Cheese
Stephen was out at his Christmas party this evening so while he traipsed around wet and windy West London on a treasure hunt, I wrote the Christmas cards while drinking wine and eating bread and cheese.
This isn’t my most favourite of all the jobs that need to be done before Christmas but the wine and cheese eased the pain. And I didn’t have to spend the evening in a silly hat either, I win!
Dehli-Style Lamb with Potatoes
Another day, another dinner. With nothing planned, I stared at the cookery books hoping for inspiration. I had a slight craving for Thai food but all the recipes that appealed required ingredients that we didn’t have and I didn’t fancy trekking across town in the snow to track them down.
Madhur Jaffrey’s ‘Indian Cooking’ has a mix of easy and more involved recipes so I reached for that and paged through until I happened across this. We haven’t had lamb for a while and although it meant a trip to the butcher, it was close enough to not worry about getting too cold and wet.
The original recipe was for six people, I halved the quantity of meat but left the spice quantities the same as the halved amounts didn’t seem enough for the amount of meat. I added half the amount of water as was originally stated in the recipe but this was far too much and the dish was still very watery when the hour cooking time was almost up. I had to boil it hard without the lid for about 20 minutes to reduce and thicken the sauce which resulted in slighter tougher meat than I would have liked. The overall flavour was good though with just the right amount of heat and fragrance to suit our palates.
Dehli-Style Lamb with Potatoes
Serves Two (generously)
Vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 green chilli, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 kg lamb shoulder, diced
1 tin tomatoes
1 tbs ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
225g potatoes, diced
450ml water (I would suggest 225ml or just enough to cover)
Heat the oil and then add the onions and cook until translucent, add the chilli and garlic and cook for a further minute.
Add the meat and cook for five minutes, turning frequently. Next add the spices and fry with the meat for a minute or so. Add the tomatoes and cook on a high heat for 10-15 minutes.
Now add the potatoes and water, cover leaving the lid slightly ajar and cook on a medium to low heat for about 1 hour or until the meat is tender and the sauce is thick.
Lentil and Bacon Soup
Like most people at this time of year, Stephen and I have been pretty busy and continue to be so until well into the new year. With not a lot of time to devote to thinking about food, inspiration deserts us and planning meals becomes more of a chore than a pleasure.
Today’s dinner was mostly put together from things we already had with just a little fresh cabbage thrown in at the end. Not particularly exciting and certainly not inventive but it warmed us up and left us feeling full.
This was a Delia recipe which I followed almost exactly, just adjusting the quantities slightly. I don’t have much luck with soup so thought it safest to stick to a recipe. While it was good just as it was, a little chilli would have worked too.
Mexican Feast
Last night, we had some friends over for a pre-Christmas get-together. We had originally planned to do traditional buffet-style food but a lack of time meant we opted for a throw-it-in-the-oven-and-leave-it-to-cook kind of dish instead. Since we’ve been cooking a lot of Mexican food lately, we took the opportunity to cook something more elaborate from Rick Bayless’ Mexican Kitchen book. There was a little bit of work to do initially (which saw Stephen dashing to Notting Hill mid-afternoon to pick up some special chillies) but once it was in the oven, we were free to get on with other things.
We started with two types of tortilla chips (one was a really good chilli flavour made by Poco Loco which can sometimes be found in corner shops but are quite hard to track down) and some guacamole. The planned chilli popcorn was shelved since one of our friends bought some of her brilliant spring-rolls. Not traditionally Mexican but very welcome nonetheless. Stephen also experimented with a Christmas Cumberland Cocktail which involved Prosecco and cranberries. We had planned to make margaritas too but the vast selection of wine meant we were distracted and forgot.
We then moved on to the pork shoulder which we served with some beans, rice, salad and radishes (as per Rick’s suggestion), the cooking liquid, more guacamole, some salsa, cheese and corn tortillas to wrap everything up in.
The pork was tender and fell apart easily when removed from the oven but didn’t seem to have taken on much of the chilli flavour, with just a background warmth instead of the punch I expected. It was well received though and there wasn’t a lot left which is always a good sign. There was plenty of rice though which we sent home with one of our friends to turn into fried-rice.
