Time to eat...

Chorizo with Lentils

ifelix — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:29:03 +0000

This is warming dish, usually suited for winter, but also ideal for those cold wet autumn days.

In a large frying pan, saute some diced onions, pepper and pancetta. I added some stock and tomato puree and simmered for about ten minutes before adding the sliced cooking chorizo. This I cooked for a further five minutes.

The next stage was to add the lentils, I usually use tinned green lentils. I finished the dish with some basil, though parsley would have been better. I did in fact (as you can see from the photograph) serve this with some cooked sausages, but this probably isn’t necessary.

Spanish Paella

ifelix — Sun, 09 May 2010 11:54:09 +0000

Made a paella the other day.

I took a large frying pan and added a splash of olive oil. Take some pancetta and add diced onions, aubergine, courgette and soften them in the large frying pan. I then added the paella rice, and it always makes sense to use paella rice, and never any other kind of rice.

I then ensured that the rice was coated and added a splash of white wine. Then I added saffron and chicken stock. The saffron I had infused in hot water. This helps to bring out the traditional yellow colour in the paella.

I didn’t have any chopped tomatoes so I added a squirt of tomato puree instead.

Simmer for twenty minutes adding more stock if required.

I added some sliced chorizo and slices of red pepper.

In a separate pan I pan fried some prawns and squid.

These were then added to the paella and it was served.

Books on Paella and Spanish Cooking.

More Paella recipes.

Chicken, Red Pepper and Mushrooms in a Cream and Saffron sauce with Gnocchi

ifelix — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:28:53 +0000

Take some chicken thighs, add olive oil to a hot pan.

Brown the chicken in the pan, then remove.

Add chopped onion and red pepper to the pan.

Cook on a low heat until soft.

Add chopped mushrooms.

Meanwhile soak some saffron in a little hot water.

Once the mushrooms, onions and red pepper are cooked, add the chicken.

Add some freshly chopped parsley.

Add the saffron.

Add a couple of large spoonfuls of creme frache, you could use double cream, but I prefer creme frache.

Serve with some freshly cooked gnocchi.

Done.

Rante Restaurant, Radisson SAS Hotel, Espoo, Finland

ifelix — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:07:10 +0000

In July 2006 I was in Finland and I went to the Rante Restaurant in the Radisson SAS Hotel in Espoo in Finland is an Italian restaurant which also serves some Finnish dishes.

I had originally walked into Haguland (Tapiola) to see if I could get a meal there (as I am generally not a great fan of hotel restaurants) and couldn’t find anything open or the only other choice was McDonalds.

So after quite a nice walk, I went back to the hotel and went into the restaurant. I sat down at a table and looked over the menu.

I decided that an antipasto would be nice, followed by carpaccio and then the reindeer.

For the antipasto I asked for prawns in pesto, and thought this would arrive quickly.

Fifty minutes later it did!

A small bowl of small prawns in pesto arrived, I don’t know why I thought they would be grilled prawns, but they were not.

I did not have to wait as long for my next course, beef carpaccio.

This was superb, coming with some weird leaves (more like grass) and some what I think were very large pickled capers!

I then thought ah not too long to my main course, couldn’t have been more wrong, forty minutes later it eventually arrived.

Well the reindeer was certainly worth the wait and certainly not what I expected. On the way to the Hotel from the airport I used a Yellow Line taxi, these are communal shared taxis, one of the occupants, a shipping consultant for the Silja Line, had mentioned in passing conversation that when he had reindeer he had found it very strongly flavoured akin to venison. So I was expecting the reindeer fillet to be very strongly flavoured, but it wasn’t it was very delicate, tender, almost melt in the mouth. It came with a fantastic sauce, a few vegtables. I had asked for the chive mash to be replaced with french fries (as that was what I fancied.

I decided against a desert as the neighbouring table had to wait an age for theirs and it was getting late.

Overall I was pleased with the quality of the food, the only real disappointment was the prawns.

The carpaccio and the reindeer were excellent.

Trofie Pasta with fresh basil pesto, pine nuts and grated parmesan

ifelix — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:33:14 +0000

Trofie Pasta with fresh basil pesto, pine nuts and grated parmesan.

Read the recipe.

Stop eating the ham…

ifelix — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:11:31 +0000

Parents have been urged not to put ham and other processed meat into their children’s lunchboxes to avoid them developing a cancer risk later in life.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8202188.stm

Red Pepper and Tomato Salad

ifelix — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:52:51 +0000

A salad I made which included red pepper, lettuce and cherry tomatoes. It was dressed with some white wine vinegar, olive oil and a dash of freshly ground black pepper.

I do make variations, this just so happens to be one I remembered to photograph!

Additions in the past included:

Fresh Mozzarella Pearls

Pancetta

Avocado

Homemade croutons

Take your chicken. Baste with wood varnish…

ifelix — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:58:25 +0000

Here’s a great kitchen tip. You know how bowls of soup in food magazines always have a few bubbles rising artfully to the surface, giving that freshly ladled-from-the-tureen appearance? Well, you can recreate this effect quite easily at home by lightly drizzling some washing-up liquid into your soups but, please, only use the best stuff; this is no time to cut corners. Next, take a plastic straw and gently blow into the soup, creating an entire bowlful of bubbles. Using a pin pop away until you are left with just those few artistic ones that will survive for hours. The taste might not be to die for but at least your bowl of soup will look just like it does in the food magazines.

Felix’s Tiramisu Recipe

ifelix — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:57:01 +0000

This is my recipe, there are no exact quantities as I don’t use them…

Get some amaretti biscuits, you can use sponge fingers if you prefer.

Make up some espresso coffee, using decent espresso coffee. Add some Amaretto spirit. For those that avoid spirits, then just using coffee will be fine.

Dunk the amaretti into the coffee/Amaretto mix, and place into small bowls (or one big bowl).

Mix (say) three egg yolks with some caster sugar (say 3 oz), mix in a tub of Mascarpone cheese.

Spoon the mixture onto the biscuits.

Now you could do a layer of biscuits, a layer of the Mascarpone mixture, but it depends more on what you are serving them in.

Leave in the fridge to set.

Once set, dust with cocoa.

Serve.

Epicure Organic Puy Lentils

ifelix — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:54:31 +0000

I roasted some pancetta covered organic chicken thighs on a bed of onions, red pepper, mushrooms and courgettes. This was splashed with some olive oil and seasoned with black pepper.

Whilst this was in the oven, I softened in a frying pan, some finely chopped onion with pancetta. When the onion was nicely soft, I added some red wine and beef stock before simmering it down. Beef stock over chicken stock just because of the colour rather than flavour. I then reduced and reduced this.

When I was happy with the sauce I whisked in some butter (with a fork as it happens rather than a whisk) and then added a tin of Epicure Organic Puy Lentils. I needed to add a bit more stock at this point.

I was really impressed with the Epicure Organic Puy Lentils and will certainly be buying them again, I guess it would be potentially tastier to use dried lentils, but I personally was quite happy with the tin.

So I put the lentils on the plate, placed the chicken on top and surrounded it with the roasted vegetables. I served this along with carrots and green beans.

Really tasty.