sugar
200ml (7fl oz) double cream
First make the ice cream. Combine the milk and coconut
milk in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Whisk the egg
yolks and sugar together in a heatproof bowl, then pour
the (almost) boiling milk in a thin stream into this mixture,
whisking constantly. Pour the custard back into the
saucepan and return to a gentle heat, stirring constantly
with a wooden spatula until the custard starts to thicken
very slightly. Pour it immediately into a clean bowl and
allow to cool completely.
Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks, then fold
in the coconut custard. Churn in an ice-cream machine
according to the manufacturer’s instructions until it
thickens to ice-cream consistency. Transfer to the freezer
and leave for a further 30 minutes before using.
For the grilled pineapple, combine the chillies with the
vanilla seeds and pod, all the spices, the sugar and 300ml
(10fl oz) water in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer.
Cook very gently for 15 minutes, then allow to cool.
Using a sharp serrated knife, cut the pineapple across
the base and below the stalk. Standing it on its base, cut
down through the centre of the pineapple, cleaving it in
two. Cut again lengthways to produce four equal long
segments. Place each one, skin-side down, on the board
and carefully cut between the skin and flesh, attacking the
pineapple first from one side and then the other until you
can lift the flesh away from the skin. Cut away the hard
central stalk then cut each segment into four long slices.
Heat a cast-iron ridged griddle pan and grill the
pineapple slices, turning them 90 degrees to create a
criss-cross pattern. This should only take 5–6 minutes.
Arrange the slices in an ovenproof dish, pour over the
chilli syrup and allow to infuse until ready to serve.
To serve, preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mark 4)
and gently warm the pineapple in the oven, then serve a
few slices with a ball of the coconut or vanilla ice cream
and maybe a slice of brioche or French toast.
74
March
For some reason these dishes that have washed up on
the shores of March all have rather basic ingredients.
I admit wild sea bass is a luxury these days – farmed
sea bass is ubiquitous despite its extraordinary lack of
flavour – but here the wild fish is given the most honest
and least fancy of treatments. For the rest, you can buy
most of this this stuff just about anywhere.
One of the joys of writing for the Financial Times is
the range of ingredients with which I can work. There
is an understanding that our readers are a sophisticated
bunch and have the access and the means to buy the
rarefied and expensive, if they want them. By the same
token, I can choose the humblest of ingredients if I so
wish. Some of the more plutocratic readers positively
pine for simplicity after being forced to dine out in
fancy restaurants and at corporate dinners.
Even simplicity has its price. For one thing, if you are
going to make minestrone, it will taste better when
made with the freshest and most beautiful vegetables.
For another, the cook has nowhere to hide. The
acquacotta is so ridiculously simple, a poached egg
in a little vegetable stew, that you might read the
recipe three times and still wonder what it is about.
This is cooking stripped of artifice: it is about making
something out of very little, out of the first few bits of
stuff from the kitchen garden, out of a few leftovers
from your veg box – the one that gives you a cabbage, a
parsnip, a couple of purple carrots and six broad beans
– and coming up with something fresh and nutritious.
Just try it for a light lunch or a Sunday supper.
Faites simple. That was Escoffier’s dictum: every
chef claims it as their lodestar and most disregard it
totally. And you can see why. People don’t always
want simplicity: they crave novelty and ‘originality’
and that usually means chucking an extra ingredient
or three into the mix.
Life is a Minestrone
La Minestra
It used to puzzle me what the Italians did with their
vegetables. In most of Italy – perhaps not in the poorest
regions – every town boasts a market in which at any time
of the year one can find the most magnificent array of
fresh produce. Since the growing season extends to at least
ten months of the year, they are always pretty well served.
And yet, when you go to most restaurants, vegetables are
conspicuous only by their absence.
There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that
restaurants don’t think it is their business to give you
vegetables which are for the home; they consider it their
job to give you antipasti, primi and then to follow with
a good chunk of protein. Secondly, they are not into
contorni, or vegetables as an adjunct to protein. ‘Meat and
two veg’ is an alien concept, although countless Italian
restaurateurs in Britain have submitted to that perennial
and seemingly undying British demand.
And yet it is clear the Italians eat a lot of vegetables.
I suspect that in all but the wealthiest households, chunks
of protein are an occasional pleasure rather than a daily
expectation. Some vegetables – a plate of artichokes or
chicory, perhaps, or some fried courgettes or a plate of
broad