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Maiale al Latte

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There are several things to say about this dish. Firstly, this recipe is essentially the Pork in Milk from Rick Stein’s Venice to Istanbul. Secondly, neither the English title of Pork in Milk nor its description, which would be something like “pork served with curdled milk”, sounds particularly appealing, especially to traditionally squeamish Brits. Maiale al Latte sounds so much better, IMHO, hence my reverting to the Italian. (Pig in Milk, which is pretty much how it translates may sound even worse.) Thirdly, it is not the most elegant of dishes to serve due to said curdled milk [see above]. Fourthly, the lactic acid in the milk tenderizes the pork. Lastly, it is a very comforting, absolutely delicious dish that everyone should try.

Rick Stein does this with loin of pork but I’ve read that, loin being a very lean cut, pork shoulder gives a softer end result.

Planning

serves: 4
preparation time: 15 mins
cooking time: 2½ hrs

Ingredients

  • 1.5kg pork joint (loin or shoulder), skin removed and fat trimmed
  • 30g butter
  • olive oil
  • 6 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 8 sage leaves
  • 1 tbs fennel seeds
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • 1 ltr full fat milk
  • juice ½ lemon
  • Salt & pepper

Method

Season the pork well all over with salt and pepper. Melt the butter together with a few glugs of olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed casserole. Brown the pork all over in the oil and butter mixture.

Remove the pork. Throw in the garlic and stir briefly – say, a minute so it doesn’t burn – then add the sage leaves, fennel seads and lemon zest. Moving the flavourings to the side of the pan to clear a patch for the pork and return the pork to the pan. Turn off the heat while you deal with the milk.

In another saucepan, scald the milk: bring it to simmering point then turn off the heat. Pour the scalded milk and lemon juice over the pork. Bring it back to he boil then reduce the heat and simmer very gently with the lid on but slightly ajar. Cook for about 2 hours, turning the meat halfway through cooking. Keep checking every 15 minutes or so to ensure the milk is not burning on the bottom of the pan (hence the need for a heavy bottomed pan)

During cooking, the milk will curdle, separating into the whey and something resembling discoloured ricotta cheese – yummy! After about 2 hours simmering the whey should have more or less all evaporated. If not, remove the pork and reduce the residual sauce separately. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve the pork sliced thickly with dollops of curdled milk sauce.

(Yes, I know, but trust me on this.)


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Posted in Meat Tagged with:

Alioli Sauce

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Alioli in Spain, aioli in France, garlic mayonnaise in Britain. Traditionally, this would be made with 100% olive oil, preferably extra virgin. Personally, I find that a bit too rich and prefer to cut it 50/50 with something lighter like sunflower oil. Be guided by your own palate. Either way, you need a good hit of garlic.

This is best done in a food processor. This quantity is perfect for the small bowl of my Moulinex.

Planning

serves: n/a
preparation time: 10 mins
cooking time: n/a

Ingredients

  • 2 egg yolks
  • 4 plump cloves garlic
  • 2 tbs lemon juice
  • ½ tsp fine sea salt
  • 125ml olive oil
  • 125ml sunflower oil

Method

Pop the two egg yolks into the bowl of a food processor. You can, of course, use the tradtional glass bowl and manual whisk, should you prefer. Crush the garlic finely and add it to the egg yolks, followed by the lemon juice and salt. Blitz/whisk together well.

Now gradually add the mixed oils, very little at first, blitzing/whisking all the time. Adding oil too fast at first could cause the mixture to split. Continue adding oil gradually until about half the oil is added, when you will have a stable emulsion and can add the remaining oil more steadly.

You should end up with a thick, unctious heart attack waiting to happen. Enjoy!


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Posted in Sauces Tagged with: ,

Viennese Gulasch

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It’s ages since I cooked a Gulasch (or is that Goulash?) so I thought I should try this one from Rick Stein’s Long Weekend trip to Vienna, despite my generally being rather unimpressed with his meat dishes. Maybe this will make me revise my opinion.

Planning

serves: 6
preparation time: 30 mins
cooking time: 3 hrs

Ingredients

  • 100g lard
  • 1¼kg onions, sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 1 tbs tomato purée
  • 2 tbs sweet paprika
  • 1 tbs hot paprika (or to taste)
  • ½ tsp caraway seeds, crushed
  • 1 tsp brown sugar
  • 2 tsp cider vinegar
  • 1½ kg shin of beef, in 2½cm cubes
  • 1 tbs flatleaf parsley, chopped
  • Salt & pepper

Method

Melt the lard in a large, flameproof casserole and fry the onions to a deep golden-brown. Add the garlic (maybe a little more, if you fancy it) and cook for a minute before adding the tomato puree, paprikas, caraway seeds and sugar. Season further with ~1½ tsp salt and quite a few turns of freshly milled black papper. Add the vinegar and 1 ltr water.

