Chicken meatloaf and the clouds of London

        
I love cold meats, they are ideal for a light lunch or dinner, served with slices of good bread and in good company, who can ask for anything more? And if you are in a picnic, enjoying the sun, surrounded by your friends ans sharing some laughs, then it couldn't get better, could it? But again, here in London, you can think that a picnic, or organizing a picnic can be an intrepid challenge. I love picnics but, as I said, it can be a bit tricky trying to organize one for your friends, and I can honestly say that I have only been to four picnics because of the sun.                   

You can never EVER rely on the weather if you live here in London, but I guess it can always be worse, I could live further north, or even in a Nordic country where you can hardly see the sun light. But then again, I remember when I first moved from Spain, and you can imagine, coming from a Mediterranean country where the sun is up in the sky almost always, and moving here, it was quite a change. But as the weather changed and now temperatures are not so cold anymore, it doesn't rain that much, and we have quite "mild" winters. I remember my first winter here, when my ears for frozen while I was walking through the park and I could hardly feel my feet! But one learns with everything, and now, I ALWAYS carry an extra jacket, you never know! And yes, even in summer, because I firmly believe in the old English saying. "If you don't like the weather, wait for five minutes"                                                               

                           
So, I started talking about cold meats, and here I am now babbling about English weather. Let's go back to some gorgeous food, and a chicken meatloaf that you and your guests will love. It comes from one of Australian Women's weekly, and you can use mince turkey or pork instead of chicken, and the salsa verde can be served with fish as well. 

Ingredients:
900g mince chicken
100g drained semidried tomatoes in oil, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 egg
25g stale breadcrumbs
40g roasted pine nuts
40g chopped chives

Salsa Verde
1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
1/4 chopped chives
1 tablespoon drained capers, chopped coarsely
80ml olive oil
60ml lemon juice
1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
1 clove garlic crushed

Oven dried tomatoes
Ingredients:
500g cherry tomatoes
2 tablespoons chopped thyme
2 tablespoons sugar
salt and pepper
Patience

Method:
Cut the tomatoes in half and place them on a metal rack on a baking tray, season with the salt and pepper, and sprinkle the thyme all over. Bake at 100 degrees for three hours. If you lucky enough to live in a hot country you can skip the oven step and just place them on a tray under the sun until they are dried. If you are not going to use them right away, keep them in a glass jar covered with olive oil.

Method:
Preheat oven to 180. Grease a medium loaf pan.
Make salsa verde and reserve.
Combine chicken, tomato, garlic, egg, breadcrumbs, nuts. and chives in large bowl. Press meatloaf mixture into pan.
Bake 20 minutes.
Serve meatloaves, top side up, with the salsa verde and slices of bread.

A nice touch

Bye bye summer!

OK, let's get to it.

These delightful bitesize cakes are a beauty and so delicious you won't believe how easy and fun they are to make. They taste of summer, so before winter arrives I give you these little cuties...I would also tell you about what happened one night not so long ago after I made these. Here is the story...

It's so grateful to be rewarded for your work, even more when you least expect it. This is what happened one night, not too long ago. It was quite late, around 8 pm, when my doorbell rang. I opened the door and there was this delivery man handing me a form to sign and with a big long box by his side. I looked at the box and when I saw the Interflora logo, I kindly smiled, (I may have slipped a patronizing sigh (He, my husband, the Vegetarian hasn´t brought me flowers in years!) so I opened my mouth to let him know he got the wrong door, when my eyes saw the addressee name: Mrs B. Wait a minute, that's ME! I signed the form and I almost hugged the man! (he run away of course!) Then, this got me thinking, could it be that my hubbie, the Vegetarian, had the urge for bringing me flowers? They say that if this happens out of the blue, he might have been having an affair! I grabbed the box, closed the door and had a deep breath. 
-"Do you have anything to do with this???" -I shouted. His steps getting closer downstairs...
-"Erm...Noooo?"- (suspicious smile)
So, I opened the box and there it was, a beautiful, colourful and huge orchid plant! The plant pot was the same colour as the flowers, a nice touch. So, the Vegetarian had to break and he spat it all out. His workmates were the ones. I use to send them my culinary creations via the Vegetarian, like the ones from this post, and this was their way of thanking me, along with a nice card with a lovely message. I am more than grateful to these guys, to whom I've never met, for letting me know about their tastes, for helping me out with my experiments and for eating them. So, people from BAA, at Heathrow, Thanks a lot!

Here's the lovely plant.

And here's the recipe, passion fruit mini bites and bites size cherry cakes. They're so simple to make and the result is impressive.

