Finding chocolate redemption (and a recipe!)

Some people I know have declared that they're giving up this, that or the other for Lent. The odd thing is, none of them are particularly religious, or even all that disciplined, so I wonder why they do it. Has Lent become just another trending thing, like being disgusted with Tiger Woods has become a trend? How does giving something up for 40 days make one a better person, or change the world? Surely it takes much longer than that. Does abstaining from something like alcohol or dessert or shopping mean we give up the deeper emotional hungers that lead to these cravings in the first place?

Not knowing the answers to any of that, I baked brownies. When I'm in doubt about anything - anything at all - I bake. In fact, I baked two, just to give abstemiousness a kick up the backside. Abstinence and Catholic guilt have failed me as both moral compass or slimming aid, so I abandoned them a long time ago. I've been a happier camper since.

I'm not giving anything up for Lent, except the artifice of Lent itself.

Over the years I've experimented with dozens of brownie recipes. I found a few I really liked and tweaked them until I came up with a version that really rocked. Everyone loves my brownies. They're complex, fudgy and aromatic. People fight over them. Girlfriends hide them from their husbands and children. I get invited to dinner parties on the off chance I might bring some. Once, someone asked to marry me because of them. I kid you not.

Use the best quality dark chocolate you can get. Therein lies redemption.

MEGATONLOVE BROWNIES

This recipe makes two pans of brownies because chocoholics never bake just one. You can half the recipe if you wish.

Ingredients:

185 grams / 6.5 ounces unsalted butter (If you substitute margarine, I'll hex you.)

170 grams / 6 ounces best quality dark chocolate (I use 74% dark chocolate)

2 cups / 400 grams white sugar

4 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons cake flour (not self-raising)

2 tablespoons ground almonds

1 tablespoon espresso powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Optional (nah, not really):

1 cup walnuts or pecans or a combination of both, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup or more dark or milk chocolate chips or a combination of both (If you can't get chocolate chips, simply medium chop some good chocolate with a knife.)

Method:

Adjust oven rack to middle position. Heat oven to 325 degrees F / 162 degrees C / gas mark 3.

Butter and flour two 8- or 9-inch baking tins (square or round are both fine).

Spread chopped nuts evenly on baking sheet and toast in oven until fragrant, about 5-6 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a medium bowl, whisk to combine flour, ground almonds, powdered coffee, salt and baking powder. Set aside.

Melt chocolate and butter in a large heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of barely-simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth. When chocolate mixture is completely smooth, remove bowl from saucepan and gradually whisk in sugar. Add eggs one at a time, whisking after each addition until thoroughly combined. Whisk in vanilla. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, folding in with rubber spatula until batter is completely smooth. Do not overbeat, unless you want your brownies rigid like Victoria Beckham.

Transfer batter to prepared pans. Using spatula, smooth batter into sides and corners of pans. Do not resist the urge to lick the spatula when you're done. Sprinkle toasted nuts and chocolate chips over batter.*

Bake until a toothpick inserted into center of brownies comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, 30-35 minutes. Cool on wire rack to room temperature, about 2 hours. Turn out into a serving plate, slice and serve.

Store leftovers (leftovers??) in an airtight container at room temp, for up to 3 days. Storing them in the fridge will give them an even fudgier texture.

* Sometimes I like both nuts and chocolate chips on top. Sometimes I mix the nuts into the batter but sprinkle the chocolate chips on top, as shown in these photos. Or vice versa. Whatever turns you on.

Prat du jour

Though I've always been a passionate eater, I came late to cooking. In fact, when I arrived here in 1987 I couldn't boil the proverbial egg. This didn't bother me at the time because I had a job that allowed me to eat out often and extravagantly. As an events organizer for a global telecommunications company I was regularly wined and dined by hotels and restaurants angling for the company's business. I also had a generous expense account, and a harried boss, god bless her, who barely glanced at my expenses before signing them. This made it possible for me to live and travel like a rich person without actually being one.

Then I met Skunk. He lived in London; I lived in Brussels. Our daily long-distance calls and weekend commutes to be with each other eventually broke the bank (this was before cheap flights, internet or Skype) and we found ourselves having to eat in more often. I began to fret that our romance would not thrive for long on soups, sandwiches and omelettes. They were the only things I could make at the time, although, hey, I made them from scratch. Then came The Blow. Skunk casually mentioned one day that in his opinion no one made a Sunday roast as good as his mother's. He also said that his Last Serious Girlfriend, the one I was secretly jealous of, made a mean curry that he still missed.

Uh-oh. I didn't like the sound of that. At all. I have a Leo-sized ego and a ruthless competitive streak, and if there was anything I couldn't stand, it was not being top banana, at least in Skunk's world. I needed to do something about it. So I spent a fortune - okay, a month's salary - calling my mother in the Philippines and asking her to teach me how to cook rice.

"Buy a rice cooker," she told me. "It's easier. And it makes perfect rice."

"No, Ma. It has to be authentic rice," I insisted.

After reminding me that I really should have learned to cook while I still lived at home, she gave me the first of many tutorials on how to cook rice. I might add that apart from his occasional forays into Chinese and Indian restaurants, the only rice Skunk had ever eaten up to that point was the parboiled Uncle Ben's variety. Over my dead body would Uncle Ben darken my door.

