A short season of short ribs

A few weeks ago I got a last minute invitation to a preview night of Zelman Meats in Soho. On a little back street in Soho, Rex & Mariano had been hugely popular with people I follow on twitter, but wasn't attracting enough regulars and lunchtime custom, so the owners decided to try something quite different.

The raw red prawns are still on the menu - and I was amazed by how good they were - but the big thing Zelman Meats is doing, apparently, is making the most of the cuts left after the premium steaks are taken off the carcasses for the Goodman restaurants. So at the preview night we were fed magnificent picanha (rump cap) and utterly divine short ribs.  

Aubergine with harissa & yoghurt (which was a bit undercooked), beautiful meat, stunning truffle chips

And just after this wonderful dinner I discovered that Ocado were selling beef short ribs. So I bought some.

Short rib ragu

We've had them as a rich ragu, with lots of red wine and mushrooms, stirred through pasta.

 We've had them cooked to shreds with chipotle, thyme, cumin and coriander and packed into tortillas.

Short rib chilli

Short rib tacos, with shredded salted cabbage and tomato and avocado salsa

And we've had them in a sweet chilli and tamarind glaze.

Work in progress - tea smoking the ribs

I haven't quite nailed the technique for the glazed ribs. I want to give the effect of a slow, cool barbecue, and tried to get it by tea smoking the ribs and slowly baking them in the oven. But if I start the ribs on the hob to get the smoke going the meat cooks too fast, and if I just do them in the oven it doesn't get hot enough to smoke.

The glaze itself -
2tbs tamarind paste
1tbs habanero sweet chilli sauce
1tbs ketjap manis
1tbs dark soy sauce
- is very good, but I do wonder about maybe adding some liquid smoke or a touch of pimenton or something to cheat the smoke flavour.

Anyway - while they look unprepossessing after an 8 hour slow bake, the meat fell apart as soon as it was nudged with a fork but was still beautifully juicy.

Creamy coleslaw was not the right accompaniment - too rich. An Asian-flavoured vinegar slaw would be better

Pulled Pork Nachos

Just after Easter we went to a Jim Butcher Q&A at Waterstones Piccadilly. It was a Friday so Paul didn't want to hang around at work; we met up early to have a drink and a snack in the bar on the fifth floor. We thought we'd have a little sharing plate, see how that went and then maybe have another. The mezze plate we started with was excellent, and Paul had his heart set on pulled pork nachos. Unfortunately the glacially slow service reminded me why we'd stopped going there and we ran out of time to order anything else.

But he still had his heart set on nachos. So a couple of weeks later he came home with some bits and pieces and we made nachos. They were fine, but the cheese didn't melt right and they were a little dry and it just wasn't the dream nachos experience.

After that disappointment, I had to have another go. This version is much better.

Pulled pork is ubiquitous at the moment (you can get pulled pork products at EAT, Pret and M&S) and from what I have tried it is mostly not very nice. Gloopy, very sweet and not very porky. I decided to season it more like a cochinita pibil, with lovely acidic Seville orange juice (I froze a bunch of Sevilles when they were in season for just these occasions) and a bunch of spices. And to get a bit of smoky barbecue flavour into it, I used a smoked brined pork hock and some chipotle paste. And yes, adding jerk paste to all of this seems a bit weird but it had all the flavourings I wanted with a bit of extra heat. I kept the seasoning of the pork itself really simple, because I only needed half the meat for this meal and wanted to keep my options open for the rest. Plus when I have made pulled pork in the past I've felt that none of the seasonings actually penetrate the meat, it's all in the sauce at the end.

Cook the pork the day before, so when you want to eat the nachos it's really quick and low effort.

