Author Archives: Nevenka

A Mid-Week Dinner

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Main Courses, Starters, Sweet Things

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PRAWNS WITH LEMON & GARLIC, SPINACH WITH PINE NUTS & RAISINS

RABO DE TORO SERVED WITH PLAIN BOILED POTATOES

CARAMELISED FIG CUSTARDS SERVED WITH CARDAMON SHORTBREAD BISCUITS

This didn’t seem like a complicated meal for mid-week when I cooked it the other week, but now that I am writing about it, there is quite a lot of work. I must have been in one of those Zen cooking moods.

Much of it is done in advance, which makes it feel less work. The oxtail stew is cooked the evening before and left to very slowly cool in the oven overnight, which lets it cook long and slow and so develop a rich flavour. I cooked enough stew so that there was enough not only for this meal, but also for making Fresh Pasta with Beef Ragout for my sisters the following weekend.

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I have jars of Caramelised Fig Jam, made from fruit from the farm last summer. So for the dessert, I only needed to mix an egg custard, put that in pots on top of the Fig Jam and then put the pots in the oven to cook and set.

But then I got into biscuit making mood. The custards are perfectly fine without the biscuits. But I had that yearning in my minds stomach for buttery, crunchy, sweetness with the gorgeous fragrance of cardamoms…..

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I am giving you the stew recipe today. You will get the starters and dessert tomorrow.

RABO DE TORO – OXTAIL STEW

Serves 6

6 pieces oxtail

2-3 tablespoons flour

salt and freshly ground black pepper

olive oil

4 cloves garlic – finely chopped

1 large onion – finely chopped

2 red peppers – cut into strips

2 large tomatoes – skinned and roughly chopped

half a bottle of full bodied red Spanish wine

1 clove

5allspice berries

Small piece of cinnamon bark

salt

freshly ground black pepper

Gremolata – finely chopped fresh garlic, flat leaved parsley and the finely grated zest of one lemon

Put the flour in a shallow dish and season very generously with salt and black pepper.

Heat 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil in a thick based casserole.

Coat the oxtail pieces in the seasoned flour and fry on a medium heat, turning each side until browned all over.

This may have to be done in two batches. The meat pieces will brown more easily if they are not crowded in the pan.

Add more oil as you go along if needed.

Remove the meat from the pan and put to one side.

Add the onions and garlic to the pan and cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the peppers and continue cooking for about ten minutes until the onions are slightly browned.

Add the tomatoes and cook for a further five minutes scraping any flour stuck to the base of the pan into the sauce as it is moistened.

Put the meat back in the pan.

Add the wine. It should just come up to the top of the meat.

Heat to a simmer.

Put the clove and allspice berries into a thick based dry pan and heat slowly for five minutes or so to toast and bring out the flavour.

Grind to a powder with a pestle and mortar.

Add this to the stew with the piece of cinnamon.

Cover the casserole and put in a low oven, you want the sauce to be showing an occasional bubble but no more. For my oven this is 120C.

Leave to cook for 6 hours. Turn the oven off and leave to slowly cool.

Reheat at 180C the next day to serve.

Serve with plain boiled potatoes and gremolata sprinkled on top.

 

 

Baby Squid with Garlic & Chilli

13 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Fish, Food for One, Main Courses, Starters

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Whenever I go to look at the fresh fish at my local market, everything is so fresh and glistening that I just want to buy it all. This week I limited myself to some small and tender squid and the last of the crabs. The crabs that we get here are small but very tasty, so will make a fantastic soup.

The squid was quickly fried with garlic and chilli for lunch.

SMALL SQUID WITH GARLIC, CHILLI AND PARSLEY

This is so simple it is almost not a recipe.

For 2 as a main course, for 4 as a starter

500 grams small squid
Olive oil
3 cloves garlic – finely chopped
Fresh red chilli – to taste
Small bunch flat leaved parsley – roughly chopped
Juice of half a lemon

The cleaning of the squid is the most time consuming job in preparing this dish.

