How to Eat

by Nigella Lawson

  To cook the meat, preheat the oven to 450°F. On the stove, in a heavy frying pan that will go in the oven, melt the butter and oil and sear the fillets on all sides. Transfer to the hot oven and roast for 20–30 minutes. The venison should be browny-puce within (the game equivalent of à point pink), but not imperial purple.

  Remove the venison to a warmed plate or carving board and wrap or tent it loosely with foil to keep warm. If you want, add the juices from the pan to the rosemary sauce. Before you carve the fillets, pour into the gravy, as well, the juices that have run out of them onto the board as they wait.

  I would carve the fillets into slices and arrange on 1 or 2 oval plates, so people can take what they like, and hand the sauce round separately, having ladled a little over the soft, sliced meat first. Depending on its provenance, the meat can be intense; taste and, if this is so, offer 2 to 3 slices, even if they’re small ones, initially (you know how I am about portion sizes generally, so you know you can trust me here). The same goes for the sauce—only a little is needed; too much would ruin the balance as well as finish the sauce up too soon.

  Despite the sweetness of the meat, it seems that it’s sweetness, again, you look for in the vegetables. Frozen young peas come into this category and they rupture the mood of autumnal color coordination, which can’t be a bad thing.

  PEAS AND CELERIAC MASH

  And with the peas, I want potatoes, mashed with their own weight of celeriac, lots of butter, plenty of nutmeg. For 8 people who eat rather than pick at food, you should think along the lines of 2 pounds of both potatoes and celeriac. Celeriac is no fun to peel, but plenty of fun to eat; suffer in smug silence—your reward comes later.

  QUINCES POACHED IN MUSCAT

  I’ll poach anything in muscat wine, given the chance, but this mixture of honey-sweet wine and fruit from, and perhaps not just metaphorically, the garden of Eden is more than mere culinary opportunism. It is gloriously, impeccably right.

  I poach the quinces in the oven rather than on the stove, because it is easier to control the heat this way, and thus to keep the fruit poaching so gently that they keep their form and the liquid its almost ruby clarity. For, as the quinces cook, they become a grainy, glorious burnished terra-cotta and the wine in which they steep also grows rosier. If you can get hold of some of that Greek red dessert wine, then do; the fruits and their syrup will glow.

  The only hard bit is the preparation of the quinces, and when I say hard, I mean strenuous rather than labor-intensive. These fruits are rock-hard, and coring and quartering takes strength. But you do nothing to them as they cook, so the tradeoff’s worth it. They can be done in advance and eaten cold. Four quinces may not seem many for 8 people, but they are so temple-achingly sweet that you don’t want to eat enormous amounts. A mouthful or two is ambrosial.

  I suggest lemon ice cream with this because, in the first instance, I love that particular combination and, in the second, because there’s a no-churn recipe (see page 254) that you can make relatively effortlessly. And I love the ice cream just with the syrup, too. But no one’s going to argue if you just put out a bowl of crème fraîche, or indeed yogurt, to go with the quinces instead. It’s the combination of the grainy, sweet, and perfumed fruit and cold near-sour creaminess you’re after. It’s up to you how you do it.

  4 quinces

  3 cups muscat wine

  2½ cups sugar

  2 bay leaves

  1 cinnamon stick

  3 cloves

  3 cardamom pods

  6 peppercorns

  Preheat the oven to 325°F.

  Fill a bowl with cold water and add a squirt of lemon juice to it; this is to put the quinces in to stop them browning. Peel the quinces, quarter them, and core them. You might need to do a bit of chiseling with the point of a knife, but don’t worry if you can’t get every last bit of core out. As you work, submerge the quinces in the acidulated water. Keep the peel and trimmings; they will help the syrup to thicken.

  To make the syrup, put the wine, 1¼ cups of water, sugar, bay leaves, and spices in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Put the quince peel and cores in the bottom of an ovenproof dish and then put the quartered quinces on top, pour over the wine mixture, cover—either with a lid or, securely, with foil—and put in the oven for 2½ hours, or until when you take them out, the quinces are the fleshy-brown color of old-fashioned Band-Aids. Let them cool in the dish, with the lid on, and when you look at them next, they’ll have deepened and darkened further.

