Sweet Chilli Salmon

Barely a recipe at all, this just shows off one of my favourite condiments of all time.

Put some salmon fillets or steaks into a bowl, with one tablespoon of sweet chilli sauce per piece of fish. Let them sit at room temperature for about an hour, turning if you can remember. A teensy splodge of neutral vegetable oil in the frypan, and then fry. (I do flesh side down for 2-3 mins, then skin side until a bit of white salmon fat starts to ooze out the sides and the middle is still looking very slightly translucent.)

Job done.

(Don’t serve with anything more complex than a green salad.)

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Onion Marmalade

It’s fashionable to refer to this stuff as “onion marmalade” or “onion jam”. “Relish”, “chutney”, or “goop” might be closer. This is great for serving with pâté, cheese or sausages.

In a decent sized frypan, melt 25g butter, and add 1 tbsp mustard seeds. You can also add a pinch of chilli flakes, and/or a whole clove of garlic, peeled and squished but not chopped, which you remove after five mins. Fry gently for about a minute, and then add 500g brown onions, peeled, halved and sliced, well, not finely, but not roughly either. Red onions are good for this as well. Oh, and a pinch of salt.

Fry on a medium heat, moving the onion around until it’s soft and starting to colour. This will take around five minutes. Easier to manipulate the onion with a pair of barbecue tongs.

Once that’s done, add 75mL water and 50g muscovado sugar. This will start boiling almost immediately – reduce the heat so it’s gently burbling to itself, and cover. Leave for 20 mins, stirring occasionally. Be vigilant – if all the water evaporates the sugar will burn.

Now, add 150ml red wine, and 75ml wine or cider vinegar. Bring this  back to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. It’ll probably take twenty minutes for the liquid to reduce by half. To test whether it’s done, stick a wooden spoon or spatula into the pan, and drag it along the bottom, to create a trench. Does the liquid immediately rush in to fill the gap? Not done. Does the liquid hesitate slightly, before rushing in? Better. Is the liquid a little reluctant? Done!

Pop this into a clean jar, seal, and leave in the cupboard for about 24 hours before serving. This gives it chance to mellow and mature, as it doesn’t taste very nice the second it has been made. If your jar has been vigorously sterilised, as per jam making, then it will keep for months.

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Korma Chameleon

A quintessentially English dish, which comes from some hastily scribbled notes made in the mid nineties. Make this with skinless chicken breasts, or pork fillets. You could also use some diced lamb leg. If you’re doing a vegetable version, some hacked up butternut squash and broccoli would be good.

This isn’t a quick fix meal, as you need to make the marinade, do the marinating, and then bake the results, but, with a bit of planning this can be really handy, as you can make the marinade in advance, marinate during the day when you’re at work, and then simply bung it in the oven in the evening.

I liquidise the marinade by shoving the hand blender into the saucepan, which is a lot less washing up than transferring everything to the food processor. If that doesn’t appeal, then just make sure you chop everything finely.

You’ll need:

• 25g butter (or ghee, or vegetable oil, but not olive oil as it would taste really, really wrong here)
• 200mL natural (“Greek”) yoghurt – the important thing here is that it needs to be live
• 150mL cream, either cow or coconut (vary the ratio of yoghurt to cream depending on your tastes)
• 4 cloves of garlic, more if you fancy
• enough chilli to add excitement (maybe a level teaspoon chilli flakes, one small vicious chilli, or a couple of larger mild ones)
• 1 large onion
• 50g ground almonds (or cashews or both)
• ¼ teaspoon turmeric
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon crushed cardamom seeds
• a bunch of coriander (both leaves and stalks)
  …oh, and…
• 500g meat with the fat removed, and chopped up into 1 inch pieces, or about 500g of vegetables

Using a small saucepan, fry the (peeled, chopped) onion in the butter for about 10 minutes. You’re looking for a deep golden colour, so don’t be timid. Don’t be so bold you burn them.

Add the (peeled, sliced) garlic and chilli, frying until the garlic is translucent. Add the turmeric, ginger and cardamom. Fry for another half a minute, then add the coriander stalks, and almonds. Turn off the heat and add the cream and yoghurt. It will smell quite disgusting, but don’t lose heart, it just needs to cook.

You could refrigerate or freeze this mixture. Or even make it in bulk.

Place meat/veg and the sauce in an oven proof dish, and cover with enough marinade to coat everything, but not drown it. Any leftover marinade can go in the freezer for another time. Marinate for one, preferably two, hours at room temperature or all day in the fridge.

