Tempest63

Marinated anchovies is a definite. It is a favourite of both mine and Mrs T63.

As our Pescatarian guest is near vegetarian there will be plenty of veg dishes. The Brindisa Russian salad as well as stuffed mushrooms, Mediterranean veg and likely one or two others. We will finish with a couple of paellas, one meat based and one heavily veg and fish based. I’m still doing my research on the paellas.

The reason I say unique in my previous post is because it seems so many tapas recipes and beyond include Paprika, to the point where I’m beginning to find it a little ubiquitous. Looking for a twist on a good steak rub I found several, but all had large quantities of paprika included. My pork cheeks have a teaspoon of sweet paprika so my fried chorizo recipe will likely be dropped from the menu.

We have six friends coming around for a Tapas evening late September meaning we will be over our U.K. summer and will likely be dining indoors. I am trying to find a number of Tapas dishes with something a little unique about them. I have already discussed scotch eggs made with morcilla and quail eggs, but we have a pescatarian coming who eats no meat or fowl so an alternative recipe with the egg encased in smoke cod looks to be a possibility. Two variants of croquettes, one with porcini, the other with traditional ham and cheese can be made in advance and fried at the last minute. I made pork cheeks in red wine this evening to freeze and heat through on the day. All a bit of a rush as my eldest daughter was hospitalised today and I had 8 hours with her in A&E before coming home. One thing I have found is a couple of unusual Sangria recipes, both from a very select chain of Tapas Bars here in England called Tapas Revolution run by a great chef in the person of Omar Allibhoy. Sangria with Spanish Sparkling Wine https://tapasrevolution.com/sangria-spanish-sparkling-wine-cava-recipe-spanish-restaurant-tapas-bar/ Tapas Revolution Special Sangria https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/special-sangria/

Very quick after work dinner tonight. Rose Veal sirloin steaks. Oven chips and peas. I had wholegrain mustard instead of my usual English mustard. Some garlic mayonnaise to dip the chips in. we finished up with a little Ossau Iraty, a semi hard Spanish sheep’s cheese and a glass of Merlot. Very nice.

I really need to expand my repertoire to include more African recipes. The more I see these types of recipes, the more I realise there is so much of the worlds cuisine that I need to explore.

Pork chops in a garlic sauce tonight, pan fried new potatoes with steamed green beans and sautéed spinach. Recipe for chops here https://www.dontgobaconmyheart.co.uk/garlic-pork-chops/ Unusual for a UK site that the ingredients are given in cups. You see that commonly with US recipe sites but very rarely UK. Personally it doesn’t phase me either way as I use both US/imperial and UK/metric measurements.

We have a Tapas and Paella night coming up in September so I thought I ought to start practicing for the night. I cooked up this Paella tonight. Chicken, prawn and squid rings. Red pepper and peas, and a shortcut using shop bought passata instead of making a pukka tomato sauce. I cook with an induction hob and cannot use a traditional paella pan so use this Le Creuset non stick paella pan. Unfortunately this means we don’t get much of a Socarrat on the base. The recipe was an interpretation of one of the straight forward and simpler recipes from “Paella” by Alberto Herraiz. The book explores some of the traditional methods and recipes of cooking the dish, delving into the near science behind cooking paella. A lot of the recipes in the book start on the stove before cooking in the oven which seems a little unusual to me. I always thought of paella as being a stove top recipe.

Dinner tonight was chicken in a garlic cream sauce, boiled new potatoes and steamed tender stem broccoli . Chicken recipe from here. https://www.thechunkychef.com/creamy-garlic-chicken-breasts/

Two new books arrived today from second hand booksellers but ordered via Amazon UK. The first is Brindisa, Spanish cooking written by the Lady who opened the first Brindisa, Spanish deli shop in London in 1988. Her first tapas bar was opened in Borough Market, now she has several restaurants, including one in Spain. I paid £11.33 including delivery for this book whose condition is as new. The cost of a new book is over £26. The second book in equally good condition that arrived today is the Immigrant Cookbook. Stories and recipes from those who have left their homelands, often due to conflict and persecution, and made a new home for themselves in other countries such as the U.S. and the U.K. A varied selection of recipes from many countries. I paid £4.36 including delivery for this hardback which is no longer listed as available as a new publication, though I bought this as a gift for someone in 2018 and paid £13.50 for a new copy then (according to Amazon).

