the red kitchen

Beef and Guinness stew

Beef and Guinness stew , originally uploaded by kitschenette.

The kitchen smells heavenly...looking forward to this. Sorry i don't have any more pictures, but it's still sitting in the oven, cooking itself slowly to perfection. Yum.

I haven't done any slow cooking for ages, and I miss the comforting smells and sense of accomplishment ratio (lots of gain, for not much effort!).

It's deep deep winter here, and going outside is a thought just too hideous to contemplate at the moment. So we are happily staying in and hibernating. I bought all the ingredients for this yesterday, so all that was left to do this afternoon was to put it all together.

I particularly love this recipe because the Guinness imparts a lovely rich, slightly bitter flavour to the stew*. And I can't help but think of all that extra iron and vitamin B that we are ingesting, to boot. Thinking of either rice or polenta to go with this. Polenta wouldn't be my first choice but Bruno has a hankering for it, and all it really needs is a warm, comforting starch to soak up all the delicious sauce. We've also had it with hot buttered noodles, which makes it top notch comfort food, in my book.

* Stew - now that is a word which I can never bring myself to like. Whenever I make a stew-type thing I always search around for better word to describe it, with not much success. Not sure why I dislike it so. Perhaps it is its remarkable closeness to the word 'spew' (!). Anyway, I guess I'll just have to stick with 'stew' (phew, I really needed to get that off my chest, thanks for listening).

Without further ado, here's the recipe for your delectation:

Beef and Guinness Winter Warmer Stew for Hibernation Days

1 kg beef, cubed

2 onions, sliced finely

4 large carrots, chopped into half rounds

5 or so medium potatoes, in chunks

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

few sprigs of thyme

2 bay leaves

2 bottles of Guinness

2 Tb butter

3 Tb flour

Olive oil

2 Tb tomato paste

Beef stock

Salt and pepper

Optional: Gremolata - finely chopped flat-leaf parsley and lemon zest

How to

- In a large oven-proof casserole, heat up a good glug of oil and brown the meat well. Now I was always confused when a recipe said 'brown the meat' because, well, the meat was already brown, wasn't it? After much experience I now reckon (for slow cooking at least) they mean to cook the meat over a high heat until it is well-crisped on the outside, almost seared. The meat holds it appetising brown colour even after long slow cooking (cubes of pallid meat are pretty awful), and most important of all, creates a delicious savoury crust on the bottom of the pan which will then be melted into the vegetables and the stew in general, giving you an unrivalled depth of flavour. So don't be faint-hearted, make sure that meat really is good and crispy brown! It will take a while for all the juices to evaporate and give you the savoury crust that you want, but persevere, it is well worth it. Once the meat is properly browned, take it out of the pot and set aside.

- Melt the butter and another good glug of oil to the pot. Start to scrape up the crusty bits on the bottom. Add the onions, carrots and potatoes and sweat for a good 10-15 minutes til all the vegetables are well softened. Add the garlic, bay leaves and thyme and keep sweating.

- Add the meat back in and any juices that have collected underneath it. Stir it all up and enjoy the smell.

- Add the tomato paste and flour, and stir well to ensure everything is evenly coated with the flour.

- Add the Guinness and about a cup of beef stock (the meat and vegetables must be covered with liquid). Bring to the boil and stir.

- Place into a preheated oven (around 180-200 degrees C) and leave to cook slowly for a few hours. Check every so often that it hasn't dried out or stuck to the bottom - if so, add some more water or stock to loosen it up. The stew is ready when the meat is soft and almost falling apart.

- When you are ready to eat, take the stew out of the oven and season it. Add the gremolata just before serving, if using.

- Make sure to eat it with an appropriately stodgy (read: comforting) accompaniment - hot buttered noodles, rice, polenta, mashed potatoes etc etc. It really is a wonderful winter meal to warm the cockles of your heart!

Attack of the roadside truffles

Well, it seems everyone is interested in the roadside truffles we bought on a whim as we whizzed through Slovenia on our way to the mountains. A tiny knob of white truffle, it stank out our car all the way through Italy, over the Simplon Pass and into the Valais. Truffles to me seem to walk that fine line between smelly socks and gloriousity. A whiff is heady but prolonged exposure can be fatal, especially in close confines. But the earthy, rich smell and taste is beautiful in small amounts.

