Shortbread
Part one of our Christmas-Present-Experiment. These didn’t turn out too badly for a first attempt but I think I over-cooked them, I’ll reduce the cooking time to 10-12 minutes next time. We used this recipe which was very easy to follow but I had some trouble “mixing into a smooth paste”.
Crab Toasts and Halibut with Salsa Verde and Sauteed Potatoes
A few days ago we decided to cook something special this evening. Shortly afterwards, we decided that the starter should be crab toasts. After quite a lot more thinking, we still hadn’t decided what our main course should be, so we figured that when we went to buy the crab from the fishmonger, we would just see what else they had and choose something on the spot.
We seasoned the crab with salt and pepper and added a dash of lemon juice. We had planned to add some paprika or cayenne pepper or something else spicy, but it didn’t seem to need it so we left it out. We toasted some slices of French bread under the grill, then piled the seasoned crab onto the toast and topped with some onuga. It’s the first time we’ve had onuga – it’s a caviar-like substance made from smoked herring roe, which was agreeably smoky and not too salty. It all went rather well together, but was best eaten with the fingers, which seemed a bit wrong after we’d set the table so well.
We seasoned our halibut steaks with salt and pepper and then pan fried them in a mixture of olive oil and butter, spooning the oil and butter over the fish periodically as we went. This turned out very well; the fish was cooked just right and had loads of flavour. Served with some sauteed potatoes and also some green beans and purple sprouting broccoli.
Mussels
Mmmmussels. We haven’t had mussels for a while and when deciding on something fun to cook this evening, we decided that it was high time that we had them again.
We cooked them in a fairly typical moules mariniere style recipe. Except that I should have reduced the sauce a bit at the end (Kerri was on the phone at this point and not able to advise me) as it was a bit watery, but still tasty. Although the sauce was good, the mussels themselves weren’t that great; we bought them from Waitrose and we’ve had pretty decent mussels from there several times in the past, but this time they weren’t quite up to scratch. Served with frites of course, and some ciabatta to soak up the sauce.
Roasted Vegetable Lasagne
We’ve cooked roasted vegetable lasagne a couple of times before, but not for ages so we gave it another go. The top went lovely and golden brown this time, with chewy-and-crunchy cheesy bits.
Re-reading our previous post (the one before was pre-Dinner Diary!), we mentioned that we were trying to eat more vegetables and less meat. Which is just what we were discussing today. Lasagne must be a good “transitional” dish when cutting down on meat.
Parkin
Like many other bloggers, we decided to make parkin in honour of Guy Fawke’s Night. Neither of us had eaten it before so weren’t sure what to expect, the combination of ginger and cinammon sounded irresistable though so off we went to purchase the huge amounts of sugar, butter, treacle and syrup we needed. I could feel my teeth complaining before I even started trying to measure out the ingredients (does anyone have a foolproof recipe for measuring sticky substances like treacle?) and mixed it all together.
Aside from covering myself and the kitchen in a sugary mess, it was very easy to make and came together just as the recipe said it would. Unfortunately, I had the oven too high and I think I’ve over cooked it. It has a dark, deep flavour but does taste slightly burnt and a little dry. Leaving it in the tin for a few days has helped though and I think serving it with brandy butter would be brilliant.
Recipe as used by Penny, Sylvie and Jules:
125 g butter (if using unsalted butter add 1 tsp salt)
125 g golden syrup
125 g black treacle
125 g golden caster sugar
250 g plain flour
250 g medium oatmeal
4 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, beaten
1) Preheat oven to 150°C/Gas 2/300°F and line a 10×10 baking pan. Gently heat the butter, golden syrup, treacle and sugar in a pan, stirring constantly until all the sugar is dissolved.
2) In a bowl sift together flour, oatmeal, baking soda, salt (if using), ginger and cinnamon. Make a well in the centre and pour in the melted butter mixture, beat until everything is combined.
3) When combined add the egg and mix until you have a smooth soft batter. If the batter seems to be stiff add 1tbsp of milk.
4) Pour into the tin and bake 50-60 minutes. Allow to cool before removing and cut into squares
Bonfire Night Sausage and Baked Potato
A short while ago when visiting my sister, we wandered into a butcher that stocked a lot of South African produce. We bought a wheel of boerewors, which is brilliant on a barbecue (or braai in South African terminology). However, here in England winter is of course on the way and we ended up putting it in the freezer and expecting it to be there forever.
But then of course Bonfire night came along, and along with it the necessity to eat sausages and baked potatoes. So we lit up the barbecue on a dark and drizzly November evening and cooked the boerewors. Kerri was rightfully skeptical of this plan of mine, but it worked out well in the end; luckily for me it wasn’t raining particularly hard or freezing cold, but I’d decided that even if it was then I’d somehow still persevere.
