Older and wiser

The wedding feast was magnificent. The main dish was a baron of beef carried in on the shoulders of four burly cooks to the delighted surprise of the guests, at a hotel well known for its fine food in beautiful surroundings. So imagine the dismay on the face of the chef when the bride refused the braised celery hearts offered as part of the carefully composed vegetable dishes. I was that bride, but as the years have passed, I have not only learned to enjoy celery, but also regard it as an essential vegetable in a well-stocked fridge.

Valued from Ancient Greece through the European Middle Ages for its medicinal qualities, celery was believed to treat ailments from rheumatism and gout to anxiety, insomnia and toothache. More recently, research carried out in the USA in 2008 indicates that celery contains flavonoids that could help combat Alzheimer’s.

And talking of the more mature, computer-shy older people in the USA are using celery to Twitter. ‘Celery’ is a service set up to help older family and friends without computers to stay in touch with those who do. Hand-written outgoing messages and photographs are converted into email, Facebook status updates, or tweets that are transmitted via fax on a standard telephone line. So why Celery? Says founder Neil Grabowsky, "It plays off the unrelated Latin word celeritas, which means speed; because we bring ‘snail mail’ up to speed."

How to keep and use
Celery is one of the most useful and easy-going vegetables to keep. Wrapped in a piece of kitchen roll, letting its top and toes breathe, it stays fresh and crisp for two weeks or more. Here are some ways in which it can be used.

Take one…
celery stick from the outside of the head, cut into two or three pieces and keeping its feathery leaves, add to the pot when making stock from the carcass of a chicken or roasted meat bones.
Take two…
celery sticks to create a vegetable dish to make a simple meal special. Slice the celery thinly and sauté gently with a finely chopped shallot or small onion, in a generous knob of butter in a covered pan. Meanwhile shred finely the best bits of three or four lettuce leaves from the outside of the head (the ones not nice enough for the salad bowl) and when the celery and onions are soft and golden, add to the pan with a tablespoon of water and a cup of frozen peas. Season with salt and pepper and cook gently, still covered, until the lettuce has wilted down and the peas are just cooked (around five minutes). Remove the lid and if necessary reduce the butter juices so that they just coat the vegetables rather than drown them, and season.
Take three…
celery sticks for a Waldorf style salad to serve with pate or cold meats for a light lunch. Chop into smallish dice and mix with one or two peeled and diced crisp apples, two or three finely sliced spring onions. Toss in a dressing made with 1 tablespoon french dressing mixed with 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise and a teaspoon of creamed horseradish sauce. Brown a handful of cashews or pine kernels in a very hot and ungreased frypan or skillet (don’t wander off whilst doing this) shaking them around to ensure even colouring and then tip into the celery mixture whilst still hot – creating a satisfying sizzle and aroma.

Cashews or pine kernels or even peanuts are much nicer than traditional walnuts, which can be very bitter, and the horseradish gives a refreshing kick.

Or take a whole celery head …
if you have a jar of preserved lemons adorning your kitchen counter and make Moro’s fragrant, warm celery salad. Wash the celery sticks, stringing the tougher stalks if necessary, and cut into 1cm slices. Heat 4 tablespoons of oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, add a thinly sliced clove of garlic and the thinly sliced skin only of half a preserved lemon, (having discarded the soft pulp and rinsing the skin well in cold water). Fry for 30 seconds then add the celery and cook gently for a further 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. When the celery begins to soften, add 100ml of water and cook for a further five minutes or until the liquid has almost evaporated. Add 1 tablespoon of roughly chopped flat leaf parsley and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve warm or cool.
　

Game, set and match

Many years ago when a rather smooth work colleague asked if I liked pheasant, I accepted his invitation to dinner at home with alacrity. When I arrived at the appointed hour, the other two guests had not yet arrived and I was conscious that there was no welcoming aroma of roasting meat wafting from the kitchen. The reason quickly became clear, when I was presented with a brace of birds in all their glory, complete with feathers, heads, feet and innards. Clearly I had been invited not only to eat dinner, but also to prepare and cook it - from scratch.

Fired by a combination of pride, hunger and red wine, I managed to convert the birds to a reasonable state of oven readiness. As far as I remember, they tasted pretty good and the other guests appeared to enjoy them. Smooth work colleague was quickly despatched to social history, but the experience did not put me off my liking for most feathered and furred game.

Game is lean, flavoursome and surprisingly affordable – especially if you buy it in the country where butchers have a ready local supply or if you have access to a Waitrose where surprising bargains can be found on the meat counter late on a Saturday afternoon.

Game also makes a great dinner party dish, creating an air of celebration or special treat, except when entertaining vegetarians or people with labradors and a gun cabinet. Or, as happened on one memorable episode from my anthology of culinary nightmares, if you serve wild rabbit in Italian sauce to someone who has just returned from putting down their favourite bunny at the local vet.

What’s more, the intense flavour of game means it can be stretched into several meals, with complementary vegetables such as mushrooms and fillers such as lentils and chestnuts. Here is how two pigeons and 600 grams of lean venison made excellent eating over a weekend.

Friday

Roast pigeon
Rounded off a busy week with a dinner a deux. Put a couple of rashers of dry cured bacon across the tops of two pigeons and roasted them for 40 minutes. Served the breasts only, with puy lentils (Merchant Gourmet, microveable sachet, very quick and tasty) , brussels sprouts and a gravy spiked with dry sherry. Before retiring to bed, put 600 gms of casserole venison to marinade in a pint of red wine, a tablespoon of olive oil, a bay leaf and six crushed juniper berries.

