No Jacket Required
Do you find cooking therapeutic? For some it’s relaxing to spend time preparing food for dishes, such as peeling veg or popping peas from their pods. Discover how Great British Chefs blogger Food Urchin finds pleasant distraction by squeezing broad beans from their, err ”jackets”. He also shares a delicious recipe by Geoffrey Smeddle - Lamb’s Kidneys with Crushed Broad Beans, Lemon and Capers
Blog post and photography by Food Urchin aka Danny Kingston
During my time as my man and boy, I’ve heard lots of people extol the virtues of simply spending time in the kitchen preparing fruit and vegetables, happily easing themselves throughout the day with a spud in one hand and a peeler in the other. And I have to agree. There really is something quite pleasant about whittling away minutes, hours or days at the sink, stopping every now and then, to contemplatively stare through the window, into the back garden, to zone out and quietly pause.
This state of Zen is normally interrupted by a prod in the backside from a wayward son with a lightsaber, or a vision of the cat squatting over my beloved petunias but nevertheless, any state of grace, however long it lasts, is a very pleasant place to be. I do get caught out sometimes, particularly with aubergines. I think it’s something to do with the lovely firm purple skin of this very sexy looking fruit. Standing there grinning with one drooping, heavy eyelid, cupping the base as though it were a buttock, I easily become distracted and lost, thinking lascivious thoughts of yielding, soft flesh.
‘Oooh, I am gonna flame grill you until you drip all over the hob, you saucy little thing you.’
Again, in this incidence, things usually come crashing to earth with a firm slap from my wife, as she shakes me out of my stupor and tells me to get on with the baba ganoush. But even if it’s just for a little while, that space in time is a beautiful space to inhabit.
Not all vegetable preparation needs to be meditative or titillating though. Many a squash has been cleaved in half with the zeal of Jason Voorhees which helps to release tension, frustration and anger. Sometimes, I find it very soothing to personify said vegetable, even going so far as to stick a photograph onto my butternut before sticking my chef’s knife in and slashing it down the middle whilst screaming “DIE! DIE! DIE!”
Admittedly, this form of therapy is probably not very healthy and should not be condoned. With that in mind, some fruit and vegetables, due to their inherent, finicky attitudes to life, can still manage to racket up the blood pressure when it comes to preparing them. I love gooseberries but I hate top and tailing the buggers. And why I ask myself, do sulphurous Brussels sprouts have to be crossed at Christmas time? And just what is the point of globe artichokes? Never has a vegetable had to give up so much for so very little.
The humble broad bean is similar in some ways, in that you have to pod them from their fluffy overcoats and then remove them further, out of their little jackets. Especially as they come towards the end of the season. The key of course, is to blanch the beans for just a minute or so in boiling water and then pop out them out with nick from your thumbnail and a gentle squeeze. To me this is the veritable padlock on a pair of culinary knickers which is time consuming and fiddly to unlock. An hour standing at the kitchen counter, mindlessly popping beans into a bowl would dampen anyone’s ardour.
However, the rewards are great because this sweet, emerald legume is quite delicious and versatile and I always look forward to this time of year when they are ready for harvesting from the allotment. We don’t grow many and for that I am grateful but once I get the faff and the fiddle out of the way, I always end up feeling thankful that we did.
Recently, with some of this year’s batch I tried out Geoffrey Smeddle’s Lamb’s Kidneys with Crushed Broad Beans, Lemon and Capers, the main attraction of the recipe being the introduction of offal. As pointed out, lamb’s kidneys aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, usually due to their odorous nature, but as I am quite fond of them (devilled is best), I thought I would give Geoffrey’s approach a go. And it is certainly a winner.
Combining tender, earthy kidney with the sweetness of crushed, buttery broad beans is great idea. Add the citrus, sour tang from the lemon and capers and all the elements come together surprisingly well. This recipe is probably one to be left for aficionados of the Fifth Quarter as cooking times leave the kidneys slightly underdone. But as an inexpensive starter for an unsuspecting crowd, I bet a lot of people would give it the thumbs up. And now that broad beans are readily available frozen at the supermarket, there is no reason as to why you can’t enjoy this dish throughout the year, without capitulating to the pain of popping.
And popping and popping and popping and popping and popping and popping…….
Blog post and photography by Food Urchin aka Danny Kingston
You’ll find this recipe and other bean recipes in our collection at Great British Chefs.
Which vegetables do you find most therapeutic to prepare?
