FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Karen Dudley’s flavour-packed caper sultana relish is just one of the jars she keeps in her fridge to pimp up snacks and suppers.
my restaurant was cooking, I was the master of the 15-minute home dinner. I would return home from The Kitchen, a bizarre mix of perfume and food clinging to my clothes, to perform a short-order dinner for my family. Invariably, it was a hasty affair. Children needed to finish homework and I needed to go over balance sheets or conjure up a wedding menu. There’d be leftovers from the restaurant or a piece of fish or schnitzel, and always something green: baby spinach with flaxseed oil, welldressed leaves, peas or broccoli tossed with lemon and garlic, dilled carrots or boiled potatoes, and very often sliced tomatoes and red onion.
My life has changed immeasurably in the past few months, and so has my home-cooking style. Now, I cook with the luxury of time. I make Ukrainian parcels with different fillings. Hand-made noodles. Roulades. Dumplings. Soufflés. I roast. I bake. A lot. We eat out of our garden. I give proper consideration and full enthusiasm to each meal. Without a huge community to direct my energy towards, my family now experience the full force of my know-how. It’s almost too much love! And with that comes a little yearning for affirmation.
Meal after meal, they are appropriately speechless and thankful. And for all the acclaim I have received in my life as a chef, it is this quiet acknowledgement that means the world to me. With every meal I am saying: “Do you see how much I love you?” I realise, with some remorse, the sacrifices that my family have made for my work life, which was spent in thrall to a kitchen outside of home. It came at a cost. But these prickles of regret have been vanquished, in part, by savage attention to slow(er) cooked, patient dishes that receive every gram of my loving attention. Having come through a time of rawness, my creative energy blooms, and artisanal work is a delight and solace.
I suspect many chefs have fridges like mine: packed with labelled jars of interesting flavours in concentrated form: pickles, preserves, jams, relishes, mustards, pestos, sauces, pastes, atchar, kimchi, gochujang, dressings and flavoured butters that can zhoosh up the simplest meal. So during lockdown, I’ve been thrilled to see the array of new jars emerging from small producers. More flavour weapons! Home cooks have honed their skills, and now, with the time to pickle, preserve, and make pastes and dressings (or acquire them at good supermarkets or in market boxes) they are poised to create even more exciting meals.
Even as our new lives take shape, we still need to be able to serve a simple meal that isn‘t taxing. A little something for friends dropping around for a glass of wine. This is when I reach for my jars. Kimchi stirred through fried rice. Black garlic butter melting on steamed fish and saffron aïoli beside paprika roast chicken. Leveraging this arsenal of flavours will make the fastest and easiest of meals feel like one that has benefited from hours of care. Among my own personal champions, I share with you my favourite: sultana caper relish. I have yet to find a dish that does not want to be its friend. I have dolloped it on boiled eggs and baby marrows, on salmon, cabbage, steak and cauliflower. And the delight of savouring something this delicious reminds me that we can live simply, harnessing our resources and being thankful for every bite.