How to Eat

by Nigella Lawson

  Cook this fragrant, golden stew for 20–30 minutes, until the vegetables are tender but not mushy (at least not all of them—some will be beginning to fray around the edges, and that’s good) and the liquid has formed a thin but not watery sauce. Taste and add chili oil or the harissa if you want it to have a bit more punch.

  Meanwhile, prepare the couscous. Put the pine nuts in a hot, dry frying pan and toast until they are golden and giving off a sweet resiny aroma. Set aside. Thirty minutes or so before the stew is cooked, put the couscous in a bowl, cover it with cold water by about 1½ inches, and soak it for 10 minutes. Drain and put the couscous in either a steamer basket or the top part of the couscoussier; you may have to do this in 2 batches. Place the butter on top of the grain and put the couscous on top of the pot with the stew in it. Cover and allow to steam-heat for 5–10 minutes; the butter should have started melting by the time it’s ready. Transfer to a warmed dish or flat round plate, adding more butter if you like. Fluff up with a fork and scatter with pine nuts.

  To serve, pour the stew gently into a big round shallow bowl (and this should be warmed), strew with the parsley or coriander, and bring to table with the couscous.

  CHICKEN STEW WITH COUSCOUS

  In the Middle East or North Africa, chicken would be used primarily to flavor the broth, not to yield much meat to eat. But I figure that, if people are expecting to eat the meat, you must have 2 small chicken parts per person. Chicken is better if it is freshly jointed, so I get the butcher to cut one large chicken (about 5 pounds) into 10–12 parts. You can, however, use thighs from the supermarket.

  Don’t worry if the stock isn’t very strong for this—the broth should be light. The point of couscous is, I stress, to have the bland grains as a base for the vegetables and chicken, moistened by the gentle broth and given heat and intensity by the harissa.

  You will need to start on this a good day in advance in order to soak the chickpeas. If you prefer to use canned chickpeas, you can, but I think it’s worth the effort (not in itself exactly arduous) of soaking and cooking the dried ones.

  8 ounces chickpeas, soaked (see page 78), or 1½ cans (14 ounces each)

  3 medium onions, 1 halved, 2 sliced thinly

  1 bouquet garni (see page xx)

  4 garlic cloves, unpeeled

  2 drops olive oil

  2 tablespoons vegetable oil

  1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

  ½ teaspoon ground cumin

  ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

  pinch salt

  10–12 chicken parts (see headnote)

  1 pound carrots, peeled, halved lengthways, and cut into chunks

  4 celery stalks, 1 left whole, 3 sliced thinly

  1 heaping teaspoon harissa (page 208), plus more, for serving

  Put soaked chickpeas in a saucepan with the halved onion, bouquet garni, and the garlic, cover by about 4 inches with cold water, and add the olive oil. Cover the pan, bring to the boil, and then cook at a gentle boil for an hour. Leave in the pan.

  Now for the chicken and vegetables. Pour the vegetable oil into a big pot, add the cinnamon, cumin, cayenne pepper, and the remaining onions. Sprinkle with the salt and cook for a few minutes, until soft. Then add the chicken parts. (If you want them golden, fry them in a pan first, remembering to scoop up all chickeny juices by deglazing with some water.) Cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Skim off any scum that may rise to the surface. Drain the reserved chickpeas and add them with the carrots and celery, stir in the harissa, and cook fairly gently for 1½ hours, maybe slightly less, until the chicken is just cooked through. If using canned chickpeas, drain and add them 5 minutes before the chicken is cooked, and allow to heat through. If, finally, you really feel the broth needs more flavor, don’t panic; just add a bouillon cube.

  Meanwhile, following the recipe on page 207, cook the couscous, starting about 30 minutes before the chicken and vegetables are cooked. Serve as for the vegetable couscous.

  HARISSA

  As you can buy very good harissa (but do check labels to avoid brands with fillers), I make no apology for the fact that this homemade version is fairly labor-intensive. If, however, the idea of pounding the whole spices appalls and yet you still want to make your own, then use ground spices (the caraway doesn’t come ground, but can be dealt with in the processor later), reducing quantities slightly, and frying them first not in a dry pan, but in one with a tablespoon or so of oil in it. The chilies I tend to get for harissa have a definite heat, but no killer burn.

