Was it Mr. Mirepoix in the Kitchen with the Soup?

Catwalk title: “Summer White Bean Soup with Fresh Tomato Salsa”
Steve’s title: “Spicy pasta soup”


I may have reached some kind of milestone with all of this cooking. Last night, I prepared a soup from the Books for Cooks back catalogue; myself and Blancs were equally disappointed. OK, whilst this may sound like somewhat of an anticlimactic milestone, the fact that we both agreed on what was lacking is an improvement in itself…

Here’s the recipe… check it out, for theory if not for practice:

Ingredients salsa (for 4)
4 ripe tomatoes, diced
¼ red onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
A handful of basil leaves, cut into strips
Salt, black pepper

Soup
4 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
½ tsp crushed chilli flakes
125 g cannelloni or haricot beans (soaked overnight and simmered until tender (1 – 1 ½ hours)
90 g small pasta
Salt, black pepper
Grated parmesan to serve

For the salsa, dice the tomatoes (cubes), mix with the onion, olive oil and 1 tbsp of basil leaves. Season as required.


For the soup, heat the oil and add the garlic, chile and remaining basil. You want to release the flavour. To be honest, I didn’t get a big release of flavour, but the instructions recommended 1 minute. I guess just make sure that you don’t brown the garlic so use a low to medium heat.


Pour in the stock and beans. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Take out one cupful of beans and liquid and blend until smooth. Add the pasta to the soup and simmer until al dente. I was given a tip recently from Victor a chef at the ElBulli Hotel… bite a single piece of pasta in order to see if it is cooked. The core starch (similar to rice) should have just about vanished.

The recipe recommends serving this as a hot or cold soup. I served it hot.

So, what went wrong? I was eating the soup thinking that there was something missing; texture and flavour. I went along the lines of:
- too much pasta
- too little bean texture
- too bland a flavour; garlic was the predominant flavour

Blancs and I were on the way back from the local this evening and discussed the soup… happily we were both in agreement on the problems. Some solutions recommended:
- use less pasta. It obviously swells up a lot and runs the risk of overwhelming the other somewhat neutral ingredients. I would try maybe 60 g next time.
- use more beans. As the recipe says, this isn’t just a case of not blending the beans… that is needed in order to give body to the soup. I think that you’d need to nearly double the quantity; 200 g?
- regarding the flavour, here was where Blanca revealed some culinary artistry to me… mirepoix.

A chance to research a "classical French cooking technique"... I couldn't resist it. No sooner had I picked up my pen and paper and was approaching the bookshelf, than Blanca suggested that I should blog about some of the books that I reference. I like it... a reference about reference books... circular... a coffee table book that's about coffee table books... you've got to like her style.

I’m still reading my way through the books so couldn’t pretend that I have developed anything but a passing relationship, but here is what I have so far (in order of preference):

1. Harold McGee, “on Food & Cooking“. Any regular reader will know how much I reference McGee... he's gonna chase me for royalties soon. The master of food science, I only respect people with a deep and unfailing love for McGee. He is the only author that manages to cover any topic that I’ve researched.
2. Spaull and Bruce-Gardyne, “Leith’s Techniques Bible”. Great. Blancs is a Cordon Bleu girl so hates the bible (eh, she's Spanish, so not that Bible, the other bible), nevertheless, it’s good for all of the techniques that I don’t understand.
3. Rombauer, Rombauer Becker and Becker, “Joy of Cooking”. Old hat in the US, but still ignored in many parts of Europe. The joy of cooking is the most comprehensive reference and recipe book. It also manages to blend the two very well. My first memory of the Joy of Cooking was seeing it in Blanca's flat in Brussels and getting excited when I thought it was the Joy of Sex... not sure which we would have gotten more use from.
4. Various, “Larousse Gastronomique”. New in (see below) at number 4 and with good potential to move up the charts in the next few weeks.
5. Shirley O. Corriher, “Cookwise” There is something that I don’t like about Cookwise. It falls between the cracks of reference book / recipe book…
6. Stephanie Alexander, “The Cook’s Companion” Not available on amazon.com... I don’t get it (mentally rather than physically). It is really well written, but sorted by ingredient and doesn’t successfully bridge reference and recipes; rarely consulted.

