Recipes

I quite enjoy cooking and here are one or two recipes for things I've created over the years.

Pork and beans

This is my take on a classic American dish, and the original inspiration for tinned baked beans. It's nothing like you'd get out of a tin, though.

Preparation time: 15 minutes.
Cooking time: 90-120 minutes.
Serves: 4.

Ingredients:

• 750g (fillet) or 1kg (with bone) pork -- any cut, although personally I prefer pork fillet for this
• 2 shallots, or half a large onion, diced
• 3 rashers of streaky bacon
• 450g tin haricot beans
• 450g tin butter beans
• 450g tin plum tomatoes
• 1 tbsp smoke flavoured sauce ("Liquid Smoke" brand is perfect, but I usually can't find that so use Jack Daniels barbecue flavour sauce instead). Any smoky-flavour condiment will do, though
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp tabasco sauce (adjust according to preferred hotness)
• 2 tsps tomato puree
• 2 tbsps golden syrup (ideally this should be molasses or dark treacle, but that's something else that's hard to find in the UK)
• 2 tsps allspice (I once used Chinese five spice by mistake, and it actually turned out pretty tasty!)
• 2 bay leaves

This can probably be made with dried beans rather than the ones tinned in brine, if so follow the soaking and boiling instructions on the packet of beans, and make enough so that there's about two canfuls in total.

Method:

1. Heat some oil in a large saucepan, chop the shallots and cook gently
2. Chop the bacon roughly and add to the cooking shallots
3. Take the pork, add to the pan and turn regularly until sealed on the outside
4. Add the tin of tomatoes and all their juice to the pan
5. Drain the beans and add them
6. You might need to add 100-200 ml of water at this point, depending on whether the meat is fully covered by the tomatoes and beans or not
7. Bring this lot gently to the boil, then add all the other ingredients and stir well
8. You now have a choice -- to do this the traditional, slower way, transfer everything to an ovenproof dish, put the lid on, and put it in a medium-cool oven (about 180°). Alternatively leave everything in the saucepan, put a lid on it, and turn the heat down to a slow simmer.
9. If cooking in the oven, leave for at least 90 minutes, preferably 2 hours. On the hob and hour should be enough.
10. Check the food. If it still seems very watery, put a few tablespoons of the cooking liquid into a glass, add enough cornflour to make into a thin paste (cream-like consistency) and add it back to the pan or oven dish. Cook for a further 10 minutes or so and it should have thickened up.
11. Serve with potatoes and brocolli, thick crusty bread, or even just on its own.

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Chicken with rice and cabbage

Don't worry, it's much tastier than it sounds!

Preparation time: 10 minutes.
Cooking time: 30 minutes.
Serves: 4.

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken breasts
• 4 shallots, peeled but whole
• ¾ pint of chicken stock
• 3 whole cloves
• 6 black peppercorns, whole
• 2 bay leaves
• ½ cup of white rice, washed
• Splash of Worcestershire Sauce
• ½ cabbage (pref. Savoy), roughly sliced

Method:

1. Heat a little olive oil in the bottom of a large saucepan and brown the chicken breasts in it.
2. While the chicken is browning add the shallots.
3. Add the stock, cloves, peppercorns, bay leaves, and Worcestershire sauce.
4. Bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer, covered for 5 minutes.
5. Add the rice. Stir, bring back to the boil and continue to simmer, covered, for a further ten minutes.
6. Stir once more, then add the cabbage. Don't stir it in, it should sit just above the main meal in the steam. Replace the lid and simmer for a further 10 minutes.

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Savoury sauce

Absolutely delicious as a topping for jacket potatoes.

Preparation time: 5 minutes.
Cooking time: none (10 minutes if eggs need to be hard-boiled).
Serves: 2.

Ingredients:

• 2 hard-boiled eggs
• 50g strong cheddar cheese
• Small tub (142ml) sour cream
• 3 tbsp mayonnaise
• ½ tsp Italian dried herb seasoning
• 1-2 tsp chopped chives (fresh or dried)

Method:

1. Roughly chop the eggs
2. Grate the cheese
3. Mix everything together

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Baked potatoes with rice

This is an old Dutch recipe that has been in my family for years. It's excellent as an accompaniment to stews, casseroles, or anything with lots of gravy.

Preparation time: 10 minutes.
Cooking time: 60-70 minutes.
Serves: 4.

Ingredients:

• 4 potatoes
• 1 cup rice
• 1 onion, chopped
• Olive oil
• Seasoning

Method:

1. Peel and slice the potatoes into 1cm-thick slices. Arrange them around the edge of a baking dish (lining the walls so that they're "standing up").
2. Take the cup of rice and put it in the middle of the dish.
3. Cover the rice with the chopped onion.
4. Fill the dish with cold water until the rice/onion is just covered.
5. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Cook in a moderately hot oven (200°C) for 40-45 minutes, after which time the water should have been all absorbed -- check for this towards the end of the cooking time to make sure it doesn't burn.
7. Once all the water has been absorbed remove from the oven and drizzle a little oil over the rice and potatoes, then return to the oven to crisp for a further 15-20 minutes.

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Chorizo chicken in tomato sauce

After a holiday in Granada (Spain, not Nicaragua) recently, we came home with a couple of kilogrammes of excellent Spanish chorizo sausage. This was one of the recipes I came up with to make use of it.

Preperation time: 15 minutes.
Cooking time: 1 hour.
Serves: 4.

Ingredients:

• 3-4 chicken breast fillets, deskinned
• 250g good quality Spanish (not Mexican) chorizo sausage
• 1 medium onion
• 1 red, green or yellow pepper
• 2 ripe tomatoes
• 1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• 250ml good stock, chicken or vegetable (use a stock cube only if you really don't have any real stock)
• 1 tbsp olive oil (Spanish extra-virgin would be best)
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp paprika (optional; if the chorizo is particularly heavy in paprika this won't be needed)

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan.
2. Peel and finely chop the onion and fry gently in the oil until soft.
3. Remove the paper "skin" from the chorizo sausage and chop it into 1.5cm cubes.
4. Chop the chicken breast into 2cm chunks.
5. Skin the fresh tomatoes and chop into quarters.
6. Add the chorizo to the onions in the pan and continue to cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes until the fat in the chorizo has melted and combined with the olive oil.
7. Add the chicken to the pan and cook until brown, stirring often.
8. Add the tinned tomatoes, tomato purée and stock, and bring to the boil.
9. Add the quartered, skinned, fresh tomatoes, paprika (if using) and oregano.
10. Turn down the heat to a simmer and cook for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has reduced to approximately half its original volume.
11. Deseed the pepper and cut into 2cm chunks. If you like your pepper soft, add it to the saucepan about 20 minutes before the end of cooking. If you like it to retain some crunch (as I do), add it about 5 minutes before the end.
12. Serve with saffron rice and a green salad.

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