Iron, John (and a recipe for Leek tart)
A few weeks ago, I read extracts from the wonderful work of literature that is Mrs Beeton’s All About Cooking. Firstly I can report that the title is a lie. I learnt a great deal about many things, not all of them cooking, including: how to tell the difference between a scullery maid and a kitchen maid, things to do with sheeps’ heads, how to balance a household budget and a thousand reasons to be happy I am 21st century gal, not early 20th century married middle class matron. It seems there is a lot of gelatine involved in the latter, plus expectations of hostessery which are always going to be beyond anyone who considers that the ideal dinner party involves cooking, making cocktails, changing outfits several times, drinking, eating, smoking and dancing all at the same time .


Mrs Beeton does have a section on ironing. This was interesting, because though a good three paragraphs long it seemed to have been written by someone who had a kitchen maid to do the actual work in between boiling up a pan full of pig trotters and soaking the muslins. I am with Mrs Beeton on this, though minus the kitchen maid. I neither know nor care where the iron or ironing board live in my own home. I went nearly a year without noticing that an ex-lodger had moved out with the pair I had inherited. I am in favour of clothes that don’t need ironing.


I am also in great favour of IRONING MEN. These men (I don’t know if there are any ironing women, I haven’t seen any – this is in India, though for all I know this profession plies its trade elsewhere, I just don’t go anywhere else) take up position on a specific day at a specific time at a specific cart each week, armed with coal, a sheet and a beast of an iron. They sometimes have a friend or relative with them to aid the precise heating of the coal, but often not.


With these tools they will iron like the other-worldly beings Mrs Beeton’s scullery maids must have been, I can only gasp in admiration, take a photograph and watch in awe as the Ironing Man who operates outside my Aunt’s house every Sunday morning hands me my exquisitely pressed and folded shirt and then takes my 10 rupee note and IRONS it before carefully folding it and placing it in his beautifully ironed shirt pocket. [if you want to see a video of the entire ironing process, there is a 3 minute film on youtube waiting for you]


My sociology lecturer once pointed out to us, a group of random late teen/early 20-somethings all trying second time round or just plain late to get some qualifications, that all labour saving devices were sold to women as freeing them from a layer of domestic tyranny but in fact merely raised the standard of what was expected of them domestically. He also wore flowery shirts that didn’t get ironed, cemented to his body by an almost solid layer of after shave which announced his arrival a good 90 seconds in advance of him starting the class a reliable 15 minutes late, as his scent wafted, nay, gusted down the corridor and into the underheated classroom; many of us were doing his subject because we had been told it was an easy A level providing you read the one standard textbook at a time close to the exam, so naturally we didn’t listen to much he said. However, his words haunt me now as I ignore the steadily growing mould creeping out from the corner of my kitchen ceiling. I remember said words were followed by some more about gender, cultural and class differences in which domestic tasks we consider socially acceptable or economically possible to contract out, and I sigh longingly for ironing man and curse aftershavewearing sociology lecturer man for being right.

Now, this morning, a rough head count, available thanks to the wonders of modern interwebual social networking, told me that not one but three of my female acquaintances were ironing before breakfast on a Sunday. It's a mystery to me, but thankfully I know that it isn't a mystery to the men of my acquaintance who have realised that the ability to find an iron and use it correctly is not an inverse reflection of their attractiveness or manliness, and that it is in fact much more useful to the modern gal than rushing into the woods and emoting. It also means that everyone all round gets more time for eating cake. Ironing men and women everywhere, I salute you!

I don’t think Mrs Beeton ever cooked up her own leek tart and I am pretty sure that the following recipe would produce only a snort of derision at the lack of goose fat and lamb’s stomach and the mere mention of goat’s cheese would surely have resulted in a lie down with the kitchen maid wafting the smelling salts. And I have a great deal of sympathy with the idea that if you are going to eat a dead animal you should really attempt to acquaint yourself with the finer points of its anatomy and not get squeamish about eating one bit or another. But I have no intention of adapting any of Mrs Beeton’s recipes – track down your own copy and choose your own, if you can source the requisite arrowroot and offal. Leek tarts are for another era, when modern fabric making techniques have freed us from the tyranny of our own ironing boards and left us with time to go to the gym.