Mini passion fruit cakes

Ingredients

2 tablespoon passion fruit pulp
60g softened butter
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind
1/4 cup (55g) sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup (75g) self raising flour
1/4 cup (60ml) buttermilk

Icing
1/2 cup (80g) icing sugar
1 teaspoong milk

Method
Preheat oven to 180. Grease two 12 hole mini muffin tins
Strain passion fruit pulp over small bowl, reserve seeds and juice separately.
Beat butter, rind and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, add flour, passion fruit juice and buttermilk. Spoon mixture into muffin tin holes. 
Bake cakes about 20 minutes. Stand them 5 minutes. Turn, top side up, onto a cooling rack.
Meanwhile, stir icing sugar and milk, add the reserved seeds and mix until combined. Top cakes with icing.

Cherry bites

Ingredients

115g self raising flour
Pinch of salt
100g sugar
115g softened butter
3 eggs
50g ground almonds

Method

Preheat the oven to 180. Grease the muffins tin.
Sift the flour and add a pinch of salt, and stir in the sugar.

Melt the butter and leave to cool. Lightly beat the eggs and mix them into the sugar and flour, then add the cooled butter and ground almonds. Cover and chill for an hour at least. Fill the tin three quarters full.
Top with a cherry (you can substitute with any other fruit) and bake for 9 to 10 minutes. Leave to cool then turn out to a cooling rack.

Okonomiyaki, what I want and what I like.

There are certain places that you are always willing to go back, then, they become part of a group of memories that you just wish to live again. We would even consider moving there for good or for at least a couple of years. I have travelled enough to select a couple of places where I could just move tomorrow, or even to have them as my "second residence" Many of you may know by now about my love for Mexico, and the idea of living there is with me ever since I came back (in this life or maybe in the next one) and someting similar hapened to me with Japan. Such a different country, I would never hesitate to move over there, the people, the culture, the scenery, the temples, the way they treat the elderly people (almost worship) the transports (I love you, bullet train) but above all, and of course, the food...

I can honestly say that, since we arrived we were treated wonderfully well, I was lucky enough to feel gastronomically spoiled by trying (devouring) the incredibly, tasty and tender Kobe beef cooked in a wonderful dish called Sukiyaki on the night of our arrival. Of course it melts in your mouth, after being spoiled and very well looked after by their carers, with massages and taking sake showers! On top of that, they make them drink beer to stimulate their apetite.

So, walking around Osaka, we had a lovely guide Noriko who took us to a very special restaurant. The tables had a grill in the middle and she told us that we were going to try something "special" and very very popular. OKONOMIYAKI something like the japanese pizza. Ok, so, you sit on the table, you choose the ingredients you want and you cook it yourelf at your table. That was a good plan and the result? Well, nothing like a pizza, more like a pancake, with a bunch of different flavours, dried seaweed, katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes) and the special okonomiyaki sauce (you can find all these ingredients in your local oriental supermarket) and on top of all that, mayonaise! I use Kewpie (japanese) but any other will do. The flour is a special one, it has tiny dried shrimps and seafood flavour but you can use self raising flour. There are hundreds of Okonomiyaki recipes, one in each region. It's part of a family meal and in fact, OKONOMIYAKI is japanese for "what you want" or "what you like". The Hiroshima version is made with chinese noodles! I used squid and prawns in this version, befcause is my favorite and I always follow Noriko's recipe, but you can use whatever you have at home, pork, chicken, beef, vegetables or seafood...easy as pie!

I want to be a Kobe beef i my next life...

Ingredients

For the batter

250 g okonomiyaki or self raising flour

2 small eggs

125 ml water

salt and pepper

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

The filling:

1 medium squid, diced

6 peeled and raw prawns

4 cabbage leaves finely sliced

2 spring onions finely sliced or chives

For the topping

Mayonaise

Okonomiyaki sauce

Dried seaweed (ao nori)

Pickled ginger (beni shoga)

Dried bonito flakes (katsuobushi)

Method

Mix the ingredients of the dough in a bowl, until it has the consistency of double cream, you can add more water of flour, depending of what it needs. Add the filling ingredients and mix well. Heat a no stick frying pan and add the oil, then the mix when the oil is very hot, and lower the heat to medium. When the pancake starts bubbling and setting turn it over and cook for a further 3 or 4 minutes, depending of how thick is your pancake. Place it on the serving dish and drizle with mayonaise, the okonomiyaki sauce, then the seaweed and the ginger and finally the dried bonito flakes. Serve hot.

Humble cake

There are certain smells which embrace us when they travel from our kitchens right straight to our senses. Smells and aromas which provide us with wonderful and comforting sensations. The aroma of a freshly baked apple pie or sponge is one of these. There´s something weird with me and the apples, I just can´t seem to eat them raw, I rather wait and cook them, caramelize them, roast them, bake them and enjoy them like that. being part of the inside of a cake, o crowning a spongy sponge and filling my mouth with all these sensations and making me even more happier...

