"Omne trium perfectum" - a challenge

"Everything that is three is perfect" or "three good things on a plate"

After my burst of enthusiasm and experimentation yesterday, today I feel somewhat uninspired, so we are just going to have a pizza for dinner. Home-made of course, but nevertheless, not very clever, and it won't be as good as the ones my son and daughter-in-law make either. I haven't quite mastered the pizza dough as yet.

So reading the AFR this morning I came across that Latin saying - my title for today - which reminded me of a book - Easy by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, which is based on the notion of cooking with just three prime ingredients. It's a thought provoking book in that even if you don't particularly go for all his recipes, even many, it does spark ideas.

And yet again it has achieved that aim because now I'm thinking of having a week of cooking things that just use three ingredients. Next week? Maybe. I won't be eating tomorrow as it's a fasting day, so I can think about it then. Why would I think of doing such a thing? Well also some time ago, I wrote an article called Cooking as a game which was based on an article about gamifying cooking to make it more interesting. And I'm a bit bored today. What does gamifying mean?

"What is a game, after all, but the combination of a goal and (at least one) rule? In the case of cooking, the goal is to stay nourished; the rules are to find perishable, tasty foodstuffs, use cold to keep this stuff from growing bacteria, and use fire and knives to make it easier to digest. Oh, and try not to get bored." Joan Menefee/Culinate

A while back I tried one of the suggestions in the post - different versions of the same dish - in my case Chicken butter cream. Which was a bit of an eye opener, and also included the game of making something from a recipe on a jar - Patak's Chicken butter cream paste in that case. It was spread over several weeks though. You wouldn't really want to eat the same dish every day for a week would you?

The rule in this case is three ingredients only. Only? Well probably not quite. Various cooks who set up these 'games' always include some 'extras' which vary from the truly basic - oil, butter, salt and pepper, water, to actually somewhat cheating. I mean do you count spices and herbs as extras - or can you include one, maybe two? Or maybe you should just say one, maybe two flavour enhancers.

I have now checked out several recipes from here and there, and although some of them do adhere pretty rigidly to the rule, others don't. Even Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in his book, frequently has two or three 'extras' which couldn't really be described as basic - e.g. Ham, squash, marmalade, which I have to say could be a tempting thing to try. However, it's a bit of a cheat, because not only are there thyme and bay leaves, which perhaps could be excused, but there are also carrot, onion and celery. I suppose it's excused because the onion, carrot and celery are used to cook the ham hocks and then they are discarded and don't appear in the final dish. Still I think it's a bit of a cheat.

Of course some recipes I saw included a spice mix - like harissa. Now obviously if you make the harissa yourself you will be using lots of ingredients, but if it comes out of a jar - either a bought one or one that contains your own mix, then I guess it just counts as one ingredient. So I think I'll treat, fairly incidental herbs as a basic, but a large quantity of the same as an ingredient.

"Life is too short to attempt perfection everyday and to be inhibited by someone else's set of rules," says Nigel Slater, so I think I shall ponder a bit on my set of rules. Tomorrow, when I'm fasting. Besides nobody's watching. There are penalties if you break the rules in 'real' games; the only penalty that would apply to my game would be to produce something that wasn't eatable. Although perfection is definitely not an aim because I know that that is unachievable.

A long time ago I actually wrote a post on this very topic - Three good things on a plate although it actually mostly became a review of Alice Zaslavsky's book In Praise of Veg. In the last few paragraphs I got back to the original premise and said:

"And actually I suspect we all just start with one ingredient that has to be used up for one reason or another and then go from there. Maybe someone should write a book on 'One ingredient to start with' some day. Or 'This goes with this and that doesn't'.

So I suspect that at least Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall began in much the same way, but with three ingredients to start with, and then builds something from that. Which is a fair enough, but different, approach. Although that kind of approach could end up being something really complicated. So no, let's keep it relatively close to three.

Why three however? There are heaps and heaps of books, articles, videos, etc. on five ingredient recipes, but not quite so many with three. Well an article, with the same title as mine - Omne Trium Perfectum on a website called Modern Aesthetics tells us that:

"It starts first by understanding the “Rule of Three,” an intuitive concept illustrating how and why packets of information are preferred when they are delivered within a natural cadence of three notes. ... Three is the least number of individual entities necessary to form a pattern, and as any medical student can attest, information is better digested and retained when it is placed in a pattern"

It's easier for the brain to deal with patterns apparently. And easier on the eye as well - remember the decor rule to keep things in groups of three?

But when it comes to recipes, and cookbooks, let's agree it's just a gimmick really. And I shall treat it as such. A game, because "sometimes we just want to eat" So true Nigel.

