Chorizo and Cannelini Beans
I was about to say that we’ve made this so many times before that I won’t bother writing up the recipe but it seems that we’ve actually only made it once and I couldn’t remember the recipe when it came to posting.
We had a change of plan on Sunday and had to make do with what we could find in the kitchen, there wasn’t much to work with but this doesn’t require many ingredients so we were in luck. Stephen did the majority of it since I wasn’t feeling very well but I think I’ve got the recipe right, I’m a bit sketchy on the detail but this is a very forgiving dish: you can use any kind of beans, lots of different herbs, wine instead of sherry, pancetta instead of chorizo.
Chorizo and Cannelini Beans
Olive oil
4 small chorizo sausages, sliced
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Herbs – we used thyme and parsley but most combinations will work well
Bay leaf
Tbs paprika
Tbs tomato puree
Glass of sherry
1 tin tomatoes
cannelini beans – enough for two
Salt and pepper
Parsley, chopped
Start by browning the chorizo and removing to a plate.
In the same pan, add a little more oil and cook the onions gently until soft. Add the garlic a couple of minutes before the onions are cooked.
Next, add the herbs, the bay leaf and the paprika and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the tomato puree and cook for another couple of minutes.
Deglaze with the sherry and allow this to bubble for a minute or two. Add the chorizo back to the pan, followed by all the other ingredients and cook for 2.5 hours, or until the beans are cooked to your liking.
Season and stir through some chopped parsley.
We ate this with bread but there was loads leftover so we had it on Monday too, with rice that time.
Barbecued Octopus, also Halloumi and Lamb Chops
Last week we received a copy of Jamie Oliver’s new book “Jamie Does…” in the post and started having a browse through it. He covers a number of different countries in it, all of which are within easy short-haul flying distance from the UK – a mixture of the usual culinary suspects and a couple of surprises – Spain, Italy, France, Morocco, Greece and Sweden.
We immediately went for those that we felt we had explored less in the kitchen – Greece and Sweden. When we saw the Barbecued Octopus recipe in the Greek section though, the search ended pretty much immediately. We were determined this year to have an earlier first barbecue than we did last year and were also keen to try octopus again. We bought a rather large octopus from a local fishmonger and it was more expensive than the ones that we bought last time, but it was already cleaned, which was a bonus.
The recipe involved stewing the octopus for 45 minutes in a mixture of wine, tomatoes, anchovies, lemon zest, herbs (mint, oregano and parsely) and white wine before chopping it up and barbecuing it. The recipe says to mix some honey into some of the stewing liquid and use a thyme sprig to brush it onto the octopus while it is on the barbecue. This sounded a bit fanciful, but we gave it a go. Hard to tell if that technique added anything to it, but the octopus was really good when finished, with the slightly crispy, smoky outside (particularly the suckers!) complementing the meaty, white flesh of the tentacles. It reminded me a lot of pulpo a la gallego, the perrenial tapas favourite. That will be on our list to cook next time we have octopus, I’m sure.
In keeping with the Greek theme, we also barbecued some halloumi (a little overdone in places as you can see in the picture) and some lamb chops which we marinated in olive oil, garlic, lemon and oregano (and then topped with a thyme twig for some reason… we had some lying around).
Not bad for a first barbecue of the “summer”!
The Ultimate Chilli Con Carne – Take Two
I should probably start by saying that this wasn’t an attempt to create something authentically Mexican (indeed, many would argue that no such dish exists in Mexican cooking) but more a convenient way of turning some cheap beef skirt I found in Waitrose on Easter Monday into something interesting.
It was also a good opportunity to fine-tune our Ultimate Chilli Con Carne either. We’ve been playing around with this recipe for a while and while I think we’ve got it just how we like it, some things I’ve read online recently prompted me to try some different methods this time. Most notably they were the addition of a charred, green pepper, some sweet paprika alongside the smoked we already used, some oregano, beer instead of red wine and a green chilli as well as the usual red. I also increased the amount of cinammon, since I’d noted in my last attempt that there was a lack of sweetness.
