Super Duper Moist Lemon Cake

 

Australia Day, an excellent day for a picnic at a friend's property where we sit and gaze at the rolling hills and listen to the wind. A place where kids run across fields, climb fallen blackwoods, or go wading in the creek. A place where we stop being city dwellers just for a moment, and instead rest on the land which supports us and holds us and whispers secrets beyond hearing. If only we knew how to listen, we might just understand what it has to say.

I have just read Strandloper by Alan Garner, which tells the story of escaped convict, William Buckley. Buckley lived for thirty years with a local indigenous tribe, who recognised in him their deceased elder, Murrungurk. In Garner's version, having been through local initiation rites in England before his deportation, Buckley is initiated into the tribe and discovers deep resonances; the Dreaming is universal. Through the story, Garner suggests that all healthy people are able to embody the sacred in their every action, and recognise the spirituality of the land and their infinite dependence on it; and he suggests that ruptures in the Dreaming caused by the violence of colonialism must be answered by a new Dreaming, yet to unfold. As to how it will, with the loss of the ancestors who teach the art of listening, well, that is a mystery. Perhaps Strandloper is a good place to start.

It's a beautiful, difficult, thought provoking and sad book; I came away with a deep sense of loss both for the indigenous tribes which were ripped apart by colonialism, and for my own lack of a traditional heritage. A sense of connection with the land and knowledge of the rituals associated with it have been lost to so many of us thanks to generations of successive displacement; but loving and paying attention to one particular place over many years must be a beginning point for a new relationship with the land. And for my family, our particular place is our friend's property. 'This,' said my three year old, 'is my favourite super duper place' , and that just about sums it up for me.

 

On Thursday, as I quietly mused about place and belonging, seven of us stood silent in the derelict old shack, peeking through holes in the windows and walls and watching a wedge tailed eagle circle lower and lower as it investigated the remains of a dead wallaby. Finding it rather too far gone, it soared upwards on a thermal and disappeared; and we, praying that the wind would soon change and the wallaby no longer haunt us, unpacked our lunch.

Reflection always makes me hungry; and, like food for reflective thought, food for the block needs to be sturdy, as the only access is up a severely rutted old logging track. Having just scored a big bag of lemons from a neighbour, I brought a heavy lemon cake. It may not be the most ecologically responsible food nor is it particularly connected with the land, but to this European born on the other side of the world from her ancestors, it is gently restorative, nevertheless.

Super Duper Moist Lemon Cake - 200g unsalted butter at room temperature - 200g + 4 tbs granulated coconut palm sugar - 180g ground almonds ½ tsp baking powder - 2 large lemons - 4 eggs Preheat the oven to 160°. Position an oven rack in the centre of the oven. Line a loaf tin with baking paper, or butter it well. Slice one of the lemons crosswise into circles. Place it in a small saucepan with 2 tbs of the sugar and 4 tbs water. Bring it to a gentle simmer, and let it bubble away for 5 to 7 minutes, shaking from time to time, until the liquid has almost disappeared and the lemon becomes sticky. Do not let it burn! Take it off the heat and leave to cool. Whisk together the ground almonds and the baking powder. Place the butter and 200g of the sugar into a mixmaster and beat until they are fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, until all is combined. Zest one of the lemons and chop the zest finely (or use the tiny holes on a grater). Add the zest to the mixture and beat once more. Remove the bowl from the mixer. Gently fold in the ground almonds and baking powder, scraping from the bottom to keep the mixture as light as possible. Place it into the prepared loaf tin. Arrange the lemon slices along the top of the cake, and drizzle any lightly toffee'd liquids over them. Slip into the oven, and bake for 50 minutes or until a knife slips out clean. While the cake is in the oven, place the juice of the zested lemon and the last 2 tbs of sugar into the same saucepan as was used to cook the lemon slices. Warm very slightly, just until the sugar has dissolved. When the cake is done, take it out of the oven and poke it with a toothpick left right and centre. Now spoon the lemon and sugar mixture over the cake, letting each spoonful be absorbed before adding the next one. Leave the cake to cool in its tin. Delicious on its own, or with an artery-blocking splodge of double cream. Adapted from a recipe in The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater. (Local: lemons, eggs. Mysterious provenance: ground almonds. Not so local: baking powder. From Indonesia, but organic, delicious, full of healthy minerals, and far more sustainable than cane sugar: coconut palm sugar.)

