often, seeking out authentic recipes rather than simply imitating the salty, greasy stir-fries sold in our local takeaway. There is a little more work in the preparation and sourcing the ingredients. If I pass a Chinese supermarket I stock up on store-cupboard items, but the fresh ingredients are relatively easy to buy. Making this food at home also means the ability to use naturally reared pork, duck and chicken – not usually at the top of the list of concerns in Chinese restaurants and takeaways.
A meeting with Annie Leong, a cookery writer from Shanghai, opened my eyes to real Chinese home cooking and its suitability for children. Leong