Kitchenella: The secrets of women: heroic, simple, nurturing cookery - for everyone. Rose Prince
when we visit, every day she makes Tom dishes especially designed to tempt him and boost his appetite – and to nourish him. Laura understands completely the link between mind and stomach. When we are miserable or shocked, we always feel it in our gut, while, equally, delicious things can restore contentment. She often approaches food like a scientist, recording what works and what does not.
Toasted garlic bread and squash soup
Years ago Laura pointed out to me that sweet vegetables like squash and pumpkin make slimy, cloying soups unless other textures are added. This recipe uses toasted garlic-rubbed bread, which also dilutes the sweetness to just the right degree.
SERVES 4
3 walnut-sized lumps of butter
450g/1lb – 1 whole butternut – squash, peeled and diced
2 garlic cloves, pounded to a paste with salt
2 slices of ciabatta or white sourdough bread, toasted until golden
1 litre/1¾ pints water, at boiling point
salt and black pepper
90ml/6 tablespoons whipping cream
Melt the butter in a large pan, add the squash and cook for 3 minutes. Meanwhile, rub the garlic paste onto the bread and allow it to sink in. Add the water to the pan and bring to the boil. Cook for about 10 minutes until the squash is tender. Add the bread and allow to soften in the soup. Transfer all to a food processor and liquidise until very smooth. Clean the pan and put back the soup. Taste and add salt if necessary, then add pepper. Add the cream and reheat. Serve hot – this soup stores well.
THE SAME SOUP – WITH ALTERNATIVE VEGETABLES
Replace the squash with the equivalent weight of pumpkin (with 2 extra garlic cloves because it is so sweet), sweet potato, turnip, celeriac or golden beetroot.
BROTHS
My mother always shopped at a butcher’s, even when supermarket shopping was at the height of its new-found popularity. True, she had no full-time job (though up to six children to look after, depending who was at home) and could find time to drive to a shop within its 9–5 opening hours in order to buy the best meat. Yet it was remarkable that she dedicated herself to buying meat this way. At that time in the 1970s there was no especial reported concern about animal welfare or hygiene in mass-produced meat. She may as well have trotted off to Safeway with everyone else. She had a keen instinct about what was right, however, and there we would be, at least once a week, standing in a queue.
Bored as I was, I must have learned much while hanging about in that line; overheard snippets that taught, in some kind of gradual osmotic sense, how to buy meat. I watched boning and rolling, found out how many sausages there are in a pound and which were the prime cuts. Occasionally I heard my mother and other customers complain that a Sunday roasting joint had been a little disappointing, or the butcher explain how long a leg of lamb needed in the oven. Thanks to this, I emerged from my childhood partly food-educated. Aged 18 I could walk into a butcher’s and make an informed decision about what to buy.
Today mothers often leave their children behind when shopping, mainly because they shop at supermarkets who sell thousands of ‘lines’ of food. With so many of these designed to appeal to the pestering, articulate three-year-old in the trolley seat, a traipse around a superstore can be very wearing. No wonder we give in and buy the packet of crisps or whatever they are whining on about. Worse than this is the fact that there is rarely anyone to talk to in supermarkets who has a professional knowledge about ingredients, so a child misses out on those overheard tidbits that form part of their food education.
In the 1980s thousands of these small shops, butchers in particular, closed, thanks to the advent of the superstore. Supermarket chillers tend only to sell unchallenging cuts. Where are the kidneys, the liver, the trotters and tongues? And where are the bones? Without a supply of bones I cannot make my kitchen work. Making stock from bones underpins so much of what I cook because the small effort it takes produces an ingredient that will bring others to life in minutes, notably soups and rice dishes.
I do not know how many times I have been rescued by a supply of broth or stock in the fridge. Knowing it is there reduces the panic I feel if dinner is not planned and needs to be made within the next 45 minutes. The flavours it adds to soups and anything braised, including risotto, give these dishes resonance they cannot have with water. There are many examples of ways to use stock in Halfway to a Meal.
When meat stock is the star of an epic, big-meal soup, its flavour echoes for hours in the mouth and for much longer in the memory. The following recipes are much better for it. Few take longer than 20 minutes to prepare – as long as you have a meat stock supply (see page 390). You can buy fresh meat stock ready made – but read the label to check the ingredients are natural. You may want to take a look at the salt content per 100ml. Keeping in mind that 6g is the maximum recommended for an adult each day, a salty shop-bought stock can do more harm than good.
Here are two extremely simple, everyday broths . . .
Golden broth with parsley and pearl barley
A soup I eat often for lunch. I make a pot of it earlier in the week and heat it when needed. It costs little, and with a supply of stock to hand, it takes only 20 minutes to make. Its golden colour not only comes from browning the poultry bones when making stock (see page 390), but also from adding ground coriander seed, a subtle spice with the ability to ‘join up’ the flavours of the various ingredients as they simmer in the pan.
SERVES 4
2 tablespoons olive oil or butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground coriander seed
200g/7oz pearl barley
1.2 litres/2 pints chicken or vegetable stock
salt and black pepper
flat-leaf parsley, chopped, to serve
Heat the fat in a pan and add the onion, coriander and pearl barley. Stir over the heat for a minute or two until the onion softens, then add the stock. Bring to the boil and cook for 15–20 minutes until the pearl barley is just tender. Do not boil too vigorously or the liquid will evaporate. Season to taste, then add chopped parsley to each bowlful just before you eat.
Usually served so thick you could eat it with a fork, this Italian-inspired pasta e fagioli soup can be made with store-cupboard ingredients within minutes – providing there is stock to hand. A little more broth in the ratio is nice – it is good to stick to the basic idea that you sip or drink soup, not load it into your mouth.
SERVES 4
1.2 litres/2 pints meat stock
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
pinch of dried rosemary leaves
pinch of dried thyme
1 x 400g/14oz can cannellini, borlotti or white haricot beans, drained
100g/3½oz dried soup pasta
salt and white pepper
To serve: grated mature hard cheese (Grana Padano or Parmesan, mature Cheddar), a little extra olive oil or chilli oil
Heat the stock in a large pan until it boils, then pour into a jug. Warm the oil in the same pan over a low heat and add the garlic. Cook until fragrant, but not coloured, then add the herbs, beans and pasta, and cover with the stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Add a little boiling water if the soup is too thick. Season, ladle into bowls and pour a little more olive oil (or chilli oil) over each in a thin stream. Serve the grated cheese separately.
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