A great way to highlight this versatile spice is pepper and salt squid. Serve with a sweet chilli and saki dipping sauce and hopefully more painful preparations won’t be required.
Black Pepper Baby Squid
Baby squid : 250 g
Black pepper : 1 tbsp
Flaky sea salt : 1 tsp
Plain flour : 75 g
Cornflour : 75 g
Cayenne pepper : a pinch
Vegetable oil : for frying
Sake : 1 tbsp
Sweet chilli dipping sauce : 3 tbsp
Toasted black sesame seeds : 1 tsp
Finely sliced red chilli : 1 tbsp
Sliced spring onion : 1 tbsp
Wash the baby squid under cold running water, drain and pat dry. Remove the tentacles and ensure the squid is cartilage-free. Cut the squid into 1 cm-wide rings.
Pound the pepper and salt to a powder with a pestle and mortar. Mix with the flour, cornflour and cayenne pepper.
Heat clean vegetable oil in a pan until it is very hot. Then begin frying.
Dip the squid rings and tentacles in the black pepper flour, shake off excess and place in the hot oil.
Fry in small batches for about 4 minutes each, or until golden brown and crispy. Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon and place on kitchen paper to absorb the excess. Keep the cooked squid rings well spread out to ensure they remain crispy, and place in a warming oven while frying the rest.
Prepare the dipping sauce by simply mixing the sake with the sweet chilli sauce.
Serve the squid sprinkled with toasted black sesame seeds and the finely sliced red chilli and spring onion.
SAFFRON
The oldest aphrodisiac of them all, saffron has been on the job for well over 3,000 years. Spreading like a hot flush across the Mediterranean and Asia, the saffron crocus was at one point the most cultivated flower on the planet. Its bright red stigmas were worth more than gold, prized as religious offering, resplendent dye, traditional medicine, alluring cosmetic, gastronomic flourish and groin girder par excellence. Not bad for the sterile sex organ of a mutant flower.
Saffron’s antiquity has burnished it with enough myth and mystery to fill an entire book. Minoan legend tells of unfortunate Jack-the-lad Krokus. Punching above his weight, he bagged a tricksy nymph called Smilax. Soon tiring of his besotted ways, Smilax gave our hero the heave-ho. Thoroughly unmanned, Krokus faded, wasting away until he was miraculously transformed into the first saffron crocus. Krokus’s ardour is said to burn for ever in the flaming stigmas of this purple flower. Zeus, numero uno of the Greek gods, used saffron to abduct the beautiful princess Europa. Cunningly disguised as a white bull, he sneakily blew saffron up her nose. Suddenly besotted with this brazen bovine, Europa mounted her new best friend and was carried off to Crete for a spot of bestiality on the beach. I dare say she was thoroughly ashamed of herself the next morning.
I doubt Cleopatra was ever ashamed of her amorous extremes. This queen of the bedchamber would bathe in saffron-spiced water to sweeten long nights of Egyptian ecstasy. Probably the most expensive toilette in history: the finest saffron costs £10,000 per kilogram and she is said to have used half a cup of the stuff.
Saffron’s mighty price tag seems more reasonable when you learn that over 150,000 hand-plucked flowers are required to produce each kilogram. Fortunately for the bon viveur on a budget only a pinch is required in most dishes. In food, saffron works in three ways, imparting the bittersweet scent and the flavour of fresh hay, and a resplendent golden colour. The active agent responsible for this riot of mellow yellow is a chemical compound called crocin. Crocin also appears quite capable of activating a slumbering libido. The exact mechanics remain mysterious but a team of inquisitive Iranian boffins has shown that male rats get their whiskers well and truly tickled by a dose of both saffron extract and crocin extract. Good news for all you love rats out there.
The culinary uses of saffron are multitudinous and rather varied. It is a central ingredient in some of the world’s most celebrated savoury rice dishes: risotto Milanese, paella Valenciana and Hyderabadi biryani. It partners well with seafood, as in the incomparably fishy French bouillabaisse. But it is equally at home in desserts, partnered with poached pears or even rose water in Iranian ice cream. My ultimate saffron fancy is a fish pie that positively glows with aphrodisiac goodness: smoked haddock, asparagus and tiger prawns bound in a saffron sauce and topped with a nutmeg-spiced parsnip and potato mash. Serve with a casually dressed endive salad and a fat yellow Chardonnay.
