What’s wrong with my cake?!

Enjoy those rice cakes, won't you.

At this time of restraint and edamame beans it might seem cruel of me to be bringing up cake, but I’ve been making a lot of them recently (plus ça change…) so I thought I would write down a guide to what can go wrong, and the reasons behind it. Because from long experience, I know there is absolutely nothing more irritating than watching your beautiful cake rise, become fragrant and golden…then sink into a big flat pancake before your eyes. There have occasionally been tantrums…

The Leiths Bible, which, for baking and patisserie is still my Good Book has a very useful section entitled, somewhat primly, ‘Reasons for failure in cake making.’ Unfortunately, a lot of their reasons are to do with cakes that you or I will almost never think about making (Genoise Commune, anyone?!), so I’m going to aim for a more practical guide here. And then, just because I like to share my enthusiasm with you, I’m going to give you some hints on how to avoid them…

Your cake has sunk

This is probably the most common problem and is so easily avoidable!

• Did you open the oven door too early? Tut tut tut. Leave the oven door alone! Blasting cold air into a warm oven will automatically cause your cake to sink if it isn’t set enough. If you must open the oven – if you need to cover the top to stop it burning for instance, try and wait until the cake has been in for at least 30-40 minutes – it will usually have risen enough that it won’t be a problem. Don’t throw it open and bang it shut either – opening and closing gently and smoothly will stop the rush of air and keep the oven temperature more accurate. Gordon Ramsay might kick them shut, but that doesn’t mean that you should.
• Was your oven too hot? An over-heated oven will cause a thick crust to form on your cake before the middle is set, making you think that it’s cooked before it is, so you bring it out and two minutes later you have a cracked top crust and a load of dough on the inside. Buy an oven thermometer to be sure your oven is running at the correct heat – you’ll be surprised by how much they vary. Our testing ovens run 10 degrees low, but our photographer’s oven is high, and my oven just does its own thing most of the time. We can never be completely accurate in our timings for recipes as everyone’s ovens are different, so it’s worth checking that yours runs to temperature. Another neat trick if you’re making a big cake (over 10”) and you’re worried about it rising is to start it 10C higher than you need and after 10-15 minutes turn it down to the correct temperature. The high heat will kickstart the rise and form a crust (which stabilises the cake), and the correct temperature will make sure it stays moist.

Your cake has dried out

We’ve all done it – you’ve forgotten about the cake in the oven and now it’s burned/dry/crusty. It’s still salvageable! Try one of these…

• If it’s burnt – Dark edges are easy to deal with – wait until it cools then shave off the burnt bits with either a sharp veg peeler or (more preferably) a sharp grater or microplane. Stop when you get to lighter sponge, and no one will ever know..
• If it’s dry – If you’re worried it’s going to be dry in the middle, prick holes all over it while still hot, then either pour over some appropriate booze (I once used a whole bottle of PX sherry for a friend’s chocolate wedding cake), or a fruit syrup made with fresh orange/lemon juice, and a couple of tbsp sugar. There’s an orange drizzle cake recipe here with an excellent syrup. Abracadabra, problem solved and everyone will be saying ‘ooh, isn’t it moist, isn’t it just so moist!’
• If it’s crusty – A bit of crispiness is delicious, but if it’s a little too crunchy, either leave it in the tin to cool (it will somewhat unappetisingly, sweat, but it will soften the crust a bit), or turn it out and cover it with a damp tea towel to cool. This works a treat with bread too.

 Your cake is too dense

I’m afraid this one’s just down to laziness and heavy-handedness. When we say to beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy we really do mean it. And that bit about gently folding in the flour isn’t just to fill our word count. Your cake’s fate is sealed the minute you mix butter and sugar together – part of the rise is formed by steam coming from these two melting, so the more you beat it, the more you break it down and increase the surface area, so the more steam you get which means…a lighter cake. And you fold in the flour rather than beating it so you don’t knock all the air out and ruin your hard work. Most recipes will tell you to use a metal spoon – we prefer a balloon whisk – it’s more efficient and has a smaller surface area to bash the mix with.

