Читать книгу The Kitchen Diaries II - Nigel Slater - Страница 76

One of the reasons I have stayed put for more than a decade is because of the way this house floods with light in the mornings. Softened by closed blinds, the sun that comes in from the east wakes you gently, if a little earlier than you would like. This morning, the rooms fill with honeyed light, like a Hammershoi painting. I suddenly realise how much I have missed it these last few weeks.

Sunlight, even on a relatively cold day, has a habit of changing my appetite. Pasta, potatoes and grains feel inappropriate and heavy. The brown food that has provided such homely comfort on the grey days since the year’s start suddenly looks out of place.

Coconut is one of those ingredients that tend to walk hand in hand with sunshine. It smacks, albeit softly, of trips to Kerala and Thailand, of tiny scented pancakes for breakfast on sun-filled terraces, of lime juice and chillies and, of course, sun-tan oil. All of which is about as far as you can get from a February day within a ball’s throw of Arsenal Stadium.

I met coconut first in the form of a neat, sweet Bounty bar, and as a coating, along with raspberry jam, for the tiny, castle-shaped sponges we wrongly called madeleines. Later, it became the principal seasoning of a holiday in Goa and then, a decade on, of the deep, pale-green soups of Thailand. For an ingredient of which I am not particularly fond, the flesh of the coconut is laden with happy memories.

The finely desiccated coconut that covered my childhood like snowflakes, on everything from jelly mushrooms to fairy cakes and marshmallows, has never set foot in my adult kitchen. It is a flavour I seem to have left behind, like a school blazer that no longer fits. I keep coconut in two forms: as a can of creamy, brilliant-white milk for soups and curries and as coconut cream, a thicker, more concentrated version made from the top of the milk. This latter form is useful when you want the flavour of the nut without introducing too much liquid. Spiked with ground cumin, cardamom and turmeric, it makes a simple marinade for prawns or chicken. It comes in jars and small cans, like the mixers on the drinks trolley of a plane, and is not to be confused with ‘cream of coconut’ whose principal use is in a rum-spiked piña colada.

Coconut cream is the thick, almost paste-like gloop that rises to the top of the pot when coconut milk is produced. You can make your own by adding water to shredded, fresh coconut, bringing it to the boil and letting it cool. On refrigeration, the cream will rise and can be scooped off.

As well as introducing a nutty sweetness, coconut cream works as a balm. I often add the contents of a small can to knock the edge off an exceptionally spicy lamb curry, or indeed to any dish in which I have misjudged the chilli quotient and left everyone breaking out in a sweat.