Monthly Archives: November 2012

Spicy Pork Kebabs – Malaga Style

30 Friday Nov 2012

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In Andalucía there are many culinary legacies of the times when Moorish princes lived in the palaces of Granada and Seville. Just the names of some ingredients show their Arabic origins – berenjena, zanahoria, albahaca, and azafran for example, which translate as aubergine, carrot, basil, and saffron.

These kebabs are part of this legacy with their seasoning of spices and the drizzle of the bitter sweet sugar cane syrup at the end. When I was first served these as a tapa, the cubes of meat were alternated with dates for an even sweeter taste. The spices are dominated by the flavour of the allspice and cloves which complement so well the pork. I know you are wondering what pork is doing in a dish with arab origins, but that is Andalucía for you. I had a student on my recent tapas cookery class who didn’t eat pork, so I used some nicely gamey free range turkey, which was very good too.

P

PINCHO MORUNO ESTILIO MALAGUENA

For 4 as a main course, for tapas halve all the amounts

700 gms lean pork cut into cubes

10 ml allspice berries or Pimienta de Jamaica

5 ml whole cloves

5 ml Cumin seeds

5 ml coriander seeds

5 ml ground cinnamon

2.5 ml chilli powder or the equivalent in fresh red chilli

2.5 ml pimenton or paprika

2.5 ml Salt

2-4 cloves of garlic

15 ml olive oil

Sugar cane syrup to serve

In a heavy based frying pan put the allspice berries, cloves, cumin seeds and coriander seeds and heat over a low heat. Shake the pan from time to time until the spices are warm and exuding their fragrances.

Put in a mortar together with the salt and grind down to a powder.

Peel and roughly chop the garlic and add to the spices together with the chilli and pimento. Grind to a paste adding the olive oil.

In a bowl mix the marinade with the pork cubes to coat the cubes on all sides. Cover and leave in the fridge for the spices to penetrate for at least an hour.

Thread the pork cubes onto skewers and cook either on a griddle, or grill on the cooker or barbeque.

To serve drizzle with sugar cane syrup.

I have also used this same marinade very successfully to season a joint of pork prior to roasting it.

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Yorkshire Curd Tart

28 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Sweet Things

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This tart is something that I grew up with. It was an occasional Saturday treat. One of us would be sent after lunch to get in the queue of the bakery that made the best ones in the area. Once the bag of the warm tarts had been bought, then it was a ten minute, or less if you could, run home before they cooled too much. yorkshire_curd_tart

They are a baked cheesecake very much in the eastern European style and have been made in Yorkshire for a very long time, the first published recipe dating from 1741. I have not come across another cheesecake type tart that is native to the UK and why this one crops up in Yorkshire is a mystery. If any of you know of any other then do please let me know. It could even date back to when the Romans were in Yorkshire, some of the older recipes include washing the butter in rosewater, which was a favourite flavouring of the romans, and it is very similar to the sweet ricotta and lemon tarts still made in Italy today.

There quite a few variations of this tart and I sampled some while back in Yorkshire recently. Many use short crust pastry, sometimes enriched with ground almonds, and many have a cheese filling that is less rich and drier than in my favourite version. The tart that I remember from childhood was made with flaky pastry and was very buttery – maybe more calories that other versions – but if you are worried about that make small ones but good ones and ration yourself – if you can.

For the cheese the ideal is fresh curd cheese made from cows milk, it has a good acidity to it that offsets the sweetness of the sugar, but you can use a fresh ricotta or any fresh sheep or goat cheese. Avoid using cottage cheese, it is too sweet and watery. For my readers in Spain, I find that the Queso Fresco that is packed in plastic containers in the supermarket tastes of the plastic, so I prefer to buy the cheese from the deli counters at the market or from the butchers. I have been using the fresh goat cheese that my neighbour Maria makes and is available from the farm shop, and that works perfectly.

Any size of tart works, the tart tins just need to be shallow whether you are making a large one for a dessert or baby ones to have with your coffee.

YORKSHIRE CURD TART

250 gram pack ready made flaky pastry or make your own

250 grams curd cheese

75 grams butter

75 grams sugar

2 large eggs

grated zest of 1 lemon

50 grams currants or raisins

Start by creaming the butter and sugar together in the food processor until light and creamy.

Add the cheese cut up into cubes and pulse to mix. You don’t want the cheese to become a total puree and lose its texture.

Add the lemon zest and the eggs and pulse to combine.

Finally add the fruit and again pulse to combine.

Roll out the pastry and line the tart tin or tins. Prick the base with a fork. Fill with the cheese mix.

Bake at 180 Centigrade for about 40 minutes until golden brown.

Thanksgiving

24 Saturday Nov 2012

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ThanksgivingRecently an eleven kilo turkey entered my life. I haven’t got to the bottom of why two large turkeys urgently needed to be dispatched and given freezer room to, but I am certainly not complaining at receiving this unexpected gift, especially as they were happy, free range birds. Eternal thanks to Terry for doing the dispatching and plucking, and to Jane for sending the second turkey in my direction.

Eleven kilos is a lot of turkey, so butchering it prior to freezing was my first task. I took the breasts off and sliced them into the thinnest escalopes that I could. These were frozen each in their own bag for easy defrosting. The legs, each of which will make a joint big enough to feed four, were bagged up and frozen. I will probably bone these when I come to use them, and then stuff them before roasting them. The carcase was trimmed of all its usable meat which was cut into bite sized pieces and then bagged up in small portions to be frozen. I have plans for turkey and wild mushroom ragu to go with fresh pasta at some point in the future amongst other dishes. The carcase itself was cut up ( I have a very useful large cleaver) and boiled up with carrots, onions, garlic and herbs for a good supply of stock. Once the stock had been strained off and frozen in portions, the bones went into a very appreciative dog and four cats. Absolutely nothing wasted.

The above then is a very roundabout explanation of why I volunteered to cook the main course for Thanksgiving this year. My friend Doris, who is from Pittsburgh, is the usual hostess for this feast, and I did detect a slight trepidation on her part to entrust the preparation of this meal to someone who was not only not an American, but was wanting to do something off the norm with the turkey. I reassured her that cranberry sauce and candied sweet potatoes would be present, but for the rest she would have to put her trust in me. I think that she was pleased with the result.Turkey_rolls_cranberry_sauce

The idea for these rolls came from my recent trip to Sicily where we were served beef fillet rolls moistened by olive oil soaked breadcrumbs. Do not be tempted to cut down on the amount of oil in the stuffing as this is what gives the dish its moist tenderness.

TURKEY ROLLS     For six

large turkey escalopes – 6

fresh bread crumbs – from six slices of white bread

clove of garlic – 1

dried cranberries – 3 tablespoons

fresh parsley, chopped – 2 tablespoons

olive oil – 50 ml

salt and freshly ground black pepper

dried breadcrumbs for coating the kebabs

bacon or duck fat for cooking the rolls

Make the breadcrumb stuffing. Put the garlic and cranberries in the food processor and whizz to cut up. Add the breadcrumbs, parsley and olive oil. Pulse to mix. Season and then pulse again.

Lay one of the escalopes out on a board and flatten out with a meat tenderising mallet or a rolling pin. turkey_rolls

Spread a layer of stuffing over the turkey slice.turkey_rolls

Roll up as tightly as you can.

Cut into lengths of about two and a half centimetres and thread onto wooden skewers allowing one skewer per person. Do the same with all the escalopes.  When all the skewers are threaded with their rolls, put them into a plastic box and store them in the fridge until needed. The preparation up to this point can be done several hours in advance.

In the meantime, prepare a cranberry sauce.

CRANBERRY SAUCE

turkey stock – 500 ml

dried cranberries – 3 tablespoons

any leftover breadcrumb stuffing

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Boil the turkey stock to reduce it by half to concentrate the flavour. Add the cranberries and simmer for about ten minutes until the fruit are soft.

Thicken the sauce with leftover breadcrumb stuffing. Add these bit by bit until the sauce is slightly thicken but still pourable. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed.

Again you can prepare this sauce in advance and reheat it when ready to serve the turkey.turkey_rolls

To cook the rolls, dust with the dried breadcrumbs and cook in either duck or bacon fat on a griddle or in a frying pan. Cook for four or five minutes on each of the four sides, turn off the heat and leave the rolls to rest covered for another five minutes.

Serve with a little of the warmed sauce poured over, sweet potatoes roast with maple syrup and a green vegetable.

PS – if you think that I had my paintbrushes out to do the picture at the top of the post, let me tell you that it is a photograph. It is my Thanksgiving table decoration.

 

Oranges Are Not Only Fruit……….

15 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in Starters, Vegetable Dishes

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orangesAll the citrus fruits are ripening early this year. Normally the limes are just starting to crop now, but have been ready for almost two months now. The one little grapefruit tree is so laden with large fruit that I will have to make some props for the branches to stop them breaking. As the fruit is already changing from green to yellow I thought I would check to see if they were sweet enough to eat so that I could thin out the biggest groups of fruit. On one side of the tree the fruit look pinker than the other, but the fruit are still tart, while the other side of the tree has yellower fruit that are edibly sweet.

