Spooning with Rosie
Garlic Fried Prawns
6 garlic cloves
1 fresh chilli
a big knob of butter
12 large king prawns
1 glass of white wine or rosé
To cook the prawns, heat the butter in a pan, peel and finely chop the garlic and chilli and throw them into the pan. Allow them to fry long enough to smell but not turn brown; a few minutes. Add the prawns and then the wine, so that they have just enough time to turn from translucent to pinky-white, and the alcohol from the wine has had time to evaporate. You will need to turn over the large prawns so that each side gets well cooked. It will take 3 to 5 minutes. Then take off the heat. Roll up your sleeves, and enjoy the mess.
Vietnamese Salad with Steak
For 2
This salad will always remind me of a summer date, in the early throes of romance. We’d been to a private view at my friend Piero’s gallery, and when we finally hailed a taxi back to Brixton it was much later than expected. Luckily for my date, I’d thought ahead: the fresh, crunchy flavours of the Vietnamese salad had been marinating all afternoon, and so we were at the table in minutes, devouring this awesome Asian feast.
I mix and match the salad ingredients according to my mood: sometimes heavy on the carrots, sometimes lighter on the coriander. With noodles. With poached chicken pieces. It’s an endlessly evolving prototype, so feel free to experiment. Whatever you decide on, this dish is full of colour and texture and abundance and is really impressive.
I cannot stress enough how much I love my mandolin slicer. It makes everything that comes under its knife look seriously svelte. And where a grater releases a lot of the juices, a mandolin is sharp enough to leave the vegetables unbruised. There are few things that are imperative in a kitchen, but I would say that the mandolin is one. So…
The Salad
4 medium carrots
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
3 spring onions
3 tablespoons slightly salted peanuts
a big handful of fresh coriander
a big handful of fresh mint
juice of 1 lime
2 teaspoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons peanut oil
21/2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 dessertspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
With a mandolin slicer on the fine setting, slice the peeled carrots over a nice big salad bowl. Slice the peppers and spring onions lengthways into matching shards. If you have a Magimix, pulse the peanuts to crumbs, but not dust. I usually put them into a plastic bag and attack them with a rolling pin, which can look a little crazed if someone unexpected finds their way into the kitchen. Finely chop the herbs and then mix everything together in the bowl with your hands. Finally mix up the remaining ingredients with a fork and pour over your salad.
The Steak
2 fillet steaks, weighing about 180g each
5 tablespoons soy sauce
freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon soya paste (which can be bought at Korean and Japanese supermarkets: see My Favourite Places to Eat, Drink & Shop, page 338)
2 tablespoons peanut oil
Now for the steak: first, don’t hold back on the price, especially if you like it rare, because if it is not good quality it will be tough. Although I don’t advocate big spending, it really is worth it here. Marinate the steaks in 3 tablespoons of the soy sauce and lots of black pepper for an hour at the least. Meanwhile, thoroughly mix the remaining soy sauce with the soya paste. This will be the accompanying dipping sauce for rare steaks.
In a heavy-bottomed pan, heat the oil so that it is piping hot. Add the steaks and turn down to a medium heat. Fry them for just long enough so that they are sealed and browning in parts, which will be about 4 minutes on the first side. Flip and do the same on the other side, adding any leftover soy sauce to the pan. For rare steak, when you press it, it should feel like the flesh between your thumb and index finger, when spanned and relaxed. Remove quickly from the pan, and serve up with the salad as a vibrant feast.
Pyrenean Duck with Champ
For 2
The fattiness of a duck breast is amazing, and anyone who removes it is insane. The best duck I have ever eaten was with Pat, in the heart of the Gers. We were staying at his parents’ beautiful home, in the shadow of the Pyrenees. They fried it on their open fire and we all huddled around to ward off the January frosts. It was a rare and wonderful moment. The skin of the bird became sweet and crisp, but the flesh was still rare and tender. Sheer indulgence, and possibly the best way to eat this game.
