US Edition Alongside his celebrated works for children, Roald Dahl wrote several glorious cookery books. Sally Williams samples a selection of his 'revolting recipes'
It is, perhaps, not surprising to learn that Roald Dahl, the late bestselling children's writer and creator of some wonderfully nasty villains – Miss Trunchbull, Augustus Gloop, Aunt Spiker – was also a foodie and a creative cook. 'Food was always an excitement,' his widow, Liccy (pronounced Lissy) Dahl, remembers. 'Instead of just frying an egg, he'd cut a hole in the bread and fry the egg in it. He'd suspend Smarties in jellies and you never had white milk on the table – it was always pink.'
This fascination was to spill over into two recipe books, Revolting Recipes and Even More Revolting Recipes, filled with his fictional concoctions: candy-coated pencils for sucking in class (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) or butter gumballs (The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me). He also wrote, with Liccy, Roald Dahl's Cookbook (1996) – originally published as Memories with Food at Gipsy House in 1991 – a collection of memories and recipes, published posthumously, which not only points to his favourites – oxtail stew, lobster, onions – but also some super-skilled techniques, such as in Pike Quenelles: 'remove the awkward right-angle bones with pliers.'
What is surprising is that Dahl – 'a difficult bugger,' according to one interviewer – was also a generous man who did an enormous amount for charity. As an adult he endured more than his fair share of misfortune. His only son, Theo, suffered brain damage as a baby, when a taxi hit his pram. Then his eldest daughter, Olivia, died of measles encephalitis. And his first wife Patricia Neal, the film star and mother of his five children, suffered a series of debilitating strokes. (Fate also rained heavily on Liccy, when her youngest daughter Lorina died suddenly of a brain tumour, aged 27, six months before Dahl's death.) Dahl's response was to be practical. He volunteered himself for ads for the measles vaccination campaign; he helped to develop a tiny valve for draining off excess fluid from the brains of children who suffer from hydrocephalus, the type of brain injury his son had.
Dahl died in 1990, but his practical philanthropy is ongoing. A year after his death, Liccy set up the Roald Dahl Foundation, a charity that supports the three areas of special concern to Dahl: neurology; haematology (Dahl suffered from a blood disorder); and literacy. It doesn't fund research, or anything that isn't of practical, immediate or tangible benefit. So far, the charity has given more than £5 million to charities, hospitals and individuals in the UK. 'I'm sure he'd smile if he could see the number of people who benefit,' says Anne Sweeney, a Roald Dahl Foundation sponsored nurse, who specialises in supporting children with epilepsy at the Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool. 'I have in excess of 1,400 children on my books.'
Clearly, there is much to celebrate, and as September 13 marks what would have been Dahl's 90th birthday, there is the ideal anniversary. So, as he would say, 'Nose-bags on!' for a slap-up lunch hosted by Liccy at Gipsy House, the family home in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, where Dahl lived and worked for 40 years.
The guests include the actress Julie Walters, one of the foundation's patrons. Her daughter Maisie was diagnosed with leukaemia as a toddler. For the next three and a half years her life was in danger. She is now 18, but Walters remembers the heartache. 'You feel so helpless – this made me feel in some way I could do something.' Here, too, is Luke Kelly, 19, Dahl's grandson (son of Tessa; brother of Sophie), plus four Roald Dahl Foundation-sponsored nurses.
On the face of it, an unlikely mix. But not at Gipsy House. A great deal of human traffic moves through here. When Roald and Liccy, a former set designer, married in 1983, they had between them six daughters and one son. There are now 12 grandchildren and many of them, plus friends and other visitors, are welcomed by a meal. 'It tends to be a bohemian crowd, plus family,' Liccy says, wafting in from the garden, an ethereal vision of good taste in linen and freshly picked lavender, though actually she is the clear-sighted chairman of Dahl & Dahl Limited, the company that manages the Roald Dahl literary estate. 'She has dedicated her life to honouring his memory,' one friend said, pointing out the stability and care she brought to Dahl. Certainly, Dahl was prolific in later life, writing three of his best books – The Witches, The BFG and Boy – in a great burst of genius in his late sixties.
The salmon is being dressed with fennel and celery in the Gipsy House kitchen, which looks like an ordinary domestic kitchen but is in fact fully professionally equipped and with a resident chef: Lauren Hampton, 21. She is part of a longstanding tradition, established by Dahl, of 'competent cooks', aged between 20 and 30, who live with the family for one year. 'But no longer,' Dahl wrote in Roald Dahl's Cookbook. 'She has her own life and career to think about, and intelligent young girls are bound to get restless when kept in a static situation for too long.' Today she is helped by a former holder of the post, Tiffany Crouch (aka 'Tiffers'), 24, who now runs Café Twit, at the nearby Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, which opened last year. Liccy's contribution is to help plan menus and style the table.
Lunch is in the garden, among the roses and trellising. Conversation is all very amicable – a chord which, interestingly, Dahl wasn't always happy to strike. 'He'd often provoke arguments to stir things up a bit,' remembers Amanda Conquy, director of the Roald Dahl Foundation and a close friend of the family, adding that his sense of mischief meant he could be a thrillingly unpredictable host. He would raise a contentious subject, such as private versus state education, then, with gleeful shouting and table thumping, would take the opposing view. 'He didn't like life to be dreary,' she says.
