The secret of great cooking is alchemy, that commingling of ingredients which occurs when we mix and match ingredients and techniques to produce sublime results.
For the most part, the alchemy occurs when we find ingredients which have a natural - often geographical - affinity with each other. Just think of the way the ingredients of simmered ratatouille belong together, or the way in which bouillabaisse talks to us of the riches of the Mediterranean. Not so far from home, scallions and spuds are one of the simplest examples of affinity, mixing together to make champ, while a fresh head of cabbage, cooked in the water in which the joint of bacon has been simmered, offers us flavours that cannot be beaten.
But, every so often, trawling through some cookery book or other, a pairing of ingredients, or an unusual idea for how to cook them, will be suggested in a recipe, and you say to yourself: "Uh-oh. No, no. I don't think so. Chocolate and chilli? Banana and chicken? Cooked while blindfolded? Forget it." But, of course, you don't forget it. Because something is already pushing the envelope of your expectations. And, in a day or so, you are in the kitchen, with the chocolate and the chillis, or the banana and the chicken, brewing away at the dish, saying to your wife - who is leafing through the telephone directory in search of Chinese take-away restaurants who deliver - "Trust me! It's going to work!"
And then, blow me, it does work, and you say: "Who would have thought it? Of course I always suspected it would work, didn't you?" So, let's roam to the wilder shores of gastronomy, and begin by pushing the envelope, literally.
Bake-In-The-Bag Pasta
In which we don't merely push the envelope, we cook in it and then crack it open. I came across the idea of cooking pasta in a bag in the book Simple Cooking, by the American food-writer, John Thorne. Thorne remembered the idea as originating from an advertisement for the Italian airline, Alitalia, which featured a recipe from the Trattoria di Ciccio in Amalfi, where the owner cooked his dish of clams and olives with spaghetti in a bag. The idea, basically, is to produce "spaghetti with sauce in it . . . not just spaghetti with sauce on it". Now, this seems to me to be a noble idea. It doesn't call for weird mixtures, just the weird idea of cooking almost-ready pasta in a bag along with the sauce.
Thorne explains the rationale this way: "There are some sauces, the familiar meat and tomato one, for example, and pesto, too, I think, where you really want the contrast of the pungent sauce with the bland mass of pasta, but there are other sauces that just don't seem able to stand up to such dilution. Some are delicate and some are not, but what they have in common is that your mouth wants their flavour to permeate the pasta, where instead it seems to slide away from it.
"With the bag method, the pasta is cooked in the ordinary way until it is almost done, then mixed with the sauce and put in the oven to bake. Since the bag is collapsed around its contents and sealed, the flavour of the sauce completely penetrates the pasta".
This is how you do it. Make your sauce. Then, cook shop-bought spaghetti in salted water for three minutes less than the directed cooking time. Place a sturdy oven-bag - such as the ones you use for turkeys at Christmas - in a large pot (in case of accidents). Reserve some spaghetti cooking water, and place the drained spaghetti in the bag, pour over the sauce, and any reserved water if needed, then seal or tie the bag and cook for the necessary time. This recipe for Pasta in a Creamy Garlic Sauce is Thorne's, and he descibes it as "spectacularly good baked in a bag . . . both subtle and richly mellow".
Pasta in a Creamy Garlic Sauce
6 tablespoons olive oil 12 cloves of garlic, peeled 1 lb spaghetti 3/4 cup light cream Salt and freshly ground pepper
Heat the olive oil gently in a heavy pot. Put in the garlic, reduce the heat to as low as possible, cover and cook, turning occasionally, for one hour or until tender and lightly browned. Don't let them scorch. Remove from the heat to cool.
Preheat oven to 375F. Prepare the bag and cook the pasta as directed above.
While it is cooking, scrape the garlic and as much oil as possible from the pot into the jar of a blender or the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Blend, and once the garlic and oil is amalgamated into a paste, pour in the cream. Stop processing as soon as the cream is well blended with the oil-garlic mixture. Taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper to taste.
When the pasta is ready, reserve half-cup of the pasta water. Drain the pasta without shaking and put in the waiting bag. Immediately add the reserved pasta water. Add the sauce, close the bag firmly, put it in the oven (in an ovenproof pan or pot) and bake for 15 minutes. Remove bag from oven, turn pasta into a serving bowl, and mix well. Serve at once, passing around the pepper mill.
Grated Parmesan could be served with this; a few dried red pepper flakes might also enhance it.
Apple Pie and Cheese
It was while flitting through John Thorne's book that I came across his description of Shaker Apple Pie with Cheese as the "world's best breakfast".
Well, is that fighting talk or what? Nothing less than the finest breakfast on the planet, eh? And what, then, is the choicest start to the day? Nothing less than another strange combination: "Take a slice of day-old apple pie, grate Cheddar generously over the top, and heat in a 350F oven just long enough to make the pie hot and melt the cheese".
And it is wonderful, though for my money it is really a brunch dish, served with lots of good, hot coffee.
Oysters with Vinegar
This sounds like many people's idea of the dish from hell. Lots of folks detest oysters, for some reason, and the idea of pairing them with vinegar is enough to have them running from the room.
But, like the best surprises, this dish is magical, the alliance of the balsamic vinegar in the beurre blanc, the crispy slivers of bacon and the juicy oyster is a marriage made in heaven. Do try this: it is a fabulous dish, which comes from Sarah Leah Chase's book, Nantucket Open-House Cookbook.
