Eat with Daniel: Recipes Blog

Lamb Kleftiko Recipe

I haven’t written anything in a while, so I’m a bit out of practice with this, but I feel if I start editing it as I write then I’ll never write anything. I’m just going to do this stream of consciousness thing that people in my writing classes used to do to come up with really cool stories about vampires or going to house parties or whatever other generic shit they could force themselves to spew out and present to the class. This reminds me of one of my least favorite stories I was forced to read and comment upon that a middle aged woman had written. It was this story about these two dimensional characters having an argument yeah, and the argument gets out of hand, gets real personal, gets real nasty and fists start flying and they’re a couple and it’s domestic abuse and no keep reading because at the end you work out that yeah Steve doesn’t have to be man’s name, it can be like Stevie…role reversal innit. Clever.

I have cooked lots and lots lately and have lots and lots to catch up and recipes up my sleeve and down my trousers and round my ankles and in the cupboard and under the floorboards and under my mattress and round the houses and two in a bird is worth one in the bush and don’t tell mother.

This one is a recipe that anyone in the world could make, and by that i mean anyone with hands, because it’s not really fiddly or nothing, but if you had no hands and just hooks then you might tear the paper…

Ingredients:

Some good bit of lamb leg (boned and rolled joint or something or you might even get away with a bit of lamb shoulder) that will feed a couple of people or more

Enough potatoes for those people, peeled and chopped into chunks

Couple of white onions peeled and chopped

Few carrots peeled and chopped

Couple of cloves of garlic

Few glugs of good white wine

Dash of water

Salt and pepper

Healthy sprinkling of oregano and thyme, fresh preferably (don’t use dried thyme, but a little less dried oregano might be alright)

Lemon, cut a couple of slices and throw them in

Parchment paper or baking paper

Directions:

So start by searing your meat in a pan and browning on all sides. In the meantime, throw everything else into enough parchment/baking paper to contain everything in a nice parcel. When your meat has browned, put it on top of everything else. It should look something like the picture below if you are in a room with the same lighting and have eyes like mobile phone camera lenses…

Scrunch up your parcel but leave a little room at the top so air and moisture can circulate and so on, then try and stuff it into some kind of pan or some kind of baking tray.

Put this into an oven you’ve preheated to about the exact directions for how long it takes to cook your lamb that you’ll find on the packaging you bought it in. If you bought it from somewhere else but a supermarket then you’re fucked love, and I can’t help you, but maybe a rule like 30 minutes per pound like i just found on the internet might help you.

After all this cooking is done you’ll have something like the picture below, which looks a lot like the above picture but with dirtier parchment paper. It isn’t dirty though, just delicious.

Here are also some greens i cooked with it. They were nice.

Anyway, enjoy it, and sorry for all this stream of consciousness thing. Didn’t really work out at all.

Guest Post by adrewts.

