Rustic baked beans

I still have ham left over from Christmas.

In a characteristically excessive move, I procured a 9.7 kilo leg of beautifully cured ham for our very small Christmas gathering*, which I glazed with quince paste and cardamom and green ginger wine and lovingly studded with approximately twelve million cloves. We ate ham everyday for two weeks. And then I carved up the remaining five kilos, and packaged the slices and chunks and bones away in the freezer, dreaming of mid-winter pea-and-ham soups and ham and leek soufflés.

I don’t like waste. I ferret away kitchen scapes and old bones for stock. My freezer contains little zip lock bags of everything from stale bread crumbs to off cuts of potato and kohlrabi to a chicken carcass to prawn heads. You never know what you might need. Of course it’s frugal: throwing away food is the same as throwing away money. It’s also partly a political stance: when we waste food we are saying that the time and effort put into growing and rearing our food is disposable**. And it is so satisfying to make something delicious out of food that would otherwise be assigned to the trash.

Think of it as 3D Tetris for your tastebuds.

Ham. Diced carrot off-cuts. The first of this year’s tomato passata. Half an onion in the fridge. Celery. Celery powder. Half a bulb of fennel. Stolen rosemary. Tinned cannellini beans. Now I love baked beans. Not the sticky sweet navy-beans-in-tomato-sauce you can buy in a tin (although, to be fair, those bad boys are pretty healthy, providing you buy the low salt/low sugar brands). The old-school home-made kind, chunky and spicy and packed full of vegetables. It is my measure of a good breakfast cafe, the calibre of their ‘house-made beans’. And baked beans are precisely what the contents of my freezer suggests. All it needs it a little time to braise.

Best Christmas present ever.

* In addition to a two kilo turkey buff, and two chickens. Not to mention potato salad and zucchini and green bean salad with pangratto, and steamed carrots and four loaves of bread and roasted baby beatroots. For eight people. I have issues.

** You could argue that rather than saving money by not wasting food, we should just buy more food so that farmers are better recompensed. I say, let’s pay more money for food, thus better remunerating farmers and incentivising us consumers not to waste it. Food is way too cheap.

Rustic baked beans

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small red onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced 2 red chillies, minced (optional)

2 medium carrots, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

½ tsp fennel seeds

½ tsp coriander seeds

¼ ground all spice

3 cloves

2 tsp sweet paprika

6 very ripe tomatoes, diced (or 2 cups passata or 2 tins crushed tomatoes)

Sprig rosemary. Or thyme. Or oregano. Whatever you grow/can steal.

300 gm thick chunks ham (or a bit of ham bone or smoked pork hock or similar. Or leave out, just as good).

2 tins cannellini beans (or your favourite beans, butter beans are good. So are kidney beans.)

Saute the onions, garlic and vegetables (except tomatoes) in a large heavy based saucepan until soft, this will take about ten minutes. Add the spices, toast for about 1 minute, then add the tomatoes, fresh herbs and ham.

Bring to a simmer (add as little water if a bit dry) and cook for about half an hour to an hour, until thick and all the flavours are infused. Taste, and add salt if necessary.

Gently stir through the drained tinned beans (feel free to soak dried ones over night, I just love the convenience of tinned ones) and heat through.

Finish off with masses of fresh chopped parsley and a teaspoon of powdered celery leaves.

Serve over grilled polenta or thick sourdough toast. Soft yolked organic poached egg makes this transcendent.

Cinderella moment: roast pumpkin and the pig

I am not all that fussed about pumpkin. I grew up relatively untouched by pumpkin. My father, a man who religiously grew choko vines for my entire childhood and expected me to eat them, boiled to a watery nothingness, was not all that fussed about pumpkin. If the stories are to be believed (and to be fair, few people remain available or willing to attest to their veracity) he grew up with an adamant refusal to eat pumpkin, boiled to a watery nothingness. And there is some indication that at some early stage he was most villainously deceived with ‘mashed yellow potato’.

We did not eat pumpkin in our house when I was a child. Lack of exposure led to lack of familiarity which in turn led to a benign neglect of pumpkin in my life.*

Halloween, harvest festivals and Cinderella also did not feature in my formative years, and so my lack of pumpkin exposure in the home was not challenged by a broader desensitisation via popular culture. A home-ec incident involving a Queensland blue pumpkin, a blunt knife and the tip of the middle finger on my left hand cemented my general impression that pumpkins and I moved in very different circles.