It took me over a month, three pots, most of a 15-kilo bag of Thai jasmine rice, a great deal of swearing in the kitchen when the rice water overflowed, and many frantic phone calls to my mother before I could make a respectable pot of rice. My first two pots had to be thrown away. The rice was burned so badly to the bottom that no amount of soaking and scrubbing would get it unstuck.

Until I got the hang of cooking rice I'd swallow my pride, walk to the Chinese restaurant at the end of my street and ask the grouch in the ratty t-shirt at the take-out window for one order of plain white rice to go. Our exchanges usually went like this.

"What you want with lice," he demanded impatiently. "Today prat du jour beef bloccoli. You want?"

"Erm, just plain rice, thanks," I replied meekly.

"Madame, we are lestolant ha, we not sell only prain lice. You want prain lice, you cook yourself ha."

I stared at my shoes.

"Aaaiyee," he squawked with glee as the penny dropped, attracting stares from passersby. "You not know cook lice? Hahahahaha. You buy lice cooker ha."

I'm certain I made this wretched man's day, because he would then make a big production of scooping cooked white rice into a styrofoam box and bellowing to the cashier - and indeed to the entire restaurant - "One prain lice, lothing else!" I'd pay and scurry home to eat it with a practice pork chop. Never did like the taste of humble pie.

On my next business trip to Hong Kong I bought myself a rice cooker. Today I own three of them, ranging from small to enormous, and they're all in use.

But I can also make a perfect pot of rice over a flame, the old-fashioned way.

Fear of Frying

Now and I again I yield to popular demand and do a fry-up supper. I'm definitely not one of these people who shun fried food because "it's bad for you." I personally think any food that's made without love or imagination is no good for you anyway, and that includes badly-made salads. I absolutely adore fried food when it's done right. Over the years I've taught myself through trial and countless errors to overcome my fear of frying. The only reason I don't cook this way very often is because cleaning up is such a drag, and the smell in the house drives me crazy the following day, no matter what I do to dispell it.

My frying pan of choice is a cast iron chicken fryer by Wagner that's 10 inches across and 3 inches high. I paid about $25 for it 15 years ago and it will probably outlive my children's grandchildren, if they look after it as lovingly as I do. One crucial step many people skip is getting the pan hot (but not smoking) before pouring in the oil. My theory is that heat causes the surface molecules of the cast iron to expand, creating a sealed, non-stick surface. It doesn't matter whether you're deep frying or sautéeing, or whether you use an expensive Staub or Le Creuset pan or something much cheaper like a Lodge or a Wagner. If you add the oil before the pan is properly hot, food will stick. It's as simple as that. The other important thing to remember when frying anything is that the oil in the pan must be very hot, but not smoking, before putting the food in. I'm too ornery to mess around with thermometers, but I always test oil temperature by putting in a few drops of the batter into the hot oil. If it puffs up quickly, I'm ready to rock and roll.

Over the years I've fiddled with many recipes for batter, some of them absurdly complicated. I eventually came up with my own and it's fool-proof. It gives meat, fish or vegetables the ethereal lightness and crunch you find in Japanese tempura. And it's dead easy to throw together. Do not make this batter ahead of time because the yeast in the beer, which is the rising agent in this batter, goes flat. And flat means boring, in batterspeak.

1 cup flour (or 2/3 c. flour and 1/3 c. cornmeal)
1 teaspoon salt
a good pinch of cayenne powder and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup COLD beer (and I mean damn cold)

This gives you enough batter to make fried chicken or fish-and-chips for 4 hungry people. Prepare what you want to cook and pat dry with paper towels. Patting the food dry before dunking it in the batter is important, unless you think getting splattered with boiling oil is exciting. It isn't; it fucking hurts. Get the pan hot, pour in enough oil to cover what you're cooking, and then get the oil hot. Throw the batter together while the oil in the pan is getting up to heat: put the dry ingredients in a large bowl, add the cold beer, and whisk lightly until smooth. That's it, and if you have any leftover beer, for Pete's sake, don't waste it, drink it! Dip the fish/chicken/whatever in the batter to lightly coat it and carefully lower into the hot oil using tongs, unless you have asbestos fingers like me. You'll hear a satisfying sizzly-swooshy noise as the food makes contact with the oil, and you'll see the batter puff up almost instantly - if your oil is at the correct temperature. Watch food like a hawk when frying, and ignore the urge to fiddle with it. You don't want to puncture that thin outer shell and end up with greasy, soggy food. When one side has turned golden, carefully turn it over. When it's a gone beautiful golden brown all throughout, take it out with tongs or a slotted spoon, drain it on a wire rack, and cook the next batch. At this point I usually call out to the troops and tell them to get to the dinner table prontissimo because if there's anything that makes me truly grumpy at meal times, it's when people let my food get cold.



This was our fish-and-chips dinner the other night, or what was left of it by the time I remembered to take a picture. I used about 800 grams of catfish fillets, and the "chips" were not potatoes but courgette (zucchini) wedges that were dipped in the same batter as the fish and fried in the same pan. You can serve this with ketchup or lemon wedges. I like to make an evil dipping sauce of mayonnaise, lemon, garlic, chopped scallions, Tabasco and a slug of Kikkoman soy sauce.

It makes for total silence at the table. There are never any leftovers.