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Pasta Bolognaise

pasta
Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

This is my go to quick dinner recipe. Well, I say quick, it does take some time. 

When writing this I did wonder if I had written up the recipe before. Well, I hadn’t written my recent bolognaise cooking, but had published a recipe back in March 2008. Looking at this post I realised I had posted a bolognese (note the different spelling) recipe in November 2022.

Those two recipes are very similar, but I have changed how I cook bolognaise, so here is my recent version of the bolognaise.

This serves four people.

      • 500g minced beef, I try and get 5% fat mince, otherwise the end result can be a bit greasy. If you do buy the mince with the higher fat content, I would suggest after browning the mince to drain some of the excess fat or oil from the pan before adding the vegetables.
      • Splash of olive oil
      • One onion, diced
      • One carrot finely diced. The carrot is there to add some veg to the dish as well as flavour.
      • One red pepper, diced, sometimes I only use half a red pepper.
      • Handful of mushrooms, chopped.
      • Splash of balsamic vinegar
      • Knorr chicken stock pot, sometimes I use the beef stock pot.
      • Beef stock cube.
      • Dried Italian herbs
      • Tin of tomatoes, puréed, sometimes I use a jar of passata.
      • Tomato purée.
      • Garlic purée

I usually use a large pan with a lid, for cooking this dish. I heat the pan add the splash of olive oil and then brown off the mince until it is all done. If you have excess fat in the pan then drain the cooked mince and discard the excess oil and fat, then add the mince back to the pan.

Add the onion, carrot, and pepper. You can add extra vegetables at this point, or extra pepper. I have sometimes added courgettes or sweet potato. If you really like it, you could add celery I guess, I wouldn’t.

After a few minutes add the mushrooms.

Once the onion is soft and cooked, add the tin of tomatoes, the herbs, the tomato purée and the balsamic vinegar.

Cook for at least 30 minutes on a low heat. The plan is for all the flavours to infuse and for the beef mince to be cooked and tender.

Serve with spaghetti or a pasta of your choice. Add freshly grated Parmesan to taste, garnish with freshly topped parsley.

I did a variation adding a topping of pan fried pancetta and mushrooms to my dish. Just to be different!

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Pan Roasted Lamb Rump

I was up in Birmingham for a roundtable event and staying at the Edgbaston Park  Hotel which is on the University of Birmingham campus. This is a modern conference hotel with a restaurant and a bar, as well as meeting rooms.

I had the scotch duck egg royale for my starter. For my main course I had the pan roasted lamb rump, aubergine purée, glazed shallots, potato purée, mint jus.

On the plate was the jus, then some potato purée onto which was placed two thick slices of rare pan roasted lamb rump. Also on the plate was two spoons of aubergine purée, a glazed shallot, and a broccoli floret. Finally the dish was dressed with some mixed leaves as a garnish.

The lamb was very tender, but was under seasoned. I rarely if ever add salt to my food, this lamb needed some salt. I did though enjoy all the other aspects of the dish. The potato purée was lovely and smooth, the aubergine purée was quite tasty. Not sure the mixed leaves garnish added anything.

I liked this dish, but it needed more seasoning. I had asked for my lamb to be cooked rare. I am not sure in the future I will ask for this kind of dish to be rare, I enjoyed the lamb, but think it needed a little more cooking time for me. Next time I will ask for it to be cooked medium.

I didn’t have dessert, though was tempted by the cheese and biscuits.

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Cooked Red Cabbage

red cabage
Image by eurippon from Pixabay

For Sunday lunch I cooked some red cabbage. I didn’t have all the ingredients in the house for my festive red cabbage recipe, so I did a variation of it.

Ingredients

knob of butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, finely sliced or chopped
1 x 500g (or half a) red cabbage, shredded finely using a food processor (white core discarded) or with a knife.
2 tbsp Balsamic vinegar
splash of red wine
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tbsp soft brown sugar
1 apple, peeled, cored and diced

2 tsp cranberry sauce

Method

Heat the butter and oil in a lidded saucepan. When hot, add the onion and fry gently until softened. Stir in the cinnamon and season. Add the cabbage and fry for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until glossy. Stir in the sugar, apples and Balsamic vinegar, cranberry sauce, add a splash of red wine. Cover with a lid and let it cook gently for 30 minutes.