In this recipe, the aim is to have really crisp skin on top and tender, rare flesh underneath. When you carve the breasts, a fair amount of juice will run out. Catch this, and pour over the champ after plating it all up. This meal is great for real meat lovers, with wonderfully conventional tastes. I tested the recipe out on the lovely Miranda and Mr Smiley, and even converted him to the merits of fruit with meat, so was very satisfied indeed. The fruit against the tangy champ is yet another great dynamic on the plate. Serve with a little broccoli or wilted spinach leaves or green beans.
The Champ
500g King Edward potatoes, or any other British floury variety
6 spring onions
50g butter
100ml double cream
freshly ground black pepper
Maldon sea salt
Peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters. Place in a large saucepan of water and bring to the boil. Put a lid on top, and simmer on a medium heat until they slip off a sharp knife (up to half an hour). In the meantime, finely chop the spring onions, using as much of the green parts as you can. Drain the potatoes and return them to the pan. Add the butter and the cream. Mash thoroughly, until creamy and smooth, then season with pepper and salt. Champ is much more velvety than its English brother mash, so really put some elbow grease into it. You could even use a hand-held whisk. Finally, add the spring onions.
The Duck
2 duck breasts
50g butter
1 nectarine
Now for the breasts: score the skins so that you go almost as deep as the flesh. Using a griddle pan, if you have one, heat the butter on a medium to high heat so that it is near to smoking. Attentively place the duck in the pan, skin side down. This will create some serious spitting. Fry for 10 minutes, or until the skin is beginning to brown and become crispy, then turn the breasts over. Continue to cook, allowing all the fat to melt out of the bird, while finely slicing the nectarine. Once the breasts have had another 5 minutes and they are to your taste (like steak, it is up to you how rare you want them – for me, the bloodier the better), remove and let them relax on a chopping board. Add the sliced nectarine to the pan, so it cooks in the duck juices. Quickly pan-fry for a few minutes, then with a heavy fork mash it a little so that it is almost like a chutney. Carve the duck into morsels and pile the champ on to the plate, with the nectarine alongside.
A Ceviche Fish-off with Corona & Guacamole & Tomato Salsa
For 2
I’m planning a fish-off with Raf. He’s going to cook tuna marinated in grapefruit juice and soy sauce, and I’m seducing him with ceviche and Corona. Do eat it with beer, though: I’ve made the mistake of eating this with red wine, and spent a good few minutes hopping around trying to assuage the heat of the chillies.
Most famously from Peru, ceviche is seafood marinated in lime juice. You can use any white fish or shellfish: scallops, prawns, squid, sea bass, cod and so on. Partially cooked by the lime, it’s just a small step from sushi, and therefore exceedingly enticing for fish fanatics. The chilli heat is tempered by the tender fish that will melt in your sizzling mouth. The first time I made this dish, it really did blow my mind.
The flavours in the fish are fresh and zesty and chilli hot, and suit equally fresh vegetables like this salsa and guacamole. You’ll need to buy a sack of limes. You have been warned! The ceviche and salsa can be served with fried plantain, pitta, crispy tortilla chips or with the corn cakes in Dawn Chorus (on page 33). I like the pic’n’mix style – an array of little bowls to get entangled over. But of course, guacamole is one of those favourite foods that everyone loves, especially if there’s a big bowl of it in the middle of a table of waiting and drinking friends. I often make this to whet everyone’s appetite, whether having an Americas meal or not.
The Ceviche
12 tiger prawns
200g sea bass or sea bream
1 fleshy index-finger-sized chilli
2 generous handfuls of fresh coriander
6 limes
Start with the ceviche, as it needs time to marinate. You need to prepare your fish carefully, so with a very sharp knife, cut down the back of the prawns and remove the black string. Strip them of their legs and shells, carefully removing the head. Take the skin off the fish and cut into slivers about 1cm wide. Place the seafood and fish in a freezer bag. Finely chop the chilli and coriander, and add this to the bag. Squeeze in the limes and give it all a really good mix around. Tie up the bag and leave to marinate in the fridge, sitting in a bowl, for a couple of hours.
