Spaghetti Bolognese

This is a Nigel Slater recipe and is definately the best Spaghetti Bolognese recipe you will find. The cream that goes in at the end really adds to the flavour making it ultra rich - just make sure the seasoning is right at the end and its excellent. The only thing I changed was the meat - I used a veal and pork mixture and added a few chopped up chicken livers.

Ragu Bolognaise
50g butter
70g cubed pancetta
a medium onion
2 fat cloves of garlic
a carrot
2 stalks of celery
2 large flat mushrooms - about 100g
2 bay leaves
400g minced beef or lamb
200ml crushed tomatoes or passata
200ml white wine
200ml stock
a nutmeg
200ml full-cream milk or cream
To serve: tagliatelle for 4
Melt the butter in a heavy-based pan - I use one of cast iron, about 24cm in diameter, then stir in the pancetta and let it cook for five minutes or so, without colouring much. Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the onion and garlic and stir it into the pancetta, followed by the carrot and celery, scrubbed and finely chopped. Lastly, finely chop the mushrooms and add to the pan, then tuck in the bay leaves and leave to cook for 10 minutes over a moderate heat, stirring frequently.
Turn up the heat and tip in the meat, breaking it up well with a fork. Now leave to colour without stirring for 3 or 4 minutes, then, as the meat on the bottom is starting to brown, stir again, breaking up the meat where necessary, and leave to colour.
Mix in the tomato, wine and stock and a grating of nutmeg, salt and pepper, letting it come to the boil. Turn the heat down so everything barely bubbles. Partially cover with a lid and leave to putter away for a good hour to an hour-and-a-half, stirring from time to time and checking the liquid levels. You don't want it to be dry.
Pour in the milk or cream a bit at a time, stir and continue cooking for 20 minutes. Check the seasoning, then serve with the tagliatelle and grated Parmesan. Serves 4.

Beer Battered Hake and Garlic Alioli

I really wanted some proper battered fish so tried out this Spanish version using Hake. In Spain Hake is very popular and still relatively cheap.
Here is the batter recipe.I'd never used beer in batter before but it tastes really good - there is just a hint of it in the final taste but it gives the batter a certain lightness.

225g/8oz self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting

salt and freshly ground black pepper 

300ml/10fl oz fridge-cold lager

Mix these thoroughly together, coat your fillets and fry until nice and brown. I served two of these each with a large salad and some good quality Alioli. This is a lot lighter that stodgy fish and chips so its a bit better for the summer - its also very quick - all you are really doing is quickly frying the fish.

"Balti" Chicken and Spicy Potato Cakes

This was an emergency meal that turned out pretty good. I had some chicken in the freezer and cold mashed potato from the night before.
For the potato cakes I fried finely chopped onion, garlic, chilli and red and green peppers until they were soft. Then I added a couple of teaspoons of cumin, a teaspoon of garam masala and a bit of turmeric and fried for a couple of minutes. I let this cool then mixed it with the potato which I then made into flat patties. These are then egg and breadcrumbed and deep or shallow fried til brown. They turn out sort of like an Indian style bubble and squeek and the breadcrumbs give a good crispy texture against the soft inside. Good with yoghurt mixed with mint, garlic, coriander etc.
Frozen, skinless, chicken breasts are one of the most tasteless meats you can eat so I spiced it up just by coating it in Pataks Balti paste with a bit of extra chilli and garlic. I left it in the spice paste to marinade all day then griddled it until parts went nice and black so it kinda tastes bbq'ed.

