by James Steen
Anne Willan, author and founder of the prestigious École de Cuisine La Varenne, is one of many who have heard the dish was invented at the Merchants’ Club in Moscow. On her website lavarenne.com, she writes with fondest memories:
I am a veteran of the heyday of chicken Kiev, London in the early 60s with beehive hairdos and skinny sheath dresses that so easily were splashed with the delicious herb and butter filling of chicken Kiev. In superior restaurants, the waiter would enquire if we wanted our crisp golden packages of deep fried chicken breast pierced in advance to avoid disaster, but I always wanted to spear my own.
COQ AU VIN
Chicken braised with red wine, bacon, mushrooms and shallots. A dish that unites the elegance and rusticity of France.
There are those who swear that only a cock (as in the male bird) can be used for this dish. However, either gender can be used, and Larousse Gastronomique, the French culinary bible, quotes an old recipe that uses ‘a young chicken’ rather than an old cock, the meat of which can be tough.
Some say it does not have a long history, and the first recipes were only published about a hundred years ago. The French, however, have for centuries been cooking chicken in wine; red, white or rosé. After all, both ingredients are abundant in France, and even the significant consumption of coq au vin has failed to put a dent in the nation’s supplies either of fowl or wine. It presented itself on the Western dinner party circuit in the 1960s and 70s, notably promoted by the likes of Julia Child and Robert Carrier.
Making coq au vin is not only a joy for the cook, but anyone who happens to pass the cook’s home; the harmonies of onion, garlic and red wine wafting through the cracks of windows and letter boxes. The dish is simple to make and can be cooked quickly. However, should you wish to achieve the finest coq au vin, prepare it in easy stages over three days. When you taste it on the third day you will certainly appreciate the trouble you have gone to on the first and second days.
Day one: the marinade.
In a casserole (or deep, heavy-based sauté pan), melt unsalted butter before quickly browning the chicken pieces – thighs, drumsticks and breast. They need only a minute or two, just enough to colour them. Remove them from the casserole and put aside.
In the same pan, sauté diced smoked bacon or lardons. Remove the bacon from the casserole and put aside. Now, in the same pan, sauté small (‘baby’) onions or shallots. Again, just to brown them. Follow this by browning the mushrooms.
Once all of these ingredients have been browned and set aside, the real fun begins. Keeping the casserole on a medium-high heat, pour in a quarter of a cup of brandy. Careful – there could be flames. Keeping the pan on the heat, use a spatula to scrape away the ‘glaze’ at the bottom of the casserole. Voilà! The pan is deglazed.
Next, pour in one cup of red wine, bring to the boil. Add another cup, and then another until you have emptied a bottle of red wine into the casserole. Bring it to the boil, and keep it on the boil for one minute. Turn off the heat.
Add to the casserole three medium-sized bay leaves, if you have them to hand, and a few garlic cloves, finely sliced. Allow the wine to cool for ten minutes. Return the chicken, bacon, onions and mushrooms to the wine. Add a teaspoon or two of sugar. The wine will now serve as a marinade, over time tenderising the chicken and adding an appetising colour.
Day two: cooking the coq.
Heat the oven to 180˚C. Place the casserole of coq au vin – lid off – into the preheated oven and leave it there for one hour. Remove the coq au vin from the oven and allow it to cool before storing it in the fridge.
Day three: heating and eating.
Preheat the oven to 140˚C. Place the casserole in the oven for one hour, thickening the sauce – if necessary – with a little arrowroot. (Traditionally, the chicken’s blood is added to thicken the sauce when cooked.) Taste, and season if necessary.
Once done, serve at the table while the coq au vin is hot, and with a big bowl of mashed potatoes. Finely chopped green herbs, such as parsley or chervil, can be served separately and added by guests. Warm loaves of garlic bread will certainly not be sent back to the kitchen. Red wine, of course, is essential (Châteauneuf-du-Pape).