A little bit about Mirepoix

The “Joy of Cooking”, not usually the most poetic of books, evocatively describes the purpose of mirepoix…

“many sauce recipes begin by sautéing a mix of aromatic vegetables… cooking these first in a bit of butter, olive oil, or other fat releases their flavo[u]rs so that as you add other ingredients… the entire sauce becomes infused with the character of the flavour base”… “This universal cooking technique forms the foundation for dishes all across the globe... The French have mirepoix - onions, carrots, and celery cooked gently in butter to bring out their inherent sweetness (a white mirepoix for light-coloured dishes substitutes the white part of leeks for the carrots)”

Well, I can’t really say much more…

Some of the versions are interesting. For example, the Italians sofritto substitutes olive oil for butter (I guess I’m a closet sofritto fan); it can also include fennel, leeks, garlic or chopped herbs such as parsley.

From checking out McGee, it seems to be that celery and fennel are both part of the carrot family. Being stalks rather than roots such as carrot. Leek and onions being both onions (allium). He goes onto say that the Spanish version is called Sofregit.

Until today, the Larousse Gastronomique has only served as a useful stand for my stereo. I must indeed have crossed a significant milestone as Blanca felt it was appropriate to finally include it in my reference material. The LC (as I fondly call it) calls mirepoix a mixture of diced vegetables (carrot, onion and celery). It can be used to enhance the flavour of meat, game and fish, in the preparation of sauces, soups and as a garnish for certain dishes. It is said to have been created in the 18th Century by the chef of the Duc de Levis-Mirepoix in France (ambassador of Louis XV... great grandson to Louis XIV who, according to Dumas, was the brother of the Man in the Iron Mask). OK, too much French for the moment...

The traditional ratio is 2:1:1 onion, celery and carrots. This can of course be varied according to recipe, dish, mathematical ability etc.

----- STOP THE PRESS -----

Blanca has just taken the piss out of McGee and The Joy of Cooking:
- Mirepoix is NOT sofritto. “Mirepoix” can refer to the raw or cooked versions. Sofritto is cooked down vegetables, not just aromatics… it can include, for example, tomatoes
- McGee says that the Spanish version of mierpoix is sofregit… apparently this is Catalan… but I reckon that Blanca is just being anti-nationalist.

I guess that I’m back to square one with my reference book guide… don’t believe anything you read! Or else, Cordon Bleu has put the fear of God into Blanca and she is not willing to discredit the French…

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Sopa de Tortilla

Sopa de Tortilla


If our tomato and ginger soup could be termed a “classical European soup” (classical being the standard prefix for European food), there is perhaps no better contrast than this spicy tortilla soup from Mexico (spicy being the standard prefix for Mexican food). This is a rough and ready soup; a sieve would get the crap kicked out of it if it came within a ladle’s reach from the pot. I first had it about 5 years ago; it has been a hit with everyone that we’ve made it for, even those guests that protest “I don’t like too much spice in my food…”

Ingredients for 6
1 tbsp corn oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
4 ripe vine tomatoes, chopped
1 dried ancho chilli, de-seeded
2 ¼ pints stock
30 corn tortilla chips (real tortillas, fried, or bought chips)
2 avocados, peeled, pitted and sliced
110 g feta cheese
110 g crème fraiche
½ bunch coriander, chopped
4 limes, halved

As it is with the best traditional Mexican recipes, you can never find good versions in books. This recipe comes from Blanca's friend Sofia Craxton. It is her family recipe. She has just published "The Mexican Mama's Kitchen"... from a marketing point of view I guess I should strike my previous comment.

Ancho chilli (“wide”) is a broad, flat, heart-shaped dried pod of the poblano chilli (“of the village” and of Puebla in Mexico). These are relatively mild (1,000 to 1,500 Scoville Units or 3 on the Heat Scale). The chilli can be sold fresh, often stuffed with meats and cheese (chilli relleno) or dried for food colouring or sauces, in particular moles.[1]

Soak the chilli in 150 ml pint boiling water for 5 minutes (until soft). Add the soaking water to the stock. Chop the chilli.

