Vegged-up. Gosh, how demotic as a good friend would probably say.
My one flame cookery has tended to be a meat-centred thing, but inspired it has to be said by HF-W's veg book, and for reasons explored in another recent post, we've cut down on meat (not cut it out) and pushed the veg quota here. I'm a big fan of what our American cousins would call the dinner salad too, so put those factors together with the one flame idea and you end up with some substantial meatless feasts.
Best of those has to be the lentil-centric salad (lentil-centric being like London centric, but different in that one is concerned with a lot of rather greyish vegetables all looking alike with no space between them, the other has lentils. Boom-tish, I'm here all week).
In the trusty Le Creuset cast iron pan a chopped onion is fried gently, with a chopped red pepper for colour, some garlic sliced, then a posh sachet of lentils. Had some been available I'd have added a few cubes of bacon or slices of chorizo (people who pronounce that cho-ritz-o now quite high up my list of those due to die horribly when I rise to supreme power). So long as the onion and garlic are cooked it's just a case of warming the rest through, not even getting them hot (how very continental), as you eat this warm.
Lettuce or rocket or lamb's lettuce on the plate the lentil mix is added, some Parmesan shavings and walnuts put on top (with enough time then for the oil in the nuts to warm through a bit - I am not a fan of toasting them), and the lot dressed with a vinaigrette. It's the basis for further experimentation (adulteration?) - goats cheese or blue cheese are good, tomatoes go nicely, black olives and hard-boiled eggs fit in too. So long as there are not too many ingredients (in which case it evolves into another nice Americanism, the garbage salad) it remains a good solid filler-upper, and one that can be on the table in 15 minutes.
Does this count as austerity cooking? As Merchant Gourmet lentils (for 'tis he) only cost about £1.50, and the rest if no bacon or chorizo used would add another £1.50 tops, that's dinner for two or three for £3.
Showing posts with label Le Creuset. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Le Creuset. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Roast Beef Rides Again
One of the supermarkets has been running a campaign - actually a rather laudable one - showing people that a roast will do more than the Sunday lunch for which it was bought. Roast chicken is an austerity staple, as a decent bird will give you the roast, a curry/risotto/wrap/sandwiches, and broth or at least stock made with the carcase. Beef is no slouch on the second coming front either.
Tonight we will be having one of my takes on leftover topside, and almost as importantly on the gravy that graced it. We ate this a fortnight back and it was enough of a hit for there to be requests for it to be repeated with the excellent beef (Henry Rowntree's superb Aberdeen Angus, and no he doesn't sponsor me, it's just that even a teenager notices the difference) remaining after we feasted post the England - Wales match.
The gravy (ultra-garlicky as I roasted a whole head with the beef, and squidged the soft contents into the meat juices) will be flavoured with smoked paprika, a chilli chopped very finely, Worcestershire sauce, some ground cumin, cayenne, and plenty of pepper. The beef, chopped into 5mm dice, is mixed with its gravy and a tin of Heinz beans, and the resulting mass used to fill wraps that fill a 300mm x 200mm cast iron dish perfectly. Atop this goes a sauce made with tinned toms cooked with a chopped onion and flavoured like the filling, with loads of grated cheese - cheddar and Parmesan - on top.
Cooked in a 180C oven for 30 - 40 minutes (when the cheese is browning it's ready, though I tend to warm the Le Creuset cast-iron dish over a low flame first to speed things up and ensure it is piping hot inside as well as out-) it has the added benefit of looking rather lovely.
The result is filling, rich in vegetables, and tastes good. But then in our family lore most things taste good with Parmesan. And it doesn't need a £1 packet of ready-mix fajita magic dust to give it a Tex-Mex touch.
I'll try to remember to take a photo or two.
Tonight we will be having one of my takes on leftover topside, and almost as importantly on the gravy that graced it. We ate this a fortnight back and it was enough of a hit for there to be requests for it to be repeated with the excellent beef (Henry Rowntree's superb Aberdeen Angus, and no he doesn't sponsor me, it's just that even a teenager notices the difference) remaining after we feasted post the England - Wales match.
