In a stew about gravy

Some things are best forgotten; left well hidden in the attic of memory, buried away behind the other clutter.

But memories, no matter how deeply interred, have a habit of popping up unexpectedly and coming back to haunt you.

Slouched in an armchair on a Sunday afternoon, wind rattling the plane trees outside, i was delighting to the joys of Nigel Slater's Eating for England, when a brief section suddenly threw the words 'gravy granules' out from the page and directly at me.

From the tender comforts of nostalgia for custard creams and mint cracknel - the latter of which I hadn't hear of in years, the former of which the same book has had me wanting instantly - I found myself slapped across the face by the wet fish of embarrassing memory.

I have to admit that there was a time when the kitchen cupboard housed tubs of beef, chicken and vegetable gravy granules.

That was bad enough, but then more detail flooded through: memories of serving Birds Eye frozen chicken burgers (the breadcrumbed ones, not those with something like Rice Crispies over them).

I felt mortified at the thought. But at least it serves as an illustration of what a difference a decade or so can make.

Mr Slater has a lot to answer for. But he also provided me with the roots of an interesting challenge this weekend.

The first chapterette in the aforementioned book talks of stew - of the great English stew a creation of diced meat, diced vegetables, a jug of water and a bay leaf, all of which comes together as something that is, almost at best, bland.

He compares it, pithily, to the casserole traditions of France, Italy and Spain, with the addition of booze (in the first case, at least) and the use of various herbs and spices.

Returning to the attic of memory - but deliberately this time, and with care - I rooted around for memories of maternal stews.

She cooked a stew rarely and, when she did, it was on a Saturday for a late lunch: it would have some meat of other, together with assorted veg, pearl barley and liquid.

I remember nothing more specific - except the slices of bread that we mopped up with at the end.

As I've mentioned before, she didn't believe in onion - not in an atheistic way, of course, but I have never known her have one in the house, whether a cooking onion ordinaire, one of the red variety or even the milder shallot.

Her culinary belief system did seem to understand that onions were occasionally required, but that was achieved by rehydrating some Whitworths dried fragments in an old, enamelled tin mug and then popping it in the cooking pot.

Well a least that's how I remember things - and I'm not getting the ladder back out and going back into that attic right now to see if I can find more detail.

But all this set me to considering a stew for Sunday, instead of the pot roast I had been contemplating as a way of christening the Le Crueset oval casserole.

I wanted to cook without any specific recipe, but that didn't mean a lack of research before I stepped into the kitchen this afternoon.

Elisabeth Luard's European Peasant Food offered clues in a number of recipes for classic dishes that seemed a tad more authentic than most versions I'd seen before.

For instance, meat was usually caramelised in lard or dripping instead of the currently obligatory 'healthy' option of oil - Which? magazine actually once criticised a Rick Stein book for including dishes involving cream and butter.

And the cooking time was also often considerably longer than I'd usually seen: for instance, I'd never seen a recipe for a daube that saw it cooked for four hours at 120˚C. That was information that I stored for use.

I've also got poor - albeit gradually improving - understanding of cuts of meat. More research suggested that for such a dish, I should use blade (or chuck, as it's also) known. Sure enough, Matthew had some.

It was beautiful meat, delightfully marbled (see picture at the top). This afternoon, I cut it into pieces (large bite size) and then diced onion, celery and carrot - the holy trinity of the mirepoix - plus parsnip.

The meat was browned in dripping first, then removed and replaced with the vegetables.

Once they were softened and a little golden, a tablespoon of plain flour was added, stirred in and allowed to cook through for. Minute, before I started deglazing with Wychwood's Scarecrow organic golden pale ale.

Once it had stopped thickening, I added a couple of springs of thyme, some seasoning and then the meat, topping up the liquid to just cover.

Then it went into the pre-heated over at 115˚C, since I was using a fan oven.

After tasting on 90 minutes, it was a rather bitter - but not in the way the beer would have been if you'd been drinking it out of a glass. I sprinkled in a little demerera, drizzled on a little Maggi sauce, stirred in a decent squirt of tomato purée and turned up the temperature about five degrees. An hour later, this seemed to have sweetened matters - a little.

Later still, something hit me: all the remaining bitterness had gone, leaving something with lovely layers of developing flavour, a general sweetness at the front and a hint of sourness later.

In the past, I've wondered whether I've done something wrong when I've tried meat 'n' beer dishes: they always seemed to have that bitterness. Is that really what the Flemish intended with the traditional carbonade?

The problem, I now realise, is that most modern recipes in the UK seem to regard 'long, slow cooking' as meaning two hours at the max. Presumably, British cooks are assumed to be somehow incapable of cooking anything for any longer – are we too impatient?

For the final 45 minute's cooking, I added dumplings, made of self-raising flour, mustard powder, shredded suet, seasoning, chopped parsley and a little chilled water.

Having left this dish for over four hours, it took a mere one bite to realise that there's a substantial difference when you seriously cook for longer.

I've been curious about slow cooking for some time, but had been struggling to find recipes that seemed to involve anything that was genuinely slow – apart from a Heston Blumenthal belly pork dish that took nine hours.

What a shame I hadn't bothered studying Luard's book earlier and in more detail! With the feeling that I've enjoyed a really tasty success today, I'm going to be studying the book further and actually trying some of the specific recipes - not the least the daube. No wonder my previous efforts have never tasted as I know, in my gut, the dish should!

What makes the French laugh?

If you’ve ever wondered whether the French laugh at us Brits for our attitude toward food, then I think I’ve found the confirmation.

A neat little book arrived for me today: I had ordered the now out-of-print Le Creuset Cookbook less for the recipes and more for the promise of details of just how to get the most out of your cast iron cookware.

Since I’ve bothered to invest in some (and then spent part of the weekend tidying out some cupboards to house it – ‘my god, when did I buy this and what is it?’), I decided that a further small investment would be worthwhile.

It’s written by Elisa Vergne and chef David Rathgeber, with food porn photos by Thomas Duval, and was published in France.

I soon spotted the brief section on “A few easy-to-follow healthy cooking rules”.

This included instructions on trimming as much fat as possible off ingredients, adding a minimum of “grease” to any dish (and absolutely not “butter, lard or pork fat”, all of which are “rich in saturated fatty acids”; draining any foods that have initially been fried or sautéed and discarding any fat left in the pan etc.

You get the gist, I’m sure. The message is simple: saturated fat is bad.

Okay. If that’s the way you want to play it …

But then, the recipes start, and the fifth is for foie gras in a terrine.

The eighth is a chicken liver terrine.

Other joyous celebrations of fabulous fattiness include pork belly with buttered cabbage – boy, do I want to try that one! – and, on the following page, ham hock with foie gras.

There’s a blanquette of veal, which includes double cream and egg yolks, and a free-range chicken with cream – a lot of it, judging by the very sexy picture.

And that’s before we reach the baking and desserts sections, on which fatty levels you’ll have to trust me.

This, I admit, tickled me pink. I imagine – and of course I could be wrong – that that original introductory note about naughty fats was designed to placate the US market, for which the book was originally produced.

After which, the French authors, knowingly and with a sly shared wink, went about the business of imparting some recipes that were simply about seriously good food.

In the office today, I bumped into someone I only meet a couple of times a year. The first thing she noted was that I’d lost weight.

We stood around the tea point gassing and sharing stories. She has no illusions about becoming skinny – and doesn’t want to – but is attending a slimmers’ group at present to help with some weight loss.

She asked what my ‘secret’ was – and seemed surprised when I told her that, having given up dieting 12 years ago, I simply ate what I fancied, but that it has involved less and less processed rubbish as the years have gone by and my late-blooming love affair with food has developed.

I suspect the French authors of that book would be less shocked than she was.

On the same general theme, I now have to make a big, big declaration of thanks to Mary – a regular reader who, having noted that I was struggling to find lard locally, brought down 500g of the lovely stuff from the west midlands when she arrived for UNISON’s NEC yesterday, plus 500g of dripping for good measure.

Mary – you’re an absolute gem. And tonight, some of it was used in a midweek toad in the hole, which I sort of borrowed from Nigel Slater and adapted a bit. Thus:

Take six decent butcher’s sausages for two people and, very carefully, skin them.

Wrap the sausages in pancetta or Serrano or streaky bacon.

Sift 125g of plain flour into a bowl with two eggs, 150ml of milk and 150ml of cold water and seasoning. Whisk this up and leave to rest for 15-30 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat your oven to 220˚C.

Pop a gratin dish into the oven with three tablespoons of dripping or lard in it. Once that’s smokingly hot, pour in the batter mix and then lay the wrapped sausages in, together with three stalks of rosemary.

Pop back into the oven and cook for around 25-30 minutes.

In the meantime, slice an onion and soften in oil. Add a tablespoon of plain flour and cook for a minute or so. Then add red wine until I stops thickening. Cook until you need it.

And that, my friends, is a damned fine midweek supper. And one that I don’t think the French would scoff at.

Good tools can make the job easier

They say that a good workman never blames his tools – but that doesn’t mean that the quality of your tools isn’t important.

And if I had ever been in any doubts about that, it has been brought home to me in the last week.

A fortnight or so ago, I was cooking a casserole dish in one of my stainless steel pots. We bought them at least 15 years ago, ordered from a Sunday supplement.

They weren’t cheap and they were advertised as being of professional standard.

To be honest, I can’t remember why on Earth we opted for such a set: 12 pieces, comprising four saucepans, two casseroles (one with a steamer insert), two frying pans and a large sauté pan, a sauce pan and a colander. It was before I got remotely interested in food, let alone actual cooking.

Still, we invested and they have been used ever since.

But back to the casserole I was cooking. It dawned on me that this was exactly the sort of dish that yearned for one of the curved, shallow casseroles from Le Creuset.

Now, I'm going to make an admission. I’ve been trying to convince myself for some time that an odd piece of the iconic ironware from that French company would be worthwhile – but the attraction was primarily aesthetic.

But finally, I went out and bought the dish mentioned – a seriously solid piece of kit. And then I waited until last weekend and the chicken chasseur that I mentioned the other day.