Heat the oil in a pan; add the onion, then garlic, chopped tomatoes and chilli. Saute for 5 minutes. Add 2 tbsp of stock; blend all the ingredients. Return to the pan, add the remainder of the stock and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add the chips and simmer until soft. Serve with avocado, feta cheese, crème fraiche, coriander and a squeeze of lime. Add a half of lime to each bowl.

One issue I had with this soup was the amount of cooking and degradation of the nutritional value of the tomatoes. From consulting Cookwise, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that tomatoes degrade very little during cooking. For baking, boiling and stewing 0% of minerals are lost and only 5% of vitamins.

Sources:
[1] Dave DeWitt and Nancy Gerlach “The whole chile pepper book”

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Logistically Challenged and Misunderstood: Our Modern Day Tomato Soup

Tomato and Ginger Soup


I came into some flak recently for suggesting that I didn’t like one of the soups that we had cooked. How could I have been so naïve as to criticise a dish while Blanca still had a knife in her hand? In order to avoid A&E we decided to, as with all great workmen, blame our tools. We looked at the pale, tough tomatoes that had just gone into our soup with and found our scapegoat.

Ripeness… what’s a guy gotta do these days? Short of growing and picking your own tomatoes, how can you get good fruit?

Ever since reading Jeffrey Steingarten’s “The man who ate everything”. I have been more aware (and more disappointed) by the ripeness of fruit in our supermarkets. The trend that we are all familiar with is that the ever successful supermarkets claim that the consumers are driving more diverse product ranges. As a result, the wholesaler to retailer distribution channel has to cope with greater distances. Greater centralisation and consolidation of stores results in greater quantity being pushed through these already tired channels. All of this has driven the requirement to pick more robust, durable fruit in order to survive the trip to the store. Unfortunately, durability is seldom analogous with fruit flavour.

Fruits live to ripen, this is what guarantees future generations. If fruits had their own reality show, all they would do is sit in the sun and wait for reproduction (eh, they may have their own show already). The process generally takes place during maturity and decline. Typical changes include colour, taste, aroma, size, weight, texture and nutritional content. Change in taste is what we're interested in here. The process entails the conversion of starch into sugar (sweeter and more desirable). Unfortunately, many fruits convert the starch from the plant (i.e. they don't have starch stores) and therefore will not get any sweeter once they are picked.[I]

The tricky part is that not all fruits are affected in the same way by this cutoff of sugar. As long as you shop in large supermarkets (we avoid them for fruit) you need to be aware of the risks that you are taking. That being said, being “forewarned is forearmed”, Steingarten categorises fruit according to their likelihood to ripen and improve off the vine:

Never ripen after picking	soft berries, cherries, citrus, grapes, litchis, olives, pineapple, watermelon
Ripen only after picking	avocados
Ripen in colour, texture, but not sweetness	apricots, blueberries, figs, melons, nectarines, passionfruit, peaches
Get sweeter after picking	apples, kiwi, mangos, papayas, pears
Ripen in everyway after picking	bananas

[II]

Category One receive all of their sugar from the parent plant. They may decrease in acidity, but will never get sweeter once off the vine. Category Two plants send a chemical that actually inhibit ripening, the fruit must be removed in order to stimulate the process. Category Three contain no starch, once off the vine, they will not create sweetness. These must be bought physically mature. Category Four have large supplies of starch, they improve in sweetness even off the plant. Category Five converts nearly all of its ample starch to sugar.

The tomatoes; snipers snipe that they try a little too hard when dressing for comic relief

Depressingly for us, no one actually classifies tomatoes in the above matrix. From reading McGee, they seem to be a cross of Categories Three and Four. They do store starch in their wall tissue, but not as much as, say, apples. The rule of thumb should be to allow them ripen fully on the vine in order to have the fullest flavour[III]. This is sadly at odds with commercial reality. One tip that may help us; store tomatoes at about 10 C in order to maintain their flavour (due to a critical flavour compound, (Z)-3-dexenal, which disappears when chilled).

Northcote Rd. food stall; the future of fruit shopping?

