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The food writer Nicholas Clee has written an article on the Guardian blog, saying the idea that recipes can be followed to the letter and result in a perfect dish is a modern myth. I’m not sure this makes recipes a swindle exactly, but it is undoubtedly true that they all need a degree of interpretation, and that you won’t be able to follow a recipe until you’ve learnt some basics about how cooking works. In Clee’s book Don’t Sweat the Aubergine, he therefore provides ‘why you do it’ sections and information in the belief that understanding how a dish works is more important than a set of instructions. His blog The Sceptical Cook has extracts from the book, including a brilliant piece on how to cook aubergines.
When preparing ‘Early Vegetarian Recipes’, which re-produces recipes from as early as 1690, exactly as they first appeared, I was very aware that the instructions often made no sense to the modern chef, since there were no stoves and pans had to be placed ‘on the fire’ for hours at a time to cook the dishes. And whenever I talk to people about the book there are some who say the book would not be for them as they would be unable to interpret the recipes.
Nonetheless some of the recipes do contain very detailed instructions and one of my favourite recipes in the book is not a favourite because I use the recipe, but because it is a lovely piece of historical food writing. It is an 1866 recipe for Toast in ‘Vegetarian Cookery by a Lady’:
Procure a nice square loaf that has been baked one or two days previously, and with a sharp knife, cut the requisite number of slices, about a quarter of an inch in thickness; place a slice of the bread on a toasting-fork, about an inch from one of the sides; hold it a minute before the fire; then turn it, hold it before the fire another minute; by which time the bread will be thoroughly hot; then begin to move it gradually till the whole surface has assumed a yellowish brown colour; turn it again, toasting the other side in the same manner; then lay it upon a hot plate, spread rather less than an ounce of butter over, and cut it into four or six pieces; if three or four slices are required, cut each slice into pieces as soon as buttered, and pile them lightly upon the hot plate on which they are to be served, as often in cutting through several slices with a bad knife all butter is squeezed out of the upper slice, and the lower one is found swimming in butter.
Warming the bread gradually on both sides, greatly improves the quality of the toast, and makes it much lighter.
The butter used should not be too hard, as pressing it upon the toast would make it heavy.
Dry stale bread may be dipped in warm water, and toasted gradually before being buttered.
Another of my favourites from the book is a recipe I do use a lot, but which I am constantly re-interpreting, so that it turns out differently each time I do it! It’s a recipe for Lancashire Spice Nuts, biscuits flavoured with ginger, treacle and caraway seeds. Sometimes they come out hard, the texture of ginger nuts, which I guess is how they were intended, but sometimes I get something similar to German Lebkuchen with a soft, cakey interior, which suits the spices and which I rather like. One of these days I’ll come up with my own definitive version, but in the meantime, here’s the original, by Charles Walter Forward from 1891:
1 ½ lbs flour
½ lb treacle
¼ lb butter
¼ raw sugar
1 ½ oz ground ginger
½ oz caraway seeds
½ oz carbonate of soda
3 oz orange peel
Warm the treacle, add to it the butter melted, the sugar, spices, soda and orange peel minced fine. Pour the mixture into the flour, knead into a dough, roll it out and cut into rounds with a small cutter. Bake on greased tins in a slow oven for about 10 minutes.
It seems that even in the 18th and 19th Centuries, the world of cookery books was dominated by celebrity chefs, when cooks employed by royalty or those who ran famous eating houses were the main beneficiaries of the boom in the publishing of cookbooks. There was also a rise in the number of vegetarian cookbooks published during the 19th Century and the writers of those were often already known too. Mrs Bowdich for example, who published ‘New Vegetarian Recipes’ in 1892, was the owner of a vegetarian restaurant on Gray’s Inn Road in London.
To celebrate all this, the Keats House Museum in London has been showing an exhibition of the period’s celebrity cookbooks, from the collection at the Guildhall Library. This coming weekend is the last chance to see the exhibition as it closes on 26th February.
This is a recipe from one of the featured books ‘The Complete Confectioner’ by Frederick Nutt, and what I love about this is the instruction to include carraway seeds, ‘as many as you think proper’!
Judges Biscuits by Frederick Nutt, 1819
Take six eggs and break them into copper pan, yolks and whites together, whisk them well for above five minutes, mix half a pound of powdered sugar with the eggs, and whisk them for ten minutes, put as many carraway seeds as you think proper, and half a pound of sifted flour, mix it well with a wooden spoon, and put three papers on your plates; then take a spoon and drop them on papers about the size of a crown-piece, sift some powdered sugar over them, let them be rather thick in the middle, and the oven rather sharp, and when they come out, cut them off the paper while hot.
Regency ‘Celebrity’ Cookbooks
Keats House Museum
until 26th February 2012
Keats Grove, Hampstead, London NW3 2RR UK
Having eaten in the Brighton restaurant Food for Friends a while back, I was excited to get my hands on their recipe book written by Jane and Ramin Mostowfi with Kalil Resende.
And this is indeed a gorgeous book full of recipes with amazing depth of flavour and exciting ingredients. The book is also clear about which recipes are gluten-free or suitable for vegans.
