I was productive today.
For lunch, I made the Hunger Games Lamb & Dried Plum Stew, which turned out pretty well. So of course, at 10pm, I felt like second course. Or should I say... coarse. Read on.
Coarsely Baked Pasta Goodness:
3 tbsp. butter (or more... I'm bad with butter)
6 Portobello Mushrooms, chopped coarsely into cubes about 1cm (Sobeys had a sale - plus they're local!)
3-4 shallots, chopped or sliced coarsely
6 dinner sausages (I used Bratwurst. That's Italian, right?)
coarsely ground black pepper
"italian seasoning"
1 big clove garlic, chopped or sliced coarsely
2 cups fusilli (or other fun-to-bake pasta, like bowties or penne)
handful of fresh basil, chopped (you guessed it) coarsely
Fresh tomatoes, sliced (I used about 8 smaller Campari ones)
olive oil
Oven to 400F
Start by choppin' up your portobellos in a very coarse manner. Like, see how UNcubelike you can make them. (See, whenever I'm doing a baked dinner dish, I feel the need to chop things coarsely. If I'm frying, I like to grate or slice finely. Don't know why.) Season with coarse language. Chop up your shallots too. Coarsely. Put a bigass frying pan on the stove and melt a tbsp of the butter. Once that's up to about medium-high heat, throw the onions in. Let 'em get a little see-through (man, this recipe just gets more inappropriate...) and then let the mushrooms join them.
Important here - don't throw all the mushrooms in at one go. Six portobellos is a LOT of mushroom, and they do shrink and sweat, but they cook much better if you do 'em in batches so they're not crowding each other.
Get a bigass bowl to mix all your non-pasta ingredients in. Once all the mushrooms are done, throw them in the bowl and let them wait for the sausages to join the taste orgy. And don't throw away the juices - you want that liquid.
Putting water on to boil for your pasta at this point is a good plan, but keep in mind that the pasta does NOT need to be cooked the whole way, because you're baking it. Al dente at the farthest point. So don't start the pasta until about halfway through the sausages.
Speaking of them, skin the sausages. Easiest to just make a single line with a very sharp knife, then undress them like you're um, peeling a banana. Throw them in the medium-high hot bigass pan and break them up with a spatula until they're like ground meat - bite-sized for your dining convenience. Throw in the coarsely chopped garlic to keep them company. I added a little black pepper and "italian seasoning" (so mysterious) to them too. Keep tossing them around until they're good and brown, and the garlic's soft, then remove from pan to join the mushrooms and onions.
Once your mix is all together, throw the basil in and toss it all up. Let that sit and explore its inner gustatory beauty while you drain your pasta and ready some casserole dishes. First layer, pasta. Second layer, sausage mix. Third layer, use the slices of the tomatoes to create a fancyshmancy top to your pasta, then drizzle the whole damn thing with some tasty olive oil.
Throw in the oven and check after 15 min. Or, conversely, you can decide to broil it like I did and forget it's in there, and have an overly-caramelized top to your pasta. So trust me when I say, USE CAUTION with broiling. It does NOT take very long.
Pictures to come... maybe.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
The Hunger Games' - Lamb & Prune Stew
One of the best book series I've read lately is Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy. Not only is it my usual genre (Young Adult Fantasy/Fiction), but it combines a fast-packed action plot with scads of Roman History references. And being a Classics major, I couldn't help but devour it voraciously.
Speaking of devouring voraciously, one of the meals alluded to in the book is a Lamb Stew with Dried Plums and Honey. Now, I won't lie - I had to google extensively to find out that dried prunes ARE in fact dried plums. All prunes are plums; not all plums are prunes. But after doing that, I cobbled together a few recipes of Moroccan Tagines and Kormas and Mediterranean stews to get MY version of Katniss' favourite Capitol dish. Here's how she describes it:
"The stew's made with tender chunks of lamb and dried plums today. Perfect on the bed of wild rice."
Not too much to go on, but enough to inspire a creative response. Here's my version:
Katniss' Lamb Stew with Dried Prunes
2 tbsp. butter
1 1/2 lb. (approx .650kg) of stewing lamb (I used fresh Ontario lamb - yay local!) cut into bite-sized pieces
2 medium sized cooking onions, chopped
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. garam masala
1 pinch saffron (because I'm posh that way. And I have an in in Spain.)
