This looks like a fry up but it's not quite. It is based on a Spanish dish called patatas a lo pobre con huevos rotos - the 'a lo pobre' means 'of the poor'. I cooked this and the red cabbage and pine nut dish which follows because I had been inspired to look more carefully at Claudia Roden's 'The Food of Spain'. Both recipes feature in the book but I have adapted them.
Last weekend we were spoilt. On Saturday we ate at Ottolenghi in Islington which met every expectation I had of the restaurant and on Sunday my brother, Martin, treated us to three dishes he cooked more or less from 'The Food of Spain'. He is a very good cook and he did justice to the lemony mushrooms, the slow cooked stuffed peppers and Claudia's walnut cake steeped in brandy.
So what makes a good cook? Every dish needs good ingredients in the right quantities; either measured or estimated carefully. A dish also needs a method which instructs the cook how the ingredients should be assembled and cooked.
But the distinguishing feature of a good cook I think is someone who can exercise judgement when preparing any dish.
If you cook using recipes written by someone else no matter how well written, you need to exercise a degree of judgement which you can only do if you have both confidence and experience. If you give the same recipe to ten people (as I have when I was teaching) each will produce a slightly different version of the same dish -
some taste and look better than others. In the Virtues of the Table, philosopher Julian Baggini argues recipes take away judgement from the cook. 'As soon as you create fixed instructions, you reduce the need of the cook to make her own decisions and thus diminish her skills'. What cooks need is to develop something Aristotle called practical wisdom. This, he argues, is essential to being a good cook and to living many other aspects of our lives well. Excessive codification destroys practical wisdom in medicine, education and everyday cooking and the results can be catastrophic.
Baginni's Italian grandmother learned to cook by watching her mother. Her repertoire was small but everything she cooked was delicious. In a way I think he is right. Recipes no matter how well they are written are never foolproof. It is much better to learn how to make pasta, for example, by someone showing you each step than it is to slavishly follow a instructions from a book. In that way you are more likely to develop a feel for food and develop, like the Mediterranean cooks do, a repertoire of dishes you can cook well with confidence.
So the dishes below are based on traditional recipes written out by Claudia Roden and cooked and photographed by me. Of course you can have a go at using your own judgement and making them your own. The ingredients are basic, seasonal and cheap and if you exercise practical wisdom you can make them into a feast for your hungry family and friends. If you make a mistake it will not matter too much. The important thing is, if you do, that you learn from it. Have a good weekend. Joan x
Potatoes with caramelised onion, eggs and chorizo
Serves 2
1 large, old potato, peeled
2 tbsp olive oil, and a little more if needed
1 onion, peeled and sliced
3 eggs
150g chorizo, sliced in 1cm rings
salt and black pepper
1 tbsp parsley, chopped
Method
Cut the potato in half lengthways and then into 1cm thick slices. Boil or steam for 8 to 10 minutes until cooked through. In the meantime pour the olive oil in a frying pan followed by the onions and cook them gently until they begin to caremalise. By this time the potatoes will be cooked; drain them well and add them to the pan together with the sliced chorizo. Turn up the heat under the pan and cook the potatoes and chorizo until they begin to brown.
Whisk the eggs in a bowl with a little salt and pepper. Move the potatoes and chorizo over to one side of the pan and reduce the heat. Add a little more oil to the pan and pour the beaten eggs into the space you have cleared. Allow the eggs to set a little and then move them a little with a fork or spatula so they scramble to a creamy consistency. Season and scatter with shopped parsley.
Red cabbage with apples, raisins and toasted pine nuts
Serves 6 to 8
4 tbsp raisins (flame raisins would be perfect)
1 small red cabbage
4 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, peeled and sliced
2 eating apples, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
6 tbsp wine vinegar (red, white, cider, sherry)
1 tbsp sugar
160ml water
salt and black pepper
4 tbsp pine nuts
Method
Soak the raisins in water for about half an hour and then drain. Wash the red cabbage and remove the outer leaves. Cut the cabbage into quarters, remove the hard core and shred finely. Place a little oil in a large flame proof casserole pot followed by the onions and garlic and sweat until they are soft. Add the remaining oil, shredded cabbage, apples, raisins, vinegar, sugar and water. Mix well and place a lid on the casserole. Cook the cabbage on a low heat either on the hob or in the oven at 180C/gas mark 4 for about an hour or until the cabbage is lovely and soft. Place the pine nuts in a frying pan over a low heat and roll them around the pan until they are beginning to brown. Stir the pine nuts into the cabbage and serve the dish hot.
