IF YOU spend a great deal of time cook- ing,
with all the perfectionism and the labo- rious attention to detail that good food demands, you will find in the end that you have turned into a cook. There is nothing wrong with that, if a cook is what you want to be. However, for those of us who don't want to be a cook but would rather have one, for those of us who simply want to produce good food, and indeed are obliged to produce food of some sort, day after day, the thought of all those long hours in the kitchen is not appealing. Life really is too short to jug a hare. Recently my daughter told me that she had no intention of learn- ing to cook with me. 'I refuse to waste as much of my life on cooking as you have,' she said. 'There are better things to do'.
I could not argue with her. I love cook- ing, but it is true that I have spent vast amounts of time on it. Hours and hours of my appointed span have ticked away, as irretrievable as yesterday's lunch, while I learned about food at my mother's temper- amental Aga, or at my fanatical mother-in- law's unforgiving chopping-board. I have spent still more hours reading cookbooks, and more than all the rest together in pro- ucing meals, while my family and friends ere having wonderful conversations, and reserving their white and delicate hands.
ere ought to be another way, and I think here is. There is compromise cooking.
Compromise cooking is what I have been rying to do all my adult life. It means mak- 'ng constant compromises between all the onflicting demands that face the serious mateur cook. The first compromise, of ourse, is with time. There are all kinds of ishes that the compromised cook cannot ossibly make, starting with sophisticated .auces and ending with puddings and orne-made jam. In my experience cookery riters are hardly ever truthful about time; hey almost always underestimate, they on't allow for interruptions and they xpect the cook to do too many things at nee. The compromise cook has to be more tealistic about time. The compromise cook must also juggle between low-fat food, high-fashion food, tiresome vegetarianism, tiresome allergies and the low tastes of children. She must hoose between high-fibre, low-calorie and ruinous cost, always with her eye on the clock and the children's homework and tomorrow's article. In the past this wasn't i as difficult as it is today, because most peo- ple used to be much less discriminating about food. Now, although very few people actually know how to cook well, most peo- ple know how to eat well.
Compromise cooking is not a collection of recipes. For recipes proper there are all kinds of wonderful cookbooks. It is a method. It does depend on knowing how to cook, and on knowing something of the theory of cooking, because simple dishes are almost more difficult to get right than complex ones. And it depends on being ruthlessly exclusive; there are all kinds of fish dishes which are not practical because they need too much attention, and also because quite of lot of people don't like them. How many people do you know who enjoy salt cod? Puddings are usually out of the question because they are fatty and fat- tening and the compromise cook can only make an effort with one dish or at most two.
Compromise cooking also depends on knowing when to give in, abandon proper standards and cheat. For instance I always make mayonnaise by hand, but never hol- landaise. Proper mayonnaise is very quick and easy to make with a whisk, and tastes quite different from the food-processed product, and very much better. Although people make a great fuss about mayonnaise and pouring in the oil drop by drop, I think that's nonsense; it's fast and fairly fool- proof. Hollandaise, by contrast, is time- consuming, inconvenient and quite tricky to make. There is a compromise version, though. It is foolproof, instantaneous, and though not as voluptuous as hollandaise proper and different in taste, it is very good in its way.
You need to melt about 6 az of good but- ter in a small saucepan. Meanwhile in the Very selective viewing. blender emulsify for a few seconds three egg yolks, a tablespoon of water and a scant tablespoon of lemon juice. Heat the butter until foaming, turn on the blender again, immediately pour in the hot butter in a slow stream, leaving out the residue at the bottom of the pan. Practice will tell you how much butter is right. Taste and season with salt and perhaps a little lemon juice. That's it. The sauce will keep tepid resting in a container of lukewarm water, though a little skin will form, unless you press some clingfilm onto the surface, trying not to wonder about toxic chemicals. leaching out of it. Stirring in some fresh herbs makes it taste more authentic — dill and chives for fish, perhaps, or basil. The other compro- mise here is that this instant sauce is very high in fat and in cholesterol, but most of the best fast sauces are — a persistent problem for the compromise cook.
Turning instead to something which is worthy, cheap, high-fibre, low-fat, not ent- irely unfashionable and above all fast, the compromise cook leans heavily on the lentil.
Unlike most pulses, lentils don't need overnight soaking, and take only about half an hour or so to cook. But why cook them at all, when the tinned version is very nearly as good, and all but ready to go? All you need is to prepare a quick mixture of sea- sonings, and then stir in the drained lentils to heat them up. It's important to buy a good brand and to check that they are not oversalted, in which case they might need rinsing.
Most people seem to like a flavouring of chopped ginger, garlic, shallots and pan- cetta or smoked bacon, softened and lightly browned in olive oil before the lentils are added. A combination of briefly cooked, roughly chopped onions and any favourite curry spices is good too — it's worth mak- ing your own combinations of spices in small quantities: where one thing, like using something tinned, is a compromise, some- thing else, such as the seasoning or the fresh herbs, needs to be outstanding, in order to compensate. A flavouring of a few briefly stewed cherry tomatoes with garlic, spring onions and fresh Mediterranean herbs is delicious too. This works particu- larly well with tinned flageolets verts. In fact most tinned pulses, often boring in themselves, are good in compromise cook- ing. Flageolets verts can be seasoned and then mixed with lightly cooked fresh French beans cut into short lengths — a quick ver- sion of haricots panaches. They can be rewarmed just with fresh herbs and olive oil. Cannellini beans are a good accomp- animent to anything with a strong taste, and tinned chickpeas are very adaptable. They are good mixed with pasta, for the dish called thunder and lightning. I hate kidney beans, but I think some of the French bot- tled petits pois are good. And all pulses can be mixed with each other, or with other vegetables. Why try harder, or rather why not take the time you have saved to do something completely different?
Previous page
