Camp, and very much so, Dinner for 5

***Don't forget to post any questions you may have for me regarding the project here***


Much like KC wrote in a comment on this very blog, I share the culinary credo, “In Nigella we Trust”. However, last night when I made How to Eat’s camp dinner, I made a few changes, and even went against direct instructions from Nigella herself. (Gasp!) However, I feel no sense of guilt or culinary cheating for having done so. If anyone has a firm grasp on kitsch & camp, it is I. And this is definitely one case where you can turn it up a notch. BAM! Besides, I knew that the five of us (Mum, Daniel, and our friends Mark and Sophie), would appreciate the food regardless.

250. Little Gems with Green Goddess Dressing (Dinner)
251. Young Grouse with Mascarpone and Thyme (One & Two)
252. Sweet and Sour Cabbage (Dinner)
253. Pavlova (Dinner)

Nigella’s original CAMP, BUT ONLY SLIGHTLY, DINNER FOR 6, consists of all the elements listed above, except for the young grouse. Her main dish of choice is pheasant with gin and it, which is basically an adaptation of the braised pheasant with mushroom and bacon, with different marinades and flavourings in it. You may remember that I made the original braised pheasant back in August, and was incredibly unimpressed. It was tough, the sauce was too watery, and the dish was generally unpleasant. And those pheasants were bloody expensive! There was no way I was going to make pheasant, in full quantity, for guests! So I substituted with the grouse recipe in the One & Two chapter, for which another substitution was required. You see, we cannot get grouse in Australia. Ever. I think it’s because we have no moors. But Nigella says that her idea for this dish was based on the “deeply fabulous” quail served at the River Café, so I felt that quail would be a more than adequate alternative to grouse. And anything described as “deeply fabulous” obviously meets the camp criteria.

With the quail/grouse replacing the pheasant dish, the whole menu is surprisingly easy to put together. I made the pavlova in the morning, and the rest of the elements à la minute.

I absolutely love to eat pavlova. It was my favourite cake growing up. I used to have it as my birthday cake every year until I turned 12, when the wonderful Pavlova Pantry sadly closed down. This is when I stopped eating it, almost entirely. None of the other store bought pavlovas ever measured up, and besides, I’ve been never very good at making meringue. The arrival of my KitchenAid mixer last year vastly increased my confidence in my meringue-making-ability, but before yesterday, I had yet to attempt a pavlova.

It is a simple procedure, but there is a lot of room for error. You have to start by whisking up egg whites until satiny and peaking. Then you gradually whisk in castor sugar, and then fold in cornflour, white wine vinegar and vanilla extract.


Meringue

Then you spread the smooth, stiff mixture into an appropriately sized circle…



…and bake it for 1 ¼ hours at 150C. Nigella says to let it cool in the oven, as any sudden drop in temperature will cause it to crack. I did let it cool in the oven, and when I came to retrieve the pav from the cooling oven in the evening, the thing still cracked on me. Crap. I’m not quite sure where I went wrong.


Cracked like a biatch

This meant I couldn’t turn it upside down to decorate it, as Nigella (and Stephanie Alexander before her) suggest, because upside-down, it would be very unstable, and any weight on top would have caused it to collapse. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I just left it, right way up and put Mark on pav-decorating duty. I set up a bowl of whipped cream and some fruits, and when he arrived, I just told him to “make it beautiful”. Mark is a bit of a pav-decorating master; I’ve seen his previous attempt and it was just awesome. As soon as I find a photo of his, I’ll publish it here for your admiration. (And my own, not-quite-as-awesome-but-still-fabulous-pav will be revealed at the bottom of this post).

Following my setting up of the pav-decoration station, I made the green goddess dressing, and left it in the fridge until dinner time. The dressing is a thick, creamy mixture of pounded anchovies, milk, vinegar, crème fra­îche, olive oil, spring onion, parsley and tarragon. It smells deliciously pungent and herbaceous.

Next was the quail. To prepare it, you first remove the guts from each little quail, and then chop them up.


Guts

The chopped-up guts are mixed with red wine, mascarpone, lemon zest and fresh thyme, and then re-inserted into the quails’ little cavities.


biba-pink cream

This is the conversation I had with Mark as we were standing in the kitchen, him decorating the pavlova, me stuffing the quails.

Me: You know, I’m glad that you don’t mind eating quail.

Mark: Yeah! Of course. It’s just food!

Me: Yes I know, but some people get a bit precious around quails, because they’re all little and cute.