Bring to the boil then add the beef cubes. Turn down to a gentle simmer and cook for 2½ hours, checking the pan frequently and stirring to avoid sticking. Add more water as necessary to keep the meat covered. Check the meat for tenderness and continue cooking if it requires longer.

When tender, remove the meat and cook the sauce down a little to thicken it. Adjust the seasoning to taste and return the meat to the sauce.

Serve sprinkled with parsley and either new potatoes or some noodles, such as spätzle for added authenticity.


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Posted in Meat Tagged with:

Arroz Verde

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From the Cadiz episode of Long Weekends by the eminent Rick Stein, back on home turf in the fish and seafood department. Clams, prawns, rice, masses of parsley and obscene amounts of garlic – how could it be anything other than delicious?

Planning

serves: 4
preparation time: 30 mins
cooking time: 50 mins

Ingredients

  • 4 tbs olive oil
  • 60g shallots, finely chopped
  • 12 garlic cloves, finely chopped (yikes!)
  • 1 ltr fish stock
  • 100g flatleaf parsley, chopped
  • 400g paella rice (bomba/calasparra)
  • 30 raw clams
  • 200g raw peeled prawns
  • Salt & pepper

Method

heat the oil in a 28-30cm sauté pan or paella over medium heat. Fry the shallots for 5 minutes until soft but not coloured. Add the garlic and fry for another minute, then stir in the fish stock, parsley and salt and bring to the boil.

Sprinkle in the rice, stir once and leave to simmer for 6 minutes. Put the clams and prawns on top and shake the pan gently so they sink a little into the rice. Lower the heat and simmer gently for 12 minutes. Almost all the liquid should be absorbed and the rice pitted with small holes (paella technique).

Discard any naughty clams that refused to open before serving with some alioli – just in case there isn’t enough garlic lurking about.

[Note: In Spain, there is very good fissh stock available in cartons in the supermarkets. Here, it makes sense to make your own fish stock. The same could be said for the alioli.]


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Posted in Seafood Tagged with:

Almond Tart

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One from Rick Stein’s Long Weekends series – Lisbon, in this case, hence the Portugal tag – which was great if you could avoid the title music.

Mr. Stein said he doesn’t do complex desserts and this certainly isn’t. IMHO, after his main strength of fish, I actually think Herr Stein is quite good at desserts; it’s his meat dishes that I think are his weakest suit. But what do I know?

Planning

serves: 8
preparation time: 60 mins
cooking time: 50 mins

Ingredients

  • 150g plain flour
  • 75g butter
  • 60g caster sugar
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 225g flaked almonds
  • 120g butter
  • 120g caster sugar
  • 4 tbs milk

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C/Gas 5.

Make the pastry. Blitz the flour, butter and sugar together in a food processor to the famed breadcrumb stage. Add the egg yolk and 2 tbs cold water and mix until the dough comes together. Roll the dough out on a floured board to a thickness of ~5mm, a little bigger than the base of a 24cm fluted tart tin. Lift the dough on the roller and line the tart tin, using your fingers to press the pastry into the corners. Rest the lined tin in the fridge covered in clingfilm [the tart, not the fridge 🙂 ] for 30 minutes.

Once rested, remove the clingfilm, prick the pastry base all over with a fork and blind bake for 15 minutes. Remove the blind baking beans and paper and return the pastry case to the oven for 3-4 minutes to dry out without colouring.

Now make the filling. Over medium heat, dry toast the almonds in a frying pan until they are a light golden-brown. Tip them into a bowl. Add the butter, sugar and milk to the same frying pan over medium heat. Stir gently until the sugar has dissolved. Now bring it up the boil and let it bubble for 1 minute. (Not too long – you don’t want caramel or toffee.) Add the almonds, mix well and spread the mixture evenly in the pastry case.

Pop it back in the oven to bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a rich golden-brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.


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Posted in Desserts, Untested Tagged with:

Spanish Fish Stew with Almond Crust

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One to try from Thomasina Miers.

Planning

serves: 4
preparation time:  15 mins
cooking time:  45 mins

Ingredients

  • 4 tbs Olive Oil
  • 2 medium onions, finely chopped
  • 1 fennel bulb, trimmed & chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, sliced
  • 2 tsp fennel seeds, roughly ground
  • 1 chilli de árbol
  • 2 hefty pinches saffron
  • 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 2 x 400g tins tomatoes
  • 500ml fish stock
  • 600g new potatoes, in large chunks (~2 cms)
  • 900g cod (or similar), in large chunks (~3cms)
  • 100g blanched almonds
  • 1 tsp pimenton (sweet smoked paprika)
  • Salt & pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas 4.