 Vegetarian version

Pig Stuffed Peppers

I cook stuffed peppers with vegetables, rice and cous cous quite a lot in various combinations and this is by far the best I've ever had, even in a restaurant. Its from a Nigel Slater recipe and I cooked it pretty much exactly to the recipe so I cant take any credit but I really recommend it. I can get enourmous peppers in Spain that are perfect for this recipe &  I did have very nice freshly minced pork which I think made it even better. It looks a bit burnt in the picture because I cooked a load then reheated it so it went VERY brown. It was still really good though - just reheated in the oven the next day.
Peel and finely chop an onion, put it into a large, shallow pan with the oil over a moderate heat. Let the onion soften without colouring. Peel and slice the garlic, chop the leaves from the  rosemary and add to the onions. When all is soft and fragrant, chop 2 big tomatoes and stir them in. Cook until the tomatoes have collapsed into the sauce. Season with salt and pepper, then stir in the minced pork and the breadcrumbs. Remove from the heat.
Divide the pork mixture between the halved red peppers then moisten with a little olive oil. Scatter grated Parmesan over the peppers and bake for 35 minutes or so till sizzling.
I served the pepper with some roasted tomatoes stuffed with anchovies, thyme, garlic, breadcrumbs and olive oil.

Thai Steamed Trout

Ok, this is the easiest recipe in the world to cook. Its also very cheap - here in Spain (and England) Trout is extremely cheap, its about six euros a kilo so I got four fillets for about €3.50. I guess you could use just about any fish.

Its this easy - just lay out a large piece of kitchen foil and place the trout in the centre, scatter over chopped chilli, garlic and ginger then squeeze over some lime juice and zest. Lay some Pak Choi on the top and pour on plenty of soy sauce (and a drop of fish sauce if you have it). Close the foil tightly on top and put in the oven for about 15-20 minutes. You could also steam it. I served it with basmati rice and poured all the juice over the top with a bit more soy sauce to taste.

Asparagus Soup

I'm a bit crazy about soup at the minute. I make a big batch and then have it for lunch over 3-4 days, ultra tasty, cheap, easy and healthy. Its too tempting with all the good veg you get here - none of those peppers made in Dutch mega-greenhouses that have all been measured and weighed to a fucking gram. Here its all massive red peppers and plump aubergines all for a fraction of the price of in the UK.

This one is for my Lunch and Tracy's dinner. Asparagus is in season at the minute so it should only cost about £1.50 for a pretty decent bundle. Add an onion, some stock and a bit of cream and its about seventy cents a serving.

For the soup I chopped a medium onion and started frying it in olive oil. Chop the hard ends off the bottom of the asparagus, chop it into pieces and throw it in with the onions which should have a bit of colour on them. Fry for a few minutes and add about a litre and half of vegetable stock. Now all you do is put it all in the blender and blend until smooth then add some double cream and blend a bit more. Season.

It doesn't sound like it would be that great but it really is, it seems to be better if you dont overcook the asparagus before blending it though. Keeps it nice and green.

Cabbage Timbale with Tomato sauce and Parsnip Gnocchi

This is a vegetarian recipe that looked quite difficult but was actually pretty easy. With Tracy being vegetarian I often end up cooking vegetarian meals either for both of us or just for her. This one was taken from the Guardian food website and then adjusted with different ingredients.
I wasn't even sure what a timbale was when I started this recipe but its basically like a dolma or stuffed cabbage leaf. I'd never made gnocchi before either but it was surprisingly easy.
I started by boiling three cabbage leaves for five minutes then letting them cool. I sliced an aubergine into rounds and roasted it in the oven whilst I was doing the next bit. I quickly fried an onion, quarter of a green cabbage, garlic and some large spring onions. Here the bottom af a large spring onion can be the size of a regular white onion. I seasoned, tasted and then once it had cooled I mixed in grana padano cheese, the original recipe says to use gabriel cheese (http://www.wcnc.ie/) but I couldn't get this so substituted grana padano which I like because it doesn't overpower the other ingredients. Feta would probably also work well here and would give a it a bit of the taste of spanakopita.
So you have your cabbage leaf, cabbage and cheese mixture and roast aubergine. At this point I greased a couple of metal rings about 8cm wide and put them on a baking tray then  lined them each with a cabbage leaf. At the botton of each I layered a few pieces of the roast aubergine then nearly filled with the cabbage and leek. I finished each one with a few more pieces of aubergine and folded cabbage over the top. These are now ready to go in the oven.
The next part is the gnocchi which I was convinced would go horribly wrong. I boiled a couple of peeled parsnips and a couple of potatoes for about twenty minutes then mashed them together. Let it cool and add 1 egg yolk and enough flour to form a stiff dough. Make it into gnocchi shapes, put them on a floured tray and they are ready to be cooked, they just take 3 minutes in boiling water and are ready when they float to the top.
The last part is the sauce for the gnocchi. This is ultra simple, the only thing you have to have is good, ripe tomatoes. In Catalunya their national dish is "pan con tomate" (or "pa amb tomàquet" in Catalan) this is simply really ripe and juicy tomato squeezed onto toasted day old bread that has had garlic rubbed over it and topped with good quality olive oil. It doesnt sound great but can be really good if all the ingredients are upto scratch.
I peeled six tomatoes, chopped them quite small and mixed them with fresh basil, thyme and olive oil. Thats it - put the timbale in the oven for about 10 minutes. Boil the gnocchi for a couple of minutes then mix it with the slightly warmed sauce and serve with the timbale.

