Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin for the Observer

Nigel Slater’s seafood stir-fry and marmalade puddings

I have long regarded the juices left in the pan or roasting tin as nothing short of treasure. Containing the caramelised meat juices, crusty pan-stickings and reduced cooking liquids, these are indeed the essence of the food. I think of them as its heart and soul. Not just revered, I think of them as verging on sacred.

You can spend all evening making a sauce, but the juices that come from the dish itself are to my mind unsurpassed by any separately made sauce. It should be said that some are more interesting than others. Those where there has been time for flavours to marry and develop are often the best of all, but that doesn’t mean those left behind from a spot of quick cooking are not worth using. Last night, an impromptu meal of rustic flavours, food that is big and butch with not even a nod toward elegance, produced pan juices so good I almost upended the plate straight into my mouth.

I have always found the richly spiced fat that comes from a chorizo worth using, but it needs something to soak it up. This time it was part of a sort of seafood pan-fry with cabbage and one of those tubs of sweet, lightly brined crayfish tails the size of a baby’s little finger. This was a quick dinner to be eaten with a bottle of pale, fizzy beer. Unrefined, big-hearted cooking at its best.

The flavours, porky, salty, sweet and hot from paprika, are only for those who appreciate the depth of savour that comes from the marriage of meat and fish, an advancement of the bacon-wrapped salmon or scallop. So that the sausages gave up as much of their fat and juices to the pan as possible, I cooked them over a low to moderate heat before slicing them up further and browning their cut edges in their own fat. Delectable though it was, refined and elegant it wasn’t.

As a rule, I serve anything with an integral sauce with something to mop it up – bread that will absorb the meat liquor, a mound of nutty brown-skinned rice, lusciously sloppy polenta or a steamed floury spud. But sometimes you just need a spoon. That way, you get things the way they were intended without the blotting-paper effect of a starch-based side dish. Pure, shiny, unadulterated pan juices. And slowly is the way to go; cooking something over a high heat will often burn off any tasty liquid as soon as it comes out.

Then there were the little puddings I knocked up last weekend. Again, they were less than elegant despite their dinky size: four tiny pudding basins filled with an apricot-sponge mixture and baked. As they slid out of their tins, the marmalade I had tucked into the bottom oozed out over the sponge, bits of peel tumbling down on to the plate. I could have steamed them, but nowadays I tend to do that only with puddings containing suet or a lot of fruit. These little charmers baked in just over half an hour and gave me only one mixing bowl of washing up and a cup in which to beat the eggs. I was thinking initially to embellish them with custard or cream, but found they needed neither.

Chorizo, cabbage and seafood

A quick, simple and juicy seafood stir-fry that is perfect for a midweek supper.

Serves 2
chorizo sausages 4, about 80g each
savoy cabbage leaves 6, medium sized
crayfish tails or prawns in brine 225g
salt and pepper

Prick the chorizo sausages several times with a fork then place them in a nonstick frying pan over a moderate heat. You want them to cook slowly, and the fat to seep out into the pan. Leave them to cook until deep rust red and brown on the outside, then remove from the pan to a chopping board, leaving all their delicious paprika-scented oil behind in the pan.

Slice the sausages diagonally in half, then return them to the pan for the cut edges to brown and crisp very slightly. Shred the cabbage leaves. Rolling them up tightly and slicing across is probably the easiest way. Add the leaves to the pan with the sausages. Let them cook for a few minutes until they darken and soften slightly.

Lastly, strain the cooked crayfish tails, prawns or shrimp from their brine and add them to the pan. Leave for a minute or two to heat through (they will toughen if cooked too long), season with salt and a little black pepper, then serve immediately with all their glorious pan juices. A beer, cold and frothy, works splendidly here.

Little marmalade puddings

Photograph: Jonathan Lovekin for the Observer

Serves 4
individual pudding tins 4 x 200ml
apricots 75g, ready-to-eat, dried
butter 120g
light muscovado sugar 70g
caster sugar 70g
eggs 2
self-raising flour 120g
marmalade 4 heaped tbsp

Thoroughly butter and lightly flour the pudding moulds. Set the oven at 160C/gas mark 4. Chop the apricots, but not too finely – clearly discernible nuggets are better than finely chopped.

Use an electric beater or food mixer to cream the butter and sugars until truly light and fluffy. Break the eggs into a small bowl or cup, beat them lightly with a fork then add them, a little at a time, to the butter and sugar. If the mixture looks grainy, as if it is about to curdle, then introduce a little of the flour. Gently fold in the flour, taking care not to over mix.

Stir the chopped apricots into the mixture. Place a good heaped tbsp of marmalade in the bottom of each of the four buttered and floured pudding moulds. Divide the mixture between bowls – the mixture should come a good two-thirds up the moulds – bake them in the preheated oven for about 40-45 minutes until pale gold and springy to the touch.

Run a palette knife around the inside of the moulds, then place each one upside down on a plate and shake out. If the marmalade has stuck, help it out with a spoon.

Email Nigel at [email protected] or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/nigelslater for all his recipes in one place

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