Spectator Life

No-one is born knowing how to poach an egg. Indeed, the technique is hardly intuitive: the addition of a little vinegar, whisking the water to create a swirling vortex. Just as golfing enthusiasts barred from hitting the links have resorted to putting practice in their living rooms, a lazy lockdown weekend feels like an ideal time to perfect classic cooking techniques. Here are six to try. Spinning sugar Spun sugar is a guaranteed way of achieving collective ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from assembled guests at your next dinner party. Playing around with burning hot sugar is however the sort of thing that can tip you over the edge should you attempt it unpractised whilst trying to make polite conversation with the in-laws between courses.

Next Tuesday the banal humdrum of lockdown life will be interrupted, however briefly. No longer the sad, soggy Weetabix while listening to the daily hospitalisation numbers or Special K eaten at your makeshift desk. No, even if just for a couple of hours, next Tuesday is an opportunity to block out the Outlook calendar and have some fun in the kitchen. Shrove Tuesday. Pancake Day. It’s a funny old thing. We don’t have a celebratory day dedicated to trifle or sticky toffee pudding (though we should). Of course there’s logic to our scoffing our faces with pancakes on this day preceding Lent—it was traditionally the way to use up rich foods such as eggs, butter, milk and sugar before the fasting began.

In Britain, we mark the beginning of Lent with pancakes. Although nowadays relatively few of us strictly observe the Lenten dietary traditions which prohibit the eating of dairy and meat in the lead up to Easter, we happily leap on the annual opportunity to eat breakfast for dinner: sales of lemons and caster sugar soar, and we delight in filling ourselves full of pancakes. But pancakes are not the only Lenten final hurrah: the semla bun is the Scandinavian favourite. Following the same logic as pancakes, the buns are designed to eat up the dairy ingredients which would have been prohibited by Lent religious laws.

As we’re all doing Valentine’s Day at home this year it’s well worth breaking out the cocktail shaker to make the occasion feel special. This selection of drinks, each more romantic than the last, should do the job nicely. Air Mail A glamorous little cocktail that harks back to the 1940s, when the fastest way to send a love note around the world was by plane. This has a lot in common with the classic French 75, but brings a sense of holidays and warm weather with it that’s quite charming. The combination of rum and sparkling wine might sound like a reach but grassy Havana Club (£21.45 – The Whiskey Exchange) makes great friends with a nice dry fizz. 35ml Havanna 3yo Anejo Blanco 15ml honey syrup.

This week I decided to bring all the fun of the fair into my kitchen and make churros. Churros are a dough enriched with butter and eggs, that are piped into lengths and fried in very hot oil until crisps and light. There’s nothing quite like the smell of sweet, hot dough, frying. In the days when I used to churn out hundred of doughnuts overnight in our small kitchen for events, I’d crawl to bed in the small hours of the morning, wearing the distinctive perfume of that pastry. There are different types of fried dough all over the world – bombolini, beignets, gulab juman, yum yums, funnel cakes – all seeking to satisfy that universal craving for hot, fried dough.

‘Many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese--toasted, mostly’: such is the power, the appeal of cheese on toast that when Ben Gunn is found, having been marooned on the eponymous island for three years, his longing for cheese on toast is one of his first statements. When I find myself considering the possibility of another round of Welsh rarebit, it’s reassuring to remember that not only has such a craving been immortalised in fiction from over a century ago, but that the thought of cheese on toast can sustain a shipwrecked man. It makes my Sunday evening hankering for Welsh rarebit seem quite reasonable. Of course, Welsh rarebit is no simple cheese on toast.

Alas, the latest instalment of Bond has been pushed back yet again to the autumn of 2021. So what are die hard 007 fans to do for nine months while their patience is tested by Covid delays yet again? A tipple from Bond's drinks cabinet might be just the thing to help the months pass. Although No Time to Die – the 25th film in the 007 canon – is set to be Daniel Craig’s final appearance as our man with the Walther PPK, you can rest assured that it won’t be Bollinger’s. Bolly, you see, has been the preferred fizz – the Official Champagne, no less – for the celluloid Bond since its first ice bucket outing in Moonraker in 1979.

This February 14th might be the one night of Lockdown 3.0 when it’s no hardship to have to stay at home. Who really wants to go to a restaurant on Valentine’s Day, full of couples who never usually speak to one other? The food is invariably as naff as a Forever Friends foil balloon; everything comes drizzled with pink coulis and at some point you’ll be offered a single red rose for your beloved which has been flown half-way round the world, stiffened with chemicals and devoid of scent. But nor should you think of cooking — bar a bit of finishing off here and there. So don’t say it with flowers, say it with one of these divinely decadent food deliveries.  My bloody Valentine Hawksmoor At Home have surpassed themselves with their Valentine’s box.