  You can keep this, with a film of oil poured over the top, for ages in the fridge. And it’s addictive stuff; once you start eating it, you’ll want it with practically everything.

  2 ounces dried red chilies

  3 tablespoons coriander seeds

  1 teaspoon caraway seeds

  1 teaspoon cumin seeds

  6 garlic cloves

  2 tablespoons coarse sea salt

  1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

  3 tablespoons olive oil

  Bring about 2 cups of water to a boil. With rubber gloves on, especially if you wear contact lenses, break open the chilies and remove the seeds. Cut the chilies into thinnish slices—I use scissors for this—and put into a small bowl. Cover with the boiling water and leave to soak for 1 hour.

  Toast the coriander, caraway, and cumin in a hot dry heavy-bottomed frying pan, shaking and turning till the spices are lightly browned and beginning to give off a heady fragrance, 3 or 4 minutes. Remove them from the pan and bash to a powder with a pestle and mortar, or use a spice grinder.

  I do the next step using a processor, but if you want to be truly authentic I dare say you should keep pounding. Anyway, spoon the just pounded spice powder into the bowl of the food processor. Pound the garlic and salt together with the pestle and mortar and then transfer that, too, to the processor. Add vinegar and the drained chilies, reserving the soaking water, and blitz to a fiery-red purée. Then, turn the machine on again and, with the motor running, pour the oil down the funnel. Stop, scrape up—or rather down—any mixture on the sides of the bowl, then switch on again, pouring in some of the chili-soaking liquid; you want the texture thick but not stiff. Taste to see whether you want more salt or more vinegar, or indeed more chili.

  COCONUT CRÈME CARAMEL

  Crème caramel is a soothing dessert to end with, and one that is not, contrary to appearances, very hard to make. It’s easier to make the caramel alone in the kitchen, though. If there’s anyone else there, they’re almost bound to plead with you to take the darkly spluttering sugar off the heat before it’s brown enough.

  This version is not intensely coconutty, but after the third or fourth mouthful, a light, fluttery note of coconut begins to make itself heard. Think, too, of substituting ordinary milk, infused for 20 minutes with the zest of an orange, then strained. In which case, use orange juice, not water, to make the caramel.

  I use an oval dish that has a capacity of 3½ cups. This makes a modest, though not too mean, amount for 6: boost quantities for exuberantly greedy people.

  The canned coconut milk I use (because I had it in the larder the first time I made this) is called Thai Coconut Milk; it’s available widely in the United States. It needs a good shake before opening and pouring over the eggs and sugar. Get the best eggs you can—not mass-produced. Use a round baking dish for this with an 8-cup capacity.

  1 cup superfine sugar

  4 eggs

  4 egg yolks

  2½ cups coconut milk

  Preheat the oven to 325°F and put in the dish in which you are going to cook the crème caramel.

  Put 3⁄4 cup of sugar and 5 tablespoons of water in a heavy-bottomed saucepan to make the caramel, stir to help dissolve, then put on a high heat. Meanwhile, fill a kettle with water and heat to the boiling point. Bring the sugar and water to the boil, without stirring—though I can never resist shaking a bit—and boil until it is dark golden and syrupy. Get the warm dish from the oven, pour in the caramel, and swirl
it around so it coats the sides as well as the bottom. You need to use an oven mitt to hold the pan because the caramel is extremely hot. You will have to work quickly but not hysterically so. Put the dish aside somewhere cool and let the caramel harden.

  Then, in a bowl, whisk the eggs, egg yolks, and remaining sugar with a fork. Heat the coconut milk and, still beating with a fork, pour it over the egg and sugar mixture. Strain into the caramel-lined dish.

  Get out a roasting pan and set the dish in it. Pour the hot water from the kettle into the roasting pan to come about halfway up the sides of the dish, then convey all of this to the oven.

  Start testing with your fingertips, pressing the top, after 45 minutes, but figure on about 1 hour before it is cooked enough. You want it set, but with a hint of wobble underneath. Remember, it will carry on cooking a little after you take it out.