The choice of the vin in coq au vin is a matter of personal taste and weighty discussion. Red Burgundy does not cook well: the pinot noir grape loses its character and becomes indistinguishable. An inexpensive full-bodied red wine from the south-east or south-west of France, or from Spain or Australia is ideal. To achieve the Burgundy flavours, cook the dish with one of those inexpensive wines – and then add a splash of pinot noir towards the end of cooking.
MOLE POBLANO
A Mexican celebratory dish; turkey or chicken in a dark, rich sauce of about 30 ingredients, joined by a glass of tequila or a chilled beer.
In his International Pocket Food Book (1980), Quentin Crewe describes mole as ‘one of the world’s greatest gastronomic creations’. It is the chocolate, he writes, which makes it so magical though the taste is not instantly isolated. ‘In the days before blenders, a good cook would require three days’ notice to make a mole. Now it comes in packets.’
Strictly speaking, mole is the sauce, often described inappropriately as a chilli-and-chocolate sauce, or just a chocolate sauce.
It is far more than that, and laborious to concoct. Other ingredients include seeds (pumpkin, aniseed, sesame), nuts (peanuts, almonds), fruits (raisins, tomatoes), spices (pepper, cloves), herbs (coriander, thyme, marjoram), onion, garlic and bread.
The time-consuming preparation involves pounding, grinding, roasting, toasting and puréeing. It is the ultimate way in which a cook can show love for those she or he is feeding. There is no room for slap-dash or impatience. The paste is diluted with water or stock to make a sauce which, in turn, is poured over large pieces of turkey (chicken is the common substitute nowadays) and baked in a clay pot. At the table, sesame seeds are sprinkled over the hot, chocolate-brown dish.
Mole stems from mōlli, the Nahuatal word for sauce. The dish uses ingredients indigenous to Mexico, and others introduced by the Spanish during colonisation. It is not known when chocolate was first used as ingredient. Chocolate, however, will thicken and of course colour a sauce; blood has the same effects in cuisine.
The dish requires three types of chilli: pasilla, ancho and mulato. And there are different types of mole, each of them is a dish of a sauce accompanying either meat, fish or shellfish.
Mole poblano is probably the country’s most well-known and nationally-cherished dish, and is specific to the colonial city of Puebla, in East-Central Mexico. The city, by the way, is also famous for two other dishes: chiles en negada, a creamy vegetable dish adorned with red pomegranate seeds; and cemita, a substantial sandwich of meat – pork, chicken or beef – and beans and potatoes, with chilli usually working its way into the ingredients.
Mole poblano is served at baptisms, birthdays, marriages and Day of the Dead celebrations. Joy Adapon’s book, Culinary Art and Anthropology, is essential reading for mole enthusiasts, as well as curious culinary types. She writes: ‘Since parties are considered incomplete without mole, and mole (poblano) is incomplete without its sprinkling of sesame seeds, to say that someone is like the sesame seeds of all moles implies that that someone is highly social and attends all parties.’
CHICKEN CURRY
Indian by birth, with Persian influences, and a special place in the heart of Britain.
Curry dates back some five thousand years at least, to settlements in Pakistan where, it has since been established, spices, including cumin and fennel, were pounded to create a powder and a paste. These, in turn, were preservatives of meat and fish, as well as flavourings, of course (see: Jerk Pork).
Black pepper, today the world’s most commonly used spice, began to spread from its origins in Kerala. It would become one of the world’s great commodities: the Egyptians shipped it for use in the mummification of bodies; the ancient Romans were great admirers of the spice.
In
the 1500s the Mughal Empire stretched itself across the Indian sub-continent and into Afghanistan and with it, the dish we know as curry firmly established itself. At around the same time, colonisation brought a new but crucial ingredient when the Portuguese, having discovered the chilli pepper in the Americas, now introduced it to India. (Vindaloo is another happy result of Portuguese-Indian fusion, a hybrid of curry blending with a Portuguese meat dish.)