Our story ends well. We took at trip to Northcote Food Market and got some great plum tomatoes; red, meaty and perfect for cooking. Our second attempt at the soup was far more successful. It is taken from Celia Brooks Brown’s “Vegetarian Foodscape”.

Ingredients (for 4)
1.25 kg fresh, ripe tomatoes
1 pint (600 ml) Vegetable stock
30 g Ginger, peeled and chopped

4 garlic cloves, peeled and roughly chopped

1-2 tbsp muscovado sugar (depending on the sweetness of the tomatoes)

Salt and pepper to taste

Chopped parsley to garnish

The sweet, meaty plum walls balance the more acidic (citric and malic) flavours and aromas of the jelly and skin. You don't need to peel. Additionally, don't worry about the loss of nutrients; almost 0% of minerals and about 5% of vitamins are lost during cooking tomatoes. Bring the tomatoes to the boil in the vegetable stock. Leave to simmer for 10 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for 20 – 30 minutes. Puree the soup. Pass the whole thing through a sieve and serve.

Second time around, this was a fantastic soup. Really luxurious and smooth. I recommend plenty of pepper.

Sources
[I] Shirley O. Corriher "Cookwise"
[II] Jeffrey Steingarten "The Man Who Ate Everything"
[III] Harold McGee "Food & Cooking"

Note: This blog comes partly inspired by the UK's best food programme; “Full on Food”. Anyone who hasn't had the chance of seeing should watch it.

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the steve beater

Fish chowder with aioli (or, a study in the male ego; or, Saffron Scented Seafood Soup with Fennel and Aioli).


there is pain in that aioli ...

Preparation of Aioli…

B: “Steve, can you mix the eggs; use the electric or do it by hand”
S: “Sure thing, step aside little lady, I can do this by hand”
Steve starts beating. Holding the steel bowl awkwardly at an angle and struggling to make either a circular motion or a to and fro motion, in fact not knowing what motion to make.
B: [from the cellar] “I can hear that you’re not mixing correctly”
S: “You’re the cook – show me how”
Blanca demonstrates a very similar motion. As with most things, with the desired result
B: “OK, we’re ready for the oil, are you sure you’re ok?”
S: “Yeah, no problem, I’ve gotta learn how. Start adding baby!”
Blanca starts dribbling oil into the bowl
B: “MIX! FASTER. HARDER”
S: [inner voice] “Jeez, this is surprisingly sore, how much longer must I go on? I can’t ask Blancs, she does this everyday. Keep mixing Steve, I’m sure we’re nearly finished”
B: “MIX. FASTER. Stop holding the bowl at the angle, just MIX”
S: [inner voice] “It hurts. My arm is sore”
Steve’s face is red, his pace is visibly slowing. A strange whimpering noise is coming from behind his gritted teeth
B: [most likely feeling sorry and not wanting her husband to have a heart attack] “You’re doing great, this is going really well. Do you want me to take over?”
S: [weakly] “No I’m fine”
B: “OK, last phase, I can add more oil. Keep mixing”
S: “I want my mummy”
All pretence is lost
B: “That’s great, OK stop mixing”
Blanca has to coax Steve from his mixing. Gradually his arm stops moving and his jaw slackens. He hasn’t taken a breath in the last minute. He holds his head up high. Once out of sight his arm raises above his head, he holds it feebly with his left arm. He should have read the science before dismissing the kitchenaid.

The Science behind the Pain

You will remember there are (somewhat controversially) 5 mother sauces; brown, veloute, béchamel, hollandaise and mayonnaise. Briefly, the former 3 are cooked with roux and the latter 2 are emulsions. Of the latter 2, mayonnaise is made from cold and hollandaise (made from butter) is cooked. Aioli with French / Catalan origin is really a variation of mayonnaise, the recipe that we used is as follows:

- 2 organic egg yolks
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp white sugar
- 150 ml sunflower oil
- 150 ml olive oil

Emulsion comes from the Latin “to milk out”, as McGee states, this can be associated with the fact that the end product will deflect the path of light through the sauce and thereby give a milky appearance. These sauces are formed by the mixture of two liquids that do not normally collide. The most common emulsions are made of oil and water; mayonnaise and milk for example differ in the proportion of oil (70% to 4%).

