Good Cook (9 page)

The flavor of mushroom with tarragon is a happy one. I particularly enjoy this limpid, ever so tasty broth when the dollop of tarragon-scented cream melts into it in the most agreeable manner.

Note: if a mushroom cream soup is made in the more usual way, by adding cream to the finished soup and blending to a smooth finish, this can be very delicious, too. If you were to take this route, add the tarragon cream to the blender once the mushroom broth has been processed to a smooth liquid. Process for just a few seconds, then pass through a fine sieve into a bowl. This is particularly nice chilled, decanted into cold soup bowls and eaten out of doors as a first course to a sunny weekend lunch.

Fry the onions in the olive oil and butter until softened. Add the mushrooms, with a little more oil if necessary, and cook both ingredients until golden brown. Add the garlic and seasoning, turn up the heat and stir-fry for a couple of minutes. Add the vermouth, allow to bubble vigorously, then pour in the stock and add the bundle of
tarragon. Cover and simmer gently for 40 minutes. Strain through a colander into a clean pan and leave to settle for a few minutes; now is the time to remove any excess fat from the surface of the broth with sheets of paper towel.

Remove the tarragon bundle from the mushroom mulch and discard. Now tip this mulch into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mixture is nicely coarse. Add back to the broth, check the seasoning and pour in the Madeira. Keep warm.

To make the tarragon cream, simply whisk everything together until lightly thickened, taking care not to over-beat the assembly; the vinegar will begin to thicken the mixture the minute it is added, anyway.

Bring the soup back to a simmer, pour into heated, deep soup bowls and add a spoonful of cream to each serving.

I can only look upon this as the perfect, impromptu supper dish, especially when most of the ingredients are usually to hand; mushrooms, in my kitchen at least, are often to be found languishing in the salad drawer of the fridge, usually soon after I have found one of those large packets of super-value mushrooms at my local supermarket. Potatoes and parsley, I pretty well always have lurking about. The remaining ingredients are never out of stock.

I love the common or garden cultivated mushroom, and it is so versatile and delicious when treated in the following way, partnered with its most favorite flavors of garlic and parsley. The lemon zest adds a further fragrance to
the dish, which is pleasing. And the potato is the most delectable partner, soaking up the juices as a gorgeously smooth mattress.

Boil the potatoes in salted water with the garlic until tender. Warm the milk in a small pan. Drain the potatoes and garlic well. Using a potato ricer, purée the potatoes/garlic into a bowl. Now, alternately, whisk in the milk and olive oil in thin streams until a slightly sloppier than usual puréed potato mixture is achieved, then spike with a pinch of cayenne. Keep warm, covered with kitchen foil, over a pan of barely simmering water.

Fry the mushrooms in the olive oil until pale golden. Finely chop the parsley, garlic and lemon zest together (the scent from doing this is just wonderful). Add this to the mushrooms with a little seasoning, turn up the heat a little and stir-fry until well mixed together. If you would like to “cream” the mushrooms, stir in the cream now, and allow to bubble for a minute or two.

To serve, spoon the potato purée into 4 hot shallow soup plates and divide the mushrooms between each of them. Trickle over a touch more olive oil and scatter with parsley. Offer some pieces of lemon at table for those who may enjoy a sharp, finishing touch to the dish.

The obvious question to ask is this: why would one ever wish to make gravadlax (another name for gravlax, raw salmon cured in spices) when it is now almost as easy to buy as smoked salmon—and who would bother to make that?

Well … as with freshly sliced smoked salmon from a whole side (which far surpasses pre-sliced and vacuum-packed fish), however fine the original quality of the cure and smoke, pre-slicing and vacuum-packing unnaturally compresses the flesh. And the same problem clearly applies to packets of salmon cured to make gravadlax. The answer is, make your own and slice your own. And I can’t think of a simpler recipe than the one that follows.

