Recipe CXXXVII - Pot Roast Melon d'Agneau

Fusion Food: two words, when seen together, that strike fear into any decent, self-respecting food lover anywhere. If you want teriyaki with empanadas or tagine-cooked pierogi, you are welcome but please don't even think about inviting me for some because first, I'd rather cut off my nipples with a sharpened spoon; and second, I will never be able to be seen with you in public ever again.

 Anyhow, there are some circumstances where this might work, so you are always free to suggest it... if you dare. And one of those circumstances took place in my kitchen this afternoon. I decided to combine my acquisitions from the greengrocer and butcher's shop in Sierck-Les-Bains with a great (acceptable) American culinary tradition and make a pot roast with French ingredients.

Ingredients (feeds between 4 and 6 hungry people): 

One boneless shoulder of lamb, bound like a ball.

Enough potatoes for your dinner guests

One or two onions

Five cloves of garlic (crushed with a knife)

Several carrots (I chose orange and red ones)

Brussels sprouts, halved

Three or four sprigs of rosemary

A lot of olive oil

A glassful of red wine

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Set the oven for 180°C. Cut, peel, slice the vegetables to your satisfaction; parboil the potatoes.

Take the lamb and sear it in a pan until the outside is sealed; cover it in salt, pepper and oil.

Take a large roasting pot with a lid and put the vegetables randomly in the bottom, giving them a stir in the oil. Add some salt.

Put the potatoes in with some more oil, and the lamb on top of that, with the rosemary and garlic spread around evenly. Cook for twenty minutes uncovered. Then add the red wine and put the lid on, reduce the temperature to 120°C for an hour, then take the lid off for a further 20 minutes. 

Remove the lamb, cut into slices, and apportion the vegetables accordingly. 

If you're feeling adventurous:

A good stuffing would round this meal off nicely. Here's one that would work:

Ingredients:

About two hands full of yesterday's bread, broken into very small pieces
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
Some fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme and sage should be good)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
A binding agent like lemon juice, milk or an egg

Instructions:

Put the stuffing ingredients (except the bread) into a mixer and give it a thorough blitzing.
Then add the bread and turn it into a pâté-like consistency. Roll balls out of the mixture and add to the pot at random. Alternatively, spread it out over the top of the lamb.

Cook with the other ingredients.

Recipe CXX - Casseroled Pork Fillet with Honey and Ginger

Italians are notoriously protective of their national dishes. So much so, there are whole city municipalities that have banned non-Italian vegetables and spices from being sold, even in foreign restaurants. This is of course madness, and shows that Italians are not always so comfortable or confident about the superiority of their cuisine. This is despite people like Marco Polo,who brought a huge amount of ingredients from Asia that still influence Italian cooking, despite their national drink, coffee, being produced in countries further south, and despite the enormous number of immigrants settling there,bringing with them their own styles of food preparation. So to then outlaw the sale of food not meant for Italian cuisine is to cower in a corner and point an accusing finger at anyone guilty of "Un-Italian behaviour". Well this recipe is a glimpse of the future of Italian cooking, and how beautifully some of those foreign imports sit in the right place.

Ingredients:

Ground black pepper, but NO SALT NEEDED!

Rosemary-flavoured olive oil or olive oil and a sprig of fresh rosemary

650-750g pork fillet (cut how you like to fit your pot - I cut into 4 pieces as my butcher is clueless and I can't explain to him that I don't want such a thin cut of meat)

100-120g medium thinly-sliced pancetta (3mm)

3 cloves of garlic

3 tablespoons of honey

3-4cm fresh ginger, diced

1 parsnip, peeled and chopped into small pieces

250ml stock (vegetable or chicken, but any stock will do)

3 small onions or 4 shallots, halved or quartered

A handful of green beans

3 large potatoes to boil

3 carrots, chopped (I slice them one way then the next so they look like triangles - see photo below)

Equipment:

1 casserole dish, with lid

Instructions:
Put the olive oil in the hot casserole dish and fry the pancetta to give the oil some flavour.

This is why this recipe needs no salt - if you add any, the pancetta will become ultra salty and really unpalatable.

When it is crispy, remove the pancetta and put the pork fillet in the oil, to take on the flavour. once the pork is sealed on the outside, add the honey, ginger and garlic, and allow it to caramelise.

Add all the other solid ingredients (except the potatoes, which are for boiling separately) and allow them to sweat a while before you put in the stock. Slow cook for 90 minutes (but for at least an hour)

Serve with the pork on top.

Italian cooking is about subtle flavours, Asian cooking is about strong flavours. In this recipe, they truly complement each other, even though the stronger ingredients are used sparingly.




This recipe was inspired by a similar one by Gennaro Contaldo on the BBC TV series "Two Greedy Italians".

Recipe CXV - Gentse Waterzooi

I'm back. Sorry I was away for such a long time - I have been incredibly stressed, and cooking had become a necessity rather than a pleasure. But I'm returning with this incredibly easy and remarkably tasty Belgian dish from the city of Ghent. French, as well as Belgian food, relies heavily on the use of butter in preparation. This is no different and adds most deliciously to the overall flavour. It takes relatively little effort and will make you smile when you put it in your mouth.

Ingredients:

One leek

Two tablespoons butter

Two carrots, peeled and diced

Four medium-sized potatoes, peeled and quartered

Salt and freshly ground pepper (usually white, but I used black)

1 litre of chicken stock or hot, salted water if none available

Two fresh bay leaves

Three sprigs of fresh parsley,

Three sprigs of chopped parsley to garnish later

Three sprigs of fresh thyme

Two large boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into large chunks

Half a litre of pouring cream

1 large egg yolk

Some crusty bread (e.g. baguette) for dipping

Instructions:

Melt the butter in a high-sided frying pan on a medium heat. Sauté the vegetables until they are soft, putting in some salt and pepper.

Put in the sprig of parsley, thyme and the bay leaves, and then add the potatoes and most essentially the stock or the hot water. You normally need chicken stock, but because you are about to add pieces of raw chicken to poach in the liquid, hot water straight from the kettle with some more salt should do the trick in an emergency.

So when you have added the liquid, put in the pieces of chicken and cover and poach for 10 to 20 minutes. It may look like a mess right now, but soon it is going to transform itself into something unbelievable...

Take a pouring jug, siphon off an egg yolk and add the cream. Stir them well. Take a little of the hot liquid from the pan so as not to shock it when it goes into the pan itself. Pour it in, add the chopped parsley and watch it become so incredibly tempting. Don't wait for too long before serving!

Although the photo doesn't do it justice, I have to admit...

Serve it in large bowls with some fresh bread.

Recipe CXIII - The Pudding 1: Beef, Mushroom and Port (Savoury)

Of all the gastronomic delights I experienced in 2013, the best have been the ones I felt proud of myself for having spent the time making. I would say this one, though, sits pretty high up the list of those as it took 2 days and a lot of care and attention. This is what puddings are about. The middle of winter is a great time to bring out the inner gourmand in us, but also we should embrace our ability to create delicious food with a little imagination and patience.

For those who do not know what it is, we need to discuss what "pudding" means. The word "Pudding" in German is what the British call "custard" and the French call "crème anglaise". They are, though, all slightly different. Custard is hot and can be runny or solid enough to sit on your spoon and I would go for custard each and every time over the other two.

Pudding, in the British sense though, does not mean this at all. It has evolved over the years into what is now a truly beloved yet highly variable household dish, albeit not so often made, considering the time it takes. My mother, bless her, often used to spend hours making a similar dish, and making this myself, I can appreciate just what an effort it was to produce it.

So what are puddings? 

Well, they are round, they form a centrepiece to a table, can be sweet or savoury, and are made with pastry, often suet. 

"Suet?" I hear you ask, "What's suet?"

An astute question as always, dear reader.

I love the English language for its conciseness. It is, in fact, fat surrounding the kidney of a cow used to make pastry. I know, that sounds positively dis-GUS-ting. Well yes. But there are now vegetable suet and other types, and they are very good ingredients for a sweet pudding with lots of fruit or a savoury yet crumbly pastry similar to biscuit.

This is the savoury version - you will do things in this recipe you never thought you would do, like grate fat and freeze butter.

For the filling, it is entirely up to you, as every pudding is different. Just go where your mood takes you!

Ingredients for the filling:

550g-600g of stewing beef, roughly diced

4 medium-sized carrots, chopped

5 to 8 mushrooms, sliced or quartered (porcini or some such, but if not, button mushrooms work out fine)

1 apple, sliced (optional)

1 red pepper, chopped

4 to 6 shallots, peeled and whole

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

Fresh herbs, finely chopped

Some flour, pepper and salt for seasoning

1 glass of port

1 tablespoonful of Worcestershire Sauce (optional but recommended)

 

Instructions for the filling:

Heat the oven to 170°C.

Put the flour, finely chopped herbs, salt and pepper in a bowl and roll the beef in it. Fry gently in butter in a casserole dish until brown.

Remove, and do the same with the vegetables.

Pour over the port, put the lid on the casserole dish and put in the oven for up to 4 hours. 

Before you add it to the pudding, you should let it cool down.