Of course, with so many changes and additions, it wasn’t going to be easy to work out exactly what had improved/declined but I didn’t have the patience to cook several batches. I’d foolishly only bought 500g of beef too which, given it had been reduced to £1.49 was a huge oversight on my part.
What I was hoping for was a fully-flavoured dish with varying levels of flavour which I aimed to create by intensely browning the seasoned meat, roasting the garlic, chillies and pepper, toasting the spices and caramelising the tomato puree. Seasoning as I went along too. I wanted it to be hot but not so hot that the spices did’t come through. I wanted a sweet note in there too, hence the caramelisation of the tomato puree and the increase in the cinammon. I also knew I needed to cook the whole thing for a long time so that the beef skirt was tender.
And that’s pretty much what I ended up with. I think I overdid the paprika and I definitely added too much cocoa powder at the end but otherwise this was a well-rounded, deeply flavoured dish with just the right layers of flavour I was looking for.
The recipe looks very long but a lot of it happens at the same time and it’s mostly the spice mix that takes the time. You could obviously substitute the beef skirt for minced beef if you can’t get it or just use beans, the cooking times would need to be reduced if you did that though.
Chilli Con Carne
Serves Four
4 tbsp olive oil
1 large green chilli, roasted, deseeded and pulped
1 red chilli, roasted, deseeded and pulped
4 garlic cloves, roasted and then pulped
1 green pepper, charred and then finely chopped
Spice Mix
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
5 black peppercorns
1 clove
1 tsp chipotle chilli powder
1.5 tsps ground cinnamon
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tbsp tomato purée
500g red kidney beans
Flour (for browning)
Salt and pepper
500g beef skirt, diced
1 large onion, finely chopped
Bay leaf
250ml dark beer
600ml beef stock (plus more boiling water as the sauce cooks, if required)
400g tin chopped tomatoes
Worcestershire sauce (about a tablsepoon)
1 tsp cocoa powder
To Serve
Juice of half a lime
Handful of chopped coriander
Roast the chilli and garlic in the over for about 20 minutes, on 190 degrees, before leaving them to cool down. Remove the seeds from the chilli and squash together with the garlic.
Blacken the pepper on top of the hob (if you have a gas hob, otherwise roast in the oven) and then transfer to a plastic bag to steam for a few minutes. Remove from the bag, skin, deseed and then chop finely.
At the same time, toast the coriander and cumin in a frying pan on a low heat, for about 10 minutes. Once cooled, grind them up with some black pepper and a clove and transfer to a bowl, add the other powdered spices.
While both these things are happening, cook the beans (soaked overnight) for 20 minutes, rinse and put aside until later on.
In a large pan, brown the seasoned meat and remove to a plate. This took about 20 minutes. In the same pan, add some more oil and soften the onions for about five to 10 minutes. Then add the pulped garlic and chilli, the bay leaf and the diced pepper and cook for another five minutes.
Add the powdered spices and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the tomato puree and cook for two minutes. Return the meat to the pan and combine with the spice paste. Deglaze with the beer, then follow with the stock, tomatoes, a dash of Worcestershire sauce and more seasoning. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 1.5 hours, checking there is enough water as you go along.
After 1.5 hours, add the beans and cook for a further 1.5 hours. Just before the end of the cooking time, add the cocoa powder and cook for another five minutes. Serve with a squeeze of lime and a handful of chopped coriander stirred through (if you’re making this the day before then add the lime juice and coriander just before serving)
Stir Fried Chicken with Szechuan Pepper
We planned a quick dinner this evening of stir fried chicken and bought most of the ingredients yesterday. We weren’t quite sure on an exact recipe, which was left up to me as I arrived home first and started slicing things. I sliced an orange pepper, half an onion, some baby corn and a large chicken breast, then finely chopped a garlic clove and grated half an inch or so of ginger.
