THE SPORTSMAN AT HOME

In 1999 chef Stephen Harris took over a rundown pub on the Kent coast and turned something ordinary into something extraordinary with his pared-back style of cooking, earning (and retaining) a Michelin star for The Sportsman, as well as being named the UK’s best restaurant multiple times. It’s a cult classic both adored by professionals from all over the world, and a truly beloved, unpretentious local.  

I was lucky enough to go there with my husband to celebrate a wedding anniversary some years ago. And the memory of it has remained fixed in my memory (and that’s in spite of visiting umpteen three-star Michelin restaurants across Europe with the late Michel Roux when I ran the Roux Scholarship). I was therefore delighted to be given the opportunity to review Stephen’s latest book – published this week.

In The Sportsman at Home, Harris, a self-taught chef, welcomes us into his kitchen in Whitstable to discover his favourite ingredients and show us how to apply the simple ethos of his iconic restaurant to home cooking. With chapters covering ‘Dinner’, ‘Nostalgia’, ‘Christmas’ and ‘An Ode to Cream’, Stephen captures the imagination for simple cooking with his love of seasonal, local produce. Including dishes such as Pork Chop with Charred Leeks, Coq au Vin, Cream of Soups and Blackcurrant and Almond Tart, Stephen reintroduces familiar favourites, made simpler, and much better.

There’s stunning location photography of the Kent landscape that serves as Stephen’s inspiration, The Sportsman at Home is a true celebration of simple food at its very best, from one of the most respected chefs in the UK. 

Published by Quadrille, at £30 for a very beautiful hardback, this will make a lovely gift, but no doubt you’ll want to keep it for yourself! Here are a couple of recipes to tempt you to order a copy.

Pear, Walnut and Roquefort Salad 

Serves 4

“This is an early dish from The Sportsman that old customers and staff still talk about now. It was based on a salad from Cafe Pasqual’s Cookbook (a restaurant in Santa Fe), which I got from my brief time cooking in Mexican restaurant in Canterbury. They used pecan nuts, which I changed to walnuts, and the blue cheese became Roquefort.”

50 ml (25 fl oz/3 cups) red wine

2 tablespoons caster (superfine) sugar

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

3 cloves

pinch of chilli (hot pepper) flakes

4 Conference or Bosc pears, peeled

1 tablespoon neutral oil

2 teaspoons coffee liqueur (Tia Maria or Kahlúa)

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1 teaspoon icing (powdered) sugar

small handful of walnut halves

1 romaine lettuce

200 g (7 oz) Roquefort

salt and freshly ground black pepper

First, poach the pears. Put the wine, sugar, cinnamon stick, star anise, cloves and chilli flakes into a saucepan and add the pears. Ensure the pears are totally submerged in the wine by placing a circle of baking parchment on top and then weighing them down with a plate. Poach gently over a low heat for about 30 minutes, or until the pears are soft – check them with a sharp knife.

Once cooked, remove the pan from the heat and allow the pears to cool in the poaching liquid, then strain the poaching liquid into a clean saucepan. Boil the poaching liquid to reduce it until it is the consistency of a syrup. This will make about 200 ml (7 fl oz/scant 1 cup) syrup.

Next, make the walnuts. Preheat the oven to 180°C fan (400°F). Put the oil, coffee liqueur, paprika and icing sugar into a bowl and mix together. Add the walnuts and toss to coat, then spread the nuts onto a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 30 minutes. Check and stir them regularly so they don’t burn. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Slice the cooled pears lengthways on a mandoline. Put the large lettuce leaves on each plate, then toss the leaves with a mixture of the pears, walnuts and Roquefort. Drizzle the poaching syrup around the salad, then sprinkle the salad with a pinch of salt and a twist of black pepper.

Pasta with Sardine Ragu

“I left university in the spring of 1983. I had studied history because I loved the subject, but I didn’t know what to do next and so I went home. This meant going back to Whitstable, where I had a massive group of friends, most of whom were on the dole, as everybody seemed to be back then. I had a great summer on the beach, playing tennis. We played singles in the morning and doubles in the evening, then headed to the Old Neptune pub during the break or went for a swim. It was pretty idyllic, except for the fact that I was putting off the big decision of my future. A group of my friends lived in a shared house and we had a party there almost every night, so it was easy to avoid the issue. Before I knew it, it was January, and just as Whitstable is fun in the summer, it is equally miserable in the winter. I think I even got a bit depressed. I was listening to The Smiths, Joy Division and Echo and The Bunnymen, which may have had something to do with it.

I applied for lots of jobs, but it was a difficult time to be looking for work, so nothing came through. That was, until I got an interview for a holiday company that was putting together a team of ex-students to go around their campsites in France to get them ready for the summer. I got the job and, before I knew it, I was in the Camargue in the South of France, training to mend and upgrade various bits of cabins that families could rent for a summer holiday. On reflection, I was a strange choice for this job, as anyone who knows me also knows that I have zero practical skills. I later asked the leader why he chose me to work on the project and he said he had a feeling that I would be good for morale. He turned out to be right, in a way.