1 1/2 to 2 cups stock, chicken or beef (I used homemade beef marrowbone stock)
1 big handful dried prunes/plums, cut into chunks (I say about half an inch squared, at most)
1 tbsp honey
salt to taste
Served on:
1 cup wild rice
1 cup brown basmati
2 cloves garlic
Set your oven at 350F. Then melt a tbsp. of the butter in a bigass saucepan. Get it up to medium-high/high heat to brown the lamb. Once lamb is browned, remove and pop into crockery - a tagine, a stoneware crock, something that'll go in the oven to slow-cook and not melt or burn you. When the pan's empty and medium-high hot again, throw the onions in. Toss them until translucent, then throw your spices in to get all fragrant - cinnamon, garam masala, saffron. Throw in the other tbsp. of butter if the pan's low on liquid. Once the onions start to golden and the scents are definitely flavouring the air, throw that mix in the crockery with your lamb.
Your pan is now probably covered with tasty brown goodness stuck to the bottom of the pan. To not waste this flavour, I throw some stock in here and dissolve it all up. Throw that stock and whatever else is needed to cover your lamb and onions in the crockery. Put the top on and pop it in the oven for 1 1/2 hours (90 min.). The trick to 'tender lamb' is cooking it a LONG time and making sure it's covered in liquid while it cooks; so once the time's up, check the liquid level, pop in the prunes and stick it in the oven AGAIN for another 3/4 of an hour (45 min.). You can put the rice on at this point too, as it doesn't take more than 45 min. I just cook it in the rice cooker, with the garlic clove peeled, but whole and squashed.
I like adding the salt and honey at the end, because getting that sweet/salty balance is tricky. But make sure you let it cool quite a bit before sampling - believe me when I say OW. Mouth burns when stew is right out of oven. If it's too liquidy, you can reduce it simply by taking the cover off and boiling it down on the element.
Serve over the cooked rice mix, and enjoy!
(Picture is on its way; the stew's currently in the oven)
Speaking of devouring voraciously, one of the meals alluded to in the book is a Lamb Stew with Dried Plums and Honey. Now, I won't lie - I had to google extensively to find out that dried prunes ARE in fact dried plums. All prunes are plums; not all plums are prunes. But after doing that, I cobbled together a few recipes of Moroccan Tagines and Kormas and Mediterranean stews to get MY version of Katniss' favourite Capitol dish. Here's how she describes it:
"The stew's made with tender chunks of lamb and dried plums today. Perfect on the bed of wild rice."
Not too much to go on, but enough to inspire a creative response. Here's my version:
Katniss' Lamb Stew with Dried Prunes
2 tbsp. butter
1 1/2 lb. (approx .650kg) of stewing lamb (I used fresh Ontario lamb - yay local!) cut into bite-sized pieces
2 medium sized cooking onions, chopped
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. garam masala
1 pinch saffron (because I'm posh that way. And I have an in in Spain.)
1 1/2 to 2 cups stock, chicken or beef (I used homemade beef marrowbone stock)
1 big handful dried prunes/plums, cut into chunks (I say about half an inch squared, at most)
1 tbsp honey
salt to taste
Served on:
1 cup wild rice
1 cup brown basmati
2 cloves garlic
Set your oven at 350F. Then melt a tbsp. of the butter in a bigass saucepan. Get it up to medium-high/high heat to brown the lamb. Once lamb is browned, remove and pop into crockery - a tagine, a stoneware crock, something that'll go in the oven to slow-cook and not melt or burn you. When the pan's empty and medium-high hot again, throw the onions in. Toss them until translucent, then throw your spices in to get all fragrant - cinnamon, garam masala, saffron. Throw in the other tbsp. of butter if the pan's low on liquid. Once the onions start to golden and the scents are definitely flavouring the air, throw that mix in the crockery with your lamb.
Your pan is now probably covered with tasty brown goodness stuck to the bottom of the pan. To not waste this flavour, I throw some stock in here and dissolve it all up. Throw that stock and whatever else is needed to cover your lamb and onions in the crockery. Put the top on and pop it in the oven for 1 1/2 hours (90 min.). The trick to 'tender lamb' is cooking it a LONG time and making sure it's covered in liquid while it cooks; so once the time's up, check the liquid level, pop in the prunes and stick it in the oven AGAIN for another 3/4 of an hour (45 min.). You can put the rice on at this point too, as it doesn't take more than 45 min. I just cook it in the rice cooker, with the garlic clove peeled, but whole and squashed.
I like adding the salt and honey at the end, because getting that sweet/salty balance is tricky. But make sure you let it cool quite a bit before sampling - believe me when I say OW. Mouth burns when stew is right out of oven. If it's too liquidy, you can reduce it simply by taking the cover off and boiling it down on the element.
Serve over the cooked rice mix, and enjoy!
(Picture is on its way; the stew's currently in the oven)
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Breakfast Paella Recreation Attempt
There's this fantastic café in Vancouver called the Medina Cafe. It has waffles with toppings that make you weep with happiness (orange & fig marmalade, milk chocolate & lavender, etc.) and coffee that's as good as anything found in Europe. My husband and I ate most mornings there on the Vancouver leg of our honeymoon.