Of course I couldn't just end there. I did look for some inspirational ideas and suggestions if you wanted to have a go too. Or - you could send me some suggestions. I'll start with one of those 'gathering' articles - from The Guardian's Dale Berning Sawa in this case: Easy as 1,2,3: chefs on the 50 most simple, delicious, three-ingredient recipes and there were a few other similar collections.

I recently bought Eat - an old book from Nigel which is a sort of an updated version of his very first book Real Fast Food - with pictures. It is of course, packed with ideas like this one:

"Possibly my favourite fast-food recipe ever:

There I've said it. In a small saucepan, warm together 6 tablespoons of mirin, 2 tablespoons of shiro miso and a little oil. Toss the boned chicken thighs in the mixture, making sure they are well coated, then cook under an overhead grill, basting regularly till the skin is golden and crisp." Nigel Slater

The picture is actually not quite the recipe above, as it has honey as well, but then Nigel added honey or maple syrup to the mix in a later version, so I'm guessing the version above looks pretty much the same.

There are hundreds of recipes for pasta of course. This one is Giorgio Locatelli's version of the classic Aglio, olio e peperoncino but there are countless other simple pasta dishes, from lemon, or cheese and butter, cheese and pepper to more complicated ones that feature some kind of vegetable. I have no doubt that at least one of the dishes that I attempt when I get to do my three ingredient week, will be pasta of some kind. It's a given. Not a stir fry however. They are often more complicated. And in that list of 50 there was a 'green frittata' which cheated hugely by treating 'green' as one ingredient, when in fact the suggestion was a mix of a variety of green things.

Then I thought to look at Donna Hay's gorgeous and very heavy book The New Classics, which had many recipes teetering on the brink of three or actually only being three. I chose this sumptuous Oven-roasted sirloin steak with porcini and port butter as my Donna Hay example. You might need to be feeling a bit rich - sirloin steak on the bone is a luxury item these days, but if you've got a packet of porcini and an old bottle of port in the cupboard then give it a try. Of course, you then have to think what to serve it with, which will immediately boost the number of ingredients. The other three ingredient dish shown here is Crispy pan-fried kale, eschalots and potatoes - which is indeed just that really or as spring is supposed to be here you could try the stunningly beautiful, although possibly bland, Mozzarella, lemon and mint salad.

Ottolenghi of course finds three ingredients very difficult. Even in his minimal ingredients category in his book Simple he limited himself to 10 ingredients. But then those ingredients were often spices, herbs and nuts that were blended into a spice mix, scattered over the top or used in some kind of marinade. I confess I didn't do a really thorough search of Ottolenghi but I did find this - Steamed courgette with garlic and oregano in Simple. Not quite a meal however, more of a side dish.

So I might give the three ingredient thing a go but probably making things of my own from what I've got. Probably starting with that one ingredient idea. Tonight we are having pizza - home-made, and not three ingredients, but it could be I suppose, if you made a Margherita pizza and counted the dough as one ingredient. But there will be salami, and possibly ham on ours, some anchovies for me and maybe even some onions. Plus the standard tomato and cheese. So nowhere near three. So next week perhaps. Or the week after. Or I'll try another game - maybe the macaroni cheese thing.

An aside but relevant - in a way. There is a New Zealand beer brewing company called Omne Trium Perfectum/OTP which makes beers with three extra ingredients. This one, as you can see is Coffee, blackcurrant and cacao nibs, but there are others. Interesting choice of name isn't it? On their website they explain:

"Three, it's the magic number. OTP - a special series of sours, each batch combining a trio of unusual ingredients based on the perfect principle of three elements."

POSTCRIPT

David says I should feature the sausage and caramelised onion tart of yesterday. I have to say it was pretty yummy and rather rich - we only ate half of it so that will be one of our meals next week. Is it three ingredients? Well almost if you fudge it a bit. Sausages, caramelised onion chutney, onions - but then you have to add the pastry base, egg, cream, thyme and cheese. No not almost at all. Yum though. The caramelised onion flavour shone through and the sausages were juicy. And the apples were delicious - also not quite three - apples, limoncello soaked raisins, butter, sugar, orange and lemon juice and cinnamon.

And what did I write about on the first day of spring - September 1 in years gone by?

2023 - So retro, so English and so unavailable - redcurrant jelly that is.

2022 - Ajo blanco - I'm confused

2021 - Sorrel - a lucky dip

2020 - Primavera

2019 - It's never the same

2018 - Nothing

2017 - I walk, therefore I think

2016 - Why are Tim Tams Australian?