Crumbs on the Table -- stories about food

California cooking: artichoke tart, and artichoke steamed

June 26, 2019 2 Comments

California cuisine seems to be enjoying renewed attention in the UK, not only for its multicultural fusion-cooking, but for its creativity with seasonal, interesting produce – thanks no doubt to our current interests in more adventurous vegetable cookery.

When I think of ‘California cooking’, I instantly think of what grows in that immensely varied landscape with its huge range of microclimates — and of my own salad days playing with it all when I cooked in Berkeley and Palo Alto, and had a Meyer lemon and fig tree in my garden. Almonds, avocados, artichokes, garlic… plums, grapes, boysenberries, loganberries… cornsalad, chervil, sorrel, nasturtiums….

And not just a rainbow of vegetables, fruits, herbs and edible flowers, but goats-milk cheeses, organic lamb, wild quail, fish from the Pacific…. We had salads most days, and grilled everything from baby leeks to oysters over mesquite perfumed with fennel and bay. It seemed there were endless possibilities to produce anything under that almost endless sun, and to do almost anything with it. It was enough to give any young cook the fever. [Read More…]

Three-layer lemon curd cake with poppyseed buttercream

April 20, 2019 Leave a Comment

This is such a beautiful cake for a celebration, or for afternoon tea in the garden (and oh joy! It’s warm enough for that here in Cambridgeshire this Easter weekend). It’s also great in winter, come to that, when lemons are at their best.

A tender, fine-crumbed, all-butter yellow cake is layered with homemade lemon curd that is properly thick and lemony. It’s then frosted with an easy buttercream icing generously speckled with poppyseeds. The seeds cut the sweetness to make it just right, not icky-sweet, as buttercream icing can be — and the black and white in contrast also look gorgeous.

Decorating with fresh edible flowers is such a pretty and easy way to achieve something delightfully natural and festive (see a list of edible flowers here). If you feel so inclined, you can add some piped swirls and stars: no advanced piping skills needed, just a fairly steady hand, a piping bag, and a large star-tip.

This 1-2-3-4 cake is the best yellow cake I know, with superb flavour and texture. It’s similar to a classic British sponge, but with a better flavour, in my humble, and a finer crumb — and it stays fresh longer. Yes, it’s not quite as easy to whip up as the eggs are beaten separately, but this, along with using soft “00” flour (or cake flour), is what makes it so wonderfully light. [Read More…]

Mina’s Napoli sea bream with pink peppercorns, coriander seeds and rosemary

April 4, 2019 1 Comment

This is an excitingly delicious and very easy way to cook fish that we discovered on a birthday trip to Naples, and I believe it to be a rarity. Mina, the gentle woman who cooked it for us, told us with quiet pride, “It’s my creation.” Pink peppercorns, coriander seeds and fresh rosemary are liberally scattered over beautiful, fresh bream, and baked with a drizzle of fine olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt. It’s visually exciting, too. The colours alone are so beautiful it’s a joy to cook and eat.

You might expect this quantity of assertive spice and herb to overpower the fish (or crack a tooth), but to our surprise, the whole seeds toasted to a delightful mellowness that added a gorgeous flavour and delicate crunch to the skin of the fish, and the rosemary was the perfect piney partner to them.

I would not have thought to use these seasonings in combination, nor dared to use them in such quantity with fish, had I not tasted Mina’s signature dish. Since then I’ve cooked it for family and friends with confident gusto, and everyone has absolutely loved it and asked for the recipe.

NB: If you have a tree-nut allergy or cook for anyone who does, please read more about pink peppercorns below, as they have been known to cause reactions in people who can’t eat cashews, pistachios or mango.

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The Chez Panisse leek and goat cheese tart: a vegetable with history, and a tart that symbolises a revolution

March 1, 2019 Leave a Comment

This is one of the recipes I make most from my time cooking at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, back in the ’eighties. It’s been one of my favourite things to eat and make ever since. This beautiful tart always surprises, always delights. Silky sautéed leeks, salty creamy goat cheese, and crisp buttery puff-pastry (I give a recipe here for making puff pastry from scratch, though you don’t have to): all the elements are just right for each other. It’s a masterly composition.

Skip to recipes It’s one of many gems to be found in the Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook, published in 1982. My precious first edition is dog-eared, stained and scribbled on, and far more valuable to me for all that wear and tear. Leafing through it is like turning the pages of an old photo album and remembering some of the best times I’ve had with people around a table. Every time I’ve made this tart it’s been an occasion, not just a meal, inspiring rapturous amazement at what the humble leek is capable of. This tart defamiliarizes something we think we know, and makes us appreciate it anew.

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Ciambelline al vino: red wine and aniseed biscuits

January 23, 2019 Leave a Comment

These are one of my most memorable culinary discoveries of last year, and one of the best cookies I’ve had in a lifetime (which is saying something — just ask my thighs). Crunchy, just-sweet, and deliciously fragrant, ciambelline al vino (‘little rings of wine’) have a long tradition in the regions of Italy from Rome to Tuscany, where they have been made for generations from a few ingredients that are plentiful, cheap and often home-produced: namely wine, olive oil and aniseed or fennel seed. They are made very differently from the more familiar cantuccini and other biscotti, but they fill a similar niche as they too are versatile keeping-biscuits designed to be enjoyed with something drinkable.

The alchemy of such simple yet characterful ingredients produces a flavour so complex, deep and satisfying it is almost indecent. Whether you dip them in wine as the locals do to finish a meal, or crumble one with an espresso to start (or re-start) the day, I honestly don’t think it’s possible to avoid a transcendent moment. And strange as it might sound for something so more-ish, one is so good, that one is good enough. It takes a little time to snap and crunch through a single bijou ring, and then there are all those little shimmers of sugar and sweet herbal seeds to savour…. I may be wrong, but I think these biscuits are unlikely to be your ruin, though they are undeniably addictive, especially as a batch keeps beautifully for many days; and in fact their aniseed flavour develops over time. [Read More…]

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