Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Pulses to set heart racing with a taste of winter sunshine T
Martin Hesp conjures up a flavour of the Med
urkey, beef, pork, lamb, chicken, ham (both home cooked and Iberico) and tongue
– not to mention numerous sausages, bacon and a few other carnivorous delights. Having got that little lot down last month, I thought I’d write about vegetarian food.
Somehow the old body cries out for a little light and easy going, easy-to-digest, plant-life.
Of course it would be a lot easier in summer. Salads - whacking great big salads filled to the brim with nourishment from the garden. That is exactly what I would eat by choice right now. I suppose it would be easy enough to pop into a supermarket and buy some of those ready picked and washed salad leaves, a few greenhouse tomatoes, a cucumber and a pepper or two.
But I, like many people, have a thing about seasonal eating. I am certainly not religious about it, and will drizzle extra-virgin olive oil over a bowl of Canary Island tomatoes happily enough – especially if I can add a handful of the herbs that still bravely grow in my garden, not to mention leaves from the pot of basil that is struggling on the window sill.
Somehow though, it seems to miss the point. All those un-ecological food miles that the tomatoes have flown, all those poly-tunnels where the Spanish and others bung on the artificial fertilisers with enthusiastic abandon…
Having once over-wintered near Motril on the Costa de Sol, I know what goes into the average Spanish iceberg lettuce - and not a single crunchy but tasteless leaf of the stuff has passed my lips since.
The sunshine taste of the Mediterranean CAN be enjoyed however, with the help of a pulse and a bean or two. There is a bit of a problem here and it is that most dried pulses need a soak in water - some for lengthy periods - so you really need to get your act together and give your hardened dried vegetable jewels a plunge the day before you intend eating them.
Or you can buy them in a can. Nowhere near as good, I know, but what for instance could be more instantaneous and delicious than a simple salad made of cannellini beans, sliced red onion and a heft sprinkling of parsley from the garden? The only work you have to do after opening the can is to slice the onion and chop the parsley (what’s that, 30 seconds?) and make a substantial vinaigrette from the best extra virgin olive oil you can afford, lemon juice and a spoonful of French mustard.
A sprinkle of sea salt, some crusty bread, a glass of wine, a little Flamenco music - and for a moment or two you could dream warm Spanish dreams of distant summer holidays.
But I’d advise taking the time to prepare the dried pulses. That salad really does taste a thousand times better when you’ve soaked and boiled your own beans, but make sure you pour on some extra virgin olive oil just after you have drained them. This not only prevents them sticking to one another, but somehow heightens the flavour when combined with the eventual vinaigrette.
And the great thing about bean salads is that you can add what you like to highlight the dish. If you don’t care who you breathe over and you fancy a little pizzazz - throw in a couple of finely chopped chillies as well as some olive oil soaked sun dried tomatoes, and add half a clove of garlic with some anchovies that you have crushed in a pestle and mortar.
Nothing could be more simple and yet that dish will put the taste buds in overdrive. Moreover, it’s extremely healthy and remarkably cheap - especially if you buy the beans dried.
In fact dried pulses must rate as one of the most inexpensive foodstuffs that you can purchase, and if you have a pressure cooker (like the electronic Instant Pot which is the one I’d recommend) they don’t even take that much expensive energy to cook. Add a couple of cans of tuna fish to the above and you will have a supper dish that will feed several people and cost under two quid!
Chickpeas are another example of dried, value for money, nosh - and are so adaptable that you can find a thousand and one recipes for turning them into lip-smackingly good sunshine food.
They go particularly well in tagines - those warming, Moroccan style, stews cooked in a shallow pot, usually made of brown earthenware with a strange conical top. You must soak chickpeas for at least eight hours and boil them for no less than one-and-a-half hours, but in a pressure cooker this can be
reduced to just 30 or 40 minutes.
A great favourite of mine is a fish tagine which requires a kilogram of any white fish you can buy. Cheap and cheerful will do, but best if you can to buy something fresh and delicious caught locally. Add large quantities of garlic, paprika, ground cumin, a chilli pepper as well as salt and lemon juice to taste. Simmer this lot in olive oil over a lowish heat for half-an-hour and then add the chickpeas and a little of their cooking water, stir gently in and simmer again for another 10 minutes.
Not exactly difficult, but the dish is exotic and it will give you all the warmth of Morocco and brighten even the coldest of January days.
Lentils are another great dried gift from summer gardens - especially the slightly more expensive green beauties from Puy in France. I say expensive, but compared to meat or fish they are the food of paupers, yet the flavour of these small pea-like wonders is exquisite.
A Sicilian friend taught me this dish… Boil Puy lentils until they are al-dente, fry some garlic and onions in olive oil until soft and slightly browned, grab handfuls of spaghetti and break the stuff into inch long sticks, boil and drain. Combine the whole lot in a large ornate bowl and stir in copious amounts of the very best extra virgin olive oil.
You really can’t get much simpler than that - the only other thing you add is some sea salt and lots of fresh ground black pepper - and yet this basic peasant dish is an absolute sensation for lunch.
It’s the sort of stuff you just can’t stop eating, which surely is what you want from any food. And I for one will be taking the simple, sunny, healthy, Mediterranean route to cooking in the next few weeks to save the poor old body from the heavier excesses of midwinter.