Читать книгу Master it: How to cook today - Rory O'Connell - Страница 14
ОглавлениеChicken and other broths
Vegetable soups
Savoury tarts
Salads and dressings
Pan-grilling and pan-frying
Roasting
Casserole-roasting
Baked fish
Green vegetables
Roots and alliums
Potatoes
Rice
Pulses – beans, peas and lentils
Simple soda breads
Sweet essentials
Fruit fools, compotes and salads
Biscuits
Ice creams, sorbets and granitas
Meringues
Warm puddings
Cold puddings
A few cakes
‘I love how a simple broth can, with the addition of carefully chosen ingredients, be transformed into an elegant dish that combines both humbleness and sophistication. This is comfort food certainly, but that does not mean it can’t be smart and acceptable at any table.’
I am totally hooked on chicken broth. It is so wonderfully nourishing and with carefully chosen ingredients can be as smart as anything you will serve. I eat it throughout the year, varying the ingredients depending on what is in season. For the success of this recipe, a really good well-flavoured and preferably clear chicken stock is vital. This can be a bit confusing, as in some parts of the world stock and broth mean the same thing. That is not the case here.
On the subject of broth versus stock, Alan Davidson, author of the indispensable Oxford Companion to Food, wrote: ‘It could be said that broth occupies an intermediate position between stock and soup. A broth (e.g. chicken broth) can be eaten as it is, whereas a stock (e.g. chicken stock) would normally be consumed only as an ingredient in something more complex.’ That is exactly the case here.
Chicken broth has not been given the title ‘Jewish penicillin’ in some cultures without good reason. You can almost feel its goodness coursing through your veins as you eat it. My mother would make it for us when we were young and feeling a bit under the weather. We actually liked it regardless of whether we were unwell or in robust health. Sometimes she would add extra chicken necks and gizzards to the broth when cooking and we loved these delicious extras. We would pick up the necks with our small and nimble fingers, perfect for the task, and nibble the tiny little sweet morsels of flesh off them. The gizzards were chopped into small pieces and consumed with equal pleasure with her brown soda bread, thinly sliced and lightly buttered, the hot gizzards melting the butter, making for greasy chins and much giggling.
I love how a simple broth can, with the addition of carefully chosen ingredients, be transformed into an elegant dish that combines both humbleness and sophistication. This is comfort food certainly, but that does not mean it can’t be smart and acceptable at any table.
Keep this broth firmly in season and you will get splendid results and each changing season will give you many options to choose from. In spring use wild garlic leaves and flowers when the countryside is covered with them. Either of the two different types of wild garlic will do. The long skinny-leaved one, sometimes called three-cornered garlic, with its bell-like flowers, or the wider-leaved ramsons, with its allium-shaped flower heads, are both perfect. Watercress is vibrant, peppery and fresh-tasting. Sorrel, wild or cultivated, is tart and slimy.
If you are a forager and interested in wild foods, this recipe will give you lots of opportunities to use the many wild greens you collect. Wood sorrel, dandelion leaves and ground elder are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is available to eat from the wild. Arm yourself with Roger Phillips’s marvellous book Wild Food, and get out there collecting.
Cavolo nero, from the winter garden, is deep-flavoured and slightly brooding. Pea and broad bean leaves are fresh and summery. Spinach is salty and lovely and chard leaves are silky and sophisticated. Beetroot leaves and stalks when combined with dill give a lovely result. The list of possible additions goes on and on, and though I generally urge caution with experimentation, this is as good an opportunity as any to put your own stamp on a dish.
I generally use chicken bones when making stock for a broth; however, there are several other options. A turkey carcass makes a rich and wonderful stock, a perfect base for a broth or, on another day, to be used in a risotto. Guinea fowl and quail are also excellent, though it has to be said that having enough guinea fowl or quail bones to make a stock is generally the reserve of restaurant kitchens.
A duck carcass also produces a good stock for a broth, but you have to be a bit more focused on removing as much of the fat as possible from these greasy little creatures and I tend to add lots of robust and earthy flavours like root vegetables and lentils to the stock extracted from the duck bones.