 Of course, there are hundreds of other things that can go wrong, but I think these are the Big Three. And remember baking really isn’t scary, you just have to follow the recipe, and use a little bit of intuition. God, I sound like Mary Poppins. Oh well, very happy baking to everyone and a jolly marvellous weekend…

The Importance of Kitchen Knives

If you’ve ever been into a professional kitchen, and tried to borrow one of the chef’s knives, you’ll know what I mean when I say that to a professional cook, their knife is like an extension of their hands. On my very first day as a chef I was asked to chop something, grabbed the nearest knife and was drowned in a torrent of abuse and threats, before realising I had in fact picked up the sous’ best knife. The knife his father had bought him. The knife he’d had with him since his apprenticeship. The knife he’d carefully honed every day. He was something of a drama queen.

Easy peasy

Or was he? Admittedly, there was no need to threaten fiery retribution, but he did have a point. Because anyone who is in the least bit inclined to cook should have a good, sharp knife, and should be able to do a vague rolling chop. I’m pretty sure that a lot of people reading this will never have learned how to use a proper chef’s knife, and if you choose to (and I really recommend you do), you’ll discover that what used to be a chore has suddenly become a pleasure.

You know who you are, you who stand for hours in the kitchen, painfully trying to chop a turnip with a 2” paring knife. It doesn’t have to be that way! And I promise it’s relatively simple to learn how to chop properly. There are a few rules – some part of the blade should always be on the chopping board while you’re moving – think of the motion of a rocking chair. Grip the handle with your last three fingers, and straddle your thumb and forefinger firmly over the join of the handle and the blade so those two fingers are tucked into the end of the blade – it will make your grip more steady than just holding the handle. You might find this knife skills video helpful. And practice. Practice unfortunately does make perfect, as my father was always telling me about the piano.

So now I’ve converted you, which knife to buy…

Well, if you’re feeling flash, and you want to look like Michel Roux Jr. I would suggest a Global. Their blades are second to none, they stay sharp for AGES, and you can chop everything from a ripe tomato to a swede with perfect ease. But they’re very pricey, and I’m not a huge fan of the handles – I find them too hard for my delicate petal-like skin. Plus the corner of the blade is a razor sharp point that looks very smart, but I guarantee you will stab your hand with it within 10 minutes. But men love them and if you have a budding Jamie in the kitchen they make fantastic gifts.

For something more restrained but still a serious chef’s knife, try a Wusthof. They also have lovely blades, not as effortless as the Globals, but their handles are comfier and they’re not quite as pricey (around £80 for an 8” chef’s knife, as opposed to Global’s £115)

And if you really don’t want to break the bank (and I honestly wouldn’t bother until you’ve mastered the chopping), try Salter. They’ve got very comfortable, rubber grip handles and slice with ease – we use them a lot in the test kitchen and I’ve never had a problem with them. And at £20 for an 8” chef’s knife they’re a fraction of the cost of a designer one, so they’re great to get you started.

For a more middle of the road option I really like the new Lakeland Select knives. Again with an ergonomic soft-grip handle, their blades are made from ice-hardened Japanese steel – a process which strengthens the blade and keeps it sharper for longer. I’d happily have paid more for this knife – but the lack of designer name means a lower price. Fine by me.

The size is up to you, but I like an 8” blade. They’re big enough for bulky food but not so big you feel dwarfed.

Once you’ve bought your knife, you need something to keep it sharp. I hate those motorised sharpeners, they gradually wear the blades into serrations. Stay away. Much better, if you’re not confident with a knife steel is this little contraption that I bought after hearing great reports from various chefs. It’s called an Ozitech, and it works just by dragging the blade across its ‘diamond fingers’. It hones them evenly, and doesn’t leave you with ridges in your knife.

And so on to a few final points. If you are using a steel, drag the knife across it at the angle you chop at  – it will sharpen the blade evenly for your particular chopping style. Always do an even number of strokes or you’ll end up with a ridge on one side. Try not to let anyone else use your favourite knife – different chopping styles result in an uneven blade that won’t sharpen properly. Don’t scrape food off chopping boards with the sharp end of the blade – turn the knife over so you don’t blunt it. Never, ever put knives in the dishwasher – the heat and the salt ruins the blade. And remember – you’re much more likely to cut yourself with a blunt blade sliding off food than with a sharp one.

