Napoleon called us a nation of shopkeepers but these days we are a nation of bakers and the choice of cake tins on sale is mind-boggling. Shallow round tins, deep round tins, springform tins with a clasp that holds the cake ring in place and tins with a loose base, square tins and deep square tins, single tins, sets of tins, non-stick tins, light tins made of aluminium and heavy-duty tins made of tin or thick, hard-anodized aluminium to prevent warping. It is a minefield.
I tend to buy a new cake tin when the recipe I want to make requires a different size of tin to anything remotely similar in my cupboard. Over the years I’ve accumulated a reasonable collection, partly because I inherited all my mother’s bakeware and she baked every week all her life. These tins have built up their own non-stick patina, while newer non-stick tins need careful handling to avoid scratching. I never quite trust non-stick, so I always lightly butter cake tins and unless I’m making a shallow sponge I line the tin – the butter makes it stay put – with baking parchment. I tend, too, to make the lining stand several centimetres proud of the lip to avoid the top scorching and encourage the cake to rise. I also prefer to use cake rings or hoops with a separate base – either springform or so-called loose-base. If you want to make a square cake recipe using a round tin or vice versa, remember that square cake tins are one size bigger than round; so a 20cm (8inch) square tin and a 23cm (9inch) round tin of the same depth have the same capacity. Square tins make cakes that are easy to slice neatly, wrap and store.
To make a Victoria sponge, or similar sandwich cake, you will need two identical, shallow tins and I’d recommend getting loose-base ones. They can double as flan tins. For a dense fruit cake that needs long baking, a deep tin made of heavy-gauge steel will prevent scorching. Amazon and John Lewis are good places to browse what’s out there, but Lakeland excel at bakeware (see here for all these). I recommend the Lakeland PushPan range with a heavy-gauge anodized aluminium base for even heat distribution. It is adjustable with a silicone seal that means the tins can be used for shallow and deep cakes.
Most tins need to be washed by hand and are easy to keep clean and in good condition if you soak them first. Never scour non-stick pans.
I absolutely love this cake. It is exceptionally light and moist, and very, very easy to make. It contains no butter or flour and is the perfect pudding cake. I have made it with oranges, mandarins and tangerines, with limes and lemons. The latter two need more sugar to avoid bitterness. If you are a lime lover, it is the cake for you; if not, I’d stick with the other citrus fruit. Serve with crème fraîche. It keeps for several days, covered, in the fridge.
4 medium oranges, 7 mandarins or tangerines, 6 Amalfi lemons or 6 perfect limes
6 eggs
250g caster sugar, plus extra 100g for lemon and lime cakes
250g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
a knob of butter
icing sugar for dusting
You will need a 23 × 7cm springform or loose-base tin
Wash and simmer the whole, unpeeled oranges or other citrus fruit in just sufficient water to cover, in a lidded pan for 2 hours. When cool enough to handle, cut them open and remove the pips. Tear the orange into the bowl of a food processor and blitz to a purée with no more than 6 tablespoons of the cooking water. This could be done 24 hours in advance. Heat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 5. Using a hand-held electric whisk or a processor with a whisk attachment, whisk the eggs with the sugar for several minutes until pale, fluffy and thick. Stir in the almonds, baking powder and citrus purée to make a stiff batter.
Lightly butter a 23cm springform cake tin, or one with a removable base. If using the latter, cut out a circle of baking parchment to fit the base and a long strip that will stand 8cm proud to cover the sides. If using a springform, cut out a circle to fit the base. Spoon in the batter and smooth the top. Bake for 45–60 minutes, checking after 45, until the cake is risen and just firm to a flat hand. Cool in the tin before releasing the clip to reveal a perfect cake. If using a loose-base tin, trim the baking parchment to the rim. Cover with an inverted plate, then deftly invert, reversing the cake so the bottom becomes the top. Carefully slide a palette knife between the base and circle of baking parchment, so you can lift off the base and then the paper. The cake will be pale, smooth and golden. Dust with icing sugar before serving.
Every year since they were born, I’ve made a birthday cake for my two sons in the shape of the numbers of their age. They have been covered with Smarties, edible snakes and worms, silver and gold balls, Maltesers, sugar prawns and chocolate drops, chocolate flakes, fresh strawberries and truffles. I’ve dyed the icing vivid colours but pure white was the choice for the first cake for my new grandchild.