Oil and water, when mixed together will always separate in order to reduce their surface tension. These can be forced apart, but will naturally return to separated positions in order to again reduce the tension. Egg has the key role in maintaining this separation (we call them emulsifiers in this role). Since the 17th century, it has been recognised that egg yolk will surround the oil molecules and thereby reduce surface tensions.

To the preparation – the quantity and timing of the additions is key. Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature. Place a bowl on a cloth to prevent slipping. First whisk the egg yolk, mustard, garlic, salt, sugar and lemon juice into a thick and creamy emulsion (of the water / fat content in the egg) and season. Mix both oils in a jug. Next add about one quarter of the oil drop by drop (dribbled) and beat vigorously. The timing here is important but simple – it is easier to separate “oil-in-water” if starting from a lower proportion of oil relative to water. At the point that your arm feels like it is about to fall off, you are ensuring that the oil is not rising to the top, but instead forming small droplets below the surface of the sauce. This is usually achieved where the volume of the oil is similar to the original water. What is happening is that the droplets have formed in such size beneath the surface that they in fact impede each other from rising to the surface and forming an oil pool. Taste and check the flavour – adjust as required.

You can then add the remaining oil in larger quantities (tablespoon amounts). The tiny droplets beneath the surface act as a mesh and breakdown the incoming particles to dimensions of their own size. The latter stage need not require as fierce mixing as the main purpose is to distribute the oil amongst the mix.


photo came blue ... not very artistic or appealing, but you get the drift ...

Aioli is a perfect companion for fish soup. We had family staying with us recently; joyfully we substituted a night of home cooked food for a night at some dodgy musical. Cooking from books for cooks volume the rest of the soup is fairly straightforward:

- 4 scallops
- 8 tiger prawns
- 125 g monkfish tail
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 onion chopped
- ½ fennel bulb chopped (diced)
- 1 small carrot, chopped
- 1 glass white wine
- 750 ml fish stock
- 2 ripe tomatoes, seeded and finely diced
- 1 potato diced
- Large pinch of saffron threads
- 4 tbsp lemon juice
- Salt, pepper, cayenne pepper
- Fresh dill for garnish

Warm the oil in a pan over med heat, add the garlic, onion, fennel and carrot and cook stirring until soft. Pour in the wine and reduce. Add the stock, tomatoes, potatoes, saffron, bring back the boil, then simmer until the vegetables are tender. Stir in lemon juice and season with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. While the soup is simmering make the aioli. To finish adjust the heat so that the soup is barely simmering. Add the fish to the hot broth and poach very gently for approx. 5 minutes. Ladle into warmed bowls, making sure the shellfish is evenly distributed (a slotted spoon is very useful for this).
Serve at once garnished with dill sprigs and heaped spoon of aioli.

cordoba - go for the salmorejo, stay for the ajo blanco

gazpacho
salmorejo
ajo blanco



last summer i spent 4 weeks at spanish school in sevilla. it was a great time; blanca was doing work experience at ferran adria's second restaurant - el bulli in hacienda benazuza. i was able to regress for the month, forget london and working life. the first day, i arrived at school certain of my bohemian credentials - extended vacation, shorts everyday, i didn't have my duffle coat because it was too hot ...

i quickly realised that the school had an ongoing exchange program with many european schools and that the majority of my colleagues were 19 year old philosophers and dreamers. despite being only 29, i was soon revealed to be the oldest in the school. matters got worse during the open sessions where we would talk about ourselves in spanish. my demographic facts were drastically at odds with my bead wearing colleagues ...

- not only had i contemplated a job, but i'd actually gone out and got one
- i had in fact held onto that job for 8 years
- i owned an apartment in london (i didn't mention the mortgage)
- i was married
- i supported franco (this isn't the whole truth, but to the eyes of a student, i think this is how i seemed)

i was given up as a lost cause when, one day, i had to make a presentation on spanish life. i came to the part where i would talk about food ... my professor, a born and bred sevillana, sat forward eagerly waiting to hear of my love for their food. she was, shall we say, disappointed when i contrasted it to the rest of spain; i confidently stated that andalucia was the worst and that the restaurants were over priced and unexciting. if you have been to the south, you may feel that this is unjustified, but there are elements of truth ...

