Recipe CXXXVI - Summer Food: Potato Salad with Pickled Red Onions

This year's weather so far has been... well... forgettable at the best of times. Last year, by the end of March, we had already spent several days outside, lunches in the garden, walks by the river, socks put firmly in the drawers until October. Not so this year. Today was the first time we had breakfast outside, although it was still slightly chilly, but I didn't care. So by the time lunch came around, it was a pretty decent early summer afternoon. It reminded me of the summers of my youth, back before our current parlous state, when we would all be able to mow the grass without ending up with sunstroke and a severe case of dehydration. So to celebrate this gorgeous day of fluffy white clouds, a gentle breeze and the chirrup of birds, I made two salads to go with a lovely piece of duroc pork. This is a real crowd-pleasing recipe and one that you can easily take with you to picnics or BYOF gatherings.

Ingredients: 

1kg floury potatoes

A handful of chopped chives (optional)

Some olive oil

Some mayonnaise

3 medium-sized red onions

150ml+ apple cider vinegar

Sugar and salt to taste

Instructions:

Pre-boil the potatoes and leave them to cool. Floury potatoes are good for this recipe because they give off a creamy texture and go very well with the combination. Put in a small amount of olive oil as the potatoes will be sticky and this will let you separate them on the plate more easily. Once they are cool, add some mayonnaise and chopped chives. Not much mayonnaise, just enough to coat.

While the potatoes are cooling, you can make your red onion pickle. Heat some apple cider vinegar in a small saucepan on a low flame - you don't want to evaporate it, as it will be used later in the jar. Cut up the onions as small as possible and add them to the hot vinegar. Add sugar and salt to the pan until you get the right balance of sweet, salty and sour. The onions should be sweet more than the other two, as it will complement your potato salad very well.

Once you have the balance, pour the liquid and the onions into a jar and leave to cool. Add to the potato salad and serve cold.

I served ours with a piece of Spanish duroc pork and a crispy salad with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, honey and mustard.

I shall be making this once more very soon.

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 LXXXV - Cooking with Vegetables II: the Savoy Cabbage

Sorry for the recent silence, I was in Prague for a week over New Year and as usual had an absolute ball. Lots of food, drink and fun was had by all. I had the good fortune of spending one evening in a Czech restaurant called Blatnice (www.blatnice.com), one of the oldest restaurants in Prague. From the outside, even with the period between Christmas and New Year making it emptier than usual, it still had a very pleasant atmosphere, so we ventured inside. It did not disappoint. The one thing that Czechs know how to do it cook meat and vegetables in a way attractive to everyone from young to old. This restaurant excels in that, and their cabbage is no exception. I am a big believer in a balanced diet, and would in no way condone the eating of this vegetable alone, so don't forget to choose your meat and potatoes well, otherwise you'll be as anaemic as all those crazy vegans and other bunny-kissing nutcases!



Ingredients:
1 Savoy cabbage
A tablespoonful of caraway seeds
20cl white wine vinegar or table vinegar
Some sugar to taste
Some salt to taste
For the binding later:
50g butter
50g flour
Some milk



Instructions:
Take your cabbage and cut it into centimetre-wide strips no longer than 10 cm. Put them into a bowl and pour on the caraway seeds. Mix them up well then add the vinegar and some sugar and salt. Toss the ingredients really well and leave them aside for a while. Now is the time to make all the other things you wish to put with it. I made roast pork ribs with roast potatoes, as pork goes really well with this type of cabbage.
Put your cabbage and the excess vinegar into a high-sided pan with lid and put it on a low heat for up to half an hour.



Now you need to make roux. This is quite easy - it is half-way to making Béchamel sauce. Take your butter and put it in the high-sided pan that you have cleaned out and dried. Once it is melted, add the flour, stirring it in as much as possible until it turns into a proper consistency. Add a little milk to keep it slightly fluid and to stop it from burning. The idea is that it is not a sauce, but a coating.



Pour it onto your cabbage and toss it until it totally coats the vegetable.



Take your meat and potatoes out of the oven and serve them all on heated plates.

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 LXIII - Apple and Bacon Salad

As I haven't done a salad for a while, I thought the sunny period we had a few days ago was the ideal opportunity to make one. Salads are, for me, pretty unappetising, for two reasons. Firstly, they contain stuff that makes my lazy, feckless digestion system spring into action as if it had to catch up with lost time (a lot of which I am still owed by it), and secondly because it doesn't really fill me up. If I served a salad as main course, I would not be surprised if my guests then went to get some chips or a kebab... So if I were to make a salad, I would at least make sure it had something solid in it, otherwise what's the point of eating for enjoyment?!


Ingredients for the salad:
250g-400g bacon, >1cm thick
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 apples
A bunch of seedless grapes (I didn't use all the grapes in the photo)
A handful of field salad (lamb's lettuce)
Some hazelnuts
Ground black pepper

Ingredients for the vinaigrette:
2-5 tsps of mayonnaise
Some olive oil *
Some red wine vinegar *
Some cream *
5 stalks of chives
2-3 cloves of garlic (crushed)
Some ground black pepper and salt
* Equal amounts of olive oil and vinegar, triple the amount of cream

Instructions:
Cut up the bacon into long, thin slices, and fry them in a frying pan in olive oil or butter, put in the garlic just before the end, and set aside to cool. Alternatively, you can heat it up again just before serving.



Cut up your apples, slice the grapes in half, crush your pepper, scissor your chives. In a bowl, put the liquid ingredients (*) together with the mayonnaise and stir until it is a consistent mix.



Add the apples, chives, grapes, pepper, hazelnuts, the garlic, some pepper, and a very little salt. stir it all in, to make sure everything is saturated.



To prepare your salad bowl(s) for presentation, put in the field salad first. Then, pour the fruity vinaigrette over the top.



Then add the bacon.
You can either spread the bacon over the dish:



Or you can put it in the centre, like a kind of thin inner layer:



In any case, serve with something like boiled potatoes and eat al fresco!

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 LVII - Hollandaise Sauce with Asparagus

Asparagus is one of those very German vegetables. Grown in central and northern Europe and seasonal right now, it is sadly overlooked in many households for being too unexciting. The same goes for Hollandaise sauce. A bit caustic, it doesn't go with much, and yet when put with Asparagus, they set the gums alight. They were made for each other like chips and mayonnaise or fish and parsley. There are any varying ways to make this sauce depending on who you listen to, and varying proportions. But for a decent 4-way starter, these proportions should be about right.



Ingredients:
About 15 pieces of asparagus
2 eggs (yolks only)
2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
The juice of 1 lemon
250g fresh butter (melted)
Ground pepper from 6 to 10 black peppercorns

Instructions:
Take the butter and heat it on a low flame. Put the egg yolks, the vinegar and the lemon juice in a bowl and whisk them together well. Some heat the vinegar first, some don't. I didn't. Then pour in the butter slowly whilst continuing to whisk. If you need a second pair of hands, ask someone.



Boil some salted water in a wide pan. Cut off the stringy, woody lower stalks then break the stalks in two at their natural breaking point. There are also ears on the stalks which may need removing, but generally there's no need to pee them. Thrust them into the boiling water for 4 to 7 minutes, depending how fat they are.



Put the asparagus into a bowl, then while the Hollandaise sauce is still warm, pour it over the vegetables. Eat immediately. This is a double-sized starter, enough for two: