spring – The Watchful Cook

Autumn/ Courses/ Lunches & Light Suppers/ Spring/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses/ Winter

A SPRING RECIPE FOR PORK

As you know I am someone who tries to eat seasonally and reasonably locally, although I am not going to apologise for buying avocados or olive oil. Traditionally, pork has not been much of a spring meat, which I think is a shame as while the weather remains unpredictable during March and April, I think free range organic pork is a splendid choice.

Our local butcher recently had beautiful pork chops, with a fair layer of flavour – adding fat so I snaffled a couple. Once home, however, I then had the “what do I do with them” problem. Pork chops have flavour at the more delicate end of the range and frankly, can also be dry, if not cooked carefully. For that reason, I am not a fan of the plain grilled pork chop, so I consulted better cooks than I to decide how to get the best from them.

I have a quite a fair size cookery book collection which is something of a double edged sword when it comes to consulting them, as it can take so long to look through them. There is also the serious risk of becoming completely engrossed in a book I haven’t opened for a while and losing sight of my original need to look in the book in the first place! Anyway, my fingers hovered around Richard Olney’s three books that I have in the collection and I realised that I really haven’t paid him as much attention recently as I should have done.

For those of you who don’t know him, please may I take a moment to commend his writing to you, especially if you are partial to good wine, or at least reading about it. He was an American who, like many before him, fell in love with France and its attitude to food and wine. He lived in Paris during the 50s and 60s and writes evocatively about the arts scene of the time. He eventually settled permanently in Provence where he wrote most of his books. My favourite is “Reflexions” in which he is deliciously gossipy about many food names from the second half of the twentieth century. I no longer feel quite the same about Julia Childs but did have my view of Elizabeth David positively reinforced.

I found the inspiration I was looking for in Mr Olney’s “Simple French Food” and whilst I didn’t follow the recipe to the letter, I did like the method and most of all, the outcome. This is my take on the Olney recipe and I am very grateful for everything I have learned from reading his books.

PORK CHOPS WITH APPLE AND MUSTARD CREAM

Print Recipe

Serves: 2 Cooking Time: 45 inc prep

Ingredients

500g eating apples, preferably with a bit of tartness to them and a crisp texture
1 tbsp unsalted butter, plus more for greasing
2 free range organic pork chops, skin removed if present
sea salt
150ml dry white wine (I used a Gavi of which I doubt Mr Olney would approve as he didn’t seem to be a fan of Italian wine)
4tbsp creme frâiche
4tbsp Dijon mustard
black pepper
A well buttered gratin dish or other shallow oven proof dish, into which the chops will fit without overcrowding or distortion

Instructions

Take the chops out of the fridge about half an hour before you start cooking

Pre heat the oven to 180C fan

Peel, core and quarter the apples, slicing the resulting pieces into thin slices and lay them in the dish, turning them over so they acquire some of the butter clinging to the dish

Place the dish in the oven and bake for 15 minutes

While that’s going on, over a medium heat melt the tablespoon of butter in a sauté pan and brown the chops, about 7 - 8 minutes per side

Remove the apple from the oven (leave the oven on) and put the chops on top, leaving the sauté pan on a low heat

Add the wine to the pan, scraping any meaty scraps from the base and sides of the pan

Turn up the heat a little so that the wine bubbles enthusiastically and reduce it by about half

Turn down the heat to low and add the creme frâiche, stirring it all in

Add the mustard, tasting you go to your satisfaction; you may like more or less than the amount I’ve suggested

Season with salt and pepper and pour the sauce over the chops and apples

Give the dish a good shake to ensure the sauce penetrates down to the apple

Return the dish to the oven and leave it there, unmolested for 15 minutes; if you have particularly thick chops, you may need a few minutes more

Notes

It’s very easy to multiply this up to feed more than two people and is equally good with wholegrain mustard. I have also tried adding a small amount of chopped sage or thyme, but decided I preferred the simplicity of the basic recipe. I like to serve this with brown rice and a green vegetable, or good bread and a green salad. Drink the wine you’ve got left from making this dish!

April 6, 2018

Lunches & Light Suppers/ Spring/ Summer/ Suppers, Dinners & Main Courses

ASPARAGUS AGAIN

I have friends who remark upon the passing of the years by exclaiming how quickly Christmas comes around. Not me, as apart from the fact that I truly loathe turkey, there are more pleasurable milestones throughout the year. For me, the best is the arrival of English asparagus. There is nothing quite like the real English product and I confine my asparagus eating to the eight or so weeks of the year when it hits the markets. Yes, when I am in Italy, I love Italian asparagus and it has a subtly different flavour so the risotto, or whatever I’m making, are also subtly different, but again, I only use it in season. And no, I never use Peruvian or Mexican asparagus that seems to be available all year round. Why would I do that? Why would anyone do that – it just doesn’t have the same depth of flavour.

