Category: peas

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food pasta peas saffron

pea and comte ravioli with saffron butter

pea comte cheese ravioli

 

Many, many years ago I owned a pasta machine. I used it until it literally fell apart, tossed it in the bin and forgot about it. This was 12 years ago or so.

I figured it was about time to get myself a new one. I picked up a dirt cheap one from Amazon to play around and got stuck in.

I found that not all pasta doughs are equal. Not equal at all! Some of them are doughy, some oily, some crumbly… it took a while to find a dough I was really happy with. I made some tagliatelle and similar shapes and was pretty pleased with it.

I’ve been following the excellent thehestonblumenthalteam on Instagram. I think it exists just to shift Sage Appliances merch but they really do post some cracking recipes. Their recipe for crab, pea and cheese ravioli looked divine and they kindly sent me the recipe.

I adapted it for my own larder and pushed it in a slightly different direction. I used some excellent Comte cheese, and gave it a luxurious twist with a saffron butter. I was really pleased with how it came out: rich saffron on first bite, with smooth sweet pea and cheese inside firm pasta. Lovely.

The pea puree recipe is as they sent it to me, and it’s so good. Like, just make a batch of it to eat with a spoon good. I’ll definitely be using that in future.

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pea and comte ravioli with saffron butter

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the pea puree:

  • 25 g unsalted butter
  • 1 clove garlic finely minced
  • 1/2 onion finely chopped
  • 100 g vegetable stock
  • 200 g frozen Bird's Eye peas
  • 50 g unsalted butter

For the pasta dough:

  • 200 g 00 flour
  • 50 g fine semolina flour
  • 2 whole eggs and 1 yolk

For the ravioli:

  • 100 g diced Comte cheese

For the saffron butter:

  • 1/2 onion finely chopped
  • 8 saffron threads
  • 20 ml white wine vinegar
  • 100 g unsalted butter chilled

Instructions

  • Melt the butter in a saucepan and sweat the garlic and onion until soft. Add the stock, bring to the boil, add the peas, bring back to the boil, and simmer for 45 seconds. Remove from the heat. Strain the peas reserving the cooking liquid. Place the pea mixture in a blender and blitz to a puree consistency, adding reserved liquid if need be. When smooth, chuck the butter in too, then strain through a sieve. Season to taste and reserve in a piping bag in the fridge. It should be quite firm when cold.
  • Place the flour and semolina in a bowl using a fork bring in the eggs until the dough begins to come together. Continue kneading until smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a rectangle and wrap in clingfilm. Place in the fridge and allow to rest for at least 30 minutes.
  • After resting, roll the pasta into as fine sheets as possible and cut into discs measuring 6-8 cm using a pastry cutter.
  • Pipe a small amount of the cold pea puree in the centre and top with a cube of Comte. Lightly moisten the edges of the dough with water, fold the dough over into a half circle, pressing down the edges. Place them on a tray covered with flour, cover with cling film in the fridge for up to 3 hours.
  • Place the onion and vinegar in a frying pan. Add a splash of water and bring to the boil. Boil until the liquid is reduced by half and add the saffron and peas. Fry for one minute.
  • Cut the butter into chunks. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting.
  • Toss in a piece of butter and stir in briskly. Continue adding the butter, one piece at a time, stirring to melt each piece before adding the next.
  • Add the ravioli to the saucepan. After one minute they should float to the top. Use a slotted spoon to remove them from the saucepan to the frying pan - don't be too diligent on the draining, let a little cooking water spill into the butter. Once all the ravioli are in the sauce, crank the heat back up and baste the pasta in the butter. After one minute serve with freshly grated Comte.

Still hungry? Try Kavey’s pea ravioli, or Becca’s crispy fried tortellini.

Categories
bacon chicken cream food leeks peas potatoes spinach

15 minute golden chicken with potato gratin and greens

Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals was a literary behemoth, tearing up the records for fastest selling non-fiction book, and causing many snooks to be cocked in its direction. But for people willing to give it a proper chance, approach it with an open mind and “get in the 30 minute frame of mind” it was a way to push what you can achieve in a small amount of time. Aim higher! I was certainly taken it with it, and gave me some great ideas how to make the best use of your time. Take the food processor: previously left for weekend projects, I now employ it 3 or 4 times a week to chop, grate or slice things in a flash.

cheeky chappie

What’s that coming over the hill, is it a monster, is it a monsterrrr? No, it’s another Jamie book, poised to take over the world. And this time it’s Jamie’s 15-Minute Meals. Yes, half the time. And the knives are already out in a pointless linkbait exercise. But I was approaching it with energy and excitement.

Flicking through, much like 30 Minute Meals there’s a wide variety of cuisines that should satisfy your mood. There’s an obsession with serving everything on wooden boards which I really like but isn’t practical for most dinners. Towards the end of the book there’s also a weird section that doesn’t really belong, talking about muesli and other breakfast odds and ends. Granola aside there’s definitely loads I will be trying over the coming months. I picked out a handful to try straight away and started with this golden chicken recipe.

I hit a snag immediately. Jamie juggles a frying pan, a saucepan and a baking tray on the hob simultaneously. I have a regular 4-burner hob, and this just won’t fit. Maybe all the recipe testing was done on a 5-burner but this was automatically going to put my time back as I couldn’t multi-task as effectively.

And this leads me on to another issue: there are no timings given for anything. It’s just “do this, then this, by this time the first thing will be ready.” But if for whatever reason you can’t stick to the timeline you don’t have a way of knowing how long things should take. If you are a confident cook this isn’t a problem but I can see it being a real boundary for a lot of people.