The Guacamole
2 garlic cloves
2 really ripe avocados
3 cherry tomatoes
juice of 3 limes
1 fleshy index-finger-sized chilli, with seeds
1/2 red onion
a small handful of fresh coriander
Maldon sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
Now for the guacamole. If you have a hand-held blender this would come in very handy. (If not, a pestle and mortar is fine.) Peel the garlic and place in a tall-sided bowl or jug. Now stone the avocados (I do this by halving the fruit then flailing a large knife into the stone, which will twist the whole thing out – precarious but effective) and scoop the bright green flesh into the bowl. Chuck in the tomatoes, and squeeze in the lime juice. Then add the chopped chilli, peeled and diced onion and roughly chopped coriander, and give it a good pulsing with the blender. Season after tasting.
The Tomato Salsa
1/2 cucumber
4 big tomatoes
3 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
Maldon sea salt
Lastly the salsa. Partly peel the cucumber, halve it lengthways and then deseed by incising either side of the seeds and scooping them out with a teaspoon. Deseed the tomatoes. Chop both finely into little cubes, peel and finely chop the garlic, and put everything into a bowl. Dress with the olive oil and season.
Frozen Berries & Grapes
For 2
This was Doctor Helen’s idea. It’s brilliant, and perfect for sharing, cuddled up on the sofa with your sweetheart. It is exactly as it says, and so couldn’t be easier. The frozen fruits come out like little bullets of sorbet, perfect for grappling over after a good feed.
berries of your choice
Choose your berries (I would suggest green grapes and blueberries, and raspberries are great too, all in season during the summer) and rinse them under a running tap. Dry them with some kitchen towel or a clean linen drying-up cloth. Leave them in a Tupperware box for at least 2 hours in the freezer, and there waiting, with no effort, are your mini sorbet jewels.
Sweet Pastry Swirls
Makes about 15 sweets
Using up off-cuts of pastry is something I end up doing a lot. It’s my family thriftiness, where all wastage was rehashed into the next meal, fed to the chickens or dogs, or put in the compost. It is a natural reflex. So if you have some leftover pastry, after making a tart, you are already halfway there. I’m cheating by calling it pudding, because it is really just something to munch on with coffee that will look effortless. In the shop I make these with cinnamon, to treat my special customers, a surprise nestling in the saucer of their cappuccino. You could also try spreading with a film of chocolate or jam – fig or quince is delicious. It is not that far from a fig roll, after all. You can really experiment.
off-cuts of pastry, about a handfu
some plain flour for rolling
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons warm full-fat milk
Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface so that it forms a long but not too wide sheet, about 10cm in width, and as long as you can make it. Create a paste by mixing the olive oil with the sugar and ground cinnamon. Add 1 tablespoon of milk to the paste to loosen it. With a palette knife, spread this evenly over the pastry. Using a pastry brush, dab some of the remaining milk along one side of the pastry sheet. Now roll it from the opposite side to create a long thin sausage. It should seal where you have dabbed it with milk when pressed. Paint the top of the sausage with the rest of the milk. Slice into 2.5cm pieces, and bake on the lined baking tray for 10 minutes, or until the pastry colours. Remove from the tray to cool, and serve with good coffee.
Affogato
For 2
This is a great way of doing something super stylish with zero effort. Perfect, therefore, for a date. It is, quite simply, ice cream drowned in espresso. There is something amazing about the contrasts of hot and bitter with ice cold and sweet. It throws your tastebuds into confusion. The added brilliance is that you can really experiment with the ice cream flavours here, though I would avoid fruit ice creams. Anything nutty works really well with the espresso. My favourite is Amaretto, but Jude’s (www.judes.co.uk) do an awesome butterscotch one too that is delicious here and perfectly sweetens the coffee.
