"This is underlined by the fact we live in one of the most multicultural places in the world as far as food is concerned."
He attributes that to the industrial revolution disconnecting much of the population from their local cuisine and Britain’s colonial past, which brought people from the Indian subcontinent and China to the UK as cheap labour.
"Our country is now an amazingly fertile place for food stories, not only because of the immigration histories of the Italians in Glasgow, Chinese in Liverpool and London, even Koreans in New Malden and Nepalese in Kent to name a few, but also the many enterprising entrepreneurial activities.
"For instance, at Bundobust in Leeds, we discovered Lithuanian brewers teaming up with Gujarati vegetarian cooks to produce a revolution in traditional Indian restaurants."
Food is important to everyone — we have to eat to live, after all, he says.
"It’s why I love doing what I do; when you’re talking food to anybody, it’s always a pleasure."
His other mission was to take a look at what are now the nation’s favourite dishes to see if they had moved on from the meat and two vege recipes of the post-war era, he says.
Some research showed those dishes to be lasagne, chicken tikka masala and burritos, as well as Korean fried chicken, Chinese bao buns and Thai curries, so recipes for those are also included in the book.
"Not only a collection of the dishes that we, as a nation, like to eat now but also some new versions of my own favourites which are also loved by everyone else, such as roast beef, fish pie, grilled fish, fruit crumble and trifle."
The Book
Rick Stein’s Food Stories by Rick Stein (Ebury Press, $65).
Photography: James Murphy.
Profiteroles with dark chocolate sauce
When I was cooking these for the TV series, I said they should be as light as clouds. I’ve just cooked them again and indeed they are. I think the three most important aspects of perfect profiteroles are great chocolate, eating them when just cooled down out of the oven, and no sugar in the whipped cream – just a little vanilla. This seems to accentuate the complexity of a good chocolate sauce.
Makes 16–20
Profiteroles
75g plain flour
Pinch of salt
55g cold butter, cut into small cubes
2 eggs, beaten
Chocolate sauce
30g butter
125g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken up
Filling
300ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
Method
Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Put the butter in a pan with 150ml of water and place over a medium heat — ideally you want the water to come to the boil just as the butter has melted. Turn off the heat as soon as the water comes to the boil, then dump all the flour into the pan in one go. Vigorously beat in the flour to make a thick, lump-free paste. It should form a ball that leaves the sides of the pan clean.
Use an electric whisk to do this if you like.
Transfer the mixture to a plate and leave it to cool for 10 to 15 minutes, then put it back into the cool pan or a bowl. Beat in the eggs, a little at a time, fully incorporating each addition before adding more. Continue until all the egg is used up and you have a smooth, glossy paste.
Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C.
Line a baking sheet with baking parchment and sprinkle it with a few drops of water. Using a piping bag, squeeze blobs of the paste on to the baking sheet, allowing space around them as they will puff up during cooking. The mixture should yield 16 to 20 profiteroles.
Bake the profiteroles for 10 minutes, then increase the heat to 220°C/fan 200°C and cook for a further 15 minutes or so until they are well risen and golden. Pierce the base of each and make a small hole the size of a piping nozzle. Put the profiteroles back in the oven for 2 minutes, holes uppermost, to allow the insides to dry out a little. Then transfer them to a wire rack to cool.
For the sauce, place a heatproof bowl over a pan of just simmering water — the base of the bowl shouldn’t touch the water. Add the butter and chocolate, then stir together until melted and smooth and glossy. Add a splash of water if the sauce seems too thick.
Whisk the cream and add the vanilla. Spoon the cream into a piping bag, fitted with a 0.5–1cm plain nozzle, and fill each profiterole.
Serve the profiteroles drizzled with warm chocolate sauce.
Pot-roast brisket with parsley dumplings
I’m inordinately fond of pot-roasting meat, particularly when it is a slightly less than tender cut, like brisket. When you open the pot towards the end of the cooking time, the aroma of onions, celery, carrots and beer is as comforting as the smell of smoke from a wood fire in an open hearth.
