The Mild and the Fiery

Sweet Harmony 

A main course of soft-fleshed fish is offset by crunchy almonds, and a dessert of chilied and spiced chocolate offers a pleasing balance, the dark pudding after the white fish, richness following simplicity.

 

By: Nigella Lawson*

Photo: Jonathan Player

Anything that is true out of the kitchen is also true in the kitchen. What matters most is balance. And believe me, in cooking you have it easier. In the novel “Heartburn,” Nora Ephron wrote of the comforting certainties of the culinary world. When all else feels stunningly out of control, you know -- to paraphrase her -- that if you mix flour and butter over heat you will have a roux; and when you stir in milk you will have a sauce that thickens.

To be sure, things do go wrong in the kitchen, but even culinary disasters are containable. To achieve harmony and balance in the world outside can be a life’s work. To produce the same at the dinner table just takes a few minutes’ gentle thought.
The balance required to make a successful supper draws on the pleasing contrast between a number of elements -- taste, texture and effort of preparation -- but all rests on simplicity. In other words, it’s not hard. A main course of soft-fleshed fish is offset by crunchy almonds, and a dessert of chilied and spiced chocolate offers a pleasing balance -- the dark pudding after the white fish, richness following simplicity. Much as I feel you can never go very wrong making a chocolate dessert, after a meat course there is just too much brown around. You’d be surprised how much, even subconsciously, the eye affects appetite.
This menu is very much supper, rather than dinner: an easy meal that you can put on the table when you have friends coming around after a long day’s work. The fish takes only minutes to cook, and the pudding, infused with rewarding fire after the comforting plainness of the cod, is ridiculously easy to prepare and can bake happily in the oven while you set the table, have a drink, talk with friends and eat the main course.
Although I stipulate cod, to be honest any meaty white fish will do. And if you can only get fish fillets without the skin, go ahead with them. All the skin does is make the fish hold its shape better as you cook it, but if it flakes a little, no matter, it will taste as good. Alongside the fish, you can serve whatever vegetables are around and, preferably, are easy to prepare: I’d go for crunchy fine beans (again, the contrast with the soft fish is good) and, if they appeal, plain boiled potatoes -- though if you’re going for the rich dessert, there is really no need to add starch to the entree.
The dessert is a miracle of low-effort, high-reward cooking. You have a bowl of dry ingredients and a jug of wet ones, and you just stir the two together. It looks alarming when you make it -- it’s hard to believe that sprinkling sugar and cocoa on top of a cake batter and then pouring hot water over it will end up edible, but it does, it truly does. I won’t lie: it isn’t the most beauteous creation, but looks are not everything, despite my earlier caveat. This is a luscious, homey dessert, one of those self-saucing puddings that turn themselves as they bake into a layer of gooey sauce topped with tender cake.
By all means, dispense with the chili and cinnamon (and indeed the rum, though you will need to make up the liquid with more water) if you want to go for a regular chocolate flavor, but after the relative blandness of fish, tempered with the wonderful herbal reach of the parsley, a little bit of fire is desirable.
I got the idea for the chili-cinnamon-chocolate mix from a cake recipe in Art Smith’s glorious “Back to the Table: The Reunion of Food and Family” (Hyperion), which introduced me to Vosges Haut-Chocolat, a Chicago company that sells spicy Aztec Elixir, and since it has a Web site, www.vosgeschocolate.com (click on couture cocoas), you can get it easily (in which case use half a cup in place of the cocoa, cinnamon and chili in the recipe), but there is no need to buy fancy ingredients.
This is, after all, a simple pudding, which requires little to make it perfect. A few store ingredients to make it, some good shop-bought vanilla ice cream or heavy cream to eat with it: a perfectly balanced dessert to end a comfortingly harmonious meal.

* Nigella Lawson is the author, most recently, of “Feast: Food That Celebrates Life” and the host of “Nigella Bites,” on the Style Network and E! Entertainment Television.


COD WITH TOASTED ALMONDS

Time: 20 minutes
1/2 cup sliced almonds
3 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons olive oil
4 6-ounce cod fillets (or any other meaty white fish), with skin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Juice of 1 lemon
1 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped.

1. Place a large dry nonstick skillet over medium heat, and add almonds. Stir constantly until they are tinged with color. Take from heat, and transfer to a bowl to cool.
2. Place the same pan over medium heat, and add butter and olive oil. When both begin to bubble, add cod fillets skin side up. Season well with salt and pepper. Brown fish until
opaque all the way through, turning once, 3 to 4 minutes a side. Transfer fish to a warm serving plate, skin side down.
3. Reduce heat under pan to low, and add lemon juice. Stir to blend with butter and oil, then pour this sauce over fillets. Scatter parsley over cod, and scatter with toasted almonds. Serve immediately.

Yield: 4 servings.

AZTEC HOT CHOCOLATE PUDDING

Time: 45 minutes
Butter for greasing pudding dish
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 cup superfine sugar
1/2 cup best-quality cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup corn oil
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup dark rum.

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter 8-cup pudding or souffl» dish. Set aside. In large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, chili, superfine sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa powder. In small bowl, mix milk, vanilla and oil. Pour into flour mixture. Mix by hand for thick smooth batter.
2. Spoon batter into pudding dish, and smooth the top. Pour 3/4 cup water into a small pan. Set over high heat, and bring to boil. In small bowl, combine remaining 1/4 cup cocoa with brown sugar, making sure there are no lumps. Spread evenly across the batter. Pour boiling water over it, and top with rum.
3. Bake pudding until top is a bubbling sponge and center is wobbly and liquid, about 30 minutes. To serve, spoon out portions that include some of the top and chocolate sauce beneath. If desired, accompany with vanilla ice cream.

Yield: 4 servings