Red Lentil Lasagne
For someone who previously said they’re not a big fan of lentils and beans, I seem to be cooking with them a lot lately. Now I understand them a bit better, I’m really starting to enjoy the flavour and texture they bring to a dish. The other great thing about them is that it’s so easy to whip up a meal without needing to worry about going out to the butcher for meat. They’re healthy too, I guess that’s another good thing.
Last week, we made lentil cottage pie and loved it. It was the first time I’d used red lentils and their versatility was immediately obvious. Needing something quick and easy for tonight’s dinner, I remembered my resolution to try the same lentil recipe as a lasagne and, as luck would have it, we had just about the right amount of everything required….apart from one vital component: lasagne. There turned out to be just enough to fill one, small dish. Just enough lasagne that is; as you can see from the picture, there was plenty of everything else!
As we suspected last week, the lentil ragu did indeed work well as lasagne. The tomatoey sauce is a lot like a meat ragu which, as lasagne lovers will agree, is the perfect partner to pasta, bechamel and cheese. The stuck-on pieces, while not particularly attractive, added a definite extra level of flavour.
Top tip: soak the lasagne sheets in cold water for 20 minutes prior to layering with sauce and bechamel. This will allow you to trim the lasagne sheets to easily fit your dish and prevent your kitchen from being littered with jagged pieces of pasta.
Chicken Stir-Fry
As happens pretty often on a Monday, we planned to eat leftovers from yesterday’s roast only to find that there wassn’t actually anything left over. A quick scramble through the freezer revealed very little in the way of inspiration, other than one, small, sad looking chicken breast. I braved the rain this afternoon to buy another one so that we could make a quick stir-fry.
I started off by marinating the chicken pieces in some lime juice, soy sauce, fish sauce and sesame oil. I also added some garlic, lemongrass and chilli. Looking back at other posts, I realised I should have made a paste with the dry ingredients but it was too late by that point. I got round this by removing the chicken from the marinade after about 45 minutes and frying off some minced garlic and finely chopped chilli instead.
Next in was the chicken, some more lemongrass and some ginger. After that had cooked through, we removed it to a plate before adding the vegetables (baby corn, red pepper and spring onion) and cooking for about five minutes. In went some additional soy sauce and fish sauce too.
It worked out well considering it wasn’t very well planned, we need to increase the lemongrass next time though and perhaps throw in some lime leaves at the end.
Roast Pork Belly
Kerri has been saying for a while that she has been craving pork belly. We did have it at friends last weekend, but still decided to cook it again today.
We looked back to last time we’d cooked it, which was more than a year ago! The rub that we used had given it really a good flavour, so we did that again; it included bay leaves, garlic, salt, pepper and butter. This time though, we used fresh bay leaves and used our nice granite mortar and pestle to grind it up, with the result that we ended up with a thick green paste rather than the version we had last time that had bits of crumpled dried bay leaf in it.
When it was cooking, I thought it smelt rather like snails. It must have been the combination of butter, garlic and herbs. It even tasted a little like snails, apart obviously from the fact that it was pork rather than snail! Looking at our previous post, we cooked it for 30 minutes on 200C, then 30 minutes on 180C and then another 15 minutes on 160C. It sounded a bit strange and I’m not sure where we got that recipe from, but we did it that way again. The pork turned out tender and succulent, with a lovely flavour from the rub.
We also had some steamed cabbage and some roast potatoes. The potatoes were a bit disappointing because they were a bit burnt but still not that crispy. The strange recipe that we followed for the pork belly (i.e. we started the oven high and then slowly turned it down) might have had a bad effect on the potatoes because that’s the opposite to how we normally cook them. It’s a shame that the potatoes are at the mercy of whatever else we are cooking. Clearly we need two ovens.
The Narrow
On Saturday, I had luch at The Narrow, Gordon Ramsay’s pub in Limehouse. We were in a large group and were seated in the conservatory which was lovely as the sun came streaming in through the windows, not so lovely half an hour later when we were all overheating and there weren’t any blinds to be drawn. Aside from that, the venue itself is lovely, the main attraction being the fabulous views across the Thames.