Had I , as a young child, seen the streets of Hoboken, New Jersey, in mid October, the steps of brown stone terraces artfully lined with bright orange spheres, here and there delicately and expertly carved into hobgoblin faces of glee and terror, I may have been more accommodating and more curious. I may even have been utterly charmed, as I was when well into adulthood I experienced the cultural grip of Halloween for the first time.

But as it was I came to pumpkin in a mechanical and mundane way. It was just another relatively common vegetable that is predicably very nutritious, cheap and colourful during the dreary winter months. It is good for you. Vitamin A and vitamin C. Potassium. Magnesium. Other technical sounding components. It’s a kind of melon, and like melons it has a ridiculously high water content (which makes it fabulous for soup, but certainly explains it’s tendency to become watery). It’s vaguely sweet, roasts nicely, purees well and looks a bit artistic in the middle of table. I made soup and curry and purees and even pies, sweet and savoury. And felt virtuous but never thrilled.

Then the inevitable occurred.

I wrapped it in bacon.

The home-cook’s fairy godmother.



* Which is utterly inconsistent with my near obsession with Brussels sprouts, another subject of childhood deprivation. I don’t get it either.

Prosciutto wrapped butternut pumpkin with thyme and honey

Serves 4-6 pumpkin eaters

1 whole butternut pumpkin, peeled, de-seeded and cut lengthways into wedges – between 10-12 wedges
1 tbsp melted butter
1 tbsp honey (use a good wild honey. It has more flavour)
1 tbsp boiling water
1 tsp thyme leaves, finely chopped
12 sprigs thyme,
12 slices prosciutto, each cut in half lengthways
Salt and pepper

Pre heat the oven to about 200ºc. Oil a baking tray.

Mix the honey with the butter and boiling water. Brush each pumpkin wedge with the honey mixture. Scatter with chopped thyme, salt and pepper. Wrap each wedge with strips of prosciutto, like a candy cane. Arrange on the baking tray.

Brush over any remaining honey. Arrange thyme sprigs over the pumpkin wedges.

Place in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes or until cooked (a tooth pick or skewer will insert easily when cooked). Cover with foil if the prosciutto starts to become too brown.

Brussels sprouts, bacon and boar taint

If there was ever a vegetable guaranteed to divide opinion, it is the Brussels sprout. Like all members of the cruciferous family, Brussels sprouts are naturally bitter. Not only bitter – but sulphurous. And not only naturally bitter and sulphurous, but more bitter and more sulphurous when cooked. Particularly when over-cooked.

Taste buds are fickle. Just ask the three bears about their porridge preferences. Taste is one of those profoundly philosophical problems: it is uniquely and specifically subjective. Are Brussels sprouts disgusting or do some people just experience them that way?*

On the other hand, there is an increasingly detailed body of scientific research about the chemical and physiological nature of taste (technical term: “gustation”). There are chemical markers that determine whether something is sweet or salty or sour or bitter. We have discovered “unami”, chemically distinguishable (ie, monosodium glutamate – the dreaded msg) and sensed as savoury –occurring naturally in some seaweeds and soya sauces and meat for example. Not all flavours can be physically tasted by all people.** Some –supertasters - are very sensitive, almost prohibitively drawn to bland food. Some – non-tasters – need ‘excessive’ seasoning and spices to taste food at all.

For example, Brussels sprouts are particularly unpalatable for children who have a much stronger sense of taste than adults.***

Like sprouts, pork is tricky. Setting aside the well articulated religious reasons for foregoing pigs, you run into a more amorphous minefield of personal preference and pernicketiness. Pigs have a pretty bad reputation for being dirty. For eating garbage and wallowing in it.

Not only this, but a significant percentage of pork is affected by something known as boar taint. Boar taint is an odour and associated flavour that affects some adolescent pigs. Boar taint results in that oily, sweaty, dirty taste that pork is sometimes known to have. Pork is now selectively reared to avoid this, and using immature and female pigs can help in minimising the risk. Still, pork is not universally loved, and it takes trust, love and care to put it on a plate and expect people to eat it.

An idea forms: pork and sprouts. Given their shared outcast status, pairing them makes sense. No. Bacon and sprouts. Crazy sense.

It's not really that extraordinary: bacon and cabbage is a reliable fail-safe recipe. And Brussels sprouts are really just tiny wee cabbages when it all boils down to it. Not so intimidating or icky after all.

Rather than boil or steam the sprouts – I slowly caramelise in a pan, develop what natural sugars they have, letting the sprouts draw in the smoky sweet bacon flavour. I tasted this, about half way through the cooking process: I was surprised at how sweet the bacon and caramelising made the dish. As the idea takes form, developing a meal that will appeal is a matter of balancing, tasting and re-balancing the flavours, like a mantra: salty (bacon); sweet (apple); bitter (sprouts); sour (mustard); savoury (pork).

These sprouts were not too salty, not too bitter, not too sweet and not too sour. In the words of Goldilocks, these sprouts were just right.


* To paraphrase Donald Davidson, the phrase ‘food is tasty’ is true if and only if food is indeed tasty.

Donald Davidson is a brilliant philosopher of language. See also the works of Tama Coutts on Davidson.
** Danielle R. Reed, Toshiko Tanaka, and Amanda H. McDaniel; ‘Diverse tastes: Genetics of sweet and bitter perception’ Physiol Behav. 2006 June 30; 88(3): 215–226.
*** Except me. I loved Brussels sprouts as a kid. Not so my mum: bought up on sprouts boiled until mush, she refused to cook them.

Caramelised and braised sprouts with bacon

Per person:

6-10 small sprouts, trimmed at stalk and cut in half
1 middle rasher of bacon, rind removed and diced into 1 cm dice
1 tsp grain mustard
40 ml white wine

Heat a tsp or so of olive oil in a heavy pan. Toss in bacon and sprouts. Cook at a high heat for a few minutes, shaking the pan occasionally, until the bacon and sprouts are starting to brown. Toss in half the wine, deglaze the pan (ie, stir around the pan to scrape off all the brown bits). When the alcohol cooks off, add the mustard and the rest of the wine, reduce the heat and simmer for about 5 minutes or until the smell of alcohol is gone and the sprouts are just cooked (they should be soft but not soggy).

(For the vegetarians out there: there are lots of non-meat related ways to make sprouts interesting. For example: Steamed, halved, smeared with blue cheese, drizzled with honey and under the grill is also sensational.)

Cassoulet

I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but there is a secret society, based in France, dedicated to the art and mystery of cassoulet.* As reported in no lesser a publication than Time Magazine, the Académie Universelle du Cassoulet is a group of chefs dedicated to cooking traditional cassoulet across Languedoc and beyond.

Named for the unique cooking vessel, the cassoulet is an alchemal combination of legumes, cured meats and herbs. Mysteriously transformed by a long cooking process, the resulting amalgamation of fats and salt and starches is astonishingly rich and luxurious without being at all pretentious.

Is it true that cassoulet was born during the siege of Castelnaudary during the Hundred Years' War? Did it fortify the soldiers to victory? Are rumours of coveted secret recipes and undying ever-replenished mixtures of beans and meat true? Is it true that the power of the cassoulet defies the chef and blesses the home kitchen? Is cassoulet the last bastion of the Knights Templar, and the subject of a forthcoming book by Dan Brown, in which cassoulet is revealed to be an anagram of osculates, which means both to have three or more points coincident and to kiss, which clearly refers to the marriage of Jesus (ie, the Trinity and kissing, silly); as well as an anagram for Sauce Lots, which refers to the ability to soak up the stock with rustic French bread? And before you think I made this up***: chef Prosper Montagné decreed in 1929 that "God the father is the cassoulet of Castelnaudary, God the Son that of Carcassonne, and the Holy Spirit that of Toulouse."**

It’s just a fancy way of saying baked beans. Now, of course, there are lots of different varieties of baked beans. Boston beans, for example, rich and sweet with molasses. Heinze Baked Beans, oddly metallic flavoured and weirdly sweet. The tomato and basil baked beans which are made by the coffee shop near work and then spread into a jaffle with haloumi and toasted (unbelievably delicious). The Greek style beans (technically braised) that my mum makes, with tomatoes and garlic and olive oil and green beans and dried beans.

All good.

But the Grand Master of the baked bean fraternity is the cassoulet. It may not be nobility, but it is a master artisan amongst good men. It must be made of the best ingredients: humble and honest ingredients; but the best quality. The nobility is one of the inner spirit: the best cured hams, the most carefully made sausages. Carefully dried and stored beans. Fresh and pungent herbs. Like the home grown garlic and organic thyme and locally reared heritage-breed hasselback-pig smoked bacon I managed to hoard for myself last weekend. Bless the generosity of home gardeners and the industry of artisan farmers. Admit only the best past the threshold of the cassoulet vessel. Submit those who pass to a test of silence and endurance and fire. Break the skin that forms a ritual seven times.**** Remove the candidate from the forge (ok, take the dish from the oven) and serve.

