Pork Cheeks, Butter Beans and Chorizo
On a recent visit to Waitrose, Kerri bought seven pork cheeks for the rather reasonable sum of just £1.67. We had been talking about cooking them for a while, and this seemed too good (and cheap) an opportunity to pass up. Something slow cooked seemed to be the way to go, and we fancied something Spanish in style so added a little chopped up chorizo and handful of butter beans. Good old fashioned hearty fare for a rainy February day.
The pork cheeks cooked down and were really soft and tender, breaking up easily with just a fork. Perhaps we should have kept the cheeks whole actually, it would have made for more interesting presentation.
We made the recipe up as we went along, but it went something like this:
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
3 or 4 celery stalks, finely chopped
2 small onions, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 bay leaves
100g chorizo, chopped
1 tsp paprika (optional)
7 pig cheeks, cut into 2 or 3 pieces each
250g dried butter beans
1 litre (or so) of chicken stock
250ml red wine
1tsp dried thyme (or preferably fresh thyme if you have it, which we didn’t)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
small bunch parsley, chopped
Heat up a little oil in a casserole or heavy saucepan and then fry the chorizo until the red oil starts to appear. Add the onion, celery, carrot and garlic and fry for a while until softened. Remove to a plate. Add a little more oil to the casserole, season the cheek pieces with salt and pepper and then brown them. When done, add the vegetables and chorizo back into the casserole with the cheeks, stir and turn down the heat.
Add the bay leaves and then the wine. Let the wine bubble away for a little while to evaporate the alcohol and then add the tomatoes, beans and thyme. You could add paprika too but we forgot. Add enough stock to just cover them, bring to the boil, cover with a lid and let simmer for about 3 hours. Remember to stir every half an hour or so to ensure that the beans cook consistently. Before serving, season with salt and pepper if needed and add a little chopped parsley. Enjoy!
Chillied Tortilla Soup and Chilli-Seasoned Pot Roasted Pork
So, to go with the tortillas we made earlier, we decided on a soup to start and something to fill them later. We had originally considered three courses all using tortillas but that seemed a little much when it actually came down to it.
We actually started with some pork scratchings and guacamole, inspired by Stephen’s recent visit to Wahaca. These were brilliant, both dishes are brilliant in their own right but together they become even better. Can you see how Stephen is trying to outdo my Valentine’s pie effort with his pink Champagne and roses? At least I was subtle.
Next was the soup which used some of the tortillas but required them to be fried before adding to the final dish. This was very light in texture, more of a broth really, but had a deep, chilli flavour to it. The fried tortillas worked like croutons and were great in both their crunchy state and later on when they had softened and soaked up some of the soup’s flavour.
And then the main course. We considered various options before settling on the pot roasted pork that we’ve actually cooked before. This was as good as last time but we were both very full by the time we got to this course. There’s lots leftover which we’ve frozen for now but will be great when we need something quick from the freezer. There are some pickled red onions here too which added a really good contrast to the deep and earthy pork and would work well with lots of Mexican dishes.
Chillied Tortilla Soup
Serves Two
2 to 3 corn tortillas, preferably stale
1/6 cup plus 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
2-4 dried pasilla chillies, stemmed and seeded
1 garlic clove, unpeeled
1 medium ripe tomato
1 small white onion, sliced
3 cups chicken stock
Salt
1 cup cheese
1/2 lime (we forgot this)
2 cups chard (we used spring greens)
Slice the tortillas into strips and deep fry them until crispy.
Cut chillies into 1 inch squares and fry briefly for 3-4 seconds. Place half the chillies in a bowl and cover with hot water, leave for 30 minutes. Drain and discard the water. Set aside the remaining fried chillies.
Roast the garlic in a frying pan for about 15 minutes, or until blackened in places.
Roast the tomato under a hot grill until baleckened, turn over and roast the other side. About 10 minutes total.
Heat the remaining oil and fry onion until brown.
Place the rehydrated chillies, the tomato, the garlic and a third of the stock into a blender and blitz to a paste.
Raise the temperature of the onions, add the paste and fry until the paste darkens. Add the remaining stock, simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season with salt if necessary.
Add the greens and cook through. Assemble and serve.