What struck me then, however, was not simply how nice it was – but it was also a better cooking experience. Where I have struggled to really brown meat for some time – even since learning a lot more about it from Raymond Blanc – suddenly the chicken really did caramelise beautifully.

Either my own technique had enjoyed a blip or had improved overnight – or something else had made a difference.

With exactly this question in mind, I started experimenting.

The following day, when I made a French onion soup, it was in the same casserole – and sure enough, caramelising the onion was easier.

A couple of days later, I used the dish again for a risotto – it didn’t need caramelisation, but it did improve the cooking experience.

The only possible conclusion, by this stage, was that the ability of my piece of cast iron Le Creuset to conduct heat was better than that of the pans I’d been using for years.

That was clarified during a fag-break conversation with the head chef at the office canteen later in the week, who told me that, over time, the steel pans would have changed chemically – and with that, the ability of them to conduct heat would have changed too.

I was delighted to discover that it wasn’t my imagination or some wishful thinking.

And it struck me then that I should already have known this lesson. A few years ago, I bought an omelette pan in France.

It’s a heavy beast and copper coated. A really traditional one – and not cheap. And it transformed my ability to cook an omelette – and also pancakes.

The great chef, Escoffier, couldn’t believe that people tried to make omelettes without a proper pan. So it's not simply a case of gadgets that do jobs that can be done just as effectively with an 'ordinary' pan.

Last night, I used the same casserole to cook some sliced red onion and good butcher's sausages. Again, good results.

While it's true that tools can't make up for sloppiness or lack of technique, it seems that they can also hinder you.

Food to welcome the autumn

A grouse bobbed among the stubble. Small birds of prey hovered over fields. A pheasant stalked alongside a hedge. Cotton wool clouds scudded across the blue and a canal wended its way though the countryside like a silver ribbon.

It was a snapshot of the English countryside in September, as my train rushed south from a day’s work in Manchester.

There, on a glorious day, the trees had been showing off their new autumn colours – some way ahead of their southern counterparts.

It was the sort of weather and scenery that sends the mind – and the appetite – on a seasonal journey.

And harvest festivals are not the only festivals around, celebrating the season’s abundance: the 10th British Food Fortnight, which was initially intended to coincide with harvest and revive the celebration of it, is now under way.

And if you fancy something a tad more exotic, then the Sud de France festival is up and running again too, with many events in London promoting the food – and particularly the excellent wine – of the Languedoc-Roussillon.

A football free weekend meant time in the kitchen – indeed, Sunday was the most intensive kitchen day for some months, with a flour-free squidgy chocolate cake, à la Jane Asher, on the agenda as a Monday tonic for hard-working colleagues.

It’s a dark, rich – but texturally surprisingly light – treat, from a lovely, easy recipe that can be found here.

Saturday evening saw a chicken chasseur: for just two of us, four chicken thighs browned in butter, followed by onion and mushroom.

Plain flour is added and cooked through for a minute, before the pan is deglazed with a couple of teaspoons of brandy and then some white wine. It’s at times like this that the smell of cooking is intoxicating.

Add tomato purée, chicken stock and chopped tarragon. Season to taste. Pop the chicken back in, bring to the boil and then cover and reduce the heat.

Cook for around 40-40 minutes – or when the meat is cooked. Serve with freshly chopped parsley and either rice or big croutons.

It’s a great dish and can also be done with game. Indeed, since the ‘chasseur’ refers to hunting, that would be even more traditional.

On Sunday, it was time for a French onion soup for lunch – and then a proper roast dinner in the evening, after baking.

In this case, a rib of beef (more than enough for two), which not only had the bone in, but also plenty of fat.

I don’t think it had ever struck me before, as it did on Saturday, just how much beef is sold for roasting with next to no fat in it. Most seems to be boned and rolled, with a layer of fat wrapped around it.

Since fat carries the flavour – and lubricates the meat – this seems absurd. But then again, British farmers, given the market, have also been rearing pigs with decreasing amounts of fat, as the terror of fat has overtaken the desire for flavour.

The piece I found might not have looked as neat or been as easy to cut as those rolled ones, but it had plenty of fat, cooked very nicely and had no shortage of flavour.

Roast dinners are simple on one level – but require a degree in quantum mechanics on the other.

You need reams of paper to note down the times and temperatures for the joint, for the roast potatoes and for the Yorkshire pudding, together with reminders for when your veg need to go on.

I used beef dripping for both the potatoes and pudding this time – for the latter I might have used too much, although the single pudding, made in a small gratin dish, worked fairly well (I’d have liked it crisper) – but for the former, it was perfect, helping to produce a fabulously crisp but thin outside.

And using the Le Creuset roasting tray that I’d been fortunate enough to win earlier this year meant that, once the meat was resting, I could whack it on the hob, add some sliced onions I’d been cooking, then some flour, a little red wine to deglaze and then water as needed, to produce a decent enough gravy to honour the pud and meat.

Sliced carrots on the side, simply boiled in minimum water, was as complex as I wanted to be after that.

With the nights drawing in and an increasing chill in the air, it was the ideal way to comfort against the impending winter.