Recipe CXXXIV - Caramelised Brussels Sprouts and sauteed Wild Boar Medallions

It's that grey week between Christmas and New Year's Eve when very little happens except finishing up all the food you didn't gluttonously consume during the main feast days and hanging around for that great anticlimactic moment when the numbers on the clock signify that it's 1st January of the following year. But this year is different - the last week of the year of cancelled invitations and postponed bookings due to the great pestilence of 2020 will tick by more slowly than the rest of the year with the tortuous effect of a dripping tap and those leftover vegetables will have no other mouths to enter than your own, so what better way to spend a miserable December night than to make something different with your remaining food? Here's a simple but delightful take on the humble Brussels sprout, the most underestimated Christmas ingredient of them all, plus a splendid little side dish of wild boar.

Ingredients for the sprouts:

500g Brussels sprouts 

Minimum 20 fresh ground peppercorns 

100g butter 

Spoonful of nutmeg 

Some salt

Instructions:

Heat the oven to 200°C. Do the usual removal of the outer leaves, then slice the sprouts in half. Melt the butter on a low flame and pour into a wide baking dish - this is to leave plenty of room so they can sit with the insides on the base. Pour the butter into the baking dish, then cover the sprouts in salt, nutmeg and pepper before placing them flat in the butter.

Cook in the oven for 25 minutes or until soft.

Ingredients for the wild boar medallions:

350g to 500g wild boar fillet cut into slices 

Plenty of ground black peppercorns 

6 mushrooms of your choice 

1 red onion

3 cloves of garlic

A glass of brandy

150ml to 200ml fresh cream

Instructions:

Roll the boar in the pepper and some salt, cut up the mushrooms, onions and garlic. Put some butter in a wide frying pan on a medium-high temperature, fry the medallions until they are sealed, add the garlic, onions and mushrooms, pour over some brandy, let it reduce. Then add the cream and let it thicken.

Done!

I also caramelised some carrots with sugar using the same recipe as the sprouts and they went down very well. 

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 CXXIX - Roast Spatchcock Lemon Chicken

I have started shopping in Luxembourg these days, as the kind of fare on offer is more international. This week, they had a splendid Portuguese theme and were selling all kinds of cheeses, vegetables, sea salts, fruits and meats from the country. There were some delightful pastéis de nata, the Portuguese national calling card, and some rather interesting spatchcock chickens. Now usually, I do my own, but what with so many responsibilities these days, time is of the essence, so I bought it. Now, it's winter, so I couldn't really grill the thing outside in the snow, but I wanted to do it some justice, considering its provenance. This recipe was inspired by a meal I had in Andalucía many years ago, which remains one of the most memorable gastronomic experiences I had.

Ingredients:
1 spatchcock chicken
4 large cloves of garlic
1 onion or 4 shallots
3 lemons
2 sprigs of rosemary
Some olive oil
Salt and ground black pepper

Instructions:
Turn on the oven to a maximum 150°C.

Spatchcocking a chicken:
If you have a whole chicken, place it with the breast on the cutting board, and cut along one side of the backbone with a sharp knife or the kitchen scissors. Then cut the other side of the backbone and remove it. Now turn the chicken over to the other side and open it up by pressing on the breastbone. You can use your hands to flatten it totally.

Then...
Having cut up 2 of your lemons into thin slices, place one of them on the bottom of an oven dish along with thick slices of garlic and onion.

Open up the skin of the chicken at the neck with your fingers and fill it with slices from the third lemon. Put some garlic and onion in there if you want too. Finally, spread salt, pepper and olive oil randomly on top of the chicken and cover the oven dish with tin foil. Put it in the oven on a low heat for 90 minutes to 2 hours.

Then take off the foil and roast at 180°C for a further 30 minutes.

I made potatoes roasted in olive oil and rosemary, and to bring some colour, Brussels sprouts fried in butter and nutmeg.

Bom apetite, as they say in Old Lisbon!

Recipe CXXVII - Spicy Lamb and Red Wine Pasta

I was thinking about what to cook today and I fancied something spicy without the tomato-based sauce and something saucy without the cream, so I whipped this one up - it's really easy to make and perfect for these cooler summer nights.

Ingredients:
350g lamb, sliced into bite-size pieces
1 onion, diced
5 cloves of garlic, diced
1 hot red chili pepper, cut into round slices
6 to 9 mushrooms, diced
7 to 10 small tomatoes, halved
12 to 15 black peppercorns, ground
2 sprigs each of fresh rosemary and oregano or thyme
1/3 of a bottle of wine
(I use Primitivo from Salerno usually, but in this case a nice Merlot is perfect)
350g pasta, either long or short
Salt to taste
Olive oil

 Instructions:

Take the fresh herbs, black pepper, salt and a quarter of the diced onions and garlic, and mix them in a bowl with the lamb.

Rub it all well in to the meat to make sure the flavour takes hold.

Pour the red wine over the top of it and put it in the fridge for a while (minimum 30 minutes) until you are ready to cook.

Remove the lamb from the wine (it will have gone a darker shade of red now), but keep all ingredients.

Put the remaining onion, the red pepper, the mushrooms and the remaining garlic in a hot pan with a good dose of olive oil and stir-fry until they soften.

Remove as much from the pan as you can leaving the oil there (or top it up), and put in a bowl for a while,then fry the lamb in the flavoured oil.

Then add the other ingredients and fry for a further 2 to 4 minutes, before you pour the wine containing the herbs on top. While it is reducing and thickening a little (you can always add more red wine if necessary!), boil your pasta. Once the pasta is ready, mix it in with the sauce and serve while hot.

Recipe CIX - Minestrone Soup

The many Italians I know have a penchant for telling me how much they yearn for their homes and all the wonderful cooking they are missing out on because they live in Germany or Luxembourg. "What is August for you is November for us", one of them said. Another admonished me for eating penne rigate with a spoon for practical reasons - it's a short pasta and fits nicely on the spoon. "It is forbidden in Italy to eat any kind of pasta with a spoon!" shrieked another with a face like I had just gone to the toilet on her pet cat. I mean, what's going to happen? Is it going to cause outbreaks of bunga-bunga in the Sistine Chapel? No. Get over it.

Well, this is my message to them: if you had spent less time obeying your rather superstitious rules of the kitchen and more time obeying the temporal laws of the state, the place you left might be in a lot better shape and you might not have had to abandon Italy in the first place... just a thought.

Anyway...

Although I am not a fan of celery, this dish would not be Minestrone without it.

It is very easy to make, and considering the few ingredients, it is rather tasty on a cold, rainy and dreary November afternoon. My November, not their November.

Ingredients:

5 large carrots, sliced to your preference

Half a Savoy cabbage (shredded)

2 large onions (sliced)

2-3 large potatoes (peeled and cut into bite-size pieces)

5 cloves of garlic (roughly sliced)

4 sticks of celery (cut into small pieces)

Some butter beans

A tin of tomatoes (yes, Italian cooking is based on it!)

Some fresh tomatoes (quartered)

500ml to 1litre of vegetable stock (hot)

Ground black pepper

Salt

Instructions:

Take the onions, carrots and celery and fry them in a medium-hot pan in olive oil until they have sweated nicely and are a little softer. Add salt and pepper and stir continually.

Add the garlic and once it starts to release its aroma, add the potatoes and keep stirring. Add the fresh tomatoes and the tinned tomatoes and reduce the heat. Put on the lid and let the flavours run for a good 10 minutes.

Now you can add the hot vegetable stock and let it boil gently for a minimum of 20 minutes. At this point, you can add the Savoy cabbage and once soft (a couple of minutes), serve with some decent sliced bread.

Recipe CVIII - Cheese, Leek & Bacon Quiche

So, how long does it take me to write up a recipe? All week, actually; sometimes longer, depending if I have thought of something to do or not. Which is why I don't post every week any more - I do a lot of experimenting and some weeks I don't think it's good enough to post. Anyhow, I'd say it takes up to 5 days for a recipe to ferment in my head, about 2 hours shopping (sometimes more, if I have to go to a city for ingredients), and most of the afternoon making it, taking photos that don't reveal the chaos that is my kitchen, but then a good hour to upload photos and type up the recipe on here. So I hope you appreciate this one - I have to say it's one of my top ten, and I thoroughly enjoyed eating it after!

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

220g of plain flour, sifted

a pinch of salt

130g butter, chilled and cubed

1 medium-sized egg, beaten

A roll of clingfilm

Some baking beans for blind baking

For the filling:

You can make up your own, but here are mine:

200g bacon lardons, finely chopped

60g fresh cheese (I used the French sheep's cheese Brébiou but Cheddar, Manchego, Mahon, Pecorino, even Stilton would all be fine - just taste a couple at the cheese counter and take one)

1 onion, 1 leek, 3 spring onions, 3 cloves of garlic, (some courgette, optional), chopped

Some chives (optional)

3 eggs

200ml double cream

100ml single cream

Some fresh herbs

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions:

Heat the oven to 180°C and grease your pastry tin.

Make some pastry by putting the flour, butter, fresh from the fridge, or it won't work, and the beaten egg together and kneading it into a crumbly dough. Alternatively, put it in the mixer and pulse. Then wrap it up in clingfilm and let it prove for 30 to 40 minutes.

Afterwards, spread clingfilm on the countertop, put more on top of the pastry and roll it out until it is as wide as your baking tray. Put the pastry inside carefully and cut off the excess. Fill it with baking beans and blind bake it for about 20 minutes.

In the meantime, cut up all your vegetables and cheese into blocks, fry the bacon (bit of black pepper too), then remove and put on some kitchen tissue to drain the oil; do the same with the other vegetables. Then take the creams and eggs and mix them together to make a consistent gloop. Put the other ingredients in there, and spread them about until there are no clumps of one particular ingredient. 

Remove the pastry from the oven and let it cool so you can remove the beans. It should be quite hard now, so that when you spoon the creamy gloop into it, the base remains unaffected by getting wet.

Put the whole into the oven for between 30 and 45 minutes - mine needed 40. Make sure the quiche is cooked through by putting a knife into the middle. If it comes out clean, it's done. If not, put it back for more time.

I like to keep the cheese bits a little bigger than normal, as it makes the pleasurable experience of eating melted cheese as real as possible.

Recipe C - Beef in Red Wine

This is the one-hundredth recipe and I want to do something special. So I decided to go back to the first one, and use a log of beef, onions, garlic and herbs. But to celebrate, I threw in a bottle of wine. 

Ingredients:

500g-1kg beef

2 onions

4 cloves of garlic

Some carrots

Some celery, but as I don't like celery, I used fennel, but leek would go well too

1 bottle of red wine

10 coarsely ground peppercorns

A bouquet garni (pick a nice assortment of fresh herbs from the garden)

Instructions:

Take all the ingredients, nicely cut, and put them in a bowl. Place the beef on top.

Pour the red wine over the top and put it (covered) in the fridge for between 6 and 14 hours.

Switch on the oven at 160°C.

Remove the beef from the marinade. Fry the outside gently in butter to seal it.

As you see from this photo, the herbs made an impression on the beef...

Remove the other ingredients from the red wine using a sieve, pouring the red wine into another bowl for later. Fry them gently in the butter from the beef.

Put the vegetables and the beef into a casserole dish, then pour over the wine.

Put it in the oven for as long as you like.

It will be very, very tender and very easy to carve, although it will reduce by half, so plan that when you buy your meat.

Recipe XC - Spicy Turkey Fillet Hotpot

It's still really cold here, which means more winter recipes. However this was a tremendously rewarding one, because the smell in the house is utterly divine. It is a little bit of an effort in the beginning but the main part is in a casserole dish, and for that you need absolutely nothing except a hot oven.



Equipment:
1 large sealable casserole

Ingredients:
750g-1200g turkey breast/fillet (chicken does just as well, but the pieces will remain whole or simply be halved.

Vegetables, your choice:
3 carrots, chopped
6 small or medium potatoes, cut into slices
1 red pepper, cut into strips
4-6 small onions, roughly chopped
5 cloves of garlic, sliced in two
Savoy cabbage, finely chopped into strips
1 courgette, sliced
Anything else that takes your fancy.

Spices, your choice:
1 small bowl, mix up some of the following to your own specifications:
cardamom, coriander, ginger, cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, plus some garam massala, or mild Madras.

Maximum 1.5 litres of hot, salted water

Optional:
Some coconut milk, almonds, sultanas, apples and grapes

Instructions:
Turn the oven on to 170°C. Take your turkey breast and slice it into differently-sized pieces and rub a little salt into them. Take your bowl of mixed spices and spread liberally over the pieces, saving about a third for later.



Fry them in butter or oil for five to ten minutes until sealed and place them in the casserole.
Take your onions, garlic, peppers and carrots, and give them a short period in the pan to sweat. Pour over half of the remainder of the spices and add more oil to stop the ingredients scorching. Then put this into the casserole. Add the cabbage and do the same. Mix up the vegetables making sure your meat remains at the bottom and the top is flat enough for the potato level. At this point you can place any fruit (dried or fresh) and nuts.



Finally, place your potatoes on the top to cover it all. Pour over the remainder of your spices, or add a little more to the top, to give it a brownish hue. Fill the casserole with the salted water up to the level of the potatoes but no higher, and cover it. You can add the coconut milk at this point, but it really isn't necessary as the whole thing will remain quite moist with the lid on.



Place it in the oven for between 90 minutes and 2 hours. This will give everything enough time for the flavours to run. When you remove it from the oven, leave it for a few minutes before serving.



It would go well with a nice sweet white wine.

Recipe LXXXVII - Winter Warmer: Beef Stew

It's -5°C outside and the snow lying on the ground is so charming to look at, but spend a few minutes bringing up the wood for the fire and you soon realise how nipple-hardeningly chilled you become in such a short time. For that reason, I'm making a beef stew with all the necessary accoutrements to keep the kitchen warm for a few hours - a slow oven cook. Beef shank is quite sinewy and full of marrow and fat, so cooking it in a few minutes is a very bad idea. But leave it for several hours in a casserole dish on a slow cook and the beef will do the hard work: its flavour will ooze, its fat will run, its marrow will shrink and along with the vegetables you add, the whole thing will be worth the wait at the end of the day. Bear in mind, though, you need a lot of meat to make it, as it shrinks and falls from the bone.

