Magic Beans (and other tins): Tin Can Magic review

And so on to the last of my tinned cookbook reviews - this time, Tin Can Magic by Jessica Elliott Dennison, published at the very end of 2019. Jessica is the founder of 27 Elliott's, a cafe, supperclub and workshop space in Edinburgh, and previously worked as a food stylist and as part of the retail and licensing team in the Jamie Oliver Group. Tin Can Magic (her second book after 2018's Salad Feasts) focuses on easy meal solutions, using trusty storecupboard tins to form the backbone of everyday cooking.

From my previous reviews, I had felt that both the look and feel of Lola Milne's Take One Tin  was a touch more upmarket than Tin Can Cook by Jack Monroe, and Tin Can Magic feels like a step yet further in that direction - it's a very smart-looking book, flexibound this time, which is becoming increasingly popular in the book world of late, a sort of halfway house between a hardback and a paperback. The full colour photography throughout is highly stylised, with lots of moody shadows being cast on or by the dishes. Occasionally one of the featured tin sneaks into a shot, and while the front of the labels are turned away from the camera, you don't need to be too much of a tin cannoisseur to spot that they are Waitrose-branded, perhaps giving a sense of who the book is being pitched towards. Note also that the book's tagline is "simple, delicious recipes using pantry staples", the somewhat archaic word immediately suggesting a large, spacious kitchen, with room for a walk-in space to store food, rather than a tiny little kitchen with a few cupboards in a studio flat. Let's face it, only posh people have a pantry, or at least call it that.

But this is perhaps a misjudgement as to the target audience (and author) of the book - in her introduction, Jess says "while I, of course, dream one day of owning a walk-in pantry...I realise that's not how most of us actually live", and that she hopes instead the book will serve "as a relaxed everyday resource for utilising those basic staples in your storecupboard." While the weekly menu at her cafe changes according to what ingredients are in season, she readily admits that "it is the trusty storecupboard tins and cans that form the backbone of my everyday cooking: both in the cafe and at home." 

So, while the book may appear quite upmarket, it seems there is something for everyone contained within. Jess focuses on just nine different tinned ingredients, each with their own section: Green Lentils, Tomatoes, Coconut Milk, Anchovies, Butter Beans, Sweetcorn, Chickpeas, Cherries and Condensed Milk. So, by and large, all fairly standard storecupboard staples (or pantry products, or whatever you want to call them).

In each section there is at least one recipe offered "three ways" - ie. the same core recipe, but with ingredients tweaked to give three unique dishes. A lentil dahl, for example, is given to us first with carrot and cumin, then with roasted cauliflower and coconut, and finally a version with tomato, chilli and lime pickle, all of which sound good. I've never made a dahl with green lentils (tinned or dried), so must try one of these some time. All the other stand-alone recipes feature suggestions for substitute ingredients, as well as the odd additional tup on how to use up the leftovers, or suggestions of side dishes to add to make the meal into more of a feast. From the tomatoes chapter for example, the Tomato Butter Sugo with Fettucine and Feta is a lovely sounding meal in itself, but the 'Feast Tip' - serving it with charred little gem lettuce topped with Parmesan and lemon, a plate of burrata drizzled with salsa verde (from a recipe later in the book), some nice olives and a good bottle of red - really had my mouth watering.

From the coconut milk chapter, I was very tempted by the Salted Coconut Sorbet, with peanuts and sesame seeds sprinkled on top - definitely one to try over the summer - but in the end I settled on the Crispy Coconut Milk Pancakes with Prawns and Garlic Vinegar. The coconut milk provides the liquid for the pancake mixture, but I was interested to see that the prawns (and some spring onions), thinly sliced, go into the batter too, rather than being added as a topping/filling at the end. This reminded me that I had a tin of minced prawns that I had brought back from Mauritius a few years back, and thought this could be an opportunity to use them. I hadn't banked on them being quite so finely minced though, in as much sauce, or quite so strongly-flavoured as they were (turns out they are made with dried shrimp rather than fresh, with a very punchy, concentrated flavour, and frankly a rather pungent smell) - but having opened the tin before I properly read the label, I decided to push on regardless. 

    

The recipe calls for rice flour, which I didn't have; my supplies of plain flour were also quite low at this point, which was proving slightly tricky to find in the supermarkets at the time, so I thought it might be worth seeing if you could use cornflour instead, as I had most of a box of that which very rarely seems to get used. So, coconut milk, turmeric, sugar and salt all went in as per the recipe, but otherwise I was deviating from it fairly significantly - I didn't bother with the spring onions as there was already onion in the tinned prawns. Maybe I shouldn't have been all that surprised therefore that the pancakes didn't turn out very well, to say the least. When making pancakes there's always that first one that doesn't really work, which becomes the cook's perk. But none of these really worked - they just seemed to fall apart as soon as I tried to flip them, and if I did manage to get my spatula under the side of one, it would then crumple and stick to itself, which try as I might, I couldn't then rescue. So I was left with a plate of somewhat flabby (rather than crisp) pancake scraps. 