Chicken stock and roast chicken stock
Keys to success
Start with good-quality ingredients consisting of chicken bones, raw or cooked, or a combination of both.
Frozen chicken bones work perfectly and in this instance, due to the long cooking time, can be used directly from frozen.
I also freeze leftover carcasses from a cooked chicken, wings raw or cooked, in other words any bits of chicken raw or cooked with the exception of the liver and wing tips. The liver and wing tips should never go into the stockpot, as over long cooking they will make the stock bitter. This is a form of stockpiling of the bones and bits until you have enough to make a pot of stock. You can of course make stock with just one chicken carcass and still get a worthwhile quantity.
Chicken necks are also wonderful in a stock, as is the gizzard, though these can be hard to get nowadays.
I sometimes use a combination of frozen bones and fresh bones. There is nothing to worry about here, due to the long cooking time of the stock.
Place the bones in a saucepan they fit into snugly. Leave 4cm free at the top of the saucepan so that the stock does not spill out of the pot.
If your saucepan is too big, you may have too much water, ending up with a stock that is too thin in flavour.
Even if you use a saucepan that is too big and are careful to just cover the bones with water, the fact that the level of the liquid is low in the pot can cause the steam to recirculate rather than evaporate and this may cause the stock to be cloudy.
Chicken and stock ingredients ready for cooking
Cold water is always used to draw the flavour out of the solid ingredients and into the liquid.
I rarely add salt to stock when it is cooking.
All stocks are brought to simmering point and cooked uncovered at a bare simmer to obtain a clear well-flavoured stock. If you have difficulty controlling the heat under your pot, use a heat diffuser mat to achieve the gentle breaking of bubbles on the surface of the liquid.
The stock should never boil. When it boils, a couple of things happen. It reduces, and as this happens it becomes stronger and loses its subtle charm. Also the boiling loosens tiny particles of flesh from the bones and vegetables, resulting in a stock that may be cloudy and with these tiny particles floating in it.
A cloudy stock is not the end of the world and is fine to use, but if you are careful with the gentle simmering you can end up with a deliciously flavoured liquid that is almost as sparklingly clear as a consommé.
Taste the stock on a spoon, blowing on it in the old-fashioned way, as it will be very hot. Underwhelmed? Taste another spoonful while adding a few grains of salt to the spoon… a revelation I hope.
The resulting stock is gently strained through a fine sieve and allowed to settle. Any fat will rise to the surface, to be skimmed off using a large spoon. You can also use a mais-gras, one of those French ceramic degreasing jugs. If you can lay your hands on an old-fashioned ‘skimming bowl’, the type used in dairies to separate the cream from the milk, that would be fantastic.
The other effective way to skim the fat off stock is to place the cold stock in the fridge overnight and next day to skim off the solid or semi-solid fat.
Stock at a gentle simmer
The cooled stock will keep in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Stock also freezes very well. I use plastic containers such as spotlessly clean yoghurt tubs or milk containers for this purpose. Make sure the stock is cold before decanting it into plastic containers.
The frozen stock will still be fine and safe to use after 6 months, but as always with the freezer, the sooner something comes out, the better it will be.
A richer and darker-flavoured stock is obtained by roasting the raw or cooked chicken bones to a rich golden colour before making the stock. Therefore in the case of the cooked bones from a roast, they will be twice-roasted. Lovely. I call this Roast chicken stock. This stock is used for darker sauces and to accompany the more robustly flavoured meats such as beef and venison.
The degreased stock can be reduced by as much as three-quarters, or more if you wish, to achieve a deeply flavoured ‘chicken glaze’. The more you reduce or boil it down, the more concentrated the flavour will be. This liquid when chilled will set to a rubber jelly, and in this case you have just made your own stock cube. Bravo. This can then be stored in a covered container in the fridge, where it will keep for up to 3 months, and can also be frozen. You can cut it or tear it into manageable pieces, and these little lozenges of concentrated chicken flavour can be used as they are to perk up a dull gravy or soup, or diluted to taste with boiling water to reconstitute a stock.
Chicken stock
Makes 3 litres 2–3 raw or cooked chicken carcasses, or a mixture of both
3.4 litres cold water (approx.)
