Hollywood - Alex Hollywood: My Busy Kitchen - A lifetime of family recipes

www.hodder.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company

Copyright Alex Hollywood 2015

Photography Copyright Dan Jones

The right of Alex Hollywood to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN 9781444799224

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

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London NW1 3BH

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For Mumma

I am a cook, not a chef. I am passionate about food and firmly believe that cooking and eating should be about one thing: enjoyment, not worrying about presentation and whether your roux is made to Michelin star standards. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than preparing a meal for family and friends, and then sitting back and watching everyone dig in. We all live busy lives, and those moments together are special, to be treasured, so why make life more complicated than it already is? Keep it simple enjoy!

My recipes tend to fall into two categories either quick and simple, like my easy salads or speedy week-night suppers, or slow and simple for lazy weekend lunches stews and roasts that are perfect to leave simmering while you go for a long walk or sit around the table putting the world to rights. I cook the way my mother and grandmother taught me, with a hearty disregard for following recipes to the letter. My grandmother, Mama Vanda, was an actress and a hugely flamboyant cook. She was an avid fan of Fanny Craddock and Robert Carrier, and would present us with platters of richly aromatic Persian lamb, dishes of Mont Blanc sweetened chestnut pure with brandy and meringue and brandy butter mountains to go with the Christmas pudding, which had been turned bright green with food colouring and decorated with pistachios, all the while dressed in a bejewelled silk kaftan in peacock blue.

My Grandmother Vanda on the set of Le Fin Du Monde , one of the first disaster movies! Shortly after, the Germans invaded France and she escaped back to England on the last train from Paris. She was and still is my hero! An amazing woman with a huge appetite for life.

Mama Vandas mother, my great grandmother, was Norwegian, and trips to see the family in Norway always resulted in a whole freshly caught salmon being lugged back to Kent to be devoured with dill mayonnaise. Mama Vandas Scandinavian heritage influenced other flavours that appeared in her food that I still love today fresh and clean tastes to contrast with richer, headier aromas I have picked up from my own travels. My sister and I loved popping into her kitchen to see what we could forage, and there was always something delicious on the go for us to sneak a nibble of, such as homemade marzipan much tastier than the bought stuff rolled into balls and dipped in dark chocolate.

My father spent a lot of his youth in Madrid, which began his lifelong love of Spanish cooking. His paella was fabulous, and he made it in a massive pan that I remember being brought home from southern Spain one summer, crammed in between me and my sister on the back seat of the car. Wed often eat it chorizo, chicken, rabbit, fish, some smoky paprika and paella rice just thrown together and left to cook themselves instead of a Sunday roast, and all the neighbours would pile around to join us in the garden. Although he is long gone, my fathers passion for tapas remains with me, now mixed with my own mezze influences from the years Paul and I spent in Cyprus. I love to serve lots of little plates of delicious finger food grilled meats, salads, dips and breads, all on colourful mismatched crockery for everyone to help themselves and enjoy the contrasting flavours.

Monique was my French godmother, and the way I cook today owes a lot to her. From a very young age I would spend almost every holiday with her family in France, sometimes in Normandy or Champagne, but most often in the south. The first time I went, aged four, my mother packed me off with a huge leg of Kentish lamb nearly as big as me as a thank-you present I doubt I could do the same with my son today! Monique introduced me to good bourgeois French cooking rich intense flavours, cheeses that my father described as smelling of old socks but that tasted utterly delicious, wine watered down for me and sweetened, so I learnt that it complemented the meals we ate, and bread, crisp and hot, collected every morning from the bakery on the corner.

Daddy Andrew (my grandmothers Scottish father) salmon fishing in Aurland, Norway, with his hip flask of whisky to hand!

All these influences are rich in the memories and cultures that I have experienced around the world, travelling through Europe and Africa with friends, working in Cyprus or as a chalet girl in the French Alps, or on family holidays in France or Spain, and they have had a huge impact on the ingredients and techniques I use in my own kitchen. I have learnt that you dont need to follow rigid rules: trust your instincts and you will probably be right and a quick taste will reveal if youre not! Experiment and learn what flavours you like so that you can adapt and adjust the dishes you cook, making use of what you have to hand and what you feel like eating. No fresh basil? Use coriander instead. Add a little cinnamon and you change the flavour of the dish from Mediterranean to Middle Eastern. Use oats and nuts instead of breadcrumbs. And as for shortcuts, a carton of custard and a can of apricots have got me out of many a last-minute pudding situation. A few basic principles will go a long way in your kitchen, so my recipes will show you how a bit of this and a little splash of that will work together to produce effortlessly easy meals. You can, of course, follow my recipes to the very last detail, but I want you to know that you dont have to. If youre lacking an ingredient, you can use something else and Ill give you some pointers in that direction so you know the kinds of things that can be swapped in or out and what goes well with what. Enjoy how flexible ingredients really are.

The secret is to be adaptable my Twitter friends often ask me for inspiration about what to make for dinner that night, and I always reply, Go and check whats in your fridge. Use what you have; its pointless having a fridge full of ingredients if youre not going to use them. Its the way my mother and grandmother cooked, starting a meal with what they had in their cupboards, and many of their recipes are ones I still cook today.