All posts by Kristin

Miscellaneous

Quick Pickled Chillies

My mom and stepdad live in Florida and have a pepper plant on their patio that produces so many jalapenos that my stepdad, at a loss for what to do with them all, used to bring them in by the bagful for a colleague who sat at his desk and ate them whole and raw. “Don’t give them away,” I said. “Pickle them!”

 

Quick Pickled Chillies // Dinner du Jour

In An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler, I came across her method of simply pouring hot vinegar over sliced chillies, and voilà — an instant pickle pick-me-up. I like the fact that there’s no salt or sugar, like in a true brine; it keeps the flavor bright and clean. Plus they also take all of 5 minutes to make, from start to finish.

This quick little recipe — if you’d go so far as to even call it a recipe — will change your meals. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself adding them to just about everything: eggs, pasta, stews, Mexican food, anything crying out for a little kick.

Quick Pickled Chillies

Wash a glass jar well with hot soapy water. I use a small 250 ml (1 cup) jar and it holds enough chillies to last me a few weeks.

If you want less heat in your chillies, slice off the top, then hold the chilli upside down over a bowl and roll it between your hands — the seeds will tumble right out. If you don’t mind the seeds, then just slice the chillies into thin rounds and pack them tightly into the jar. You can add all sorts of extras at this point: whole peeled garlic cloves, peppercorns, coriander or cumin seeds, bay leaves, fresh herbs. If you want to add any of these (or anything else), just add it to the jar along with the chillies.

To figure out how much vinegar you’ll need, pour water over the chillies until they’re covered and the jar is full. Pour the water out into a measuring jug and see how much there is — that’s how much vinegar to use. Pour that amount of white wine vinegar into a small saucepan. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 1 minute. Pour the hot vinegar over the chillies, clamp on the lid and stash in the fridge front and center at eye level, where you’ll find yourself constantly reaching for them. They’ll last for a couple months in the fridge, but I doubt they’ll hang around that long.

If you love chillies, do yourself a favor and order a jar of Gran Luchito Smoked Chilli Paste — in Ireland, you can get it at My Mexican Shop. I got a jar last week and mixed a spoonful with some mayonnaise to make an addictive dip. 

 

30-minute meals, Holidays, Italian food, Pasta and noodles

Neapolitan Christmas Eve Spaghetti with Walnuts

We’ve been hosting my in-laws for Christmas dinner — and Christmas Eve, and St. Stephen’s Day, and usually one or two more days besides — for years now, which means I spend a lot of my time happily wearing a path between the stove, sink and fridge in the days before and after Christmas Day itself. But in that busy week before the main event, when I’m feeling overwhelmed with shopping lists or last-minute presents or the cards I always procrastinate about writing, or when I’d rather be baking some cookies than fussing too much over dinner, I just want to put something on the table without too much effort or expense. And if it can be something that’s still in keeping with the holidays, like this recipe, then even better. As much as there’s nowhere I’d rather be than my kitchen, sometimes a quick, simple supper can feel like a gift.

Neapolitan Christmas Eve Spaghetti with Walnuts (U Spaghetti’ Anatalina)
adapted from Eat Like an Italian by Catherine Fulvio

Serves 4

This recipe comes from Catherine Fulvio’s latest book, Eat Like an Italian. Catherine says, “During the weeks before Christmas, wonderful fresh walnuts arrive in the shops. This was a recipe for ‘poor folks’ and it illustrates how Italians respect their ingredients.”

1 lb (450 g) spaghetti
1/2 cup (125 ml) good-quality extra virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, very finely sliced
6 tinned anchovies, drained and roughly chopped
1 1/2 cups (150 g) walnuts, lightly toasted and chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, to garnish

Put a large pot of salted water on to boil. Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the package.

Meanwhile, gently heat the oil in a large saucepan (one that’s big enough to also hold all the cooked pasta later) over a low heat. Add the sliced garlic and cook for 1 minute, taking care not to burn the garlic or it will turn bitter and ruin the dish. Add the anchovies and cook for a few minutes more, stirring until they dissolve in the oil.

Reserve a mugful of the cooking water, then drain the pasta and add it directly to the sauce in the pan. Stir in some of the cooking liquid to loosen the pasta and return to the heat. Stir through the walnuts and cook for a further 1 to 2 minutes, then season to taste. Divide the pasta between 4 plates or shallow pasta bowls and garnish with the parsley.

Recipe round-ups

10 Fall Favorites

October’s arrival sees us dusting off the jars of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg for autumn baking and the return of warm bowls of soup or stew to wrap cold hands around. Here are 10 of our fall favorites.

