Linguine All' Espagnola

Again, apologies must come for not updating this more in recent weeks - now that the kitchen's finished I am able to cook again, but I hardly seem to be making incredibly exciting food worth writing up. In any case, enjoy this pasta dish I whipped up the other day. My pidgin Italian probably doesn't make any sense, but that's just the way I roll. The dish takes its cue from the classic All' Arrabiatta sauce, so I just bastardised it for my own ends. I'd like to think I picked this meal up during the few times I've been to Spain (and subsequently fallen in love with the country and its cooking) but most of the time I was there I was too pissed on Sangria to cook. Oh well.

Serves 2

200-250g Linguine

2 Medium Onions

4 Cloves Garlic

2 inches chorizo

1 tsp Dried Thyme

2 tbsp Tomato Puree

2 Chillies (optional)

2 Egg yolks

Set a large pan of salted water on to boil for the pasta, and cook until al dente according to packet instructions. When draining the pasta, reserve a mug of the starchy water, and add to the pasta again once it's fully drained - this stops the pasta from sticking in the saucepan and helps the sauce to coat it. While the pasta boils, prepare the topping. Dice the chorizo as finely as possible and fry gently in a little olive oil for a few minutes. Finely slice the onion and add to the frying pan once the chorizo's starting to release its fat. Keep frying on a low heat, finely chop the garlic and chillies and add to the pan as well, along with the thyme and tomato puree. When everything's all nice and soft and orange, stir it into the pasta, and serve. While it's still hot, place an egg yolk on top of each serving, and beat it in with your fork. Season generously with black pepper, and enjoy.

The addition of raw egg may seem strange (and not for the faint-hearted) but the residual heat of the pasta cooks it, and it adds a lovely richness to the meal. Definitely not one if you're watching your cholesterol, but what the hell. It's only lunch.

No Beans About it: A Simple Pork Casserole

Apologies for the lack of updates recently, but rather selfishly my parents have decided to knock out the whole back of the house and redo the kitchen at the very same time that I moved back home from Leeds. The upshot of this is that we've been surviving on baguettes from the local French deli and microwave meals. Shudder.

In any case, I was finally allowed into the kitchen the other night to use the new fridge and hob. Limited for space amongst the dusty surfaces and power tools, I had to make something that wouldn't require too much preparation and had little chance of spoiling or getting dust in it. I came up with this.

Serves 4

4 Pork Chops (or similar amount of diced pork)

50g Prosciutto (or lardons, or diced smoked bacon)

1-2 Red onions

1-2 Red Peppers

2 Cloves Garlic

1 Tin Red Kidney Beans

Olive Oil

Firstly, begin by chopping up the pork. I divided each chop into three as a compromise between reducing the cooking time and having a having something large to get your teeth into. Heat a small glug of oil in a casserole dish and brown off the pork. There's no need to cook it all through, just let it take on colour. Remove and set aside on a plate.

Throw in some more olive oil, thickly slice the onion and roughly chop the pepper and add to the pan when the oil's ready. Add the prosciutto (diced if not already), and cook for about 5-10 minutes, until the onion begins to soften. It might seem somewhat excessive to have two kinds of pork in the dish, but it's really important to incorporate the smokiness into the dish. Finely slice the garlic and add to the pot. Rinse the beans, and add when the garlic just starts to brown and become aromatic. Add the reserved pork, refill the bean tin with water, and fill the casserole dish until the food is completely covered in liquid. At this point you might want to add some herbs or paprika, but I think this dish has enough in it to let the taste of the pork shine through.

I neglected to take a picture, so enjoy this mercilessly stolen shot of some bacon being chopped up

 

Simmer as long as you can bear, but for at least half an hour. The idea is the reduce the liquid in the pot until it thickens from the partially dissolving kidney beans. As with all stews, it's not an exact science; add more water if you feel it needs it, cover the casserole if you feel it's evaporating too rapidly. You'll want to scrape the bottom now and then to avoid the food burning, but don't be too much of a zealot about this. The burnt bits at the bottom are often the best part. When it's done, serve with rice, polenta or crusty bread.

Like all stews, it was eaten in a far shorter time than it took to make it. But that's no bad thing, as by that point we were completely ravenous. A few glasses of red wine and immediately the house began to feel like a home again.

