We do too much to our food. Instead of letting a fine ingredient speak for itself, we are too often tempted to clutter it up with so many other flavours that its point becomes lost. I believe passionately that more often than not the less you do to a raw ingredient the better it tastes. A piece of dazzlingly fresh fish, rubbed with a little olive oil and sea salt and roasted until its flesh is snowily opaque often needs little more than a piece of lemon to be at its best, or maybe just some piquant capers and parsley. It certainly doesn't need to be all dolled up with fancy shmancy sauce.
This over-egging of the pudding may be a national trait misguidedly designed to rid us of our reputation for bad food (just ask the rest of Europe what they think of our cooking), or it may simply be a lack of confidence in the raw ingredients. With fish, meat, poultry and vegetables of the finest quality, why hide what we should be proud to show off?
So, each month I will be setting down a few recipes that flatter the raw ingredients, whose flavours are clean and up-front, undimmed by complicated seasonings and techniques and that are so simple, straightforward and quick that anyone, seasoned cook or confirmed non-cook can easily make them.
Roast halibut with capers, lemon and parsley
Given a spanking fresh piece of white fish I sometimes do nothing more to it than rub it with salt and roast it in a very hot oven, its only gilding, the juice from a fat Sicilian lemon and some lightly steamed spinach. Last time, I got the parsley out too and a few piquant little capers.
serves two
2 x 225g halibut steaks olive oil
2 tbsp salted capers
flat-leaf parsley - the leaves from a small bunch
juice of a large lemon
to serve: steamed spinach, halves of lemon
Set the oven at 230 c/Gas 8. Warm 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a flame-proof baking dish over a moderate flame. Rub the fish generously with salt and pepper and brown lightly on one side in the hot oil. A minute should suffice. Put the fish into the hot oven and bake for 7-8 minutes until opaque and the flesh comes easily away from the bone.
Chop the parsley and rinse the capers. Lift the fish out onto warm plates and place the baking dish over a moderate flame. Scatter in the capers and parsley, squeeze in the lemon juice and grind in a little salt and pepper. Drizzle in a little extra virgin olive oil and bring to a fierce bubble. Tip over the fish and serve.
Slow-cooked chicken with star anise and ginger
A mellow, earthy supper that fills the house with the warm, aniseed smell of a Chinese supermarket. The full hour of unattended cooking time here is a real bonus. Don't panic about the Shaoxing wine, you can get it in Chinatown with the star anise, but I must tell you I've used dry sherry, saké, even dry vermouth before now and it's been fine. You may want rice with this if you are very hungry.
serves 2-3
6 chicken pieces on the bone, skin on
groundnut oil
a medium onion
ginger - a thumb-sized lump 500ml chicken or vegetable stock
3 tbsp soft brown sugar
3 tbsp Shaoxing wine
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
a good half teaspoon sea salt
1 flower of star anise
Warm a couple of tablespoons of groundnut oil in a heavy pan - a cast iron casserole is ideal. Lower in the chicken pieces and leave them to brown, then turn them and brown the other side. Lift them out and set aside in a dish.
While the chicken is browning peel the onion and cut it in half, then cut each half into six slices from tip to root. Stir the onion into the oil and leave it to soften, stirring occasionally so it doesn't stick. Peel the ginger, cut into matchsticks, then stir them into the onion. When the onion is soft and almost translucent return the chicken and introduce the remaining ingredients. Bring everything to the boil then turn down the heat so that the liquid simmers gently. Cover with a lid and leave for an hour, turning the chicken just once.
If you are taking the greens option, and I hope you are, then rinse them thoroughly
and get them and their water ready for steaming. Lift the chicken out of the sauce and keep it warm. Turn up the heat under the sauce and let it boil, furiously, for 6 or 7 minutes till there is about a cupful left. Taste it. It will almost certainly need a little salt. Put the greens on to steam - they will need about six minutes. Tip the sauce over the chicken and serve with the steamed greens.
