A beany soup

A nifty bit of footwork with the menu was called for at the weekend, when Winter, essentially, told Spring to sod right off because Winter was still using the bathroom, alright? Snow fell, tulips withered a-blooming. So the salades niçoises of yesterweek were sent back to the fridge, and back came the casseroles and soups.

This one was pretty good.

Serves 2

A 400g tin of borlotti beans, rinsed and drained
A small onion, finely chopped
A stick of celery, finely chopped
Two ripe tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and finely chopped
A big handful of unsmoked pancetta or streaky bacon
A handful of shredded Savoy cabbage or diced courgette
A small red chilli, deseeded and thinly sliced
A big pinch of ground corianderA small pinch of fennel seeds, crushed
Half a litre of chicken stock
A handful of orzo pasta
Two or three strands of spaghetti, broken into pieces
A handful of basil leaves and parsley
Ground black pepper
Grated parmesan
Olive oil, a couple of tablespoons
 

Heat the oil in a saucepan and soften the celery for a few minutes. Add the pancetta and cook till beginning to colour. Add the chilli, garlic and onion and fry gently for about ten minutes. Tip in the chopped tomatoes, coriander and fennel seeds and cook for another ten minutes. Now add the stock and two thirds of the beans, plus the cabbage or courgette. Cook for five minutes, then add the pasta and bring almost to the boil. Simmer for ten minutes or until the pasta is just past al dente. Meanwhile mash the remaining third of the beans. Stir the mashed beans in to thicken the soup, along with the shredded basil leaves and heat for a minute or two. Season and serve sprinkled with chopped parsley and grated parmesan.

Braised lettuce - a main course

A friend was asking what was for dinner tonight and my response - braised lettuce - set an eyebrow twitching. Once I'd explained it, though, it seemed to meet with approval. It is, after all, only my own tinkering with a very French classic.

Serves two

Two romaine or sweet gem lettuce
A large shallot
A stick of celery
A handful of diced bacon or pancetta
A handful of frozen peas
A clove or two of garlic
A teaspoon of dried herbes de Provence or mixed herbs
A pint of vegetable stock
A glass of dry white wine
Olive oil
Fresh thyme and mint
Green legumes of your choice, appropriately prepared *

The reason for the asterisk above is that what you can get - or want to use - may depend on the season. Sliced runner beans are great, as are (peeled) broad beans. Green beans, sugar snap peas, edamame - the list goes on. You only want a couple of handfuls, adding them in with ten minutes to go.

Chop the shallot and celery and mince the garlic. Heat the olive oil in a large pan (for which you have a lid) and fry the bacon till the fat begins to brown. Add the onion, garlic and celery and some dried herbs and cook very gently for five to ten minutes.

Trim the lettuce root and remove any ageing leaves, reflecting on your own mortality. Quarter each head and rinse under cold water.

Turn the heat up and pour in the white wine. Add a sprig of thyme, then simmer for a couple of minutes.

Now add the lettuce and pour over the stock. Bring to the boil, cover, and braise on a low heat for around twenty minutes, till the lettuce is just tender. Add the frozen peas and green asterisks (*), moving the lettuce aside to make room for them in the liquid and then sliding the lettuce back on top. Huddle the tomatoes atop all, re-cover and cook for ten minutes.

Warm a serving dish and transfer the vegetables and bacon to it, leaving as much of the cooking liquor as possible in the pan. Keep the dish warm while reducing the liquid by about two-thirds.

Stir in a little chopped mint, season to taste and pour over the braised vegetables.

Serve with warm brown bread.

Chicken and bacon pasta

This sounds boring, but the sauce turned out really well, so... It's a grown-up pasta bake in a cheesy, herby, winey sauce topped with parmesan and crumbled crispy chicken skin.

Serves 2

Three chicken thighs, skin on.
A good handful of diced bacon
Four handfuls of fusilli (or whatever you like)
A small shallot
A clove of garlic
A stick of celery
Dried fines herbes or tarragon
A third of a bottle of dry white wine (NOT oaked)
A quarter of a litre of chicken stock
A hundred millilitres of double cream (possibly more)
A good handful of grated gruyere
A tablespoon of plain flour
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Grated parmesan for sprinkling

Heat the stock if using fresh.

Fry the bacon slowly in a non-stick frying pan till crispy. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.

Mince the shallot and the garlic and finely chop the celery.

Cook the pasta, refresh in cold water and drain.