From Bulgaria With Love: A Beginner's Guide to Shopska Salad.

With three years of higher education under our belts, my housemates and I (along with 6 other friends) recently spent a week on the coast of the Black Sea in Bulgaria sunning ourselves, drinking cheap lager and generally frittering away the remainders of our overdrafts.
"But why is he telling us all this!" I hear you ask through the magic of the internet. Well, obviously because we ended up spending the week surviving on Shopska, the national salad of Bulgaria. It may sound simple, and I'm not going to imply that simply chopping vegetables requires a recipe, but I felt the meal needed some kind of record for posterity. What can I say?

The key ingredient of the Shopska is the cheese, a type of brined white cheese called sirena. It's similar to feta, but less strongly flavoured, and generally made from cow's milk rather than ewe's. Any Leedsers should be able to pick something similar from the Maumoniat international supermarket, but the ubiquitous Feta should serve just as well.

Perhaps harder to replicate in Britain are the tomatoes. I don't think I've ever eaten a tomato from a supermarket that satisfied me in any way. I mean, sure, Sainsbury's flavouripe are alright in a bland sandwich, or drenched in dressing, but we just don't have the climate for producing tomatoes that actually taste of what they are. Oh well. It may be worth shelling out for. If you find a good source for tomatoes, let me know. In any case, the texture of the salad demands large and juicy tomatoes rather than small and fruity - if it wouldn't go in Maz's famed Tabbouleh, it wouldn't go in here.

Serves 10 as a starter, maybe 6 as a main.

1 block of Sirena cheese
1 large cucumber

2 Green or yellow peppers

2 red onions

4 of the freshest, best beef tomatoes you can find

1 tsp dried parsley

½ tsp dried oregano

6 tbsp sunflower oil

2 tbsp white wine vinegar

Salt and Pepper

Begin by chopping the cucumber, peppers and tomatoes into chunks about 1cm wide, and place in a large bowl - actual quantities don't really matter, but there should be a roughly even amount. Likewise, finely chop or slice the onions, add to the bowl and stir the mixture. Season well with salt (to bring out the juices) and set aside for a few minutes. 

To make the dressing, simply mix the dried herbs into the oil with a fork. Add some salt and pepper, slosh in the vinegar and shake vigourously in a glass jar. Pour most of the dressing over the mixture in the bowl. Either chop the cheese into large chunks or grate it over the salad - either way is fine, but we preferred the large chunks of salty goodness soaking up the dressing and tomato juices. Drizzle over the remainder of the dressing, and serve with bread and grilled meat.

I know, it doesn't look like much, but the way the saltiness of the cheese is matched by the acidty of the dressing and juice of the tomatoes is one of the closest sensations I've come to culinary perfection.

As a post-recipe bonus, have a picture of me making the salad, in a dodgy vest and using the knife found in our villa that we swiftly entitled "the Bitchfucker".

Ode to the Potato - from Earth to Oven

A belated update, due to the pressures of finishing off a degree. It's not as if there's been too much to write about, as I've been surviving mostly off coffee, instant noodles and bags of Bombay Mix; incredibly healthy, I know. Yet born of a need for low effort meals and an ever-dwindling supplies cupboard, I thought I'd share one of the more nutritious (and delicious!) meals from the last few weeks. There's a certain romance to the jacket potato that I've not quite been able to put my finger on – is it the lingering memory of an early childhood visit to the Tooting Spud-U-Like? Or its roots as a solid working class meal that appeals to my Guardian-reading public school guilt? The jacket potato has long been the cheap staple for lunch, served at home from the oven or out of a polystyrene tray in a cafeteria. Easily multiplied, requiring minimal effort and infinitely variable in the filling. It seems to be the ideal student meal (especially with the classic combination of baked beans and grated cheese), yet I feel the jacket potato is an all-too-rare occurrence in my own life. In the (going on) three years I've been a student, I can't say I've relied too many times on the simple pleasures the dish provides, often preferring more involved fare. As lovely as a couscous and feta salad is, it doesn't exactly fill a hole in the same way. Thus, I hereby present a simple mediterraneanish filling for the jacket potato that provides a welcome change from baked beans, but is still satisfying in its own way.