We finished with Nigella’s Margarita ice-cream which I made the previous day, along with a non-alcoholic version with oranges and limes taking the place of the tequila and Cointreau. This is similar to the bitter orange ice-cream we used to make a lot and is brilliant if you don’t have an ice-cream maker since it doesn’t require any churning. This wasn’t quite as successful as the orange version, the texture was different which may have been to do with the alcohol. It didn’t seem to matter too much by this point in the evening as we were really more interested in the wine that was left, as you can probably tell from the terrible picture below.
Chile Seasoned Pot-Roasted Pork
Serves Six
2 medium dried ancho chillies, stemmed and deseeded
4 medium dried guajillo chilles, stemmed and deseeded
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/2 small white onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 tsp mixed dried herbs
Pinch cloves
11/2 tbsps vegetable oil
1/2 tsp salt
2kg pork shoulder
Lettuce, to serve
Radishes, to serve
Rehydrate the chillies by steeping in boiling water for 30 minutes. Drain, reserving 2/3 cup of water, transfer chillies and reserved liquid to a blender.
Crush bay leaves in a mortar and pestle then add to the blender with the vinegar, onion, garlic, mixed herbs, cloves and allspice. Process to a smooth paste and then push through a fine sieve into a bowl.
Heat the vegetable oil in a heavy-bottomed pan, add the spice paste and fry for five minutes until dark in colour.
Heat the oven to 160 degrees, cut the pork into pieces that are roughly 3 inches thick and make 1 inch incisions all over the meat. Lay the meat on top of the paste and ensure that it is all well coated. Pour 1.2 cup of water around the meat and put the dish into the oven.
Baste the meat every 30 minutes. After 2.5 hours the meat should be tender and falling apart. If the liquid dries out at any point during the cooking time then top up with water.
Allow the meat to rest for 30 minutes before serving. We attempted to turn the fat into crackling but it didn’t work all that well. What did work was removing the fat from the cooking liquid and reducing it down to create a thick sauce to serve with the meat.
Lemon Chicken with Coriander
Talking about cooking last night’s fish dish with Indian spices led me to Madhur Jaffrey’s ‘Indian Cooking’ when looking for something to cook tonight. This dish seemed reasonably light (we’re trying not to over-indulge too much during the week as we have a lot of food-heavy weekends coming up) and quick, making it a good option after a busy day.
It was indeed quick to cook but I still haven’t got used to the writing style which meant I lost my way a little when trying to follow the method. I should have weighed and measured everything before I started too but I was trying to save time, as usual. Consequently, my coriander isn’t as finely chopped as it should be and some stalks found their way in to the final dish but it didn’t matter too much. For a relatively light dish, this had plenty of flavour with a medium heat.
As we’ve found with everything we’ve cooked so far from this book, none of our dishes have borne any resemblance to the pictures shown in the book. I’m not claiming we’re excellent cooks or fabulous photographers but, if a picture is shown, there is usually a similarity in our finished dish. This looks particularly unappetising so I can understand why the food stylist may have wanted to take some liberties but I find it somewhat sneaky when there’s no resemblance at all.
Lemon Chicken with Coriander
Serves Two
1 inch ginger
2 tablespoons plus 75ml water
Vegetable oil
2 chicken legs and 2 chicken thighs
3 cloves garlic, crushed
100g fresh coriander, chopped
1 small green chilli, finely chopped
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Blend the ginger with two tablespoons water.
Brown the chicken, remove and set aside.
In the same pan the chicken was cooked in, fry the garlic until it just starts to brown. Pour in the ginger water and fry for one minute.
Add the coriander, chilli, cayenne pepper, cumin, ground coriander, turmeric and salt. Stir and cook for one minute.
Return the chicken to the pan, add 75ml of water and the lemon juice, stir and bring to the boil. Cover and cook for 15 minutes.
Turn the chicken and cook for a further 10-15 minutes until tender.
