PHOTOGRAPHS INDIA WHILEY-MORTON
Do you want to know the one thing we home cooks can do that fancy chefs never can? We can focus purely on the flavour of something, without worrying about how it will affect the way it looks. A chef needs to make sure the crackling on the pork is uniformly bronzed and the char marks on the steak are even and distinct. Anything veering beyond dark brown to black is almost always removed before it’s eaten. But we all know that the best part of a lasagne is the crunchy bit of pasta that pokes through the sauce and gets lightly singed in the oven.
A BURNING PASSION
At home, we have the option to push food that little bit further when we want to – pushing the boundaries of what caramelisation is and teetering over the brink of burnt while we’re at it. Taking a pie out of the oven to find the pastry lid is a solid black isn’t ideal, but neither is taking it out to find the pastry is pale and flabby. I’d almost always prefer something slightly burnt to something slightly underdone, so I’m all for a little char, a few caught corners and singed sides. It’s why barbecue tastes so good – and why some food from fine dining restaurants can taste a little bland.
Sometimes, though, I like to burn the heck out of things on purpose. A burnt outside often creates a soft, smoky inside – just look at Mexican cuisine where salsas are often created by blackening tomatoes, garlic and onions before removing skins and pounding everything together; or dishes like baba ghanoush. Even those jars of roasted red peppers in the supermarket have been fiercely cooked until blackened before the skin is peeled away to reveal the tender, smoky-sweet flesh.
PAINT IT BLACK
But burnt food isn’t just about blackening, then peeling away the burnt bits. Alliums – specifically onions, spring onions, leeks and calçots – transform when they cross the threshold from golden brown to black. The resulting flavour is smoky, sweet and pleasantly bitter without overwhelming other flavours. Because they have many layers, a burnt leek or onion will be savoury, bitter and smoky on the outside, but these qualities are counteracted by the softer, sweeter layers within. Eating both at the same time takes you through the full spectrum of flavours.
You can take burning even further, cooking ingredients until they carbonise and turn to ash, which is delicious dusted over dishes that require a lift (although a little goes a long way).
EMBRACE THE BURN!
Whatever you decide to burn, try to do it fast – in the embers of a barbecue or on a smoking hot griddle pan – as a long, slow burn in a dry environment like an oven tends to parch the ingredients and destroy flavour compounds completely.
The following recipes by Emily and Polly are prime examples of how burnt ingredients can take centre stage in dishes, tempered by creaminess, acidity and sweetness. They’re all fantastic and, I hope, will give you the confidence to push things and start seeing what happens when you leave ingredients in the pan or on the barbecue just that little bit longer.
Burnt spring onions with ajo blanco sauce
Serves 4 as a side
Hands-on
time 15 min
KNOW-HOW
If your bread is so stale that it’s hard, soak it in the milk for 10 minutes before whizzing up.