Nigella Recipes For Two

This may well be – indeed is – the smell, the taste, the dish that says “family” to me and my siblings, and brings our long-absent mother back to the kitchen and the table with us. But the fact that I’ve cooked it more often and over more years than I’ve cooked anything else doesn’t make writing a recipe for it any easier. If anything, it makes it harder, much harder.

Relax: obviously, it’s not the reliability from a practical perspective that’s in question; rather, I cook this so often I know that one written-down version of it can’t take into account or begin to convey all its possible permutations. For example, you could toss in some pancetta cubes before you add the chicken and maybe use cider as your flavour-giving alcoholic beverage of choice; or you could add some ginger, freshly grated or sliced, along with the oil and use Chinese cooking wine or sake in place of the white wine or vermouth and put coriander stalks in, along with the parsley or instead, and add fresh, de-seeded red chilli, cut into fine almost-rings, as well as chopped coriander, at the end. At all times, you can play with the vegetables. And very often, when all is heaped into the pan at the beginning, just before it is left to cook itself into aromatic succulence, I grate in the zest of 1 lemon, then squeeze in the juice and maybe add a sprinkling of dried mint, too. I could go on and on ...

By its very nature, this symbolises the very free-style form of cooking that a recipe seems to argue against. So, let me reassure you that really all you need to know is that you simply brown the chicken before adding vegetables and just enough liquid to cover, and cook them slowly before eating on top of rice. I like brown basmati here, and work on 75-100g per head before cooking, depending on the ages and appetites of the eaters. On the whole, I tend to go for the higher rather than lower number – no huge surprise, I’m sure – not because I think it’s all needed, but because one of my favourite uses of leftover meat is a variation of a salad I make with leftover turkey at Christmas: chunks or shreds of cold chicken stirred into cold brown basmati rice, with pomegranate seeds, sunflower seeds or any mixture of similar seeds, fresh dill, lemon juice, salt and 1-2 drops of gorgeously flavoured oil (a rich, mustardy yellow cold-pressed rapeseed being my favourite).

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Obviously, if you want, you can ditch the rice and think of serving steamed potatoes, instead. And if you can steam them above the chicken, so much the better. But rice it has to be in our house. And, as I am presenting this in its role as a family favourite, my kitchen perennial, in fact, I feel I can allow myself to be bossier than normal, even telling you how you should eat it: by this I mean the Lawsonian familial practice of adding fresh fronds of dill and some English mustard – just a pinprick or great, sinus-clearing teaspoonfuls – as we greedily, gratefully eat.

Serves 4-8 (cooked this way it seems to go much further than roast chicken, so you can feed more first time or have plenty for the rest of the week)

Get out a large, flame-safe cooking pot (with a lid) in which the chicken can fit snugly: mine is about 28cm wide x 10cm deep.

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On a washable board, un-truss the chicken, put it breast-side down and press down until you hear the breastbone crack. (As you may imagine, I like this.) Then press down again, so that the chicken is flattened slightly. Now cut off the ankle joints below the drumstick (but keep them); I find kitchen scissors up to the task.

Put the oil in the pan to heat, then brown the chicken for a few minutes breast-side down, and turn up the heat and turn over the chicken, tossing in the feet as you do so. Still over a vigorous heat add the wine or vermouth to the pan and let it bubble down a little before adding the leeks, carrots and celery.

Pour in enough cold water to cover the chicken, though the very top of it may poke out, then pop in the bouquet garni or your herbs of choice, and the parsley stalks (if I have a bunch, I cut the stalks off to use here, but leave them tied in the rubber band) or parsley sprigs along with the salt and red peppercorns (I just love these beautiful red berries) or a good grinding of regular pepper.

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The chicken should be almost completely submerged by now and if not, do add some more cold water. You want it just about covered.

Bring to a bubble, clamp on the lid, turn the heat to very low and leave to cook for 1½–2 hours. I tend to give it 1½ hours, or 1 hour 40 minutes, then leave it to stand with the heat off, but the lid still on, for the remaining 20-30 minutes.

Serve the chicken and accompanying vegetables with brown basmati rice, adding a ladleful or two of liquid over each shallow bowl, as you go, and putting fresh dill and mustard on the table for the eaters to add as they wish.

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I love ham, or rather gammon (though it doesn’t seem to be called that any more), poached in water or cider and then its rind stripped off, the glutinous fatty wrapping underneath pressed with mustard and sugar, scored with a sharp knife and studded with cloves and then glazed in a hot oven. That was my mother’s way.

I am much taken with the American way of cooking a ham in Coca-Cola. In an age which solemnly tells you that cooking can produce food only as good as the ingredients that are provided (that’s the whole history of French cuisine dispatched then), there is something robustly cheering about this dish.

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I cannot urge you to try this strongly enough. The first time I tried it, it was out of amused interest. I’d heard, and read, about this culinary tradition from the deep South, but wasn’t expecting it, in all honesty, to be good. It is: I’m converted. I have to make myself cook gammon otherwise now; though often I don’t bother with the glaze but just leave it for longer in the bubbling Coca-Cola instead. But, if you think about it, it’s not surprising it should work: the sweet, spiky drink just infuses it with spirit of barbecue. Don’t even think of using Diet Coke.

I find now, as I’ve said elsewhere, that mild-cure gammon doesn’t need soaking. I don’t soak my gammon: I just cover it with cold water, bring it to the boil, throw all the water out and put the gammon back in the pot and proceed. That gets rid of excessive saltiness, and probably doesn’t add more than 40 minutes on to the cooking time. (But do ask the butcher: many gammons now need no soaking or precooking at all.) Otherwise, put the gammon in a pan, skin side down if it fits like that, add the onion, then pour over the Coca-Cola. Bring to the boil, reduce to a good simmer, put the lid on, though not tightly, and cook for just under 2½ hours. (Or, of course, work out timing based on weight of your joint, remembering that it’s going to get a quick blast in the oven later. But do take into account that if the gammon’s been in the fridge right up to the moment you cook it, you will have to give a good 15 or so minutes’ extra cooking time so that the interior is properly cooked.)

When the ham’s had its time (and ham it is now it’s cooked, though it’s true Americans call it ham from its uncooked state) take it out of the pan and let cool a little for ease of handling. (Indeed, you can let it cool completely then finish off the cooking at some later stage if you want.) Remove skin, leaving a thin layer of fat. Mix breadcrumbs, sugar and the mustards to a thick, stiff paste with the 2 tablespoons of Coca-Cola. Add a drop at a time because the one thing you don’t want is a runny mixture. Slap the glaze on the ham, and put it, glaze-side up, on a roasting tray and cook in the hot oven for 10–15 minutes until the glaze is just set.

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Or if you want to do the braising stage in advance and then let the ham cool, give it 30–40 minutes, from room temperature, in a 180C/gas mark 4 oven.

With this I’d have a large bowl of floury, large-chunked boiled potatoes, leafily covered with fresh chopped