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 CVI - Pork Belly Stew with Honey and Beans

How do you know when a recipe is fully rounded or not? When you have adapted it three or four times to reach the right flavour and ingredients. This recipe will take some time before it reaches its roundedness, but here is a good base from which to adapt. It is extraordinarily simple to make and your house will smell utterly delicious for hours.

Ingredients (for four people):

A medium-sized ceramic or cast iron casserole dish with a lid

Some butter for frying

500g sliced pork belly, cut into strips or left whole - your choice

4 potatoes

4 large cloves of garlic

1 onion

A cup of broad beans (but chick peas, lentils or something similar will also do)

A cup of yellow peas*

A bouquet garni (fresh herbs - sage, rosemary, thyme, etc...)

Some coarsely ground black pepper

2 tablespoons of honey

Salt and water

*fresh yellow peas are rock hard and you should either leave them to soak in water overnight before you use them, or you should cook them for at the very least 2 hours. I chose the latter, as it fit the recipe.

Instructions:

Switch the oven on to about 170°C. Put 2 of the garlic cloves in some butter and allow it to brown. Then remove the garlic from the oil. This will give your casserole a hint of garlic without overpowering it.

Then add the pork with a dusting of salt. Brown it until sealed, then add the black pepper, onion, the rest of the garlic and bouquet garni.

Give it a stir, allow the onion to sweat a little, then put in the yellow peas, broad beans, potatoes and honey. Give it a very good mixing so the yellow peas sink to the bottom. Add water until almost to the level of the ingredients, a good shake of the salt pot and bring it to the boil.

You can then put it into the oven. Give it a minimum of 2 hours, keep trying the yellow peas as they will be the last to be ready. Everything else will be so succulent and moist, and should have a prevailing taste of honey without being overbearing.

Take it out of the oven every 30-45 minutes to fill up with water and to add a sprinkle of salt.

Recipe CV - Chicken Breast in Creamy Bacon and Mushroom Sauce

Sorry for the recent lack of posts - I've had quite a lot to do recently renovating the house, painting and whatnot, and then there's the little matter of work. But now I have a dry run through to October, so I hope to pick up a little more momentum...

This recipe is so easy and a real crowd pleaser, going really well alongside the rocket salad recipe of last time. I bought a metallic frying pan last year specifically for meats. One of those that gets rustier the longer you use them. They cook meat really well and I couldn't ever imagine not using one for this type of dinner. 

Ingredients:

2 to 4 chicken breasts

Some thinly diced bacon

An onion

Some sliced mushrooms

Some cream

Some black peppercorns

Some Italian pasta or Greek krithiraki, potatoes or rice

*no salt!!!

Instructions:

Slice the chicken breast exactly as you like it. I prefer large pieces for this, but there is something to be said for fork-sized pieces. Fry the chicken breast in a little olive oil. Keep turning and pressing all the time. Season the chicken with some of the pepper. Add the bacon and onions for about five minutes before transferring them to their own pan.

Add the mushrooms and a little more pepper. After some time you will need to add the cream. Do you want to reduce the sauce? Put it in early. Do you want to have a lot of cream? Put it in 5-10 minutes before serving.

In the meantime, boil the pasta, and keep turning the chicken!!

To present, this is the perfect recipe to think about ways of making the dish attractive and appetising. I like to serve the sauce in a round mini-bowl on the plate, so people can make up their minds where to pour it. Some like it on their meat, some on their side dishes, me all over...

The sauce is salty enough, so don't worry about that. It is just the base - do some experimenting: you could also add ground or whole green peppercorns, white wine or so many other things to it.

Recipe XCIV - Carlsbad Dumplings

Who finds it strange that I'm publishing two non-meat recipes in a row? I certainly do. But this week's recipe is as good as having meat or potatoes, and is incredibly tasty, easy to make and is perfect with a nice creamy sauce, whether made of wine, mushrooms, or like I did, fennel and honey with a nice piece of duck breast. The Czechs call this recipe Karlovarský knedlík.

Ingredients:
10 slightly stale white bread rolls (the Czechs use a roll called a rohlík, but half a crusty white loaf will do nicely)
4 eggs
250ml-300ml milk
3 slices of butter
A sprig of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
Salt and pepper

Equipment:
A large round bowl with a handle
A potato masher
Some clingfilm
A chopping board

Instructions:
Put the chopped up bread, including crusts, into a bowl. Put a generous helping of salt on it. Then add the eggs, milk, parsley, butter and pepper.



Get your potato masher and give it a thorough stamping until the mixture is consistent; it should not fall out of the bowl when turned upside-down.



Cut off some clingfilm and spread it over a chopping block. Then scoop the dumpling mix onto it, making sure it's long enough for everything to fit in.



Wrap the clingfilm round the dumpling mix, removing all the air and twist the ends until it forms a thick, sausage-like shape. You might feel more comfortable wrapping two lots of clingfilm round it, so any gaps will be in different places. That's what I did. Steam it for a good half an hour.



Remove the clingfilm and put it on a flat surface. Slice it up into 1.5cm-thick slices and arrange it nicely on the plate.



I made duck breast with fennel and honey sauce to accompany the dumplings, but rabbit, beef, pork or venison would go nicely too.



If you want to play around with the ingredients, I'd recommend sage and onion, or dried apricots and hazelnuts instead. Seasonal ingredients are always fresher and tastier, but go with your instinct as there are so many combinations. However, the Carlsbad version is pretty special.