2 small strong cups of espresso coffee (I use Molinari because it’s what I serve up at Rosie’s)
4 balls of good-quality ice cream
Boil the kettle to make a strong pot of coffee, like espresso, pouring over the water and letting the mountain of coffee settle until it can be easily plunged. You can leave it to sit for 10 minutes or more. The stronger the better, as it will get the heart racing. Meanwhile, bring the ice cream out of the freezer so it has time to soften enough for you to scoop it out. I sometimes serve this in my little Pyrex coffee cups, which I bought in France at a brocante. Put a couple of scoops in each coffee cup and bring to the table with the cafetière. Pour over an espresso-sized amount of coffee, or one part coffee to one part ice cream. Eat sooner than immediately.
Lemon Tart
For 2 with leftovers
My first experience with a serious lemon tart was in Toulouse on a mini-break. The boy in question and I had just shared a sturdy cassoulet by the cathedral, and were walking through the back streets when we stumbled on a beautiful teashop. This idyll was a heavenly Alice in Wonderland boudoir, with cakes piled high on tiered stands, and chic, sleek, gossiping French women. My eyes were on stalks and we shared the most delicious lemon tart. So delicious that it famously caused a stir in his trousers and it has been our joke ever since.
Here is my re-creation. It’s something to do with the contrast of the sweet pastry and sharp custard that does it, making your jaw ache with longing for more and more citrus custard. And it being a classic pudding means that pretty much anyone you are entertaining will fancy a slice. This sunny tart goes down a treat at Rosie’s because it’s just so perfectly tangy.
The Pastry
100g plain flour, plus extra for rolling
25g caster sugar
50g fridge-cold unsalted butter
1 medium free-range egg yolk (keep the white for meringues)
For the pastry, sift the flour and sugar together into a large bowl, and chop the butter into this. Quickly and with cold dry hands, rub in the fat until it looks like damp breadcrumbs. Separate the egg and throw the yolk into the pastry mix. With a knife, cut through the mixture to combine into a dough ball. You may need a little extra cold water to fully draw it together.
On a floured surface, roll out the pastry to fit a loose-bottomed rectangular flan tin measuring about 8 × 23cm. Sweet pastry, or pâte sucrée, is stickier than the average shortcrust, so make sure you have plenty of flour to hand. Then roll it over the tin and push in the edges, being careful not to split the pastry. Roll the pin over the tart tin to cut off any excess pastry (which you can keep aside for pastry swirls, see 69), and place in the freezer for half an hour.
Meanwhile, heat the oven to 200°C/Gas 6. When the oven is piping hot, and the pastry is really cold, you are ready to blind bake. Line the pastry tin with greased paper or tinfoil, and scatter with baking beans or dried chickpeas. Place in the oven for 10 minutes, or until the edges are beginning to brown. Keep a close eye on it. Remove the baking beans and lining paper and bake for a further couple of minutes to dry out the base. Remove from the oven to cool while you make the lemon custard filling. Keep the oven on, but reduce the temperature to 180°C/Gas 4.
The Lemon Filling
2 lemons
2 medium free-range egg yolks
2 medium free-range eggs
90g sugar (caster or icing sugar)
150ml double cream, plus a little extra for serving if you like
For the lemon custard, grate the lemon zest and combine with the egg yolks and eggs. Sift in the sugar and then add the cream. Lastly mix in the juice of the lemons. Return the pastry case to the oven shelf, and pour the filling in now. That way you can’t spill it over the edge of the pastry case in transit. Bake for about half an hour, or until the top has just stopped wobbling.
