Category: stock

maltese roast potatoes

At the recent Tilda stir-fry rice event I had the fortune to chat with many bloggers I knew well and in passing. The following morning one of them pointed me towards a recipe on their site, Maltese roast potatoes. Did You Put Garlic? specialises in Maltese cuisine.

Now, these aren’t roast potatoes as this blog knows them – in fact they are extremely close to potatoes boulangere. It turns out they sprang into being for the same reason – the baker has the biggest, hottest (only?) oven in town, so everybody would cook their potatoes in his kitchen once the bread was done. This cross-pollination of ideas is not surprising given the French occupation of Malta throughout the 19th Century.

So the food itself? Lovely. Crisp-edged, slightly soft potatoes brimming with stock only with the unexpected yet entirely welcome tickle of Madras curry powder warming the mouth through at the end. Very nice. To top it off I poured nothing but the best into it: all the veg came from my garden, including my first crop of this year’s potatoes. They were all spoilt rotten.

Head on over to Mer’s site for the recipe.

And yes, I did put garlic.

Maltese roast potatoes

Patata fil Forn is an old family recipe.

Course Side Dish

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

1 large onion sliced into rings
4 large potatoes peeled and sliced, lengthways into 5mm rounds
4 garlic cloves thinly sliced
2 teaspoons powdered vegetable stock
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon curry powder
2 tablespoons of oil

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.
Layer the base of a baking dish with a layer of half the onions, over this layer half the potatoes. Sprinkle with half the garlic, stock, pepper, curry powder and drizzle a tablespoon of oil over the top.
Repeat with the second layer.
Slowly pour in some water to just come up with the bottom layer of the potatoes (about 5 - 10 mm).
Roast in the oven for about 45 minutes until the top layer is golden brown and most of the water has evaporated. Serve with your usual roast, stews, or even between a couple of slices of bread with your favourite chutney (great for when you have left overs!)

Tags mer

food mince stock tomato wine

tagliatelle bolognese

This was another test for the slow cooker – a sturdy bolognese recipe. This one is lifted from this month’s Delicious magazine. It’s much more complicated than my personal favourite recipe but they both have merit. The results were very good – it was missing something, perhaps a little acidity – but very satisfying for something left alone for 7 hours.

I made enough for ten here, so I have two future dinners perfectly preserved 🙂

Bolognese:

1kg beef mince

1 onion, finely diced

2 celery stalks, finely diced

3 garlic cloves, finely sliced

1 tin tomatoes

100ml whole milk

300ml beef stock

200ml red wine

1 teaspoon dried oregano

2 teaspoons tomato puree

Brown the mince in a hot pan to develop a lovely brown crust.

Put the mince along with all the other ingredients in a slow cooker on high for 6 – 7 hours.

Check for seasoning and serve with the pasta of your choice – I’m a sucker for the wide, flat chewiness of tagliatelle. Top with parmesan.

bacon carrots chicken food potatoes stock

chicken tray bake

This is yet another delve into Jamie Oliver’s latest book, Jamie’s America. I’d bought a whole chicken at the weekend to wanted to portion it up for use throughout the week. Here the wings and one breast went into a soupy, veggie oven-baked dish, browning off while leaking their savoury juices into the broth. I made a few of my own tweaks, leaving out sweet potatoes (not a favourite of mine since the rancid ‘Barefoot Contessa’ destroyed it in a recipe of hers I recreated) and substituting carrots. Otherwise it’s essentially sliced carrots and sliced potatoes baked in chicken stock with some oregano for half an hour, then chicken pieces added on top for another half hour. The other great touch here was brining the chicken; something I’ve always contemplated but never tried. The meat was left for three hours in a mixture of water, salt, garlic, honey and sage. It left the meat tasty and juicy and something I will definitely return to. I know for example Heston Blumenthal’s perfect roast chicken requires a few days’ brining… watch this space.

The whole dish was very tasty though next time I think I’d add an acidic twist with perhaps a splash of white wine.

Tags jamie oliver

food stock

gravy

I was asked how to do ‘real’ gravy recently, and this seemed the right place to put it. It’s somewhat chicken-and-egg – for the perfect gravy you need to have had a previous roast from which to get your stock. And so the cycle continues. If you don’t have a decent home-made stock, and it’s not always possible, I’m a big fan of these two Knorr products: Stock Pots and Touch of Taste. Stock Pots for just pure stock, Touch of Taste for just a splash of intense flavour here and there. They’re both extremely tasty, and definitely the next best thing.

Make sure you cook everything in a decent roasting tray, as it’s going to end up on the hob – a cheap baking tray might not survive. Deep sides will help you out a lot too.

Moving on, the gravy starts when you’re roasting meat. I chuck spare veg in the roasting tray under the meat, which acts as both a flavouring and a trivet to prevent the joint sticking to the pan. As for the veg itself, if I have the luxury of choice I’d have a halved onion, a couple of halved peeled carrots, a couple of broken sticks of celery, a head of garlic separated into cloves, and a bay leaf. Any root veg alongside onions will do, experiment and find the mix that works for you. Anyway, bung the meat on top of the veg and as it cooks the fat will dribble out and gently roast it all.

Once the meat is cooked to your liking, put it to one side, resting in a warm place while you get on with the gravy proper. Put the roasting tray on the hob and whack the heat up high. If you can, spoon off some of the oil floating on top. If you can’t, it’s no big deal. Start pushing and scraping at the veg to start unsticking it from the tray. At this point add a rounded dessert spoon of plain flour and grind it around until you can’t see it. This is the time you need to add stock. If you’re not sure, add more rather than less. What a dismal dinner, to run out of gravy 🙁 I usually use around a pint for about 4 people. This should start bubbling furiously, and will help lift the browned vegetable matter from the dish. Keep having at it with a wooden spoon, pushing at the base of the tray and soon everything will be loose. Dig at the veg occasionally, smashing it a bit so it breaks up. These tiny plant bits will give real body and flavour to the finished gravy.

After a few minutes, it will be bubbly and probably dark in colour. You’ll need to taste it here (carefully, it’s hot!) and add salt and pepper as required. Let it bubble a bit longer if you’d prefer it a little thicker. Note for next time: if this isn’t thick enough for you you could’ve added a spoonful more flour earlier. If it tastes meaty, a little salty and rich, we’re ready!

Sieve it off into a jug, pushing at all the veg matter with your wooden implement. Again that fibrous stuff will give real texture to the meat juice. I often prepare this as soon as the meat is done, then (whisper it) microwave the gravy at the last minute.

All this aside, keep Bisto in the cupboard. You never know when you’ll get caught short.