Ingredients:
1kg to 1.5kg beef shank
salt and pepper
2 bottles of dark beer (I used Czech Březňák because I love its smoothness, but British or Irish stout, German or Belgian dark beers will also do)
2 onions, quartered
Feel free to use your own range of vegetables. I used these below:
7 large mushrooms, whole
1 fennel, sliced
5 carrots, in large pieces
5 potatoes, cut to size, parboiled
5 cloves of garlic
1 bay leaf
6 sprigs of rosemary
10 whole peppercorns
Walnut oil, if you have it, otherwise olive oil or ordinary
Optional: sugar, cinnamon or sultanas

Required:
A high-sided frying pan
A casserole dish with a lid



Instructions:
Put the beef, well-salted and peppered, into a high-sided frying pan and fry on a gentle heat for a few minutes to seal both sides. Leave it on the side in the casserole dish. Put the water on to parboil your potatoes. Then put your vegetables, bay leaf, rosemary and peppercorns into the pan and sweat gently on a low flame for ten to fifteen minutes.



Put in your potatoes and slowly add the beer, letting it heat up to simmering point.



Leave it for a further ten minutes, then pour it over the beef in the casserole dish, and put the whole thing in the oven for 6 to 9 hours.



Not only does your house smell marvellous for a whole afternoon and evening, but the results are very rewarding.



To make the flavour just right, after a couple of hours, take it out for a brief time to add whatever it may need. This could include sweetening it, to take the bitterness of the beer away. You can use sugar and/or sultanas and/or cinnamon, but it's your call. Anyhow, enjoy the anticipation, which is just as good as the eating!

Recipe LXVIII - The Yorkish Pasty

Thanks for your patience over the last month - I have been taking a break from cooking for a while, spoiling myself away from the kitchen. I went to London for the Olympic Games and had some of the most memorable days of my life. While I was there, I gained a lot of inspiration for some future recipes, one I wish to tell you about here.

In the UK, there is a great pie tradition. Some languages have only one word for the casing, but in English there is dough, or batter, or pastry, to name but three. I tried a few pastry-based items, however one pie above all really stood out for me during my stay in London. In M&S in Stratford's new shopping centre, right next to the Olympic Park, there are two restaurants. In the top one, there is a tremendous view of the stadium and many other fabulous buildings, but the greatest feature is its Yorkish pasty.

I had only ever been moved to tears once before because of the delightful food put in front of me, but the second time happened there. And I really wanted to share the recipe with you because it is probably the best item of prepared food in the country. This is not precisely the recipe, because it's a closely-guarded secret, but it's as near as I believe to the original as possible.

Ingredients for the pastry (I made half twice - it was easier):
450g plain flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
120g butter
2 egg yolks (keep the whites!!!)
Some water
A pinch of salt

Instructions for the pastry:
Knead the flour, baking powder, salt, butter and egg yolk together until it looks like crumble mix.

 

Add some water very slowly until it makes the pastry form a dough. Wrap it in clingfilm and put it in the fridge for an hour.

 

Ingredients for the filling:
About 100g of swede (US = rutabaga)
About 300g of potato
2 onions
300g of finely chopped beef
Some finely chopped parsley
Some ground black pepper
Some salt

 

Instructions for the filling:
Cut up the potato and swede into very small pieces and drop them into salted boiling water for 4 or 5 minutes. Drain the water and leave them to cool.

Cut up your beef up into adequately small pieces. Do the same with the onion.

 

Instructions for the combination:
Switch the oven on to 180°C. Take the pastry out of the fridge. Pull off a lump and roll it out on a well-floured flat surface. Take a bowl or a plate and cut out a circle. Put some onion slices in the middle of the circle. Add some beef pieces. Put some salt and pepper on it, and add some chopped potato and swede. Sprinkle some parsley over the top. Use some of the egg whites to brush over the periphery of the pastry to be able to close it up over the top of the filling, making an envelope. Use some more egg white to baste the outside of the pasty so it goes a nice shade of brown. Repeat until all the ingredients run out.

 

Spread some butter inside a baking tray and put each pasty into it. You may end up with more pasties than room. Just baste a second baking tray. Put it in the oven for a minimum of 30 minutes. I put mine in for 45 minutes.

 

I made nine in the end, and they were utterly delicious. But it doesn't come close to the taste of a real M&S Yorkish pasty. Maybe because it was put in front of me.

If you do go to M&S in Stratford, you'll be surprised how many members of staff there are. It was a pleasure to not have to wait round until someone shows up. I hope they open up in Germany.