Occasionally I make birthday and celebration cakes for friends but it’s rare that I actually bake the cake. I cheat, buying round cakes for curly numbers and Swiss rolls for straight ones, then I set to slicing them up to make the numbers. I wrap them in very thin sheets of marzipan painted with melted jam. Then the fun begins. The icing and the decorating are always different and the cakes always look stunning.
I went the whole hog with this cake, to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of my friend Annie Hanson. She loves chocolate and I wanted it to be pretty and feminine and very chocolatey. The recipe could be adapted for other numbers and if you don’t want to bother with a numerical cake, simply fill and cover the top of the cake with chocolate paste and raspberries.
For the almond chocolate cake:
200g butter, plus an extra knob
200g best quality dark chocolate
a pinch of Maldon sea salt
4 medium eggs
100g caster sugar
150g self-raising flour
100g ground almonds
For the filling:
100g best quality dark chocolate
50g butter
100ml whipping cream
apricot jam
icing sugar
500g ready-rolled marzipan
edible rice paper
300g firm raspberries
For the icing and decoration:
250g white icing sugar
approx 3 tbsp lemon juice
silver balls
angelica or dried apricot
crystallized rose petals
candles
You will need a round 20 × 7cm springform or loose-base tin
Heat the oven to 150°C/gas mark 2. Smear the base of a 20cm non-stick springform cake tin with the knob of butter and line with baking parchment. Chop 200g of butter and break 200g of chocolate into a metal bowl, then place over a half-filled pan of simmering water. Add a pinch of salt and stir occasionally as the butter and chocolate melt. When smooth and amalgamated, allow to cool.
Beat the eggs and sugar for several minutes, until pale and fluffy. Beat in the cooled chocolate mixture – it will deflate the mixture slightly – then gradually fold in the flour and almonds. Pour the thick, creamy mixture into the prepared cake tin. Bake for 45–50 minutes, until firm and risen and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out on to a wire rack.
To make the chocolate filling, melt 100g of chocolate and 50g of butter as before and remove from the heat. Lightly whip the cream and stir into the chocolate butter. It will immediately thicken. Set aside until required. Mix 2 tablespoons of boiling water into 4 tablespoons of jam.
As soon as the cake is cool, slice it in half horizontally. Place it back together. Place a 12cm saucer at the edge of one side of the cake and cut out a circle. This is going to be the nought. Cut out a 4cm central circle. If you want to increase the size of the nought, cut it in half and use trimmings to plug the gap. Use the remaining cake to fashion the six; I followed the curve of the cake to make the curve of the six and leftovers to make the circle. Don’t worry if it looks like a terrible mess; this is a very forgiving recipe. Dust a work surface, your hands and a rolling pin with icing sugar and roll out about a quarter of the marzipan very thinly to 3–4 times its original size. Use a pastry brush to paint the marzipan with apricot jam. Place the nought on the marzipan, spread the cut surfaces with chocolate paste, top the base with raspberries and carefully fit the lid. Entirely cover the nought with jam-smeared marzipan, cutting and pasting as neatly as you can. Carefully lift on to lightly moistened rice paper (to make it stick). Repeat with the six. Carefully transfer to a cake board.
Mix the lemon juice into the sifted icing sugar to make a simple sugar icing. Use a palette knife to smear it all over the cake. Decorate the cake immediately before the icing sets. I chucked handfuls of silver balls at the cake and made flowers with crystallized rose petals and strips of angelica. Add the candles last. Leave the icing to dry in a cool place, not the fridge.
A Swiss roll tin is an incredibly useful little baking tin. The last thing I use it for is making Swiss roll but the name immediately conjures up its shape, size and depth (approximately 30 × 20 × 2cm deep). I have several, of various grades of aluminium and quality of non-stick coating. My favourite is made of anodized aluminium without a non-stick coating and that is ageing the best. As I tend to line it with foil whenever I’m roasting vegetables and with parchment if I’m baking, the non-stick aspect is irrelevant. I like the fact that it is so strong there is no risk of buckling even at very high temperatures.
Here’s an impressively delicious way of serving strawberries and cream rolled up in soft, springy meringue. Making it is great fun, a tad messy but quite magical. The meringue billows like a goose-down pillow during its brief high-temperature baking but quickly deflates as it cools, ending up like a pale, puffy bath mat.
