Two Books, Two Stories

As you know, dear readers, I am something of a…collector always seems like such a cold and scientific word…an accumulator of cookbooks. Sometimes I go out looking for something; sometimes a book just appears and I have to get it, especially if it is on my wish list or is something that I have been wanting to get – for whatever reason – for some time. As you know I am picky, but then I will succumb to any book if I get a good vibe from it, whether I have much experience with the food itself or not.

The newest editions to the library are above – Chez Panisse may be a long way from Clapham but as I was kindly taken there once in my youth (by a realtor who was dealing with my mom in getting our house in Berkeley on the market & sold, back in ’81) I have never forgotten how good the food was, even though it was pizza & cider and perhaps some salad, it was so good it must have imprinted upon me in some deep way. Thus when I came across the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook I had to get it, just in order to be reminded that the pizza was from a wood-burning oven and how good the French cider was…many Chez Panisse books are out there, I suspect, that sit beautifully on the shelf but never get used; I am going to try to make something from this, even if it’s just a side dish, to see if I can create some of the Berkeley magic right here.

Crazy Water Pickled Lemons by Diana Henry is a whole other story. I am moving tentatively (very tentatively) into trying out Mediterranean food, beyond Italy, beyond Sicily even; and this book looks like the right place to start (yes I do have the Claudia Roden book as well – so I can contrast & compare, of course). It is awesomely pretty, for one thing, and on a grey day like today the light and heat radiating from the book are enough to inspire me. But there is something else too; in buying this book I feel as if I have freed myself, and that is in part due to the fact that I got it somewhere I not only didn’t expect to find it, but in a chain of shops that ordinarily I avoid. I avoid it for a good reason, and have done so for over a year, but my gut instinct told me to go in and look, and there it was, sitting there patiently waiting, or so I like to think, for me. A cook’s relationship with any given book has to be a good one, or else the book will be ignored and the cook will remain ignorant of whatever wisdom it can provide. Mediterranean food is some of the oldest in the world, and that is why I am interested in it (of course I am following Elizabeth David’s main interests too – French, Italian, Mediterranean…more imprinting, I think) and I have not seen this book anywhere else, at any price. That I was forgiving and then rewarded shows how the cookbook gods, if there are any, wanted me to find that book; that it is a gorgeous and inspiring one is also moving, in a way.

Oxtail Stew

Oxtail stew is one of those things that is very good, but few of the books I have even bother to mention oxtail (I do have more than a few books, but only one – Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries – has a recipe). I don’t know why this is, save for the fact that because it’s not a glamorous cut, nor one easy to find (I’m guessing at this but think about it – it’s not what any butcher is going to feature in the window) that it is avoided. The fact that it’s the tail – bone and all – also probably puts people off.

That is too bad, as oxtail stew is amazing stuff – strong, richly comforting, good for what ails you, whatever that might be. The recipe I used wasn’t Slater’s – I tend to shy away from using mushrooms in a stew – but this one, which I highly recommend, with these caveats:

A whole oxtail is not something you can just get off the bat, so to speak; I used two large pieces, three smaller ones and a long narrow piece that looks something like a child’s bicycle’s handlebar which must be the end piece of the tail. The two large ones I got from a friendly butcher (note: I live in Clapham and didn’t go to an independent butcher but to a grocery store, for reasons I will mention in the fullness of time) and the smaller I got at another branch of the same grocery store that had them out and already cut and packaged to go. I figure with these six pieces I had most, if not all, of the tail, and cut back only on the onion, using half of one instead of a whole one.

I used ready-in-a-bag chopped swede instead of a parsnip on the hunch it would work, and it did; ordinarily I advocate cutting up your own vegetables, but these were on a discount shelf and had ripened, if that’s the right word, to a good point for using in a stew.

The crazy part of this recipe is when it tells you to use a strainer to get out all the celery, onion and carrot you put in to make the basis of the stew in the first place. That is impossible without a strainer (guess what – I don’t have one) and kind of pointless, as they lend body to the gravy and are good for you, if only for fibre. So keep ‘em in!