The Spice Routes from the East to the West would bring about curry’s worldwide evolution. The Routes were held, or monopolised, first by the Portuguese, followed by the Dutch and then the British. Intriguing spices made their way back by ship to Europe and to British shores, and so an interest developed for the food known as kari – the Tamil word for sauce.
Hannah Glasse, the 18th-century pioneer of cuisine, was the first to write a curry recipe that was published in Britain. In The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, she gives instructions for ‘currey; how to make the Indian way’.
‘Take two small chickens, skin them,’ she begins. Cut them up, stew them in water for five minutes, strain them, but keep the liquor. The chicken is then browned in a pan with butter, turmeric, ginger, onions, black pepper and salt. The ginger, pepper and turmeric ‘must be beat very fine’. Give it a good stir before pouring in the liquor. Let it stew for half an hour. Then pour in a quarter of a pint (140 millilitres) of cream and the juice of two lemons, ‘and serve it up’. Note her recommendation of ‘small chickens’. Large chickens tend to have more fat than smaller ones. Small chickens, or better still, poussin, are ideal for chicken curry.
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Britain’s first Indian restaurant, The Hindostanee Coffee House, was opened in 1810 by one Sake Dean Mahomet (sometimes spelled Mahomed) at what was 34 George Street, off Portman Square, in London’s West End. A green plaque marks the spot, or is close enough to the original site.
Mahomet placed an advertisement in The Times, announcing to readers that he had fitted up the property:
… Neatly and elegantly, for the entertainment of Indian gentlemen, where they may enjoy the Hoakha, with real Chilm tobacco, and India dishes, in the highest perfection, and allowed by the greatest epicures to be unequalled to any curries ever made in England with choice wines, and every accommodation, and now looks up to them for their future patronage and support, and gratefully acknowledges himself indebted for their former favours, and trusts it will merit the highest satisfaction when made known to the public. [Suggested further reading: The Hindostanee Coffee House by Colin Bannon.]
Queen Victoria’s love of Indian food helped enormously to establish the British love of curry and, apart from a blip here and there, the passion for the spicy food has continued. After the Second World War Indian restaurants started to pop up, occupying the sites of bombed out fish and chip shops, although curry was often served as an additional meal to the fish and chips. The 1960s and 70s also saw an influx of Bangladeshi immigrants, which encouraged the opening of more restaurants. There are an estimated 10,000 Indian restaurants in Britain today.
Interestingly however, they are now on the decline, and for a number of reasons.
Firstly there is greater availability and variety of other types of cuisine, many of which deliver a cheaper meal. Most Indian restaurants in Britain are family-run businesses, and the younger generations, after studying at university, look for jobs away from the kitchen or dining room, perhaps in the medical or legal professions. Restaurateurs frequently complain that they cannot find good chefs. Meanwhile, the weakness of the British pound has also led to increased food costs. Indian restaurants have always been places for the evening crowd, and have struggled to find lunchtime trade. In short, costs are rising and profits are falling.
This does not mean that fewer Indian meals are consumed. Indian ready meals line the shelves of supermarkets – it can be more convenient to cook a meal at home than eat one in a restaurant. And there may be fewer Indian restaurants, but the curry is still being relished on every British high street: the most successful curry vendor is J.D. Wetherspoons, the pub chain.
Here are some of the most popular curries in Britain …
Balti: stemming from the word ‘bucket’, this is a style of cooking in a balti pan which is deep, and looks a bit like a Chinese wok. The balti is a famous dish in Northern Pakistan.
Bhuna: spices are toasted or fried, before meat is added.
Biryani: originally, rice and meat baked together, but spiced up by the cooks of Moghul emperors.
Dhansak: dhan means rice and sak is the sauce of beans or pulses and vegetables. Lentils (dhal) should feature.
Dopiaza: literally, double onions. The first lot are fried with spices to a melting mass before the meat is added, while the second lot are lightly fried or tossed in raw towards the end of cooking.
Jalfrezi: ‘hot fry’ because this is a bit of a stir-fry, with green chillies an essential ingredient.
Korma: onions, curry powder and spices are fried in ghee, and the sauce is thickened by coconut milk and coconut cream. Medium.