Chicken Meatballs with a Spectacular Marjoram Sauce

 

The funniest book I read last year was Lily Brett's You Gotta Have Balls (also published as Uncomfortably Close). Ruth Rothwax longs for a group of supportive women with whom she can meet regularly and talk about empowerment and mutual cooperation. Instead, she gets an ageing father, Edek; his enormously busty Lycra-clad Polish girlfriend, Zofia; and Zofia's weedy hanger-on, Walentyna. Among other skills, Zofia has an incredible knack with balls: meatballs, chicken balls, vegetable balls and, one presumes, Edek's balls.

Like so many good comic novels, You Gotta Have Balls has a serious side. Edek is a Holocaust survivor from Poland, and much of the book is about the ramifications sixty years later. Edek is determined to live exuberantly. For him, each day is a bonus and he is open to all the wonderful possibilities life holds. On the other hand, Ruth, a child of survivors, is earnest and hardworking, stifling her emotions and preferences in overcompensation for all her parents went through. Like the children of so many survivors, good fortune, and life in general, weigh heavily on her; and Brett explores the tensions between the generations gently and well.

However, she really shines in the comic passages. As I read page after page of Edek urging Ruth to try the balls (you gotta have these balls, Ruthie, these balls are unbelievable), I found myself collapsed with laughter at a cafe in Lygon Street, wiping the tears from my eyes and being looked at rather snootily by the unamused patrons at the next table. I can't be entirely sure what annoyed them most: perhaps it was my sitting alone or my grotty clothes? Or could it have been the great snorts of badly suppressed laughter that rudely punctuated their interminable boasting about their holidays?

Whatever it was, it caused a stir and the waitress came over to check that I was okay. She had never, she said, seen anyone laugh at a book like that; but somewhat unbelievably she didn't write down the title. If I saw someone guffawing in a public place over a book, especially someone who wasn't drinking, I would have run over and made sure I had the title down pat.

Maybe laughing aloud at a book is weird and the incurious waitress is more the norm, yet I know which I prefer. Anyway, it can be useful. Years ago, I had to sit in the passports office for several hours. I had with me Neal Stephenson's The Big U, also hilarious, and as I read and laughed and read some more, the section I was sitting in cleared out and I found myself alone in an otherwise crowded waiting room. For that matter, if you ever want a compartment of four seats to yourself on the tram, I can recommend reading a funny book, and laughing – or breastfeeding, of course.

In homage to Edek and Zofia and laughing in public places, here is my recipe for balls. What follows is a very plain chicken meatball; the ball is no more than a vehicle for the scrumptious marjoram sauce, which is not quite salsa verde and not quite salsa agresto but certainly sits in the range of both these lovely sauces. Marjoram is a sweet and delicate herb whose flavour is greatly diminished by cooking. So there is a little marjoram in the balls (think of it as a preliminary whisper), and a great deal of marjoram in the sauce (a fanfare of trumpets and a clashing of cymbals). Put them together, and you have music in your mouth.

The sauce is also good eaten with other meats and felafel; it can even be used as a strong dip. It tastes best the day you make it. The meatballs are enough for two meals for our family, so I make a half quantity of the sauce fresh for each meal. It takes about three minutes, hardly an effort.