Bunty’s Brandy & Oranges
For 2
My grandmother Bunty is a great cook too. When people knew little of Mediterranean food in the 1950s and 1960s, she was churning out moussaka and pasta for her large and extended family. This dish is her moniker. Though perhaps it’s brandy that is her signature really. Brought up in France, she has a tipple in her coffee every morning to jump-start her day. The brandy is a good way to inject a little life into your lover, as it has a tendency to make the heart rather palpitate.
The key to this simple dish, apart from being utterly delicious and full of kick, is in the presentation: either laying the slivers of orange out flat on a pretty, decorated serving plate, or piling them up in coloured glasses or flutes with a brandy and juice pool enticing you at the bottom.
4 oranges (I sometimes use blood oranges)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
6 tablespoons water
8 tablespoons brandy
With a very sharp serrated knife, peel the oranges, removing all the pith. Slice them finely into roundels and arrange, as you will serve them, either in a beautiful bowl or a couple of flutes, catching the orange juice.
In a small saucepan, make a caramel syrup with the sugar, water and excess orange juice. Warm this on a low heat to reduce. It should begin to darken and thicken. When this has just turned a golden brown colour, but before it burns, pour the brandy over the oranges, and then this syrup. You can do all of this in advance. Resist serving with cream, as it curdles with the juice of the fruit. In winter, adding a cinnamon stick to the syrup will add warmth, while in summer you could add a sprig of mint.
FEASTING FIESTAS
I love dinner parties. Plotting, inviting, shopping, scrubbing, cooking…and devising the menu to fit my hatching plan: are we having a drawn-out dinner with red wine and kitchen dancing, and lots of courses, or are we having an impressive but light meal before going out like an army of ravers? And then, have we got enough chairs? I usually over-invite and end up with a ram of people around a small table. And then there is the mixing of friends, old and new. I love the melting pot.
My parents were always feeding people, beautifully, on a shoestring. Flowers crept in from the garden, chard and borage picked from the vegetable patch. My dad polished candlesticks, with Jimmy Cliff records playing in the background. As they sat down to eat, I’d sit in the dark at the top of the stairs and eavesdrop on all the family secrets. And when we were a little older, my brother Olly and I were included in these feasts of gratin, salmon and hollandaise.
My dinners are a little more informal than my parents’. I expect people to help themselves and clear the plates and really get stuck in. I probably cook more laid-back food, and things are always a bit makeshift, and quite often I forget some ingredients and have to improvise. When Alice and I lived together in a tiny little flat above a fishmonger, with no natural light, we managed to feed a stream of friends, and all around our glass-topped desk. And we were constantly broke too, so it was a thrifty but consistently exuberant business.
Esme’s Hot Wings, Daddy’s Jamaican Ackee & Saltfish, Fried Plantain & Coconut Coleslaw
For 8
My dad had a few Jamaican girlfriends in his youth, before he met my mum. He picked up this dish too, ackee and saltfish. It’s one of my all-time far-out favourites. When I moved to London with him, aged eighteen, I’d beg him to make this, whenever we were having Peckham dinner parties. Ackee is a delicate yellow fruit that feels a little like a tender egg yolk, and looks brainy. The fish is salted to preserve it, like the Spanish bacalao, and is the perfect wedding to the ackee. And of course, the ingredients are everywhere in abundance in Brixton market.
Esme, of Esme’s hot wings, is the wonderful Jamaican lady who runs an organic vegetable shop opposite mine in the market. She’s a real mum, and has always looked after me. This is her spicy marinade. The reason I started making hot wings is that I’m a horror, and love the odd late-night takeaway. My glamorous funny friend Zezi and I have been known to devour more than a box each, after a night out. So I figured it was better for me to learn to make them for myself than to gorge in such a rotten way. These hot wings are good for a summer picnic too.
Esme’s Hot Wings
3 fresh plump tomatoes
1 medium onion
2 large chillies
juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon mild curry powder
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon soy sauce
3 teaspoons caster sugar
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 tablespoons self-raising flour
2 teaspoons table salt