Making Do

Wiser cooks than I have mused that most of the best dishes use only three or four ingredients. Simplicity rules. A dish of fried sardines and the day before’s ratatouille cooked in the South of France and gobbled down with cold rose is Exhibit A. I don’t need to tell you the success lay in shimmering fresh fish and vegetables that had grown juicy in the heat of the sun.

Last night was an attempt to relive the summer. We put the heating on for the first time since last winter and put a dish of fish and tomatoes in the oven. Hardly Provence but heartwarming all the same.

It’s an easy dish. Waxy potatoes sliced thin and baked until they threaten to turn golden. Cherry toms halved and thrown over the top, the dish returning to the oven until the skins are shrivelled and the sugars sweetened. Some herbs - thyme and bay - have gone in to, along with a few slivers of garlic and a slug from the good olive oil bottle. Finally, it’s the fish. Yesterday bream, on another day it might be a couple of red mullets. When all is cooked some rocket and basil complete the tricolore. The result is a dish of artificially created sunshine. The epicure’s tanning lamp.