These issues aside, the dinner was very good, although it took me 28 minutes. Best of all was capturing a really good potato gratin in 15 minutes, that really is impressive. So do try out the 15 minute recipes – but do read it all carefully before starting. And don’t get hung up on the time and focus instead on creating great food quicker than you would expect. That’s the key.

Golden chicken with potato gratin and greens (serves 4):

800g potatoes

3 onions

1 chicken stock cube

½ teaspoon dried sage (Jamie demanded fresh but I couldn’t get any)

100ml single cream

30g Parmesan

4 chicken breasts

Fresh rosemary

2 rashers smoked bacon

1 large leek

200g baby spinach

200g frozen peas

  1. Get a large saucepan filled with boiling, salted water over a high heat. Finely slice the potatoes and tip them in. Get a large roasting tray over a hob with a little oil in, and after passing the peeled onions through the food processor throw them in the pan. Crumble in the stock cube and sage, and stir often.
  2. Spread out a large sheet of greaseproof and lay the chicken on. Scatter over some salt, pepper, sage and rosemary. Fold the paper over and using a rolling pin bash to about 1.5cm thick. Get a frying pan over a medium heat and fry the chicken in a little oil. Flip as they turn golden in colour.
  3. Warm another pan and add a dash of oil. Wash and finely slice the leek, and then add to the pan. Get the grill on high and drain the potatoes. Tip them into the pan with the onions, spread into a single layer and pour over the cream. Grate over the parmesan and bung under the grill until the edges are catching golden brown. Slice the bacon and add to the chicken pan.
  4. Add the spinach and the peas to the leek’s pan, add some seasoning and toss well. Cover and leave until the spinach has wilted, and then serve the chicken with the greens and potato fresh from the grill.
Categories
asparagus cottage cheese food lasagne parmesan pasta peas spring greens spring onion

summer veg lasagne

I always mean to try interesting lasagna recipes – ones that aren’t classic lasagne al forno that is – but when I come to cook it I can’t resist meaty, tomatoey rich ragu topped with creamy bechamel. It takes Jamie Oliver to convince me to try it another way.

This Summer veg lasagne is inspired by one from his 30 Minute Meals book. It’s perfect for the Summer months and ideal for clearing out the fridge! I grabbed a bunch of things that needed using up for here and it came out lovely.

Summer veg lasagne (serves 4):

A bunch of spring onions

3 cloves of garlic

300g asparagus

Large handful frozen peas

Large handful spring greens

Large bunch of basil

150ml single cream

150ml veg stock

250g cottage cheese

250g fresh lasagne sheets

Parmesan

  1. Get the kettle on to boil, get a large frying pan on a high heat and add a splash of oil. Put the oven on 180°C.
  2. Slice up the spring onions and add to the pan. Crush in the garlic and toss well to prevent sticking. Snap off the woody bits of the asparagus then slice up the stems, but leave the tips intact and keep to one side for now. Add the chopped stems to the pan with a splash of boiled water.
  3. Add the peas and greens and keep stirring. Chop the basil and add to the pan with the cream and add plenty of seasoning. Cover with stock and bring to the boil.
  4. Get a roasting tray and start to layer up lasagne sheets and veg mix until you have used everything up. Finish with pasta. Add a splash of boiled water to the cottage cheese to slacken and then spread over your pasta. Scatter the asparagus on top of the cottage cheese and grate over plenty of parmesan. Transfer to the oven and bake until golden and crunchy. Serve with panzanella.
Categories
bread chicken food lettuce peas

roast chicken with petits pois a la francais

Sometimes, when you’re cooking dinner you just know it’s going to be good, you can feel it. This was one of those times.

It was an excuse to eat peas, this one: the peas are a recipe from attending Waitrose Cookery School recently (more on that in a future post). I know it’s a classical French recipe but this is just so damn tasty. This from someone who isn’t that bothered about peas. Seriously, they’re amazing. Try this on their own. I would of course usually roast a chicken in my favourite Heston way, but on this occasion I was caught short and had to cook the chicken on the quick and roasted it in the traditional way. It was fine, but I do miss the succulence afforded by lovely brined meat. All that aside, this combination of chicken and braised peas is just brill. The gravy is inspired by a method described in Alex Mackay’s new book Everybody, Everyday.

By the way, note only the breasts were required for this recipe. I used the other parts of chicken for meals elsewhere in the week.

Roast chicken with petits pois a la français (serves 4):

For the chicken:

1.7kg chicken

1 onions, quartered

1 head of garlic, halved horizontally

For the peas:

25g butter

1 onion, peeled and finely diced

4 rashers bacon, sliced

1 sprig of rosemary, leaves picked and finely chopped

250g petits pois

2 little gem lettuces, shredded

A large handful of parsley, finely chopped

For the gravy:

600ml chicken stock

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon cornflour

Sourdough bread, to serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
  2. Free the chicken from its trussing, put it in a roasting tray, slather it in olive oil and season well. Pop a quarter of the onion and half the garlic in the cavity, and scatter the remaining alliums around the chicken. Pop in the oven for 1 hour to 1hr 30mins, until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the breast reads 70°C+. Allow to rest, covered, for at least 15 mins before carving (only the breasts are required for this recipe).
  3. When the chicken has been in for about 30 mins, melt the butter in a large saucepan and gently fry the onion for a couple of minutes until softened. Add the bacon and rosemary and cook for a couple more minutes, then add the peas and lettuce. Cover and allow to raise for 30 mins, stirring occasionally. When the peas are tender check for seasoning and add the parsley.
  4. For the gravy, boil the stock and soy together until reduced by a quarter. Mix the cornflour with a splash of water and whisk this in. When the chicken has been removed from the oven add the juices from the pan to the gravy. Serve everything together with sourdough bread to soak up the gravy.
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