Smoked Haddock and Saffron Fish Pie
Saffron : 15 strands
Milk : 500 ml
Bay leaf : 2
Cloves : 2
Smoked haddock loin : 300 g
Floury potatoes : 300 g
Parsnips : 200 g
Asparagus : 150 g
Cooked tiger prawns : 150 g (cooked and shelled weight)
Butter : 80 g
Plain flour : 2 tbsp
Nutmeg : ¼
Salt and pepper : to taste
Hydrate the saffron in 50 ml of hot water and leave to infuse for 5 minutes. Pour the milk into a pan add the bay leaves, cloves and saffron water and heat until the surface begins to shiver.
Cut the haddock into large pieces, then place into the hot milk. Remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool.
Peel the potatoes, cut into large chunks, then cook in salted water until soft enough to mash. Once cooked drain off the water and leave to mash later.
Similarly, peel the parsnips, cut up and boil in water until soft. Drain and reserve.
Blanch the asparagus in boiling water for 4 minutes, then refresh under cold water. Chop into 3 cm lengths and set aside. When the milk is lukewarm the fish should be lightly cooked. Carefully remove the fish, discarding the skin, and place on the buttered base of a small pie dish for two. Place the tiger prawns and asparagus pieces over the fish. Strain the saffron milk and reserve for use in the sauce and mash.
Prepare the saffron sauce by first melting half the butter in a non-stick pan. When the butter begins to foam, add the plain flour and beat together.
On a very low heat gradually beat in the saffron milk, adding a little at a time to ensure that the sauce has an even consistency at all times. Stop adding milk when the consistency is like single cream, increase the heat a little and slowly bring the sauce to the boil while stirring constantly. The sauce will thicken to the consistency of thick double cream as it approaches boiling point. Once it is boiling turn the heat up and let the sauce bubble for a few minutes to cook out the flour.
Beat in a little extra butter to give the sauce a rich sheen and season with salt and pepper. Pour the sauce over the fish and asparagus mix and stir gently to combine all the elements. The final process is to prepare the mash. Mash the potatoes by hand and blitz the parsnips in a food processor. Mix the parsnip purée into the potato and add the remaining butter. Season to taste with salt, pepper and lots of nutmeg and spoon over the pie filling.
The pie can be made in advance. When it is time to serve, simply plonk it in a hot oven (200°C) for 20 minutes to heat through and turn the topping a golden brown.
VANILLA
Vanilla is the kind of aphrodisiac you might want to marry. The floral scent and sweet flavour of vanilla are pure unadulterated fresh femininity. As an aphrodisiac it represents all that is good and wholesome and beautiful in love. Such things are hard won and highly prized; vanilla is a high-maintenance madam. Its production is expensive, difficult and very labour intensive. On a summer’s day, dipping a perfectly ripe strawberry into a fluffy mound of vanilla Chantilly cream, I think it well worth the effort and cheap at the price.
What we know as vanilla is the pod and seeds from the tropical vanilla orchid. As with all orchids, the flower bears an uncanny resemblance to the tidy hoo-ha of a particularly well-groomed lady. Unlike most ladies, this flower opens for one day a year, is hermaphroditic, and with a helping hand is capable of self-fertilis
ation. The vanilla farmers must work fast, scuttling up ladders to hand-pollinate each flower before the end of the day. Once fertilised, the orchid produces a long seed pod which contains the precious seeds, or beans as they are more commonly known. Nine months later the pods are ready to harvest. The plucked pods are first blanched in hot water for a few minutes, then wrapped in wool and left to sweat in the sunshine for up to ten days. The flavours and aromas develop under these steamy conditions. The pods are then dried and conditioned for a further three months.
Indigenous to the jungles of southern Mexico, it was the Totonac people who first devised the laborious techniques of vanilla production. The only difference is that in the jungle Melipona bees and small humming birds pollinate the orchids. According to Totonac legend, the vanilla orchid is a divine aphrodisiac, an incarnation of Xanat, daughter of the fertility goddess. She fell in love with a handsome Totonac youth. As her divinity prevented her from marrying her human beau, she transformed herself into the vanilla orchid to provide pleasure and sensuality to her mortal love. The Totonacs used vanilla in xocolatl, an aphrodisiac hot drink made with cacao and chilli. The custom spread to the Mayans and Aztecs. The Spanish conquistadors wrote of the great Aztec king Montezuma’s voracious thirst for this brew and boggled at his harem-hushing prowess. Sampling it themselves, the conquistadors were impressed enough to send it on the first ship back to Spain.