Once cooled, the meringue is spread with whipped cream stirred with chopped strawberries and then the fun begins. To make the rolling easier, the meringue is turned out on to a tea towel, avoiding the need to touch the squishy plump roll. It doesn’t matter how messy the result is because it can be tidied up by pushing extra strawberries into the ends. It’s served with a thick, smooth cooked strawberry sauce to swirl over the slices. This sort of meringue is silky soft and vaguely creamy, so quite different in taste and texture to crisp meringue nests or chewy pavlova. For the perfect summer meal, use the leftover yolks to make hollandaise sauce to serve with poached salmon and asparagus.
4 large egg whites
1 tsp cornflour
1 tsp white wine vinegar
½ tsp vanilla extract
150g caster sugar
2 tbsp icing sugar
300ml whipping cream
800g British strawberries
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp lime juice
Heat the oven to 190°C/gas mark 5. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks, using a scrupulously clean electric whisk and bowl. Mix together the cornflour, vinegar and vanilla. With the machine running, add 1 tablespoon of sugar at a time, adding the cornflour mix halfway through, until the mixture is glossy and stiff.
Line a Swiss roll tin approx 30 × 20cm with baking parchment, leaving a 1cm collar. Spread the bouncy meringue smooth and even to the edge. Bake for 8 minutes, until bouffant and lightly golden. Dust the surface of the deflating meringue with sifted icing sugar. Lay a clean tea towel over the top and deftly invert. Carefully remove the baking parchment and leave to cool.
Whip the cream until it holds soft peaks. Set aside 8 perfect strawberries. Hull the rest. Halve half the strawbs and briefly soften in a pan over a low heat with 2 tablespoons of caster sugar and the lime juice. Blitz, then pass through a sieve to catch the pips into a jug to cool. Chop the other half and fold into the cream.
Spread the strawberry-laced cream over the cooled meringue and use the tea towel to help roll the meringue forward, ending with the seam underneath. Use a metal spatula to carefully lift it on to a platter. Halve the perfect fruit and decorate the ends of the roulade. Serve in thick slices, with a swirl of sauce.
It’s thanks to my friend Tessa, who decided not to take her Le Creuset pans with her when she emigrated to Australia, that I have such an enviable collection. They are the backbone of my kitchen and I use one or other of them several times a week, always for soups, daubes and stews, for curries, chili con carne and cassoulet, whole chicken pot roasts, and anything that requires long, slow cooking. I’ve noticed that different pots and pans react differently to cooking certain things, particularly onions, but I can always rely on these heavy, enamel-lined cast-iron pans. Buying one, particularly a family-size pot, is a serious investment but treated properly, it will last a lifetime.
The Le Creuset company was founded in 1925, in Fresnoy-le-Grand in northern France, by two Belgian industrialists, a casting specialist and an enamelling specialist. The cocotte, a straight-sided, round pan, was their first design and flame or orange, now known as ‘volcanic’, the original colour. The foundry still uses standard sand-casting methods, and after hand finishing the pans are sprayed with two coats of enamel, each fired at 800°C. According to their website (see here), the pans require a twelve-step finishing process, facilitated by fifteen different pairs of hands to ensure there are no flaws or imperfections. Unlike most cooking pans, Le Creuset improve with age, building up a reliable non-stick surface and a patina of dishes past.
Over the years there have been minor changes to the classic design. The current logo was introduced in 1970 and pots have a number cast into the base. These numbers refer to the metric size of the pot. My favourites, the ones I use the most, are oval-shaped 22cm, 26cm and 27cm. A 22cm pot with a lid that doubles as a frying pan – perfect for tarte Tatin for four – is rarely far from the hob. But my cute 15cm pot is a rarity.
This is one of the simplest and most delicious ways of cooking a whole chicken. Whenever I make it, everyone wants the recipe. It’s known as buried chicken in my house and I learnt to cook this Niçoise dish from Elizabeth David’s A Book of Mediterranean Food. The bird nestles upside down in a deep casserole on an impossibly large mound of finely sliced onions. The only seasonings are olive oil, salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper. After about an hour and a half in a moderate oven, the onions flop down to a purée imbued with chicken juices and olive oil. This sweet sauce is served over or surrounded by the jointed bird, with a few stoned black olives and triangles of parsley-edged fried bread. I tend to serve it with mashed potato.
6 or 7 large onions, approx 900g
1.7kg organic or free-range chicken
6 tbsp olive oil
a pinch of cayenne pepper
12–18 small black olives
4 slices of dense-textured bread
3 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
Heat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Peel, halve and finely slice the onions. Remove any flaps of fat just inside the chicken cavity and season inside with salt and black pepper.
