Papperdelle with last of the stew Thursday 11th July 2013

I made some more stew, using the last of yesterday's on top of some wonderful feather steak and some chopped chicken livers. Simply delicious. Fresh papperdelle - the wide noodles famously served with a hare stew, so working very well here with the beef. 

From start to finish, 25 mins. And that includes the chopping up of the beef and livers. Wow.

Gnocchi with Italian Beef Stew - Wednesday July 10th 2012

I love Italian beef stew, and even though the weather was hot, this was delicious served simply in a bowl with some gnocchi tossed in browned butter, loads of grated parmesan on top and a green salad to follow.

Pressure cooker time! Pressure cooking it for half an hour means much less heat in the kitchen and deliciously tender beef.

The weekend... lamb and pork and lots of it...Saturday / Sunday July 6/7th 2013

 Let's start with Saturday. More of the same as Friday, so it doesn't justify an entry of its own, but nothing wrong with double leftovers when they are this good...

And then came Sunday.

Family over for dinner... it was The Amazing Izzy Whizzie's 3rd birthday on Saturday, so it was important to have things that she liked. Roast Potatoes. Cucumber. Icecream. Possibly in that order.

And things that we liked too of course. I decided on a slow roast shoulder of pork, cooked rather like pork belly, but meatier as it was a shoulder.  A rub of rosemary salt pepper and smoked paprika, and a dousing of lemon juice, cider vinegar and white wine.  Half an hour in a searingly hot oven, then turned right down, covered in foil (I have discovered Bacofoil nonstick foil, which really doesn't stick to crackling! Hurray! ) and a further 4 hours. Then off with the foil, drain the juices to make gravy, and UP with the heat to crackle the crackling.

Let it cool a bit, and then sorta slice, sorta pull apart because it is quite soft for cutting. 

 

With it, barbecue sauce:  quantities are up to you, taste as you go: sauted onion and garlic, a carton of chopped tomatoes. Mustard powder, smoked paprika, oregano. Worcester Sauce, lemon juice, maple syrup. A bit of salt. Simmered until a red glorious pulp.

Salad (and cucumber of course...). Broccoli. Roast Mediterranean veggies (cos they are so good and I am addicted..) Roast Potatoes. Home made bread to mop up the sauce and gravy.

and as it is a Special Birthday, a cake.. it is Lance's (Izzy's little brother) 1st birthday next week, so he is included on the cake :)

I make nice cakes. But this wasn't one of my best I have to say. And the icing is pants. Never mind.

I like pork better anyway :)

Roast Mediterranean vegetables, cold roast lamb, buttered Orzo - Friday July 5th 2013

Cold lamb, can you beat it? Roast Mediterranean vegetables at room temperature over a lovely crisp green salad, buttered orzo pasta with parsley. Can you beat those?

I don't think so!

Tip for the veggies.. put your courgettes, onions and red peppers in a bowl with a good slug of oil, pepper, paprika, dried oregano and thyme and some salt. Mix thoroughly. THEN add in your aubergines. They will absorb the excess oil from the other veggies without sucking it all up and leaving nothing for the others. Then roast it on a medium heat near the top of the oven until soft and starting to char at the edges.

You will enjoy this. I promise you!

Slow Roast Lamb with Harissa Greek Yoghurt Dressing... Thursday July 4th 2013

So we are still eating the shoulder of lamb.. kebabs yesterday, and today I slow roasted the rest to eat hot today and cold on Saturday.  Simply anointed with olive oil and smoked paprika and marinated overnight, then a hot blast (as hot as your oven will go) for half an hour then down to low (mk 3 Gas) for 3 hours.. til it is as tender as a baby's cheek...

With the salad and new potatoes we had a rich yoghurt dressing, just Total Greek yoghurt with a spoonful of harissa, a spoonful of capers, a little oil and vinegar and a sprinkling of sumac for a lemony hit.

I love a bit of lamb...

Lemony Greeky Lamb Kebabs with Total Tartare Sauce - Wednesday July 3rd 2013

I know - it sounds WRONG! but believe me, Tartare sauce and kebabs is excellent.

Cube boned shoulder of lamb, and marinate for an hour or so in lemon juice, olive oil, salt and oregano. Add to the bowl halved and separated red onions and fresh bay leaves. Thread onto flat skewers and grill until slightly charred and cooked to how you like lamb (I like it just a little pink).

Serve with a wholegrain pilaf (sautéed onions, whole grains (I use 5 grain from Pedon) and lamb stock, simmer for 10 mins until al dente, drain if necessary and allow to dry out slightly) and salad.

And on the side, Total Greek Yoghurt Tartare sauce:

Mix equal parts of Total Greek Yoghurt 2% with Mayonnaise, and stir in :
 

chopped spring onions

chopped gherkins

chopped capers

chopped parsley

and a little chopped mint if you are serving it with lamb

Wonderful!