Chicken Meatballs with Marjoram Sauce The Balls - 500g chicken mince - 1 large red onion - ⅓ cup marjoram - good pinch of salt - olive oil Chop the onion and marjoram, or pulse chop them in the food processor, until they are very fine. Do not let them go to mush as you want a little texture. Mix them with the mince and a good pinch of salt, using your hands to knead it all through. Form the mixture into small balls, 1½ to 2 tbs of mixture per ball. The balls will, if anything like mine, always resemble 3D trapezoids; clearly, I don't have the knack. You should get 16 to 20, depending on how large you make each one, of course. Place the balls onto a tray, cover with plastic film, and refrigerate until you are ready to cook. To cook the balls, warm the olive oil in a wide skillet over medium heat. When it is reasonably hot, place the balls close together in the pan; they should all fit. Cook without moving them until the bases are golden. Then using a thin egg slide or similar, gently scrape under each ball and turn it onto one side. Continue to cook and turn, cook and turn, for about 15 minutes. When all the sides are golden, cut the largest ball open (like a good tailor, I'm assuming your balls are not identical) and check that it is cooked through. Keep them in a warm oven until you are ready to serve. The Sauce - 10 to 12 sage leaves, preferably from the tips of the plant - 20 stalks flat leaf parsley - two small handfuls of sweet marjoram - 8 walnut halves - 2 fat cloves of garlic - 2 tbs balsamic vinegar - 6 tbs olive oil - a good pinch of sea salt Ensure the herbs are clean and dry. Chop off the bottom half of the parsley stalks and discard. (Keep the top ends of the stalks as these are less fibrous but very tasty; no need to pick all the leaves off.) Peel the garlic. Throw all the ingredients into the small bowl of a food processor (or chop very finely) and whizz. Check for acidity; you may need a little more oil or vinegar. Scrape the sauce into a small bowl. It will be very thick and nubbly. This is enough sauce for all the balls; halve it if you intend to eat only half the balls today. If you are making the balls for a party, form smaller balls and cook for less time; then arrange the balls in a single layer on a platter, and dot each ball with a delicious blob of sauce. The Marjoram Sauce is adapted from a recipe in the intelligent, absorbing and absolutely delicious The Original Mediterranean Cuisine: Medieval Recipes for Today by Barbara Santich, which is, sadly for you, out of print. (Local: onion, marjoram, sage, parsley, walnuts, garlic, olive oil. Mysterious provenance, but free range and chemical free: chicken mince. Not so local: balsamic vinegar, salt.)

Pea Pod Soup

 

My kids all love eating fresh raw peas straight out of the pods. When I was young and stupid, that is, a few years ago, I would get annoyed that they would eat half the peas or more that I had podded ready for dinner. Then I realized what an idiot I was. Now we eat green beans at dinner, and peas are an afternoon snack.

At least once a week at this time of year, I present them with a bagful at 4 o’clock. The deal is, if they pod them, they can eat them. It seems like a fair deal; at least, they seem think so as they are happily occupied for half an hour or more as they demolish a pound or two of peas.

They pod them by grabbing the top stem, where the pod was attached to the plant, and tearing the string completely off. When all is done, I am left with a pile of strings, a pile of pods, and three happy girls who have had their green vegetables for the afternoon.

Thanks to a lovely idea in Chocolate & Zucchini, I stash the pods in the freezer until I have a few bags full, then turn them into soup. One warning: although the soup is very frugal, being made of pea pods, homemade stock and all, it does take a bit of washing up: you need to use a food processor, bamix or blender, and a food mill, if you don’t want to spend the rest of your life pushing pea pods through a strainer.

