Recipe CXXVIII - Lasagne rolls done two ways

Pasta is a very versatile food, and you can do many things with it, although as Italians still can't see past Artusi, they are stuck with an outdated recipe book, so it is up to us non-Italians to push ahead with new recipes and ideas. This one is an adaptation of a video I saw on the Internet. I didn't really like the recipe it proposed so I took it a step further and added some more ingredients.

You are making two kinds of rolls - one with ricotta and pesto, the other with mince and béchamel.

Ingredients: 

Lasagne sheets, 1 packet (other pasta as backup in case the lasagne sheets break up, which is not uncommon!)
1 jar of green pesto
1 tub of ricotta
Some grated mozzarella
350g minced beef
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
Some fresh herbs
Some Cheddar, grated (other cheeses like Pecorino, Manchego or Gruyère will also do)
Ground black pepper
Olive oil
Butter, flour, nutmeg and milk (for the béchamel)
Tin foil for covering

Instructions:

Put your oven on to 200°C. Take your ricotta, pesto and a handful of mozzarella, and put them in a bowl. Mix well.

In the meantime, parboil some lasagne sheets one or two at a time. Don't do all, as they will stick to each other and become an unmitigated disaster. Take them out of the pan carefully making sure not to break them. If they split a little through the middle though, that's not a problem.

Lay them out one by one on a cutting board and paste the ricotta mixture over them. Then roll them up like a carpet and lay them in a baking tray with olive oil in the bottom.

Then take the mince, the onion, garlic and some black pepper and fry them in olive oil until the meat loses its red colouring. Add some grated Cheddar and the herbs to the mixture.  It is at this point you should make your béchamel. I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how to make that. Make quite a lot, as you will need it for later. Add some to the mince mixture and do the same - roll them up and put them on the baking tray.

They should look like this:

Take the rest of the béchamel and spread it on top of the rolls, then sprinkle over more grate mozzarella and Cheddar, plus some ground black pepper.

Cover the tray in tin foil, put it in the oven for 20 minutes and a further10 minutes uncovered.

The results are very satisfying indeed!

Recipe CXXI - Chicory au Gratin

Last weekend, I went to Belgium and while there, I did a little light shopping, where I bought a whole load of excellent beers, but I also decided to purchase Belgium's national vegetable, the endive, or chicory. The Flemish call it Witloof; such an extreme departure from its etymological root, which highlights its importance to the Belgian psyche.

I was never a fan of chicory to begin with, so I was already not expecting great things. But I have a policy that every 5 years or so I try food I used to dislike to see if I have changed taste. The answer here is an emphatic "no". I still hate chicory with all my blood. 

If, in the fullness of time, they should ever ask me what my least favourite recipe is, I shall, without a moment's hesitation, point to this one. I can see the conversation thus:

"So, what is your least favourite thing you've ever eaten?"

"Well, out of the deep-fried scorpion on a stick I was given at a Chinese party, the cat poo I accidentally ingested after falling on it, the half-cockroach I found in a sandwich I bought on a market stall in Moscow or the chicory gratin, I'd have to go for the chicory gratin."

It is the devil's vegetable. It is nothing more than the reincarnation of water in vegetable form, and I'd prefer to eat the bark off the trees before even smelling another one of these satanic plants. 

Nevertheless, other people like them, and I thought I should at least share with you the results of my findings.

Ingredients:

4 to 6 pieces of chicory

The equivalent amount of slices of ham to wrap around the chicory

2 different sorts of cheese (I used Cheddar and Etorki, but Emmental, Gruyère, or such would also do.

Milk, butter, flour, ground pepper and nutmeg for the roux

Satan's own vegetable

Instructions:Firstly, and most importantly, cut out the base of the chicory to remove the hull. If you leave this bit in, your chicory will taste very, very bitter.