Quick quick quick pasta and stir in sauce Tuesday July 2nd 2013

We have started eating out on Tuesdays when we go to the quiz, but we are having a PullTheHornsIn and SpendAsLittleAsPossible week this week. So pasta and a pack of ready-made stir in sauce, a couple of pieces of salami sliced into ribbons and a sprinkling of parmesan made a quick quick dinner.

What is it they say in Italian? Pronto presto!

Dover Sole Meuniere - Old Style French! Monday July 1st 2013

Happy day when I picked up two Dover Sole for 4 quid (Half price at end of play on Sunday in Sainsbury's).

I would usually grill fish but Dovers have rather tough skin with little strong scales that defeat removal, so I always skin this fish then flour and fry in butter and oil.. (the meuniere of the name, is old French for "in the style of the miller's wife"presumably because of the flour it is dredged in . There you go, don't say I don't teach you things.)

Skinning a Dover sole is actually quite easy, the skin rips away easily from the underlying flesh, Just make a little incision above the tail on the dark side, slide the knife tip under the skin to make a little flap. Then grip the skin with one end of a teatowel in one hand, and hold the tail of the fish with the other end of the teatowel and pull the skin up to the nose. Then turn the fish over, ease the skin over the head. Hold the skin with one hand in the teatowel and hold the head under the skin this time with the other, and then rip from nose to tail on the white side to remove the skin all in one piece. Then trim the side fringes with a pair of scissors.

It's probably easier to see than to imagine, have a look at how Jamie Oliver does it:





He does each side individually, unlike me, but it doesn't matter.

Then just dredge each side of the fish in seasoned flour, and fry (not too fast) in a mixture of oil and butter until golden brown.

A true meuniere is finished with more melted butter with parsley and lemon, but we just had a bit of salad and some new potatoes, and home made tartare sauce instead. It's really good, really simple, and yes, lemon sole will work fine, although not as succulent as true dover soles.

Give it a go and let me know how you get on.

Simple Salad Sunday - Sunday 30th June 2013

Last day of June and hot with it.. traditional Sunday Dinner today? I don't think so!!

Simple it is, hot buttered new potatoes, fresh crispy salad, hb eggs and lots of continental meat and cheese.

Yummy.

Prawn. Pea and Leek Risotto ... and a Fruity Tart Saturday June 29th 2013

Fab afternoon at Auntie Maureen's Gourmet Food Fair held at the Bell Walthamstow as part of the Appetite festival, and I bought a variety of bits and bobs, including two very luscious fruit tarts from Aura Rosa Bespoke cakes: one strawberry one and a mixed fruit one with a glorious topping of meringue and a surprise HUGE blackberry inside..

Preceded by possibly my favourite summer meal, prawn risotto with a splash of Pernod to bring the Mediterranean sunshine to my plate.  I explained my method in great detail over on A Greedy Piglet, so go have a look and ogle the odalisque.

..

Gammon Steak, how retro! Thursday June 27th 2013

A grilled gammon steak is so out of fashion, only to be found in the most un-gastro of pubs, topped with a pineapple ring from a can, or a fried egg.

But it is a deeply savoury, deliciously easy dinner as well. And if bacon is so fashionable, why not bring back gammon?

A tip - use kitchen scissors to snip through the fat around the outside, cutting through a band of tissue that lies just below the fat, that way the meat won't buckle and curl under the grill.

Stuffed Breads - Wednesday June 26th 2013

I was practicing today for the Essex Food Festival baking competition, one of which is for a savoury filled loaf. I am assuming that the filling has to be baked in, rather than just filling it like a sandwich...

Anyway, I digress. The breads were therefore the main event, one with pesto/pinenuts/provolone cheese and the other with polish Wiejska sausage/tapenade/provolone cheese. Both the doughs followed Carla Tomasi's Italian enriched dough recipe as detailed in my Storify post about it. 

With some extra cheese and sausage, some left over saucisson sec from the other day, and a bit of salad, it was a fine rough and ready dinner.

The breads?  The flatter one was ok, but had baked a bit hard. The rolled one was better. I really wasn't sure about the fillings, but today the pesto one is much nicer, more mellow, really good cut and toasted. I fed the remains of the flat one to the neighbourhood fox, but really should have kept it and seen how that matured as well. Oh well.

Still nearly three weeks to carry on playing with doughs and fillings to get to something I will be proud to enter :)

Eating out at The Bell @bell_e17 Tuesday June 25th 2013

I love our Tuesday Nights Out, we go to The Bell in Walthamstow for a fiendish quiz run by Rowan McIntyre (he of the dark brown voice... ) , and have taken to eating there before the fun begins.

Tonight I had the grilled chicken thighs with broccoli, mange tout and new potatoes, followed by pannacotta with summer berries... mmmmm.

We didn't win the quiz, but hey! who worries?

Italian Style Braised Beef with Gremolata. Monday June 2013

Gosh it's chilly.... but it is still Mediterranean week. So we are in Italy today.

This is braised beef in the style that my Mother-in-law Mafalda made, and showed me how to get the right flavour.