Pea Pod Soup - about 1 kg pea pods, strings removed - 1 red onion, diced small - a small handful of fennel tops or other herb (basil, parsley, chives) - ¼ cup dry white wine - 1 ½ litres stock (I use homemade chicken stock, but an all purpose veggie stock would also be good) - olive oil - salt - tarragon vinegar (optional) Warm some olive oil in a soup pot. Add the onion and a good pinch of salt, and cook until the onion is soft. Add the pea pods, and allow them to become glossy, then raise the heat, add the fennel tops and the wine, and cook until the wine has reduced to a syrupy consistency. Add the stock, bring it to a simmer, and cook for half an hour. Allow to cool a little. In three or so batches, whizz the soup in a food processor or blender (or use a bamix) until it looks like very wet grass clippings. Transfer the clippings I mean soup to a mouli (food mill) placed over a smaller pot, and grind away. (If you have a masochistic urge or a great deal of time on your hands, press them through a strainer instead.) When it has all been processed and run through the mouli, dump the shredded pods in the compost and give the soup a good stir. Place it on the stove to warm up again, and serve. My kids are especially fond of this soup when it has been enlivened by a dash of tarragon vinegar. Tarragon vinegar is made by shoving fresh clean dry tarragon into a bottle of white wine vinegar, and forgetting about it for a couple of weeks. It is perfect splashed over asparagus, dripped onto a green salad, or drizzled into this soup. (Local: peas, onion, fennel tops (gleaned), white wine, olive oil. Various sources: chicken stock. Not so local: tarragon vinegar, salt.)

Kale Crisps

 

Eat your greens! Well, I do love greens and I do eat a lot of them in salad, in horta and in pie. But every now and then I just don't feel like a great pile of leaves mounded on my plate, and that's when I fool about with kale.

Kale is such a sturdy vegetable that it can be, effectively, chipped. That is, it can be baked with oil and salt, and a bit of chilli perhaps, and turned into a delightfully flaky nutty flavoured thing. For this chips-not-chocolate girl, kale crisps are perfect for an afternoon snack, with an evening beer, or anytime really.

Sure, I can buy wildly expensive packages of kale chips, but why would I when they are a doddle to make and cheap as, well, chips?

Kale Crisps - 1 bunch black kale aka cavolo nero or Tuscan kale - olive oil - chilli flakes (optional. I often do two batches, one with chilli for me, and one without for the kids.) - salt Preheat the oven to 180°. Position an oven shelf near the top of the oven. Wash and dry the kale. Cut out the thick central stems, and chop the leaves into bite size pieces. Drizzle olive oil into a large bowl. Sprinkle in chilli flakes to taste (start with about ¼ tsp) and a large pinch of salt. Throw the leaves into the bowl and toss with your hands until they have a slight sheen from the olive oil, and the salt and chilli flakes are evenly distributed. Line a baking tray with silicon or baking paper, and place the leaves in a single layer on the tray. Slide the tray into the top shelf of the oven. Check after 12 minutes; if they are not yet crisp and slightly golden, give them another couple of minutes in the oven. Remove from the oven. Serve warm or cold. Kale crisps do not stay crisp terribly long, so either eat them immediately or, as soon as they are cool, place them into an airtight container lined with paper towel or similar to absorb any residual moisture. In lieu of chilli flakes you could use some sort of spice mix. Experiment! (Local: kale, olive oil. Not so local: chilli flakes, salt.)

Cauliflower Salad

 

Sometimes it's the little things that make me so happy, like seeing a baby smile, smelling a soft yellow rose, or catching a tram the minute I get to the stop.

Or when I find a way to serve cauliflower that my children like.

Cauliflower has been a hitherto spurned vegetable in our house. I use it only every now and then, aiming for a very gradual sixteen presentations or however long it takes kids to like a vegetable. A year or so ago I did this with broccoli over the course of two weeks, but now I'm slower at these things.

I first made this cauliflower salad a month or so ago, much to my children's disgust. Yet my eight year old has learned that it is easier to eat the small portion required of her than to have a big argument and be made to eat the food anyway, so she looked at the cauliflower, sighed, picked up her fork, and et it – then looked up surprised and had a little more.

But her five year old sister has not yet learned that resistance is futile. As her father placed a small portion of cauliflower on her plate she, as usual, let out a big wail. It sounded like someone had just deliberately dropped an anvil on her foot – there was a clear note of betrayal amongst all the pain and anguish.

We offered our usual measured response ('hush now, just have a bite'), to which she responded with further wails at which point I, lovely mother that I am, snapped 'just eat the damn thing'. She gave one last sob, then took a tiny nibble, looked surprised, and et the lot. 'Delicious,' she said, serving herself some more; then she leapt from the table, ran to the kitchen, grabbed a small container and packed extra for her school lunch the next day while we all looked on speechless. Then she yelled at someone else for polishing the rest of the salad off.

