What to feed the best chef in the world? For 19-year-old Nadine Levy, on a night off from her job front of house and cooking for her new boss and boyfriend, it was chicken livers with tomatoes and chilli. She wasn’t to know it was René Redzepi’s favourite meal as a child. It was 2005, they were breaking the strict Noma rule against dating other staff but Redzepi had thrown a piece of bread at her head and made her his “seal-the-deal” pasta. The cheffy spaghetti worked and she was won over.
Love of food played a major part in Levy Redzepi’s early life. “It starts really, really early for me,” she says. “My good memories are all connected to food.” Her parents were buskers with two young kids living on a Portuguese smallholding. Money was tight but while her beloved older brother went to school (he was eight when she was born and got to name her after the Chuck Berry song), Nadine played in the fields, picked fruit and herbs and olives with her mum. Her clearest recollection from Portugal is of eating pomegranates from the tree, still warm from the sun. A good neighbour would regularly pop by with buckets of ripe tomatoes. It was almost Arcadian. But her father drank and when life went wrong her brother would cover her eyes and sing to her. Not all memories are happy.
Food carried Nadine through the next years when her mother returned to Denmark with the children. Her father was out of the picture, her mother working long shifts. She learned early to cook and to love it. Standing on a chair to stir porridge. Graduating to roasting a chicken, still her favourite thing: “When René comes back from a long trip, it’s the first thing I make, every time. It is the perfect meal, the best.”
Aged seven she was making her own vinaigrette. By 10, she was cooking herself three- and four-course meals while her brother was out with his mates. More improbably, it was Ainsley Harriott who changed her life. As an adolescent in Denmark, she was hooked on the UK’s Ready, Steady, Cook. “A three-course meal in 20 minutes! I would take notes,” she says.
Next on her radar came Antonio Carluccio: “He made a pasta sauce with mussels. I watched it and tried to recreate it: cook down the wine, the amazing colours, all orange and reds. The smells. I cannot believe I made that. It was so good. It hit me hard.”
She still cooks Carluccio’s mussel pasta every summer with her mother, brother and three daughters on holiday, though never wrote it out as her recipe until she was pregnant with Arwen, her first child. “I wanted to be the best mum,” she says. “I thought it would be cool if I had recipes from my grandmother. There are so many dishes from my childhood, she always cooked. I bought a black book and started writing down my favourite recipes to
be passed down.”
Nine years later, the notebook is now a cookbook, named Downtime, and I am anxiously cycling through Copenhagen with Levy Redzepi curled in a box at the front of a Christiania-style bike. It had seemed fairer than her pedalling me around like a rickshaw driver. What I hadn’t factored in was the heavy weight of the cycle, the turns all slow like a ship. Plus, the Danish capital appears to have almost as many bikes as Beijing. We are on our way to buy food for our dinner from Torvehallerne market, part of the new Nordic food scene her husband’s influence helped fashion. She buys fat asparagus and boxes of strawberries from the stalls outside. I stop shaking from stress.
The Levy Redzepi family live in a quiet Hans Christian Andersen-style house on a square near Noma (a three-minute bike ride for René to grab time with the girls before bed). It’s Danish idyllic: mustard walls with timber frames, lichened apple trees and old roses, young children running through open doors.
Declaration: I like this woman, her mum and her family. I like the book and how she has sidestepped the obvious celebrity-chef-wife traps. She is aware her husband’s fame got her through the agents’ doors, but there are no gratuitous glamour couple photos, she fought to keep them out. The recipes are enticing. Her voice is sure.
While Levy Redzepi makes old-school Danish macaroons and prepares supper we are joined by her mother Bente, who lives with them and also works for Noma. The kids run around. The sun shines. This is a happy family. At its heart is a woman who loves to cook for them.
Downtime is not a cheffy book to keep on a coffee table. “I wrote all the recipes as though trying to explain them to my cousin,” she says. “She loves to eat but is not a good cook.”
When Redzepi joins us, we eat brilliant asparagus and marbled pork chops bathed in professional amounts of butter. Pudding is caramel panna cotta, his favourite dessert, with the armagnac prunes his wife makes every year for his birthday. After we clear the table and dry the pans, I walk back contented to my hotel in the soothing summer rain clutching a box of coconut macaroons.
So to answer the question: the secret of cooking at home for the best chef in the world (or anyone else)? Serve up delicious simple food with a side order of memories. New for old.