“…..my cooking blog is a sinking ship, no one reads it anymore, I feel like I have sold out, well…I know I have sold out, but I didn’t think it would feel like this, I thought people would forget about it and respect me for having a career and a steady girlfriend, but they haven’t, they just can’t let it drop. And so there I was hoping I could be the new Dave, living the high life, but instead, it seems..…I can’t even look Mark in the eye now….. he spits at my feet and says I’m not fit to lick the dirt off his boots. He doesn’t even wear boots! And you know what? I want to do more recipes for it, I really do, look at me! I’m a mess without it! I miss it, honestly, I want it to be just like the good old days, when it was nearly quite good, but…, but I just cant bring myself to….it’s just…well when I get home from work, all I can think about is Egg Cards, briefcases, make or break holidays….”
“Daniel!” I interrupted, grabbing his shoulders “look at me! Now stop it!! I understand your concerns, your life has changed quickly, you aren’t in the gutter anymore, you have been seduced by success and know you’ve lost your way and I think I know what you are saying..”He opened his mouth to speak but nothing would come out, he shrugged his shoulders and let his head hang. I carried on “…if you want me to inject a bit of life into it I will, just to get it back on its feet, I’m an ideas man after all, its what I do, but it’s only because we are friends, old friends, frankly I’m above all this now, but I will do it for you, because I know how popular and hilarious my recipes were, and I know that I was the main reason people really read the blog in the first place and to be honest I got sick of the compliments and attention from girls so it’s a big sacrifice for me doing this. But, aft….” He went to interrupt again; I raised a finger and gave him a look, the look, and carried on “…but, after this I want to see you turn your life around, get back to the good stuff you know? What happened to the passion? The dreams? You know that in the rat race even if you win, you’re still a rat! You are a rat! A rat! Daniel the rat! I thought you wanted to be a humble recipe blogger? A cook! Now you’re a rat! That’s vermin Daniel! Back in the gutter but with a salary this time! Daniel the rat! Rats can’t cook! So get a grip! Focus man! Look at me; do you think I got this far by submitting to the system?” I left it at that, watching Daniels face go from dismay to joy made me feel sick, it was so pathetic, but I smiled, I smiled the famous Andy smile and patted his back, hoping he wasn’t sharp enough to crack a joke about the film Ratatouille.
“Thank you Andy! Thanks so much! You are completely right about everything you said! Can you have it to me by next week?” He wasn’t.
“Daniel, I can e-mail it to you tonight” I replied, pleased that he didn’t make the joke.
“You can!?” he spluttered.
“All in a days work!” I shouted over my shoulder as I disappeared down the corridor.
In the distance I could hear Daniel calling after me, “I loved the bit about the rat race! You are so wise! Thanks again…….” I shuddered at the thought of ever being that desperate and witless, as his voice trailed of into obscurity.

Later that evening I sat at my computer and wrote and wrote and as I finally hit the send key I reached for my cigars, lit one and thought to myself ‘Andy, you just can’t buy class - a year out of the recipe writing game and you’ve still got it’

The email read as follows:

Daniel,

Nice to catch up earlier, sorry I couldn’t stay and chat, as promised here is my recipe, now you keep your half of the bargain!

Best Regards,

A.Venner


Snickers Porridge:

Do your porridge same as you usually do.
Add in one spoon of chocolate spread.
Add in one spoon of peanut butter.
Add some peanuts as well.
Stir it all together.

Pancake Day!!!

Pancake Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lemon and sugar? No thanks…

Chinese pancake day.

Mafe Recipe a.k.a Peanut Butter Stew

picture almost looks good…

You: ‘What is this? Peanut butter? In a savoury dish? Isn’t it more like a desert? Ha!’

Me: ‘No, it’s an African recipe. Racist.’

To tell truth, I think the original is a lot about pounding up peanuts with some kind of percussive kitchen instrument. I don’t own anything like that, plus it’s easier to use peanut butter. If you use crunchy peanut butter it’s probably the same anyway.

I like this meal, my mother likes this meal, some other people have liked this recipe. You might like this recipe. That’s all I’m saying. You might enjoy it a lot.

It’s really versatile, and it works with any kind of meat. It might even work quite well with something like aubergine and potato if you’re a vegetarian, but really, I don’t know that, I’m only guessing. 

There’s something rich and deep about the dish, almost earthy, like eating delicious ground.

To get your peanut butter stew going you’ll need…

Belly pork (skin removed) or chicken thighs (skin left on) or stewing lamb or beef

1 onion, chopped fine

1 carrot, peeled and chopped into inch chunks

few leaves of a sweet hispi cabbage aka sweet heart, chopped finely

couple of spring onions, chopped vertically, again finely

clove of garlic, smashed and chopped

spice mix: pinch of dried red chili, teaspoon of fennel seeds, another of coriander seeds, another of cumin seeds (all toasted and crushed) and one of garam masala/mild curry powder

chicken stock to cover

2 tablespoons of chunky peanut butter

big, big handful of coriander

some salts and pepps

Brown the meat in very hot oil. Don’t worry about cooking it through, just worry about getting a good brown colour on it. When you’ve done that, remove from the pan and set aside while you get on with the rest.