I often find myself turning to lemon-filled recipes in January. I think it’s something my baking subconscious realises before I do - that cold, dark days require the antithesis, something bright and bold, something cheering. You know what they say: when life gives you lemons, make lemon meringue pie.  Unlike its austere, pared back French cousin, the tarte au citron, the lemon meringue pie is never going to be a subtle pudding: a lurid, chartreuse centre hidden by big billows of toasted meringue, piled ludicrously, disproportionately, toweringly tall. It quivers and wobbles on the plate, crisp and firm on the outer edge, giving way to a marshmallowy interior. But that’s the point isn’t it? It isn’t sophisticated or chic or cool.

Beef Stroganoff has had its heyday: terribly popular with both restaurant chefs and dinner party hostesses of the 1950’s to 70’s, I can’t remember the last time I saw it on a menu or dinner table. It’s been relegated to buffet dishes and ready meals, beige and bland, insipid and gloopy. It sits in canteen chafing dishes, or is blitzed in the microwave, until it’s rubbery, grey, congealed. No wonder we don’t think of it fondly. Of course, that’s not how it should be.  True beef Stroganoff is a treat: punchy and rich, with a silky brandy-spiked sauce made from beef stock, sour cream and mustard, covering sautéed onions and mushrooms and impossibly tender, rare meat. It’s a luxury dish, made with expensive cuts.

You would be forgiven for not wanting to go full veganuary in early 2021 despite what all those healthy eating gurus suggest. A period of gentle moderation is far more realistic, especially in lockdown.  Fortunately there's an array of healthy delivery options to help you on your way, none of which compromise on taste. Gone are the days of diet shakes. As these delivery options prove, you can be mindful of your health and still dine like a king.  Gauthier Home Alexis Gauthier remains very much in the vanguard with his commitment to sophisticated, inventive gastronomic vegan food with a different theme each month. Currently he is showcasing Japanese plant based cuisine with its emphasis on texture and umami. His food is sensational.

January 2021 looks set to be a little duller than your average. And that's before many of us take on the traditional new year’s detox. Luckily, the drinks world has upped its game significantly on the low-and-no alcohol front of late, so cutting back doesn’t mean giving up on fun. Here are some of the best options for a dry – or perhaps just a little less wet – January. Teas and Kombuchas When we taste fermented food and drinks we’re experiencing a whole world of micro fauna in all its chemical complexity. It’s why wine tastes so much better than grape juice. Until recently the only fermented drinks consumed in these parts were of the boozy variety but this has started to change.

Christmas is probably the only time I bother with appetisers or canapés proper; usually I am quite content to stick a bowl of fancy crisps on the dining table, and let my husband make sure everyone’s drinks are topped up. But Christmas is different. Christmas demands canapés. And, given the Vintage Chef moniker, I tend to favour the old-fashioned, the retro, the kitsch; the deviled eggs, the vol au vents – and the devils on horseback. The dish is thought to date back to Victorian times, when it would be served not as an appetiser or hors d’oeuvre, but as a savoury: a kind of palate-cleanser that came after the main meal to be eaten with the dregs of wine; they have since migrated to canapé status.

The traditional Christmas meal takes on different guises around the globe. Our festive table groaning under turkey and all the trimmings would look quite unrecognisable to many. For Jewish people living in the US the tradition at Christmas is to eat Chinese food. And in Japan come Christmas you’ll find everyone eating KFC. Seriously—you have to be sure to order your friend chicken weeks in advance to avoid disappointment. I don’t suggest looking to Japan for Christmas culinary inspiration, but there is the odd thing we might want to borrow from abroad. Namely, dessert. Call me a heretic but I’ve never much liked Christmas pudding. Too dense and heavy; packed full of nice things but somehow underwhelming.

‘What’s that earthy flavour in the sauce?’ ‘It’s a black Himalayan moss which monkeys find an aphrodisiac.’ If 2020 has been the weirdest year the modern world has known, that was well and truly reflected in Masterchef, The Professionals. Because this year's series, the 13th annual, dispensed with its own unwritten rules. For years the received wisdom had been just to cook some meat or fish in a modern European style with traditional pairings. If you wanted to be dangerous you might put a square of dark chocolate in the sauce for your venison but even this was usually considered de trop; if you wanted to be playful use popcorn.

The name ‘toad-in-the-hole’ suggests something a little more whimsical (or saucy) than its reality. The origins of the name are spurious and, to be honest, a little tenuous: I’ve seen theories that the hole is a hungry stomach and the toad a ‘substantial meal’, another that suggests the dish resembles the way toads peep their heads out of burrows, and another which attributes the name to a trend in the eighteenth century for live toads to be incased in stone.

Braising isn’t a terribly glamorous way of cooking: you’re not flipping steaks over an open fire, flambéeing alcohol, or shucking oysters. No one is going to gasp at your cheffy technique if you plump for braising. And when you pull the dish from the oven, it may not look any more exciting: no soaring soufflés, or mahogany egg-washed wellingtons. It’s just a jumble of meat and veg in a single dish, cooked until the meat is yielding and the sauce luscious. Braising is pretty unassuming both before and after cooking – but for all its culinary modesty, it packs a real punch. Braising is an old-as-the-hills way of cooking meat or vegetables in a covered pot with a little liquid (this could be stock, wine or water).