Cooking tips and wonderful flavour combinations
- Thread starter baboon2004
- Start date
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Inspired by a Spanish holiday: onion/garlic/chili base for a stew with chorizo, chickpeas,roasted tomatoes,double tomato paste, cumin, pimienton and kale (or spinach). Very quick, very good (especially the day after if you make a batch of it). Presumably even better with chickpeas cooked from scratch, but I didn't have the patience, so used the tinned ones instead.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Sounds a bit like this:
http://www.louchegastronomique.com/2015/puchero/
http://www.louchegastronomique.com/2015/puchero/
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I make and eat puchero at least once a week (I'm actually gonna make one this very morning!) and sorry but that recipe is waaaay off what they eat in Andalusia. I actually posted a proper puchero recipe here a while back in the 'peasant food thread'
puchero andaluz
half fill large pot with water and throw in
2 carrots
2 potatoes
1 small swede
1 leek
2 celery
3 handfuls of chickpeas (pre-soaked for 12 hours)
A slice of bacon fat/pork belly
A white bone
A whole chicken leg/thigh
Salt and extra water to taste.
Some peppermint if you've got it
bring to boil and keep removing the scum with a ladel for about 15 mins. Put the lid on and cook for about 1.5 hrs or until the chickpeas are ready (45 mins in a pressure cooker).
you can serve the stock seperately, adding water if needed, with the chickpeas and add noodles or rice. The meat and vegetables left (the pringá) can be served with the stock like a chunky soup or mashed up and turned into croquettes, or with boiled eggs and bread. However you like it.
absolutely staple food in andalusia
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
TBF he explicitly presents it as his version of his mum's version which in turn was "a bastardized take, worked up from a half-remembered recipe with whatever she could find in 1980s & 90s Darlington", so that's hardly surprising!
It's stuff like this that makes living with a vegetarian annoying, though.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
haha i didnt read that bit, i just scrolled down to the recipe. i'm sure its very nice tho.
spain is not a good place for vegetarians but this is a very nice sevillan tapas dish you should try http://spanishsabores.com/2014/08/17/espinacas-con-garbanzos-spinach-chickpeas/
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Seeing as it's getting towards that time of year again, and seeing as the conversation is heading in that direction anyway, I thought I'd share a recipe I've made several iterations of recently, and enjoyed immensely. It goes by the unassuming name 'sausage and mushroom casserole', but that scarcely does it justice.
THE MEAT
* 800 g loose/two packs good sausages, doesn't really matter what kind as long as they've got plenty of coarse-ground meat in them. It's great to use a mix of English-style bangers and merguez or similar Med/MENA-style sausages, you know, the lovely red ones all full of paprika, garlic and so on, which can be pork or beef and/or lamb depending on where they're from;
* Some cooking chorizo (see above) and/or streaky bacon, pancetta, lardons, whatever - basically some fatty, salty, cured pigmeat.
THE VEG
* A good 400 g of fresh mushrooms, wild for preference, Portabello if not - as big, meaty and tasty as possible. Also a handful of dried mushrooms if you have some/fancy splashing out.
* Two onions, or one massive one, chopped (doesn't have to be too fine).
* Two tins of beans - borlotti, butter, kidney - any kind that goes well in a casserole.
* Tin of chopped tomatoes.
* Garlic - plenty of, chopped/crushed.
THE REST
* A couple of small chilis, deseeded, finely chopped.
* Oregano and thyme, dried.
* Meat stock - works well with with beef or a beef/chicken mix - qty: as much as needed.
* Couple of glasses of red wine.
* Tomato purée and/or sundried tomato paste.
* Handful of breadcrumbs.
* Worcestershire sauce, to taste.
* Redcurrant jelly, to taste.
Brown the sausages in a little oil, then remove from the pan and add coarse chopped mushrooms, onion, garlic, chili and bacon/chorizo and fry until the onions have gone translucent and the mushrooms have lost most of their moisture. Subsidize whatever fat comes out of the meat with butter, enough to keep the mushrooms juicy. Put dried mushrooms in a bowl with hot water, if you're using them; once rehydrated, drain (keep the liquid of course) and chop the mushrooms if they're not in small bits already. Once you're finished frying, put the pan contents into a large hob-proof casserole dish with the sausages and the rest of the ingredients, except for the breadcrumbs (add the stock last so you can see how much you need - the liquid should just cover the sausages). Heat on the hob until boiling, stir well and then transfer to a not-too-hot oven with a lid on.
You can of course cook it in a big pan on the hob, but this requires regular stirring to ensure it doesn't stick and burn, and the heat has to be carefully moderated to prevent it from boiling over.
After an hour or so of cooking, taste it and judge the consistency. You want the liquid fairly thick, so add some finely crushed breadcrumbs if it's too watery. Add some redcurrant jelly if you think it could do with some sweetness, and Worcestershire sauce for extra umami. You shouldn't need to add salt if you're using ready-made stock, but may want to add some it's home-made. Black pepper is compulsory.