Cut the tentacles off just above the squid’s eyes, and then remove the sharp beak type mouth in the centre of the tentacles. Pull the innards out of the squid and discard. A cat will love you if you send these their way.

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Put the empty bodies and tentacles into a colander and wash thoroughly.

Leave to drain while you chop the garlic, chilli and parsley.

Heat the oil in a shallow pan and add the garlic and chilli. Fry for a couple of minutes.

Add the squid and keep frying on a medium heat, turning from time to time.

The squid are cooked once they are opaque and a bit pink, which should take about 7 minutes. Add the parsley and lemon juice. Stir to blend and to moisten the tasty bits at the bottom of the pan.

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That’s it!

Serve with a simple tomato salad and some fresh bread.

Christmassy Things – Part Two – Lime & Quince Mincemeat

18 Thursday Dec 2014

Posted by in Preserves, Sweet Things

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Sweet Mincemeat is so easy to make and so much tastier than the ready made that I don’t understand why anyone would not make their own. Also when you make your own you can control the amount of sugar in it. I find most commercial food products that are sweet have increased the proportion of sugar over the last few years.

I am a great believer in using either what you have or can get hold of locally. Frequently this can point you in the direction of improving on an original recipe, as is the case here. The limes giving the mincemeat a fresher and slightly more acid citrus zing than the lemons that are normally used.

I only have one small quince tree, but it works incredibly hard and produces 40 to 50 fruit per year, some weighing as much as 800 grams. They made fabulous quince jelly, and using an old recipe where the fruit is sweetened with raisins and flavoured with orange peel, Mermelada. This being the Portugese name for quince and the recipe being the forerunner of the marmalade we know today.

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Still there were plenty of Quince left for other things. Being of the same family as apples, surely I thought, they could be substituted for them in any preserve recipes? And of course I am always looking for new ways of using my limes…..

LIME AND QUINCE MINCEMEAT

1 kilo Limes
1 kilo Quince
1 kilo Sugar either white or unrefined
300 grams Beef suet
300 grams Raisins
300 grams Currants
100 grams Candied orange and clementine peel
250 ml brandy

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Firstly find yourself a container big enough to comfortably take all of the above.

For the limes, having a lime farm, I am able to wait until my limes are fully ripe quite yellow and sweeter than the hard green ones generally available. If when buying your limes some of them are more yellow than others, go for those as they are sweeter. If you can find unwaxed ones so much the better.

Wash them then put them in a pan with just enough water to cover and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer for an hour until tender.

Drain the limes and let them cool. Halve them and remove any pips. Put them in the food processor and process them into a coarse pulp. Put the pulp in your container.

Next the quince. Peel and core the quince and grate them. I use the grater on the food processor for this as well. Quince are so hard that grating by hand would be a bit onerous.

Immediately add to the limes and mix well. Add the brandy and the sugar and mix again. This will stop the grated quince from going brown.

For the suet I prefer to use fresh beef suet. Although the trimming and chopping of the suet adds more work to the recipe I find the end result lighter than using prepared packet suet.

If you are using fresh suet, trim off any sinewy or bloody bits, then chop the suet finely.

Mix the suet and then the currants and raisins into the lime and quince mix.

For the candied orange and clementine, I like to make my own. Not because I have orange and clementine growing on the farm, but because home made candied peel has much more zing than most that you buy. It is not difficult to do.

Take the peel off some washed oranges with a potato peeler, until you have 50 grams. Chop it into strips or squares and put it into a small saucepan.
Wash and peel some clementine until you have 50 grams of peel. Again chop into strips or squares. Add to the orange in the pan.
Add enough juice from the oranges to just cover the peel. Add 150 grams sugar. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes until the peel is brightly coloured and the liquid reduced.

Add the above peel and its juice to the mincemeat mix and stir well to amalgamate.

Pack the mincemeat into clean and sterilised jars. Seal.

The mincemeat will look quite pale to begin with, but will darken as it matures. I like to make the mincemeat one year and then use it the next, although in recent years I haven’t managed that as it is so good that it all gets snapped up by friends and family.

The above amount made 12 jars of 350ml capacity.