This exotic combination of vanilla and chocolate was a sensation in the old world. The aphrodisiac effect of hot chocolate was largely attributed to vanilla as opposed to chocolate. Medically it was regarded as ‘warming’, with correspondingly hot effects on the libido. Soon, doctors across Europe were prescribing vanilla to ensure male potency. In 1762 Bezaar Zimmerman, a German doctor, claimed that he had transformed ‘no fewer than 342 impotent men, (who) by drinking vanilla decoctions, had changed into astonishing lovers of at least as many women’. The gourmet president Thomas Jefferson is credited with introducing vanilla to the USA. As before, vanilla was an absolute hit. In the American Dispensatory, readers were advised to use vanilla to ‘stimulate the sexual propensities’.
Tried and tested over thousands of years, folk remedies are rarely without foundation. Vanilla is no exception. Vanilla increases levels of adrenaline, the chemical responsible for the racing heart, sweaty palms and increased blood pressure of intense attraction. It is mildly addictive, so may be responsible for vanilla’s inexorable rise to its current position as the world’s favourite flavouring. The aroma of vanilla is as much part of its gourmet allure as its flavour; it is also a key part of its saucy appeal. Dr Alan Hirsch, an expert in all matters nose and tongue, identified vanilla as the mature man’s sexiest scent. A whiff of vanilla was found to be just the thing to get blood pumping to the nether regions. Millions of pounds of vanilla-tinged perfume sales confirm his findings.
The bon viveur trying to vajazzle with vanilla should stick to the real deal. Vanilla pods are expensive but offer so much more fragrant complexity than artificially produced vanilla extract. There are three main cultivars of vanilla: Mexican, Bourbon and Tahitian. Mexican vanilla, still grown by Totonac Indians, is generally regarded as the finest of the three. Its spicy tones are richer and more earthy than the fruity Tahitian and mellow Bourbon. A well-matured pod should be pliable with a deep oily-brown colour and a glittery sheen. The fragrance should be heavenly. The English were the first to use vanilla as a stand-alone flavour. Hugh Morgan, apothecary to Elizabeth I, is credited with this gastronomic innovation. The French grudgingly honour the great British custard with the title crème anglaise. As fantastic as custard can be, I find vanilla most fantastic in its purest form, whipped into cream and icing sugar to create the incomparable Chantilly cream. If you have to smear a lover with anything, this is what you want to be licking off. Like a pair of lacy French knickers on an English schoolboy, it sexily transforms the stiff-upper-lipped meringues and strawberries of Eton Mess. Serve with a sprinkle of strawberry dust and a glass of pink champagne. Resistance will be futile.
Eton Mess
Strawberries : 400 g of small strawberries
Eggs : 2
Caster sugar : 120 g
Tahitian vanilla : 1 pod
Whipping cream : 250 ml
Icing sugar : 1 tbsp or to taste
STRAWBERRY DUST
Remove the hulls from 200 g of the strawberries. Slice the strawberries finely and arrange flat on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper.
Place in the oven on its lowest setting, ideally around 75°C. Cook for 3 hours until completely dry.
Put the dry strawberries in the freezer for 15 minutes. Remove and grind to a powder in a coffee grinder or pestle and mortar.
Store in an airtight container.
MERINGUES
Preheat the oven to 150°C.
Carefully separate the yolks from the egg whites.
Pour the whites into a very clean metal bowl and add a third of the caster sugar. Whisk vigorously until the whites have formed soft peaks.
While whisking gradually add another third of the sugar, 1 teaspoon at a time, whisking until the whites form stiff peaks.
Using a metal spoon fold in the remaining sugar, taking care not to knock out any air from the meringue mix.
Place 4 large dollops of meringue mix on to a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper. Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes.
Reduce the temperature to 110°C and cook for a further 2½ hours until very crisp and dry.
Place on a baking tray to cool.
