This is a rich, luxurious pasta dish. It's not a speedy one, and will demand a good half hour of your attention; but that half hour is one of gentle chopping and stirring which should slowly stroke away the stresses of your Monday.
Mushroom and Goat's Cheese Tagliatelle
1/2 onion
1 large clove garlic
4 large chestnut mushrooms
10g dried porcini
1/2 tsp dried tarragon
200ml boiling water
100ml white wine
75g tagliatelle
100g goats' cheese
1/2 tsp truffle oil
Finely chop the onion and garlic. Chop and slice the mushrooms so you have a variety of different shapes and thicknesses. Soak the dried porcini and dried tarragon in the boiling water (they will probably want around 15 minutes).
Heat a teaspoon of butter in a small saucepan, over a low heat, and gently saute the onion for 10 minutes or so, until it is soft and slightly yellow, but without browning it. Add the garlic, and saute for another minute or two, until it loses its sharp white colour. Add the fresh mushrooms, a decent pinch of salt, and saute for a couple of minutes until they start giving up their juices.
Around the same time, get the pasta water on to boil, and tip in the pasta.
Turn up the heat slightly on the mushroom pan. Remove the dried porcini from their soaking liquid (keeping the liquid itself), and chop them roughly, then add to the mushroom pan and stir in to the rest of the mixture. Tip in the wine and boil until you stop smelling the strong alcohol evaporating off: around a minute. Then add the soaking liquid from the dried porcini, stopping before you get to any gritty bits at the bottom. Bring to a gentle boil and reduce until you just have a little liquid left in the pan.
Chop the goats' cheese into 1 cm chunks. Drain the pasta and tip into the mushroom sauce pan; stir well until coated. Tip in the goats' cheese and truffle oil, stir briefly, then serve.
Monday, 7 March 2011
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
Not for one
It is, frankly, impossible to cook risotto for one person.
I've tried it a couple of times in the last few months, and just produced enough for two people anyway. Rather like Salad Nicoise, there are too many individual components. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing: leftover risotto can be pretty good, even (especially?) when eaten cold from the fridge at 2 a.m..
Although, although... risotto has always been such a labour of love for me, so much something to be shared, that I've found myself slightly reluctant to make it for just myself. I think this lies partly in the time it takes, the forty minutes or so of standing at a hot stove working your arms muscles for all they can give (and that's before we get onto the stock; more on that beneath): you need someone you love waiting at the other end of that. The other aspect is its soft, warm, comforting texture. I've made fresh-tasting risottos before (see here for a lemon/chilli/prawn one...), but what really makes me happy is the kind of risotto that simply smothers you in a giant cuddle.
And now I find myself cooking for one less and less often, and cooking for two more and more, and I want to cook food that says "I love you" more and more. There's just one problem: my favourite risotto contains mushrooms, and the boy in question is allergic to mushrooms.
So, I have to find a new comfort blanket of flavours, and let go of the old habits. For the rest of you lovers, here's the recipe I won't be cooking in the future. In essentials, it's what I remember from standing at my mother's knee since before I can remember, although she'd never have added the truffle oil at the end, and she always used arborio rice. I like vialone nano these days - the shape takes slightly longer to cook, so it's easier to catch at the al dente stage, but carnaroli is good (better than arborio) and more widely available.
I learned my snobbery about homemade stock at my mother's knee, too, although *guilty look* I do sometimes use the shop-bought fresh stuff, which can often be sufficiently glutinous, and you could do the same here if for some reason you've let your freezer run out of homemade. Stock cubes and their many variants simply won't cut it - risotto needs the juice of animal bones (preferably those of a free-range or organic bird that's been running round strengthening them all its life) to be really good.
Chicken and mushroom risotto, for two
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
A dessertspoon or so of butter, and a drop or two of olive oil
A couple of handfuls of mushrooms, sliced
150 g risotto rice
A glass of white wine, or half a glass of dry sherry if you're not planning on opening a bottle to drink with dinner anyway
A couple of handfuls of leftover chicken
750 ml - 1 l chicken stock
Another dessertspoon of butter
50 g grated parmesan, plus more still in block to grate over at the end
A teaspoon (or maybe more...) truffle oil
Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat, and, once the butter starts to fizzle a little, add the onion and fry gently for five minutes or so until it goes all translucent, but doesn't colour. Add the garlic, fry for another minute without letting it catch on the bottom of the pan, then tip in the mushrooms. You'll probably need to add a little more butter here, as the mushrooms will absorb quite a bit, and this is a good stage to do an initial seasoning: I would just use a little pinch of salt here (don't forget you'll add parmesan later, which will also add salt), but my mother would have added lots of pepper, and you could too, if that's your thing. Fry for another couple of minutes until the mushrooms wilt a little and start releasing their juices.