Christmassy Things – Part One – The Pudding

16 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by in Sweet Things

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To develop my recipe for Christmas Pudding I tried out some very old recipes including the Plum Pudding that was popular before the currant and raisins version that we like today and I tried out other modern chefs recipes. The basic recipes I kept coming back to were Eliza Acton’s, first published in 1845 and that of Peggy Libby (my sister’s mother-in -law) which was taught to her by her father. The two recipes were almost identical, differing only slightly in proportions of ingredients.

Both recipes make a pudding light in colour and texture, and not overly sweet. Neither recipe uses too much in the way of spice, only nutmeg, which I think gives it a cleaner less complicated taste.

I have added to and tweaked the recipes to my own taste. My two pudding gurus did not put nuts in their puddings, but I like the texture and taste of nuts so they are in. You, of course, can decide for yourself which way you want to go.

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CHRISTMAS PUDDING
Makes enough to feed 12, either as one large or two smaller puddings
100 grams fresh fine breadcrumbs
100 grams plain flour
200 grams fresh suet chopped finely
400 grams dried fruit – a mix of raisins, currants and cranberries
125 grams minced/grated apple
150 grams light brown sugar
1 unwaxed orange
half an unwaxed lemon
40 grams walnuts
40 grams hazelnuts
40 grams almonds
Half a teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 large eggs
Small glass of brandy

I am not a big fan of the commercially produced mixed peel and prefer the flavour and zing of freshly boiled peel. So start by cutting the orange in half and with a very sharp knife pare off the zest leaving the pith behind. Cut into either fine strips or small pieces. Do the same with the half lemon. Put in a small saucepan together with the juice from the fruits.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 7 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave to cool.

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If you can get fresh beef suet, which most butchers will provide at a good low price, it makes I think a lighter pudding. I am a little suspicious of how long some of the boxes of ready chopped and floured suet may have been hanging around. Vegetarian suet? If you must. You won’t get the same texture of pudding.
For the fresh suet, all you need to do is chop it finely. Do not be tempted to do this in the food processor as it turns to mush. (As I have learned by grim experience)

Put all the ingredients in a large bowl and stir well to combine to a firm mix. If the mix seems a bit too dry, add a little extra brandy.

Generously butter your pudding dish and add the mixture.

Cut a piece of baking parchment to fit the top of the pudding. Then cut a piece of aluminium foil that will cover the top and come two to three centimetres down the basin. It is useful to tie string round the basin to hold the foil, and then loop it round the base and tie at the top to make a handle to aid removal of the pudding from the steaming pan.

The puddings need 3 and a half hours steaming altogether. I give mine a steam for two and a half hours when I first make them, and then another hour or so when I come to serve them.

The pudding will keep for a long time, you can even make them one year for the following one. If you do this keep them in the fridge and every six months or so check that they are all right and feed them with a little brandy.

Generally speaking I like to make my puddings in September for that years Christmas, although this year I have only just made them and we are already well into December. I will let you know if they suffer from a lack of maturing time.

Parsnip Casserole

07 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in Main Courses, Vegetable Dishes

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I love all vegetables, but have extra affection for the chosen few. I don’t know if it is the scarcity here of parsnips, and the few that we do get tend to be small and woody, but the sight of the plump white roots in the vegetable stalls at my local market in London have me yearning for roast parsnips all crisp brown and caramelised around the edges, or parsnip patties with a sharp sweet and sour sauce, or this casserole which perfectly brings out the flavour of these sweet roots.

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PARSNIP CASSEROLE
Serves 4 as a side vegetable and 2 as a main course
About 500 grams parsnips
4 medium sized tomatoes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
200 ml single cream or crème fraiche
Parmesan/pecorino/mature hard cheese to grate

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Peel the parsnips and slice thinly.
Thinly slice the tomatoes.
In an ovenproof casserole, layer the ingredients. Start with a trickle of cream, then some parsnips layed side by side, then tomato slices, another trickle of cream, salt and pepper and finally a little grated cheese.
Continue layering until all the ingredients are used ending with a layer of parsnips topped with cheese.
Cover and bake at 175 C for an hour and a half.