It was all a little haphazard on our part with people arriving at different times, the staff were happy for to order the children’s food first and let us keep the table for as long as we needed which was good as both the restaurant and pub was full. The children’s fish (hake) and chips were served first and they looked and smelt so good that six of the seven of us ordered the same! I didn’t taste it but everyone seemed to enjoy theirs, I would have been disappointed by the chips though as they were the enormous variety that everywhere seems to be serving at the moment.
The menu mostly consisted of traditional pub food with the odd, interesting twist like braised pork cheeks. I ordered the “lamb neck fillet with root vegetable pie” which I assumed would be a serving of lamb with the vegetable pie on the side. When it arrived however it was a complete pie with a portion of mashed potato on the side. I enjoyed it, the lamb was well cooked and it was perfectly seasoned, but found the filling to be a little on the thin side. The mashed potato had been mashed to within an inch of it’s life and there wasn’t much of it, in fact none of the portion sizes were that generous which is probably why the majority of us ended up ordering dessert too. Good old Gordon.
I shared the chocolate marshmallow brownie which was probably the best chocolate brownie I’ve ever eaten, the perfect combination of crunchy top and sticky inside. It was incredibly rich though and definitely needed the ice-cream to cut through it. I tasted the bitter orange tart and it was good, more interesting than the normal lemon tart and probably made with Seville oranges which are still in season so bonus points for the use of seasonal produce.
I enjoyed the food and I really like this style of dining, it’s proper British food served in a pub but I was disappointed by the portion sizes and can’t help thinking that there must be plenty of other ‘gastropubs’ around serving similar food that is just as good and probably cheaper.
Roast Chicken and Potato and Jerusalem Artichoke Dauphinoise
When I arrived home this evening, I was greeted by the wonderful aroma of dauphinoise cooking. This wasn’t just any dauphinoise though; along with the potatoes it contained jerusalem artichokes. Also there was a roast chicken. Yum. So that all made for the second really long title as many posts.
The jerusalem artichokes added a nutty, earthy note to the dauphinoise. Due to their waxy texture they were fairly quite easily identifiable from the potatoes; I think it might have been more fun if it was more uniform. Kerri kept saying that she didn’t think that she had put enough cream into it, but I found it rather good.
Also we had cabbage. Which isn’t usually that interesting, but this one turned out rather well; it was a pointed “sweetheart” cabbage, which was steamed just the right amount of time so that the leaves had softened but still had some texture to them rather than just going completely floppy.
The chicken was a slight disappointment though in that it wasn’t as tasty as it should have been. It was a Sainsbury’s “Taste the Difference” chicken which we have had some really good and flavourful examples of in the past, but this one wasn’t as good. Also, they have started branding them “Woodland”. Maybe the extra branding is to make up for a drop in quality? I know their eggs have said “Woodland” on them for a while and 1p per dozen (wow) goes to the Woodland Trust, but it’s new to the chickens.
Being a Friday, we decided to open a bottle of interesting wine. We have had a couple of bottles of Meursault on our wine rack for a while, so we opened the 1996 Meursault “Les Tessons”. But the cork was looking a little green and the wine had a slight off odour to it. For a while, we tried to convince ourselves that it was okay, but eventually gave up. Disappointing. So we opened the other, which was a 2001 and in better condition and developed nicely in the glass. White Burgundy is my favourite accompaniment to roast chicken.
Prawn and Vegetable Gyoza Dumplings with Marinated Carrot and Cucumber Salads
At our recent Chinese New Year dinner, our friends gave us some left-over gyoza wrappers in case we wanted to make our own. Which we did!
So this evening when I arrived home, Kerri had minced some prawns and mixed them with chopped spring onions, water chestnuts, carrots and celery in an approximation of this recipe. We wrapped these in the wrappers and pan fried them quickly to brown them before putting them into the oven for a while to cook through.
To eat with them, Kerri also made a marinated cucumber salad and a marinated carrot salad, both with toasted sesame seeds and both of which we have had before and liked.
It went together well, but the gyoza didn’t turn out quite as tasty as those we’d had at our friends. Clearly we need more practice.