Put the chicory in lightly salted boiling water for between 10 and 15 minutes, until they are soft. 
Put on the grill. 
While this is going on, you can make the sauce. Make a roux by melting some butter in a pan, adding flour and milk as if making Béchamel. 
Add nutmeg and pepper, then fold in most of the cheese until fully melted into the sauce. 



Once the chicory is soft, remove it and roll it in the ham slice.



Repeat until all of the pieces are wrapped in ham. Put the ham-wrapped chicory in a decently-sized deep baking tray.



Pour the sauce over the top until totally covering the chicory. 



Use some more of the cheese to grate over the top and sprinkle with black pepper.



Put it under the grill for a good 10 to 15 minutes, or until the top is a nice speckled dark pattern.



Serve with mashed potatoes or equivalent.



Invite a Belgian or two round to eat, and you won't have to throw a lot of it away!

Recipe CIV - Rocket Salad

A few days ago, I read something from a Mr Lobstermuncher of Beckenham, Kent, along the lines of "Rocket Salad is rubbish", or words to that effect. Anyhow, I beg to disagree, Mr Lobstermuncher. Rocket salad is really tasty, but that means doing something with it. I have often wondered why kids don't want to eat veggies and salad - if they're so dull and lifeless, I wouldn't want to eat them either. I mean, you wouldn't have ever drunk tonic on its own unless you had spent some time convalescing in the 19th century, so that's why people add vodka or gin. The same goes for salads. Most leaf salads are quite bitter if you do nothing to them. Here's a little suggestion using ingredients nearly everyone has in their kitchens, or are easy to obtain.

Ingredients:

Some rocket salad

Some olive oil

Some balsamic vinegar

(Oil : Balsamic ratio = 3 : 2)

1-2 tsp brown sugar in a bowl

20-30 raisins or sultanas

4-5 hazelnuts

Some ground black pepper

2 cloves of garlic (cut into pieces)

Some grated slices of hard cheese like Cheddar, Parmesan, Manchego, Leicester, etc...

Instructions:

Take the olive oil, the balsamic vinegar, the pepper and garlic, and pour them in the bowl with the sugar. Give them a gentle swirl with a spoon until it's all mixed up.

Take your hazelnuts and crush them with your finger, sprinkling half into the bowl with the salad, and half into the oil and vinegar mix. Cut up half of the sultanas and put them in the oil and the whole ones in the salad. Mix up the salad, then taste the oil mixture and add more of what you think (maybe sugar, maybe oil or vinegar), then pour it all over the rocket salad and toss until all the leaves are saturated.

Finally, add the cheese on top and serve with your main course!

Cherry tomatoes go very well with this dish, as do Mozzarella, basil, chives and a lot of other ingredients. If someone says, "But I don't like .....," just remember that when it's mixed up with other ingredients, it probably tastes fine. But you're going to put people off for life if you serve certain things on their own!

Recipe CI - Pesto from Garden Herbs

We had a party at the weekend, and my herb garden came in pretty useful for marinades. This one is so easy to make and also so very tasty. It goes incredibly well with chicken or pasta.

Ingredients:

Rosemary

Oregano

Sage

Any other herbs you wish

1 small onion

4 cloves of garlic

Some hard cheese like Manchego, Cheddar or Pecorino

Some freshly ground black pepper

Some salt

A good amount of olive oil

Instructions:

Put everything in a blender and give them a good spin for at least two minutes.

Done!

Recipe LXXXI - Potato, Carrot and Leek Stump

Today is Stir-up Sunday and I've been busy making this year's Christmas Pudding (see Recipe XXXV), so this week's recipe is very simple. I'm going through a side-dish period - last week was red cabbage, this week potatoes, carrots and leeks. If you want to get your kids to eat their vegetables, don't chuck it on the plate having boiled the Bejayzus out of it: put a little love in there. All you need is a bit of thought and attention to detail. This is a typically northern English recipe, but it is very well-known in other northern European countries. In Flanders, it is called Stoemp. You can replace the leek with swede (rutabaga), which is the purest northern English recipe.

