Puttanesca
Leftovers. I know I waffle on about this a lot but I’ve been thinking about it more recently and have made a distinction. I like leftovers that I have a definite plan for, cold roast chicken for sandwiches or to be used in a curry. Lamb shoulder that can be stuffed into pitta bread and dressed with tzatziki. Leftover pork shoulder to accompany some Mexican beans. You get the idea. The kind of leftovers I’m not so keen on are things like the noodles Stephen mentioned last week or the ends of the different kinds of pasta shapes that aren’t quite a whole serving but can’t easily be combined because they require different cooking times.
The olives for this puttanesca are the kind of leftovers I don’t like. We used some olives in Sunday’s lamb dish and had half a jar sitting in the fridge. These aren’t the good olives that are nice to eat alone but the cooking variety, that have a harsh, briney flavour until they’ve bubbled away with lots of other things for a while. We don’t cook with olives a lot and I knew that if I didn’t use them soon then they would find their way into the bin. The problem was, all I could think of to do with them was puttanesca which I discounted as dull. It doesn’t always have to be exciting though, sometimes we just need to eat something. Which is what we did last night. And it was nice. Not exciting but perfectly fine.
(We don’t follow a recipe for this anymore but our version is based on Delia’s, just with more of everything).
Crayfish and Lentils on Avocado Toast
So, having waffled on yesterday about meal planning, I’ve broken the first rule and gone off-menu. I had planned on stuffing the leftover lamb into pitta bread or transforming it into moussaka but, in the end, neither appealed so it’s gone into the freezer (actually that should be the first rule of menu planning: make sure you have adequate space in your freezer for when you inevitably change your mind).
I’m not sure if it’s the change in weather (although I admit it’s only a small change) or just a normal response to a weekend of heavy eating but I was craving salad. Obviously, salad has it’s place but it’s rarely my first choice when it comes to organising dinner. Despite the craving, I knew I would ultimately be unsatisfied with just a few leaves and a little celery so I opted for the Dinner Diary favourite: Things on Toast.
These little crayfish are handy to keep in the fridge as they have a long shelf-life and can be transfomed into something interesting without much effort. We always have avocadoes around so one of those got squashed up and spread on the toast with some lentils to bulk everything else out. There was indeed salad and very welcome it was too but this was really all about the toast.
Italian Lamb Shoulder and Recipe Organisation
“How do you store your recipes?” is a topic I frequently see on food forums and one that I will always click on. Stationery and organisation are two of my favourite things and I’m fascinated by how people deal with their recipe collection. I have a very simple system that works well for me but it does require constant attention. I have a ferocious appetite for anything to do with food and am a fiendish collector of recipes. Unfortunately, I don’t often save just the recipe I’m interested in but generally throw the magazine or newspaper into a pile where it will sit until I can no longer close the cupboard or drawer the pile is currently residing in. Working my way through that pile is a long and laborious job that I hate and will always put off in favour of something else. With a little time on my hands this week though, I finally got round to dealing with large, wobbly pile and was left with just a small collection of recipes/ideas that I have now filed away and can use effectively.
I have a box file that is organised into sections: meat, fish, vegetables, dessert and miscellaneous. The miscellaneous file is separated further into: starters, sides, sauces and family recipes. There’s another file for “things to make soon” which is a collection of things I’ve pulled from the wider folders and is suitable for the current season/suits my current mood. When planning meals, this is the folder I go to first.
Of course, on top of that there are the recipe books that I buy obsessively but rarely cook from, the electronic files that live on each of the three computers we have at home where I’ve copied and pasted stuff or scribbled down ideas depending on which machine I happen to be using at the time. Each of those machines also has a long list of bookmarked items that I’ve come across and saved for a later date. Finally, I also have various notebooks full of ideas: one in my handbag, one next to the bed, one in the kitchen and several other dotted around the flat.
I’ve made some progress with the electronic stuff and have utilised Google Docs as a central repository for bookmarked items. Now, regardless of which computer I happen to be using at the time, the plan is to store everything here. This is taking a while though and I still have a lot to get through. I haven’t even started with the notebooks but the ultimate plan is to just have one book that’s divided into sections, similar to those I use for the paper-based recipes, that I carry with me and use at home.