So get down to your kitchen shop sharpish.

The Secret Art of Pastry Making

 Since around this time of year, I reckon there’s a fair few people thinking about mince pies, I thought I would write something about pastry. It seems to be a lot of people’s cooking nemesis, and while I sympathise, I’ve also learnt a few tricks to make life that little bit easier. So read on, all ye who fear to bake, and I will try to enlighten you.

 First of all, there’s no hiding it but compared with throw-it-in-a-pan cooking, pastry is a nuisance. And while I stood in a 35C kitchen trying to roll a whole block of butter into my puff pastry for the Leiths final exam, fat melting everywhere as the sun streamed down, I pretty much vowed never to touch the stuff again. Certainly when I got my mark sheet back and they declared ‘good rise, but a little too greasy’ I felt like I might just give up altogether. But that was Leiths and their expectations of pastry are frankly impossible, not to mention totally impracticable. For us mere mortals, a lower standard of perfection will suffice.

So, a few good pointers. Mainly, it mustn’t get hot. This is essential, and really the best piece of advice I can give you. If in doubt, stick it in the freezer for 10 minutes, and avoid the temptation to knead it. It’s not bread, it’s not Playdough, so leave it alone. If you’re making shortcrust or puff (which is more hassle than it’s worth), you should chill the pastry once you’ve brought it all together  – it will make rolling it out much easier if it’s cold and firm. You should also chill it once it’s been shaped. It must always, always go into the oven cold – it is the butter melting in the oven and creating steam which, in shortcrust, will help it to stay tender and essentially, short, and with puff, will make it rise (and not be greasy…hmph.) And don’t think if you’ve used bought you can ignore all of this. It’s exactly the same principle, just without the initial mixing process.

Another very important point is that if you’re making pies, then the filling has to be cold when it goes in. A hot filling will melt the pastry, and anyone who has struggled trying to shape soggy, raw pastry will understand. Chill, chill and chill again. It will be worth it in the end. If you’re making a pie that has a bottom and a top shell, always use a metal tin, preferably with a removable bottom. Those ceramic things your granny gave you may look lovely, but they’ll never heat up enough to give you a crisp base and you’ll end up with a grey, flabby bottom. And nobody likes those…

And so on to blind baking. If anyone’s seen this in a recipe and wondered what it was all about, it simply means baking a pastry case before adding a filling. To do this, you have to weight it down otherwise it will balloon and you’ll be left with a very wonky base. Most cookbooks tell you to use baking parchment to line the pastry case before adding the baking beans (NB. These don’t have to be the proper ceramic beans that cookshops charge a fortune for – I’ve used rice, split peas, even flour very successfully – as long as it’s heavy enough and won’t melt you’ll be fine), but we always line ours with tin foil – you get a sharper right angle and the metal foil heats up and cooks the pastry from the outside too. Always use plenty of baking beans – a small scattering won’t do – the case needs to be almost full. Also, always leave an overhang of pastry rather than trimming it to exactly fit the case. Pastry can have a nasty habit of shrinking in the oven, and the overhang will mean that you’re not left with a case that’s only a cm high in some places. After blind baking trim the edges with a serrated knife flat on the edge of the tart. You’ll end up with a lovely, neat blunt edge. Very cheffy.

If the recipe tells you to blind bake something for 15 minutes, it will almost never be long enough. An 8-inch tart case will take at least 25 minutes on about 190C, plus another 10 minutes at 170C with the foil and beans removed. These are just estimates – so keep an eye on it, the pastry should be completely sandy coloured, with no grey patches. Once your pastry is cooked, if you want to be really fancy you could glaze the inside with some beaten egg yolk and return it to a low oven for 10 minutes to dry out – this will form a waterproof barrier, and make sure your pastry stays completely crisp and delicious. I would really recommend this with custard based fillings – quiches and lemon tarts especially.

So there you go, the Truefoodie Guide to Pastry Making in under 900 words. I realise all of the above sounds quite complicated, but I promise it isn’t once you get into the habit, and the difference in your results will be extraordinary. Just don’t try and make almond pastry. If the Roux brothers find it tricky, then the rest of us have no chance…

The Dreaded Set Menu

Watch out for him in the stripy jumper...

