food, reviews and of course coffee
BBC Food has published what looks like a very tasty recipe from Saturday Kitchen, pan-fried calf’s liver with port and sage.
Probably like most people I am not a great fan of liver, probably down to the liver and bacon dish that I was served at school.
However I would quite like to try this, so I might.
Continuing their daily series of Hugh’s fish recipes, the Guardian today publish a very nice griddled squid recipe.
I do like squid and I have cooked squid in this manner myself and it is delicious. If you have only ever had pre-battered calamari rings then you are doing squid a diservice and you really must try freshly cooked squid.
Another excellent recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in today’s Guardian, beer battered fish.
Generally I like to use beer in my batter, but I found it interesting that Hugh said to use proper beer and avoid lager. I am sure I recall from another chef that lager was best for batter.
Ah well, the next time I make batter I will use a decent proper beer and see how that works.
The Guardian has published another of Hugh’s recipes, sea bass baked in a salt crust.
This is one recipe I won’t follow due to the amount of salt involved though I know a salt crust is more a cooking process then a seasoning process, having done this in the past (with a chicken), the end result is still quite salty.
Nice crab recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in today’s guardian.
In a frying pan cook off some pancetta bacon, remove from the pan. Cook the chicken, I usually use chicken thigh (bonless and skinless) cut into a size which is about the same as the pasta I am using. Cook the chicken over a relatively high heat. Remove the chicken and then add the onions, cook until softened. Now cook the mushrooms.
Whilst this chicken and mushrooms are cooking cook the pasta. I used fusilli (pasta twirls) and cooked until al dente.
Once the mushrooms are cooked, add back the pancetta and chicken, add some creme frache.
Mix the chicken mixture with the cooked pasta and a good handful of freshly grated parmesan and some freshly ground black pepper.
Serve.
In a previous post I mentioned a dish I had cooked, beef in red wine, however I did not post the recipe. This post was quite popular by people searching for a beef in red wine, so as promised here is the recipe.
Take some stewing steak, and in a hot pan, add a little oil (no need for olive oil as the flavour will be cooked out). The aggresively brown the beef. Only brown a little at a time, browning in batches and ensure that the pan is hot so that the beef does brown and doesn’t stew – as you don’t want it to stew at this time.
Once you have browned all the beef, remove the final batch of beef and add some chopped vegetables to the pan. I used carrot and onions. You could also add celery (yuck) or swede or parsnips or other root vegetables.
Once the vegetables have browned add some plain flour (just a spoonful) and stir.
Once it starts to stick add the red wine and some beef stock, this should deglaze the pan.
Place everything into a casserole dish, lid on and cook in the oven (not too hot) for a couple of hours, adding more stock if the dish starts to dry out.
In a frying pan cook some chopped bacon (I used pancetta) and cook off, then remove the bacon and add some button mushrooms and some freshly chopped parsley. Cook for a minute or two, in the main to soak up the bacon flavour.
Add the bacon and mushrooms about thirty minutes before you serve.
Serve with crusty bread, mash or roasted potatoes with some fresh steamed green vegetables.
This is a very quick meal to cook and shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes, probably even less.
Take some chicken and cut into pieces the same size as gnocchi. You can use chicken breast, personally I use chicken thigh partly because it is cheaper, more so because it has a much better flavour.
In a large hot frying pan, add a splash of olive oil, then add the chicken.
In another pan add some pancetta. You can use the cubed pancetta, though when I cooked this I used the sliced pancetta cut into small strips.
Ensure that the chicken is cooking and remove the cooked pancetta from the other pan to the chicken. Add some freshly chopped parsley and some freshly ground black pepper.
Keep the heat up in the pancetta pan and pan fry the mushrooms in the fat from the pancetta (you may need to add a little olive oil).
In a pan of rolling boiling water add the gnocchi. Cook for two minutes.
Add the cooked mushrooms to the chicken and mushrooms and then add a couple of spoonfuls of creme frache.
Drain the cooked gnocchi, spoon over the chicken, mushroom and creme frache mixture, toss lightly.
Spoon onto plates, add freshly grated parmesan and ground black pepper to taste.
This is a very quick recipe which shouldn’t take longer than twenty minutes from entering the kitchen to sitting at the table and you should even be able to do it in less than fifteen!
Take two pans of boiling water, in one add some carrot, some onion, some parsley, a few black peppercorns (or I suppose you could use a stock cube). Poach four boned and skinless chicken thighs for about ten minutes (you could use chicken breast, but I prefer the flavour and taste of the thighs).
Add the pasta to the other pan of boiling water. I now never add salt or oil to my cooking pasta. All adding oil does is form an oily scum on the top, the myth that it stops the pasta sticking is just that a myth. After cooking if you toss the pasta in olive oil, this will stop is from sticking together, but that is after cooking and it is drained. I also don’t add salt, some add salt for flavour, but as I was using pancetta and parmesan and these are quite salty, there is no need to add extra salt.
So the two pans are simmering away, take a hot frying pan and add a handful of chopped (or diced) pancetta and a splash of olive oil. As the pancetta cooks, add a finely chopped onion and continue to cook until the onion is nice and soft. Now you could remove from the pan, but personally I keep the onions and pancetta in there and add a handful of sliced chestnut mushrooms. After the mushrooms are nearly cooked I add some ground black pepper and half a handful of finely chopped flat leaf parsley. Leave for a minute before removing all the mixture from the pan.
Remove the chicken from the poaching liquid and slice into chunks. With the frying pan, turn the heat up, add another splash of olive oil and quickly add the chicken to add some flavour. After a minute add three large spoonfuls of creme frache.
Drain the pasta, to the pasta add a handful of freshly grated parmesan, the pancetta, mushrooms and onions. Spoon in the chicken and creme frache and toss the pasta around.
Serve, adding grated parmesan and ground black pepper to taste.
I do like a nice rice salad.
The problem I have with some you can buy is that they are either too salty or too wet! So where possible I try and make my own.
This is a very simple recipe and you can adjust quantities to taste, how much you want, how much you have in the fridge.
Cook some rice.
I use basmati rice, in the main as it is so simple to cook, and cooks in ten minutes.
While the rice is cooking, in a frying pan add some olive oil and then add pancetta, onions, red pepper and courgettes. After that has cooked for a while add some mushrooms.
Ensure that they are cooked through and turn off the heat.
Now you could add the pepper, mushrooms, even the courgette raw, but I prefer to have them cooked.
Once the rice is cooked, drain and then to stop it cooking further and to cool it down rinse well with cold water.
Put the cooked rice in a bowl, add some mayonnaise and some creme frache.
Then add the cooked mixture.
Stir with a spoon until the rice and cooked mixture is evenly coated. As with a lot of salads though you could serve this straight away, it will improve if you leave it in the fridge for a few hours.
Excellent.