The gravy (ultra-garlicky as I roasted a whole head with the beef, and squidged the soft contents into the meat juices) will be flavoured with smoked paprika, a chilli chopped very finely, Worcestershire sauce, some ground cumin, cayenne, and plenty of pepper. The beef, chopped into 5mm dice, is mixed with its gravy and a tin of Heinz beans, and the resulting mass used to fill wraps that fill a 300mm x 200mm cast iron dish perfectly. Atop this goes a sauce made with tinned toms cooked with a chopped onion and flavoured like the filling, with loads of grated cheese - cheddar and Parmesan - on top.
Cooked in a 180C oven for 30 - 40 minutes (when the cheese is browning it's ready, though I tend to warm the Le Creuset cast-iron dish over a low flame first to speed things up and ensure it is piping hot inside as well as out-) it has the added benefit of looking rather lovely.
The result is filling, rich in vegetables, and tastes good. But then in our family lore most things taste good with Parmesan. And it doesn't need a £1 packet of ready-mix fajita magic dust to give it a Tex-Mex touch.
I'll try to remember to take a photo or two.
Monday, 25 November 2013
Don't Waste That Pumpkin
How many of the pumpkins bought for Halloween actually get used for food? Even a good percentage of the many squashes grown on the nation's allotments probably get stuck in a bowl on the table as a nice natural decoration to be thrown away when they fall to bits. I felt very virtuous yesterday using a Turk's Turban squash as part of our Sunday roast extravaganza. And it was lovely.
The fruit, for such it is pedants, had been sitting in our conservatory for a month, picked to avoid being nicked before halloween, then playing the role of something I'd get round to eventually, which turned out to be yesterday.
Thanks to Nigel Slater, as ever fab ideas, annoying writing: I got the basic idea from his Tender Part 1.
The squash was peeled, cleaned of stingy bits and seeds, and cut into one inch dice (that's 2.54cm dice for those of a modern bent), then rolled in loads of crushed garlic, thyme from outside the back door, and Maldon salt (how very Middle Class is that?). Roasted (in a solid Le Creuset dish so piling exotic bourgeois onto solid Middle Class) along with the chicken and some red onions to make use of the oven it smelled fantastic, the outside crisping and garlicky the inside soft and melting.
This was another of those dishes that not only tastes good, but looks superb, a rich sunshine gold, something to raise the spirits at this time of the year when it seems to go dark about 15 minutes after dawn.
The fruit, for such it is pedants, had been sitting in our conservatory for a month, picked to avoid being nicked before halloween, then playing the role of something I'd get round to eventually, which turned out to be yesterday.
Thanks to Nigel Slater, as ever fab ideas, annoying writing: I got the basic idea from his Tender Part 1.
The squash was peeled, cleaned of stingy bits and seeds, and cut into one inch dice (that's 2.54cm dice for those of a modern bent), then rolled in loads of crushed garlic, thyme from outside the back door, and Maldon salt (how very Middle Class is that?). Roasted (in a solid Le Creuset dish so piling exotic bourgeois onto solid Middle Class) along with the chicken and some red onions to make use of the oven it smelled fantastic, the outside crisping and garlicky the inside soft and melting.
This was another of those dishes that not only tastes good, but looks superb, a rich sunshine gold, something to raise the spirits at this time of the year when it seems to go dark about 15 minutes after dawn.
Wednesday, 8 May 2013
One Pot Cooking and Attention Spans
Unlike many old farts I think that attention spans have not changed over the years. There are more things to do maybe, so people flit from one to another, but they pay attention while doing them. I do wonder if the exception is in the kitchen, where if the TV ads are to be believed we all want something that can be reheated in seconds. Or maybe prefer to have something greasy delivered to our doors (is it harsh to believe that in a sensible world those involved in the Just Eat campaign would be disemboweled? maybe a tad).
I did a one pot main course yesterday that did need looking at. It wasn't a one flame jobbie though, as it started on a burner, moved to the oven, then was finished on the hob again. It could not just be forgotten.
In an oval Le Creuset dish I browned three teeny lamb chops. When their fat had run a little I added some quartered mushrooms, then into the 180C oven for 15 minutes. Out of the oven, drop in a handful or two of frozen peas, a splash of boiling water and a few scraps of butter, and onto the hob to simmer until the peas are done. The sauce if such it was with the lamb fat and the liquid that had come out of the mushrooms proved tasty enough that our bread dipped it all up.
