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 CXI - Veal Steak Strips with a Leek and Blue Cheese Sauce

That's not the full title, but on the Net one is supposed to be brief... The full recipe would be "Veal Steak Strips and Caramelised Onions on a Bed of Spiral Pasta in a Leek and Blue Cheese Sauce", but that would just look too unwieldy...

Anyhow, this recipe is perfect for a cold November evening when the nights are getting longer and the memories of summer are still not so far away. 

Ingredients:

A third of a leek, cut into tiny pieces

100g Roquefort, Stilton, Gorgonzola or some such blue cheese

1 or 2 onions, thinly sliced

200ml cream

400g pasta, preferably large

Some small veal steaks, sliced into strips

Ground black pepper

Lots of butter for frying

Instructions:

Put butter into a saucepan and a decent frying pan, and water into another saucepan. Switch all of them on medium except the water (high).

Put the steaks in the frying pan and add a tiny bit of salt. Fry gently, removing any leakages from the meat. Put the onions in towards the beginning.

Take the leek and pulse it in the mixer for a while until it is in small pieces. Fry gently in butter.

Put the pasta in salted boiling water.

With 5 to 10 minutes before the pasta is ready, put the blue cheese in with the leek. Allow it to melt, then add some cream and let it heat on a gentle temperature without bubbling.

Once the pasta is cooked, the rest should be ready too. 

When dishing up, think about making it presentable. I mixed the sauce with the pasta, put the meat on top in a small pile and the onions on top. But I'm sure you'll have a method that is just as attractive! Finish off with some rocket salad or such like to give it some colour.

I like my steaks nicely browned on the outside and red on the inside, hence the contrasting shades.

Recipe CVII - Veal Cutlets in Tomato-Pepper Sauce

There comes a time when even such a humble customer as myself can force (or embarrass) a supermarket to expand its sorry variety of wares at the meat counter. And so it came to pass, that in the last month or so, my local supermarket has cut down on painting all their best meats some orange-red hue of tasteless marinade, and tried very hard to make pork just one of the meats on offer, not the main meat on offer. And to my surprise, they had veal cutlets there yesterday. As soon as the woman offered them to me, I didn't even bother looking at the rest. This is a flexible recipe, and you should add ingredients as you see fit, but here is the skeleton.

Ingredients:

Some veal cutlets

*Some tomatoes

*A red pepper but if you like bitterness, a green one

*a few slices of leek

*3 to 5 cloves of garlic

*A glass or two of red wine

*A tablespoon of vinegar

*Salt and freshly ground black pepper

*Some fresh herbs (I used 7 leaves of sage)

An onion, roughly chopped

A courgette, cut into thick pieces

Some pasta or boiled potatoes.

Tools:

An electric blender

Instructions:

Put all the ingredients above highlighted with an asterisk (*) into a blender and give it a good go until the pieces are very thin and there is a drop of liquid from it. 

Put the veal in a high-sided pan with some hot butter or olive oil, and seal it. Remove from the pan and put in the onion and courgette. Sweat them nicely, put the veal back in the pan, and pour the mixture over the meat.

Cover it and cook it on a low heat for as long as you like. I gave it 2 hours, to let the flavours really run.

Due to the choice of my guests, I used penne for it, but tagliatelle or potatoes would be a lot better.

I really apologise for the terrible photo above, but I had to improvise because the photos of the original presentation somehow deleted themselves!!

Recipe LXXII - Chicken Clare Balding

This is a recipe I designed myself with very careful thought. I wanted to honour the person who most epitomised my wonderful summer of sport on TV and my time in London during the Games. This person is, for me, someone who straddles classes, who is at home sitting next to other presenters and pundits in the studio, interviewing an elated tongue-tied competitor or mingling with crowds inside and outside venues. She explains everything so clearly and is most obviously hyper-intelligent without having any airs or graces. She is also one of those who is on my list of living people I'd most like to invite to a dinner party. I hope she gets to read this recipe one day and if she makes it, that she likes it. I apologise for the three horrid photos, but I have a new light in the kitchen and it is somewhat over-bearing for my poor little camera... Just like Clare Balding, this is an extremely adaptable recipe for the season, the taste and the consistency, but below are the original ingredients I used, the essential items having asterisks (*).