Once I’ve cooked something then I generally blog it and can find the recipe here, via the search facility and then, if I want to cook it again, I can take the laptop into the kitchen (although I’ve been thinking recently that an iPad would be perfect for this). The next step is remembering/forcing myself to actually discard the original clipping once I’ve done that though otherwise the paper-based filing system becomes unwieldy. I find it very difficult to get rid of recipes that I’ve snipped from magazines even if I’m no longer interested in it or have actually cooked it and typed up the recipe elsewhere. I still haven’t managed to get rid of some of the very first clippings I saved years ago, even though in many cases I now own the book the recipe actually comes from. Nostalgia, sentimentality and a tendency to hoard are facets of my personality that don’t really co-exist with my love of tidiness and organisation but I’m working on it.
Anyway, the point of all that is, now that my filing systems are in better shape, working out what to eat today was much easier and this recipe came was found easily in the meat section of the box file. What I do need to remember to do is write down the source of the recipe since I don’t know where this originally came from, it does look a lot like an Olive or Delicious typeface though. I should also put the clipping into some kind of wipeable folder before I take it into the kitchen too, otherwise it ends up grease-splattered like the one you see above.
This wasn’t bad but could do with some modifications, perhaps some stock would help, less tomatoes and definitely more olives, lemon zest and parsley. I was going to type the recipe up so I could recycle the original clipping but it’s quite clear from the picture what the ingredients and method are so I don’t think I’ll bother. I will do the recycling though.
Portugese Chicken
While on holiday in South Africa, we picked up a packet of Portugese spice mix to bring home. Aside from the description telling us it included tarragon and the cinammon we could smell/taste, I’m not sure what else was in there. It was a winning combination though (and a cheap one, at only 40p or thereabouts) and one which, sadly, we have no hope of replicating. We’ve probably used about a third of the packet so we’ll have to try and make this last for another year or so until we get back to South Africa again.
Thai Beef Stir-Fry
We have two potentially contradicting ideals: we like to try new dishes and recipes and we don’t like to waste food. The contradiction occurs because the former often requires us to buy ingredients for new recipes that we only use part of and then they hang around in the cupboards for ages because we don’t like to throw them away. Sometimes though, attempts to use up these ingredients can work out very well. That is what happened on Thursday evening when we decided that we really needed to use up the various half-packets of rice noodles that we had open.
Kerri’s idea for using them up was to have them with stir fried beef. She bought some sirloin from our local butcher and when I got home, we started to prepare and cook it. This turned out very well, much better than at least I expected it to based on the fact that it was a relatively impromptu, made-up recipe. It went something like this:
Beef stir fry
300g sirloin steak, cut into thin strips
2 birds eye chillis, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small to medium onion, finely sliced
8 baby corn, halved lengthways
handful of mange tout or sugar snap peas
soy sauce
Thai fish sauce
4 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced
juice of half a lime
Heat a wok over medium to high heat. When it is hot, add a little vegetable oil and then add the sliced beef. Stir frequently to prevent it sticking or burning. After a minute of stir frying, add a teaspoon of fish sauce and after two minutes add another teaspoon. After three minutes, remove the beef to a plate and return the wok to the heat.
Add a little more oil and the onion, garlic and chilli. Stir fry over high heat for one minute, then add the baby corn. After one minute, add the mange tout and the sliced lime leaves along with a tablespoon or so each of soy sauce and fish sauce. You can vary the amount of the soy and fish sauces depending on your taste; I tend to add quite a lot of both of them because I love the strong, rich flavours that they impart but that might not be everyone’s preference.
After another two minutes, add the beef back to the wok along with a splash of water, then turn down the heat and put a lid on it. Let it steam for a few minutes. Then remove the lid and add the lime juice and any more soy or fish sauce that you want to for seasoning.
Back to what started the whole thing – the rice noodles. We had two types; one that needed to soak in hot water for five minutes and one that needed fifteen. Having soaked and then drained them both, once the stir fry was cooked we put it into a bowl and added a little more oil to the wok. Added a little more onion and garlic to the wok for 30 seconds, then added the noodles and stir fried them for a couple of minutes before serving.
As I said in the comment at the beginning of the post, this rather made-up dish turned out very well. Adding the fish sauce to the steak while stir frying it imparted a wonderful umami flavour to it while it still retained its innate steakiness and reminded at times of eating in a good steakhouse. Clearly the butcher had supplied us with some really good steak. I was worried that a lack of ginger or lemongrass would let the dish down, but the lime leaves and lime juice picked it up and it didn’t lack anything. Delicious.
Pork Shoulder Leftovers
Of course, there were leftovers. Unless you’re catering for a reasonable number of people then even a half shoulder of pork will be too big for two. We simply reheated the pork, added some oven-cooked black beans, some more of those pickled red onions and piled it all onto a wrap. I preferred this to yesterday’s dinner but that was inevitable given my fondness for beans.