The recipeThis simple offering is deceptive – sometimes it can seem stupidly easy, but if you are a novice to tarts and quiches, you could easily fall for a recipe you found on the interweb, which may mean culinary heaven but is equally if not more likely to end in something which will remind you of a motorway service station or school dinner. Key top tips: don’t go mad on the eggs (or leave them out completely), bake the pastry first (see below), and keep extra cheese to a tasteful minimum. In this case, contrary to the trifle rule of blog 1, less is definitely more.


This is good to serve with any potato dish and a salad, or with bottles (the original mottled glass ones, not the nasty plastic ones or worse still the cans) of Orangina, sitting on a warm stone wall in summer, or with greens that taste nice and creamed parsnip.

Ingredients
Pastry: you can either buy it ready made (shortcrust or puff - see bottom of the page) and give yourself enough time to defrost it, or you can make it yourself and give yourself enough time to chill it. See following recipe (blog below) for how to make your own and bake it partially in advance in, preferably, a 12 inch shallow circular flan tin with a removable non stick bottom, if you can. Or one with a sliding metal flat thing that slides the tart out neatly.


Lots of leeks (about 6 or so for a 12 inch tart tin) with as much white flesh as possible – the green stuff is no good really. Trim off the bottom bit, the bulk of the green top bits, marvel that there is so much to chuck, be thankful if you have a compost heap to chuck it onto, comfort your crushed empty soul as best you can if you no longer have a compost heap, roll your eyes in cynicism at the mention of compost heaps if you are an eye rolling cynic. Wash and rinse, chop small, it’s going to be braised into golden, slightly caramelised, softened perfection, so no bits of grit or clumpy slices of leek. I say at least 6 leeks for a 12inch diameter tart tin with removable bottom, but in this case, more will be more, not less.


Lots of butter: come now don’t stint. And do not whatever you do, use any butter look substance, any time ever. It will only smoke and make everything taste nasty. Or you can use oil – olive with some butter, sunflower with some walnut oil (unless cooking for someone with a nut allergy).


Tub crème fraiche or soured cream or marscapone – if you are vegan just have more of everything else!


Salt, pepper, grainy mustard – Moutarde Maille, or Meaux, or Wiltshire Tracklements or something like that, don’t tell me that some sort of powdered nonsense will do the same job.


Stuff to smear with: Enough homemade chilli jam, or tomato chutney, or onion marmalade to smear a noticeable but not domineering layer all over the bottom of the pastry case – this is technically optional but why oh why would you deny yourselves and your loved ones this joy? Recipes for all of these smearages will appear in future windows of the Thangam Bakery and Coffee Shop. In the mean time, buy a good one.


Optional add ons, depending on taste and allergies: blue cheese (something really good, like a sweet and stinky Roquefort, or the blue veined goats’ cheese i found on a snowy day in the covered market in Todmorden recently, I think it was local, I must send my mother to check, but really, it should be blue. If you think you don’t like blue cheese, you could use something else with some poke, like a goats cheese, but you could also just dare yourself to try the mouldy stuff, just close your eyes and think of the South of France); chopped walnuts (leek, blue cheese and walnut, it’s the Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor of the tart, all singing all dancing and perfect trio, particularly if you have a side order of Cyd Charisse), toasted pine nuts, shavings of fresh truffle. Almost every savoury thing in the known universe tastes better with some truffle. It’s only in season once a year. It’s damnably difficult to get, unless you are an Italian truffle hunter with dogs, or are they hogs? It doesn’t keep. So buy one bit only, impress your tastebuds and don’t go out for the next month.

