A Long and Messy Business. Rowley Leigh

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СКАЧАТЬ pan of cold water. Bring to the boil, then drain and

      refresh in cold water. In another pan, dissolve the sugar in

      100ml (31⁄2fl oz) water over a low heat, then add the lemon

      zest and simmer slowly until glossy and translucent. Lift

      out the zest and reserve.

      Rub the cooked beetroot and turnips with kitchen

      paper to remove the skins, then cut them into segments.

      Put the beet tops or broccoli in the steamer, with the

      beetroot and turnips on top just long enough to wilt them.

      Place the lentils in a serving dish and arrange the

      steamer’s contents on top. Slice 3 or 4 pickled garlic as

      thinly as possible and sprinkle over. Add some very thin

      rings of chilli, lemon juice, sea salt and olive oil to taste.

      WINE: Despite the vibrant flavours, it is the rich earthy

      taste of the beets that will win through. A full-bodied white

      with a little oak treatment will work very well – nothing

      like a glass of Meursault in the depths of February.

      55

      February

      Pretty as a Picture

      Castelfranco Salad with Pears and Blue Cheese

      We have become familiar not just with the deep maroon

      colours of radicchio but also with the asperity of its taste.

      While there are even more bitter members of the endive

      family (cicoria and puntarella come to mind) radicchio is

      still quite a shock to the novice palate and used sparingly

      in those salad mixes so beloved of supermarkets.

      I am not a fan of those bags of salad. Unless we are

      talking about mesclun – the Niçoise mix of various leaves

      picked in infancy, with an intense, herby flavour – I am a

      one-leaf sort of man. I do not want a salad to be a marriage

      of texture and dressing; I want to acknowledge the delicate

      flavour of a buttery lettuce heart, or a crisp, mildly bitter

      Cos (a.k.a. Romaine) or the full-on milky bitterness of

      an endive. I use a fresh head of lettuce and prepare it –

      washing and spinning – for the occasion and the dish. No

      leaf incarcerated in a plastic bag for several days can

      possibly compare.

      There is also an aesthetic involved. No one could ignore

      the splendour of a whole curly endive with a snow -white

      core, radiating out to primrose yellow, then a deep, coarse

      green exterior, all splayed out like an unruly mop.

      However, the most beautiful salad, the real looker, must

      be the radicchio di Castelfranco, more prosaically entitled

      the Castelfrank, or speckled endive.

      The varieties of radicchio are named after their place of

      origin: Chioggia being the most familiar, round-headed

      radicchio beloved, apparently, of Tony Blair, while Treviso

      produces the elongated maroon and white striped bulbs

      that have become increasingly popular, as well as their

      extraordinary offspring, the hydroponically forced tardivo

      with its tendrils arising from a single core. Castelfranco is

      an elegant little town some forty kilometres inland from

      Venice, famous not just for its beautiful salad but also as

      Giorgione’s birthplace, master of the pittura senza disegno

      (‘picture without drawing’).

      As with all radicchios, you can cook Castelfranco.

      Quartered and coloured in oil and butter, then stewed with

      a pinch of sugar, a jigger of lemon juice and a glass of red

      wine, it is an excellent accompaniment to steak or roast

      lamb, but it seems a bit of a shame not to show its leaves in

      all their raw splendour. The recipe below, I have to admit,

      tastes just as good when made with an escarole or Batavia

      lettuce, but would be just a little senza pittura.

      58

      CASTELFRANCO SALAD WITH PEARS

      AND BLUE CHEESE

      It is hardly correct to pair a Venetian salad with a French

      cheese, but no blue cheese tastes quite like Roquefort in a

      salad. If using a richer and creamier blue cheese it may be

      necessary to up both the salt and the vinegar in the

      dressing. Apples will serve in place of pears.

      Cut the Castelfranco in half down through the root and cut

      in half again. Cut away the root and stalk holding the

      leaves together, then cut each segment in half again to

      produce lots of bite-sized pieces. Wash in a large bowl of

      very cold water, then spin-dry before tipping into a large

      salad bowl.

      Peel the pears and roll them in the lemon juice. Halve

      the pears and scoop out the cores with a teaspoon, then

      slice them not too thinly and return СКАЧАТЬ