To cure the salmon, put the first 5 ingredients into a small food processor and work together to a sloppy green paste. Place half of this in a container (a plastic one with a lid, say) that will accommodate the fish snugly. Lay the salmon on top of this,
press it down, then cover with the other half of the mixture, smearing it well over the surface of the fish. Pop on the lid, place in the fridge, and leave there for 48 hours, turning the fish occasionally, until firm to the touch. Carefully rinse the fish, but not so much that no remnants of dill remain adhered. Dry with paper towels, wrap in plastic wrap and keep cold in the fridge.

To make the cucumber salad, mix together all the ingredients in a bowl and leave to macerate for about an hour. Drain off the liquid, put the cucumber in a serving dish and keep cool in the fridge. For the sauce, whisk together the mustard, lemon juice and sugar, then whisk in the oil until you have a loose, thick dressing. Stir in the dill and adjust the seasoning, if necessary. Pour into a small serving bowl.

To serve, thinly slice the gravadlax at an angle and present on a large serving dish. Hand both the cucumber salad and mustard sauce at table.

I was inspired to create this dish (not many of those left to us cooks) by the great Swedish potato recipe for something called “Jansson’s Temptation.” Here, Swedish anchovies (small cured and marinated herrings) are buried within a great big dish of thick potato matchsticks—for want of a better description—chopped onions and plenty of cream. The surface is finally topped with breadcrumbs and butter before being baked to a golden-crusted, bubbling mass. Talk about rich—but very, very delicious it most surely is.

Here, some less rich milk is used as the main dairy ingredient and garlic replaces the onions; salt cod and garlic are never far away from each other at the best of times. And although a touch of cream is added at the last minute, it is the olive oil—together with the garlic, naturally—which transports the dish from the cold, Scandinavian north, to the sunnier climes of the South of France.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Put the cod into a saucepan and cover it with the milk. Simmer ever so gently for about 10 minutes. Drain through a sieve suspended over a bowl, keeping the milk beneath. Allow the fish to cool, carefully remove any bones and skin, then flake it into pieces. Return the fish to the bowl of milk, together with the
garlic, chillies, potatoes and cream. Mix well. Take a deep oven dish (one that will also look good from which to serve), fill it with the fish mixture and spoon over the olive oil, while also slightly mixing it into the liquid, so that it appears as occasional pools. Strew the breadcrumbs liberally over the entire surface, dot with flakes of butter, then slide into the oven. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the breadcrumbs are golden and nicely crusted.

A good pilaf is a wondrous thing, for me. This is partly to do with having trouble cooking rice successfully for years—decades, even—but also because when a pilaf works really well, it remains possibly my favorite way to eat rice in any form (a risotto comes in at a very close second, but only just).

The important thing is never to mistrust the following ratio of rice to liquid. This is correct. My friend, the photographer Jason Lowe (whose superb illustrations grace this book) once cooked a lamb pilaf recipe I gave him, only to lose faith at the last minute, adding a touch more liquid to the pot. Result? Stodgy pilaf. He won’t be doing that again in a hurry; he is, in fact, a naturally instinctive, very good cook indeed (if that does not sound too patronizing).

For preference, I always use Tilda basmati rice, and never, ever wash it. This goes against many opinions of my peers, but it works perfectly for me every time.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Melt the butter in a solid-bottomed, lidded ovenproof cooking pot. Add the garam masala and allow to sizzle gently for a moment or two. Tip in the rice and stir around until the grains are well coated with this spicy butter. Pour in the stock and add the bay leaf, lemon zest, green chillies, ginger and a touch of seasoning. Bring up to a simmer, then slip in the haddock fillets, gently submerging them under the surface. Put on the lid and slide the pot into the oven. Cook for 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven, then leave to stand for 5–7 minutes without removing the lid; this is important, allowing the rice to finish cooking. Take off the lid, immediately tip in the chopped egg, onions and coriander and, using 2 forks, gently mix the rice about, while also breaking the fish into flakes and mixing everything else in as you go. Remove the bay leaf, then cover the pot with a dish towel, clamp on the lid, and leave for a further 5 minutes, so allowing excess steam to evaporate. Serve directly from the pot on to hot plates and squeeze over a little lemon juice.