The First-Time Cook

Melon or Figs with Parma Ham

This is one of summer and autumn’s most perfect combinations. The key is learning to choose ripe fragrant fruit. In midsummer it is the melon you should go for, whilst in the autumn the fig reigns supreme. Although you may occasionally find a magnificent melon in midwinter, it is rare, so ignore temptation in the colder months.

For this you are looking for an orange-fleshed melon, in other words a cantaloupe or charentais melon. The paler, white/green-fleshed varieties have a duller taste – not to be sneezed at, but less of a success with salty Parma ham. Use your nose. A ripe melon will smell fragrant and sweet. Press the stalk end gently: if it gives slightly then you are probably on to a winner, but double-check that there are no soft squidgy patches indicating over-ripeness or a mouldy taint. One large melon will be enough for four people.

Ripe figs are tender and fairly soft. Pick them out carefully, avoiding any that are showing patches of brown. Handle them reverently, and place them side by side in a paper bag, settling the bag on top of the rest of your purchases as ripe figs are easily squashed. One or two figs per person is fine.

To serve the melon, cut into eight wedges. Scrape out the seeds and discard. Arrange the slices on individual plates and drape two or three thin slices of Parma ham (or jamón serrano) over each serving.

With the figs, nip the hard stalk tip off each one, then quarter, cutting down towards the base, but stopping just short of it, so that the quarters stay together. Splay them out slightly like the petals of a flower. Place on individual plates, and arrange two or three thin slices of Parma ham (or jamón serrano) alongside them on each plate.

Grilled Goat’s Cheese Salad

Now something of a bistro classic, this is still a great way to start a meal, but does require a brief spell of last-minute work in the kitchen. Keep this to a minimum by preparing everything in advance, so that it’s all ready to go. Choose small drum-shaped goat’s cheeses for this – the sort with a soft, white rind.

For each person you will need a handful of mixed salad leaves (I favour a mix of rocket and spinach, but the choice is entirely yours), about 1/2 tablespoon of a good vinaigrette (see page 189), a 1/2 goat’s cheese, a small sprig of rosemary or parsley, a trace of oil (olive or sunflower) and some good (walnut) bread.

Preheat the grill thoroughly and line the grill rack with foil. Arrange the 1/2 cheese cut-side up on the foil. Brush the cut side with a little oil, then slide under the grill until browned. Meanwhile, toss the salad with the vinaigrette and divide between plates. Top each salad with a sizzling, browned 1/2 goat’s cheese and finish with a sprig of herb. Serve immediately with toast.

Guacamole

Quick and easy to prepare, guacamole makes a brilliant starter served with warmed pitta bread or tortilla crisps. Alternatively, use it as a sort of relish to serve with grilled fish or meat, or roll up with chicken and peppers in a ‘fajita’ (see page 108).

If you use the smaller Hass avocados you will need three, but with larger avocados two will suffice. The avocados must be ripe and buttery for guacamole.

Serves 4 as a starter

2 tomatoes

1–2 fresh red chillies

a handful of coriander leaves

2–3 ripe avocados

1/2 red onion, peeled and finely diced

juice of 1 lime

salt and pepper

1 Deseed and finely dice the tomatoes. Deseed (depending on strength) and finely chop the chillies. Chop the coriander. Skin the avocados, and remove the stones.

2 Working quickly, roughly mash the avocado flesh with a fork in a bowl, then mix in all the remaining ingredients. Taste and adjust flavouring, adding more lime if needed. Cover the surface with clingfilm to exclude as much air as possible, thus diminishing the inevitable browning of the avocado. Chill.

3 Bring back to room temperature before serving, then stir and scoop into a clean serving bowl.

Eggs

A decent meal is never far away if you have a stash of eggs in your kitchen. And if you think egg dishes are boring, you’d better revise your thinking right now. An omelette, for example, is an extraordinary vehicle for any number of other ingredients from the minimalism of a grating of Cheddar to the Mediterranean delights of a frittata. The humble fried egg is given a new lease of life with a spot of chilli and garlic, while scrambled eggs take to the fresh zing of citrus juice with consummate ease. One of the best of all egg and cheese combinations, needing just a little butter and flour for substance, is the wicked French gougère, a gorgeously indulgent, gooey cheese pastry that I often knock up for supper or a light lunch. The great thing about all of these simple dishes is that you can tailor them to your own requirements – once you get the basic principles sorted, the imagination can take over (even if it is only to the extent of using up the odds and ends left in the back of the fridge).

