A few weeks ago, I made a point here about the excitement inherent in seeking out new ingredients to bring asense of occasion to our everyday cooking routine. This isn't about stepping out of your comfort zone or challenging your abilities; it's about making use of all the fantastic produce that's out there just waiting to be put to good use.
I am aware some readers find the whole idea of "exotic" ingredients alittle intimidating. To alleviate those concerns I will from time to time use this column to demystify some of the ingredients Ilove using. I won't go into technical detail, but rather give advice on how to source them and other practical tips, including ideas for alternative uses.
Verjuice, for example, which features in today's first recipe , is an ancient ingredient that has in recent years enjoyed aresurgence, thanks in no small part to its championing by the great Australian cook Maggie Beer. The name is derived from the French "vert-jus", or green juice, and it's made from the juice of semi-ripe and unfermented wine grapes. It has the mildly sweet tartness of lemon juice and the acidity of vinegar without the harshness of either, and is used much as you would both of those more common ingredients: to heighten other flavours and as a base for sauces and dressings.
For a low-risk, high-reward experiment, try this next time you roast a chicken: with a lemon inside the cavity, and rosemary and seasoning on the skin, mix 200ml of verjuice with 30ml of olive oil, brush half over the skin, roast as you usually would, then halfway through the cooking, add to the pan the rest of the verjuice-and-oil mix and 100ml of water. As well as infusing the meat with its distinctive flavour, the liquids left in the pan at the end make a wonderful sauce to spoon over the roast bird. For salad dressings, meanwhile, I like to reduce verjuice in a saucepan to about 15% of its original volume, to concentrate it and give it a sharper, fresher edge.
Verjuice may not be the easiest thing in the world to find, but you should be able to track some downin good delis and online.
While there is nothing rare or unusual about the ingredient that features in this week's second recipe, many people in the UK shy away from caraway. It is a versatile and useful seed (or, more accurately, fruit)that's great for enlivening week-night scrambled eggs or for adding acurious, northern European slant toroot vegetables – be they carrots, potatoes or celeriac – squashes and pulses. In particular, Ireturn again and again to the classic Germanic cabbage with caraway, atruly great combination in which the aniseedy-cuminy aroma of the caraway breaks the slightly mundane yet still rich flavour of the cabbage.
Caraway is also a key component in one of my store cupboard staples, pilpelshuma, which is similar to harissa. Asmall spoon of this intense Libyangarlic and chilli paste will inject life into marinades for meat, fish or vegetables.
Light and easy to eat – unlike some other spices, which require toasting and grinding – caraway seeds can also be added whole to adish when sautéeing carrots, for example, or softening onion in oil. They are also always a welcome addition to breads such as the famous Jewish rye bread and to savoury biscuits.
Braised fennel with capers and olives
No, the 15 garlic cloves isn't a typo – once scorched, they add a mellowing sweetness to an otherwise piercingly sharp dressing. The ricotta isn't essential, if you'd rather keep this dairy-free, but it also helps balance the acidity. Serves four.
4 medium fennel bulbs
3 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling
Salt and black pepper
15 large whole garlic cloves, skin on
4 tbsp verjuice (or 4 tbsp lemon juice mixed with 2 tbsp red-wine vinegar)
1 medium tomato, cut into 1cm dice
250ml fresh vegetable stock
20g capers, drained
25g black wrinkly olives, pitted and chopped in half
1 tbsp chopped thyme leaves
2½ tsp caster sugar
100g ricotta
1 tsp grated lemon zest
First prepare the fennel. Trim off and discard the tops (reserve any leafy fronds for garnish) and cut each bulb in half from top to bottom; you are aiming for thick slices about 2.5cm wide.
In a large frying pan for which youhave a lid, heat two and a half tablespoons of oil on a medium to high heat. Add half the fennel with an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and some black pepper. Cook for five or six minutes, turning once, so it's nicely brown on both sides, remove from the pan and repeat with the remaining fennel.
Keep the empty pan on the heat, pour in the remaining oil, add the garlic and fry for three minutes, tossing occasionally, so the skin gets scorched all over. Lower the heat to medium, carefully (it spits!) add the verjuice and reduce for a couple of minutes until there are about two tablespoons of liquid left in the pan. Add the tomato, 100ml of the stock, the capers, olives, thyme, sugar, aquarter-teaspoon of salt and some black pepper. Bring to a simmer, cook for two minutes, then return the fennel to the pan. Add the remaining stock, pop on the lid and leave to simmer for 12-14 minutes, turning once during the cooking, until the fennel is soft and the sauce has thickened. (You may need to remove the lid and increase the heat for the last two or three minutes.)
Place two slices of fennel on each plate, spoon over the sauce and serve with a spoonful of ricotta and some freshly grated lemon zest. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and serve warm or at room temperature.
Swiss chard and haricot bean soup
This sharp and highly savoury soup is a great way to celebrate the fact that some supermarkets are at long last beginning to stock chard, my absolutefavourite green. Serves six.
75ml olive oil
3 medium onions, peeled and thinlysliced
2½ tsp caraway seeds
700g Swiss chard leaves, stalks removed and cut into 1cm pieces, leaves cut into thirds
Shaved skin of 1 unwaxed lemon
2 tbsp picked thyme leaves
1.3 litres vegetable (or chicken) stock
Salt and black pepper
240g cooked haricot beans (tinned are fine; just drain and rinse them)
200g soured cream (optional)
Heat the oil in a large pan over amedium-high heat. Add the onion and caraway seeds, lower the heat tomedium and cook for 10 minutes, until the onions are soft but have not taken on any colour.
Add the chard stalks and leaves, the lemon skin, thyme, stock, half a teaspoon of salt and some black pepper. Bring up to a boil, then simmer for eight minutes, until thechard is completely soft.
Remove and discard the lemon skin, then coarsely blitz the soup with a hand-held blender. Make sure there are some nice big pieces of chard still left in it – you want it to have plenty of texture. Add the beans to the pot, warm them through gently and serve with adollop of soured cream,if using.
