Good timing. While this particular death march still has a few miles to go, the end is clearly in sight and the worst is over. Time for some R&R. Time to bring the work/life balance back in line. Which, this weekend, meant steering clear of anything that appeared on any of my four running to do lists (work, wedding, household, St. Louis) and devoting myself completely to life. Saturday morning we put the top down on the car, threw young Datchet the spaniel in the back (Mr. Darcy lacks the energy for road trips these days) and took a meandering route to a nearby National Trust property. One of the glories of Basingstoke, frankly, is how quickly you're out of it. Within two miles of our house we were in narrow, steeply-banked wooded lanes inter-spersed with picturesque villages. Charming Georgian vicarages, worthy village churches, fields dotted with sheep and their gambolling newborn and gates to notable estates abound. This is, after all, Jane Austen country, and our little drive from Hatch Warren to Alresford could have been a carriage jaunt between Emma's Highbury and the Dashwoods' Norland Park. (Austen's cottage is actually just a few miles from here, but I'm saving that for a girls' day out.)
Our objective was Hinton Amper, a small country house with lovely gardens east of Winchester. The Trust has lots of jaw-dropping stately homes, but over the years I've come to have a particular soft spot for the little places. The more manageable estates you could actually see yourself moving into and maintaining. Granted, this would be after a very big lottery win, as something like the Hinton Amper estate would be on the market for six to eight million these days with even limited acreage. But the point is, "real people" (more or less) could live in these places; bankers and corporate execs as opposed to the lofty aristocracy. This house has a hall, a couple of reception rooms, a library, office and big dining room on display downstairs and five bedrooms above. Pretty much my dream spread, really.
The whole place is set up for house parties and copious entertaining, which was in fact what its owner Ralph Dutton used the place for in the '60s and '70s. The library has the best views in the house and is filled with plenty of comfortable chairs from which to enjoy them. The drawing room could accommodate multiple little groups of guests without bothering anyone. And the dining room could easily stretch to 20, yet could seat eight without seeming too big. Upstairs, the master suite is separated by the staircase hall from the guest rooms, creating admirable privacy for owner and visitors. Best of all, the place is packed with a gorgeous collection of mostly Georgian furniture and decorative arts. It's light, airy, sophisticated and elegant.
The gardens outside the windows are great for a stroll, with all the classic English elements like yew hedges, topiary, herbaceous borders, artfully placed statuary and your requisite classical temple garden folly. Best of all, the house and garden is on the ridge of a hill, thus the rolling Hampshire countryside, stretching away to a picturesque distance, becomes part of the garden.
If dipping into English heritage is one way I achieve contentment, getting into the kitchen is another. And I did it in a big way this weekend. Piers, Sainsbury's and the local farm shop all benefitted from my search for stress reduction.
I planned Saturday's menu sitting in the garden drinking painkillers. I learned to make this soul soothing concoction from a cheerful bartender at Pusser's Bar in St. John. Frankly, it's hard to imagine why anyone would need pain killed or soul soothed in that spot ... looking out over an array of smaller Virgin Islands dotting a technicolour sea while palms wave behind you ... but the man insisted it was one of the most popular drinks on the menu. Mix equal amounts of dark rum (Captain Morgan's spiced works best), orange juice and pineapple juice. Add just enough coconut milk to give it a milky colour. Blend. Pour over ice. Top with freshly grated nutmeg. The mix of fruit juices completely masks the alcohol and the little bit of coconut milk moderates the sweetness of the orange and pineapple. You can drink a lot of these without feeling like you've overdosed in an ice cream store, as can happen with too many of other types of tropical drinks.
My menu, however, veered away from the Caribbean. First to the Mediterranean, as I whipped up a starter of home made Baba Ganoush (roasted aubergine/eggplant dip). home made artichoke hummus and anchovy-stuffed green olives (made by some Spanish people in a factory, presumably). Piers isn't particularly fond of any of that stuff, so I moved closer to Northern Europe for the main course.
