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 XXIII - Pork Pepper Steaks with Honey & Mustard Sauce

Sorry for not posting this weekend - I have just returned from Prague. But whilst I was there, I came across this extremely simple recipe by chance in a super restaurant called "Chapadlo", or in English "The Tentacle", in a suburb called Nusle. I sometimes just get on a tram to anywhere I haven't been in Prague, and get off when I see something interesting. I'm glad I got off there, right next to tram stop "Horky", as I'd recommend the place to anyone.

Ingredients (feeds two):
2-4 Pork steaks, depending on the size
Some salt
Whole peppercorns and a pestle & mortar




Instructions for the pork steaks:
Take a pestle & mortar and crush the pepper. Sprinkle salt on the pork on both sides. Then, take a large, flat-ish frying pan and heat up the oil to a high temperature. Fry the pork and towards the end of the cooking process, pour your pepper on the surface of the pork.

For the sauce:
Half a yoghurt pot of crème fraîche
3 spoonfuls of Dijon mustard with medium whole seeds
3 spoonfuls of semi-sweet honey
Take a small saucepan, spoon in the crème fraîche, the mustard and the honey and mix together well. Simply heat but do not boil and pour on the plate wherever you like!



I had mine at home tonight with steamed broccoli and boiled potatoes, but in Prague, I had it with chips and whole princess beans with onions.

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 XXI - Buttermilk Scones

Although the making of these did not provide many truly good photogenic moments, the results were most satisfying. This is a particularly simple recipe, and took less than an hour from beginning to end.




Ingredients:
300g self-raising flour + extra for kneading
60g COLD butter in blocks + extra for the greasing the baking tray
45g caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
300ml buttermilk
A drop of milk for glazing
A handful of sultanas and/or raisins


Instructions:
Warm the oven to about 220°C.
Whilst it is heating up, take the flour, butter, baking powder and sugar, and work them into a crumbly consistency.



Add the raisins and the buttermilk, and mix it in vigorously until the whole thing becomes a doughy mixture. If it is still runny, add more flour until the mixture does not fall off a spoon.



Take your baking tray and grease it with some butter. Then take a large spoonful of your mixture and flick it onto the baking tray. Feel free to make adjustments to its shape. I didn't, but it is just a matter of preference.
Again, as a matter of preference, you may want to glaze the surface of the scones before baking, but I didn't.



Put the baking tray in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown.



As usual, serve with butter or whipped cream and jam. Enjoy!

Recipe XX - Paella Del Norte

When I set out to make a paella, I decided not to call it anything Spanish - the Mediterraneans are so fastidious when it comes to food that naming it anything other than something new was never going to happen. They are all about sun, sea and food, but when it comes to substance, forget it. For example, I would like to draw your attention to the cooking instructions written
on the side of the rice packet I bought in Luxembourg:


It says:
"1. To warm up 600cl of meat soup and 1/3 of Paella seasoning(PDS) until Bowling. Soon to extinguish fire. 2. To place in a paella pan, 4 spoonfuls of olive oil, 250 g of chicken (pieces), 250 g pork ribds, 1/2 red pepper stripes, fry during 5 minutes until they are gilded and to add 1 tomato grated, to continue frying 4-5 min all the ingredients together.
3. Add 200g, fry 1 minute, add the broth and to cook during 10 strong fire min, 5-6 min to average fire. To extinguish and to let rest 5 min (cover the paella pan with a rag).
Upon not having a copy of the Sun, I settled for a glass lid. Anyway, here's my version:

Ingredients:
300g paella rice
4 chicken thighs
3 tomatoes (quartered)
1 pepper (sliced into strips)
1 courgette
1 onion
Some frozen peas
500ml chicken stock
Some chives
Fresh herbs (oregano, thyme, etc...)
Pepper
Salt
White wine (or a squeezed lemon)



Instructions:
Cut up the vegetables into different shaped pieces. To cut a courgette into quarters in less than 2 minutes, firstly cut it lengthways twice to make a cross-shape, stopping a centimetre from the end. Then put it on its side and cut it into thin pieces (see photo).



