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Forced from Thongs

Sea Kale with Poached Eggs and Truffles

Most of the time I do my best. I try to suggest recipes with

everyday ingredients whenever possible. I take pride in

getting the best out of a shoulder of lamb, a Savoy cabbage

or a pineapple. Most of the produce that you see

photographed in this book comes from a well-known

online supermarket. Bearing in mind that many good

ingredients that were readily available in the high street

thirty years ago – fresh mackerel, wild rabbit, herrings, a

piece of brisket, say – are no longer so readily found, this

is not always easy. This recipe, however, is made with

ingredients that are unashamedly more arcane.

To my knowledge, and I’m happy to be corrected, there

is only one commercial producer of sea kale in Britain: the

sainted Sandy Patullo who grows it as a little sideline to

his asparagus business near Glamis, in Angus. Although

lacking the hydroponic element, producing sea kale is as

complicated and laborious a process as the production of

radicchio di Treviso tardive. Sandy learned the techniques

of developing the crowns, producing ‘thongs’, and the

subsequent forcing of the sea kale in the dark, from the

Paske family in Lincolnshire. Since they discontinued

production some forty years ago, he has kept alive a

tradition that began in Victorian England, when sea kale

was a fashionable vegetable.

If sea kale vaguely resembles celery, it doesn’t taste like

it, for it is a brassica and when raw has a cabbagey taste

that diminishes on cooking, whereupon it acquires both a

delicate and subtle taste and a very succulent texture. It is

excellent simply dressed with butter or olive oil and is a

good partner for eggs and butter sauces. To serve sea kale

with eggs and truffles is a rare indulgence. Should you

manage to get your hands on the sea kale, but the truffles,

French or Italian, prove elusive, I would not worry too

much. Sea kale with a poached egg, or with boiled eggs,

or with hollandaise, is still a great delicacy.

I have my own truffle supplier who brings them from

Southern Umbria, a region long famous for its black

truffles, especially the town of Norcia, which positively

reeks of truffle. Most of my competitors scorn Italian

truffles in favour of the French ‘Perigord’ variety: I think

they are misguided in thinking one better than the other.

They may also be being duped, since half the truffles sold

as Perigourdine are rumoured to come from Italy anyway.

23

January