Remove the skin from the chicken and fry it (the skin) slowly in the bacon fat till golden brown, pressing down to get it nice and crispy. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.

De-bone the chicken if necessary, trim any sinew and excess fat and slice the meat into thickish strips. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a medium saucepan and stir-fry the chicken strips on a medium-to-high heat for three to four minutes, till nearly cooked. Remove from the pan and turn the heat down to medium-low.

Add the shallot to the saucepan and fry gently for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Finally add the celery and cook for another minute or two.

Turn the heat up high and pour in the wine. Add a teaspoon of whatever dried herbs you're using. Bring to the boil then turn the heat down and simmer till reduced by at least half.

Pour in half the hot chicken stock, bring to the boil and sieve in the flour, whisking as you go. Simmer for five minutes, then stir in the double cream. Simmer for five to ten minutes till thickening well, then stir in the gruyere on a very low heat till melted. Season to taste, remembering that salty bacon is going to be added.

Add the almost-cooked chicken and the bacon and stir, then put the lid on and leave for another five or ten minutes till the chicken is fully cooked.

Heat the oven to 180C.

Break the crispy chicken skin into crumbs. Mix the pasta with the sauce, adding a dash of cream if needed, and transfer to an oven dish. Sprinkle over some more dried herbs, then the grated parmesan.

Place the dish in the oven for ten minutes, then sprinkle over the chicken skin crumbs and bake for another five to ten minutes, till the sauce is bubbling and the top is beginning to brown.

Serve with crusty bread.

I did squid

We had the best squid of our lives at a tapas place in Barcelona this year. Having been presented with three squid caps by the Carlsbergs (together with a lobster) back in November, I tried following Raymond Blanc's Golden Rule of Squid: one minute, or one hour.

I portioned and scored the squid, then marinated it in olive oil, garlic, chilli and lemon juice for twenty minutes. I got a frying pan very hot and I gave the squid thirty seconds on each side. I served it with fries and ailoli.

Result.

Next we'll see how the frozen squid turns out.

Cooking Peter

Looking for a good old-fashioned Lancashire duck for Christmas dinner, I ran across the website of Johnson & Swarbrick of Goosnargh. A couple of emails later, I was scanning happily through their price list and, having chosen my duck, saw that they also supply wild rabbits.

On those rare occasions when I see rabbit on a menu, I'll order it. I think there's some nostalgia there - my Dad's upbringing having been heavily influenced by WWII and the rationing that continued afterwards, when rabbits were something you could rear or hunt for food - but I really like the flavour. So I ordered a couple along with the duck, one for Boxing Day and the second for the freezer, maybe to find its way into a stifado in the summer.

I'd never jointed a rabbit before, but found a decent guide here - and I was glad of a cleaver. The carcass included the liver, kidneys and heart, but I left them out of the pot this time; a lovely stew we had in Corfu incorporated them all, but for this first attempt I decided to play it safe. The carcass also included a membrane all over, which I read you can eliminate by putting the rabbit in the freezer for twenty minutes before skinning it - but mine arrived ready-skinned (no complaints). I tried removing the membrane in the same way you'd skin a fish, but that started to damage the meat, so in the end I just left it on, pulling off any residual fur. After slow cooking, you'd never notice it was there.

Serves 2
A wild rabbit, cut into six joints (four legs and the saddle halved)
A large onion, chopped.
Two medium carrots, cut in large dice
Two sticks of celery, thickly sliced
Two small cloves of garlic, finely chopped
A good handful of diced pancetta
A third of a bottle of red wine
Half a litre of hot chicken stock
A dash of Worcestershire sauce
Two tablespoons of plain flour
A teaspoon of mustard powder
Two good sprigs of thyme
A bay leaf
Salt and pepper

Heat the oven to 150 degrees (fan).

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan. Mix a tablespoon of flour and the mustard powder in a freezer bag, with a good pinch of salt and some pepper. Toss the rabbit joints in it, then fry till golden and remove.

Fry the bacon till it starts to crisp, then remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. Fry the onions, garlic, carrots, celery and thyme sprigs for three or four minutes, then remove them too. Turn the heat right up and add the red wine to deglaze the pan, simmering till the alcohol has mostly evaporated. Sieve in the second teaspoon of flour, plus any remaining from the bag and whisk

Tip the vegetables, herbs and bacon into an oven-proof pot with a lid, lay the rabbit legs on top (leave the saddle out for now) and pour over the red wine. Add a dash of Worcestershire sauce, a bay leaf and enough of the chicken stock to almost cover the rabbit. Cover and cook for three quarters of an hour. Turn the rabbit legs, add the saddle and cook for another hour. Turn the saddle pieces, topping up with chicken stock if needed, and return to the oven for twenty minutes.