I have to admit, my experience with truffles is limited. I had a fantastic truffle pasta in Berlin last year - freshly cooked, home-made linguine was bought to the table, heaped onto a giant split-open wheel of parmigiano and twirled and tossed on the open surface to coat every strand in a cheesy sauce. Then it was piled onto my plate and black truffles shaved onto it. Heavenly, i tell you! With a glass of red wine - bliss. At the beginning of our Croatian adventure we went to eat at a small konoba (small family-run restaurant) in Medveja and I had a perfectly-cooked grilled organic steak with truffle sauce (pictures and so forth to come in a separate post), which was absolutely delicious. Other than that, I've never cooked with truffles. I wanted to do something special with it, but we arrived on a Sunday and the shops were closed and we didn't have much foodstuffs with us by then (having eaten our way through my carefully prepared stash of deserted island goodies). So we arrived, starving and grumpy, and I ended up making a variation on the linguine I ate in Berlin. Ok, the pasta wasn't handmade, and I didn't have a wheel of parmegiano to toss it on, but it tasted pretty great anyway. No pictures unfortunately, we were too hungry to wait! Even Max enjoyed the truffle pasta (Lola stuck to butter and parmegiano, we were too tired to argue).

We had a small piece of truffle leftover, which I enclosed in a container with 4 eggs. The truffle aroma and flavour permeates through the shell to the egg, leaving the eggs beautifully truffle-scented. I scrambled the eggs the next morning, and grated the remaining piece of truffle over the top, with hot buttered toast. Actually, it was surprising how strongly the truffle smell and taste came through in the eggs before the truffle shavings, after just one night of permeating. 

I wish we had bought more truffles now that it's gone! But we had only a few Croatian kunas left and either a 5 euro note or a 50 euro note. We weren't about to spend 50 euros on truffles! So we bought just a tiny knob. But that tiny knob stretched out to two meals, turning those simple meals into something quite special and luxurious. Bruno and I were out to dinner on Friday night and a waiter brushed past me bearing a truffled pasta...the merest whiff was enough to turn my head. Once you know the smell it is instantly recognisable, very distinctive. So maybe I shall have to hunt down more truffles this season, for just one more truffle hit...

Telling porkies - slow roast pork v2

Still cooking away on my 'buy 1, cook 3' theme of general thriftiness...It started with roast chicken, then oxtail stew (my mum and dad's favourite of old - how I remember sitting at the table with them while they sucked and chewed the bones), and now, tonight's deluxe menu, slow roast pork. Ever the obsessive purveyor of my site stats, I can attest that this recipe is one of my most googled recipes, after bircher muesli, banana cake, and rather perplexingly, roasted beetroot.

I haven't made slow roasted pork for ages - summer time, laziness etc. But I found a nice piece of pork the other day and vowed to slow roast it in the name of economy and general deliciousness. So I dashed home this afternoon from a friend's and seared off the meat and braised the veges and added the liquids and bunged it all in the oven for a few hours. So easy! In the past I've had trouble with the meat being too dry, but not tonight. Because I hadn't made it in so long I totally forgot that it is usually roasted with the lid off the casserole dish, and left the lid on for at least 2 hours. By the time I realised, the meat had semi-steamed/roasted itself to tender perfection - great! I took the lid off for the last hour and then replaced it when I took the dish out to rest. The result - lovely, tender, juicy pork. Delicious.

I went to all the effort (which was, if I am truthful, not very much effort at all) to make this rather fab dinner, and in the end it was just Max and I eating it - Bruno was in Basel and Lola was at her second mother's (Francis), so Max and I leisurely mashed potatoes together, strained gravy and sat down to eat our semi-solitary feast. It was lovely. And now there is a big pyrex dish full of leftovers, mellowing and mingling their flavours, ready to make a spectacular bubble and squeak, or little fried croquettes, or sandwiches, or some other such dish. Allegra, you saved my life.

The past few weeks have been rather meaty. I'm thinking its time for veg. Still got a piece of home-grown pumpkin lingering about the fridge, so I foresee some pumpkin-y goodness happening in the Kitschenette household sooner rather than later. Soup, thai curry, gnocchi - oh yes!

Lacking inspiration

Some days I find myself at a complete loss as to what to cook for dinner. Ok, to be honest, lots of days. The kitschenette household can get pretty sick of the same rotation of pasta, miso soup, spatzle and pizza (things that have been on the menu a lot lately). On such days I pull out my trusty copy of Nigel Slater's excellent and beautiful book, 'The Kitchen Diaries'. Oh, the awesomeness that is Nigel! I love his cookbooks and the way he cooks. His cooking is down to earth and real, a good mix of comfort food and austerity.

'The Kitchen Diaries' is a year of Nige's (I feel so familiar with him, he's Nige to me now) eating. He wrote down what he ate and took photographs of it all, for a whole year. How fab! I absolutely admire his perseverance. So when I am stuck for inspiration, I turn to whatever Nige was eating on that day (in 2004) and wait to feel inspired. For example, there is no recipe for today (he didn't do every single meal for every single day), but on Feb 2nd he made chicken patties with rosemary and pancetta, eaten with lemon wedges and a spinach salad. On Feb 4th he made a herb and barley broth. And on Feb 6th he had indian spiced potatoes with yoghurt and mint, and leftover roasted meat.

Tonight I'm making a good old fashioned meat pie with the leftover beef stew from a few days ago. Pop the sauce in a pastry case, pinch and crimp the edges closed, brush with egg yolk, poke a couple of holes in the top, and bake at 200 degrees til golden and the filling is hot. I have some bouncy fresh nusslisalat to go along with it.

But tomorrow night...chicken patties with rosemary and pancetta!

Chicken patties with rosemary and pancetta, from Nigel Slater's 'Kitchen Diaries'

a medium onion
2 cloves garlic
thick slice butter
100g cubed pancetta
3 bushy sprigs rosemary, needles removed and finely chopped (a mezzaluna is great for this!)
450g minced chicken
oil for frying
250ml chicken stock

Melt butter til frothy in a non-stick pan. Dice the onion and garlic and saute in the butter until honey coloured. Add the pancetta and rosemary. Cool a little, then tip into a bowl.

Add the chicken to the onion mix and season - careful with the salt as the pancetta is already quite salty.

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees.

Shape the chicken mix into little patties and set aside for half an hour - Nige reckons this amount makes 6 burger-sized patties. 

Fry the patties in the oil (use the onion pan, but wipe clean first!), 3 minutes per side.

Transfer to an ovenproof dish and pour the stock around the patties. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes til patties are sizzling anf stock is hot. Serve up with lemon wedges and spinach salad. Don't forget to spoon over some of the hot stock over each  patty.

Wow, that sounds good. I can't wait to make these tomorrow...

Hearty

There's nothing quite like a big hearty bowl of homemade vegetable and barley soup with a dollop of yoghurt and fresh bread when you get home late at night from a long tiring day navigating the Italian train network. Oh, and a glass of wine, of course.

Potluck

Tonight I am hosting my book club's inaugural potluck dinner. We meant to have a Christmas dinner, but everyone was so crazy busy that we couldn't find the time. So here we are in the New Year, finally sitting down together.

As we are quite an international bunch, we asked everyone to bring a dish from their home country. So this is what we've got so far:

• Thai chicken curry (that's from me, I'm no ace when it comes to cooking Asian food despite my heritage, but it's easy to make for the masses)
• A potato dish called 'Debbelabbes' - could be either German or Swedish, as it's from the wonderful Monika
• Cheese and pretzels (german)
• Sauerkraut and vodka (Polish)
• Fried rice (Chinese)
• Vegetable curry (indian, via Oz)
• Homegrown salad (international!)
• Apple strudel and vanilla sauce (Austrian) 
• a pasta dish (italian)
• Trifle (English - I am so looking forward to this, I loooove ttrifle)
• Carrot cake (yes, yes, I know, it's from me, I'm so predictable)
• An Indian sweet (a custardy type treat I'm told)

It all sounds fab! Check back tomorrow for a report on the festivities.

Potluck dinners

A couple of weeks ago we had a surprise potluck Asian food-themed birthday dinner for a good friend of mine, and it was such a success that we all agreed that we should make a habit of it. It was a great meal - smoke-free surrounds (unlike the rest of the civilised world, Switzerland still insists that it's ok for smokers to fag on in restaurants, completely ruining the dining out experience for me. No matter how fantastic the food, I just can't enjoy it wreathed in smoke), food better than any restaurant I've been to lately, wine, great company, and no rush to clear the table for the next sitting. And of course, remarkably easy to organise  - everyone just brings something.  The food was so good that there was even talk of producing a cookbook of sorts for ourselves.

So this weekend someone else has taken on the mantle of organiser, and has organised an Italian potluck. I'm on starter/antipasti duty along with Ms Fabelhaft, so I consulted my Italian neighbour for some tips and ideas. I'm mad keen to make some devils on horseback, 60's party staple that they are, kitschy yes, but FAB to eat.