  Remove the dish when you judge the time to be right and let it cool. Then stick it in the fridge overnight. A bit before you want to eat it, take it out of the fridge, press with your fingers all around the edge to release the custard from the sides of the dish, then get a sharp, thin knife and trace along the sides, cutting down to the bottom of the dish. Keep calm; there is no reason why this shouldn’t work. Place a flat plate over the top of the caramel dish and invert. Shake a bit, and remove the dish. In front of you should be a beautiful, gleamingly tanned mirror-topped custard, dripping with brown caramel down the sides and into a puddle around it. The crème caramel is always shallower on the plate than it looked as if it would be, but that’s just what happens—or it does to me.

  Put two spoons on the table and let people help themselves.

  YOGURT

  HONEY

  PASSION FRUIT

  CLOTTED CREAM

  If you want to make something that takes altogether less thinking about, then I suggest a glass-filling mixture of yogurt, honey, passion fruit, and thick, rich, yellow clotted or Devonshire cream, now widely available. Passion fruit, like coconut, seems to go well after the sweet aromatic spices that waft from the stew.

  It may seem to go against my usual ordinances to suggest making a dessert that is to be served already meted out in individual portions, but the mixture quickly becomes too gloopy to survive being served from a larger bowl. For each person, put into your chosen glass a big dollop of yogurt. On top of this pour in 1 tablespoon dark, clear, strong Greek honey or any well-flavored runny honey; stir it in a bit, not so that it is completely mixed but so that it isn’t just sitting in a fat puddle on top. Now take a passion fruit, cut it in half, and scoop the seeds and pulp out on top of the honey and yogurt. Stir this in gently, but leaving most of it on top. Then on goes a generous tablespoon of the cream. Now, drizzle a bit of honey over that, but only a tiny bit—the amount that comes off the sticky tablespoon you used last time. If your kitchen lunch is completely informal, and as this dessert is best done at the last minute, assemble it at the time. And if you wanted something even simpler you could use Jane Grigson’s trick—which is to have a bowlful of passion fruits and another of good cream. Eaters lop off the top of the fruit, rather as if taking the top off a boiled egg, add a spoon of cream to the pulpy cavity—and then, pleasurably, eat.

  EASY WINTER LUNCH FOR 6

  * * *

  HAM COOKED IN CIDER WITH LEEKS, CARROTS, AND POTATOES

  BAKED WINE-SPICED PLUMS WITH BARBADOS CREAM

  The poet Paul Muldoon wrote wonderfully, in Profumo, of his mother going “from ham to snobbish ham.” The plastic-wrapped, sliver-thin, and pinkly shiny kind he alluded to has its place. But the real thing is such a treat—such an ordinary treat, nothing fancy, but enormously uplifting. And it’s just right for winter lunch: nothing to do except throw everything in a pan and then the whole house becomes imbued with savory, clove-scented fog. Buy more ham than you want and then eat it cold for supper with poached eggs, or in a sandwich, or chopped in a pea soup cooked with the cidery stock the ham itself was cooking in. I love nothing more, on a Saturday night in, than a bowl of thick and grainy pea soup eaten with a spoon in my right hand while my left holds (for alternating mouthfuls), a ham sandwich, good and mustardy, made with unsalted butter and white bread, real or plastic (both have their merits). The leftover stock also makes the basis for excellent risotti (see Pea Risotto, page 140, and Orzotto, page 317) and can be used to add depth and pungency to an ordinary chicken casserole.

  After the ham you want something not too filling, but a moussy little number would be striking the wrong note. The plums baked in spice-deepened wine are just right, warming and comforting but not bloating, and the Barbados cream is an optional accompaniment worth serious consideration. If you think it would make life easier, then just put some crème fraîche on the table instead. And, now I come to think of it, there’s a very good case for custard. Still, I like the sugar-topped yogurty cream. Do it a day before your lunch—a good 24 hours will give everything time to meld fabulously. I’d do the plums in advance, too, although if you prefer you can cook them when you want to eat them. I know it might sound odd to specify a plum recipe for winter when these aren’t winter fruits, but you can get plums (from Chile, among other places) in winter and they benefit especially from being cooked like this. Only the soft, juicy ones straight from the tree in August can be eaten as they are.