I marinated duck breasts in olive oil, armagnac, fresh thyme and prunes, using the same marinade, sans the prunes, on a bowl of plum halves. Both went onto the BBQ grill, with the plums coming off once they'd gotten soft to be futher stewed down into a sauce with more armagnac and some sugar. I've never barbecued duck before, and we don't have any lights on our patio, both of which are my excuse for the duck being slightly overdone. I should have pulled the coals over to the side before putting on the meat, getting a slower, smokier cooking action. But it wasn't bad. I served the meat on a bed of crushed potatoes with steamed tender stemmed broccoli on the side.
My pudding started with some salted macadamias coated with caramelised sugar. And once I'd melted the stuff down, I decided to experiment with spinnning it. They make this look so easy on Masterchef. Melt some sugar down, dip your spoon into it, do a few twirls, eh voila! This is clearly a hell of a lot harder than it looks. (And I suppose the number of pain killers I'd consumed might have lessened my manual dexterity.) I managed a couple of rudimentary spun sugar baskets with fibres of wildly various thicknesses. This covered a brownie square topped with strawberries, a dollop of creme fraiche and those candied nuts. Frankly, the basket added nothing whatsoever to the taste (sugar overdose, actually), but it did look fun and I might experiment again.I hadn't been planning on further gourmet attemps on Sunday, but we found ourselves at the local gourmet farm shop in search of chicken liver (Piers doing his own kitchen experimentation with a pate recipe) and the butcher had some exquisite veal. I couldn't resist, as I'd been thinking about trying to copy veal nuncio from Charlie Gitto's restaurant in St. Louis. This consists of lightly breaded veal scaloppine topped with a fontina cheese and crab sauce.
I always like to prep my own cutlets. My scaloppine pounder is one of my favourite kitchen items and, frankly, the fervour required to bang out that meat is a soothing yet productive act of violence. My skill in sugar spinning may be minimal, but years of practice mean I can get veal thin and smooth, ever-so-gently dusted in a mix of flour and fine bread crumbs after a bath in egg whites, then grilled rapidly in a bit of olive oil. It's so thin it takes no more than a minute to cook. The meat would have been delicious unadorned, but the sauce added a decadent richness. Loaded with butter, cream, cheese and crab ... all Piers' favourites ... it brought one of my favourite Italian comfort foods into the realm of my fiance's French tastes.
The farm shop also had round zucchine (courgette) about the size of grapefruit, so perfect for stuffing. I halved them, then hollowed them out and boiled the shells to soften them up. After finely dicing the flesh I had removed, I added diced leeks, roasted red peper and garlic, then fried that up in a bit of olive oil. Added a bit of grated parmesan and pecorino, then spooned into those softened shells and into the oven to bake for 20 minutes, mostly just to meld the flavours together. Both the veal and the stuffed zucchini went on top of plain papardelle, which looked good and soaked up the sauces.
Firmly into the Italian comfort food mode now, I had to keep going with dessert. Another treasure on hand at the farm shop was Sicilian blood oranges. Piers segmented these (one of his more admirable culinary skills) and added them to last night's leftover strawberries. That vivid red and orange mixture went into large red wine glasses which I then topped up with the home made zabaglione.
This is a dead easy dish that never fails to impress. There are plenty of versions that call for heavy cream which, I believe, makes it too rich. Zabaglione should be a light and pungent accompaniment to fruit, a classic summer dish. I use Lorenza di Medici's recipe, from the battered "Beautiful Italy" cookbook that's been my staple for two decades now. Mix egg yolks and sugar in a double boiler and whisk 'til frothy. Add marsala wine and continue whisking 'til mixture doubles and starts to thicken. Fold in an egg white. And there you have it. Easy, except for the vigorous wrist action.
And now, the weekend has ended and the prospect of another tough week stretches ahead. I am, thanks to the kitchen, relaxed and ready to face it. And my fiance has been particularly well fed. I'd better be careful, or he'll actually look forward to work crises so he can enjoy the culinary stress relief.
No comments:
Post a Comment