Slow: Food Worth Taking Time Over

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Text copyright © Gizzi Erskine 2018

Photography copyright © Issy Croker 2018

Author photo © Eeva Rinne

Gizzi Erskine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN 978-0-00-829194-5

eBook ISBN: 978-0-00-829195-2

Photographer: Issy Croker

Art Director, Props and Food Stylist: Emily Ezekiel

Designer: Dean Martin

Editorial Director: Rachel Kenny

Creative Director: Louise McGrory

Assistant Editor: Celia Lomas

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Soups and Stews

Curry Soy Miso Ramen with Roast Butternut Squash, Tofu & Kimchi

Souped-up Kimchi Jjigae

Jewish Chicken Soup

Matzo balls

Salt beef kreplach

Under the Weather All the Veg Soup

Boston Beer Baked Beans

Planet Friendly Bolognese

Blonde Ragu with Pork, Veal & Sage

Beef & Potato Stew

Ox Cheeks Stewed with Wine & Beer

Sticky Oxtail Stew

Big Plate Chicken

Venetian Duck Ragu

Poach and Steam

Gingered Coronation Chicken

How to Poach & Break Up a Crab

Dressed Crab On Toast

Crab, Chilli & Lemon Linguine

Ginger Ham

Gingery Pease Pudding

Salt Beef Brisket

Confit Garlic

Steak & Kidney Pudding

Sussex Pond Pud

Poached Fruit

Braise

Pork & Apple ‘Stroganoff’ with Hot Dog Onions

Braised Chicken with Shallots, Orange Wine & Brandy

Aligot

Lightly Braised Toulouse Sausages

Braised Sour Red Cabbage

Braised Peas with Little Gems, Spring Onions & Wild Garlic

Caldeirada Fish Stew

Arroz con Mariscos (Hot Bisquey Rice with Oven Roasted Seafood)

Cheesy Polenta

Dirty Prawns, Spring Onions & Bacon

Golabki

Makhani – Proper Butter Masala

Braised Lamb Mince

Bake

Baked Kale, Spinach & Ricotta Stuffed Conchiglioni

Bangers, Bacon & Beans

Mushroom & Lentil Shepherd’s Pie with Root Veg Mash

Flageolet, Anchovy, Rosemary & Confit Garlic Gratin

Chicken, Buttermilk & Wild Garlic Pie

Salt Baked Sea Bass

Ultimate Salt Baked Potato

Smoked Mackerel, Beetroot and Horseradish

Smoked Haddock Mornay Jacket Potato

Lamb Hotpot

Vegetable Lasagne

Rye Bread Sauce Gratin

Lemon Sherbet Meringue Pie

Chocolate Pavlova with Poached Pears, Salted Caramel & Chocolate Sauces

Roast

Sausage, Roasted Squash & Potatoes with Pancetta & Chilli

Tandoori Marinade

Roast Duck with Blood Orange Gravy

Roast Chicory, Ham & Parmesan Gratin

Grilled Turbot

Thai Sauce

Hollandaise Sauce

Slow Roast Goat Shoulder

Goat ‘Shawarma’ Wraps

Goat Dumplings in Broth

Mallorca Slow Roasted Lamb Shoulder

Pork Meatloaf

Roast Leg Of Lamb with Garlic, Rosemary & Anchovies

Foolproof Roast Beef Rib & Gravy

Fresh Horseradish Cream

Yorkshire Pudding

Roasted Fennel, Chicory & Shallots in Aged Malt Vinegar

Slow Roasted Butternut Squash

Sesame Miso Roasted Red Cabbage

Dough

Fresh Hand Rolled Pasta

Pierogi Dumplings

Beetroot & Horseradish Pierogi with Sour Cream, Brown Butter, Paprika & Braised Sour Red Cabbage

Sichuan Hand Pulled Noodles

Xian Lamb & Cumin Hand Pulled Noodles

Shortcrust Pastry

Leek, Bacon & Cheese Quiche

Lemon Surprise Tart

Puff Pastry

Rosemary Salted Caramel & Apricot Tarte Tatin

Rhubarb & Custard Doughnuts

Basics

Slow Cooked Scrambled Eggs

Stock Making & Broths

Gizzi’s Slow Cooked Tomato Sauce

Green Peppercorn Sauce

Garlic and Herb Butter

BBQ Sauce

Apple Sauce

Pickled Pears

Parsley Sauce

Crispy Shallots

Mayonnaise

Salted Caramel Sauce

Chocolate Sauce

Whipped Cream

Rhubarb & Blood Orange Jam

List of searchable terms

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

Introduction

Sometimes I feel out of sync with the modern approach to cooking, which seems to be all about valuing convenience over quality. Our obsession with ease and speed puts us in danger of failing to appreciate the joys of technique and process, and what it means to pour love and care into the food we are growing and cooking. Cooking shouldn’t just be about the final result, it should be about the whole experience, and for me that includes finding the best produce and continually educating myself about the history and heritage of the dishes I cook.