One of his choices was a breakfast paella that used curried orzo instead of saffron rice, and included tomato, avocado and a fried egg. Not your average paella. After having a couple weekdays off this past week, it made me realize how rare it is to eat breakfast out. To me, it's more of an indulgence than a fancy dinner. Maybe it's just because I usually feel so sluggish in the mornings that my usual breakfast is a peanut butter & jam sandwich, or a naan bread toasted with cinnamon sugar on it (eaten on the go, the both of them) or something I pick up at work and eat at my desk.
Anyhow. This morning I set out to recreate the breakfast paella. Here's how it turned out:
I boiled up the orzo, shook a bit of curry powder and a small touch of garam masala on it, then stirred it up. Added avocado, tomato and some roasted red peppers (from a jar), then some crispy bacon and corn. I'm not a huge fan of corn, but I tossed it in the frying pan after the bacon (after draining most of the fat out) and it toasted nicely with a lovely flavour. Bacon is a miracleworker.
Now, I only ate half of this, or I would have burst, but it turned out very nicely indeed. The bacon was actually a substitute for the chorizo sausage that is near impossible to find here, and there was no fried egg on top, but it was a very good and very filling reproduction to start the day with.
One of his choices was a breakfast paella that used curried orzo instead of saffron rice, and included tomato, avocado and a fried egg. Not your average paella. After having a couple weekdays off this past week, it made me realize how rare it is to eat breakfast out. To me, it's more of an indulgence than a fancy dinner. Maybe it's just because I usually feel so sluggish in the mornings that my usual breakfast is a peanut butter & jam sandwich, or a naan bread toasted with cinnamon sugar on it (eaten on the go, the both of them) or something I pick up at work and eat at my desk.
Anyhow. This morning I set out to recreate the breakfast paella. Here's how it turned out:
I boiled up the orzo, shook a bit of curry powder and a small touch of garam masala on it, then stirred it up. Added avocado, tomato and some roasted red peppers (from a jar), then some crispy bacon and corn. I'm not a huge fan of corn, but I tossed it in the frying pan after the bacon (after draining most of the fat out) and it toasted nicely with a lovely flavour. Bacon is a miracleworker.
Now, I only ate half of this, or I would have burst, but it turned out very nicely indeed. The bacon was actually a substitute for the chorizo sausage that is near impossible to find here, and there was no fried egg on top, but it was a very good and very filling reproduction to start the day with.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Baked Fish Pasta
I was feeling experimental on Monday night. After picking up some haddock on Saturday's grocery run, I sautéed up two onions, one garlic clove, a handfull of fresh dill chopped, and threw in some bottled mushrooms (a great discovery at a local Italian import place) and tinned (drained) artichoke hearts, quartered. Once all mixed up in the pan, I threw the mixture in with some half-cooked pasta, then tossed in the uncooked chunks of haddock. Everything then was thrown into a couple of casserole dishes, and I used up some leftover bechamel from a week or so ago (thinned it out with some milk) by pouring it over everything. Covered in aluminum foil, thrown in the oven at 450 for 20 min, and it was done.
Experimenting usually either turns out great or comes out slightly disappointing. I confess - it came out slightly disappointing. But wait! It was kind of fixable! First off, I definitely could have cooked it a touch longer (I was worried about overcooking the fish, but that didn't seem to be an issue) to have the flavours mix together more. Second, it needed salt (easily remedied). Finally, I could have added a whole different dimension by covering it in lemon slices before baking it. I fixed this by simply squeezing some lemon juice on at the end. Not the same, but ah well. Once these tweaks were done, the dish was pretty solid.
The finished product:
Experimenting usually either turns out great or comes out slightly disappointing. I confess - it came out slightly disappointing. But wait! It was kind of fixable! First off, I definitely could have cooked it a touch longer (I was worried about overcooking the fish, but that didn't seem to be an issue) to have the flavours mix together more. Second, it needed salt (easily remedied). Finally, I could have added a whole different dimension by covering it in lemon slices before baking it. I fixed this by simply squeezing some lemon juice on at the end. Not the same, but ah well. Once these tweaks were done, the dish was pretty solid.
The finished product:
Sunday, June 19, 2011
A Big-ass Breakfast
There's something about Sunday mornings/afternoons that just begs a big-ass breakfast or brunch. So when I got home from church and looked in the fridge, I was ready to rock. I did a good ol' British fry-up, but I did try to make it a little healthier. So I chopped up the rest of the cilantro and did up some scrambled eggs, nice and soft (make 'em on a low to medium heat and stir constantly), then along with it some sautéed shiitake and some baked beans. Cut some toast up in pretty little strips, and tada!
If that doesn't fill you up, what will?
If that doesn't fill you up, what will?