I do remember years ago (in the 1970s or early 80s I think), I tried a recipe for a quiche that used canned asparagus and evaporated milk. It was foul, what was I thinking; even the dog wouldn’t eat it and Labradors don’t turn up their noses at much. I recently was given a can of asparagus, prior to the season starting, because this well meaning person knew how much of “an asparagus nut” I was. Well, quite. A nut but not idiotic. And yes, it is still foul stuff, still a travesty of the fresh product but OK for my neighbour’s compost heap.

I’ve written elsewhere on this site about how to make real asparagus quiche, soup and risotto so this short post is about how to put together an authentic Italian frittata using asparagus. If you can make an omelette, forget what you know about omelettes. You do see writers who say that a frittata is an Italian omelette and it makes me livid. OK, they are both eggs but the methods are different, not to mention that an omelette is folded or rolled and a frittata is flat. An omelette is made rapidly, keeping the eggs moving and is over in the blink of an eye. I love Margaret Costa’s description in her Four Seasons Cookery Book of being tutored in the art of omelette making by Monsieur Laplanche, then chef des cuisines at the London Savoy; he had been taught as a commis to cook on the back ring of a gas cooker with the naked flame in front of the pan, under his wrist. Don’t try this at home, but it gives you an idea of how rapidly the eggs should be cooked for a French omelette.

So having said all that, for this recipe, forget it all (although I implore you to find a copy of Mrs Costa’s book – it is captivating) as a frittata is approached differently. It is slow cooked and to finish it, you can either flip it like a pancake or whip it under the grill for a brief moment. Because I use a heavy Le Creuset pan for this, I have proven to myself that my wrists are too feeble to flip a frittata so despite what my Italian friends do, I use the grill method, but you do have to watch it like a hawk. I am a massive fail as well when it comes to the “slide in onto a plate and flip it over” method which if you want to attempt, that is what You Tube is for. If it ends up on the floor, don’t blame me.

FRITTATE DI ASPARAGI

Print Recipe

Serves: 2 Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

200g fresh English asparagus (a bit more or less won’t matter too much)
4 large eggs
50g grated Parmesan cheese (no, supermarket “cheddar” won’t do)
30g unsalted butter
salt and freshly milled black pepper
A heavy based frying pan: I use a Le Creuset with a top diameter of 20 cms

Instructions

Heat your grill

Trim the asparagus and cut into 1 - 1.5 cm pieces, keeping the tips whole

Rinse and blanche in boiling water for 2 minutes

Drain thoroughly, patting gently dry with lots of kitchen paper

Beat the eggs in a bowl (I use a large Pyrex jug) until whites and yolks are well blended

Add the asparagus, cheese, salt and pepper (about 5 twists of the mill)

Melt the butter in the frying pan, over a medium heat

When the butter foams but is not coloured, add the egg mixture

Turn the heat down as low as possible and let the mixture set and thicken

This might take up to about ten or twelve minutes but don’t wander off and read the paper; it needs a close eye kept to prevent browning

When the top is still runny but the very edges look set, whip it under a hot grill for about 30 seconds, but again watch it like a hawk: it must not brown

Loosen the frittata from the pan using a spatula and slide onto a warm plate

Cut into wedges and serve warm, not hot, with a green salad

Notes

The frittata in the picture is a bit less puffy than normal as I only had three eggs. Still tasted good, though. We like to sprinkle a bit more Parmesan over the cooked frittata and they also work cold and travel well for picnics or packed lunches. They can also be adapted to use whatever you have around; I like to use up the ends of whole salami or chorizo, finely sliced red pepper, left over griddled courgettes or small cubes of gorgonzola which melt wonderfully into the eggy mixture. Cold and cut into small cubes, frittate are excellent stuzzichini, too

May 1, 2017

I was always an enthusiastic cook, but I was a wasteful and lazy cook. Leftover broccoli? In the bin, because I couldn’t be bothered to work out what I could do with it. Now I know differently and the purpose of my blog is to share with you (and, I hope, learn from you all) how it is perfectly possible to keep a good table (to use my mother’s phrase), be watchful of cost and buy in keeping with my conscience. Oh and food and eating should be FUN! In the UK, we seem to have become a but earnest and holier-than-thou about food and whilst I agree that there are few things more important than the food you put in your body, for heaven’s sake, let’s have some fun and pleasure with food.