Sweet potato gratin with peanut butter, chilli and lime

This is a dish for the tail end of winter. The clocks have now changed and we are fully into spring. And how welcome it is. However there's still some chill in the air along with the sun, and evenings are not yet as warm as they might be. Get a load of this extremely rich dish, although I'd be tempted to tone down the amount of cream next time. The full recipe is on the Guardian but you are going to need:

• sweet potato
• chilli, garlic
• cream
• crunchy peanut butter
• lime

Slice your potato and mix with cream and the flavourings. Layer up in a bowl and add the peanut butter in little blobs. Finish off layering the dish and bake at gas mark 5 for around 50 minutes. Serve with more lime squeezed on top and (this is essential!) something very plain such as steamed greens (and beetroot salad).

Peanut and chilli is of course a well tested combination. Lime and sweet potatoes might also occur alongside nuts and spice in a Thai curry. So it's perhaps not as unusual combination as it might seem - an Thai accented dish of English comfort food with spice as well as richness. Not an absolute knock-out dish but certainly worth a look. Possibly very satisfying to eat in bed.

Xmas 2011

Apologies for the slackness, I was very busy doing nothing for quite a few days. Other days were spent touring around the country to Norfolk and Glastonbury, eating fish, spotting seals, watching Spiral, reading and drinking gin and ale. Now it's 2012, it's January, it's windy and it's back to work. So it goes. I'm ready to approach cooking and the blog once again with a manner befitting a new year and new resolutions.

Here are some snaps of xmas dinner.

 topside of beef

pigs in blankets

spuds being prepped

nut-roast

• brown bread crumbs
• mixed nuts
• carrots, peas, onions
• veg stock/marmite

Fry a couple of onions chopped with garlic in oil. After a while add the carrots chopped small and the peas. Add seasoned brown breadcrumbs and smashed up nuts. Top up with some veg stock and top with nuts toasted with sage. Bake. Delicious.

 carrot and swede purée

This is the bomb! Take an equal amount of carrot and swede and boil until very tender. Blitz in a magimix, add a knob of butter, a couple of spoons of creme fraiche and a seasoning of cumin and black pepper. Don't be tempted to mash by hand - it's just not the same. The cumin and the pepper bounce of the sweetness of the vegetables wonderfully, and the dairy stuff rounds it all out. Very nice.

The whole hog with sprouts, potatoes, yorkshire puddings and roast parsnips. I think having something mashed is great as otherwise everything is roast and crispy. Soft and giving mash compliments the crunch and heft of the other elements.

Happy new year.

SD, ON's chilli con carne

Beautiful huh?  The dark orange of those little chillies in the middle is just amazing. After a bit of a scatter-gun approach to chilli inclusion in the pork stew I made a few months ago I would like to ID these ones. The top chilli is ancho (massive, mild, rich, sweet/smoky). If you know what the others are can you please let me know.

Having nabbed an enormous bit of beef in the supermarket (a silverside roast on one of those half price deals) I wanted to make some sort of spiced beef stew. Now the obvious cultural touchstone is the oft used and abused chilli con carne. There are purists and pragmatists - there are dilettantes and devotees. I've enjoyed all sorts and do not take a hard-line on these matters. (Why is it always made with mince thought?)

So I made up the recipe with some background reading informed by hollow legs and the Guardian. I did not include beans (though there were some on the side, refried style) but did include some tomatoes (not too many though).

• cheap cut of beef, roughly cubed
• lots of carrots (1/3 the amount of beef)
• lots of onions (1/2 the amount of beef)
• spices: cinnamon stick, five cloves, a big-ish spoon of cumin
• a sprinkle of oregano
• one head of garlic
• one big handful of sweet cherry tomatoes
• a selection of dried Mexican chillies
• two limes
  

Toast the chillies and then soak them in boiling water for half an hour.

Brown the beef in batches.

Fry the onions roughly chopped in vegetable oil for ten minutes. Add the spices and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the whole head of garlic - cloves peeled but un-chopped (they will disintegrate). Add the chopped carrot and tomatoes. Add the beef. Add the oregano.

Blitz the chillies to a paste in the magimix. Add this to the mix.

Cook for two and half - three and a half hours. Mash down any big bits of beef and the garlic cloves. Squeeze two limes in.

Serve with delicious thinly sliced red onions softened in lime juice, refried beans, salad and sour cream.

messy

Messy and vary tasty. This preparation certainly had the heat that the pork lacked but it was a slow and rich heat the lazily penetrated the mouth, pleasurably tempered by the vegetable content. Very pleasing and very easy to prepare. This is a rough and ready dish which doesn't suite fussiness so will be easy to adapt.

