Pappardelle with Chicken Liver Ragù

I feel very lucky have grown up in a happy clan of 4 close siblings. There aren’t even five years to separate oldest (moi) from the youngest (H).

Obviously, between supermarket shops, school runs, on-tap medical assistance and missions across the house as peace envoys, Mum and Dad needed a hand occasionally. When my amazing grandparents weren’t available that help came thanks to a series of nannies, most of them memorable, though not always for the right reasons. One crashed the car and told me not to tell anyone…another used to stick her smelly feet in the bath my younger brother and sister were in and make them wash them for her. (Of course, we weren’t entirely blameless. At one stage, I’d say we were turning them over at a rate of one a month; the Von Trapp kids had nothing on us.)

However, in my book of nanny-villains, the worst of the lot made the very small H sit in front of his lunch for such a long time that he was still sitting there when Mum came home that evening. (I remember H being rather stoic about the whole ordeal; he’d managed to smuggle the bit of blanket that went everywhere with him to the table). Needless to say, she wasn’t there to apply the same rules to breakfast the next day.

But what, you may ask, was so bad that he couldn’t finish it?

Liver: normally edible in our experience, but she’d utterly nuked it. Not to mention the crinkled, sad peas scattered around the plate. Bad enough sitting there, tough grey like the sole of a shoe, H’s offal only got more… er… offal (sorry, irresistible) as the afternoon wore on. I’m not even sure how the 3 of us had managed to get ours down… Perhaps we’d conspired with the dog.

A whole 25 years later, I hope H has managed to get over what must be a crippling fear of liver at lunchtime. If he hasn’t, the BSG and I think we’ve found the remedy.

We think this is one of the best pasta sauces we’ve had outside a restaurant. You can find it in the marvellous Bocca cookbook by Jacob Kenedy (the best argument for the onset of summer I can think of):
 
Serves 2  (or 4 as a starter)

200g chicken livers
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
½ small onion, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
150ml dry Marsala
100ml white wine (we used some leftover rose that was in the fridge)
1 tbsp chopped rosemary
2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
40g butter

Heat a wide frying pan over a high heat until very hot and smoking. Toss the chicken livers in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of the oil and some salt and pepper, then pour into the hot pan making sure they are in a single layer. Fry for a couple of minutes without moving, until well browned on one side. Turn and fry the second side for 2 minutes, then transfer to a plate to cool. When cool enough to handle, chop the livers finely, and keep the juices.

Sweat the onion, celery and garlic in the rest of the oil with salt and pepper in a small saucepan over a medium-low heat. When very soft (after about 10 minutes), add the chopped liver and its juices and fry for a couple of minutes until heated through. Add the Marsala and wine and cook at a very gentle simmer until the sauce is very thick (almost like a pâté) with a little oil risen to the surface, for at least an hour. Add about 100ml of water during the cooking if it starts to dry out. Stir in the rosemary and remove from the heat.

Cook 200g dried or 260g fresh pasta according to the pack and re-heat the sauce in a wide frying pan. Drain the pasta, keeping a bit of the water and add to the sauce with the parsley and butter. Cook everything together for a few minutes or until the butter has melted and the pasta is well coated. Serve with grated Parmesan.

A salad of fennel, orange, Parmesan and hazelnuts

Before I started working from home I had this romantic notion that I would float between desk and kitchen, keeping a vague eye on something wholesome on the stove or in the oven, blipping away until lunchtime. Now that I’ve worked here a year, I can testify to devoting even less time towards my lunch at home than I did when I had to rely on the ubiquitous sandwich chains for the weekly rotation of wraps, salads and soups – most of the time; there constantly seems to be something else that needs my attention.

Yesterday, however, was a punctuation mark of a lunch, a seagull-topped buoy on the recent sea of lacklustre lunches, and it’s inspired me to make more of an effort even though it’s only me. After all, lunch is pretty important, in the grand scheme of things.

Like all the best food daydreams, this one had an outside chance of becoming a reality as I happened to have all the ingredients in question. And the reality was delicious.

Serves 1 (or 2 as a starter)

1 bulb fennel

8 good shavings off a block of good Parmesan

Handful of crushed hazelnuts

1 orange

For the dressing:

Cider/white wine vinegar

Mustard

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Slice the very bottom off the fennel bulb and wash/discard any manky outer layers. Slice it very finely, or better still, shave it with a vegetable peeler (or – yikes! – a mandolin).

Peel and halve the orange, discarding any pips, and slice.

Make the dressing to taste (but a mustardy, zingy slick is best).

Dress and mix the fennel, nuts, cheese and orange slices in a bowl.

Eat directly from said bowl if you can stay away from your desk no longer.

Gruyère, cheddar and bacon soufflé

I’ve always been a bit scared of soufflés. I adore eating them, but would sooner leave the manufacture to someone else. The process always seems to me way too fraught to be a satisfying one, with that mad sprint finish over the last yards from the degree-perfect oven to the table. Scoping out options for supper last week and finding two rashers of bacon, a few eggs and two lumps of cheese left I suggested to the BSG that I might try making one and he said ‘why not?’ Why not, indeed? So I did.

I love nothing more than cruising the pages of all our beautiful cookbooks, but when I am all at sea and in need of the recipe equivalent of a stern lecture (or that fun instructive part of Blue Peter) I go to the most unsightly of the lot: Leith’s Cookery Bible. Stripped of its dust-jacket, its pages stuck together and occasionally brittle with goodness-knows-what, the spine and boards rebound with parcel tape of the muddiest brown, this beloved manual has been with the BSG for 12 years, since he did a course at Leith’s. Aside from a few breaks of colour photos (and BSG biro-scribblings), it is nearly 700 pages of pure instruction, and has been so relied upon and loved over the years that if it were a toy it would be the Velveteen Rabbit.

