The Gang got together recently for a small cocktail party to celebrate a ‘significant’ birthday by doing what we like to do best – catch up, hear some bad jokes, have some excellent drinks and eat some fabulous food. Of course the food had to fit the occasion and Caren decided she’d like to take the helm on that count....
Radicchio, like many of us, has to be helped along to retain its vibrancy. That lovely, trademark, red colour can only be achieved by inhibiting its exposure to light. Growers often put an inverted pot over their radicchio in the latter stages of growth to inhibit chlorophyll production and promote its lovely colour. If only it were so easy for the rest of us.....
This easy but delicious accompaniment can be made even easier if you can commandeer a friendly partner to peel the onions for you. I usually take unfair advantage and hand over kilos. My partner will happily peel away as long as he is positioned in front of a football game so it seems that in our house onion marmalade is a winter, weekend production....
I recently read an article on the School of Life website entitled ‘Food as Therapy' which asserts that what we eat and cook has benefits far beyond just nutrition. We all know this of course but food, it seems, is an interesting tool when analysing our emotional needs. It has psychological value.....
Wanting to use some fish stock I had in the freezer, I planned to make a seafood soup for a simple Saturday night meal for the family. Nothing special. My partner had offered to go to the market so I added some prawns, a piece of fish and two crabs to the shopping list.
The idea was to make a basic fish soup with the stock, some aromatics, spices and tomatoes and then gently poach the seafood for a few minutes in the soup.
That was until the crabs arrived home. Not two delicate, little blue swimmers. Two glorious, big-clawed mud crabs. (The cost of which could have covered a dinner for the four of us in a restaurant.) They were magnificent beasts and needed to be honoured in their own right.
They were cleaned and broken down, then wok fried in peanut oil with a touch of sesame oil, some minced garlic, a splash of tamari and another splash of that fish stock until the shells were red and the flesh just beyond translucent. Eaten with our fingers, cracking, sucking and digging out all the sweet meat, they were fabulous.
I went ahead with the soup as well, simplified to just prawns and fish. Finished with a refreshing salad of finely sliced fennel and cucumber in lemon dressing, the meal was a feast, made even more so by the suggestions of the eight-year old to add the ambience of candles and a roll of kitchen paper to the table setting. Luxury.
Caren