As I love cooking (and eating) that was not a chore. Indeed time in the kitchen is for me a pleasure. But it did require attention, and my presence for most of the process.
I did a one pot main course yesterday that did need looking at. It wasn't a one flame jobbie though, as it started on a burner, moved to the oven, then was finished on the hob again. It could not just be forgotten.
In an oval Le Creuset dish I browned three teeny lamb chops. When their fat had run a little I added some quartered mushrooms, then into the 180C oven for 15 minutes. Out of the oven, drop in a handful or two of frozen peas, a splash of boiling water and a few scraps of butter, and onto the hob to simmer until the peas are done. The sauce if such it was with the lamb fat and the liquid that had come out of the mushrooms proved tasty enough that our bread dipped it all up.
As I love cooking (and eating) that was not a chore. Indeed time in the kitchen is for me a pleasure. But it did require attention, and my presence for most of the process.
Thursday, 21 March 2013
The Pie
Last night I cooked the pie. Not a pie, the pie. It was one of those sadly all too rare occasions when something sublime results from ordinary labours in the kitchen.
Some twenty years or more ago I made the soup, a fish soup whose stock enriched with anchovies was deep and rich and seasoned to perfection, whose fish-flesh was done to creamy rightness and no more, whose vegetables retained toothsome crispness without any hint of the raw.
Neither of those dishes was innovative, or had fancy flourishes. But they were utterly delicious. In fact, they were probably my ideals because they were ordinary things done exactly right. That is perhaps why I am so often disappointed by restaurants it being cheffy to tamper, add the unique, the unusual, the previously unthought of touch. Unthought of because so often they don't go. Last year in and around Parma was happily different, the food in three separate places proud to be based on hundreds of years of tradition, skill, and judgement, the ingredients used wisely. So for example I ate cappelini in brodo that will forevermore be the version of that simple delight for me.
The pie by the way was made with steak bought from Robinson's butcher's shop in Chipping, the cubed meat browned before joining onion, carrot and turnip already fried until beginning to colour, then lots of whole medium-sized mushroom added. I am increasingly convinced that where possible mushrooms should be kept whole, they keep their flavour better that way. The cooking liquor was just water to which I added a tsp of Bovril and a glug of rum, then thickened with cornflour ("How horribly unfashionable darling, nobody uses flour let alone cornflour these days", to which my response, as a master of repartee, is "Naff off, it works.").
This filling was stewed in the morning at 150 centigrade for two and a half hours, then when cool put in the fridge until used at night, heated until warm and covered with a cheaty Sainsbury's puff pastry lid. The pie, in its Le Creuset metal dish, was cooked at 220 centigrade for 20 minutes (not the 190 for 10 minutes suggested on the pack) and emerged with top crisp and interior hot. Hot and delicious. It was the pie.
Years ago I saw a French film where a man who had trained and practiced for years to do the perfect Japanese tea ceremony achieved his goal, and immediately died, his life complete. Silly sod. I prefer to think of how sometime in the future I can repeat the experience.
Some twenty years or more ago I made the soup, a fish soup whose stock enriched with anchovies was deep and rich and seasoned to perfection, whose fish-flesh was done to creamy rightness and no more, whose vegetables retained toothsome crispness without any hint of the raw.
Neither of those dishes was innovative, or had fancy flourishes. But they were utterly delicious. In fact, they were probably my ideals because they were ordinary things done exactly right. That is perhaps why I am so often disappointed by restaurants it being cheffy to tamper, add the unique, the unusual, the previously unthought of touch. Unthought of because so often they don't go. Last year in and around Parma was happily different, the food in three separate places proud to be based on hundreds of years of tradition, skill, and judgement, the ingredients used wisely. So for example I ate cappelini in brodo that will forevermore be the version of that simple delight for me.
The pie by the way was made with steak bought from Robinson's butcher's shop in Chipping, the cubed meat browned before joining onion, carrot and turnip already fried until beginning to colour, then lots of whole medium-sized mushroom added. I am increasingly convinced that where possible mushrooms should be kept whole, they keep their flavour better that way. The cooking liquor was just water to which I added a tsp of Bovril and a glug of rum, then thickened with cornflour ("How horribly unfashionable darling, nobody uses flour let alone cornflour these days", to which my response, as a master of repartee, is "Naff off, it works.").