I decided that as I was still waiting for Kerri to arrive, I might as well marinate the chicken to give it a little more flavour. So into a bowl it went along with some soy sauce and Chinese cooking wine. As I started grinding some black pepper into the marinade, I realised that what we needed was actually Szechuan pepper instead! We had some but had never used it, so now was the perfect opportunity. I didn’t know how much to put in, so added a teaspoon or so of it. I had a look at the side of the spice bottle and it recommended making a marinate of soy sauce, dry sherry and Szechuan pepper, so my impromptu marinade was pretty much spot on.
I’ve never looked very closely at Szechuan pepper before and I expected them to look similar to black or white peppercorns, but actually they are the shell of a little fruit / seed rather than the seed itself – the inside is thrown away. Lots of information about them in the usual place.
We stir fried the various ingredients, adding the marinade to the wok after a few minutes of frying, along with a little more soy sauce and Chinese cooking wine and just a dash of chicken stock before adding some rice noodles and turning the heat down to allow the noodles to heat through.
While I am sure that I have ordered dishes that claim to contain Szechuan pepper, I have never really noticed them to stand out. Which probably means that the dishes that I ordered didn’t contain enough. And that is also the impression that I get from most restaurant reviews that mention them – most of them will say something like “this dish should be spicy and mouth-numbing from the Szechuan pepper but sadly isn’t”. For those that haven’t tried them, they are an interesting experience because they certainly are mouth-numbing. They have a flavour somewhat reminiscent of spicy dried citrus peel and contain a compound which numbs the tongue and gives a strange sensation in the mouth completely separate from the spiciness.
All very interesting and surprising for a first memorable Szechuan pepper experience, considering that I am sure I have eaten it several times before but not really noticed the effects very strongly. Next time we’ll look up a proper Szechuan recipe rather than just cobbling one together.
Slow Roast Shoulder of Lamb
Easter equals lamb, just like Christmas always used to equal turkey until everyone realised it was tasteless and quite difficult to cook it evenly without drying the whole thing out. Of course, lamb can dry out too but not if you cook it this way. Well, it might do if you left it too long but after four hours of tormeting yourself with the smell of garlicky, rosemary lamb then I’m pretty certain you won’t be able to wait much longer.
We first cooked this in February 2008 and have cooked it several times since (five, according to the archives), always with the same brilliant result. It’s the most popular of any dish that’s appeared on Dinner Diary (generating 52 comments, fact fans) and every time we cook it, I marvel at how something with so few ingredients can taste so good.
It’s popular with my mum too and since we were cooking lunch for her on Sunday, it was the obvious choice. The other great thing about this is that there isn’t any arguing over whether to cook it pink (our preference) or well-done (my mum’s preference) so it works well if you’re cooking for people with different tastes and don’t want to make more than one dish.
We actually had this last Easter and cooked it with some butterbeans. The combination was good but the beans became quite oily so this year we cooked them separately which worked much better. They were very similar to these beans but with garlic and rosemary instead of mustard.
The best post to look at for the lamb recipe is this one. You could go directly to Jamie Oliver’s site since it’s actually his recipe but of course I would much rather you stayed here.
Garlic and Rosemary Cannellini Beans
Serves Four
Butter
Oil
3 leeks, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 sprigs rosemary, chopped
2 tins cannellini beans, drained and rinsed*
Salt and pepper
Soften the leeks in a little butter and oil, before adding the garlic and rosemary and cooking for a few minutes.
Add the beans, stir to combine and cook for five minutes. Season, add a good measure of oil and serve.
*I usually use dried beans that have been cooked first but wanted to try tinned beans since last time the beans cooked somewhat unevenly. I did find that the tinned beans cooked more evenly but there was something about them that I didn’t like, a slightly plasticky taste perhaps.
Steak with Chimichurri Sauce
Steak. The one thing guaranteed to smoke out the entire flat and really test the batteries in the smoke alarm. Even with all the windows and doors open, the smell lingers for what seems like days and the entire kitchen becomes covered in grease.
It’s a good job we knew these were going to be good (they’re from Allen’s, the two we cut off the huge sirloin) otherwise they would have stayed into the freezer until barbecue season which, given this weekend’s weather, seems a fair way off.
