Burnt Basque Cheesecake
Also Seville orange marmalade, winter chicory and poison hemlock
The daffodils and snowdrops lull me into a false sense of security, urging me to forego wearing a coat as I go to pick carrots and celeriac from the garden beds, getting caught in a chilly downpour with two small stubborn dogs who would rather run away from me, sniffing around for no doubt something dreadful whilst I pointlessly try to coax them back through the little wooden gate of the vegetable garden that leads back through magnolia trees, the tight buds beginning to unfurl their outer crisp layer of fuzziness that keeps the flowers safe from the frost. There is a patch of wild hemlock gathering strength near where the water runs down as it overflows from the lake. It is a plant that fascinates me. I know I must not touch it, but with a small leaf picked from what looks remarkably like young celery, or flat parsley, the acrid, bitter smell is so strangely alluring but foul at the same time, its potential is utterly intriguing, though deadly. Let it be said that if you think that it’s parsley, it probably isn’t.
The first of the yellow primroses glow in the distance at the boundary of where the woodland meets the fields as if in the distance someone had gone over with a fluorescent marker and touched the leaves and small flower heads in the background of the gloom of a dull, misty morning amongst fallen branches and decayed leaves. Primrose vinegar is on my list of spring ferments to keep me busy. I use the soft little leaves in wild salads, along with handfuls of picked ground elder, bittercress, hogweed, dandelion and rib wort, the soft pale flower heads of the primroses slightly sweet to taste. As the sun climbs higher during springtime, there will be fields full of them for me to collect to make a fine vinegar. When it is time I shall share this with you.
It has been a week that has seen me make jars of marmalade from bitter Seville oranges, I’ve hot smoked mussels cooked in wine, picked them from their shells, dressed with oil and vinegar then placed them in hot woodsmoke for a while. Bergamots have been cut and salted once again to sit in jars in a dark cupboard, and chunks of salmon, sweet cured and cold smoked in the chimney have kept me out of trouble.
Seville oranges, simmered for hours in a tall steel pot, muslin bags tied with string, full of the scooped-out centres of the boiled oranges along with their pips for pectin, hot shredded peel, and a mountain of warm sugar bubbling away in the liquid in which the oranges simmer till soft and giving, cooked at a rolling boil until it reaches setting point. The sweet bitterness of a licked finger as I pour it into hot glass pots, my fingertips immune to the boiling jam, as I tighten the hot lids onto the jars filled with the clear, deep orange glow of the preserve. They will cool over the day, creating a vacuum that will give a loud pop as the lid is twisted open again one day, though now to put them away in the dark of the cellar with the other nice things that I’ve made to keep through the year. Better to leave for a month or so for the flavour to develop, then when it’s ready, to spread it thickly on buttered toast. I’ve heard that some like orange marmalade with crisp rashers of smoked bacon, though this isn’t something I’ve tried as yet.
I am partial to marmalade ice cream though.
The arrival of the Italian winter chicory family at the market is a sign for me of changing of seasons. They appear in abundance here at the end of winter. Agretti also arrives in the boxes from my supplier, with its weird minerality, deep long green, needle-like strands, bound in bunches, picked from salt marshes around the Italian coastline. I’m as fond of the packaging as I am of the greenery itself. Funnily enough, I have found a lady who grows it successfully near to here, so feel inspired to give it a go. It’s all about the seeds and correct germination she has told me. I am not easily deterred as I’ve told you before, so I have ordered seeds from Italy.
Rose Radicchio, Ciccoria and huge heads of Punaterelle are now available most days, huge heads of deep bottle green leaves with ribs of pure crisp whiteness, one of my all-time favourites if I think about it. I love the architectural qualities of Puntarelle, its leaves, dark and ruffled, soft points like dandelion, and then the pastel green cluster of crisp shoots at its base. These nodules must be pulled off the crown, sliced very thinly (or deftly pushed through a slicer, made entirely for this purpose and seemingly only available in Italy- note to self, move to Italy, for all seems better over there) and then left to sit for a morning, covered in a bath of iced water. They will curl and become crisp and spindly. It is then that they must be dressed in a sauce made of anchovies garlic, red wine vinegar, a little mustard and good green olive oil. Capers would be nice, and so might a shaving of raw artichoke, but Italians would become upset, and there is no need for the addition of fripperies. It is a salad like no other. It is subtly bitter as are most of the chicory family, though lacking the heavy, pungency of its red-leafed cousins, it is dreamy when doused in that sharp, bold dressing. One that is not for the faint-hearted. Plenty of salted anchovy fillets, mashed down into good red wine vinegar and left to soften for an hour with a liberal dose of crushed garlic, fat cloves smashed with the flat of a knife, pulverised with a little salt to give friction then smeared to and fro on a board to a fine paste, the only way to prepare garlic really. When the anchovies have turned into a paste, mix in a spoonful of good mustard and bring it together with grassy olive oil, salt, and plenty of black pepper. I like to use the leaves, torn alongside the white ribs, shredded cleanly into shards with a sharp knife, mixed with the drained, iced hearts of the shoots, smothered in the rich sauce.
Let it sit for a minute or so, then pick it up in great forkfuls and eat it with good bread, a loaf that perhaps has a little darkness to its crust from the oven. Give me a slice of mildly burned sourdough, any day of the week. Not burnt-burnt, you understand, but slightly charred where the flour has caught and the edges of the ear are black and crisp. For that is where the flavour lies.
This leads me nicely to what I intended to share with you here today. Something that is slightly burnt. On purpose, I hasten to add. The ever-so-delicious Burnt Basque Cheesecake.
I had originally planned to guide you through the techniques of making Bresaola this weekend, though have decided that this can wait for another day. It has been suggested by those of you who have unsubscribed from these weekly words of mine, that I should be sharing more recipes. Let it be known that I never set out to publish a weekly column of recipes here on Substack. That has never been the purpose of what I do here. And that is a direction where I might become lost in the world of cooks and their countless recipes, and in that field there are many and I don’t aim to join them, and as this is my newsletter anyway, it falls to me to decide what I write. But then you never know how the words come and what ends up on the screen in front of me, what I might delete or expand upon, so what is already in Drafts, waiting to be edited, might or might not contain any number of recipes. You’ll have to join me to see what comes next. But just so you know, this is not a newsletter full of recipes and nor shall it become one.
Burnt Basque Cheesecake
A sublime dessert made of a handful of ingredients, hailing from La Viña in San Sebastian. There is a cult around this cake. It is very very delicious, despite looking slightly odd. It is in some ways similar in taste to a creme Catalan, though not really. Creamy vanilla, caramelised and lemony all at the same time.
If you have never made it, you should. You will thank me.
You will need
Unsalted butter (for tin and paper)
460g cream cheese, at room temperature
150g sugar
3 large eggs
250 ml double cream
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract or 2 scraped vanilla pods
1 finely grated lemon zest (NOT juice)
20 g plain flour
How to
Preheat oven to 200° c
Butter an eight-inch springform tin, then line it with two large squares of buttered parchment, making sure the paper comes well above the top of the tin. The cake will rise up over the edge as it cooks as this is how it takes the colour. It doesn’t need to be too neat.
Beat the cream cheese and sugar in a bowl on low speed, scraping down the sides with a spatula until the mixture is very smooth, no lumps remain, and the sugar has dissolved.
Increase the speed and add the eggs one at a time, beating each egg thoroughly before adding the next. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula, then add cream, salt, vanilla and lemon zest, beating until combined, no more than half a minute.
Sift the flour evenly over the top of the cream cheese mixture. Beat on low speed until incorporated. No lumps, please. Beat until the mixture is very smooth and glossy. It will thicken as you beat it. This is good.
Pour the mix into the prepared tin and bake until deeply caramelised on top and slightly wobbly in the centre. This will be around thirty-five minutes. The cake will rise quite high, will turn very dark, and may blister and crack. This is what you want it to do.
It will be very very wobbly when you take it from the oven, though remember it will continue to cook and set as it cools.
Be patient. Let it cool completely on a rack, open the tin and then carefully peel away the buttery parchment.
It’s most delicious at a cool room temperature and needs nothing to accompany it.
‘A Story of a Year’
For those of you who are new here, and for those who might like to read more of my words, last week I began the serialisation of what over the coming year will become a book. I will pitch it for publication halfway through the year, though with my record of being ignored by publishers, it’s anyone’s guess if it’ll get picked up.
It is behind the paywall for my paid subscribers which I think is right. I do hope that you might take a chance on me.
Part one, an introduction began last week. A chapter a month is the schedule.
‘The cold frozen grass, splendidly white, stiff, bristling with hoar frost, crunches under my boot as I walk, the silhouettes of frozen branches, burnished with lichens of green and gold that cling to the branches of the old apple trees here, against a sky that is in a moment, all at once a mixture of every blue you might imagine. Pale, soft baby blue, brushed through with the sharpness of turquoise, fading far away into deep Prussian. It could be a summer sky, early in the morning before the sunrise waits for the warmth of the day to gather, though today the intensity of its cold light gives its secret away.’
Most likely this week there will be something ad hoc, as the mood takes me, I don’t know what as yet, but I have an idea up my sleeve.
Until then
William
I am making this today. You had me at San Sebastian.
Please don't listen to anyone but yourself in the content and timing of your essays. They are sheer perfection, an experience of the senses.