UNFUSSY, FRESH AND AUTHENTIC Restaurant cookbook finds the beauty in simplicity, Laura Brehaut writes.
“Minimal ingredients, little cooking and maximum flavour:” This is the Ducksoup philosophy. There’s an elegant simplicity to the dishes from the tiny London, U.K., restaurant. With an eye to unfussy, fresh flavour pairings and beautiful presentation, this restaurant tome is perfectly suited to home cooking.
“Everything we do is completely honest … (It’s) just us cooking the food that we want to eat every day,” restaurant cofounder Clare Lattin says.
In Ducksoup: The Wisdom of Simple Cooking, Lattin and executive chef Tom Hill begin with the go-to ingredients that underpin their food at the restaurant: fresh pasta, ricotta, organic lemons, nuts and spice blends. The chapters then unfold by the degree of cooking involved.
There are “quick things”: raw, salted or cured recipes suitable for a weekday lunch or dinner. Then, dishes that require progressively more cooking: lamb chops, cumin and garlic yogurt; grilled poussin and green sauce; and wild boar ragu. And finally, desserts and preserves: almond and strawberry tart; preserved lemons; and drinking vinegars.
Along with a few friends, Lattin opened the Soho spot in 2011. The menu changes from week to week, shifting with the seasons. She says that although they’re cooking completely differently today than when they first opened, the more than 130 recipes in the cookbook all share the ethos of “simplicity and seasonality.”
They strive for an atmosphere of “humble conviviality,” Lattin says; the food reflects inspiration from travels to the Middle East, Scandinavia and the Mediterranean. Their creativity is stoked by “pure seasonality, following the sun and listening to our hearts,” she says.
Lattin describes the Ducksoup approach to cooking as “intuitive assembly,” not “restaurant cooking.” Sometimes, these assemblystyle dishes involve little actual cooking, she says, but they always rely on an understanding of ingredients, flavour marriages and cooking methods.
“One of our favourite dishes is blistering a few tomatoes, serving them with some ricotta, loads of olive oil and a sprinkling of marjoram that might be growing on the front doorstep,” she says.
“(Intuitive assembly) is just getting to know a few wonderful ingredients that you like, and trying to bring them together in different ways. But not going crazy — not trying to overcomplicate it.”
The art of Ducksoup’s pareddown approach lies in presentation as much as composition. In one of the book’s four short essays, Hill offers advice on how to allow “the ingredients to speak for themselves.”
For example, tearing open figs, ripping herbs — working with your hands connects you with ingredients.
It also has the added benefit of visual interest and enhanced mouthfeel for the eater.
“In presentation, we try to represent the ingredient. So, if it’s a peach, we like to tear it or if it’s tomatoes, we don’t want to dice them up. We tend to blister them so they just become a little bit more beautiful versions of themselves,” Lattin says.
“We respect the architecture of the ingredient. So, you can identify it on the plate. Food has lovely lines to it and lovely shapes. We want to see what things are.”
We respect the architecture of the ingredient. Food has lovely lines to it and lovely shapes. We want to see what things are.