Mark: Oh whatever… I know this one guy who won’t eat meat if you can tell what animal it came from! He saw this photo of a pork roast I made, and was all like “Eww you can tell that came off the side of an animal, that’s gross”. He only eats meat in chicken nuggets or patties.

Me: That’s so wrong. I think it’s really important to understand the fact that an animal has died for you to eat it, and to treat the carcass with respect!


Of course, this was all going on as I was rudely stuffing a mascarpone-thyme-quail-gut mixture into each quail’s cavity with my fingers. Irony.


Uncooked quail in tray

Grouse are supposed to take 30-45 minutes in a 200C oven, but seeing as quail are so much smaller, I only put them in for about 25. They didn’t quite go as brown as I would have liked, but they still looked fine.

While they were in the oven, I shredded the cabbage for the sweet and sour cabbage and then dressed the salad and added cornichons. By this stage it was getting late, and the fact that Mark and I had been drinking Coronas whilst cooking was slowing me down even further. So we didn’t bother with a first and second course, but just plonked everything down on the table at once. The final stage was deglazing the roasting tray with wine and mascarpone, and stir-frying the cabbage with sugar, vinegar and salt.

Just before I get to the photos of the food, I thought I’d share with you some atmospheric aides. As you will have realized, I normally don’t go in for this sort of thing, but I do believe that tonight deserved a bit of extra effort.


Music Selection:

Madonna – Hung Up, Sorry, Vogue, Express Yourself
George Michael – Too Funky, Fastlove, Freek!, American Angel, I Want Your Sex, Amazing, Shoot the Dog, Spinning the Wheel, Flawless
Wham! – Wake Me Up Before You Go Go
Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls, Being Boring
Geri Halliwell – It’s Raining Men

We also dimmed the lights and had a red cone-shaped candle at the table.

Nigella includes the quail recipe in the One & Two chapter. She says that the scale is all wrong to feed quail to large numbers of people – “too many little bits”. I said bollocks to that and piled our 10 quails gloriously on the one platter.


Pile of quail – Not only does it look generous and abundant, but serving them in this way kills any whiff of pretentious cheffiness (which I don’t necessarily think is a serious problem, but I do know Nigella’s not a fan).


Salad


Dinner

We ate, slowly, in air-conditioned comfort, enjoying the light and fresh tastes of the meal. The salad was awesome - so crunchy and tangy, and the cornichons were a nice addition. I was afraid they might be too astringent to eat by themselves (much like those Jewish pickles in cans for which I have yet to acquire the taste), but they were mild and added a good textural contrast to the salad.

The cabbage was absolutely compulsive! The crunchy cabbage had a very strong, sharp flavour and was like Pringles - once you pop, you can't stop. The quails were lovely too, very soft and tender and gently infused with the thyme flavour.

We started off politely with knifes and forks, and then progressed to using our hands and mouths to get off every last scrap of flesh.

And in the spirit of the evening, here’s something funny that my brother said upon eating the quail.

Dan: Man this is so good, I want to suck this bone dry!

Ahem.

Ok, so finally, here's the pavlova! In the recipe, Nigella says "don't be tempted to add other fruit" (she only stipulates passionfruit), but really, I felt it could go a lot bigger and brighter. So earlier in the evening, when I got Mark to decorate it, I gave him passionfruit, kiwi fruit and strawberries, and let him go nuts. He filled the crater with cream and carefully arranged the fruit on top. And here is the fruit of his labours.


Pavlova

Surprisingly, we were able to cut it without it totally collapsing on us. Despite the cracking, there was still a decent amount of soft, gooey filling within. And Mark's decorating job was fantastic, all the gaps in the pavlova were filled and despite my total crapness, it looked (almost) whole and stable. Good work!


one slice gone


halfway through


one piece w coffee

It was brilliant! Mum and I both had seconds, and Dad polished off the remainder when he came home late last night.

I can't believe I'd forgotten how good pavlova is! One bite of this delicious, creamy, sweet (but not too sweet) dessert and I was in sugar-paradise.

Absolutely fabulous, darling!

Look, it's leftovers!

And so begins the post-Christmas culinary clean up. The massive plates of chunked turkey, chestnut stuffing, cranberry sauce, bread sauce and brussels sprouts in the fridge have been staring at us through their gladwrap, but thankfully Nigella has a solution which extends beyond microwaving them to a bad cover version of Christmas dinner. (Although, truth be told, I have done the microwave thang, and they haven't been too shabby as a quick meal, especially to take to work for my break).

224. Bubble & Squeak

I made this for my lunch on Boxing Day, and never having made or eaten it before, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I'd read references to bubble and squeak in cookbooks over the years, and had gotten the impression that it was a very British dish, a sort of mish-mash of random fried leftovers, most suited for a hangover breakfast.