It’s that time of year again. The office party creeps around the corner, ambushing you with daytime drinking, organised fun and ill-advised emotional outbursts in front of the boss. Magicians are being booked, set menus passed around, and Secret Santas discreetly swapped with cries of ‘Oh no, I pulled my own name out!’. Don’t pretend you’ve never done it.

Drinking and avoiding Creepy Geoff from Accounts aside, the highlight for many of us at this annual event will be the food. And as I recently discovered when I dared to try and book a table for more than 6 in December, the set menu rules the roost at Christmastide. I can understand this – with kitchens under extra pressure, and 25 people needing to be fed at the same time, it makes sense to limit the choices. Why make the poor commis peel 10 different types of veg if you can get away with just three? From a cost point of view it’s sensible too, as if everyone’s left to their own devices there will always be some poser who orders the lobster. For the poor old PA who has to sort the bill, this presents quite a problem.

But why, why why why do Christmas set menus always have to include Christmas lunch?! Why does eating overcooked, under-bred turkey six times before the big day sum up the festive spirit? Are Brussels sprouts really that moreish?

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas lunch. I love cooking Christmas lunch. Let’s face it, given that I start cooking it in August, I sort of have to love it. But I’m not wild about the excessive amounts of food all on one plate. You put all this effort into cooking the perfect turkey, then suffocate it in a mixture of cured pork, chestnuts, stuffings and condiments. It’s American in its excess, and we want to be careful about going down that route, lest we end up with candied yams.

Pass me the baguette and the salad cream.

Christmas lunch is just a bit showy for me. I prefer the more restrained spread of Boxing Day – turkey has a starring role in a sandwich, vegetables are re-incarnated into divine bubble and squeak, and pigs in blankets can be wolfed straight from the fridge. And I think, deep down, most people do prefer the day-after meal. So why this need to eat Christmas dinner in restaurants? It won’t be as good as your mum’s, you’ll feel sleepy for the rest of the evening, and people will glare at you as they get school dinner wafts of overcooked sprouts. If Christmas lunch is such a big event, shouldn’t we save it for Christmas day?

Of course I might be over-ruled. There might be hundreds of people out there who love dry turkey, soggy roasties and bread sauce that looks like a Victorian cure for sickness. You may be on the cusp of ticking the ‘xmas-dinner’ option on the office spreadsheet as we speak. But can I make a plea to restaurateurs nationwide that next year, if they must mass-produce a Christmas feast, can they do Boxing Day instead? It’s a very poor chef who can mess up a bubble and squeak.

And as for me at the Christmas party this year, I’ll be tucking into fish and chips. I’m saving my turkey quota for the 25^th, when, surrounded by Christmas joy and sparkle I know that it will taste every bit as good as I remember. From when I ate it back in August.

Salt Beef

Russell Norman. The man appears to be unstoppable. Having brought us Venetian, then American diner, his new venture – Mishkin’s  – opening on Friday promises Jewish comfort food – matzo ball soup, knish, and what I’m most excited about – salt beef. I truly am the grand daughter of a butcher. 

Made from brining and then boiling a rolled beef brisket, salt beef is mainly credited with Jewish origin, although versions of it were around in Britain as early as the 1600s. Tender, juicy and, (you guessed it) salty, there are few things better in a sandwich, slathered with mustard and piled with gherkins and sauerkraut.

Although it’s mainly found in sandwiches, salt beef is surprisingly versatile. To give a for instance, a friend of mine served it at her winter wedding with mash, green beans and gravy. When I first heard about it, my forehead wrinkled a little, but it worked perfectly – it tasted delicious and was a crafty way of serving over 100 people perfectly cooked beef without having to worry about it being pink. It’s fab with fried eggs and chips if you fancy a truck-stop dinner and I also love it in a hash – much the same as you’d have corned beef, or on its own, cold, with bubble and squeak. And gherkins. Always, always gherkins. Salt beef and gherkins are like Pippa Middleton and the Daily Mail. Without one, the other’s existence becomes pretty meaningless…

Salt beef is sadly missing from many menus in London and I can’t understand why, since it’s such a universally popular, cheap preparation of meat. Plus it keeps for ages, so the wastage must be significantly lower than fresh roast beef. But fret not, because it’s extremely easy to make your own. You will need… 

About 1kg beef brisket

200g salt

75g sugar

couple bay leaves and garlic cloves, bashed and peeled

15g mixed pickling spices (I like to use mace, star anise, allspice, juniper, couple of cloves and coriander, but whatever you fancy)

flavourers, for simmering (leek, onion, bay, carrot, thyme etc)

1 Put the beef brisket in a large saucepan with the salt, sugar, bay, garlic and pickling spice. Cover with about 2 litres water, bring to the boil, remove from the heat and leave to cool.

