Frijoles with Chorizo
I had a plan for tonight’s dinner, an idea that’s been bubbling away in the back of my mind for a while waiting until I had some spare time to experiment in the kitchen. This wasn’t it. Stephen still isn’t feeling well and requested a plain, baked potato for dinner. I thought about going ahead with my plan anyway but decided to save it for when he’s feeling better and join him in the baked potato. I didn’t want mine plain though so made up a batch of beans to go with it and some to squirrel away in the freezer for use at a later date.
This isn’t really my recipe and is based on the Mexican bean dish we often cook from the strange little Mexican book neither of us know the origin of. There’s a lot of timer-setting and toing-and-froing to the kitchen with that recipe though so I simplified it today and found little, if any, difference to the original.
These beans are looser than I would normally cook them, I cooked them that way because I knew I’d be eating them with a potato. I would reduce the water if these were accompanying something wet or being used in wraps.
Mexican Beans
Serves six to eight (as a side dish)
350g beans
Water (it’s really hard to say how much, I added a couple of pints to begin with and kept topping the levels up as they cooked)
8 small chorizo sausages, sliced
2 onions, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 red chillies, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp paprika
2 tsps oregano
4 tomatoes, chopped
Add the beans to a large pot and cover with plenty of water. Add half the onion and half the garlic, all the chilli and the bay leaves and bring to the boil. Boil hard for 10 minutes then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook the beans for 1.5 hours or until they are cooked (remember to keep an eye on the water level and top up the water if necessary, by the time they are cooked through you want there to be very little liquid remaining which can mean adding water a little at a time). Season with salt and then turn off the heat.
In a frying pan, fry the remaining onion and garlic in some oil until soft. Add the paprika and oregano and stir to incorporate. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook for another couple of minutes.
Take three tablespoons of the beans and add to the frying pan with the onions, garlic, etc. Mash the beans to a paste and then transfer the contents of the frying pan to the reserved beans. Stir, heat through if necessary and then serve.
If using chorizo, brown and remove from the frying pan before cooking the onions and then return to the beans with the contents of the frying pan.
Spaghetti with Anchovies
Due to a shopping mixup a couple of weeks ago, we are now overrun with pasta. Not a bad position to be in if you love pasta (which I do) but not so great if only one of you is eating it (Stephen is currently experimenting with a wheat-free diet). Stephen still wasn’t feeling very well tonight though so, since it was only me eating, it was the perfect opportunity to free up some cupboard space and start working my way through the pasta mountain.
I saw this recipe in Diana Henry’s “Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons” a couple of weeks ago and put it on the menu for that week but, as happens often, it got bumped in favour of something else. It’s not been too far from my thoughts though and was perfect for tonight since I didn’t have time to do any shopping on the way home and I knew I had all the ingredients for this already.
It was quick and easy, save for a mishap with the hob which resulted in the kitchen becoming covered in fishy oil leading to an intensive cleanup operation afterwards. Not quite part of the plan for a speedy dinner but not the fault of the recipe.
The end dish wasn’t really what I was expecting although it’s hard to remember now what I had in mind when I thought about the flavours. The characteristic strong, fishy flavour that anchovies are known for had cooked out even with the relatively short cooking time, possibly due to the pre-soaking in milk, and what was left was much more delicate but still identifiable as anchovy. The classic combination of garlic and chilli complimented the saltiness of the fish and created a deep, round flavour but there wasn’t much in the way of sauce and the breadcrumbs dried the whole thing out very quickly. I’d skip those next time, even though the crunch was pleasing to begin with.
Spaghetti with Anchovies
Serves Two (although I only made one portion, I’ve scaled it up here)
8 anchovies
Milk
1 garlic clove
1/2 chopped chilli
Handful chopped parsley
Fried breadcrumbs
Start by soaking the anchovies in a little milk for 15 minutes.
In a frying pan, gently heat some olive oil, add the garlic and leave it until it has browned. Remove and discard the garlic but retain the oil (although I think a little crushed garlic, left in the pan would be good).
Add the chilli and anchovies and cook until the chillies just start to brown. I added a little water at this point to loosen everything.
Add the chopped parsley, stir into the pasta and top with the fried breadcrumbs (or leave them out).