Put the chicken into a paellera or wide frying pan, put salt over it and fry gently until sealed. Add the vegetables (not the tomatoes, peas or herbs) and continue frying for a further five to ten minutes, until they are nicely sweating but not soft.



Put the paella rice in for a long minute to soak up some of the oil. Add the tomatoes, and put a lid on to allow the juices to run. A couple of minutes into this stage you can add the stock, the peas and the herbs. Put more salt in, and add some white wine. I love to put a lot in because it complements the salty flavour of the meat and rice, but you can put as little as you like in.



By now the whole dish is bubbling away with all the juices and liquids, cooking the rice as it goes. Paella rice, contrary to most people's expectations, takes a relatively short time to boil, only 15 minutes. So once those 15 minutes since you added the rice are up, the rest is letting the dish mix in and acquire flavour. Some like to wait until the juices have been absorbed, and some like there to be
something runny. That's the reason for the lid - it is a harmless way for the juices to absorb.




Other notes:
Serve preferably outdoors.

A bottle of sweet wine from Moravia or Alsace will go splendidly with it!

Recipe XIX - Cooking with Fruit: Peach Jam and Peach Chutney

Ingredients for the jam:
8 to 10 peaches (750g pack)
A packet of gelling sugar (2:1)
A tablespoonful of ginger




Instructions for the jam:
Take the peel off the peaches and cut them into small pieces, removing the pips.
Weigh the amount of fruit you have left - in my case, I had about 650g left after step one.
Add exactly half the weight of sugar compared to the fruit.



Put the peaches and sugar into a saucepan, adding a decent spoonful of ginger.



Put some empty, clean jam jars into the oven on about 100°C for twenty minutes.
This will sterilise them so that the surface of the jam doesn't form mould.



Gently heat up the mixture in the saucepan. Once it is starting to bubble, let it boil vigorously for about three minutes.



Remove the jam jars from the oven and spoon the mixture into the jars. Leave to set. To check if the mixture is going to set well enough, put a very small amount onto a spoon and wait for twenty seconds. If it is going to set well, it will solidify on the spoon.


To create a vacuum, turn the jam jars upside down whilst setting. Once set, turn them up the right way.
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Ingredients for the chutney:
The same amount of peaches, peeled and weighed (in my case, there were 450g)
Ordinary cane sugar, half the amount of the peaches.
Vinegar (white wine / apple cider / ordinary) - for the amount, use your own judgement - as a rule of thumb, try half a millilitre per gram of fruit. So I put in 225ml of vinegar.
One dessertspoonful of ginger
A handful of raisins or sultanas
Three cloves




Instructions:
Once again, put all the ingredients into the saucepan and bring to the boil. Leave it in there long enough to soften.
Don't let the liquid reduce too much - keep the lid on.
If after about 20-25 minutes it is still not soft, get the potato masher out and give it a good crushing.
Take your jampots out of the oven and fill them with your chutney.
Screw the tops on and allow them to cool.

Recipe XVIII - Carrot and Coriander Soup

The thing about soups is that they don't keep for long in the stomach. But this one is like a meal in a bowl. It takes less than an hour to make and puts a warm glow on these cold July days!

Ingredients:
One onion
As many carrots as you like
1l max. vegetable stock (or warm up a vegetable in the saucepan with some herbs, pepper, garlic and salt if you don't have any)
About a tablespoon of ground coriander
Two cloves of garlic
A handful of fresh coriander, or freshly dried green coriander




Instructions:
Take your carrots, onions and garlic and cut them into small pieces.
Fry them gently in a high-sided frying pan.



In a separate saucepan heat the vegetable stock.
Once the carrots, onion and garlic have been there for a good five to ten minutes, they should be getting softer.
Add the stock to the carrots and boil vigorously for ten to fifteen minutes.



Remove it from the pan and put it in a blender.



Whizz until all the ingredients are a runny liquid.




Put it all in a clean saucepan and add the green coriander.
Gently heat and serve with some freshly cut bread.