KITCHENALIA

COLANDERS

ALONGSIDE the well-attested findings of Parkinson, Murphy and Sod, and with apologies to Sir Isaac Newton, I venture to offer Holt's First Law: it states that in the kitchen, to every sensible opinion (ie one's own) there is an equal and opposite opinion: and it is invariably wrong.

Thus there is a school of thought that maintains that colanders are totally unnecessary, and that all straining can be done with the aid of a saucepan lid. In our house, this misguided belief is held by the chief bottle-washer, whose noisy struggles with adhesive fragments of spinach or watercress occasionally disturb the tranquillity of Sunday afternoon. The solution is quite simple, I suggest: use a colander and put it in a dishwasher. Takes up too much space, complains the anti-colander faction. Sensing an impasse - further confirmation of Holt's First Law - I retreat to the sitting room with the papers.

The need to separate solid food from its liquid must be almost as old as cooking itself, and the utensil employed derives its name from the Latin colare, to strain. It was simple enough for the potters of ancient Rome to produce a colander. A bowl is thrown on a potter's wheel, and a few hours later - when the clay has begun to harden and resembles leather - you take a sharpened goose quill and pierce a series of small holes in the base. The drainage holes can be made at random or you can arrange them in an attractive pattern. When completely dry, the colander is fired along with other pots.

Some contemporary potters continue this tradition, and their handsome vessels are a pleasure to handle and use, and usefully retain the heat of freshly cooked food. Fine examples can be found at the Craftsman Potters' Shop, 7 Marshall Street, London W1V 1LF, and David Mellor, 4 Sloane Square, London SW1W 8EE.

China drainers were once a familiar household item. Flat ones on stubby feet fitted inside large Victorian meat dishes so that the gravy and cooking juices ran into the channel below. Edwardian watercress dishes had drainers - rather like an old-fashioned soap dish - so that surplus water could be collected separately. Today, only asparagus dishes, and then usually from France and Italy, are equipped with this sensible arrangement.

In rural France, flowerpot-shaped cheese drainers, normally made in grey- glazed stoneware, are still produced for farmers, goatherds, and others who make cheese at home. Increasingly, though, plastic cheese drainers are taking over, and the flimsy ones containing freshly drained goats' cheese are intended to be as disposable as a yoghurt pot. Luckily for those of us who want to prepare the delectable Cremets d'Angers - described by Elizabeth David as "the best of all accompaniments for strawberries, raspberries, and apricots" - the little heart-shaped porcelain drainers are still available in good kitchenware shops.

Kitchen gardeners find colanders invaluable, in and out of the kitchen. While a woven cane basket - perhaps the earliest kind of colander - is ideal for gathering pristine garden produce, mud-spattered vegetables are best picked into a metal colander, to be washed and drained under running water in one simple operation.

For gathering and washing herbs and delicate salad leaves, a lightweight wire basket is ideal. The basket is swung through the air to remove the excess water. Since this procedure is best done outdoors, a salad basket fitted with a revolving central spindle is more convenient for kitchen use. You place the wire basket in the sink and move the handle up and down to drain the leaves by centrifugal force.

Metal colanders are produced in mainly two shapes, flat-based and hemispherical. Bowl-shaped enamelled colanders, like Mrs Beeton used, come in many colours, and plain or speckled. Lightweight aluminium colanders are also available. But, for ease of cleaning (which for some people is paramount), a stainless steel colander with a highly-polished mirror finish is recommended. Sainsbury's sell an excellent flat-base stainless colander for under a fiver; if need be, it could be used as a steamer since it is small enough to fit inside an average saucepan.

Clearly, the size and number of drainage holes determine the efficacy of a colander. When you need rapid straining for foods such as boiled pasta or potatoes, a large well-perforated bowl-shaped colander works best. This kind is also preferable for washing foods such as mussels and small fish - otherwise whitebait and anchovies can slither down the plughole.

For removing surplus water from vegetables such as cucumbers, aubergines and courgettes, the larger and more perforated the colander the better. I find that half a kilo of freshly-picked courgettes, sliced and lightly salted and left to drain in a colander, can produce as much as 100ml of water in just 15 minutes; and for certain recipes - such as the one below - this water needs to be removed.

The well-equipped kitchen should also have at least one small strainer such as a shallow skimmer or a slotted spoon. You need one for lifting poached fruit like apricots, peaches and plums from their hot syrup, or for draining the "islands" of cooked meringue from the simmering milk when making Iles Flottantes. Even a humble poached egg has to be delicately hoisted from its cooking water with some sort of perforated spoon. Modern versions of the clotted cream skimmers - once found in every West Country farmhouse - perform these tasks well. Skimmers are now made in easy-clean stainless steel in all sizes and shapes. Alternatively, oriental spoon- size wire baskets with long handles are stocked by Asian supermarkets.

TERRINE OF COURGETTES WITH TARRAGON

My favourite restaurant in Montelimar serves this terrine of sliced courgettes set in a tarragon-flavoured custard. Serve as a separate course or as an accompanying vegetable dish.

Serves 6

3 large eggs

12 tarragon leaves, chopped

12 slim clove of garlic, crushed or finely chopped

450g/1lb slim young courgettes

salt

knob of butter

200ml/7fl oz creme fraiche or double cream

freshly milled pepper

Lightly whisk the egg with the tarragon and garlic and set aside for the herbs to flavour the mixture. Slice the courgettes, sprinkle lightly with salt and leave in a colander set over a plate for 20 minutes for some of the liquid to be shed. Rinse the courgettes in cold water, drain well and dry on a clean tea cloth or kitchen paper. Rub the butter over the inside of a 1.3 litre/21/4 pint cast-iron or Pyrex terrine dish and add the sliced courgettes in layers. Whisk the cream into the egg mixture and season with pepper - the courgettes will have absorbed sufficient salt. Pour the egg mixture over the courgettes and cover the dish with a buttered paper. Place the terrine in a roasting pan of warm water to make a bain-marie and cook in an oven preheated to 200C/400F/Gas 7 for about 45 minutes until the custard is set. Allow to cool slightly before slicing the terrine with a very sharp knife.