Get a load of those phytonutrients! (Image: Alexander Kent)
Do you balk at the thought of broccoli or spit out your sprouts? You’re not alone. Having an automatic aversion to bitter tastes is normal, because for a long time it was crucial to our short-term survival – many of the compounds that make plants taste bitter are toxins. But we now know that in small doses, these so-called phytonutrients can also be good for our health. At the same time, many plant growers and food manufacturers are removing the bitter compounds from some fruit and veg that are supposed to be bitter.
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The best solution would be to find ways to enjoy these bitter plants more, and seek out heritage varieties with their natural bitter tang. And there are ways to cook bitter foods to make them more enjoyable. Indeed, understanding the role of bitter is an essential skill for a cook. Bitter is vital for the harmony of a recipe and crucial to the composition of a meal. It enhances the flavours in a dish, subtly adding complexity and depth, often without any marked bitter taste, as the recipes below will testify.
Bitterness increases appetite and gets your gastric juices flowing so beginning a meal with something bitter makes good sense. This could be a bitter aperitif, or a first course with a touch of bitterness – bitter greens stirred into a soup or pasta for example.
Rich, fatty dishes can be tempered and rendered more digestible by pairing them with bitter green vegetables.
Choose chicory
Bitter and fat are perfect taste partners, each balancing the other. A little bitterness in a multi-course meal will help cleanse your palate. Try chicory salad, for example. And if you find chicory too bitter, use bacon fat, or anchovies in the dressing, as both fat and salt suppress the bitterness (you can get the same effect if you sprinkle a bit of salt on cucumber – it tastes sweeter.
At the end of a meal, a rich dessert with a hint of bitterness is less cloying and more satisfying than a sugary sweet one. Try a dusting of bitter cocoa powder rather than powdered sugar on a chocolate dessert.
Even the plates you use and the dinner music you play can alter your perceptions of the food’s bitterness. Serve the chicory salad on a round plate, it will seem less bitter than if you use a square one. Avoid low-pitched, solemn music played on brass instruments, unless you want the food to taste more bitter. Instead choose bright, high-pitched piano music, as it will diminish your impression of bitterness. Taste, after all, is created in the brain.
Here are four recipes to help you embrace the goodness of bitter foods:
Grilled radicchio with creamy cheese
Grilled radicchio and creamy cheese (Image: Aya Brackett)
A colourful descendent of weeds that grow wild around the Mediterranean, radicchio has crisp leaves with a pleasant bitterness. In this starter, the radicchio is grilled, which softens the leaves and enhances their bitterness. The bitterness is then balanced by the addition of a creamy cheese making this dish a perfect starter to a meal. Bitter foods stimulate the bitter receptors found in our stomach and intestines and start our gastric juices flowing making us hungry. So this dish will whet your appetite and make you anticipate the rest of the meal with pleasure.
Serves 4 as a side dish
Ingredients:
2 heads Treviso
radicchio, about
200 g (7 oz) each
Olive oil
Sea salt and freshly
ground black pepper
75 g (21⁄2 oz) creamy cow’s milk cheese
2 teaspoons
balsamic vinegar
Method:
Cut the radicchio heads into quarters and drizzle with olive oil, turning to lightly coat the pieces. Season with salt and pepper.
Heat a grill to medium, or set a heavy cast-iron pan over a medium heat. When it is hot, add the radicchio and cook, turning often, until it is soft, brown in colour and lightly charred, about 12 minutes. Cut the cheese into pieces.
Transfer the radicchio to a serving dish. Top with pieces of the cheese and sprinkle with the balsamic vinegar. The heat of the radicchio will melt the cheese.
Variations:
Grill, drizzle with the balsamic vinegar and more olive oil, and serve with Serrano ham and fresh figs.
Try the recipe with Belgian endive (chicory), using lemon juice instead of balsamic vinegar.
Pork chops in coffee blackcurrant sauce
Pork chops in coffee blackcurrant sauce (Image: Aya Brackett)
Well-raised pork chops come with a thick layer of fat that gives the meat flavour. To balance this fat bitter coffee is added to the sauce and then tempered with musky, intense blackcurrant preserves to create a flavourful sauce with an undertone of bitterness. Bitter foods act as a digestive and so here the sauce helps us appreciate and digest the good quality pork fat and encourages us to take another bite. Serving this dish with a side of bitter greens or a bitter green salad would also balance the fattiness of the pork chop.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
4 rib pork chops, about 4 cm (11⁄2 inches) thick
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons lard
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 large branch fresh thyme
250 ml (9 fl oz) brewed coffee
250 ml (9 fl oz) chicken stock, preferably homemade
1 heaped tablespoon blackcurrant jam or conserve
Method:
Twenty minutes before cooking, remove the pork chops from the refrigerator. Pat dry and season with salt and pepper. In a frying pan large enough to hold the chops, heat the lard over a medium-high heat. When the fat is hot, add the chops and brown for 2 minutes on each side.
Transfer the chops to a plate, lower the heat and add the shallot and thyme to the pan. Stir, and cook until the shallot begins to colour. Pour in the coffee and chicken stock and bring to the boil, deglazing the pan by scraping up the browned bits from the bottom. Boil to reduce the sauce by about half.
Return the chops to the pan and lower the heat so the liquid is simmering. Cook the chops for 5 minutes, basting with the sauce from time to time. Turn the chops and cook for another 5 minutes, or until cooked.