Ideas:

• A simple caprese salad: tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, dressing - you know the drill, perhaps with cherry tomatoes and tiny (cherry tomato size) mozzarella balls
• Proscuitto wrapped around grissini
• Good olives
• Bruschettas of various types, ie, pesto, sundried tomato paste, tapenade, garlicky mushrooms etc
• Bagna cauda (garlicky buttery anchovy dip) with raw veges for dipping
• cheese, salami, prosciutto, walnut platter
• Goat cheese and rocket wrapped in bresaola, drizzled with a vinaigrette
• devils on horseback (cheese-stuffed prunes wrapped in bacon and grilled crisp)
• Goat's cheese tartlets with green olives, lemon and cream
• Grilled haloumi with rocket and chilli
• hot garlic prawns
• proscuitto, goat's cheese and fig bundles (there's that goat cheese again!)

I shall have to consult further with my partner in appetizer crime, and see just what is do-able. It all sounds delicious to me! (maybe that's because it's almost dinner time...).

I'll let you know what we end up eating.

Hello, sunshine

Hello again, my sadly neglected blog. It's been a while. Maybe it's the winter greyness that crushes all my inspiration, for I have been just doing my normal everyday cooking and haven't found much to get enthused about.

However, a couple of days of unseasonal sunshine have whetted the old tastebuds and I've thought a little more carefully about what we've been eating and drinking, cooking mostly exactly what I feel like, even in the face of overwhelming protest from the kids. Hey, they'll thank me later.

In one of my recent posts I was on a blue cheese bender; now that phase has passed and I've moved onto the gentler, more innocent qualities of goats' cheese. I particularly enjoy it for breakfast, on thick grainy bread (only lightly toasted of course, I hate really toasted toast), with my spicy plum jam - I reckon a bit of protein in the morning is good for me.

And last night I made one of my favorite standby meals, one that is good for when the cupboard is empty,
it's cold outside and I can't be bothered heading to the shops for supplies. Or just when I feel like I need a virtuous meal to counterbalance a couple of days of overindulgence. It can be made with meagre ingredients, or can be luxed up depending on what's in the fridge. It's just a simple omelette filled with vegetables, but oh, it is good.

I first ate this omelette when we were on holiday a couple of years ago. We were shopping at the Xmas sales at a major department store and were struck by hunger. We went down to the restaurant and I ordered this and watched them make it in front of me. It was perfect, the egg cooked just right, softly oozing, and the vegetables freshly grated and seasoned with just the right amount of salt, pepper and importantly, vinegar. It's the dash of vinegar that keeps me coming back to this meal, truly. I dream about it sometimes, how good that acid tang with the sweetness of the grated carrot is.

So back to reality. Here's the recipe, make it and enjoy it with a glass of crisp white wine (for those of you that imbibe), or sparkling apple juice or whatever. Good hearty bread and a bouncy salad would make this just about perfect.

Slow roast pork

I've had a couple of requests for the recipe for the slow roast pork I made last weekend, and I am as ever, happy to oblige.

Truth be told, my slow roasted pork, albeit delicious, was a bit dry. This was because I didn't use the proper cut of meat for the recipe - I used pork neck or foreloin, rather than loin of pork (which has more fat and thus stays moister during the lengthy cookign time). However, once a bit of winey gravy was dribbled over it it was great. The equally winey vegetables that accompanied it were particularly fantastic, as was the braised red cabbage (a surprise to me, as I'm not usually a cabbage-lover).

I used Stephanie Alexander's recipe for slow-roasted loin of pork with rosemary, garlic and fennel. Stephanie suggests buying the shoulder end of the loin, which, although it is fattier, retains a better flavour and tenderness. The meat is rubbed with oil, rosemary, garlic and fennel and then rolled and tied for roasting. It makes for a wonderfully aromatic  roasyt which looks rather spectacular (if I do say so myself). I definitely want to try this recipe again using the proper cut of meat - Max told me the next day that he been daydreaming of the meat and gravy we'd had the night before, it was so good.

Heather, I hope that you make this and that it turns out wonderfully!

Slow roast pork

Slow roast pork, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

On the menu tonight (avert your eyes, vegetarians and vegans, sorry!):

Slow roasted pork with rosemary, garlic and fennel, braised red cabbage with apples, garlic mash, greens (baby rocket, the tenderest leaves, picked up at the fruit market this morning).
And dessert, of course, a blackberry marscapone tart, similar to the strawberry marscapone tart I posted about a couple of days ago, but with orange zest folded into the marscapone cheese and blackberry puree smoothed over the top.