Peasant food

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
i can put up recipes if anyone wants em

Yes please Jim! We've got a really great Chinese grocer's near our new place and I want to try out things involving black beans/oyster sauce/chili oil etc. - that laoganma recipe in the other thread sounded pretty badass.
 
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Benny Bunter

Well-known member
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
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Yes please Jim! We've got a really great Chinese grocer's near our new place and I want to try out things involving black beans/oyster sauce/chili oil etc. - that laoganma recipe in the other thread sounded pretty badass.

This is the South American black beans, not the Chinese ones! I got some Chinese recipes though I can look out. You buy the beans dried in veggie shops or in the Brazilian shops. They're dried like chickpeas or ...beans....lol, not the salted Chinese ones.

Black beans.

Place beans in saucepan, add water to cover. With lid on saucepan, bring the beans to a boil over a low heat, let them boil for exactly one minute, then take the pan off the heat to sit, still uncovered, for one hour.

Then boil for 2 hours, but allow for a longer time. Keep them covered at all times with at least one inch of water. Make sure they really boil. Do not salt until the last half hour of cooking. Add perhaps a bay leaf, some whole cumin seed, half an onion, some black pepper, oregano, garlic.

Eat with a bit of butter on top and some rice and some corn on the cob (in season now, 4 for a pound!)

(this is one of those recipes that assumes you've got enough money for gas/leccy to be able to boil them for that long, sorry. I'll try out some other methods that maybe are more cost efficient. The beans are cheap to buy dried though.)
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
With the Chinese black beans (they're sometimes in the shops as 'preserved and fermented' beans with ginger, or 'salted beans', there's loads of different types), you just basically add a couple of teaspoons of them to anything you're frying, and it's a winner. So chicken, or belly pork, or green peppers, or bacon.

The wind-dried sausage (Lap Cheong) is a good thing to buy from Chinese supermarkets, it comes in sealed vacuum packs. The red one is pork, the brown one is duck with duck liver. You just steam it over rice or boil it for about 15 minutes, or fry it like chorizo. If you're frying it, wash it first. Here's a simple recipe for that,

http://kitschow.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/212-rice-with-chinese-dried-meat-recipe.html

you dont need a clay pot.

Or chop it up and stick it in fried rice.

(both of the above - black beans and lap cheong I think apply as 'peasant food' as well, though the lap cheong isn't cheap over here :( )
 
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Slothrop

Tight but Polite
With the Chinese black beans (they're sometimes in the shops as 'preserved and fermented' beans with ginger, or 'salted beans', there's loads of different types), you just basically add a couple of teaspoons of them to anything you're frying, and it's a winner. So chicken, or belly pork, or green peppers, or bacon.
Agreed, they're great.

Speaking of preserved lemons (upthread) I did this vegetable tagine the other night, and it was pretty solid:
http://www.lesauce.com/2012/03/vegetable-tagine-with-preserved-lemons.html
You can skip the saffron and the fancy-pants couscous if you want, and mix up the veg to whatever you can get cheaply - I included some chickpeas as well. The olives and preserved lemons are fairly crucial, though.

It's probably the closest I've come to a genuinely interesting vegetarian winter-veg stew, although I'm very open to suggestions on that front.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
It's probably the closest I've come to a genuinely interesting vegetarian winter-veg stew, although I'm very open to suggestions on that front.

There's a mushroom korma in our Nige's Real Food - not tried it but it's probably decent. Might fit the bill. Other than that I would suggest something Moroccan-ish involving butternut squash/aubergines/almonds/dried apricots etc. (probably quite similar to what you made in terms of the spice mix involved, but Moroccan food is great so that's no bad thing).
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Ah, sorry, I don't include mushrooms in that: there are various mushroom bourgignon and mushroom stroganoff type things that are great.
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
couple of mentions of frozen veg here - no way is this ever good with the exception of peas to chuck into a fried rice maybe.
 

griftert

Well-known member
couple of mentions of frozen veg here - no way is this ever good with the exception of peas to chuck into a fried rice maybe.
Far cheaper though, and in my experience if you're cooking it down it doesn't tend to make too much difference either way. Couldn't afford veg if it wasn't mostly frozen.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I think risotto definitely counts - it's quintessential food for when you're hard up (even if you have to buy your parmesan). Lemon and parmesan = best combination ever
Risotto rice in small quantities is also really good for thickening / bulking up stews. Kind of comparable to pearl barley or whatever.
 

Leo

Well-known member
Spaghetti with Sardines, Lemon, and Anchovy Breadcrumbs

was going to describe this but thought i'd just post a link, so good and so easy (use panko breadcrumbs).

http://racheleats.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/oh-crumbs/

p1060602.jpg
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
with regard the (south american) black beans, they have to be one of the most cost efficient foods ever - one cup of beans when par-boiled swells up to 3-4 times their size, thus making enough beans for 2 or 3 people, it's ridiculous.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Risotto rice in small quantities is also really good for thickening / bulking up stews. Kind of comparable to pearl barley or whatever.

That's a very good point, and one that I'm going to put into action this week in my planned celeriac and bacon soup/stew.

I really don't like pearl barley - I don't think I've ever taken against a grain so much.Not sure what it is about it, but I'd choose bulghur or freekeh (my fave of all grains) every time.

Mistersloane, can you buy those type of black beans at a non-specialist shop? (ah scrap that , i see you've answered upthread)
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
You're not seriously telling me there's a foodstuff called "freekeh"?

Definitely asking my GF if she wants to get freekeh next time we're out shopping.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I've got a packet of black beans. I can't remember where I got them, which suggests that they probably didn't need ordering directly from a supplier in Mexico or anything. Possibly a health food shop, possibly a big supermarket, possibly our local Indian grocer - anywhere with a decent range of dried pulses, really.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
You're not seriously telling me there's a foodstuff called "freekeh"?

Definitely asking my GF if she wants to get freekeh next time we're out shopping.

Not only does it exist (also look for 'fireek' as another transliterative alternative), but it's amazing. I though it was going to be one of those overhyped, disappointing things as it had been mentioned a few times in the broadsheets, but nope, it's fantastic, even better than bulghur.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I've got a packet of black beans. I can't remember where I got them, which suggests that they probably didn't need ordering directly from a supplier in Mexico or anything. Possibly a health food shop, possibly a big supermarket, possibly our local Indian grocer - anywhere with a decent range of dried pulses, really.

Thanks - I just had a look on the sainsburys website and it seems it's reached there, so widely available now i guess. along with a bewildering range of other types of beans, quite a few of which i was unfamiliar with. I cooked a bit with black-eyed beans a while back, but veggie Mexican food, while nice enough, just doesn't hit the spot that dead pig flesh does...
 

Immryr

Well-known member
I like pearl parley. it's great in soups, but I really, really like it when you use it for making a risotto.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
The huge horrible Tescos do black beans in their "exotic foods" sections, the one near me now has a large South American and Korean section, which is weird cos it's not really that type of area, it's all mainland Chinese, but I guess they're trying it out. I'm sure most caribbean/maybe indian/"ethnic" corner shops will do them.

PS don't salt them until the very end/last half hour cos saly makes them tough.


Oxtail is another really cheap thing which makes huuuge meals. Oxtail stew. It's not my favourite though.
 
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