Probably Italian Pork Meatballs

Ok, so I was going to start this last week but due to laziness and ineptitude it has had to wait until now. You see I made meatballs last week which were pretty good and took photos and everything so thats what I'll start with. I've tried just about every different combination of meat for italian style meatballs and I think just plain good quality pork is the best. Although, since living in Spain I have started combining minced veal to the mix and that also works well.
It is much easier to get good quality minced meat here that in England - the veal I used to get fresh from the Boqueria Market in the centre of Barcelona. Even in the supermarket close to our new place its pretty good - you select your cut and they freshly mince it right there in front of you. Thats where I got the pork from for this recipe and it was really nice - fatty, meaty and slightly pink - not like the white stuff you get in the packets. I'm not sure what cut it was though - it looked like a hock - I asked the counter guy what was bueno para picada and thats what he recommended so thats what I got. I think loin which they sell everywhere here would be too lean and shoulder maybe too fatty, I will try them...
As an aside, whenever I ask for some pork belly here (called simply panceta) I always have to tell them that I want the entire thing uncut, at which point it goes a bit like this:
Me: quiero un kilo de panceta de cerdo. No corte.
Butcher: ssiiii??
Me: si entero
Butcher: entero? sin corte??
Me: si sin corte.
Butcher: (shrugs) vale.
Otherwise they just automatically start cutting it into strips, which you do see a lot in cheap and cheerful restaurants here served with chips and eggs. I just assumed roast pork belly would be a common thing to cook here because they are so big on pork, guess I have to ask someone.
Anyway, back to meatballs. In the blender I mixed  parmesan, fresh breadcrumbs, sage, parsley, a bit of garlic and quite a lot of salt and pepper. I then added this to the  pork mince, (coarse with quite a lot of fat seems to work best) with a lot of lemon juice and gave it a mix.
For the tomato sauce I fried garlic in a lot of olive oil and butter, added chilli flakes and fresh basil and fried for a couple of minutes (you could add wine at this point but oddly I didnt have any) then added two tins of tomatoes. I let it get back to  a simmer and added a teaspoon of suger, salt and pepper and splash of jerez vinegar. I let it simmer for ages so it gets quite thick cos thats how I like it but its pretty good with just 15 minutes cooking. Get the spaghetti on.
Ok so now I make that lump of minced pig into a lot of small meatballs, usually enough for about five meals, and fry them until they are really brown and crispy. This time I took most of em out and left six in the pan, drained off the fat and added a few spoons of the tomato sauce, fresh basil and the cooked spaghetti. Then you gotta grate more cheese onto it.
I've made these meatballs before slightly changing things each time and these are definately the best so far. I think the quality of the pork mince really made the difference this time.