At such a moment I am torn between exasperation and triumph. Why, I wonder, does she need to shriek like a steam train? – especially when it turns out she likes the food!

Anyway, I've made this cauliflower salad once or twice since then, just to consolidate, and each time it has been demolished at dinner, and extras taken for school lunch. It's the sort of salad that sits quite well in the fridge for a few days. You can always add a few more olives and capers, or a dash more vinegar, to sharpen the flavours.

While it's a bit late for cauliflower in Melbourne, there are still a few local ones floating around. See what you can find.

Cauliflower Salad - 1 medium sized cauliflower - 1 decent sized carrot - 3 anchovies - ¼ cup olive oil - 1 tbs red wine vinegar or to taste - 1 tbs capers, drained and rinsed - 1 handful kalamata olives (about 20) - 5 or so stems continental parsley - salt Put the kettle on to boil. Peel the carrot and slice it into rounds about the thickness of an English pound coin, that is about ⅓ cm thick. Break or chop the cauliflower into roughly even sized florets, whatever size feels natural. Pour the boiling water into a saucepan fitted with a steamer. Drop in the cauliflower and the carrot and steam for 6 minutes. Check to see whether they are done: you should be able to slip a knife into the thick part of the vegetable. If not, give them another minute or two. Remove them from the heat. While the vegetables are cooking, chop the anchovies very finely. Now, using the flat of your knife, smoosh those finely chopped anchovies against the board until they are paste. Scrape up the paste and put it into a bowl. Add the olive oil, vinegar and a pinch of salt and mix very well; I use a small whisk. Using the base of an espresso cup, press against each olive until it splits, then slip out the pit. Tear the olive into one or two pieces. Chop the parsley. Scrape the dressing into a shallow platter. Tumble the cauliflower and carrots on top of the dressing along with the olives, capers and parsley. Mix with your hands until the dressing has been well distributed and all is glistening. Freely adapted from a recipe in Insalate: Authentic Italian Salads for All Seasons by Susan Simon. (Local: cauliflower, parsley, olive oil. Not so local: carrot, olives, capers, anchovies, red wine vinegar, salt.)

Dolmades

 

My earliest memory is that of food. When I was a year and a half old, my parents went to Nepal for three months to have a few adventures and visit a few friends, and I tagged along. And if I let my mind slip sideways and approach the memory as I would a skittish stray cat, I can remember sitting on a stone wall, the roughness of the stones pressing into my thighs, and eating a mandarin. The mandarin is large in my baby hands, and beside me I can see the pattern of my beloved friend Gwen’s brown tweed skirt.

My second oldest memory is of swinging my legs from the neighbour’s kitchen bench and having olives popped into my mouth. My neighbours were Greek and I spent hours there every week watching George make endless tiny cups of thick black coffee and Tina cook up a storm. For a long time, my parents were puzzled by my birdlike appetite and burgeoning size until they realised quite how much the neighbours fed me.

There’s nothing like fresh Greek food. Eating it takes me right back to George and Tina’s vinyl chairs and seventies brown kitchen, and the view out to their grapevine. Behind the vine was a fire pit, dug into the lawn for the Paschal lamb; thinking of that lamb makes my mouth water even now.

Three decades later, I am drifting through old memories as I cook up a storm in my own kitchen and gaze out into our own grapevine. It’s the time of year when vines go a-roaming. New shoots sprawl abundantly, looking for something to catch on to, and so, before heat burns and fungi attack, it is time to make dolmades.

 

Dolmades are quite simply vine leaves stuffed with rice and other goodies. I fill mine with fresh herbs, and use the leaves from our vines. While you can certainly buy preserved vine leaves, fresh vine leaves are a whole ‘nother thing: they taste light and sweet and clean.