2 onions, peeled and sliced
1 leek, split in two
1 outside stick of celery or 1 lovage leaf
2 carrots, scrubbed and sliced
A few parsley stalks
1 large sprig of thyme
1 small bay leaf
6 black peppercorns
Chop or break up the carcasses as much as possible. Put all the ingredients into a saucepan that they fit into snugly. The water should just cover them. Bring slowly up to the boil and skim the fat off the top with a tablespoon. Simmer uncovered and very gently for 2–3 hours.
Allow the stock to sit for 20 minutes before straining to allow any loose particles of meat or vegetables to fall to the bottom of the saucepan. Strain and remove any remaining fat. If you need a stronger flavour, boil down the strained and degreased liquid in an open pan to reduce by one-third or one-half the volume. Do not add salt.
Roast chicken stock
Roast the raw or cooked bones or carcasses in a moderate oven, 180°C/350°F/gas 4, for approximately 30 minutes, or until they have attained a rich golden colour, then proceed with the recipe as above.
Broth with spinach or chard leaves and herbs
The object of the exercise here is a light yet flavoursome broth, spiked with the best greens each season has to offer. The secret of success is in the late addition of the green or defining ingredients to the broth. There is a bit to do, though, before that stage is reached. Dice the onion and potatoes neatly, remembering that they will be clearly visible in the finished broth, and cook them very gently so that they do not collapse before the stock is added. The broth should never boil rapidly, just stay at a gentle simmer, and crucially the saucepan lid stays off once the greens go in.
The ingredients
Spinach or chard leaves are the principal green ingredient here. The fresher they are, the more vibrant and delicious the broth will be. The stalks from the greens are finely diced and sweated with the potatoes and onions. If you choose baby spinach leaves, there is no need to destalk. Just add the whole lot at the end of cooking as directed and they will melt to a silky comforting consistency.
The butter can be replaced with 2–3 tablespoons of olive oil.
The herbs will taste better and fresher if they are chopped just before you add them to the broth.
As always, the addition of salt and pepper are crucial here, so taste carefully and season accordingly.
Serves 4–6 50g butter
175g potatoes, peeled and cut into neat 1cm dice
175g onions, peeled and finely chopped into 5mm dice
400g spinach or chard leaves, or 600ml when pressed into a measuring jug, stalks cut into 1cm dice, leaves gently torn into bite-sized pieces
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed to a paste
Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1.2 litres chicken stock
100ml chopped herbs: a mixture of parsley, chives and marjoram
Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan and allow to foam. Add the potatoes, onions, diced spinach or chard stalks and garlic. Use a wooden spoon to coat the vegetables in the butter and season with salt and pepper. Cover with a butter wrapper or greaseproof paper and a tight-fitting lid. Cook on a very low heat to allow the vegetables to sweat gently until barely tender. This will take about 10 minutes. Don’t overcook and allow the diced potato to collapse.
Add the stock, stir gently and bring to a simmer, and cook for a further 10 minutes. The broth should be barely bubbling. If it cooks too fast at this stage, the delicacy of flavour of the chicken stock will be lost. By now the potato and onion should be completely tender but still holding their shape. Taste and correct the seasoning. This is the base and can be put aside until later.
To finish the broth, bring the base back to a simmer. Add the greens and cook uncovered, allowing the greens to wilt and take on a melted consistency. Spinach leaves can take as little as 3 minutes, 7–8 minutes if tough. Chard leaves will take about 10 minutes. Add the herbs and again watch the cooking time very carefully – 2 minutes will be enough to release the flavour from the herbs. Taste one last time to ensure the seasoning is spot on. Serve immediately.
