When I was younger, I would watch my mum indulge in her annual frenzy of
spring-cleaning and think to myself: “I am never going to do that.” I was
reflecting on this during a recent inevitable purge when I had to part
company with one of my favourite tins. Three years ago I bought a can of
laver bread in Wales. I have been meaning to do something with it since.
According to the use-by date, I blew my chances last November. I thought about
surfing the deadline but I knew that if I put it back on the shelf, I’d be
taking it down again next May.
Laver bread is a murky, Celtic brew of seaweed. I hadn’t completely forgotten
it. Every spring-clean I promised myself that I would steam it with some
cockles and bacon, or fry it with eggs and black pudding. Oh well, I’m now
determined not to let the same thing happen to my can of baby cuttlefish in
its own ink or a recently purchased tin of Iranian ghormeh sabzi.
I’m a bit of an anorak when it comes to delicatessens. I can’t walk past them
and I always leave with tins of this, packets of that . . . My interest is
not down to some fetish for weird, exotic versions of processed food.
Rather, I believe that keeping a good larder enables fairly spontaneous
decisions about what to cook. Which, in turn, makes you less reliant on
takeaways or ready-made meals. I wrote a book about this .
A 21st-century larder is more of a culinary principle than a room. It inhabits
the fridge, freezer and as many cupboards or drawers as you want. For
example, if there are anchovies in the fridge, olive oil, dried chillies and
linguine in the cupboard, then all I need for one of my favourite pasta
dishes is a fistful of broccoli. And if all I need to buy on the way home is
the broccoli, I can pop into a proper greengrocer and avoid the whatsit
Metro or “local” and queue behind someone barking at their mobile phone
about what they just bought for dinner.
All this would be almost unfathomable to the generation before us. To the
modern consumer, my mum’s weekly shop c 1973 would probably look like that
of someone who was expecting Armageddon. Back then there simply wasn’t scope
for buying anything and everything on a whim. You couldn’t buy it all in one
place, either. Things might have been less convenient but they were
definitely less wasteful.
I joined Mum for her spring-clean last week. There in her store cupboard, I
found a display of ordered, neatly packaged stock rotation that made me
green with envy. She didn’t have anything past its use-by date; she had one,
not six, packets of opened flour; nothing was stuck to the shelves and all
the lids were on properly. It made me realise that most of the chaos in my
own larder is down to faddiness.
Some of my store cupboard stalwarts get eclipsed by other more glamorous
morsels. Well, not this spring. I’ve been dusting down some of my old
favourites and getting them off the shelf.
Keep on the shelf Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce Probably the most useful
condiment invented. Used sparingly it adds a deeply spicy umami note to
casseroles. Try adding it to lamb shanks with carrots and onions.
Thai nam pla does a similar thing to stir fries and curry. Both products are
anchovy-based, which accounts for their super savouriness.
Pearl barley Most people use this for hearty soups , but a little goes a long
way. Lately I’ve been trying to use it differently. If you soak it briefly,
then boil it al dente, it can be thrown around a bowlful of herbs, just like
cracked wheat. You can also cook it in a similar way to risotto, especially
those that call for wild mushrooms or shellfish. The result is slightly
lighter and nuttier. It has been eclipsed by speedier and less
Presbyterian-sounding grains such as couscous, bulgar wheat, quinoa, etc.
Interestingly, barley, especially in risotto form, is becoming rather
trendy. You heard it here first.
Tinned sardines Not in tomato sauce, but olive oil. These are so underrated.
Try flaking them and throwing them round a pile of just-cooked spaghetti
with lemon juice, garlic, parsley and a couple of chopped anchovies. You
could swap some tinned sardines for the 20 tins of tuna you have in your
cupboard. We are fishing this magnificent animal to the edge of extinction.
Tinned kidney beans The problem with these is that even the tinned ones need a
lot more cooking to make them melting and tender — you can’t just chuck them
into a chilli near the end of cooking like a lot of people do. Try them with
a totally different braise, something rib-sticking such as belly pork or
brisket. The fats help the beans to soften without going mealy. Who needs
borlotti, cannellini, and all things River Café?
Tinned plum tomatoes Stop to consider the beauty of the San Marzano plum
tomato, an Italian variety grown for cooking. Lift one or two out of the
juice, fry them really gently with garlic and season with olive oil, fresh
herbs and posh vinegar. Try them on toast.
Sun-dried or sun-blushed tomatoes, are now very passé you know.
Shelve it!
Not everything lurking at the back of the larder warrants a comeback. It’s
good to know some things change for the better. Here are my bottom five.
Cooking chocolate Thankfully this phrase now implies the real thing: bitter as
coffee, 70 per cent cocoa solids, and not a tasteless, chocolate-flavoured
brick.
Stock cubes Real stock is now so easy to get that no one should have time for
these old phoneys. Makes everything taste like Pot Noodle.
Gravy browning This is essentially caramel or treacle in powdered form. Fresh
stock (see above), means that many people now prefer to use the roasting
juices to make a natural gravy. Don’t bin it if you’re a fan of making
Christmas cake; some recipes call for this unlikely ingredient.
Tinned sweetcorn, tinned carrot and tinned potatoes. Enough said.
Golden syrup tins The syrup itself is fantastic, but the tin it comes in is
impossible. Best used as a penholder. Tate & Lyle has now come up with a
squeezy bottle. No more sticky shelves and ant invasions. Hooray!
Cupboard Love by Tom Norrington-Davies is published by Hodder &
Stoughton