In her instructions for Christmas bubble and squeak, Nigella says to chop and then fry leftover brussels sprouts with an onion and mashed potato, and to top it with a fried or poached egg and optionally some crispy bacon. We didn't have any mashed potatoes with our christmas dinner, but we did have some mashed potato stuffing left over from the roast goose, which provided the perfect amount of potato for a single serving bubble & squeak.

I followed Nigella's instructions, and topped it with a fried egg. (The idea of poaching eggs just gives me a headache, so I never bother).


Bubble and Squeak


Topped with a fried egg

I really liked it! By Boxing Day I was no longer hungover, but for whatever reason, it really it the spot. I'm a huge fan of cabbage, and the fried Brussels sprouts tasted deliciously of fried cabbage, with the chestnuts from the same original dish providing a lovely sweet and mealy contrast.


225. Ed Victor's Turkey Hash

I made Ed Victor's Turkey Hash on the 27th of December, for lunch for my parents and myself. After having made 224 recipes from How to Eat, (and numerous ones from Nigella's other books and columns), I immodestly say that I know a thing or two about Nigella recipes. And as such, I feel qulified to say that this recipe seems out of place in the Nigella opus. First off, it includes green peppers, which Nigella often writes that she never uses. Secondly, it has a pretty random combination of ingredients in there... that is, too random even for Nigella.

Pitted ripe black olives?... Toasted almonds?... Mixed together and added to the aforementioned green pepper, an onion, leftover turkey meat and stuffing, and then bound with beaten eggs and double cream? I wasn't exactly looking forward to the prospect.


cooking

After cooking and warming all those unattractive-sounding ingredients in a pan, Ed says to finish it off with grated parmesan on top and brown it under the griller... resulting in an equally unattractive-looking hash.


in pan

The smell, however, was most attractive. This is when I realised why the recipe was included in the book, despite declassé ingredients (pitted and sliced black olives in brine, from a jar, thank-you very much), and odd flavour combinations - it's delicious. And even in the 35 degree heat, (totally inappropriate for turkey, goose, stuffing, bubble & squeak, brussels sprouts, mince pies or hash of any description), we very much enjoyed the hash. It was kind of like a frittata-cum-Chinese-style-omelette, only with a lot more fillings.


With condiments

I have made Nigella's Masalan omelette (Nigella Bites) in the past, and remembered her suggesting HP sauce to go with. The hash smelled vaguely similar, so I went with HP sauce, and my dad went with Worcesteshire sauce. And since we had no reason to worry about culinary image or snobbery, I liberally drowned my serving in Crystal hot sauce.

The 3 Bird Orgy, Part IV [Goose Duck Goose]

And today was the day of the dinner party!

This morning, Dad took me to Box Hill to get all the last ingredients I would need – easy stuff, like red cabbage, onions, etc. One thing I realized might be difficult to obtain was a goose gizzard. I doubted the Box Hill butchers would have any goose gizzards, but I figured that one from a duck or chicken would suffice. So we went to the poultry shops in the Box Hill Market, asking for gizzard. We got the same response from everyone. “Gizzard, what’s a gizzard? You mean giblet! We got giblet, you want giblet?” Er, no.

So once we’d done all the other shopping, we headed to Belmore Butchers (which is kinda like Rendinas in terms of quality, but a 20 minute walk from our house, instead of a 5 minute walk).

Butcher: Hi there love, how are you?
Me: Good thanks, how are you?
Butcher: I’m well, thank-you! How can I help you?
Me: Hi, have you got any gizzards?
Butcher: Sorry love, we don’t keep giblets.
Me: Wait, are gizzards and giblets the same thing?
Butcher: Yes they are.

BLOODY HELL. Dad very kindly drove us back to Box Hill, where I sheepishly bought some duck gizzards and then went home to start on the cooking.

211. Christmas Eve Goose (Basics etc.)
212. Red Cabbage Cooked in the Viennese Fashion (Weekend Lunch)

In addition to the giblets, you also need the goose neck for the recipe, which, I discovered, had been cut off by the butcher and stored within the cavity. Sweet as!


There's the neck. Not a disturbing sight at all.

Before you start anything else, you need to remove the fat from around the goose’s cavity, and render it down.


goosefat

The goose needs to be started early. Remember, this is the “holy shit! A fan is involved” goose. The whole fan fandango (har har) is supposed to make the goose’s skin crisp, much like the poaching-then-roasting technique makes the duck soft and crisp. I wonder if you could poach the goose. It certainly would make life easier.