Serve with crusty bread and some green beans.

A beef stew

My mum used to make beef stew with dumplings - the beef was never my favourite bit, being diced too small and quite dry as a result, but I loved the dumplings and the barley. When the Highland summer turned suddenly into autumn a couple of weeks ago, I started making stews and pies. Today, I made beef stew again, and the sun decided that it was time to make picnic weather. It's roasting (comparatively, in Ross-shire terms) and we only ate about half the pot. The other half went next door to the Carlsbergs (as in "If Carslberg did neighbours...") and I didn't bother with barley. Anyway, I've been told to write it down, so here we go.

For the stew
750g stewing steak, diced
a small swede, cut into large dice
four carrots, cut into large rounds
two sticks of celery, chopped
a big sprig of thyme
a medium onion, roughly chopped
a shallot, roughly chopped
a handful of barley
two cloves of garlic, sliced
500ml of beef stock
a dash of Worcestershire sauce
250ml of red wine
50g of plain flour
a bay leaf
4-5 tablespoons of oil
salt and pepper

For the dumplings
100g of self-raising flower
50g of beef suet
½ teaspoon of mustard powder
½ teaspoon of dried sage
salt


Heat the oven to 150C.
Season the flour and toss the steak in it.
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a heavy casserole dish. Fry the onion and garlic and remove from the pan. Turn up the heat a little and brown the steak in batches, adding more oil as required.
Toss the carrots and swede in the flour and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the celery, then turn the heat right up and pour in the wine. Scrape away at the pan to mix in the browned flour and meat scraps, then bubble the wine until reduced by half.
Meanwhile heat a little oil in a frying pan and brown the onion and garlic.
Add the steak, onions, barley, thyme and bay leaf to the casserole, then tip in the stock and Worcestershire sauce. Sieve in any remaining flour. Mix well and bring to the boil.
Cover with the lid over a piece of foil to ensure a good seal. Place in the oven for two hours, then remove from the oven and turn the temperature up to 200C.

Mix the flour, suet, dried sage, mustard powder and a heaped teaspoon of salt with five or six tablespoons of cold water to make (as Atora puts it) a firm but pliable dough. Divide into twelve pieces and roll into spheres. Press into the stew (check the seasoning of the gravy) until just the tops are poking out, then re-cover and cook for 20 minutes. Remove the lid and cook for 10 minutes.

Serve with crusty bread.

Meat loaf

My auntie had a pretty limited repertoire of dishes she'd actually cook (as opposed to buying from M&S), but she made a mean meat loaf - a legacy of her time living in the USA.

This is an amalgam of a few different recipes, notably a Jamie Oliver version and a Delia Smith one.

Serves 2, easily, with leftovers.

three or four Lincolnshire pork sausages
400g lean beef mince
five or six rashers of streaky bacon
a large egg
a medium onion
a garlic clove
8 cream crackers
a handful of sage leaves
a handful of thyme leaves
a teaspoon of English mustard
a tablespoon of tomato ketchup
a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce
a couple of tablespoons of olive oil
half a teaspoon of ground cumin
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 170C.


Chop the onion finely, mince the garlic, and fry gently in the olive oil for five minutes or so until golden, seasoning with a little salt and the cumin. Set aside to cool a bit in a large bowl.
Put the kettle on to boil, finely chop the herbs and crush the cream crackers to small crumbs.
Split the sausages and discard the skins. Crumble the mince and sausage meat into the onion and garlic, followed by the cracker breadcrumbs, the herbs and the egg. Mix by hand for a while, then add the ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, a good pinch of salt and a good grind of black pepper. Mix well, again by hand.


Press into a loaf tin - non-stick or else lined - and cover the top with overlapping bacon rashers. Finally cover with some oiled, greaseproof paper or with foil, almost sealing the top. Place the loaf tin in a roasting tin and add about an inch of hot water from the kettle.


Cook in the oven for 1¼ hours or until the juices run clear (the internal temperature should be over 170C), then rest in the tin for twenty to thirty minutes.

Serve with baked potatoes, chips, salad...

If you have pork mince instead of pre-seasoned sausages, just bump up the seasoning - a pinch or three of nutmeg, mace, allspice, ground ginger, white pepper, black pepper - that sort of thing, and maybe add few more breadcrumbs.