  When the quinces are cold, remove with a slotted spoon and put in a glass bowl. Strain the syrup into a saucepan and reduce; taste every now and again (without burning your tongue) to see how far you need to go. Let cool slightly and pour over the quinces waiting in their bowl. A warning, however: the syrup will thicken as it cools anyway; I too often overreduce it and end up with quince toffee. Any superfluous syrup can be kept, or reduced and kept, to use in place of sugar in apple pies or crumbles. Quinces are traditionally used in these dishes and the syrup gives you that extraordinary mixture between super-homeliness and the exotic without any further peeling.

  MARSALA MUSCOVADO CUSTARD WITH MUSKILY SPICED PRUNES

  SPICED PRUNES

  This recipe is really just a variant of the Sauternes custard on page 217: it occurred to me that the particular combination of ingredients in zabaglione (see page 154) worked so well, it might taste equally good translated to the dense fabulousness of a baked custard. (I add muscovado sugar to boost innate tendencies.) It does. I’d consider serving it with some spiced prunes, only bear in mind that prunes can never win unanimous support. To cook the prunes, make some tea up with 2 cups boiling water and an Earl Grey tea bag (which you discard when the tea’s strongish). Pour into a wide, heavy saucepan, adding a cinnamon stick broken in two, a star anise, a clove, the peel of about 1⁄3 orange pared from the fruit with a vegetable peeler, ½ cup Marsala, and ½ cup light muscovado sugar or light brown sugar. Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer, and put 8 ounces (this gives you about 32) pitted prunes into the spicy tea syrup, then poach gently for 20 minutes.

  Leave for at least 24 hours, 36 if possible; these just get better and better. The worse quality they are to start with, the longer you should let them steep. Obviously, this dessert is best with those wonderful, tender-bellied Agen prunes, which are available in packages, but I’ve used tight, wrinkled, hard-skinned ones that look like cheap teddy bears’ noses, and they’ve ended up pretty damn fabulous.

  If you want this viscous, shiny syrup even stickier and thicker, strain the poaching liquid (putting the prunes and the beautiful spices into the serving bowl) into a smaller pan, then reduce till you have a tight puddle of almost-liquid molasses. When it’s a little cooler, spoon the quantity you need back over the prunes. And you can eat the rest of the syrup stirred into yogurt for your breakfast. For the custard, then:

  2 cups heavy cream

  ½ cup Marsala

  4 egg yolks

  2 eggs

  ¼ cup light muscovado sugar or light brown sugar

  2 tablespoons superfine sugar

  whole nutmeg

  Preheat the oven to 300°F and put the kettle on. In 2 saucepans, bring the cream and Marsala separately to a boil, but take off the heat before they actually do. Beat the egg yolks and whole eggs in a bowl with the sugars. Pour first the hot Marsala and then the heated cream onto the egg mixture, beating as you do so. Go steady, though—you just want to combine them all, not whip air into them. Put an ovenproof dish—one of those oval bowls with about 4-cup capacity—in a roasting pan and pour into the pan from the kettle some just-off-the-boil water to come halfway up the dish. Now pour the custard, through a strainer, into the dish, grate over some nutmeg, cover loosely with some foil, and bake for about 1 hour, but start checking after 45 minutes. You want the custard just set; it will carry on cooking as it cools. I like this best 1–1½ hours after it’s come out of the oven.

  Try a relatively young red Burgundy, which has a
bit of acidity, but a soft, round, voluptuous, velvety flavor.

  CAMP, BUT ONLY SLIGHTLY, DINNER FOR 6

  * * *

  LITTLE GEMS WITH GREEN GODDESS DRESSING

  PHEASANT WITH GIN AND IT

  MASHED POTATOES AND SWEET-AND-SOUR CABBAGE

  PAVLOVA WITH PASSION FRUIT

  All of these courses may sound like comic turns, a culinary joke made by someone with an overdeveloped sense of kitsch. I admit I am that person, but you don’t have to apologize for this menu, or to explain it, or do anything to it other than cook it.

  Little gems are small tight-budded English lettuces, for which romaine hearts make a fine substitute; I couldn’t resist keeping little gems in the menu, if in name only.