Spanish Seafood Stew
This wasn’t a great success but has potential so I’m typing it up here for future experiments. Less tomatoes and more fish would be a start, parsley to finish would have made a difference too. Stephen also mentioned that an Indian version would work well.
Spanish Seafood Stew
Serves Two
1 tbsp plain flour
1 tsp salt
Assorted seafood (we used squid, scallops and prawns)
Olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tbsp brandy
1/2 red chilli, chopped
Tomatoes (we used half a tin but 1 large fresh would be better)
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp sweet paprika
Few saffron strands
100ml white wine
100ml vegetable stock (use fish stock next time)
Coat the scallops and squid in seasoned flour and fry until just cooked through. Remove from the frying pan and reserve.
Add the onion and cook until just translucent. Add the chilli and garlic and cook for one minute further.
Pour on the brandy and light, once the alcohol has burned out, add the tomatoes, bay leaf, paprika, saffron and cook for five minutes.
Pour in the wine and fish stock and simmer for a further five minutes. Add the reserved seafood, cover the pan and cook for three minutes.
Season, add lemon juice (and parsley) and serve with crusty bread.
Original recipe from Jenny Chandler’s ‘The Real Taste of Spain’.
Leftovers
This is our second freezer-dinner this week, tonight’s excuse being that the work on our bathroom was finished today and I wanted to spend the afternoon cleaning up after the builders instead of cooking.
This originally started life as Mexican Bean Stew and had a lot more liquid in the final dish than tonight’s version, I reduced this down so that it was thicker and could be rolled up in corn tortillas with guacamole. It seems to me that this is key when dealing with leftovers: rather than treating them as something you eat when you can’t be bothered to cook, they can actually be turned into something interesting if you just put a little thought in. Tonight’s dinner was just as good, if not better than the original version thanks to the “fixings” we served with them.
Sadly, we’re out of leftovers now so tomorrow I’ll have to cook something from scratch, I may well make double though and freeze what we don’t eat.
Pasta Puttanesca
There are a few things we seem to eat on a regular basis: roast chicken, Thai green curry and Puttanesca being just a few of them. Or at least I thought we ate them a lot. Looking back through the archives, the last time we actually ate Puttanesca was on 21 January which makes me feel less guilty about eating and posting the same old things.
One of the reasons we decided on it for tonight’s dinner is due to the interesting spaghetti we received as part of our Christmas hamper from Stephen’s sister, a Pici Toscani from Bottega di Fiore. It had a lovely, rough texture to the outside which looked perfect for soaking up lots of sauce and almost doubled in size on cooking. It seemed to have an eggier taste than the normal dried pasta we buy but the ingredient list didn’t uphold this suspicion, it certainly had a deeper flavour though.
I don’t follow a recipe for this anymore but it’s basically Delia Smith’s recipe with a little more chilli, garlic and basil. I didn’t have any capers today unfortunately so they didn’t go in and they were missed but not drastically so as the increase in other flavours went some way to make up for their omission.
The archive tells me we haven’t had green curry since 9 March so you can expect to see that soon!
Chilli and Baked Potatoes
Having spent most of the weekend in Kent, we arrived back in London fairly late this afternoon and in no mood for cooking. Luckily, we knew there were two portions of bean chilli in the freezer that I had stashed away for just this reason kind of occasion so we didn’t need to worry too much. Not only did this relieve the “what shall we have to eat” issue, it also used up some oldish potatoes and freed up some valuable space in the freezer.
Eaten on our laps in front of Top Gear, it was a pretty good Sunday night meal.
Steak
We spent Saturday night at a Christmas fair in Kent with some friends of ours. It was a particularly wet and miserable night so we were glad to get back to their house to dry out and get on with dinner. We had originally planned to visit a butcher they had found in Canterbury but our plans changed so Stephen and I picked up some rib-eye steaks from our local butcher and took those instead.
The steaks were huge and although I can’t remember where they came from, I do remember they were aged on-site. Stephen simply fried them to medium-rare and we ate them with baked potatoes, salad and sauteed mushrooms. They were good but unfortunately we didn’t manage to achieve the perfect crust, one of the pitfalls when cooking in someone else’s kitchen.