For this recipe, you prick the skin all over with a knife, then pour boiled water over the skin. Nigella suggests doing this over a roasting tray, and then draining the tray, but I just did it in the sink, on a rack. Much easier.


goose in sink

It’s so cool when you pour the water on the skin – it contracts and stretches over the meat.

It wasn’t too much trouble using the fan; it is summer after all (sorry to my friends in the northern hemisphere), we had our free-standing fan already out in the lounge room. I just moved it to the kitchen and aimed it at the goose.


fan

It was about 3:30pm when I realized the goose wasn’t drying fast enough for my liking, so I turned on the airconditioner as well. (Plus, I was getting hot standing at the stove).


with airconditioning

While the goose is drying, you can do the stuffing. You cook some normal onion in the rendered goosefat (yeah baby, yeah), add garlic and lemon zest, and then stir that into 1.4 kilos of potatoes, which have been boiled and mashed.


mashed potato stuffing

Then you pack it into the capacious cavity and it’s ready for the oven. There was a decent amount of stuffing left over, so I put that into a loaf tin, and baked it with the duck later on.


Stuffing

I’m no expert on food hygiene, but I’m pretty sure that once the hot stuffing goes into the raw goose, it has to be cooked immediately. And you know, for all my worrying about how small my goose was, I’m glad I only got a 3 kg gosling – it just fit in my oven!


in oven

Ok, so in the meantime, I made the cabbage. It is suggested as an accompaniment to pork, but would also be perfect with goose. The cabbage is finely shredded, and then cooked in oil with dark muscovado sugar, some Spanish onion, a cooking apple and some vinegar. Then you add some beef stock, and cook it slowly (either on stovetop or in oven – I used the stove) for 2 hours.


sliced cabbage


in pot

It seems like a hell of a lot of cabbage at first, but it does collapse and soften. After the two hours cooking are up, you slowly stir in a mixture of crème fraiche (woohoo! I got to finish off my half-used tub!) and flour, and let it cook for a minute or two. Then you can forget about it, and just reheat it when you want it.

Next was the gravy for the goose. Brown some bacon in more goosefat, then add the giblets and chopped neck, and brown those, followed by onion and carrot. Then you add some chicken stock, and let it simmer for 30 minutes, before straining it and thickening it with cornflour. Once this is all done, you can just leave it in the pot, off the heat, with the lid on to keep it warm.


unstrained gravy

I put the duck in the oven while the goose was resting, covered in foil.

Check out the goose – during cooking, the stuffing expands (or the goose shrinks) and comes out of the cavity.


"I have stuffing coming out the wazoo"

Now, between the consommé, the duck, the goose, the gravy and the cabbage, I'd made a right fucking mess in the kitchen, and used almost every single utensil we own. Normally we eat in the kitchen, but looking at the mess in there, I knew there was no way it was going to happen tonight. We ate dinner in the dining room.


mess

I heated up the consommé when Uncle Mike and Aunty Helen arrived. But looking into the pot, I was suddenly a bit worried about serving it. It looked so boring! I mean, I know that the point of consommé is to have a clear and tasty soup, but still... and I'd never eaten proper consommé before, so I had no idea what it was supposed to be like. I tasted some, then made my mum, my dad, and my brother taste it in turn. We all had the same reaction - "Er... it's ok, but it's boring. You want us to eat a whole bowl of that?" I was almost considering going straight to the goose, and skipping the soup entirely. But then I got Uncle Mike to taste some, and he said, "Yes, that tastes right". And my fears were allayed. We scooped it out into small bowls and started eating.


consommé

It was, surprisingly, really good! Even Mum and Dad enjoyed it. I think it was fine once we knew what to expect. It was heaps stronger than the Italian broth, but as a soup to be eaten plain, it had a lovely delicate flavour. The small bowls we had were perfect for a light starter before the big meal.


dinner

We tried to carve the goose at the table, but it turned out to be more difficult than we'd hoped.


Mum & Aunty Helen carving

So, Mum & I took the goose into the kitchen, and hacked away at it on a board, in a very uncivilised manner. It was really messy, but it was worth it.


Me - and that's the Dangerfield dress. Same price as a 3-kg gosling.


carnage


messy goose


Potato stuffing - the stuffing that had been cooked inside the goose tasted heaps better than the stuffing that had been cooked separately.

We started off by just eating the goose. And by the time we'd gotten through the goose, we were full!!! I didn't need a second bird after all! Bloody Nigella portioning. But seeing as I'd gone to the trouble of making the duck, we tried some anyway.


