Random and Moreish - Salami (and Chorizo!!) Tarts

 

 

This was the worst and best possible recipe that could have revealed itself for this month's Random Recipe Challenge, hosted by Dom over at Belleau Kitchen.  The best, because I have been rather short of time lately, which I fear is a prelude to my returning to work full time from September when I will have hardly any time at all, and this recipe is, literally, 20 minutes from start to finish. The drawback is that they are so moreish and lasted a matter of minutes as they were slyly snaffled from the worktop by passing Lolas, Finns and Phills... and me. Y'see, this is the thing with appetisers, which is what I suppose these things are - I can't stop at one or two and even if I as at some swanky 'do' somewhere where I had a glass of something white and chilled in one hand, I would still have one hand free to pick and to keep picking at these tasty little morsels...

 

 

 

Anyway, the 30th random recipe challenge was to pick your thirtieth cookbook off the shelf and turn to page 30. The thirtieth book was 'Totally Simple Food' by Jill Dupleix and page 30 had a picture of the aforementioned tarts. The recipe was on page 31 so you'll have to allow me a little wriggle room on that one.

 

 

 

The book...

 

 

 

The recipe...

 

I am a great fan of Jill Dupleix's food. There isn't a recipe that I haven't tried without success. This, though simple, is really no exception to that rule. And as I like a little variety in life, I tried these with slices of chorizo and they equally good if not better, with all that paprika oiliness seeping into crisp puff pastry. Yum, frankly.

 

Salami Tarts, adapted from 'Totally Simple Food by Jill Dupleix

Makes 10 (of the salami tarts - 15 ish of the chorizo tarts)

 

Ingredients:

 

500g of puff pastry, either ready rolled or rolled out yourself.

12 slices salami, about 6cm in diameter, or about 15 slices of chorizo, or a bit of both.

1 egg, beaten

200g Swiss chard leaves (I omitted this)

1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil (...and this)

sea salt (...and this)

freshly ground black pepper (...and this!)

A handful of pitted mixed olives (my addition)

Method:

 

Preheat the oven to 200c/Gas 6

 

 

 

Roll out the pastry quite thinly.

 

Prepare the salami slices, by taking the skin off if you need to (or just taking them out of the packet!)

 

 

 

Place one salami slice on the pastry and cut around it, leaving about a centimetre border around the salami slice. You can then use this as your template for cutting out the other circles.

 

 

 

Brush each pastry round with beaten egg and top with a slice of salami (or chorizo).

 

Bake for 10 minutes until the pastry borders and puffed and golden. Transfer to a wire rack. They will crispen up as they cool.

 

If you are using the Swiss chard, wash it well and place it in a saucepan with just the water clinging to the leaves. Cover and cook over a high heat, tossing occasionally until it begins to wilt and the juices evaporate. Set aside to cool and squeeze out the excess water. Toss in olive oil with sea salt and lots of black pepper.

 

Chorizo!

Chorizo!

 

Serve the tarts slightly warm, or at room temperature, with the chard topping each tart or else do what I did - add a few olives and open a bottle of Spanish wine!

 

Kiddie friendly! Kheema with peas

 

 

Well, friendly if your kids like peas. Lola does, Finn doesn't. Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised by this information as he seems to have an aversion to anything 'green'. But, he persevered with this meal, skillfully eating around the peas and therefore giving this simple dish a thumbs up. And rightly so, for it is an easy and tasty dish and a good way of introducing your children to some restrained Indian spicing. And if you are one of those who prefers something a little more punchy, then you could always up the chilli...

 

It's funny; I have many cookery books, some of which were 'must haves' or so I thought when I bought/was given them but somehow you find yourself actually not cooking much from them, and then there are those cookbooks that you pick up on a whim, or that you unearth in a second hand bookshop (if you're me) or buy because it's a bargain and you're a bit compulsive about cookery books in general (this might be just me again)  but I am so glad that I happened upon Jill Dupleix's books in one of the haphazard ways I have just described. Initially a whimsical buy, but now I am a convert. Her meals are fresh, simple and delicious and it's telling that the books that she has written are some of the more well thumbed ones on my shelves. This is her recipe from her book, 'Lighten Up'.

 

Kheema with Peas taken from 'Lighten Up' by Jill Dupleix

 

Serves Lola, Finn, Mum, Dad and one other

 

Ingredients:

 

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 onions, finely chopped

1 tbsp grated ginger

2 garlic cloves, crushed

750g lean minced lamb or beef (I used lamb)

2 tbsp tomato puree

250ml water or stock (I used lamb stock)

1 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp dried red chilli flakes*

1 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

200g podded peas, fresh or frozen

1-2 tsp garam masala

3 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped

* adjust the chilli according to family taste

 

Method:

 

Heat the oil in a frying pan.

 

 

Add the onion and fry gently for 5 minutes until light golden. Add the ginger and garlic, stirring well, than add meat and fry for 5 mins until browned.

 

 

Add the tomato puree, water (stock), coriander, chilli, turmeric, salt and pepper, stirring well. Cover and cook gently for 20 mins.

