Lemon

So much of a lemon often gets discarded: the pips, rightly; the skins, which is often a waste (see Lemon pickle (2)); but most often the part that does not have a name. I will call it the residue. Imagine chopping the lemon or juicing it. On the chopping board or still in the juiced lemon is a mixture of flesh and juice, of solid and liquid. The point is that there is nothing inedible about it. Both the flavour and texture are good. Just for stirring into a mayonnaise or a curry, say.

Are there any other fruits or even vegetables that have so many different parts from the cook's perspective: zest, peel, juice and flesh. Compare other staples: onions, garlic, carrots, celery. All essential ingredients but in each case only one part that can be eaten: I might be prepared to accept that celery has a couple of other parts beside the flesh with culinary value: the leaves and the seeds.

The lemon is one of my eight desert island foods. Its ability to cut through richness, to alter flavour, to destroy blandness makes it a crucial thing to have around. Then there's always lemon pickle...

Aloo Chat

From my mother's recipe book, in her italic hand

* 5 large potatoes cut in quarters - boil in salted water until still too firm for potato salad. Drain. Cool and then peel. Cut into bite sized pie
* 2 green peppers cut into 1 cm cubes.
* 2 large onions cut into 1 cm cubes.
* 4 tablespoons olive oil.
* 1 tin chopped tomatoes.
* 2 dessert spoons curry powder.
* 2 dessert spoons garam masala.
* Salt.
* Pepper.

Fry peppers and onion in two spoons olive oil gently for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add curry powder and garam masala.

Stir until veg are evenly coated.

Fry gently for a couple of minutes.

Add rest of olive oil, potatoes and tin of tomatoes.

Simmer gently, uncovered, until liquid is absorbed.

Season to taste. Serve hot, warm or cold. (Don't stir too vigorously - keep the potato pieces intact.)

Now for the commentary. This is not a recipe I remember from childhood, but something from much later - perhaps even my early twenties. I think that Mum discovered it in our local Indian restaurant, the Viceroy, and attempted to recreate it at home. It is superb picnic food and it became traditional to take it in the car for the drive across France: each of us would have one of those sandwich bags full of the stuff and a fork. It was christened something other than aloo chat but I will not repeat it here because it might discourage the reader from attempting it.

Something to eat which, as the recipe says, is good whether hot, warm or cold. Although, as my mother would say, "it's even better cold ". Is there a name for such dishes?

I am, incidentally, assured by my friend, Nina Ali, that this is an utterly inauthentic recipe.

Potato Salad

I suspect that this is a topic to which I will return.

The following recipe is taken from the family recipe book, most of which was written by my mother but this particular entry is in my handwriting, and I calculate that I would have been aged about nine at the time.

"Peel 5 large potatoes, chop them up into quarters (or smaller if desired). Boil them for about 20 minutes. MAYONNAISE: Cup of olive oil, two eggs, salt, pepper in dish. Beat eggs while slowly putting olive oil in. Stir vigorously. When very thick, shake salt and pepper over then mix with potatoes."

Some sentimental commentary: in the original, I can't spell potatoes (like Vice-President Quayle), nor mayonnaise. I have forgotten to separate the eggs. The word "slowly" is double-underlined and I wonder how many times I had experienced curdling at the time I wrote that down.

The first time I remember eating potato salad of any description was in St Giles's Hospital in South London (now closed), at the age of about eight when I had a foot operation. I did not like hospital food, with the exception of the fish and chips which, I was told, was the best thing on the menu. Served on Friday. My operation was on a Friday so nil by mouth, and I was discharged on the following Thursday.

In the absence of the fish and chips or anything else I wanted to eat, my mother would bring in dishes of food from home: potato salad and curry were both things I asked for. The potato salad would arrive in a blue and white china rectangular dish. On one visit, it was left at home and I complained bitterly.

About twelve years later, when I was under the same surgeon but in a different hospital (King's College, in Camberwell), it was dishes of potato salad again, and something else which we had discovered in the intervening years, called Aloo Chat. For the next entry.

Much more to say about the many different versions of potato salad I know (ranging from the sublime to the truly disgusting). And mayonnaise is a separate topic in itself.