Six delicious family recipes from Nadine Levy Redzepi
Globe artichokes with herb dip
Most of the time globe artichokes are served one per guest, but I think it is much more fun to put them in the centre and let everyone share. There is something very satisfying about bringing each leaf to your mouth and scraping off the flesh with your teeth. Eating one leaf at a time keeps your guests occupied while you are busy, and whoever reaches the heart first can trim off any bits of choke, cut it up and pass it around.
In the French countryside, where I spent my summers as a girl, we ate these with melted butter or classic vinaigrette, but this super herb-packed mayo makes them even better, and gives them an almost meaty quality. All three of my children love this dish, for the flavour and the entertainment.
Serves 4-6
large globe artichokes 3
For the herb dip
large egg yolk 1, at room temperature
fresh lemon juice 1 tsp
dijon mustard ½ tsp
grainy dijon mustard ½ tsp
rapeseed oil 180ml
shallot 1 small
cornichons 50g, drained
capers 2 tbsp, drained
fresh chives 20
fresh sage leaves 20
fresh tarragon leaves 20
fresh coriander leaves 20
fresh dill sprigs 20
fresh flat-leaf parsley sprigs 20
soured cream 120ml
fine sea salt
To cook the artichokes, place them, stem ends up, in a large pot of water. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and boil for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Do not overcook.
The boiling time will depend on the size of the artichoke, so cook them until an outer leaf comes off with just a little resistance.
Drain the artichokes in a large colander and turn them upside down so that all the remaining water can run out. Let cool.
Whisk the egg yolk, lemon juice, dijon mustard and grainy mustard in a medium bowl until combined. Drizzle in the oil about 1 teaspoon at a time, whisking until you have a nice thick mayo. This should take a couple of minutes, so don’t rush it. The flavour of the dip will not be as good with shop-bought mayonnaise!
Finely chop the shallot, cornichons, capers, chives, sage and tarragon and add to the mayonnaise. Finely chop the coriander leaves, dill and parsley sprigs (you can include a little of the thin stems) and stir them in. Add the soured cream and fold the mixture together. Season to taste with the salt. Taste the dip with a piece of flatbread to check for seasoning.
If the dip needs more acidity, add more lemon juice, cornichons or capers. Add more herbs if you like, too.
Cut each artichoke vertically in half. Use a dessertspoon to scoop out and discard the hairy choke. Arrange the artichokes on a large platter with the bowl of dip, and set out a bowl for the used leaves. Let the guests peel off leaves and dunk them into the herb dip.
You are likely to have leftover dip from this starter. It can be covered and refrigerated for about 5 days.
Baked salmon with thyme and thin potatoes
Cooking salmon on a bed of paper-thin potato slices is both efficient and delicious: as the fish cooks it infuses the potatoes with flavour. Make sure to buy the fish in one big piece, like a roast with the skin on; pre-portioned pieces of fish will cook too quickly and be done before the potatoes are tender. All you need to make this a meal is a green vegetable. Wild-caught salmon is always preferred to farmed fish, but in a simple preparation like this it really makes a difference.
Serves 4
baby potatoes 570g
garlic cloves 4
extra-virgin olive oil 3 tbsp
fine sea salt
skin-on salmon fillet 680g, in 1 piece, preferably wild
fresh thyme sprigs 4
Preheat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5.
Scrub the potatoes well under cold running water, but don’t peel them. Using a mandolin or plastic V-slicer, cut the potatoes into paper-thin rounds.
If you have good knife skills, you can slice the potatoes by hand, but using a slicer is a better way to get the thin, consistent slices you want here.
Cut the unpeeled garlic in half lengthwise. Put the potato slices and garlic on a large, rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with half of the extra-virgin olive oil, toss well with your hands, and spread out on the sheet as thinly as possible. Drizzle with the remaining oil and season with the fine sea salt.
Pat the salmon dry with kitchen towels. Run your fingers over the flesh side to detect the protruding ends of any thin white pin bones. Use your fingers or heavy tweezers to pull out and discard the bones. Season the flesh side with salt. Place the salmon skin side up on top of the potatoes. Scatter the thyme over the salmon and potatoes.
Be sure to put the fish with the skin side up – the skin will help you determine when the fish is ready.
Roast the salmon until the skin comes off easily when pulled with kitchen tongs, about 20 minutes. Start checking for doneness after about 15 minutes, but do so at the thicker end of the fish because the thinner tail end will be done first.
If the skin does not come off easily, just keep checking every few minutes until it does.
