Читать книгу The Kitchen Diaries - Nigel Slater - Страница 90

Snow has fallen as I slept. I fold back the shutters and stare out at the garden without moving for a full ten minutes. Snow brings a hush, a softness, to the city that is all too brief. You have to make time for it. The gravel path, the spindly trees, the little hedges that frame the vegetable and fruit beds are white over. The kitchen itself is icy this morning, its light muffled by the snow that has built up on the skylights. Breakfast is porridge, made with water. No sugar, no treacle, no hot milk. Just rolled oats and water.

Shopping is usually slipped into other jobs and journeys: a dash into the greengrocer’s whilst I am on my way to a meeting; a trip to the fishmonger’s on my way home. But today’s shopping is thought out, with a list and a big bag. There are four of us for supper and it is still snowing. I am not going to get away with a salad and a slice of tart.

One of the advantages of my butcher’s free-range birds is that their bones are heavy and strong, as you would expect from something that has had the opportunity to exercise. The availability of these big birds and their fat, sauce-enriching bones makes it seriously worth thinking about chicken stew – a bird cooked slowly, with stock, herbs and aromatics. The results are mild but meaty, which is just what you want when the wind is cold enough to make your eyes water.

Starch is an essential accompaniment to stew – polenta, mashed roots, potatoes slipped into the pot. This time my stew has beans in it. There is quite a lot of juice, which, despite the beans, screams out to be poured over some mashed parsnip or potato, perhaps with some parsley and a dollop of mustard stirred in. Something for the coldest days of the year.