There were very few lessons that I actually looked forward to at school, being forced to sit through Latin for instance was torturous, whilst surviving a Deutsch double was an achievement paramount to completing a marathon, or swimming the channel. Getting through a Chemistry lesson without event was almost unthinkable, and to that end it rarely actually happened; I recall our teacher (a goth by weekend who re-enacted medieval battles) shouting at my neighbour and close friend Tom. Tom’s answer was to simply stand on his chair and shout back incoherently to cancel out the original directive. Another popular party trick was that of my friend Sam, a Ghanaian of descent and endowed accordingly, who would wait for a quiet moment and thwack the aptly named “Mr Stretchy” against the desk to emanate the sound of a door knocking. Sure enough teach would open the portal to supposed learning to find an empty corridor in front of him and a class of sniggering juveniles behind.
Yours truly wasn’t entirely exempt from the cantankery, and I can assure you that sitting in the second master’s office trying to explain why you mounted a desk, brushed aside a Bunsen and began making vigorous pumping movements with a giant glass gas syringe, is no mean feat. In hindsight I feel rather sorry for the weekly ordeal we inflicted on our professor, trying to explain that to a room of baying fourteen year olds however would be null and void.
I digress. The point which I am trying to make is that the reason we covered so many subjects, which I know now, is so that we are able to home in on things that firstly we are good at, and secondly, and more importantly in my opinion, that we enjoy. Eleven years later and I am still trying to throw myself into new experiences to perhaps find something I will excel at, and if not then just another thing I can tick of my life list.
So it was with intrepidation that I attended the first addition of ‘Supper in a Pear Tree’ hosted by the Partridge sisters; Annabel and Charlotte, in the beautiful studio they work from in Lavender Hill. The evening began with an hour’s lesson in life drawing taught by Charlotte, a fantastic artist and sculptor, followed by a delicious meal cooked by Annabel, who works as sous chef at the Michelin starred ‘Petersham Nurseries’ where I was lucky enough to do a week’s intense work experience. The food was delicious; veal and pork meatballs on polenta in a tomato sauce, along with some delicious fine beans tossed in the signature lemon, olive oil and Tipico cheese that is the staple of the Petersham kitchen.
The evening on the whole was a great success and I imagine will go from strength to strength with the next two months fully booked already, it conspires however that I am not an artist by any stretch of the imagination, I just about managed to get the gender of my figure right after an hour of scribbling and covering myself in charcoal. Hey ho, another vocation expunged from my depleting list of career opportunities.
To vaguely bring it back to the meal below, this is a not too distant variant on a recipe I made at Petersham that involved Dorset Crab, chorizo and radicchio.
Ingredients: (Serves 4)
Small pot of cooked mussel meat from the deli counter, 20 mussels approx.
Small pot of cooked cockle meat from the deli counter, 20 cockles approx.
Crab meat from 2 small crabs
2 Hungarian Mangalica sausages
3 tablespoons of mayonnaise
Juice of ½ a lemon
Zest of ½ a lemon, leave a little for garnishing
Small handful of fresh chives, finely chopped, save some for garnishing
Chilli oil
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and Pepper
1 pack fresh samphire
1 pack watercress salad
1 clove garlic, crushed and finely chopped
Small knob of salted butter
12 cherry tomatoes
2 tspns of white sugar
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
4 slices of fresh brown bread, buy an unsliced Vienna shaped loaf
You’ll need a griddle pan and a frying pan for this one.
Method:
1. Put some tin foil on a baking tray, pierce the cherry tomatoes with a knife to get their juices flowing, sprinkle with the sugar and soy and roast in the top half of the oven for 10 minutes.
2. Pull the skin of the sausages and cut them down the middle lengthways.
3. In a bowl mix the mayonnaise with the lemon juice, zest, chives, a small slug of extra virgin olive oil and the chives, mix together thoroughly with a little seasoning. Add the crab, cockles and mussels to the bowl and stir in well. Set aside. (You can cook the mussels, cockles and crab from scratch, I didn’t because I hadn’t the time).
4. Heat the griddle pan over a medium / high heat and grill the sausages on either side, don’t worry about putting any oil in as the sausages will release their own when they begin to cook. When they are grilled on both sides take them off and keep warm. In the same pan pour in a slug of olive oil and grill the bread on both sides until slightly browned.
5. Whilst the sausages and bread are cooking melt the butter in a frying pan, add the garlic and samphire and fry for 3 minutes over a medium heat. Take off and toss into the watercress with a little more olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice.
6. To plate up whack a piece of bruschetta on the plate and drizzle a little chilli oil on it, add a spoon or two of the seafood mix and sprinkle a little lemon zest and chives on top. Dump a handful of the salad on the plate and half a grilled sausage, a few tomatoes around and about and you’re ready to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment