Category: meat recipes

chorizo and lentil soup

Hot diggity, I love chorizo. So meaty, spicy and god-darned irresistible. I hate those pre-packed sweaty little plastic things, so I always buy mine from the deli counter. Except there I have to plead with the assistant not to slice it into bits, it’s always finger-thick slices or rough dice for me.

This wintry soup is a real cracker: fried leeks and chorizo, cooked until softened, joined by red lentils, paprika and stock, then allowed to simmer until everything’s tender. Followed by the obligatory blitz. Just to finish it off I seared some reserved chorizo slices until blackened, then rested on top to allow its savoury blood-red juices to drip into the chunky soup.

food lamb lentils

tomato dahl with lamb

This poor, poor recipe: it got bumped for weeks and weeks off the menu as other things came up, we got home late, someone invited us out… and finally we made it. It was very nice, luckily.

The lamb was supposed to be koftas but mega-juicy onions didn’t allow the meat to bind into kebabs. So instead the lamb mince was mixed with onion, garlic, ginger and turmeric to make a batch of fried mince. The dhal was onion, garlic, turmeric and lentils simmered in stock, with a tin of tomatoes, to form the carb part of the dish. Not fussy, not clever, but satisfying.

(the white strips above are slivers of halloumi cheese that were sitting looking bored in the fridge lightly grilled and left on top)

beef curry food mince peas

balti beef

A dreadfully-named dish this one; but it inverts a standard cooking cornerstone in a way that really baffled me. It came from a Weight Watchers book of all places, though it has dubious dietary heritage.

Rather than the time-honoured tradition of: sweat onions in oil, then add meat, the method for this is to dry-fry mince until it starts to leak oil and then chuck the onions in. I suppose this is marginally healthier. I add grated garlic to this, then some patented Gary Masala and turmeric, with seasoning. Allowing these flavours to develop for a few minutes I then add a good puddle of beef stock, frozen peas and a tablespoon of mango chutney. It sounds utterly perverse, but after just a couple of minutes simmering you get a spicy, fruity, meaty bowl of food that is immensely satisfying.

food pasta turkey

sicilian meatballs

Another one from someone who’s becoming a quiet hero of mine, Angela Boggiano, as usual crafting taste, thrift and technique in a clever way.

Meatballs: turkey mince, lemon zest, breadcrumbs, paprika, a little cayenne, parsley. I fry them all ove, then add some chicken stock to the pan. This gets them all moist and part-poaches them. Toss in some cooked spaghetti and a little more parsley, and you’re there. Easy and tasty.