The dishes I get most excited about – which I see as a real treat – are simple to cook and based on a hero ingredient, a food I have to ‘deserve’.
That sounds a bit puritan but it’s a hangover from my childhood. The foods I tend to dream about, those ‘once-in-a-while’ special ingredients, are Dublin Bay prawns (or smaller prawns caught off the Irish coast), crab, salmon steaks (they were from wild fish in the 1970s) and lobster (I didn’t taste lobster until I was 17 and then there was no going back).
As a child I certainly didn’t see prawn cocktail as a dish to sneer at. We had it on holidays and at Christmas, spending an inordinate amount of time perfecting the Marie Rose sauce, proffering tasters of it to whoever was in the kitchen: ‘More Lea & Perrins? A squeeze of lemon?’
When we went to Dublin on holidays, I couldn’t wait for the annual drive out to nearby Dún Laoghaire to watch the boats coming and going, and to eat at the fish restaurant. There was also a posh place in Dublin called Celtic Mews, where the prawn cocktails came in stemmed crystal glasses. I can taste them now, the prawns briny but so sweet you could pick up a whiff of vanilla, the flesh meaty and cooked so perfectly it was juicy (it’s easy to go from ‘nearly there’ to ‘a bit too far’ when cooking prawns).
Back in normal life in Northern Ireland, my mother queued at the market every Friday morning, even in the bitter cold, to buy prawns. These were usually for my dad as their preparation was time-consuming, a lot of work to feed six of us. We would remove the shells from the raw prawns, cracking the carapace then prising it off with our thumbs.
Our hands would be sore and red by the time we’d finished but it was always worth it. The glassy grey bodies were dipped in egg and fresh breadcrumbs and deep-fried. Scampi. It has been traduced over the years, but that scampi, with homemade tartare sauce, was better than anything you could get in a restaurant.
I rarely eat prawns as good as those these days. If I do it’s because I’ve ordered langoustines from Scotland to travel overnight. It’s an expensive once-a-year dinner. But I regularly buy raw king prawns for a Friday-night supper, stretching what should only feed two people to feed three or four by adding them to a pilaf made with rice or couscous, or tossing them with pasta.
So much of the pleasure we get from food has to do with attitude. I can’t have that Friday-night scampi we made years ago. But if I chill white wine, sauté king prawns with garlic and parsley, squeeze lemon into the pan and add linguine, the kitchen smells of holidays.
Crab, that orange spider of the sea – I used to call them scuttlers and was frightened of them nipping my toes – is also a treat, especially if you buy the meat (white, or a mixture of white and brown) already prepared. It’s not inexpensive but – with waxy potatoes, broad beans, avocado, dill and a buttermilk-mayo dressing – it’s a garden-worthy weekend lunch. Or you can add chopped spring onions to beaten eggs for an omelette and fill it with crab meat mixed with fish sauce, Thai basil and chilli.
I get crab from the fishmonger – I’m lucky that there’s a good one a bus ride away – though I also buy those tubs of Seafood & Eat It handpicked crab (the crab is predominantly Cornish) from the supermarket (Ocado and Waitrose stock them). If you don’t feel inclined to share you can spread a mixture of brown and white crabmeat on hot buttered toast, sprinkle a little ground mace on top and eat it by yourself. Go on. I’m sure you deserve it.
On doctor’s orders, Diana Henry is taking a break from her column. We can’t wait to have her back on these pages but, in the meantime, we hope you enjoy these previous favourites from her archive.
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