Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Simon Hopkinson was born and raised in Lancashire. From his first restaurant job at age seventeen, La Normandie restaurant, where he worked under the tutelage of Yves Champeau, he then moved to London to set up Bibendum (right) in Kensington with Sir Terence Conran, which he left to pursue his food writing. He has written an award-winning column for the Independent since 1995. He lives in London.

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SECOND HELPINGS OF ROAST CHICKEN

HYPERION

Contents

FOREWORD BY LORD BIRKETT.....................xiiiINTRODUCTION.................................xvALMONDS......................................1APPLES.......................................7BEANS........................................13BEETS........................................19BRISKET......................................26BUTTER AND DRIPPING..........................33CABBAGE......................................39CELERY.......................................45CHICKEN......................................50CHILLIES.....................................57COCKTAILS....................................62COCOA........................................67CUCUMBER.....................................72CURRY........................................77DUCK.........................................84FENNEL.......................................90GNOCCHI......................................95ICES.........................................101JELLY........................................106LEMONS.......................................114LETTUCE......................................120LINGUINE.....................................125LOBSTER......................................130MILK.........................................136MINCE (GROUND MEAT)..........................141MINT.........................................147MUSSELS......................................152ORANGES......................................158OYSTERS......................................164PANCAKES.....................................170PEARS........................................178PEAS.........................................183PEPPER.......................................188PLAICE.......................................193QUAIL........................................198RASPBERRIES..................................203RHUBARB......................................209RICE.........................................215ROQUEFORT....................................221SALT.........................................227SCAMPI.......................................232SKATE........................................239SUET.........................................245TARRAGON.....................................251TONGUE.......................................257TRUFFLES.....................................264VINEGAR......................................269RECIPE INDEX.................................275GENERAL INDEX................................281

Chapter One

Once I realized that I was happily destined for cooking for most of my working life. I very soon became an expensive little show-off in my patient mother's kitchen. Timothy White's and Taylor were regularly plundered for the tiniest bottles of olive oil for mayonnaise (a request then, for "extra-virgin," would have prompted the strangest looks from the starched white uniform behind the wooden counter, staining my mother's reputation as a bona fide grammar school teacher forever), while the weekly cream order also escalated dramatically. Stewing steak became fillet; salted anchovies and bottled capers had to be bought from posh Manchester delicatessens; pepper was not pepper unless it was ground from a mill. Ground almonds, however, became an ingredient I felt should really become a staple. Mum thought different. Almonds in any form in the early 1960s cost a small fortune.

Still, I baked and baked. There was the favorite dacquoise (a sort of meringue cake) and an almond and cherry tart. There were endless cookies and a puff-pastry pie called pithiviers - which was very French indeed according to the Cordon Bleu magazine of that particular week. The delicious Bakewell pudding Mum often made may, perhaps, have relied more on almond extract (or ratafia) than it might have, but if yours truly was to have a go, it was a quarter of ground almonds all the way. (To be truthful, I regularly feel that just a few drops of good almond extract always round off the taste of a good almond cake or cookie.)

Anyway, whether nibbed, ground, flaked, whole - either skinned or not - the magic of the exotic almond was the absolute pantry favorite of my culinary formative years. Naturally, I hadn't the faintest idea how they grew, where they came from, or that they were full of a fragrantly rich oil when pressed for it. But the greatest revelation of all occurred many years later while shopping for this and that in the market of Aries in the Provence region of southern France, where I was alerted to this extraordinary pile of furry green lozenges: fresh almonds. Nobody had ever told me they started out as beautiful as this!

Once they were gently cracked with a tap of a wooden mallet, my understanding of the almond was finally complete. I had occasionally read about almond "milk" and how this natural secretion was essential to the fabrication of an almond blancmange. "Hmmm ...," I said to myself, "I see what they mean now." Apart from the exquisite creaminess of the fresh kernel - yet crisp too, all at the same time - this milk most evidently seeped out gently once disturbed from its furry casing. I wonder what happens to all this seepage in the bowels of the commercial almond factories of southern Europe? Turned into soap and bath oil, no doubt.

