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 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 CXXV: Minced Lamb Ragout

PREAMBLE: Recently, I have been giving a lot of thought to the process of making meat. And especially to the principles and ethics behind it. There are a lot of videos out there, some let's face it on the wacky side and some very shocking, on the way meat is made. There are videos of shocking cruelty, as well as heartbreaking suffering. Some of the things animals put up with are atrocious. Good animal husbandry is, however, expensive. 

To make good food without breaking your budget is what many of us strive for, but this comes at another cost. Many farmers now are overwhelmed by the need to mass-produce and at the same time supermarkets force them to cut corners because they want to have the lowest price amongst their competitors. We should not be surprised to learn about these distressing facts. When I see a chicken for sale for 3 or 4 euro, I want to say a silent prayer for it. If only I believed, I would.

I would prefer to pay up to double the going rate for my meat, if I know where it was sourced and I can be assured the animal led a wholesome and happy life. And how can we stop farmers going out of pocket, supermarkets from undervaluing their stock and most importantly of all the unnecessary suffering of animals? By eating less meat and paying more for it. A more varied diet will also benefit our health.

AND NOW THE RECIPE...

At the moment, I am spending the month in the Belgian city of Leuven, which has several very good butchers, all with solid reputations. Rondou is the butcher par excellence in the city, and it was here that I came to buy some minced lamb.

Back in Germany, the idea of mincing lamb is as odd as the idea of buying clothes because they're smart, not because they're cheap; or not complaining if a train is one minute late. Which is why I want to do this recipe, because even though it's very simple, in fact one of the staples, it is the main ingredient that is the star of the show.

When people in the town where I live go to the butcher, they ask for meat with very little fat. Fat, they think, is bad. I cringe at how the butchers remove the skin and fat layer from a pork cutlet; I die a thousand deaths when I see them slicing meat the wrong way because it's just the next bit; but I often have to leave my place in the queue when I hear someone complaining that their steak has too much fat. They don't realise that the marbled effect in steak is what gives it its tender qualities. 

What does lean meat do in the pan or oven? It hardens to the consistency of an old boot. Why would I want to do that? I want food that appeals to my eyes and stomach; that is easy and pleasing to eat; that gives me a memorable experience; that appeals to my senses, as well as fills me up. I do not want to eat just to take on the necessary calories to get me through the rest of the day.

Method: Lamb meat is by nature fattier than other meats; I guess it's because sheep run about less than other animals... anyhow, it makes a very succulent ragout.

Take the minced lamb and chop 4 cloves of garlic for every 500g. Add fresh or dried herbs, mainly rosemary and thyme, plus the appropriate amount of salt and pepper. Give it a good mixing until it is consistent. You can put it in the fridge until required, if necessary.

Ingredients:
Half a pepper, 5 brown mushrooms, 2 onions (one red, one white), half a courgette, some fresh tomatoes, some tinned tomatoes, some red wine, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste

Slicing technique:
Cut your courgette lengthways down the middle twice, but not to the very end. This will make it easier to cut into slices.

Put a good thick layer of olive oil in a pan and fry the onions on a medium-low temperature for a minute, followed shortly by the other vegetables (except tomatoes). Let them sweat for a while. Add the minced lamb and mix thoroughly until all ingredients are spread equally throughout the pan.

Add the non-tinned tomatoes and once the mince has browned, add the tinned tomatoes.

Put in as much wine as you like - I use half a bottle over the coming 30 minutes, keeping the whole thing nice and moist.

I served mine with linguine, but some boiled potatoes would have been just as good.

Recipe CXXIV: Home-Made Spicy Tomato Soup

Cooking on a Sunday is one of life's pleasures, and this weekend was one of those. As our guests were bringing the dessert, I decided to make a starter. This one is one of the finest things you can do in a kitchen, and it really is so, so simple.

Ingredients:

2 kg fresh tomatoes

1 green chili pepper

1 red chili pepper - keep some of the seeds, depending on how spicy you want it

1 sweet red pepper

1 large onion

4-6 cloves of garlic 

All of the above chopped into pieces

Three-quarters of a bottle of red wine

A teaspoonful of a red spice (cayenne pepper or even tandoori masala)

5 teaspoonfuls of Worcestershire sauce

3 thick slices of white bread

A fresh basil plant from a reputable supermarket, leaves broken 

50 g butter

Salt to taste

Instructions:
Put a lot of butter in a large, heavy non-stick frying pan or saucepan. While it is melting, add the onions and a pinch of salt, and fry gently for a few minutes - you don't want the onions to burn and crisp up. Add the peppers and garlic. Let them slowly sweat until soft. Then add the red wine and Worcestershire sauce.
(To give it your own personal touch, you could always use a variation - just use your imagination - something like Tabasco sauce, or red wine vinegar, soy sauce or even balsamic vinegar, but make sure whatever you use, the flavours fit!)