Simply seasoned on both sides just before they went into the griddle pan and served with a chimichurri sauce, some oven chips and a traditional Argentinian salad: lettuce and tomato. There are many variations on this sauce, we just used an amalgamation based on what he had in the fridge.
Chimichurri Sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons mint, chopped
1/2 clove garlic, crushed
1 shallot, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Blend ingredients together, refrigerate for around two hours before serving.
Herbed Lamb Chops with Lentils
Lamb chops, marinated in oil, lemon juice, garlic and sumac. Served with yoghurty lentils. A friend alerted me to the lentil recipe saying they were the best lentils he’d ever eaten. I’m not so sure, there’s something about the earthiness of puy lentils that doesn’t work with dairy for me. The herbs worked very well with the sumac though and I think the lentils would have been great with just some oil.
Drunken Bean Wraps
We’ve cooked this before using tequila but when I saw Jen’s recipe using dark beer, I was interested to see what the difference was.
Knowing I would be home late from work tonight, Stephen and I cooked the beans yesterday with the intention of making the wraps when we got home and turning the whole lot into quesadillas. However, I wasn’t expecting to be home as late as 8pm and just couldn’t be bothered so intead we ate the beans on their own with some quickly made corn wraps.
Luckily, this worked out really well and we didn’t miss the extra frying required for quesadillas. It’s hard to know exactly how much of an impact the dark beer had without tasting the beans alongside a version made with tequila but we definitely noticed the addition of pickled chillies, something we didn’t use previously. When I tasted the beans last night, the chillies were almost over-powering in their brine-iness but they mellowed overnight to add a background warmth with no hint of vinegar.
The only other change I made was to add lots of freshly chopped corainder just before serving as we both enjoy the fragrant lift this gives to bean dishes.
Jen commented in her post that her husband had no idea this was a meat-free dish and I think it would have taken me a while to work it out if I hadn’t known, the paprika adds a real roundness that is (obviously) reminiscent of chorizo. It certainly smelt like there was chorizo in there and while it would have added something in the way of texture, so much of the flavour is lost in long cooking that I really think it’s worth leaving it out of this dish. Hang on, a dish just as good without meat? Surely not! That’s got to be a Dinner Diary first 🙂
Macaroni Cheese
Unusually for us, we were out on both Friday and Saturday night this weekend which didn’t leave much time for weekend cooking. We had planned on cooking beef brisket today but a surfeit of cheese meant we opted for macaroni cheese instead.
I’ve only eaten it once before and was a bit underwhelmed but had high hopes for today’s dish since we had some really good cheese to add to the sauce: Stinking Bishop and Coolea. The sauce was indeed delicious but unfortunately, in my quest for a crunchy topping, I over-cooked the macaroni which meant the pasta was rather dried out. I should have put the whole thing under the grill to brown on top rather than leaving it in the oven.
We didn’t follow a recipe for this but cooked the macaroni as per the instructions on the packet and made up a white sauce at the same time. The cheese was stirred through the pasta, along with some oregano and then put into a dish with some more grated Cheddar on top and cooked for far too long.
Roasted Salmon with Herbed Lentils
The paste that Stephen made up on Sunday to go with our roasted chicken worked really well and I started wondering what else I could use it with. I didn’t get much further than lamb but a craving for salmon today had me wondering whether it would work with that too. While the paste is pretty robust, I thought I’d be OK with the stronger tasting wild salmon and, as luck would have it, Waitrose had two pieces left.
I initially thought about serving the salmon with new potatoes but it doesn’i seem warm enough for those yet; puy lentils (with more of the paste stirred through) matched the salmon in earthiness while lemon juice and red-wine vinegar provided the balance.
It worked out well, not that you would know that from the picture. Definitely a case of substance over style.
This doesn’t really require a recipe but here’s what I did:
Make up the paste by blending plenty of parsley, mint and coriander together with some garlic, oil and lemon zest. Set half aside and use the other half to spread over the salmon. Bake until just cooked through.
Take the other half of the paste and let it down with some more olive oil, lemon juice and a splash of red-wine vinegar. Stir this through the hot lentils and leave to cool.