 

 

Uncover, add the peas and garam masala and simmer until the peas are cooked and the kheema is thick and saucy.

 

 

 

Scatter with coriander and serve.

 

Something Scottish to go with sausages - Rumbledethumps

... or you could go with a fried egg on top, or have both sausages and a fried egg. Why not? It would all be brilliant.

Whilst we are all fans of bangers and mash chez Lola and Finn, sometimes it is nice to ring the changes and this is the kind of regional, homely dish is one that I like to cook. I also thought that if I drowned it in onion gravy I might be able to distract the kids from the fact that there is cabbage in this dish, as cabbage may as well equate to poison in the minds of Lola and Finn. I am not overly critical of this because I remember being less than impressed at a plate of cabbage being put in front of me when I was young, but as I have got older, I have begun to appreciate that it is a food packed with goodness and iron rich, at least I perceive it to be, and how I would love it to be a part of my children's diet.

This is another recipe from Jill Dupleix, and it is glorious. Once again I urge you to seek out her recipes if you haven't already done so.

This dish originates in the Scottish borders. My great great great grandma was from Melrose. I wonder if she ate a version of this dish when she was a child? I hope so, because it was good just now and I am sure would have been the perfect antidote to a cold day working on the farm back then.

Did I manage to get savoy cabbage into Lola and Finn? Well, a little. The secret is to chop it up really small and they eat some of it before they realise that you are trying to poison them!

Rumbledethumps taken from Jill Dupleix's Good Cooking.

Serves Lola, Finn, Mum and Dad heartily!

Ingredients:

500g all purpose potatoes (I used Vivaldi, from Sainsbury's)

400g savoy cabbage

sea salt

fresh ground black pepper

6 spring onions, finely chopped

2 tablespoons butter 

30g cheddar cheese (Go for something punchy!)

30g Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

 

Method:

 

Heat the oven to 350*F.

 

 

 

Peel potatoes and cut into coarse chunks. Remove any tough outer leaves and the core from the cabbage, and finely slice the leaves.

 

 

 

Cook the potatoes in a large pan of simmering salted water for 10 minutes, then add the cabbage and cook until both are tender, but not overly soft, about 10 more minutes. Now add the spring onions for the last minute of cooking. Drain well.

 

 

 

Add the butter and most of the cheeses, leaving a little to sprinkle over the top later. Mash well, seasoning with salt and pepper.

 

 

 

You may serve it at this stage, sprinkled with the rest of the cheese. Or, if you like, pour it all into a buttered baking dish, sprinkle with the remaining cheese, and bake until lightly browned and steaming hot, 25-30 minutes, (which is what I did)

 

 

 

Serve with sausages, or eggs, or both. Maybe a little onion gravy? It's all good.

September is soup time! Abruzzese Lentil Soup

 

 

Seeing as it is feeling a bit nippy outside, it seems right and proper that my mind turns to soup. In a change from my usual carrot and coriander fixation which seems to have put the rest of the family off, probably because I make it so often, I decided to look for something completely different, something homely, something uplifting and something that you can feel revitalising you as you eat it, and when I made this yesterday, it did make me very happy to eat it. Indeed, it was obvious that it was good for you and, it stopped me from making myself a bacon buttie which was what I was craving, as earlier I had walked passed the shops back from taking Lola and Finn to school the wondrous smell of frying bacon and toast wafted from shop doorways. Hell and heaven all at once. How I stopped myself from buying one I will never know.

 

Happily this soup went some way to sating my appetite, so for that reason I am blogging it. It tastes lovely and fills you up. And it is a Jill Dupleix recipe from her book 'Good Cooking'. A very apt title as everything I have cooked from this book has been good. Better than good, in fact. And I have decided that lentils (in this case, Puy) are my new best friend. They look beautiful, they taste beautiful and they are making me beautiful. I think.

 

My adaptations: I left the celery out, mainly because I didn't have any but also because no one except me would eat it if I had left it in and left it chunky. I also mistakenly drained my lentil water away in a moment of delirium, so made up some chicken stock to act as the liquid that went into the soup at the point in the method where the lentils are added to the soup base.  

 

 

Abruzzese Lentil Soup, adapted from Good Cooking by Jill Dupleix

 

Serves 4 - 6 ish

 

Ingredients:

 

250g small brown or green lentils (I used Puy)

2 garlic cloves, smashed

2 bay leaves

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, peeled and diced

2 celery stalks, finely sliced (Didn't have any, so didn't bother)

400g canned tomatoes, chopped

400g canned chickpeas, drained

Salt and pepper

2 tbsp parsley, roughly chopped

 

Method:

 

 

 

Rinse the lentils and place in a pot with the garlic cloves, bay leaves and 1.5 litres of cold water. Cook for 30 minutes or until almost tender, skimming occasionally.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion, carrot and celery (if using) and cook, stirring well, for 10 minutes. Then add the tomatoes.

 

 

 

After adding the tomatoes, stir well, then add the lentils and their water. (Here, I made a mistake and absent mindedly drained my lentils and poured the water away, so I made up a litre of chicken stock from some bouillon cubes and added it to the pan with the lentils instead)

 

 

 

Simmer for 20 minutes until nice and soupy. Add the chickpeas, salt and pepper, and simmer for a further 10 minutes or longer, adding extra water if necessary. I like my soup reasonably thick so didn't add anything.

 

 

 

To serve, stir in the parsley and serve in warm soup bowls. And maybe some bread. That would be really nice!

 

 

Sounds unfamiliar? It shouldn't. Spaghetti al Blanco

Do you ever get those moments where you read something and you take it in and act upon it without always getting down to the nitty gritty of it? Occasionally I pretend to teach English and over the years an English teacher becomes practised in the art of 'skimming', where one goes through the words in a 'digesting it for the moment and correcting it' mode before putting the work on the pile and moving on to the next one. I don't mean to sound glib about marking children's work by the way. When it is in my hand, at that time, it has my full, undivided attention, and there are numerous times throughout the year when close reading and marking is essential. It's just when you teach a subject such as English, the sheer volume of wordage means you need to find a way of deciphering text quickly or else that pile of exercise books on the dining room table will never diminish.

Which brings me, in a rather roundabout way, to this recipe which when I skimmed it through initially I thought about how fancy it sounded, how much different it seemed to the spaghetti bolognese that Lola and Finn adore and that it was, in a peculiar way, something out of the ordinary that was worth a try. It was only when I was halfway through cooking this that I realised that it was something very familiar indeed; a long forgotten meal from my childhood, savoury mince, and very similar to the mince my mum used to cook and put under a cloud of mashed potato for her cottage pie. I'd been duped by a name. Maybe if I had looked at the recipe like it was an 'A' level essay on a Shakespeare play, I might have realised.

That's not to say that I was disappointed by my realisation. Savoury mince, when done well, is a delight. A hug in a bowl, if you ask me. This recipe does not replicate the school dinner grey slop that used to pass for savoury mince, but something quite unctuous and filling, which clings to ( in this case) pasta most pleasingly. And I would never have thought of putting savoury mince with pasta, but I suppose that is what turns it from the dowdy sounding 'savoury mince' to the sophisticated 'spahetti al blanco'.

This recipe is adapted from Jill Dupleix's recipe in her fabulous book 'Good Cooking'. I recommend all her books, without question. Her recipes are simple, mostly healthy and fresh, and make me feel very happy indeed, like this meal did when I started to eat it.

A note about my weird way of prepping the vegetables for this. If it had been just for me and the kids, I would have left the vegetables chunky, but in Phill we have a hater of the texture and 'intrusive taste' of celery. I think you 'miss' celery if you leave it out because it adds something to the taste, so I hide it by blitzing it in a mini chopper, and because I was lazy, I blitzed the other vegetables and the parsley (stalks) too. Don't feel you need to do this; I am mad to do it, frankly.

Lola and Finn gave a massive thumbs up. I made plenty so I have leftovers, which will taste fabulous for being left a day or so for the flavours to intensify. I will probably throw a handful of frozen peas in when I reheat it and serve it with some spuds. Italy to England with a quick change of carbohydrate!

Spaghetti al Blanco, (also known as savoury mince) adapted from Jill Dupleix's 'Good Cooking'.

Serves Lola, Finn, Mum and Dad, generously, twice.

Ingredients.

2 tbsp olive oil

10g dried mushrooms, rehydrated in about 100ml hot water

2 biggish carrots, peeled and diced

2 sticks of celery, stringed and diced

1 leek, white part, cleaned and roughly chopped

1 tbsp parsley (I used stalks, as I had them left over and I was in a blitzing mood)

2 tsp dried thyme

600g beef mince

350ml strong beef stock (I used two stock cubes)

1 tbsp flour

salt and pepper

grated lemon zest, Parmesan cheese and parsley to garnish

Method.

Start by rehydrating your mushrooms. Allow them to steep in the water for about 30 minutes or so.

Add the olive oil to a large frying pan that will take all the ingredients and liquid.

Prepare your vegetables and add them to the pan with the parsley and the thyme. Cook over a moderate heat for about 5 minutes or so.

Add the mince, in batches if necessary, and cook until it is browned. This could take about 10 minutes or so.

Add the stock to the pan and give everything a mix. Around this time your mushrooms will have rehydrated so drain the mushroom water into the meat mixture and chop your mushrooms and then add those to the pan. Season.

Scatter the tablespoon of flour around the top of the mince and then stir it in carefully, trying to avoid creating lumps.

Let the mince cook for between 30 and 40 minutes. The liquid should and will reduce. If it is reducing too quickly and the meat looks dry, be prepared to add a little more water. If you prefer a 'drier' mince, turn the heat up for the last 10 minutes or so of cooking.

When you're happy with the consistency, taste for seasoning. It may, in particular, need more salt.

Serve, combined with a pasta of your choice ( I know the title says spaghetti, but I had some frilly looking stuff that I bought in France that I quite liked the look of) and grate over a little lemon zest, Parmesan and parsley.

Delicious!