An Autumn Lunch

12 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by in Main Courses, Starters, Sweet Things, Vegetable Dishes

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At this time of the year my southern Spanish vegetable garden is lush with green vegetables that in the north are considered spring vegetables. There are several varieties of lettuce and endive, Cima Di Rapa, crispy dark green chard, french beans, Mange-Toute and the sweetest baby courgettes……… So I want to feature this abundance in my meal. I dither between choosing to prepare a composed salad, or grilling some of the vegetables. In my other veg patch I find some small purple and white striped aubergines and a few asparagus spears. That helps me to make up my mind, grilled vegetables with a sweet and spicy pepper sauce. IMG_1390 My regular readers will know that I preserve whatever surplus I have of garden produce as I go along, so the sauce is based on a couple of these, the recipes for which you will find on previous blogs. SWEET AND SPICY PEPPER SAUCE Half a small jar of Red Pepper Salad 2 tablespoons Chilli Jam Juice of half a lemon Simply whizz together in the food processor The main course was Orechiette Pasta with Beef and Tarragon Meatballs in Mushroom Sauce. IMG_1389 BEEF & TARRAGON MEATBALLS WITH MUSHROOM SAUCE FOR 6 400 grams lean minced beef 2 garlic cloves – peeled 1 medium egg 25 grams dried breadcrumbs – preferably from good bread that you have dried and crumbed yourself Half a dozen sprigs of fresh tarragon Salt and freshly ground black pepper Plain flour Olive oil 100 grams fresh mushrooms, preferably ceps, but chestnut or oyster will do 20 grams dried ceps 300ml chicken stock Put the dried ceps in a small bowl and pour over enough boiling water to just cover. Leave to reconstitute. Crush the garlic cloves with a small amount of salt. Take the leaves off the tarragon stalks and chop finely. Put the minced beef in a bowl with the garlic, tarragon, breadcrumbs and egg. Mix thoroughly. Season with black pepper. Leave for about half an hour for the breadcrumbs to absorb moisture and bind the mix. Take small amounts of the minced beef mix and roll into balls and then roll in the flour. It is tedious to make the balls small, about 1.5 cm across is ideal, but they mix so much better with the pasta and are a perfect little mouthful this size that it is worth the effort. Heat some olive oil in a large frying pan and fry half the meatballs in one batch over a medium heat, turning from time to time to lightly brown them on all sides. Remove to a dish and fry the other half of the meatballs. Remove these too. While the meatballs are browning cut up the mushrooms into quite small pieces. Once the meatballs are out of the pan, add the mushrooms to it together with a little more oil if needed and gently fry them for about five minutes. Add the stock, soaked dried mushrooms and their liquid and bring to a simmer. Simmer for five minutes then add the meatballs and any juices that have seeped out of them. Simmer for five to ten minutes. Serve with pasta and parmesan cheese. For dessert, the Spanish classic, Cheese with Honey and Walnuts, the recipe appeared in a previous post. IMG_0389

Nicoise Salad

09 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Fish, Food for One, Main Courses, Starters, Vegetable Dishes

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Composed salads with their mixture of textures, tastes and colours are very close to being perfect food, and a Nicoise Salad is one of the great classics in this category. Its mixture of green leaves and French beans, red tomatoes and peppers, black olives, white and yellow egg and the pinky brown of tuna make it a delight to look at.

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At the market today, my favourite fish stall had some superb fresh tuna, so I decided to sear it fairly rare and have it as part of a Nicoise Salad in place of the usual tinned tuna. Without losing the elements that make a salad a Nicoise, ie Tuna, Egg, French Beans, Tomatoes and Black Olives, there is room for you to make the salad your own. I prefer a poached egg to boiled as I like to mix the runny yolk into the salad. I also like to thin down the mayonnaise with a little water before pouring it over the salad. And I do love Chilli Jam with tuna, so although it is not traditional…..