ALMOND AND BLUEBERRY SPONGE CAKE

The sort of pudding my mother used to make without a second thought. In those days, however, we made it with whimberries-which are like small blueberries-and I wish I could confidently suggest them to all, for this recipe here. So vivid and intense is the memory of their smell and stain, and the odor of that cake as it baked in the oven, that I now find myself moved to suggest that if my friend Howard Hodgkin had been there at the time he would most surely have been inspired to paint a picture: Small Purple Stain, perhaps as its title?

Serves 4

8 tbsp butter, softened 1 1/2 cups blueberries 1/2 cup sugar 2 eggs 1/2 cup ground almonds 1 tbsp Amaretto liqueur a little extra sugar

Serve with

heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Grease a wide and shallow baking dish with 1 tbsp of the softened butter. Strew with the blueberries but do not crowd them into the dish. Beat together the remaining butter and the sugar until very, light and fluffy and then add the eggs, one at a time, beating them in thoroughly before folding in the ground almonds (it is a good idea to sift these into the mixture) and the Amaretto.

Spoon the sponge mixture over the fruit, sprinkle with the extra sugar, and bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes, or until puffed up and gently firm to the touch. Leave to cool for 10-15 minutes before eating with very cold heavy cream.

ALMOND BLANCMANGE

A recipe from the late, great Richard Olney. This man was so in tune with raw materials and ingredients, how to prepare them, how to cook them, and how to serve them (so often overlooked in these days of obsessive presentation; who said la nonvelle cuisine was dead?), that it is a constant source of angry irritation to me how his enormous influence has been so absurdly overlooked and by so many.

Well, of course, it hasn't been overlooked at all by those of us who choose to search out and embrace the writings of such a passionate scholar - and, almost above all, Olney was as passionate about his chosen oeuvre as it is possible to be. A stickler for detail, an obsessive over the provenance of an original dish, and forever ready to give credit where credit was due (sadly - and famously - on more than one occasion this was not reciprocated when the source turned out to be his), he was also the most generous teacher, regularly offering advice and insight to those receptive to his strict principles and abundant knowledge of when something was "just right." So, if you are interested, please read the following quote taken from his preface to The French Menu Cookbook:

Emphasis throughout the book has been placed on the importance of tactile sense, which I consider to be a sort of convergence of all the senses, an awareness through touching but also through smelling, hearing, seeing, and tasting that something is "just right" - to know by seeing the progression from the light, swelling foam of an initial boil to a flat surface punctuated by tiny bubbles, by hearing the same progression from a soft, cottony, slurring sound to a series of sharp, staccato explosions, by judging from the degree of syrupiness or the smooth, enveloping consistency on a wooden spoon when a reduction has arrived at the point a few seconds before which it is too thin, a few seconds after which it may break or burn; to know by pinching and judging the resilience of a chop or a roast when to remove it from the heat; to recognise the perfect amber of a caramel moments before it turns burnt and bitter; to feel the right liquid flow of a crpe batter and the point of light but contained airiness in a mousseline forcemeat that, having absorbed a maximum of cream to be perfect, would risk collapsing through any further addition ...

One need only open this book and read it from cover to cover to learn how to cook. It has nothing to do with television or the Internet, it is simply something to use when you walk into the kitchen wishing only to make something extremely good to eat. It also suggests that you might work a little bit too, to achieve the best results you can, so that you too may be able to get things "just right." Here is his immaculate blanc-manger taken, almost verbatim, from The French Menu Cookbook.

Serves 4

9 oz whole almonds (briefly blanched in boiling water, then ruffled together in the folds of a dish towel with your hands, so removing their brown skins) 3 bitter almonds (If unavailable, substitute a dash of almond extract.

