The Prep Day

Menu change, another favourite book, and the importance of time

Hello dear subscriber to my newsletter, The Recovering Line Cook.

If you’re new here, let me say hello. I’m Wil Reidie, and this is the place I share recipes and all types of food writing inspired by my life as a professional cook.

This week I have an offensively simple recipe to share that I also think is the most delicious thing I’m capable of cooking. I also have a book recommendation I really hope you check out.

Thanks for reading,

Wil

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Time and cooking

Pierre’s defining characteristic was how goddamn fast he was. If we’d ever got close enough to merit nickname’s for each other, for him I would have chosen “Zippy” or “Road Runner” or, possibly, “Lapin”.

Yes, Pierre was French.

I worked with Pierre not long after I’d started full-time restaurant cooking in Stockholm. And, since he was so young and inexperienced, this meant we were at about the same place in the kitchen pecking order. The difference, of course, was that speed of his. The way he darted around the kitchen, getting through prep jobs so briskly. I was still coming off the back of a career in marketing and used to taking 2 days to reply to emails. His speed and efficiency put me to shame.

Really, I couldn’t keep up with him. And it increasingly battered my already delicate sense of kitchen self-esteem.

That started to change the day I first saw him trying to get the meat from a lobster claw. The specific task at hand required us to remove the claw flesh so it came out in one single, beautiful piece, both fleshy pincers still connected . This is a delicate procedure. It isn’t the task for an 18-year old loaded on Red Bull and still jittery from last night’s Jägerbombs. And Pierre, true to form, was sprinting through his tray of boiled, bright terracotta-red lobsters, and cursing in (frankly very beautiful) French every time the claw came out in several pieces.

Knowing this was probably one of the few times my being the kitchen tortoise to his Gallic rabbit might be of some help, I offered him some advice. Instead of cracking the two cooked pincers apart so quickly, I showed him the slow, twisting movement I’d recently become familiar with, that helps remove the internal blade of cartilage while keeping the internal meat unbroken.

I loved how, by simply slowing down, he easily extracted the proceeding claws in a single piece.

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I thought of Pierre again this past week. Here in my corner of Finland, nature has started its quick costume change to something autumnal. The night has started bleeding ever further into the morning, the stars have returned at night, and the leaves not yet fallen are turned red and gold.

Autumn morning haze

And with the changing season, this also means a menu change for the restaurant at which I work. Which, in turn, meant coming in to work on my day off to prep for the many new dishes we had to get ready.

Pureeing vegetables is something I’m rather fond of. You can read my recipe for a few of my favourites here actually. On the new menu we make use of an onion puree. The job of making this was on my prep list.

That wasn’t by chance. It was on my list because I was lucky enough to spend time at a restaurant early in my cooking life that made very good purees. A Roscoff onion puree was one of them.

I’d like to run you through how I do it so you can enjoy it as well…

A truly special onion puree

Here in Finland I have used regular brown onions for this puree. Though if you’re lucky enough to get hold of those wonderful French Roscoff onions that we used in London then even better. Start by cutting them in half, peeling them, and slicing them reasonably finely. They don’t need to be paper thin, making them evenly sliced is more important so they cook down at the same speed.

Meanwhile, over a low heat warm up a generous amount of butter in a pan that is a little large for the quantity of onion you are using. You want room to stir them easily.

With the butter melted, add your sliced onions. There should be no sizzle at all when they descend into the pan. The heat should be that low. This is going to be a slow process after all. Turn the onions in your warm, melted butter and cover with a cartouche. This will trap much of the moisture and further gentle the cooking process. Then let them be.

You should aim to leave them for an hour or two at least as they slowly cook down, releasing their liquid, and soften entirely to a translucent and silky mass without building any colour at all. An occasional stir will help, but only occasional. Eventually the white of the crisp, fresh onions will turn ever so slightly cream, beige almost. As though someone had dropped a few grains of instant coffee in your pot somewhere along the line. At this point the cartouche can be removed so the remaining liquid can cook away and the final caramelisation can begin. Turn up the heat and ready yourself to stir the pot more frequently and to scrape the bottom of the pan for any golden residue. Be vigilant. With the water removed, the caramelisation really speeds up now. Once the off-white cream colour has turned to a darker brown of golden toasted bread, I stop things. Any more and the gentle caramel flavour of the onions starts to become a touch acrid. I then drain any excess butter away by placing them in a sieve and then puree in a blender until entirely smooth. I season with salt at this stage also.

This is remarkable served with grilled meat or as the foundation of a dish of roasted brassicas served with a dressing of sour cream and toasted nuts. Something very autumnal. Frankly I think it would be good with vanilla ice cream but that’s probably me being weird.

And why did it make me think of Pierre? Well, halfway through the long slow process of making this delicious puree. A process that, I believe, is entirely contingent on the slow cooking of it, a fellow cook at work suggested I start the onions off on the hot flat-top grill to get the colour going quicker.

I smiled politely and nodded.

For some things the most important ingredient really is just time.

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A book recommendation

If you google something along the lines of “what’s the world’s cuisine?” chances are you’ll find English and Finnish there somewhere.

Which is why I’m delighted if not perversely proud to be writing to you as a British cook who lives in Finland as part of a Finnish family.

I of course, think there’s no such thing as a bad cuisine. It’s ethnocentric rubbish to think such a way. The world’s “great” cuisines no more worthy of attention as those lesser known ones.

That’s why my next few book recommendations will start with English and Finnish food. And there is no book that I love more about English food than, well, a book called English Food by Jane Grigson.

Grigson wrote English Food in the seventies, it has not a single picture, and I love it. It manages to celebrate the rich history of English cuisine from our meat pies to our genuinely delicate desserts (she of course lists creme brulee as burnt cream because you know it’s an English dish really, right?)

I mentioned the no pictures detail and I am convinced writing such as Grigson’s leaves the reader not requiring pictures at all. For example, when describing the correct way of cooking dumplings, she writes:

“The water should never boil. A few bubbles should hiccough to the surface in a desultory kind of way.”

I saw yet another Instagram post complaining about the lack of pictures in a cook book this week. I think it was Stanley Tucci’s book that upset the person in question. She suggested she would refuse to read such cookery books for their lack of pictures. I think this is a tragedy. Great food writing, such as Grigson’s, requires not a single picture at all to enjoy or benefit from it.

So if you have any interest in what English food really is, how fun the history of it is, or how great a recipe book can be without images, I hope you check out Jane Grigson’s work. I think any food writer would benefit from reading her.

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A note to paid subscribers…

I’ve continued adding to my serialised How to Fail at Being Finnish memoir. If you are keen to keep reading you can find chapter 3 here.

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Thanks for joining me this week. To long-time readers, sorry for the lack of newsletters this past few weeks. A mixture of heavy work weeks (I did mention work on days off, right?) and focussing on family for a very brief holiday interrupted proceedings. I’m looking forward to getting back on track this autumn.

Thanks to you all as ever,

Wil