Pour 2 tablespoons of oil into a large Le Creuset-style, deep, lidded casserole that can just accommodate the onions and chicken. Pile the sliced onions into the pan. Season lavishly with salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the onions. Place the chicken, breast side down, on top of the onions, pressing it down firmly. Pour the remaining olive oil over the chicken. Cover – you may find the lid won’t fit, so use baking parchment or foil and perch the lid on top; as the onions melt, the lid will position itself properly. Cook in the middle of the oven for 90 minutes.
Remove from the oven. Leave covered for 10 minutes before lifting the chicken on to a board for carving. Carve into pieces rather than slices, discarding the now flabby skin, and arrange on a platter covered with or surrounded by onions. Garnish with olives and fried bread. To make the fried bread, cut the crusts off the bread, slice in quarters and fry until golden in some of the oil from the casserole. Dip one edge of the fried bread into the onion juices, then into the parsley so it sticks.
One of the happiest outcomes for an excess of garlic is this recipe. It’s a Provençal dish, from the land where garlic and olive oil dominate the diet, and utterly beguiling. It will convert the garlic wary.
It is very simple to make, but like all simple dishes, it pays to take care with the ingredients. Choose a top-notch chicken, one that has run around and eaten well, developing plenty of muscle and flavour. Alternatively, and I often scale down the recipe for an easy after-work supper, it can be made very successfully with organic chicken legs. Allow one per person but add a few extra to satisfy the inevitable cries for more. To be authentic, this homely but classy dish should be made with fruity Provençal olive oil. The quantity to add is a matter of choice. For a taste of the hills of Provence, you will need dried herbes de Provence, although a fresh bouquet garni of rosemary, thyme and bay is a reasonable alternative that flavours the oil deliciously well.
Although this dish is cooked in a sealed casserole – an oval Le Creuset is perfect – the most delicious aromas will begin to percolate through the house after about thirty minutes. Traditionally the pot is sealed with pastry and the seal cracked at the table to release the genie for all to savour. I prefer to serve it on a platter so the vast quantity of garlic and limpid green, herb-scented ‘gravy’ can be contemplated in all its glory, so I cheat with kitchen foil.
Whole, unpeeled garlic stewed gently in olive oil ends up as soft as butter, with a rich, mellow flavour. I often tuck cloves around a joint of meat, so the soft, sweet paste can be squashed into the gravy. In this dish it becomes a vegetable, squeezed on to the chicken and the olive oil slurped like gravy. If that sounds impossibly rich, it isn’t. The dish is surprisingly light and is best served with boiled potatoes to mash into the ‘gravy’. You will not be left with garlic breath.
If by any strange chance there is garlic left over, try it squeezed on to hot toast and top with whatever you fancy; goat’s cheese and roasted peppers are particularly good. Leftover olive oil makes terrific vinaigrette and the carcass will make exceptional stock.
1.8kg organic, free-range chicken
Maldon sea salt flakes
freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp dried herbes de Provence, or 6 sprigs of fresh rosemary, 6 sprigs of fresh thyme and 2 bay leaves
2 strips lemon zest
4 garlic bulbs (40 large cloves)
250–500ml fruity olive oil
You will also need a large sheet of aluminium foil
Heat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Untruss the chicken. Often there are big lumps of fat just inside the cavity entrance, one on either side. I freeze these to render for Jewish chopped liver (see here). Lavishly season inside the cavity with salt and pepper. If using herbes de Provence, sprinkle ¼ tablespoon in the cavity with the lemon zest. Or place 2 sprigs of rosemary and thyme inside the cavity with the lemon zest. Place the chicken, breast side uppermost, in a large, lidded casserole dish that holds the chicken snugly. Separate the garlic cloves; there are an average 10 cloves per bulb or head, as it’s often called, sometimes more. Flake away the excessive papery skin but do not peel the cloves. Scatter the cloves around the chicken. Pour the olive oil over the chicken so it trickles down to more or less cover the garlic. Sprinkle with the reserved herbes de Provence (or tuck the remaining rosemary and thyme, and the bay leaves, over and around bird and garlic). Season with salt and pepper. Place a double fold of foil over the dish with a generous overhang. Position the lid and use the foil overhang to thoroughly seal.