There’s no denying that I’ve spent time sitting at my desk reading reviews of my previous books or work on the internet feeling pretty disheartened. While much of my work has received acclaim, the biggest criticisms I get are that people think my work is more complicated than your average popular chef or food writer, and that I don’t support using ingredients that are always easy to find. It’s true that I don’t make things simple for people. I’ve wondered whether I should answer the call for quick and easy recipes, whether I should say it’s OK to use a stock cube and give alternatives for ingredients I love, such as gochujang paste or black vinegar, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.

This is not to say that I haven’t done it in the past. Very early in my career, a TV show wouldn’t allow me to make my own curry paste as they thought this would be too challenging for its audience, so, despite finding the statement patronizing, I used the most basic of supermarket pastes. A different show wanted me to cook a braise in under an hour using chuck steak cut into small cubes. The results are out there for all to see, embedded in the internet; I still panic at the idea of them. At the time I knew I shouldn’t have gone against my instincts, and now – even with the knowledge that I was young and malleable, and that as I’ve grown I’ve become more comfortable with the way I operate as a food writer – they still devastate me.

These examples may not sound that bad, but I see my job as a position of responsibility, being lucky enough to be out there educating people on how to cook. I accept that I run the risk of going against the grain, but what defines me as different is that I really really prefer doing things properly and that is how I want to demonstrate what I do. Unless something is naturally easy or quick, I don’t cook in the easiest, fastest way. I love technique; I enjoy finding out the correct way to do something and investing the time and effort in ensuring it’s made as well as possible.

The kick I get from cooking is the same now as when I first started. The day I made my very first stew is still etched in my memory: the anticipation of seeing a dish develop from raw whole ingredients, rolling my sleeves up and working out the right way to chop them, brown them, braise and bake them. I trusted my mother’s advice as she dictated how things should be done, for she had done this a million times before and I knew of no one better equipped to teach me. Her stews, all gelatinous and sticky, were the best I’d tasted. I wanted to learn to make stew because that was the food that meant family. Coming home to the smell of a stew cooking made me feel cosy. It made me feel safe. It still does.

Now don’t get me wrong, simplicity is something I value enormously. One of my favourite things to eat is a simple tomato salad. It can be really good, if maybe a little bit ugly, when made using tomatoes that are just a bit overripe and that have been slow-grown in soil. The journey of these tomatoes is wholly different from that of mass-produced Dutch ‘double end’ tomatoes, grown in nutritionless blue fluff in rows and rows of glasshouses in Holland. You know the type of tomato I mean? They’re grown for yield, as money-makers; pumped full of growth promoters and poisoned with insecticides. These are the tomatoes that big corporate food producers palm off on the consumer, who often doesn’t really understand the difference between various tomatoes, as the packaging is designed to allow each type to masquerade as a premium product. I mean the sexy little ‘Italian’ numbers that are rarely from Italy or Spain or anywhere Mediterranean as the packaging suggests, but mainly from Holland.

Now if you’re the dream tomato – and I have this on great authority from one of the best greengrocers in the biz, Andreas Georghiou from Andreas on Chelsea Green – you live in the south of Italy on the Amalfi coast of Naples. The tomatoes are irrigated naturally as the ‘magic mist’ of the salty sea water is spritzed up into the air above the nutrient-dense charcoal and peaty soil of the volcanic hills. Here the tomatoes grow at a slow and steady pace, and the salt-water irrigation naturally fights off bugs while infusing the tomatoes and bringing out more flavour. You’re the dream tomato; you smell of the sea, you smell as a real tomato should smell! These kings of the tomato world are called San Marzarno tomatoes. You wouldn’t dream of eating them in any other way than raw and just a fraction beyond firm with salt and a trickle of the decadent first pressing of olive oil – and if you have it, a dash of high-quality reduced sherry vinegar, such as Capirete or El Majuelo.

What I’m saying is that this is the food and method of production that I value, and while I appreciate that it is not always available to everyone, it acts as a metaphor for the ideal approach to recipes. You can enhance the simplest ingredient with the same amount of care and attention and this will yield the same kind of experience as eating that magical tomato.

I also see this approach as one you can apply to all areas of modern consumption; if you value the ingredients you buy more highly, you are more likely to cook properly with them, less likely to create waste, less likely to consume more than you need. We cannot continue to live at our current relentless, reckless pace with no consideration for the impact it is having on the world around us, let alone our personal health. We need to start being more conscientious and considered. With this in mind, my book is focussed towards vegetables, meat and dairy products that have been produced with the same investment of time, energy and care.

