Bicarb provides that important melt-in-the-mouth almost sour flavour. I love short shortbreads that kind of disappear – it’s the bicarb that does that.
I use it to dry out meat prior to cooking as it helps make the skin super crisp. I tend to do ½ teaspoon of bicarb to 2 tsp of salt. You rub it all over a joint – or at Christmas, a chicken or a turkey – and leave it in the fridge overnight.
Making honeycomb is a fun thing to do at Christmas – although be careful. It’s about taking the caramel to the perfect point; you want the flavour and the amber colour, but there’s a fine line between terracotta and burnt. The problem with caramel is that when you take it off the heat, it continues to cook. You’ve got to keep your eye on it and not be tempted to touch it. You then add the bicarb, it bubbles up, and you pour it into a tray. Honeycomb is good plain, crumbled on a simple vanilla ice-cream, or if I’m going to coat it, I tend to balance it with quite a dark chocolate.
Bicarb is great for cleaning too. If on Christmas Day, a pot gets too black (which it normally does in our house as we’ve got an Aga) you can just chuck some in and boil it back up.
Florence Knight is head chef at Sessions Arts Club, London EC1