Place the dish in the middle of the oven and turn the temperature down to 180°C/gas mark 4. Cook for 90 minutes. Remove from the oven. Rest for at least 10 minutes – it will keep without harming for 30 minutes – before transferring to a warmed platter. Spoon the olive oil and garlic over the top, so they tumble down the bird. Serve with a share of the garlic and olive oil, with boiled potatoes and a green vegetable such as chard on the side.
This is one of those bits of kit you don’t know you want until you are introduced to the dish it was designed for. Apple charlotte is a sublime English pudding that was probably created as a convenient way of eating up gluts of windfall apples and stale bread. The combination of naturally creamy puréed apple held inside a buttery crisp bread shell is something my mother made with windfall apples from orchards behind the firemen’s hut near my childhood home in Kent. It manages to be both homely and rather special and is usually eaten hot, with a dusting of caster sugar and thick cream.
The dish is often attributed to Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, the patron of apple growers, but it is possible we have the celebrated French-born British chef Auguste Escoffier – ‘the king of chefs and chef of kings’ – to thank. He includes a simple but explicit recipe for Charlotte de Pommes in his Guide Culinaire, published in 1903. He specifies large Pippin apples (Cox’s Orange Pippins were a popular eating apple at the turn of the century) and a little apricot jam stirred into the soft purée. He served it with a kirsch-flavoured stewed apricot sauce. The inspiration for the dish was almost certainly Charlotte Russe, a fancy cold dessert invented by Antoine Carême, the great French chef, after a visit to Russia. This French dish is quite different and is best described as an inside-out trifle lined with ladies’ finger or boudoir biscuits, filled with gelatine-set custard and sometimes layered with raspberries or pineapple, peaches or banana, or scraps of marrons glacés and a little rum or kirsch.
Both puddings are prepared in a charlotte mould. This is a bit like a deep cake tin with seamless sloping sides to ensure the pudding can be turned out without disaster. A bag of autumn windfalls, just like my mother might have used, prompted my first attempt at making apple charlotte. Unfortunately, I didn’t inherit my mother’s mould. Casting around my kitchen for a suitable alternative, my eyes alighted on the dog’s metal water bowl. It is almost perfect but not quite deep enough. A china pudding bowl is an acceptable alternative, but the real McCoy is made of anodized aluminium alloy, a particularly good heat conductor, or Pyrex glass bakeware. Both ensure the bread gets a good crisp finish.
Depending on the design, the charlotte mould has a special lip or small lugs to help with the lifting and tipping. For a family pudding, you want one with a 1.8 litre capacity and 18cm diameter. Alan Silverwood make excellent inexpensive aluminium moulds (see here). Now that I own one and am an aficionado of apple charlotte, I’ve made many different variations on the theme, adding aromatic quince to the apple purée and mixing apple varieties.
It’s a simple dish to master but an important point is making sure the apple filling is thick and dry. I love the fluffy texture and tart flavour of cooking apples but however dry they are cooked, the essential sugar will slacken the pulp. Adding a couple of spoonfuls of breadcrumbs will help soak up the juices, successfully making a mixture that includes cooking apples that bit firmer.
The bread for a charlotte is cut into wide soldiers and it’s a good idea to have a run through first with unbuttered bread, to ensure you have enough and to plan the ‘layout’. Cooks in a hurry can butter both sides of the bread but it’s worth clarifying the butter first and painting it on to the bread. This ensures a buttery taste without risk of burning.
The mould is useful too for cakes, mousses and timbales or variations on Charlotte Russe.
When turned out, this pudding looks stunning in a homespun way, rather like a golden, crusty hot summer pudding (in fact, a charlotte mould is a good receptacle for making summer pudding). The skill is ensuring that the butter-soaked bread wall holds the apple securely, stemming it like a dam, so it’s sensible to overlap the slices. Once the first cut is made, the pudding is likely to collapse in an aromatic flop. This doesn’t matter a jot, in fact it’s all part of the fun of apple charlotte.
1 lemon
12 large Cox or Russet apples
2 tbsp caster sugar
¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg or cinnamon
100g unsalted butter
1 day-old loaf of white bread, about 10 slices, crusts removed
For the apricot sauce:
200g very ripe or stewed dried apricots
2 tbsp honey or sugar
150ml fresh orange juice or water
1–2 tbsp kirsch
You will need a 1.2 litre capacity / 18cm charlotte mould
Squeeze the lemon juice into a mixing bowl. Add 4 tablespoons of water. Peel, quarter and core the apples, one at a time, thinly slicing into the bowl. Stir the apples through the acidulated water as you add them. Tip the whole lot into a suitable saucepan, cover and cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes, until the apples are tender and beginning to break down. Add the sugar, stirring with a wooden spoon as it dissolves whilst working the apples into a soft pulp. Simmer, uncovered, for 10–15 minutes, until the pulp is smooth, thick and dry. Stir in the nutmeg or cinnamon.