This is our variation of the Dishoom method for cooking Basmati rice. We use Tilda as it always gives consistent results. We cook a batch and freeze whatever is left over for Ron. Dishoom Basmati Rice (Stephanies Favourite Rice) This is a lengthier process than some rice cooking methods, but the end result will be perfectly fluffy rice, with each grain intact.You will need a large pan with a lid (which is only used in Step 6) Serves 4 Ingredients 360g basmati rice 2 teaspoons fine sea salt A generous squeeze of lime juice, or 1 tablespoon spirit vinegar 25g unsalted butter (optional, but recommended) Method. Fill a large bowl with cold water and gently add the rice. Move the rice around with your hands to help release the starch, let the rice settle to the bottom. Pour out the water and repeat this process until the water is clear (usually 3 to 4 times) cover the rice with fresh, cold water and leaves to soak for one hour. Bring 3 litres of water to the boil in a large pan and add salt and lime juice or spirit vinegar. Bring to the boil Cut, a piece of foil large enough to comfortably cover the top of your pan. Drain the rice and add it to the boiling water. Cook, stirring regularly until almost done: this should take 4 to 5 minutes and the rice should still be slightly firm in the centre. Tip the rice into a sieve immediately; don’t shake off all the excess water. Return the rice to the still-hot pan, shake the pan gently to create an even layer, then dot with butter, if using. Place the foil over the top of the pan and tightly crimp the edges around the edge of the pan. Place pan over high heat, until you see the foil dome up (inflate a little), about one minute. Position the lid to seal. Turn off the heat and leave to stand, covered, for 15 to 30 minutes before serving.

In the interest of research I took the wife out to the local tapas restaurant last night and after £189 worth of research (ouch!) I left with a full belly and some supplies for a Tapas and Paella meal for us and six friends. The chef, Mark, is someone who we have known through various local restaurants and eateries over the years and he advises that you boil your quail eggs for exactly 2 minutes and 10 seconds before plunging in iced water for “no more” than five minutes; leaving them longer results in harder eggs in the finished dish. You then work the Morcilla in your hands with some finely chopped parsley until it has a consistency similar to putty. Make a small cup shape then place the egg in the cup and completely wrap it with the Morcilla. Egg, breadcrumbs and refrigerate. When you are ready to cook drop them in 180C oil until the breadcrumbs are suitably golden and voila (or the Spanish equivalent) you have a softish yolk encased in beautifully cooked blood pudding. Mark uses this Morcilla which he gets from Brindisa https://brindisa.com The restaurant sells this product along with a selection of other Spanish ingredients that I bought to start practicing for the Tapasfest. The jar between the olives and the Morcilla is a chilli jam that they serve on the side with the eggs cut into two

…is not duck, but a fish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_duck#:~:text=At one time%2C 13 tonnes,approved freezing and canning factories. In the formative curry eating days of my youth it was always my preferred starter in a British Indian Restaurant, being dry, salty and fishy…it appealed. Like marmite you either loved it or hated it. Then the EU banned its importation following a food poisoning scare and the producers back in India couldn’t meet the strict EU processing rules. Now it is back in force and I see it in most of the Indian grocers that I frequent. I have recently been considering adding some to flavour ghee or oil at the beginning of the cooking process, similar to the way some dissolve anchovies in oil at the start of a ragu, or similar; a process I often use to add that extra Umami. I have trawled the web and can find no previous reference to using BD in this way and wondered whether anyone else has come across the process? I Know BD can be made into a pickle https://www.hildastouchofspice.com/2012/07/dried-bombay-duck-chilli-fry-sukha-bombil.html where it is partially rehydrated and then fried, but I was specifically thinking of it as a tempering, possibly ground up to a fine powder.

Dinner tonight could not have been easier, left overs from our curryfest. Dishooms Chicken Ruby and Black Lentils and Cafe Spice Dhansak. The rice was cooked tonight and was also from the Dishoom cookbook.

Maybe the addition of the chutney in Duvels post may be the answer? I know that the owner of the Tapas bar insisted it had to be Spanish Morcilla, and not a UK style black pudding to make it successful.

Thanks for all your feedback.

I wonder if anyone can help. A local tapas bar has scotch eggs on the starter menu, but these are quails eggs encased in Morcilla, a Spanish blood or black pudding. The egg yolks are still soft after cooking, but I cannot find a recipe online for this dish. Does anyone know of a recipe? Or better still do they have a tried and tested recipe?

Many congratulations. Now you will have the joy in due course of cooking with the grandchildren. My eldest grandson, Jack, is coming up 13 now and often pops round “to help” when I am cooking for the family.

Simple dinner tonight following yesterday efforts for the Curryfest. I used a dry rub that I had first made a batch of for steak and smothered it over a couple of fat pork chops, bought fresh from the butcher on Friday. As the dry rub sat on the pork I boiled some new potatoes and gently fried off some garlic, sage and spring onions (scallions, U.S.) in a cast iron skillet. After draining I mixed the potatoes in with the aromatics and dropped them into a 180C oven for 40 minutes, turning half way through. I steamed some fresh peas picked from the allotment earlier today, along with some carrot from the supermarket. Took about an hour from start to plating up.

