Pea and Ham Soup

We had some spare Joselito ham stock that I made a few months ago in the freezer, and the quest continues to use up stuff before we move. We were just some peas and pancetta away from throwing this one together.

I have reprinted this Heston Blumenthal recipe as it appears in the cookbook "Off Duty", I skipped the ham hock stock (because I already had ham stock), but I did miss out on the chunks of ham coming off the bone to be put into the soup, which probably would have rocked.

Anyhow, it came out a nice, smooth soup with some good bacon-y notes. I threw some of our fresh basil in, adding a nice cool herb note to it (mint would have worked well here, too).

Anyhow, not bad for something we needed to throw together in about 15 minutes. Yummy.

SOUP
50 g butter
200 g shallots, sliced
75 g pancetta, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
500 g frozen peas, defrosted
salt and freshly ground black pepper

HAM HOCK STOCK
1 small onion, cut in half
1 large carrot, cut in half
1 stalk celery, cut In half
1 large leek (white part only), cut in half
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 bay leaf
4-6 sprigs thyme
4 black peppercorns
1 ham hock
2 liters water

GARNISH
2 smoked bacon rashers, cut into 1/2-inch dice
180 g frozen peas

Combine all the ingredients for the ham hock stock in a large, heavy-based pan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Skim any scum from the surface, reduce the heat and simmer gently for 2 1/2 hours, until the ham hock is cooked. Remove from the heat and leave to cool, then strain through a fine sieve, reserving the ham hock. Set aside.

To make the soup, heat the butter in a large pan, add the shallots, pancetta and garlic and sweat for 10-15 minutes, until the shallots are tender. Add the ham stock, bring to the boil and skim any scum from the top. Add the peas and return to the boil, then puree in a liquidizer (blender). Pass through a fine sieve into a clean pan, bring to the boil and correct the seasoning.

Shortly before serving, fry the diced smoked bacon in a hot pan until crisp. Flake the meat from the reserved ham hock. Cook the peas in boiling salted water until tender, then drain. Divide the peas and ham between 6 soup bowls, pour the soup on top, then scatter over the bacon and drizzle over a little of the rendered bacon fat.

Thick Beef Curry in Sweet Peanut Sauce

For the next few months, followers of this blog will be able to witness the creative destruction of some of our staple pantry items as we whittle them down in preparation for our upcoming move. This dish used up: a bag of jasmine rice, the rest of my homemade Thai red curry paste, some more Thai chiles and kaffir lime leaves.

This is a pretty good curry. Some sweetness, not too much heat, nice and mellow. If I do it over again, I'll wait until the last minute to chuck the beef in there, as it cooks so quickly. The recipe has you basically stewing it down for awhile until the coconut broth part thickens and reduces substantially. Naturally, the beef would overcook if you did that, so I opted to not reduce the liquid down, keep the beef nicely cooked, and preserve the coconut-y sauce/broth. I like that sort of thing.

600 ml coconut milk
3 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
2 tablespoons palm sugar or light muscovado (brown) sugar
2 lemon grass stalks, bruised
450 g rump (round) steak, cut into thin strips
75 g roasted peanuts, ground
2 fresh red chillies. sliced
5 kaffir lime leaves, torn
salt and ground black pepper
2 salted eggs, cut in wedges, to garnish
10-15 Thai basil leaves, to garnish

Pour half the coconut milk into a large, heavy pan. Place over a medium heat and bring to the boil, stirring constantly until the milk separates.

Stir in the red curry paste and cook for 2-3 minutes until the mixture is fragrant and thoroughly blended. Add the fish sauce, sugar and bruised lemongrass stalks. Mix well.

Continue to cook until the color deepens. Gradually add the remaining coconut milk, stirring constantly. Bring back to the boil.

Add the beef and peanuts. Cook, stirring constantly, for 8-10 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Add the chillies and lime leaves. Season to taste and serve, garnished with wedges of salted eggs and Thai basil leaves.

Roast Chicken Breast Wrapped in Pancetta with Leeks and Thyme

This a really simple one we come back to every once in a while. It's an excuse to drink white wine (as if you need an excuse) and a good way to use up leftover herbs.

2 chicken breast, skinned
2 large leeks, outer leaves removed, white and light green part sliced into rings
few sprigs thyme
glug olive oil
salt and black pepper
knob butter
splash white wine or vermouth
14 slices pancetta or good bacon

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6. Put 1 chicken breast, skin removed this time, in a bowl. Trim and wash a large leek, remove the outer leaves, then slice it into 1/4" pieces. Add these to the bowl with the leaves of a few sprigs of fresh thyme, a good glug of olive oil, a small knob of butter, a pinch of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and a small swig of white wine and toss together.

Place your leek and flavorings from the bowl into the tray, then wrap the chicken breast in 6 or 7 slices of pancetta. This will not only flavor the chicken but also protect it while it cooks. Try and bend the sides of the tray in towards the chicken so the leeks don't get burnt during cooking. Drizzle with olive oil, place a couple of whole thyme sprigs on top and cook in the middle of the oven for 25 to 35 minutes.

Spicy Pineapple-Glazed Sea Scallops with Soy-Miso Vinaigrette and Grilled Pineapple Relish

As friends of ours now know (thanks to our having made it abundantly clear in the last few weeks), Vanessa and I found out that we will be moving to Hawaii in about a year, for what will likely be my last tour in the Navy before moving onto something else.

Since finding this out, Vanessa has been busy perfecting her Mai Tai recipe while we set aout looking for a dish with which we could celebrate, and hopefully evoke the flavors of Hawaii. You'll be happy to know we found one.

The comes from Bobby Flay's Boy Meets Grill and it satisfied our requirements to a "T". This is great tropical mix of pan-Asian and tropical summer flavors. Not difficult to put together either. Truly delicious! We'll likely haul this one out again when we get there.

GLAZE
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ cup red onion, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 serrano chile, coarsely chopped
3 cups sweetened pineapple juice

RELISH
1 large ripe pineapple, peeled, cored and sliced into 1 inch rings
vegetable oil, for brushing
4 scallion, finely sliced
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 jalapeno, finely diced
¼ cup cilantro, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and black pepper

VINAIGRETTE DRESSING
2 tablespoons white miso paste
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
½ cubes peanut oil
1 teaspoon honey
¼ teaspoon white pepper

SCALLOPS
40 scallops, trimmed
salt and black pepper

GLAZE
Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan over medium heat until almost smoking. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft. Add the serrano pepper and pineapple juice, raise the heat to high, and bring the mixture to a boil. Cook until reduced to 1 cup. Place in a blender and blend until smooth. Let cool at room temperature. May be refrigerated, covered, for 1 day; serve at room temperature. Makes about 1 1/4 cups.

RELISH
Preheat a gas or charcoal grill to medium high, Brush the pineapple rings with oil on both sides and grill until golden brown and almost cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes on each side. Remove from the grill and chop coarsely. Place the chopped pineapple in a large bowl. Add the green onions, bell pepper, lime juice, jalapeno, cilantro and oil, and season with salt and pepper. May be refrigerated for 1 day; serve at room temperature. Makes 3 cups.

VINAIGRETTE
Whisk all the ingredients together in a small bowl. May be refrigerated, covered, for 1 day; serve at room temperature. Makes about 3/4 cup.

SCALLOPS
Place the scallops in a large, shallow pan or baking dish, cover with the Pineapple Glaze, and refrigerate, covered, for 30 minutes, no longer. Preheat a gas or charcoal grill to medium high.

Remove the scallops from the marinade, shaking off any excess (discard the used marinade), season with salt and pepper, and grill until golden and cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes on each side.

Place the Grilled Pineapple Relish in the center of a large platter, arrange the scallops around the relish, and drizzle the scallops with the Soy-Miso Vinaigrette.

Spaghetti Bolognese

I have been wanting to do a proper Spaghetti Bolognese (or, SpagBol, as the Brits call it) for a long time. This recipe has been twisted and abused over time and what has come out the other end is typically a greasy mess, thrown together without care, and usually with the aid of some kind of sauce out of a jar. The stereotypical mass-produced spaghetti with meat sauce.

Heston Blumenthal has a cookbook, In Search of Perfection, in which he explores classic dishes and reinvents them using the best possible methods, techniques and ingredients, but doing them in such a way as to retain the essence of the original.

Let me just say about this spaghetti: Start Early. I began the prep at 7:45AM. We ate at 6PM. Most of that time in between (8 hours!) was sauce simmering joy. As I am typing this the following morning, the entire kitchen and upstairs smells of this sauce. How was it?

I can't find a reason NOT to say that it's the best bowl of pasta I have ever eaten. Mind you, I LOVE pasta. I make it frequently and it is never the same thing twice. This was so unlike anything I would have made. There are ingredients in here I never would have considered putting in pasta (star anise and Thai fish sauce, for example).

The result is so mind-blowingly good. The best part is that it tastes familiar. It's as though you have eaten this before, at home, with people you love. There is something so rounded and rich and savory about the whole thing. Every new bite of it brought some new nuance that you didn't taste before. But the perception is that you ate this bowl of pasta somewhere, a long time ago, maybe when you first discovered how great pasta could be.

So, pasta lovers, if you want to get down to business, you owe it to yourself to try this. In the name of eating good pasta, this is an absolute triumph. Also, the sauce makes a TON. You could freeze this and re-heat it, no problem. Also, we had leftover ox cheeks in the freezer and I ground those up and used them in place of the oxtail, which was amazing. Oxtail is GREAT in pasta sauces, too!

SAUCE BASE
125 milliliters extra-virgin olive oil
250 g oxtail, boned and minced
250 g pork shoulder, 1 cm cubes
375 g oaked chardonnay
1 star anise
450 g onion, finely sliced
2 large cloves garlic
450 g onion, finely diced
400 g carrot, finely diced
125 g celery, finely diced
250 milliliters whole milk

TOMATO COMPOTE
1.1 kg vine-ripened tomatoes
1 teaspoon kosher salt
200 milliliters extra-virgin olive oil
3 large cloves garlic
225 g onion, finely diced
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1 star anise
3 cloves
4-5 drops Tabasco
4-5 drops Thai fish sauce
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup
30 milliliters sherry vinegar
1 bouquet garni, (consisting of 7 sprigs fresh thyme and 1 fresh bay leaf)

FINISH
1 batch reserved tomato compote
100 g spaghetti, (per person)
sherry vinegar, to taste
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1 bouquet garni, (in a sheet of leek, wrap 6 tarragon leaves, 4 sprigs parsley and the leaves from a bunch of celery)
unsalted butter
extra-virgin olive oil
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

SAUCE BASE

Place a large, heavy bottomed frying pan over a medium heat for 5 minutes. Crush the star anise and bag it up in a square of muslin. Add this to the pan, along with 25ml of oil and the sliced onions. Cook for 20 minutes, or until the onions are soft and caramelized, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

Meanwhile, preheat another large, heavy-bottomed frying pan over a low heat for 5 minutes. Mince the garlic. Pour 50ml oil into the pan, then tip in the garlic, onions, carrots and celery and cook this soffritto over a medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, or until the raw onion smell has gone. Transfer the soffritto to a bowl and wipe clean the pan.

Place the pan over a high heat for 10 minutes. Pour in 50ml olive oil and wait until it starts smoking; it must be hot enough so the meat browns rather than stews. Add the cubed pork and minced oxtail. Stir until browned all over. (To brown properly, all the meat has to touch the surface of the pan. If it doesn't, do it in batches.) Tip in the browned meat into a sieve over a bowl (to allow the fat the drain off), then transfer the meat to a large pot or casserole. Deglaze the pan by adding a splash of wine, bringing it to the boil, and then scraping the base of the pan to collect all the tasty bits stuck to the bottom. Once the liquid has reduced by half, pour it into the large pot containing the meat.

Remove the bag of star anise from the caramelized onions and then tip the onions into the large pot containing the meat. Add the remaining wine and deglaze the frying pan (as in step 3). When the wine has reduced by half, pour it into the large pot. Add the soffritto to the pot as well.

Place the pot of Bolognese over a very low heat. Pour in the milk and enough water to cover entirely, and simmer very gently without a lid for 6 hours, stirring occasionally. At all times the ingredients should be covered by the liquid, so be prepared to add more water. (Don't worry if the milk becomes slightly granular; it won't affect the end result.)

TOMATO COMPOTE

Bring a large pan of water to the boil. Fill a large bowl with ice-cold water. Remove the cores from the tomatoes with a paring knife. Blanch the tomatoes by dropping them into the boiling water for 10 seconds and then carefully removing them to the bowl of ice-cold water. Take them out of the water immediately and peel off the spilt skins. (If the tomatoes are not ripe enough , make a cross with a sharp knife in the underside of each, to encourage the skins to come away. They can be left in the hot water for an extra 10 seconds or so, but it's important that they don't overheat and begin to cook.)

Cut the tomatoes in half vertically. Scoop out the seeds and the membrane with a teaspoon, over a chopping board. Roughly chop the seeds and membrane, then tip them into a sieve over a bowl. Sprinkle over the salt and leave for 20 minutes to extract their juice, after which you can discard the seeds and membrane, reserving only the juice.

Roughly chop the tomato flesh and set aside.

Meanwhile, place a large, heavy-bottomed pan over a low heat. Add 100ml of the olive oil. Mince the garlic, then put it into the pan along with the onion. Cook for 10-15 minutes, until soft but not colored.

Crush the coriander and put it in a muslin bag, along with the star anise and the cloves. Add it to the softened onions and garlic.

Take the juice drawn from the tomato seeds and membrane and add it to the onions and garlic along with the tomato flesh. Add the Tabasco, fish sauce, Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup and sherry vinegar. Drop in the bouquet garni and cook over a low heat for 2 hours.

To add a roasted note to the compote, add the remaining oil and turn up the heat to high. Fry the compote for 15-20 minutes, stirring regularly to make sure it doesn't catch, then pour off any olive oil not absorbed by the compote. Set aside a little to coat the cooked pasta. (The rest can be stored in a jar and makes a great base for a salad dressing. The compote itself will keep in the fridge for a week.)

COOKING THE BOLOGNESE

Stir the tomato compote (including the bag of spices) into the Bolognese sauce and cook over a very low heat for a final 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. For every 100g of pasta, you'll need 1 liter of water and 10 g salt. (If you don't have a large enough pan it's essential to use two pans rather than overcrowd one.)

Put the spaghetti Into the pan, give it a stir, then bring back to the boil and cook until the pasta is just tender but with a bite. Check the cooking time on the packet and use that as a guideline. but taste it every few minutes as this is the only way to judge when the pasta is ready.

Before taking the Bolognese sauce off the heat, check the seasoning and then add some sherry vinegar (tasting as you go) to balance the richness of the sauce. Add a generous grating of Parmesan (but not too much, as it can make the sauce overly salty) and remove the sauce from the heat. Take out the original thyme and bay bouquet garni and the bag of spices. Replace these with the parsley and tarragon bouquet garni, stir in 100g unsalted butter and let the sauce stand for 5 minutes.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain and rinse it thoroughly. Return to the pot to warm through. (Since the ragu Is not going to be mixed with the pasta, it needs to be rinsed to prevent it from becoming starchy and sticking together.) Add a generous knob of butter (about 50g per 400g of pasta) and coat with olive oil and the reserved oil from the final frying of the compote. To serve, wind portions of pasta around a carving fork and lay them horizontally in wide, shallow bowls. Top with the Bolognese sauce and finish with a grating of Parmesan.

Prawn and Green Mango Curry (Chemeen Manga Charu)

This is a totally deep and rich curry, which couples fruit and seafood. I tell ya, we just had the leftovers (from a few days ago), and it's even better the second time around. If you are able to source some coconut oil, do it. It really adds another dimension to the dish.

16 large raw prawns
4 tablespoons coconut oil
70 g fresh coconut, grated
½ onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 onion, finely sliced
2 green chiles, chopped
1.5 teaspoon garlic-ginger paste
1.5 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon ground turmeric
100 g green mango, sliced into thin strips, plus extra to garnish
½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
200 milliliters coconut milk
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
25 curry leaves

Peel and de-vein the prawns, leaving the tail attached. Rinse and pat dry.

Heat 1 tbsp coconut oil in a pan, add the coconut, chopped onion and fennel seeds, and saute over a medium heat until the coconut is golden brown. Remove and grind to a smooth paste, using a blender.

Heat 2 tbsp coconut oil in the pan. Add the sliced onion and fry until translucent. Add the green chillies with the ginger-garlic paste, and saute for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the ground spices and half the mango strips.

Add the prawns to the pan with the salt and cook, stirring, until they are opaque and almost cooked. Stir in the coconut paste, coconut milk and the rest of the mango. Simmer gently until the prawns are just cooked.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining 1 tbsp coconut oil in a separate pan and saute the fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds and curry leaves until aromatic. Serve the prawn curry topped with the aromatic spice mixture and green mango strips. Accompany with rice or Indian bread.