Lion's head meatballs (shi-zi tou)

Well the weather's pretty shit isn't it? What a poor rump of summer this is turning out to be. It's not even September yet. Lion's head meatballs will ease our transition from stunted summer to nascent autumn: a cold weather dish, both burnished by frying pan and moistened by the braising pot.

I took a basic recipe from Robert Delfs's The Good Food of Szechuan and gave it some SDON tweaking. He suggests using a massive amount of soy sauce, as well as additional salt, so I've toned this down.

The ingredients are familiar, their configuration is not. Lion's head meatballs are wonderful beasts - globes of meat flavoured principally with the familiar triumvirate of garlic, ginger and spring onions, flecked with chilli, browned nicely in a pan and then given a relaxing braise to emerge damp and wonderful for eating with rice and greens. The name reflects their shape - when on their traditional bed of greens the meat spheres allegedly look like lion's heads against their manes of green leaf.

• one kilo minced beef/pork
• one head garlic
• same amount of ginger
• five spring onions
• soy sauce
• cornflour
• sugar
• Shaoxing wine
• lots of greens (cabbage, spring greens etc.)
  

In a big bowl mix well: the meat (I suggest using a mixture of beef and pork - I used minced beef with chopped bacon as that was what was to hand but you could use anything really); the garlic from a good-sized head chopped finely; a similar amount of ginger and five spring onions similarly prepared; dried or fresh chilli according to preference (although I don't think this dish should be too hot); and two tablespoons of soy sauce mixed with one of cornflour. Form into large spheres.

Coat the spheres in a mixture made of four tablespoons of cornflour mixed with three of light soy sauce.

Fry them until dark colours and light caramelisation occurs.

Add water to almost cover the meatballs and slosh in four tablespoons of Shaoxing wine and a pinch of sugar. Possibly also a jot more chilli. That's all you need to lubricate the meatballs and provide a nice sauce. The lions' heads express meat juice as they simmer away, enriching the sauce. They also express quite a lot of fat (or at least mine did - I was using standard quality supermarket mince which tends to be a touch greasy) so it's a good idea to spend a minute or two spooning away any excess. The meatballs need about thirty minutes on a lowish head. Give them a gentle turn.

Meantime sweat your greens.

Serve with plain rice. Oh my days, these are very nice indeed. Slightly hot, slightly sweet and highly savoury, this is good comfort food, and pretty easy to boot.

I don't think you need to worry too much about sticking to a recipe - it seems like this is a dish with as many versions as there are cooks and Google reveals hundreds of varying pictures. Mrs. Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook also uses quite a few different ingredients so perhaps I'll try her version next. Now get cooking!

Red-braised beef with vegetables (hong shao niu rou)

all hail fermented chilli-bean paste, food of the gods

Refrshingly, the (European) received wisdom of starting every braise or stew by frying onions and browning the meat to maximise flavour does not apply here. Since they are two of the few things that take any time, the prep time of this dish is seriously short - under five minutes. The chilli-bean paste packs so much flavour it's all you need. I wonder if a crossover stew inclusive of these two steps, with many onions cooked down in the stock, would be a success?

Fry chilli-bean paste in oil and add chilli and SP. I found the amount of SP specified by FD in the previous dish I made a bit on the conservative side so beefed it up by a factor of around three. Add the beef (something cheap and with fat/collagen to release) stock, a star anise, a drop of dark soy sauce for colour and some smashed ginger. Simmer for one or two hours, adding the veg to cook at an appropriate time.

Big white radish aka mooli/daikon is specified here and is a lovely vegetable – porous and good at absorbing savoury liquids whilst retaining structural integrity and a decent crunch. I also had some common or garden radish and kohlrabi to use up from this salad and a depressed and wrinkled beetroot waiting aimlessly on the window sill. That went in too. Maybe not wholly authentic but it did the trick. To complete the low-effort ethos I just tipped in some noodles rather than bother to do rice.

one-pot goodness

I used ox cheek for this as Waitrose had some reduced to crazy cheap levels. Much as I've enjoyed it before it went almost too soft here, whilst maintaining a slight rubbery-ness that was not wholly pleasant. I can imagine shin being nice here: maybe it would be a touch more succulent.

PS. Szechuan experts - do your Szechuan peppercorns have the hard gritty seed in the middle of the husk? Some of mine do and when you bite in to them it can get a bit emotional - perhaps superior stocks somehow have this bit removed? Thanks!