So, with Prue’s expert help, I made my first soufflé*. And it felt a lot like a magic spell; it never ceases to delight me how the lowly egg creates such towering spectacle.

*(I don’t think I have ever followed a recipe to the letter and this was no exception; I put chopped fried bacon bits into the bottom of the dishes).

Serves 2 apparently (but easily 6 as a starter)

Ingredients

40g butter
Dried white breadcrumbs
30g plain flour
½ teaspoon dry English mustard
a pinch of Cayenne pepper
290ml milk
3 oz sharp Cheddar or Gruyere cheese, grated (I used both)
4 eggs, separated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 200ºC/400º F gas mark 6.

Melt a knob of the butter and brush a 15cm/6in soufflé dish (or 6 ramekins) with it. Dust lightly with the breadcrumbs.

Melt the remaining butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour, mustard and cayenne with a wooden spoon. Cook for 45 seconds. Add the milk and cook, stirring vigorously, for 2 minutes. The mixture will get very thick and leave the sides of the pan. Remove from the heat.

Cool slightly and add the cheese, egg yolks, salt and pepper. Taste; the mixture should be well seasoned.
Whisk the egg whites until stiff but not dry, mix a spoonful into the cheese mixture. Then fold in the remainder until just combined. Pour into the dish(es), which should be two-thirds full. Run your finger around the top of the mixture. This gives a ‘top hat’ appearance to the cooked soufflé.

Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes (13-20 minutes for small versions) and serve immediately. (Do not test to see if the soufflé is done for at least 20 minutes - less for smaller dishes. Then open the oven just wide enough to get your hand in and give the soufflé a slight shove. If it wobbles alarmingly, cook for a further 5 minutes.)

      

Secret Garden Party

There is a secret garden in Regent’s Park. You may already know where it is, but if you don’t…well, sorry, but you’ve had a big enough clue already. A very good friend of ours decided to share this secret with us recently and we are enormously grateful that he did. We won’t tell anyone, we promise.

Gardens make me very happy. They are havens from the rest of life and picnics in them are bliss. The discovery of this one was nothing short of magical, its brightly-coloured plants illuminated by the evening rays, as I entered, a good 45 minutes earlier than my dining companions. I’d like to say that my timekeeping was bad but really I think it was sheer excitement that sped me along at such a pace. Beautifully kept lawns, neat borders and gently trickling fountains greeted me, as well as the occasional hidden amorous couple behind the hedges.

As if to remind me that we were not in the grounds of a country pile but in the middle of grubby, 21^st-century London, the idyll was momentarily shattered by the appearance of an almighty rat - but he disappeared as quickly as he’d emerged so I didn’t hold it against him. Nor did I tell anyone about him. Had I done so, the evening might have ended there. Who knows - perhaps he was off for a picnic with his friend the mole*.

Guiding twelve people in to such an unadvertised spot was rather like a mental challenge from the Crystal Maze, so much so that when all twelve were present and correct I briefly considered a career in the army (I’m pretty sure they like navigators there). If only we’d given them all a map to decipher, this enchanted bower would have felt harder-earned. As it was, a mobile phone sufficed. A furious BSG arrived, laden with smoked mackerel pate, sardines and toast, claiming that ‘go diagonal’ hadn’t been the right instruction – it had been more of a 60 degree angle than a 45. Oh well, I never was very good at trigonometry.

Luckily he was appeased by a large slab of terrine on crusty bread made from an authentic French family recipe by an authentic French person, Virginie. However, I fear that her secret recipe will remain so, just like the garden. But sacre bleu it was good: livery richness laced to precision with booze. It vanished just as quickly as it appeared. Other than this, the patchwork of mismatched coloured cloths was spread with countless delights; salads, cheeses, onion tarts, cold meats, bread and dips; a feast that would have made Mr Mole swoon. The BSG and I brought our current favourite munch of the moment, which we have recreated time and time again after being introduced to it at Terroirs. It is a wonderful dish as no cooking whatsoever is required, though it’s probably a good idea to have a mint handy for after.

Anchovies, shallots and unsalted butter on sourdough

Serves 8 for a starter

Anchovy fillets – 2 tins

3 or 4 shallots, very finely sliced

Pale unsalted butter (French is best, though I’m not sure why – it just feels right)

Sourdough bread (failing that, an airy, crusty loaf)

Slice and toast the bread, and cut it into bite-sized morsels. Put all the other ingredients out onto a board or dish, and let everyone help themselves.

Spread the toast with a convincing slab of butter, don’t be shy.

Sprinkle a few translucent shallot pieces onto the butter.

Smear half an anchovy fillet on top with your knife.

Gobble it up.

Assess the flavours, adjust your quantities and make a second attempt. It won’t be long before you have exactly the balance you want.

I promise that you will love this. Like a cold glass of milk with your Marmite on toast, it just works.

*These two had perhaps the greatest picnic of all:

The Mole waggled his toes from sheer happiness, spread his chest with a sigh of full contentment, and leaned back blissfully into the soft cushions. 'What a day I'm having!' he said. 'Let us start at once!'

'Hold hard a minute, then!' said the Rat. He looped the painter through a ring in his landing-stage, climbed up into his hole above, and after a short interval reappeared staggering under a fat, wicker luncheon-basket.

Shove that under your feet,' he observed to the Mole, as he passed it down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the sculls again.

'What's inside it?' asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.

'There's cold chicken inside it,' replied the Rat briefly;
'coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrolls-
cresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater—'

'O stop, stop,' cried the Mole in ecstacies: 'This is too much!'

'Do you really think so?' enquired the Rat seriously. 'It's only what I always take on these little excursions; and the other animals are always telling me that I'm a mean beast and cut it very fine!'

From The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame