Recipe CXXXI - Slow-Cooked Corona Chicken plus Meatballs in Ratatouille

These times of isolation have brought out the imaginative spirit in me. Yesterday, I broke open the fridge to use up any vegetables that seemed to be going soft, and to create something that would last a day or two. So I came up with this very tasty slow cooker that I've named after this epoch of segregation.

Ingredients:
10 tomatoes
2 spring onions
1 red onion
1 ordinary onion
1 red pepper
3 diced carrots
Worcestershire sauce
10 leaves of sage, cut finely
Garlic is optional
Red wine (you choose the amount)
1 whole chicken - slit the breasts and leg open to allow the flavour in
Ground black pepper and salt rubbed into the chicken
1 baking tray with lid or aluminium foil
Food blender
Butter
Lashings of olive oil

Accompaniment: sautéed potatoes

Instructions:

Turn your oven on to 180°C and peel and cut into 2cm-sized pieces.

Take out your food blender, and put in the tomatoes, three sorts of onions, red pepper, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, sage, some salt and pepper. Blend everything to a fine pulp and leave to settle before blending again.

Take out your chicken, cover it in oil, salt and more pepper, place it and the diced carrots in the baking tray then pour over the blended sauce, making sure your chicken is entirely saturated. Spoon more on top if necessary.

Cover it and place in the oven. Cook on 180°C for 30 minutes, then turn down to 120°C and go off to do something constructive while your house starts to smell appetising.

About 45 minutes before you want to eat, parboil the potatoes, then fry them in butter and olive oil on a medium heat until they are nice and brown. Remove the chicken, cut into the appropriate number of pieces and put on the plate with the potatoes. Spoon some of the sauce onto the food and save the rest for tomorrow.

With the rest of the sauce:
The day after, I made a ratatouille with meatballs and rice using the rest of the sauce. Needless to say, it was the heaviest rata I've ever had, but it gave me a nice warm full stomach.

Ingredients:
Aubergine
Red or green pepper
Onion
Courgette
5 large tomatoes, roughly chopped into large chunks
Whole cherry tomatoes
Green beans
Olive oil
500g minced beef
Herbes de Provence
More red wine
Salt and pepper
Rice
The rest of the sauce

Instructions:

Put some pepper, herbes de Provence, salt and minced beef into a pot and mix in well. Make small balls from them. Take a tray and put them in the fridge for half an hour or so.

In a casserole dish, fry the vegetables except the tomatoes on a medium heat until they are soft, then add the meatballs and seal them on all sides.

Add the tomatoes and some red wine, put a lid on, cooking at a medium-low heat allowing the juices to run but not evaporate.

Then add the remaining sauce from yesterday, and simmer for 30 minutes to an hour. Cook your rice in the meantime and add it to the mix at the end, so as not to absorb all the juices while they are cooking.

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 LXXXII - Homemade Burgers and Potato Wedges

One thing I really appreciate in the UK is proper unassuming pub food. Burger, potato wedges and mayo please my taste buds far more than anything from a fancy restaurant. And that's not only because of the food, but because of the atmosphere of the place. The people there are far more accessible, the service is (usually) with a smile and the food is filling. Plus you don't get stared at if you eat your short pasta with a spoon. This recipe is so simple and takes twenty minutes to prepare and half an hour to cook.

Ingredients (for 2 people)
500g minced beef
1/2 an onion (finely chopped)
A spoonful of thyme
A spoonful of oregano
5 cloves of garlic (chopped - optional)
10 peppercorns (crushed)
Some salt
1 egg
A tablespoon of flour
10 smallish potatoes, cut into wedges

Instructions:
Put your beef in a mixing bowl. Add the salt, onion, herbs and peppercorns, and give it a really good mix. Then add the egg, which acts as a binding agent.



Once everything is mixed in well, divide them into two balls and put them on a lightly-floured plate and put some flour on top. Flatten them with a spatula or the ball of your hand to the thickness you require. I like mine thick, so I cook mine for longer, but it's up to you.



Put it in a buttered, non-stick pan and fry until done. I like mine slightly burnt on the outside, so for the last ten minutes I turn up the heat.



For the potato wedges, I'm sure you know how to do them, but anyway - heat up some oil in a deep pan. While it is getting nice and hot, cut the potatoes into fairly large pieces. Wash and dry them. The easiest way to dry them is to put them on a towel and dab them. Pick them up to put them into the frying basket, then deep-fry them for five minutes. This is the 5-4-3-2-1 method. Remove the basket for a while and put it back in for four minutes. Remove again, then three, repeat, two, and just before serving, one minute. They will be lovely and crispy by then!



I served it with a mix of fennel and onion, plus a good spoonful of mayonnaise.

Recipe XXIX - Tomato Ragú à la Bolognese with Tagliatelle

Italian food is always tricky to make, because Italians will never say it's the right recipe. It wasn't done by an Italian in an Italian way using Italian products. Well, I don't really care - it's like a Skoda Fabia: it has a Volkswagen engine, it was designed by Germans and parts of it were made in far-flung places like Ukraine and Spain, but nobody would dare call the Skoda anything but Czech. The fact Italians can talk so passionately about following the rules in the kitchen, yet wouldn't even slow down for an old lady crossing at a red traffic light outside a police station is really showing where their priorities lie.
This recipe is just a theme on a variation, a ragú-like dish which anyone whose surname doesn't end in "-ini" or "-ossi" can identify with, even if Italians themselves don't. And any entire nation who votes for a corrupt, sex-mad TV mogul as Prime Minister TWICE has absolutely no right to criticise the following recipe!




Ingredients:
500g minced beef
5 cloves of garlic, crushed under a wide knife and diced
10 leaves of fresh basil, chopped
7 peppercorns, crushed in a pestle & mortar
7 mushrooms
1/3 of a large courgette, sliced and quartered
2 onions, diced
1 red or green pepper, diced
A large glass of red wine
A tin of diced tomatoes or a carton of passata
Grated cheese (see after the recipe)


Instructions:
Take a bowl and put in the minced beef. Take a large pinch of salt, the chopped basil, the crushed pepper and the crushed garlic, and with a fork mix the ingredients up until they are well integrated.



Put them in a frying pan with olive oil and move about until the red changes to brown.
In a separate frying pan, put in the onions and red pepper; allow them to sweat and then add some more olive oil before you put in the courgette and the mushrooms, because they suck in the oil.



After about 5 minutes, add the mince from the other frying pan, the wine (see the photo below for the amount of wine I dared to use!) and the tomatoes, and cook on a medium heat for 45 minutes.



Serve with pasta and a generous portion of cheese.



Another thing I would like to mention, is that Cheddar is an ideal accompaniment to Bolognese. It has much less pungency about it than Parmigiano and blends in so well. I think Cheddar is one of the most underrated cheeses, and gets a bad reputation from its processed namesakes, used in American fast food *the author spits*.
If any Italians criticise your choice of cheese, let them know - it is better to have imagination and mix & match ingredients than to slavishly follow a recipe to the letter, in case Mamma would disapprove!

Recipe XXIV - Hachis Parmentier (or Shepherd's Pie, to me and you!)

The French - you have to love them for their sheer persistence that everything that came out of a kitchen was theirs - named this dish after Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, the father of the potato. He was in fact an 18th century nutritionist with a large share in the potato market, so it was in his interests to promote the potato, seen up until that point in France as only good for the pigs. However, this dish is extraordinarily international. In Portugal, it's "Empadão", in Spanish South America it is called "pastel de papa", in the Arab Mediterranean it's called "Siniyet Batata" or simply " a plate of potatoes", and even in Russia, it has the name "Картофельная запеканка", or "kartofelnaya zapyekanka", meaning "potato pie". But all the time a restaurant calls it "hachis Parmentier", they can sell it for three times the price!
I like this dish because it reminds me of my dear mother, whose cooking I didn't appreciate nearly enough.

Ingredients:
500g pure beef mince
300g-400g potatoes
1 onion
(1 leek, or a courgette, if you like)
1 red pepper
3 carrots
1 can of peeled tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic
Some red wine
(Some dried rosemary, oregano, sage or the like)
Some fresh rosemary, oregano, sage or the like
A pestle & mortar with pepper
Some milk
Some butter
Some grated cheese
Some breadcrumbs
Some olive oil



Instructions:
Put the minced beef into a medium-sized bowl. Add salt and some of your ground pepper, plus some of the dried or fresh herbs. Cut up the vegetables and put them in the frying pan, adding the rest of the ground pepper. After a couple of minutes once they have sweated a bit, add the minced beef. Once the beef is no longer red, add the garlic and the rest of the herbs. A few minutes later, because you don't want to burn the herbs, pour in the tomatoes and stir it in, adding as much or as little red wine as you like. I put in a lot, because it reduces, and adds a great deal to the flavour. Turn down the heat and simmer for 45 minutes. Now turn on your oven to 180°C.