Braised pig's cheeks with paprika

Pig’s cheeks are of course made to braise. They are fatty and rich and extremely easy to cook. All you need is some strongish flavours to stand up to them and an hour-and-a-half and they practically prepare themselves. Rather than do the standard onion/carrot/celery (shame seems we don’t seem to have a word in English like soffritto or mirepoix to describe this fine mix), wine and herbs I thought I’d do a vaguely goulash inspired thing with plenty of paprika.

Ingredients

• pig’s cheeks – two each (they are quite rich so it’s not a meat to gorge on)
• onions (no. cheeks X 0.5)
• celery (no. cheeks X 0.33)
• lardons, bacon or a little chopped chorizo
• lots of smoked paprika, some garlic and minor gestures of dried chilli and caraway
• tinned tomatoes or passata
• cream
• glass red wine

Fry the onions and the same number of garlic cloves chopped in oil on a low heat for twenty minutes, adding the celery chopped after the first five. Brown the cheeks in a frying pan. Brown also the lardons or chorizo till the fat runs. Add to the onions mixture along with tinned chopped tomatoes or passata, deglaze the meat pan with a glass of red wine and scrape up the fat deposits. Add this mixture the pan, season lightly and bring to a light putter. They will need around ninety minutes to get soft – you should be able to split a cheek with the modest application of a blunt wooden spatula.

Serve with a little cream, plain boiled potatoes and a massive heap of humble greens. We had with brussels sprouts and winter greens mixed. Hope you enjoy!

Pheasant stew

One of the better presents I got for xmas this year was two dead pheasants in a plastic bag. I have never hung, plucked, skinned or gutted a pheasant or any game bird but that, of course, made the process all the more interesting.

Hugh suggests around five days for the ideal hanging period and that, through happy circumstance rather than supreme planning skills, was exactly what these guys got. The hanging was done in a plastic bag suspended on string through the window of my sitting room and anchored to the radiator. The hanging process gives flavour and character to the meat by allowing it to begin the first stages of decomposition.

The thought of plucking the birds was a little daunting so I decided simply to skin. Not remotely knowing what I was doing, I sharpened up my favourite knife and slit the skin down the front of the birds' chests. This peeled off fairly easily and a few more slices around the top bit of the legs meant I could rip off a trouser like configuration of copper feathers and sticky skin. Some more cutting at the head end allowed me to get the crop out – packed full of grain in both birds - without puncture. Slashing the abdomen released the innards into the bin. The livers of the birds seemed incredibly hard and distended – a result, perhaps, of them gorging on freely available grain – but the pungency of their viscera disinclined me to root through the bloody strings and clumps in the bin and I must embarrassingly admit I chucked the lot. Just think – possibly two natural and humane pheasant foie gras wasted. Oh for shame.

The legs were easy to snap off and remove but I ended up chopping the carcass in a rather irregular manner probably not known to any reputable school of butchery.

Check the outrageously yellow fat

I followed a really basic recipe for these – browned meat, bacon fried to render its fat, lots of standard veg (onion and both carrots and celery in big amounts to serve as an actual feature and not just background flavour mulch), wine, dried herbs and an hour-and-a-half 'pon the hob. I think white wine might have been best as the red sent the stew a grey colour.

The flavour of the pheasant was very fine. Chicken like, but with a denser and drier meat and with a musty countryside aftertaste, especially in the leg parts. The bacon and veg did the business as expected and the resulting stew, finished with a little lick of cream, was hearty and pleasingly unfussy. We ate it with potato and parsnip mash with plenty of pepper in which was a delight. Many thanks to the pheasant bringers - you know who you are.

Proper

Happy 2011 dear readers!

Saltfish gratin and a quince and chocolate squidge cake

The wet weather of winter demands potato and cream, amongst other things. This dish is extremely simple and recalls the Scandinavian dish of baked sliced potato with cream and anchovy whose name now escapes my head if it ever lodged there at all.

Ingredients

• five - seven potato
• saltfish amounting to roughly a quarter the mass of potato
• spinach (the proper stuff not namby-pamby baby nonsense)
• cream, butter and garlic
  

 

Boil the saltfish in three changes of water from a cold start to get rid of the salt. Slice the potato thin and put a layer in an oven-proof dish. Scatter over the saltfish (flaked), some bits of butter and plenty of pepper. Go easy with the salt on account of the preserved fish as the seasoning can be corrected easily later. Add a layer of spinach and repeat till everything is used up. Pour an amount of cream you feel comfortable ingesting over the dish and add pepper and a little butter to the top. We had a fish free version also. They will need around forty five minutes - keep an eye on the top spud slices to prevent over crisping. Foil can be used here.

In my one Euro bargain pyrex bowl from Brussels we made a chocolate squidge cake with an impromptu addition of some quince.