A quick note on cooking methods: a jacket potato is never made in a microwave. A baked potato, sure, if you're short on time, but it'll never develop the crisp skin and fluffy inside that defines the jacket potato.

Serves 1

1 largish potato (floury variety)

Sunflower/vegetable oil

Rock salt (i.e. coarse grains)

Half a courgette

2–4 cloves of garlic (depends on how garlicky you want the dish to be)

1 tablespoon of capers

2 tablespoons tomato purée

1 tsp dried / 1 tbsp fresh Basil

1/2 tsp dried / 1/2 tbsp fresh Oregano

Olive oil

Butter

Salt & Pepper, to taste

Grated Cheese (optional)

Begin by heating the oven to about 180℃. Clean and scrub the potato, and coat liberally in oil - olive oil may be healthier but doesn't quite crisp up in the way sunflower oil does. Then rub the sock salt into the oily potato. This draws out the moisture from the skin of the potato, again helping to create the desired crispy jacket. Whack the potato into the oven for an hour to an hour and a half, turning halfway through. I've yet to work out whether covering the potato in tin foil is at all beneficial, but intuition says it would keep the moisture in, delaying the development of a truly crisp skin.

For the filling, thinly chop the courgette and garlic, and fry in a mixture of butter and olive oil for about 5 minutes, until the mixture begins to brown slightly. Roughly tear up the herbs (if fresh) and add to the mixture, along with the capers, salt and pepper. Stir in the tomato purée and cook off for about 5 minutes more to let the flavours develop. Simple!

The potato is only done when the skin has browned and crisped up - the inside may be cooked long before that point, but remember this is a jacket potato, not merely a baked potato. The skin should audibly crack when you cut it open, and stick into your gums when you try and eat it.

When it's done, slice open, ladle on the topping and cover in more more salt and pepper if needed. I added cheese because I just needed it. Not a posh cheese either - it has to be the cheap kind that melts easily and coasts everything in a lovely fatty layer.

The filling may seem weird in that it doesn't feature onions (an omission caused by not having any in the house) but it didn't feel at at lacking. The beauty of the filling is that it is infinitely variable. Some sun-dried tomatoes, a couple of anchovies, or roasted aubergine would all have gone well. It may take a long time start to finish, but the effort level is so ridiculously low it hardly matters.

"It smells leaky"

I wrote previously about the organic veg boxes we've been getting from the union recently; as brilliantly middle class and Guardian-reading it is of us, the downside is that we're now wading balls deep in kale and half-eaten beetroot. Half-cribbed off a Jamie Oliver recipe, I came up with the a creamy cheesy gratin-esque dish to use up all the leeks we seemed to have. Jamie often writes in his books that people don't eat enough veg, so he tries to make them more interesting/tasty. Turns out the following recipe probably negates any nutritional value the leeks may have had.

Serves 3

3 Leeks

4 Cloves Garlic

200ml Single Cream

100g Cheddar Cheese (or equivalent) 

1 stale end of a loaf of bread, turned into breadcrumbs

A few knobs of butter

1 tsp coarse grain mustard

Salt and Pepper 

Preheat the oven to about 200°C. Peel off the coarse, outer layer of the leeks. Rinse thoroughly, and slice each leek in half from the top to the bottom, leaving the base intact.  Rinse again under the tap - leeks have a habit of hiding lovely tasty soil in amid all those leaves. Finely slice the garlic, and gently fry in the butter. Chop the leeks into 1cm slices, and add the pan as soon as the garlic takes on some colour. Gently sauté for about 10 minutes until softened. Meanwhile, grate the cheese. When the leeks are cooked, add the cream, mustard  half the grated cheese and salt and pepper. Spoon the mixture into a shallowish earthenware dish, and top with layers of cheese and breadcrumbs. Whack it in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, or until the topping in golden brown, and serve immediately.

I served it with some beef sausages as an alternative to mashed potato, along with a good helping of steamed peas. Brilliant comfort food, and just what's needed at the moment. I suppose a good helping of chives would be nice strewn through the mixture instead of the mustard. You could add anything to the recipe to adapt it as a main course, I suppose. Shove in a sliced hard-boiled egg or two, some cooked pasta bows, some sliced bacon or ham and you've got an instant creamy bake. Couldn't be easier.