While the meat is cooking nicely, peel, cut and wash your potatoes. Then put them in a pan of cold salted water and bring to the boil. If you cut them small enough, they take only 10 to 15 minutes to go soft. I let them get really soft so they are much more malleable, especially considering what you'll do next. Put in your milk, your butter and your grated cheese. The pan should still be red hot, but heat up the milk on the bottom, take off the heat and mash it all together.



Take a deep baking dish, pour in the meat, then spoon the mashed potato on top of it.



Don't forget to add breadcrumbs to the top. Put it into the oven until the meat is bubbling around the edges!

Serve alone or with peas, broccoli or sprouts. Oh yes, and a good bottle of dry red!

Recipe VI - Lasagne al Forno

Ingredients for the lasagne:
A box of lasagne sheets (green/egg/ ordinary, to preference)
600g minced beef
2 medium-sized onions
1 medium-sized green pepper
1 medium-sized red pepper
5 fresh tomatoes, sliced
2 large balls of mozzarella, cut into cubes
A glass of cheap red wine
Fresh herbs from the garden
5 cloves of garlic, crushed under a knife and finely chopped

Ingredients for the béchamel sauce:
Butter
Flour
Milk
Nutmeg
Pepper

Recipe for the lasagne:

• Switch on the oven to 175°C and put a square, ceramic baking dish in it. Take the minced beef, garlic and some of the fresh herbs and fold them all into each other, adding salt and pepper from the pepper mill slowly, aiming properly to make sure it is not over-salted.
• Using a large, rounded frying pan like a wok, take the onions and peppers and gently fry them in olive oil. Add the minced beef mix and fry until it is almost fully browned.
• Add the tomatoes and put a lid over the pan. Once the tomatoes have disintegrated, add the wine (however much you want to liquefy the filling), add the rest of the herbs, add the mozzarella and gently cook in the covered pan until the mozzarella is totally integrated into the sauce. You may need to keep a good eye on the bottom of the pan, as mozzarella has a habit of sinking to the bottom and burning. If there is enough liquid, this should not be a problem.
• 45 minutes is recommended, but if you are pushed for time, as long as all the ingredients are in the pan, you should be able to move onto the next phase.

Towards the end of the pan phase:

• Put on some salted water in a saucepan - this is where you will dip the lasagne sheets before you put them in the oven.
• Béchamel: Heat up the butter (a good, thick slice from the block, and add some flour until it solidifies with the butter. Add some milk slowly to your mixture, making sure you balance it with more flour if necessary. Add your pepper and grated nutmeg at this point too. Once it is of a good consistency, keep it near to you, ready for the filling of the baking dish.

Filling the baking dish:
This is a great pleasure of mine - one of the most delightful experiences of making a lasagne.

• Take the baking dish out of the oven. Put three sheets of lasagne into the boiling salt water for about 20 seconds.
• In the bottom, pour some of the béchamel. Using a pair of tongs, remove the lasagne sheets from the water and shake off the excess liquid. Put them on top of the bechamel, covering the bottom of the dish.
• Put three more sheets in the water.
• Using a large serving spoon, put some of the minced meat sauce on evenly-spread.
• Add the next three sheets of lasagne.
• Put three more sheets in the water.
• Add another layer of minced meat sauce.
• Lasagne sheets, remembering three more in the water.
• Add some more bechamel, but no meat sauce. This gives the centre a truly creamy taste!
• More lasagne sheets.
• More meat sauce. By now, you should be running out of meat sauce. Upon the final top layer of meat sauce, pour the excess béchamel.
• Put the whole thing in the oven for 25 to 45 minutes, depending on the size.

Removing lasagne from the baking dish:
Many people have severe trouble keeping the lasagne whole. You need a sharp knife, and go around the outside of the lasagne, peeling it away from the dish. Then, cut across the middle, length-ways, then width-ways, depending on the number of eaters. Using a spatula and your knife, ease the first portion onto the spatula. The first one is the trickiest part!

Accompaniments:
Any lasagne would not be complete without a good bottle of half-bodied, young red wine. Good examples come from the south: Sicily and Puglia.

Starter dish:
Insalata Caprese: Sliced tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, basil leaves, olive oil, balsamic vinegar.
Slice the mozzarella and slide it between pieces of tomato. Put a leaf of basil on top and drizzle the olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top.
Buon appetito!