We still barely made a dent in the pork so the rest went into the freezer. We’ve frozen and reheated this successfully in the past so it’s definitely worth cooking a larger piece of meat than you need, as long as you like leftovers that is.
Mexican Pork Shoulder
Having been to Borough Market on Friday and replenished our supply of dried chillies, it seemed only right to cook something Mexican this weekend. While I was there, I visited the Ginger Pig and picked up a pork shoulder. Initially, we planned to roast it simply and eat it with some roast potatoes and vegetables but, craving something spicy, we decided to roast it Mexican-style instead. On looking up the recipe, we noticed the red onion accompaniment and since we have a surfeit of those, they made their way onto the table too. We followed this recipe but I think ours look prettier.
There’s a little bit of work to do upfront with this dish but once it’s done, the pork sits happily in the oven for three hours while you get on with your Sunday. We spent that time watching movies and eating Marmite popcorn (brilliant, give it a go) before cooking the green rice and sitting down to dinner.
The green rice didn’t turn out as well as last time and it looked far too unappetising to photograph, it tasted okay though. The pork took on much more flavour this time; after shredding it, we added it to the remaining chilli sauce and left it to heat through again before serving. I imagine it will taste even better tonight though, having spent 24 hours in the fridge.
Pheasant on Toast and Springbok with Espresso Sauce
I went to Borough Market on Friday, primarily to stock on some Mexican ingredients we were running low on but also to buy some springbok. We ate quite a lot of it when we were in South Africa and were keen to cook it again at home.
While I was there, I also spotted some pheasant breasts that were being sold off cheaply. At least I think they were pheasants. I got home and couldn’t remember what I’d bought so had to email a picture to some friends to check. These were cooked quite simply (with some garlic and shallots and then flamed with some brandy) and served on toast as a starter. Really though they would have worked better in a salad, cooked the same way but with a mustardy dressing added at the table.
After last week’s boulangere failure, I made sure to get these in the oven much earlier and with less stock and three hours later we were rewarded with perfect potatoes.
The springbok was fried simply and then served with an espresso sauce, something we ate while we were away. The sauce was simple to cook: soften some shallots and garlic, then add some red wine and allow the alchohol to cook off. Add a little beef stock, the brewed coffee and then season. Add just a little red wine vinegar to balance and then serve. We opted for some cavolo nero cooked with lardons as an accompaniment which worked well. Springbok is lean and needed some extra fat. The moist potatoes were a great partner here too.
Haggis Tart
Last year, we made haggis sausage rolls as a starter before the traditional Burn’s Night meal of haggis, neeps and tatties. We remembered them fondly so, this year, decided to cook just the sausauge rolls. What we both particularly liked about the sausage rolls was the outside edge where the meat meets the pastry and the fat combines. So, we changed our minds and decided to make a tart, reasoning that there would be more of those sticky, crispy edges. This didn’t quite work out but it still made for good eating.
In order to thoroughly test the theory of those edges, we made a sausage roll too. We both actually preferred this and really should have stuck to that in the first place. The traditional whisky and cream sauce would have worked well with this but, fearing for our arteries, we ate salad instead.
Leftover Beef Brisket with Black Beans
(Apologies for the terrible picture, I should have waited for the steam to dissipate. And set the whole thing up a bit better).
I knew when we bought the brisket that there would be lots leftover so I planned to turn the rest into tacos or wraps with the addition of some chilli sauce and some black beans. That chilli sauce is brilliant at turning leftovers into something exciting but it does pay to use a variety of dried chillies so that you can layer up the flavours. I get these at Borough Market but there are various online stockists that carry them too.
As it turned out, Stephen was out this evening though so I just had the beef and beans without the bread, cheese, guacamole, sour cream, etc. The beef was certainly much more enjoyable eaten this way but the beans were the real star.
I cooked them in the oven using a no-soak method I read about on eGullet. I don’t generally soak my beans anymore anyway but I haven’t tried cooking them in the oven before.
Oven-Cooked Black Beans
Cover the beans in water, add salt (since I knew I was going to be turning these into a variation of refried beans, I also added chilli, garlic and onion) and bring to the boil on the hob. Put a lid on the pot and then transfer to a pre-heated oven (at 150 degrees) and cook for 75 minutes.
Ours took a little longer than this and we did need to top up the water with boilng water from the kettle but otherwise, the method worked out really well. We had the oven on anyway and the resulting beans were tender and evenly cooked, something that can be difficult for us to achieve on the hob since our gas feed runs high and keeping an even temperature with a diffuser plate isn’t that easy. I’ll definitely be using this method again.
