Nigella Bites

Certain food writers possess a truly great skill in the ability to evoke a particular feeling or mood which reflects the particular city or country in which they reside. Every time I cook from one of Bill Grangers cookbooks I am briefly transported back to the sunny shores of Sydney. His dishes always have a certain lightness and crispness to them, just what you would want to eat on a hot, sunny day.

Similarly, Nigella Lawson encapsulates British cooking at its finest. Her food, in stark contrast to Grangers, has a robust hearty energy to it and is the perfect match to London’s mostly depressing climate. In essence it is comfort food. Food to cheer and warm you up.

It was this kind of food that I craved a couple of nights ago. I had suffered countless sleepless nights due to my new puppy’s howling and general exuberance. Running round all day cleaning up little accidents and ensuring that electricity cords remained unchewed, I felt somewhat jaded. My fridge looked horribly baron, I hadn’t had time to do my usual Borough market trip, yet I dreaded another dismal take-out. So I took out my trusted copy of ‘Nigella Bites’ and flicked through it, in an attempt to find something which would provide me with the perfect pick me up.

Remembering that I had some lamb shanks stashed away in the freezer I alighted upon the following recipe. It demonstrates the remarkable power of food in elevating ones spirit.

Ingredients:
• 6 tbspns ground nut or vegetable oil
• 8 Lamb shanks
• 2 onions
• 4 cloves of garlic
• sprinkling of salt
• 1 tbspn tumeric
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 dried red chilli pepper, crumbled, or quarter teasp dried chilli flakes * 2 tsps cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• black pepper
• 3 tbspns honey
• 1 tbspn soy sauce
• 3 tbspns Marsala
• 6 tbspns red lentils
to serve:
• 3 tbspns chopped pistachios, chopped blanched almonds or a mixture of both
Instructions:
Put 3 tablespoons of the oil into a very large, wide, heavy-bottomed pan and warm over medium heat. Brown the lamb shanks, in batches, in the pan and then remove to a roasting tin or whatever else you’ve got to hand to sit them in.
Peel the onions and garlic and process in a food processor or chop them finely by hand. Add the remaining oil to the pan, and fry the onion-garlic mush until soft, sprinkling salt over to stop it catching.
Stir in the turmeric, ground ginger, chilli, cinnamon and nutmeg, and season with some freshly ground pepper. Stir again, adding the honey, soy sauce and Marsala. Put the shanks back in the pan, add cold water almost to cover, bring to the boil then put a lid on the pan, lower the heat and simmer gently for 1 to 1 and a half hours or until the meat is tender.
Add the red lentils and cook for about 20 minutes longer without a lid, until the lentils have softened into the sauce, and the juices have reduced and thickened slightly. Check for seasoning.
Toast the nuts by heating them for a few minutes in a dry frying pan, and sprinkle onto the lamb as you serve it.
Serves 6
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COUSCOUS
Nigella: “The lamb shanks can be cooked in advance: this, needs to be done at the last minute. But relax, it’s a low-effort undertaking. If you don’t own a couscoussier (and there’s no reason why you should) just steam these grains above boiling water in an ordinary vegetable steamer. Of course it’s possible to cook couscous just by steeping it in boiling water (and check packet instructions for directions) but I can’t honestly tell you it will make them as fluffily light.
Otherwise, with this aromatic, sauce-rich stew, just serve plain rice instead - or a bowlful of buttery mash, of half potatoes, half parsnips, well seasoned and spiced with mace.”
Ingredients:
• 500g couscous
• 2 tsps salt
• 4 cardamom pods
• approx 25g unsalted butter in two slices
• 25g flaked almonds
• 50g pinenuts
• 25g pistacchios
Instructions:
Fill the bottom of a steamer, or base of a couscoussier should you possess one, with water and bring to the boil. When it looks like it’s almost ready to boil, fill the kettle and put it on, then empty the couscous into a glass bowl, add the salt, crush in the cardamom and mix with your fingers, then pour over a litre of boiling water from the kettle and place a plate on top of the bowl. Leave to stand for 5 minutes, then drain and empty into the steamer or couscoussier top and sit this on top of the boiling water beneath. Add the slices of butter on top of the couscous then clamp on the lid and let steam for 7-10 minutes, by which time the couscous should be tenderly cooked and the butter melting. (You can do this a simpler way, if you prefer, by just steeping the couscous in the boiling water for 10-15 minutes, but the grains will be more dense and more likely to clump. It’s not disastrous, however, and you must decide what you’re prepared to do.)
Meanwhile, toast the almonds by frying them in a dry pan till fragrant and golden, remove them to a plate then do the same to the pinenuts. Chop the pistacchios. Once the couscous is cooked, tip into a bowl, fork through (and always use a fork for mixing or fluffing up couscous; a spoon will crush it and turn it stodgy), sprinkling in the almonds and pine nuts as you do so (and taste for seasoning at the same time, too). Now fork in most of the pistacchios, and sprinkle those that remain lightly on top.
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