Soft & Crispy Duck


my plate

That cabbage was just unbelievably good. It looked like a big pile of sweet purple jammy crap in the pan, but it tasted fantastic. It wasn't overly sweet, overly sharp, too mushy or anything like that - it was just perfect. I seriously could have eaten a bowl of it by itself for dinner. (And I might do that tomorrow night with the leftovers).

Now, about the goose. I'd never had goose before, and didn't know quite what to expect. But I loved it! It wasn't tough at all; it was moist and tender, and the fabulous skin was crisp. And the stuffing was wonderful too - all that goosefat and goose juice seeping through the potato. Like, DROOL! It's such a great celebratory dish!

The duck was, as you might have guessed, both soft and crispy. I love a good roast duck, and this one was so easy to make! I highly recommend it for anytime you're entertaining.

On Nigella's suggestion, I didn't make a separate pudding, but just had some fruit and nuts on the table to share. I had cherries on ice, and some whole nuts, which we cracked at the table. I also put a bowl of gooseberries on the table. I hadn't planned to serve them, but I'd found a punnet at Coles in the morning, and never having seen them in Australia before, knew I just had to buy them instantly. (Also, there's a gooseberry recipe in How to Eat somewhere). I'd left them on the kitchen counter, and when Uncle Mike came in, he exclaimed, "Gooseberries! I haven't had them since I was a lad!" So we added them to the table.


dessert


Gooseberries

This was just the right ending to the meal - satisfying, but not too heavy. And the social aspect of cracking the nuts at the table was great. Dad also opened a packet of Lindt chocolate-covered hazelnuts, which went down very, very well. After the meal, we just sat around the table, drinking wine, chatting, and picking at the bits and pieces.

Ooh and check this out - it's Uncle Mike and Aunty Helen's Christmas gift for me. They gave it to me tonight after dinner. It's a gorgeous little amethyst bracelet. How fab is it?!

Friday Dinner

Due to my terrible, terrible exam yesterday and the awful days of study leading up to it, my fridge was quite empty this morning. So my dad and I went to Box Hill in the morning and came back loaded with bags and bags of food to keep us going this week. We got quails, cabbage, chicken, capsicums, onions, garlic, eggplants, various cheeses and a whole bunch of other delicious stuff. Fantastic!

Last week, my diet consisted mainly of caffiene, Diet Lime Coke and sugar, so I thought it was high time for a nutritional, nurturing meal. (This is also in anticipation of the onslaught my body will be receiving in preparation for my next, and final exam, one week from today.)

18. Lacquered Quail (Low Fat)
19. Japanese Flavoured Sour-Sweet Cabbage (Low Fat)

Do you know how fun it is to spatchcock quails? You can just use kitchen scissors because their little bones are not strong at all. Just shove the scissors in and cut on either side of the backbone. It's very therapeutic! I actually bought eight quail, but my brother was working and not joining us for dinner, so I shoved two of them in the freezer for a future low-fat solo dinner.


Adri (my friend who saw this photo): omg the quails DO look like they are dancing

This is really, very very easy and quick. You have to boil up some pomegranate molasses and soy sauce in a saucepan, then pour it over the waiting, flattened quails and shove them in a hot oven for 15 minutes. Easy peasy! Whilst they're cooking, you can make the cabbage, which is shredded cabbage stir-fried in a bit of sesame oil, with mirin, soy sauce and rice vinegar. Nigella says "sprinkle over some Japanese seven-spice mixture if you've any to hand". What a silly thing to say, "IF you've any to hand"... we've always got it! I'm terribly addicted to it! It's called shichimi togarashi or nanami togarashi in Japanese, and it comes in a small glass cylindrical container with a red lid. Fabulous stuff.


Quail & I - Nanami Togarashi on the right

You know, this meal didn't taste low fat at all. It was delicious, filling and gratifying! Ooh and I just realised it was low carb too! Go me for eating super-healthy! (And more to the point, go Nigella for writing a fab recipe!) For some reason, I found it easy to eat two quails, but my parents had one and a half each, and were already full. Bizzare. Well at least now we've got a leftover cooked one sitting in the fridge with some leftover cabbage. That is SO my dinner tomorrow night.

One thing to note though, quails are hard to eat. We tried with knifes and forks at first, but there were so many little bones in there that after about 30 seconds we gave up and started ripping the poor creatures apart with our hands and teeth, Shrek style. I guess this is another reason why they're good for low-fat eating - because they're just too difficult to eat in huge quantities!


Aftermath (this was all our quails, not just mine!)