Wild garlic leaf and flower broth
There are two types of wild garlic that grow in profusion in Ireland. They are both part of the allium family. Around where I live in East Cork, the first variety generally starts to appear as early as March, though it is not unknown to see it in January or February. This is the long, skinny-leaved garlic, sometimes called three-cornered garlic or snow bell. It produces at the end of the stalk a little bunch of white bell-shaped flowers, hence the name snow bell. This variety seems to thrive on the sunny side of the road but will also succeed in the shade. The other variety, called ramsons, arrives later and is happiest growing in the shade. It has long, wide, elegant and shiny leaves and the flowers on this variety are in a little typical allium pom-pom. Either of the two types of wild garlic will do for this recipe. Don’t forget that they can be used in other soups, with grilled or braised fish, meat and poultry, in salads, flavoured butters, sauces and so on. It is well worth trying to get a little patch of either type of garlic established in your garden. However, beware, as both varieties will spread in all directions if given the chance, so you may have to limit their progress.
The key to the success of this recipe is the addition of the wild garlic to the broth just a few minutes before you are going to eat it. This way the garlic will still be bright green in colour and vibrant in taste when it arrives at the table. Sometimes the little flowers, which I urge you to use, will float to the surface of the hot broth and sit there like little water lilies or lotus flowers. Now that’s a bonus.
The ingredients
The wild garlic, when in season, is readily available for those who live in the countryside and for urban dwellers is increasingly found in vegetable shops and farmers’ markets. Every part can be used, bulbs below the ground and leaves and flowers above.
An optional addition of grated Parmesan is delicious here. Allow your guests to sprinkle a light dusting on each bowl of poured soup rather than you adding it to the cooking pot. It will taste sweeter and fresher this way. One generous teaspoon of Parmesan is plenty on each serving.
Serves 6 50g butter
175g potatoes, peeled and cut into neat 1cm dice
175g onions, peeled and finely chopped into 5mm dice
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed to a paste
Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1.2 litres chicken stock
600ml finely chopped garlic leaves, tightly packed into the measure
50ml garlic flowers, if available
Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan and allow to foam. Add the potatoes, onions and crushed garlic. Stir to coat in the butter and season with salt and pepper. Cover with a butter wrapper or greaseproof paper and a tight-fitting lid. Cook on a very low heat to allow the vegetables to sweat gently until barely tender. This will take about 10 minutes. Don’t overcook and allow the diced potato to collapse.
Add the stock, stir gently and bring to a simmer, then cook gently for a further 10 minutes. The broth should be barely bubbling. If it cooks too fast at this stage, the delicacy of flavour of the chicken stock will be lost. Taste and correct the seasoning. This is the base and can be put aside until later.
To finish, bring the base back to a simmer. Add the garlic leaves, cook uncovered and allow just to wilt. This will only take a couple of minutes. Taste and correct the seasoning again. Finally, sprinkle in the flowers, and watch and marvel as they float on the surface. Serve immediately.
Kale broth with lemon zest and Parmesan
Kale: the mention of the name is enough to wrinkle many a face in disgust. What a shame, because kale is fantastic. Boiled until soft, and puréed with a grating of nutmeg and a splash of cream, it is one of the best winter vegetables. Again cooked until soft, drained and dressed with olive oil and lemon, it is also marvellous, particularly when served on grilled bread that has been lightly rubbed with a little garlic. You can introduce it to chilli, garlic, Indian spices, south-east Asian flavours, Spanish smoked paprika and chorizo and you aren’t even beginning to scratch the surface of the flavours it will marry with. Its winter seasonality also seems to add to its charm, as it doesn’t have much green competition and it almost stands alone in the coldest months as the bearer of badly needed vitamins and iron.
For the gardener, it is a thing of beauty, as its tiered, plumage-like foliage looks almost like an exotic in the winter garden. Viewed under snow or frost on a clear sunny morning, its handsome bearing rivals anything in the garden at any time of the year.
The trick with kale is to cook it enough. It needs to be soft and comforting. If you want crisp, have a carrot stick. You are not being clever by undercooking kale. It will be tough and more like fodder and your family and friends will not thank you for it.
Subtle seasoning is required here when finishing the broth to get a good balance between the salt, lemon and Parmesan. Too much lemon zest or Parmesan will overpower. Think of the lemon and Parmesan as added seasonings as you sprinkle them on, and go with a light hand and careful tasting.
As always with the addition of any green vegetable to a broth or soup, once the greens go in the saucepan lid stays off.
