FOOD AND DRINK
Edited by Petronella Wyatt
Summer hath his joys
Jennifer Paterson
Ihave just eaten my first tiny broad beans of the season, plain boiled and served with butter. They are also exquisite eaten raw when young and tender. A salad of young broad beans, cucumber, oranges and a few radishes, mixed with a vinaigrette sauce made with the yolk from a lightly boiled egg, is a wonder indeed and very good with cold duck. Definitely a must on my list for an ideal summer meal.
Last week I was sent a whole box of mixed-sized asparagus by the kind people of Badgeney Farm in March, Cam- bridgeshire. What a treat for me and my friends to gorge on, and again never better than simply steamed and eaten hot with butter or hollandaise, or cold with a vinai- grette or succulent mayonnaise made at home with your own fair hands. It never seems to produce salmonella. I don't know what those caterers get up to but it is wise not to touch mayonnaise at any function. They should use the Greek skordalia which does not include eggs, though it would be a trifle strong for the beautiful flavour of fresh asparagus. Use the largest type of asparagus when eating with mayonnaise and add the beaten white of an egg to the emulsion at the end, thus producing a mousse-like consistency — this is good with cold salmon as well.
The point of summer cooking is the deli- ciousness and freshness of the produce which grows in this season. It is well worth waiting for the perfect moment. The arrival of new potatoes is a great treat if you haven't already been eating imported and less good ones. Our own strawberries are magnificent this year due to the long spells of rainless sunny days and cool nights. Soon we shall have fresh new peas, tender little carrots and all the fragrant herbs at our elbows. Really fresh eggs `mollets', cooked in cream with a handful of fresh herbs such as tarragon, chives and parsley, is food for the gods but needs a deft and patient hand when peeling the eggs where the whites are firm and the yolks still slight- ly runny. Alternatively an omelette with fresh herbs can be superb.
Salmon trout, one of the most delicate of all fishes, is now in abundance at my fish- monger. It is a fine fish and comes in suit- able sizes; I had a two-pounder last week which was ample for four people. They are best cooked very simply and gently. If under 5 lbs, just loosely parcel them in oiled foil, place on a baking tray and cook in the oven for 1 hour at Gas 1-2, 300F, 275C. For any- thing over 5 lbs add 12 minutes per pound. Leave hot salmon trout for 10 minutes after taking it out of the oven before serving it. If it is to be eaten cold, allow it to cool in the parcel. Serve with a sauce maltaise (hol- landaise with the juice of a blood orange) or sauce verte, which is a mayonnaise with the leaves of tarragon, watercress, spinach and parsley blanched for three minutes, then sieved and stirred in.
Other more expensive treats arrive in the form of Cornish lobsters and freshly boiled dressed crabs — nothing better; chickens and ducks, slow-roasted in the morning, left to cool and eaten on the same day with some tender little string beans dressed in olive oil and lemon juice or juicy little turnips sautéed in butter: all excellent.
Then all the summer fruits arrive: goose- berries to make into frothy fools or puréed to accompany mackerel fresh from the sea if you are near it. This is a great combina- tion. All those jewel-like red and white cur- rants, ravishing raspberries, peaches and nectarines, lead us to that most glorious summer pudding and clotted cream.
Catherine the Great used to be rowed to a little island in the middle of a lake, where a beautiful table would have been laid with fine linens, silver and glasses, all the com- forts of home, together with a great deal of caviar, vodka and champagne. I think this would be a great start to my ideal summer feast. I would then have the rest of the meal floating down a river in one of those charming boats with a canopy rigged above, seated at a table with my best friends. We would have bowls of gulls' eggs to nibble, piles of asparagus with various sauces and copious fingerbowls; dressed crabs and cold lobsters with perfect mayonnaise would fol- low, all at a leisurely pace. A fresh tomato sorbet would cleanse the palate and the main course would be a roast of baby lamb, pink inside with a crisp skin, served with new potatoes buttered and minted, a dish of broad beans and a sauce palloise, with a salad of young artichoke hearts on the side.
For pudding, just a huge bowl of summer berries and currants sprinkled with a little orange juice and Grand Marnier, and to end it all, little glass goblets of granita di caffe. What a lovely lunch that would be, and a little later we could all have a dip in some beautiful part of the river. Suitable wines would be provided and chosen by Bron Waugh, who I hope would be with us.
The Two Fat Ladies are opening the Oratory fete on Saturday, 28 June.
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