Five Fat Hens by Tim Halket

Author:Tim Halket
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: COOKING / Specific Ingredients / Poultry
ISBN: 9781909166653
Publisher: Grub Street Publishing
Published: 2011-07-13T16:00:00+00:00

First the tomatoes. I like to skin them and cut them into bite-sized pieces – in the case of little cherry tomatoes, I just halve them. I then remove and discard most of the seeds and slush inside. (I know this is tasty stuff and the likes of Marco and Gordon would turn it into a little freebie soup micro-starter; un petit tomato consommé. I guess Heston might use it to make a granita, or, possibly, Corn Flakes.) Place the skinned and deseeded tomatoes in a small bowl and add a little dried oregano, a twist of black pepper, a pinch of caster sugar and a little glug of extra virgin olive oil. Leave this to macerate for at least an hour, two or three is better. Make sure they are cool – but not in the fridge. Before adding these to the salad drain off most of the juice.

As I said somewhere above, if the broad beans are positively nursery sized just pod them and use them raw, any bigger just quickly blanch them, later in the year they will need blanching and peeling. But be warned; in all cases unless they have been recently picked, i.e. the same day, I really do think you are better using frozen baby broad beans. They are second only to peas in their suitability to freezing. If I’m using frozen then I just put them in a large bowl and cover with boiling water straight from the kettle for a minute. Drain them and they’re done. You can then skin them or not as you choose. As with all things in the kitchen, taste a couple; then decide. Next thing to do is start chopping the vegetables – just toss them straight into the serving bowl as you go. Deseed the peppers and cut into little squares or thin strips, as you prefer. I like the combination of red and yellow peppers in this. Don’t use green peppers though – they are truly horrible when eaten raw. Cut the cucumber in half and deseed it by running the bowl of a teaspoon along its length. Discard the seeds. Cut the cucumber into little chunks, batons, or thin slices, as you please.

Slice the radishes as thinly as you possibly can. If you have a choice, use the sort that are round and that wonderful purple-red all over, as opposed to the elongated French Breakfast variety, one end of which is white.

Remove any mankey-looking outer leaves from the spring onions. Cut the roots off and discard those. Now cut the spring onions straight across into thinnish rings all the way from the white root end until the green bit becomes a bit too leafy (don’t fart around doing silly angled cheffy chiffonades).

I never used to like black olives. I’m coming around to them, but I still don’t fancy them as a bar-snack. Still, they have a proper role to play in this. Try to get some good olives from a deli or the deli-counter.

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