Fry the onion on a medium heat in the fat left in the pan. Make sure it softens, and if it browns a little, it won’t hurt the dish any. Add in your toasted and ground spice mix, knock the heat down to low and let it sizzle in the oil for a minute or two.

Add in the carrot and garlic, stir it in, add back in the meat and the juices it’s let out while resting and then cover the lot with chicken stock. If you’re using stewing lamb or beef then you need to cook this low and slow for a couple of hours at least, same for the pork and a bit less for the chicken, but a long cooking time is always going to help develop the flavour of the stew.

When you imagine that you’re meat is going to be ready, throw in your cabbage and spring onions and the peanut butter. If it’s a little dry after that, then add a little more water to thin the consistency. I like it a little like or maybe under the consistency of double cream. This consistency getting right phase should hopefully last no longer than a minute or so because you want the spring onions and cabbage to retain a little crunch. 

Season with salt if it needs it, and note that this dish loves a bit of pepper.

By now you should be done.

This’ll serve two, or half a real fatty. I have it with a little plain white rice. You should too. Again, it’s just a guess, but i imagine that this would go really well with some fried plantain or roast sweet potatoes.

Chicken Miso Soup

I haven’t been posting for a while, quite obviously because I have a job now, which is bad for the blog, but good for your taxes. This is the last time I excuse myself for it, and i suppose I’ll apologise to the seven people that read this blog in advance and say don’t expect another post too soon.

Anyway, to the recipe! I noticed that My Cousin Vinny was on TV tonight, which meant that the perfect opportunity to have a date night had arisen. All that was missing was a nice bit of dinner to set the mood right. Obviously, My Cousin Vinny is quite a difficult film to pair a meal with, but after much racking of my brain I settled on baloney sandwiches and pasta or something. Unfortunately I don’t know what baloney is nor would I ever eat it, which really fucked up my plans. Luckily, I had all of the ingredients for chicken miso soup after I went out and bought them, so I decided to make that.

If you ever find yourself without baloney or pasta or something, I’d really rather recommend making this dish, as it is incredibly economic, simple to make, healthy AND DELICIOUS. And when I say economic, I mean it is if you have everything, because Japanese ingredients are really expensive lol.

If you can afford it you’ll need…for two servings…

2 chicken thighs, boned, skinned and sliced thin (but retain dem bones)

a couple of pinches of dried wakame seaweed, rehydrated in a little cold water

two carrots, peeled and cut cool

teaspoon of dashi powder

1 tbsp of a good quality white miso

3 spring onions, trimmed, white for cooking, green tips for garnish

two bowlfuls of water

A serving of Japanese rice

Take the bowls of water and put that into a saucepan, add the dashi poder, the carrots, chicken bones and spring onions and bring up to a rolling simmer. Let it cook away until the carrots start to soften. You want to retain a little bite in them, because everything else will be as smooth as silk.

Add the seaweed and let it bubble for a little while and infuse with the stock; a minute or two. Now dump the bones out of the stock and replace with the thinly sliced chicken. Allow to cook for a minute or so, then turn the heat off. Your looking for the meat just to turn white and firm. It shouldn’t take long to cook through because you’ve sliced it thinly with skill and precision. If you’re unsure, steal a piece away and have a look at its insides. If it’s all white, it’s alright (such a prick). I cooked mine for a little under a pair of minutes.

Final stage, add the miso paste and whisk it into the stock. Get it into a bowl and then eat it with some rice on the side.

p.s I like to add some rice into the soup when i start getting near the bottom of the bowl, which is really das shit.

Anyway, I’m off to watch My Cousin Vinny and bone my missus.

I’m back!

Lamb Stovie and Pea Puree Recipe

I have come back after a long time away. No one will give a shit. Regardless, I cooked a delicious meal just yesterday, and I thought it would be nice to note it down. Lamb stovies are something of an British delicacy that no one outside of Scotland or something up north will have heard of. Luckily I have, and I’m here to pass it on to you.