In a large casserole over medium heat, sweat the onions, fennel, sliced garlic, fennel seeds, chilli and saffron for 10 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper. Add the chopped garlic and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, breaking them up with a wooden spoon, before adding the stock and potatoes. Simmer for 20-25 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked.

While the potatoes are cooking, bake the almonds in the oven for 5-10 mins until they are a pale golden colour. Roughly chop the almonds to make a coarse crumb before stirring in the paprika and 1 teaspoon salt.

When the potatoes are cooked, stir the fish into the stew and cook for 5 minutes or until the fish chunks are just cooked through.

Spoon into hot bowls and sprinkle over some of the spiced almond crumb.


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Posted in Fish

Arroz Negro con Calamares

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This is a black rice dish. It is basically a seafood paella in which the rice is blackened with squid ink, which can be bought in sachets. In Spain, the seafood content is often chopitos/chipirones (baby squid) but, that being more or less impossible to buy in the UK, you can do it with fresh squid cut suitably instead.

Squid is one of those ingredients that should either be cooked very little, or quite a lot; it’s the “anything in between stages” that cause people to wine, “it’s rubbery”. So, cut your squid reasonably small but not so small that it becomes unrecognisable, about 1cm strips/rings.

Planning

serves: 2
preparation time: 20 mins
cooking time: 45 mins

Ingredients

  • 500g fresh squid, whole
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  • 1 tsp sweet smoked paprika (pimentón)
  • 3 medium tomatoes, skinned, deseeded & finely chopped
  • 150g paella rice (Bomba or Calasparra)
  • 500ml fish/seafood stock
  • 2 sachets squid ink
  • juice of ½ lemon
  • Salt & pepper

Method

Preparing the squid. Holding each squid body in one hand and the head in the other, pull the head away. Do this over a bowl as much of the body contents will come away with the head. Put the head down while you use your fingers to remove the remaining body contents, including the translucent quill. With your fingers, peel/rub off the purple-ish membrane on teh outside of the squid bodies. Back to the heads; cut the tentacles off immediately in front of the eyes, which you can now discard. Don’t shorten the tentacles but, if the squid are larger, divide them into 2 or 4 lengthwise as necessary for bite-sized pieces. For modest squid, slice the bodies into 1cm rings; if the squid are large slit the body to lie flat, halve it lengthwise and slice into 1cm strips.

Now we can start cooking. To a paella or good sized skillet, add a good glug of olive oil and fry off the squid rings and tentacles over moderate heat. This is a longer cooking approach to squid so we can cook them well and brown them a little. Remove the squid onto a plate with a slotted spoon.

In the same pan, adding more olive oil if necessary – it probably will be – fry the onion and garlic over medium heat until soft and translucent. Stir in the smoked paprika and fry for a minute more. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook them down until they break up and form a mush. (Yum!)

Now lower the heat and stir in the rice. Cook gently for a couple of minutes to allow the rice to absorb some of the flavours and oil. Return the squid to the pan before adding the stock and ink mixture, together with the citrus juice. Hopefully, you are using home made stock. If so, season well with salt and pepper. If you are using anything else, one of the stock jellies, say, it is probably already seasoned so be careful about adding more. Increase the heat to moderate again and bring the liquid to the boil. Cook reasonably briskly for about 5 minutes before lowering the heat and simmering gently for 20 more minutes or until the rice is cooked.

The trick with paellas is to time the cooking such that all the liquid is absorbed by the rice just as the rice is cooked. If your pan is much wider than your burner/heat source, it helps to move the pan around on the burner as you cook it, say 5 mins in each of four positions. The rice should not be wet. The Spanish like a toasted bottom to the rice in their paellas so you can have a go at that. They also generally use a gas burner whose diameter is matched to the pan.

It is suggested that this is served from the pan with garlic mayonnaise (alioli), either dolloped in the middle of the dish or as a side accompaniment. A little green salad wouldn’ go amiss, either.


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Posted in Seafood Tagged with:

Chimichurri

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Chimichurri is a traditional Argentinian salsa [sauce] used to accompany barbecued or grilled meat. It is quite like a spicy version of my favourite, Salsa Verde, which also accompanies steak very well.

Planning

serves: ?
preparation time: 15 mins
cooking time: n/a

Ingredients

  • 3 garlic clove, crushed
  • 2 salad onions, finely sliced
  • 1 tbs chilli flakes
  • 1 jalapeno chilli, finely chopped
  • 3 tbs white wine vinegar
  • 25g flat leafed parsley, finely chopped
  • 10g coriander, finely chopped
  • 3 sprigs oregano (stalks included), finely chopped
  • ~5 tbs olive oil

Method

Mix all the ingredients together and chill for at least an hour, or prefereably overnight.