At the same time, pop another saucepan on to heat and stick the stock in there. Don't bring it all the way up to a boil, but get it suitably steamy.
Add the rice, and fry for another minute. This is important, and most recipes won't tell you to do it, but you're aiming to get the rice to soak up some of the butter and to also toast a little. Then tip in the wine or sherry and allow to bubble furiously for a minute until you don't get instantly drunk if you accidentally inhale the steam.
Then comes the steady stage of adding a ladleful of stock, stirring, waiting for it to be absorbed and to evaporate slightly, and repeating for fifteen or twenty minutes. The time and quantity of liquid required depends on so many variables (the exact heat of both the risotto and stock pans, the variety, age, etc, of the rice, how often you stir, etc, etc...) that your only option after about ten minutes is to taste, and taste, and taste again, until the rice has reached whatever your preferred level of dente might be.
At this point, turn the heat off and stir in the extra butter and the initial lot of parmesan (this is what you'll sometimes hear called mantecare, or feeding the risotto - I like the latter term because it hints that the risotto is now a living creature in need of food, which is how I see it). Leave to sit for a couple of minutes, then stir in the truffle oil, and check for seasoning again.
Serve in wide bowls with plenty more parmesan to grate over.
PS. Diane Henry's wonderful and inspiring book, Food from Plenty, has a promising recipe for Chicken and Parsley risotto. Wish me luck.
I've tried it a couple of times in the last few months, and just produced enough for two people anyway. Rather like Salad Nicoise, there are too many individual components. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing: leftover risotto can be pretty good, even (especially?) when eaten cold from the fridge at 2 a.m..
Although, although... risotto has always been such a labour of love for me, so much something to be shared, that I've found myself slightly reluctant to make it for just myself. I think this lies partly in the time it takes, the forty minutes or so of standing at a hot stove working your arms muscles for all they can give (and that's before we get onto the stock; more on that beneath): you need someone you love waiting at the other end of that. The other aspect is its soft, warm, comforting texture. I've made fresh-tasting risottos before (see here for a lemon/chilli/prawn one...), but what really makes me happy is the kind of risotto that simply smothers you in a giant cuddle.
And now I find myself cooking for one less and less often, and cooking for two more and more, and I want to cook food that says "I love you" more and more. There's just one problem: my favourite risotto contains mushrooms, and the boy in question is allergic to mushrooms.
So, I have to find a new comfort blanket of flavours, and let go of the old habits. For the rest of you lovers, here's the recipe I won't be cooking in the future. In essentials, it's what I remember from standing at my mother's knee since before I can remember, although she'd never have added the truffle oil at the end, and she always used arborio rice. I like vialone nano these days - the shape takes slightly longer to cook, so it's easier to catch at the al dente stage, but carnaroli is good (better than arborio) and more widely available.
I learned my snobbery about homemade stock at my mother's knee, too, although *guilty look* I do sometimes use the shop-bought fresh stuff, which can often be sufficiently glutinous, and you could do the same here if for some reason you've let your freezer run out of homemade. Stock cubes and their many variants simply won't cut it - risotto needs the juice of animal bones (preferably those of a free-range or organic bird that's been running round strengthening them all its life) to be really good.
Chicken and mushroom risotto, for two
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
A dessertspoon or so of butter, and a drop or two of olive oil
A couple of handfuls of mushrooms, sliced
150 g risotto rice
A glass of white wine, or half a glass of dry sherry if you're not planning on opening a bottle to drink with dinner anyway
A couple of handfuls of leftover chicken
750 ml - 1 l chicken stock
Another dessertspoon of butter
50 g grated parmesan, plus more still in block to grate over at the end
A teaspoon (or maybe more...) truffle oil
Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat, and, once the butter starts to fizzle a little, add the onion and fry gently for five minutes or so until it goes all translucent, but doesn't colour. Add the garlic, fry for another minute without letting it catch on the bottom of the pan, then tip in the mushrooms. You'll probably need to add a little more butter here, as the mushrooms will absorb quite a bit, and this is a good stage to do an initial seasoning: I would just use a little pinch of salt here (don't forget you'll add parmesan later, which will also add salt), but my mother would have added lots of pepper, and you could too, if that's your thing. Fry for another couple of minutes until the mushrooms wilt a little and start releasing their juices.
At the same time, pop another saucepan on to heat and stick the stock in there. Don't bring it all the way up to a boil, but get it suitably steamy.