Stovies are traditionally the sickest looking pile of leftover shit slop I ever laid eyes on, but they’re a fantastic way to use up leftover roast lamb; something which I find myself having a bit of every once in a while.

I’ve done a bit of tweaking to the traditional cooking method, and I’m quite sure that the whole of Scotland is incorrect in their method. My way comes out more like a delicious hotpot or layered bake…as opposed to this…

you pick.

For my way you’ll need…

As much leftover roast lamb as you can get your hands on.

4 potatoes, peeled and sliced on a mandolin or as thing as you can get them.

2 or three big white onions, sliced thin

beef or chicken stock to cover

quite a few sprigs of thyme

few dashes of worcester sauce

tbsp of dark french mustard

butter to dot over the top

pepppaaaaaaaaaaaaar

and for the pea puree…

two handfuls of frozen peas

2 spring onions, cleaned and chopped

a clove of garlic

a tbsp of butter

a few leaves of fresh mint

half a cup of chicken stock

To cook the stovie, all you need to do is start with a layer of potatoes, a layer of onions, a layer of lamb, a little thyme, then rinse and repeat, seasoning with pepper all the way. No salt here, as the stock might be a little salty. Finish with a layer of potatoes, pour over the stock then dot the top with the butter. Cover with tin foil and pop in an oven pre-heated to 170C.

Now you’re going to have to keep an eye on it, but for cooking times I’d guess at the 2 hour mark. What you’re looking for is the starch in the potato to thicken the stock and create a nice gravy. When this starts to happen, pull off the tin foil and let the tatties on top do a bit of browning.

While all this is going on, make your puree. Melt the butter and lightly saute the spring onions and garlic. Add the peas and allow them to cook a little, then add the stock and allow to bubble for a minute or so. Throw all this into a blender, juicer, bash it between two shoes, but make sure it’s pureed.

For me, I added a few sprouts and some peas cooked in a little butter because I like sprouts, but left them out of the recipe because there’s so many whiny little bastards who don’t. I like the added texture, but also the combination of the really sweet pea puree and the slightly irony sprout. It’s good.

To serve, get yourself a chunk of your stovie and a lake of your puree and enjoy it with a knife and fork and so on.

Bye.

Cjalson Recipe

This is the first time I’ve joined up with other food bloggers in a recipe. I’m quite excited about the whole thing and it feels quite special to be part of something like this, and to give my interpretation of the dish and share it with a lovely community. 

This has been set up by a lovely lady called Rosella, who is based in Italy. She has based the event around the life and work of Gianni Cosetti, holder of a Michelin starred restaurant in the north of Italy; ‘Il Roma’. He trawled the local area to collect traditional recipes for ‘cjalsons’, and Rosella is doing likewise with bloggers from all over the world. 

To describe caljons, I’d say they were a cross between a filled pasta and a gnocchi, considering the dough has flour, egg and potato. They’re also incredibly similar to pierogi, or other eastern European dumplings.

Regardless, these things are devilish to get right, but incredibly versatile little things that can be filled with whatever the mind can conceive of. Quite against the whole theme of her endeavours, I’ve gone and made my own version, but tried to keep in the spirit the cjalson.

Immediately after I read the rules and recipes, I was interested in making sweet dumplings, but couldn’t stop thinking about meat. So I’ve gone for a combination of the two, with what I imagine is a Moorish influence. To make matters worse, I’ve gone even further away from the spirit of the whole recipe and did a little experiment with a thicker dough and a different cooking method (read deep fried).

So, one recipe in the spirit of the competition and another as a bonus. If it was a competitive competition, I know I would have already won a prize for the shittest pictures…but regardless; without further ado, I give you my version of the cjalson.

Anyone that wants to read up a little more on Gianni Cosetti, the cjalson or Fruili and can read Italian or use a browser translator then follow the links below…

http://tinyurl.com/29cs5xe

http://machetiseimangiato.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/11/travel/an-italian-enclave-of-wine-and-ham.html?scp=1&sq=gianni+cosetti&st=nyt

http://www.turismofvg.it/en-US/homen.html

For the rest of you here is your ingredients list…

For the dough…

200g plain flour

300g of cooked potatoes, mashed

1 egg

Salt and pepper

For the filling…

The meat of two Italian sausages, skinned (I chose one with plenty of fennel in it)

4 chicken livers

Half a glass of good white wine

2 cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped fine

Good amount of fresh thyme, say a tablespoon full

Zest of half a lemon and a small twist of the juice

Zest of half an orange and a small twist of the juice

Tbsp and a half of raisins and the same of flaked almonds

For the sauce…

4 or 5 tbsp of ricotta

Dash of milk

A couple of handfuls of spinach

A few gratings of nutmeg

Salt and pepper

There are your ingredients, now here are your cooking instructions…

Take your cooked potatoes and bash them through a sieve, which will give you a lovely smooth purée. You should probably do this after you pass your flour through a sieve. Combine the two, then add an egg, a little seasoning, and start mixing it all together. Give it time and a little effort and it should come together into a lovely smooth dough. If the mixture is still a little wet no matter how much you knead it, then add a bit more flour. Dough making, pasta making; it’s all about instinct and feeling. Sometimes the mix will be perfect, sometimes it needs adjusting. Just trust your instincts and you’ll be fine. When you’ve got that lovely smooth dough, set it aside under cling film until you’re ready to use it.

So now we get on with the filling….

Heat a little olive oil and a generous knob of butter up over a medium heat and when it starts to shimmer and shift in the pan, add your sausage meat. Brown a little, then add the livers. After a couple of minutes, knock up the heat and pour in the wine, add the zests and the garlic. Allow the wine to bubble and reduce, and add your almonds and raisins, a little twist of lemon juice, and another of orange. When the mixture has turned from wet to moist, add your thyme and take it off the heat. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature before you use it.

Now to roll out your dough. Flour your surface well, and your rolling pin. If you have a pasta machine, all the better. I don’t. We’re looking to get this thin, thin, thin. Too thick and you’ll have a tough dumpling, but too thin and it’ll split and leak when you boil them up. I cut mine out with the rim of a cup because I have no decent kitchen equipment, but use whatever you have in your possession that is round.

Fill the dough with your cooled filling and close them up by folding around the filling and pinching them shut. Keep making them until you run out of your filling.

When you’re ready to cook, put some salted water on to boil. It’s a good time to get on with your sauce now, as the cjalsons will take a few minutes and so will the sauce. I served up five per serving, but believe me, as much as we tried we couldn’t finish them, however delicious we found them. I would advise three per serving.

They only need to be boiled for a couple of minutes, and they’ll be ready when they start to float on the surface. To test, it won’t hurt pulling one out and eating it. The dough should be silky and lovely and heavenly. If it isn’t, you’ve either got everything entirely wrong or it needs a little more cooking.

So while they’re boiling away, bring a fresh pan up to heat and add your milk, then when it heats a little, add your ricotta, a couple of gratings of nutmeg and the spinach. When the spinach comes down, shrivels and shrinks, taste and adjust the seasoning. You want it the consistency of a good cream sauce. If it’s too thick add a dash more milk and re-adjust the seasoning. 

That’s it. Enjoy them. Or is that it? Do you want in on the bonus round?

BONUS ROUND!!! Fried Cjalsons

It isn’t much of a bonus round, just a different cooking method. I couldn’t help but want to try this out. If you’d like to do similar, then you’ll need exactly the same ingredients as above minus the sauce ingredients. But do add some oil. You can cook these shallow fried or deep fried. It’s up to you. They’ll be delicious either way. Just bring some oil up to a good temperature and fry your dumplings. Rather than that rich ricotta sauce, all these need is a short drain on some kitchen paper and a little squeeze of lemon juice. They’re good hot or cold as well. 

Lasagna Recipe for James Gregory

Yes, another classic and obvious recipe I know, but a very dear friend of mine was reminiscing about a lasagna I made for his birthday one year and he asked me to recount the recipe here so he could remake it. Of course everyone believes they make the best lasagna in the world or some shit, and the amount of arguments I’ve had about what goes in (2) is unbearable. This is how I make it, and JAMES GREGORY LOVES IT SO FUCK YOUR LASAGNE.


For the meat sauce…

250g of good non lean minced beef

250g of good non lean minced pork

2 carrots, peeled, cubed real small (save that peel)

2 sticks of celery, peeled and cubed real small (save that peel)

1 large red onion, chopped real small

1 tin of good quality plum tomatoes

1.5 tsp of good tomato paste

Glass of white wine

A little beef stock, about 200ml

A few sprigs of thyme

2 bay leaves

4 or 5 garlic cloves, smashed but whole

Salt and pepper


Cook the meat in a very hot pan in small batches. Throw it in there all at once and you’re going to get grey, stewed meat. Small batches will keep the pan hot and give you crisp, sweet browned meat that will flavour your sauce all the more.

Once all of the meat is done, set it aside. In the leftover oil, fry the onion a good few minutes until it softens, then add the celery and wine and do likewise. Browning a little won’t hurt the vegetables at all. Drop in the garlic. It’s whole because I remove it later. Don’t ask me why, but I always do with my meat sauces.

Next, add the tomato paste and cook it for a minute or so, then add the wine. I add white because red tends to dominate a little too much. Cook and reduce the wine, then add the thyme and bay, then the plum tomatoes. You are done. Do not season now,  because the more it cooks, the more intense the seasoning gets, so it’s best to do it toward the end of cooking time.

Cover the pot with a lid, turn the heat down to it’s lowest and cook for a long time, up to four hours. Take the lid off for the last 30-45 minutes to reduce and thicken the sauce to the correct consistency.


In this four hours, gather these ingredients…

50g good salted butter

50g of plain flour

400-500ml of milk

75g of parmesan

50g of cheddar

1 white onion, peeled and sliced in half

carrot peelings you have saved and any celery trimmings/fresh stick of celery/carrot

bay leaf

a few peppercorns

good branch of rosemary if you like it


and to finish the lasagna…

I use no-precook good quality sheets from any number of fine pasta producers

Good quality ball of mozzarella


In the last half an hour of your meat sauce cooking, get on with the bechamel. Now a good white sauce is something you have to create with your instincts as much as your measurements. Firstly, add the onion, carrot, celery, peppercorns and bay leaf to your milk and bring it up to a good heat on the stove. If the milk is hot, it incorporates better into the sauce, which is science, so don’t argue about it.

Next, add the butter to another pan and melt over a medium heat, then add your flour and beat the two into a paste (this is called a roux). Cook this out for a minute or two, then, with the aid of a sieve, tip in the milk a little at a time and beat it into the roux with a balloon whisk. Without a whisk, it’s going to be hard to eradicate lumps. Very hard. Regardless, keep going until you have a good consistency. You may need a little more or a little less milk than prescribed, but our aim is to get it to coat the back of the spoon. At this point, add your cheeses and your rosemary and correct your seasonings.


Now to combine!!!!!!!!!!!!! My layering always goes thusly…

Meat on the bottom, lasagna sheets, bechamel, meat sauce, lasagna sheets, meat sauce, bechamel, mozzarella, all in pretty thin layers, but combining to be juicy and gooey and creamy, savoury and sharp.

Get this into an oven on 180C for anything up to 40 minutes or until the sauce is bubbling up the sides and the top has browned sufficiently.

Now I know this isn’t going to be an easy thing, but it’s very important that when cooked, you turn off the oven and let the lasagna sit for twenty minutes or so otherwise you’ll get nothing but a sloppy mess on your plate.

Twenty minutes later, try not to cry in front of your friends/loved ones.