  HAM COOKED IN CIDER

  I resist specifying the size of the ham you need; it depends how much you want left over. But I wouldn’t consider getting one weighing under 5 pounds. What you’re after is a mild-cure ham. I prefer to get my ham from the butcher, but I have made more than respectable boiled ham from the vacuum-packed variety bought at the supermarket.

  To calculate how much time the ham needs, work along the lines of about 12 minutes per pound for a fully cooked ham, and about 18 minutes per pound for one that’s partially cooked, plus 30 minutes. If it’s come straight out of the fridge, you could need to add a further 20–30 minutes.

  I am basing this recipe on a 5-pound ham, but armed with the information above, you can change the cooking time as you wish. Anyway, if the ham stays in the liquid longer, it’ll be fine. And when you have finished lunch, put the ham back in the liquid until cool; this keeps it from going dry and stringy.

  I never mind which cider I use and I have probably used apple juice, too.

  1 5-pound half bone-in ham, partially or fully cooked

  10 medium carrots, peeled and quartered

  2 medium onions, halved, each half studded with a clove

  8 leeks, white and green parts separated, the white cut into 2½-inch lengths

  10 peppercorns

  2 celery stalks, or the bottom sliced from a whole bunch

  small bunch parsley, tied with a freezer-bag wire

  1 bouquet garni (see page xx)

  4½ cups hard or sweet cider, or apple juice

  2 tablespoons light brown or demerara sugar (see page 460)

  6 medium floury potatoes, peeled and roughly quartered

  Put the ham in a large pot; add 2 of the quartered carrots, the onions, the green parts of the leeks, the peppercorns, celery, parsley (tied with a freezer-bag wire, the parsley is easier to remove later), and bouquet garni. Pour in the cider, then add cold water to cover and bring to boiling point.

  Add the sugar, lower the heat, and simmer briskly (or boil gently, depending on how you want to look at it) for about 70 minutes for a partially cooked ham, 40 minutes if the ham is fully cooked. (And at about this stage you should start thinking about the potatoes; see below.) Remove the carrots, green parts of leek, and parsley and put in the remaining carrots and leeks and cook for about another 20 minutes. The ham is done at an internal temperature of 160°F for a partially cooked ham, 140°F for one that is fully cooked. When it’s all cooked, remove the ham to carve it, take the vegetables out with a slotted spoon, and then put the ham on a huge plate surrounded by the leeks and carrots. Or carve it to order at the table and put the vegetables on a plate on the table by themselves.

&
nbsp; Now the potatoes. You can do either of two things: you can boil the potatoes in a saucepan of water while the ham is cooking, or you can cook them in the ham water itself. The advantage of cooking them separately is that they offer a distinct, appropriately plain, taste. And potatoes are really at their best when they are the bland but sweet bass note to sop up and support other, stronger, tastes. Added to which, you are left with a clear stock at the end; if you cook the potatoes in with the ham, all you can do with the stock, really, is make thick soup. And unless you have a very big pot, the ham, vegetables, and potatoes, all in together, will be a very tight squeeze.

  Having said that, there is something wonderful about the sweet, grainy potatoes absorbing all that appley and salty stock. You decide. (I reckon on 1 potato, quartered, per person; I might even do 1½ per person.)

  In the ham pot, or separately, simmer the potatoes until just tender, 35–40 minutes.

  The recipes for both the plums and Barbados cream are in Cooking in Advance; see pages 116 and 117.

  GOOD, THICK WINTER PEA SOUP

  As for dishes using ham leftovers, there are pea-based soups, risotti, and the like mentioned throughout (check the Index, too), but for a good, thick winter pea soup, all you need to do is throw into the cold ham stock a couple of handfuls of split green peas and boil away until you have a sludgy purée. A bright green fresh-pea soup is obviously not a winter meal, but if you cheat and use frozen peas (I always do), then it can be. But the grainy potage produced by the split peas is wonderfully satisfying—and you can just as well use the yellow split peas. In fact, you can use just about any legume you want; it’s just that split peas need no soaking. But if you don’t feel like eating a ham-based pea soup immediately after lunch, then pour the stock (in labeled quantities) into containers or plastic bags and put them in the freezer. Don’t stick it in the fridge with the intention of doing something or other with it over the next few days. You won’t and you’ll end up throwing it away, which would be too much of a waste for me to bear even on your behalf.