Nigel Slater’s Sunday lunch

There’s more to this British tradition than roast beef and roly-poly pudding

New York, late autumn and I am being interviewed for a radio show when a question comes up that I hadn’t prepared for, one where I am asked to describe British food to the listeners. Do I tell them about the meltingly tender lamb from North Ronaldsay, the famous ‘apple hat’ pudding with its tender suet crust, or the northern teacake known as the ‘fat rascal’?

Perhaps I should wax eloquent about Wiltshire bacon, sherry trifle, Christmas pudding or steak-and-kidney pie with its crumbly pastry and dark and savoury filling? Will there be time to get in name-checks for Scottish heather honey, toasted teacakes, gooseberry fool and Caerphilly cheese?

Or do I tell them that for every Brit eating our legendary roast beef and jam roly-poly, there are a million more tucking into Thai green curry and pepperoni pizza. That more people probably eat chocolate brownies than apple crumble and custard, and that it is now easier to find decent sushi than really good roast lamb. Should I mention too that despite our love of all that is local, fresh, organic and ‘real’, we also have a list of edible icons more eccentric than anyone could ever imagine?

The fact of the matter is that our food culture is about savouring the buttercup-scented cheese that’s made in a village barn and the colour of honey, as well as the childish delight of unwrapping a foil triangle of Dairylea.

We have a greater wealth of good food in this country today than ever before. And while the heroic efforts of our artisan food-makers have been well catalogued (if not well patronised), all too little attention has been paid to the food that most of us either actually eat, or at least carry a certain lingering affection for.

We should celebrate the food this nation cherishes – in all its forms – and embrace the curious and even eccentric thing that is the British and their food.

Extracted from Eating for England (£7.99, Harper Perennial). Nigel’s new book, Tender Volume II: A Cook’s Guide to the Fruit Garden (£20, Fourth Estate), is out now.

Main
Grilled chicken with garlic and lemon butter

Enough for 4
4 chubby poussins; olive oil; 1 large lemon, juice and zest; 3-4 small red or orange chillies; 4 large cloves garlic
herb butter
2 or 3 cloves young garlic; 150g butter; thyme, small handful; 1 lemon, zest only

1. Get the butcher to slit the poussins down the backbone and open the birds flat out. Sometimes I do it myself. You just need a large, heavy knife. Lay them in a shallow dish and pour a good 3-4 tbsp of olive oil over them, then squeeze the lemon over.
2. Chop the chillies finely, discarding the seeds, then peel and finely chop the garlic. Tip in with the chicken and season generously with black pepper.
3. Toss the chicken around in its dish, rubbing the oil and seasonings into the skin. Cover with a plate or clingfilm and set aside somewhere cool for at least a couple of hours.
4. To make the herb butter, peel the garlic and chop it very finely, then add it to the butter. Chop the thyme and mash it with the butter, lemon zest, garlic and some sea salt, then set aside. It is best to use it at room temperature rather than from the fridge.
5. Get the grill hot. You will need the temperature set quite low, so that the birds cook right through to the bones before the skin browns too much. Flattened, a healthy poussin should take about 20-30 minutes. Turn halfway through.
6. Get a salad ready to go with the birds, preferably one with a good blob of mustard in the dressing.

Vegetarian main
Grilled zucchini with basil and lemon

Enough for 2
4 medium-sized zucchini (courgette); 1 large lemon, zest and juice; 3 tbsp olive oil; basil leaves, small bunch

1. Wipe the zucchini and slice them thinly along their length. Each slice should be no thicker than a pound coin. Put the slices on the grill and let them brown in stripes on the underside. Turn and brown the other side.
2. Make the dressing. Grate the lemon into a mixing bowl. Do this finely and lightly; any white pith will make the dressing bitter. Beat the olive oil into the lemon juice and finely grated zest, then add salt and black pepper. Roughly tear the basil leaves – I tend to leave the small ones intact but lightly crushed in the hand to release the oils – then add them to the dressing.
3. As each slice of zucchini is ready, drop it into the dressing and mix gently so that the slices become completely soaked. Set aside for 10 minutes for the flavours to marry and the vegetables to soften.

Dessert
Raspberry vanilla ice-cream cake

Enough for 8
300g plain sponge cake; 1 litre vanilla ice cream; 450g raspberries; 2 tbsp icing sugar

1. You will need a cake tin, about 22cm square, lined with clingfilm or greaseproof paper.
2. Slice the sponge thinly, and use half of it to line the bottom of the tin. Leave enough to put a layer on top. Patch it where you must, but try to keep the slices as large as possible.
3. Let the ice cream soften in its tub, but it must not melt. Scatter half the raspberries over the cake, then spoon ice cream on top, pushing it into the corners.
4. Smooth the top, then cover with the remaining raspberries. Cover with reserved slices of sponge cake. Press down firmly to compress fruit and ice cream. Cover tightly with clingfilm, then freeze for at least an hour (several days if tightly wrapped).
5. Bring the cake out of the freezer 30 minutes before you need it, to let the sponge soften. Remove the cake from the tin and dust with icing sugar before slicing with a large, heavy knife.

Recipes from Nigel Slater’s The Kitchen Diaries (£16.99, Fourth Estate)

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