Seared garlic sausage & a trio of salads

With the sausage de nos jours being "pan-fried chorizo", to be contrary I went back to the exotic wurst of childhood delicatessen shops. For a contemporary twist, however, I seared the thickish slices in a smoking hot wok.

 
The white beetroot and horseradish salad was, again, a response to my childhood: on my yiddisher grandmother's table at every meal was a condiment called "Chrain", made from a coarse puree of beetroot and horseradish. The taste has remained with me, one of my favourite vegetable dishes being beetroot and horseradish dauphinoise. The salad is simplicity - skin the beetroot with a potato peeler or a knife, cut into small dice and nuke for 3 minutes in a closed casserole dish. Refresh under cold water and mix with equal parts of mayo and creamed horseradish sauce.

To pep up a simple potato salad - Jersey Royals scraped after boiling and refreshing - I added to the mayonnaise a spoonful chives preserved in olive oil that I keep as a staple in the larder.

The final salad was a sort of kitchen sink one: lettuce, tomato, cucumber, celery, onion, mixed peppers and baby sweetcorn with a bog-standard French dressing (home-made, of course!).

Full now!

Pork & Beef Arrabbiata with Cannellini Beans

What was going to be a quick and simple "High Tea" before going out to the theatre to see the new musical "Life" by Brian McCann turned into a full-on three course dinner.

Hannah said she'd been put off avocado by her mother's method of using it in salads - but she was willing to try mine; as she has a shellfish allergy, the staple with Prawns Marie Rose was out. However as my guest had (pleasant) dreams about my tarragon and lemon mayonnaise I decided to do another variation - with tomato ketchup - and diced crispy bacon. I think I went a bit overboard on the salad garnish!

The options for the main course were a chilli, a bolognese or a curry. In the end - to surprise - I went for a cross between the first two: pork and beef mince hotted-up with arrabbiata spices, rounded with bolognese herbs, and finished with cannellini beans.

For enough to serve 4: Soften 4 handfuls of chopped onion with 1 big handful of mixed peppers. Add 500g of beef and pork mince (Asda), a handful of diced courgette, 2 handfuls of chopped mushrooms and  2 dstsp of crushed garlic. Stir-fry until the meat begins to colour and add 1 dstsp of Arrabbiata spice mix (salt, tomato powder, garlic, pepper, pimento, sugar, cayenne, paprika, oregano, basol and cloves) and half a tsp of cayenne pepper. Stir in 250 ml of tomato juice and add 1 dstsp of tomato purée, 1 dstsp oregano, 1 dstsp basil, 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp sweet chilli sauce, 1 scant tsp sugar and a little salt to taste. Simmer on low for about 10-15 minutes.

Add  2 big handfuls of cooked cannellini beans, heat through and serve. We had ours with plain rice, though in retrospect I think tagliatelle might have worked even better.

My unpaid patisserie chef/baker had arrived with some meringues made overnight, a big tub of double cream and some amaretti biscuits. Plus a loaf of her home-made wholemeal bread, which we ate throughtout the meal. She turned a couple of fresh peaches of mine - on their last legs - together with some of the crushed biscuits and stiffly whipped cream into a stunning pavlova each.

The play was absolutely brillliant!

An Impromptu Summer Dinner

She came for afternoon tea, bearing a tub full of home-made banana muffins .....

.... and ended up staying for an impromptu dinner.

My default setting for this time of year is "burnt meat and salad" - though in truth I cooked the chicken for twice as long, I think, as I should have. My basic Mediterranean-style marinade is olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic, oregano, mint, a pinch of cinnamon and S+P. For a more North-African flavour I'll add cumin and coriander, sometimes chilli too. I'd bought 2 packs of reduced-price chicken thighs the previous day which I hadn't yet boned and frozen so that was easy-peasy.

The bones and trim went in a pot with water to make stock, though as I told Hannah, I'll probably freeze that too. Leave the chicken to marinate for at least an hour, heat a hob-to-oven pan to smoking, sear the meat on both sides - skin first and then transfer to a hot oven for 5-8 minutes.

My favourite salad of the moment - which I didn't make because she doesn't like them - is blanched new crop carrots with red onion, spinach leaves, baby corn and courgettes, dressed with a little crushed garlic mixed with balsamic vinegar, soy sauce and sesame oil. I had that for lunch today with a round of smoked salmon, olives and fake-feta butties.

Hannah and I had a simple mixed salad with my own French dressing, Jersey Royals and basmati rice. And my secret red onion marmalade!

Tha banana muffins, incidentally, were lovely  - but Hannah's famed banana bread is even more heavenly! I've got one chunk left for today's imminent afternoon tea!

Pigging Out with Hannah & Phil

I hadn't intended, when I started to think about the menu for this dinner, of going particularly porky - it just happened that way. Perhaps because Hannah is allergic to seafood? Home-made pork scratchings as amuse-gueule, dinky scotch eggs made with quail eggs (plus an extra one in a tarragon & lemon mayo); and, for the main course, pot-roasted gammon, thinly sliced, and served with a creamed mustard and parsley sauce. Our pud, as far as I'm aware, contained no pork-products - the three little piggies simply gorged themselves on the Chocolate Banoffee Pie that Hannah had made and brought with. Dee-licious!

It was all a bit of a rush because we were going to the "Sunset Dawn" Music & Poetry event at Fort Perch Rock - although I only live 150 yards away, we were the last to arrive!

 

The scratchings are made by simply roasting the gammon rind in a hot oven, every now and then decanting the liquid fat which is excellent to fry with.

