On the Subject of Few Ingredients -- Nigel Slater's Apple Crumble

A. is out of town. He left us for a translation seminar in Greece. For eleven days. The gorgeous Greek island, Paros, actually.

The dog.

I'm pretty much fine with it. Maybe a teeny tiny bit envious, but that's all. We miss him! But Fe. and I are having a pretty good time on our own.

I've had to get a little bit more creative with the entertainment for Fe., since it's all on me. Of course, I immediately turned to a cooking project. The surest way to entice Fe. into the kitchen is with the preparation of any kind of dessert. Cookies, ice cream, sorbet, these are all huge hits.

I had a substantial bag of apples in the fridge (thanks, M0!) that were long overdue for some attention. I was thinking, cobbler, crisp, or buckle and then I yanked Nigel Slater's Tender Volume II off the shelf, and quickly settled on crumble.

Have you seen Slater's Tender Volume I and II?

They are stunning editions that alphabetically catalog most vegetables (Volume I) and fruits (Volume II). They are essentially, as Slater himself says, cooks' guides to the vegetable and fruit garden. The photography is exquisite and Slater not only offers an abundance of enticing recipes for each crop, but adds helpful tips on seasonality, varietals, and how to include any given fruit or vegetable in your own garden. If you need to know how to prune gooseberries, Slater can help. If you're hankering for a tempting recipe for lamb with quinces, Slater is your man.

Really invaluable stuff.

Turns out if you are trying to entertain a toddler and cap off a lovely family dinner, Slater is again the guy you can trust. I saw his recipe for A Deeply Appley Apple Crumble and I was sold. I'm really digging recipes with just a very few ingredients. This crumble has four. We had everything in the pantry. We just needed to turn on the oven and peel some apples.

You should feel free to use any sort of apple. In my head I always assume that Granny Smith apples are the only apples for baking. This is malarkey. We used two week old (due to my laziness) Galas (I think) from a sweet friend's tree. The crumble was a winner. With the exceptional variety of apples available to us these days, I wouldn't hesitate to experiment with whatever I discover at the farmers' market.

The apples need peeling and coring and hacking into hunks. They are then tossed with sugar and lemon juice in a bowl. You empty the bowl into a hot sauté pan, stirring infrequently, to caramelize the apples. The caramelization process will have you in fits wanting to shovel the dangerously hot apples into your mouth. The toffee perfume is scrumptious. Fe. kept shouting, "I can smell it Mama! I can smell it!"

I have the British version of both volumes of Tender. I couldn't wait for the American additions. I'm not even sure if there is an American Tender Volume II. While my need for instant gratification was satisfied, the British editions do require a little extra work interpreting the recipes. For goodness sake, what is golden caster sugar? I've never seen that ingredient at the market. I used a combination of brown sugar and granulated sugar, which worked just fine, but I think a super-fine baking sugar would have been more on point.

Measurements also need translating, so a computer and a scale help tremendously. And Gas 4? I'm belatedly finding out that it is 375 degrees Fahrenheit not 350 degrees. I would have had more color a bit faster. Oh well, one learns.

The crumbly bits themselves are lovely buttery pebbles. I recommend using an exceptionally delicious high-fat butter for this, because you can really taste it. I still swear by Kerrygold Irish butter. The fun part is smooshing the butter into the flour and sugar with your fingertips. What child doesn't like to get there hands into the mix? Fe. absolutely adored this, although he was having trouble understanding exactly where the tips of his fingers were.

I considered warming the crumble before serving it, but it was a already sufficiently toasty in the house, so I served it at room temperature with heavy cream drizzled over. The simplicity of this dessert is its beauty. That so few ingredients can come together to create something so purely delicious is almost magic.

Slater mentions in the preamble to the recipe that the world doesn't necessarily need another apple crumble recipe. He may be right, but this is a damn good one.

Nigel Slater's Apple Crumble

For the filling:

850 grams cooking apples (30 ounces)

Juice of half a lemon

75 grams golden caster sugar (2.65 ounces)

30 grams butter (1 ounce)

For the crumble:

95 grams butter (3.35 ounces)

150 grams all purpose flour (5.3 ounces)

45 grams golden caster sugar (1.6 ounces)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Peel, core, and cut the apples into one inch hunks. Toss them into a large bowl with the lemon juice and sugar. Mix until the apples are well coated.

Melt the butter in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the apples and let cook, stirring very infrequently to promote caramelization. The apples should be golden brown in places.

Tip the apples into a baking dish, making sure to collect any pan juices.

Place the flour into a bowl and rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips. When the mixture looks like bread crumbs add the sugar and combine. Add one tablespoon of water and shake the mixture in the bowl to form different size crumbles. Turn the crumbles over the apples.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until golden.

Serves 4

The River Café's Strawberry Lemon Sorbet

On a weekend with no set plans, it is always a good idea to come up with a project. Now, that was not always the case, but since we have a toddler in our midst we must be prepared to be terrifically entertaining at all times. Baking cookies is a hit with Fe., but who wants to turn on the oven in the middle of summer?

Not I, said the fly.

An equally thrilling -- and I don't use the word lightly -- kitchen adventure is to mix up a vat of ice cream. There literally were squeals of delight throughout Sunday's frozen dessert caper. This is what people call a win-win situation, because Fe. was beside himself and I finally have my very first dessert to tell you about.

Hurray! It's about time.

So this wasn't technically ice cream. There wasn't any dairy in sight. It was sorbet, and a genius sorbet at that.

I recently stumbled across an exciting new column on Food 52 called Genius Recipes. The idea is to share recipes that are the best of the best, recipes that change how we cook and how we view cooking altogether. The first column touts the Strawberry Lemon Sorbet from The River Café Cookbook as life changing.

And it is, even if just for getting me to make my first batch of sorbet ever. It's also pretty stunning that just three ingredients -- strawberries, lemon and sugar -- can produce something so wholly marvelous. There is a bit of washing up afterwards, but really the process is a cinch. Fe. got to participate throughout. I now see pushing the pulse button on the food processor in an entirely different light.

One whole lemon (pith and peel included, just no seeds, please) and 2 whole cups of sugar (yikes!) are whizzed in the food processor to form a puckery slush, worthy of many finger dips. The mixture gets scraped into a bowl, and then the strawberries get their chance with the pulse button. The purée is added to the slush to the sound of many gleeful yelps. You taste for acidity and add the juice of one to two lemons depending on your appreciation of sour and sweet.

The dazzling red soup is poured into the ice cream maker and in about twenty-five minutes you have a frosty sweet strawberry summer treat. The flavor is banging strawberry with just a hint of tart lemon (I used the juice of two). I felt quite grateful for the zesty lemon, because this sorbet is sweet. Honestly, I'd like to try the recipe again with slightly less sugar, but it really is pretty terrific as is.

The River Café's Strawberry Lemon Sorbet

3 lemons

2 cups sugar

2 pounds strawberries, hulled

Chop one lemon into chunks, removing any seeds, and place it in the bowl of a food processor. Add two cups of sugar and pulse, until well mixed. Scrape mixture into a large bowl.

Add the strawberries to the food processor and purée. Add the strawberries to the lemon mixture along with the juice of one lemon. Stir. Taste for acidity and lemon flavor. Add more lemon juice if you like.

Pour the mixture into an ice cream maker and churn until frozen.

Makes 1 1/2 quarts