Nigel Slater - The Kitchen Diaries II

Stir the spice mixture into the sugar syrup and continue simmering for a minute. Add the fish sauce and coriander and remove from the heat.

When the pumpkin is fully tender, spoon most of the chilli sauce over it, toss gently to coat each piece, then return to the oven for five to ten minutes. Toss with the remaining dressing and serve.

Enough for 6 as a side dish

A dry day, warm enough to garden without a jacket. The earth, dark and moist from the week’s rain, crumbles in textbook fashion under the garden fork. There is still a scattering of bronze leaves and here and there the odd medlar that melts in your hand, leaving behind the ghost of wine dregs in a glass. Anyone with a scrap of land will value January days like these for getting the earth turned, roses pruned and stray leaves collected.

I spend a couple of hours tugging out the last of the borlotti beans, their dried stems still twisted around the hazel poles. This should have been done in December and both the bean stems and precious hazel supports snap like icicles. The odd purple-skinned potato and (useless) radish come to the surface as I fork the soil. Before I go in, I move a patch of soggy brown leaves from under the medlar tree and find three rhubarb tips poking teasingly through the soil. Their carmine rudeness against the chocolate-brown soil at first startles, then delights.

Technology excites me (be it Japanese Shinkansen trains or the next thing that Apple throws our way) but so does the celebration of slow, time-honoured rituals. The way of living that hasn’t changed in centuries. Houses built or restored using traditional methods, treading grapes to make wine (yes, a tiny number of vineyards still do it) and anything hand made. Last night I soaked beans for a hotpot. I could have opened a can of course, and sometimes I do, but the idea of doing something just as it has been done for thousands of years appeals to me. So I soak them, a mixture of small white haricot and black-eyed beans. You can soak different varieties of bean together if they are the sort that enjoy the same cooking time (long, oval flageolet take less than the rounder beans). Covering the beans with an equal volume of water is usually enough. But they should be drained and rinsed the following day. This will effectively reduce the oligosaccharides, those complex, indigestible sugars that make us fart. More importantly, it cuts down the cooking time.

If you haven’t soaked beans the night before, or simply can’t be bothered, then use canned haricot or black-eyed beans for this. You will need three 400g cans, drained and rinsed.

dried haricot or black-eyed beans: 450g

bay leaves: 2

aubergines: 2 (about 500g in total)

olive oil

onions: 2

garlic: 3 cloves

rosemary: 3 stems

dried oregano: 1 tablespoon

chopped tomatoes: two 400g cans

For the crust:

white bread, not too crusty: 125g

a clove of garlic, peeled and crushed

grated Parmesan: 30g

a lemon

rosemary: 2 or 3 sprigs

dried oregano: 1 teaspoon

olive oil: 3 tablespoons

Put the beans into a deep bowl, cover with cold water and leave overnight. In the morning, drain off any remaining water, rinse the beans, then tip them into a large saucepan and cover with at least 2 litres of water. Bring to the boil, then skim off the froth that rises to the surface. Lower the heat to a jolly simmer, add the bay leaves and partially cover the pan with a lid. Leave the beans to cook for forty-five minutes, till almost tender. They should give a little when squeezed between finger and thumb. Drain the beans and set aside.

Cut the aubergines in half lengthways, then cut each half into about 8 thick slices. Warm 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a casserole. Fry the aubergines, in two or three batches, till pale gold on both sides and soft in the middle, then remove and drain on kitchen paper. Add more oil to the pan and lower the heat as necessary for each batch. The pieces of aubergine must be soft and tender.

Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Peel and roughly chop the onions. Add to the empty casserole with a tablespoon or two of olive oil and leave over a moderate heat till they have softened. While the onions are cooking, peel and thinly slice the garlic and finely chop the needles from the rosemary stems. Add to the onions with the oregano and leave to soften. The onions shouldn’t colour.

Add the tomatoes to the onions and garlic and bring to the boil, then stir in the drained beans and the aubergines. Fill an empty tomato can with water and pour it into the pan. Once the mixture has returned to the boil, turn off the heat. Cover the pan, transfer to the oven and bake for 45 minutes.

Make the crust by reducing the bread to coarse crumbs in a food processor. Add the garlic and the Parmesan cheese, then season with black pepper and a little salt. Finely grate the lemon zest and add it to the crumbs. Remove the rosemary needles from their stems and chop them finely. Stir into the crumbs with the dried oregano. Pour the olive oil into the breadcrumbs and toss gently; you want them to be lightly moist.

Remove the bean dish from the oven and spoon the crumbs on top. Return to the oven, uncovered, and bake for twenty to twenty-five minutes or until the crust is crisp and the colour of a biscuit.

Enough for 4

There are two ways of making a savoury puff pastry crust. I sometimes take a quiet afternoon to blend flour and butter and roll, fold, chill, roll and roll again. With Radio 4 on in the background, making puff or rough puff pastry is as much therapy as cooking. I use the ready-made stuff from the freezer, too. It’s a cop out, a cheat, but really, who cares? The brands made with butter have a good flavour, are crisp and light and often, helpfully, come ready rolled into sheets. It means I can have a pie such as tonight’s chicken and leek without making my own pastry.

chicken thighs on the bone: 350g

chicken breasts: 350g

half an onion

peppercorns: 8

a bay leaf

milk, to cover

butter: 30g

smoked streaky bacon: 6 rashers

leeks: 2 medium

plain flour: 3 lightly heaped tablespoons

Dijon mustard: 3 teaspoons

puff pastry: a 375g sheet

a little beaten egg and milk

grated Parmesan

Put the chicken pieces into a large saucepan, together with the half onion, peppercorns, bay leaf and enough milk just to cover the chicken. Bring to the boil, then, just when it starts to bubble, lower the heat and leave to simmer, partially covered by a lid, for twenty minutes. Remove the chicken, reserving the milk, and pull the meat from the bones. Cut it into small, plump pieces.

Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the bacon, cut into small pieces, and let it soften without colouring over a moderate to low heat. Slice the leeks into pieces roughly 1cm thick. Wash them very thoroughly, then add them to the bacon and continue cooking for about fifteen minutes, till they are totally soft.

Stir the flour into the leek and bacon, continue cooking for a couple of minutes, then gradually strain in enough of the warm milk to make a thick sauce. Fold in the chicken and check the seasoning, adding the mustard and a generous grinding of salt and pepper.

Roll one half of the pastry out into a rectangle 27cm x 37cm and transfer it to a baking sheet. Spoon the filling on to the pastry, leaving a wide rim all the way round. Brush the rim with beaten egg and milk. Roll out the second piece of pastry to the same size as the base and lower it over the filling. Press and crimp the edges together firmly to seal them. It is worth making certain the edges are tightly sealed, otherwise the filling may leak.