The deal was that we would spend about five months travelling around France and then end up in the south, where we – about 10 of us – would have an extended summer holiday, spending the money we had earned in the spring. We soon realised after a few chaotic visits to the supermarket that the money we earned was all going to be spent on eating and drinking unless we got organised. I suggested that I would take a small amount of money from everyone on a weekly basis and then cook every meal and stock up the beer and wine. This way, our living costs were kept to a minimum and we could all save enough for the summer blowout. It also meant that I was now the group’s cook. With my tiny budget, I would buy all the food and drink and cook three meals a day for 10 very hungry people. I spent my time shopping in the morning, driving to markets and supermarkets and ensuring that everyone got fed well.

I think the idea worked really well. I cooked my way around Normandy, Brittany, the Vendée, Perigord, the Basque country, Paris and what is now called Cathar country. The budget extended to eating in a restaurant in every town we went to. I noticed how the fish soup changed as we moved around the country and ate stuff I would never have dreamt of. I can remember cooking outdoors on two gas camping rings. One of my favourite meals was pasta with a sauce made from onions, tomatoes, peppers and fennel, which was finished with tinned fish – mackerel, sardines and even smoked mussels. Years later, I ate this sardine ragu in a posh restaurant in Clapham and I was transported back to a campsite in western France and what turned out to be one of the happiest and most important times of my life.”

Serves 4

5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped

2 celery stalks, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, bruised with the flat blade of a knife

400 g (14 oz) tin of plum tomatoes

2 tins of sardines in oil (do not drain)

320 g (12 oz) pasta of your choice (fusilli or farfalle are good, but any will do – even spaghetti)

1 small sprig of thyme, leaves picked, or 1 tablespoon dried herbes de Provence

squeeze of lemon juice

40 g (11/2 oz) Parmesan, grated

salt

Pour 4 tablespoons of the olive oil into a large non-stick frying pan and add the finely chopped vegetables. Place the pan over a medium heat and gently fry the vegetables for about 12 minutes until they are soft but not coloured. Add a couple of pinches of salt and keep stirring, then add the bruised garlic clove and fry for about 5 minutes.

Discard the garlic and add the tomatoes, breaking them down with a wooden spoon. Add a couple more pinches of salt and keep cooking for 10–15 minutes until the tomatoes have broken down to create a sauce.

When the sauce is thick and most of the moisture has been cooked off, remove the pan from the heat. Add the sardines with their oil and break them down in the sauce with a wooden spoon. Keep the sauce warm in the pan.

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil and cook the pasta according to the packet instructions, then drain and add to the sauce. Cook over a low heat for 2 minutes to coat the pasta well with the sauce.

Add the last tablespoon of olive oil, the thyme leaves or herbes de Provence, a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lemon. Stir these into the pasta.

Serve in bowls with some grated Parmesan.

Whisky and Coffee Trifle

Serves 6

“This trifle is another recipe from the Dairy Cookbook that the milkman delivered to us back in the 1970s (see page 12). I really prefer the whisky/coffee axis of flavour over the usual sherry/fruit one of a typical trifle. When asked for a definition of trifle, my brother Phil said he thinks it’s in the squelchy noise that’s made when you serve it rather than any particular ingredients.”

1 standard-sized shop-bought Madeira cake

1 tablespoon instant coffee dissolved in 4 tablespoons hot water (or 4 strong shots of espresso if you have the facilities)

4 tablespoons whisky

6 large egg yolks

60 g (2 oz/generous 1/4 cup) caster (superfine) sugar

825 ml (28 fl oz/31/3 cups) double (heavy) cream

freshly grated nutmeg, to taste

50 g (13/4 oz) dark (bittersweet) chocolate with 70% cocoa solids

50 g (13/4 oz/scant 1/2 cup) walnuts, chopped

Break the Madeira cake into pieces and place it in the bottom of a trifle bowl. Drizzle over 3 tablespoons each of the coffee and whisky and leave to absorb.

Meanwhile, make the custard. Combine the eggs and sugar in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water and whisk to combine.

Heat 425 ml (141/2 fl oz/13/4 cups) of the cream in a saucepan until just below boiling point.

When the eggs and sugar are well combined, pour over the hot cream and whisk together, then return the mixture to the saucepan and heat gently to around 80°C (175°F), stirring often to avoid the egg proteins clumping together. Add some nutmeg to taste, then cool the custard quickly in a bowl set over ice. Add the remaining tablespoons of whisky and coffee. Leave to cool completely in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Once cooled, pour the custard over the soaked cake and then chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour. Whisk the remaining cream until it holds soft peaks and spread it over the top of the chilled trifle.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave and pour onto a plate to set hard. Using a teaspoon, make curls of chocolate and use these to decorate the trifle along with the crumbled walnuts.

Note: This recipe makes a thick custard, which is ideal for trifle. If you prefer the custard to set firm, then add 1 tablespoon cornflour (cornstarch) to 2 tablespoons milk and mix to a paste, then add this to the custard when it is returned to the saucepan.