While the apple cooks, cut the butter in chunks into a small saucepan and melt over a low heat. Cut the bread into slices about 5mm thick and remove the crusts. Cut into strips slightly taller than the mould and 3–4cm wide. Cut out a circle for the base and keep back a couple of slices for the lid. Have a dry run to check how many pieces you will need, then brush the inside of the tin with melted butter. Place a circle of baking parchment in the buttered base and butter that too. This is a belt-and-braces security measure to avoid the base sticking when the pudding is turned out. Quickly brush both sides of the bread with butter and line the tin, slightly overlapping the slices. Butter the base circle as before and fit snugly. Fill with apple pulp. Butter the lid on both sides and fit over the apple, abutting the lid. Trim the slices so they line up neatly. Cut a circle of baking parchment and lay it on top of the bread lid.
Heat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Place the mould on a baking sheet and cook for 35–40 minutes. For the sauce, simmer the apricots with the honey and orange juice until soft. Liquidize, then dilute with water, if necessary, simmering until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Stir in the kirsch. Transfer to a jug. Remove the cooked charlotte from the oven. Discard the paper, cover the mould with a plate and invert. Allow to rest for 5–10 minutes before removing the mould. Serve with the cooled apricot sauce.
In 1964, in the early days of Habitat, Terence Conran introduced Britain to the chicken brick. It looked like a giant unglazed terracotta acorn with a wavy join, lifting apart to make a chicken-size clay coffin. Once placed in the oven, the chicken cooked in its own juices without butter or oil to emerge moist, the skin crisp and golden.
It was an incredibly exciting concept, novel and mad and very trendy. The brick can, of course, be used for other meats, even stews and root vegetables like potatoes, beetroot and carrots, or for fruit – anything except fish or curries, which will irretrievably scent the terracotta. The brick goes into a cold oven turned to the required temperature, so food takes slightly longer than normal. The idea is based on ancient cooking methods of placing food in earthenware containers over fire, sealing in air and moisture, so the food cooks naturally in its own juices. There are two schools of thought about whether or not the brick needs to be soaked in cold water for 30 minutes or so first. It certainly helps prevent the crock from cracking. As the brick ages, it will absorb flavours and turn darker in colour but that is quite normal. One very important point: a chicken brick should be washed in hot water with a little salt or vinegar but never with detergent.
Habitat discontinued the chicken brick in 2008 but brought it back by popular demand. (To buy one, see here.)
I heard about black garlic (see here) on the Isle of Wight from sailing friends who divide their time between Cowes and the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean. ‘It’s as black as liquorice,’ said my friend, ‘with a texture like dried fruit with a sweet, almost balsamic flavour.’ It’s an American idea, treating (mainly Korean) garlic for a month in special high-humidity ovens. Apart from turning the garlic black, the process concentrates its amino acids, increasing the antioxidant count and removing its lingering smell.
So far it’s been hailed mainly as a health benefit, but it’s interesting to cook with. By sliding slivers under the chicken skin and filling the cavity with more, the chicken ends up intensely juicy, with a subtle, haunting, slightly sweet garlicky flavour.
1.4kg free-range chicken
50g black garlic cloves
1 lemon
a few sprigs of fresh thyme or tarragon, or a mixture of the two
Season inside the cavity of the chicken with salt and pepper. Loosen the skin over the breast and legs by carefully but firmly slipping your fingers under the skin and working sideways. Thinly slice the garlic and spread slices from a couple of cloves over each thigh and breast. Smooth the skin back in place. Halve the lemon and squeeze over the bird. Pop the squeezed lemon halves in the cavity with the herbs. Add the remaining whole garlic cloves.
Place the bird in the bottom section of the chicken brick. Add the lid and place the brick on a middle shelf in a cold oven. Turn the temperature gauge to 200°C/gas mark 6. Cook for 2 hours. Remove from the oven and leave for 15 minutes before transferring to a warmed serving plate.
Carve the bird chunkily, ensuring that everyone gets some of the crisp skin with black garlic underneath. Pour the bird juices into a small jug, and don’t forget the garlic in the cavity.