Assuming you’re using chicken, about 30 minutes in the oven at 180ºC should do. Veg might need a little longer to soften up, and I think lamb would benefit from longer at a lower temperature. Anyway, check periodically after 20 minutes just to make sure.

Once it’s done, stir in as much of the chopped up coriander leaves as you feel necessary, and maybe garnish with some toasted almonds, and a squirt of lemon juice. Rice or naan.

And cold, cold beer, of course.

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You could also thread the pieces of meat onto skewers and barbecue them instead.

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As I said, quite an English dish. For some proper kormas, and many other wonderful things, take a look at 50 Great Curries of India by Camellia Panjabi, which is an intelligent and accessible overview of Indian cuisine. (The second edition apparently corrects some of the woeful typos in the first.)

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Puttanesca II

This is highly offensive and will render you unfit for civilised company.

Peel, finely slice, and fry four cloves of garlic in two tablespoons olive oil. Add a generous pinch of chilli flakes and wait for the garlic to get slightly translucent and golden about the edges. Tip in a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, and four anchovy fillets. Simmer for about 20 minutes to reduce by half. Check the seasoning: will probably need a good grind of pepper; but no extra salt.

Serve with linguine and plenty of parmesan.

Makes enough to serve a single misanthrope.

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Cassoulet

Let’s forget about confit of duck, goose fat, and all the fancy stuff. Cassoulet is about fat and beans, so today’s is done with sausages and bacon. Annoyingly, the beans need to be the dried ones, so you will have to soak them. Tinned beans would turn to mush during the cooking. Delia makes a good point that if you’re using sausages, make sure the meat content is reasonably high, as bready sausages will also collapse.

I’m using the following (feeds four with seconds and leftovers):

• six Toulouse sausages (about 400g)
• 250g dried haricot beans
• an onion, a couple of carrots, and a couple of sticks of celery; all chopped up (a similar weight to the sausages)
• four cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
• about 75g tasty bacon of some sort chopped into quarter inch cubes (a single vacuum pack of cubed pancetta ideal)
• a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, drained – if we leave the juice then it’s too tomatoey and starts to resemble high class baked beans
• two bay leaves
• about a teaspoon dried thyme (or half a bunch fresh)

The pot. Pick a large one that’s good for the oven and the stove top, as we’re visiting both locations.

The beans need to be soaked in a litre of cold water, overnight, after which they’ll double in mass. (St Delia mentions the idea of putting the beans in cold water in a saucepan, bringing to the boil, turning the heat off and leaving for three hours as a way to accelerate the process.)

Once that’s done, change the water, apply some heat and get them going at a vicious boil for 15 minutes. After that, reduce to a simmer, and pop them on them on the back burner, both literally and figuratively. (You’ll need the front of the stove later.)

Crank the oven up to 160ºC, putting the sausages and bacon into the pot and the pot into the oven. Keep an eye on them, turning the sausages occasionally so we get an all over tan. After about half an hour, the sausages will be done enough for our purposes, so transfer the pot to the hob, on a low heat. Also, at this point, the beans will have been simmering for about 30 minutes, leave ‘em on the back burner, ready for action in a moment.

(But don’t turn off the oven.)

Remove the sausages from the pot, and set to one side. Tip the veg into the pot, and gently fry in the fat that will have been exuded by the pig. After about five minutes add the garlic, and fry until translucent; about two minutes. (Best way to do this is shove the veg to one side so there’s a small exposed bit of the bottom of the pan where the garlic can fry. A splash of olive oil to assist if required.)

Deglaze with a splash of wine (white or red, or failing that some hot water) and then add the beans plus enough of the cooking liquid to almost-but-not-quite cover everything. Think runny, rather than soupy. Herbs, salt, pepper.

Return the sausages on top. I’d slice the sausages into three or four pieces each. Return to the oven for another two hours, lowering the temperature to about 140ºC. Leave the pot uncovered so the top gradually darkens and becomes sticky. Pretty much impossible to overdo, but check the liquid levels every so often, and if necessary, top up from a freshly boiled jug.

Despite every town in the south of France claiming that it (and it alone) is the Home of Cassoulet, there’s no definitive recipe. You could…

• sprinkle some breadcrumbs on top about 30 minutes before it’s done
• double the quantity of sausage
• do it with pork belly cut up into two inch cubes instead of the sausages – the pork belly will need much longer – at least an hour – and a splash of water in the bottom of the pot – you might even want to do the pork belly for three hours so it totally breaks down

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The Major is threatening to feed us with his cassoulet, which is a far superior product, and will feature his very own confit of duck. (I shall report back.)

