PEARL BARLEY, KALE, GOAT’S CHEESE
SWEET POTATO, COCONUT MILK, CASHEWS
CHOCOLATE, DRIED FRUIT, PISTACHIOS
CHOCOLATE, DULCE DE LECHE, CANTUCCI
CHOCOLATE, ORANGE ZEST, CANDIED PEEL
DAMSON, ALMOND, SUNFLOWER SEEDS
GINGER CAKE, CARDAMOM, MAPLE SYRUP
HAZELNUTS, BLOOD ORANGES, RICOTTA
CRANBERRY, MINCEMEAT, MERINGUE
PUDDING RICE, ROSEWATER, APRICOTS
Index
Acknowledgements
A note on the brushstrokes
A note on the type
About the Author
Also by Nigel Slater
About the Publisher
Dinner is different in winter. The change starts late on a summer’s evening, when you first notice the soft, familiar scent of distant woodsmoke in the sudden chill of the evening air. Then, a day or two later, a damp, mushroomy mist hovers over the gardens and parks. Later, you notice the leaves have turned silently from yellow ochre to walnut. Autumn is here once again. You may sigh, rejoice or open a bottle. For many, this is the end of their year. For me, this is when it starts, when warmth, and bonhomie come to the fore. Energy returns.
With the change of weather, supper takes on a more significant role. We are suddenly hungry. Once the nights draw in, I am no longer satisfied by plates of milky burrata and slices of sweet, apricot-fleshed melon. No more am I content with a bowl of couscous with peaches, soft cheese and herbs for dinner. What I crave now is food that is both cosseting and warming, substantial and deeply satisfying. Food that nourishes but also sets me up for going back out in the cold and wet. And yet, I still find my diet is heavily plant-based with less emphasis on meat. It is simply the way it has progressed over the years and shows little sign of abating.
At the start of the longest half of the year, our appetite is pricked by the sudden drop in temperature, and as evenings get longer, we have the opportunity to spend a little more time in the kitchen. To mash beans into buttery clouds. Simmer vegetable stews to serve with bowls of couscous. To bring dishes of sweet potato to melting tenderness in spiced cream. And of course, the pasta jar comes out again.
My cold weather eating is more substantial than the food I eat for the rest of the year. Dinner becomes about one main dish rather than several lighter ones, and the focus shifts towards keeping warm. On returning home I will now happily spend an hour cooking. Maybe a little longer.
The oven gets more use at this time of year, the grill and griddle probably less. More food will come to the table in deep casseroles and pie dishes. I dig out my capacious ladle for a creamed celeriac soup as soft as velvet. The temperature of the plates and bowls will change. We want to hold things that warm our hands, a sign of the happiness to come.
There will be carbs. They protect and energise us. They bring balm to our jagged nerves. (Winter is nature’s way of making us eat carbohydrates.) Crusts – of pastry, breadcrumbs and crumble – add substance; potatoes fill and satisfy and there is once again a huge sourdough loaf on the table. Rice and noodles are no longer a side dish, and now become the heart and soul of dinner.
My autumn and winter cooking is every bit as plant-based as the food I make in the summer; it just has a bit more heft to it. Shallow bowls of rice cooked with milk and thyme in the style of a risotto. A verdant, filling soup of Brussels sprouts and blue cheese. A saffron-coloured stew of sour cream, herbs and noodles. Translucent fritters in a pool of melted cheese. Golden mushrooms astride a cloud of soft, yellow polenta. There is a tangle of noodles and tomato, peppery with chilli; roast parsnips and baked pumpkin; a wide earthenware dish of sweet potatoes and lentils glowing like a lantern, a herb-freckled crumble of leeks and tomato or swedes and thyme in a pastry crust and a tarte Tatin of soft golden shallots and autumn apples. It is all here, between these pumpkin-coloured covers.
This is also the season for ‘something on toast’. By toast I mean not only bread cut thick and rough-edged, but toasted bagels and crumpets, muffins and naan. Any soft dough that will crisp under the grill and will support a cargo of vegetables or is happy to be slathered with a thick wave of crème fraîche or hummus, roast vegetables or perhaps cheese to melt and bubble.