Rick Stein is ripping up the rulebook with his new recipes. Here he talks about why simple food is better…
Rick Stein has won countless accolades for his food over the years, but one of his greatest achievements came during the first lockdown of 2020.
His wife’s 98-year-old grandmother, Betty, had gone off her food – until Stein started hosting weekly family dinners.
“She made an exception for my food,” the 74-year-old says with glee. “She had lots of it, she really tucked in. If we cook, we all love it if it’s clear people enjoyed what you’re cooking. And a 98-year-old tucking in with great gusto was quite special.”
Stein spent five months of 2020 in Sydney, when the pandemic meant he couldn’t get back to his beloved Cornwall.
He doesn’t take this time for granted, saying lockdown taught him “how much the business of life is unnecessary, in a way”.
It allowed him to get back to his roots: cooking dinner for a small group of loved ones, revisiting some of his all-time favourite recipes.
Staying and cooking in one place also led him to write his latest book: Rick Stein At Home.
He describes it as “fairly scruffy food” – the kind of meals you’ll throw together in a hurry from whatever you have in the fridge. The book is “about what really goes on cooking-wise”, he explains, “as opposed to the slightly upmarket view of how I cook at home. I try to keep it as real as possible.”
Free from the shackles of fancy meals or culinary rules, Stein calls this kind of cooking “liberating”. Unlike his past books, which tend to be dedicated to a certain country, such as France, Spain or Greece, the recipes are “thoroughly eclectic” – just like normal home cooking is.
Ripping up the rulebook
Although Stein’s background is in French cooking – a cuisine full of strict directions on how things should and shouldn’t be done – he ripped up the rulebook in many of the dishes here.
“I’m thinking about my mother’s risotto, because it’s not a proper risotto,” he explains.
“But I thought that’s what we do cook, that’s what the kids really like and I like for the kids. I’m not saying it’s a proper risotto, it’s more a rice pilaf, but my mother would call it her risotto.”
The book is peppered with stories and recipes from friends and family too.
“I’ve got three sons (Edward, Jack and Charlie) and two step-kids, Zach and Olivia, and it was really nice how they all wanted to contribute recipes, I didn’t interfere at all,” Stein says.
Luckily, the recipes “were all great”, he says enthusiastically – including Charlie’s pad kra pao and Zach’s vegan chilli, along with cottage pie from his wife Sas (Sarah) and dessert from his mother-in-law.
Mini essays punctuate the book’s pages, with Stein’s ruminations on everything from the redundancy of a first course (he much prefers loading up on fancy nibbles and then going straight into the main) to all the fancy food gadgets languishing unused in his garage.
Simple is best
With nearly 50 years in the industry and more than 15 cookbooks under his belt, Stein’s approach to food has changed since he was first starting out.
“In the early days of running the restaurant, I felt like I had to emulate the great French chefs of the time and make everything incredibly complicated,” he admits. “Lots of garnishes, everything a bit too pretty.”
This is no longer the case: “I guess I try and keep things absolutely simple,” he says of his approach now.
“I’m not chasing accolades in food, I just want people to like what I’m cooking.”
And if his grandmother-in-law Betty is anything to go by, it’s safe to say Stein is doing alright.
Rick Stein At Home: Recipes, Memories And Stories From A Food Lover’s
Kitchen is published by BBC Books, priced £26. Photography by James Murphy.
Rick Stein’s Cornish briam
Serves 6-8
Ingredients
- 150ml olive oil, plus extra for greasing
- 500g waxy new potatoes, peeled and cut lengthways into 5mm slices
- 400g carrots, peeled or scrubbed and sliced lengthways
- 2 large courgettes (about 400g) sliced lengthways
- 1 large onion, peeled and sliced
- 5-6 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
- 300g tenderstem broccoli
- 4 large tomatoes (or 6 medium), thickly sliced
- 1 red or green finger chilli, sliced
- Handful flatleaf parsley, chopped
- A few thyme sprigs, leaves stripped from the woody stalks
- 200ml passata
- 100g feta cheese, crumbled
- Salt and black pepper
Method
- Preheat the oven to 170C Fan/190C/375F/ Gas Mark 5.
- Grease a roasting tin or a shallow, lidded casserole dish with oil. Spread the potato slices in a single layer and season well with salt and pepper.
- Layer the carrots on top, then the courgettes, then the onion and garlic, seasoning each layer with plenty of salt and pepper.
- Scatter over the broccoli and cover it with tomato slices.
- Add the chilli, herbs and a final sprinkling of salt and pepper. Pour over the passata and the olive oil.
- Cover the roasting tin tightly with foil or put a tight-fitting lid on the dish and place in the oven for about one-and-a-quarter hours.
- Sprinkle over the crumbled feta and return the tin to the oven, uncovered, for a further 15-20 minutes.
- Allow it to cool slightly before serving as a side dish or as a main with crusty bread or rice.