CHANTILLY CREAM
Cut the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape out the sticky seeds with the back of a knife. I recommend using Tahitian vanilla. Its fruity qualities complement strawberries perfectly.
Stir the vanilla into the cream, and sweeten to taste with icing sugar.
Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks.
MAKING THE MESS
Hull and slice the remaining 200 g of strawberries.
Using a bread knife cut the meringues into 2 cm chunks.
Fold the meringue and strawberries into the whipped cream.
Pile the mess into two champagne coupes and sprinkle liberally with strawberry dust.
Vanilla Panna Cotta with Poached Peach and Strawberries
Peach : 1
Strawberries : 6
Sweet Moscatel white wine : 175 ml
Honey : 1 tbsp
Vanilla pod : ½
Gelatine : 1½ leaves
Whole milk : 125 ml
Double cream : 125 ml
Caster sugar : 1 tbsp
Icing sugar : for dusting
Remove the stone from a ripe peach and cut into halves. Remove the hulls from the strawberries and cut into quarters.
Pour the wine, honey and split vanilla pod into a saucepan. Heat gently until the honey has dissolved.
Put the peach halves in the syrup, cover and simmer gently for about 15 minutes. Add the strawberries for the last 5 minutes. The peach should be tender but not soft. If the peach halves are not totally covered by syrup make sure you baste and turn the fruit a few times while cooking.
Remove the peach halves, strawberries and vanilla from the syrup, turn the heat up and reduce the liquid by half at a fast rolling boil.
Peel the skin from the peach halves. It should come away easily, having been loosened by the poaching process.
Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water to rehydrate.
Pour the milk and cream into a small pan. Split the vanilla pod, scrape out the seeds and put both pod and seeds into the creamy milk.
Bring the creamy milk to a light simmer, then add sugar to taste.
Squeeze any excess moisture from the hydrated gelatine, then add to the creamy milk. Remove the pan from the heat, take out the vanilla pod, and stir gently until the gelatine has dissolved.
Pour the panna cotta mix into two dariole moulds or ramekins. Chill the panna cotta in the fridge for at least an hour or until it has set.
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To serve, turn out each panna cotta on to a shallow bowl. Place the poached peach half alongside with a scattering of poached strawberries. Spoon the cool syrup over both peach and panna cotta. To finish, dust with a little icing sugar.
WASABI
There is something rather magical about wasabi. The very best grows on the sacred slopes of Mount Fuji in the shallows of constantly flowing mountain streams. A hefty lump of luminous light green, the wasabi root’s proportions are something even the Incredible Hulk would be proud to find in his underpants. Pulp wasabi using the traditional shark-skin grater and you have culinary Semtex. The glowing green paste will blow you away.
It is blisteringly and bewilderingly hot. The pungency sears the nose with incapacitating fury, then evaporates as swiftly as it arrived. One can hardly believe there is no lasting damage. The palate is miraculously refreshed and cleansed, washed with wasabi’s delicate, sophisticated flavour. There may be tears in your eyes and your nerves may be jangling, but the invigoration is palpable. The world seems brighter and more wonderfully alive than a moment ago. The Japanese are quite correct: how could wasabi not be an aphrodisiac?
Wasabi explodes across the senses in the same way as chilli. It smites the sensitive heat sensors with an almighty hit of isothiocyanate, the same active ingredient that gives mustard its bite. Unlike capsaicin in chilli, which is a clinging oil, wasabi’s firepower is water-soluble and easily extinguished. The trauma passes speedily as saliva deactivates and disperses isothiocyanate almost immediately. Despite the brevity of the onslaught, alarm bells ring in the central nervous system. Endorphins are deployed to wash the body with pleasure. The heart rate jumps and blood vessels dilate as the body mobilises for evasive action. From evasive to invasive in a matter of moments, the bells are silenced and, ring-a-ding-ding, tingling senses are reinterpreted as sudden arousal. The pinnacle of sashimi presentation is nyotaimori, female body presentation. Slivers of raw fish are artfully arranged over the naked body of a well-scrubbed beauty. It is an exercise in self-restraint. Reining-in wasabi-induced urges requires every ounce of the impeccable self-control for which our oriental friends are rightly famous.
The Aphrodisiac Encyclopaedia Page 14