I started to mangle my words. “Nobody suggests that one should eat it breakfast, supper and breakfast,” I bumbled, and then dug a deeper hole by stating that cream was full of saturated fat and the body actually needed a small amount of saturated fat, an argument that – even though true – was a little difficult to sustain. I was extolling the virtues of cream on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 and, these infelicities aside, did not make too much of a hash of it.

What I was trying to say was that it would be a shame if cream really was an endangered species. Apparently Britain exports 60,000 tons of cream a year, mostly because of Britons’ increasing appetite for skimmed and semi-skimmed milk instead of the full-fat stuff. What I can’t work out is whether there is anything wrong in exporting so much cream: while it is the envy of every chef in Europe and we should be proud to export it, it seems sad that we do not have sufficient appetite to support a valuable industry ourselves.

It is worth stressing that cream used to be considered a great treat. Whether in a pastry from the refrigerated counter of the pastry shop or poured from a jug over crumble at Sunday lunch, you knew it was special. The point of custard, be it confectioners’ pastry cream or “proper” egg custard, was that it was a substitute for cream.

Up until about 1975, farmers were encouraged to produce as much milk as they liked. By that time we were swimming in cream and butter, and there was already a significant glut: we exported cream, but this was the era of “the butter mountain” when at times it seemed as if the whole of Europe was in danger of drowning in milk and cream. My parents were in on the act, producing the finest quality high butterfat milk from their pedigree Guernsey herd; they were badly caught out when the penny dropped in the 1970s and government support of dairy farmers slowly began to be withdrawn.

Happily, Britain still has a high production of cream. Whereas 30 years ago we chefs used it with abandon, we now have to be more careful. Customers don’t like their food “smothered” in cream. Nor, as a matter of fact, do I. However, there are moments when a bit of cream is sublime. It may be a plate of strawberries, or a fish mousse, a potato gratin, a piece of smoked haddock or a crème brûlée when simply nothing else will do.

Rowley Leigh is the chef at Le Café Anglais
rowley.leigh@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/leigh

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Chicken fricassee with tarragon cream

An unctuous way to eat chicken – and cream – and best preceded and succeeded by something light. The chicken must be absolutely cooked through before it meets the sauce. Serves four.

Ingredients
1 roasting chicken, weighing about 1.75kg
50g unsalted butter
cooking oil
4 tsp very finely chopped shallot
2 tbs tarragon vinegar
1 glass of white wine
100ml chicken stock
2 tsp chopped fresh tarragon
200ml double cream
Sea salt, pepper

Method
● Cut the chicken into eight pieces, separating the leg from the thigh and leaving some bone attached to the breast pieces. Season them well. Heat half the butter with an equal quantity of cooking oil in a heavy bottomed sauté pan or casserole big enough to take all the chicken. Put the pieces in skin side down. Adjust the heat: the idea is to colour slowly and cook the chicken without letting it, or the fat, burn. Turn after 15 minutes. Cook for another five minutes by which time the breast pieces should be cooked: remove them and finish cooking the thighs and drumsticks – it’s perfectly permissible to pop the whole pan in a medium-hot oven (180ºC) for five minutes, to finish them off at this stage.
● When all the chicken is cooked, transfer it to a dish and keep in a warming oven while you make the sauce. Pour all the fat out of the pan in which it is cooked. Put the pan back on the heat, adding the rest of the butter and the chopped shallot. Stew this gently and, when softened, add the tarragon vinegar. Let this evaporate almost completely and then add the white wine. Using a wooden spoon, scrape up all the caramelised juices from the pan and let them blend with the wine. Add the chicken stock and let this boil vigorously until reduced by half and then add the tarragon and the cream. Add a pinch of salt, some milled pepper and bring back to the boil: now simmer until the cream has thickened a little and reduced to a sauce-like consistency. Put the chicken pieces back in the pan and roll them in the sauce. Taste the sauce: it will probably need seasoning and a few drops of the tarragon vinegar (or a squeeze of lemon) may be necessary to cut the richness of the cream. Serve with a plain green vegetable (spinach would be excellent) if desired and plenty of rice pilaff.