Recipe - Pan fried pork escalopes with rice and a creamy mustard sauce

I was checking the contents of my freezer when I found some pork escalopes that was hiding in there. One night of defrosting in the fridge and this is what happened to them...

This time I served it with rice but you could as well serve it with potato mash. The recipe multiplies easily.

Ingredients (serves 1 - 2)
2 pork escalopes
1 leek, washed and sliced
125 ml white wine
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
50 ml chicken stock
1 tbsp double cream
Fresh basil, sliced
Salt
Pepper
Lemon juice
Olive oil
Boiled rice

Method
Season and fry the pork escalopes in a pan over medium heat until nicely golden and cooked through. Put to the side and keep warm.

Put the leek slices into the pan and fry for 5 - 6 minutes. Add the wine and reduce by two thirds. Stir in the mustard, stock and cream. Season to taste. Let this bubble away for a couple of minutes. Add the basil and a good squeeze of lemon juice.

Serve the pork and sauce with rice.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Meatballs cooked with honey and Garam Masala

Adding some honey at the end of the cooking glazes the meatballs nicely. That combined with the Garam Masala gives it a slightly 'Middle Eastern' taste, something that's accentuated by the couscous.

As I see it, this is a simple way of transforming your normal run-of-the-mill meatballs to something a little bit more exotic.

As you can see from the picture I also oven roasted some homegrown tomatoes, taken from Solo's tomato plantation. If you want to jazz up the couscous a bit you can add some dried fruit to it.

Tell you what, if you don't have the energy to make the meatballs from the ground up - why not grab a pack of ready-made ones from the supermarket? Frying them like this is going to make them taste much better.

Ingredients
1 batch of meatballs (one recipe here)
1 - 2 tablespoons of honey
1 - 2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 - 2 teaspoons of Garam Masala
10 - 12 fresh basil leaves, torn
Couscous, cooked to the instructions on the package

Method
Make the meatballs according to the recipe.

Fry the meatballs in butter with the Garam Masala for a couple of minutes. Pour on the honey and lemon juice. Finally stir in the torn basil leaves. Keep frying and stirring on a medium heat until nicely coloured.

Serve with the couscous.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Lazy Saturday Omelet

I was on call yesterday so I couldn't really head down to the super market to pick stuff up for my lunch. That meant having to try and use what I had in the cupboards and the fridge.

Well, this is what I came up with. It turned out to be tasty and filling. What more could I ask for?

Don't forget to heat the grill (broiler) so that it's ready towards the end of the cooking.

Ingredients (serves 1 - 2)
4 - 6 mushrooms, sliced
1 red onion, halved and thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Spicy sausage (pepperoni for example), sliced
Salt
Pepper
3 - 4 eggs, beaten
Grated cheese, strong cheddar preferably.
Olive oil
Fresh parsley

Method
Heat the oil in a frying pan on low to medium heat. Once heated, add the mushrooms, onions and garlic and let this cook slowly. Season well.

Once the mushrooms and onion are nice and soft, add the sausage. Let this cook until the sausage starts to crisp.

Pour in the eggs and give it all a good stir. Let this cook away until the eggs starts to set properly.

Scatter the cheese on top of the omelet and shove the pan under your grill until the cheese starts to go nice and golden.

Plate, scatter some fresh parsley on top.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Puff Pastry Tart with vegetables and spicy sausage

This is what I cooked yesterday evening, Friday night, after a long week at work.

I wasn't really in the mood for a lengthy session with lots of involvement in the kitchen so this worked quite nicely. A bit of cutting, slicing and grating. Then off into the oven. From the oven onto the plate. Doesn't get much better or easier than that at times.

Oh yeah, don't forget the chef oil either. This time I decided to use a nice bottle of 2006 Madiran Reserve Des Tuguets to keep myself lubricated. A wine and vintage I can thoroughly recommend.

Don't forget to give yourself about an hour and a halfs time to let the puff pastry defrost if you are using the frozen variety. I used Jus-Rol puff pastry this time, which worked really fine.