Leftover Roast Chicken
Knowing we would have leftovers from yesterday’s roast chicken, I planned this in advance, based on something we ate last year.
Stephen isn’t feeling very well this evening so, since it was just me eating, the temptation to eat something quick and easy was strong. Not wanting to waste the best part of half a chicken, I did the right thing and went ahead with my plan, making a few shortcuts along the way.
Instead of making up a “proper” salsa verde, I just chopped up some mint and parsley, threw that on top of the hot potatoes and asparagus and added some capers (which you can’t see in the picture but were definitely there) and olive oil. While most of the typical salsa verde flavours were there, the dish didn’t come together as well as it would have had all the seasonings been blended together. For the sake of an extra few minutes, it’s definitely worth getting the blender out and doing this properly. It was far from ruined though and much better than the alternative chicken sandwich would have been.
Some lettuce and spring onion would have been a good addition here, as would the pistachio nuts we used last year.
Roast Chicken
While staying with my mum, I remembered that last time I had visited, I froze a roast chicken. I can’t remember why, I suspect we just made other plans for lunch but, knowing it was there, I decided I would roast it on Friday night. I defrosted it slowly overnight but, when it came to cooking it, it smelt bad and I had to throw it out. Luckily, my mum’s freezer is ridiculously over-sized and I managed to unearth enough sausages to feed the proverbial army so I cooked those instead.
The roast chicken craving was firmly in place though so as soon as Stephen and I got back to London, he went off in search of a good-smelling chicken for Sunday lunch.
There wasn’t anything particularly special about the chicken, we didn’t season it with anything particularly exciting or employ any wildly different cooking techniques but, having waited two whole days, it was exactly what I wanted and therefore perfect.
PS From Stephen: Strangely enough, we put some sage leaves under the skin as we have loads of sage growing in the garden and then Kerri realised that about this time last year we had done exactly the same thing!
East Quay – Whitstable
A bit of a backlog of posts, since I’ve been staying in Kent with my mum. Stephen came down for the weekend and, since it wasn’t raining, we drove down to Whitstable for the day.
We decided to have lunch at a place Stephen and I first ate at years, ago: East Quay, which is slightly further away from the centre of town but no less quiet. Despite it not yet being anywhere near peak season, the large dining area was almost full by the time we had finished our early lunch and headed off to check out the cheese shop.
As it wasn’t that long since we had finished breakfast, we shared a small plate of fruit de mer before our fish and chips. The small selection was all very good but the local oysters were, as ever, the star of the show. We saw them being delivered and unpacked into the open-plan kitchen area as we arrived and the freshness was obvious. The rest of the plate was all very good but I think we all would have been happy with a big dish of oysters.
Mum and I went for the cod and chips while Stephen opted for the fish of the day which was whiting. It was very good but incredibly bony and it took him a fair amount longer to finish than it did Mum and I. I was slightly disappointed with the choice of fries instead of proper chips but these were pretty good, the lack of bread and butter was a complete oversight on my part and despite not being able to finish my large plate, I would still have liked those extra carbs. You can’t have fish and chips with bread and butter can you?
Thakkali Payaru – Black-eyed Beans with Spinach and Tomato
At work a few days ago, I got into an in-depth discussion about black-eyed beans in Indian dishes. The discussion triggered last night’s dinner, but a colleague at work also presented me one morning with a photocopy of a recipe that he said was brilliant, one of his favourites.
We considered making it but didn’t have the curry leaves which are listed as an ingredient. Today though, the same colleague brought me some curry leaves that he had very kindly bought me from a supermarket near his house. So of course the next thing to do was to follow the recipe! Kerri was out this evening so I ended up making it for myself, rather selfishly.
The recipe was surprisingly quick to make once the onion, garlic and tomatoes had been chopped – just 15 minutes or so. It smelled really good while it was cooking and the tasting samples along the way were really good too. At the end yoghurt is added, which I felt diluted some of the flavours, and also made it look rather less attractive than it had previously. If I hadn’t double-checked the quantities I would have thought I had put in more yoghurt than I was meant to, but I did check and it was correct. If I make it again I’ll put in less yoghurt, or maybe just more of everything else.