Buying Eggs

Eggs are no longer just mere eggs. Oh no. Nowadays there is a bewildering series of choices to be made when buying eggs: four-grain, barn-fresh, perchery, free-range, organic, Colombian this, and something else that. In fact, buying eggs is not half as confusing as it may first seem when you are facing the high-stacked egg shelves. Ultimately there are really only three critical choices to make: size, the well-being of the laying birds, and freshness.

Size

Eggs are sorted into size bands according to weight: extra large (more than 73g), large (63–73g), medium (53–63g) and small (less than 53g). All the eggs used in testing recipes for this book were large, so if you want to be sure of getting a good result with my recipes, these are the ones to go for. When you are using other cookbooks, particularly if you are baking cakes, it is worth checking the beginning of the book, where there should be a short section telling you what size eggs are to be used, as well as other useful basic cook’s information.

Happy Chooks

By the year 2012, the very worst space-depriving cages for egg-laying chickens will have been banned in the EU. About time too, for they are grim and deeply objectionable. Hard to believe that a nation of so-called ‘animal-lovers’ could have let them exist for so long. Meanwhile, unless you really don’t care one iota about animal welfare, pay the few extra pence to buy free-range eggs. The law guarantees that the chickens that lay these eggs at least have continuous daytime access to outdoor runs. In other words, they can peck around and stretch their wings, even if they don’t live in quite the idyllic circumstances one might imagine. Organic eggs are by definition free-range.

Freshness

Crack open a perfectly fresh egg on to a saucer and the yolk stands proud above the white, which clings thickly around it. In an older egg the yolk is flatter and flabbier, while the white is more liquid and spreads in a dilute fashion around the saucer. Luckily you don’t have to crack open each egg to ascertain its age. Look on the box instead, where you will find a ‘best before date’. The eggs were laid 21 days, in other words three weeks, before this date.

For some cooking methods (poaching in particular) ultra-freshness is critical, whilst for others (e.g. boiling) a small scrap of maturity is a positive boon.

Salmonella

The doom-laden spirit of salmonella contamination still lingers on in many people’s minds. The truth is that these days the chances of developing salmonella poisoning from semi-cooked or raw eggs is verging on negligible. That time-honoured hazard of falling under a bus is far, far more likely to happen to you than a spot of salmonella sickness.

All eggs that are stamped with the ‘lion’ symbol (which represents the Lion Quality Mark) come from flocks of chickens that have been vaccinated against salmonella, and are regularly checked to make doubly sure they are clean. If you are buying wonderful extra-free-range eggs from a local farmer, then the likelihood is that his or her flock has also been vaccinated, but if in any doubt, just ask.

Salmonella bacteria are killed by high temperatures, so eggs that are hard-boiled or cooked thoroughly in, say, a cake batter cannot possibly cause any harm. Many of the most delicious ways of cooking eggs, however, demand that they are semi-cooked, with the yolk still runny and this is where, in the very, very unlikely event that they are infected, the problem lies. For most healthy people, the worst that could happen is a nasty bout of stomach upset and diarrhoea, but it is not worth risking even this extraordinarily unlikely event with anyone susceptible to illness. In other words, the elderly, invalids, pregnant women and very young children should all steer clear of semi-cooked or raw eggs. End of scare stories.

The Importance of Colour

None. The colour of the eggshell is totally irrelevant and tells you nothing about the inside or the way it was produced. Even more surprisingly, the colour of the yolk isn’t much to go on, either. A deep, rich, almost orange hue might suggest a grain-rich diet for its mother hen, but it may just as well indicate the inclusion of dyestuffs in the feed. Appearances can be deceptive.

Storage

In an ideal world, you would keep your eggs in a cool larder, temperature around 15°C or less. Oh? You don’t have a cool larder where you live? How very awkward of you! You’ll just have to keep your eggs where most people store them: in the fridge. It’s the second best option and it’s done me fine for the past twenty something years, so I don’t think there’s any need for concern. Try to remember to get them out of the cold and into the warmth of the kitchen 15 minutes or so before cooking, particularly if you are boiling or poaching them – again, counsel of perfection, but easier to achieve than the cool larder.

Separating Eggs

Separating the yolk and white of an egg is essentially an easy process, but it may nonetheless take two or three attempts to get it right. So make sure that you have a couple of eggs in reserve, just in case. Fresher eggs (up to a week old) are easier to separate than older ones.