Ingredients (serves 1 - 2)
1 sheet Puff Pastry
2 - 3 tbsp tomato puree (or pasta sauce)
1 red pepper, sliced
1 red onion, halved and sliced
50 - 75 g mushrooms, sliced
50 - 75 g spicy sausage (pepperoni or similar), sliced
50 g cheese (strong cheddar for example), grated
1 egg, beaten

Method
Preheat your oven to 220c/425f/Gas mark 7.

Unroll the pastry onto a baking tray. Spread with the tomato puree, leaving a 2.5 cm border around all edges. Use a sharp knife to score the pastry just outside the edge of the tomato puree, making sure not to cut all the way through. Glaze the border using the beaten egg.

Chuck on the vegetables and the sausage. Finish off with the cheese. Pop it all into the oven.

Let it bake for about 20 minutes, until the pastry is risen and as a nice deeply golden colour.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Tuna fishcakes

This actually started as salmon fishcakes but I gave up on that idea. Why? Well, I had two tins of canned pink salmon that I didn't really know what to do with. After a bit of thinking I decided to make them into fishcakes.

I'd never used canned salmon before so I had no idea just how fiddly it was with all the small bones still there. To make an irritated story short, I canned the can (see what I did there) and went for tuna instead.

I still got a can of salmon left if anyone want to come over and pick it up. I sure as hell ain't going to use it.

Back to the dish though... You can prepare the potatoes the day before since it's easier if they are really cold. Also, make sure to chill the prepared cakes properly, otherwise they are more likely to fall apart when you handle/fry them.

Ingredients (makes 4 - 6 cakes)
2 cans (185g/each) of tuna chunks in brine
About 175g - 250g of potatoes
Coriander (cilantro), cut
2 eggs
Corn flour
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
Salad
Sweet Thai Chilli Sauce

Method
Peel and boil the potatoes as you would if you were preparing mash. Once nice and soft drain them and mash them. Even better is using a ricer. Put the potatoes to the side and let them cool down properly, you can even put them in the fridge over night.

When the potatoes have cooled down sufficiently crack one of the eggs into them and mix with the drained and flaked tuna as well as the coriander (cilantro). Season to taste.

Make cakes out of the mix and put them on a plate/roasting tray and cover with cling film. Put them into the fridge until nice and cool.

Crack the other egg into a deep plate and beat it, put corn flour onto another plate. Dip each cake into the egg and then into the corn flour - making sure to get an even coating.

Heat the oil in a frying pan on medium heat and fry until the cakes are nicely golden on all sides.

Serve with a crisp salad and a Thai Sweet Chilli sauce to dip in.

Enjoy!

Dineathon.com - A meal together saves lives

dineatohon.com - A meal together saves lives

I just saw a post about this on Guardians blog. It looks like a good idea, you invite people over for dinner and they donate money to this cause as payment for their dinner.

I'd probably not be able to ask anyone to pay for a dinner at mine, I'd end up donating the money myself. Still a good and worthy cause.

Have a look at their site and see if you can't get some event together.

Recipe - Ovenbaked falukorv with creamy mustard mash

This is about as close to pure comfort food you can come with Swedish food. For me this is the perfect little 'food blanket' that I can wrap myself in. The creaminess of the mash paired with the bite of the onion, ketchup and mustard is just divine. But that's just my opinion, why not cook this yourself to see what you think?

I've posted some falukorv recipes before and you can find it in the Swedish food court at IKEA shops worldwide.

I need to thank my 'not-really-all-that-old landlady' for thinking of me and picking up a falukorv and some other nice stuff the last time she went to IKEA. Hmm, that last sentence might earn me another angry comment. ;)

It's getting late and I'm feeling a bit tired so I won't post any detailed description of how to make the mash. Just make your normal creamy mash and add wholegrain mustard to your own liking.

Ingredients (serves 2 - 4)
1 falukorv
1 onion, finely diced
1 part yellow mustard (Slotts preferably)
1 part ketchup
Butter

Method
Heat the oven to 225c.

Mix the onions, mustard and ketchup thoroughly in a bowl.

While the oven is heating make cuts down about three quarters of the falukorv. Space the slices to about 1 - 2 cm apart. Spread the onion/mustard/ketchup mixture evenly between the slices. If you like, save some to spread on top of the falukorv.

Put the falukorv into a buttered ovensafe dish and into the oven once it's heated.

Let the falukorv stay in the oven for about 25 - 30 minutes or until it has changed colour to a nice dark brown and the top is crispy.

Serve with some creamy mustard mash and a fresh salad.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Spaghetti Carbonara

I was watching Saturday Kitchen the other day, well last Saturday to be honest. One of the things they showed was an episode of Rick Stein in Sardinia. He cooked Carbonara and since I had some lardons at home I thought I'd give it a go too.

According to Rick and his show you should never use Parmesan in Carbonara. Apparently you should use Pecorino cheese instead. I normally respect Rick but since all I had was Parmesan I decided to disregard him and his advice ;)

As you might, or might not, see in the background of the photo there's some garlic bread that I made as well. It's always nice with some garlic bread with your pasta and I had some leftover bread that needed using up.

Ingredients (serves 2 - 4)
Spaghetti, about 400g
200g lardons
3 - 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Olive oil
3 - 4 medium eggs, beaten
50 g parmesan, grated
Fresh parsley, chopped
Salt
Pepper

Method
Boil the spaghetti according to the instructions on the package.

While the spaghetti is boiling away heat the oil in a frying pan on a medium heat. Once heated, add the lardons and let them fry away.

When the lardons start getting some colour, add in the garlic. Let this fry until the lardons start turning a little bit crispy. Put the frying pan to the side.

Make sure not to overcook the spaghetti, al dente is good. Drain the spaghetti.

Put the frying pan back on the stove on a low heat and mix in the spaghetti with the lardons and the garlic. Add most of the parmesan and give it all a good stir.

After that, turn off the heat and stir in the eggs. Keep stirring to make sure that they coat all of the spaghetti.

Season to taste, remember that the lardons already have added quite a bit of saltyness to the dish.

Finally mix in the chopped parsley. Plate up and add the last of the parmesan to each plate.

Enjoy!

How do you milk innocent kids?

I know that supermarkets try and corner different target groups but this might be a tad bit wrong. ;)

I guess they'll be reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves in that department at Sainsbury's now. A game of spot the missing apostrophe could be in order.

I wonder how they milk these innocent kids for their juices anyway?

Tomorrows post will be more in the line of a proper food posting, I promise ;)

Recipe - Pan fried Hake with creamy Garlic Potato Puree

This is another attempt at cooking some fish to try and vary my diet. Simply pan frying the fish is a very easy way of cooking it and if you season the fish properly it also tastes very nicely.

This was the first time I've tried to cook the potatoes for mash in stock. Trust me, this won't be the last time. I shouldn't be banging my own drum too much, but this was probably the best mash I've ever made. Nothing for vampires though, it had one hell of a garlic kick to it.

If you wonder what the 'brown blobs' that are circling the plate is, they're button mushrooms that's been fried in butter.

And yes, I know that I served quite a lot of mash given the size of the hake fillets. It would have made a better photo with less mash. However, that mash was so divine that I just had to get lots on to the plate from the start ;)

Ingredients (serves 2)
Two hake fillets, skin on
1 liter chicken stock
500g potatoes, peeled and cubed into 1 - 2 cm cubes
4 large garlic cloves, peeled
Olive oil
125 ml Milk
1 - 2 tablespoons Double cream
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into cubes
Fresh parsley, chopped or torn
Salt
Pepper

Method
Bring the chicken stock to a boil. Add the potatoes and garlic cloves. Let this boil away until soft, 10 - 15 minutes. Drain. Push the potatoes and garlic through a food mill or a potato ricer back into the pan.

Season the hake liberally with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large non-stick pan on a medium to high heat. Add the hake fillets skin side up. Fry for about a minute and then flip them skin side down. Cook for 6 - 7 minutes more on a medium heat, until the fish flakes easily.

While the fish is cooking, heat the milk and cream until it simmers. Slowly stir this into the potato and garlic mixture until it's a smooth puree. Cook very gently for 3 - 5 minutes, making sure to stir the whole time. Beat the butter and parsley into the puree. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve the fish on top of the puree.

Enjoy!