Add the rice, and fry for another minute. This is important, and most recipes won't tell you to do it, but you're aiming to get the rice to soak up some of the butter and to also toast a little. Then tip in the wine or sherry and allow to bubble furiously for a minute until you don't get instantly drunk if you accidentally inhale the steam.
Then comes the steady stage of adding a ladleful of stock, stirring, waiting for it to be absorbed and to evaporate slightly, and repeating for fifteen or twenty minutes. The time and quantity of liquid required depends on so many variables (the exact heat of both the risotto and stock pans, the variety, age, etc, of the rice, how often you stir, etc, etc...) that your only option after about ten minutes is to taste, and taste, and taste again, until the rice has reached whatever your preferred level of dente might be.
At this point, turn the heat off and stir in the extra butter and the initial lot of parmesan (this is what you'll sometimes hear called mantecare, or feeding the risotto - I like the latter term because it hints that the risotto is now a living creature in need of food, which is how I see it). Leave to sit for a couple of minutes, then stir in the truffle oil, and check for seasoning again.
Serve in wide bowls with plenty more parmesan to grate over.
PS. Diane Henry's wonderful and inspiring book, Food from Plenty, has a promising recipe for Chicken and Parsley risotto. Wish me luck.
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Dover sole with cauliflower and mushrooms
Dover sole is one of those things, like partridge, that is perfect for one person - a small sole, on the bone, cooks quickly and is the perfect size. My views on sole are very much those of Nigel Slater ("crisp white tablecloths, doddery waiters, and careful, old-fashioned cooking"), and the crisp white tablecloth was very much in evidence at the restaurant where I got the inspiration for this dish. Of course, they caramelised the cauliflower and turned it into a puree, and the mushrooms were chanterelles, but the drizzle of truffle oil in this more than makes up for the lack of an entire brigade of sous-chefs in my version.
I had this as is, but it would work with some crusty bread, new potatoes, a green veg or a few leaves.
Dover sole with cauliflower and mushrooms
4 regular-sized white mushrooms
1/4 cauliflower
1 whole dover sole, around 250g weight, skinned
Plain flour
butter
4 tbs sour cream or creme fraiche
1 tbs capers
1 tbs chopped parsley
drizzle truffle oil
First deal with the veg: break the cauliflower into smallish florets, and toss these and the mushrooms with a little oil and salt. Pop into an oven at around 200 celsius for ten minutes before starting the rest of the cooking. Drink some wine and read a few pages of the paper whilst you're waiting.
After the ten minutes are up, dust your dover sole lightly in flour and heat a tbs of butter in a frying pan. Once the butter is sizzling decently, slide in the sole and leave it for at least 3 minutes until you can see it browning round the edges. Turn over and repeat on the other side, adding a little more butter if necessary. In total it will need 8-10 minutes, depending on weight.
Once the sole is cooked, turn the oven out and pop the sole in with the veg to keep warm for a moment. Unless you've managed to burn the butter, you should just have a few brown crispy bits in the pan, so don't wipe this out. Just tip in the sour cream, leave to bubble for a minute, then add the capers, parsley, and the truffle oil if you have some hanging round (as a rule, I do). Warm for another 30 seconds or so whilst you put the sole and veg onto a plate, and then tip the sauce over.
I had this as is, but it would work with some crusty bread, new potatoes, a green veg or a few leaves.
Dover sole with cauliflower and mushrooms
4 regular-sized white mushrooms
1/4 cauliflower
1 whole dover sole, around 250g weight, skinned
Plain flour
butter
4 tbs sour cream or creme fraiche
1 tbs capers
1 tbs chopped parsley
drizzle truffle oil
First deal with the veg: break the cauliflower into smallish florets, and toss these and the mushrooms with a little oil and salt. Pop into an oven at around 200 celsius for ten minutes before starting the rest of the cooking. Drink some wine and read a few pages of the paper whilst you're waiting.
After the ten minutes are up, dust your dover sole lightly in flour and heat a tbs of butter in a frying pan. Once the butter is sizzling decently, slide in the sole and leave it for at least 3 minutes until you can see it browning round the edges. Turn over and repeat on the other side, adding a little more butter if necessary. In total it will need 8-10 minutes, depending on weight.
Once the sole is cooked, turn the oven out and pop the sole in with the veg to keep warm for a moment. Unless you've managed to burn the butter, you should just have a few brown crispy bits in the pan, so don't wipe this out. Just tip in the sour cream, leave to bubble for a minute, then add the capers, parsley, and the truffle oil if you have some hanging round (as a rule, I do). Warm for another 30 seconds or so whilst you put the sole and veg onto a plate, and then tip the sauce over.