For this recipe, you need about fifty vine leaves the size of a Cornish woman’s hand, that is, my hand – or what is probably about the size of your palm. Obviously if your leaves are larger, you will need less; smaller, you will need more. Don’t strip the leaves off the vine one by one, as this will weaken the vine. Instead, remove a long unwanted shoot, then strip the leaves off that.

If you don’t have a grapevine of your own, there are plenty throwing two and three metre long shoots into the laneways. If you decide to glean such shoots, respect the vine and the owner. Take clippers, and cut a couple of good long stems to the fence line – don’t just shred the leaves off, don’t go over the fence line, and take only what you can use. When I'm out walking, I carry a stout pair of scissors in my bag to collect herbs and greens and no one has ever done anything but smile and nod as they see me carefully snipping fennel tops, parsley, bay leaves and all the other goodies that grow for free.

I may not be Greek, but George and Tina gave me an early education in food and I have taken on the mantle of gleaning and eating great quantities of herbs and bitter greens, vine leaves and fennel tops. And as I do so, I think of my old neighbours with gratitude.

Dolmades - about 50 fresh vine leaves - 150g long grain white rice - about 350g brown onions - ½ cup fennel tops - ⅓ cup parsley, about 10 – 12 stalks - ¼ cup mint - 150ml olive oil - a lemon - salt First, select your vine leaves. For the rolls, choose those which are whole. Reserve any torn leaves for lining the pan. With your thumbnail and forefinger, snip the stem from the base of the leaf. Wash well. Bring a pan of lightly salted water to the boil. (I use the same wide frypan that I will later use to cook the dolmades). In batches, drop in the leaves and hold them under the water for a bare minute, then fish them out and let them drain in a colander. They will change from bright green to khaki in that time. Place the rice in a medium sized bowl and cover with cold water. Let it soak for fifteen minutes, then drain it in a sieve and rinse well. While the rice is soaking, chop the onions very finely. The onions hold the rice grains apart and give the dolmades a delicate lightness, so keep them small but do not grate them or pulverize them in a food processor. You do not want a mush! Chop the fennel, mint and parsley. Mix the rice with the onions, the herbs, 75ml olive oil and half the lemon juice. Line the base of a wide heavy based frypan – you may as well use the same pan as was used for blanching – with vine leaves. Start with the holey ones. Now take a blanched vine leaf and lay it flat. Place a heaped teaspoon of filling at the base of the leaf – and use a bit of common sense here: a large leaf may need more filling; a small one, less – and then form it into a rough tube. Roll the vine leaf once, fold in either side, and continue rolling to the end. Place it in the frypan.   Pack the dolmades tightly together. When you have run out of filling, drizzle the rest of the olive oil and lemon juice over the dolmades. Gently place a plate upside down on top of the dolmades to hold them in place, then pour 250ml hot water into the pan. Cover and cook over very low heat. After 40 minutes, fish one out and test it. If it’s a bit crunchy, give it another five minutes, otherwise turn off the heat. Let them cool a little in the pan. Take the dolmades out and arrange them on a plate. Serve warm or cold with slices of lemon. While they keep in the fridge for several days, they do lose some of their delicate texture and herbal sprightliness. They are best the same day – although even two days later they are far and away better than any commercial dolmades I’ve eaten! Adapted from a recipe in the wonderful book, Greek Food, by Rena Salaman. Every recipe is preceded by a history of the dish and her fond memories of growing up in Greece. This is a lovely read, and the recipes are scrumptious! Sadly, it is out of print – but her later cookbooks may be worth a look. (Backyard or gleaned locally: vine leaves, mint, fennel tops, parsley, lemon. Local: onions, olive oil. Somewhere in Australia: rice, salt.)

 

Farinata

 

How delightful it is to discover a new comfort food! I had always thought comfort foods were those carbohydrates first eaten during early childhood, with their deeply familiar flavours and their taste of home, like good bread with salted butter; or really fresh stretchy pita; or burning hot chips, crisp and salty on the outside, soft and mealy within. These are pleasure enough – but one of the joys of being an adult is that I keep finding new foods to add to the list!

