How I eat
The suppers I turn to again and again...
There’s an open fire by the table where I write most mornings. We installed it a few years back, mainly because I loved the idea of writing with a crackling fire by my side.
For most of the year the fire remains unlit: a dormant reminder of cosy days gone by. But come November the ritual begins all over again: logs are brought in from the shed; bundles of kindling are stacked in wooden buckets; elegant long matches are bought at the garden centre and placed lovingly in an old lacquer box we keep by the mantle. Autumn has arrived.
I adore autumn. Food suddenly takes on a whole new role in my life as I start to crave thick stews, glistening steaks and any dessert that comes with custard. I pull out all the cookbooks we keep on a long wooden shelf in the kitchen - some new but most old and stained with buttery fingertips and sprays of sauce- and start to plot.
I love cookbooks and read them in the way most people read novels. And I’m as seduced by the recipes as I am by the tone of the chef’s words as they guide me through their creations. I stick to old books mostly- ones where I know the recipes work- but occasionally a new book will come along and capture my heart. This autumn that is one called : The Sportsman At Home.
I should tell you a little about The Sportsman really. It’s down the road from me, just off the Kentish coast. In fact I was there last night for my birthday with my husband and the dogs. (If you do take the hounds you have to sit in the conservatory, which we gloriously had all to ourselves last night with a front row seat on a fireworks display that was taking place in Whitstable Harbour some way out in the distance.)
From the outside it’s an unassuming little place- just a boxy white building with a small car park out front and a little conservatory that’s filled with plants, old books and scrubbed pine tables. But step inside and you are, at once, seduced by the magic of it all. The staff are warm and earthy, the atmosphere one of chatter and laughter. People wear jeans, put their elbows on the tables and slosh their soda bread round the edges of their plates with gluttonous abandon. Monkfish steaks and and towering souffles the colour of snow make their way out of the kitchen. It is sheer heaven. The sort of pub one can only dream of.
If you ever make it down this way then I can’t recommend this place highly enough, although given it’s also the favourite pub of many of the country’s most famous chefs, you do have to book a long way in advance. If you can’t get here however then the next best thing is the incredible cook book they launched this week: : The Sportsman At Home. In here you’ll find just about every recipe you’ll ever want to cook. Sausage cassoulets, onion tarts, a giant, take-your-breath-away coffee and whisky trifle as well as lovely little extras like a perfect ‘Christmas gravy’ and Viennese Whirls. It’s not fancy. It’s not convoluted. It’s just good, old fashioned recipes with genius little tweaks.
And in case you fancy something exceptionally lovely for dinner this weekend below is a delicious (I know because I made it already) recipe for steak for one from the book, plus 5 other cookbooks that I turn to again and again, as well as the recipes I make at least a couple of times a month.
Enjoy!
Farrah x
STEAK FOR ONE (Extracted from : The Sportsman At Home, Quadrille, £30)
Serves 1
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 high-quality rib-eye steak, seasoned in advance
• knob of fresh ginger root, finely grated
• 1 large garlic clove, bruised and finely grated
• 1 chilli, finely chopped (use whatever suits your preferred heat levels – I use a jalapeño)
• 25 ml (1 fl oz/generous 11/2 tablespoons) light soy sauce
• 25 ml (1 fl oz/generous 11/2 tablespoons) mirin
• juice of 1 satsuma
• 1 bunch of spring onions (scallions), green and white parts chopped separately (lose the top green bits as they are tough)
• 1 small bunch of coriander (cilantro) chopped
• squeeze of lime juice
Heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium-high heat, then place the steak in the pan on its side so that the fat renders. You may have to hold the steak in place. Cook until the fat is well browned and some of the fat has rendered into the pan.
Now fry the steak on one side until nicely browned (I use a light weight like a saucepan to keep the steak in contact with the pan) for 4–5 minutes, then flip and cook for 1 minute on the other side. Remove the steak to a plate.
Without reducing the heat, add the ginger, garlic, chilli and the green parts of the spring onion to the pan and fry them in the steak fat for about 1 minute, keeping the contents moving by shimmying the pan. Add the mirin and bring to the boil, then add the satsuma juice and again bring to the boil. Add the soy sauce and cook everything together for just a minute, then remove the pan from the heat.
Slice the steak as thickly or thinly as you like, then add the juices from the plate to the pan along with the white parts of the spring onions and the chopped coriander. Stir everything together and add a squeeze of lime. Serve the steak with the sauce.