Saturday
Put the roast pigeon carcasses in the pressure cooker, with an onion stuck with two cloves (onion washed but unpeeled so that the skin would give a golden colour to the stock), one carrot , a stick of celery and the stalks of the chestnut mushrooms that were destined for the venison casserole. Added the dregs of the red wine from the night before and enough water to cover everything by an inch or so. Cooked at full pressure for 20 minutes (equivalent of an hour ordinary simmering, covered). Strained through a sieve, discarded bones and vegetables, let cool and stored in fridge. Then moved on to cooking main dish for supper party.

Rich venison casserole with chocolate
Poured hot water over a pack of dried porcini mushrooms and left to swell. Drained the venison (saving marinade) patted dry with kitchen paper and then seared quickly on all sides in little oil in frying pan. Put to one side, then quickly browned 10 shallots (peeled, roots trimmed and then halved) two cloves of garlic. Sprinkled on 1 tablespoon of flour and cooked gently for a couple of minutes before adding the marinade wine, the drained porcini mushrooms and liquid, the venison and shallots. Cooked on low heat for one hour, then added half a packet of frozen cranberries and 150gm fresh chestnut mushrooms, washed and quartered and cooked for a further half an hour. Then stirred in 2 tablespoons of damson jelly and two squares of 80% dark chocolate and checked seasoning before leaving on low heat in oven

Served venison casserole topped with individual golden discs of puff pastry, celeriac and potato puree, red cabbage braised with whole garlic cloves and the finely chopped skin of a preserved lemon plus a spoonful of petit pois to give fresh green colour and taste.

As there were five for dinner rather than six, there was a generous helping of venison casserole remaining, kept in sealed box in fridge.

Sunday

Luscious left-overs
Gently sauteed a finely chopped onion, two thinly sliced sticks of celery and a handful of sliced mushrooms in a little oil for five minutes. Then poured over the pigeon stock and simmered for 15 minutes, before adding the remains of the venison casserole and three tablespoons of puy lentils left over from Friday supper (Merchant Gourmet, microvable, very useful and tasty). Result: enough delicious and intensely flavoured game soup to serve six people.

Illustration: Courting pheasants, by Robert E Fuller

http://www.robertefuller.com/RobertEFullersite/gamebirdsanddeer

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig …….

There are strong views about bacon in our family. There are those who believe that only dry-cured, rashers of back bacon from free range pigs, cut medium thin with just a fine edge of fat and no rind, are worthy of attention. There are others who believe that the other half of the bacon cut, the streaky rasher, has just as many virtues and indeed, is far more versatile. Those narrow stripes of meat and fat are perfect for so many dishes. Wrapping figs stuffed with gorgonzola, dribbled with honey or maple syrup, sat on a disc of bread and roasted in a hot oven for 10 minutes. Or lining a terrine to encase a pate before cooking gently in a bain marie, holding the luscious juices and keeping the mixture moist. Or snipping into a hot pan with olive oil and chopped garlic to crisp up before sizzling with wine vinegar and pouring the whole lot, hot and fragrant,to wilt spinach leaves for a salade tiède.

The bacon debate took a new twist recently, on a trip to South Africa, when we were invited to breakfast by friends of our hosts in Cape Town. The house clung to the mountainside at Llandudno, with vast windows overlooking the bay and full of wonderful works by Elsa, a successful sculptor. Her husband Horst (a professor of biothermodyanics) served home-made berry tea and fruit jellies made with seaweed , whilst explaining the health giving properties of agar.

The conversation was lively around the table, as we tucked into mealiepup, seeded rye bread and other specalities of Cape cuisine. Elsa then announced that despite having no functioning cooker because of a power cut, she was sticking to her plan to give us all bacon and eggs. Displaying Voortrecker determination, she had retrieved a primus stove from storage for the purpose. "Who would like their bacon crisp?" she called as the mixture of back and streaky rashers sizzled and spat in the pan.

After ten minutes Elsa expressed surprise that the bacon was not crisping. After another ten minutes she expressed irritation. After another ten minutes, when we all tried to persuade her that we really did not mind how the bacon was cooked and she should simply serve it, she asked Horst where he had bought the bacon. "The usual place," he replied, " but I asked for warthog, to make a change."

All around the table collapsed in laughter, some us wondering how Elsa resisted clipping Horst with the frying pan. Warthog makes good eating, but apparently if you want your bacon crisp, a domestic porker is the one to take home again, home again, jiggety jig.

Roasted piggy figs

Two figs per person
Strong blue cheese (the last bits of Stilton, gorgonzola or even Danish Blue)
One rasher of streaky bacon or pancetta per fig
Clear honey or maple syrup
Thin sliced bread without crusts

Wash the figs, then cut a cross almost down to the base, so they open up like a flower. Push small pieces of cheese into the cuts and then wrap each fig in a slice of bacon or pancetta. (Stretch the bacon gently with the back of a round bladed knife first, to make it thinner and more pliable.)
Lightly oil a baking tray. Cut discs of bread a little larger than the figs, sit a fig on each disc and grate over some black pepper. Then trickle over a little honey or maple syrup, Pop into a hot oven and cook for approx 10 minutes. When ready, the cheese is melted, the bacon fat starting to crisp and delicious pinky purple juices are soaking the bread. Serve warm, garnished with a little rocket or other small salad leaves. Also tasty cold.