Roast artichokes with mushrooms and thyme
I am always after something interesting to eat with slices from a cold roast. This is just that. The roast vegetables work well with cold pork or game birds but are best with a few slices of deepest pink roast beef. Some mustard and a few pickled walnuts wouldn't go amiss either.
serves 2
400 g Jerusalem artichokes
2 tbsp olive oil
butter - a thick slice
4 or 5 large flat mushrooms, about 250g in total
thyme - a few sprigs
garlic - a couple of cloves
Set the oven to 200c. Peel the artichokes and drop them into cold water with a little lemon juice to keep them white. Cut each mushroom into about six thick wedges. Warm the olive oil in a roasting tin set over the heat then add the butter. Add the drained artichokes and chopped garlic, before adding the mushrooms, the thyme leaves and a couple of tablespoons of water. Leave to cook for a minute or two, then transfer to the oven and leave to bake for 25-30 minutes.
Frozen yoghurt with vanilla, rhubarb and honey
Warm, rudely pink rhubarb and snow white frozen yoghurt has a clean, bright flavour and is breathtakingly pretty on a cold winter's day. The frozen yoghurt is simply a vanilla smoothie chucked into an ice cream machine. You could make your own smoothie - 750mls plain yoghurt, 2 bananas and the seeds of a vanilla pod whizzed in the blender - or you can use a ready made one. If you do, then hunt out the Innocent brand - there is none smoother or so perfectly balanced.
This quicker version of a hotpot, more of a soup really, is unthickened and has a freshness about it that the oven versions don't. The parsley is crucial, as is a good garlicky French sausage.
serves 4
2 tbsp olive oil
120g French bacon, diced
a large carrot
an onion
a rib of celery
a medium sized potato
one litre chicken stock
2 x 400g cans haricot beans a bay leaf or two
4 Toulouse sausages
chopped parsley
Warm the oil in a deep, heavy casserole. Put the bacon in first and let it cook over a medium heat so that it colours lightly. Meanwhile peel the onion and chop it finely and add to the bacon. Cut the carrot, celery and potato into rough dice and stir them into the onion, letting them soften a little. Don't let them colour. Pour in the chicken stock then the beans, rinsed of their liquid, tuck in the bay leaf and the sausages and bring to the boil.
Turn down the heat so that the liquid simmers gently, season, then leave it for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time. Check the seasoning, I like it quite peppery, and stir in a good handful of chopped parsley. Just before serving remove the sausages, slice them into thick pieces and return them to the pan.
· To order any Nigel Slater cook book ring Observer Book Service on 0870 066 7989.
Roast halibut with capers, lemon and parsley 2001 Bianco di Custoza Gorgo (£4.99, Safeway) I normally expect to be disappointed by anything calling itself Bianco di Custoza, but this might just change my mind. A prickle of carbon dioxide nicely complements its apple, pear and citrus zest fruit.
Sausage and bean soup
2001 Leopards Leap Pinotage/Shiraz (£5.49, Sainsbury's) You need something with plenty of fruit to drink with a robust dish like this. Stylishly packaged, it's a savoury, sweetly oaked Cape blend with smooth, raspberry, blackberry and strawberry fruit flavours and fine tannins at the price.
Slow-cooked chicken with star anise and ginger
I thing Nigel's right about the substitute wine here. If you can't get to a Chinese supermarket, buy a bottle of dry Fino Sherry instead. The ever reliable Tio Pepe (£4.19 per half, widely available) is crisp, faintly salty and dry. But make sure you don't leave the bottle hanging around, as it will go off.
Frozen yoghurt with vanilla, rhubarb and honey
2000 Cave Spring Cellars, Indian Summer Late Harvest Riesling (£13.95, Berry Brothers, 0870 900 4300) Dessert wines from Canada have emerged as some of my favourite sweet styles in the last two years, showing a combination of sweetness, intensity and refreshing acidity. This honeyed, concentrated, sweet and sour style white is perfect with this dish.
Roast artichokes with mushrooms and thyme
2001 Virginie Roussanne, Vin de Pays d'Oc (£4.99, Oddbins) Artichokes are to wine what rain is to grass court tennis. Most of the time, I'd be tempted to drink water, or a beer instead. But you might like to try this herbal, smoky, appealingly complex white from southern France. If not, try the wine with something else, because it's brilliant.
Tim Atkin
