Cooking tips and wonderful flavour combinations

benjybars

village elder.
got a new recipe for you:

peel and cut butternut squash into chunks, season with salt, pepper, olive oil and chili flakes.. roast for about 20mins.. then cut up some bacon and add to the roasting tray.. meanwhile, when the squash and bacon are nearly done, cook a packet of gnocchi.. drain the gnocchi and add to the roasting tray.. then stir some double cream and a pack of spinach through the roasting tray.. whack on a load of parmesan and roast for a few more mins..

oh my days i made this yesterday and it is so fucking tasty. big up my mate joe for the recipe!
 

luka

Well-known member
You've let me down Benji this is a vegetarian household. Got any.ideas fir the hundreds of sweet potatoes in my cupboard?
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
white fish and chorizo/lardons/bacon - it's such a classic combination, but I never really made it much before the last week or so. Trout and chorizo, sea bass and pancetta etc etc etc. Easy and fantastic. Slightly helping to soothe me after today's bad news.

oh, and roasted sweet potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes make a great soup, with the addition of stock and not much else (maybe double cream, but really doesn't need it). Doesn't matter if you're not keen on sweet pots either, as the J artichoke flavour dominates. Just have it as a starter portion, not a main meal portion, if you don't want to be bent over double with stomach pain the next day.
 
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luka

Well-known member
I want to eat a hearty unfashionable vegetarian pasta bake today gas anyone git the ultimate recipe
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
I want to eat a hearty unfashionable vegetarian pasta bake today gas anyone git the ultimate recipe

Fusilli Pizza

butter for greasing
400g tomatoes, peeled and chopped
I tblspn olive oil plus extra for drizzling
pinch of dried oregano
I tablespoon chopped fresh basil
350g fusilli
40g Parmesan
100g mozzarella, diced
salt

Prehat the oven to 180c. Grease an ovenproof dish with butter. Process tomatoes to a puree. Heat the oil in a saucepan, add pureed tomatoes and cook over a low heat for 10/15 til thickened. Stir in the oregano and basil and remove from the heat. Cook the pasta untiil al dente. Drain, return to pan and pour sauce over. Sprinkle with Parmesan and toss well. Spoon mixture into dish, top with diced mozzarella and drizzle with il. Bake for 10 minutes.

Works well if you double the quanties of the sauce and cheese etc.

I know that wasn't what you wanted, but eat it up.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Today I kind-of invented a delicious soup, although it was in part inspired by a recipe I used to make quite often in an old book I've got that's either Nigel or Nigella, I forget which. Anyway, I had this big frozen lump in the freezer which I recall was the dry cider in which I'd boiled a gammon joint prior to roasting it (from, er, quite a while ago) and had been unwilling to throw away, as it had absorbed all the lovely salty hamminess while retaining the crisp bite of the cider - so I basically had cider-flavoured ham stock. I fried up an onion, some garlic and a few bits of chorizo along with some dried thyme and boiled a couple of sweet potatoes cut into small chunks (in their own water so the soup didn't get too starchy). Then just dumped everything in the stock and simmered it for a bit, added some smoked paprika and finished it with fresh basil, lots of pepper and a squirt of lime juice. Quite astonishingly delicious, and an added bonus was the pleasure of eating it straight from the pan on account of Mrs. Tea's absence this weekend.

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(Oddly enough, as I was eating it I thought it could maybe have benefited from the addition of either lime leaves or bay leaves - I think fresh bay has a very pungent scent, but I concede that the flavour they impart is quite subtle and might not be noticeable if you're using old, stale leaves. I love the idea of a 'bay leaf conspiracy'!)
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
That soup sounds amazing! Just out of interest, how did boiling the gammon in cider before roasting change the flavour? Presume it makes the meat less tough among other things.

The bay leaf conspiracy is real. I loved the silliness of that article...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
It was pretty lush, if do say so myself.

The purpose of boiling the gammon is mainly to leach out the excess salt, although I guess maybe it absorbed some cidery goodness, too. Maybe the acid and/or alcohol helps tenderise the meat, I dunno.

I'm tempted to conduct an experiment into the alleged uselessness of bay leaves!
 
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Leo

Well-known member
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on a dreary grey saturday, my better half's first attempt at challah bread. i'm such a sucker for fresh bread, delicious.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I heartily recommend De Cecco. I've become someone who looks at pasta brands recently. My life went wrong somewhere.

On the recipe front, southern Iranian cooking with tamarind, fenugreek, coriander leaf and lots of chili is something I've 'got into' recently. If anyone ever has cause to go to west London, Sufi restaurant near Shepherd's Bush is exceptionally good.
 
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