Meatballs in rich tomato sauce
Posted: April 9, 2012 Filed under: Beef, Pork, Vegetables | Tags: Beef, Carlos Horrillo and Patrick Morcas, Pork, Spain, Tomato Leave a comment »
A few weeks ago, I posted the watered down light version of this dish. A dinner party loosely inspired in Spanish cuisine prompted me to do the actual thing, with all its condiments, red wine and olive oil. Mind you, for extra slow-home-made-cooking points, the meatballs were rolled by hand with all love and care by T. and myself. It seemed like a lot of food, but at the end all it was left was the meatballs used for this snapshot. And, I had to hide it in a dark corner of my fridge.
Meatballs in rich tomato sauce (adapted from Carlos Horrillo and Patrick Morcas’ Tapas: Simple Flavours, Striking Combinations)
Ingredients
For the meatballs
- 650g of minced pork and beef
- 2 pinches of very finely chopped fresh rosemary, thyme, mint, basil, tarragon, coriander and oregano.
- 1large egg
- small yellow onion, finely diced
- 1 red chili, finely chopped (or to taste)
- 300g fresh breadcrumbs
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Enough olive oil to coat the baking tray
For the tomato sauce
- Olive oil
- 1 small yellow onion finely chopped
- 1 medium carrot, peeled and finely sliced
- 1 stick celery, finely diced
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 70mL ruby Port
- 250mL red wine
- 3 cans of 400g-chopped plum tomatoes
- 10 fresh basil leaves
- 2 bay leaves
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180 oC.
2. Put all the meatball ingredients in a large bowl, and season all the salt and pepper. Combine with your hands until you have a consistent mixture which allows you to form the meatball.
3. Start rolling the meatballs with your hands.
4. Put a generous amount of olive oil in baking tray
5. Drop in the meatball, stirring them to coat them evenly.
6. Put the tray in the oven for 30min, or until the meatballs are all golden brown. Do not forget to stir them occasionally to cook them in all directions.
7.While waiting for the meatball, start the tomato sauce. Place a large, deep sided saucepan on a low heat and pour in enough olive oil to coat the bottom. Add the sliced vegetables and season with salt and pepper. Fry gently until they are soft and start to color.
8. Poor in both wines, and bring to boil.
9.When the wine is boiling and has reduced to half the volume, drop in the tomatoes. Season again, and bring to boil, stirring at all times.
10. Turn the heat to low and let simmer for about 15min.
11. Once the meatballs are cooked, fold them in the tomato sauce. Let it simmer for 10min more. (in reality, what I did was to do the tomato sauce and the meatballs in advance. On the day of the party, I combined them both while cold. Then, I slowly warm them. It actually tastes better, as the flavors combine and develop).
Pork loin with roasted peppers and garlic & parsley olive oil
Posted: January 2, 2012 Filed under: Pork, Vegetables | Tags: Ferran Adria, Garlic, Olive oil, Pork, Red pepper 1 Comment »
Of course I had to get Ferran Adrià‘s The Family Meal. How could I not, specially if Ferran Adrià promises dishes any cook can do, at an affordable price of €5 per person? And, this is the first dish I did. While I am very proud I could pull an Adrià dish all by myself, I also have to say it was not horribly complicated. It could even be a weekday meal…. The dish itself s great – the sweetness of the red pepper combines to perfection with the pork. The parsley and garlic olive oil is fresh and has a delicate flavour. All in all, a delicious no-too-much-fuss.
Pork loin with roasted peppers and garlic & parsley olive oil
Ingredients (for 6)
- 2 large red peppers
- 100mL olive oil, plus extra for frying
- 6 garlic cloves (peeled)
- 3 springs fresh parsley
- 18 thin cut pork loin steaks
Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas mark 6. Rinse the peppers, and then place in a roasting tin while still slightly wet.
Drizzle with a little olive oil and roast for 45min
Fill a small saucepan with water then add the garlic. Bring the pan to boil.