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Beef Stew

Saturday morning has commenced with a headache, a mound of unwashed dishes, and a bunch of bills in the letterbox. I climb into the remaining three items of clean clothing on the premises and visit the bakery for an emergency lattè. Thence the posh supermarket for a plastic bag of ready-to-go casserole vegetables and a plastic bag of braising beef. After ten minutes’ work, they are merrily burbling away in the oven, in my grandest casserole. The flat fills with heavenly smells, which make the morning’s laundering, washing and hoovering pass with less than the expected trauma.

This dish requires one pot and one spoon. Here’s what you need.

• 500g root vegetables, washed, peeled and chopped, or a bag of same from the supermarket – mine contained swede, onion, carrot and leek
• 500g stewing steak, chopped into rough cubes
• a glass of red wine
• four cloves of garlic, peeled
• thyme (dried is alright) and a few bay leaves

Fry the meat in a mixture of butter and oil, until browned on the outside, seasoning with salt and pepper as you go. Set aside, and then fry the veg, adding more fat if necessary. Return the meat, sprinkle with about a tablespoon (15g) of plain flour, and stir like mad. (You could toss the meat in the flour to begin with, but I don’t think it makes much difference.)

Add the wine, and stir like mad, incorporating any flour that’s stuck to the bottom of the pot into the liquid. Cover with boiling water from the jug, and some posh powdered stock, e.g. Marigold Bouillon. Add the garlic, a bay leaf or two, and the thyme. Maybe a tablespoon of tomato paste; more for colour than anything else. On this occasion, I popped in a large dried chilli (not chopped) which I fished out before serving: added a pleasant zing to the proceedings.

In my case, I then pop the lid on and consign the pot to the oven (140ºC, fan forced) for the next two hours. If you have a gas ring you trust, you could instead leave it on the hob, turned down nice and low. The aim is for a gentle simmer, with the occasional bubble lazily erupting on the surface.

After two hours, check the seasoning. The meat should have collapsed by this point, if not, another hour won’t hurt.

Variations

Use Guinness instead of wine.

Use lots of wine – Pomiane mentions a litre – and no stock. (Sans doute un litron de la gros rouge qui tache et pousse au crime.)

Whole baby onions, if you can be motivated to peel them.

Beware of spuds. Baby Charlottes work well, floury potatoes will collapse and turn the whole thing into starchy beef concrete.

Do it with lamb shanks; one per guest. The bones will ooze wonderful things into your stew. (Browning the lamb shanks first is harder work.)

Spanish Rice

I suspect this isn’t actually Spanish. It works nicely with the leftover chilli in the fridge.

Peel and chop a clove of garlic, and fry in a tablespoon of olive oil. Add 200g long grain rice, and continue to fry for about three minutes. Pour over 450mL boiling water, add a scant half teaspoon of paprika, a teaspoon of turmeric, a pinch of salt and, optionally, a tablespoon of tomato paste. Return to the boil, then reduce the heat to the barest simmer.

Cover and leave for around 15 mins. The ideal result is that all the liquid has been absorbed, the rice on top is soft and fluffy, and, even better, the rice on the bottom is verging on burnt.

The boiling water could be replaced with chicken stock if you’re feeling festive.

You might want to fry some slivered almonds with the garlic, and stir in some coriander leaves just before serving.

Chilli

Back in the day, when grander households than ours referred to this as “chilly con carny”, it was simply known by my parents as mince ‘n’ beans. Of course, this is simply an excuse to then eat vast amounts of cheese, sour cream and guacamole. (Which we certainly didn’t have when I was a kid.)

I’m fairly sure this is neither Mexican, nor even Texmexican, but it’s tasty.

Key ingredients, for this flavour, are the dried oregano and cumin. Go easy on the chilli, as you can always splash a bit of Tabasco over it later on.

In tonight’s batch I used:

• 300g beef mince
• two small onions, diced
• one red capsicum, diced
• four cloves garlic, peeled and sliced finely
• one 450g tin of red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• one 450g tin of chopped tomatoes
• a teaspoon of…
  • ground cumin
  • dried oregano
• half a teaspoon of…
  • dried chilli flakes
  • dried thyme (maybe)
• you can also add some fresh coriander leaves at the end if you fancy

Start by browning the mince in a small amount of oil. If it ain’t brown, it’s grey, and grey ain’t right. A spot of salt and pepper will help it on its way.