Stir Fried Beef with Green Beans and Basil
This was very quick and simple to make, perfect for a cold, wet, Monday:
1 red chilli, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
Tablespoon ginger, chopped
3/4 red pepper, sliced
Handful green beans, chopped
Medium steak, sliced
Tablespoon soy sauce
Tablespoon fish sauce
Four tablespoon stock
10 basil leaves
Pound together the chilli, garlic and ginger with some salt until you have a paste.
Fry paste in oil until fragrant.
Add steak and cook for a couple of minutes.
Add vegetables, soy sauce, fish sauce and stock and cook for another couple of minutes with the lid on.
Just before serving, add basil.
Serve with jasmine rice.
Roast Chicken with Anchovy, Chilli, Caper and Basil Rub
Those of you who read yesterday’s post will see what we made a “puttanesca pizza”, which is based on pasta puttanesca. Doing so meant that we had some left-over anchovies, which we used up today. We used them up by combining them with chilli, capers and basil in a mortar and pestle, making a delicious-smelling paste. Yes, that it a rather puttanesca-like paste as it turns out.
We rubbed the chicken with this, rubbed some under the skin on on the breasts and also scored the legs and thighs, rubbing into the meat there too. Roasted as for a normal roast chicken, the aromas were at once delicious and confusing. It smelled partially like roast chicken and partially like a pizza. It turned out to be rather good though; the flavours went well with the chicken and we served it with boulangere potatoes, which were a very good accompaniment.
In case anyone is interested, the recipe for the paste went something like this:
4 anchovies in oil, drained
half a fresh long red chilli
1 teaspoon salted capers, rinsed and drained
small bunch of basil
Crush the chilli in a mortar and pestle, then add the capers. When this has been made into a paste, add the anchovies and basil and crush that too until it has all reduced to a smoothish paste. Then use the paste to rub into your chicken as described above. This would be good as a stuffing for chicken breasts too if you don’t want to do a whole chicken.
Pizza Puttanesca and Pizza with Mushrooms and Truffle Oil
Given our great love of pasta puttanesca with all of its brilliant anchovy-chilli-capery-oliveyness, we figured that the various components would make a good pizza topping.
We made the dough from Jamie Oliver’s pizza dough recipe, which we’ve had some issues with in the past, but it turned out rather well this time, done in a bowl and mixed with dough hooks, which is less messy and also means less manual kneading.
We cooked down almost a whole punnet of cherry tomatoes to make the tomato sauce. It went something like this:
Pour a little olive oil into a saucepan over low heat.
Add almost a whole punnet of cherry tomatoes, along with a couple of peeled and bruised garlic cloves and some torn-up basil leaves.
Cook these down over very low heat until they are quite dry (20 to 30 minutes), remembering to stir often to prevent them sticking.
At this point, add a little water and a tablespoon or so of tomato puree, then cook down until the added water has cooked off.
It works out rather well; next time we’ll have to write down more exact quantities as we’re doing it.
When our pizza stone was hot, we removed it from the oven and put the pizza base onto it, gave it a good spread of the tomato sauce and then topped it with: one chopped red chilli, capers (salted ones, washed and drained), three chopped anchovies, a few chopped olives, some torn basil leaves and some torn bits of buffalo mozzarella (this was really good mozzarella and it’s a miracle that any survived to put on the pizza after we started tasting it).
Back into the oven until the top turned golden, then take out and eat! This worked out better than we had expected. Delicious. In a puttanesca sauce, the different components cook together for about 45 minutes to integrate, but in this case they are all separate but still work very well together. I expect we’ll be cooking this one over and over.
We also made a mushroom pizza, but the poor thing got a bit neglected when compared with the brilliant puttanesca pizza even though it was very tasty in its own right. We fried a mixture of chestnut mushrooms and various varieties of wild mushrooms, then topped the pizza with these (and some of the tomato sauce of course) and some more of the delicious mozzarella. When it was done, we drizzled it with a dash of white truffle oil, which gave it a heady aroma and really brought out the earthiness of the mushrooms.
Anchovy, Chilli and Spinach Quiche
This was Kerri’s idea, adapted from another recipe. She initially wanted to use watercress, but couldn’t find any when she went shopping today, so we went with spinach. It turned out rather well, with lots of flavour. Although if you don’t like anchovies then it’s not a dish for you as they were quite prominent. The chilli gave a background heat to it, not too much. Served with a simple salad.
Shortcrust pastry
225g spinach
150g new potatoes
1 egg
284ml single cream
50g parmesan cheese
5 anchovies, chopped (plus however many are left in the tin for decorating)
Chilli flakes
Salt and pepper
10 capers
Line a 24cm quiche dish with pastry and bake blind for half an hour.
While this is happening, wilt the spinach (using a couple of tablespoons of water) and then rinse in cold water. Squeeze out any excess moisture and chop finely.
At the same time, boil the new potatoes for six minutes, rinse in cold water and slice.
Combine all ingredients, pour into pastry case and top with leftover anchovies. Bake for 40 minutes on 160 degrees.