Before you start, gather together a large bowl to hold the whites (assuming you intend to whisk them after separating), and two smaller bowls. The first of the smaller bowls is for the yolks. The second is for the white of the egg that you are in the midst of separating, before you tip it into the larger bowl. Why do you need this extra bowl? Insurance. Just one small drop of fat in amongst the whites will be enough to prevent them whisking up properly. Yolks are very fatty. There is nothing more dismaying than successfully separating four eggs, and then breaking the yolk of the fifth so that it contaminates the whole lot. An infuriating waste of eggs and time. For the same reason, you should always make sure that both of the bowls for the whites are scrupulously clean before you begin, with no trace of grease.

1 Hold the egg comfortably in your hand, pointed end towards your thumb, rounded end towards your little finger (or vice versa), fingers wrapped around.

2 Tap the exposed side firmly against the edge of a bowl, cracking the shell. The skill here is to use enough force to crack the shell without actually smashing the whole egg. A bowl with a narrow edge is better than one with a thick rim.

3 Turn the egg cracked side upwards and ease the tips of both thumbs into the crack, pulling the two halves of the shell apart, over the bowl, so that the yolk settles neatly into one side, while some of the white falls out of the other into the bowl.

4 Gently tip the yolk from one half of the shell into the other, allowing the white to dribble out into the bowl. Two or three goes at this should be quite enough. Slide the yolk into a small bowl.

Whisking Egg Whites

Whisked egg whites are used to lighten cakes, mousses, soufflé omelettes and other dishes. The whisking process traps small bubbles of air within the egg whites to make a foam. The more you whisk, the thicker and firmer the foam. For cooking you need to whisk egg whites either to soft peak or firm peak stage (see overleaf). But it is possible to go too far. Over-whisked eggs turn lumpy and it is impossible to incorporate them evenly into a batter. Nor will they give nearly so much lift.

When properly whisked whites are cooked, the air bubbles expand in the heat, lifting the mixture, at the same time as the egg white sets to hold the bubbles in place. Uncooked whisked egg whites are distinctly unstable, so must be used as soon as they have been whisked. If left standing around, they will collapse and liquefy and cannot be re-whisked successfully.

It is possible to whisk egg whites with a fork if all else fails, but it is extremely hard work. A balloon whisk is more efficient, but still tiring on the arms. An electric hand-held whisk is a brilliant luxury that makes quick work of whisking egg whites to the lightest foam.

Make absolutely sure that both bowls and whisk (or fork!) are completely grease-free before you separate eggs and start whisking the whites. It takes no more than a smear of grease to prevent egg whites whisking successfully.

How to whisk egg whites with a balloon whisk or a fork

1 Hold the bowl containing the egg whites firmly with one hand, tilting it slightly towards the other hand.

2 Move the whisk in a continuous circular movement, using your wrist rather than the whole arm, taking the whisk down through the whites then up and around and back down into them again.

3 Keep going and have faith. Eventually (assuming they haven’t been contaminated with fatty yolk or grease), the whites will bulk up in volume, transformed into a fluffy cloud of whiteness.

4 For the vast majority of recipes, you will need to whisk the whites either to ‘soft peak’ or ‘firm peak’ stage. To test, pull the whisk slowly out of the whites. If the whites just slump back down into the bowl, you’ve not reached either stage yet. If they form a peak, the tip of which flops over as the whisk is withdrawn, then they have reached soft peak stage. If the tip of the peak remains pointing straight up at the ceiling, they have reached ‘firm peak’. Whisk no more!

Folding in

When it comes to blending whisked egg whites (or whipped cream) into another mixture, you must do your very best to keep as much air as possible trapped in the whites, whilst at the same time mixing evenly. You wouldn’t want to waste all that effort, now would you? This demands a special technique, called folding in.

First of all, search out a large metal spoon. Wooden spoons have thick edges, which break lots of bubbles releasing more air, whereas the thin edge of a metal spoon keeps damage to a minimum. Take a spoonful of the whites and just stir them straight into the other mixture (which should, incidentally, be no more than lukewarm). This loosens it up a little, making it easier to fold in the remaining whites. Now tip the rest of the whites on top. Slide the spoon, edge first, down into the whites and underlying mixture, right to the bottom, then curl it back up in one continuous movement, scooping up some of the contents of the bowl. As the spoon emerges tip what it brings up with it back over into the bowl. Keep going, turning the bowl every now and then, until the whites are evenly mixed in, with no lingering traces of white. Work swiftly and with confidence.