Pulled Pork Nachos (serves 2 as a meal in a bowl)

1 brined and smoked pork shank
1 small onion, studded with 2-3 cloves
1 tbs oil (vegetable, olive, whatever)
1 small onion, extra, finely diced
1 garlic clove, minced or crushed
1 tsp chipotle paste
1 tsp jerk paste (I used home made, but Walkerswood is my favourite bought one)
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp ground cumin seeds
Knife tip of ground cloves
1 tsp peppercorns
2 tbs achiote paste
juice of 3 Seville oranges (or 2 sweet oranges and 2 limes)
Corn chips, grated cheese, guacamole, salsa, sour cream

Put the pork and clove-studded onion in a pot and cover with water. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer with a lid on until the meat falls from the bones (2 hours ish). As soon as it is cool enough to handle, strip the meat off the bone, remove excess fat and the rind and shred with two forks. Divide the meat in half, freeze one portion for another meal (also reserve the broth from cooking it for making lentil soup, and you might need a splash to loosen the nachos mixture).

In a medium sized saucepan, sauté the onion and garlic in the oil until softened but not coloured. And the other seasonings and the orange juice and simmer to a thick sauce. Check for seasoning, keeping in mind that the pork is quite salty and you'll be adding cheese.

Add the shredded pork shank to the pot of sauce and combine well, loosening with a bit of the cooking broth if necessary. You are aiming to be able to pick bites up on a corn chip, so it can't be *that* dense. At this point you can cool it and refrigerate it over night before assembling the nachos the following day. Or just carry on.

Preheat the oven to a moderately high heat - 180Cish

In an ovenproof dish, layer up corn chips, grated cheese and the saucy pork, finishing with grated cheese. I used a mixture of cheddar and mozzarella: you want something that will melt well. Bake for 15-20 minutes until it is all golden brown and bubbling and melted. Then top with whatever else you want on top - salsa, sour cream, guacamole etc. Or all of them. Eat immediately - a fork to shove extra toppings on the chips might be useful.

Habanero Harvest

It seemed touch-and-go for a while there. After being very tricky to germinate and extremely slow-growing, the habanero eventually grew fruit. It then took literally months for the mature fruit to ripen. Some of the immature ones got red really quickly, but their flavour was undeveloped.

We waited.

And waited.

Eventually, when I was beginning to despair, we had a flush of orange, and then it was all on.  Then I realised that I was faced with a challenge. We are not chilli heads. We like a moderate amount of heat, not the intense fire of habaneros...

Paul's taken lots into work, and we've been eating lots more chilli than usual, but most recipes we make only use half, or one. Our tolerance is developing though! We've found that the habaneros have a lovely, fruity flavour and the heat lets go quite quickly - you don't have to gulp milk for hours afterwards.

The flavour goes best with Mexican and Caribbean flavours, as you'd imagine.

Mango avocado salsa

Jerk pork, rice & peas, and the mango salsa - excellent jerk paste recipe

Pork pibil nachos with pink pickled onions

Prawn coctel - like a bloody mary/prawn cocktail hybrid. Refreshing and delicious

Fish tacos - this with the innovation of using a mixture of hot fresh mackerel and smoked peppered mackerel fillet

I've also done a bit of preserving, with mixed results. Rachel Allen's Sweet Chilli Jam is absolutely lovely made with 4 deseeded habaneros. On the other hand I followed an American recipe for an apricot hot pepper jam which, weirdly, crystallised.

Later this week I've got another post featuring the habaneros, and I suspect there will be more before the harvest is over.

Hot sweet chilli jam with sour cream, roast chicken and potato wedges

British Turkey Awards and a 5kg bird

On Thursday I had dinner at The Savoy. This is not, it pains me to admit, a normal sort of weeknight activity. But it was the British Turkey Awards, where I found myself crowned (no crown actually involved, but I got a trophy and a certificate) British Turkey Blogger Recipe of the Year for my turkey b'stilla.

Trophy

It was a very grand event. Champagne reception, grace, Loyal Toast, the whole shebang. There were several women in floor-length gowns and opera-length gloves and all but one of the men wore a dinner jacket. Paul, the notable exception, looked like Columbo.