Let the red wine and Worcestershire sauce reduce by about half until it turns into something less liquid and more gloopy.

You are now ready to add the tomatoes. Put a lid on top, turn the heat right down to a gentle simmer and let the tomatoes soften until they are easily crushed.

Once they are really soft, add the basil, bread and red spices. Let the contents of the pan mingle for 10 minutes or so, while the bread soaks up some of the liquid.

Pass the contents of the pan through a blender and pour into a serving bowl.

Serve with a nice bottle of red wine. We chose Louis Chèze Caroline Saint-Joseph 2011, a fantastic wine that really highlights the spiciness of the soup.

Enjoy!

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 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 LXXXIV - Slow Roasted Lamb in a Rosemary and Red Wine Sauce

Making Christmas dinner for everyone is my yearly task and every year I try and outdo the main course from the year before. If I think of something new, I try to add to the other courses. At the weekend, I tried out my new enamel roasting tin, to see if it gives me inspiration for this year. And you know what? It wasn't bad. Here are the results.


Ingredients:
500g-700g lamb (leg, shoulder, etc.) with the bone
A slice of butter, kneaded with rosemary and whole black peppercorns
Half a bottle of red wine (Greek or south Italian, for a fruity, less acidic taste
4 tomatoes (fresh or tinned)
8-15 potatoes, fairly whole
4 large carrots
2 bay leaves
3 onions, quartered

Instructions:
Turn the oven on to about 150°C. Take your roasting tin and coat it in a layer of butter. Although it is enamel and self-basting, this will make sure, as producers are a little over-confident in their own products' capabilities. So, peel your potatoes, cut your carrots. You can parboil them or you can leave them unboiled and put them later straight in the roaster. Anyhow, take the butter, rosemary and peppercorns, and grind into a consistency. Spread it out on the top of your lamb and put it in the roaster, alone, for 15 minutes.



Put two of the onions, the carrots, the potatoes and bay leaves in the roaster and cook for a further half and hour to 45 minutes.



Before you remove it from the oven, get your tomatoes and red wine, plus more rosemary and the last of the onions. Give them a good blitzing in the mixer.



Pour the liquid around the outside of the roaster, leaving the lamb untouched.



Put it back in the oven for at least an hour, removing the lid for the last 20 minutes and serve the meat thickly sliced.

Recipe LXVI - Lamb Steaks and Mint Sauce with Garlic Potatoes

The Olympic Games are but ten days away, and I am crawling up the walls with excitement. There will be thousands of children performing at the opening ceremony, and I heard that there will be live animals, including cows, chickens and sheep (remember that famous actor's slogan "never work with children or animals"? Watch this space...). But what to do with all those delicious animals after their performance? Eat them, of course, what else?! And to commemorate what will be the defining moment in 21st century British history, I would like to present to you a truly British dish: lamb, mint sauce and potatoes.

Homemade mint sauce is truly different to that from a jar, although the jarred version is not bad at all. But making it at home provides you with an alternative, and it is very, very easy. Five minutes' work, an hour's wait.

Ingredients:
2 lamb steaks
5 medium-to-large potatoes
6 cloves of garlic
Some olive oil
For the mint sauce:
2 sprigs of mint
Wine vinegar (e.g. red)
Fine white sugar

Instructions for the mint sauce:
Take the leaves off your sprigs of mint and roll them into a ball. Wit a knife or a pair of scissors, chop into small pieces in a bowl. Take your wine vinegar and pour it over the mint until it is saturated. Do not use too much, just enough to cover the mint and a little extra. I used red wine vinegar, because it is sweeter, but other wine vinegars go well too. Then start to slowly add sugar, until you are happy with the taste. And that's it.



Make it before the rest, as leaving it for a minimum of an hour will give it time for the flavours to run.

Instructions for the lamb and potatoes:
Turn the oven on to 200°C. Peel and slice the potatoes into half-centimetre-wide slices, and boil them in salted water for no longer than 5 minutes to soften them up, but not until they start breaking into pieces. Whilst they are boiling, put three roughly diced cloves of garlic into a frying pan with hot olive oil and fry gently until the pieces go dark.



Remove the garlic and put the oil in a baking tray. Drain the potatoes and put them into the baking tray with the hot oil. Pay attention at this point, as any excess water from the potatoes will spit in the oil. Splash the potatoes all over in the oil, and put it in the oven until the lamb is prepared.