Note: The French brand labelled "Malil - Amande amre" is the very best I have yet found.) 2/3 cup water 1 1/4 cups light cream 4 gelatin leaves, soaked in cold water until soft 5 tbsp sugar 1/2 cup heavy cream a little almond oil

Pound the almonds in a stone mortar, adding a spoonful of the water each time the paste becomes too resistant to work easily. When half the water has been used, put the rest aside and continue pounding and turning, adding the light cream in small quantities at a time, until it has all been added. This should be done slowly and thoroughly to produce the finest possible pure.

Place a sieve over a mixing bowl. Dip a strong linen towel in cold water and wring it out well. Line the sieve with it. Pour in the almond mixture, gather together the edges of the towel in one hand, and begin twisting. Relax your hold from time to time to mix up the almond paste and then twist again, as tightly as possible, continuing until all the almond milk possible has been wrung from the paste.

Add the soaked gelatin to the remaining water and gently heat until it has dissolved. Add the sugar and stir in until it too has also dissolved. Leave until almost cool, stir it into the almond milk, and then place the bowl in a larger container filled with cracked ice. Stir steadily with a wooden spoon until it begins to take, whip the cream until it is only loosely stiffened, told it into the almond mixture, and pour the mixture into a l quart mold that has been lightly oiled with almond oil. Embed the mold in cracked ice, place a plate over the top, and keep it in the refrigerator for at least 4-5 hours. Unmold only just before serving, first dipping the mold for a couple of seconds into hot water and wiping it dry.

POMMES AMANDINES

Charles Fontaine used to cook these for most of the 1980s at the London restaurant Le Caprice, where he was chef. They usually accompanied a grilled spatchcocked poussin chicken, which also came with the finest buttered spinach leaves. Almost without exception, whenever I ate there during that time, this was the dish I ordered. One of the most perfect plates of food I can ever recall. I wish they still did it.

Serves 4

1 lb potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

For the choux paste

1/2 cup water 2 tbsp butter salt and freshly ground white pepper scant 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 2 eggs 1 egg yolk

For finishing

flour and beaten egg 2-3 handfuls of flaked almonds oil, for deep-frying

Steam the potatoes until tender and then pass them through a vegetable mill onto a sheet of wax paper or a tray. Leave to cool in the air until dry. Meanwhile, make the choux paste. Boil together the water, butter, and seasoning in a saucepan. Then, while it is still hot, tip in the flour all at once and using a stout wooden spoon or stiff whisk beat together with gusto until thoroughly combined and very smooth. One by one, start to beat in the eggs and egg yolk, making sure that each egg has been fully incorporated before introducing the next one. The final result should be a glossy, yellow paste. Beat this thoroughly into the dry potato until smooth. Spread into a shallow dish, cover with plastic wrap, and put in the fridge to firm up.

Using floured hands, take small amounts of the mixture and form into balls the size of an oversized walnut. Roll them in flour and put on a tray. Have ready the flaked almonds, spread out on a tray. Now pass each potato ball through the beaten egg and then roll it through the flaked almonds, making sure of a good covering.

Heat the oil in the deep fryer to 325F. and cook the pommes amandines in two or three batches for about 3-4 minutes, until crisp and golden. Keep warm in a low oven, on crumpled paper towel, while you continue with the next batch.

Apples

I am lucky enough to have grown up in a house with a big garden, with five apple trees in it and a swing. Dowry Cottage was situated by a moderately busy main road - busy, that is, for the late 1950s and early '60s; say, seven Wolseleys, four Austin Cambridges, and a Jowett Javelin puttering by every half an hour: but in retrospect, I suppose my Lancastrian childhood enjoyed an insulated and carefree lifestyle.

However, though I am somewhat embarrassed to admit it, those five poor apple trees, when in fruit, used to get quite a hammering when Robert, Douglas, and Nigel Barden came round to play during the school holidays. Battered old tennis rackets were retrieved from a dark storeroom, gripped in surprisingly strong fists and, with remarkable accuracy, employed to project as ranch fruit as possible into the next-door garden, across the road (at cars if they happened to be passing, although cyclists were easier), and occasionally through some of our own open windows, raised only just enough for that most accurate of thwacks.