Also, when you put the stew in the fridge overnight to scrape the fat off the top the next day, do not go crazy trying to get every bit of fat off, and keep the fat – it’s good stuff – for using to cook vegetables, particularly carrots, as the thyme is right there in the fat already…and indeed I used dry twigs of old thyme and that worked out fine, though fresh thyme is always preferable.

Remove the bones just before serving, and you'll know when the stew is ready when you can do just that - the meat shouldn't be falling off them, exactly, but should pull away very easily.

The wine should be a strong red, as oxtail has a strong flavour and will twack anything too diffident.

The side dish I’d advise is mashed potatoes and lots of ‘em, straight up (no garlic or mustard or caramelized onions needed) with lots of butter.


After I made the stew I found a Delia Smith version where cider is used instead of wine; I may well try that out next, and report on how it goes…

Trucker's Pasta

As you probably know by now, I love pasta, and I judge books by their pasta recipes; if there is something intriguing about a name or a combination of ingredients I've never heard of before (and that sounds good to me), then I usually get the book.

This is from Made in Sicily, a lovely book by Giorgio Locatelli, who went to Sicily and found out how this old island - part of Italy and yet its own world - goes about cooking. This pasta is substantial, as its name implies, and yet there is no meat in it; and really, barely any cooking to speak of, besides boiling the water for pasta and some brief chopping.

The main problem I had with it was finding the right kind of pasta - the almighty bucatini, which looks like a fat spaghetti and pretty much is...until you look at it and see it's hollow! This is truly tubular pasta, therefore, and it is the one most suited to this dish. You could use linguine for it as well, but bucatini simply looks more truck driver-like to me. (For UK residents - I found mine at Sainsbury's; otherwise an Italian deli with a halfway decent pasta section should have it.)

Be warned: this is a very filling pasta. You don't have to know how to drive a truck to eat it, you just have to be hungry. I'm going to give you the recipe for four people - it can be easily divided into a meal for two, or one really hungry person.

Ingredients:

450g chopped tomatoes (I used ones from a box because I could; canned is just as good)
2 T olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced as finely as you can
10 basil leaves, finely chopped
5 mint leaves, finely chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper
400g bucatini (or linguine if you can't find it)
80g pecorino cheese, grated


Once you have all these, the battle is half over. First, the sauce - get a big bowl and put the tomatoes, oil, garlic and herbs in it, one after another, and stir them up well and let them sit for an hour. You can just leave the bowl right there on the counter, it doesn't have to go anywhere special. Towards the end of the hour is a good time to get the water boiling and grate the cheese.

Once the water's boiling, make sure the pasta gets in the water all at once (Locatelli says you should use a fork to curl it). Cook it for a while, but drain it before it's absolutely done; save some of the pasta water and add it to your sauce. Add your pasta to the bowl and mix up well, adding about 70g of the pecorino and continue until it's nicely coated. Transfer to a good warm plate or bowl and add the rest of the cheese and be amazed at how a sauce as simple as this can taste so good. Salute!

Slacker's Delight

For those of you who cringe at the very idea of baking something just to have dessert and enjoy experimenting...also a 'cupboard/fridge cleaning' dessert, for those of you who enjoy that sort of thing.

Ingredients per dessert: one muffin, one scoop of ice cream, dark chocolate, double cream/half-and-half, golden syrup (optional)

The first ingredient is a muffin that is just a bit stale - not so much that it can't be eaten, but it is not just-fresh either. Get a serving bowl and break the muffin up into pieces, not too big, not too small. If a muffin can be broken up rustically, this is what you are after.

Then, ice cream. It doesn't matter if the ice cream in question is superdeluxe or ordinary as its main function is to add moisture to the muffin in question; the ice cream should go well with the muffin, of course, but that is a matter of taste I'll leave up to you. Put on just enough to make a good impression, as opposed to drowning the muffin altogether.

Now then - the cooking part. Get chocolate - the darker, the better - and break it up into pieces. Rig up (however you can) a bowl to melt it in, over boiling water. In my case I use my larger mixing bowl over the pot I make pasta in, as the bowl is large enough that no steam can turn back into water and mess the chocolate up. You could use a microwave for this I suppose, but chocolate is a delicate thing, so don't put it in there for much more than half a minute, I'd guess.