Pop the mince in a holding bowl, add a bit more oil and fry the chilli flakes for about a minute, add the garlic, fry for another minute, add the ground cumin and fry for a slow count of ten, before chucking in the onion and capsicum, then stirring like crazy, to incorporate all the brown goo from the bottom of the pan into the dish. (If you’re using cumin seeds, add them at the same time as the garlic, so they get a good minute or so.)

The veg need to soften up, and get brown around the edges, so a good ten minutes of medium heat and the occasional stir are required – there’s nothing worse than crunchy capsicum in a dish like this. Boil the jug whilst you’re doing this. Once that’s done, return the mince, plus the tomatoes, the beans, and enough boiled water from the jug so everything’s almost submerged.

Stir in the herbs, bring to the boil, and then reduce to a gentle simmer and leave for an hour to reduce. An hour? That’s enough time to whip up some tortillas and have a couple of beers.

Focaccia

I really ought to make this more often.

Fairly standard bread recipe: make a dough using 500g flour, 350mL water, 10g posh sea salt, and 30mL of nice olive oil. Mix, knead on an oiled surface, form into a ball, and let it rise, covered, somewhere warm, for an hour or so. (If the flour is strong enough to take more water than that, get stuck in. A wet dough is good.)

No fancy shaping required. Knock back the risen dough, stretch it out, and push it into a baking tray; all the way to the edges. You could also just stretch out your ball into a circle and put it in the middle of a baking sheet. The stretching action after the first rise helps produce the big irregular bubbles. If you think your tray might stick, then pop a sheet of baking paper on the bottom first, and maybe not quite go to the edges. In the case of this batch, the 800g of dough fitted nicely into a 10″ × 14″ baking tray, resulting in a layer of dough about half an inch thick, which is about what you should aim for.

Cover with cling film, and allow to rise again. You could also do the second rise in the fridge, obviously you’d need longer, which would suit an overnight rise, or perhaps whilst you were way during the day.

Dressing your focaccia is more fun than dressing your dolls or teddy bears. The classic approach is to brush the top with olive oil, sprinkle with flakes of sea salt, and bung in the oven. Be fairly generous with the olive oil, so the top crust fries as well as bakes!

Twenty minutes only: first ten as-hot-as-it-gets, second ten about 180ºC. Don’t forget to poke holes in it with your fingers to get the traditional appearance. Poke all the way to the bottom.

You could pop a needle of rosmary into each hole if you like. Or you could put sliver of garlic  instead. Maybe some whole or sliced olives? Or sundried tomatoes?

Caution. If you have any more than the merest hint of topping, the foccaccia will emerge soggy and doughy. Peppers in particular will suddenly ooze water at the wrong moment.

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Aglio e Olio

When the greengrocer has fresh, west garlic, all fragrant and purple, at this time of year, don’t ask questions. Just do this:

Get the pasta going. Make sure it’s posh dried pasta. If you have too much spare time, then fresh pasta you’ve made yourself, but don’t bother with the “fresh” pasta from the supermarket, packed in its “protective atmosphere”.

Meanwhile, find a saucepan big enough to hold the cooked pasta later on. A heavy based saucepan (why would you use anything else?) pays dividends here. For each person add:

• two cloves of fresh garlic (or one clove dried) finely chopped (but not, I repeat, not crushed)
• a pinch of chilli flakes
• a tablespoon (15mL) of extra virgin olive oil – now is not the time to use your second-best oil

You’ll also need some fresh parsley, chopped, as much as you can hold between your thumb and forefinger per serve. (But you add this at the end.)

Fry the garlic and chilli very gently in the olive oil – just the barest simmer and bubble – so by the time the garlic is translucent and golden, the pasta is more or less done. Don’t worry if the garlic arrives early, just turn the heat off.

Drain the pasta and tip it into the saucepan with the garlic, add the parsley, and stir like mad, so the pasta is coated. Don’t forget that stirring like mad may launch hot oil into the air so be careful. If you feel the need, an extra splash of olive oil won’t go astray. Serve with plenty of grana.

Variations

• whenever Signor R. was ill as a child, his mother would always prepare this for him, but with eye watering amounts of garlic to chase away the virii and bacteria
• depending on your fondness for heat, or the delicacy of your bum, you may want to vary the chilli levels
• toasted pine nuts, whole Kalamata olives, and a few shredded ribbons of Parma ham won’t hurt, but you’re missing the point if you put them all in