Ingredients

• four eggs
• the same weight on dark choc, butter and caster sugar
• eighty five grammes ground almonds
• one tablespoon cornflour
  

This comes out like a less chewy brownie. Firstly the chocolate is melted in a bain-marie then butter whisked in followed by sugar, egg yolks, ground almonds and cornflour. The egg whites are beaten till stiff, then folded in. It needs about forty minutes at 190C. I put some of the poached soft quince in small cubes in here but you could use whatever you fancy.

We had it with quince poached with sugar and a little spice and creme fraiche.

Stuffed squash and parsnip bread

I've been watching episodes of River Cottage recently online and it's kind of weird in these two-duvet days to see Hugh gambolling through meadows and picking peas and summer lettuce. In the episodes, though, have been a few lovely ideas for food.

I made his camp-fire parsnip bread which came out a bit funny but sorted itself out over a few hours and ended up delicious. It's a really rough bread both literally and in the sense that it feels rustic. It has a dense crumb and the parsnip (I chopped mine rather than grating it) makes it sweet and moist. Unexpectedly delicious toasted with butter and marmite. I think marmite and parsnip could be a winning combo and I hope to return to it soon.

Ingredients

• one butternut squash
• breadcrumbs
• two leeks
• garlic
• cream
• mustards

For the stuffed squash firstly the squash was cut in half and roasted for half an hour. Meanwhile two leeks were sweated in a pan with plenty of garlic. When the squash had largely softened two thirds of the flesh were scopped out and mixed in with the leeks. Cream, dijon and whole-grain mustard were added as was plenty of black pepper. The mix was then stuffed back in and breadcrumbs put on the top and the whole lot roasted again for fifteen minutes.

Serve with the hot buttered bread, pickled onions and chutney.

Five onion soup

There's something about onions. They are the kind of food you can't believe anyone could anything but love. Onions, milder and sweeter leeks and shallots and garlic - all essential ingredients for anyone concerned with maximising taste in the kitchen. More than anything I like the cheapness and humbleness of the alliums.

Lindsey Bareham's A Celebration of Soup has something called five onion soup - onions, shallots, garlic, leeks and spring onions if you were wondering. How can that be resisted in this fickle and treacherous cold weather?

Ingredients

• two leeks
• two onions
• five shallots
• five cloves of garlic
• five spring onions
• one potato
• cream
• stock
• herbs

It's a pretty straightforward soup recipe really. Cook the veg gently in butter starting with the most robust (onions) and adding the others to the mix as the sweating proceeds. They need about half an hour with a few dry herbs and a diced potato in the pot.

The stock is then added and the whole thing blitzed and simmered for twenty minutes to become itself. Add cream, correct the seasoning (lots of black pepper always seems so right with cream) and eat with croutons. Lindsey Bareham suggests making a chive cream but I couldn't be bothered.

Here's how I had some - with additional fried kale, chestnut mushrooms and chorizo on top to have with toast for a full meal.

Vegetable puree and aubergine

Where has all the corn gone?, that's what I want to know. A few weeks ago the stallholders of Ridley Road were shouting at me to buy six ears for a pound and now I can't find anything in my usually reliable spots. The season's over I suppose. I don't think I used its abundance as well as I might. This altered my plans slightly to cook sweetcorn polenta with aubergine, another ace looking combination of flavours from Plenty. Instead of the six ears of corn specified I used two I already had and made up the rest of the vegetable bulk with potato and butternut squash. Unless you are baking most recipes can take more than a little fiddle...

For the vegetable puree the squash, potato and sweertcorn were all boiled in salted water until tender. They made a trip to the magimix and a chunk of feta, olive oil and salt and pepper all followed. I think any combination of sweetish vegetables would work well here and a little salty feta primes the resulting gloop well.

The sauce is very easy - no onions to sweat and no fancy flavours. Fry the aubergine in plenty of oil, add tomato puree, wine (given a lack of wine some white wine vinegar stood in well for me), a tin of tomatos and herbs (dried thyme and oregano for me) over a period of forty-five minutes or so whilst stewing gently the whole time.

For something on the side we had spinach (adult naturally, tastes better than the boring baby stuff) with chickpeas and the reliable combo of cumin, chilli flakes and smoked paprika.

I would recommend frying some breadcrumbs to tip over the top of the glorious mush for some textural contrast. I seem to be become a bit of a fan-boy but I've got to say that Mr Ottolegnhi delivered again on this dish. Granted it does look and feel like baby food but it's deeply warming for a night of late autumn and the sweet-sharp taste of the silken, vinegar stewed aubergine prevents it from being actually infantile.

Not a bad likeness, huh?

Eggplant