2 Take the brisket out of the liquid, place into a double lined heavy -duty freezer bag and add the brine over the top. Get rid of as much air as possible, then seal the bag and chill for up to 10 days.

3 When you’re ready to cook, remove the brisket from the brine, rinse and pat it dry. Put back in a saucepan with your flavourers (a mix of any of them is fine), then bring to a very gentle simmer and cook for 2-4 hours, keeping the water topped up to cover the meat until you can run a skewer through it very easily. Remove from the water and eat while still hot, or allow to cool and carve. It will keep for about a week.

So while you’re enjoying that at home, I’m booked into Mishkin’s for lunch at the weekend. And since those corporate swine seem intent on closing the lovely nearby Gaby’s deli who’ve been serving salt beef to the stars since the 60s, (try saying that with your mouth full), I hope that Russell Norman can provide me with a suitable alternative. I have faith. And I’ll keep you posted.

Speculoos spread

There’s a small pot of heaven in my fridge at home and its name is Speculoos à tartiner.

Originally from Belgium and the Netherlands, speculoos (or speculaas) biscuits were given to children on St Nicholas’ eve. In England, they appear as the biscuits you get with your coffee in the hairdressers, or in those halcyon days before budget airlines, when you were still given nibbles on shorthaul flights. Caramel brown, spiced with cinnamon, these little Belgian biscuits are irritatingly tiny, just big enough for one mouthful of perfect toffeed sweetness before it’s gone, and all you’re left with is a depressing cup of in-flight tea.

Which is obviously why the lovely folk at Lotus decided to whiz up their speculoos and mix them with volumes of oil I’d rather not think about to create speculoos spread…which brings me back to that pot in my fridge.

The phrase ‘à tartiner’, means literally to spread on bread. I know what you’re thinking  – biscuits spread on bread, that’s the Belgian equivalent of a deep-fried Mars bar, but it is so good, I don’t care about the carbs. And because the biscuits are made with brown sugar and butter, they melt onto toast in a golden caramely mess, clinging to the roof of your mouth like peanut butter and filling it with sweetness and spice. Joy.

But my love affair with this stuff doesn’t stop at toast. Spooned cold straight from the fridge it cures all emotional ills as it slowly dissolves on your tongue, and last night as my housemate and I dipped between the vanilla ice cream and the pot of speculoos I felt like I might have found my new nirvana.

The next stop is cooking with it. I’m thinking molten centres in the middle of the richest chocolate brownies, a layer underneath the topping of a sharp apple crumble to melt and mingle with the tart fruit, or a more sophisticated version of last night’s transgressions – as a ripple through homemade brown bread ice cream. Recipes to come once the new batch arrives in the post.

Which brings me to the downside of all this, you can only buy it online in England. If you’re hopping over the channel, it’s available in almost every supermarket, so stock up  – it keeps forever and you won’t regret the bulk buying. My last two jars have come from a philanthropic friend with a house in Provence, but I feel I can’t trespass on his kindness any longer, so I’ll be buying it here. They even do a crunchy version. Mon dieu.

Guilty Pleasures

Given the nature of my job, people generally expect me to have a certain level of refinement when it comes to eating. And while this is generally correct – free-range meat, Buffalo mozzarella, dry-aged steak etc etc, there are also those little indulgences that I would prefer to keep under wraps. Actually that’s not true, since I’m about to share them with you all.

Because, no matter how sophisticated your palate, there are times when haute cuisine is not called for. There are times when only a packet of pork scratchings will do. Even the cheap, badly seasoned ones. And I’m not ashamed, because I also love all the acceptable bits of pork. When it comes to eating the noble pig, I’m all about equality.

