The Essential Cook’s Kitchen: Traditional culinary skills, from breadmaking and dairy to preserving and curing

358 Pages·2018·57.84 MB·English

by  Alison Walker

THE ESSENTIAL
Cook’s Kitchen
TRADITIONAL CULINARY SKILLS, FROM BREADMAKING AND DAIRY TO
PRESERVING AND CURING
Alison Walker
Additional recipes by Shona Crawford Poole
Photography by Tara Fisher
Contents
Introduction
Baking
Dairy
Preserving
Bottling & liqueurs
Curing & potting
Index
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Think of a traditional country kitchen and what comes to mind? A worn
flagstone floor, an old-fashioned Windsor chair sitting snugly next to the warm,
welcoming range cooker… My first thought is of a well-scrubbed, wooden
farmhouse table laid out for tea, with feather-light scones, freshly churned butter,
soft, creamy cheeses, glistening jars of jam made with berries from the garden –
and all homemade, of course.
The kitchen skills needed to make this simple country fare are something our
grandmothers and great-grandmothers would have taken for granted, family
recipes passed down through generations of women who honed the dishes to
perfection. As a child I loved to watch my grandmother making pies: she didn’t
own a pair of measuring scales or any fancy gadgets, everything was done by
touch and experience. And, inevitably, those pies were perfect every time. Sadly,
those kinds of skills have now been largely forgotten or fallen out of use,
because, ‘really, who has the time?’ Who needs such things in a modern world
where grabbing an expensive ready-meal for supper is the norm? That’s
understandable; of course we’re too busy to churn butter or make our own
cheese and why should we when we can pick up perfectly acceptable examples
at the local shops? But where’s the pleasure in that?
Every now and then, it’s good to slow down and reconnect with Nature’s
bounty, enjoy the transformation of raw ingredients into an enticing plate of
biscuits or mouth-watering sponge cake. I will happily spend many an hour
turning a crop of just picked raspberries or a basket of hedgerow fruit into rows
of jams and jellies to stock the pantry for the winter months, or turn out batches
of fresh, meaty sausages for a Sunday cooked breakfast complete with a fruity
chutney.
By using modern technology the old-fashioned techniques are easier to revive
than you may think. I’m not asking you to laboriously make butter by hand in an
antique butter churn (use a food mixer and it takes a fraction of the time) or keep
your own pigs in the garden (find a good local butcher instead); rather simply to
enjoy some of the processes involved in making good food as well as the
delicious end result. After all, what Victorian cook would have used a wooden
spoon to make a sponge if she’d had access to electric hand-beaters! It’s simple
to incorporate country cooking into your life: you could bake a batch of bread
for the week, then stock up the freezer with the surplus, while a country walk
could turn into a forage for sloes to make a liqueur to give at Christmas.
Country cooking is close to my heart, the food I most like to prepare and
share with family and friends. At its best, it’s simple, hearty, thrifty, honest food
that is a pleasure to create and a joy to eat. It enables you to cook amazing meals
with cheaper ingredients, cope with garden gluts and, most importantly, know
exactly the integrity of the food you are serving. With this in mind, I have
covered everything I think the aspiring country cook needs to know, from the
perhaps unfamiliar traditional skills of curing, bottling and cheese making, to
more familiar old favourites like making cakes, bread and pastry. Apart from a
few recipes, very little specialist equipment is required. Step shots helpfully
illustrate some of the trickier skills and each chapter covers in detail the
equipment, ingredients and techniques you might need. My hope is that you will
be tempted to delve in from time to time to make a chutney or cake, or to begin
to adapt the skills of country cooking to fit your own lifestyle, even if it’s only at
weekends. Before long, you, too, can know the pleasure and benefits of eating
your own bread, cheese or smoked fish…

Baking
Baking is surely at the heart of any
country kitchen and gives the good
cook a chance to shine, even with
the simplest of recipes. Who can
resist a batch of freshly baked
scones warm from the oven? The
comforting crunch of a homemade
biscuit, a simple supper of fresh
bread and cheese or a Victoria
sponge filled with tangy raspberry
jam is far superior to any shop-
bought confection. They are a
pleasure to make as well as eat, but
the secret to success is to
remember that baking is an exact science. Accurate weighing and the
correct oven temperature are always vital.