Place the chops on a platter and keep warm loosely covered with foil. Remove the thyme from the pan and add the blackcurrant jam. Stir and cook the sauce until syrupy and reduced to about 75 ml (2. fl oz). Return the chops to the pan with any juices, and turn to coat with the sauce. Check the seasoning of the sauce – remember it should be pleasantly bitter – and serve the chops, spooning over the sauce.
Variation:
Try this sauce with venison or wild boar chops, and replace the thyme with rosemary.
Rony’s Brussels sprouts and chickpeas
Ronny’s Brussels sprouts and chickpeas (Image: Aya Brackett)
Brussels sprouts are not the most popular vegetable, and if boiled too long they are mushy, sulphurous and bitter. This is the recipe that converted me and will change the minds of even the most avid sprout hater. The Brussels sprouts are halved, cooked in fat – here it’s olive – oil, until they are dark brown. This caramelising of the sprouts reduces their natural bitterness, which is further muted and balanced with the starchy chickpeas, preferably freshly cooked. The Brussels sprouts have texture and their bitterness is tamed, it is really a perfect, if unusual combination.
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
180 g (61⁄2 oz) dried chickpeas, soaked overnight in water to cover
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
60 ml (2 fl oz) extra virgin olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
175 ml (6 fl oz) chicken stock, preferably homemade
500 g (1 lb 2 oz) Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
2 tablespoons dry sherry
Method:
Drain the chickpeas and place in a saucepan. Cover them with cold water by 5 cm (2 inches) and bring to the boil.
Lower the heat, cover and simmer until cooked. This can take from 30 minutes to over an hour depending on the age of the peas, so you need to keep an eye on them. Check them at 30 minutes.
When they are cooked, remove from the heat, uncover, stir in 1 teaspoon of salt and leave to cool for 30 minutes. Drain the cooked peas and spread them out on a
baking sheet lined with kitchen paper to dry.
Pour 2 tablespoons of the olive oil into a large heavy frying pan with a lid, and place over a medium heat. When hot, add the shallot and cook until soft. Add the chickpeas, season with salt and pepper and sauté until lightly browned. Add 60 ml (2 fl oz) of the chicken stock and bring to the boil, stirring to deglaze the pan by scraping up any browned bits from the bottom. Tip the contents of the pan into a bowl.
Wipe out the pan then add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. Place over a high heat, and when hot add the Brussels sprouts. Try and get as many of the sprouts cut side down as you can; this will depend on the size of your pan. Cook the sprouts until dark brown on one side, then add the remaining chicken stock, season with salt and pepper, lower the heat, cover and cook until the Brussels sprouts are tender but still crisp.
Add the chickpeas, shallots and any liquid and cook until warmed through. Check the seasoning and pour in the sherry.
Serve hot or at room temperature.
Chocolate tart
Bitter chocolate tart (Image: Aya Brackett)
We often forget that chocolate is naturally bitter, the addition of too much sugar masks our appreciation of its complex taste. Try a bitter chocolate bar and you discover its nuanced taste: rich, fruity, along with bitterness and astringency. It is these many flavours that make this tart so delicious and satisfying. The bittersweet chocolate adds depth and the bitterness is further enhanced by dusting the tart with cocoa powder. Just a small slice is very satisfying, and the perfect end to a meal, as the bitterness will keep those digestive juices flowing.
Serves 8
Ingredients:
Sweet butter pastry – enough to line a 20cm (8 inch) tart tin
200 g (7 oz) chocolate (70 per cent cocoa solids)
150 ml (5 fl oz) whipping (35 per cent fat) cream
60 ml (2 fl oz) whole milk
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon Cognac or whiskey
A pinch of fine sea salt
Cocoa powder
Method:
Roll out the pastry on a floured surface and line a 20-cm (8-inch) tart tin. Prick the base of the tart with a fork and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Place a baking sheet in the oven and preheat to 200C/400F/Gas mark 6.
Line the tart case with parchment paper and fill it with dried beans. Place the tart case on the baking sheet, and bake for 12 minutes. The pastry should be just set. Remove the parchment paper and beans and return the tart case on the baking sheet to the oven. Bake for another 5 minutes, or until it is lightly coloured. Set aside to cool and lower the oven temperature to 150C/300F/Gas mark 2.
Finely chop the chocolate. Pour the cream and milk into a small saucepan and place over a medium heat. Bring the cream mixture to the boil, then remove from the heat and add the chopped chocolate and stir until smooth. Leave to cool slightly.
Whisk the egg, Cognac and salt together, then slowly whisk into the chocolate.
Pour the chocolate mixture into the baked tart case and shake the pan gently so that the chocolate fills the tart and is level. Return to the oven on the baking sheet, checking that your oven temperature has dropped to 150C/300F/Gas mark 2.
Bake for 15–18 minutes, or until the filling is barely set; it should wobble slightly in the centre. Use your nose: when you can smell the chocolate, check the tart; it’s probably cooked.
Transfer the tart from the baking sheet to a rack and leave to cool to room temperature. The filling will firm up as it cools.
Place a spoonful of cocoa powder in a fine-mesh sieve and dust over the top of the tart. Serve at room temperature.
by Jennifer McLagan, published by Jacqui Small, £25, is out now