  The pheasant is the better for being cooked in advance, and the pavlova can be made the day before. You can store the meringue in a tin before using it but, to be frank, I just don’t take it out of the oven. I cook it and leave it till I want to anoint it with cream and passion fruit. It is the astringency of the passion fruit that makes this work so well after the sweet herbalness of the gin-and-vermouth-cooked game. (The “It” in Gin and It is short for Italian, which refers to the red vermouth used.) You want the soft, sweet creaminess of the meringue, but you need the sharpness, too.

  This is where the starter—a spirit-lifting winter salad—comes in, too. You can get fresh herbs all year round now, so you don’t need to turn to the dusty dried stuff, even if the original did.

  LITTLE GEMS WITH GREEN GODDESS DRESSING

  The original green goddess dressing (created by the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in honor of George Arliss’s performance in the play of the same name in the early twenties) was a mayonnaise-heavy affair; I’ve lightened it slightly, chiefly by using crème fraîche in place of the mayo. But it’s much the same otherwise: thick with anchovy, chopped herbs, and scallions, and sharp with tarragon vinegar. To the lettuce, I’ve suggested adding some waxy sliced potatoes (despite the mash that’s to come) and cornichons. If you want to keep this sprightlier, lose the potatoes by all means. I love, uncharacteristically, the vinegariness of the cornichons, but if you don’t, then substitute a handful of raw sugar-snap peas.

  ½ pound boiling potatoes

  4 anchovy fillets, drained and minced

  2 tablespoons milk

  2 tablespoons tarragon vinegar

  6 tablespoons crème fraîche

  8–10 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

  1 scallion (white and green parts), sliced finely

  3 tablespoons chopped tarragon

  4 tablespoons chopped parsley

  salt, if needed, and freshly milled black pepper

  4–6 romaine hearts

  18 small cornichons, or fewer gherkins, sliced

  Boil or steam the potatoes, and when cool, slice into thick coins. I’m happy to leave the skins on, but it’s up to you.

  To make the dressing, pound the anchovies, preferably using a pestle and mortar, but a fork should do. In a bowl, and definitely using a fork, whisk together the anchovies, milk, vinegar, and crème fraîche till smooth. Slowly add the olive oil, as needed, still whisking with your fork. Stir in the scallion, tarragon, and 2 tablespoons of the parsley. Check for seasoning, adding salt, if needed, and pepper to taste. Separate the lettuce leaves and put in a large bowl; add a few tablespoons of the dressing and mix well with your hands to combine, adding the potatoes and more dressing as you need to coat well but not heavily. And this is a thick dressing, so you will have to turn the lettuce leaves in it slowly but for quite a time to make sure it’s mixed in smoothly.

  Arrange on a large flat plate or a couple, and toss over your cornichons and sprinkle with the remaining parsley.

  PHEASANT WITH GIN AND IT

  The method for this stew is based on Anne Willan’s recipe on page 101, but the idea is quite other. It came to me one day when I was, as usual, adding white vermouth to something in place of white wine. I wondered when and if ever red vermouth could be used. From there my mind turned to the red vermouth my maternal grandmother used to drink in her gin and its, and this thought, in its turn, led to this dish.

  Juniper berries are conventionally added to game, and gin is really just alcoholic juniper. The sweet vermouth adds a quite beautifully rounded herbalness. You end up with a velvety, dark-flavored gravy. You don’t absolutely have to have mashed potatoes to soak it up, but I’d miss them. For 6 people, I’d think 3 pounds of potatoes would do, but add plenty of butter, plenty of milk or cream, and a good grating of fresh nutmeg as you mash.

  Get hen pheasants if you can, as they’re plumper and more tender. If you can’t get hold of any game stock, then use chicken stock. All you need to do to crush the juniper berries is lean on them a little with a pestle in a mortar, or put them in a bag and pummel once with a heavy weight—a can of baked beans or something like that. You’ll need also to peel 30 pearl onions—sorry!