Serve with barbecued/grilled steak/côte de boeuf/prime rib.


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Posted in Accompaniments Tagged with:

Duck Confit

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This is my generation II of a duck confit recipe, this being based on one from the master, Raymond Blanc. Some duck confit recipes seem to end up too salty; this one did not and tasted terrific. It makes a fine meal in its own right (simply reheat the duck legs skin side down in the oven) but it is also the starting point for a classic French Cassoulet .

Planning

serves: 4
preparation time: 24 hrs
cooking time: 2½ hrs

Ingredients

  • 2 fresh bay leaves, finely sliced
  • 4 sprigss fresh thyme, finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoons rock salt
  • 4 garlic cloves, finely sliced
  • 4 duck legs
  • 750g duck fat or lard

Method

Mix together the bay, thyme, salt and garlic – the marinade mix. Lay the duck legs on a baking tray, flesh-side upwards, and distribute the marinade mix evenly over. Cover with cling film and leave to marinate in the fridge overnight. The next day, rinse the marinade off the duck legs and pat them dry with a cloth.

Preheat the oven to 140°C/275°F/Gas 1. On the stove top, gently melt the fat in a pan in which the duck pieces just fit comfortably. When hot, add the duck, which must be covered with fat; if it is not, add lard until it is fully covered. If you have a thermometer, bring it to 85°C; sans thermometer, this is when it is just trembling but not boiling. Transfer it uncovered into the oven and cook it for 2¼ hours.

If you do not plan to use the confit within a day or two, transfer the confit to a plastic container or sterilized preserving jar. Ladle the fat over the confit through a fine sieve, being careful not to ladel any of the juices from the bottom of the cooking dish. Allow to cool completely then seal with a lid and refrigerate for a good couple of weeks (to allow the flavour to develop) until needed. You will then be set to make a wonderful Cassoulet .

Alternatively, you could use the Duck Confit in its own right. Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas 6. To serve, remove the duck from the fat and place on a baking tray for 1 hour to come to room temperature. Pour off any melted fat from the tray and roast, skin-side down, for 20 minutes, turning it skin-side up to serve. It goes well with braised red cabbage or with a pulse such as flageolet, haricot or cannnelini beans.

[You can melt the stored fat from the container and bring to the boil before straining back through a sieve into a bowl to keep in the fridge to use for another confit. It can be used 3 times before it becomes too salty.]


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Posted in Poultry

Prawns with Cardamom, Vanilla & Coconut

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This sounded like an interesting starter, perhaps to begin an evening of spicey food. I got this from the Wine Society blog.

Planning

serves: 4
preparation time: 15 mins
cooking time: 30 mins

Ingredients

  • 16 tiger prawns, defrosted if frozen
  • 2 tablespoons of sunflower or similarly neutral oil
  • a scant teaspoon of toasted sesame oil
  • 4 banana shallots, finely sliced
  • 200ml coconut milk
  • 150ml full fat crème fraîche
  • a vanilla pod, split
  • 5 whole green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
  • 1 green medium chilli, deseeded & finely chopped
  • 1 lime
  • 16 coriander leaves, washed & dried
  • Salt & pepper

Method

Firstly, deal with the prawns. If they’re shell-on, remove heads, all shells and tails. De-vein htem and rinse them in well salted water. Pat them with kitchen paper and leave them on a plate until completely dry.

Preheat the oven to 200?C/Gas 7. Put the prawns in a small roasting dish. Add half the sunflower oil and all the sesame oil and season well with salt and pepper. With clean hands, make sure every prawn is well coated. Roast for just 6-8 minutes until the prawns are pink, opaque and firm to the touch. Set them aside to cool, and once they have done so, refrigerate them until you are ready to assemble.

In a frying pan, heat the rest of the sunflower oil and brown the onions or shallots. They should be golden and crisp. Lift them out and let them drain on kitchen paper.

Now wipe the same pan with kitchen paper before adding the coconut milk, crème fraîche, vanilla and cardamom, along with half the diced chilli. Bring up to a simmer and let this mixture reduce gently to half its volume, tasting as you go. It may need a little seasoning, but remember that the prawns will be quite salty and toasty. Once it tastes right (rich, creamy, subtly spicey and slightly sweet) fish out the vanilla pod and cardamoms. Stir in the rest of the diced chilli and finish with the juice of half a lime, adding a little more if you feel it’s needed.

Divide the mixture into 4 ramekins. Sprinkle with the reserved onion ringlets, and put in the fridge to chill and thicken.

An hour before serving, remove your components from the fridge to assemble. Arrange four prawns on top of the sauce, interleaved with the coriander leaves (or inter-coriander-leaved, I suppose).


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Posted in Starters, Untested Tagged with: