Sunday 17th January 2021
Good – I thought maybe it was only 16th January.
If only Nancy were here now: ‘What time is it?’ ‘Ten?’ ‘No better than that.’ ‘Ten past Ten?’ ‘No better than that even…’ This is two young women telephoning across the wasteland of a society morning in London before the War.
Ten days ago I was in a different phase. I’m not in the same phase now. I had an early whoosh to do all Nigella’s new recipes at once. From her new book, ‘Cook, Eat, Repeat.’ The chicken with orzo. I don’t greatly like Orzo, but so what? The Rev Richard Coles was doing it The beef cheek with port and chestnuts ( beef cheek – so new), the cherry and almond crumble … So I ended up launching on Tom Kerridge’s Self-Cured Salmon with Beetroot Slaw, Horseradish Cream on self-blinis. Laura Malcolm gave me the recipe from The Times newspaper.
First cure your salmon. At the same time I had a mania to find frozen cherries for the Nigella crumble. There they were in Waitrose frozen cupboard. Miracle. In Planet Organic’s tundra were Frozen Sour Cherries, which I’ve been looking for since the Spring. So lucky, even if not immediately relevant. But the curing. Terrific assemblage. Grating of cabbage. Pouring of whisky. Only had dark sugar, so evil viscous dark result. Pack in cling film. It all leaked out. Into the fridge for 48 hours and breathe again. For a while. There was no escaping the final destiny though. Laura Malcolm had got ahead and was sending graphs of her finished ‘set’ as Anthony Mottram was later to call it – the full plate. I went to Waitrose and screamed in the aisles. ‘Where’s the buttermilk? I’m self-blini-ing,’ I screamed. The 48 hours were up. The first evening I couldn’t face it. The beetroot slaw had 12 ingredients and at least three stages. There seemed no hope. For the rest of life I would be forever slaving, the Tom Kerridge Cured Salmon Self-Blini, Horseradish Cream and Beetroot Slaw set just out of reach. What’s more Laura had added a cucumber pickle to her set. I looked at Nigella’s recipe for Scandi cucumber pickle and died. It was a desperate race to keep up with my ingredients. Eventually there was no choice but to set to: grate the red cabbage, grate raw beetroot.. but the Bramley was rotten through. No cooking apples to be had in three shops. Bash on. Finely chop. Salt. Add this. Add that. Check the recipe. Don’t forget the horseradish cream. More grating. That completed. But what would you do with horseradish cream on its own? Terrible bits of grating all over the kitchen. Beetroot carnage. Finally though a bowl of purple slaw. Only parsley to be added. With the self-blini-ing ingredients I got muddled trying to reduce by 2/3rds. Just guessing really. So near the end but collapsing. The salmon itself smelled funny after its curing. The Gay Mother, down the phone, said, ‘Are you sure it’s all right?’ I could have wrenched the wires out.
But I did sit down with a set of sorts. The blinis, because batter too wet, were huge. Pancakes really. I cut corners with the cucumber and had little appetite after a 1st course to build up strength for the assembling and hot-pan last minute blini-ing.
Don’t have a 1st course if you’re contemplating menu-ing this set.
Anthony Mottram and I had a little picnic of the salmon in the middle of Walthamstow Marshes and that’s when he called it a set. With the last of the fish I did rise to Nigella’s Pickled Cucumber, improved self-blini work and enough Bramley for the slaw.
Laura Malcolm announced that she would surely be doing the whole thing again. I doubt I’d survive. But I do have half a red cabbage, guilt-inducing, hiding in my fridge and we didn’t live through two World Wars to waste food.

My Final Set: Tom Kerridge’s Self-Cured Salmon, Self-Blinis, with Beetrow Slaw, Horseradish Cream and Nigella’s Scandi Pickled Cucumber added in Because Really Otherwise it would be Sadly Simple
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