Rosemary Lamb Chops with Sautéed Potatoes
Firstly before I forget, we recently decided to come out of the closet in a manner of speaking. I’m sure that regular readers have noticed the change in our names on the site. We’ve grown quite attached to our pseudonyms of Fred and Ginger over the past two years and a bit, but finally decided to change to using our real names. We just updated our about us page and didn’t post anything about it explicitly, but thought it worth a quick mention in case people thought they’d arrived at the wrong site, what with the recent semi-redesign too.
We weren’t sure what to cook this evening, but we had some lamb chops in the freezer so decided to use those up. We also had potatoes to use up, so that of course meant sautéed potatoes, which we often have with lamb chops. The lamb chops were defrosted and were a bit squashed up from being in the freezer, so don’t look very cutlet-like unfortunately. They did taste good though, which is what really counts in these sorts of situations.
We coated the chops in a mixture of salt, pepper and quite a lot of finely chopped rosemary. Then we heated up a little olive oil in a frying pan and pan fried them on medium (or even medium-high) for five minutes on one side, then three to four minutes on the other side. As they were quite thick chops, this left them nicely pink in the middle, but not too much so. Then we let them rest for a few minutes.
For the sautéed potatoes, we slice some potatoes into discs first, them steam them. When they are almost cooked, we remove them from the steamer, let them dry out, then cut the discs into cubes. We start by frying some chopped onion in some olive oil, then after that has softened for a few minutes, add some more olive oil and add the cubed potatoes. Season with plenty of salt and pepper and some chopped thyme. Agitate and flip them in the pan regularly so that the potatoes and onions don’t burn. Near the end, add some chopped parsley too and check to see if you need more salt and pepper (I usually find this is the case!). If they look too dry at any point, add some more olive oil (I usually find this is the case too!) This of course needs to be started well in advance of cooking the chops as it takes a while.
The potatoes can take a number of different herbs and you can probably put in whatever you like, varying it depending on what you are serving them with. Raymond Blanc put parsley and chervil into them once on television, which sounded interesting but we have never tried that. This time I think we steamed the potatoes a little too much before sautéing them, but that did result in some nice crispy bits so it wasn’t too bad. My mum used to cook these when I was younger and the first time I ever tried to cook them, I didn’t realise that you needed to steam or parboil the potatoes before sautéing them; needless to say my attempt wasn’t very successful.
The sweetness of the onion goes very well with the lamb chops, as does the general herbiness, olive oiliness and slight crispiness of the potatoes.
Beef and Two Bean Chilli
As UK readers will know, most of London had a Snow Day today. The last time I remember such a day I was eight and, running low on food supplies, we had to trudge to the top of the road to the local shop. It took us two hours to walk what would normally take 20 minutes and my poor brother had to trudge through snow that was almost up to his waist.
We don’t have a very large store cupboard but I like to think I’m pretty good at maximising the space available. Even though the chances of being stuck in the house and unable to leave are incredibly slim, I like to be well prepared for any culinary emergency. We weren’t housebound today but I was glad not to have to brave the cold and was able to find plenty of ingredients to use for dinner. Chilli seemed like an obvious choice given the arctic temperatures so I selflessly left Stephen working beside the fire and braved the chilly kitchen.
The recipe we use originally comes from the Waitrose website, it’s stored in the Our Recipes section of the site but I’ve copied it again here because I increased the spices even further this time to allow for the extra beans.
4 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
500g lean minced beef
2 tbsp tomato purée
1 large red chilli, deseeded and chopped
3 tsp hot chilli powder
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground cumin
600ml beef stock
400g tin chopped tomatoes
15g dark chocolate
Salt and pepper
150g red kidney beans
150g black beans
(You’ll need to remember to soak the beans overnight. The kidney beans should be boiled rapidly for 20 minutes then rinsed thoroughly before being added).
Heat the oil in a pan. Add the onion with some salt and fry gently until soft (about 15 minutes). Then add the garlic and continue to fry for two minutes.