Oysters with Bacon and Balsamic Beurre Blanc
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar 1/3 cup dry red wine 2 shallots, minced 1 1/4 cups unsalted butter, cold, cut into tablespoons Salt and freshly round pepper to taste 36 fresh oysters, on the half shell 3/4 lb bacon, partially cooked, but browned Parsley and lemon wedges for garnish
Combine 1/4 cup of the vinegar, the red wine, and the shallots in a small, non-aluminium skillet. Reduce over medium heat until only two tablespoons of the liquid remain. Whisk in the butter, tablespoon by tablespoon, over a very low heat so it blends rather than melts into the vinegar mixture. When all the butter has been incorporated, remove the skillet from the heat and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Preheat the grill.
Spoon a scant two teaspoons of the balsamic beurre blanc on top of each oyster.
Top with a strip of bacon cut to 1 1/2 -2 inches long. Place the oysters on a baking sheet. Drizzle the remaining vinegar over the oysters.
Place the oysters six inches from the heat and grill for two minutes. Raise the grill tray two inches and cook just until the bacon is well crisped, for about 30 seconds more. Spoon any juices that have accumulated on the baking sheet over the oysters and garnish with parsley sprigs and lemon wedges. Serve at once with cocktail forks.
Rice with Savoy Cabbage
Here is a brilliant recipe which, again, confounds all expectations. It is a sort-of risotto, but there is no stock used to cook the rice, and the principal cheese is not Parmesan, but mozarella, which strings and strangles its way through the dish. This was one of the first dishes which taught me, many years ago, that you should never doubt the wisdom of Marcella Hazan, who features Rice with Savoy Cabbage in her Second Classic Italian Cookbook.
Riso con la Verza
1 head Savoy cabbage, approximately 680g (11/2 lb) 6 tablespoons olive oil 6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped fine Salt Freshly ground black pepper 300g (10 1/2 oz) risotto rice 225g (8 oz) mozzarella cheese, very coarsely grated 50g (13/4 oz) freshly grated Parmesan cheese 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped fine
Pull off and discard one or two of the dark-green outer leaves of the cabbage, and trim away the bottom end of the stem if it is bruised or discoloured. Cut the cabbage in four, and rinse it in cold water.
Bring three to four litres (5-6 1/2 pints) water to the boil. When the water is boiling, put in the cabbage, and set the cover on the pot slightly askew. Cook for about 20 minutes, or until the cabbage feels tender when prodded with a fork. Drain well and allow the cabbage to cool a little. When it is no longer too hot to handle, chop it all up into pieces not much bigger than 12 mm (half an inch).
Choose a saute pan broad enough to contain the cabbage later without crowding it or piling it high. Put in the olive oil and garlic, and saute over medium heat until the garlic becomes a light gold colour.
Add the chopped cabbage, turning it in the oil so it becomes well coated. Add salt and pepper, taking into account that this will be the principal seasoning of the dish, and allowing also for the sweetness of the cabbage.
Turn the heat up to medium high, and saute the cabbage for about 10 minutes, turning it frequently. Turn off the heat.
Bring three litres (six pints) water to the boil - using, if you like, the same pot in which you cooked the cabbage. When the water comes to the boil, add one tablespoon salt, and put in the rice, stirring it with a wooden spoon. Cover and cook on a steady but not too lively boil until the rice in tender but al dente, firm to the bite (about 15 to 20 minutes). Stir the rice with a wooden spoon from time to time while it is cooking.
Drain the rice and put it in a warm serving bowl. Add the grated mozzarella, the cabbage, all the olive oil from the pan, the Parmesan cheese, and the chopped parsley. Mix quickly and thoroughly. Serve piping hot.
Chocolate and Mayonnaise
I know Down-Home Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake doesn't sound very appealing - let's be honest, it sounds pretty awful - but I can assure you it is extra delicious, light as a feather, and popular with the children. The recipe comes from Rose Levy Beranbaum's authoritative book, The Cake Bible, and Ms Beranbaum describes the cake as her first chocolate cake recipe.
"It was invented," she writes, "by the wife of a Hellmann's mayonnaise salesman who was trying to help her husband," and became a 1950s classic. It has, as Beranbaum describes, a "strangely satisfying, unique flavour". It is very, very good. You can cover it with a butter cream if you wish, but I think a simple dusting of icing sugar is as much as it needs.
Down-Home Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake
28g (1oz) unsweetened cocoa 236g (8 and a quarter oz) boiling water 4g (1 teaspoon) pure vanilla extract 160g (5 and a half oz) mayonnaise 200g (7oz) sifted cake flour 200g (7oz) castor sugar 10g bicarbonate of soda 1/2 teaspoon salt Preheat the oven to 350 F/180 C/gas mark 4. Prepare two 20cm (8-inch) cake tins.
In a medium bowl, whisk together cocoa and boiling water until smooth and cool to room temperature. Whisk in the vanilla and mayonnaise.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the remaining ingredients and mix on low speed for 30 seconds to blend. Add the chocolate mixture. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. Increase to medium (high speed if using a hand mixer) and beat for one minute to aerate and develop the cake's structure. Scrape the batter into prepared tins (it will be very liquid) and fill the tins only about one-third full.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a tester comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in the centre. The cakes should start to shrink from the sides of the tins only after removal from the oven. Allow the cakes to cool in the tins on racks for 10 minutes. Loosen the sides with a small metal spatula and invert onto greased wire racks. Cool completely before wrapping airtight.