Interview with Food Writer Simon Hopkinson

Acclaimed food writer Simon Hopkinson is currently working as Consultant Chef at Chapter Hotels’ Restaurants. He is also involved in the restaurant Bibendum where he was the inaugural chef in 1987. Perhaps most famous for the best seller ‘Roast Chicken and other Stories’, he also recently launched a new BBC cookery series, ‘The Good Cook’. In this interview, he talks about childhood food memories, cooking for friends and not leaving home to cook without his dad’s potato peeler.

Working as Consultant Chef at Chapter Hotels’ Restaurants, in Bibendum and also for your new BBC cookery series, is all your work in the kitchen?

Although I am still involved in Bibendum, I hung up my apron for the final time in 1995, and haven’t toiled in a professional kitchen since then. I’m Consultant at Chapter Hotels, and while I advise on taste, flavour and texture from a diner’s perspective, Tom [Tom Rains] is Head Chef and it is his kitchen, his team.

At home, I like to cook and I like to cook well. I do it every day, often just for me and, occasionally, for one or two lunch guests.

Do you enjoy cooking for others in your spare time then?

I never cook dinner parties, nor do I enjoy going out to them. However, I will usually help with the cooking or take a dish I have made at home. When I stay with close friends I always cook a lot. I just enjoy making something delicious for my hosts.

What would be your last supper?
Something simple. Perhaps a really good toasted sourdough, well-buttered, with wave upon wave of finely sliced Parma ham on top of it. Or cold ham, egg and chips.

You seem to be a real lover of food, but are there any dishes you won’t eat?

While I generally enjoyed school dinners and ate pretty much everything, the only thing I wouldn’t eat was the porridge, which was grey, slimy… disgusting.

What other memories do you have of food growing up as a child?

Sunday lunch. I loved everything about it – Hancock on the radio, the smell of the roast in the oven, picking mint from the garden when it was lamb. Also my mum’s cheese and onion pie. Oh and rice pudding; the smell from the Aga was so comforting.

How important were your family in influencing your style of cooking?

Huge. My mother made cheese and onion pie, rabbit pie, jugged hare, braises, quiche Lorraine baked in a Denbyware dish. Great classic dishes. While Mum cooked the everyday meals, Dad was more flamboyant, more experimental. He gave the dinner parties and liked to make curries. Actually I still carry my dad’s potato peeler when I cook outside of my own kitchen.

You place a great emphasis on local produce and the menu at The Restaurant at The Montpellier Chapter reflects this too. Why is going local so important to you?

People say British is the best, but it’s down to freshness, not location. Simple as that.

A top tip for trying your recipes at home?

It takes time and practice to get recipes right. Practice makes perfect. But the most important thing is the joy of eating the dish.

Signature Simon Hopkinson dishes are available to try every month at The Montpellier Chapter in Cheltenham and upon the opening of the The Magdalen Chapter in Exeter in late spring 2012. To try something at home, below is the recipe for his famous and surprisingly simple chocolate pot with ginger.

Chocolate pot with ginger (serves six)
This easy chocolate recipe made with stem ginger is a perfect dinner party dessert.
Ingredients
• 150ml/5fl oz double cream
• ½ vanilla pod, split in half lengthways, seeds scraped with a sharp knife
• 100ml/3½fl oz milk
• 125g/4oz dark chocolate (70 per cent cocoa solids), broken into pieces
• 2 free-range egg yolks
• 1 heaped tbsp icing sugar
• 1 rounded tsp ground ginger
• 30g/1oz preserved stem ginger, chopped into small pieces
Preparation method
1. Preheat the oven to 140C/275F/Gas 1.
2. Warm the cream and vanilla pod and seeds in a saucepan. Whisk lightly to disperse the vanilla seeds, turn off the heat and cover with a lid. Set aside to infuse for 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, over a low heat, melt the chocolate in the milk in a small saucepan.
4. Beat the egg yolks, icing sugar and ground ginger together in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the chocolate mixture and vanilla-infused cream, remove the vanilla pod and whisk together until well combined.
5. Place the chopped ginger and a little ginger syrup into the bottom of the ramekins. Top with the chocolate mixture. Place the ramekins into a deep roasting tin and pour in enough hot water to come up to at least two-thirds up the side of the pots. Bake for 45-60 minutes, or until slightly puffed-up and spongy to the touch of a finger. The surface of the pot should form a little crust.
6. Remove the pots from the oven, allow to cool for a few moments and lift the pots from the water onto a clean tray. Chill in the fridge for at least six hours before serving. Serve straight from the fridge.

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