  FOR THE MARINADE

  6 tablespoons gin

  2 cups sweet vermouth

  1 large orange, unpeeled and cut into thick slices

  9 peppercorns

  9 juniper berries, crushed slightly

  1 large onion, peeled and chopped

  6 bay leaves

  1 cup olive oil

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  3 plump pheasants, preferably hen, cut into 4 pieces each

  4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, plus more, if needed

  3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more, if needed

  1 pound portobello or cremini mushrooms, whole, halved, or quartered, depending on size

  30 pearl onions, peeled

  10 ounces pancetta, cut in lardons or diced

  ¼ cup Italian 00 or all-purpose flour

  3 tablespoons sweet vermouth

  5 cups game or chicken stock

  9 juniper berries, crushed slightly

  3 garlic cloves, chopped

  freshly milled black pepper

  few drops soy sauce

  3–4 tablespoons chopped parsley

  Mix the marinade ingredients together, submerge the pheasant pieces in the mixture, and leave for 24 hours. If you can’t do it before the morning of the same day, that should just about be OK, but don’t cut it any finer. I find it easiest to divide the pheasant and marinade between a couple of plastic bags, well tied.

  When you’re ready to cook, remove the pheasant pieces and pat them dry with some paper towels. Put the butter and oil in a frying pan that will take the pheasant later and put it over medium-high heat. When hot, brown the pheasant pieces in it; you may need to do this in batches. Remove to a plate and add the mushrooms to the pan. Soften these and then remove them, too. Next you’re going to brown the onions, and you might need to add more butter and oil, as the mushrooms may greedily have eaten it all up. The onions should be well browned; devote about 15 minutes to this. Now remove the onions and add the pancetta and brown in the hot fat. To the crisped pancetta, add the flour and cook, stirring, on a low heat for about 5 minutes. Then throw in the vermouth and give a good prod and stir, to scrape up bits and combine. Gradually add the stock and then strain in the marinade. Return the pheasant, onions, and mushrooms to the casserole and add the juniper berries, the garlic, a good grinding of pepper, and generous shake of soy sauce. Cover and simmer gently for 1½ hours or in a preheated 325°F oven for 2 hours.

  But keep an eye on it. You will probably have to take out the little tender legs after an hour and let the big, tougher breast pieces (yes, it is that way around) cook longer. When everything’s tender, remove all the pheasant pieces and strain the liquid into another pan, reserving the mushrooms, pancetta, and onions. If you’ve got time to let the liquid settle so you can skim off excess fat, so much the better. Reduce the sauce so that it concentrates and thickens; it should be loose and thin, but not watery. Boil it down until it tastes right to you and then put the sauce, pheasant pieces, reserved mushrooms, onions, and pancetta back in the original pan and reheat gently
. And if you want, you can keep it in the fridge for up to 3 days until you want to reheat it. Serve sprinkled with the parsley.

  If you’ve got any leftovers, bone and chop the meat and reheat with the gravy to make a wonderful sauce for yourself to go with tagliatelle or pappardelle.

  SWEET-AND-SOUR CABBAGE

  This has to be cooked at the last minute, but it doesn’t take long. You could cook it while someone else is clearing the table after the first course, or as people are helping themselves to the pheasant and mash. If I can bear to get up in the middle of the meal and do this, anyone can. You could use a processor to chop the cabbage, if you like the string-thin shreds it makes; the important thing is that it’s sliced, not chopped.

  1½ tablespoons sugar

  3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

  1½ tablespoons salt

  3 tablespoons light vegetable oil

  1 large cabbage, green or white, sliced finely, tough stalk discarded

  few drops soy sauce

  Mix the sugar, vinegar, and salt. Heat the oil in the largest frying pan or similar that you have; if you’ve got a large wok, then that would do.

  Toss the cabbage with a couple of wooden forks or spatulas in the hot oil for 2 minutes until it is all covered in oil and just beginning to wilt. Add the soy and then pour on the vinegar mixture. Toss again in the heat and let it cook for 1 minute or so more, and then serve at once, while it’s hot and crisp and juicy.

  PAVLOVA WITH PASSION FRUIT

  This pavlova version comes, appropriately enough, from an Australian book, Stephanie Alexander’s compendious, addictive Cook’s Companion. I was taken by her family tip of turning the cooked meringue over before smearing it with whipped cream, so that (in her words) the marshmallow middle melds with cream and the sides and the base stay crisp.