If you aren’t using the cranberry sauce, taste the cabbage and add a little more sugar if it’s too tart for your taste.

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Borlotti Beans

I make this dish quite often, sometimes as a main meal, usually as an accompaniment.

In large frying pan, cook off some diced pancetta with a splash of oil.

When the bacon has been rendered and is browned add some diced red onion, diced peppers, and diced mushrooms. Cook on a low heat until the peppers and onions have softened. The mushrooms are there for flavour.

To the softened onions and peppers, add a spoonful of plain flour. Stir in.

I then add a Knorr chicken stock pot, some garlic puree, and dried herbs.

To this mix I add some water. I then let this cook for about thirty minutes. The key is to thicken the sauce.

I really like the Cirio Borlotti Beans that come in the Tetra Recart™ pack. These are ready to use and once added to the pan, they just need heating through.

If I am doing a main course, I may add a second pack of pulses, sometimes lentils, or cannellini beans.

Other variations are to remove the bacon and use a vegetable stock to make this a vegetarian (or vegan) dish. Sometimes instead of chicken stock, I use a deep rich beef stock, I also use some tomato puree when using beef stock.

You could add some protein, roasted or pan fried duck, slow roasted pork belly or grilled chicken, all work well with the beans. Other times I have added some sausages, I quite like the Polish hunters’ sausage you can get at most supermarkets.

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Scotch Duck Egg Royale

I was up in Birmingham for a roundtable event and staying at the Edgbaston Park  Hotel which is on the University of Birmingham campus. This is a modern conference hotel with a restaurant and a bar, as well as meeting rooms.

I had the scotch duck egg royale; this was a soft boiled duck egg wrapped in a duck and truffle mince, breadcrumbs and deep fried. It was served on top of a leek and chive velouté with some dressed leaves.

Well, there was a lot of leaves on that plate, though difficult to make out there was a scotch egg on that plate.

I really liked the idea of this scotch egg, the description sounded delicious, despite the leaves, I think the food looked good. However, the execution wasn’t as good as the description or the way it looked.

This wasn’t the best scotch egg I’ve had in a restaurant. The best thing about the dish was the egg. It was a delicious soft boiled duck’s egg. The mince wrapping was quite thin, I think too thin. As a result, not only was the crumb was quite crunchy, the duck mince was crunchy as well in places. Also, I didn’t really get any truffle flavour in the duck mince.

The flavour of the velouté was overpowered by the addition of mustard. I couldn’t taste the leek or chives.

Yes, this wasn’t the best scotch egg I’ve had, it wasn’t awful, but it could have been so much better.

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String Fries

We had peeled too many potatoes for dinner, well we had peeled enough, then at the last minute one member of the household, who shall remain nameless, let us know they weren’t going to be in for dinner!

I had an idea on what to do with the spare potatoes.

A year or so ago, I bought a spiralizer from ProCook. I have used it lot when making salads, it works well with carrots and cucumber.

I decided I would spiralize the potatoes. The spiralizer worked a treat and I had a load of spiralized potatoes, well strings of potato.

I let them dry for a while before deep frying them in sunflower oil. I realised I was a bit short on oil, so I had to toss and turn them quite often. 

I drained them on kitchen towel, before adding some sea salt.

They were a really nice garnish, adding a crunchy and saltiness.

I have had skinny fries before, from GBK, but what I cooked wasn’t skinny fries, more deep fried strings of potato.

Get a spiralizer from Amazon.

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She Sells Sushi, and a really nice bento box

demolished hotel

Bristol had a great street food scene. There are markets every day of the week, most days there are at least two. Across in Whapping Wharf there are cargo containers with some great food places.

I was working in Bristol one Friday and at lunchtime I went out for a walk.  I went to the Finzel Reach street food market, saw what was there, and then walked up to the St Nicholas market. I walked back to the Finzel Reach street food market and bought a bento box from She Sells Sushi. I had my usual beef donburi and the crispy chicken hirata bun. I had to wait a while, as there was a bit of queue, which isn’t too surprising, as the food is excellent from She Sells Sushi.

I sometimes think I should have something different. I have had the crispy tofu katsu curry before, which is tasty, but I prefer the beef donburi. 

The beef was tender and had an intense flavour. I liked the pickle and the crispy fried onions. The rice was sticky and worked well with the beef.

I did think about having the Takoyaki , but in the end I defaulted to the excellent crispy chicken hirata bun.

