Shooter’s Sandwich

We’re back. I am posting this on the 24th of December and this isn’t exactly festive, even though I have made 24 mince pies this evening. Anyway it’s good to be back and to return with something I’ve been meaning to make for ages. This one is a classic British sandwich that I read about over 6 months ago and made it last week. Great for picnics and something a little different from ham and cheese. Enjoy.

Ingredients

• 1 round loaf of crusty bread
• 2 large rump steaks (or similar)
• 500g mushrooms
• 200g shallots
  
• horseradish sauce
• dijon mustard
• 75g butter
  
• splash of olive oil
  
• salt and pepper for seasoning

Method

Roughly chop the shallots and mushrooms and fry them in the butter in a pan, when they have significantly reduced in size and set aside. Heat your pan for cooking the steaks. I like them to be medium rare. Meanwhile cut the top off the bread and then hollow out the loaf.

When the steaks are done, push one of them into the bottom of the loaf so that it fills the base. Then spread on all of your mushroom and shallots mixture, then add the next steak on top. Finally add a layer of horseradish sauce to the top of the steak and a layer of dijon on the underside of the “lid”, then place the lid back.

Now it’s time to wrap the loaf up and flatten it under a load of books.

Leave for 6 hours.

Then open and slice it up like a cake. Hope you like it.

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Miniature English Breakfast with Quail’s egg

We had Jess and Sergio over for dinner the other night to repay them for the Catalan feast… Finding it difficult to think of a classic British starter, without the fresh ingredients that I grew up with readily available, I decided to serve a miniature version of an English breakfast as a fairly small opener. It worked really well. I would have liked to have done  something really fancy with the presentation, opting instead, due to a severe lack of  inspiration, to keep things simple.

Ingredients

serves 4

• 4 rashers of bacon
• 4 small sausages
• 4 quails eggs
• baked beans
• 2 tomatoes, sliced
• 4 slices of bread
• 10 mushrooms, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• olive oil

Method

Fry the tomato in a little olive oil at a high temperature. grill the sausage and bacon. Fry the mushrooms in a little olive oil with the garlic for about 15 minutes, heat the baked beans. toast the bread and cut into circles, finally fry the quails eggs in a little olive oil for a minute or so, until the white is cooked. Assemble and serve immediately.

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Morcilla with Blue Cheese and Walnut Salad

Morcilla is Spanish blood sausage, or black pudding if you come from the island to the north of France that precedes its name with an adjective. This was simple and delicious.  Morcilla was bought it the biggest market in Madrid, to the north of the city in an area called “Cuatro Caminos”. Everyone says that the best Morcilla comes from and is eaten in Burgos, maybe it’s like Guinness and doesn’t travel. The Morcilla is simply sliced and fried in a drizzle of olive oil for about 5 mins. As it fries, you’ll get the aroma of cinnamon, onion and whatever other magical things they put in it… oh yeah, blood! Not one for the vegetarians.

Ingredients

• Morcilla

for the salad

• mixed leaves,
• 1/2 red onion, sliced
• handful of walnuts
• some blue cheese
• handful of raisins

for the dressing

• 2 parts olive oil to 1 part balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Fry the Morcilla for 3 minutes on either side in hot olive oil, serve on freshly sliced bread with the salad. Enjoy!

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Lasagne

Lasagne is actually quite simple to make and is, as we all know, delicious. This recipe serves 4 comforably, serve with a nice fresh salad. I don’t have much more to say about lasagne, so I’ll stop writing. Bye.

Ingredients

• 300 -400g  minced beef
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 large carrot, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• 1 bay leaf
• good splash of  red wine
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• lasagne sheets

for the white sauce

• 25g butter
• 25g flour
• 300ml milk
• Pinch of ground nutmeg
• 60g Cheddar cheese, grated
• 30g Parmesan cheese, grated

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 225C. You are going ot start by making a classic Bolognese sauce. Soften the onions and garlic in the olive oil, brown the mince, then add the rest of the ingredients and cook with a lid on , at a low temp, for a further 10 minutes. To prepare your white sauce… Melt butter in a pan over a gentle heat, slowly add the flour stirring constantly, then add the milk, slowly, bit by bit continuously stirring, you should start to get a nice sauce with a creamy consistency. Now, stir in the cheddar cheese and the pinch of nutmeg.

At this point you are ready to construct the dish. First, add half of the Bolognese sauce to the bottom of the dish, then add a layer of the lasagne sheets. On top of that add just under half of the cheese sauce, then the remainder of the meat sauce, a layer of pasta and then the rest of the cheese sauce. Finish by sprinkling the parmesan cheese on top and place in the oven for about 25 minutes or until the dish is golden brown in colour.

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Beef Burgers

Decided to make burgers tonight for our friends… Bought some top quality beef from the market and added all of the trimmings. We have a pub quiz team, which often trades under the name Hamburgers and Guns, so it’s sort of in honour of that. Sometimes only a good ol’ burger will do. And for Nancy a taste of home. AMERICA YEAH.