Ingredients (for 2 people):
200g Greek krithiraki / manéstra pasta * (an Olympic commentator should have something Greek in her eponymous recipe, although I used Turkish as that's what they sell locally!)
Half a courgette
Half a pâtisson (yellow squash or in the US pattypan squash) *
(in different seasons I see no problem in using sweet potatoes, aubergines or the like to add seasonal taste)
1 sweet red pepper *
1 onion
1 spoonful of chili powder *
2 breasts of chicken (sliced into strips) *
(A handful of green beans is a pleasant variant)
1 carton of single cream *
Some olive oil *
3 sprigs of English garden mint *



Instructions:
I think it was a pleasure to make this dish. Slice the squash into thin strips. You can halve those strips or keep them the same size, but they should be no thicker than a third of a centimetre. Cut up the chicken breasts into chunky pieces. Slice the courgette, pepper and onion in any way you wish.
Take two frying pans, on a medium heat, with olive oil - in one, begin frying the chicken, in the other, the squash. In the one with the squash, add some chili powder, and in the other once the chicken is sealed, add the vegetables. Stir-fry both pans, the squash for a good ten minutes. Add the chopped mint to the squash after seven, and in the other pan stir-fry the chicken for up to half an hour, or until everything is nice and soft and the flavours have run.



Once it is cooked, add the squash to the chicken for the remainder of the cooking time, and with ten minutes to go, turn down the heat and add the cream to gently heat up without evaporating. While the other ring is hot, heat some salted water and cook your Greek pasta. You can either mix it in with the other ingredients once cooked, or as I did, serve the chicken on a bed of pasta.


Above is one I made with green beans.

Serve in wide bowls or flat plates, with a nice bottle of medium Kent, Sussex or Hampshire wine.


My person of 2012, Clare Balding - photo: www.tvnewsroom.co.uk

Recipe XXII - Trottole Vegetariane (with Pancetta)

A couple of weeks ago, a former student of mine asked me if I could post a vegetarian dish. Now, I could never condone the ruination of a meal by omitting the only thing that makes it tasty, so I compromised. In this recipe, the pancetta is optional. Instead, why not add more vegetables, like aubergine, or at least add some mozzarella to it to make it a teensy-weensy bit more filling... In any case, this takes just over half an hour to prepare, cook and serve.



Ingredients:
500g pasta
2 thick rashers of pancetta
1 red pepper
1 courgette
1 whole garlic bulb or 3 cloves of garlic
Some cherry tomatoes
Some fresh herbs
Some cooking olive oil
Some olive oil for drizzling
A large slice of parmigiano reggiano (Parmesan) for grating

Instructions:
Cut up the vegetables into the sizes you like. Some prefer round slices of courgette and some prefer quarters or halves. The same for the peppers - some like whole strips, some small squares.
Cut the cherry tomatoes in half, cut up the garlic into small pieces, cut up the pancetta with a decent pair of kitchen scissors, not forgetting to remove the hard edges and boney pieces left. Fill a saucepan with water and add a pinch of salt, put on a high temperature.



Take a large high-sided frying pan and put in your olive oil for cooking. Turn on the cooker to a high temperature and fry the bacon/pancetta pieces for a few minutes until browned. Remove them carefully from the hot oil, then put the pepper and courgette in the pan. After the initial sweat, turn the temperature down and add the remaining ingredients, except the Parmesan.



*Never put fresh herbs into the pan at the beginning, or they will just burn to a crisp. The same applies to dried herbs and garlic. Always put them in towards the end so they remain green or fresh.
Timing is essential - don't forget, if your veggies are ready before the pasta, take them off the heat until two minutes from when the pasta is ready.
Put the pancetta back in the frying pan and give it a quick mix in with the rest of the ingredients.
Drizzle with good quality extra virgin olive oil and cover with grated Parmesan.
Tremendous outside in the evening air with a lovely bottle of young white wine.

Recipe XVI - Pasta Carbonara

Please excuse the one-day delay in this recipe - I had quite a busy weekend, and I'm only now coming to terms with the fact it's Monday...

To make a carbonara is one of life's little pleasures in my kitchen - it's simple, quick and is perfect for this type of weather as it re-salts your body after sweating so much in the heat. I like my Speck/pancetta nice and chunky, because it looks so appetising!
Carbonara is not, like the packets in supermarkets like you to think, a runny cheese sauce, at all. It is more like scrambled eggs wrapped in pasta. Don't leave the final part of the sauce too long to cook though, or you'll be having an omelette instead...

Timing is the key.


Ingredients:
200-300g pancetta/Speck (or equivalent smoked pork belly from your local area is also OK)
4 eggs
1 medium-sized onion
4-5 cloves of garlic
1 small carton (140ml) of cream
150g pecorino/cacciotta di pecora (or parmesan, if you can't get any)
Some fresh marjoram
Ground black pepper
I also like to add one ball of mozzarella, but only because I am addicted to it.




Instructions:

• Cut up the onion and garlic into small pieces.
• Take your kitchen scissors and cut the pancetta into strips.
• Fry the onion, garlic and the pancetta lightly in the pan until crisp.
• Meanwhile, heat up your (lightly salted) water.
• Crack open the eggs and beat them. Add the cream, mozzarella and some of your cheese.
• Pour the egg mixture into the pan with the pancetta and turn the heat up a little. Cook until the consistency is to your liking.
• Add the pasta to the pan as soon as it is al dente. Do not leave it to cook much longer, or it will become a mushy pap.
• Stir all the ingredients in very well and serve immediately.

Buon appetito!

Recipe XII - Pasta alla Puttanesca

Italian food is not known for its spiciness. In fact, it is quite a parochial cuisine, being based on 5 principle ingredients (green-red vegetables, meat/fish, onion, garlic, olive oil) with add-ons to vary the flavour, like cheese and herbs, but it is still quite interesting to see what can be done with those five ingredients. In this recipe, spice makes a dramatic entrance into this most limited of national cuisines. It is also surprising how much Italians rely on canned produce to make up their dishes.

This particular dish was served by the prostitutes of Italian ports looking to serve something hearty to their clients, hence the name.

Ingredients:
Olive oil
5 cloves of garlic, diced finely
1 tin of anchovies is usual, but I use tuna as it does not have such a salty taste, considering the other ingredients
2-3 red pepperoni or some chili powder if not to hand
1 red pepper
1 large onion
Half a cup of capers
A large handful of pitted black olives (chopped or whole according to preference)
A tin of diced tomatoes or a carton of tomato passata
Fresh herbs (parsley is usually recommended, but I like to add thyme and basil)
Some red wine (optional)
A 500g pack of penne rigate or farfalle

Instructions:
Put the olive oil into a rounded frying pan and put the cooker on a medium-hot setting. Once the oil is hot (you can tell by putting one piece of finely diced garlic or onion and seeing if it bubbles), throw in the onions and peppers.
Sweat them for a few minutes until they are soft but not browning. If you choose chili powdder, now is the time to add it.
Add the tuna, garlic, pepperoni, capers and olives and allow the mixture to blend into itself.
Meanwhile, heat up a saucepan of salted water. Once boiling, put the pasta into it and follow timing instructions.
Add the herbs, then the passata. Turn down the heat and allow the ingredients to mix well into each other. Some people do this for ten minutes, others for whole hours. It is up to you, but use a lid if you are leaving it on for a longer time.
Once the pasta is cooked (remember, pasta al dente is about a minute short of full cooking time, and makes the pasta much more solid rather than that dinner-hall pulp served in staff canteens) put it into the sauce and mix it all together until it forms a homogeneised consistency. Serve hot, drizzle olive oil over the top.

Other options:
CHEESE: Some choose to add mozzarella to it early on to dissolve into the sauce but in such a spicy dish, this makes little or no difference. What does, though, is the cheese you use. Some purists will guffaw at the following idea, but what is a recipe without a tweak? I personally think grated English Cheddar is the ideal cheese topping for tomato-based sauces, and I defy anyone who has not tried it to disagree! Failing that, Cacciotta di Pecora is an ideal alternative to Parmigiano, which I have always found a trifle too powdery.

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!