Monday, 8 November 2010
A more wintery quick pasta
Looking back to this post, I can't help but notice how light and summery they all are. The weather today has been miserable - grey, rainy, and windy - and frankly the last thing I want for dinner is a fresh tomato.
I had some cauliflower in the fridge left over from another recipe (more on that at a later date), and had a vague idea of a robust pasta dish like this, but with a different type of brassica flower. Then I opened the tin of anchovies, nibbled a bit of one (as is my wont when faced with an open tin of the beauties), and decided to go the whole hog and make anchovies as much the star of the show as the cauliflower.
Originally, I made this recipe with a whole tin of anchovies. I think that's too much, and I would classify myself as a serious anchovy fan, but one friend (@peteellender) suggested he'd be up for trying it. If you do give it a go, let me know what you think, and don't say I didn't warn you. Otherwise, the leftover anchovies will last for weeks in the fridge, covered in a thin layer of oil.
Cauliflower and anchovy pasta
75g short pasta shapes (orecchiette would probably be perfect)
100g cauliflower, cut into small florets
1/2 to 2/3 50g tin anchovies, including their oil
pinch chilli flakes
handful roughly chopped parsley
Start the pasta off, and at the same time heat the oil from the anchovies in a frying pan or small saucepan to which you have a lid. Tip in the cauliflower and cover, leaving to brown slightly whilst also steaming in it's own juices. You might need to add a splash or two of water after the first few minutes. Chop the anchovies finely. After 5 minutes, tip the chilli flakes and anchovies into the frying pan, and squish the anchovies until they start melting and forming a sauce. Cover the pan again and cook until your pasta is done; drain the pasta and combine the two with the parsley.
No parmesan; with all the anchovies, you really don't need it!
I had some cauliflower in the fridge left over from another recipe (more on that at a later date), and had a vague idea of a robust pasta dish like this, but with a different type of brassica flower. Then I opened the tin of anchovies, nibbled a bit of one (as is my wont when faced with an open tin of the beauties), and decided to go the whole hog and make anchovies as much the star of the show as the cauliflower.
Originally, I made this recipe with a whole tin of anchovies. I think that's too much, and I would classify myself as a serious anchovy fan, but one friend (@peteellender) suggested he'd be up for trying it. If you do give it a go, let me know what you think, and don't say I didn't warn you. Otherwise, the leftover anchovies will last for weeks in the fridge, covered in a thin layer of oil.
Cauliflower and anchovy pasta
75g short pasta shapes (orecchiette would probably be perfect)
100g cauliflower, cut into small florets
1/2 to 2/3 50g tin anchovies, including their oil
pinch chilli flakes
handful roughly chopped parsley
Start the pasta off, and at the same time heat the oil from the anchovies in a frying pan or small saucepan to which you have a lid. Tip in the cauliflower and cover, leaving to brown slightly whilst also steaming in it's own juices. You might need to add a splash or two of water after the first few minutes. Chop the anchovies finely. After 5 minutes, tip the chilli flakes and anchovies into the frying pan, and squish the anchovies until they start melting and forming a sauce. Cover the pan again and cook until your pasta is done; drain the pasta and combine the two with the parsley.
No parmesan; with all the anchovies, you really don't need it!
Monday, 11 October 2010
Facing the inevitable
Well, it had to happen eventually. There's only so long a blog about eating for one can survive without a post about that staple of singleton cuisine: the omelette. Delia dedicates most of a chapter to them, but my inspiration on this topic has always been Elizabeth David's classic essay, 'An omelette and a glass of wine'. Her note at the end, that "the enjoyment of food and wine seems to me to lie in having what you want when you want it" is a rule I live by, although one I sometimes struggle to link to the rushed cooking that life all too often seems to push me in to. So, in the recipes below, I've tried to offer a few suggestions for how one can add a bit of luxury to a simple dinner: if in doubt, though, add that glass of wine.
A month or so ago, I mentioned on twitter that I was planning on writing this post, and one of the most valuable pieces of advice I got back (thanks to my wonderful brother-in-sin) was to get the pan really hot. Of course, to do this, you also need a good pan. I recently purchased myself a 20cm non-stick French skillet, and would strongly recommend it as the perfect omelette pan. Mine is by Meyer/Circulon, cost me £20, and has a gloriously thick base which heats up quickly, holds all that heat, and then gets it right into the eggs like nobody's business. So, please, remove that ancient, slight-too-large frying pan with the rather warped base from your cupboard before trying these recipes.
