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posted by Mark at
17:42
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Food 
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Pressing Pause
After dragging on at one post a week for a while, I'm putting the blog on hiatus for at least a week or two. I want to rework it into something more distinct. Back soon!
posted by Mark at
07:58
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Monday, 11 May 2009
Make Your Own Chorizo
Chorizo are delicious hot red sausages, strongly flavoured with paprika and fennel. Apparently they're originally from Iberia, but they're popular in lots of Hispanic and Portuegese cuisine. They can be smoke-dried and stored like salami, but they can also be made as fresh sausages (Anthony Bourdain swears by them) and they're easy, fun and very tasty things to cook with.
This is by no means a definitive or "authentic" recipe, but it makes some damn tasty chorizo.
Ingredients
1 pound of fatty pork, roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
1 teaspoon of hot paprika
1 teaspoon of smoked paprika (this stuff can be hard to get hold of, but get it if you can. The flavour is absolutely unparalleled - whatever you go through and whatever you pay to get hold of it, the first sniff of that amazing aroma will make it all worthwhile! If you can't get it, just use a teaspoon of mild paprika.
1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne
A few grinds of black pepper
Throw it all in the food processor, and mince it down to a fine paste. Then refrigerate the mix for at least three hours (preferably 24) to let all the flavours mingle. Trust me, it's worth the wait. Then the paste can be stuffed into skins and used as sausages or (my personal favourite because it's easy!), you can just roll it into balls.
When you're ready to use them just fry them in a little oil until they're turning brown. I use them pretty much anywhere you'd use meatballs or sausages - particularly in sandwiches (chorizo sub with cheese, anyone?) or with pasta (they go wonderfully well with shellfish and a good vinegary tomato sauce). They freeze well, too.
This is by no means a definitive or "authentic" recipe, but it makes some damn tasty chorizo.
Ingredients
1 pound of fatty pork, roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
1 teaspoon of hot paprika
1 teaspoon of smoked paprika (this stuff can be hard to get hold of, but get it if you can. The flavour is absolutely unparalleled - whatever you go through and whatever you pay to get hold of it, the first sniff of that amazing aroma will make it all worthwhile! If you can't get it, just use a teaspoon of mild paprika.
1 teaspoon of fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne
A few grinds of black pepper
Throw it all in the food processor, and mince it down to a fine paste. Then refrigerate the mix for at least three hours (preferably 24) to let all the flavours mingle. Trust me, it's worth the wait. Then the paste can be stuffed into skins and used as sausages or (my personal favourite because it's easy!), you can just roll it into balls.
When you're ready to use them just fry them in a little oil until they're turning brown. I use them pretty much anywhere you'd use meatballs or sausages - particularly in sandwiches (chorizo sub with cheese, anyone?) or with pasta (they go wonderfully well with shellfish and a good vinegary tomato sauce). They freeze well, too.
Labels: barbecue pork, cayenne, chorizo, fennel seeds, Garlic, meatballs, paprika, Pasta, sausage, smoked paprika
posted by Mark at
20:00
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Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Pesto Party
This is an extraordinarily easy recipe, barely worthy of the name. Anyone with one arm and at least a third of a cerebral cortex can make pesto. And it is one of the most delicious and handy things to have around the kitchen.
Ingredients:
Two cups of basil leaves, well pressed down. If you keep some basil on your windowsill and you're not a completely deranged pizza and pasta addict, you'll probably find like me that it outgrows your ability to use it.
So what better way to keep the wild basil bush in line than with a regular haircut, and a pesto session?
A quarter cup of parmesan, grated. This is the only bit of hard work in this recipe - parmesan has the texture and density of petrified oak. But you'll have a quarter cup before you know it, and it's well worth it for that amazing flavour.
Half a cup of good olive oil.
Three tablespoons of pine nuts. You can use walnuts, but I always find them a bit bitter.
And finally, three cloves of garlic, topped and tailed and peeled.
Now for the complicated preparation bit. Sling everything in the food processor or blender, and blend it until smoke comes out of the back of the machine. That's a secret signal to tell you your pesto is ready.
By God, doesn't that look good?
Only thing left is to pour/pack it into an ice cube tray and freeze it for all your pesto needs.
And once you have it, this stuff is (green) gold. For starters - it's an instant meal (almost) by itself. Boil some pasta, melt a pesto cube over it in the pan, and bingo - lunch! With maybe a bit of the extra parmesan grated over it if you're splashing out. As an additive, pesto brings new levels of deliciousness to any red sauce (if I have any it always goes in my pasta and pizza sauces). You can melt it onto fish, meat or vegetables, spread a thin layer on toast, add it to sandwiches, or use it in most cases where you'd use fresh basil.
Great, now I'm starving.
Ingredients:
Two cups of basil leaves, well pressed down. If you keep some basil on your windowsill and you're not a completely deranged pizza and pasta addict, you'll probably find like me that it outgrows your ability to use it.
So what better way to keep the wild basil bush in line than with a regular haircut, and a pesto session?
A quarter cup of parmesan, grated. This is the only bit of hard work in this recipe - parmesan has the texture and density of petrified oak. But you'll have a quarter cup before you know it, and it's well worth it for that amazing flavour.
Half a cup of good olive oil.
Three tablespoons of pine nuts. You can use walnuts, but I always find them a bit bitter.
And finally, three cloves of garlic, topped and tailed and peeled.
Now for the complicated preparation bit. Sling everything in the food processor or blender, and blend it until smoke comes out of the back of the machine. That's a secret signal to tell you your pesto is ready.
By God, doesn't that look good?
Only thing left is to pour/pack it into an ice cube tray and freeze it for all your pesto needs.
And once you have it, this stuff is (green) gold. For starters - it's an instant meal (almost) by itself. Boil some pasta, melt a pesto cube over it in the pan, and bingo - lunch! With maybe a bit of the extra parmesan grated over it if you're splashing out. As an additive, pesto brings new levels of deliciousness to any red sauce (if I have any it always goes in my pasta and pizza sauces). You can melt it onto fish, meat or vegetables, spread a thin layer on toast, add it to sandwiches, or use it in most cases where you'd use fresh basil.
Great, now I'm starving.
Labels: basil, Food processor, Garlic, Olive oil, parmesan, Pasta, Pesto, Pine nut, Pizza
posted by Mark at
12:53
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1 Comments
