Real Wild Rothschild

Picture the scene. You're enjoying a fabulous dinner in a fabulous Château in a fabulous area of the fabulous Médoc in fabulous France. You're hosts are fabulous. Everything is fabulous. Of course it is, you are dining with the fabulous Rothschild wine family at their fabulous Château Rothschild. It's hard to get more blooming fabulous. Everyone is enjoying the fabulous meal. You suddenly have a fabulous idea. You'd love to recreate this fabulous dish at home. Surely you're fabulous hosts wouldn't mind sharing the fabulous recipe with you? Would they?

As you might imagine, Fanny was not shy in asking. Without any whiff of social embarrassment, she boldly asked for the recipe. I can still hear the *gasp* now. The dish she had enjoyed so much was called Gâteau Rothschild. The clue is in the name. A treasured family meal of layered late summer vegetables. Presumably goes perfectly with a large glass (or two) or red. Initially, the chef was extremely reluctant to share the recipe with Fanny. After all, it was a closely guarded family secret. And she was known for sharing them in print. For profit. The recipe is contained in their treasured private family 'receipt' book. So, probably, you'd just say 'I understand' and leave without the famous recipe. Not Fanny. She wanted that book.

Knowing the time would come when she too would want to impress a crowd, maybe of hungry vegetarians, she persisted to try and secure the secret. The chef, however, would not budge. Nothing stops Fanny as we know, so she went straight to her hosts to explain the reluctance. Not embarrassing at all. The fabulousness suddenly left the room. It worked however, and they asked the chef to prise open the old, valuable, sentimental, family cookbook and let Fanny get her hands on it. Except the chef insisted on simply verbally telling Fanny the recipe making her use all her powers of memory to retain it until she had a chance to jot it down.

She did though, and then shared it with us all. Naturally. How kind of her to lay bare the family showstopper. It is essentially a layered bake with seasonal vegetables. Courgettes. Onions. Tomatoes. Peppers. Mushrooms. Fanny says it is one of the most delicious and rather time demanding vegetable 'assembly' dishes that she knows of. Clearly not suitable for general family meals (unless you happen to be the Rothschilds) but entirely suitable for entertaining. I take some shortcuts though as time is tighter and it's the chefs night off...

I think Fanny, and perhaps even the Rothschilds themselves, would approve. Fanny laboriously cooks each vegetable separately in pans of foaming butter. Very French. It's important to keep them all separate for the presentation. I slice them thickly, pop them on a tray and roast them in the oven. Once baked, I layer them in a metal ring with alternate layers of a mix of cheese and breadcrumbs, before baking again. Fanny is very particular on the assembly. It must be onion first, then tomato, peppers and finally courgettes. In that order. My final rebellion is to include Aubergine, which I put first. Then, bake again and serve with a tomato sauce, which Fanny calls a fondue. This is how the Rothschild Family served it, and so must we. It was indeed fabulous. I don't imagine, however, that Fanny was ever invited to the Château for Gâteau again.

Going, Going, Gondola

You know those days when you come in after a hard day at work, feeling more than a little lacklustre, hankering after something decent to nourish your mind, body and soul, but all you find when you open your neglected fridge is a desolate cucumber, a lonely potato, a few reclusive radish and a solitary red pepper. What on earth are you going to prepare to lift to you from your day of gloom with that motley crew of sadness?

On days like these, you need to TMLF. Think More Like Fanny. Would Fanny open the fridge and cry? Would Fanny reach for the phone to call a takeaway? Would Fanny give up and watch back to back episodes of the latest boxset instead? No. You need to TMLF. Where you see despair, she sees delight. Where you see misery, she sees merriment. Where you see a cucumber, she sees a Gondola.

You may not have booked a weekend away to Venice in a while, but if you TMLF you can be instantly transported there while you eat. You may never have been, may never have had the pleasure of a ride along the canals, and may never have clapped eyes on an actual Gondola in your life. If you TMLF this matters not one iota. Suspend your sorrow, open your lonesome fridge again, switch your mind to Fanny-mode and sail the waterways in style. That's what Fanny would do. TMLF.