Another habit I had, until recently, was to try and create an omelette by stirring the eggs once they were in the pan, trying to do that pull-up-the-edges-and-let-the-raw-egg-flow-in thing that I'd read about. I never made it work. Elizabeth David saved me once again: she quotes a recipe where the omelette is created by vigorously shaking the pan once the eggs are in. I had read this several times before, but refused to believe it could work; finally, I thought it was worth at least one try. I put my generous amount of butter in the pan; I waited till it was totally frothing; I tipped the eggs in; and I shook like a woman possessed. And, by some miracle, it worked. I got the lightest, creamiest, most evenly cooked omelette I'd ever made. If you've doubted this method before, please, please, give it a try: it might just change your life.
So: that's the eggs sorted. I need a little more for dinner, though, so beneath are a few ideas for what else to add to your omelette.
A mushroom omelette
This is the basic omelette I make when I have 10 minutes within which to both cook and eat dinner. I use around 5 medium sized basic supermarket mushrooms, very finely sliced, and fry them gently in a decent knob of butter and a beyond-decent amount of salt until they have wilted and their juices have mostly evaporated. You then need to remove them from the pan, and heat a fresh quantity of butter to a higher temperature. Once you've added the eggs and given them a good initial shake (i.e. once the omelette is around two-thirds of the way towards your preferred set), tip the mushrooms back in, and continue shaking. Some of the slices will sink down into the eggs, others will stay on the surface.
This is one omelette I like rolled up in a traditional fashion. In order to do this, you need to keep shaking the pan, but shaking it mostly away from you, so the omelette starts creeping up the far side of your pan. Give the underside of the far edge a little nudge back towards you, and keep shaking away, and nudging the underside towards you, until you have a neat little roll. The hardest part is getting this confection onto your plate without breaking it: I have no solution to this problem. Either way, it will at least taste good.
...and two ways to tart it up
The first way to add a little extra to your mushroom omelette is with a tablespoon or so of chopped herbs. I tend towards tarragon, because it has that highly refined aniseed flavour that is so reminiscent of classic French cookery; chives or some of the very small, soft leaves from a branch of sage also work well.
The alternative is to add a few drops of truffle oil to your eggs. The stuff is pricey (the bottle I'm currently on, from Carluccio's, costs £8 for 50ml), but you need such a tiny amount for such a vast amount of flavour and luxury that it's entirely worth keeping a bottle in your cupboard for emergencies. 1/2 tsp for a 2-egg omelette scents it perfectly; just whisk it in to the eggs before cooking them
Shrimp and pea
I had thought that the idea for this originated with Simon Hopkinson, but re-reading him lately I couldn't find any mention of it. Either way, this is a fairly tweaked version. In addition to your eggs, you need a tub of potted shrimp, a large handful of peas (defrosted frozen ones are fine), and perhaps a tablespoon or so of herbs (again, I tend towards tarragon, but parsley would also be good here).
Take the top layer of butter off the top of the shrimps, and heat in the frying pan. Once bubbling, add the eggs as before, and once they start to set, scatter the shrimps, peas, and herbs over the top. Continue to shake and cook until the omelette is set.
Chorizo, potato, and parsley
This is a recipe for those of you who don't think you like eggs enough to eat omelettes. When very little I was allergic to eggs, and although I grew out of it, I still didn't enjoy eating them in any obviously-eggy format until I tried something like this a couple of years ago. I'm now quite happy eating semi-raw, sloppy, unadulterated omelettes, but I still come back to this dish on a regular basis.
Frying the potatoes takes a while, so this isn't such a fast recipe as those above: one for when you have half an hour, not ten minutes. Also: I don't normally recommend a dish where you use 1/3 of the quantity of an ingredient as normally sold in supermarkets, but chorizo will last for a month or so in the fridge, so you'll have plenty of time to use this in other meals.
You'll need:
1 small potato
around 1/3 of a cooking chorizo
2 eggs
large handful of parsley
Chop the potato and chorizo into roughly 1 cm cubes. Fry the chorizo for a few minutes, until it has released its oil and is crisping up nicely, and then remove from the pan. Tip in the potato cubes, and fry gently for 10 minutes or so, until softened, then return the chorizo to the pan. Whisk the eggs up with the herbs, tip into the pan, and start shaking; you may need to stir this one a little to lift the potato and chorizo off the bottom of the pan and give the eggs a chance to get to the heat. The extra volume also means that it will take a little longer to set than the recipes above: maybe 3 or 4 minutes in total.