Primary Cooking Methods

Boiling

First of all, get your eggs out of the fridge at least 15 minutes before cooking if at all possible. This reduces the likelihood of shell-cracking in the heat of the saucepan. Pour enough water to submerge the eggs, into a pan that is just large enough to hold the eggs in a single layer (an over-large pan encourages the eggs to ricochet off the sides and each other, which is another reason they may crack). Bring the water up to the boil, then lower the eggs on a spoon into the water, one by one. Reduce the heat so that the water is simmering rather than bubbling violently. Set your timer to 5 minutes for soft-boiled eggs with a runny yolk and just set white, or 8 minutes for just hard-boiled eggs (firm white, creamy set yolk), 10 minutes for fully hard-boiled eggs.

Presumably you will be eating your soft-boiled egg while still hot from the water, so dish up immediately. If a hard-boiled egg is for a salad, or other cold dish, plunge it straight into cold water as soon as it is cooked, to prevent the formation of a discoloured green-black ring around the yolk. Not an attractive sight.

To shell a hard-boiled egg, tap the egg against the work surface, turning to break the shell all over. Pull off the shell, along with the thin membrane that lies underneath (easier to do with fresher eggs).

Frying

There are many ways to fry an egg, but I shall attempt to keep things simple by offering just two of them: firstly the more traditional method, using butter; secondly a more vigorous method, using oil. If you have an excellent non-stick frying pan, you can also cook your eggs with virtually no fat at all (use the first method without the butter), though whether this technically counts as frying is debatable. Fresh eggs (up to a week) produce neater fried eggs than older ones.

Smooth and buttery method Melt a good knob of butter in your frying pan over a moderate heat. When it is foaming, swiftly break your egg(s) into the pan – the older they are the more room you will have to allow for spreading whites. Spoon some of the hot butter over the whites of the egg. Turn the heat down a little and then cover the pan with a lid or a large plate. Cook for about 2 minutes. Lift the lid and inspect the whites of the eggs. If they are still translucent and runny around the yolk, spoon over more hot butter, then replace the lid and leave for another 1–2 minutes by which time they should be done. Once the white has set to a glassy white opacity right up to the edge of the yolk, they are ready. Lift out of the pan with a fish slice and eat right away.

Crisp and bubbly method I love fried eggs with a crisp browned edge to contrast with the smoothness of the rest of the whites, and the richness of a runny yolk, and to achieve this you need heat. Butter burns too quickly, so oil is the preferred frying medium. Spoon 1–2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, or sunflower or vegetable oil into your frying pan, and heat over a fairly high heat. Break the egg(s) carefully into the oil, which should be hot enough to sizzle and spit a little. Spoon the oil over the whites to help them set. Once the eggs have browned a little at the edges, reduce the heat to moderate and continue cooking until the whites are cooked through to the yolk, occasionally spooning the fat over the whites. Lift out of the pan with a fish slice and tuck in.

Scrambling

The very best, creamiest scrambled eggs are those cooked slowly and lovingly in a bowl set over a pan of simmering hot water – try it one day when you have plenty of time (it can take 20 minutes or more of fairly constant attention). Meanwhile, stick with this quicker, not-quite-so-ideal method, which is better suited to the normal pace of life. Remember that scrambled eggs should never, ever be cooked in advance and kept warm. That way you end up with ghastly over-cooked, rubbery, institutionalised scrambled eggs instead of the luxuriously creamy, tender confection that properly scrambled eggs should be.

Break two eggs per person (or three if ravenous) into a bowl and whisk together. Season well with salt and pepper but do not add milk or water. Place a small saucepan or frying pan over a low heat and add a good knob of butter. Let it melt, then pour in the egg. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon or spatula, scraping the base and sides of the pan as the egg sets on them. Keep going until the saucepan contains a creamy, thick primrose-yellow scramble of eggs. Whip off the heat swiftly, scrape the scrambled egg straight on to plates or toast and dish up.

Smart scrambled eggs Sunday brunch or breakfast with someone special is the time to dress up your scrambled eggs in full finery. Something as simple as stirring chopped fresh herbs into them as soon as they are cooked brings a touch of glamour – try chopped chives, tarragon or coriander. More fancy is the addition of strips of smoked salmon and some chopped chives, or sautéed sliced mushrooms, cooked alongside in a frying pan. I also love diced deseeded tomato or sun-blush tomato and roughly torn-up basil, again stirred in just as the scrambled egg reaches the perfect creamy consistency.

Poaching