Lift the garlic out of the water and into a bowl of iced water to quickly cool. Repeat this twice, starting with cold water in the saucepan each time
After 45min, the peppers will be blackened and soft. Leave until cool enough to handle. Keep any juices that have collected in the pan.
Peel the skin from the peppers and remove the seeds. Do this over a bowl to catch any juices.
Cut the pepper flesh into thin strips. Put the peppers and the reserved juices into a pan and simmer over a low heat for 5min.
Pick the leaves from the parsley leaves from its stems.
Put the drained, blached garlic, parsley leaves and remaining oil into a tall jug or beaker. Process with a hand held blender until finely chopped.
Place a large frying pan over a high heat and add a little olive oil. Fry the pork for 1 1/2 min until golden on both sides and juicy in the middle.
Season the pork with salt and pepper, and serve with the peppers. Finish with a tablespoon of garlic and parsley oil.
Baked stuffed zucchini
Posted: November 8, 2011 Filed under: Beef, Pork, Vegetables | Tags: Beef, Courgette, minced meat, Pork, Tomato, Zucchini Leave a comment »
Another recipe with minimal verbiage. I happened to have all these ingredients in the fridge. A few google searches after, I found this baked stuffed zucchini on All Recipes. A few tweaks after, dinner was served.
Baked stuffed zucchini
Ingredients
- 4 large zucchini
- 2 firm tomatoes, seeded and chopped
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 2 tbsp dried mint (fresh mint would have been better, but I had none left)
- 450g g minced meet (pork and beef)
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 250g tomato sauce (I used tomatada, but passata or a lightly diluted tomato sauce could also work well)
- 1 spring chopped fresh rosemary
- 4 tbsp Grana Padano or Parmesan
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
Place the zucchini in a shallow baking dish or roasting tin, cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes or until tender – they should pierce easily with a fork.
Mix the eggs with the chopped plum tomatoes, mint, and pepper to season. Set aside.
Fry the minced meat over a medium heat until browned. Add the onion and garlic, cook for a further 5 minutes until the onion has softened. Stir in the tomato sauce, reserved zucchini pulp and rosemary. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 10–15 minutes. Stir in the egg mixture and mix together.
5. Spoon the stuffing mixture into the zucchini boats and sprinkle with the cheese. Bake for 15–20 minutes until golden and crispy on top. Serve immediately.
Pan-fried pork with chestnuts
Posted: October 21, 2011 Filed under: Pork | Tags: Chefe Silva, Chestnuts, Pork, Portugal, Spices Leave a comment »
To keep up with the Autumn spirit, an old Portuguese classic. The sort of dish that reminds of home, rich, tasty hearty. Just what you need for a cold grey day.
The recipe is by Chefe Silva, from his book Recipes for My Friends. The paprika is a replacement of colarau, a condiment used in Portuguese cuisine made with the different types of Capsicum. They are more or less the same, but colorau tends to have a stronger saltier taste and give a radioactive red color to the food.
Pan-fried pork with chestnuts
Ingredients
- 700g pork (preferably loin or sirloin)
- 1,5 dL white wine
- Salt, pepper and paprika
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 smashed gloves of garlic
- 1 tablespoon lard
- 750g frozen chestnuts
Method
Cut the meat into small pieces weighing app. 15g and season them with white wine, salt, pepper, paprika and the garlic. Let it marinate for about 1 hour. Then drain the meat, squeezing it very well. Save the marinade. Heat up the lard in heavy bottom frying pan, add the meat and let it fry at strong heat, stirring well. When brown add the chestnuts and let it fry for another 3 to 5 min. Then add the marinade you saved, and let reduce for about 2 min. Serve the dish with oranges or with apple jam.
Stuffed tomatoes
Posted: July 22, 2011 Filed under: Beef, Pork, Vegetables | Tags: Beef, Herbs, Pork, Spices, Tomato Leave a comment »
This dish started with a culinary crisis. What to to cook for dinner when all you have in the fridge is minced meat, loads of good looking tomatoes and you are not allowed carbohydrates? Easy solution: stuffed tomatoes. Technically, stuffed tomatoes have rice or bread crumbs on their filling. But, I was not going that detail to get in the middle of a respectable meal.
Stuffed tomatoes
Ingredients
- 1 Kg of tomato (it depends a lot on the size of the tomatoes).
- 500g of minced meat (for best results, I use a mix of pork and beef)
- 3 small yellow onions finely sliced
- 1 clove of garlic grounded
- Olive oil
- Chinese five-spice powder to taste (or, if you want a more mediterranean taste a mix of rosemary, tarragon, thyme, oregano and basil).
- Hot paprika
- Sultanas to taste.
- Quark to taste
- Freshly ground salt and pepper
Method
Slice off the top of the tomatoes and hollow out with a spoon, leaving a thick shell (about 2cm).
In a large frying pan, put about 2 table spoons of olive oil and let it heat until is sizzling. Put the onions and the garlic and mix well. Season with freshly ground salt and pepper to taste. Put the heat to medium and let the onions caramelize.
When the onions are golden and soft, add the minced meat and mix well. Add the Chinese five-spice powder and the paprika to test. Let the minced meat brow. If you want, you can add sultanas.
Once the meat is brown, add quark until you obtain a consistent paste.
Fill the tomatoes with this mix and put them on a oven proof dish, previously greased with olive oil (a thin layer will do). Sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper.
Bake for about 15min at 200 oC.
Roasted pork loin with orange and apple jam
Posted: February 21, 2011 Filed under: Jams and confits, Pork | Tags: Apples, Chefe Silva, Oranges, Pork, Portugal, Roast Leave a comment »
The roasted pork loin with orange was taken from Recipes for My Friends, a recently edited book. On the forefront, Chef Silva explains that these are the things he cooks whenever he entertains as “life tastes sweeter when friends and family join you at the table”. By the look of it, you can almost feel Chef Silva dictating from memory or looking for scribbled papers tucked away into the kitchen drawer.
Chef Silva recommends to serve the roasted pork with orange quarters. But, I thought that would be too many citruses in the same plate, and decided to go for apple jam instead. This is my Mother’s recipe, passed along in a moment of despair during a trip to the supermarket. “Why spend all that money in a sugary artificial paste, when it takes less than 20 minutes to to it home…. go and fetch some apples! You kids cannot value money and properly made food”. She was, as most of times, right.
Roasted pork loin with orange
Ingredients
- 800g of pork loin (I used shoulder, following the butcher’s recommendation)
- white wine
- salt and pepper as needed
- 50g lard (impossible to find here, I used olive oil instead)
- 100g sugar
- 2 oranges
- cloves
Method
Poor the wine over the meat and season it with salt and pepper. Place on the tray greased with the lard and roast it on a oven set for 160oC for about 35min. Turn the meat occasionally.
In the meanwhile, prepare the sauce: heat up the sugar in a small pan and stir it with a wooden spoon until it browns (brown, not burnt, I may add. It is really important to stir it at all times). Add 2dl of orange juice, 2 cloves and thin orange peels cut into diamond like shapes (slowly, otherwise the sugar will crystallize; if it does, just keep stirring until it dissolves). When serving, stick the diamonds to the meat using cloves.
Serve the orange sauce apart.
Apple jam
Ingredients
- 1 Kg apples (bitter apples give best results)
- Sugar to taste
- Cinnamon sticks
Method
Peel and cut the apples in quarters. Put in a sauce pan with about 100ml of water, sugar and cinnamon sticks. Let it simmer for 10 min or until the apples start to feel apart. Remove the Cinnamon and blend it with a mixer. Put back into the fire and let it simmer for a few minutes more, until it gets the desired consistency. ith a mixer. Put back into the fire and let it simmer for a few minutes more, until it gets the desired consistency.
