Parsons Lis - Nigella kitchen: recipes from the heart of the home

Copyright 2010 Nigella Lawson

Photographs copyright 2010 Lis Parsons

Design and Art Direction: Caz Hildebrand

Cookery Assistant: Hettie Potter

Editorial Assistant: Zoe Wales

Home Economics Adviser: Caroline Stearns

Props: Rose Murray

Layout/Typesetting: Julie Martin

Index: Vicki Robinson

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 1500 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

First print edition published in Great Britain in 2010 by Chatto & Windus

Hyperion hardcover edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-2395-0

eBook edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-0613-7

First eBook Edition

Original Hyperion hardcover edition printed in the United States of America.

www.HyperionBooks.com

Easy Italian-Inspired Recipes

(formerly Forever Summer)

Delicious Flavors on Your Plate All Year Round

Food Family Friends Festivities

Good Food, Fast

The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food

Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking

Food to Celebrate Life

From Family Meals to Elegant DinnersEasy, Delectable Recipes for Any Occasion

FOR MY FAMILY

NOTE FOR THE READER

All eggs are extra large, organic

Dishes containing raw or partially cooked eggs should not be served to those with weak or compromised immune systems, such as pregnant women, the elderly or the very young

All bittersweet chocolate is minimum 62% cocoa solids

All olive oil is regular (not extra-virgin), unless stated

Flour cup measures are scooped and leveled. Almond flour meal measures are lightly packed. Light and dark brown sugar measures are firmly packed.

Leftovers, if to be kept, should be covered and refrigerated or frozen as soon as cool, and kept no longer than indicated. Never reheat previously frozen or reheated food.

Thaw frozen seafood gradually by placing it in the refrigerator overnight. If you have to thaw seafood quickly, either seal it in a plastic bag and immerse it in cold water, orif the food will be cooked immediately thereaftermicrowave it on the defrost setting and stop the defrost cycle while the fish is still icy but pliable.

Where no suggestions are given, it is not advisable to make ahead or freeze.

When making jam or syrup, be extra-careful, always watch the pan and do not stir unless advised.

For suppliers of specialist items, see my website www.nigella.com.

Always be sure to read a recipe right through before starting to cook.

For quick recipes, taking 30 minutes or under, turn to the Express Index, .

This is a book Ive been wanting to write for a very long time. The idea first came to me almost ten years ago and has been simmering away on the back burner ever since. Maybe I just needed to spend more time in the kitchen before I could write about it. And by in the kitchen, I mean, rather, in a number of kitchens. They have all been different, but with one crucial element in common: theyre where I feel most at home.

But, if this is the starting point of the book, its not one I ever stray far away from. I know its impossible to prove a negative, but let me start, about face, by telling you what this book isnt. It isnt a handbook or a manual. It isnt a lifestyle guide or aspirational treatise. It most definitely isnt intended as a work of social history, although I do believe that any cookbook ultimately ends up as one: the history of what we eat is indisputably the history of how we live and who we are. In fact, this book is simply the story of my love affair with the kitchen. Whatever the opposite of the currently still fashionable genre, the misery memoir, might be, this is it: a comfort chronicle.

Please, listen to me, though, when I say that my focus does not emanate from the belief that cooking holds any inherent moral qualities or reveals essential purity of purpose and congratulation-worthy virtue. Certainly not: it wouldnt occur to me to feel guilty about eating food I hadnt cooked so long as I enjoyed it any more than I ever have or would feel guilty about buying clothes rather than sewing something to wear myself. The born-again fervor and judgmental outlook of the status-conscious cook seem to me positively to preclude a happy life in the kitchen or, indeed, out of it. I dont cook because I feel I ought to, but because I want to. And, of course, there are times when I dont want to. Thats life. Sometimes reality has the edge over romance: albeit I have said before, and hand-on-heart declare again, that for me the kitchen is not a place I want to escape from, but to escape to, I will confess that there are times when the idea of cooking doesnt fill me with joy or make me radiate enthusiasm.

What Ive discovered, after what feels like a lifetimes cooking, is that anything which holds true in the kitchen is just as true out of the kitchen. This is one of my mantras, and I fear it wont be the last time you hear me chant it. And Im sorry if it reeks of homespun philosophy, but thats just what it is. So, while it may be the case that occasionally at the end of a long day or when Im so exhausted that just staying upright seems a challenge I approach cooking with something less than my usual gusto, I nearly always find that just getting on with it can make me wonder what I was dreading in the first place, and why. But then, the same applies to so many obligations and undertakings that loom over us in life, outside of the kitchen, too. Fear of disappointment, inadequacy, failure seems to make fools of us, causing us to forget what we all unfailingly learn from experience: that not doing what frightens us makes us fear it more rather than less. Perhaps some day Ill write a book called Feel the Fear and Cook it Anyway, although to some extent I suspect that this is, indeed, the subliminal message of every book Ive ever written.