Toast and Bruschetta
The crunch and heft of toast and simple bruschetta provide perfect contrast to countless dishes, including many in this book. To make toast, I like to grill or griddle slices (about 1cm thick) of crusty rustic bread until they’re crunchy on the outside, but not dry and brittle. To make bruschetta, rub one side of each toast liberally with a raw clove of garlic, drizzle with good olive oil (ideally a grassy, peppery oil), and sprinkle with Maldon or another flaky sea salt.
Croutons
I make croutons from stale rustic Italian bread, the crust removed, with a light, hole-riddle crumb, for Caesar Salad (see recipe, here) and Roast Chicken with Tomato-and-Bread Salad (see recipe, here). The toasting process is the same, but I like croutons of a slightly different shape for these recipes. For the Caesar, I tear enough of the crumb to make two generous handfuls of irregular bite-sized pieces. For the bread salad, I tear the crumb of a large loaf into long strips of different lengths. It’s nice for them to be about the same width (2.5cm), so they toast evenly.
To make the croutons: spread the bread pieces on a tray in one layer and bake them in a 200°C/400°F/gas 6 oven, shaking the pan and tossing the pieces now and then, until they’re golden brown and crunchy all the way through, 10 to 15 minutes; they shouldn’t give at all when you squeeze them. Keep a close eye on them to be sure they don’t get too dark.
EQUIPMENT
MEAT MINCER
I’m a big fan of mincing my own meat. It gives you control over the cuts of meat you use for burgers and meatballs. It also lets you be sure that the minced meat you cook with hasn’t been overworked, which can make the results dense and unappealing. I have the proper mincer at the restaurants, but you can buy a mincer attachment for your stand mixer. Before you mince, I suggest you pop the meat and the mincer attachment into the freezer until the edges of the meat go crunchy. Several recipes in this book ask you to mince meat along with other ingredients, like breadcrumbs and herbs. I suggest that you make the effort and do it yourself, but sure, you could ask a nice butcher to do it for you.
MORTAR AND PESTLE
I’d trade all the fancy blenders and mixers in the world for a granite mortar and pestle. I use mine often for pounding toasted spices to a powder, smashing garlic to a paste to make aioli, and much more. You can get by without one – whizzing spices in a grinder, chopping and scraping ingredients to a paste on a cutting board with a chef’s knife – but nothing else is quite as satisfying.
PANCAKES WITH BACON AND CHILLI
Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, also called Pancake Day. Traditionally, many families, anticipating the upcoming fast, took Shrove Tuesday as their last opportunity to cook with lovely things like eggs and sugar and butter. Although my family didn’t fast, my mom always made these crêpe-like pancakes come Shrove Tuesday. They’re quite thin and crisp at the edges. You’ve got to flip them delicately, with a deft flick of your wrist. My mom once tossed one so high that it stuck to the ceiling.
The pancakes take some time at the stove, but the process is satisfying – you’ll find yourself getting better at flipping with each one. By the end, you’ll have quite a stack. My mom used to serve them sprinkled with sugar and Jif lemon juice from a squeezy bottle shaped like the fruit. I prefer to eat mine drizzled with maple syrup (especially the bourbony kind) and sprinkled with crumbled chilli, with some salty, floppy bacon on the side. I love to stack them up and cut them into wedges to serve them, so you are eating twenty-four layers in each bite.
serves 4 (makes 24 pancakes)
FOR THE BATTER
225g plain flour
Sea salt
4 large eggs
400ml whole milk
50g unsalted butter, melted
FOR THE PAN CAKES
100g unsalted butter, melted, plus a knob of butter for finishing
Extra virgin olive oil
12 slices bacon
Maple syrup
Dried pequin chillies or red pepper flakes
Make the batter: Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and stir in 2 pinches of salt. Make a well in the centre of the flour and crack the eggs into it, then slowly but steadily whisk in the milk and 150ml water (start whisking from the centre, and you won’t get lumps) until you have a smooth, liquidy batter. Whisk in the 50g of melted butter.
Make the pancakes: Heat a 20cm non-stick pan over high heat for 2 minutes, so it gets nice and hot. Take the pan off the heat and spoon in a little melted butter, a little less than a teaspoon, swirling it around the pan. Then, still off the heat, pour in just enough batter to coat the pan in a thin, almost translucent layer – a generous 2 tablespoons – quickly swirling to disperse the batter evenly (a few bare spots are okay). Return the pan to the heat and cook the pancake, without messing with it, just until the edges begin to brown and lift away from the pan, about 30 seconds. Firmly but carefully shake the pan and, with a deft flick of your wrist, flip the pancake. (You can also use a spatula to lift an edge of the pancake and flip it with your fingers.) Cook it on the second side for 30 seconds, or until both sides are splotched with light golden brown. Transfer it to a plate. Continue cooking the pancakes, stirring the batter and adding a scant teaspoon of the melted butter to the pan between each one, and stacking the pancakes on the plate as you go. They’ll keep each other warm until you finish, though it helps to keep the plate in a warm oven.
Pour a few glugs of olive oil into a large pan and set it over high heat. Once the oil begins to smoke, add 4 slices of the bacon. After a minute or so, add the rest (or work in batches to avoid crowding the pan). Cook until the slices are slightly crispy and brown at the edges but still a bit floppy, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer the bacon to paper towels to drain.
Drizzle the pancake stack with maple syrup, top with a knob of butter, broken up into little pieces, and crumble on as many chillies as you’d like. Serve cut into wedges, with the bacon on the side.
My mom isn’t good at cooking much, but she makes the best fried egg sandwich. She gets the egg really crispy and golden around the edges, and now that’s how I cook mine. The key is to get your pan and oil nice and hot, so that when the egg hits the hot fat, it sizzles and spits. I sprinkle the setting white and gleaming yolk with Maldon salt, crushed between my fingers. I like my eggs spicy, so they also get some crumbled pequin chilli. I can’t stand snotty whites – there’s nothing worse – so I’ll often cover the pan for a few seconds as the egg fries, or baste it with hot fat.
I love a fried egg on toasted crusty bread, perhaps with bacon that’s a little crisp but still floppy (I find that when bacon or pancetta is very crispy, you can’t taste the pork). And I love a fried egg on bubble and squeak, the yolk spilling over the top with a poke from your fork.
A lot of people like to eat two eggs at a sitting. I like to eat one. One is perfect.
SQUASH