- the best food in the south of spain is to be found in homes, not in restaurants.
- the best food outside of the home is the tapa. for variety, use of local produce and ingenuity they are unsurpassed. the southern style of "comer de pie" (eating on foot) is the real reason that there are not many "classical" restaurants.
- and, if i'm honest, after 4 weeks in sevilla, it is true that we were a little bored with just good tapas and were thirsting for some other food*.

ever since our gastro experiences in sevilla, we have been eager to take any opportunity to search out the great food of the south. with this in mind we took a daytrip from guadix to cordoba to have lunch with one of blanca's cousins; antonio-luis. this is a 400km roundtrip and may seem a little extreme, but cordoba is the renowned home of salmorejo (thick tomatoe soup) with which i had fallen in love with last year in sevilla. the city is a world heritage site with a beautiful mosque / cathedral (mezquita) and jewish neighbourhood (la juderia). we went to the incredible bodegas campos restaurant. this is one of the best restaurants i've been to in spain.

in writing this blog, i am using as reference "gazpachos, sopas y ajos blancos" (enrique mapelli lopez), my spanish isn't perfect, but i think this means "gazpachos, soups and ajos blancos". i am conscious of the fact that i am reading a spanish book to write an english blog as i sit on a train in tokyo, but hey, i won't let the details get me down.

three soups, based around the gazpacho concept, form the trinity of cold andalucian soups. they share the same core ingredients; bread crumbs, garlic, olive oil, water and salt. if anyone gets the chance, read the chapter that breaks down each ingredient, it is the closest thing to culinary poetry that i have ever read (mostly because i don't understand a lot of it). i will attempt to summarise.

each ingredient brings its own specific attributes to the soup. their history in combination goes back as far as the roman legions and columbus who all carried similar provisions. white bread for sweetness, thickening, energy and digestibility. garlic for flavour and medicinal properties (i.e. working as an antiseptic). olive oil for flavour, texture and health benefits. water as these soups serve the purpose to rehydrate and refresh from the hot andalucian sun. salt to bring out the flavour, replace lost body salt and build the appetite for the next course.

typical gazpacho andaluz contains:
- 100g bread crumbs
- 4 teeth of garlic
- 2dl olive oil
- 2dl vinegar
- salt
- 100g cucumber
- 100g green pepper
- 250g tomatoes
- some cumin
- 1l to 1.5l of cold water
in a mortar mash the bread, garlic, cumin, salt and olive oil and leave to absorb for 30 minutes. add the remaining ingredients and water to taste. for garnishing use 100g cucumber, 100g green pepper, 100g tomatoes and 100g crudités all chopped. this recipe is somewhat vague, but, in spain there is a saying; there are as many gazpachos as there are gazpacheros. i'm not going to be too anal about the details here.



salmorejo is made all over spain, but heralds from cordoba. a typical recipe contains:
- 10 red tomatoes
- 1 slice of bread
- 4 teeth of garlic
- 0.5l olive oil
- 1 egg yolk
- salt
- 0.25l of water
mix all in the blender and serve with an egg in quaters and some olive oil drizzled on top. you could also serve this with ham or orange slices on top.



ajo blanco (white garlic) most likely originates in malaga.
- 200g almonds
- 4 teeth of garlic
- 2 slices of bread
- 0.5dl of olive oil
- 0.5kg of ice
- salt and pepper
scald the almonds in hot water to get rid of the skin. grind all the ingredients together. pass through a colander and add water to thin. for garnish, 20 pealed grapes and 20 balls of melon. cordoba has a reputation for serving with apple slices. the ajo blanco in cordoba had shrimp ... this was the best that i've ever had!

