The key to this simple dish, apart from being utterly delicious and full of kick, is in the presentation: either laying the slivers of orange out flat on a pretty, decorated serving plate, or piling them up in coloured glasses or flutes with a brandy and juice pool enticing you at the bottom.
4 oranges (I sometimes use blood oranges)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
6 tablespoons water
8 tablespoons brandy
With a very sharp serrated knife, peel the oranges, removing all the pith. Slice them finely into roundels and arrange, as you will serve them, either in a beautiful bowl or a couple of flutes, catching the orange juice.
In a small saucepan, make a caramel syrup with the sugar, water and excess orange juice. Warm this on a low heat to reduce. It should begin to darken and thicken. When this has just turned a golden brown colour, but before it burns, pour the brandy over the oranges, and then this syrup. You can do all of this in advance. Resist serving with cream, as it curdles with the juice of the fruit. In winter, adding a cinnamon stick to the syrup will add warmth, while in summer you could add a sprig of mint.
I love dinner parties. Plotting, inviting, shopping, scrubbing, cooking…and devising the menu to fit my hatching plan: are we having a drawn-out dinner with red wine and kitchen dancing, and lots of courses, or are we having an impressive but light meal before going out like an army of ravers? And then, have we got enough chairs? I usually over-invite and end up with a ram of people around a small table. And then there is the mixing of friends, old and new. I love the melting pot.
My parents were always feeding people, beautifully, on a shoestring. Flowers crept in from the garden, chard and borage picked from the vegetable patch. My dad polished candlesticks, with Jimmy Cliff records playing in the background. As they sat down to eat, I’d sit in the dark at the top of the stairs and eavesdrop on all the family secrets. And when we were a little older, my brother Olly and I were included in these feasts of gratin, salmon and hollandaise.
My dinners are a little more informal than my parents’. I expect people to help themselves and clear the plates and really get stuck in. I probably cook more laid-back food, and things are always a bit makeshift, and quite often I forget some ingredients and have to improvise. When Alice and I lived together in a tiny little flat above a fishmonger, with no natural light, we managed to feed a stream of friends, and all around our glass-topped desk. And we were constantly broke too, so it was a thrifty but consistently exuberant business.
Esme’s Hot Wings, Daddy’s Jamaican Ackee & Saltfish, Fried Plantain & Coconut Coleslaw
For 8
My dad had a few Jamaican girlfriends in his youth, before he met my mum. He picked up this dish too, ackee and saltfish. It’s one of my all-time far-out favourites. When I moved to London with him, aged eighteen, I’d beg him to make this, whenever we were having Peckham dinner parties. Ackee is a delicate yellow fruit that feels a little like a tender egg yolk, and looks brainy. The fish is salted to preserve it, like the Spanish bacalao, and is the perfect wedding to the ackee. And of course, the ingredients are everywhere in abundance in Brixton market.
Esme, of Esme’s hot wings, is the wonderful Jamaican lady who runs an organic vegetable shop opposite mine in the market. She’s a real mum, and has always looked after me. This is her spicy marinade. The reason I started making hot wings is that I’m a horror, and love the odd late-night takeaway. My glamorous funny friend Zezi and I have been known to devour more than a box each, after a night out. So I figured it was better for me to learn to make them for myself than to gorge in such a rotten way. These hot wings are good for a summer picnic too.
Esme’s Hot Wings
3 fresh plump tomatoes
1 medium onion
2 large chillies
juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon mild curry powder
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon soy sauce
3 teaspoons caster sugar
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 tablespoons self-raising flour
2 teaspoons table salt
16 medium chicken wings, organic if you can find them
Preheat the oven to 150°C/Gas 2. If you have a blender this will come in really handy now. If you don’t, then you are going to have to finely chop the ingredients thoroughly to form a blended marinade and possibly use a potato masher to really pulverise them. Back to the blender though: roughly chop the tomatoes, peel the onion and place in a blender along with the chillies and lime juice. Use the pulse to blend the vegetables, and then add the curry powder, cayenne pepper, soy sauce, sugar and cloves. Pulse again so that it is a watery paste, and no one thing is visible. It should be a pale red. Now add the self-raising flour and salt and pulse again.
Pour this marinade over the chicken wings and give it a thorough mix around so that the pieces are entirely coated. Decant the hot wings to a non-stick baking tray and place in the oven for 11/2 hours, turning about three times during this period. When you turn the wings, make sure you really coat and scoop them round in the marinade. Inevitably, some of this marinade will have stuck to the pan. So when you remove the chicken from the pan, make sure you are fastidious in getting all of it out. Lather any of this remaining sauce over the chicken pieces. You can eat these either warm or cold. And they are great to munch on when you get home and in need of a little salt; just remember to wash your face before you go to bed.
Ackee & Saltfish
I recently had an excellent ackee and saltfish with Raf. He took me, and the famous poet Derek Meins, to Lundies in Brockley. They make the best jerk pork I’ve ever tasted. It is succulent and amazingly slow-cooked. And the ackee and saltfish was deliciously made, full of soft onions and strips of green pepper. So I’ve incorporated some of their style into my dad’s recipe, and also the fine advice of my gigantic Jamaican hustler friend Larry, who recommends adding either tomatoes or tomato ketchup. This is the endearing way in which recipes grow and evolve.
800g skinless and boneless saltfish pieces
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
4 medium onions
2 green peppers
6 rashers of unsmoked bacon
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 × 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
4 teaspoons fresh thyme
a pinch of granulated sugar
2 × 540g tins of ackee in salt water
You need to soak the saltfish for at least 12 hours. This is very important, as it will clean off all the preserving salt. If you don’t, you will have a seriously parching dinner. Once it has thoroughly soaked, rinse the fish under