* Note that this isn’t the first secret culinary society that I have come across in the past year. The Cabonari, as alluded to here are not a figment of my imagination, and nor is the speculation connecting them to spaghetti carbonara.
** Reported at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1697005,00.html#ixzz0kVnaNkcU
*** which I did
**** seriously: this is superstition that actually exists in relation to cassoulet. With the cool head of reason I suspect is actually works: mixing back in the caramelised outer layers would enhance the flavour.

Very simple baked beans

Serves about 6.

This is an incredibly inexact recipe – cassoulet really is something to get a feel for, not scientifically produce. Use the very, very best cured quality cured meat you can.

500 gms dried white beans, soaked overnight (or 750g of tinned beans)
Lots of garlic (I used 3 heads), peeled and left whole
Lots of thyme. Or oregano. Or a little rosemary.
About 400 gm streaky bacon, cut into small pieces. I bake the rind as well and then remove on serving.
The grated rind of one lemon (or half a preserved lemon)
2 medium sized Spanish onions (or leeks or brown onions), roughly chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
350ml chicken stock (or water)
Sea salt

You can add in good sausages or duck confit or ham hocks or a leg of mutton or smoked game or chopped carrots and celery and fennel if you like. Some recipes include duck fat – which is particularly good if you are using confit of duck in the cassoulet. But I just like to keep it simple.

Mix everything in a large cassoulet (or oven proof dish). Cover with baking paper and cook slowly in a slow oven all day. At least four hours. Break the skin and stir seven times. Leave uncovered for the last hour of cooking, to develop a tasty crust. Serve with fresh chopped parsley and warm sourdough bread.

An abundance of tomatoes: pasta sauce

My mum has the most beautiful little vegetable garden. She just lives in a small suburban house, her backyard would be smaller than a tennis court. In amongst the camellias and gardenias she grows, depending on the seasons, cucumbers and tomatoes and kale and potatoes, garlic, leeks, cabbage, lettuce, chillies, basil, chard, celery, roquette, or carrots. She’s talking about planting kohlrabi and maybe even cardoons. She has a lemon tree and a lime tree, a bay laurel and olive trees in pots.

When mum moved into her house, just over a year ago, the yard was a lunar landscape. Uneven mounds of dirt, patches of grass. That was about it. The transformation in the last year has been magical.

One of her first crops out of the garden was little button squash. Picked when about the size of large strawberries, and served steamed with torn basil leaves, also from her garden, and a sprinkle of sea salt and olive oil, these were sweet and nothing at all like the bitter, soggy taste I used to associated with button squash. I couldn’t eat enough of her squash that first season.

She grows things just for the love of growing them, and as a result always has far too much all at once. This means that at least once a week I am given boxes of vegetables picked within the last hour. When her tomatoes started to grow fruit, and the spindly branches were heavy and unripe, she picked a selection of green tomatoes for me to play with (who could risk trying to make fried green tomatoes?). Now the tomatoes are ripening, and I have box after box of yellow grape tomatoes and green tiger stripes and black Russians and giant ox-heart looking ones she insists were called ‘mortgage busters’ on the seed packet.

I live in a shoe box city apartment. I don’t yet even have herbs in boxes on my coffee table sized balcony. A whole box of bright yellow and red and green smelling of summer, grown with love by someone who loves me? Pretty damn special, every time.

The latest harvest to arrive at my door was a box full of these tomatoes, chillies, tiny capsicum and basil. When we came home late, dinner was a matter of throwing the remanents of two different pastas into some boiling water, and then cooking down the tomatoes and capsicum and chillies with some chopped bacon (the only other thing in the fridge) and garlic. No water, no wine, no onions, just a little salt and pepper to help it along.

The bacon is cured a block away, by my wonderful old-school butcher. Everything else was fresh that day from the garden. It was not pretty or well-plated or delicate. It was sweet and spicy and fresh and thoroughly satisfying.

Pasta all'amatriciana

For 2

A dash of olive oil
6 short rashers of bacon, roughly chopped (or pancetta, about 10-12 thin slices)
3 clove minced garlic
½ kg super ripe tomatoes, any variety, roughly chopped
3 chillies, minced
1 small red capsicum, finely chopped
Handful chopped fresh basil
400 g dried pasta, any variety

Fry off the bacon in the olive for a few minutes, add garlic, stir and then add the tomato, capsicum and chillies. Cook for as long as it takes the pasta to cook to al dente.

Drain the pasta, and add to the sauce along with the chopped basil. Season to taste.

Serve with shaved parmesan. Scoff.