Peel your potato with glee. Steam it with joy. Mash it with purpose. Grasp your cucumber with vigour. Slice it lengthways with vivacity. Scoop out the flesh with gladness. Mix with wth the mash while rejoicing. Add some mayonnaise with exuberance. Fill your hollowed-out-cucumber-cum-gondola with the mixture as if your life depended upon it. That's what Fanny would do. Think more like Fanny. Be more like Fanny. You know you want to.

Fanny of course, would not end there, delightful as the simple cucumber boat may appear. If we are to truly TMLF then we must prioritise garnish and presentation. It is the key to our own gastronomic gaiety, the answer to our dinners in the doldrums. Concentrate hard, TMLF. Take your red pepper and slice it into hooks to hang off your vessel, perhaps as oars. TMLF. Grasp your cucumber cut-offs and fashion them back onto the top of your creation, perhaps as seats. TMLF. Embrace your radish. Canelle them into flowers. Arrange them 'on board', perhaps as groups of shiny, happy tourists. Transport yourself to Venice. Think more like Fanny. Live like Fanny. Be Fanny!

A Neat but Reet Petite Salade Marguerite

I don't know about you, but when I think about Hors D'oeuvres it's not necessarily salads that spring to mind, but Fanny has different ideas. Maybe she's thinking differently as she showcases creations she likes to call 'Flowerlike salads'? I should be learning by now that for Fanny, it's all about the presentation, but for me, when I think 'salad' I think of leaves, maybe dots of cheese, some vegetables and a dressing. We know that when Fanny thinks 'salad' she thinks eggs, so really it should be no surprise that she gives us two further variations on egg salads, both presented in typical Fanny style.

For the first, or most simple variation, for beginners, the Salad Mimosa, Fanny suggests chopping vegetables and eggs very finely and arranging them in any plain, round, glass dish. Fanny uses diced peas, cubed green beans, severed celery, sheared spring onions, divided cooked potatoes... You get the idea. Anything that is to hand really, and anything with some colour. Anything which goes well with mayonnaise too, another of Fannys staple ingredients.

I have little gem lettuce, tomatoes, orange peppers, peas and eggs - so a real flurry of colour. Fanny cuts everything to the same teeny tiny size - including chopping the egg white and egg yolks separately, to add colour to the finished, prepared Salad of course. Chopping is the key. Very small chops. When I've been in the States and had a Chopped Garden Salad, I've really enjoyed it. This reminds me of that, not many stray leaves in sight, just fresh, raw vegetables flung fastidiously together with Fannys flair.

Fanny loads up the ordinary glass bowl with a bed of vegetables. I use little gem lettuce though, despite not being sure how Fanny would react. She says it's basically a criminal culinary offence to slice lettuce with a knife, as it will only weep. We don't want that, and besides no self-respecting cook would dream of it, hand shredding is the only way professionals do it. Oh dear. The bed of chopped (horrifically) lettuce is mixed with perfectly ordinary mayonnaise and the rest of the vegetables arranged on top. They can be 'meanly moistened' with olive oil, if preferred. Arranged in diamond segments, naturally. No weeping has occurred as far as I can see, maybe just in Fannys memory.

This makes the basic Salad Mimosa. Those who know Fanny well however know that there is always a second level to take even the most basic of dishes to. For advanced cooks. Hors D'oeuvres are no exception. To transform the Salad Mimosa into a showstopper Salad Marguerite it's essentially a case of smothering the whole lot in more mayonnaise and decorating it like a flower. With egg. The whites are sliced lengthways to become petals and the yolk kept round as a centrepiece. It seems a shame in one way to cover up all that triangular handiwork, but the finished flower does look very summery. It's all about the way it looks after all, but the completed salad tastes fresh, crunchy and wistful, perfect for showing off. That's the whole point isn't it?

Veg and Vim - Fanny Cradock's Meat Free Monday

After all the sponge cakes, Fanny brings this partwork to a close with a savoury treat for vegetarians in the shape of her first Menu, or Bill of Fare. Fanny is of course known more for her meat dishes, but in reality she was also a fan of meat-free cookery. Her only provisio was that it was cooked well, in other words, to her standards. She could not bear 'wasted' ingredients. She did admit that some of her recipes, like these, would be 'acceptable to vegetarians' and even the most carnivorous of humans had been know to 'react favourably' to them. Not exactly the most glowing endorsement for vegetarianism, but in 1970 I think we would have been even more of a minority than today. Although they couldn't be described as 'vegetarian' as such, Fanny did write two 'Vegetable Cookery' books in 1959 - the first called 'Cabbages and Things' and the second 'Veg and Vim' which explained how to prepare vegetables, how to grow them, how to balance out meals by replacing protein that would be normally be found in meat and so on. Probably based more on the necessity of the times than morality, but both still hold up very well today.

