Category Archives: Starters

Meatballs & Chestnuts in Tomato Sauce

07 Saturday Apr 2012

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These are to go with the Potaoto Gnocchi of the previous post.

For four people

2 cloves of garlic

125 gms lean pork

olive oil

salt and pepper

small jar of passata

150 gms cooked and peeled whole chestnuts

Parmesan cheese grated

Sage leaves – fresh whole ones

In the food processor, finely chop the garlic. Cut the pork into cubes and add to the food processor with seasonings. Process to a fine mince.

Turn the mince out onto a floured board and with floured hands form into small meatballs. You will note that there is no egg to bind these meatballs, if you have lean meat then as it cooks the protein binds together, so you don’t need any extra binding. Likewise when you are making beefburgers, use good lean meat and seasoning, and you don’t need anything else.

Heat some oil in a shallow pan and fry the meatballs on a gentle heat until lightly browned on all sides. Cook a few at a time if the pan is not very large.

Once they are all browned, add the passata to almost cover the meatballs. Cook gently for another 15 minutes.

Passata is a wonderful sauce to have in your storecupboard. I make enough jars in the summer when the plum tomatoes are at their most flavoursome to last me for the whole year. It is not only a great way to preserve a bumper crop of tomatoes, but as you are making it yourself you can vary the flavours that you add to it. I do a batch with chilli added, one with coriander and lemon grass, one with strong basil flavour, another with oregano as the predominant flavour. Check out the blog in July for the passata recipe.

So back to the meatballs. Once they are cooked add the chestnuts to heat them through.

Now for the finishing touches.Heat some oil in a small sauce pan, and when hot add the sage leaves and fry until they are crisp. Drain on kitchen roll. Save the oil for flavouring future dishes.

Grate the parmesan.

Add the hot cooked gnocchi to the meatballs and gently stir to coat with the sauce. Dish up onto warm plates. Sprinkle over the grated parmesan and the fried sage leaves. Enjoy.

Potato Gnocchi

05 Thursday Apr 2012

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We are having rain showers at the moment which has cooled the air and heightened the fragrance of all the blossom that is in bloom. I have 400 lime trees and the nieghbouring finca several thousand orange trees that are all in bloom. The scent is heady. I wish I could bottle it and send it to you.

There is still plenty of fruit on the trees, the limes fruit and flower pretty much all the year round, so I am still busy making marmalades, pickles and conserves to sell in the farm shop. I will be sharing with you some of my tried and tested recipes for these in due course, but today lets think about lunch.

I have some boiled potatoes left over from a previous meal, so I thought potato gnocchi would be nice. If your only experience of gnocchi are those terrible heavy bullets that you get in the supermarket, think again and try these. Gnocchi can be made with semolina or with potatoes, and I by far prefer the potato version which is a light and fluffy dumpling. They are superb with a blue cheese sauce as a starter, or in this case make a great lunch mixed with meatballs and chestnuts in a tomato sauce.

POTATO GNOCCHI

500 gms floury potatoes – peeled weight

1  organic egg

75 gms plain flour

50 gms semolina – fine ground

salt and pepper

Cut the potatoes into cubes and boil in salted water until cooked but not too mushy. You don’t want them to be too wet. Drain and leave to cool completely.

In a bowl mash the potatoes. Add the beaten egg and mash to amalgamate with the potato. Check for seasoning and add freshly ground pepper and sea salt to taste.

Add the sifted flour and and the semolina, mash this in. By this time you should be able to form the dough into a ball. If it is too soft and wet, add a little more flour and semolina.  Handle the dough lightly so as to keep it soft.

Dust the work surface with plenty of flour and turn your dough out onto it. Taking a small ball of dough at a time roll it out with your hands into a cylinder, and then cut it into even sized pieces. Roll these again, very lightly between your hands to make small cylinders. Don’t worry if they are not all exactly the same, this is rustic food that we are making and light handling is more important than having your gnocchi identical.

Bring a large pan of water to the boil, add a little salt. When boiling start to add your gnocchi a few at a time. They want to be only one layer in the pan. After few minutes they will float to the surface. You can at this point scoop them out and either reheat them later or let them cool completely and dry a bit and then freeze them for another occasion. If you are generally cooking for one, then this is a good option as this recipe makes easily enough gnocchi for four meals.

If you are eating the gnocchi straight away, then let them cook for another three minutes after they have started to float. Drain them and then mix with whichever sauce you fancy.

I am afraid that you will have to tune into tomorrows blog for the Meatballs and Chestnuts in Tomato Sauce……….

The Dinner that Started it all……

08 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by in Starters, Sweet Things

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This is the meal that inspired my friend Gines to insist that I start to write a diary of what I cook, which then led on to this blog, so I thought you would be interested to see the menu and recipes for this dinner.

The starter was Butternut Squash Ravioli served with Lemon and Sage Butter. The tartness of the lemon in the sauce cuts thought wonderfully the sweetness of the butternut squash. In the photo I have garnished the ravioli with some fried artchoke slices – just in case you were wondering what it was.

After a soft textured and saucy starter the main course needed to be something crunchy. I always have a selection of salads in the vegetable patch, so a crispy green salad to accompany a nice fat piece of grilled fish, salmon in this instance.