I have plenty left over for lunch tomorrow though, which is good!
Ingredients
vegetable oil
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
10 curry leaves
100g chopped onion
2 green chillies, slit lengthways
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 ground turmeric
200g tomatoes, cut into small pieces
50g spinach, chopped
100g cooked or canned black-eyed beans
salt
300g plain yoghurt
Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the mustard seeds. When they start to pop, add the garlic, curry leaves and onion. Cook over a moderate heat for 5 minutes or until the onion is soft.
Add the green chillies, chilli powder, coriander and turmeric. Mix well, then add the tomato pieces. Give a nice stir, then add the spinach. Cook over a low heat for 5 minutes.
Now add the black eyed beans with salt to taste. Cook for a further 1 minute until everything is hot. Remove the pan from the heat and slowly add the yoghurt, stirring well. Serve warm with plain rice (as I did) or chappati.
Black Eyed Beans with Mushrooms
Knowing we would both be home late tonight, we cooked this on Sunday so that all we had to do was reheat it when we got home this evening. I wasn’t entirely convinced about this when Stephen suggested it but since I didn’t have an alternative suggestion, we decided to give it a go.
My main concern was whether the texture of the beans and mushrooms would work together. It wasn’t as bad as I imagined but I wasn’t completely sold, I think chopping the mushrooms smaller would have helped and we should have doubled up on the spices. This is a Madhur Jaffrey recipe and experience has shown that her seasoning is too mild for our tastes. And I know I always say it but this would definitely have been better as a side dish alongside a meat curry.
Chicken Tagine
We had originally planned to cook this Moroccan recipe from Jamie Oliver’s new “Jamie Does…” cookbook last week but the “marinate and refrigerate overnight” foiled us. The same thing nearly happened today but luckily we realised in time and, rather than eat this for lunch as planned, we ate it for dinner instead. Not quite an overnight marinade but a good few hours in the fridge. This cookbook of course accompanies the current television series and the Moroccan episode was one of our favourites, including more unfamiliar and exotic-seeming ingredients and dishes than the other (all European) countries.
I thought we had cooked tagine a few times but a look back through the archives shows just one attempt back in 2007, I didn’t include the recipe in the post and simply said it was good. Not particularly helpful nor interesting to read. I can’t include the recipe here either because this is a Jamie recipe and he doesn’t like it when you do that, it’s not online so you would have to buy the book if you really wanted this exact recipe. Or just pick one of the hundreds of chicken tagine (with olives and preserved lemons) recipes available online, most are pretty similar.
This version included fennel which I don’t like much. I’m trying to like it though so this was a good way to start. It didn’t include any dried fruit which I also don’t like in savoury dishes; that would have been too much to cope with alongside the fennel. The fennel though was surprisingly good; the long cooking softened the harsh, aniseedy flavours and it seemed to meld well with the preserved lemons, coriander and cumin to give a background warmth and deep flavour. The chicken fell off the bone and there was plenty of liquid too which was full of flavour.
And that concludes our weekend of intensive cooking. Having planned a lazy weekend, we ended up spending most of the time in the kitchen. We ate well though and are well prepared for the week ahead so it was time well spent.
Crab Toasts and Skate Wings with Clams
Our plans for dinner changed quite a few times, but eventually I found myself walking out of a fishmonger with one live crab, two skate wings and a dozen or so clams. Kerri had a plan to make crab on toast as a starter, which sounded good. For main course we decided just to cook the skate wings quite plainly and serve them with the clams scattered over them and use the clam cooking liquid as a sauce.
Obviously the first thing to consider was how to kill the crab. Reading a couple of books came up with this method which sounded reasonable and quite humane: Put the crab into the freezer for a couple of hours, which renders it comatose, then skewer it through the hole under its tail flap and again through its mouth and that kills it. Then cook it. Sounded fairly simple. I felt that we needed some video confirmation of this though, so had a quick search on the web but sadly youtube is full of video clips of people fighting with live, flailing crabs, trying not to get pinched by their claws while trying to kill them. Not what I was after and not what I particularly wanted to see either.