Bacon and butterbean chowder


Pappardelle with butternut squash, blue cheese and pine nuts

Cider-brined pork chops with apples and creamed leeks

Slow cooker cassoulet

Autumn minestrone

Linguini with braised kale

Ultimate ginger cookies

Honey spiced madeleines

Date nut spice bread

Cranberry oatmeal white chocolate chunk cookies

Cookbook reviews, Lamb

Crispy Lamb and Mint Rolls

My sushi-eating, blue cheese-loving kids have become picky eaters and my son smothers everything in ketchup. Over the summer, my heart sank a little further every night at dinnertime, when no matter what I put in front of the kids, it seemed to always be met with a yuck or eww (though at least I’ve trained the seven-year-old well enough to say I don’t care for this). So after months of despairing about what to feed them, I’ve decided to make life easier on myself and do what their daycare does — I make the same things every week. I still play around with new recipes on the weekends, but now Fridays are roast chicken, taco night Tuesdays and Mondays are some kind of mince, that fail-safe reliable. So far that’s meant Spaghetti Bolognese, meatballs, turkey burgers or shepherd’s pie, but things have got a little more interesting with the reissued Marvellous Meals with Mince by Josceline Dimbleby. Originally published in 1982 for the Sainsbury’s supermarket chain, where it became a bestseller, the book has been completely rewritten and brought up to date with fresh new photography.

Finger food still seems to be a safe bet, so I made the crispy lamb and mint rolls first — which the kids wolfed down with a simple yoghurt dip and asked for seconds. On my list of recipes still to try are meatloaf with blue cheese, a picnic loaf, fish sausages and potato croquettes stuffed with pork. I may have given in to the picky eaters — for now — but at least Mince Mondays are looking up.

Crispy Lamb and Mint Rolls
adapted from Marvellous Meals with Mince by Josceline Dimbleby

Serves 4 as a light dinner

The original recipe calls for deep-frying the rolls, but I’ve modified it slightly to bake them in the oven instead as a healthier and easier option.

12 oz (350 g) lean lamb mince
3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 inch (3 cm) piece of fresh root ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon mild chilli powder
salt and freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
a handful of mint or cilantro (a.k.a. coriander) leaves, chopped
2 large eggs, lightly whisked (but only crack one at a time into the bowl for two separate uses)
2 ready-rolled puff pastry sheets
cucumber raita or seasoned Greek yoghurt, for dipping
couscous studded with apricots, preserved lemons, almonds and mint, to serve

In a large bowl, mix together the lamb, garlic, ginger, cumin, chilli powder and salt and pepper. Heat some olive oil in a large frying pan over a high heat. Fry the meat just until it has browned. Transfer the lamb to a bowl with a slotted spoon to leave behind any excess fat and allow to cool slightly, then stir in the chopped mint or cilantro (coriander) and one of the beaten eggs.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Lightly dust your work surface with flour and roll out the pastry sheets to stretch them a bit. Brush the edges of the pastry with some of the remaining beaten egg to help it stick together when you roll it up, then spoon half of the meat mixture onto one of the sheets, leaving a small gap clear at the top long edge. Starting with the long edge closest to you, carefully roll up the pastry sheet, pressing down gently as you go to enclose the meat inside it, so that the lamb rolls resemble a Swiss roll. When you’ve finished, press down firmly to seal the edges together. Cut at 3 inch (7 cm) intervals to make small pastry swirls and place on the lined baking sheet, seam side down. Repeat with the second sheet of pastry and the remaining lamb.

Brush the tops of the rolls with the last of the beaten egg and sprinkle with flaky sea salt and a crack of black pepper. Cook in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, until the pastry has puffed up and is golden brown. Serve with cucumber raita or seasoned Greek yoghurt for dipping and a mound of couscous on the side.

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of Marvellous Meals with Mince from Quadrille Publishing.

 

 

Cakes, Desserts, Fruit

Nigella Lawson’s Store Cupboard Chocolate Raspberry Cake

Cookbook writers and TV chefs are always talking about dishes to serve when unexpected guests pop in or if you’re having friends round for a midweek dinner party. Seriously? Who on earth has a dinner party in the middle of the week? And who calls in unannounced and expects to have some little treat fresh out of the oven set down in front of them? I’m a third generation Virgo and consider myself to be fairly well organised, but I would be hard pressed to rustle up much more than some stale crackers unearthed from the back of the pantry if someone dropped by out of the blue.

Until, that is, I discovered this cake. It’s my favorite kind of cake recipe — the kind where the butter is melted and then everything gets stirred together in one pot, meaning you don’t even have to plan ahead to let the butter soften first. I always have the baking basics on hand (flour, butter, sugar, eggs), and if you just add a jar of raspberry jam and a bar of dark chocolate to that list, then this is truly a store cupboard cake, one you can breezily whip together at a moment’s notice if a craving for cake suddenly strikes — or if, like Nigella, you just so happen to be throwing an effortless-looking dinner party on a school night.