We had our Curryfest yesterday with six friends. Food went down well from their perspective but it became a bit of a rush with other things going on in the background so a few errors crept in. We decided on starters from the Dishoom cookbook so we planned kebabs and samosas. Disaster 1. I cooked the filling for the samosas but forgot to get the pastry wrappers out of the freezer so we now have samosa filling in the freezer for another day. We did serve paneer, chicken and lamb kebabs. Disaster 2. I didn’t have time to make the chapatis so used frozen ones cooked straight out of the freezer. OK but not as good as homemade. Main courses Dishoom Chicken Ruby. All prepped the day before so I heated the butter sauce, dropped in the pre prepared tikkas. A success. Cafe Spice Dhansak. This was prepped a few weeks ago and had sat in the freezer. One of the guests was vegetarian so I put the koftas in the sauce with the mutton rather than combine it with the rice. Disaster 3. I forgot to prepare the crispy onions and the mint in the garden was not at its best, so the rice missed some essential garnishes. Meera Sodha Pig Cheek Vindaloo. Prepped earlier in the week so it just needed warming through, the hit of the meal. Anjum Anand Bangladeshi Fish Curry. Again, I had prepped the sauce the day before so as it was warming through I quickly fried the sea bream cutlets, a minute each side before placing in the sauce for a couple of minutes and then serving. Side dishes were Oven Roasted Aloo Gobi by Mallika Basu. Prepped early in the morning so it went into a 180C oven for 40 minutes. Easy win. Anjum Anand Edgy Peas. A very quick and simple side dish that I cooked as the wife was taking the other dishes to the table on the patio. Afghan Salad. Mrs T63 made that particular dish so I can’t claim any credit there. A selection of shop bought chutneys and pickles . Mrs T63 made the dessert. It was an Anjum Anand take on a Scottish (by origin) Cranachan. We had the dogs out very early yesterday morning to pick the blackberries for the dish, as a result my forearms are still stinging from being stung by nettles, then scratched and punctured by thorns. Mrs T63 was quite specific, big plump shiny blackberries, they are apparently the first fruits of the season and are the sweetest, they are also buggers to retrieve as all the low lying fruit had been picked by others. The smaller blackberries that ripen afterwards are “not as good”. That told me. Apart from trying the tikkas/kebabs for starters I couldn’t eat anything else. I believe it is called Christmas Dinner Syndrome. When you have cooked and tasted so much that you lose your appetite. Biggest Disaster. I was shattered and failed to take a single photo. Edit: Almost forgot, we served up two types of Dhal. The black house dhal from Dishoom and Mrs Balbir Singh’s Kabuli Channa. Both were well received from vegetarians and carnivores alike.

Welcome John. Let’s hope this site inspires you to add some culinary activities to your other pastimes.

I looked at that bottom photo and immediately a pentagram sprang to mind. I may keep that as a Halloween idea for the Grandsprogs.

Quick puttanesca for dinner tonight. we have a lot going on at the moment and find ourselves extremely busy, so this was a great quick and easy dinner. Looking at recipes online there seem to be a number of questions that come up. Tomatoes or passata? Fresh tomatoes or tinned? Onions or no onions? Salted anchovies or anchovies in vinegar? Fresh chilli or chilli flakes? So many questions for such a simple rustic dish.

I went looking for the online recipe that I linked above but it appears to have been taken down. The link, whilst clearly stating Dhansak, now leads to a Lamb Madras recipe. Hardly the same. I dropped some comments onto the site regarding the recipe which were never acknowledged. A similar recipe can be found at https://swatisani.net/kitchen/recipe/dhansak/.

I had a selection of sausages made in the local butchers sitting in the freezer and realised I needed to use them. I tried this recipe a few weeks ago with Toulouse sausages https://www.cottagesmallholder.com/recipe-for-sausages-baked-on-a-nest-of-cannellini-beans-hot-smoked-garlic-and-bacon-7901/ but without the hot smoked garlic. We found the finished dish dry, but it had promise. I tried it again today using a whole 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, including the tomato juice, a cup of supermarket bought crispy fried onions, a sprinkle of asafoetida, a sprinkle of ground black pepper, some chopped sage leaves fresh out of the garden and half a cup of water. I had the smoked garlic, but rather than put it in whole, I peeled it and mixed the individual cloves in. It looked like this when prepped for the oven. The result was much better than my first attempt. Cooked with wild boar sausages, the flavour was fuller, the dish much more moist. I cooked it in a fan oven at 180C for the first 25 minutes but found the sausages were not browning as much as was expected. After turning the sausages I put it back in for a further 20 minutes at Fan 190C. I will experiment a little further with this quick, cheap and cheerful dish, but I am happy with the progress so far.