Recipe CXLI - Judias Con Bacon y Zanahoria

In the long run, we come to a point where we need to ditch the rice. Today's recipe is a simple meal I was supposed to do with my daughter for a school assignment. But she, like all kids her age, have something against anything that may have once grown in a field. 

Unless it's called a potato. 

Anyway... it's such a simple thing to put together but makes it a pleasure to eat healthy, which is often the biggest problem with vegetables: they're often a very hard sell when you're not a dedicated vegan or vegetarian. 

Ingredients:

200g green beans, cut to your preferred size 

250g carrots, diced, sliced or cut into matchsticks 

150g bacon strips

1 large onion

6 cloves of garlic

A glass of white wine 

Olive oil 

Instructions:

Heat up the olive oil, add the onions and sweat for a couple of minutes. 

Add the beans and carrots, sweat some more.

Then the garlic, and put the lid on your pan on a low heat for 20 minutes. 

Add white wine if you want, just for a bit of sweetness.

I had mine with an Ibérico cutlet, but it's fine on its own as a starter.

(By the way, the kids had yesterday's spaghetti ragu from the fridge)

Enjoy!

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 LXXIX - Irish Stew

The great comedian Spike Milligan once wrote:

"You must never bath in an Irish Stew.
It’s a most illogical thing to do.
But should you persist against my reasoning,
Don’t fail to add the appropriate seasoning."

And who could argue with that? This particular dish is too tasty to bathe in - I can't think of anyone who has ever eaten the contents of his/her bath, but it could be a new trend...
The ingredients of this dish are, like a lot of things Irish, a matter of hot dispute. The purists maintain that there is very little in it except lamb, onions and potatoes. But this is the 21st century and we can make our dishes a little more interesting, if just for the flavour.



Ingredients:
A cut of lamb, usually the neck, but I used the shoulder because it had a lot of meat on it.
3 carrots
1 onion
1 fennel
4 potatoes
2 handfuls of green beans
500ml beef or lamb stock
500ml (or less) water
A sprig of rosemary



Instructions:
Take the lamb and cut it into manageable pieces - I cut them into 2-bite-sized pieces. In this way, you get to chomp off a bit of it later on the end of your fork. I love that.
Salt it and fry it in some oil in a casserole dish on a medium temperature. Once the lamb is sealed, add some rosemary to it. Then add the vegetables. Salt them and pour over the stock. Add some water if necessary.



Boil for between 90 minutes and 3 hours, checking every half-hour.



Serve in a wide, flat bowl.

Recipe LX - Pork in Southern Sauce

That's southern India, not the USA. As you have understood by now, I am absolutely crazy about spices and I love being adventurous with their various combinations. This dish is one of those that makes the cooking just as enjoyable as the eating itself.

Ingredients:
500g pork
2 medium onions
1 green pepper
5 cloves of garlic
100ml-150ml white wine vinegar
500ml coconut milk
150ml tap water
1-2 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
10 cardamom seeds
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tbsp Garam Masala
1 tsp chili powder
4 fingers full of green coriander
Green beans (2 cm chopped)
200g Basmati rice



Instructions:
Put the cumin, coriander seeds, cardamom seeds, turmeric, chili powder and Garam Masala into a blender or spice grinder and turn it all into a powder. The seeds may remain a little less pulverised, but that is no problem. Put them on the side.



Take the meat, salt it, and fry it in oil and butter until all sides are sealed and some of the jiuces have run into the pan. Remove the meat, but keep the oily mix, and put in a little over half of the onions. Soften them, then add the garlic, and a minute later, the ground spices.



The spices should very quickly release their aromas, so then add the meat.



Follow this by adding the coconut milk, water and vinegar.



Cook on a low heat for a minimum of 40 minutes. Once ready, add the green coriander and serve immediately.
Serve with Basmati rice and green beans.

Recipe LIV - Breaded Chicken Breasts on a Bed of Green Beans with Polenta and Coriander Scrambled Egg

Bit of a mixed bag this week. As you may have noticed by now, I hate throwing raw ingredients away after they've been used for their primary function. That accounts for the scrambled egg. It actually made a very nice accompaniment. I'm not going to go into detail about polenta today, as the main purpose of this recipe is the breading. As you see in the first photo, I've put everything in order from top to bottom (left to right in my kitchen).



Ingredients:
1cm-thick sliced chicken (or turkey) breasts
3 bowls:
Bowl 1 with some flour in
Bowl 2 with three whisked eggs in
Bowl 3 with some finely ground breadcrumbs in
I add some Herbes de Provence to the breadcrumbs

Instructions:
Salt your chicken breast on both sides, pick it up with your fingers or a fork, and place it in the flour, covering it on both sides.



Take it from there into the eggs and cover it completely.



Move it from the egg into the breadcrumbs and cover it fully. Then put it in the pan and repeat with the other pieces you have.



Serve with green beans, polenta and the egg (see after the photo for details).



Coriander Scrambled Egg
I took a small amount of fresh green coriander and put it in the pan after the chicken had been there. I put some salt and fresh black pepper in the egg and poured it into the pan on top of the coriander, which had been gently frying for only one minute.

Green Beans
I steamed the beans until they were al dente. Then, in a pan with butter and olive oil, I fried one chopped onion and three roughly chopped cloves of garlic. I sweated the onion for three minutes, put in the garlic and then the beans, stirring constantly for three minutes or so.

Polenta
There are the conventional starch side-dishes: potatoes, pasta and rice are the most obvious. Polenta should really be the fourth, but because it is quite time-consuming, it is only really a bit-part player. I love polenta very much and will include it in a recipe in the coming weeks. Promise!