This filling was stewed in the morning at 150 centigrade for two and a half hours, then when cool put in the fridge until used at night, heated until warm and covered with a cheaty Sainsbury's puff pastry lid. The pie, in its Le Creuset metal dish, was cooked at 220 centigrade for 20 minutes (not the 190 for 10 minutes suggested on the pack) and emerged with top crisp and interior hot. Hot and delicious. It was the pie.
Years ago I saw a French film where a man who had trained and practiced for years to do the perfect Japanese tea ceremony achieved his goal, and immediately died, his life complete. Silly sod. I prefer to think of how sometime in the future I can repeat the experience.
Sunday, 4 November 2012
Onions and Le Creuset - Both Bargains
We had our annual bonfire do last night, feeding I think 19 in all. The biggest culinary hit was a simple accompaniment to a big bit of plain boiled gammon, onions in a cheesy bechamel. The idea was lifted from Nigel Slater, though I think his version was without cheese. I love the breadth of his ideas, and his frequent focus on things other than meat, but can't abide his writing style as it has evolved over the last few books. Still, he is probably not worried given I have at least five of his tomes.
The dish was made by peeling medium-sized onions and cooking them in boiling water for about 25 minutes, then halving them, placing them like little domes in two Le Creuset cast iron oval dishes, and covering them in a bechamel sauce before finishing in the oven for half an hour at 180C, by which time the surface was starting to brown and bubble.
Milk for the bechamel was infused in the morning (thinking ahead as it was a party) with onion, carrot, bay and nutmeg, and the sauce made in the usual way, on the thin side as the cheese then added would give it extra body anyhow. At the end of the evening there was some gammon left, about half the pate (too much bacon in it, a sin Elizabeth David railed against), but not a scrap of cheesy onion (nor a single sausage, that standby of the bonfire party). Sternest critic rightly said later that the onion was a touch watery, so I'd probably cook them for just 15 minutes in future and rely on the oven to finish them off.
Ten onions cost about £0.75, the milk and cheese maybe £1, so it was a cheap and tasty success, a bargain. As were those Le Creuset dishes about 25 years ago. Good cookware lasts, and helps the cook. I have two sets of pans, one stainless steel, the other LC cast iron, both bought in the late 1980s, and both pretty forgiving of wavering attention. They cost quite a bit back then, but had we chosen cheapo options with thin bases and delicate lids they'd have died at best three years later, and would have burned half the things cooked in them.
Biggest firework hit btw was Molten Madness from Sainsbury's, brought by a friend. It was roughly the size and weight of a fridge, and effectively laid down an artillery barrage for five minutes. Le Creuset Soup Pot with Lid, 2-3/4 quart - Cherry (Google Affiliate Ad)
The dish was made by peeling medium-sized onions and cooking them in boiling water for about 25 minutes, then halving them, placing them like little domes in two Le Creuset cast iron oval dishes, and covering them in a bechamel sauce before finishing in the oven for half an hour at 180C, by which time the surface was starting to brown and bubble.
Milk for the bechamel was infused in the morning (thinking ahead as it was a party) with onion, carrot, bay and nutmeg, and the sauce made in the usual way, on the thin side as the cheese then added would give it extra body anyhow. At the end of the evening there was some gammon left, about half the pate (too much bacon in it, a sin Elizabeth David railed against), but not a scrap of cheesy onion (nor a single sausage, that standby of the bonfire party). Sternest critic rightly said later that the onion was a touch watery, so I'd probably cook them for just 15 minutes in future and rely on the oven to finish them off.
Ten onions cost about £0.75, the milk and cheese maybe £1, so it was a cheap and tasty success, a bargain. As were those Le Creuset dishes about 25 years ago. Good cookware lasts, and helps the cook. I have two sets of pans, one stainless steel, the other LC cast iron, both bought in the late 1980s, and both pretty forgiving of wavering attention. They cost quite a bit back then, but had we chosen cheapo options with thin bases and delicate lids they'd have died at best three years later, and would have burned half the things cooked in them.
Biggest firework hit btw was Molten Madness from Sainsbury's, brought by a friend. It was roughly the size and weight of a fridge, and effectively laid down an artillery barrage for five minutes. Le Creuset Soup Pot with Lid, 2-3/4 quart - Cherry (Google Affiliate Ad)
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