These apple rectangles are ideal as they are individuals and they are coated in a lovely and velvety brandy Butterscotch sauce, which make them irresistible. You need to let the sponges rest once they are baked, just for a while, and then serve them warm. You can as well use this recipe for a normal cake or muffins.

Here comes the recipe

Ingredients

125 g softened butter

½ cup (110g) sugar

2 eggs

150 g plain four

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon milk

3 granny smith or golden delicious apples

½ cup (160g) warm apricot jam

Brandy butterscotch sauce

½ cup firmly packed brown sugar

½ cup thickened cream

100g butter, chopped

2 tablespoons brandy

Method

Preheat oven to 180. Grease the tin or tray you are using.

Beat butter and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, stir in sifted flour and baking powder then add the milk, spread mixture into prepared pans.

Peel, core and halve apples, slice thinly and push gently into surface of cake mixture. Brush apple with the warm apricot jam and bake for 40 minutes. Stand cakes 10 minutes before turning, top-side up onto a wire rack to cool slightly.

For the sauce, combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan, stir over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves, bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer uncovered without stirring for about 3 minutes or until it thickens slightly.

Serve warm drizzled with the brandy butterscotch sauce and double cream.

Tagine, a tasty mirage in my oasis.

Moroccan food is exotic, aromatic and full of colour. Its amazing array of ingredients is a pleasure for all of our senses. There's no doubt about it, Moroccan cuisine is full of quality, plus,  the variety of sweets, very sweet, the combination of spices, and the mix of the sweet and sour, makes this unique gastronomy one of the best in the world. Moroccan cuisine is a mix of cultures, and one of its star dishes is the lovely Tagine. It can be made with chicken, lamb, fish or vegetables. 

 This is an excellent recipe by Claudia Roden, and from her book Arabesque. The tagine is the name of the dish the food is cooked in. The conic shape helps the steam flowing and cooking the interior of the dish giving the food its distinctive flavour. If we add the preserved lemons, one of the most essential ingredients the Moroccan cuisine, then the colour of the dish becomes amazing and the flavour explodes in your mouth. You must prepare the lemons a month in advance. 

You can find the preserved lemons in selected stores, but they are so easy to prepare that it seems to me a waste of money, for they are quite expensive to buy and so much cheap to prepare at home. For this dish you only use the skin of the lemons. If you decide to go ahead and prepare the tagine, you only need to remember to preserve the lemons four weeks before.



Preserved lemons

Ingredients:

5 or 6 big unwaxed lemons
rock salt ( quite a lot)
The juice of three lemons

Method

Wash the lemons and cut them from the stem end into quarters almost through the base. Insert one tablespoon rock salt into each lemon, close it up and place in the sterilized jar. Repeat until the jar is filled, sprinkling 1 tablespoon salt between the layers. Pack the lemons into the jar as tightly as possible. Add a bay leaf an a few peppercorns is you want. Add the lemon juice and fill with slightly cool boiled water.

Seal the jar and store in a cool dark place for 4 weeks. Shake the jar daily for the first week in order to dissolve the salt. Once it´s opened store in the fridge. Before adding to the recipe, you need to rinse the lemon with water and discard the pulp.





Chicken tagine with olives and preserved lemons

Ingredients

3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 onions finely chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 chicken cut into pieces (I used a poussin)
salt and black pepper
juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 tablespoons chopped coriander
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Peel of 1 large preserved lemons
12-16 green olives
300mil chicken stock or water

Method

In a tagine or a wide caserole dish, heat the oil and add the oinions, saute until they are soft then stir in the garlic, ginger and saffron.
Put in the chicken pieces season with salt and pepper and por in abut 300ml chicken stock or water. Simmer, covered. turning the pieces over a few times, and adding a little more water if it becomes too dry.

Stir in the lemon juice, the chopped coriander and parsley, the preserved lemon peel cut into strips and the olives. Cook uncovered for 5 to 10 minutes until the sauce is reduced and thick. Serve the chicken with the olives and lemon strips on top of the meat. You can serve it along with an almond and pistachio couscous. And don't be surprised when the chicken melts in your mouth.

And they thought they were joking!

Last April, one of the papers published an article about a new fruit called “Pineberry”, a white strawberry that tasted like pineapple, many people didn’t believe it, they thought it was an April’s food joke...I have a radar when it comes to find new foods n the supermarkets, so I found them and I was pleasantly surprised. They were quite expensive, £4 a punnet (250G) but they really worth it.

As soon as I bought them, I could smell the aromatic essence of the strawberry but more intense than a normal one. I couldn´t resist and on my way home, on the train, I try them and I have to say that I have never tasted such a sweet and aromatic fruit. I couldn´t find the pineapple taste, it was more like a super intense and delicate strawberry, even to the touch, it felt like velvet. Honoring this little beauties, I give you an intense dark chocolate, with a chocolate ganache. 

