I have a rectangular, ridged iron griddle. It sits on top of the gas jets of the hob and is where I often cook my steaks, lamb cutlets and boned chicken pieces. I brown slices of aubergine on there too, and spring onions and young, skinny leeks. It produces clouds of smoke, which need an efficient kitchen extractor if they are not to set off the smoke alarm. The food that comes from it is the most delicious of all: a little singed, sizzling and glistening with oil and caramelised sugars. It is one of the most used pieces of kit in my kitchen.
I try not to wash my griddle very much, preferring to wipe it with kitchen paper. A wet griddle or griddle pan will rust. A new one will stick. But as it gets older, the patina (posh word for burnt-on grease) protects the iron and the washing becomes less of a problem. Even then, it should be dried quickly and put away if it isn’t to get rust patches. I also use the overhead grill in my oven. This produces a different effect, as the food doesn't directly touch the heat, but it has been the source of many a daily dinner.
Ideally, I would grill my food over charcoal. But that must be done outside and I'm not about to go into battle with charcoal and matches after a day's work. It has to be said that a griddle or overhead grill will never quite produce the same flavour as when food is cooked over charcoal. Nevertheless, food grilled indoors can be pretty damned good. I like the direct heat of the griddle —- the charring, the smoke, the slightly primitive flavours that ensue.
This grill chapter is short and sweet: some cutlets, a couple of ideas for chicken and a pork chop. Yet these are the recipes I probably use most during the week. Grilled meat, a bowl of salad, a glass of wine. Dinner, as good as it gets.
A few favourites
Wrap a head of garlic in foil with a little oil and thyme and bake for 40 minutes or so. Squeeze the cloves out into a bowl and roughly mash with a little butter and salt. Grill a couple of boned chicken legs, and when almost done, spread the surface of the meat with the roast garlic butter. Serve with a baguette, torn into rough, crackle- crusted chunks, on the side for mopping up the butter.
Mix scallops with olive oil, finely chopped mild red chilli and a little coarse black pepper and leave to marinate for about half an hour. Thread them on to wooden skewers, alternating with large chunks of peeled and deseeded cucumber. Grill and serve with rocket leaves, fresh coriander and lemon.
Rub lamb cutlets with olive oil and dust with a commercial Berbere spice blend. Grill, then serve with a salad of orange and mint.
Peel, then crush a clove of garlic with a little salt, beat in 2 egg yolks and a squeeze of lemon juice, then slowly, drop by drop at first, whisk in 125ml groundnut or sunflower oil and 125ml olive oil. Toss whole, raw, shell- on prawns in a little groundnut or sunflower oil then grill till pink and sizzling. Serve with garlic mayonnaise.
Season lamb steaks or cutlets with olive oil, salt and pepper. Halfway though grilling, dust with zaatar — the dry mix of thyme, savory, sumac and sometimes sesame, sold in Middle Eastern grocer’s shops — and add a little more olive oil. Continue grilling for a few minutes, taking care that the spice does not burn (its usual use is to season flatbreads). Scatter with green olives and finish with a squeeze of lemon.
Squeeze a head of the black garlic out of its skins and mix to a thick paste with a little olive cil. Stir in some finely chopped black olives and thyme leaves, then spread it over lamb cutlets or steaks and grill.
A thought
I find the most satisfying way to grill chicken is to take a boned leg and cook it on a hot, ridged griddle. Boning a chicken leg is easy. A thigh even more so. Place the meat, plump-side down, on a chopping board. Make two deep cuts with a small, sharp knife following the two bones. Weedle the knife in and out, slicing the flesh away from the bones, until you have two clean bones and a rough rectangle of chicken flesh. Keep the skin on.
Melt butter and add chopped fresh thyme leaves. Grill the boned and flattened chicken leg as in the recipe opposite. As the chicken grills, brush it with the butter. Once the chicken is golden on both sides and the skin a little crisp, scatter with sea salt flakes and finish with a generous squeeze of lemon.
Stir a very finely chopped hot red chilli into an equal mixture of dark soy sauce and honey and brush this over the chicken as it grills. Offer halved limes at the table.