Glasses of wine with all the above purely optional, but highly recommended, as ever.
A month or so ago, I mentioned on twitter that I was planning on writing this post, and one of the most valuable pieces of advice I got back (thanks to my wonderful brother-in-sin) was to get the pan really hot. Of course, to do this, you also need a good pan. I recently purchased myself a 20cm non-stick French skillet, and would strongly recommend it as the perfect omelette pan. Mine is by Meyer/Circulon, cost me £20, and has a gloriously thick base which heats up quickly, holds all that heat, and then gets it right into the eggs like nobody's business. So, please, remove that ancient, slight-too-large frying pan with the rather warped base from your cupboard before trying these recipes.
Another habit I had, until recently, was to try and create an omelette by stirring the eggs once they were in the pan, trying to do that pull-up-the-edges-and-let-the-raw-egg-flow-in thing that I'd read about. I never made it work. Elizabeth David saved me once again: she quotes a recipe where the omelette is created by vigorously shaking the pan once the eggs are in. I had read this several times before, but refused to believe it could work; finally, I thought it was worth at least one try. I put my generous amount of butter in the pan; I waited till it was totally frothing; I tipped the eggs in; and I shook like a woman possessed. And, by some miracle, it worked. I got the lightest, creamiest, most evenly cooked omelette I'd ever made. If you've doubted this method before, please, please, give it a try: it might just change your life.
So: that's the eggs sorted. I need a little more for dinner, though, so beneath are a few ideas for what else to add to your omelette.
A mushroom omelette
This is the basic omelette I make when I have 10 minutes within which to both cook and eat dinner. I use around 5 medium sized basic supermarket mushrooms, very finely sliced, and fry them gently in a decent knob of butter and a beyond-decent amount of salt until they have wilted and their juices have mostly evaporated. You then need to remove them from the pan, and heat a fresh quantity of butter to a higher temperature. Once you've added the eggs and given them a good initial shake (i.e. once the omelette is around two-thirds of the way towards your preferred set), tip the mushrooms back in, and continue shaking. Some of the slices will sink down into the eggs, others will stay on the surface.
This is one omelette I like rolled up in a traditional fashion. In order to do this, you need to keep shaking the pan, but shaking it mostly away from you, so the omelette starts creeping up the far side of your pan. Give the underside of the far edge a little nudge back towards you, and keep shaking away, and nudging the underside towards you, until you have a neat little roll. The hardest part is getting this confection onto your plate without breaking it: I have no solution to this problem. Either way, it will at least taste good.
...and two ways to tart it up
The first way to add a little extra to your mushroom omelette is with a tablespoon or so of chopped herbs. I tend towards tarragon, because it has that highly refined aniseed flavour that is so reminiscent of classic French cookery; chives or some of the very small, soft leaves from a branch of sage also work well.
The alternative is to add a few drops of truffle oil to your eggs. The stuff is pricey (the bottle I'm currently on, from Carluccio's, costs £8 for 50ml), but you need such a tiny amount for such a vast amount of flavour and luxury that it's entirely worth keeping a bottle in your cupboard for emergencies. 1/2 tsp for a 2-egg omelette scents it perfectly; just whisk it in to the eggs before cooking them
Shrimp and pea
I had thought that the idea for this originated with Simon Hopkinson, but re-reading him lately I couldn't find any mention of it. Either way, this is a fairly tweaked version. In addition to your eggs, you need a tub of potted shrimp, a large handful of peas (defrosted frozen ones are fine), and perhaps a tablespoon or so of herbs (again, I tend towards tarragon, but parsley would also be good here).
Take the top layer of butter off the top of the shrimps, and heat in the frying pan. Once bubbling, add the eggs as before, and once they start to set, scatter the shrimps, peas, and herbs over the top. Continue to shake and cook until the omelette is set.
Chorizo, potato, and parsley
This is a recipe for those of you who don't think you like eggs enough to eat omelettes. When very little I was allergic to eggs, and although I grew out of it, I still didn't enjoy eating them in any obviously-eggy format until I tried something like this a couple of years ago. I'm now quite happy eating semi-raw, sloppy, unadulterated omelettes, but I still come back to this dish on a regular basis.
Frying the potatoes takes a while, so this isn't such a fast recipe as those above: one for when you have half an hour, not ten minutes. Also: I don't normally recommend a dish where you use 1/3 of the quantity of an ingredient as normally sold in supermarkets, but chorizo will last for a month or so in the fridge, so you'll have plenty of time to use this in other meals.