To serve, remove and discard the skin and cut the salmon into serving portions. Season with salt and serve with the potatoes.
Portuguese pork chops and rice
As a child in Portugal, I always came running when my mother made this, and the smell of the pork, garlic and lemon cooking together still makes me immediately hungry. Cooking the garlic cloves in the skin protects them from burning. And don’t skip the rice; it’s just too good with a drizzle of the pan sauce.
Serves 2
centre-cut loin pork chops 2 x 340g, cut 4cm thick
basmati or sticky rice 100g
fine sea salt
lemon 1
rapeseed oil 1 tbsp
garlic cloves 6 small
salted butter 45g
Take the pork chops out of the fridge 1 hour before you cook them.
About 30 minutes before you plan to eat, start the rice. Bring 240ml of water and the rice to a boil over medium-high heat in a medium saucepan. Stir once, but do not stir again. Reduce the heat to low and cover tightly. Cook until the water is absorbed and little air pockets appear on the top of the rice, about 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and let it stand, covered, for 10 minutes.
Don’t stir the rice once it is simmering, as that will make it sticky and lumpy.
Once the rice is simmering, heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Pat the pork chops on both sides with kitchen towels to get them as dry as possible. Season the pork with fine sea salt.
Cut the lemon into 8 to 10 wedges and set them aside. When the pan is very hot, add the oil and heat until shimmering but not smoking. Add the pork chops and cook without moving them until browned on the underside, about 3 minutes. Turn the chops and scatter the lemon wedges and the unpeeled garlic in the pan. Cook the chops until browned on the second side, about 3 minutes more.
Don’t turn the chops until there is a mixture of dark caramel and golden-brown colours on the bottom. This step is where the flavour develops.
Now, add the butter to the frying pan and let it melt. Tilting the frying pan to pool the melted butter, use a long-handled spoon to baste the chops almost continuously for about 2 minutes. Turn the chops one last time and baste 1 minute longer.
Basting the chops with butter will give them flavour, but it also helps make them juicier by adding moisture to the frying pan.
Transfer the chops and lemon wedges to a platter and let the chops rest for 3 to 5 minutes. Season the chops with salt. While they rest, add about 120ml water to the garlic cloves and pan juices in the frying pan and stir over medium heat, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spatula. Cook the sauce until slightly reduced, about 1 minute. Remove from the heat.
When the chops have rested, slice the meat off the bone in one large piece. Slice the meat crosswise and serve with the rice, pouring the pan sauce over all.
Mussels with chorizo
Mussels are quite assertively flavoured and can go head to head with other bold ingredients like chorizo and garlic. The creamy broth is the star here, so make sure to serve this with spoons as well as plenty of bread to mop up every drop. When I have a bottle of white pineau des charentes, a French fortified wine served as an aperitif, I substitute it for the vermouth, which really puts this over the top. I always eat the mussels with my hands, sipping a little sauce from the shell before scraping out the meat with my teeth. If that’s a little too messy for you, use one of the empty shells like tweezers, pinching it between your thumb and forefinger to pluck the meat from the shells.
Serves 6
mussels 1.8kg
rapeseed oil 2 tbsp
onion 1 large
smoked Spanish chorizo 200g
pancetta 200g
garlic cloves 6
plum (roma) tomatoes 6 large
fresh thyme sprigs 4
bay leaves 2
dry white vermouth 240ml
dry white wine 240ml
creme fraiche 225g
fresh flat-leaf parsley 5 or 6 sprigs
crusty bread for serving
Rinse the mussels under cold running water and drain them. If any are open, lightly tap them against the sink. If they close up, they can be cooked. If not, throw them away. Never try to force a closed mussel – raw or cooked – open.
Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat. Chop the onion and add it to the pan. Cook without stirring until it begins to brown on the bottom, about 3 minutes. While the onion is cooking, cut the chorizo and pancetta into 12mm dice. Crush the garlic cloves with the flat side of your knife, discard the papery skins and chop.
Add the garlic to the pan and stir just until fragrant. Move the onion and garlic to one side of the pan and add the chorizo and pancetta to the other side. Cook, stirring the chorizo and pancetta occasionally, until they are lightly browned and the fat has rendered, about 8 minutes.
To core the tomatoes easily, slice each downwards next to but not through the stem. Make two angled cuts into the larger half to release the core and discard. Coarsely chop the tomatoes and add to the pot with the thyme and bay leaves. Cook until the tomatoes soften, about 2 minutes. Stir in the vermouth and wine and bring to a boil. Simmer, stirring often, until the liquid has reduced by about a quarter and the tomatoes have broken down, about 10 minutes.