Ingredients:
6 potatoes
4 average-sized carrots
1 leek
50g butter
75cl milk
A hardish yellow cheese, like Cheddar or Grimbergen, cut into cubes (optional)
Some more butter for frying + olive oil
Salt & fresh ground black pepper

Instructions:
Cut the potatoes into boiling size, so a little bigger than the circle created by your thumb and forefinger. Slice the leek into rings and then in half. While the potatoes are boiling in salted water, fry the leek gently for ten minutes in some butter and olive oil with the sausages, which will give it some flavour, adding some salt and pepper.



Once the potatoes are nicely boiled, put some butter and milk in it, and mash it up into a consistency.



Then add the leek, mixing well. At this point, you can slip in some small blocks of cheese if you want. Serve with sausages and a nice sauce like mayonnaise, pickle or mustard.

Recipe XLIX (1st Anniversary Edition) - Grated Cheddar (with Penne al Tonno)

To celebrate one whole year of RRotW, I would like to do something extra special - to dedicate this edition to the greatest, tastiest and most versatile of all the world's cheeses, Cheddar. Real Cheddar that is, not that revolting stuff they stick on top of burgers in some plastic-and-white-tile fast food joint. There are many foodstuffs that have been "copyrighted" through the EU's Protected Geographical Status scheme, like Gorgonzola, Brie, Feta, etc... Cheddar has not. It is seen as a generic name. For that reason, it is much maligned and many cheap imitations have arisen, particularly in the US, New Zealand and even China. Not so much in continental Europe, where there are some other hardened cheeses, like Pecorino, Manchego, Maasdamer and Emmental, all with distinct flavours. What marks Cheddar out from all the others, is it doesn't try to be cool or quirky, pretentious or arrogant. It is what it is - Cheddar, and I for one am so glad my local supermarket here in Germany stocks it.

Ingredients:
250g Cheddar
A grater



Instructions:
Put one of the longer edges of your cheese against the grater on the side where the smallest holes face upwards. With short pressing movements, grate the cheese until you have enough to put over your pasta dish, details below.

To go with your Cheddar, there are many possibilities from a cheese & tomato sandwich (with fresh ground pepper and mayo), to a topping for your dauphinois. I have chosen an Italian number, a variant on the Puttanesca recipe. Puttanesca is a sauce made by the prostitutes of Sicily to serve their customers after they'd... well... exerted themselves somewhat, and needed a pick-me-up. Lots of Italian recipes come out of cans and packages, which is why the ingredients photo is a bit odd this week...



Ingredients:
500g penne rigate
1 can of tuna
1 onion, sliced into large-ish pieces
4 or 5 cloves of garlic
250ml tomato passata
Some olives (usually black, but I'd eaten them all, so green will do)
Some ground black pepper (10 peppercorns or so)
Half a teaspoonful of chili powder
Some oregano (preferably fresh, but out of season, dried will have to do)


Instructions:
Heat up a saucepan with salted water. Once boiling, put in the pasta. Take a deep-sided frying pan and put in some olive oil. Once hot, sweat the onions for a couple of minutes. Add the tuna, olives, pepper and the chili powder, then just a minute before the passata, add the garlic. The garlic releases its aroma very quickly, but putting it in in the beginning burns it, ruining the flavour and consistency.



Add the passata (and if you like, some red wine), and put on a low heat for ten to thirty minutes, depending how much you would like your sauce reduced. Mine was only 10 minutes, because I like my pasta moist.



Once the pasta has cooked (TIP: don't believe boiling times on pasta packs - if you like it al dente, try a piece of it a couple of minutes before recommended cooking time) drain the water and pour the pasta into the sauce. Stir all the ingredients into each other.



Add it to the Cheddar by putting it into a bowl, carefully placing the cheese where it should be: on top, in pride of place.