So we stuck with what the book described, said goodbye to our crab and placed it into the freezer. Two hours later, took it out and it was thankfully unconscious and had stopped moving. A quick couple of stabs with a skewer and it was dead. Then into a pot of salted water to boil for 12 minutes before removing it and letting it cool. If we do this again we’ll definitely film it and post it online as an example of how to do it because it was quite simple.
When the crab had cooled, we removed the shell, twisted off the legs and claws and started to extract the meat. The brown meat was quite easy to get out, but the white meat was another story, as anyone who has cooked a crab or ordered one in a restaurant will know. The body has many little cavities in it, so it needs to be cut apart and the meat extracted from each cavity carefully. Kerri set about the claws and legs with a mallet, cracking them and extracting the meat from them too, which worked rather well and she got pretty much all of it out.
We mashed the brown meat with some chilli powder and some lemon juice and spread that onto the toast slices, almost like pate. Then we mixed the white meat flakes with some chilli powder and lemon juice again and some good extra virgin olive oil and piled that on top of the brown meat. Delicious! The crab was obviously very fresh as it was alive when we bought it, and much cheaper to buy whole than ready prepared – it just comes down to spending quite a lot of time preparing it.
For the skate wings, we dusted them in seasoned flour and simply fried them in a mixture of oil and butter, adding a squeeze of lemon at the end. We cooked the clams as we would have cooked mussels to make moules mariniere, then used the cooking liquid as a sauce for the skate wings. This turned out really well – we had slightly overcooked the shallots for the sauce and caramelised them a bit, but the sweetness actually worked well.
Having ordered battered skate wings in a fish and chip shop once upon a time and found them really difficult to eat, I was worried that these would present a problem too, but they didn’t – we managed to cook them just right and the flesh flaked off the “wing” bones very easily. They were cheap too. We discussed trying them again soon with a caper sauce, which should go well.
Mexican Burgers
We’ve been eating sensibly and upping our gym attendance this week so felt like we deserved a treat on Friday night. We haven’t had burgers for a while and I wanted to play with the recipe, creating something spicy and different to the relatively plain beef burgers we usually eat.
I started off with a mixture of pork and beef mince which I intended to add some chilli and coriander to, then I remembered the chorizo in the freezer and decided to add that too. Some salt and pepper, a little extra paprika and some lime juice completed the ingredients.
My top tip when it comes to burgers is to fry a little of the mixture first, not only do you get something good to eat while you’re putting everything together but it also gives you the opportunity to adjust the seasoning if you need to. I definitely did this time and added some extra paprika and quite a lot more salt.
As we were using pork mince, we had to cook the burgers to well-done which did mean they were a little dryer than they would have been if we had only used beef mince. The chorizo added some brilliant little pockets of fatty, tasty good stuff though so this wasn’t too much of a problem.
Alongside the burgers we served some avocado topped with coriander, lime juice, chilli, tomatoes and red onion (which I’d soaked in lemon juice for a while to remove the bitterness). A lot like guacamole but not as good.
There was also a corn salsa which included more coriander, some spring onion and some lime juice. This was really good: the corn was sweet but still tasted like corn and the coriander, lime juice and spring onion added an extra zing to the whole thing.
I suppose I should point out that where I say “coriander”, what I actually mean is “parsley”. I bought coriander but when I got home I noticed half a large bunch in the fridge so decided to use that up first. Except it was parsley. And I didn’t realise until Stephen pointed it out halfway through eating. Coriander would have been better though so I’m going to add that to the recipe for next time.
Mexican Burgers
Serves Two
125g pork mince
125g beef mince
75g chorizo
Half a chopped, red chilli
Handful of chopped coriander
Salt and pepper
1.5 tsps paprika
Squeeze of lime juice
Combine all ingredients and shape into burgers. Don’t do this too far in advance of the cooking time because the salt will draw out all the moisture.
Fry for two minutes each side and then cook in the oven for 15 minutes on 180 degrees.
Corn Salsa
Serves Two
Two heads corn
Two spring onions, slices
Handful of chopped coriander
Salt
Squeeze of lime juice
Olive oil
Cook the corn for about six minutes, or until cooked through. Leave to cool.
Combine with the other ingredients and reserve until needed. This is best made a little way in advance so that the flavours have time to combine.
