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Cooking Chorizo

If you have eaten chorizo in the past, either the thinly sliced stuff you get in packs next to the ham, or the whole chorizo sausage that you are finding more and more in most supermarkets, then you probably will find that cooking chorizo really should be on your shopping list.

Now this is cooking chorizo and really does need to be cooked. I have been using it in a few recipes recently, in the main paella, but also chorizo frito al vino.

My method is to cut the chorizo into slices about quarter of an inch thick. Fry in a large frying pan until sealed on both sides and just starting to go a little crispy. At this point I add the red wine (Spanish red wine is best, but I am sure you can use any good red wine).

Cook the chorizo for a few more minutes. Serve as part of a tapas or with salad. The red wine with the chorizo makes a wonderfully spicy sauce which you can dunk warm soft bread into.

Sainsbury’s cooking chorizo comes as smaller whole sausages and these can be cooked whole, but will take a little longer.

Another recipe was to add it to lentils. In a large frying pan, saute some diced onions, pepper and pancetta. I added some stock and tomato puree and simmered for about ten minutes before adding the sliced cooking chorizo. This I cooked for a further five minutes.

The next stage was to add the lentils, I usually use tinned green lentils. I finished the dish with some basil, though parsley would have been better.

Another way I use chorizo is to add it to a tray of roasting vegetables to add texture, flavour and spice.

In many ways cooking chorizo is a versatile ingredient that is in many ways much easier to use than tradition air dried chorizo. I would air caution though, make sure it is proper cooking chorizo and not chorizo style sausages otherwise you will be disappointed.

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Perfect Roast Potatoes

I do like roast potatoes and after trying many different varieties and techniques I believe I have now got a repeatable recipe and process for perfect roast potatoes.

Firstly you need to use the right kind of potatoes. It’s not as simple as buying any kind, the cheapest or whatever.

I have in the past used King Edward potatoes which have worked, but more recently I have found Maris Piper to be a better choice.

After peeling and cutting into chunks the potatoes are blanced in boiling water for about 7-10 minutes depending on the size of the chunks. Now the size if dependent on how you like your roast poatoes and how long you have to cook them. Obviously smaller chunks means a shorter cooking time, whilst larger chunks though take longer are preferred by some people.

While the potatoes are blanched, place the roasting tray into the oven, with a good splash of olive oil. Now you can use goose fat, and I have done in the past, but I am now using olive oil. You could use sunflower oil. I avoid butter generally because it burns and adds a bitter taste. The key here is to heat the pan and the oil.

After blanching the potatoes, drain and the key here is to let the heat dry the potatoes. If they go into the pan “wet” they won’t crisp up well.

The next stage is to slightly “bash” the potatoes by shaking the colander or sieve, this will aid the crisping process too. Then remove the roasting pan from the oven and add the potatoes, turning them and maybe a little more “bashing”. You could add some flavouring, fresh sprigs of rosemary works well. You should also ensure that the potatoes are not too crowded, in other words they need air to be crisp.

Cook for 30-45 minutes depending on the size of the chunks, if you have parmentier sized chunks cooking time could be as low as 20 minutes. It is a good idea to turn the potatoes half way through  to ensure a more even crispness.

The end result should be tasty, crisp potatoes with a fluffy centre.

That’s my recipe for roast potatoes, what’s yours?

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Paella with chicken and chorizo

I seem to be cooking paella more and more recently.

The key for me is the right kind of rice and saffron. I really do like the way the saffron adds not just colour, but also flavour.

After that you can add many different things to make a really nice paella.

The dish above contains in addition to the rice and saffron, the following, chicken, chorizo, prawns, onions, pepper, pancetta and peas. This is different to the last time I cooked paella.

There is something about paella, the richness, flavours that I really enjoy.

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Roasting Squash

Over the last few weeks I have had a lot of success with cooking (well roasting) different varieties of squash.

In the past I have tried cooking butternut squash with little success. Generally it lacks flavour or just doesn’t do have anything special about it.

I have been buying in my local supermarkets various types of squash, and roasting them in the oven and to be honest they have been really really nice.

They are quite tough to cut up, but once they are cut up, the seeds removed, the skin taken off, cut into chunks and roasted in a hot oven with a little olive oil, you can really appreciate the flavour.

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Garnish

Whenever I do a big roast I do like a nice garnish of stuffing and sausages. The stuffing is described in this recipe, and the sausages are either plain or wrapped in pancetta jackets.

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Go on, surprise me…

I mentioned last week how I was disappointed with the fish and chips I had had at the Sainsbury’s Café. One of the reasons I do go there (as well as convenience) is that you can be surprised.

Earlier this year I was pleasantly surprised with a meal I had at the café.

