summer while I was working at the River Café, I learned a lesson that really stuck. I looked on as Rose Gray, one of the chefs, made ribollita, the Tuscan bread soup. In the winter, we had added a smattering of chopped canned tomatoes to contribute a little acidity. Now it was summer, and we had a glut of ripe, fresh tomatoes. I watched Rose add them with a freer hand. Fresh tomatoes are more delicate, so you have to add more to get the same effect. But just because you have a lot of fresh tomatoes doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still add them judiciously. What you’re after is balance. Finding balance is about understanding a dish’s harmonious potential, the place where all the flavours achieve a sort of equilibrium. Each bite should make you want to take another.
Lemon juice is a lovely example of the principle of balance. Of course a dish should never be so lemony that your face scrunches up like a Muppet’s as you eat it. But neither should lemon play the same role in every dish. Sometimes lemon’s bracing acidity refreshes your palate, as in my Fried Pig’s Ear Salad (see recipe, here). Other times, lemon just adds brightness, barely perceptible as lemon but vital to encouraging your next eager bite, like in Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta and Juniper Berries (see recipe, here).
You must give thought, too, to proportion. A salad with too many walnuts or a sauce with too many capers is like a Sunday with too many free hours – you stop appreciating the pleasure they provide. I think about that when I cook. Put just enough sweet cubes of carrots in a soup, and you won’t have to search too hard to find one, but when you do, it’ll still give you a little thrill. Always keep in mind why you’re adding what you’re adding. In Radish Salad (see recipe, here), for instance, is the dish about the radish, the cheese, or the combination?
This may all sound a bit tedious. Yet it’s how simple food becomes exciting food. And while each recipe in this book aims to guide you towards that elusive place where a dish is in perfect balance, no recipe can account for, say, tomatoes that taste less sweet than you might like or lemons that aren’t as tart as usual. Ultimately, the balance is up to you to find.
CUTTING VEGETABLES
In this book, I often ask you to cut vegetables such as carrots and fennel into pieces. What I don’t mention, for fear of sounding too fussy, is that I typically prefer to cut vegetables into oblique pieces: angled ones with pointy, tapered edges. They’re more elegant than clumsy chunks and more rustic than perfect cubes. If you’re up for it, here’s how to do it: take, say, a carrot, halve it lengthwise, and set it flat side down. Cut the first piece on a diagonal, then continue slicing into irregular pieces, sliding the carrot back and forth with your other hand between each cut. Keep it up, making sure the pieces are more or less the same thickness.
PLATING
I’m not much for pomp on the plate, for presentation that says, ‘Look how pretty!’ But I do think that if food looks beautiful, people are more excited to eat it. To that end, with most recipes I give suggestions that more or less amount to this rule: don’t serve food in a big, dense lump. Rather, assemble the ingredients so there’s a little air flowing between them and any supporting players are scattered here and there among the stars of the dish. I like food to look as if the arrangement were almost accidental, as if it all dropped from above and happened to pile elegantly on the plate.
INGREDIENTS
HERBS
Because there are few things worse than chomping down on a tough stem, I typically remove any thick, woody stems from herbs. But I don’t discard the thin stems close to the leaves, which are sweet and tender. When I use parsley and coriander in salads, for example, I often pluck sprigs into little lengths, a few inches long, that I once learned are called pluches. Herb pluches provide a different experience in each bite than just the leaves would. And a little advice: always chop fresh herbs just before you use them.
OLIVE OIL
Get yourself a bottle of really good extra virgin olive oil, and use it with abandon. Both a cooking fat and a seasoning, olive oil might be the only ingredient I use as often as Maldon salt. I’ll drizzle some over soup at the last minute, add it to bean cooking liquid, or lash it onto slightly charred rustic bread for a snack or side, among a thousand other uses. At home I like to keep a nice mild oil and a peppery one around.
CHILLIES
Halfway through writing this book, I started to fret that every recipe had chillies in it. Then I realised that’s quite okay. The food isn’t spicy – for me, adding chillies, whether dried or fresh, is about adding another layer of flavour, rather than scalding your tongue.
I mainly call for two types of chillies. The first are dried pequin chillies, lovely little things, each one barely bigger than a grain of rice. I love their bright flavour, but if you must, you can substitute red pepper flakes, as long as you replace the jar often so you don’t end up using stale, flavourless ones. For every crumbled pequin chilli I call for, you can swap in a pinch of red pepper flakes.
The second type is Dutch chilli, a slender fresh red chilli that’s about the size of your index finger and a bit spicier than a jalapeño. If you can’t find it, use any long, red, moderately spicy chilli.
SPICES
There’s nothing like buying whole spices and toasting and grinding them yourself. These simple steps amplify their flavour and fragrance. Here’s how to do it: put the spices in a small pan and set it over medium-high heat. (If there’s more than one spice in a recipe that requires toasting, I like to do them separately.) Toast, shaking the pan frequently, until the spices smell really sweet and inviting, anywhere from 2 to 4 minutes. Remember that it’s less about precise timing than it is about feel – rather than toasting them for 1 minute and 33 seconds, keep a close eye on the spices and take a whiff every now and then. After they’re toasted, use your mortar and pestle or spice grinder to reduce them to a powder.
GARLIC
The garlic you get in the shops is often a bit old, with little bright green germs growing inside or, if you’re really unlucky, peeking out. Whenever I’m chopping garlic, I slice peeled cloves lengthwise and flick this green bit out if I see it. If you don’t do this, it won’t ruin your dish (though the garlic may turn a blue-green colour), and it won’t kill you, though it won’t make you stronger either.
ANCHOVIES
In some of my dishes, anchovy makes its presence known. In others, it’s a bit sneaky, contributing a salty umami quality, the source of which your friends might not be able to identify. Whatever their role, I always use whole salt-packed anchovies of the best quality I can find. Sure, you have to fillet them yourself, but it’s quite easy. Plus, they last forever in your fridge. If you must, however, you can substitute the oil-packed kind as long as they’re top quality and you gently wipe off the oil from the fillets before you use them.
Filleting Salt-Packed Anchovies
Rinse the anchovies one at a time under cold running water, rubbing them gently between your fingers to get the salt off. Put them in a small bowl and add just enough water to cover. After about a minute – if you soak them for too long,
