I have already talked about this special book on the blog and it continues to give me great delight, both reading the book and making dishes from it.
I was so taken by the great man's introduction to the book, and his description of it, that I approached the publishers to ask if I might reproduce it here on the blog and I am delighted to say that overnight I have been given permission to do that so here it is. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Introduction
Sometimes we cook purely for the pleasure of it,
understanding the provenance of our ingredients, choosing them with great care,
thoughtfully taking them on the journey from shop to plate. We seek out the
perfect recipe and take our time, lovingly preparing our dinner from scratch.
There are times when we might want to take the whole business even more
seriously, meeting those who produced it or, if we have the space, growing some
of it for ourselves. We want to consider it, discuss it, perhaps even write
about it and photograph it.
But sometimes, we just want to eat.
This little book is for those times.
But sometimes, we just want to eat.
This little book is for those times.
The days when we have barely an hour to cook. The times we just want something delicious on a plate at the end of our working day. Yes, we can phone for a pizza, a Chinese or Indian takeaway. We can drop by that Vietnamese place on the way home or pick up a ready-made microwavable delight from the supermarket. But as much as I enjoy the odd takeaway, I have always found dinner is more life-enhancing when I have done more than open a box or picked up the phone. There is much pleasure in making dinner at home, when we have cooked something, however quickly, for ourselves, or for someone else.
That is why I have written
this book and why its subtitle is The Little Book of Fast Food. A collection of
recipes that you can have on the table in less than an hour. By 'fast' I do not
mean thoughtless or careless. There is great joy to be had in a perfectly
cooked steak. its fat crisping lightly on the grill; a single fillet of
spanking fresh fish singing to itself, quietly, in butter; a baked potato whose
flesh has been mashed and freckled with rust-red, fat-peppered chorizo. Simple
things, done well. Go up a notch and there is a thin, gold and white frittata
of goat's cheese; a light chicken ragil with thyme and spring onion; or a broth
made with pork ribs and dark stars of anise. Even at its most complex, a Thai
vegetable curry is made in minutes once you have blitzed the lemon grass,
ginger, chillies, garlic and coriander to a yellow-green paste in the food
processor. Making yourself and others something good to eat can be so little
trouble and so much pleasure. And much more satisfying than coming home to a
meal in a box.
This book
Twenty-one years ago, I wrote my first book, Real Fast Food
-a collection of ideas and recipes for something to eat that you could get on
the table within half an hour or so. Still in print, it is a book of which I am
very fond and I wish it well, but looking at those 350 or so recipes twenty
years on, I realise how much our everyday eating has changed. How once unusual
ingredients are now accessible in every supermarket; how our recipes are more
adventurous; the way fresh ingredients are now essential and once frowned-upon shortcuts
are now used without apology.
Real Fast Food is still relevant but our eating has moved
on. What seemed new and interesting two decades ago is now everyday. The
speeded-up variations of well-known classics still stand, but there are several
recipes that now seem somewhat naive, others that are no longer to my taste (we
move on) and, if truth be told, there are one or two that should probably never
have been there in the first place.
Although I am far from the most prolific of writers, I have written ten or so books since then, including one or two hefty tomes. For some time now I have wanted to return to the subject of fast food, to update that dear little book and bring it in line with modem eating. That is what you have in your hands.
A little book of straightforward, contemporary recipes, quick or particularly easy to get to the table. A collection of recipes that are fast, simple and, I hope, fun.
The recipes
I have every respect for the time-honoured recipe. Those
faultless blueprints whose every detail 'must' be adhered to. appreciate the
classic dishes and prefer them to be carried out in their original style rather
than tweaked and 're-invented'. That said,I have no wish to eat as if the
clocks have stopped, life is too short to attempt perfection every day and to
be inhibited by someone else's set of rules. Cooking should, surely, be a
light-hearted, spirited affair, alive with invention, experimentation, appetite
and a sense of adventure.
The recipes here are straightforward and within the grasp of
most of us. would like to think that many of them will work for those who have
never cooked anything in their lives. It is not a book of detailed, pedantic,
obsessively honed directions.
Written in a short style, they are, I hope, both practical
and inspirational. Opposite many of the recipes are ideas that have bounced off
them, a scattering of notes, suggestions and narrative recipes that might also
interest you. Think of them as little extras.
The recipes are generally for two, but are easy enough to
double up. The stumbling blocks of increasing the quantities of ingredients
such as gelatine and yeast have no place in this book.
Most of the ingredients are fresh but I have taken a few
short cuts, such as using canned beans rather than the dried sort that need
soaking and long cooking; the occasional sheet of frozen puff pastry; a tub of
decent mayonnaise and even, on a couple of occasions, the ready-made bechamel
sauce that you can get in Tetra Paks from Italian delis. These are short cuts I
find useful for everyday cooking.
The form of the recipes is new. Written in the style of an
extended tweet, they are no dogged '1-2-31sets of instructions. The ingredients
lists are next to a picture of the finished dish, both at the top of the method
so you can see, at a glance, what you will need and then, in more detail,
within the method. It is simple enough to get used to.
Some of the ideas in this book are updated recipes from Real
Fast Food, others from my 'midweek dinners' column in the Sunday Observer magazine,
and others still started life as tweets to my
Twitter followers. Others still have been developed specially for the
book by me and James Thompson over the last couple of years. Working in my
kitchen at home, we have tested every recipe at least twice and cooked them for
photography. They are not all thirty-minute wonders. A few are special-occasion
dinners for when you have friends round, and some require minimal preparation
but take a full hour or more of unattended cooking in the oven, but the bulk
are neat little dinners you can have on the table in half an hour or so and
probably even quicker when you have made them once or twice.
We are not chasing perfection here. This is simply a
collection of suggestions for something you might like to make for dinner. Just
straightforward, delicious cooking. For the times we just want to eat.
Nigel Slater London, September 2013
@nigelslater
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