Taste

"Nowadays we are so used to getting food pre-prepared, ready to eat,that we hardly consider how it gets there.You order it over the phone or internet, or you open the tin and warm it through, or you take it out of the freezer and microwave it, and hey presto or “ding” should I say, there it is on your plate ready to eat. Even recipes are pretty foolproof, you could probably go from start to finish without tasting and the end result would be fine.
But that is not what we are after here. No, we are constructing something from scratch, so taste everything all the way through. Watch how the flavours change, how the stock overpowers everything at the beginning but then mellows during cooking as the other flavours develop and come through.

And think about what you’re tasting, is it nice? Is it what you expected? Does it need something else? If it does you’ll know, you may not know what, but you will know that the taste is not quite right. Here is where I experiment. I’ll take a spoonful and add a little bit to that spoonful, say yoghurt perhaps or lemon juice or some feta cheese. Then I’ll taste that and if it works – fine, if not I still have my soup. This way you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t, and gather a whole lot of ideas that work (or don’t) for the future."

from When I’m bored I make Soup

I have become a bit obsessed with tv chefs lately. Or not them as such but their behaviour. To be specific - whether they taste things as they go along. I have noticed that some do and some don’t. Or do they, as Nicola suggested try things but then that bit is just cut out, hmmmm . . .

Because you have to taste as you go along don’t you? I taste everything, including things I shouldn’t like food my children have touched or some more disgusting things (the cheese sandwich found in a skip (dumpster), comes to mind but is best forgotten!). But does everybody, have recipes become so precise and predictable that tasting and adjusting are no longer required ?

I have noticed that the chefs I like to watch, from Rachel Allen through to Nigella and Jamie Oliver do taste as they go along but that is probably part of their appeal, they cook like I do or rather I would like to cook like they do. Having noticed that leaves me wondering even more about all the other chefs . . .


Perhaps I need to get out more.

A big pan of Pumpkin soup

It is late in the evening. You have just returned from a few days away, been picked up at the airport and have not had time for anything to eat on the way. So what is it you want? Well something easy and quick of course, but if you are anything like me, after a few restaurant meals what you really crave is some comforting home cooking. Such a thing happened to Nicola recently on her return from Christchurch after delivering our eldest to university. In our house there is nothing more comforting and homely than pumpkin soup. So to the freezer we went, but disaster! - there was none. An alternative was found, digestive biscuits and philadelphia cheese if I remember rightly but now a couple of weeks later our first pumpkin is ready in the garden so time to restock the freezer. I say "pumpkin" but actually it is an Australian Blue Squash which happens to be similar. Having been brought up in Scotland where we only ever saw pumpkins proper for a few days at halloween, the only other squash ever seen were butternut squash at ASDA which are orange as well. So I tend to call all squashes pumpkins. To be honest I don't think it matters - I'll make soup with whatever comes my way and just adjust the other ingredients to suit, this is home cooking after all.

Home cooking, not restaurant cooking, the two styles are different but equally valid and each has its own strengths and weaknesses.This is important because once we leave home we learn cookery from chefs, and great though they are, they are professionals and work in professional kitchens. Every restaurant has a different style, yes but within that restaurant you know what you are going to get. The chefs have all the ingredients in front of them, their ovens are on all the time, the dishes are portion controlled and timed and hence reproducible so that you enjoy what eat without waiting forever and at the end of it all the owners make a profit and the restaurant is still there next time you go out. You only have to watch Hell's Kitchen or the contestants on Masterchef crumbling when placed in a professional kitchen to see what it is really like. My teenagers may disagree but my home is not a restaurant. It is a place of creativity where I cook with what I have in front of me, what the weather is like and by how I feel that day. It is a place of experimentation and of learning, sometimes by choice and sometimes forced upon me, as in when I add too much black pepper or the chillies turn out to be hotter than expected. Suddenly I have a choice, eat it anyway and sweat it out or fix it somehow (drink more beer perhaps or add something cooling like coconut milk or cucumber). This is where new recipes come from of course, running with an idea that just pops into your head, or having to fix a mistake now because what you have cooked is all you have and time is running out.

Because of this, I find I rarely cook the same soup twice. I have my favourites of course but even these will change slightly depending on how I feel at the time. The pumpkin soup I made today came from this recipe but I added ginger and thyme to it as it cooked. The result is a flavoursome but plain soup which is perfect for freezing in quantity because you can add other things to each portion when you defrost it, roast tomato sauce perhaps or today it was coconut milk and lemongrass.

Home cooking - something to be celebrated.

Books

I love cookery books but they also frustrate me. Being a visual person the pictures always catch my eye first and draw me in, but then the words often disappoint. Sometimes all you want to do is look up a quick recipe and get on with making it and there are books for that but I want more. I want a book I can lie in bed and read. I want to know who wrote the book, why they cooked this or that and who for, I want vision, I want to be inspired to do what they do, but in my own way. It seems to me that cookery books have been written the same way, to the same formula forever. Introduction, a list of store cupboard ingredients, basic utensils . . . . and so on. You know, when I get home with my shiny new book I don't want any of that. What I want to do is to open my pantry, take out what I have and just start cooking right then and there. This can only be accomplished with understanding - by knowing why things are done in a certain way, and yet most recipes just tell you what do without explanation. And this goes further - some of the instructions have been repeated unchanged for years. I myself have never salted and drained courgette or aubergine before use and I think with modern varieties it is unnecessary, yet it appears over and over again. If a book does need a list of knives to buy, then put it at the back. If I need to, I'll find it ; but don't stifle my enthusiasm before I get to pick up so much as an an onion. We mostly all have an eclectic mix of pans already so I'll be using the one at the front of the cupboard not rushing off to buy the one with the authors name on it ( that will go on a list for my birthday).

So character and directness, thats what I want, a book with a personality that reflects what's inside.

My favourite book is of course Appetite by Nigel Slater. It is not perfect by what I have just written but it inspired me from the first page with it's different approach.

So what is your favourite?

Thinking and learning

Thursday 8.22am

Have you ever watched a cat in a new home or a kitten venturing out for the first time? There will always be one that heads straight out of the door and disappears but most will explore their immediate surroundings thoroughly before venturing further. And when doing this they will constantly return to touch base, exploring it once more to refamiliarise themselves before venturing further. This of course is a method of learning, And having thought about it, it is the way I learn. And having thought further about it, I think it is a method that will work for anybody.

If you have read a few of my recipes (here on this blog of course and also more here) you will probably have noticed that they tend to follow a pattern. This basic recipe, based upon Nadine Abensur's Carrot and Almond soup from Cranks Fast Food, is my home ground, the place where I will go exploring from and where I always return to. To know this home ground thoroughly means understanding it. You have to know why you are adding a potato or why some things go in at the beginning and others at the end. To understand things I like to think about it until I can distill out the basic components, and with soup these boil down to just three things - the main ingredient, the base and the thickening.

Now perhaps I have read the wrong books, but most authors seem to assume that you know this stuff already, so as an exercise I have written a book myself exploring and explaining these ideas. And seeing as the whole world is out there, just a mouse click away I have published it as well. It has taken while to get it right but at long last it is, - you can download the whole book as a pdf file for free (either the same as the printed version if you have a fast connection and time to wait or a version with smaller pictures that will download faster) or order the printed version for just the cost of printing and postage.

Well that's my Christmas presents sorted, what's next?

When I'm bored I make soup - the book

Sunday 7.42am

When I'm bored I make soup - the book

There are two main themes that run through my life. One is simplicity, the second is an intense curiosity. About everything.

Having got to here you probably share this curiosity, so let me explain further. Like most people I like to eat, and because I like to eat I also like to cook. Now I learnt to cook the usual amateur way, from my mother when little and then from various recipes after I left home. But have you ever wondered why certain recipes work and others don't? Why different foods are prepared in certain ways? Why some things go together better than others? I certainly have and for me making soup has become a way of exploring these themes, an artists sketch book if you like, of ideas.

And then one day it occurred to me that to make soup you only have to consider three things, three basic elements or building blocks that depending on what you use can make any soup at all. This was quite a revelation to me and has enabled me to break away from recipes and cook creatively, from scratch. The three elements are - the main ingredient, the base and the thickening. Thats it, everything flows from here.

An exploration of these three things, along with some recipes forms my book (it also explains why my recipes are written as they are). The recipes are all already on one of my blogs somewhere but the method is not. It is so simple that a beginner can quickly understand what they are doing and create something delicious and yet allows endless variation and exploration if you can already cook. You can read it online or download it here, it is entirely free and I am happy for you to print any of it out, email it, pass it onto your friends or whatever. And although you are under no obligation to do so, it would be nice if you credit me or link back to here.

Alternatively, if ebooks are not for you or you would just like a hard copy instead you can purchase one here.

As I write my book is a featured document on scribed - one that the editors consider to be of "high quality and to have added significant value to their collection of documents."

A recent reader has commented -

" awesome book (and blog)! the recipes are simple and easy to learn and follow.
thanks so much for sharing! "




Have a look, enjoy.


peter