You'll need:
1 small potato
around 1/3 of a cooking chorizo
2 eggs
large handful of parsley
Chop the potato and chorizo into roughly 1 cm cubes. Fry the chorizo for a few minutes, until it has released its oil and is crisping up nicely, and then remove from the pan. Tip in the potato cubes, and fry gently for 10 minutes or so, until softened, then return the chorizo to the pan. Whisk the eggs up with the herbs, tip into the pan, and start shaking; you may need to stir this one a little to lift the potato and chorizo off the bottom of the pan and give the eggs a chance to get to the heat. The extra volume also means that it will take a little longer to set than the recipes above: maybe 3 or 4 minutes in total.
Glasses of wine with all the above purely optional, but highly recommended, as ever.
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
A shopping list, and two recipes, for a British summer
As I write this, I'm looking out my window at a blue sky, from which is apparently falling a very heavy rainshower. It seems that, after the last few months of almost interrupted sunshine, we're finally getting a traditional British summer.
When the weather's good, I know what I want to cook. When the weather's bad, I know what I want to cook. But when it's like this, I struggle. I can't decide from one hour to the next what I want to cook, which makes shopping somewhat difficult. Last week, I was going to make a light salad for dinner, but when the barometer started getting low, it transformed itself into a rich gratin.
Here's what you need to buy:
1 head chicory
100g blue cheese - roquefort or gorgonzola would be personal favourites
large handful walnuts
100g French or German garlic salami (veggies - you can skip this)
Loaf of bread - a ciabatta or sourdough is probably best
And I'm also assuming that you already have olive oil, vinegar, mustard, butter, milk, and flour in the kitchen.
Salad
Lightly toast the walnuts in a dry frying pan, then crumble into halves or so. Cut a couple of slices of the bread into top-thumb-joint-sized chunks, toss in a little olive oil, then fry until golden and crispy croutons have formed. Pull the chicory into leaves, tearing each into two or three. Mix a dressing with 1/2 tsp mustard, a large glug of vinegar, and one of olive oil, then toss the chicory in it. Cut the cheese into cubes, and tear up the salami if the slices are particularly large. Combine all the ingredients.
Gratin
Slice the chicory in two lengthways, and fry, cut-side down, in a little olive oil until browned.
Meanwhile, make a white sauce:
Melt 1 heaped tbs butter in a saucepan, and when it starts to froth, stir in 1 heaped tbs flour, and cook for a minute, maybe. Turn the heat down, and stir in 1/2 pint milk, adding it gradually and making sure the sauce is totally smooth and lump-free before adding more milk. Use a whisk if you need to. Turn the heat up slightly again, and bring the sauce to the boil, stirring all the time to stop it catching on the bottom. Once it's boiled, it will have thickened and stabilised, so you can stop stirring and leave it to simmer gently for around 5 minutes. Cut your cheese and salami up, and stir in to the sauce. Taste it - it probably won't need seasoning, but it might.
Place your chicory into a shallow oven dish, and pour over the cheese and salami sauce. Whizz a couple of slices of bread, the walnuts, and a drop of oil in a food processor until breadcrumbed, then scatter over the top. Bake at 200 degrees for 20 minutes or until sizzling and brown on top.
When the weather's good, I know what I want to cook. When the weather's bad, I know what I want to cook. But when it's like this, I struggle. I can't decide from one hour to the next what I want to cook, which makes shopping somewhat difficult. Last week, I was going to make a light salad for dinner, but when the barometer started getting low, it transformed itself into a rich gratin.
Here's what you need to buy:
1 head chicory
100g blue cheese - roquefort or gorgonzola would be personal favourites
large handful walnuts
100g French or German garlic salami (veggies - you can skip this)
Loaf of bread - a ciabatta or sourdough is probably best
And I'm also assuming that you already have olive oil, vinegar, mustard, butter, milk, and flour in the kitchen.
Salad
Lightly toast the walnuts in a dry frying pan, then crumble into halves or so. Cut a couple of slices of the bread into top-thumb-joint-sized chunks, toss in a little olive oil, then fry until golden and crispy croutons have formed. Pull the chicory into leaves, tearing each into two or three. Mix a dressing with 1/2 tsp mustard, a large glug of vinegar, and one of olive oil, then toss the chicory in it. Cut the cheese into cubes, and tear up the salami if the slices are particularly large. Combine all the ingredients.
Gratin
Slice the chicory in two lengthways, and fry, cut-side down, in a little olive oil until browned.
