Better living in small spaces: Cooking Without a Kitchen

What do you do when you’re a passionate cook, but have an area approximately the size of a postage stamp to do your cooking? Miriam Nice, food writer and London-based foodie, has taken a rather a novel approach to the art of cooking in a less-than-comprehensively kitted out kitchen: contemplating what to do when you don’t have one at all.

We caught up with her to find out more about better cooking in small spaces.

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What is it about cooking that keeps us all so fascinated? If it’s not The Great British Bake Off, it’s a new way of eating, or a new process that we all seem to get hooked on.

It’s immediate, and pretty universal. It’s one of the easiest things to talk about with someone you’ve just met. Everyone has to eat and drink, and no two people’s experiences or memories of food will be exactly the same. TV, the internet and social media bring about the exchange of far away, forgotten or brand new recipe ideas. It’s an immediate hobby because you don’t have to send away for loads of specialist equipment to get started. Most people have access to an oven, but fewer people have a kiln or an ice rink for example. Once you’ve mastered a technique you can move on to the next one and once you’ve created something, you can eat it. It’s instantly rewarding.

How did you get into food?

I’m sure I remember putting the jam in jam tarts with my mum when I was about three, and then learning to make lasagne with my dad. I guess I was pretty lucky because I thought having parents who cooked pretty much all our meals from scratch was pretty normal, so I was always interested, but part of me thought that was just what everyone did. It wasn’t until I got my first job (in a family-run French cafe and restaurant in Nottingham) that I started to think about food and food writing as a serious profession.

What are the challenges facing keen cooks in London with the lack of space that living here generally affords?

Oh heck, there are loads! It’s a bit of a nightmare on that front, to be honest. I’ve been extremely fortunate on the whole. In most of the shared places I’ve lived, my housemates have been extremely accommodating and understanding, though perhaps that’s because I’ve kind of bought their tolerance by making them cake, cocktails or jars of marmalade at the end of several days of me totally hogging the communal kitchen.

Now I live with my boyfriend and – time permitting – I’m free to develop longer recipes (read: make more mess). However, space is still a big problem. I’ve gone from an allotted amount of space in a large kitchen to having complete free range of a very, very small kitchen. The net result doesn’t feel that different, especially when you account for things like stand mixers, blenders and food processors. My stand mixer only comes out when I’m making particularly large cakes or marshmallows now, and my food processor takes up about a quarter of my entire kitchen work surface. In reaction to this lack of space, my cooking has certainly changed. It’s quicker and it uses more fresh ingredients which can be used up in one or two meals. I very rarely buy whole cuts of meat now unless we’ve got mates coming round because I haven’t the space in my teeny fridge.

I don’t do a big weekly shop anymore, I just pick things up and use them on the day. I think the day will soon come that my boyfriend will tell me I need to get rid of some pans – I have a feeling he’s going to open the cupboard one day and there’ll be an almighty crash, maybe a scream. Hmmm, I probably should sort that.

Tell us a bit about Cooking Without a Kitchen. It’s a slightly bonkers idea, but I think one we can all relate to in one way or another. How did it come about and what exactly is it?

It is totally bonkers, but to me it makes complete sense. People keep making this funny face when I explain it, so I’m starting to realise it’s perhaps a bit, erm, quirky.

I used to work in facilities management and I looked after buildings up and down the country. This meant I was regularly staying in fairly basic hotel rooms. I missed cooking at home and I got a bit fed up of sitting in restaurants by myself, or occasionally being stuck next to someone who wanted to talk to me about golf. I know about crazy golf, but they were keen on proper golf, about which I have no interest (sorry, golfers). So I’d hide in my room, boil a kettle and rehydrate some couscous, then I’d mix in some feta and olives from one of those antipasti type pot thingys, and it just got more and more elaborate from there. I never set off any alarms, never made a mess… Anyway, it turns out loads of people end up in situations where they don’t have a kitchen: people at uni, campers, home improvers… slightly bored facilities managers.

So the Cooking Without a Kitchen book is comprised of 20 recipes you can make using an iron, kettle or a hairdryer as the heat sources. The recipes are printed on individual cards which sit inside a fabric cover which doubles as an optional placemat. This allows you to take as much of the book with you as you might want, wherever you want. Oh, and if you follow the instructions in the book carefully, the iron, kettle and the hair dryer shouldn’t get covered in food and ought to be completely useable for their intended purposes afterwards.

I guess, in a way I’m just a really polite rebel.

What tips would you give to someone wanting to embrace their inner Michelin chef while living in a tiny London flat?

Do it! Invite people round! If there’s something you want to try, make it and get your friends to eat it straight away: you won’t have space to store the leftovers anyway and they might bring you wine!

If you’re sharing, be a love and have a thought for your housemates. Cook when they’re out wherever possible and try not to cook things that are too stinky, especially when they’re drying their leggings in the room next door: that’s generally frowned upon.

Oh and don’t leave your good knives and pans lying around. Your housemates will not know that you just had that knife expertly sharpened or that your special pan must absolutely totally utterly never ever be left in the sink. Either use them when they’re out or get good on cheaper kit until you have your own place.

A recipe for pancakes (without a kitchen)

From Cooking Without a Kitchen by Miriam Nice, published by Pedestrian Publishing and reproduced here with kind permission.

I have not, as yet, had a bad experience with hotel breakfast food. However, some mornings I would rather eat alone, predominantly to bypass the dining room and avoid the “breakfast meeting” or parents shouting at their teenagers for not eating apples. For such occasions, here is a cooked breakfast treat.

Ingredients

2 eggs
1 cup of self-raising flour
1 cup of Greek Yoghurt
2 dessert spoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
Butter for greasing

Kit

Iron and ironing board
Mixing bowl
Whisk
Greaseproof baking paper
Measuring spoons
Measuring cups
Spoon
Plates
2 tea towels

Method (serves 2)

With a small whisk, beat together the egg, flour and caster sugar. Whisk these vigorously until you get a stiff paste.
Next add the yoghurt and whisk until smooth, then stir in the bicarbonate of soda.
Grease the top side of an approximately A4 piece of greaseproof baking paper with a little butter. Drop 3-4 heaped teaspoonfuls of the pancake batter mixture onto the paper just to the left of the centre, (the mixture is sticky so use another spoon to help coax it onto the baking paper). Spread lightly with the spoon so that the circle is slightly smaller than a CD. Fold the paper over and make a parcel and seal with more folds making sure pancake batter is encased tightly right up the edges. If the parcel is too big the pancake will spread to fill the space and will come out too thin.
Heat your iron to its hottest setting. It can be a good idea to use a clean tea towel to protect your ironing board cover. When the iron is up to temperature lightly hold the iron on top of the parcel to cook the pancake inside. Cook for 2-3 minutes each side or until the pancake is fluffy within and starting to turn a light golden brown on the outside. Repeat the process until all the mixture is used up (you can reuse the greaseproof paper for more than once if you like). Your pancakes will spread out a little and will come out square but don’t worry that’s perfectly normal.
As you make them stack the pancakes on a plate and cover with a clean tea towel to retain some of the heat while you cook the rest. Makes about 6 - 8 pancakes.

Serve with lemon juice and sugar or, alternatively you can cook cured meats like parma ham in a greaseproof parcel (2 mins each side) then drizzle lashings of maple syrup over the cooked meat and pancakes.

Miriam’s book Cooking Without a Kitchen is published by Pedestrian Publishing. Keep up to date with Miriam’s foodie adventures via her website, miriamnice.com

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