One of my early food memories is of a French student exchange. I must have
been about 12 and we were staying near Grenoble with the grandparents of my
French opposite number. They put on a feast for us and had obviously been
working on it for days, yet the basics of the meal were simple: a lovely,
crisp and flakey pissaladiãre; a salad with lardons, frisée lettuce and
hard-boiled egg; baguettes with butter and Gruyãre; tomato and onion salad;
a really good, rough pâté de campagne; and for pudding an enormous, buttery
apple tart.
I gobbled up each course, unaware that there were so many more to come but
overwhelmed by how delicious everything was.
We also ate simple food while I was growing up. My parents found an old wreck
of a house, sold to them on the cheap by a man on the run, and over 20 years
they converted it from dark, dank bedsits to a wonderful family home.
In the early days of this adventure we lived a camp-like existence and I would
huddle up to my mother in the kitchen for warmth and security. There was the
ever-present worry about how much everything cost and what we could afford,
so cooking became a game of creating feasts from not very much at all.
Her pea and bacon rice dish was one of our favourites, not to mention the
hotchpotch eggs and bacon on toast that she would make in a specially
chaotic way for us, which we loved for its flouting of suppertime
conventions.
Soups were among my favourites, such as pearl barley (see below), French onion
and curried parsnip. For treats we’d have oxtail or meat-balls or the
mussels she’d whip up with a sauce that we wolfed greedily with bread.
Artichoke season was another favourite for mopping up beurre noir: the
endless round of leaves would heighten the excitement as we got closer and
closer to the heart, which we’d chop up into pieces and drown in the
remnants of the brown, salty butter, while fighting over the breadcrust. If
we had a roast, the bread was whipped out again for soaking up the gravy.
I spent every night of my growing-up glued to my mother’s side, revelling in
her endless store of foody advice and information. From here grew my love of
onions. How clever that such a simple-looking vegetable could provide the
base flavour for such an infinite variety of dishes and sauces. Anchovies,
too; such small fillets packed in their tins, but what flavour they gave to
everything.
Anchovies, garlic and walnuts were pounded with olive oil and became thick
sauces that we’d dip into with boiled potatoes, parsnips, celeriac, celery
and carrots. Or the anchovies would get chopped up into big salads to make
glorious niçoises.
It was a great lesson in nutrition. We ate well and grew up tall and healthy
but never had the abundance of meat that seems such a prerequisite of modern
diets. A bowl of steaming soup can be a meal-in-one, as can a plate of pasta
with a simple tomato sauce. Housewives have spent centuries making food for
their families from not very much.
However, in the past 30 years, with the advent of supermarkets and cheap food,
suddenly it seems that we take it for granted that we can eat pork fillets
or perfect steaks, packaged chicken curries or cod suppers whenever we like.
A friend who works at an environmental agency told me the other day that
giving up meat has the same ecological impact as giving up driving a car.
While I would struggle never to eat roast beef again, much less slow-roast
pork belly or a succulent tarragon chicken, I am growing to appreciate them
more and to eke them out in my diet.
In the meantime, I feast on other food that is just as wonderful, and easy to
rattle out from the treasured ingredients in your cupboard.
Thomasina Miers is the author of Cook (HarperCollins, £16.99)
Pearl barley soup
This soup can be a starter if you halve the amount of pearl barley, but better
still just enjoy it for a hearty family supper. It is warming, restorative
and deeply satisfying. The pearl barley swells up in the soup so don’t be
alarmed by how little there is in the recipe. This was a real childhood
favourite.
Serves 4
200g pearl barley
1 tbsp olive oil
50g butter
2 medium onions, chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced
2 litres of stock and water
Soak the pearl barley in water overnight. Fry the onions in the olive oil and
butter until they are translucent and add the sliced potatoes. Fry for a
further five minutes without allowing the ingredients to colour and then add
the stock. Simmer until the potatoes are soft and then purée with an
electric beater or in a food processor. Add the pearl barley to the stock
and simmer for 30 minutes until the grains are puffed up to at least double
their original size.
My mother suggests that you may need half a stock cube in the soup, depending
on how good your stock is (or indeed a full stock cube if you have no time
to prepare your own stock). Taste and season with salt and pepper.
Nutritionist’s verdict
AMANDA URSELL
Tuck in . . . if you are on a GI diet
Between four people this soup makes a hearty lunch, with 364 calories and 14g
of fat per serving. The pearl barley is very low GI, so a bowl will help to
keep you feeling full for some hours afterwards. The low GI of pearl barley
is partly due to its soluble fibre, which helps to balance blood sugar
levels. It is also believed to reduce raised cholesterol by removing it via
the large intestine. The barley in one serving gives us 2mg of the 15mg of
iron that women need daily (men need 9mg). The potatoes give us almost a
quarter of our daily vitamin C needs, and the onions supply quercetin, which
is thought to have antiviral properties and may reduce the bone loss
associated with ageing.
Steer clear . . . if you are running short of protein
A bowl of this soup gives you only 6g of protein (women need about 45g a day
and men 56g). If you are eating it as a main course, make sure that you eat
a high-protein food — such as milk, eggs, meat, fish or poultry, or
alternatives like Quorn or tofu — at your two other meals to boost intakes
for the day.