Ingredients

serves 4

• 1 kg beef,
• 2 red onions finely diced
• 1 red chilli (optional) finely chopped
• 1 egg
• Cilantro/coriander chopped  (optional)

Method

Fry the onions in olive oil on a medium heat for about 5 minutes or so until they go translucent. Set aside to go cold. This stops them from being crunchy when you bite the burger. Now make the patties, in a bowl add all of the ingredients and bind them together. Make into patties, not too thick otherwise it’ll be difficult to cook.

Heat some olive oil in a pan, when hot add the patties and reduce the heat to medium.Cook for about 10- 15 minutes or until they are cooked to your liking. Serve in a toasted bun with the salad and dressings of your choice. Anyway you know what to do, you’ve had a burger before.

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Albondigas (Meatballs)

This is another classic Spanish dish. We translated the recipe from an old Spanish cookbook. It was really good, but if I’m totally honest, it was a little bland. This could easily be solved by adding some fresh chillies to the meatballs and some tabasco to the tomato sauce. Saying that, we still enjoyed it. I served it with rice which I felt worked really well.

Ingredients

for the meatballs

• 1/2 kilo of freshly ground mince. (we had this done by the butcher)
• 1 clove of garlic finely chopped
• A large handful of fresh parsley
• 4 tbsp fine bread crumbs
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp of white wine
• 1 tbsp of flour
• 1 tsp salt

for the sauce

• 2 large tomatoes
• 1 medium onion chopped
• salt
• olive oil

Method

for the meatballs

Put all of the ingredients listed above, apart from the flour, in a mixing bowl and bind together. Roll into balls, then lightly coat in flour, then shallow fry in olive oil until they are brown.

for the sauce

Soften the chopped onions in olive oil for 5-10 minutes. Then add the diced tomatoes and cook for another 10 minutes or so. Season to taste. Add the meatballs to the pan, pour 250 ml of water over the mix and simmer for a further 10 minutes stirring occasionally. Definitely recommend that you add some chillies. If you give it a go we’d love to hear how you got on. Bye.

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Steak and Guinness Pie

Beer + steak = gastronomic pleasure.  Try it…

Ingredients:

• 1 kg brisket of beef
• 2 onions
• 1 beef stock cube
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• a can of Guinness
• 2 carrots
• 2 sticks of celery
• A couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary
• plain flour
• a clove of garlic
• pre-made puff pastry
• an egg

Method:

Soften the onions in olive oil. Add the garlic, chopped carrots, celery and cook for a further few minutes. Add the beef, the stock cube, and can of Guinness and simmer for another 10 minutes or so. Place in an oven proof dish, cover with a lid and put it in  a preheated oven at 200°C. Cook for 1.5 hours. Now remove the lid, and cover the stew with puff pastry. Score with a knife and brush with a beaten egg. Cook for a further 30 mins and serve with peas. Hope you like it…

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Steak au Poivre

Hola… We had a friend over in the week for dinner… As we are running Spanish time here in Madrid, we ate at 10pm… I honestly still prefer eating at 7pm and I don’t think that will ever change, but I digress. Anyways, we were craving Steak and, had recently seen the Julie and Julia film, so, fuelled with the spirit of Mrs Child, we decided to have a go at Steak au Poivre.

 

Ingredients:

• Good quality steaks
• 1 clove of garlic
• peppercorns
• olive oil
• red wine

Method:

crush the garlic, add some salt and use the side of the knife to make a paste. Add this to a couple of table spoons of olive oil and mix. Now brush this mixture over the meat. Now crush the peppercorns with a mortar and pestle, and press the peppercorns into both side of the steak. Place the steaks in a dish and cover with cling for at least 30 minutes, ideally 3 hours.

 

 

When you are ready to cook the steaks, heat a glug of olive oil in a frying pan. Heat it up until the oil is starting to smoke. Now place the steaks in the pan and cook them for 1 minute on each side. When this is done, flip them and cook for a further 3 minutes for medium rare, and 4 or 5 for well done. However you like your steak cooked (medium rare for me) Add a large glass of wine to the pan with a pinch of salt. Serve with chips (fries) and salad, finally drizzle the wine sauce over the meat.

 

 

 

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Beef Kebabs in Yoghurt Marinade

This was a quick solution to the perennial evening meal dilemma… tasty and fun to make.

Ingredients:

• good quality beef,
  
• greek yoghurt
• cayenne pepper
• cumin
• lemon juice
• olive oil
• red and green peppers
• onion
• courgette
• salt and freshly ground pepper
  

Method:

Marinade the beef in  bowl for at least 30 minutes in the yoghurt, cayenne pepper, cumin, lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper.

Add the chopped vegetables and raw meat  to the skewer, drizzle with olive oil and place under a preheated grill or preferably on the barbecue. Cook until the meat is done to your preference and the vegetables are beginning to char. Serve with salad and or rice. Enjoy!

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