Aphorisims on Cooking - Bee Wilson 🌞

Bee's Aphorisms

It’s much harder to remain furious with someone when they have cooked
you something wonderful. This is also true when you cook for yourself.

No fancy ingredient you can buy feels as soothing as a clean fridge.
If you want to eat better food, you need to look after the cook. That
probably means you.

Time your cooking by songs instead of by the clock and it will start to feel
like dancing.

Many people believe they dislike cooking when what they really dislike is
washing up.

There is always another way of doing something in the kitchen. Pick the
way that doesn’t drive you crazy.

Every element in a recipe is optional – including the decision to cook it in
the first place.

It doesn’t matter how authentic or healthy or otherwise virtuous a dish is if
you don’t like it.

An easy meal made by a relaxed person is better than an elaborate meal
cooked in a state of stress.

Apologising for its shortcomings never made a meal taste better.

Cooking eggs is the closest that most of us will ever come to performing
magic.

Pots and pans are like friends. Try to pick the ones that are so lovable you
will forgive them when they let you down.

If in doubt, add more butter. When that fails, add more garlic. (I am not
talking about desserts.)

Sometimes you think that a dish needs more salt when it really needs a
touch of water.

Through cooking, you can not only recover old memories but make newer,
happier ones.

When feeling unmoored, hold on to a wooden spoon. It will steady you.

Your own mood is one of the missing ingredients in every recipe.

No measuring device yet invented is half as brilliant as the human hand.

The hardest part of cooking is not the cooking but the food shopping.

The best knife sharpener is the one that you use.

You may believe you can’t cook but if you know how to eat, you are
halfway there.


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Raspberry ripple hazelnut meringue
(gluten-free)

If you feel you have enough cooking on your hands with the stuffed
vegetables, there’s no need to cook pudding. No one would be disappointed
with a big bowl of raspberries or strawberries, a jug of cream and a bowl of
sugar. But this meringue is spectacular and very easy – a pavlova flavoured
with toasted hazelnuts and filled with cream rippled with raspberries. I got
the idea from Jeremy Lee, the chef proprietor of Quo Vadis restaurant, who
makes a similar meringue but with almonds and whom I am not alone in
considering the king of puddings. The addition of the nuts makes the
meringue twice as nice, in my view, but obviously if you are serving the
meal to anyone who can’t eat nuts, you can just leave them out and it’s still
a thing of splendour.

The meringue itself can be made ahead of time (even 1–2 days ahead),
and then all you have to do is whip the cream and assemble it with the fruit.

Serves 8

120g (4 1/2 oz) blanched hazelnuts
5 egg whites (save the yolks to make pasta or custard)
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar (optional, but helps the egg white to hold its
shape)
275g (9 1/2 oz) caster or granulated sugar
400g (14oz) raspberries (washed)
Icing sugar
400ml (13 oz) double cream

Line a large baking tray with baking parchment. Heat the oven to 170°C fan
(325° F).

Scatter the hazelnuts on the baking tray and roast in the oven until their
colour is just starting to deepen and they smell wonderful (about 10
minutes). Tip them into a food processor and grind them very coarsely
(there should still be some big pieces). If you don’t have a food processor,
chop them by hand.

Using an electric whisk, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar in a
large, clean mixing bowl until they are stiff and very white. Slowly add the
sugar and continue to beat until glossy. Fold in most of the ground nuts,
keeping back a large handful, using a large spatula or metal spoon. Tip the
meringue on to the lined tray and spread it out to make a rough circle shape
of approximately 24cm. Scatter the remaining hazelnuts on top. Bake the
meringue for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 120°C fan
(225° F) and bake for another 40 minutes. It should look a divine pale biscuity
brown: the colour of a fawn whippet. Leave it to cool out of the oven.

While the meringue is baking, take 125g (4 1/2 oz) of raspberries and press them
through a sieve to make a purée. Mix this with 3 tablespoons of icing sugar
to sweeten. Whip the cream with 1 tablespoon of icing sugar until it reaches
soft peaks. Swirl half the raspberry purée into the cream to make a ripple.
Dollop the cream over the meringue, followed by the rest of the whole
raspberries. Drizzle the remaining sweet raspberry purée over the top and
dust with icing sugar. At this point, according to Jeremy Lee, the cook
should ‘take a bow’.


(Ed. Note: thot I'd post this recipe again...more people around now!)

From "The Secret of Cooking"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77264998-the-secret-of-cooking