Category: marsala

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food marsala pasta peppers pork

pork primavera

Sometimes, dinner gets later and later. It was just one of those evenings of putting children to bed, getting haircuts and other chores. I didn’t get started on this until 8.30pm, but we were eating by 8.45pm. You gotta love dinners like this, but it all starts from the storecupboard. If the basics aren’t there, you’re on to a loser.

This one massively favours substitution: swap pork for any other meat, the peppers for any firm veg, and Comté cheese is not essential. As luck would have it the Comté people got in touch and sent me some samples so I was more than happy to include it here. Heston’s a big fan of Comté, so is Raymond Blanc (he comes from that region) so it’s in good company.

Pork primavera (serves 2):

2 frozen pork loin steaks

150g frozen peppers

2 tablespoons Marsala wine

300ml creme fraiche

70g comte cheese, shaved

  1. Get a large pan of salted water on to boil, and a frying pan over a high heat. Add the pasta to the water and cook according to the packet instructions.
  2. Season the pork on both sides with salt and pepper and fry in the pan until browned on one side. Flip and cook for another minute and then remove to one side. Add the peppers to the pan and fry briskly, then add the Marsala wine. Allow to bubble for a minute.
  3. Slice the pork into thin strips, then add back to the pan with the peppers. When cooked on all sides turn the heat down low and add the creme fraiche. Stir thoroughly to combine and season with salt and pepper as required.
  4. Scoop out a little pasta water to a mug. If your resulting source is a little thick, you can let it down with this water. By this time the pasta should be done, so drain and add to the pork ‘n’ pepper pan. Turn off the heat, add most of the cheese and toss really well to combine. Serve and garnish with the remaining cheese.
Categories
food marsala veal

roast rose veal

I’ve lamented far too many times on this blog how difficult veal is to get at a decent price, it’s just not even a discussion point any more. So bravo Farmer’s Choice for pushing their rose veal back to the top of the menu. Here’s some photos of their farm.

I’d never roasted veal before. Rare enough as a steak or escalope, I’d never seen a chunk of veal the length of my arm. I wasn’t quite sure where to start, which meant I just had to relax and follow my roasting instincts. After all we are talking about baby roast beef here but with a lighter touch, so I headed off in a faintly mediterranean direction instead, massaging it with plenty of garlic, lemon and basil. Roasting high then low I waited until it was in the high sixties when probed. I was not disappointed with it. Just look at the colour of it, a vibrant pink (rose!) and a texture to die for, loose and luscious.

It may be on the pricier side at £19.60 for 1.4kg but it’s all meat – despite not having the bone in this is a joint packed with flavour. And it went round four meals feeding 3-4 people each time. So in the best tradition of Sunday roasts the main dinner kept on giving. Here’s to veal making a serious comeback!

Farmer’s Choice sent me this complimentary meat to try.

Roast rose veal and Marsala gravy (serves 4 with miles of leftovers):

1.4kg roasting joint veal

6 cloves garlic, peeled

Zest of ½ lemon, finely grated

Handful of basil, stalks and all

1 onion, halved

2 carrots, halved

For the gravy:

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

50ml Marsala

500ml beef stock

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Pop the onion and carrot in a large roasting tray and arrange in a line to act as a trestle for the meat. In a pestle and mortar bash up the garlic, lemon and basil with salt and pepper and add enough oil to make a slushy paste. Slather this all over the joint and pop on top of the veg. Put in the oven and after 10 minutes turn down to 160°C. Roast the veal for 1½ – 2 hours until the internal temperature reaches 65°C in the thickest part (use a meat thermometer). Leave out of the oven to rest, covered, for around 30 mins.
  2. To make the gravy, remove the roasted onion halves from the tray, discard the skin and roughly chop. Add to a separate saucepan with the soy sauce and vinegar. Heat until they sizzle then add the beef stock. Bring this up as hot as it will go and reduce by about a third. Meanwhile put the roasting tray on the hob over a high heat and add the Marsala. Allow to bubble and scrape away for a minute or two. Put a sieve over your reducing stock and tip the contents of the roasting tray into the sieve. Discard all the carroty bits and keep on simmering the gravy. You may need to add salt, pepper or sugar as required. Keep reducing until it coats the back of a spoon.
  3. Carve the veal, tip the resting juices into your gravy and serve in thick slices with potatoes and greens.
Categories
food marsala potatoes stock veal

veal escalopes in marsala sauce

I really like veal, but it’s always been so hard for me to get. You might find a tiny Dutch scrap in a supermarket, and my experiences with local butchers have been frankly embarrassing. Farmer’s Choice recently sent me some veal to try out and I wasn’t disappointed. It was tender and savoury, with a wonderful loose texture.