For this particular vegetarian supper, Fanny introduces some simple, exciting and exotic dishes aimed at helping you to get 'one-up-manship' on your neighbours as they are scarcely known in this country famous for it's meat and two veg. Ditch the meat. The first, a Tunisian delight called Chachouka, I am guessing didn't catch on as I still hadn't heard of it, but the second, Champignon Mornay or Baked Mushrooms in Cheese Sauce has become a vegetarian staple. Fanny prefers fresh vegetables, and even encourages us to go foraging like she did during the war to find large field mushrooms. However if foraging is not for you, and fresh is not available, Fanny does say that tinned can be substituted in 'emergency situations'.

The Chachouka starts life as slices tomatoes and peppers, or Pimentoes as Fanny always calls them, sautéed in butter. First though, they need to be peeled. The tomatoes are submerged in boiling water, but Fanny has a new technique to pimp up the Pimentoes. Fanny says to only buy hard ones which feel crisp to the touch, soft and wrinkly are not worth the money. So don't do it. To remove the skin 'successfully' they should be halved and set under a very hot grill until they blacken. The skin should now peel away like 'paper from a damp wall'. It does, and the benefit over my usual technique of placing them after blackening in a plastic bag is that they don't go slimy.

Once the are mingled nicely in a pan over a gentle heat with the tomatoes and butter, which appears to be the only flavouring added, and are piping hot they should be served with some scrambled eggs, again cooked in lots of butter. Butter is back in the foodie headlines as a 'good' ingredient at the moment, but Fanny always knew that.

One ingredient that Fanny uses which would certainly not be acceptable to any vegetarian, in 1970 or not, is pork fat. She uses this to 'impregnate' the mushrooms with flavour before they are baked. I make a substitution for more butter. It goes nice and nutty brown during the 'impregnation'. Then pile on a mix of cream, chopped shallot and cheese, which is seasoned slightly for baking. The two dishes are very simple, but very flavoursome, and really show off the vegetables to their best. I think vegetarian palettes and expectations might quiver a little at these if served in a restaurant today, but for a quick, homely supper full of 'veg and vim', and as 'penny plain dishes' as Fanny describes, they are perfect. Fanny knew her vegetables, and that seems acceptable to me.

Smashing Plates of Food - a Greek Feast

Fanny encourages us to 'Go Greek' for the final Bill of Fare in this part, but it's not really clear if she's a fan of the cuisine herself, or of the people. She tells us that 'we all know' that the Greeks have a word for many things (although I don't know what that word is, and Fanny doesn't tell us) but when it comes to cookery, a vast number of 'their' dishes are 'far too oily for the people of this island'. Maybe tastes have changed, or maybe Fanny just had some bad food when she visited, but the Mediterranean diet rich in olive oil is certainly celebrated now. Strangely, Fanny celebrates it too more often than not, but clearly either Greece or the Greeks have upset her. I am sure she was utterly charming to them...

Fanny starts her Greek menu with a 'simple and amusing' salad known as Pallas Athene's Salad. Fanny doesn't seem amused recounting the time this was served to her by a famous cook in private service on the Island of Corfu. Fanny claims the 'cook' was bad tempered and needed to be flattered to 'bursting point' otherwise she would not bring her confections to them and her employer for 'picnics on the sands'. Fanny exclaims that this cook ONLY had to walk across the road to do so. Fanny is obviously not used to people who will not jump when she clicked her fingers, and was presumably missing Poor Sarah, Peter or any of her faithful unquestioning assistants while on holiday. At any rate, the salad is indeed simple - chopped tomatoes, green peppers, herbs and olives. Oh did I mention I can't BEAR olives? I replace them with little roasted capsicum antipasti. Drizzle with cottage cheese and sour cream and serve. Simple, although the amusement is a little lost on me.

