Nuts

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: Nuts

The edible kernels of so many of the nuts that Nature provides are munched in solitude while reading a good book, or in the company of others with cold beer and laughter before the main meal. But not often are nuts the main part of the main meal.

Cashew nuts, peanuts, walnuts, almonds, pecans, macadamia nuts, pine nuts, Brazil nuts, hazel nuts (also called filberts) are only a few of the nuts with culinary possibilities.

Called ground nuts, earth nuts or monkey nuts, peanuts are grown in nearly every hot country and used to provide oil or paste (butter) which are both used in cooking. Peanut butter on toast for breakfast or peanut butter sandwiches for lunch are staples for Western bachelors with limited cooking skills, but peanut butter also makes a delectable sauce for cooked vegetables (bean sprouts, shredded cabbage and green bean) that are often served with stir-fried beef strips in an Indonesian restaurant. There is also peanut butter in a mouth-watering Nigerian chicken stew.

Here is a breakfast treat: Walnut French Toast

Combine 1/3 cup milk, ¼ cup flour, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons brown rum, 1 teaspoon sugar and a pinch of salt in a blender. Pour the batter in a shallow dish, cover it and let it stand for 1 hour. Meanwhile, finely chop 1 ½ cups walnut and put them in another shallow dish. Remove the crusts from 6 slices of stale bread and cut them diagonally. Soak the bread on both sides in the batter and dip each side in the walnuts to coat them. Sauté the bread on both sides in clarified butter, in a skillet until golden. Transfer to paper towels to drain and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

The following sauce for your spaghetti makes a quick and easy supper. There is nothing to equal it. Again you will need the blender. Add 1 cup loosely packed basil leaves fresh, ½ cup pine nuts (walnuts substitute well), and 2 gloves garlic. Blend well; use a spatula to scrape down the sides and blend again. Add ¾ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese then add ½ cup olive oil while blending on low speed. Toss with pasta and serve with jerked sausages or jerked chicken and a green salad.

© Elizabeth North   24/01/1995

Pack a Picnic Basket

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: Pack a Picnic Basket

Organize a two or three car group of friends and relatives (safety in numbers), pack a picnic basket, and drive. Head for some place in particular, but keep your eyes open for some quiet, but not secluded, side road where you can park safely and have some lunch. Set out a pretty tablecloth (or sheet) or serve straight from the insulated boxes in the car trunk.

You need two of those insulated plastic boxes: a hot box and a cold box. Prime your boxes before you fill them with the picnic fare. For your cold boxes, leave some ice in them from the night before. In the case of the hot box, warm it up with hot water before you pack the food that you want to keep warm for an hour or two.

Fricasseed chicken and rice and peas, your typical Sunday fare, makes great picnic food. Unless you prefer curry goat and rice, or individual chicken pies. Simple salads (sliced tomatoes with chopped fresh basil with oil and vinegar dressing… salt and pepper to taste) and accompaniments like pickled eggs or pickled beets go nicely with lettuce, washed, dried and kept in a plastic bag in the cold box. Wine, beer (those who drive should not drink alcohol), lots of lemonade or your favourite fizzy go in the cold box along with oranges and watermelon.

Coffee in an insulated jug is almost obligatory and those who will not do without dessert will want gingerbread or sweet pastries like gizzadas or plantain tarts. Throw in as well a few munchies like pieces of coconut and nuts.

We’ve got just the gingerbread for the picnic. Heat ½ cup water and add ½ cup molasses, 1 cup sugar and ½ cup butter. Mix well and cool to room temperature. Sift together 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon nutmeg, ½ teaspoon cinnamon powder in a large bowl. Add the liquid mixture and 2 teaspoons grated ginger (more if you like your gingerbread with bite) and 1 egg, well beaten. Mix until the egg and flour mixture are well combined then pour the batter into a grease paper lined 9”x9”x2” pan and bake in a slow 300°-350° F oven for one hour or until done.

Sift icing sugar over the gingerbread and serve it with lemon curd.

Lemon Curd

Combine 4 egg yolks, ½ cup sugar, ½ cup (½ stick) butter and the strained juice of 2 lemons in a heavy saucepan. Cook the mixture over a moderately low heat, stirring, until the butter is melted and the custard is thick enough to coat the spoon. Do not let it boil. Transfer the custard, cool, then chill it, covered with a piece of buttered wax paper. Makes about 1 cup. Keep this in the cold box on the way to the picnic.

Whatever you do, don’t forget the knives and forks and spoons… and the plates. And don’t leave a mess behind at your picnic site: take along a trash bag and take it back home with you.

© Elizabeth North   10/01/1995

British Beef

Jamaica Observer Eating Well: British Beef

The meat of meats for the English has always been Beef. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, steak and kidney pie and all that solid, sustaining food that dates from the time of the Tudors has characterized the British menu over the years. Mention roast beef charred on the outside and tender and moist on the inside and you have the expatriate English among us thinking of home. British beef is taking a beating lately, and all the upheaval over the mad cow disease has gone right to the heart of every true-blue Englishman. There is still some good beef left in England, we are told, even if it is only a matter of faith and trust; certainly, there will always be Englishmen who are willing to eat it.

Let us hear from the esteemed Alexandre Dumas on the subject of British Beef which today is full of irony. He was writing in 1869: “I saw the birth of the bifteck (beefsteak) in Paris after the three-year occupation by the English in 1815. Before that our cookery had been as far apart as our opinions. It was therefore with some trepidation that we saw the bifteck surreptitiously insinuate itself in our cuisine. However, since we are an eclectic and unprejudiced people, we soon perceived that although the Greeks bore this gift, it was not poisoned, and we handed the bifteck its certificate of citizenship. However there is still a big difference between an English beefsteak and a French bifteck. We make ours from the fillet of the sirloin, while our neighbours cut theirs from the rump. But in England this part of the steer is much more tender than in France, because they feed their cattle better and slaughter them younger. They slice it about an inch thick, flatten it a bit, and fry it on special cast-iron skillets over coal rather than charcoal. The true bifteck fillet should be grilled over hot charcoal and turned only once, to conserve the good juices… “The rump of the English beef (and I eat with renewed pleasure every time I go to England) is infinitely more savoury than the cut we use in biftecks. It must be eaten in an English tavern, sautéed with Madeira or anchovy butter or served on a bed of cress with vinegar…

“In general,” he continues. “the meat of ruminants is better in England than in France, because they are given particular attention in feeding and care. Nothing can compare with those whole roasted beef quarters that are trundled about on the miniature railways that separate the guests of an English tavern. Those pieces of beef veined with fat, weighing up to a hundred pounds, from which one cuts one’s chosen portion, have no peer for the stimulation of the appetite. The English grow beef so fat the cattle seem to have lost the use of their legs and walk on their stomachs. The cattle breeders and the feeders make the animals drink up to 20 gallons of water a day. Where English cooking is weak is in the sauce department. But large fish and butcher’s meat are infinitely finer in London than in Paris”.

Comparisons may be invidious, but we do have some pretty good beef in Jamaica these days. There are some beef farmers who are taking their business seriously. We even export some of it, but apparently not to Britain or to France. Here is Dumas’ own Beef a la Mode, a la Bourgeoise. Do give it a try. “Take, preferably, the centre cut of rump and lard with bacon. Put in a heavy covered pot with 2 carrots, 4 onions (1 with 2 cloves stuck in it), garlic, thyme, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Pour over it, a large glass of water, ½ glass of white wine or 1 tablespoon of brandy, and cook slowly until tender (5 or 6 hours, at least). Skim the fat off the gravy, then strain. Serve.”

© Elizabeth North 28/08/1996