Over lockdown we’ve been getting deliveries from Grainge Market which have been tremendous. The veg boxes always come with a net of garlic bulbs and so we’ve got quite a stash.
One of my favorite cookbooks at the moment (I collect them so we have a few) is Perfect Plates in 5 Ingredients by John Whaite and recently we ate the chickpeas cooked with chorizo and cider, a marvelously savoury dish.
It’s been an amazing summer for fruit and during lockdown I’ve been walking a lot round a local industrial estate, listening to podcasts and occationally picking fruit.
This week I read an artcle about redbeans and rice which looked delicious. I didn’t have any of the ingrediants, but the idea of soupy beans cooked with strong flavours and pork sounded great so I improvised.
I’ve always strayed away from baba ghanoush on menus because I thought it would be slimy. Last weeks vegetable box included a pair of big purple aubergines and I didn’t want them to go to waste.
This week the content of our veg box lead to a super dinner. Firstly we had a tonne of garlic (2 nets, 12+ bulbs) and we had fresh aubergines, avocado, tomatoes and a massive loaf of bread.
I’ve written about shin beef chilli in the past, but when a big chunk of shin landed in our meatbox I couldn’t resist giving it the InstantPot treatment.
I saw this Mongolian Beef recipe this morning and it ticked all the boxes, sweat, sharp, crispy fried bits and such lovely colours, so it went on my mental list to make.
This week we got a great delivery from Grainger Market, salad, fruit and an Indian Cookbox from Hector Hall. I’ve always loved dhal, it’s great comfort food.
This is probably a complete travisty, but it’s a dead easy and super tasty. The InstantPot left-right-left of saute, pressure cook, saute is an absolute winner.
driving home this afternoon I caght a bit of Radio4s Food Programme about pasties and couldn’t resist cooking some up this evening. I’ve spent a week in Minsk with work and one of the things I’ve really enjoyed (and that reminded me of eating in Czech Republic in the late 90s) was the use of cumin, so I decided to break it out tonight.
This week I ran across The Cury Guy’s spicy chicken wings and couldn’t resist. Whenever I buy chicken breasts from Block’n’Bottle the wing is still attached.
Beanbeans are a staple of Mexican and texmex food, but they’re not that common in the UK. You can get them in tins but they’re faily expensive and they’ve never had the texture I remember.
I’ve love pastrami ever since I first ticked a food tourism box by going to Katz Deli, being overwhelms by it all but managing to order it on rye, and fell in love.
Early this week I saw a tweet mabout a Smitten Kitchen post from last year for braised ginger meatballs in coconut broth which looked excellent and I was excited to try it when I got home.
The more I use the Instant Pot, the more I appreciate being able to easily use different cooking techniques without doing more washing up. Recently I’ve used it a few times to make curries and uncovered the left-right-left of Instant Pot cookery: saute - pressure cook - saute.
Whilst noodling through John Whaite’s very excellent Comfort I ran across his fig, prune and port tart tatin. I’ve alwaysrather enjoyed tart tatin, with it’s unctuous and gooey fruits and pleasingly crisp base/top, and it’s the time of year when dired fruits are often on offer in the supermarkets.
I remember this from growing up, but didn’t know where it came from. A bit of googling suggests it was probably from Nigella Christmas. The original reciepe calls for snipped sage leaves.
You will need For the dough 200g of plain flour 60g fat (I used some lard) About 6 tablespoons of cold water For the filling In total it should add up to a couple of big handfuls
Instance I joined the Cult of Instant Pot I’ve become a fulltime convert. The thing I love about it most is having everything in one pot which does everything.
This is an enriched bread dough, with a bunch of seasonal fruit, a dose of spice and some light brown sugar. I threw in a tangarine too, which lead to too much moisture and to load sinking in the middle, but it tasted great.
Roughly this time last year I made 5 ingrediant tomato meatballs for the first time and it is excellent, we’ve had it numerous times. Tonight I decided to enrich it a little with some leftover double cream and tweak the spice mix a bit.
Yet more Completely Perfect for a Saturday tea, but this time I went off piste when following the perfect sausage rolls. I love a sausage roll, they’re much better than the sad limp party food they are thought of as.
I’m continuing to work my way though Felicity Cloake’s excellent Completely Perfect and for a Saturday night what’s more fitting than the perfect chicken tikka masala with the perfect naan.