Store Cupboard Chocolate Raspberry Cake
adapted from How to Be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

The original recipe is actually called Store Cupboard Chocolate Orange Cake, since it calls for marmalade instead of raspberry jam. I’ve made it that way too but as much as I love marmalade, I like the raspberry jam version even better.

1/2 cup (125 g) unsalted butter
4 oz (100 g) dark chocolate, broken into pieces
3/4 cup (300 g) good-quality raspberry jam (or apricot jam or marmalade)
3/4 (150 g) sugar
pinch of salt
2 large eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cups (150 g) self-raising flour
confectioners’ sugar (icing sugar), to decorate (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Butter and flour an 8 inch (20 cm) Springform pan and set aside.

Put the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and set over a low heat to melt. When it’s almost melted, stir in the chocolate and allow it to melt a little. Take the pan off the heat and stir until the butter and chocolate are smooth and melted. Add in the jam, sugar, salt and eggs and stir well until everything is combined. Sift in the flour and stir again (taking care not to overmix), then pour the batter into the prepared Springform pan. Bake in the oven for 45 to 50 minutes, until a tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. Set the pan on a wire rack and allow the cake to cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes before you turn it out. Once it’s completely cooled, sift over some confectioners’ (icing) sugar to decorate.

Recipe round-ups, Uncategorized

Five Favorite Zucchini Recipes

They’re coming, they’re on us,
the long striped gourds, the silky
babies, the hairy adolescents,
the lumpy vast adults
like the trunks of green elephants.
Recite fifty zucchini recipes!

- from “Attack of the Squash People” by Marge Piercy

It’s that time of year when gardeners are groaning under a zucchini glut, leaving them on doorsteps or in unlocked cars, driven to look for “newcomers” or “tourists” to offload them on, as in Piercy’s poem. We might not be able to “recite fifty zucchini recipes”, but here are five of our favorite ways to use them up.

Zucchini fritters with feta and dill

Mexican rice supper with zucchini, chorizo and corn

Chocolate zucchini cake

Zucchini rice gratin

Fusilli with zucchini, tomatoes and bacon

30-minute meals, Italian food, Pasta and noodles, Vegetarian main dishes

Spaghetti with Roast Cherry Tomatoes, Chili and Basil

Remember physically cutting recipes out of newspapers and magazines or writing them by hand onto recipe cards, to be filed away into boxes or binders? I was cleaning out my kitchen recently and found two big binders full of recipe clippings, shoved out of reach at the back of a cabinet, that I had completely forgotten about. I dusted them off and flipped through them to save any of the recipes that had caught my eye a decade ago that still sounded good, and it occurred to me that this would probably be the last time I ever paged through torn-out recipes. Now, if I see a recipe in print that I want to save for later, I look it up online and bookmark it or add it to my spreadsheet. This was a recipe I had cut out of a newspaper years and years ago, the original source long since forgotten, the paper already turning yellow and brittle, an old summer favorite happily rediscovered.

If you’re looking for ways to use up an abundance of garden tomatoes, try these too: Chicken Cacciatore, Tomato and Goat’s Cheese Tart, Ravioli and Tomato Salad, Oven-roasted Ratatouille, or Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Sauce.

Spaghetti with Roast Cherry Tomatoes, Chili and Basil

Serves 4

This would look especially nice if you used a mix of yellow and red cherry tomatoes. You could also add some finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes to the sauce if you have them.

olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 red chilies, deseeded and finely chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 lb 2 oz (500 g) cherry tomatoes, 16–20 left whole and the rest cut into quarters
1 teaspoon sugar
splash of white wine or vermouth (optional)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
small bunch of basil, leaves removed from stems and cut into thin ribbons (chiffonade)
1 lb (450 g) spaghetti
freshly grated Parmesan, to serve

Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C).

Heat some olive oil in a large saucepan over a low heat. Add the garlic and chopped chili and cook for 1 minute, taking care not to let the garlic will burn or it will taste bitter and ruin the dish. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 1 or 2 minutes, then add the chopped tomatoes and sugar. Turn up the heat and cook for a minute or two, then add just a splash of white wine or vermouth (or water) and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a rapid splutter, then lower the heat and let it gently bubble away until reduced to a thick-ish sauce.

Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in a large pot of boiling salted water, reserving a cupful of the cooking water when it’s done. Scatter the remaining tomatoes onto a baking sheet, season well with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Roast in the hot oven for about 10 minutes, until the tomatoes start to split.

To serve, add the cooked, drained pasta to the chili tomato sauce, stirring well until all the pasta is coated with sauce. Add a splash of the reserved pasta water to loosen the sauce. Stir in the basil and divide the pasta between 4 plates or shallow bowls. Add the roasted tomatoes individually to the top of each dish. Finish with a few basil leaves to garnish and a grating of Parmesan.