Take some of the mint sauce and lightly spread it over the lamb. Put the remaining three cloves of garlic into the frying pan with more olive oil, and repeat frying the garlic, then removing it. Whilst it is still hot, put the lamb into the pan and fry vigorously for five minutes on each side, no more. Lamb should under no circumstances be cremated, incinerated or even overcooked.
For presentation, put a spoonful of mint sauce on the end of each piece of meat.
Finally, remove the potatoes, and with the oil from the baking tray, the juice from the meat and a little water from the potatoes, make a purely natural gravy to pour on the plate.



An old sheep is a failure. So let's give the Olympic sheep a proper career highlight: being the heroes of our fine agricultural and gastronomical heritage!

Recipe LXI - English Peppered Venison Stew

Midsummer is the festival of virility and fertility, when we men are supposed to show off our hunting skills and prove our eligibility. So I hunted down a stag. Well no, I pulled a pack of venison meat out of the freezer at the supermarket, and spent yesterday evening making this, a midsummer-themed, truly English dish, which smells glorious in the oven and tastes sumptuously divine. It is therefore a paradox, that at midsummer, I am making a stew from it, but such has been the adversity of the weather, that putting it on the barbecue would seem reckless, especially as I am typing this in the middle of yet another shower of rain as a clap of thunder echoes outside in the valley.

Ingredients:
500g-800g diced venison
5 to 10 shallots, whole
5 carrots, sliced
1 large onion, finely diced
5 potatoes, sliced or quartered
Other root vegetables are acceptable, like parsnips, turnips or celeriac
Most of a bottle of red wine
1 cup of red wine vinegar
5 cloves of garlic
1 small can of tomato purée
2 tbsp redcurrant jelly
3 or 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
3 cloves
3 bay leaves
15 peppercorns, crushed
3 tbsp cinnamon
4 tbsp plain flour



Instructions:
Take the plain flour and mix with some crushed peppercorns and some salt. TIP: use a plastic bag for this, tossing the contents to make everything stick well. Heat the oven to 180°C.
Put some butter and oil into your casserole dish and fry the meat until all sides are browned and sealed. Remove the meat to a side plate for a while, keeping the oil going (add more if necessary), and put the shallots in it to brown. Once they have softened (4-5 minutes), add the onions and garlic. Then put the tomato purée in, and cook for a couple of minutes. Then add the red wine vinegar and wine itself. Allow it to boil before you add the redcurrant jelly, thyme, the rest of the pepper and the bay leaves, and reintroduce the meat. You should make sure that the liquid covers all the ingredients. If not, add some beef stock or more wine, depending on your taste.



Put it in the oven for up to 3 hours, but check after one and a half, as the heat may cause the liquid to dry up. Serve with cauliflower cheese or green beans.

Recipe LIX - Coronation Chicken

It's the 60th Jubilee of the accession to the throne of Her Majesty the Queen and I wanted to do something extra special today to play my part in this historic occasion, the likes of which I will never see again. Coronation chicken was the brainchild of two ladies: a florist and a chef, for the coronation in 1953. The combination of ingredients is quite startling as you will see, but the final result is simply delicious, a stroke of genius.



Ingredients:
For the chicken part:
6 spring onions
8 cloves of garlic
900g chicken breasts
Fresh ground pepper
Salt to taste

For the sauce:
1 chopped onion
1 tbsp curry powder
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp tomato purée
juice of half of a lemon
85ml/3fl oz red wine
150ml tap water
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp sugar
425ml/15fl oz mayonnaise
2-3 tbsp apricot jam (YES, YOU READ THIS CORRECTLY)
2-3 tbsp whipped cream
1 tbsp chopped green coriander



Instructions:
Put some water into a deep, rounded pan and add the spring onions, salt, pepper and chopped garlic. Once steaming, add the chicken and simmer for a good half an hour until the meat is cooked through. Then set it aside with a lid on to cool and for the flavours to work in.



While this is taking place, cut up your onion, put it into a saucepan and fry in olive or vegetable oil for a few minutes until soft. Then add the curry powder and let it mix in. Add the bay leaves, wine, tomato purée and the water, and let it gently come to a boil. Add the sugar, lemon juice and freshly ground black pepper and turn down the heat. Allow it to simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, thickening slightly.



Strain the larger bits from the sauce, and leave it to cool next to the chicken. Spend this time cutting up the chicken into bitesize pieces and whipping some cream..



Now comes the weird bit.
Spoon your mayonnaise and apricot jam into a large bowl. Pour in the liquid part of the sauce, and thoroughly fold it in. Add the whipped cream and with the aid of a blender on very slow, turn it into a full consistency.



Serve as a side dish, starter or as a feature in a buffet.

The leftover spring onions in water and the larger parts of the sauce make an ideal soup.
This dish is probably the most satisfying thing I have made in my kitchen. For although it contains some wacky combinations, it was simple, fast and utterly rewarding.
Long Live Her Majesty The Queen!