Sally Clarke's Book - Rocket & Herb Focaccia

This is a lovely book, although not one that I can see myself using often (anyway, it has to be smuggled back to the mother lode next week). Sally Clarke is the chef-proprietor of the Clarke’s restaurant/bakery/shop in Kensington, and this book presents the restaurant’s lunch, supper, and dinner (yeah, I don’t know what the difference is either) menus way back in 1999. I checked the website, and menus today are the same – lots of delicate vegetables, colourful salads, just a hint of lentilly worthiness - but slightly updated: more red meat, basically (no one’s scared of BSE anymore).

Anyway, this book: at first, it’s off-puttingly cheffy. If people still exist who serve four course dinner parties, and plan the hardest menu they could conceivably pull off, this might appeal. But, otherwise, people are not going to attempt, at home, Roasted Gem Squash with Ceps and White Truffle. Or Grilled Turbot with Potato-Chive Pancake. And not just because buying white truffle and turbot requires a call to Payday Loans (note: never call Payday Loans). It seems that the ultimate result of the decline of this kind of book is Nigella publishing a recipe for Spaghetti with Marmite. Which…sadface. But books like How To Eat (published in 1998), and the Slaters and Olivers which followed, were a brilliant corrective to collections of recipes designed to be made only in gorgeous, expensive restaurants in West London.

But Sally Clarke's Book won me over – it describes how Sally has been pursuing local, seasonal, special ingredients around the UK since 1984, back when that was still unusual. She offered a no-choice menu, back when you’d normally be handed a great long list of set in stone ‘classics’. Simply cooked (by Michelin standards, anyway) food, British cheeses, fruit puddings. All the things we love now she was doing first. So hooray – Sally Clarke’s Book is of no practical use to me at all, but to read it is like hearing someone accurately describe the present from the past. Unusual and charming.

I made a Rocket and Herb Focaccia, because Clarke’s are famous for their baking, and supply half the nicest cafes in London with pastries and sweets. Me and yeasted products do not go way back – I’ve tried breads and buns a few times but they are always a bit hard and unyielding. So I was determined to knead knead knead this one, and I swear I did! The three year old helped and we probably put in 15 minutes between the two of us. But it  was more like a flatbread than a focaccia, albeit one tasty enough to be polished off for lunch between three of us. I saw focaccia being made on the Great British Bake Off last year and the crucial thing was the addition of ludicrous amounts of water to make an almost unworkable dough. Paul Hollywood was very clear that this what was made it focaccia-like. Sally only mentions adding enough water to bring the dough together and, well, here we are.

Rocket and Herb Focaccia

200g strong plain flour
pinch of salt
10g fresh yeast/5g dried yeast (I used one of those 7g sachets)
50 ml olive oil
warm water
1 tsp chopped thyme (or rosemary, dill, sage etc)
1 small bunch of rocket
Maldon salt

Mix the flour and salt together. Blend yeast with a bit of warm water until smooth and add to flour. Add the olive oil, and enough warm water (hmm - add lots) to make a soft dough. Add the thyme.

Knead for hours and hours. Until smooth. 

Put the dough back in the bowl with some oil and cover with clingfilm. Leave for at least 45 minutes (but it will sit for a long time if convenient) until doubled in size.

Remove from bowl and knead again until it’s ‘silky-smooth’ 'again'.  Shape into a bowl and then roll out to 1 cm thickness. Drizzle with olive oil and cover with film. Lave again to rise for 15-20 minutes.

Toss the rocket in oil and press it onto dough with a bit of salt. (The frizzled rocket was DELICIOUS by the way). Bake for 20-25 minutes until risen. Remove from oven and drizzle with oil (or don’t if you’ve made a hard flatbread, it will just run off). Scoff 'cos you’re greedy. 

Aldo Zilli's Duck Ragu

So first up is Aldo Zilli’s ‘The Zilli Cookbook’ (2003). The cover features Aldo tucking into a lovely bowl of  that queen of dishes, Pasta Alla Vongole- which is a bit odd given that there is no recipe for this in the book. That is quite odd isn’t it? Did he think ‘well, it’s such a classic, I won't waste a page giving a recipe that’s in countless other books’. Probably not, because he did put in recipes for Spaghetti with Chili, Garlic and Oil (on which he inexplicably puts BASIL, what the what??) and Lasagne. I find this outrageous, though not surprising. Gordon Ramsey and Angela Hartnett have both published books and/or articles where they give recipes for Pasta with Tomato Sauce. Spread across two pages, with a photo. Definitely not value for money.