Madras: a hot curry, more of an Anglo-Indian creation than a traditional Indian dish.
Pasanda: from the Urdu ‘favourite’ because the favourite cut of the meat is used, traditionally a leg of lamb, which is marinated in yoghurt and spices before it is braised with onions, cumin and other spices.
Rogan Josh: rogan is fat and josh means intense, giving us intense fat, or bubbling fat (which is ghee). This Kashmir dish, therefore, is cooked quickly and on a high heat – pieces of lamb braised in the pans with ingredients that include red chillies.
Vindaloo: Goan and extremely hot.
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Diane Sequeira makes one of the finest home-cooked curries I have ever tasted. So good, in fact, that it would be rude not to share the recipe, which she has kindly given to me. Diane is not a chef, but the mother of my friend, Giles. Clearly, he was exceptionally well fed as a child.
Often the onions are undercooked in curry. Here, Diane sautés them for ten minutes. Also, the curry simmers for an hour, softening the heat of the spices. The spices should come at the start, and not at the end. Diane serves her curry with basmati rice and raita, the cooling yoghurt-cucumber accompaniment to mellow the heat of the curry.
‘It is such a simple recipe, made up with basic ingredients,’ says Diane. ‘However, the “deliciousness” must emanate from the love that goes into the preparation and the appreciation from the recipients helps, as well.’
Notes: washing rice before cooking removes the starch, so the grains won’t stick together. When the chicken has been simmering for fifteen or twenty minutes, start to cook the rice.
If you want more heat to the curry, add one or two teaspoons of curry powder to the sauce at stage two.
Diane Sequeira’s Chicken Curry
Serves 4–6
Ingredients
For the curry:
1 chicken (or 2 poussin), cut into pieces (if buying the chicken in pieces; 2 thighs, 2 drumsticks, 2 wings, 2 breasts, cut in half)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, finely sliced in rings
1 green chilli, sliced lengthways and then in half
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
½ thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger, peeled, finely sliced and diced
1 tablespoon rogan josh paste (Patak’s is good)
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon ground cumin powder
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ tin chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon malt vinegar
For the rice:
2 mugs basmati rice
1 onion, finely sliced in rings
1 roasted cardamom
½ stick cinnamon
1 bay leaf
¼ teaspoon saffron powder
1 cup mixed frozen vegetables (carrots, peas, sweetcorn)
1 chicken stock cube
For the raita:
250 grams Greek yoghurt
½ onion, ½ carrot, ¼ cucumber; all peeled and finely sliced
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon cumin
½ handful fresh mint, finely chopped (optional)
Salt to taste
In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil. Add the onions and sauté for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until translucent. Don’t let them burn!
Add the green chilli, garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, turmeric, rogan josh paste, tomatoes and vinegar. Add 300 millilitres hot water and stir well.
Place the chicken into the pan.
Bring to the boil, turn down the heat. Place a lid on the pan.
Continue to cook, but on a low heat.
Allow to simmer gently for about 50–60 minutes. To check the chicken is cooked, remove a piece and cut into it.
Wash and drain the rice three times in a large bowl of cold water.
In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil. When it is hot, add the onion and sauté until brown.
Add the rice, stir well and cook for two minutes. Add all the other ingredients, stir well. Pour in two mugs hot water. Place a lid on the pan and bring to the boil.
Once it has boiled, immediately reduce heat to low, and cook for about fifteen minutes (or follow cooking instructions on rice packet).
To make the raita: combine all the ingredients. Before serving, garnish the raita with tomatoes and fresh coriander.
ROASTED WOODCOCK
A little bird, these days sadly missing from many British tables.
The woodcock is a wading bird with a large beak, and is in season from November to February. Isabella Beeton, in her Household Management of 1861, provides an interesting overview and insight, writing that this small bird ‘… being migratory in its habits, has, consequently, no settled habitation; it cannot be considered as the property of any one, and is, therefore, not game by law’.