Before it was looted...

And don’t tell anyone, but I actually went to Nando’s last night, and what’s more, I really enjoyed it. I think the trick to it is to have realistic expectations – don’t expect a taste explosion if what you’re going to eat is popping candy.

Other guilty pleasures, hmmm. There’s peanut butter with beans on toast – picked up in childhood from my father and never forgotten. Tinned tuna melted in a panini with cheese on a hangover. Heinz tomato soup with a little milk stirred into it when I’m feeling poorly. The reassuring hot chickeny blandness of a cup-a-soup on a bleak day in the office. I’ve even been known to munch a packet of Scampi Fries after a couple of drinks in the pub. Anti-social, I know.

You're judging me aren't you

Although people tend to gawp when they see me tucking into this sort of rubbish, I don’t mind. There’s something irresistibly comforting about processed food. In reality, I have a feeling it’s the e-numbers, but I prefer to haze it with nostalgia and say it reminds you of being little, when complex flavours didn’t really exist  and these simple foods shaped your palate. Although I can’t imagine my mother ever EVER fed me tuna with cheese, but that’s hangovers for you.

Would anyone care to share their guilty pleasures with me?

Lunch by the Seaside

Has anyone been to Whitstable? It’s lovely. A little fishing town with a rich heritage of shellfish, I visited for the first time last week and liked everything about it. Even the slightly mucky looking beach that was littered with people cockling and crabbing and the Mr Whippy van on the concrete harbour.

It turned out we’d arrived in Whitstable slap bang in the middle of the Oyster Festival, and this could have accounted for why everyone seemed to be in such a good mood. For two jaded Londoners it was quite a spectacle to see people actually smiling as they went about their days. But then, when you live by the sea, eat a lot of shellfish and pubs play live jazz in the afternoons I see no reason to be miserable.

After a leisurely stroll around the town and the sea front, a chuckle at the predominance of seaside tat (painted pebbles, ‘To The Beach’ signs and some hilarious clam puppets), we settled down for lunch at Wheelers, which I’d been told by several people was absolutely unmissable.

 In the middle of the high street, pale pink and chocolate boxy, Wheelers seats only 14 people with room for another 3 or so at the fish bar. It’s BYOB and cash only, and though I don’t see how they can make much money without the wine mark-ups, I’m not complaining! The food is…amazing. I can’t really think of a better adjective. You’d be happy eating it at a Michelin restaurant, except here you feel like you’re in somebody’s sitting room – there are bits of old ship on the walls, dusty lamps and faded pictures.

It took us a good half hour to decide what we wanted since absolutely everything on the menu sounded delicious, but we finally settled on scallops with maple glazed pig’s cheeks, a Thai crab cake and 2 sets of John Dory with prawn stuffed courgette flower, fennel puree and samphire. Everything was beautiful, from the presentation, to the prawns perfectly cooked in the courgette flower, to the way they’d rendered every bit of fat in the pig’s cheeks so all you got was succulent, sticky pork. I would quite happily have paid double. And I loved the fact it was so small, it made it feel like we were in some exclusive pop up restaurant. One that had been there for 150 years.

Neither of us could manage pudding, so we settled for a bracing walk and a Mr Whippy once the main courses had settled. Yes, that’s right, I ate a Mr Whippy. It’s something about the childish nostalgia of the seaside – it demands ice cream flavoured chemicals.

So if you’re down Whitstable way, I would really recommend booking in at Wheeler’s. You need to plan ahead though. Those 14 seats get bagsied early. And if you can find the clam puppets, your day might just come close to perfect.

The Joys of the Storecupboard

When I moved into our little flat in February, I put an enormous amount of effort into stocking our storecupboard, and boy am I glad I did. Because our storecupboard, packed to bursting, slightly messy, smelling of spices, tea and chocolate is a source of constant joy to me every time I open it. It’s an alchemist’s chest of foodie possibility, turning even the most depressed set of ingredients in the fridge into something I feel proud to put on the table. A Bobbi Brown makeup set for meat and veg.

Just so we're clear, mine is not even close to being this organised.

