I like a hard biscuit. Like Bath Olivers, the white biscuits with the shelf life of a British Museum artefact. When we are long gone, someone will find a tin full of them, petrified like a Pompeii relic. Chocolate Bath Olivers, a rare treat but once a family favourite, were covered in the first non-sweet chocolate I enjoyed.
Then someone handed me a plate of biscotti at an early Nineties dinner. Initially, I thought the host had given us stale biscuits, and was reluctant to risk a recent, expensive and painfully installed cap on my incisor. Then our conversation turned to the achingly fashionable restaurant our host had just visited: this was where she had come across the biscotti. It was a recently opened rustic Italian that went by the name of the River Café.
It was obvious that the Spag Bol years were over. ARC (after River Café), nothing would be the same again. Peppers would have to be wood roasted, not sourly sautéed and served with skins on; and risottos could nevermore acceptably consist of pudding rice but must be saffron- scented pools of long-simmered arborio rice that held its grain, yet rippled if you shook the plate.
It took me a few years to get a table, mostly for financial reasons. But when I did, it was clear that no one was making up the glories of the food. Ruth Rogers and the late Rose Gray presided over an immaculate kitchen and happy staff. They nurtured many future stars: Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Stevie Parle – and my sister Sam, who went on to open Moro with Sam Clark.
Thanks to my sister, I struck up an acquaintance with the two founding mothers, and they invited me to a book launch at the restaurant. Feeling a little lost among the illustrious guests, I asked someone the way to the loo. “Turn right at Alan Yentob then left at Peter Mandelson,” she joked.
I am, frankly, still overawed by restaurants like this, though the River Café was always a friendly place once you got there. When people ask me if I have been to the West End’s newest hotspot for celebrities, The Chiltern Firehouse, I assure them I shall be going in 2016, when it will only be me and a past winner of Strictly sitting there. It’s a matter of being a food lover rather than a people-watcher, Isuppose.
Still, I am glad the River Café existed. And that they brought biscotti into wider appreciation, because numerous Christmases have ended with us, full as cheetahs after eating the kill, dunking them in fortified wines while playing Monopoly.
So to the hardest biscuit, which is actually one of the easiest to make. A dry dough, made with flour, sugar and eggs, leavened with baking powder and packed full of nuts, is made and baked as a long flat loaf. You need to get this part right: it must be cooked through. Once cool, slice it and bake the little oval biscuits until they are as crisp as, well I don’t like to mention Bonios, but near enough. Wrap or put in a tin and they’ll last and last.
EQUIPMENT
Baking sheet lined with baking paper, and a serrated knife
MAKES
16 biscuits
INGREDIENTS
200g/7oz nuts – whole skinned almonds and hazelnuts
2 whole eggs175g/6oz golden caster sugar
300g/10½oz plainflour
1 heaped tsp baking powder,sifted withtheflour
1-2 tbsp melted butter
Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/gas 3. Put the nuts on a baking sheet and toast for no more than 10 minutes until pale gold and fragrant. Remove from the oven, which you should turn down to 150C/300F/gas 2, and allow to cool completely.
Whisk together the eggs with the sugar until glossy and bubbly. Add the flour and baking powder, with the nuts, and work into a dough. Dust the worktop with extra flour and make a long smooth roll about 5cm wide, 2cm high. Push any nuts that protrude back into the dough so they do not burn during cooking.
Place the loaf on a baking sheet lined with parchment and bake for 20-25 minutes until firm and risen. Place on a rack and leave to cool. When cool, use the serrated knife to cut 1cm slices. Place these back on the baking sheet, brush with melted butter and bake until crisp — about 10-12 minutes. Serve warm.
Your letters
A grumble from Marion Littleton, and one I know too well. “Too many times I make glacé icing, add too much liquid and end up sifting in more icing sugar (making a mess) then end up throwing away the leftover icing. What is the definitive recipe?” It is a small but real irritation when this happens. Trustworthy recipes say that you should add one tablespoon liquid — lemon juice if you are making plain lemon glacé icing — to 110g or 3 ¾oz sifted icing sugar. My tip, a further refinement, is that you add the liquid one teaspoon at a time, and the last one drip by drip, so there will be no extra icing or mess, ever again. Good luck.
Next week: Goat's cheese tarts. You will need: butter, plain flour, salt; courgettes, garlic, fresh basil, olive oil, mascarpone cheese, a log of goat's cheese.