I’ve always liked Lebanese pastries, but when I first bit into the spelt version of the haloumi pie at Mankoushe on Lygon Street, I knew I had discovered the perfect dish. Hot, salty, cheesy, with the deep slaty taste of spelt, heat blistered, and brushed with olive oil: this is comfort food at its best – and is, perhaps, why the Mankoushe boys, dishes themselves, wave whenever we go by: we are their best customers.

Even more recently, I discovered farinata. Farinata is a thick chickpea flour pancake flecked with salt and rosemary. It is that perfect combination of hot and crisp at the edges and mealy inside; and it is savoury, filling, and flavourful. Even better, it is so quick and simple to make that it is a wonder it is not more widely known; the only step that takes any time at all is leaving it to soak for a couple of hours.

I’m so enamoured with farinata that I’ve been making it twice a week for dinner, with a couple of hefty salads on the side. It’s best served hot straight from the pan; but even eaten the next day, whether cold or warmed in the microwave, it is still good.

Farinata doesn’t have to be eaten at dinner. According to Skye Gyngell in her lovely book My Favourite Ingredients, farinata is the traditional breakfast food for Genoese fisherman. I, however, struggle to eat breakfast any later than the time it takes me to shuffle down the hall to the kitchen, so I am yet to find out whether it’s good just then. However, like all salty foods farinata cries out for beer, and I’m looking forward to warmer weather and drinkies in our complete mess of a garden with a slice of farinata in one hand, and a cold beer in the other.

The ingredients are not quite local (I am not sure which bit of Australia provides the chickpea flour in the organic shop), but it is so good that I can’t help but include it in this blog. If you need an excuse to cook a non-local food, farinata is gluten free, sugar free, vegan, and economical. And because pricing completely fails to take into account the distance food has travelled, if you use an imported chickpea flour (also known as besan flour, and readily available in Indian and Pakistani shops), it will be even cheaper.

In Liguria, farinata is made in a large zinc lined copper pan. As I am not Ligurian and don’t have a great pile of specialist cooking equipment, I have adapted the recipe for my thick bottomed stainless steel frying pan 30cm (12”) in diameter. Whatever pan you use, make sure it can go into the oven.

Farinata - 150g chickpea flour (also sold as besan flour) - 500ml lukewarm water - a very hefty pinch of sea salt - ¼ cup plus a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil - a long stem of rosemary Place the chickpea flour and a pinch of salt into a large bowl. If the flour is very lumpy, sieve it; otherwise press out any lumps with a whisk. Make a well in the centre. Gradually add the water, whisking constantly as you slowly incorporate the flour; you should end up with a runny yellow batter. Leave it to sit for 2 to 4 hours. (I have eaten farinata under the guise of chickpea fritters at several bars and been left with an unpleasant grainy texture on the back of my teeth, like a scone that lacks the necessary pinch of sugar. Leaving it to sit and very slightly ferment seems to fix this problem.) Pick the leaves from the rosemary. Place an oven rack in the top half of the oven (not the topmost row, but the one below it), and preheat the oven to 225°C (450°F). Stir ¼ cup olive oil into the batter. Place the frying pan on the stovetop, and heat the tablespoon of oil until it is just beginning to smoke. Pour in the batter – it will frill up at the sides like a frittata – and scatter it with rosemary. Gently slide the pan into the oven. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, until the edges are crisp, the top is golden, and the middle is perfectly mealy. Sprinkle with extra salt flakes, and serve immediately. This makes enough for a bunch of people to have a taste, four or five people to eat with other things, or for two hungry greedy people to demolish with gusto. Gyngell recommends eating farinata topped with flecks of sweet gorgonzola... sounds good, but I haven’t tried it! She also has a recipe for farinata, but I prefer the thinner batter used above. From a recipe in the The River Cafe Cook Book Green, adapted to home cooking conditions and equipment. (Backyard: rosemary. Local: olive oil. Somewhere in Australia: chickpea flour. Not so local: salt.)