The main course is a moulded Moussaka which Fanny makes with minced mutton. Try saying that quickly. I happen to have a lovely vegetarian Haggis from Macsweens left over from Burns night which seems to be a perfectly spicy substitute here. The aubergines are sliced in half and fried gently on the cut side until their skins wrinkle. The flesh is then scooped out and mixed with the haggis, a chopped tomato and an onion, some herbs and an egg. The aubergine skins are used to line a soufflé mould, and the mixture packed in and steamed for an hour. The finished Moussaka, but not as we know it, is served turned out with a tomato coulis. It cuts really well, and tastes smashing.

The coulis is made from chopped, skinned tomatoes, herbs, garlic, salt and pepper which is gently heated with a little water and simmered until 'collapse' (the tomatoes not me). The strained juices are mixed with a little of that nasty olive oil Fanny was complaining about. Just not too much, ok?

For this Greek feast, Fanny gives a dessert recipe which doesn't sound Greek at all, but she calls it Solines. They are basically chocolate Mini-Rolls, who knew they were Greek? I make a thin Swiss roll, cut it into squares and cut squares of greaseproof paper to match. Melted chocolate chips are spread onto each sheet of greaseproof, and just as they start to 'lose their gloss' without becoming set, Fanny instructs that the little sponge squares be spread with whipped cream and rolled up in the chocolate papers. Once completely set, the paper is easily peeled off to reveal the, well, chocolate mini-rolls. They do peel well.

Whether Fanny was a fan herself or not, this menu is a lovely taste of Greece, and I managed to prepare it all by myself with no bad tempered cooks helping. Well, apart from Fanny Cradock herself of course.

Bill of Fare - Sunshine at Suppertime

I think Fanny has chosen some light dishes for her end of partwork menus to try and counterbalance the flurry of flans. As before, they really bear no connection at all to what I've been learning or creating, but instead are just some ideas to have ready for guests round for dinner. I have to resist my temptation to roll out some savoury paste and make the starter for 'Bill of Fare One' into a tart though - it's Cold Ratatouille which only sounds slightly more tempting in French - Ratatouille Glacé.

I have to confess that Ratatouille isn't one of my favourites, perhaps it's the disappointment as a vegetarian of often finding it as the only option on a menu, and even then without much flavour or texture. The ingredients however are fresh and are some of my favourites - Aubergines (Fanny calls them Eggplants), courgettes (Fanny calls them baby marrows), peppers (Fanny calls them pimentoes), onion and tomatoes (Fanny doesn't have any alternative names for these). The technique is fairly simple, heat some oil, fry the chopped onion and peppers for a while, add the courgettes and Aubergines, cook for a while longer then add the chopped tomatoes.

Fanny urges me to cook them gently together until all the vegetables are soft and have made their own sauce from the juices and the oil, before seasoning. Lastly Fanny asks me to add 'une persillade' which is a garlic clove crushed together with some milled (which I hope just means chopped) parsley. My French gartronomy terms are coming along nicely!

Fanny suggests this is served cold as a hors d'oeuvre or hot as an accompaniment to a main meal. It looks different to any usual ratatouille - much more vibrant and less 'tomatoey' - adding the parsley  and garlic at the end of the cooking gives it a real flavour punch too. I am impressed, even cold! 

Skipping over Fanny's suggested main of Normandy Rabbit with Cider, it's straight to work on pudding - an Orange Meringue Pie. Oh, a pie. I thought the flans were finished...this version however has no pastry base thankfully and Fanny suggests is a very old and simple recipe which is a firm favourite in the nursery. Not quite sure which nursery she means though.

The technique is simply heating together some orange juice with fresh lemon juice and rind, mixing in some cornflour and water in a paste, adding butter and egg yolks - a kind of orange curd I suppose. Once thick and gloopy it goes into the serving dish to cool.

Fanny explains that the beauty of this simple old-fashioned pudding lies in the base being sharp and the meringue topping being sweet. The meringues are made in Fannys usual way and piped (of course) in a decorative manner on top of the orange curd. I copy Fanny's picture for inspiration, she would be so pleased with me! 

Then, into a low oven to dry out the meringues until they look like the colour of cooked biscuits apparently. Fanny is of course right, the base is lovely and sharp and the top crunchy and sweet - a lovely end to this particular menu, and a welcome light end to the flans!