* i don't want to give anyone the impression that there is no good food in sevilla or andalucia. in fact, 90% of the fun is in finding the great places. for anyone visiting sevilla i recommend bar eslava it saved us more than once!

the great soup debate

simple vegetable soup - butternut squash, cauliflower and blue cheese



we recently went to sheepdrove organic farm in berkshire http://www.sheepdrove.com/. it is a really incredible place. we were late in getting there and missed a rather comical tour of the farm in which the happy, content animals were able to catch a glimpse of londoners out of their natural habitat; without latte in hand and getting mud on their 4x4 cars. we did manage to catch a presentation about the farm by peter kindersley. it was an extremely thought provoking discussion on the history of the farm and their farming techniques. the farm is 2000 acres (big) and is family run, the objective is to ensure animal welfare and natural expression (i guess this means there are gay bulls) whilst at the same time being profitable.

their website is packed with information and i recommend you to look through it. it is worth it for the animated cursor sheepherding farmer alone ...

without a doubt what the kindersleys are doing is excellent and should be contacted by anyone in the BUSINESS (yeah - block capitals for big business) of producing food for sale. at the same time, it left me with a debate in my mind ...

there is a massive push on organic produce in the UK and many other countries in the world, the reasons for this are generally fourfold; health (avoidance of bse, e-coli, foot and mouth and the concern over gm crops), environment (increased biodiversity, decreased pesticides and chemical fertilizers), taste and animal welfare. but are we not missing the point? if i look at my friends, it is amazing the amount that don't cook or feel they don't have the time to cook. it seems as though in our drive towards an organic society we are treating the symptom and not the cause. is the cause not as simple as lack of education of the basic cooking techniques? could it not be that our generation no longer know how to cook with basic ingredients and are therefore being forced into processed ready meals? it seems that as the quality of ingredients has improved over the last few years, on a similar and opposite scale the ability to cook has decreased ...

ingredients: butternut squash, blue cheese, onion, water, vegetable stock, salt

take a simple soup as an example - one of the simplest meals that you can make at home. what does it take? heat a pan with oil, chop the onions roughly and cook over a low heat until soft but not coloured. add butternut squash, cauliflower and a little water and leave to steam with the lid on. add more water and some vegetable stock, blue cheese and boil. when the vegetables are sufficiently soft remove from the heat and put through a blender to serve.

there is an incredible amount of cookery classes called "quick cooking", "cooking in no time" or something similar, but they sometimes miss the point. we should be explaining the basic rules of cookery - the central tenets that, if followed, can be used to produce any dish under to sun. this is closer to the science of cooking and probably close to what i strive for in my little investigations ... for example - what is the process that occurs when you make soup? what are the basic rules for making a soup and how can these be applied to other vegetable soups?

well, the above is an example of pureed soup, it is, as mcgee says, "the simplest deconstructed version of fruits and vegetables". the application of force mixes the cell innards with the cell walls. the velvety nature of purees is produced by the fact that the cell walls are predominantly carbohydrate and hence thicken the high water content of the cells.

there are some rules that leiths asks us to observe (but these can be ignored in many cases); avoid passing acidic ingredients through a metal sieve as it can attach a metallic flavour, puree the vegetables apart from the liquid in order to ensure that the soup is not too thin and don't overwork the vegetables as they can become gluey. i would add in addition, that as long as you start with onions and add some good vegetables, you can't go wrong

perhaps equipped with these basic methods and techniques, we would be better prepared to make use of the organic produce that we are now being offered. we would at least have a chance to ensure that our ability to cook was able to match the improved quality of food that we are being offered and no doubt buying ...

first apron, first blog

baked goats cheese with tomato sauce with garlic crostini
parsley soup
monk fish with ground almonds, spinach and sultanas
chocolate tart with raspberry coulis

this marks a departure from previous articles (?); it is the first one that i have written specifically for our little zarzamora blogspot. all the previous ones have been emails written to blancs and friends. to be honest, i'm still unsure as to what this will be; at best, it will be a document to my homeschooling in cookery that, in years to come, i can publish to great acclaim. i'm a relatively clean slate in terms of my cooking technique - having missed out on being a daughter, taught to cook by a generation of cooper women, learning recipes passed through the family by word of mouth and sworn to the secrecy of the holy grail ... that been said, a certain broken biscuit cake recipe published in my primary school days speaks of culinary fame at such a young age.