Meanwhile, make a white sauce:
Melt 1 heaped tbs butter in a saucepan, and when it starts to froth, stir in 1 heaped tbs flour, and cook for a minute, maybe. Turn the heat down, and stir in 1/2 pint milk, adding it gradually and making sure the sauce is totally smooth and lump-free before adding more milk. Use a whisk if you need to. Turn the heat up slightly again, and bring the sauce to the boil, stirring all the time to stop it catching on the bottom. Once it's boiled, it will have thickened and stabilised, so you can stop stirring and leave it to simmer gently for around 5 minutes. Cut your cheese and salami up, and stir in to the sauce. Taste it - it probably won't need seasoning, but it might.
Place your chicory into a shallow oven dish, and pour over the cheese and salami sauce. Whizz a couple of slices of bread, the walnuts, and a drop of oil in a food processor until breadcrumbed, then scatter over the top. Bake at 200 degrees for 20 minutes or until sizzling and brown on top.
Saturday, 7 August 2010
Quick pasta for busy people
Obviously, being single, my life is a whirl of parties and social events, which means I often only have a few minutes to cook dinner before I have to go out again.* Here are three of my favourite fast pasta sauces, none of which require more than one saucepan and the time it takes to cook the pasta:
Tomatoes, Ricotta, Basil
75g pasta (fusilli, penne, etc best here)
60g cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
3 tbs ricotta cheese
large handful basil, roughly chopped
Cook pasta; drain and stir in the tomatoes, a drizzle of olive oil, and a good pinch or two of salt. Add the ricotta in teaspoonfuls, then the basil, and stir lightly to combine.
NB. I'll never normally add salt to food, but the tomatoes and the ricotta in this recipe both really need it, so do be generous.
Fresh Tart
This is an instant, fresher, version of a classic recipe called Pasta Puttanesca, or Tart's Pasta (for the original, see Delia).
75g pasta (whichever you like)
60g cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
1 red chilli, de-seeded and de-membraned, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 or 3 anchovies, finely chopped
handful black olives, stoned and roughly chopped
tbs capers
parmesan
While the pasta's cooking, do all your chopping. Drain the pasta, then return the empty pan to the heat with a good slug of olive oil, the chilli, garlic, and anchovies, and leave for 30 seconds or so. Tip the pasta back in, adding all the other ingredients except the parmesan, which you want to grate generously over the top once it's in your bowl.
Green bean, parma ham
75g pasta (tagliatelle or other long pasta best here)
80g green beans, tops trimmed off
3 or 4 slices parma ham (or cheaper proscuitto, if you like...)
tbs creme fraiche
parmesan
Start the pasta cooking, and, when it only has 5 minutes left, add the green beans to the water. Tear the parma ham into long strips. Drain the pasta and beans, and combine with the ham and creme fraiche, grating parmesan over once it's in your bowl.
*Actually, this post was inspired/requested by my sister, who is in a relationship and yet still has a hectic social life. Far too much simultaneous cake having and cake eating going on there for my liking.
Tomatoes, Ricotta, Basil
75g pasta (fusilli, penne, etc best here)
60g cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
3 tbs ricotta cheese
large handful basil, roughly chopped
Cook pasta; drain and stir in the tomatoes, a drizzle of olive oil, and a good pinch or two of salt. Add the ricotta in teaspoonfuls, then the basil, and stir lightly to combine.
NB. I'll never normally add salt to food, but the tomatoes and the ricotta in this recipe both really need it, so do be generous.
Fresh Tart
This is an instant, fresher, version of a classic recipe called Pasta Puttanesca, or Tart's Pasta (for the original, see Delia).
75g pasta (whichever you like)
60g cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
1 red chilli, de-seeded and de-membraned, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
2 or 3 anchovies, finely chopped
handful black olives, stoned and roughly chopped
tbs capers
parmesan
While the pasta's cooking, do all your chopping. Drain the pasta, then return the empty pan to the heat with a good slug of olive oil, the chilli, garlic, and anchovies, and leave for 30 seconds or so. Tip the pasta back in, adding all the other ingredients except the parmesan, which you want to grate generously over the top once it's in your bowl.
Green bean, parma ham
75g pasta (tagliatelle or other long pasta best here)
80g green beans, tops trimmed off
3 or 4 slices parma ham (or cheaper proscuitto, if you like...)
tbs creme fraiche
parmesan
Start the pasta cooking, and, when it only has 5 minutes left, add the green beans to the water. Tear the parma ham into long strips. Drain the pasta and beans, and combine with the ham and creme fraiche, grating parmesan over once it's in your bowl.
*Actually, this post was inspired/requested by my sister, who is in a relationship and yet still has a hectic social life. Far too much simultaneous cake having and cake eating going on there for my liking.
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