For dessert a grown up sundae. Vanilla ice cream, bitter chocolate sauce, rum soaked raisins topped with a coffee meringue and maple syrup. I see no shame in using a good shop bought vanilla ice cream as the basis for this type of dessert. Buy a sample tub from each of your local supermarkets to see which you like best, it may not be the one you expect. My favourite comes from a well known German supermarket chain.

BUTTERNUT SQUASH RAVIOLI

For 4 people

The pasta – 40 grammes 00 flour

2 large egg yolks

good pinch of salt

The filling – Half a medium sized butternut squash

30 grammes butter

2 tablespoons breadcrumbs

an egg white

50 grammes grated cheese

Salt and pepper

Another egg white for sticking the ravioli

The sage and lemon butter

                   50 grammes butter

                   grated zest and juice of half a large lemon

                    teaspoon finely chopped fresh sage

To serve – finely grated parmesan cheese

Firstly make the pasta. Put all of the pasta ingredients into a small food processor and blitz until you have a lumpy dough that will stick together. Remove dough and form into a ball. Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge until needed.

The filling. Peel and deseed the butternut squash and cut into rough cubes about 2cm square. Place in a saucepan with the butter. Cover and gently stew in its own moisture until tender, stirring from time to time to prevent sticking.When done put in the food processor and puree. Add the egg white, breadcrumbs and seasonings. Pulse to mix. Add the grated cheese and pulse again. Check seasonings. Put aside in the fridge for the breadcrumbs to absorb the moisture and bind the mixture.

Using a pasta machine roll the pasta in the usual way and roll into thin sheets – number 7 on my machine.  Cut into squares of the desired size – mine usually end up about 5 cm square. Put a blob of the butternut mixture in the centre of the squares, brush with egg white around the edges, put another square on top and gently squeeze the edges together. Dust liberally with flour and put in a tray in the fridge until needed.

Prepare the sage and lemon butter. Put all ingredients in a saucepan. Cover until needed.

All the above can be prepared some time in advance. Shortly before serving bring to the boil a large pan of water to which you have added salt and a tablespoon of olive oil. When boiling add the ravioli – they will only need three or four minutes to cook. Meanwhile put the sage and lemon butter on a low heat and swirl regularly to combine the ingredients. You do not want this to boil, only heat enough to amalgamate the ingredients then turn off the heat. Drain the ravioli and add to the pan containing the butter and swirl around to coat the ravioli.

Serve on warm plates and sprinkle with finely grated parmesan.

SOPHISTICATED SUNDAE

 Vanilla ice cream, raisins soaked in rum, bitter chocolate sauce topped with a coffee meringue and maple syrup. This turned out to be an absolute wow with my guests. Remember to put your sundae dishes in the freezer to chill them down at least two hours before they will be needed. They look so pretty with the frosting of condensation on the cool glass and help keep the sundae from melting before it gets to your guests.

For  coffee meringues for four, beat 5 egg whites until really stiff having added about half way through the beating half a sachet of instant expresso coffee powder. To this I beat in 250 grammes of caster sugar.

To bake the meringues, heat the oven to 180 degrees F. Line your baking tray with baking paper and make mounds of meringue. This amount of mixture made 14 – more than was needed – but they do keep.

Once the oven is hot put in the meringues and turn the oven down immediately to 140 F. Bake for one hour by which time they should be crisp and crunchy on the outside and still a bit gooey on the inside. Let cool before removing them from the tray and using or storing.

It is very easy to make your own chocolate sauce and it gives you control over the sweetness or richness that you want for your dish.

For this sauce put a couple of heaped tablespoons of good cocoa powder – the unsweeted one – in a small saucepan and add black coffee bit by bit to make a thin sauce. At this stage add a dessert spoon of brown sugar. Heat slowly until the sauce comes to the boil. Continue cooking on a low heat for 20 minutes stirring regularly. The sauce will thicken and darken during this cooking time. If you think that it is too thick add a bit more coffee. Taste the sauce and add more sugar to your taste if you like but stir the sugar in well to dissolve it.

Once cooled this sauce will keep quite a long time in a jar in the fridge. It can also be frozen for an intense sorbet. If you want a richer sauce to serve hot you can add a knob of butter at the beginning.

To assemble the sundae start with a spoon of the vanilla ice cream, a dribble of chocolate sauce, a spoon of raisins with some of their rum. Repeat these layers then top with a coffee meringue and a drizzle of the maple syrup. Enjoy!

Artichokes with Ham

03 Saturday Mar 2012

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Put some extra virgen olive oil into a shallow pan and heat slowly. Finely slice the artichokes and immediately put into the hot pan in a single layer. Work as quickly as you can, putting each artichoke into the pan as soon as it is sliced before it has the time to discolour. Once you have all your artichokes in the pan start to turn them over and toss them. At this point the heat can be turned up a little to cook the artichokes more briskly. Add more oil if you think that the contents of the pan are too dry..

Have ready sliced and cut into bite sized pieces some Serrano or Parma Ham. Add to the artichokes and continue cooking. The artichokes taste best if they are allowed to brown a little and to crisp slightly round the edges. Check the seasoning and add salt as necessary. Serve on warmed plates.