Serves 6
Ingredients
4 Tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil
1.3kg boned and rolled beef brisket joint
20g butter
2 onions, chopped
2 celery sticks, sliced
4 carrots, each cut into 3 pieces
200ml beer
500ml rich beef stock
1 bay leaf
2 fresh thyme sprigs
1 tsp sugar
Chopped parsley
Salt and black pepper
Dumplings
150g self-raising flour
75g suet
Small handful of parsley, chopped
To serve
Colcannon, horseradish and apple sauce
Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C/Fan 140°C.
Heat the oil in a large flameproof casserole dish and brown the brisket on all sides, then remove it and set aside. Add the butter to the pan, reduce the heat and cook the onions, celery and carrots for 5-6 minutes until golden.
Add the beer, beef stock, bay leaf, thyme and sugar, then season well with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then immediately turn the heat down to a simmer and put the beef back in the pan.
Cover with a lid, transfer to the preheated oven and cook for 2½–3 hours, turning the beef after the first hour.
Remove the beef from the pan, transfer it to a plate and cover with foil to keep it warm.
Mix the dumpling ingredients in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Add enough water (about 100ml) to make a soft dough, then with floured hands, shape the dough into 6 balls. Bring the juices in the pan back to the boil, adding a little more stock or water if the pan looks dry. Add the dumplings, cover with the lid and return to the oven for 20 minutes until the dumplings are risen and fluffy.
Carve the beef into thick slices. Taste the juices and add more seasoning if needed. Serve the beef with the dumplings, vegetables and meat juices and sprinkle with a little parsley.
Colcannon and some horseradish and apple sauce are good accompaniments.
Tattie scones with smoked salmon and beetroot, radish and fennel salad
I thought that potato cakes, or tattie scones as they’re known in Scotland, would be great served with excellent smoked salmon from the Isle of Bute and they certainly are. They do need to be made with freshly cooked mashed potato, as the mixture is more malleable. When I cooked this dish, I used standard red beetroot, but I particularly like the pretty candy beetroot that Jan Smith, the food stylist who makes my food look so wonderful, used for this photo.
Serves 4
Tattie scones
500g floury potatoes, such as Maris Pipers or King Edwards, peeled
25g butter
2 spring onions, finely sliced
100-150g self-raising flour
Salt and black pepper
Beetroot salad
1 small raw beetroot, peeled
4 radishes, trimmed
1 small fennel bulb
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 heaped tsp brown soft sugar
1 tsp chopped dill
To serve
4 Tbsp creme fraiche
2 heaped tsp creamed horseradish
150–200g smoked salmon or trout
Extra dill or fennel fronds
Lemon wedges
Method
Cut the potatoes into chunks, put them in a pan of well-salted water (1 tsp of salt per 600ml) and cook until tender.
Drain and leave to dry for a minute or so. Mash until lump free, then stir in the butter and when it has melted, stir in the spring onions and enough flour to make a non-sticky dough.
Season with salt and pepper, then leave until it’s cool enough to handle.
Put half of the mixture on a floured board and roll it into a disc about 20–25cm in diameter — cut around a plate to help you make a neat round.
Cut this into quarters and, using a fish slice, transfer these to a dry frying pan over a medium heat — the idea is to toast the scones rather than fry them.
Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side until golden, then remove and keep warm. Repeat with the remaining mixture.
While the scones are cooking, finely slice each vegetable for the salad separately, preferably on a mandolin.
Put them in a bowl, mix gently and dress with the cider vinegar, oil, sugar and chopped dill.
In a separate bowl combine the creme fraiche and horseradish, then season with salt and pepper.
Serve two tattie scones on each plate, top with the salad and a dollop of the creme fraiche mixture. Add some slices of smoked salmon or trout, a few fronds of dill or fennel and some lemon wedges.
