18 February 2011
COOK UNTIL DELICIOUS
My neighbour had her two tiny grand daughters staying and their early rising, constant demand for attention and feeding, and frequent trips down to the beach were making her somewhat frazzled. So I made dinner for her. Next morning she asked me for the recipe for the gently braised chicken thighs I had prepared and delivered to her, along with crispy roast potatoes and beans and peas with mint.
Too many times I cook something that’s really scrumptious, but, as I am prone to spontaneous cooking that’s inspired by great produce rather than recipe books, I often can't recall exactly what I have done. (My son learned years ago to beg me to “write it down now Mum so we can have it again.”) And so I told Rosemary how I had browned the flour-dusted chicken pieces in oil in Le Creuset casserole and then removed them from the pan, added chopped fennel and aubergines to the residue with a little cumin, browned that and then returned the chicken along with fresh herbs, some chicken stock, salt and pepper and chopped preserved lemon. Once it came to a simmer I added the lid to the dish and transferred it to the oven. Her question was, “How long do you cook it for?”
My reply was to “cook it until it is delicious.” Now, I know that’s not really helpful, but it is very true. Oven temperatures vary, the sort of pan you cook in affects the result, and it also depends on how long you browned the meat/poultry etc in the first place and how big the pieces were, if they were on the bone or not, and other minor influencing factors.
When food writers record recipes, they write down exactly what they experienced. (At least we hope they all test their recipes at least once or twice before they print them.) What they cannot do is predict the exact temperature of your oven, what pan you will use and even what size you cut your food up. I once had the wonderful wine writer Ralph Kyte-Powell for dinner and cooked him a duck dish that had appeared in a magazine. He loved it and asked where I got the recipe. When I told him he was astonished. He had cooked the same recipe a week earlier and said mine was far more delicious than his. We discussed what we’d done. Ralph had stuck to the recipe and prescribed cooking times, while I had cooked the duck for a whole hour longer until it was truly tender and really falling off the bone. In other words, I had cooked it until it was delicious.
I heard on the grapevine the other day that the food writers in a life-style magazine have been briefed to provide recipes that only put simple ingredients together with minimal cooking. In other words, ASSEMBLING rather than COOKING food. Some may like that sort of recipe but there will be no room on those pages for a simple instruction like ‘cook until delicious’. Such a shame!