Smashed at the Weekend #4
Cook kale soup with Matty Matheson, enjoy a ready made cocktail, delve into a Tuscan hamper, settle in with a fine food and drink Substack
Something to cook
CANNELLINI BEAN and KALE SOUP with LOTS OF SHALLOTS by Matty Matheson
You’ll probably know Matty Matheson from his role as Neil Fak in The Bear TV show, which he also executive produces. But he is first and foremost a chef, restaurateur and cookbook author. Matheson’s career took off in 2013 when he recorded the Hangover Cures and Keep It Canada series of videos for the Munchies YouTube channel which led to the Vice TV channel series It’s Suppertime and Dead Set on Life. In early 2019, he launched his self-produced web series Just a Dash on his YouTube channel which now has 1.5m subscribers.
At the age of 29, Matheson suffered a heart attack after a sustained period of alcohol and drug abuse but eventually became sober. His larger-than-life personality and post-modern approach to food television that simultaneously celebrates and undercuts the form can be seen in this video, recorded for Gozney ovens website where he demonstrates his mother’s broccoli-chicken cheddar curry casserole, the original recipe for which, he says in his debut cookbook A Cookbook by Matty Matheson ‘was probably on the side of a can or a box’ (it’s also a glorious dish). You can read my five star review of the book here and a review (also five stars) of his follow-up Home Style Cookery here.
His third book Soups, Salads, Sandwiches was published last month and is another winner. There’s no point trying to pin down Matheson’s cooking style because he takes inspiration from everywhere. But if there’s one thing that unifies ‘Red Curry Lobster Soup’, ‘Charred Corn Equites-Style with Fried Oaxacan Cheese Curds’, and ‘Roasted Chicken Thigh Shawarma with Pickled Turnip and Hot Peppers’ (a soup, salad and sandwich, see?) it’s generosity and big flavours.
Matheson plays fast and loose with his chosen categories. In the soup chapter, you’ll not only find ‘Avgolemono’ and ‘Baked Potato Buffet Vichyssoise’ but also ‘Irish Lamb Stew’ and ‘Crab Congee’. His definition of a sandwich extends to accommodate a ‘Waffle Breakfast Sandwich with Mascarpone, Freezer Strawberry Jam, Fried Egg and Bacon’ as well as a classic ‘Cubano’ and ‘ Muffuletta’. Salads are, well, all salads but are nonetheless varied and include ‘Sichuan Chili Oil Smashed Cucumber Salad with Soy Cured Egg’ and ‘Banh Mi Salad with Roasted Pork Belly’.
Matheson’s recipe introductions are almost worth the price of the book alone. Take ‘Cullen Skink for example: ‘This soup should make you feel good, like you’re the one last remainingHighlander. You’ve cut everyone’s head off, and you can finally just live your life. Scotland forever baby! Freedom.’ You’re not going to read that in a Nigel Slater cookbook anytime soon, are you? Matheson urges his readers to ‘Embrace the pure joy of freewheeling cooking.’ We will Matty, we will.
CANNELLINI BEAN and KALE SOUP with LOTS OF SHALLOTS
‘This is a quick and easy soup that makes you feel good. After you crush this soup, you’ll have accomplished making something you probably haven’t done before, making a new thing. That’s huge. This soup is an easy win. Everyone’s life needs more wins and this soup is your big W this day! Keep winning, keep soupin’.’
SERVES 4
PREP TIME: 1 HOUR 15 MINUTES
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
6 shallots, sliced
6 garlic cloves, smashed
1 fennel bulb, diced
2 rosemary sprigs
2 tablespoons preserved Calabrian chili peppers, chopped
1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup Italian white wine
6 cups vegetable stock
2 cups dried cannellini beans, soaked for 6 hours and drained
Two 2-inch pieces Pecorino rind
Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
1 large bunch Tuscan black kale, chopped into 1-inch-wide pieces
½ cup grated Pecorino cheese
Juice of 1 lemon
1 bunch curly parsley, chopped
In a large Dutch oven over medium heat, add the olive oil, shallots, garlic, fennel, rosemary, and 1 tablespoon of the Calabrian chili peppers. Throw in the tomato paste and cook it down until it starts to caramelize. Add the wine, vegetable stock, and cannellini beans. Turn it down nice and low and cook, covered, for about 1 hour. Skim the scum while the soup cooks down. Take the lid off and reduce it to a nice hearty soup, about 15 minutes. The beans will have fluffed up. Take the rinds of Pecorino and throw them in. That’s nice. Adjust the seasonings to your taste, and when it tastes real good, throw in the kale and cook it down for 10 minutes. Stir that up. Ladle the soup into bowls. Top each bowl with the grated Pecorino, a drizzle of olive oil, and the lemon juice. Throw in the parsley. It should look like mulch. If you are a spicy boy or girl add some more of that preserved Calabrian chili pepper.
Extracted from Soups, Salads, Sandwiches by Matty Matheson
£25, Murdoch Books
Support Smashed and buy this book using the button below.
Something to drink
Angels Dare
I’m a keen home cocktail maker. It’s true, I have a fairly limited repertoire but I like what I make. I can mix them precisely to my specifications, use the spirits brands I prefer and be a bit more heavy-handed with them than your average bartender. But sometimes I feel too lazy to gather together the ingredients and equipment and so I just open a bottle of wine or pour myself a Guinness (Nitrosurge, natch). I’ve tried various canned cocktails in the past but nothing has really hit the spot.
Enter Angels Dare, a small Dumbarton-based company headed up by Michael Crozier, a former hospitality professional who has created a range of four simple, fruit-forward cocktails that taste great. They say the drinks are designed to ‘show off our pride and passion for all things Scottish’ although they don’t supply details on the provenance of the ingredients used. No matter, the award-winning cocktails are nicely balanced and not too sweet. I particularly enjoyed Maverick Martini with vodka, passion fruit, orange and vanilla, especially with an extra dish of vodka to boost the 8% abv.
From £4 per can, available from stockists nationwide. Check angelsdarecocktails.co.uk for availability and to order online.
Something to buy
Fattoria La Vialla hampers
With Christmas less than six weeks away, our thoughts must inevitably turn to hampers. I love a hamper at Xmas but you just know you’re going to get at least a proportion of filler to the killer items you really want. That bizarre pickled aubergine and strawberry chutney is going to gather dust on your kitchen shelf until you finally chuck it out. There is no chance of that with a hamper from Fattoria La Vialla, a family-run, organic-biodynamic farm and wine estate close to Arezzo in the Chianti region of Colli Aretini in Tuscany.
I was lucky enough to be sent their ‘Box of Delights’ and I can honestly say that there isn’t a duff item among the 22 Italian specialities included in the wooden crate. You’ll find full details of the contents by clicking on the link below, but a few of the highlights include 12-month-old Pecorino Gran Riserva which I grated over a dish of venison arrabbiata made with a bottle of deliciously piquant Sugo all’arrabbiata and some high-quality Pappardelle all’uovo made from three heritage varieties of wheat, extruded through bronze dies and slow dried for a fantastic flavour and texture. I finished the dish with a spoon of intense and spicy unfiltered Tuscan extra virgin olive oil and paired it with Pinot Nero Cassa Rossa 2018, full of red fruit flavour and soft rounded tannins.
I could go on, but you get the picture. I guarantee that if you buy a Fattoria La Vialla hamper (there are numerous gift ideas on the website) for your Italophile partner/family member/friend you will rise exponentially in their estimation. Or you could do the sensible thing and just keep it for yourself. Who cares what people think of you?
Box of Delights, £87 available from lavialla.com
Something to read
The View from My Table by Andy Neather, Substack
When Smashed grows up it would like to be The View from My Table. The delightfully understated strapline for this consistently informative and entertaining Substack is ‘Thoughts on food and wine trends from the former wine critic of the London Evening Standard’. What it actually delivers are not just thoughts but extremely well-researched and argued articles about everything from the intensely bipartisan debate around natural wine to the culinary history of Soho; from counterfeit wine (did you know there’s fake Yellowtail out there?) to tracking down the best burger in London.
The View from My Table is also beautifully written. Like a well-tailored suit, Neather’s style is smart and seamless - the technique is invisible so you just ease into each new edition hardly noticing the effort that has obviously been taken to make it such a compelling read. It’s hardly surprising when you learn that, in addition to being the Standard’s wine critic for a decade (and I think I’m right in saying the paper’s leader writer too), Neather is a former speechwriter to the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister during the Blair government.
The fact that Neather manages to publish weekly while holding down a day job in communications is impressive, to say the least. Currently, The View from My Table is free to read and there’s an entire year’s worth of archive to explore. What are you waiting for?
Click here to read The View from My Table.