The Kitchen Diaries II

Capers generally come in brine or salt. The latter is considered to be better, mostly because the capers are plumper and, although salty, the seasoning stays on the outside and can be washed off – unlike the brined version, where the capers soak up the salt-water solution like little sponges. Their qualities of sourness and salt tend to polarise people, but they are without doubt one of the most used seasonings in my kitchen, finding their way into sauces for steak and fish, a dressing for many a salad, and tossed with warm, partially melted butter for a pasta sauce.

The caper is the cook’s first call for piquancy. Bitter, sharp and salty, it has the ability to bring out the flavour of any ingredient it is partnered with. A dull nugget that makes other flavours shine. Generally, I suggest a caper is only warmed, never cooked, as it can become inedibly bitter, though once it is dunked in a pool of tomato sauce on a pizza the average caper is probably fairly safe.

The caper is a flower bud, pickled or salted before it becomes a small, creamy-white flower. Italian ones are probably the best known but they are grown in Morocco and Turkey too. Caper berries, incidentally, are fatter than capers – almost the size of an olive – and are eaten with their stalk, with a distinctive crunch to them. They are the fruit of the caper bush that is produced after the buds have flowered.

Despite all the culinary partnerships that intrigue or delight, there are very few that actually make the mouth water. Mouthwatering, that overused term that I have banned from any piece of writing or programme that bears my name, is a particular horror of mine, like the word ‘crispy’. Yet occasionally the word is accurate, such as when it is used to describe the partnership of capers with lemon. A recipe for culinary fireworks. The two have almost magical powers when they appear with fish.

Sea bass with rosemary and capers

sea bass: 2 small ones, cleaned

new potatoes: 500g

olive oil

rosemary: 4 bushy sprigs

a long, hot red chilli

sherry vinegar: a tablespoon

capers: a tablespoon, rinsed

the juice of a small lemon

garlic: 2 cloves

parsley: 4 large sprigs

a lemon, to serve

Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Rinse the fish and wipe them dry with paper towel.

Peel the potatoes, then cut them into slices about the thickness of a pound coin. Warm a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large, shallow pan or roasting tin set over a moderate to low heat and slide in the potatoes. Let them cook slowly until their edges are starting to colour – a matter of ten minutes. It is worth stirring them and turning them over now and again, so they don’t stick to the pan.

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