Like many specialist tools, crab and lobster crackers aren’t essential equipment. Traditionally they’re made in the shape of a lobster’s claws but they are virtually interchangeable with hinged nutcrackers. The inside edges of crab crackers are similarly ridged, but straight instead of nut-shaped, so hard, slippery claws can’t slip before they are cracked. They tend to be made of aluminium, sometimes stainless steel, and are sold singly or in a set, usually called a seafood tool set or crustacean set, comprising two crackers and six picks. If the claws are big, it is easier to crack them with a small wooden mallet but it takes practice to gauge sufficient control to avoid crushing the meat inside. Crackers are invaluable, though, for accessing the silkiest white meat in the spindly legs and the joints of the claws closest to the body. The meat is winkled out with a pick: a long, thin fork, possibly more useful than the crackers. (See here for pink crab crackers.)
The average yield of meat from a crab will be one-third of its whole weight, and about two-thirds of it will be brown meat. Male crabs – cocks – have larger claws than females – hens – and as it’s the claws and legs that contain most of the white meat, males are generally thought to be the best buy. The tail, curled under the body, determines the sex of a crab. The female tail is broad and round while the male is narrow and pointed.
Cracking the legs and claws is only part of dealing with a cooked crab. Begin by placing the boiled crab on its back and twisting the claws from the body. Twist off the bony tail flap and discard. Prise the body from the main shell by pressing hard with the full weight of your thumb opposite the eyes where the carcass obviously dovetails into the shell. Remove the stomach bag and the grey, crêpey ‘dead man’s fingers’. Remove the legs and cut the body in two. Cut each half in two again, cutting across to expose the meat in the leg chambers. Scrape the firm creamy meat round the edge of the shell and then the brown meat and slush in the middle into a small bowl. The latter is extremely rich and tasty and might be a bit watery. If so, drain the liquid off or into the stockpot. Season with a little salt and pepper and a splash of wine vinegar or lemon juice – not too much, just enough to season the meat – and stir thoroughly. Pick the white meat from the body cavities and stir it into the seasoned brown meat. Crack the claws and legs gently in a few places, taking care not to crush the meat inside. Arrange on a platter and serve the brown meat separately. Serve with crab crackers and pickers. With mayo and chips this is a favourite family treat.
I have been known to cheat when I make crab recipes, not picking the crab myself but using 100g packs of handpicked white and brown Cornish crabmeat (see here).
This tart is forever associated with hot sunny days at the Fish Store, the family home in Mousehole, Cornwall. I would make it with freshly picked crab, but in London I often cheat with ready picked Newlyn crab from the fishmonger (from Waitrose, see here). Serve the tart hot or cold, with new potatoes or green beans, or a simple green salad.
200g flour, plus a little extra
125g butter, plus a little extra
2–3 tbsp natural yoghurt
4 trimmed leeks, approx 400g
a pinch of saffron stamens
3 large eggs
200g thick cream or crème fraîche
2 tsp Grey Poupon mustard
350g brown and white crabmeat
100g Gruyère cheese, grated
Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Add 100g of butter in chunks and rub into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add 2 tablespoons, possibly 3, of yoghurt and quickly work into the flour mixture, forming it into a soft ball. Cover and chill for 30 minutes.
Heat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Butter a 23cm flan tin with a removable base and dust with flour, tipping out the excess. Roll out the pastry to fit, pressing it down gently into the base edges and trimming with a bit of an overhang to avoid shrinkage. Cover loosely with foil. Line the base with baking beans or rice and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the foil and cook pale golden for a further 5–10 minutes.
Split the leeks lengthways and slice into half-moons. Rinse thoroughly and shake dry. Melt 25g of butter in a spacious, lidded frying or sauté pan. Stir in the leeks, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, until juicy and wilted. Stir in the saffron, season with salt and pepper and cook uncovered for a few minutes to drive off the liquid. Set aside to cool. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl and stir in the cream and mustard, then the crab, breaking up any big pieces. Stir the cooled leeks into the egg mixture. Sprinkle two-thirds of the cheese across the base of the pastry case. Place on a baking sheet. Spoon the crab mixture into the case; it should fit exactly, going right up to the top. Scatter over the remaining cheese. Bake for 35 minutes, or until the top is golden and billowing and feels firm but springy. Cool for 10 minutes before removing the collar. Serve hot, warm or cold.