I’ve paired it here with a classic ingredient: Marsala wine. I keep a bottle in my cupboard permanently, and it lasts me about a year. It’s perfect in sweet and savoury dishes where you need a smooth, sweet flavour. It enhances the sweetness of the meat and makes a great combination.

Farmer’s Choice rosé veal is available from their site.

Veal escalopes in marsala sauce with garlic new potatoes and broccoli (serves 2):

250g baby new potatoes, sliced in half

20g butter

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

2 rosemary sprigs, leaves picked and finely chopped

1 small head of brocoli

250g veal escalope

Flour

4 tablespoons Marsala

300ml chicken stock

  1. Preheat the oven to 100°C. Get a large pan of water on to boil, add the potatoes, and cook until a knife passes into it easily. Drain them off while you get a frying pan over a high heat.
  2. Add a good splash of oil to the frying pan and add the drained potatoes cut side down. Cook for about 10 mins or until they brown on the underside. Drain off the excess oil, then turn off the heat and toss the potatoes in half the butter, the garlic and rosemary with a pinch of salt. When they are well coated transfer to an oven dish and keep warm in the oven to allow the garlic to cook very gently while everything else happens.
  3. Get the broccoli into some more boiling water and cook until cooked to your liking.
  4. Dust the veal in a little flour and season with salt and pepper. In the same pan you cooked the potatoes in, fry the veal on a high heat for 1 minute on each side, then put aside to rest. Deglaze the pan with the Marsala, then add the stock and boil as rapidly as you can until the sauce is reduced and syrupy. Whisk in the remaining butter, check for seasoning and add the veal for 1 more minute’s cooking time to warm through and finish cooking. Serve with the potatoes and broccoli.
Categories
chestnuts food gnocchi marsala mushroom parmesan stock

chestnut gnocchi

I absolutely love Two Greedy Italians. Not only are Gennaro Contaldo and Antonio Carluccio the most avuncular and affable guys on TV, joshing and fondly trading insults, they also serve up some jaw-droppingly good Italian food. In the series where they tour Italy, revisiting places of their youth and being tourists everywhere else the former colleagues eat their way through just about every culinary region of the Old Boot.

In this episode traversing the Alps, they went to a region where they historically couldn’t grow wheat so used chestnuts for all their flour. Gennaro then used this to make a delicious chestnut gnocchi with mushrooms. I had to give it a go myself, but all my previous attempts to make gnocchi have been messy, hideous and not worth the effort. The recipe also isn’t listed on the site. So I bought shop-made gnocchi and improvised a sauce. This was fab, I’m definitely doing it again and I hope I’ve paid enough tribute to Gennaro’s original recipe. Watch the sweetness, you will probably need a good dose of salt to balance it out.

The recipe is probably in Two Greedy Italians Eat Italy, but I don’t have it so no guarantees!

Chestnut gnocchi (serves 2):

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

100ml Marsala

300ml beef stock

200g chestnut mushrooms, sliced

1 tablespoon chestnut puree

1 pack of potato gnocchi

Handful of parsley, roughly chopped

Parmesan shavings to serve

  1. In a small saucepan heat some oil over a medium heat. Add the garlic, Worcestershire sauce, a pinch each of salt and sugar and cover the pan. Cook for 3-4 mins, stirring regularly until the garlic is starting to brown. Add the Marsala and allow to reduce by half. Then add the beef stock and reduce this by half. Add the chestnut puree and check for seasoning. Keep warm while you do everything else.
  2. Into a frying pan add a knob of butter and the mushrooms. Fry for 8-10 mins until the mushrooms are browning, then add a good whack of black pepper. While the mushrooms sizzle, cook the gnocchi for 2-3mins in salted boiling water until floating at the top. Drain until needed.
  3. When the mushrooms are ready, add the sauce and gnocchi to the pan and toss vigorously to combine. Give it a final check for seasoning and top with parsley and parmesan for serving.
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