Friday, June 17, 2011
What's with all the carrots?
I've fallen into bad habits. I had four very stout carrots sitting in the fridge from last weekend's grocery run, and hadn't done a thing with them. So tonight, searching for something light and vegetably to eat, I decided to tackle one of Jamie Oliver's salad recipes.
Now, anyone who knows me is aware of my distaste for most salads - especially when lettuce or greens are involved. But in Mr. Oliver's lovely book was a recipe for a carrot salad that looked quite tasty. But here's where my bad habits come in. I didn't have mandarin oranges. That's it - that's the extent of my sin. So I improvised.
May I present to you: Heather's carrot salad.
It consists of grated carrot, fresh chopped cilantro, prunes, sesame seeds and dressed with an emulsion of lime juice and walnut oil. Walnut oil is so my flavour of the month.
It turned out quite nicely. Quite nicely indeed. It's hard to stick to recipes when experiments turn out like this.
(ADDED)
My husband is still raving about it today, and he insisted I write the full recipe down somewhere so he can replicate it. Here we go:
salad:
4 large carrots, peeled
handful of fresh cilantro leaves
3 prunes
handful of sesame seeds
dressing:
1 lime, juiced
twice as much Walnut Oil
Grate the carrots into a big bowl. I don't like cilantro stems, so I pull the leaves off first, then chop them up. Throw them in the bowl too. Halve the prunes lengthwise then slice them finely into strips (half a cm wide). I find that throwing the prune bits in little by little and tossing along the way is best, so that they don't stick to each other. Toss in the sesame seeds. Mix the whole thing up with your hands. To make the dressing, combine the juice and oil in a little jar or plastic container and shake vigourously. Once well mixed, drizze two or three tablespoonsworth over the salad. Toss to coat. And you're done!
Now, anyone who knows me is aware of my distaste for most salads - especially when lettuce or greens are involved. But in Mr. Oliver's lovely book was a recipe for a carrot salad that looked quite tasty. But here's where my bad habits come in. I didn't have mandarin oranges. That's it - that's the extent of my sin. So I improvised.
May I present to you: Heather's carrot salad.
It consists of grated carrot, fresh chopped cilantro, prunes, sesame seeds and dressed with an emulsion of lime juice and walnut oil. Walnut oil is so my flavour of the month.
It turned out quite nicely. Quite nicely indeed. It's hard to stick to recipes when experiments turn out like this.
(ADDED)
My husband is still raving about it today, and he insisted I write the full recipe down somewhere so he can replicate it. Here we go:
salad:
4 large carrots, peeled
handful of fresh cilantro leaves
3 prunes
handful of sesame seeds
dressing:
1 lime, juiced
twice as much Walnut Oil
Grate the carrots into a big bowl. I don't like cilantro stems, so I pull the leaves off first, then chop them up. Throw them in the bowl too. Halve the prunes lengthwise then slice them finely into strips (half a cm wide). I find that throwing the prune bits in little by little and tossing along the way is best, so that they don't stick to each other. Toss in the sesame seeds. Mix the whole thing up with your hands. To make the dressing, combine the juice and oil in a little jar or plastic container and shake vigourously. Once well mixed, drizze two or three tablespoonsworth over the salad. Toss to coat. And you're done!
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Indian Curry - where have you been all my life?
Okay, so I've had Indian before. I've really enjoyed it. My residence-mates and I used to look forward to Butter Chicken night at Fung (our University dining hall) whenever it came around. And I've had it in restaurants occasionally - Toronto has such excellent options...
But this is the first time I've cooked it. And it's all thanks to Jamie Oliver.
See, I've just bought the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution Cookbook, and it challenges you to learn one recipe from each chapter by heart and then teach it to four more willingvictims people. More than a challenge, actually - it wants you to pledge.
Long story short, I haven't pledged yet, but I did decide today would be a good time to try one of the recipes. I decided to branch out from my usual improv dinner to Pork Korma. I picked up some fresh cilantro, a no-antibiotic pork tenderloin, some Patak curry paste and natural yoghurt at Sobeys, and put rice on the minute I got home.
Result: a flavour Eden. How on earth did I forget that Indian food tastes this good?
But this is the first time I've cooked it. And it's all thanks to Jamie Oliver.
See, I've just bought the Jamie Oliver Food Revolution Cookbook, and it challenges you to learn one recipe from each chapter by heart and then teach it to four more willing
Long story short, I haven't pledged yet, but I did decide today would be a good time to try one of the recipes. I decided to branch out from my usual improv dinner to Pork Korma. I picked up some fresh cilantro, a no-antibiotic pork tenderloin, some Patak curry paste and natural yoghurt at Sobeys, and put rice on the minute I got home.
Result: a flavour Eden. How on earth did I forget that Indian food tastes this good?
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