MethodMake the pastry if you are making it, or get it out of the freezer and into the fridge if you remember a couple of hours ahead. If you forget, I am told you can use the microwave for de-frosting, without ending up with a hard ice block centre and a semi cooked melting edge. But I have never managed this, so ask someone else or just remember to get it out in time.


Leek for me nowGently fry the chopped leeks in butter or butter and oil mixed. Make sure they sweat slowly but surely and that at some point, probably after about 20 minutes of this, with the occasional stir, you turn up the heat a bit more so that there is a bit of caramelisation. That’s what makes the leek tart such a winner. Without the browning at the edges, you are way too close to the dread memory of undercooked, underseasoned soggy onion quiche of the 1980s or the school dinner of the 1970s. Sweetness and flavour. Season with salt, pepper, mustard. Stir in the creamy stuff – whichever one you are using. If you want a bit of firmness or essence of quiche, add in one or two egg yolks, well beaten. But this is not essential! If you are allergic to eggs, just stick to the creamy firmness of the marscapone/creme fraiche, bound together with the leeks. Stir this all together so you have a gooey leek mass, firmish and not runny. If you are vegan, stick to your leeks, or you could add some red peppers and small chopped tomatoes done the same way. Stir through some fresh thyme if you have it – the leaves only, as little stalk as you can, about two teaspoons full if you are the measuring type.


What’s that about cooking the pastry first? Roll out pastry, line tart tin and pre-bake till just cooked but not golden. See following blog for pastry recipe and detailed instructions.

Smearage of chutney or pickle or onion marmeladeLet the pastry cool a bit in the tin (don't remove it from the tin at this stage), then let the smearage commence and be thorough and diligent about it please. If you want to be pure, smear not, but i assure you that people who think they don’t like vegetables will love this thing a whole heap more if they taste the sharp sweetness at the bottom.

Now heft the leek mix on top of smearage, scatter with small lumps of blue cheese and the optional nuts or truffle shavings. Grind of salt and pepper for good measure. Then bake for about another 10 – 15 minutes, still at 180. The party should be golden, the filling just cooked enough to hold together, although only just, but be wobbly, never rubbery. Ease it out of the tin and serve on your best cake stand.

Serving suggestions:

Simple, with boiled potatoes, dressed with some extra butter, salt and pepper, plus a salad.

More fancy, make a dish of great gender greens that taste nice (this is for another episode of Thangam Bakery – it really exists you know).

Fancier still, add a sauce (some would call this a coulis) of red peppers drizzled round the tart and some parsnip mash. It will look very pretty and the red pepper sauce (just roast, skin, liquidise and season – if you can be bothered) will make this a date dish. For second date, take the desired one on a picnic with the tart carefully wrapped and protected, much as you should be on a second date.


Puff piece: You can, especially but not only if you have involved an egg yolk in the leek proceedings, use an entirely flat baking tray with puff pastry instead of short crust. If you want to do this – and please only consider this if you have frozen puff pastry, roll out the pastry to the entire stretch of the baking tray and about 2 or 3 millimetres thick, then run a sharp knife round, cutting skin deep but not right through to the base of the pastry, about 2 cm in from the edge. Then (after smearage) plonk the leek mixture down within the boundaries of this cut, spooning it back away from the knifed cut. When the tart cooks, the pastry will puff up around the mixture, helped by the cut, and will make a wall. This version doesn’t need the partial pre cooking of the short crust technique but please check the ingredients if you have egg allergy people to feed, sometimes you find it in packaged pastry.


PS. Some people have kindly told me that I have a tendency to thrust gender into topics where it doesn’t belong. I think we can now all make our own minds up.

NEXT WINDOW INTO THE BAKERY: Let there be flesh! Spiced seared tuna, or you can use another fish if you don't like tuna or can't get the responsibly sourced sort. This may be the start of a new Bakery theme: Things YOu Think You Don't Like But Have Just Never Had Cooked Properly. it could include beetroot, aubergines, tripe and mussels.