The most used blade in my kitchen belongs to a heavy, 20cm cook’s knife. Thicker than is currently fashionable, its blade is made from carbon steel rather than the more usual stainless, which immediately marks me out as something of an old-fashioned cook. So be it. The blade, a mixture of iron and carbon, is the dull grey of a pencil lead, and heavily stained from years of lemon juice and vinegar. Its biggest sin is its habit of leaving an unpleasant grey streak on apples or tomatoes I have sliced with it, and occasionally on lemons too, but that, and the need to dry it thoroughly to prevent it rusting, is a small price to pay for a tool that is so ‘right’ it actually feels part of my body.
Picking up the right knife is like putting on a much-loved pullover. It may well have seen better days but the odd hole only seems to add to its qualities – like the wrinkles on a close friend. Price has little to do with it. My trusty vegetable peeler cost less than a loaf of bread and has dealt with a decade of potatoes and parsnips. And even if an expensive top-of-the-range Japanese knife is a pleasure to hold in the hand, it may not work any better for you than something as cheap as chips from the local ironmonger’s.
A strong, long-bladed implement is the only way to gain entry to tough-skinned squashes such as the winter pumpkins, though I have been known to take a garden axe to the odd Crown Prince variety. You need a strong blade to get through celeriac too, and sometimes the larger, end-of-season swede. A serrated bread knife might just stand in its stead, but it is rarely man enough for the job.
I brought the 20cm cook’s knife back from Japan a while ago. It is the tool I use for slicing vegetables, chopping herbs, dicing meat. I know every nick and stain on its blade. It seems inappropriate to say that the right knife is like a comfort blanket, you feel safe with it in your hand, but that is how it is.
I do, though, find it mildly disturbing to find comfort in something with which you could so easily kill someone.
Hot, sweet baked pumpkin
Initially, this was a side dish to go with a flash-fried steak. But its sticky, sweet-sharp qualities led me to serve it as a dish in its own right. In which case there is a need for a dish of steamed brown rice to go with it. This is a genuinely interesting way to combat the sugary, monotonous note of the pumpkin. The colours are ravishing.
pumpkin or butternut squash: 1.5 kg (unpeeled weight)
butter: 50g
For the dressing:
caster sugar: 4 tablespoons
water: 200ml
ginger: a thumb-sized lump
large, medium-hot red chilli: 1 limes: 2
fish sauce: 2 capfuls
coriander: a small bunch, finely chopped
Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Peel the pumpkin, discard the seeds and fibres and cut the flesh into small pieces about 3cm in diameter. Put them in a roasting tin with the butter and bake for about an hour, turning them occasionally, till soft enough to take the point of a knife. They should be completely tender.
Put the sugar and water in a shallow pan and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and leave to simmer enthusiastically till the liquid has reduced by about half. Meanwhile, peel and roughly chop the ginger and put it in a food processor. Halve the chilli lengthways and chop roughly, removing the seeds if you wish for a less spicy seasoning (I tend to leave them in for this recipe). Add the chilli to the ginger, then grate in the zest of the limes. Squeeze in the juice from the limes, then process everything to a coarse paste, pushing the mixture down the sides of the bowl from time to time with a spatula.
Stir the spice mixture into the sugar syrup and continue simmering for a minute. Add the fish sauce and coriander and remove from the heat.
When the pumpkin is fully tender, spoon most of the chilli sauce over it, toss gently to coat each piece, then return to the oven for five to ten minutes. Toss with the remaining dressing and serve.
Enough for 6 as a side dish
JANUARY 15
A slow-cooked bean hotpot. And a quick version
A dry day, warm enough to garden without a jacket. The earth, dark and moist from the week’s rain, crumbles in textbook fashion under the garden fork. There is still a scattering of bronze leaves and here and there the odd medlar that melts in your hand, leaving behind the ghost of wine dregs in a glass. Anyone with a scrap of land will value January days like these for getting the earth turned, roses pruned and stray leaves collected.
I spend a couple of hours tugging out the last of the borlotti beans, their dried stems still twisted around the hazel poles. This should have been done in December and both the bean stems and precious hazel supports snap like icicles. The odd purple-skinned potato and (useless) radish come to the surface as I fork the soil. Before I go in, I move a patch of soggy brown leaves from under the medlar tree and find three rhubarb tips poking teasingly through the soil. Their carmine rudeness against the chocolate-brown soil at first startles, then delights.
Technology excites me (be it Japanese Shinkansen trains or the next thing that Apple throws our way) but so does the celebration of slow, time-honoured rituals. The way of living that hasn’t changed in centuries. Houses built or restored using traditional methods, treading grapes to make wine (yes, a tiny number of vineyards still do it) and anything hand made. Last night I soaked beans for a hotpot. I could have opened a can of course, and sometimes I do, but the idea of doing something just as it has been done for thousands of years appeals to me. So I soak them, a mixture of small white haricot and black-eyed beans. You can soak different varieties of bean together if they are the sort that enjoy the same cooking time (long, oval flageolet take less than the rounder beans). Covering the beans with an equal volume of water is usually enough. But they should be drained and rinsed the following day. This will effectively reduce the oligosaccharides, those complex, indigestible sugars that make us fart. More importantly, it cuts down the cooking time.
A crisp-crusted hotpot of aubergines and beans
If you haven’t soaked beans the night before, or simply can’t be bothered, then use canned haricot or black-eyed beans for this. You will need three 400g cans, drained and rinsed.
dried haricot or black-eyed beans: 450g
bay leaves: 2
aubergines: 2 (about 500g in total)
olive oil
onions: 2
garlic: 3 cloves
rosemary: 3 stems
dried oregano: 1 tablespoon
chopped tomatoes: two 400g cans
For the crust:
white bread, not too crusty: 125g
a clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
grated Parmesan: 30g
a lemon
rosemary: 2 or 3 sprigs
dried oregano: 1 teaspoon
olive oil: 3 tablespoons
Put the beans into a deep bowl, cover with cold water and leave overnight. In the morning, drain off any remaining water, rinse the beans, then tip them into a large saucepan and cover with at least 2 litres of