  

Not that they weren't tasty though - as I said, my tinned minced prawns packed quite a punch, as did the dipping sauce (a sweet, salty and sour mix of fish sauce, lime juice, garlic, chillies, sesame oil and a bit of sugar). I went for the "Feast Tip" of serving with stir-fried greens rather than just beansprouts, lettuce and herbs, and that at least was successful. Otherwise though, not a great start to proceedings. I think it was probably more the fault of the cornflour than the prawns as to why the pancakes fell apart - not a good decision on my part. Thinking about it now, you never really see cornflour used as a replacement for other types of flour - it only tends to be used as a thickening agent. For the remaining prawns, I made a more successful adaptation of a Nigel Slater Vietnamese-style baguette recipe, spreading them inside some little rolls with quick-pickled carrot, spring onion and some herbs, which made a very nice lunch indeed.

  

From the anchovy chapter, nothing immediately jumped out at me as the sort of thing I hadn't really tried before - a linguine dish with an anchovy and chilli breadcrumb topping would certainly be delicious, but I've made essentially the same thing in the past to go on top of a risotto. Likewise, sticking anchovies into lamb shanks to lend a deeply savoury (but not at all fishy) flavour is an excellent but well-known old trick; I've been there, done that, stained the t-shirt with lip-smackingly punchy gravy before.

On to the Butter Beans chapter, and here I felt obliged to try the recipe for "The Beans" (Sage, Garlic and White Wine Butter Beans), given that Jess says is it the recipe she is most frequently asked for at the café, despite its simplicity. The key, she says, is the long, slow cooking of onions, garlic and sage (a good 20-25 minutes, which is longer than I usually have patience for) and not draining the beans, adding them with all the liquid from the tin and simmering for a further 25 minutes. These certainly lend a lot of flavour, and I suspect it is the 'tin juice' in particular that creates the unctuous, creamy sauce of the finished dish. 

That's not to say though that you should miss out the white wine and lemon zest, as I felt these really made the dish come to life and create something that tastes so much more than the sum of its parts. It would make an excellent side for roasted meat or vegetables, but was very nice simply piled onto toast. I wish I had made a bigger batch (I scaled down the recipe to use two-thirds of a tin), and given that it does take a bit of time, it's probably worth your while doing so. That said, as I live alone, if I had I gone for three whole tins of beans as per the quantities in the recipe, I'd have been eating them for days on end and might have got a bit bored.

Jess also gives us versions of "The Beans" adding cavolo nero and salsa verde at the end, and using red wine and fennel in place of the white wine and onions, both of which I'd like to try some time. With the remaining third of the tin of beans however, I made the Whipped Butter Bean Dip, which is an even easier recipe - you just blitz up the beans with a splash of their water, oil, garlic, lemon juice, and lots of cumin to a hummus-like consistency, then fry whatever herbs you have to hand until crisp and scatter them on top. I was surprised at how silkily smooth it was compared to a standard hummus, given that butterbean skins tend to be thicker than that of chickpeas, but perhaps the insides are a bit creamier and less dense. Also, the dip doesn't have any tahini in it, which would make it a bit more claggy in texture.

While good by itself, Jess highly recommends trying it with the Za'atar Roasted Chicken also featured in this chapter. Happening upon a reduced chicken joint in the supermarket (not legs as the recipe states, but good enough), and having an unopened packet of Za'atar in my cupboard, I gave it a go, and very good it was too. Obviously you don't use the whipped butterbeans as a dip here, but almost like a lovely smooth, very flavoursome mash instead, which the aromatic, lemony chicken juices melge into (is melge a word? If not it should be.) Another recipe to try again, I felt.

The Sweetcorn chapter has a couple of recipes very similar to those in Take One Tin - a cornbread loaf, and some fritters, which Jess suggests serving with charred little gem lettuce. I can't say I've ever charred a lettuce, but it seems to crop up a few times in the book, so maybe I've been missing out. The Indian-style Creamed Corn - halfway between a dahl and a curry - sounds the best of the bunch here.

On the chickpea front, the most interesting use is not actually for the legumes themselves, but the water from the tin they come in. Known as aquafaba - literally "bean water" - some bright spark discovered fairly recently that the cooking water from beans and chickpeas contains various proteins that mean it can be whipped up to give a replacement for eggwhites. Here, Jess gives us a basic recipe for aquafaba meringues, with three different toppings. I've long been meaning to give some aquafaba recipes a go, but I think that's something for another blogpost. 

Just as the chickpeas give an unexpected dessert recipe, the cherries in the next chapter are an unlikely ingredient in a savoury recipe - a salad of Caramelized Beetroot, Pickled Cherries and Walnuts with Feta and Mint. For the cherries, it's just half a tin, drained of their syrup, with 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar and a pinch of salt, and you're good to go. Jess also serves pickled cherries alongside her Dark Chocolate Mousse on the previous page, though in a much lighter pickle - only one and a half tablespoons of vinegar to a whole tin of cherries, and sugar added instead of the salt. The Salt and Pepper Cherry Crumble isn't really a true crumble at all - just warmed fruit with an oat and nut mixture sprinkled on top, but the addition of the salt and pepper is intriguing enough for me to overlook that. The Hazelnut Frangipane Cherry Galette sounds great too - and as Jess gives UK measurements and ingredients and their US equivalents throughout the book, I discovered that on the other side of the pond, hazelnuts are known as filberts, which is fabulous. Indeed, Filberta Frangipani would make a great drag name. 

All these recipes largely just use the cherries and not the syrup from the tin, but we are also given a recipe for that with the Cherry and Tarragon Soda. Mixing the syrup with chopped tarragon leaves to give a slight aniseed flavour, plus a shot of cider vinegar, it sounds more like a shrub than an overly sweet fizzy drink, to be diluted with soda water for a refreshing long drink, or as a mixer to go with gin (yes please). I will definitely be giving this a go some time, not least as tarragon-flavoured drinks are very popular in Georgia (the country, not the US state) which I visited a few years back, and have been mildly obsessed with its cuisine ever since.

Finally, on to the Condensed Milk chapter. Tempted as I was by the Sourdough Semifreddo (essentially a posh version of brown bread ice cream), there was one recipe that really caught my eye: the Miso Salted Caramel. The intro to the recipe begins, "Aware that most households have a forgotten jar of miso sat at the back of their refrigerator...", but I can't help but feel this is a bit of an incorrect assessment of the eating habits of "most" of the UK. Forgotten jars of mustard, mayo and the cranberry sauce that has been there since Christmas three years ago, maybe, but I don't think on the whole we're truly a nation of miso-eaters yet. That said, I obviously fall into Jess' perceived demographic, having had a jar in my fridge for quite some time.

The recipe gives instructions for making both a spoonable caramel sauce, and a more solid version, giving chewy, toffee-like sweets. They start off exactly the same way though, with an obscene amount of butter, dark brown sugar, gloriously thick condensed milk, miso paste and sea salt flakes being melted down in a pan. Healthy-eating gurus, look away now. Increasing the heat, you stir vigorously for 8-10 minutes until glossy and of a pourable consistency - if you're after the caramel sauce, this is then ready. I poured half of my batch into a jar, then returned the pan to the heat to take the remainder on to the toffee stage. The recipe just says to stir continuously for 15 minutes until thickened, but you do really need to give it your full attention - I found that even left alone for a few moments, the caramel would start to catch on the bottom of the pan, and could then very quickly burn. So, when doing the "water test" - i.e. dropping a teaspoonful into a jug of cold water, waiting for it to cool and the seeing if its consistency is right to allow it to be rolled into a ball - I found I had to take the pan completely off the heat to prevent the rest of the batch from burning. 

When ready, you pour the caramel out onto a tray lined with greaseproof paper and allow to cool fully, with an extra sprinkle of sea salt flakes if wished. Jess cuts hers into rectangles and then rolls into lozenge-shaped pieces; I decided to cut out circular pieces (using a cocktail measure) which, wrapped in some scraps of greaseproof paper, ended up looking like the toffee pennies from a box of Quality Street. Those quite often get left until last, but I'd bet these ones wouldn't, with the already addictive hit of fat, salt and sugar made even more delicious with an umami kick from the miso. It occurred to me later that I should have written "QS" on the wrappers - for "Quarantine Sweet", rather than "Quality Street". Cutting out circular toffees does however have the drawback of leaving you with lots of off-cut pieces, but I bravely made sure they did not go to waste.

When I came to try the sauce the next day, it struck me that I may have taken the initial heating of the caramel too far - while still much softer than the toffees, on cooling it had set to something that was no longer pourable. No great problem though - mixing a dash of hot water into a couple of spoonfuls was enough to bring it back to being the right consistency. As the next recipe in the book features the caramel sauce, I felt I should give it a go. Simply called Grapefruit, Sesame Oil and Miso Caramel, it is little more than an assembly job - cut a grapefruit and an orange into segments (or if, like me, you happen to have a tin of grapefruit, just crack that open), marinate briefly in sesame oil, then spoon onto some thick strained yoghurt, drizzle with the miso caramel and sprinkle with sesame seeds. I wasn't particularly taken with this as a dessert though; to me the various flavours didn't quite sit well with each other. I tend to find sesame oil a little overpowering, and that was very much the case here, plus having a slightly oily dessert just doesn't really appeal. I liked the tartness of the yoghurt with the miso caramel, but wasn't sure the citrus worked with it. I kept thinking of Gregg the Egg from Masterchef saying "there's a lot going on there on that plate" - but to me, it wasn't all working together.

Far better then, I felt, to use the sauce to drizzle on whatever you have to hand really, be that porridge, toast, pancakes, ice cream (I still had a little of the rice pudding ice cream from Take One Tin, which it seemed to go well with), or even just spooned from the jar when in need of a sugary boost.

Like Take One Tin, I can definitely see myself returning to try out more from Tin Can Magic - there are a lot of very interesting, appealing and quite classy-sounding recipes, the sort of thing which would obviously work well on a cafe menu, but would be really good served up to friends coming for lunch or dinner too. Whether people will be using so much tinned food when they can finally entertain guests again remains to be seen, but no doubt I will be, so I will look forward to bringing some of the author's magic to more tin cans in the weeks and months to come.