1) onion garlic and celery are your aromatics.
2) after browning the meat add white wine, boil it away, then add milk, and boil most of that away, and then add your tomatoes. You won't need sugar as the milk sugars will temper the acidity of the tomatoes.

I also added a chopped red pepper and finished cooking in the pressure cooker for 20 mins before taking the top off and reducing in the open pan.

3) finish off with gremolata- chopped parsley, lemon zest and raw garlic.

Pungent and fragrant and I love it :)

Grilled Sea Bream with pilaff and salad. Sunday June 24th 2013

I am still in Mediterranean mode... (take THAT you grey, sad weather, you....) and this is very much a fish of the Med.

Easy preparation, just gut, scale and cut the fins off (or ask your fishmonger to do it for you :) then slash the sides a couple of times to allow the heat to penetrate. A drizzle of oil, salt and pepper and 20 minutes in the oven on high heat, then finish off under the grill to crisp up the delicious skin.

And whilst it is in the oven, make the pilaf.

Saute one small red onion in a little olive oil, add one cup of basmati rice (a teacup for two, a mug for four people is about right) then using the same size cup or mug, add one and half times the volume of rice in boiling water, a teaspoon  of stock powder (I used Essential Cuisine fish stock powder for this, but if you want to serve with meat use any meat or veggie powder you like to use, or even just half an ordinary stock cube), a good handful of shredded coriander.

Bring it back to the boil, clap the lid on and reduce the heat right right down, and cook for about 12-15 minutes until the rice is done as you like it, and all the water is absorbed.

A bit of green salad and there you are!

Just want some sunshine now.........

Minestrone and Pear Gorgonzola & Maple Glazed Walnut Salad - Saturday June 22nd 2013

I'm still trying to pretend it is summer..... and that I am somewhere in the Mediterranean.  It is not really working but this dinner can only help..

Italy as a starter..... Minestrone first, easy in the pressure cooker, longer cooking veg with pancetta and canellini beans first, then the quicker cooking green beans and peas, and the soup pasta for another 10 mins. I used the spinach raw stirred into the hot soup like a herb at the end so it doesn't go slimey.

 

Then a salad that I am not sure where it would come from, probably somewhere to the north of France, though I am using Gorgonzola so will pretend it is further south. It is a reprise of the Pear and Gorgonzola salad I had a couple of weeks ago, but I glazed the walnuts with maple syrup. 

Oh yes!! yummy.... 

 

Saucisson sec salad - Friday June 21st 2013

So the South of France sunshine has gone, and we have English damp and grey summer instead. But does that stop me having a sunny salad?  Does it heck!!

It was to have been a salad nicoise but at the last minute I subbed saucisson sec for the tuna... yummy!

Spaghetti with Pesto and Fresh Tomatoes - Thursday June 20th 2013

Did you miss me? Did you have to think of dinners all by yourself? Well never mind, I'm back to tickle your tastebuds again now :)

And if you are good, I might show you some inspirational summer photos of the last week in Menton. Including dinners :)

So first day back Thursday, not a lot of shopping in, so just basic spaghetti, pesto, fresh chopped tomatoes and olives. With a few croutons scattered on for good luck.

Leftover soup and leftover cold meat.. but still good! Monday June 10th 2013

It is nice to find sufficient leftovers not just for lunch, but for dinner for the two of us.  And thus it was today...

A large bowl of chickpea and vegetable soup from the gammon on Saturday, and cold Gammon plus Portuguese Roast Pork from yesterday, with red cabbage and carrot homemade coleslaw on the side.

If you have never made home made coleslaw do give it a try - I wrote about it in more detail at the beginning of last year, linking up to Linda at Goodshoeday who gave a blueprint for how to make coleslaw in all its variety.

Portuguese Roast Pork - so good! Sunday June 9th 2013

I love this way of cooking pork, works best with pork loin, for pork belly and shoulder I have long cooked methods I prefer for those rich meats, but this citrus marinade helps tenderise what can be a slightly tough cut of meat.

Firstly, make your marinade.

Take 2 peeled and chopped cloves of garlic,1 tsp salt, half tsp pepper. Using a mortar and pestle, grind to a paste.

Add 2 tablespoons sherry or red wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons of white wine or dry sherry, the juice of a lemon and the juice of an orange, and mix together.

Pour this over your loin of pork joint in a small roasting pan - make sure it has no rind, and remove it if it has - don't throw it away, freeze it to add richness to stews and soups. Cover in cling film and marinade in the fridge for a couple of hours.

It will need roughly 1-1.5 hours in a medium oven. When you come to cook it, remove the cling film and add a chopped tomato and an ounce or so of unsalted butter. Roast uncovered, basting from time to time.

Rest it for 10 minutes before serving in very thin slices. Whilst it is roasting, bring the cooking juices to a simmer, remove any singed bits of tomato, turn off the heat and whisk in a slice or so more unsalted butter to thicken the sauce.

Do give it a go, it is really really good!