We all need to reduce our consumption of meat, but I want this book to challenge the way in which you buy it, in order to ensure that the meat you do buy is of the highest possible quality. I also want to encourage you to try more unusual and economical cuts, to make use of the whole animal and respect and value the idea of eating meat. This to me is the most modern way of eating; realistic but aware! I’ve started to focus away from organic produce, instead seeking out slow-grown, ethically and properly produced food. By looking into the background of the ingredients we buy we can educate ourselves about where our food is coming from, and I guarantee that the best-quality food will be the tastiest, and will have the added bonus of offering the highest nutritional value.

Home is where the heart is. I don’t know many chefs who value the food cooked in their restaurants more highly than home cooking. The modern dialogue we really need about home cooking should focus on learning how to slow things down. I know we live in a world where we work too much and have less and less time, but cooking purely for speed frustrates me – especially when I think back to my mother’s stew. This was a weeknight supper and not always reserved for the weekends. So how do we find the time to cook like that these days?

I’m not living in some kind of fantasy land where I believe we all have time to spend hours cooking every day. But I guarantee that a well-spent Saturday afternoon in the kitchen, investing in the perfect stew or ragu, or even just an evening a week when you park the troubles of the day and create nourishing soulful food, is attainable. So I hope to inspire you to get stuck in, enjoy the techniques and evaluate the food you eat in order to positively influence your health, your soul and the world.

Writing a cookbook and dividing the recipes into chapters is always hard. It often becomes complicated, as some recipes can serve a purpose in many chapters. In essence the techniques I offer here are quite simple. They cover methods of poaching, braising and stewing, as well as steaming, baking and salt baking, roasting and understanding heat, and also making the doughs and pastries we often allow the supermarkets to make for us. You will find notes that help to link recipes together and a whole chapter of useful basic recipes. I want this book not only to inspire and broaden your repertoire, but also to help you really get to grips with expanding your cookery skill set and make you a more confident and conscientious cook.

Curry Soy Miso Ramen with Roast Butternut Squash, Tofu & Kimchi

Vegan ramens tend to lack body and viscosity, and I wanted to make one which had the same depth of flavour as a tonkotsu – the king of ramens. I use an old Japanese technique of making a miso and soy milk broth and it’s good (I eat it a lot) but then I add a curry base to the broth and there is no meat eater out there who would argue that this soup base doesn’t have everything that you would ever want. The toppings are the extras that I like: the roasted butternut squash goes so well with the curry, the tofu adds protein and the kimchi acidic spice. I’ve also popped some shiitake mushrooms in there too and finished with sesame and Korean chilli pepper. Leave the eggs out to make this an entirely vegan dish.

SERVES 2 (MAKES ENOUGH SOUP FOR 4)

Preparation time 30 minutes

Cooking time 1 hour

2 tbsp coconut, light rapeseed or groundnut oil, plus extra for frying

1 onion, finely chopped

6 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

3cm piece of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped

2 tbsp curry powder (English or Malaysian)

1 tsp ground coriander

½ tsp turmeric

1 tbsp soy bean chilli oil (Chinese, Thai or Japanese)

1.2 litres boiling water

200g white miso paste

3 tbsp mirin

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

1 tsp Marmite

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

1 tbsp palm or brown sugar

400ml soy milk

200g shiitake mushrooms, sliced

200g firm tofu, cut into thick slices

100ml teriyaki sauce

2 free-range eggs, boiled for 6 minutes, quickly cooled in iced water and peeled

90g buckwheat noodles per person, cooked until al dente and refreshed in iced water

3 slices roasted butternut squash per person (see here)

2 heaped spoonfuls kimchi

2 spring onions, thinly sliced

½ tsp Korean chilli powder

1 tsp sesame seeds

In a medium casserole, heat the oil over a medium heat and add the onion. Allow to soften for about 15 minutes to develop their sweet flavour before adding the garlic and ginger. Sweat for a further 3–4 minutes before adding the spices. Next add the soy bean chilli oil and give this a couple of minutes on the heat, before adding the water. Whisk in the miso paste, followed by the mirin, nutritional yeast, Marmite, soy and sugar. Allow the sauce to reduce on a low simmer for 30 minutes and then add the soy milk. Transfer to a food processor and blitz until smooth, then return to the pan.

Meanwhile in a frying pan heat a glug of oil and fry the mushrooms over a high heat for 5 minutes until they start to caramelise, then set aside. Return the pan to the heat, add a little extra oil if necessary, ramp up the heat and fry the tofu for a minute on each side, or until really charred. Put the teriyaki sauce in a bowl, add the tofu and the eggs and coat thoroughly. Set to one side.