Finally, we were all caught red-handed one late summer afternoon by both Mum and Auntie Pat Barden (childhood friends' mothers were only referred to as "auntie" until they offered you your first gin and tonic), they having returned early from a disappointing shopping trip to Manchester. I will never forget that gorgeous scenario of my livid mother saying it was all my fault, alongside the spluttering gushes of the other mother insisting that, no, it was most definitely her boys who had been the wicked influence and were fully to blame. Of course it had been my idea. It was my garden, for heaven's sake!

But the thing that upset Mum most was that we had taken the trouble to climb the trees and use freshly picked apples rather than windfalls for our tennis practice. Excuse me! Any fool knows that a slice and hard under-ripe apple makes a much more satisfying projectile than a semi-decayed, wasp-ridden brown lump in the grass. I don't know about the Barden boys, but I recall being given a bit of a smack from Dad when he came home, swiftly - and absurdly - followed by the usual delicious supper and apple pie and cream for dessert. Wrath was always followed by good food in our house.

Mum was a demon when it came to housekeeping. Several years later, when I first began to be excited by the cooking thing, I had a go at baking an angel cake, which was an utter disaster. The prima donna in me chucked it in the trash without a second's thought, promptly followed by the alma mater fetching it out. "Just do something with it!" she scolded. Meanwhile, Mum had quietly gone upstairs to the spare room, rummaged under the spare bed, collected a handful of apples, and made another of those apple pies or a crumble, just in case. I have, ever since, thought that all spare bedrooms should smell of apples.

TARTE FINE AUX POMMES

Before la tarte des demoiselles Tatin (to give it its full, unexpurgated title) became all the rage - that's fashionably, not historically, and long before all its little mango nephews and endive or onion nieces were born - la tarte fine aux pommes was the apple tart to end all apple tarts. Strictly speaking, it should be called la tarte fine aux pommes la minute - in other words "cooked at the last minute," which is why this particular tart always tastes so fresh, so fragrant, so good.

Serves 4

8-9 oz best-quality puff pastry 8 dessert apples, peeled, cut in half lengthways, and cored juice of 1/2 a lemon 4 tbsp butter, melted 2-3 tbsp sugar

Serve with

very cold vanilla-flavored crme Chantilly

Preheat the oven to 425F.

Divide the pastry into four. Flour a surface and very thinly roll each one out to form a square of about 8 in. Now take a plate that measures approx. 7 1/2 in in diameter, lay it carefully on a square, and cut around it in a circle. Repeat with the other 3 pieces of pastry. Roll up all the off-cuts, put in a plastic bag, and store in the freezer for another time.

Generously prick the surface of each pastry disc and lay on a lightly greased baking sheet (you may have to use two). Put in the fridge for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, thinly slice the apple halves, put them in a roomy bowl, and sprinkle with the lemon juice. Take the pastry discs from the fridge and carefully arrange and cover each one with the apple slices in the form of concentric circles, but making sure that you leave a gap of about 1/2 in around the edges. (This allows the pastry to attractively puff up and form a crusted border as it cooks.)

You may find that you do not use all the apple slices, particularly the knobbly end bits of each half. Now, with a pastry brush, coat each tart thoroughly with the butter and replace in the fridge until ready to cook. Once the oven is up to temperature, whip the tarts out of the fridge, dredge with the sugar, and place on the top shelf of the oven. Bake for 20 minutes or so, until the edges of the apples are lightly scorched and the tarts are well puffed around their edges. Serve with very cold vanilla-flavored crme Chantilly.

Note: Depending on the size of your oven, you may not be able to cook all four tarts in one go, on one shelf. If it is convection-assisted then it will probably be OK on two shelves. But in a conventional oven, using two shelves, the topmost tarts are going to cook quicker than the ones underneath. And puff pastry needs a quick, hot heat to cook evenly. Try changing each tray around halfway through the cooking, so that each pair of tarts gets an equal blast on the top shelf.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from SECOND HELPINGS OF ROAST CHICKENby SIMON HOPKINSON Copyright © 2008 by Simon Hopkinson. Excerpted by permission.
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