Melt the chocolate slowly - and the higher in percentage in cocoa it is, the longer that will take - and add a teaspoon or two of cream and stir. Be patient; use as much chocolate as you think you'll need for sauce, and wait and stir when it starts to melt. If you have some golden syrup around, put in a little of that, one squeeze will work. Stir some more and remove the bowl as it's hot enough now to keep going without being directly above boiling water. Stir until it's smooth and then using a spoon drizzle your sauce over the ice cream, leaving some for bowl-licking purposes, of course.

Good eats, as the man says! This recipe came from my own kitchen, though I am sure it has been done hundreds of times elsewhere.

What I've Been Up To

In case there's anyone still wondering about this blog - and there might well be - my only excuse for not writing here is that I am usually too busy doing other things, foodwise - namely, cooking, shopping, planning, eating or searching for yet another cookbook for my ever-growing/bookshelf-ingenuity-challenging cookbook collection. It grows and grows, people, as I fall, it seems perpetually to me, for one right after another. That said, there are only a few books I ever actually want at any given time, and this makes things easier. Not better, but easier. (I should also point out that my husband had a stroke just over two months ago and that has also, understandably, delayed my posting anything here.)

Of the making of cookbooks it seems there is no end; my only defence is my pickiness, which means that sometimes I just don't find anything, even in a good charity shop where there's more than one shelf. It takes an indefinable something to make me say yes to a book - and there's lots of ways a book can turn me off, including being too big (Ad Hoc at Home, I'm looking at you), being too much a restaurant-style food at home book (too many to mention but the cooking has to suit my modest kitchen), using Marmite (no explanation needed), being mainly about seafood (I don't really eat it, nor do I have much interest in it, frankly), and so on. Encyclopedic tomes with no discernible author, books with 'fabulous' in their titles, books published by a corporation (like Marks & Spencer or Sainsbury), books by anyone on tv that I am not familiar with...as a North American I naturally stray away from anything too "British" as I am not part of the "we" or "our" these books are so concertedly pitched towards.

What do I like? I am quite partial to pretty books; American books; books where the author (and again, I don't really care if the author of the book wrote it or not; the voice has to be consistent and trustworthy though, which means I want it to be well-written) seems to be on my side as opposed to the side of the food. Books by non-chefs are fine with me, as they will actually explain whatever it is that needs doing with a bit more care. Simplicity and charm always work; I am not, like some, in search of perfection or wanting to master every cuisine known to mankind. Humor is needed in the kitchen and is needed in cookbooks, whether they know it or not.

Above are some of my newer editions, all trustworthy books that I got in various places. My aim is to cook from them all, as you know; and I will write about what I've cooked (and give you the recipe, of course) when I do.

And Here It Is...

Welcome to The Edible Library, everyone! A place where I will review cookbooks, attempt to cook from each one at least once (I have over a hundred, so it's a challenge) and go on about cooking and everything around it in general. Bookmark me, link me, it's going to be fun!

New Blog Title Needed!

Without going into too many details, I must apologize for this blog's absence; I have been writing, but it is mostly at this blog, and not about food at all.

Now then - where was I?

There is another blog/book/tv show with the same name - one that is about encouraging those who have bad or no eyesight to cook, a noble thing to do - and I don't want to confuse this blog with that one, so I am going to re-name this blog. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

What have I been doing these last few months? Accumulating cookbooks, that's what. Cooking from them when I can; thinking about food. I now live somewhere where I have my own small kitchen with few 'mod cons' besides a small fridge, an electric stove with a grill, a toaster and a kettle. Something, as the British say, to 'blitz' or 'whazz' food will be acquired rather sooner than later, and perhaps a popcorn maker as well. Other than that I have no interest nor space for much else; the boombox is staying right where it is.

So I will continue to write and review recipes I come across that don't take much gear or time, because that is where I know a lot of people are coming from. I know I certainly am!

Thanks for reading - more soon!