Sopa De Ajo Blanco – Chilled Almond and Garlic Soup

05 Friday Sep 2014

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Here in southern Spain, those of us with almond trees make this soup with the first of the new harvest nuts. Cool and creamy, with a hint of garlic and the fruitiness of olive oil it is delightfully refreshing in the heat of summer and making it has become one of those traditions that one looks forward to each August.
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Making this soup used to be a labour of love involving much pounding of garlic and nuts with a pestle in a large mortar, nowadays with the aid of a liquidiser it is a much less labour intensive task to make. Having said that, it is only when the almonds are fresh that the graininess will disappear with blending. It is possible to make the soup with drier almonds, but you will have to strain it after blending to make sure that the texture is smooth and creamy.

Of course for us locals we still have to pick the almonds in the heat, shell them and them remove the inner brown skin, so this is not the dish for those in a hurry.

SOPA DE AJO BLANCO
FOR 4-6 People
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1 small clove garlic
Half a teaspoon of salt
100 grams fresh almonds
50 ml fresh fruity olive oil
1 litre cold water
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
50 grams fresh white bread without crusts
2 tablespoons small yellow raisins
Half a sweet eating apple cut into small dice

Peel the garlic clove and with the salt pound to a paste with a pestle and mortar. Add some of the oil and water and pound to mix. Put into the goblet of your liquidiser.

If you are starting with fresh off the tree almonds then weigh the kernels after cracking the shells and removing them.

To remove the brown skins, put the nuts into a plastic container and pour boiling water over them. Leave to soak for two to three minutes, then drain them and put them into cold water. The skins will peel off easily.
Add the nuts to the garlic in the liquidiser and whizz to grind them.

Add the rest of the olive oil, the bread cut into cubes, the vinegar and enough of the water that the mixture can make a thick sauce. Whizz for a couple of minutes until all is smooth.

Add the rest of the water and whizz again until very smooth and all graininess of the almonds has gone.
Check for seasoning. The soup may need more salt or vinegar.

Put the soup into a container that will fit into the fridge. Add the raisins and apple cubes, then leave the soup to chill for several hours before serving.

The soup may separate out a bit with the solids coming to the top of the mix, but don’t worry simply stir it back to an emulsion again.

Gratin of Onions & Potatoes

02 Tuesday Sep 2014

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I am afraid I have been side tracked and this post as you possibly already have noticed is not featuring the promised Ajo Blanco soup.

I have been today at one of Doris’s book exchange lunches where each of the participants contribute part of the meal. As I have had a very good crop of red onions and a similarly good one of potatoes, I offered to concoct a dish from these. The girls were asking at the end of the meal if the recipe was on the blog, which I think means that they liked it. So here it is on the blog.
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1 kilo onions
1 tablespoon olive oil
30 grams butter
1.5 kilos potatoes
200 ml chicken stock
100 ml thin cream
1 small tin anchovies
100 grams grated parmesan
Freshly ground black pepper

Peel and slice the onions into rounds.

Melt the butter and olive oil on a low heat in a large shallow pan. Add the onions and stir into the fats. Cover and cook slowly for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time until the onions are soft and translucent.

Peel the potatoes and slice into thin rounds.

Heat the chicken stock and cream together slowly. Chop the anchovies quite small and add together with their oil to the stock and cream. As the liquids heat the anchovies should dissolve.

Preheat the oven to 160 centigrade.

Once the liquids are hot, assemble the dish. You will need a shallow ovenproof dish.

Put a layer of overlapping potato slices in the bottom of the dish. Strew over a third of the onions, then a few spoonfuls of the stock mix, then thinly scatter over some grated parmesan. Season with black pepper, then continue with the layers finishing with a layer of potatoes generously covered with the grated cheese.

Cover and bake in the oven for 45 minutes.

You can cook to this point the day before the dish is needed, and the resting time does add to the flavour of the dish.

If you are serving the potatoes straight away, uncover them, turn the oven heat up to 180 centigrade and put the dish back in the oven for about 15 minutes until the top is nicely browned.

If you have prepared the dish in advance then it will need longer in the oven to reheat the potatoes through. I had my dish 10 minutes in the oven covered and then another 10-15 minutes uncovered until the top was nicely browned, again at 180 centigrade.