Month: September 2009

Categories
basil cheese food pastry pesto

pesto pinwheels

pesto pinwheels with a sprig of basil

Great fun these, and tremendously easy to rustle up for a weekend lunch snack. It’s essentially puff pastry (ready made for convenience) wrapping pesto and other contents of your choice. Same with the cheese, use what you have to hand. I had cheddar spare so that went in; mozzarella and parmesan would be good too. I just added a little basil and cheese here, and once baked into the oven tore into them and gobbled them down. Irresistible.

(Quick tip: when you take them out of the oven, leave them for a couple of minutes before removing them frm the baking tray. The insides will have set a little, allowing it to be removed intact.)

Pesto pinwheels (makes 10):

100g puff pastry

2 tablespoons pesto (I used red in this one)

Grated cheese

Basil leaves

  1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
  2. Roll the pastry out into a thin rectangle.
  3. Spread the pesto evenly over the pastry, covering as much as possible.
  4. Sprinkle cheese over the top and scatter the basil over.
  5. Roll up into a sausage shape and cut into 1cm widths. Place cut side down on a baking tray.
  6. Serve when browned and risen.
Categories
chorizo egg food onion parsley

chorizo omelette

A quick and easy dinner, colourful and tasty. An a darned good excuse to try out my new knife! Tender egg, fresh parsley, meaty chorizo and sweet onion in one parcel. Partnered with a rocket and chard salad, drizzled with a brisk dressing inspired by Wagamama this is great meal for a dinner in a rush.

Chorizo omelette (serves 2):

4 eggs, beaten and seasoned

2 tablespoons parsley

100g chorizo, chopped

1/2 onion, diced

For the salad:

Mixed leaves (I used rocket and red chard)

For the salad dressing:

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon tomato ketchup

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

  1. Fry the onion in a little butter and oil until soft.
  2. Add the chorizo and continue frying until it releases it’s orangey juices. Remove the chorizo and onion from the pan to one side.
  3. In the same pan add the eggs and 1 tablespoon of parsley. Heat until the bottom starts to set and add the chorizo and onion back to the pan.
  4. Fold in half and allow to cook for a minute more or until done how you like it. Sprinkle the remaining parsley over.
  5. For the salad dressing, whisk it all together until lightly emulsified and drizzle over the leaves.
Categories
food kitchen gadgets

henckels four star cooks knife

I’ve just improved my cooking tenfold. By buying a new knife.

Alright, that might be exaggerating. But I’d heard professionals say for years that a super-duper knife is the best thing you can have in the kitchen and it makes perfect sense. It’s probably the thing you use most after all, I’d just never had the funds to back it up! Thanks to filling out some online surveys I finally had enough Amazon vouchers to purchase something of a decent provenance. After much (…much) deliberation, I decided to plump for something from the Henckels brand favoured by many chefs including Jamie Oliver. The Five Star range is a little out of my league so I came down to Four Star, and I like a multi-purpose knife so a Henckels Four Star Cooks Knife 23cm 31071231
seemed perfect. (A quick thanks to Culinaire / Kitchen Knives Direct for a great price and mega-fast dispatch!)

Straight out of the box the weight hit me. Quite weighty, with midpoint just past the hilt encouraging a downward stroke. For dinner that night I planned an omelette which didn’t require any chopping, so I introduced an onion into it regardless just so I could try the knife out. I went for the horizontal stroke, and it wanted to almost bite into the onion, without any pressure. It clung to it and then went straight through without a great deal of pressure. Coming into the vertical strokes, the precision and sharpness of the blade allowed them to be extremely close together. After finishing off the crossways motions I ended up with perhaps a 3mm dice. It was immensely satisfying, and I got a glimpse of another world of being able to get superb results every time.

I have a new best friend 🙂 Anybody else have pro knives they adore?

(Do you really want to know how I dice an onion? I’ll blog it if anyone’s faintly interested.)

Categories
chorizo fennel food pork red onion

pork, chorizo and fennel stir fry

Another superfast delight from the pages of Olive magazine. This was the first time I’d worked with a fennel bulb, having enjoyed the potent seeds for a long time. But the satisfying almost lemony crunch of the fennel means I’ll be coming back for more.

Pork, chorizo and fennel stir-fry:

2 pork escalopes, cut into bitey pieces

100g chorizo, diced

1 fennel bulb, finely sliced

1 red onion, finely sliced

Handful of green beans, halved

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

200ml vegetable stock

100ml white wine

Dried onion to serve

  1. Fry chorizo in a hot pan until darkening at the edges and releasing its oil. Remove from the pan.
  2. Fry the pork with the zest in the same pan until white all over, seasoning as you go. Add a splash of wine, lemon juice, the fennel and onion and fry until the latter are tender.
  3. Add green beans, stock and chorizo and cook for a few minutes until the beans are done to your liking.
  4. Serve with crispy onion on top.
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