I had two strips of crispy, well more crunchy, chicken. These were in a charcoal hirata bao bun with some mixed leaves. 

This was a delicious bento box. They also do an XL version of the box in which you can have three choices. I did have this once, I had the beef donburi, the katsu tofu puffs, and a chicken hirata Bun. It was rather filling, I decided that I probably wouldn’t have the XL size again. Well I might, but I don’t think I would have the donburi and the katsu with something else. I would probably have the donburi with a hirata bun and the Takoyaki. Lots of variety, but not so filling as having two rice heavy dishes.

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Four Seasons Parmentier Potatoes

pack front of Four Seasons Parmentier Potatoes

When working during the week and with rushing off for clubs and going out, sometimes I don’t always have the time (or the motivation) to cook. Sometimes the convenience of getting a pack of prepared “stuff” out of the freezer, putting it in the oven and getting it to the table is what it is all about. 

Sometimes the “stuff” isn’t worth getting, but I have quite liked the Four Seasons Parmentier Potatoes from Aldi.

These are small seasoned cubes of potato, which are cooked in the oven. In the freezers at Aldi you can find various packs of Four Seasons Parmentier Potatoes. There are three flavours: red onion and rosemary, salt and pepper, and garlic and herb.

Each bag is 500g and is enough as two large portions, or three normal sized portions. They are simple to cook, in and out of the oven.

My personal favourite is the salt and pepper variety, but I do like all three.

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Steak Ciabatta

Having arrived in Birmingham I was staying at the Edgbaston Park Hotel. This is a conference hotel in the locality of the University of Birmingham. It is a nice modern hotel with a restaurant and a bar.

I wanted to grab some lunch. It was later than I had planned, so didn’t have time to find somewhere in the locality. I headed down to the 1900 Bar and looked over the menu. I decided I would have the sirloin steak ciabatta sandwich that came with chips and salad.

I took a seat with my drink (a can of San Pellegrino orange). It wasn’t long before my sandwich arrived. 

Now generally I don’t do sandwiches, but I decided that this was going to be more than a sandwich. I was right, this was a substantial plate of food. There was a portion of chips in one of those fake mini fryer baskets, a dressed salad. In the halved ciabatta roll was a generous portion of sliced sirloin steak, rocket and onion chutney.

I had asked for the steak to be cooked rare, it was tender, but I felt that the steak wasn’t really grilled, the surface lacked browning. As a result the steak was just okay, it lacked flavour, I think it could have been cooked better. I did like the chutney though.

Overall It was a nice sandwich, I liked the chips and salad.

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Half and Half

One memory I have of my time at the University of York in the 1980s was going out to eat at Pizza Hut one time and sharing a pizza with a friend and having a half and half. One half had one topping, the other half had a different topping. This was something I had never done before. I am not saying I’ve done it much since then either. Why the memory, well I recently had a half and half pizza at Zizzi in Bristol. This one though I ate all to myself.

I don’t generally go out for lunch in Bristol when I am working there. Usually I will take a packed lunch, sometimes I have a substantial lunch, as I know I am in busy in the evening and will only be getting a sandwich or a snack.

Went to Zizzi for lunch as I had a gift voucher to use. I did fancy a pizza so I went with the half and half. I chose the Rustica Half & Half Sticky Pig.

This was a slow-cooked pulled pork and mozzarella pizza with Roquito hot honey. One half, a rich red base topped with spicy ‘nduja, finished with crispy prosciutto and riserva cheese. The other, a white base, with smoky scamorza cheese, crumbled meatballs, crackling & Roquito pearls.

The halves weren’t exactly equal, so I am glad I wasn’t sharing. The rich red base was bigger than the white base. I would have preferred to have it the other way around, or at least equal halves.

The red side was very tasty, quite spicy with the ‘nduja. I keep meaning to buy some ‘nduja and cook with it. Not sure what I would cook with it, but when I have it in food I have out, I quite like it.

The white side was equally tasty. I enjoyed the smoky scamorza cheese and crumbled meatballs. I did wonder if the crackling would be too hard, but it wasn’t, it was nice and crispy rather than crunchy. I am not a great fan of the Roquito pearls, but they added colour and some spice to the pizza.

I enjoyed my pizza. It was a nice place to have lunch, not too busy, but not so empty as to be desolate. Service was friendly and efficient.