Pickled Red Onions
1 cup
1 small red onion, peeled and sliced
1/4 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/4 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cider vinegar
Blanch the onion slices in boiling salted water for 45 seconds, drain and place in a bowl.
Gring the peppercorns and cumin and add to the onions. Add the remaining ingredients and enough water to just cover. Stir and leave for several hours until the water turns bright pink.
Homemade Tortillas
It’s been a while since we had a weekend at home without any plans. Since before Christmas in fact. My favourite way to spend a Saturday is to eat breakfast in bed while watching Saturday Kitchen, followed by an afternoon in the kitchen which is exactly what we did today.
Since we had plenty of time today, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to christen our new tortilla press, bought for us by Stephen’s mum at Borough Market last weekend. This has been on our wishlist since we started experimenting with Mexican food last year and it’s very easy to use: simply mix together 250g of the tortilla flour (also bought at Borough Market, via coolchile) with 330ml of warm water and leave for 15 minutes before forming into small balls – we got 13 from that amount.
Cover both sides of the press in cling-film, place the dough ball in the middle and apply some pressure until a tortilla-shaped circle is formed.
Fry in a hot, dry frying pan for 15 seconds, turn over and fry for 30 seconds, turn again and heat until the tortilla puffs. Repeat 13 times. Then put the battery back into your smoke alarm.
These turned out really well, slightly too thick perhaps but with a good, corny flavour. I’m sure you could make perfectly adequate tortillas without a press but this way is much more fun. And just look at the pretty colour.
We cooked a batch of these today to use for tonight’s dinner. We might actually need to make some more since completing an exhaustive taste test this afternoon.
Success with Soup!
I can make soup! So long as I follow the recipe and don’t omit high-calorie ingredients like cream or mascarpone then a soup-shaped future is within my grasp.
This is a Jamie Oliver recipe, from Return of the Naked Chef. Old skool.
Potato and Jerusalem Artichoke Soup with Thyme, Mascarpone and Hazelnuts (he’s concise isn’t he?)
Serves 4 – 6
2 knobs of butter
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 onion, chopped
455g Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and chopped (I didn’t bother to peel them)
225g potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 good handful thyme leaves
1.1 litre chicken stock
155g mascarpone cheese
salt and pepper
200g hazelnuts, toasted
In a large pan, melt the butter and slowly fry the garlic, onion, artichokes, potatoes and thyme (Jamie doesn’t say for how long but I did this for about 15 minutes).
Add the stock, bring to the boil and then simmer for about 30 minutes. Puree, add the mascarpone, season and serve with the toasted hazelnuts.
Roast Chicken with Potato and Celeriac Rosti
Stephen’s mum was here for dinner last night and since it was the last evening before she returned home to South Africa, we opted for a traditional roast chicken. I was a bit disorientated while cooking though (due to yet another visit to the dentist) and forgot about the roast potatoes. I’d been thinking about potato and celeriac rosti for a while though and since I had both ingredients, decided to do that instead.
We’ve had intermittent success with rosti in the past and I almost gave up this time when the potato became almost liquid in consistency, this was largely due to the fact that the only grater in the house is a Microplane that I bought to replace our cheap, dangerous metal effort that’s supposed to be suitable for cheese (and therefore potato I assumed) but is actually only any good for very fine Parmesan. Knowing I couldn’t serve my future MIL just chicken and parsnips though, I persevered. I managed to squeeze a lot of water out of the potato which boosted my confidence and the celeriac behaved a lot better.
By the time I’d combined the two together (quite a long time after I’d started, note to self: buy a bigger grater), Stephen was home and he shaped the mixture into rosti-like patties and began to fry them. This was the second mistake: the patties were too big which meant the ratio of crunchy outsides to soft insides was skew.
We fried the rosti until they were browned on both sides and then finished the cooking in the oven, a technique I think would work well if your mixture wasn’t hideously glutinous to begin with. Since ours were, the insides ended up resembling wallpaper paste in both texture and colour. So, quite a large failure really. And I burnt the parsnips. The chicken was good though.
Pheasant Pie
I’m not sure I should be admitting to this (since I lambast my poor mother every time I go home and find long forgotten ingredients at the top of her cavernous cupboards that are so out of date the packaging looks like it belongs in a brand museum) but I’ve had a roll of filo pastry in the freezer since last January. It was one of those items reduced after Christmas and one I thought would be handy to have on hand should I ever need it. When one ever really needs filo pastry I’m not sure but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Over a year later and with it taunting me every time I open the (miniscule and over-stuffed) freezer, I decided to seize the day and put it to good use alongside the leftovers of Saturday’s pheasant casserole.
As I mentioned in the previous post, the casserole itself could have done with a little more cooking so I heated it on the hob for about half an hour before adding a teaspoon of cornflour to thicken the sauce. Spooned into a pie dish and topped with the buttered pastry sheets, it went into the oven for about half an hour.
Since we missed Valentine’s Day yesterday, I attempted to fashion a heart out of the pastry for the middle of the pie. That worked brilliantly, as you can see and is obviously instantly recognisable as a love-token. I’m not sure how Stephen missed it actually.
Pheasant Casserole
Stephen spent the day touring London with his visiting mother on Saturday but, with food never very far from his mind, he conveniently scheduled a trip to Borough Market for the way home. We had briefly discussed what to eat but hadn’t made any firm plans so rifling through the bags when he returned home was a little like being on Ready, Steady, Cook (one of my teenage dreams: I applied many times but never made it).
Although I’m sure Ainsley never had this problem, I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the contents at first but the mysterious looking ingredients turned out to be pheasants and red kale, along with potatoes, celeriac, swede, onions and bacon. Pheasant casserole with celeriac and potato mash and red kale then? Yep.
We followed a fairly standard casserole recipe that doesn’t really need repeating (although you can look here if you want to see how we usually do things) and then left the dish to cook until we couldn’t wait any longer. It could have done with a little more cooking though really, the meat was obviously cooked through (I really didn’t want to poison my future mother-in-law) but the vegetables were only just tender and the flavours hadn’t really deepened as much as they could have.
Despite those minor quibbles, this is probably the most success we’ve had with game birds recently; the meat on the bone stayed very tender and the breasts were just a little dry, an altogether better effort than this anyway.
Indian Style Potatoes with Hot Smoked Salmon
With rather a lot of leftover potatoes we weren’t entirely sure how to use them up. We briefly discussed lamb chops as an accompaniment but when I got to work I noticed some half-price hot smoked salmon and, never being able to resist a bargain, I brought that home. I’d intended to use it in some kind of salad and palm the potatoes off on Stephen for lunch but he suggested we just pair it with the potatoes we already had, reasoning that the sweet, smoky salmon would work well with the spicy potatoes. I wasn’t so sure, worried that there would be too much going on. Stephen was right though. It was definitely a robust dish that may not be to everyone’s tastes but we liked it. Very quick and easy too.
Indian Style Butternut Squash with Dry Potatoes
After vowing last week to make more regular updates, I’ve slipped again and this is almost a week old. Sorry, this week things will definitely be back to normal.
We’d had a butternut squash hanging around the kitchen for a while that really needed to be used so Stephen came up with this recipe for it, which is a lot like sag aloo but with squash instead of potatoes. I like butternut but I prefer to eat it in spicy dishes so the sweetness is masked by other flavours a little. Luckily, Stephen was aware of that (not so much luck as me repeating it over and over I suspect) and kept it in mind while cooking this dish.
The potatoes were also used in an effort to rid the kitchen of leftover food and worked very well. Don’t let the relatively small amount of cayenne pepper fool you, these were fiercely spicy but a perfect match for the warm, sweet butternut.
Dry Potatoes with Ginger and Garlic
Serves Four to Five (we halved this)
625g potatoes
Ginger, 5×2.5, peeled and coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled
3 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
Boil the potatoes, leave to cool and then chop into 2-2/5cm dice.
Put the ginger, garlic, water, turmeric, salt and cayenne pepper into a blender and blend to a paste.
Put the oil into a large frying pan and set over a medium heat. When hot, add the fennel seeds ans let them sizzle for a few seconds. Add the paste and cook for two minutes.
Add the potatoes and fry for 6-7 minutes or until the potatoes have a golden-brown crust.
Mexican Bean Wraps
Another dinner cooked by Stephen. I’m not sure exactly what he did but we cooked the beans last night and then today he added them to some onion, chilli and garlic and re-fried them. Served with guacamole and some smoked cheese inside corn tortillas.