My grandmother is from Naples, and there are a lot of recipes we eat as a family that I’ve never seen in a cookbook – and I don’t think she made them up. So there isn’t an excuse for chefs/writers to fall back on the same old recipes. Lasagne might be a classic, but unless your book is badged for ‘people who only want to use one recipe book ever’ or ‘people who don’t have Google’, it’s a cop out.

I really wasn’t looking to slate Zilli – despite the fact that I don’t understand why anyone would feel the need to own this book (…Dad). Is ‘Aldo Zilli’ really a chef, or just a collection of Italian sounds used to add culinary legitimacy to Morrison’s, Alfa Romeo, Centre Parcs, and Prezzo (as listed on his website)?  All his restaurants seem to have closed, he produces a range of baby food, he gets to go on Saturday Kitchen sometimes, gives ‘masterclasses’ to the public, and appears at OK! Magazine parties. 

I chose to make duck ragu – on the grounds that ragu is always lovely, but I’ve never seen it with duck. Aldo recommend you use two breasts, skinned and cubed. Availability and price lured me into buying a crown and taking it off the bone before cooking. Honestly, these are both stupid ideas. I should have bought two legs, cooked them whole, and pulled the meat off the bone afterwards. It would have been about a hundred times tastier. Aldo even says, in a sidebar, that the dish is inspired by a restaurant in Abruzzo, which cooks a whole duck in the sauce, then serves the meat separately. Well duh! I would also start if off with a soffrito, rather than just the onion Aldo uses. It wasn’t horrible, especially with a lot of Parmesan, but the meat was a bit dry, and flavourless. So this is how I would do it:

Duck Ragu (for four – ish)

Olive Oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, ditto
1 stick of celery, ditto
2 cloves of garlic, ditto
2 duck legs, skin off
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
Teaspoon of tomato puree
Splosh of red wine (optional)

Brown the duck legs over a high heat in something which isn’t Extra Virgin Olive Oil (just for the burning issue). Remove from pan.

Gently fry the veg in Extra Virgin Olive Oil until soft and tranluscent. Put the duck legs back in, and heat it all up, before adding the tomatoes, puree, and wine. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer, with a lid, for about an hour.

Check to see if the meat is falling off the bone. If not, give it a bit longer. When it’s ready, pull all the meat off, and shred it as finely as possible. Obviously, this is easiest if you’re making in advance, and have let the sauce cool. But no biggie, and it doesn’t matter if the chunks of meat are still quite chunky.

Or! Leave the duck legs whole and serve them with veg or salad as a second course, after serving the sauce with pasta and lots of Parmesan. I really think this would be very nice indeed, and I might do it soon.

The Rules

Should there be rules? I do have a full time job, two kids under 4, and an OCD ish obsession with decluttering to keep up. But, ok, rules.

1) I will not cook from a book I already have at my own house.
2) I will not make something I have made before ('cake' doesn't count. 'Victoria sponge' does).
3) I cannot smuggle another book until I have cooked from the first.
4) Um, I will post a photo of the book, and the cooked food, on this blog.
5) That's a crap rule isn't it? OK, that's all the rules!

First book has been smuggled. Some old tut by Aldo Zilli coming soon.

The beginning

I like cookbooks - I've probably got about 30, and I probably use half regularly. I love Nigella, Nigel, and Delia, though I could detail their various failings and annoyances. The first Leon cookbook, the first Moro, and the Silver Spoon are also regularly consulted. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Fish book stopped me from dithering at the supermarket before walking away fast muttering 'Oh, they're all too endangered'. You get the idea - big names, familiar authors, conservatively used. I cook for my husband and children ever night, but I'm not stuffing my own turducken over here. 

My Dad is different. He must have several hundred, crammed into my parents' modest 4 bed terrace. They arrive from Amazon, from boot sales, charity shops, the Book People, the library (substantially out staying their loan period). New books, old books, great books, shockingly crap books, which could put you off eating at all. One thing unites them - they don't get cooked from. Flicked through and shelved, they sadly show only their spines, their potentially life-altering deliciousness trapped between their pages. I think it's some kind of OCD, but let's not dwell. 

This blog will attempt to smuggle one book out from under my Dad's nose each week, review it here, and cook at least one recipe from it. So they might have some purpose before my Dad dies and we ship them all off to Sue Ryder.