Of course you can use any other fruit, raspberries are perfect or normal strawberries or even kumquats. These pineberries were on sale for a limited period only, ans although I tried hard, I couldn’t find them again. See you next year, I hope ...

Ingredients:

150g softened butter

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup caster sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

4 eggs

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

½ baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup plain flour

¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Method:

Grease a medium loaf pan and preheat the oven to 180.

Cream the butter and the sugars with an electric mixer. Add the vanilla extract, the eggs, one at a time. In a big bowl sift the flour, the bicarbonate of soda, the salt, the baking powder and the cocoa. Add the dry ingredients to the egg and butter mixture with a wooden spoon. Pour this mixture on the tin and bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a skewer comes away clean. Cool in the tin, and then transfer to a cooling rack.

Ingredients for the chocolate sauce:

200g dark chocolate

150 single cream

30g butter

1 tablespoon rum (optional)

Method:

Cut the chocolate and melt it in a double boiler over boiling water or in the microwave. Heat the cream and butter in a pan until is very hot. Mix in the melted chocolate and um and ice the cake with the sauce. Decorate with the white strawberries or with any other fruit. Serve with some more of the chocolate sauce, in case somebody “needs” and extra dose. Yes, please!

Roasts of the World II- Porchetta, ti amo!

Welcome to the second instalment of the series Roasts of the world. This one is dedicated to the magnificent Italy and its varied and delicious gastronomy. And the main protagonist of the post is the “Porchetta” which is so popular that the Italian Ministry of agriculture has place it on the list of the most traditional Italian foods.  The “Porchetta” is a piece of pork meat, usually pork belly, you can kindly ask your butcher to butterfly it for you, or you can try yourself, which is not difficult. The meat is stuffed with herbs and fennel, then rolled and roasted. It’s important to keep the skin on since it gives the meat a wonderful taste and texture. It’s usually sliced very thinly and is traditionally served in a sandwich around the streets in Italy where you can get it from the vans selling it everywhere. It’s a dish of celebration and party with friends and family. I have been wanting to make this dish since I saw it at Borough market, and I have to say that everybody who tried this after I cooked was so pleased that I am going to cook this many many times. I used half a pork loin for this, which I bought at the Smithfiedls Market in London, one day, early in the morning, where I travelled with the idea of getting some of that wonderful wagyu beef, but that, ladies and gentlemen, is another story...

You can served this as a roast, or as a smart main course, inspired in a recipe by Jason Neroni, with cannellini beans and salsa verda, or as I mentioned earlier, in a sandwich, the proper way. This meat and the way of cooking it is extremely  grateful to be eaten, Mrs Porchetta lets herself go and she lets you stuff her, roast her and slice her with a fully submissive attitude, because she knows that, in the end, she is going to please our palates and we are going to love her. Forza Italia!

Ingredients for the meat

5 onions

3 bay leaves

¼ cup olive oil

1 bulb fennel, finely sliced, reserve the fronds

2 tablespoon fennel seeds

2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped

6 garlic cloves, finely sliced

Salt and pepper

1 piece of pork belly or pork loin with the skin on

Method

 Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Butterfly the meat if the butcher hasn't done it for you.  Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle a pan with olive oil and chopped two of the onion, add to the oil with the fennel and cook for ten minutes. Add the fennel seed more pepper, the rosemary and the garlic cloves, and cook for another ten minutes. Turn off the heat and add the fennel fronds, and spread this mixture on top of the open meat. Roll out the meat like a Swiss roll. Tied with twine and place on a bed of the rest of the onions, roughly chopped and the bay leaves, drizzle the meat with more olive oil and roast in the oven for 2 ½ hours. Remove from the oven and let it rest on the kitchen counter for 20 minutes before slicing it and serve.

For the two gravies. Pass the sauce through a sieve (onions included) and the coking juices. For the other gravy, blend everything. 

 

For the salsa verde

 1 tablespoon chopped basil

1 tablespoon fresh chopped mint

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1 onion

Salt and pepper

¼ cup olive oil

 

Method

 Blend all the ingredients and drizzle the olive oil until everything is combined, reserve.

For the potatoes

 1 kilo baby potatoes, sliced

3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper

 Method

 Place the potatoes in boiling water and boil for 5 minutes. Fry in oil until they start to get brown and place them in an oven tray. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown. 

 To serve, slice the meat very thick and cut into rectangles. Heat some of the cannellini beans and pace on the plate with some of the salsa verde on top. Place the meat on a bed of gravy and serve with the roast potatoes and more gravy on the side. 

 The other option is the sandwich, for this, spread the gravy on crusty bread. Slice the meat very thinly and place on the bread along with some lettuce leaves if you want. 

Buon appetito!