food, reviews and of course coffee
I do quite enjoy the way that Lidl does themed flavour weeks, and I often visit just to see what they have and get a few things. This week is French week.
I enjoyed the Rosette Air-Dried Salami last time it was French week, so I bought that. I also got some French cheeses including the Laiterie de la Montagne Tomme de Montagne. This is a delicious cheese. Soft and mild flavoured, I really like it.
It’s back, that delicious Lidl coffee ice cream.
As part of their Flavours of Italy week Lidl are back selling their small tubs of coffee ice cream
When I first started buying these tubs, they were selling them at 99p per tub. The cost of living and inflation has obviously hit, as they are now £1.49 per tub.
They are not huge tubs, but what you get is a tasty creamy coffee ice cream, with a little chocolate in there as well.
We also like the amaretto tub and the lemon sorbet one is nice too
I quite like parmentier potatoes. I have been known to make them myself, but sometimes I buy them ready prepared.
I bought a pack from Lidl and cooked them.
They were quite good.
Back this week are the Greek Tzoumagias-Style Sausages from Lidl.
There are seven sausages and in the pack.
During a previous Greek week at Lidl I bought some Tzoumagias-Style Pork Sausages with Leek. I cooked them simply in a warm frying pan until they were browned and hot all the way through. These have a lovely meaty texture and some nice flavours. I have no idea how authentic these are, but I do like them.
I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoyed Lidl’s Italiamo Italian Style Coffee Ice Cream. So I was pleased to see that it will be back next week (from the 22nd September 2022) in their stores, along with the lemon and amaretto versions as well.
Still good value at 99p a tub.
One thing I do quite like is seafood in crispy batter, what the Italians call Fritto Misto.
So after enjoying my recent attempts at gluten free Frito Misto, I thought I would cook it again. I went with the recipe I had used before.
Again I used the mixed seafood mix from Lidl. As part of their Andalusian range, Lidl had a bag of frozen prepared mixed seafood. It contains pieces of skin-in cod pieces, anchovy fillets, squid rings, chopped Indian squid and peeled shrimp. As I said before I do think there could be more shrimp (prawns) in there, but it is a good mix of seafood. I did take some of the squid rings and cut them into smaller pieces.
I took the seafood and defrosted it in a bowl and removed any excess water. I coated the seafood in seasoned flour and then left it for a while, a couple of hours all in.
I cooked the seafood by deep frying in hot oil. The end result was a crunchy coating on the seafood. This was then seasoned with a little salt.
During the recent Greek week at Lidl I bought some Tzoumagias-Style Pork Sausages with Leek.
There are seven sausages and in the pack.
I cooked them simply in a warm frying pan until they were browned and hot all the way through.
These have a lovely meaty texture and some nice flavours. I have no idea how authentic these are, but I do like them.
These were better and much nicer that the sausage I recently had at The Real Greek.
One thing I do quite like is seafood in crispy batter, what the Italians call Fritto Misto.
So after enjoying my recent attempt at gluten free Frito Misto, I thought I would cook it again. I decided though, this time, to try a slightly different recipe.
Again I used the mixed seafood mix from Lidl. As part of their Andalusian range, Lidl had a bag of frozen prepared mixed seafood. It contains pieces of skin-in cod pieces, anchovy fillets, squid rings, chopped Indian squid and peeled shrimp. As I said before I do think there could be more shrimp (prawns) in there, but it is a good mix of seafood.
I took the seafood and defrosted it in a bowl and removed any excess water. I coated the seafood in seasoned flour and then left it for ten minutes.
I cooked the seafood by deep frying in hot oil. The end result was a crunchy coating on the seafood. I think this was better than my previous attempt.
One thing I do quite like is seafood in crispy batter, what the Italians call Fritto Misto.
Though I have bought the Lidl Fritto Misto from their Italy week quite a few times, the reality is that it’s okay, but not good. It’s mainly squid, in a crispy batter. Also, the other downside is, it’s not gluten free.
As part of their Andalusian range, Lidl had a bag of frozen prepared mixed seafood. It contains pieces of skin-in cod pieces, anchovy fillets, squid rings, chopped Indian squid and peeled shrimp. Personally I think there could be more shrimp (prawns) in there, but it was a good mix of seafood.
I took the seafood and defrosted it in a bowl and removed any excess water. I coated the seafood in seasoned flour before coating in a gluten free batter and deep frying in hot oil.
The batter I made from gluten free plain flour, egg and milk. Mixing to a consistency that ensures a smooth coating of the seafood. As well as the seafood I added some prawns and cooked those as well.
Overall I was quite pleased with the dish, it was better than the Lidl Fritto Misto I have had before. The only issue I did have, was that the batter didn’t stay as crisp as I would have liked.
Well we call this paella, but I know it isn’t paella, but it was inspired by paella.
This is a regular dish in our household and this pan of paella was finished off at dinner time.
What goes into the pan, depends on what we have in the house and whether I have been shopping or not. If I am out of the shops knowing that I am going to cook paella, then I will probably buy some cooking chorizo, some squid, and maybe even other kinds of seafood such as langoustine or clams. This time was what we had in the house.
This serves about four people
In preparation I diced a red onion and a large pepper. Well actually I diced half a red pepper and half an orange pepper.
In a hot large frying pan, I put some olive oil and I cooked off some smoked pancetta bacon and a small amount of diced (dry) chorizo. I then added the diced onion and pepper. When this was softened, I added 250g of paella rice. I ensured that this was then coated with the peppers and onions in the pan. I let this cook for a minute or so before adding a splash of white wine (we had that in the fridge). Recently I have been using some Spanish sherry I got from Aldi for Christmas, but that was all finished off the last time I did paella, sorry Spanish inspired rice.
I then (cheated and) added a jar of paella paste from Waitrose. In the past I have used herbs, spices and saffron when making paella, however I do like the jar that Waitrose do as it does taste quite authentic and is quick and easy. Tesco use to do a sachet of paella herbs and spices, but they’ve stopped selling that now. I use to prefer that.
After stirring in the paste I added some chicken stock. Last time I did paella I used a fish stock, but didn’t have any of that in the cupboard.
Stir once and then leave.
I once got “told off” by a Spaniard for stirring my paella, so now I just as advised, leave it to cook.
In a separate pan I cooked off the remaining dried chorizo I had sliced, I also added some sliced linguiça sausage from Lidl I had picked in their Iberian week recently. In previous Spanish themed weeks Lidl have done some nice cooking chorizo which I have liked using in my paella dishes. This time though in their most recent week they didn’t do it, hence picking up the linguiça sausage. Not quite a replacement, but worked well with the paella.
We had some cooked prawns in the fridge, so I warmed them up in a pan with some olive oil and mixed herbs.
The prawns, chorizo and lemon slices were added to the top of the paella, with some chopped flat leaf parsley and served.
Overall, delicious.