Raise the heat to high. Stir in the creme fraiche and bring to a simmer. Add the mussels, give them a good stir and cover the pan. Cook for 5 to 6 minutes, giving the pan a vigorous shake now and then. After 5 minutes, check to see if the mussels have opened. If not, cover and cook for another minute or so until almost all are open. Remove from the heat.
Mussels are brilliant because they let you know they are done when they pop open.
Coarsely chop the parsley (you can include a bit of the tender stems if you want) and stir it in. Using tongs and a ladle, divide the mussels and broth between 6 shallow bowls. Serve with the bread to mop up the fantastic broth.
Danish apple dessert
In Denmark this is called a cake, but it’s really more like a trifle, with layers of whipped cream and crushed cookies on a base of caramelised apple puree. Whatever you call it, it’s light and delicious and easy to make. You can also double the recipe and make it in a large bowl, trifle-style, but don’t assemble it until just before serving, as the cookies will lose their crunch. This recipe makes about 20 large cookies and you won’t need them all for the topping, so you’ll have some left over for snacking and lunch boxes. If you have been saving your scraped vanilla bean pods this is the perfect way to use them up. Otherwise, just use a whole fresh one, slitting it and scraping the seeds over the apples.
Serves 6
For the apple sauce
dessert apples 1.8kg, firm and not too sweet
vanilla pods 2, scraped
For the almond cookies
marzipan 200g
sugar 400g
large egg whites 3
plain flour 12g
baking powder ½ tsp
double cream 360ml
The filling needs to chill, so make it first. Peel, quarter and core the apples. Put the apples in a large, heavy pan. Place the vanilla pods on top. Cover the pan and cook over medium-high heat, without stirring, until the apples are lightly browned on the bottom, about 3 minutes. Caramelising the apples brings out their sweetness without any added sugar. It’s OK if some of them scorch a tiny bit.
Stir the apples, scraping the browned surfaces from the bottom of the pan. Reduce the heat to very low, cover the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until the apples have softened into a chunky purée, 45 to 60 minutes. If the apples start to stick or scorch, add a few tablespoons of water to the pan and stir to loosen them. Let the apples cool a bit, then cover and refrigerate until chilled, at least 2 hours or up to 1 day.
To make the cookies, preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4 with the racks in the top third and centre of the oven. Line two large, rimmed baking sheets with baking paper.
Crumble the marzipan into a food processor. Add the sugar and process until well combined. Transfer to a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat in the egg whites one at a time, making sure each white is incorporated before adding another. Beat until smooth. With the mixer on low speed, mix in the flour and baking powder just until combined.
If you don’t have a food processor, grate the marzipan into a medium bowl using the large holes of a box grater and stir in the sugar.
Scrape the cookie batter into a pastry bag fitted with a plain 12mm tip or a large zip-top plastic bag with the corner snipped off. Pipe out 5cm mounds of the batter, leaving about 7½cm between them. The cookies will spread in the oven. Bake until golden brown and crackly, about 15 minutes. Let the cookies cool completely on the baking sheets. They will fall and crack, but that’s OK, as they will be crumbled later.
Don’t try to remove the cookies from the baking paper until they have cooled completely or they will stick and break.
Whip the cream in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high speed just until it thickens and begins to form soft peaks. It should be slightly fluid, not stiff and fluffy.
Divide the apple sauce between 6 serving bowls and top with the whipped cream on the opposite side. Coarsely crumble 1 or 2 cookies over each serving. Serve immediately.
Leftover cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
Giant macaron cake
This might be the most unusual way I have put my all-purpose cake batter to use: as the filling rather than the foundation of a multi-tiered layer cake. We always let our daughters choose what they want for their birthday dessert. When it is Genta’s turn, she inevitably chooses something pretty and girly.
The year she requested macarons, I thought making one big macaron then turning it into a layer cake by adding cream, cake and more cream would be fun, and I was right. As it turns out, a giant macaron is faster to make than a bunch of small ones, and it looks really impressive. It’s a little messy to serve, but it’s still delicious.