i'm inspired this morning by a hangover that is, as yet, keeping at bay. most of this has come to me whilst washing up from a dinner party last night and listening to estrella morientes (i haven't listened to flamenco since sevilla last august, so i'm happy to be getting back on track there). blancs is in bed still ...

dave and mun-ling were over last night for dinner. between tokyo, christmas and beyond, it has been sometime since we've had a saturday night dinner party. last night was great, blancs refused to share our guests with anyone else so it was an intimate affair ... gossip, conspiracy and a little big of kanji.

the cooking was quite a deal - between the shopping and the preparation we spent the afternoon at it ... given that this is the start of the school year, i wore an apron for the first time in years - the aura it gave me a confidence way in excess of my skills. blancs preached the number one rule in the kitchen; don't hesitate! my signature dish so far is hesitation, especially when it comes to seasoning

i was on amuse bouche duty (i learnt this term only a year ago http://www.hormel.com/kitchen/glossary.asp?id=37705&catitemid=) - cooking baked goats cheese with tomatoe sauce from the appropriately named "diva cooking". chopped onions and garlic pulp are softened in a pan into which are added two tins of tomatoe with thyme, oregano, balsamic and honey. leaving to cook for 30 minutes plus. you leave the sauce to cool in the meantime cutting ramekin size slices of goats cheese. in order to cut the cheese, a knife dipped in boiling water (not too hot as it would melt the cheese) is best. leave these in the fridge until ready to cook. i then made my first crostini ever - slices of baguette grilled with olive oil until golden and then rubbed with garlic. the baking is straightforward - an oven at about 200c for about 10 minutes until the cheese is golden brown. these are rubbed with a garlic clove when sufficiently cooled.

this was nice, but i wasn't blown away - as with everything, the leftover sauce was better today. we had it for breakfast on toast with goats cheese, grilled momentarily. we should probably have prepared the sauce a couple of days earlier in order to enhance the flavour. either way - the dish does work well as a tasty starter ...

coming from ursula ferrigno's "bringing italy home", the parsley soup was really good. a simple vegetable soup (potatoes, carrots, celery, onion) is made, into which a parsley topping is placed to partner the flavours. this soup exemplifies my eternal struggle with cooking - seasoning; my nemesis. to my generation that grew up in ireland in the 70s / 80s, seasoning was something 'delicately' applied (not applied), as a result we have gotten used to food without any major flavouring. dave's theory over dinner was that the big health push during these years educated mothers into the risks of salt in the diet. as with everything this probably went too far. blancs scoffed at this when we first started cooking together - pasta, she would say, should be cooked in water with the salinity of the mediterranean. once the vegetables were softened we arrived at my moment of truth - the tasting. it seemed fine to me, but blancs pushed me aside and emptied handfuls of salt, pepper and vegetable stock. kind of odd, but only when finally drinking the soup did i think that it lacked flavour. at this stage i mixed the parsley topping (parsley, garlic, lemon zest, parmesan and olive oil prepared in the magimix) in - it works superbly with the soup to enhance the flavour. we served the soup on a bed of fresh spinach leaves.

blancs cooked the main - the excellent ferran adria dish of monkfish breaded with ground almond and served with sautéed spinach, soaked sultanas and roasted pine nuts. a drizzle of olive oil dressing sets this off nicely. this is a catalan dish, from the "cocinar en 10 minutos" book. this is probably the first spanish dish that i ever learnt - 98, back in the southampton days.

the monkfish can live up to 11 years. having read about problems over the past years of the depletion of the atlantic stocks of the fish, from checking out the web, it seems this is getting better ... http://www.ncfisheries.net/stocks/monkfish.htm

a trip down to niksons was required at this point of the meal - blancs was hankering for cigarettes and we were all keen enough to stretch our legs. a couple of drinks later we had the lovely dessert - again blancs had produced this without me noticing. i had an opportunity to test the theory of chinese, korean and japanese kanji meaning the same - you can imagine how happy i am that mun-ling understands my mountain, white, paddy field etc.

time to go - blancs is calling out to colour code the bookshelf; my hangover is denying any chance of the gym today, but i'm thinking that we should be getting out of the house as the sun is shining and snow falling ... perfect.