The ingredients
The kale in this recipe can be one of several varieties. The most easily available variety, which starts to appear in the shops around October, is the dense and compact curly kale. You can also use cavolo nero, with its long slightly sinister-looking plume-like leaves. It is sometimes called Tuscan kale or Nero di Toscana. Watch out for other varieties, such as Red Russian kale with its serrated leaves. All these kales become sweeter and more tender after the first frosts.
Try to get an unwaxed lemon for this recipe. Failing that, scrub the lemon well before grating the zest.
Parmesan always tastes best when freshly grated off a larger piece. Pre-grated Parmesan in my experience is not great, and if I could only get that I would just leave it out. Don’t spoil all your hard work by adding a substandard ingredient.
Serves 4–6 50g butter
175g potatoes, peeled and cut into neat 1cm dice
175g onions, peeled and cut into 5mm dice
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed to a smooth paste
Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1.2 litres chicken stock
600ml curly kale leaves, measured after removing the stalks and gently torn into small bite-sized pieces
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon (you may not need it all)
4–6 heaped teaspoons grated Parmesan
Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan and allow to foam. Add the potatoes, onions and crushed garlic. Coat in the butter and season with salt and pepper. Cover with a butter wrapper or greaseproof paper and a tight-fitting lid. Cook on a very low heat to allow the vegetables to sweat gently until barely tender. This will take about 10 minutes. Don’t overcook and allow the diced potato to collapse.
Add the stock, stir gently, bring to a simmer and cook for a further 10 minutes. The broth should be barely bubbling. If it cooks too fast at this stage, the delicacy of flavour of the chicken stock will be lost. By now the potato and onion should be completely tender but still holding their shape. Taste and correct the seasoning. This is the base and can be put aside until later.
To finish the broth, bring the base back to a simmer. Add the kale and allow to cook very gently and uncovered until quite soft. This can take up to 10 minutes. Taste a little of the kale when you think it is ready, to be certain it is really soft and comforting. Taste and correct the seasoning again and ladle the soup into hot soup bowls. Season each serving with a pinch of the lemon zest and 1 heaped teaspoon of grated Parmesan, and add a drizzle of olive oil. Serve immediately.
Duck, lentil and vegetable broth
Whenever I have a carcass left after roasting a duck, I tend to make a duck stock from it. The stock can be frozen and used for gravy or for a sauce the next time you roast a duck. In this recipe, it is the stock that forms the basis of the dish. Before you make the stock, pick and scrape any little morsels of meat from the cooked carcass. These will be added to the broth at the end of cooking. If a drumstick or a slice or two of breast meat remains, all the better. You don’t need a lot of duck meat for this recipe, so don’t be worried if the amount is scant. This dish is really about the duck-flavoured broth, the vegetables and the lentils. The stock is made in exactly the same way as a chicken stock, but tends to be fattier. I carefully remove as much fat as I can from the carcass before making the stock. Then I chill the strained, cooked stock overnight. Any surplus fat will rise to the top, solidify and can be easily lifted off, and you end up with a stock that is virtually fat-free.
As you will gather from reading the list of ingredients, this is a hearty dish, and though I normally serve it as a soup course, it can really be served as a meal in itself. You can then congratulate yourself for extracting a second delicious meal from your duck.
The ingredients
I like to use small green lentils such as Puy lentils from France or Castelluccio lentils from Italy.
It may seem like a lot of garlic in the ingredient list, but garlic when cooked gently in its skin like this is mild and delicious. The tender cooked garlic is pressed from its skin and disappears into the broth to give a mild and warming flavour.
The chilli cooked with the lentils adds the merest hint of heat to the broth.
The combination of root vegetables add to the earthy flavour.
The last-minute addition of chopped parsley is refreshing and fresh-tasting.