When ready to serve, divide the noodles between two ramen bowls and pour a quarter of the soup base into each bowl. Slice the eggs in half and place on top. Slice the tofu into strips and arrange next to the eggs, followed by the butternut squash and kimchi. Finally, sprinkle the spring onions, chilli powder and sesame seeds over the top and serve immediately.

Souped-up Kimchi Jjigae

A few years ago, I lived in Korea for almost six months while filming a show about Korean food. So believe me when I say Koreans live on kimchi – they have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But if you ask any Korean what their favourite dish is, they will all say jjigae. A jjigae is a stew and it’s the heart of Korean home cooking. Most people love Doenjang Jjigae which is made with the famous Korean miso paste, but the real red-blooded Korean loves Kimchi Jjigae with its gochujang spiced base and heaps of shredded kimchi. Classically it is made with pork belly, but the Buddhists (who abstain from groin-rumbling fiery chillies) make it without so it can be made vegan with vegan kimchi. The reason this is souped-up is because, although the Koreans call it a stew, I’ve made it a little more brothy. If you want to add carbs you can cook some Korean sweet potato glass noodles and add them to the base.

SERVES 4

Preparation time 20 minutes

Cooking time 30 minutes

splash of rapeseed oil

100g pork belly, thinly sliced or unsmoked bacon (omit if vegetarian)

2 onions, thinly sliced

1 tbsp gochujang paste if you like it spicy or 1 tbsp doenjang paste if you prefer it milder

2 garlic cloves, grated

2cm piece of ginger, peeled and grated

1–2 tbsp Korean chilli powder

1 litre fresh chicken or vegetable stock

400g kimchi, shredded

300g silken tofu, drained and cut into 12 slices

3 spring onions, finely chopped sesame seeds and toasted sesame oil, to serve

First heat a deep-sided frying pan over a high heat. Add a splash of oil followed by the pork belly or bacon. You want to render some of the fat and crisp it up, so fry it for about 8 minutes, moving it around the pan regularly. Once the pork is looking nice and caramelised, remove it with a slotted spoon and set aside. Add the onions to the pork fat and fry for about 5 minutes until they begin to soften and go translucent. (If you are making a vegetarian version, omit this stage and just fry the onions in a little rapeseed oil.)

Next add the spice paste of your choice. I prefer gochujang as I like a bit of extra kick, but you can get a great complexity of flavour from doenjang paste. Give this a stir and add the garlic, ginger and chilli powder and allow to sweat for a few minutes before adding the pork belly. After a couple more minutes pour in the stock. Bring this to the boil and allow to simmer for about 15 minutes. Finally, add the kimchi and simmer for a further 10 minutes.

When you are ready to serve, divide the soup between four bowls. Layer 3 slices of tofu per person on top of the soup, along with a sprinkling of spring onions, sesame seeds and a drizzle of toasted sesame oil.

Jewish Chicken Soup

I love Jewish culture. Although I was not brought up within a religion, I think it’s probably ingrained in me because of my grandparents. My grandmother was from Scotland and flitted between Communism and Buddhism before marrying a Pole who had escaped Nazi Poland during the war. My grandfather (who worked as a pharmacist, exporting pharmaceuticals back into a bleak post-war Poland) wasn’t religious, not after all the atrocities he’d seen during the war, but he was brought up as a Jew before converting to Catholicism to escape Nazi rule. As a result, a lot of Jewish and Polish foods slipped into the meals we ate – and still eat – as a family.

Most of you will have tried a classic Jewish noodle soup, otherwise known as Jewish penicillin, thanks to its fabled power to cure every ailment. The soup is often served with matzo balls: dumplings made from fine crumbs of matzo crackers, which are a bit like water biscuits. They are sturdy little balls and make the soup much more filling. I am a greedy guts, so I like to serve my soup with kreplach dumplings too.

Most Jewish friday night suppers start with a hot bowl of this soup. I make mine with both a whole chicken and a really good chicken stock. Some might argue that you don’t need the chicken stock as the chicken will make its own soup, but for me there is never enough stock by the time it’s reduced. Always use fresh stock.

SERVES 6, DEPENDING ON HOW HUNGRY YOU ARE

Preparation time 15 minutes

Cooking time 2 hours

1 large chicken of the best quality and ethical standing you can afford

2 medium onions, halved

2 large carrots, left whole

1 leek, trimmed but left whole handful of celery leaves

3 bay leaves

few sprigs of thyme

2–3 sprigs of rosemary

500g fresh chicken stock (from the chiller cabinet)

1 tsp black peppercorns

½ tsp salt