There are several varieties of oranges on the farm, the earliest of which normally start being ready to eat at Christmas, but this year they are nearly there already. While still a little tart for eating alone, they are perfect for salads.

The use of fruit in savoury dishes is a vestige of the arab occupation of various countries around the mediterranean. While in Sicily recently I was treated to a one day course on Sicilian cooking and our profesora, Silvia, prepared for a starter a salad of Florence Fennel with Oranges. (There will be more of the cookery course in a later post.)salad_fennel_orange

Slivers of fresh plump Florence Fennel steeped in lashings of fresh olive oil from their farm, seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper, topped with sliced oranges and garnished with black olives.

The sweet and sour flavour of nearly ripe oranges and the fruity acidity of the new freshly pressed olive oil go together so well. One of the simplest orange salads that I have been served was in Merida while on honeymoon. Oranges lightly salted and soaked in olive oil for an hour or two, then garnished with tiny black currants. It was served as an amuse bouche.

Whenever I have been away on a trip, particulary if to somewhere landlocked, the food I yearn for on my return is the wonderfully fresh fish that we have here. Dorada or Sea Bream is farmed in large round enclosures just off the coast here. They are brought to market when the fish are a perfect one person size and are always brightly fresh. Some purists insist that line caught wild fish taste better, but I defy anyone to tell the difference in a blind tasting. Also freshness is such a factor with the taste of fish that I would rather have super fresh farmed than day old wild.Sea_bream_orange_salad

With my Dorada this week I made a salad of oranges, yellow plum tomatoes, fennel fronds, crunchy lettuce leaves and toasted hazel nuts, all dressed with some of the Sicilian olive oil.orange_carrot_salad

Now for the truly Arab version of an orange salad. Finely grated carrot dressed with lemon juice, honey and orange flowerwater, spread over a layer of thinly sliced oranges and garnished with a few toasted cumin seeds. Leave in the fridge to let the flavours mix for an hour before serving with a spicy lamb tagine.

Roast Rabbit & Summer Vegetables

13 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Food for One, Main Courses

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I have just returned from a stay in the UK to be greeted by the same cool and wet weather that I thought I had left behind there. With all the rain the vegetable garden is bursting with produce – and plenty of weeds – but is too wet to get into right now,  and of course it is Sunday, so no shopping possiblities. Thankfully there are some squashes, onions and potatoes in the cold store, rabbit in the freezer and a couple of now slightly wrinkly red peppers in the fridge from before I went away. I decide to prepare a favourite roast for lunch, Rabbit with Summer Vegetables, this dish having the extra benefit of needing the wood burning oven, which will nicely warm the kitchen.

Normally for this dish I buy a whole rabbit and chop it into small portions leaving the bones in, but on this occasion I only have a boned saddle available, so that will have to do. Chicken can be substituted for the rabbit if you prefer. The cooking times will be the same, but use tarragon or sage in place of the thyme.rabbit_roast_summer_veg

For the vegetables I always use potatoes and garlic, but then the rest vary depending on what is available in the garden or larder. Red peppers are great for colour and flavour, so those if I can, then any three or four others from the list below.

ROAST RABBIT WITH SUMMER VEGETABLES – For 4

1 Rabbit

400 grams potatoes

2 heads of garlic

several sprigs of fresh thyme

olive oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper

selection of vegetables –

2 large red peppers cut into quarters or sixths

2 medium courgettes cut into big chunks

2 medium aubergines cut into chunks

4-6 sweet onions peeled and halved

4 large carrots peeled and cut into chunks

butternut squash and or pumpkin peeled and cut into chunks

Put the oven on to warm up to 190 C.

Once the oven is up to temperature, put in a large roasting tray containing a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.

After five minutes or so when this is hot add to it the potatoes which are in evenly sized chunks. Sprinkle with salt and roast for ten minutes.

Season the rabbit with salt, freshly ground black pepper and fresh thyme. Break the garlic into cloves but don’t peel them. Cut the cloves accross their fattest bit only cutting half way through the clove. Leaving the skin on protects the garlic from burning while it is roasting, while the cut accross the middle enables the garlic to swell without bursting out of its skin.

Add the rabbit and garlic to the potatoes and cook for another ten minutes.

After this time add the rest of the vegetables to the pan. They need to be in one layer to cook properly, so if they don’t fit in one tray use two, dividing the meat, garlic and potatoes between the two. If the vegetables are too crowded they tend to steam rather than roast and end up soggy. Drizzle over more olive oil and seasoning.

Roast for another half an hour or until the vegetables are tender and browned at the edges.

If you are wondering why I have included the photo at the top of this post, look carefully at the wire and you will see a flock of starlings neatly and evenly sitting all the way along it. It is almost as though they have measured the distance between each other.