Having a well-stocked storecupboard is one of the most important factors in successful cooking – a decent range of spices, condiments, pastas and pulses will mean you never have to cook a boring meal again. And once you’ve got the basics sorted, it’s relatively inexpensive to keep topped up and you’ll find you begin to experiment with different combinations of flavours, hopefully with success, although if not, it’s really not the end of the world!

A quick look at some of my essentials:

Spices – cumin, ground coriander, cinnamon, smoked paprika, Moroccan mixes (I’m addicted to Baharat), turmeric and star anise, to name but a few. Always add them before adding any liquid to dishes, and give them a few minutes to cook out so they don’t taste raw.

Condiments – I can’t live without chilli sauce, particularly Sriracha which they gratifyingly stock in Tesco. As well as the usual olive and sunflower oils, I like having lots of different vinegars – red and white wine, sherry, rice, cider and balsamic – they all have different properties, and liven up all manner of salad dressings. Fish sauce, soy, various mustards, honey and (of course) Lea and Perrin’s are also tucked away at the back.

Pasta and rice – I’m a spaghetti girl really, but trofie, conchiglie and pappardelle all feature in the cupboard – the shape of the pasta should compliment the texture of the sauce. I’m not a huge rice fan but it’s useful to keep basmati as an all-rounder  – Tilda isn’t cheap but is by far the best. Oh, and cous cous…both normal and giant cous cous which I love in salads.

Pulses  – tinned chickpeas are fab if you’re sick of potatoes, and if you can bear to part with the cash the jarred Spanish ones are yuummmmmy. Toss them into casseroles, whiz into hummus or fry them with spices and cooked onions and add chorizo or squid. Lentils, pearl barley and various beans are also useful to have on hand, for the odd time you fancy a bit of French peasant food.

This is only a brief overview – I could go on for days but add in some jams, tinned tomatoes, tinned fish and various Thai and Vietnamese products I don’t really know what to do with and you’re pretty much there. So be inspired – you can get away with spending next to nothing on meat if you can dress it up all fancy-like. And it makes you feel very smug when people open it and gasp in gastronomic awe…

Eat Petite

In a rare display of decadence I ate out twice this weekend. Two meals, but about 18 dishes. And no, I’m not a compulsive over-eater, I was just eating the way that most of London seems to be eating right now… small plates.

 The small plate phenomenon has been quite astounding. What started quietly with Barrafina and The Salt Yard has over the last year developed into a dizzying array of small-plate eateries, thanks largely to Russell Norman, who in the space of 2 years has opened Polpo, Polpetto, Spuntino and now Da Polpo. The group behind Terroirs are also doing fantastic business (try getting a table there on a Friday), and opened Brawn on Columbia Rd this year.

So why is this method of eating such a success? I put it down to several factors:

1. Food Envy. How often have you been left coveting someone’s lamb round the table when your chicken arrives? Food Envy has spoiled many a decent meal, but if everyone’s sharing their food the problem is eradicated. A bad dish can simply be skimmed over, with diners judiciously choosing to forget who insisted on ordering it.

2. Indecision. The pork belly. No, the goat’s cheese. No, the beef. Oh stuff it, it’s all tiny, I’ll have everything. This is the main factor that keeps me going back to these places – I usually want to try everything. And if it’s half the size, in the words of the immortal Marjorie Dawes, you can have twice as much!

3. Cost. Now, this is a double-edged sword. Small plates are obviously cheaper than main meals, and you generally don’t order starters so in theory this works out better for your bank balance. However, if (like me) you have a tendency to want to order the whole menu, you may find your eyes watering when the bill arrives.

4. Informality. Post-Jamie, Britain has steadily been moving away from stuffy, formal dining. Ever since the Essex-born life coach told us it was ok to let guests help themselves, a new generation of dinner-party-throwers has grown up, who think it’s much more fun to get your fingers dirty than to daintily nibble your filet mignon over a starched linen tablecloth. Small plates allow everyone to get stuck in, they’re conversation starters, they break the ice of first dates and business dinners.

Polpo. Usually rammed to the gills...

So, if you haven’t tried it yet, I really recommend making a reservation at one of the above. Gone are the days of indefinable meat swimming in oily tomato sauce (I’m looking at you, La Tasca). Today’s restaurants know what they’re doing, and the food is like an endless round of really great starters, which we all know are better than the main course any day…