Serves 10-12
For the macaron layers
almond flour or ground almonds 300g
icing sugar 300g
baking powder 1 tsp
egg whites 8 large, about 220g total
red food colouring paste 3 drops, as needed
granulated sugar 300g
For the cake layer
plain flour 130g, plus more for tin
baking powder ¾ tsp
flaky sea salt ⅛ tsp, plus more for sprinkling
granulated sugar 150g
salted butter 70g, at room temperature, plus more for tin
large egg 1, at room temperature
vanilla pod 1
double cream 100ml
For the fruit layer
double cream 475ml
strawberries 450g
raspberries 170g
To make the macaron layers, place a sieve over a large bowl and add the almond flour, icing sugar and baking powder. Sift the dry ingredients into the bowl, using your fingers to rub the almond flour through the mesh if it is stubborn. Whisk 4 of the egg whites (110g) with the food colouring in a medium bowl just until the mixture is evenly coloured. Set it aside.
Don’t be timid with the food colouring. You want the macaron to be a bright, bold pink.
Combine the granulated sugar with 75ml water in a small saucepan.
Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring to help dissolve the sugar. Attach a sugar thermometer to the pan and cook until the syrup reaches 118C, 3 to 5 minutes.
While the syrup is cooking, use an electric mixer set on high speed to whip the remaining 4 egg whites (110g) in a large bowl just until they form soft peaks. Still beating on high, slowly pour a stream of the hot syrup into the bowl – do not pour directly into the beaters, or the syrup will splash. Keep beating on a high speed until the egg whites form stiff, glossy peaks.
Let the meringue cool until it is warm but not hot (about 48C), which can take about 20 minutes. Add the coloured egg whites to the almond flour mixture and use a big rubber spatula to stir them together until blended:
Scrape the meringue into the bowl and fold it all together, reaching down to the bottom of the mixture with the spatula and bringing it up and over the rest of the mixture. Turn the bowl one quarter turn and repeat until the mixture is evenly coloured but still light and fluffy.
Cut 2 sheets of baking paper. Using a 23cm round cake tin as a template, draw a circle on each baking paper sheet with a dark pencil. Turn the paper over so you can see the circle from the opposite side. Spoon half of the meringue mixture into the centre of each circle and use the spatula to spread it evenly towards the edges with a slight dome in the centre. Let the shells stand, uncovered, at room temperature for about 1 hour while you make the cake layer.
Letting the macaron shells stand before you bake them is important. The skin that develops on the surface will keep them from spreading as they bake.
While the macaron layers are standing, make the cake layer. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4, with the oven racks in the top third and centre of the oven. Lightly butter a 23cm round cake tin, and line the bottom with a baking paper round.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together into a medium bowl. Beat the sugar and butter in another medium bowl with an electric mixer until it is pale, about 3 minutes on high speed. Beat in the egg, until light. With the tip of a small knife, split the vanilla pod lengthwise, then scrape the vanilla seeds into the bowl, saving the pod for another use.
With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in thirds, alternating with two equal additions of the cream, and beat until smooth. Spread the batter evenly in the tin and sprinkle with flaky salt.
Bake on the centre rack until the top of the cake is golden brown and springs back when pressed with a fingertip, about 20 minutes. Leave the oven on. Let the cake cool in the tin on a wire rack for about 10 minutes. Run a knife around the inside of the tin to loosen. Invert and unmould the tin onto the rack and discard the paper. Turn the cake right side up and let cool completely.
Now, back to the macaron layers. By this time a thin crust should have formed on the surface. Bake the shells until they feel mostly set underneath the crust, about 30 minutes. Turn off the oven, prop the door open slightly with a wooden spoon, and let them slowly cool and crisp, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Remove from the oven and cool completely.
The macarons may form browned ‘feet’ around the edges as they bake. You can trim these off if you prefer after they cool.
To make the fruit layer, whip the cream in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until the cream just begins to hold its shape – do not overwhip. Hull the strawberries, cut them in half lengthwise and put them in a bowl.
No more than 30 minutes before you plan to serve the cake, assemble the components. Carefully peel the paper from one of the macaron shells and place the shell on a cake plate flat side up. Spread it with half of the whipped cream and scatter the strawberries evenly on top. Gently set the cake layer on top. Cover with the remaining cream and the raspberries. Carefully remove the paper from the second macaron, and place it on top of the raspberries, domed side up.
Use the less-perfect of the two macaron shells for the base layer, saving the prettier one for the top. Don’t worry if there are cracks, it will still taste great.
Let the cake stand for 15 to 20 minutes to slightly soften the meringue. Use a thin, sharp knife to cut into wedges.
Downtime by Nadine Levy Redzepi (Ebury, £27). To order a copy for £22.95, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846
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