Serves 6–8 400g lentils
1 carrot, peeled and quartered
1 onion, peeled and studded with 1 clove
6 unpeeled cloves of garlic
1 sprig of sage
1 whole mild red chilli
1 bouquet garni
50g butter or 3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and cut into 5mm dice
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 5mm dice
4 sticks of celery, cut into 5mm dice
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed to a paste
Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1.7–2.3 litres duck or chicken stock
Every scrap of flesh scraped off the roast duck carcass, or 1 roasted duck leg
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
Put the lentils into a saucepan with the quartered carrot, clove-studded onion, unpeeled garlic, sage, chilli and bouquet garni. Cover generously with cold water and bring to a simmer. Simmer the lentils for about 20 minutes, covered with a lid, until they are tender. Keep an eye on the water level in the saucepan and add a little more water as necessary. If the water is just simmering you should not have to add any more liquid. When cooked, the lentils should be tender, but still retaining their shape. Don’t allow them to collapse and become muddy. Remove the carrot, onion, sage and bouquet garni. Press the garlic through a sieve back into the lentils. Reserve the cooked lentils in any remaining cooking water.
Heat the butter in a saucepan and allow to foam. If using olive oil, heat it to a shimmer. Add the diced vegetables and crushed garlic, season with salt and pepper and coat in the fat. Cover with a butter wrapper or greaseproof paper and the saucepan lid and sweat on a very gentle heat for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are starting to become tender. Add the stock and bring to a simmer. Now strain the lentil cooking water from the lentils. Retain the cooking water. Add the lentils to the duck broth and bring to a simmer. Taste and correct the seasoning. At this point a little of the strained lentil water can be added to the broth if it all looks too thick. Remember, this is a broth not a stew.
Add the scraps of roast duck and warm through gently. Taste and correct the seasoning again, add the chopped parsley and serve in hot old-fashioned soup bowls.
Pumpkin, leek, tomato and fennel broth with parsley pesto
This is a comforting, robust and nourishing broth for autumn and winter. Choose a ripe and firm pumpkin. I like the variety called Uchiki Kuri, also known as Red Kuri. The flesh is close-textured and a deep golden orange colour. The flavour is intense and nutty. It also roasts well and makes an excellent purée. Butternut squash is an excellent replacement for the pumpkin. Even though we are using robustly flavoured ingredients here, the resulting broth is surprisingly delicate. The recipe makes a large quantity, but you can successfully halve these amounts if you wish.
The ingredients
Use a richly coloured pumpkin or squash for this recipe, such as a Red Kuri pumpkin or a butternut squash. Always exercise great care when peeling these tough-skinned curcurbits, and try to always have your knife pointing down and away from you, so that if it slips it hits the chopping board and not you. I usually cut the squash or pumpkin down into a few manageable pieces before removing the seeds and then the tough skin.
The tomatoes should be dark red and ripe. I am happy to use best-quality tinned or bottled tomatoes if the fresh ones are not up to scratch.
The fennel seeds, with their aromatic and aniseed flavour, should be carefully roasted before being coarsely ground.
The chicken stock should be sweetly and delicately flavoured, exactly the result you will get from following the chicken stock recipe.
Serves 10 450g pumpkin or squash, peeled and deseeded, weighed after peeling and deseeding
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons fennel seeds, lightly roasted and coarsely ground
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
225g leeks, washed and thinly sliced against the grain
225g potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
Maldon sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and sugar, to taste
300g very ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped, or tinned tomatoes
1.8 litres chicken stock
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 recipe quantity of Parsley Pesto
Cut the pumpkin into 2cm dice. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-based saucepan until it shimmers gently. Add the pumpkin, fennel seeds and garlic. With a wooden spoon, stir to coat in the olive oil and cook on a gentle heat for 2 minutes. Add the leek and potatoes, season with salt and pepper and cover with a butter wrapper or greaseproof paper and the saucepan lid. Sweat on a very gentle heat for 10–15 minutes. Anything more than the gentlest heat at this stage can render the vegetables to a mush, and that would be a disaster. The vegetables should be just beginning to tenderise.
Add the tomatoes, a pinch of sugar and the stock. Cover again and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook until all the vegetables are tender – about 15 minutes should do it. Do not allow the soup to boil furiously, otherwise the stock will reduce and become too strong, the vegetables will break up and the soup will disintegrate into a mush. Taste and correct the seasoning.
Just before serving, add the chopped parsley. Serve with parsley pesto or just a drizzle of olive oil and a dusting of grated Parmesan.