But he would have positively glowed at the prospect of the food served at lunch. Not Plushnuggets or Nishnobblers, but soup made from freshly picked spinach and parsley. Vegetables, he claimed in Roald Dahl's Cookbook, 'are surely the greatest of all foods, but unfortunately in order to appreciate them fully you have to grow them yourself' – Gipsy House still has a large kitchen garden. Broad beans ('the prince of them all'), new potatoes ('a treat', like 'a wine gum'); thinly sliced beetroot salad ('even hardened beetroot haters will succumb'), and, of course, chocolate tart, are on the menu. It is all very elegant – until we come to a Tupperware box full of chocolate bars with coffee. This is another Dahl ritual. 'Help yourself. There's Twix, Crunchie, Mars, Maltesers, KitKat.' Dahl loved chocolate bars, especially KitKats. In his study he kept a silver ball, the size of a tennis ball, made by packing together the foil wrappings from all the bars of chocolate he ate as a young man.
So, Dahl is still showing us that the best way to celebrate is with good food. 'We are all pigs,' he wrote of his family, in Roald Dahl's Cookbook, 'but we are, I hope, discerning pigs who care with some passion about fine cooking.'
- roalddahlfoundation.org; 01494-890465
Parsley soup with morel mushrooms and crème fraîche
serves 6
60ml (24fl oz) olive oil
75g (3oz) unsalted butter
300g (10oz) potatoes (preferably King Edward or Maris Piper), peeled and cut into walnut-size pieces
5 stalks of celery, chopped roughly
2 medium leeks, trimmed and sliced roughly
2 small heads fennel, trimmed and sliced roughly
400g (14oz) Italian flat-leaf parsley leaves (about 3 generous bunches) and their stalks
250g (9oz) spinach leaves, stalks removed, washed gently but thoroughly
to serve
3 tbsp olive oil
300g (10oz) morel mushrooms or a selection of wild mushrooms, brushed and chopped into evensized pieces (if wild mushrooms are not available, use black flat field mushrooms, peeled and cubed)
1 tsp thyme leaves, chopped 1 tbsp Italian flat-leaf parsley leaves, roughly chopped
90ml (3fl oz) crème fraîche
6 small sprigs of Italian flat-leaf parsley
Warm the olive oil gently with the butter in a heavy-based pan and add the potato, celery, leeks and fennel. Cook over a gentle heat, stirring occasionally. The vegetables should not be allowed to colour, but gently soften while absorbing the oil and butter. Add the parsley stalks, some salt and pepper and enough water to cover. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until the vegetables are soft. Add all but a few of the parsley leaves with the spinach leaves and bring back to the boil, stirring continuously for 2-3 minutes while the leaves wilt.
Place the solids from the pan into a liquidiser or food processor and purée, gradually adding a little of the liquid until a creamy consistency is reached. (It may not be necessary to use all the liquid – alternatively, a little extra water may be needed.)
Pass the soup through a medium-fine sieve into a metal container, pushing the solids through as hard as possible with the back of a ladle or spoon. Place the base of the container into a bowl of ice and pour enough cold water over the ice to come halfway up the side. Stir the soup occasionally as it chills. This immediate chilling will help retain the bright green colour. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.
To serve, warm six soup plates. In a heavy-based frying-pan, heat the olive oil and add the mushrooms and thyme, tossing gently, then the remaining parsley leaves and season with salt and pepper. Leave on one side. Reheat the soup gently, without boiling, and pour into the plates. Place the mushrooms in the centre of each plate and garnish with a generous scoop of crème fraîche and a sprig of parsley.
Poached salmon
serves 6
600g (1¼lb) fresh wild salmon
poaching liquid: 500ml water, 50ml salt, 5 sprigs of parsley, a handful of fennel tops, 1 sliced lemon, a few slices of carrot, onion and celery, peppercorns. Bring to the boil and allow to cool
Place fish and poaching liquid in a fish kettle, bring to the boil, simmer for one minute, remove from the heat and let stand for 3-5 minutes. When cooked, it will appear flaky. Remove from the liquid, serve immediately.
Chocolate tart
serves 6-8
for the fine chocolate chip shortcrust pastry
100g (34oz) best-quality dark chocolate
125g (44oz) butter
100g (34oz) castor sugar
250g (9oz) self-raising flour
2 egg yolks
30ml (1fl oz) ice-cold water for the chocolate filling
300g (104oz) best-quality dark chocolate
250ml (9fl oz) double cream
250ml (9fl oz) milk
100g (34oz) butter
4 egg yolks
cocoa for dusting strawberries for decoration
To make the pastry: finely chop the chocolate in a food processor for a few seconds and set aside. Process the butter, caster sugar and a pinch of salt until smooth, add the flour and process until crumbly in texture. Add the yolks one by one and process for a few seconds. As soon as the pastry comes together in a ball, stop adding any liquid. Add the chopped chocolate and process until just mixed through.
Remove the pastry and roll into a log about 5cm (2in) thick. Wrap in plastic and rest for at least an hour in the fridge. Grease a 30cm (12in) loose-bottomed tart mould with butter, and line it with pastry. Pierce with a fork all around the base and freeze for at least an hour.
To make the filling, chop the chocolate finely and melt in a microwave on high (four 30-second intervals should do), stirring after each interval. Set aside. Meanwhile, bring the cream, milk and butter to the boil. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and castor sugar. Whisking continuously with a balloon whisk, add the hot milk mixture. Return to the heat and cook, whisking vigorously. The custard is cooked when it covers the back of a metal spoon and you can draw a clear line with your finger. Cool the custard for about five minutes before stirring in the cool melted chocolate.
Heat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Bake the frozen pastry for 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool completely before filling with the cooled-down chocolate mixture. Chill for 1-2 hours. Serve dusted with cocoa and decorated with strawberries.