Many of the recipes are for special occasions only, as you will need to get in special ingredients and take some time over preparation. I was looking for a recipe to try which contained more everyday ingredients and I found Sweet Potato, Garlic and Rosemary Gratin. Now this recipe did require quite a bit of effort, not least in the extra washing up, but it delivered in terms of flavour, which was rich and rounded without being overwhelming. It was delicious in other words! The dish is supposed to finish up as a kind of cake which you cut into slices to serve. I didn’t manage that I must say, maybe I wasn’t diligent enough about pouring out the juices half way through cooking, which seemed a such waste to me! You may also have to be inventive with the instruction to use a second baking tray the same size, as most of us without restaurants don’t have that luxury! Still none of that affected the taste, so we were happy diners anyway!
Sweet Potato, Garlic and Rosemany Gratin
Serves 6
4 cloves of garlic
1 tstp salt
1 tsp black pepper
150 ml olive oil
1 large sweet potato
3 large white or red potatoes
3 tbsp rosemary finely chopped
1 tblsp thyme leaves finely chopped
Preheat the oven to 180C / gas mark 4 / 350F. Blend the garlic, salt, pepper and oil together in a blender. Place the resulting mixture in a large container. Finely slice the sweet and ordinary potatoes, and put the slices into the container. Add the chopped rosemary and thyme and allow the potatoes to infuse with the oil and garlic mix for 10 minutes.
Line a 2cm deep baking tray , approx. 25cm x 15cm with baking paper. Put the potato mix in the tray, pressing it down into the corners to make sure that there is an even amount across the tray. Cover the surface with another piece of baking paper and cook in the oven for 35 miutes. Take it out of the oven. Get another tray the same size and press down on top of the gratin to squeeze out excess juices, tip the trays to allow them to drain. Then put the gratin back in the oven for another 20 minutes or so, until golden in colour. Check the middle with a knife to see if it’s cooked.
Turn the gratin upside down ove a choppping board and lift the tray off. Then carefully remove the paper and trim the edges.
the collapsed gratin!
Denis Cotter is definitely one of my favourite chefs. I lived for a while in Cork, Ireland’s second city and home to Denis’ restaurant Cafe Paradiso, and I probably didn’t appreciate at the time what a rare privilege it is to live near a restaurant you love so much! These days I have to content myself with Denis’ cookbooks, and his latest ‘For the Love of Food’ is out this month.
While I wait to get my hands on a copy, I thought I’d write about one of his recipes that I use the most, from his first book, ‘The Cafe Paradiso Cookbook’. His recipe for Almond Tartlets includes a mouth-tingling filling of gooseberry and amaretto custard, but I have used the base tartlet recipe with all sorts of fillings.
The base is gluten-free as it is made with ground almonds rather than flour, and even though the orginal has a gorgeous buttery taste, I have made vegan versions with vegan margarine which also turn out well. Besides making an excellent tartlet base for fillings, this recipe makes great biscuits, which are crisp and melt in the mouth! The secret is probably to act quickly and not mess with the mixture too much, but I’ve always found this recipe surprisingly easy, and the tartlets lift out of the tin without collapsing every time!
For the photos below, I filled the tartlets with lightly stewed mixed frozen berries, topped with whipped cream and poured the juice from the berries over the top.
- Almond Tartlets
Almond Tartlets
80g unsalted butter (or vegan margarine)
80g ground almonds
80g caster sugar
Preheat the oven to 350F, 180C, gas 4. Cream the butter, almonds and the sugar together. Lightly butter eight shallow tartlet tins. Put one rounded dessertspoon of the pastry in each, and flatten it slightly with the back of a spoon, but don’t attempt to shape it into the tin in any serious way. The pastry will rise a little in the baking and collapse to form a shallow-lipped base.
Bake the pastries for 20-25 minutes, until lightly browned, then leave them to cool in the trays.
the empty tartlets
If you get the chance to visit Cafe Paradiso, the address is:
Cafe Paradiso, 16 Lancaster Quay, Cork City, Ireland
The Moosewood Restaurant is a collective run operation in Ithaca, NY, which was first set up in 1973. The collective has also published at least 12 cookbooks and their fresh and ever changing approach to vegetarian and healthy eating has been highly influential.
Unfortunately I’m a long way from Ithaca and unlikely to eat in the restaurant any time soon (anybody out there want to offer a review?), and I had previously only glanced at copies of their cookbooks, but I have been seriously impressed by this, their latest effort and would be happy to recommend it to anyone looking for exciting healthy recipes, as well as for vegetarian, vegan and raw food.
As well as the trying out the recipe below, I made a version of their Sweet Potato Pie, which tasted much sweeter and richer than the healthy ingredients might lead you to believe, and I’ve lined up a list of recipes to try next: cauliflower tabouli, raw broccoli salad and vegan cornbread.
This recipe for Pomegranate-glazed Tofu was a revelation! Absolutely delicious and destined to become a firm favourite, both as it is, and, as is my way, inspiration for further experimentation.
Pomegranate-glazed Tofu
Pomegranate-glazed Tofu
1 cake of firm tofu (about 16 ounces), cut into 1 inch cubes
2 tblsp olive oil
1 cup pure pomegranate juice
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 tblsp soy sauce
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp grated orange zest
1 tsp minced fresh rosemary
In a large skillet on medium-high heat, warm the olive oil. Add the tofu cubes and cook for about 3 minutes per side until lightly golden.
Whisk together the pomegranate juice, garlic, soy sauce, mustard, orange zest, and rosemary. When the tofu pieces are golden, pour the sauce over the tofu and continue to simmer for 3 to 5 minutes until the tofu has absorbed some of the sauce and the rest has reduced to glaze.