The recipe for the scotch eggs is one I developed about 10 years ago when I was supplying a butcher's in West Kirby with full-sized ones. Price-wise I could never compete with a factory-made product, but taste-wise - I have been told - there is NO comparison.
NB: Measurements are approximate because I was working to roughly a tenth of my original. 250g of sausagemeat, 30g of puréed/very finely chopped onion, 50g of mixed breadcrumbs and plain flour for binding; half a tsp of salt, an pinch of pepper, a scant tsp of mixed herbs and a little beaten egg to moisten. Mix well. Boil a dozen quail eggs for about 10 minutes and refresh under cold water. Dredge the eggs in a tray of flour, take a golf-ball-sized handful of the meat mixture and roll it well between your hands before squashing it flat into a thin patty, wrap the egg in it and roll well again to seal the join. I always have a bowl of luke-warm water to moisten my hands and prevent sticking. Repeat until all the eggs are covered. Dip each in a tray of beaten egg (hen's!!), shake off the excess and then roll in a tray of 50/50 breadcrumbs and plain flour seasoned with a pinch of S+P.

Deep-fry in hot oil (180) until a light golden colour and then transfer to a preheated hot oven and bake, on a tray, for 10 minutes. I served mine with a supermarket own-brand mayo, mixed the previous day to infuse, with a dash of lemon juice and a good shake of dried tarragon. Hannah tells me she had dreams about it!

The ham came from Birkenhead Market as what are known as "Gammon Corners", weighing about 1.2Kg for £5.30 - I love bargains! Half was chilled and cut for bacon (18 thick rashers) and the remainder - rind still on at this point - was pot-roasted in a closed casserole dish with about 150ml of water. Cooking time on med-high was about an hour and a half - which roughly complies with the old "20 minutes per pound and 20 minutes extra" guide.

Leave to cool covered and then strip off the rind to make pork scratchings. Slice the meat when cold - to re-heat for service I still use the old, pre-microwave, banqueting method of dunking the meat for a minute or two in a shallow pan of lightly-salted, fast-boiling water.

The sauce is simplicity itself: finely chop a good handful of curly parsley, simmer in the water the ham was cooked in for about 25 minutes and then add double cream to taste. Keep just below boiling point and stir in a tsp of made english mustard.

I had intended doing new-crop carrots as one of the vegetables but remembered at the prep stage that one of my guests is not a lover of them; the white beetroot - which is actually pink - was a palpable hit, though.

Skinned with a potato peeler, I could have boiled it but I find that microwaving in a closed casserole dish produces the same effect as steaming. The vegetable stays firm all the way through.

Scrubbed Jersey Royals, with garlic courgettes and fresh peas, completed the main course.

And so to pud!....... It was delicious.

 Hannah did tell me what was in it - crushed hobnobs, banana, chocolate, butter and cream, conny-onny milk, more butter and cream, sprinkled with drinking chocolate and crushed nuts (I think). And did I say: it was delicious!

Mussel Stroganoff

This was one of my best bits of inspiration yet!

Soften a good handful of chopped onion in oil and butter with 2 scant tsp of crushed garlic. Add 2 handfuls of sliced mushrooms and stir-fry for a minute or two. Stir in 1 dstsp of Paprika and coat well.

Fold in a good handful of shelled mussel meat - mine were still frozen, so I allowed a minute or so extra cooking time - and then slowly add 120ml of sour cream (I used 120ml fresh whipping cream mixed with 1 scant tsp lemon juice). Season with a pinch of salt and pepper and half a tsp of tomato puree. Heat through and serve.

Cheat's tip: For the yellow rice I've never really liked the method involving turmeric - it is too strong a flavour so I use yellow powder fom the Chinese supermarket or just ordinary cooks' colouring (with all its e-numbers!). Served drizzled with sour cream. Yum!

Hummus (Humous? Hummos? Hoummus?)

Everybody has their own way of making this Mediterranean/North-African staple - the only non-contentious point being that it contains ground chickpeas. Some people insist that it should be mixed with tahini - the sesame seed paste - but I truly believe that the taste of mine (with my Jewish ancestry) is the kosher deal!

I buy dried chickpeas in kilo bags - about 80p - and cook the lot off in the pressure cooker, which has lost its weight! Without any pre-soking this takes a little over an hour; rinse under cold water and what I don't require immediately I spread on a tray and freeze.

For this recipe put 500g of chickpeas into a food processor and whizz. For best results I now transfer them to a liquidiser and mix with 1.5 dstsp Garlic purée, half a dstsp Salt, 1 dstsp ground Cumin and 2 dstsp Lemon Juice.

With the motor running  drizzle in 300ml Olive Oil. To finish, if the paste is a little dry I add  1 dstsp of warm water. For the best taste chill overnight.

For lunch today I had a bowl of this with salad, olives, pitta bread and a hard-boiled egg and cress with tarragon & lemon mayonnaise.

Tunisian Turkey with Carrot & Coriander Purée

Ok, so the dish is about as Tunisian as Sidney Greenstreet's fez in "Casablanca" (one of my top-five favourite movies). A time to use up little bags of things in the freezer: a while ago I made the mistake of taking out  a red block of what I thought was chopped tomatoes, only to find it was (home-made) carrot and coriander soup. This time it was intentional. My geography is not that good so I'm not even sure if they grow carrots anywhere in North Africa but the flavours were, in my own opinion, spot on.

Soften a handful chopped onion and  one of mixed peppers in butter and oil, add a handful of diced turkey (or chicken) and a small handful of diced aubergine.  Colour slightly and add  2 tsp crushed garlic, 1 heaped tsp paprika,  1 tsp each of ground coriander and cumin,  a pinch of chilli powder and 1 tsp ginger puree. Stir in 200ml carrot & coriander puree/soup followed by 1 tsp lime cordial and 1 scant tsp sugar. Mix in a  handful cooked chickpeas and 2 diced dried figs, heat through - bubbling vigorously if the sauce is too thin - and serve.

I had rice but this would work equally well with couscous.