Next, add the mince and fry until browned. Now, add the chilli, tomato puree and spices and fry for a further five minutes, stirring often to incorporate the spices into the mince.
Add the stock, tomatoes, kidney beans and chocolate and season. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 40 minutes until the meat is tender.
Add the black beans, bring to the boil again and simmer for a further hour.
[Stephen says:] With this we drank a Trimbach Alsace Riesling 2005. Riesling has a reputation for matching spicy dishes well and often it does, but this time it didn’t quite go; the depth and meaty, spicy, chocolateyness of the chilli was a bit too much for it. Then vainly tried some dry Amontillado, but too alcoholic to go with the spice. As an afterthought, now trying a splash of Banyuls, which might have gone well, but not sure of the sweetness.
Roast Chicken Ballotine and Perfect Roast Potatoes
Last week, one of the Maaaaasterchef contestants cooked chicken ballotine for his main course. It was a lot to take on and, given that he also had a starter and a main course to make, he sadly didn’t quite get everything finished in time. However, out of that sadness came some good because it made us decide to cook chicken ballotine.
So, I picked up our copy of Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Techniques and turned to the appropriate page. It told us that after boning, stuffing and rolling the chicken, we should wrap it in foil and poach it, then serve it cold. As an afterthought, it also mentioned that it’s possible to braise it and serve it hot. Being the type of people who really love roast chicken with roast potatoes, we ignored both of these and decided just to roast it.
I intently studied the section entitled “Boning the Bird”. Half an hour or so later, the bird in question was boned and ready to be stuffed. According to the recipe, the stuffing should be made from chicken breast, herbs, shallots and garlic. We went with sausages instead of the chicken breast. Once it was done, we tied it up tightly with string. This went into the oven on top of some vegetables until cooked through (we used our meat thermometer for this since it was hard to calculate).
We also did roast potatoes, in half goose fat and half vegetable oil. Like last time we did roast potatoes, they turned out very well indeed. In case we forget in future, or if someone else is interested, here is a vague recipe as to what we did both times that turned out very well:
– Peel and chop potatoes into smallish roast potato sized pieces
– Steam these until fairly soft but not completely cooked though
– Swish them around in the steamer with the lid on to fluff them up
– Leave them to dry out for a while
– Put half goose fat, half vegetable oil into a metal roasting dish (about a tablespoon of each)
– Put the dish into the oven to heat up
– When the fat is hot (you can sometimes hear it start to spit), remove it from the oven and put it on the hob with the burner on
– Put in the potatoes (careful of hot splashing fat!) and turn them in the hot fat to coat them
– Sprinkle the potatoes with a couple of generous pinches of salt and turn them again
– Put them into the oven for about an hour and a half, turning a couple of times during cooking
– Enjoy!
We were very pleased at how moist the chicken was. We had been worried that as it was stuffed and needed to roast for quite a while to cook all the way through, it would be dried out, but our fears were unfounded. We had roasted it “upside down” to start with, the turning it breast-side up for the last 20 minutes to half an hour. We also served it with braised leeks (in the top picture), steamed cabbage and roast celeriac.
With it we drank a Hamilton Russell Chardonnay from South Africa. This wine was intense but still elegant, and with a bit of oaky toast and spice which went particularly well with the crispy roast potatoes and the herby sausage stuffing.
Chinese New Year
Last night, we celebrated a belated Chinese New Year with some friends. We knew the food was going to be good but we didn’t realise just how good.
We started with gyoza which were cooked in the Japanese style: browned in a frying pan before being transferred to the oven. These were outstanding, crispy skins filled with prawn, celery, carrot, water chestnuts and spring onion. We were lucky enough to come home with some leftover gyoza skins so we can make our own later this week.
We then moved on to a selection of dishes which included pork belly (yay! I’ve been craving this for weeks) which was cooked with sezchuan pepper and was both tender and crispy.
We also had some scallops (another craving I’ve had due to the frequency they appear on Masterchef) and squid cooked with some bitter melon. Neither of us had eaten these before and they were indeed bitter but not unpleasantly so, they worked particularly well with the sweet scallops.
We both ate far too much but it would have been rude not to!