Cook for at least another hour or so. It's ready when the wine/stock/tomato mix has undergone that alchemical transmutation to a wonderfully viscous, savoury-sweet gunk. Serve with fresh leafy herbs and more black pepper, plus bread, mash or whatever.
I've got a big tin of confit de canard at home, reckon I'll add some of that next time I make this!
THE MEAT
* 800 g loose/two packs good sausages, doesn't really matter what kind as long as they've got plenty of coarse-ground meat in them. It's great to use a mix of English-style bangers and merguez or similar Med/MENA-style sausages, you know, the lovely red ones all full of paprika, garlic and so on, which can be pork or beef and/or lamb depending on where they're from;
* Some cooking chorizo (see above) and/or streaky bacon, pancetta, lardons, whatever - basically some fatty, salty, cured pigmeat.
THE VEG
* A good 400 g of fresh mushrooms, wild for preference, Portabello if not - as big, meaty and tasty as possible. Also a handful of dried mushrooms if you have some/fancy splashing out.
* Two onions, or one massive one, chopped (doesn't have to be too fine).
* Two tins of beans - borlotti, butter, kidney - any kind that goes well in a casserole.
* Tin of chopped tomatoes.
* Garlic - plenty of, chopped/crushed.
THE REST
* A couple of small chilis, deseeded, finely chopped.
* Oregano and thyme, dried.
* Meat stock - works well with with beef or a beef/chicken mix - qty: as much as needed.
* Couple of glasses of red wine.
* Tomato purée and/or sundried tomato paste.
* Handful of breadcrumbs.
* Worcestershire sauce, to taste.
* Redcurrant jelly, to taste.
Brown the sausages in a little oil, then remove from the pan and add coarse chopped mushrooms, onion, garlic, chili and bacon/chorizo and fry until the onions have gone translucent and the mushrooms have lost most of their moisture. Subsidize whatever fat comes out of the meat with butter, enough to keep the mushrooms juicy. Put dried mushrooms in a bowl with hot water, if you're using them; once rehydrated, drain (keep the liquid of course) and chop the mushrooms if they're not in small bits already. Once you're finished frying, put the pan contents into a large hob-proof casserole dish with the sausages and the rest of the ingredients, except for the breadcrumbs (add the stock last so you can see how much you need - the liquid should just cover the sausages). Heat on the hob until boiling, stir well and then transfer to a not-too-hot oven with a lid on.
You can of course cook it in a big pan on the hob, but this requires regular stirring to ensure it doesn't stick and burn, and the heat has to be carefully moderated to prevent it from boiling over.
After an hour or so of cooking, taste it and judge the consistency. You want the liquid fairly thick, so add some finely crushed breadcrumbs if it's too watery. Add some redcurrant jelly if you think it could do with some sweetness, and Worcestershire sauce for extra umami. You shouldn't need to add salt if you're using ready-made stock, but may want to add some it's home-made. Black pepper is compulsory.
Cook for at least another hour or so. It's ready when the wine/stock/tomato mix has undergone that alchemical transmutation to a wonderfully viscous, savoury-sweet gunk. Serve with fresh leafy herbs and more black pepper, plus bread, mash or whatever.
I've got a big tin of confit de canard at home, reckon I'll add some of that next time I make this!
Last edited:
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
That looks great, I do one with serrano ham and chickpeas but always looking for veg options, thank you.
Leo
Well-known member
benjybars
village elder.
yeah i really don't think i could handle that.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
great stuff - I like the idea of mixing Uk-type sausages and merguez. Do you ever make it with lentils as well?
Leo
Well-known member
it ain't easy, really miss it. she's so sensitive to garlic that she can smell it on me if i've eaten outside the house, sometimes feel like a lapsed recovering alcoholic who's sneaking a drink before coming home. it happened later in life, she used to eat it all the time but had a stressful time at work a few years back and it permanently affected her digestion. she'a also pescatarian, so i usually indulge in garlicy meat dishes when we go to a restaurant.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
onion and other alliums as well. apparently they all increase both passion and ignorance in the eater
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
http://kurma.net/essays/e19.html jeez, garlic is really controversial
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
This site:
http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/
a) is pretty mighty and
b) has a no-onions-no-garlic category.
http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/
a) is pretty mighty and
b) has a no-onions-no-garlic category.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
It's all about the hybridized global sausage underground!
Nope, just pork - fnar! You know, lentils are one of those things I always enjoy eating, but for some reason I never think to actually buy anyway. Which is stupid, when you consider how cheap, versatile and nutritious they are (as long as you're already on VERY familiar terms with whoever you have to share a bed with that night). But yeah, I'm sure they'd work extremely well in place of/addition to the beans in that casserole recipe.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Makes perfect sense, I mean look at the French.