Spaghetti with anchovy cream and mint picada
This recipe uses stale bread for the crumbs, with pasta, anchovies and dried
chillies from the cupboard (small dried peperoncino chillies are forever
useful — available from your local supermarket), rounded off by a fruity
olive oil, toasted hazelnuts and the zingy flavours of mint and lemon.
Serves 4
300g wholewheat spaghetti
25g butter
10 anchovy fillets
150ml crãme fraiche
2 large garlic cloves
For the picada sauce
50g hazelnuts
50g breadcrumbs
1 small dried chilli
1 lemon, zested
A handful of mint, finely chopped
4tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Preheat the oven to 180C. Warm the butter in a small pan and add the drained
anchovies, stirring until they melt: about 3 minutes. Add a clove of crushed
garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the crãme fraiche and simmer gently
for a few minutes to reduce to a creamy sauce. Set aside. Lightly toast the
hazelnuts in the oven for 4-5 minutes. Do the same with the breadcrumbs (or
toast the nuts and breadcrumbs in turn in a dry frying pan). Rub the
hazelnuts in a tea-towel to skin them. Put them in a pestle and mortar with
the mint, remaining garlic clove and lemon zest and bash into small crumbs.
Add the crumbled chilli and stir in the breadcrumbs and olive oil. Add a
squeeze of lemon juice. Cook the spaghetti, toss in the anchovy cream and
top each plateful with the hazelnut and mint picada.
Nutritionist’s verdict Tuck in . . . if you are counting your iron intake
T
he wholemeal spaghetti in this dish is useful not only for its fibre (7g of
the 18g recommended daily minimum) but also for micronutrients. It provides,
for example, 3mg of iron out of the daily recommended dose of 9mg for men
and 15mg for women. A long-term lack of iron can affect mental performance,
resistance to infection and energy levels. The spaghetti is good, too, for
selenium to make antioxidants that protect many organs, including our skin.
And it gives us zinc for a healthy immune system. The crãme fraiche has
bone-building calcium, and the anchovies provide omega3 fats. To help with
iron absorption, eat this dish with a green salad, which contains vitamin C,
or have citrus fruit or berries for pudding.
Steer clear . . . if you are watching your weight
As a main meal this gives us 561 calories and 29g of fat. The guideline daily
intake for calories is 2,000 a day for women and 2,500 for men, with 70g of
fat for women and 90g for men. If you are counting calories to shed pounds,
you may want to use a little less olive oil and take a slightly smaller
serving to drop the calories to about 400.
Rhubarb fool
Fools are wonderful seasonal puddings designed to use up gluts of fruit. My
mother would make prune fool in winter and jazz it up with layers of cream
and a topping of caramelised breadcrumbs. Apple fool seemed to go on for
months over the autumn and winter, whereas the summer fools appeared in
short bursts of colour and flavour through the warmer months. This nursery
way with fruit never loses its charm. Try the recipe below with raspberries,
gooseberries (my favourite), strawberries or plums, but each fruit will need
a different amount of sugar. Add cautiously; you can put more sugar in but
you can never take it out.
Serves 6-8
450g rhubarb
80g sugar, very approximately
Finely grated zest and juice of an orange
1 vanilla pod, split down the middle, or a few drops of vanilla essence
1tbsp Pernod (optional)
4 egg whites (optional)
200ml Greek yoghurt
Put the rhubarb into a saucepan on top of the vanilla pod and add the sugar,
orange zest and juice. Put on a low heat for 15-20 minutes until the rhubarb
is soft. Taste for sweetness. Remove the vanilla pod and scrape the seeds
into the rhubarb. Pour in the Pernod and blend the purée in a food processor
until smooth. At this stage my mother whips 4 egg whites until stiff (they
shouldn’t move if you turn the bowl upside down) and folds them gently into
the rhubarb. She folds in the Greek yoghurt and serves it with toasted
flaked almonds or homemade shortbread. The whites lighten the fool, making
it fluffy and airy (producing more of it). I prefer a more intense fool, so
I leave out the whites. I sometimes serve it in small glasses, with a thin
layer of double cream poured on top. Rather than stir in the Greek yoghurt,
you could eat the cooked rhubarb as a compote for breakfast, tasty with
yoghurt and toasted nuts on the side.
Nutritionist’s verdict
Tuck in . . . if you want a low-fat pud
If you divide the dish between four people you get just 144 calories and 5g of
fat each. Divide between eight and this falls to just 72 calories and 2.5g
of fat and makes a really healthy end to the meal. While rhubarb is not
renowned for being particularly rich in nutrients, you can dig in at least
knowing that you are getting 7mg of vitamin C (we need 40mg a day).
Steer clear . . . for strong teeth
Instead of sugar, use 55g of granulated fructose for the same sweetness and
even fewer calories. Rhubarb contains plant compounds called oxalates which
attach to the calcium in the yoghurt and makes this mineral difficult to
absorb. If you are trying to up your calcium intake, it may be worth using
another fruit to replace the rhubarb in this fool. High levels of oxalates
can also trigger kidney stones. ( www.amandaursell.com)
