“pan-bast­ing” if you like

But first, before I tell you about my new approach to cook­ing (I know there’s noth­ing new under the sun, but it’s new to me), just look at our East­er. Snow! I ask you. I am a big fan of snow, but on East­er? It absolute­ly pelt­ed down for the bet­ter part of the morn­ing, even stick­ing on the grass in the gar­den for a bit. Insane. First we were caught in the hail­storm the day before, and now this. Poor East­er bun­ny. But our egg-dye­ing was a huge suc­cess. As we found on our first East­er in this love­ly land, there are no white hen’s eggs to be found, at least I’ve nev­er found any. Blue, green, pink and brown, but no white. And no egg dye, but we have long known a dirty lit­tle secret: just plain food colour­ing works a treat. The colours turn out so intense, as you can see, that they put white eggs and all those fan­cy dye­ing kits to shame. We had a ball, but Avery’s apron will nev­er be the same. Oh, and you want white eggs? Got­ta go for duck.

So, enough about unsea­son­able weath­er and the ever­last­ing smell of post-East­er sul­fur in the air, what I want to tell you about is my new cook­ing method. It’s some­thing I have seen on all the fan­cy cook­ing shows like Mas­terchef and Great British Menu (we are pathet­i­cal­ly addict­ed to these pro­grammes and it’s turn­ing Avery into quite the lit­tle food crit­ic), but I’d nev­er tried it myself. I have named this approach “pan-bast­ing,” because that’s what you do. Now, nor­mal­ly when I cook from a skil­let it’s pret­ty bor­ing. I heat up some oil or but­ter or a com­bi­na­tion of both, stick the food­stuff in and let it cook. But lis­ten to this: how about if you tip the skil­let to one side now and then to gath­er up the oil, but­ter and cook­ing juices in a large spoon, and then pour it all over what­ev­er you’re cook­ing? If you do this con­stant­ly through­out the cook­ing process, and you don’t just let your meat or chick­en or fish sit there while all the bast­ing liq­uid trav­els to the edges of your skil­let into a waste­land of obliv­ion, the flavours are amaz­ing! And it makes cook­ing more fun, as well, because there’s some­thing to do and you can watch and keep track of the juices accu­mu­lat­ing and USE THEM.

I dis­cov­ered this in the Cotswolds with a love­ly pork ten­der­loin. The poor lit­tle thing looked so dry and lone­ly! And then I noticed all that love­ly juice and olive oil, plus the chopped rose­mary and grat­ed lemon zest I’d mar­i­nat­ed it in, accu­mu­lat­ing at the edges of the skil­let. So I poured in a dot of white wine and let the skil­let deglaze, tipped the skil­let, scooped up all the love­ly glop, poured it over, and my life will nev­er be the same. It’s such a rich, cel­e­bra­to­ry method! Then, right at what I thought should be the end of cook­ing time, I decid­ed that since it was only us, I’d cut into the fil­let in the mid­dle and just check, and lord have mer­cy, it was nowhere near done. So I rash­ly cut each half in half, giv­ing me four tidy lit­tle pork logs, and pro­ceed­ed with my bast­ing, plus I stood each lit­tle log on its ends so they got seared and juicy too. Oh, it was a rev­e­la­tion. If I were will­ing to go whole hog on the but­ter, it would be even bet­ter, but for some mis­guid­ed health rea­son, I kept it to olive oil.

Well, since then I’ve been “pan-bast­ing” with reck­less aban­don. Salmon fil­let? You bet, baste him with that love­ly dill but­ter he’s cook­ing in. Pour it all over the fil­let, then turn it over and do the same again. Love­ly! And per­haps the nicest exper­i­ment was this:

Pan-Bast­ed Chick­en Breasts with Pro­sciut­to, Moz­zarel­la and Spinach
(serves 4, with a bit left over, probably)

4 large chick­en breasts, bone­less and skin­less (although skin might be nice)
2 balls buf­fa­lo moz­zarel­la, sliced thick
8 slices prosciutto
2 hand­fuls baby spinach
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsps butter
1/2 pound but­ton or chest­nut mush­rooms, quartered
sprin­kle dried basil
sea salt
fresh-ground black pepper
8 tooth­picks (or you could tie them up if you know how: I don’t)

Lay the chick­en breasts one at a time on your cut­ting board and flat­ten them out, push­ing that nice lit­tle ten­der bit to the side but keep­ing it attached. Cov­er the sur­face of each breast with moz­zarel­la slices, pro­sciut­to and spinach leaves. Then roll it all up, or fold it, depend­ing on how thick it is, and secure it with the tooth­picks, fold­ing any strag­gly bits in and catch­ing as much as you can with the tooth­picks. The idea is to keep as much moz­zarel­la as pos­si­ble inside the pock­et, since the ham and spinach won’t try to move.