There, I've said it. In a small saucepan, warm together 6 tablespoons of mirin, 2 tablespoons of shiro miso and a little oil. Toss the boned chicken thighs in the mixture, making sure they are well coated, then cook under an overhead grill, basting regularly till the skin is golden and crisp.
chicken legs, lime, lemon, chilli flakes
Remove the bones from 2 chicken legs with a small sharp knife, then place each rectangle of meat on a piece of cling film, fold the film over the meat and bat out with a rolling pin so it increases by half of its original size.
Make several narrow slits through the skin and the meat with the point of a sharp knife, going about halfway through the meat. Rub a scant teaspoon of sea salt flakes into the skin and down into the cuts. Grate the zest of a lime and the zest of a lemon, rub them into the skin, then do the same with a large pinch of dried, crumbled chilli flakes.
Place the chicken, skin-side up, under a high grill, adding a little oil only if it looks a little dry, and cook for 6-9 minutes, till sizzling and golden.
Squeeze the juice of the lime and the juice of the lemon over, season generously with sea salt and eat immediately. Soft bread and butter. A rice pilaf maybe.
For 2. Feisty chicken.
lamb cutlets, feta, mint, yoghurt, garlic
Put 6 tablespoons of olive oil in a shallow dish, then peel and crush a clove of garlic and stir it into the olive oil with a grinding of salt and pepper. Put 6 lamb cutlets into the olive oil and turn them over to cover them with the oil. Leave in a cool place for an hour or longer.
To make the minted feta, put 200g feta cheese into a food processor and blitz briefly. Add 4 tablespoons of yoghurt, 10 or so mint leaves and a few twists of black pepper, then blitz again for a few seconds, till you have a thick cream. Scoop into a bowl with a rubber spatula and refrigerate till needed.
Cook the cutlets under or over a hot grill till the outside is golden brown, the bones a little charred and the inside rose pink. Remove the cutlets from the grill and place on warm plates with large spoonfuls of the feta cream.
For 2. Forks not required.
chicken wings, onion, umeboshi plums, sugar
Peel and slice a large onion, then let it soften in a tablespoon of groundnut or rapeseed oil in a shallow pan over a moderate heat. While it is cooking, remove and discard the stones from 200g umeboshi plums and chop the flesh.
When the onions have started to turn a honey colour, add the umeboshi and 100ml water. Continue cooking for 10 minutes then sweeten a little with sugar, to taste. Start with a teaspoon and continue till the sauce is salty, sour and sweet. Simmer down till thick and gloopy. Turn off the heat and set aside.
In a little oil, fry 12 large, free-range chicken wings till golden all over, then add them to the plum and onion mixture and stir them so that they are lightly coated.
Get an overhead grill or barbecue hot. Place the wings, a little sauce adhering to them, on a grill pan and cook till lightly crisp and golden brown. Serve with the remaining umeboshi and onion mixture to dip.
For 2-3. Salty, fruity, curiously addictive.
A few thoughts
Umeboshi plums are expensive and not something you will find at the corrier shop, but I love this little recipe. Wholefood shops and Japanese food stores are good places to look for them. Make no mistake, these plums are unrelentingly salty and sour and you will not want to add any salt to the chutney. Start with a small amount of sugar and increase it to your taste, but don't lose the salty-sourness.
Cook the onions down slowly so that they are really sweet and soft before you add the umeboshi. The longer and slower the better.
This would make a good glaze for pork ribs too. A thought
Stew thinly sliced red peppers, fresh or from a can, in olive oil with thinly sliced red onion and garlic. The longer you cook, the sweeter and stickier it becomes. Finish with basil and serve with the chops.
Peel a large banana shallot, halve lengthways and unfurl, then cook in butter in a shallow pan. Cut a pear into thick slices and as the shallots soften, add to the pan, then add a few thinner slices of pear so they break down into a slush as they cook. Toss in a few walnuts. Lastly, pour in a splash of white vermouth. Cook for 5 minutes more, then serve with the chops.
