Making-Do During a Pandemic

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and it is - the only problem is that inventions don’t always work. That is what I was thinking as I peered down at my mess of a dinner. What had made me think that cooking pizzas in an air-fryer would be a good idea?

Air-fryer pizza failure

I don’t know about fellow home-cooks, but there has been a great deal of necessity-is-mother-of-invention syndrome going on in the Hesp kitchen over recent months. 

To take just one example: without a bit of experimentation, how else are you going to make frozen vegetables taste good and interesting?

Frozen meat? No problem. Same with frozen fish, as long as it’s not been in the ice too long. Morrisons (where I get my Covid-safe “click and collect”) does a great new line in various frozen shellfish - and they’re good too as long as your remember to thaw and clean out the sand from the razor clams. But veg is another matter. 

Frozen shellfish

Non-frozen veg has an inherent freshness which can break down very rapidly for various scientific reasons that I only just understand. Something to do with sugars turning to starches.  

The frozen pea, of course, represents the one outstanding exception. It’s one of the best industrially processed foods ever invented. But the likes of broccoli or Brussel sprouts straight from the freezer can leave a lot to be desired. And if a pea can be so good, why can’t a fresh frozen broad bean? No matter how posh the brand, they just aren’t ever as good as the real thing from the garden. 

Which is where necessity being the mother of invention comes in. If you whizz up frozen broccoli with some stilton to make a warming winter soup, for example, it works just as well as a handful fresh florets. If you sit for hours de-skinning each and every baby broad bean, the little green bombs you’ll reveal are pretty good. My “invention” of the week was a salad made from thinly sliced but tired looking oranges, some green olives from a can and a few bits of crumbled feta.

The reason I’m “making do” with whatever comes to hand is because Covid has come to our village. Indeed, you may have seen in the regional news that West Somerset (where I live) tops the West Country infection rate day after day - so I’m in no hurry to leave my rural home, preferring instead to do a “click and collect” once every couple of weeks. 

For years as a roving journalist my dietary modus operandi was based on whatever I’d bought in the past day or two. If I’d been near a fishing harbour, we’d have fresh seafood, if I’d been to some West Country market town where I knew a good traditional butcher, we’d have meat, if I’d spotted some beautiful fresh picked cauliflowers on a Cornish farm gate stall…

The dubious wonder that is the frozen brussel-sprout

You get the picture. It was all about: what’s new, what’s in season, what’s good?

Now it’s reduced to clicking items on a screen and picking them up once a fortnight in a supermarket carpark. Just about as Covid-secure as you can get and we get fed - so I’m not complaining. But it’s not the ideal way to live.

It means the home-cook has to make up for freshness or for the lack of brilliant ingredients by being inventive. And, as I’ve mentioned, it doesn’t always work.  

I was using my own sourdough base to make the pizzas and one thing about sourdough is that it benefits from a high heat when cooking. Our domestic fan oven doesn’t really cut the mustard and on a stormy night I didn’t want to go outdoors and light the wood-fired Morso oven just to make a couple of small pizzas. 

As a proud owner on an appliance called an Instant Pot Duo, I began to wonder about its air-fryer facility. The remarkable machine is both a pressure cooker and an air-fryer, depending on which lid you use - and I know the latter reaches very hot temperatures because it’ll cook crispy roast potatoes in 20 minutes. So why not bung in a small pizza and see what happens? 

I still don’t know why it was a failure. Maybe my homemade dough wasn’t up to the job or perhaps the heat inside an air-fryer circulates in some way I had not imagined. Whatever the reason, the results represented the worst of pizza evils: underside done nicely to a crisp, but topping more of a floury puddle where it sank into uncooked dough.

Disappointing. But at least during lockdown we have time to mess around and experiment with food. There are recipes for air-fryer pizzas on the Internet, so it must be possible - next time I’ll try a conventional base rather than sourdough.

Because, as most home-cooks know, the wild and moody sourdough is a difficult beast to tame. Wild: because it relies on natural yeasts that happen to be floating around in your location. Moody: because those wild yeasts do what they want, rather than what some industrial chemist has designed them to do. 

Here again, though, the pandemic has provided a slight silver lining. Because home-bakers have time to experiment with sourdough starters and the like. A couple of years ago I was writing in these pages about my sourdough failures - now, countless loaves later, I am celebrating success. 

We haven’t bought bread from a shop for six months. The loaves aren’t going to win any baking competitions, specially not in the looks-department - but I have found a way of making sourdough work time and time again and the bread is delicious. 

My latest sourdough loaf - of which I am hugely proud

Who cares what it looks like? I’m not exactly serving countless guests. And I do know exactly what has gone into each loaf - ie Matthews Cotswold Flour, filtered water a pinch of Cornish sea salt, and that is it. 

I am certain that a sourdough experts like Andy Tyrrell, who used to be head chef at River Cottage and who has taught special bread classes at the excellent Lark’s Live online cookery school, would not exactly approve of my methods, but they work for me.

Andy Tyrell, who regularly appears in the Lark’s Live line up of cookery classes

Lockdown has allowed me the time to make many tweaks and changes and generally (but not always) each loaf has been better than the last. The truth is, though, that without the rigours enforced by staying at home, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to keep on plugging away. 

Several BBC Radio news programmes have been asking listeners to name things which have brightened up their days during these dark months - and I reckon there must be tens of thousands of home-cooks out there who’ll say that having time to mess about in the kitchen has taught them all sorts of new skills, alongside pitfalls they must avoid. Which, surely, has to be a ray of sunshine in a hungry world… 

Very simple caesar salad - something fresh during the lockdown

FOOD NEWS

Entries are now open for the 2021 Food Drink Devon Awards which celebrate the county’s most respected, influential and passionate artisan producers and establishments. 

Covering food production, preparation, retailing, cooking and service, the awards honour businesses demonstrating a commitment to quality, sustainability, provenance, excellent customer service and support for their local communities and other local businesses. 

Categories include the ‘Producer Awards’ alongside ‘Food Product of the Year' and 'Drink Product of the Year'.  

The retail awards include 'Best Retailer’ and ‘Best Online Retailer’, while the highly contested hospitality section covers ‘Best Fine Dining Restaurant’, ‘Best Restaurant’, ‘Best Pub’, ‘Best Bar or Bistro’, ‘Best Café or Tearoom’ and ‘Best Takeaway or Street Food’.

Barbara King, chair of Food Drink Devon says: “Devon boasts so many dynamic and innovative local producers and purveyors. The awards give us the opportunity to recognise their success and contributions to the vibrant food and drink industry.  We are proud to champion the county’s most esteemed and dedicated artisan producers and establishments and constantly impressed by the number and standard of entries.”

Barbara King - Food Drink Devon

The awards continue to grow, with 2020 recording a high number of entries despite the year's difficult conditions. Each year judging is carried out by a panel of independent and unbiased experts including a number of celebrated names from the region.  All results and winners are verified by an independent adjudicator, with entrants receiving the opportunity to benefit from invaluable product feedback provided by the panel.  

This year’s winners are due to be announced at an awards' ceremony on Monday 4th October 2021. For more information visit www.foodanddrinkdevon.co.uk.  To enter the awards contact Ali Neagle on 07789 666064 or email admin@fooddrinkdevon.co.uk .  

Chicken thighs on slow-cooked frozen french beans