Ingredients for the pastry:

*tsp = teaspoon, tbsp = tablespoon

280g plain flour

A sachet of baking powder

(Alternatively, 280g self-raising flour and 1 tsp of baking powder)

Half a tsp of salt

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley and thyme

80g vegetable suet, chilled and grated

50g frozen butter (but refrigerated enough so it is very hard is fine), also grated

1 egg, beaten

Some butter for greasing

Some cold water on standby, if necessary

Baking paper and string

A large cauldron containing water for steaming 

Instructions for the pastry:

(I apologise for the photo, but you need to see it)

Grease a rounded heat-proof bowl with butter.

In another bowl, add the flour, salt, baking powder and fresh herbs. Mix them up well. Grate the suet and add it, then do the same with the cold, solid butter. 

Add the egg and knead everything until it becomes a soft, not-so-sticky dough. Cut a third off and put it in clingfilm to keep fresh.

Roll out the largest piece until it is big enough to fill your bowl. Put it inside the buttered bol and press it until it covers the entire inside of the bowl. Then fill it with the cooled-down beef stew mix until it fills the inner part of the pudding dough.

Use the remaining part of the dough to make a lid.

Then cover it with a double layer of baking paper and tie it up with string. Leave a little room for the pastry to be able to rise slightly.

By now your water should be boiling away, so put the bowl carefully into the pan so that it is no lower than half-way inside the water. Never forget to put something in the bottom so the pudding does not have direct contact with the fiery heat of the cooker. I use an upturned rice cooker base. Then steam for three to four hours.

Once cooked, get a large plate, unwrap the pudding, place the large plate on top and flip it upside down.

As you see, there is now ample space to decorate your pudding however you see fit, or adorn it with all the vegetables you are serving. This makes for an imaginative festive display for everyone to behold before it is carved up amongst all the guests. To be honest, you could do this with lamb, venison or even wild boar.

Finally, I would like to apologise for the appalling photos in this one - I have no excuses.

Enjoy!

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 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 LXXXIX - Puff Pastry Pies

I took a little break last week to go away for some well-needed recuperation and socialisation, so I have prepared a double-header for you this week. When talking about puff pastry, there are two ways to do it - you can either spend ages and ages rolling the stuff out until it's perfect, or you can just buy a couple of rolls from the supermarket and spend more time on the contents. Guess what I chose...

STEAK PIE
 
Ingredients
min. 450g puff pastry
450g-550g chopped beef or lamb
250ml-350ml beef stock
Carrots, roughly chopped
Mushrooms, whole, halved or quartered
Shallots, whole or halved
Cloves of garlic, sliced
Apples, in chunks
Plain flour
Thyme
Pepper & salt
Butter for frying and for greasing the pie dish
A little water for closing the pastry
1 egg for glazing the top



Instructions
Roll your meat in a bowl containing flour, salt and pepper, then put it in a high-sided pan to fry gently in the butter.



After some time, add the vegetables and continue frying for a while until it is all nice and coated in the oil of the pan. Add the thyme and garlic for a couple of minutes before you pour in the beef stock. Allow it to simmer for a good hour on a medium-low heat.



Take the meat off the cooker and allow it to cool. Grease the inside of a decent-sized pie dish. With a roll of your puff pastry, line the inside of the pie dish. Pour the meat into the middle of the pastry-lined pie dish and splash the outside with some water to help the top close properly. Take another roll and place it over the top to make a "roof". With some of the remaining pastry, make some vague decorative shapes and don't forget to pierce the pastry top a few times to let the heat escape. Glaze it with an egg and a brush.



Put it in the oven for 35-45 minutes, or until the pastry rises and goes nice and brown.




MINI APPLE PIES

Ingredients:
2 apples
Cinnamon
Brown sugar
Sultanas
1-2 cloves
A small glass of water
The rest of the egg for glazing the pastry
(a spoonful of honey - optional)
(brandy, schnapps or port wine - optional)

Instructions:
Cut up the apples and roll them in cinnamon, then put them in some water. Add some more cinnamon, followed by a clove and some sugar. Heat it up gently until it is near boiling point, then simmer it for a good half an hour, or even more. Taste it to see if it needs anything added - more sugar, or maybe a little alcohol. Let it cool down for a while.



Line some tart moulds with the remaining pastry and blind bake them for a few minutes. I didn't, as I like stodgy pastry. Put the filling into the moulds and arrange the remaining pieces of pastry on top. Glaze it with the remaining egg and sprinkle some white sugar on the top to give it some sweetness.



Bake it in the oven for 13 to 18 minutes, or until the pastry turns golden brown.