Fry a chopped shallot in olive oil, add a little chopped anchovy and let it break down, then add thinly sliced button mushrooms and chopped parsley.
pork chops, plums, onion, juniper berries, cloves, sugar, long pepper, red wine vinegar
Peel, halve and slice a large onion into thick segments. Remove and discard the stones from 500g plums. Put the onions and plums in a deep pan and add 4 crushed juniper berries, 2 cloves, 3 tablespoons of caster sugar, 2 tails of long pepper and a generous grinding of salt. Simmer over a low to moderate heat for about 15 minutes, then add 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar and check the seasoning. Grill 4 pork chops and serve with the warm chutney.
For 4. Sweet meat, pickled plum.
Pork, cut into thick finger-like strips, can be substituted for the lamb. Add about a teaspoon of cumin seeds to the spices. Include a little chopped spring onion or fine shallot. Use thick yoghurt instead of the coconut cream. Serve with roughly chopped coriander leaves.
lamb cutlets, coconut cream, ground coriander, black mustard seeds, garlic, ginger, cabbage
Spoon 160ml coconut cream into a shallow bowl. Add 2 teaspoons of ground coriander, 2 tablespoons of black mustard seeds and a grinding of black pepper. Peel 2 cloves of garlic and chop finely. Peel a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger and shred it, matchstick style, then stir both the garlic and ginger into the coconut cream. Roll 6 lamb cutlets in the coconut cream and leave for 15 minutes.
Heat a griddle pan or overhead grill and cook the cutlets till lightly golden brown. Expect quite a bit of smoke. Shred 300g Savoy or other dark-leaved cabbage then fry quickly in a little butter or oil.
For 2. Sizzling chops.
A few thoughts
Small lamb cutlets do not need to marinate for long — 15 minutes or so will do.
Choose quite lean cutlets to avoid too much smoke when grilling.
Let the bones brown and even char a little; they are good to pick up and eat.
Use thick coconut cream in tins. If you want to use the thick variety in packets, then moisten it with a little boiling water first.
A parsley sauce for shallow-fried haddock, made by simply adding creme fraiche to the pan once the fish is cooked, along with a handful of finely chopped spanking fresh parsley and simmering for a minute or two. Serve with a loose mash made from waxy potatoes, olive oil and lemon juice (add the lemon juice to the olive oil before mixing with the potatoes).
Grill or bake the smoked haddock. Cook the bacon, then make a mash with coarsely chopped cabbage and potatoes.
Boil and drain green peas, then blitz them to a purée with butter and a few leaves of mint. Serve with baked or grilled salmon.
kippers, beetroot, fresh horseradish, butter
Scrub, but do not peel 4 medium-sized red or golden beetroots, then boil them whole in deep, lightly salted water for 30 minutes or so, depending on their size. They must be truly tender. Skin them — you should be able to slide the skin off with your thumb - then trim them neatly before returning them to the pan and crushing with a potato masher. Beat in 50g butter with a wooden spoon, seasoning with salt and 2 tablespoons of grated fresh horseradish.
While the beets are cooking, get a grill or griddle pan hot, then lightly brush 2 kippers or 4 fillets with oil and cock for about 3 or 4 minutes on each side. Alternatively, cook them in a shallow pan with a little butter. Serve alongside the beetroot and horseradish mash.
For 2. Smoky fish, sweet beets, hot radish.
couscous, lemon, preserved lemon, salted almonds, squid, green olives, lime, parsley
Plump up 125g couscous in twice its volume of freshly boiled water or stock into which you have squeezed the juice of a lemon. Add the empty lemon halves to the couscous for flavour. Chop a preserved lemon into tiny dice, discarding its pulp. Mix with a handful of toasted salted Marcona almonds, a handful of stoned green olives, a little lime juice and lots of chopped flat-leaf parsley and add to the couscous. Finish with black pepper and just a shake of very fruity olive oil.
Score 500g prepared squid lightly with a sharp knife, then cut into large pieces. Grill for a couple of minutes, till lightly cooked, the surface a little charred here and there. Place on the couscous.
For 2. Warm grains of couscous. Grilled seafood. A spritz of fresh lemon.