Now heat your oil and but­ter in a large skil­let and sprin­kle in the basil, salt and pep­per. When it’s all siz­zling and bub­bling and love­ly, place the breasts care­ful­ly in. Throw the mush­room quar­ters in as well. Cook the chick­en on one side until it becomes opaque and white, no longer pink (about five min­utes, per­haps). Turn and do the same on the oth­er side. By this time some juices will have been released and turned into a deli­cious liq­uid with the oil and but­ter. Don’t taste it, though! Too raw. Wait till it’s thor­ough­ly cooked before you taste it for salt. Tip the skil­let and spoon up the juices in a soup spoon, and driz­zle it over each breast in turn, con­tin­u­ing to tip the skil­let when the spoon’s empty.

What you’ll find is that the moz­zarel­la melts and some of it escapes into the cook­ing juice, which means you’re pour­ing INTO and on top of the deli­cious pock­et of chick­en a com­plex ambrosia of oil, but­ter, cheese, basil, salt, pep­per and chick­en juices. Turn the pock­ets on their sides, too, and brown all over. It’s hard to over­cook this dish because the ham and cheese mois­turise the chick­en, so don’t wor­ry too much. Keep spoon­ing those juices as often as you like. It’s fun!

When you’re sure the breasts are thor­ough­ly cooked (you can ver­i­fy this by look­ing at the bit of inside pock­et that’s vis­i­ble, and make sure it’s no longer pink at all), taste the cook­ing liq­uid and add salt or more pep­per as need­ed. Final­ly, lift the breasts and mush­rooms out care­ful­ly with tongs and just leave all that oil and but­ter fat behind: it’s done its job. Lovely.

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I’m devot­ed to this method now. It would be a won­der­ful way to cook a beef fil­let, as that cut can run to dry­ness. A rack of lamb would be sim­ply fab­u­lous this way, with fresh chopped rose­mary and lemon juice added to the oil or but­ter. Sad­ly, a by-prod­uct of our love­ly Cotswolds hol­i­day and vis­it to the Mec­ca of Baby Lambs has meant that Avery is no longer will­ing to coun­te­nance lamb as FOOD. But there will come her school hol­i­day to Nor­mandy next month and you can bet that hard-heart­ed John and I will be reach­ing for that rack. “Mum­my, how CAN you? After you fed it with a bot­tle!” Needs must.

Right. We must run Avery over to her friend Sophie’s house for a sleep­over and tomor­row’s mati­nee of “The Jer­sey Boys.” I’m cel­e­brat­ing the only good thing about hav­ing her gone: eat­ing things she does­n’t like. It’s crab­cakes and that love­ly scal­lop dish I told you about a bit ago, with beet­root and pota­toes. We’ll see if the first time mak­ing it was a fluke… I think I’ll pan-baste them! And then I promise to stop talk­ing about it. Seriously.

Oh, and I near­ly for­got to tell you about the dessert Avery invent­ed on East­er Sun­day. We had an absolute ball cook­ing togeth­er, but I must con­fess: she’s rub­bish at wash­ing up. I guess great chefs have peo­ple to do that sort of thing for them (moth­ers).

Avery’s Straw­ber­ry Nests
(one per person!)

8 sheets puff pas­try, cut a lit­tle larg­er than the size of your indi­vid­ual tart pan
3 tbsps melt­ed butter
hand­ful choco­late chips, melted
home­made straw­ber­ry whipped cream (recipe below)
2 straw­ber­ries, halved
1 tbsp rasp­ber­ry coulis (recipe below)

Brush but­ter on each sheet of puff pas­try in turn and pile them up. Then nes­tle them into the tart pan. Spread the bot­tom with melt­ed choco­late, and fill up the tart with whipped cream. Arrange the straw­ber­ries on the cream and driz­zle with coulis. Gorgeous!

Straw­ber­ry Whipped Cream

1/2 pint whip­ping cream
dash vanil­la extract
2 tbsps sug­ar (less if you like)
3 straw­ber­ries, quartered

Place all the ingre­di­ents in your Mag­im­ix and whizz until the cream is whipped, tak­ing care that you don’t whip it too long and end up with straw­ber­ry butter!

Rasp­ber­ry Coulis

1 pint raspberries
2 tbsps sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon

Sim­mer all ingre­di­ents in a small saucepan, press­ing on the berries with a spoon. Cook down until liq­uidy, then pass through a sieve into a cup, to elim­i­nate the seeds. Return to saucepan and cook down till reduced by about half.

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Enjoy!