It was chargrilled tuna on a bed of steamed vegetables with a tomato sauce. It was certainly one of the best meals I have ever had in the Sainsbury’s Café.

The vegetables were not over cooked and still had some crunch. The tomato sauce was certainly better than most I have had, even the tuna was very nice, if a little overcooked.

A pity it was a special and not a regular item on the menu.

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Roast Chicken Crown with Chorizo

This was a dish I made last week.

I took a crown of free range chicken. This was actually cheaper than buying two chicken breasts and of course cooking it on the bone means it won’t dry out as much as cooking chicken breasts on their own.

Before cooking I covered the chicken in pancetta, this was partly to protect the chicken, add flavour and also add some much needed fat to the pan for the vegetables roasting their.

The chicken was roasted in the oven on a bed of squash, carrots and onions. After cooking for 30 minutes more pieces were added to the pan, this included chorizo cooking sausage, slice of courgette, mushrooms, pepper and cubes of bread. This was then cooked for a further 20-30 minutes until everything was cooked.

The pancetta was crispy, the chicken moist and delicious. The roasted vegetables were full of flavour and perfectly cooked. The bread was flavoursome and crunchy.

Delicious.

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Turn Back Time – The High Street

Really clever trailer from the BBC, very Back to the Future.

I have enjoyed the first two episodes about historical high streets, shows how “lucky” we are today in some respects and how much we have lost too. True no food adulteration these days (well some probably), but we have lost a lot of the personal touch we had in the past.

Series still available on BBC iPlayer until December 14th 2010.

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Have you learnt your lesson yet?

So there I was needing a place to go to lunch. I did actually fancy La Tasca, however they weren’t doing anything like their Tapas for a Tenner deal though they were doing quite a few deals if there were two of you (eat for £12). However I was on my own so that wasn’t going to happen.

I looked round, but didn’t fancy Spud-u-like or Burger King so with time running out, but with a little hesitation I decided to go to Café Rouge.

Now my past experiences with Café Rouge have not been always favourable.

When I went to the branch in Cardiff I said:

Overall I was disappointed with the food and the service, I know Café Rouge is a chain, but in this case the Cardiff branch was a real disappointment.

When I was at one of the Bristol branches I was also not impressed:

They do a very good merguez sausage and it is always very well done, well cooked and nice and spicy.  The lentils were quite good too.

However the dish was let down by something as simple as rocket leaves. They were not fresh, old and somewhat manky! A disappointment using not just old rocket leaves, but ones that looked as if they were verging on going off.

Now it’s not always bad news, otherwise I would certainly not have gone again this time. I had a wonderful meal in Brighton a few years ago and I think that’s the reason I keep going back.

So what went wrong this time?

This time the food was up to scratch and I’ll start with that. What I did notice was that the merguez sausage was no longer on the menu, which is a personal favourite.

I went for the fixed price menu, which is very reasonable at £8.50 for two courses, even though the choice is limited to three items for started and mains.

For my starter I went with the Salade de Toulouse – A warm salad of smoked Toulouse sausages sautéed with new potatoes and caramelised onions on a bed of mixed leaves.

This was quite nice, the sausage though was no merguez sausage and I expected a little more flavour from it. The onions and potatoes were cooked just right and the salad was fresh and crisp. I enjoyed it and used some bread to soak up the dressing.

The other two choices were Champignons a la Creme – Chestnut mushrooms cooked in garlic & cream served with French bread and

Salade Niçoise – Classic Niçoise salad with tuna, anchovies, egg, olives, potatoes, French beans and tomatoes with mixed leaves.

For my main course I went with the Poulet et Dauphinoise – Roasted chicken leg with dauphinoise potatoes and thyme jus.

This was also very nice, the chicken was cooked fine, the dauphinoise potatoes had flavour and good texture. The thyme jus was very nice.

The other two choices for the mains were Filet de Colin – Pan fried fillet of hake served on a bed of Ratatouille and Omelette aux Fines Herbes – Fresh herb omelette served with French fries or mixed salad. The fish had run out so it was a choice between chicken and omelette in the end.

So the food was good, what went wrong, why are you not going again?

Well this time the service is what was awful.

When I walked in, the place was quite full, and the waitress did say there would be a 30 minute wait for food, I was fine with that. It just seemed to taken them an inordinately long time to take my order. The first course arrived within 20 minutes which was nice. But then I had a 30 minute wait for the main course! By this time the place was much much emptier. What annoyed me though was that other tables were getting served before me even though they had come in later. In other words I had been forgotten… this was also evidenced by the waitress asking if I had had my main course (with my empty starter plate in front of me).

I normally do tip, however on this occasion I felt that I hadn’t had any service let alone good service.

So next time I think about going to Café Rouge, remind me of this time, oh and that time too….