I felt very lucky to be seated next to Robert Clark and Karen McQuade, veterans of the British Turkey Awards, who were able to explain some of the elements of the night. Like the bizarre "heads and tails" charity collection game and the boo-ing at some of the award nominees. Every group has its traditions! Anyway, unfortunately we had to hurtle off mid-ceremony, to catch the last train. Everyone else seemed settled in for the duration, so I suspect The Strand was populated by very hungover turkey farmers and retailers on Friday.


It only seems appropriate for me now to share a turkey post.

One of the things that British Turkey is trying to do is get people to see turkey as an every day meat and not just a Christmas thing. Which means that fresh turkey is increasingly available outside the Christmas season.

At Easter, in fact, we bought a 5kg fresh free-range Bronze turkey at a 50% discount, so it was £22. Clearly, for a family of two people a 5kg bird is a ridiculous size, so I assembled poultry shears and a sharp knife and watched a couple of youtube tutorials on jointing poultry and set to work. I vividly remember laying out the pieces on the board to take pictures of them, but I can't find any pictures of the completed butchery.

We ended up with a turkey crown, 2 wing portions, 2 thigh portions and 2 drumsticks, and the carcass, wing tips, leg joints and giblets for stock. All but the crown went into the freezer for later consideration.

Roast turkey crown

The crown, which weighed 2.2kg, we ate roasted. I lifted the breast skin and smeared the flesh with a compound butter, flavoured with lemon zest, garlic and anchovies. I gave it 30 minutes at 200C, then 45 minutes at 170C. We had it hot with roast potatoes and peas and it was just delicious - crisp-skinned with moist, flavourful flesh. The potatoes were also some of my better roasties.

Of course, 2.2kg is still a big roast, even if that includes a fair amount of bone. It left 700g meat to be stripped from the carcass. That meant two portions of a warm noodle salad with a chilli peanut dressing...

My 6" springform tin pays for itself again and again

... and three portions of pie. The pie was very Christmassy, really, with bacon, sage and onion, some of the jellied juices from the roast, a couple of tablespoons of dried cranberries and 50g Stilton, broken into chunks.

As you can imagine (or have experienced at Christmas), after that turkey-filled week we were quite happy to leave the rest of the pieces in the freezer for a fair while after that. But eventually, we were ready to face turkey again.

I boned out the wings and stuffed them with minced prawns and waterchestnuts, then pan-fried them. They were delicious as part of a dim sum meal, but would have made a good supper just with rice and vegetables.

The thighs I also intended to bone-out and stuff, but I ended up with much more stuffing than would fit. I butterflied them and made sort of a sandwich with the stuffing (which was rice, spinach and 'nduja) in between and baked it.The dark thigh meat has enough flavour to stand up to robust 'nduja without being completely overpowered.

Turkey thighs sandwiched with rice, spinach and 'nduja.

Then the drumsticks got a Mexican-inspired treatment. They were barbecued with a lot of smoke so that the skin was crisp and lacquered, and the meat falling off the bone, and served with a spicy peanut mole sauce.

That just left the bag of bits for stock. I added the turkey trimmings and giblets to a couple of roast chicken carcasses and the usual aromatics and simmered them to a rich broth. Some of the broth I then reheated with a couple of dried porcini mushrooms steeping in it, while I made some dumplings filled with minced turkey, more dried porcini and herbs. I roasted cubes of butternut and some sage leaves. Then I cooked the dumplings in simmering water before serving them in the broth with Asian mushrooms and the butternut - and there were three portions of that. My freezer is now empty of turkey and I am ready to start planning Christmas (I know it's still September!). We might have turkey this year.

Pork pibil and cactus salad

I was so delighted with how this meal turned out! Pork shoulder, marinated in achiote, seville orange juice and a host of other delicious things and then cooked slowly for hours until meltingly tender. As I first had pork pibil at Wahaca, I used Tommi Miers' recipe, although as I had a bag of lovely sour seville oranges in the freezer (bought to make marmalade with, but then I made calamondin marmalade and didn't need extra) I used them instead of sweet oranges and vinegar. I made lurid pink quick-pickled onions. I made fluffy rice. And I made a salad of bottled sliced prickly pear paddles (nopales), with diced red pepper, sweet little cherry tomatoes, spring onions and coriander leaves. Then I crowned the plate with a dollop of sour cream. So many contrasting and complementing flavours, textures and colours. Just wonderful.

Mexgrocer.co.uk

Tomatillo salsa

Long-term Foodycat readers with good memories may recall that a few years ago I had a few goes at making my own cheese. I had varying results - my overall conclusion was that it takes a lot of milk and a very large saucepan to make a little cheese and it's worth paying other people to do. One of the cheeses that I made in that period was queso oaxaca, a knotted melting cheese, which I had never heard of or tasted before that point. The queso oaxaca tasted good and looked like the pictures, but I had nothing to compare it to, really, to know if I was getting it right.

Fast forward to 2014 and I was approached by Mexgrocer.co.uk and asked if I'd be interested in trying some of their products. I had a look at the site and noticed that they stock Mexican cheeses, so I would finally be able to taste queso oaxaca and figure out whether I was close to authenticity.

The box that arrived did not just contain queso oaxaca. They also sent me corn tortillas, chipotle sauce, a can of tomatillos and some queso chihuahua (which has nothing to do with dogs). Obviously it was time to plan a Mexican-themed meal or two.

We started, of course, with the queso oaxaca. It was absolutely delicious just eaten on its own, like a cross between halloumi and mozzarella. A little squeak under the teeth, but a really creamy and ever so slightly chewy texture and a good salty flavour. It came into its own in a quesadilla. Of which I took no photos because I was too keen to eat it.

As the queso chihuahua is described "as a good melting cheese, the richness and suppleness of Chihuahua cheese is preferred in baking dishes, fondues, pizza, and lasagna or casserole dishes" I decided to start our Mexican meal with queso fundido (I assume fundido comes from the same root as fondue and is all about the melted cheese).

I made a version with a layer of sauteed mushrooms underneath the melted cheese. We scooped it onto warm tortillas. Divine. The queso chihuahua also had a taste reminiscent of halloumi but melted into the most beautiful long strings.

mmm - stringy.

We also had some of the queso oaxaca on tacos. I cooked a steak, sliced it into ribbons and tossed it with some chipotle salsa. Then wrapped the meat in warmed tortillas with a little of the grated cheese. I am pretty sure my home made queso oaxaca would not have grated like this! The chipotle salsa had a good depth of flavour and a nice texture for this sort of thing.

Both of these cheeses are fairly expensive - this is not your everyday essentials cheese - but not unreasonably so. I would definitely buy it for another special meal, because it is delicious and that stretchy melting quality is very appealling. I couldn't see anything that said whether it was made with vegetarian rennet, so I'd have to find that out before making it the centrepiece of a vegetarian meal.

I also made some chorizo and roasted squash tacos, which I served with a basic tomatillo salsa - drained canned tomatillos, roasted green chillis, onion, coriander and a little bit of salt.

These tacos revealed something about myself that I should have figured out quite some time ago. I actually don't particularly like soft corn tortillas. I do, however, quite like plain tortilla chips. So a couple of days later I cut the remaining tortillas into wedges and fried them in a little hot oil until golden brown, crisp and curled. I sprinkled them with a little salt and drained them on some paper towels before piling them in a napkin-lined bowl.

We had some of the tomatillo salsa leftover too, so I mixed it into a mashed avocado for a guacamole. It was the perfect thing to scoop up with the chips.

It was only when I came to schedule this post that I realised it was going up on Cinco de Mayo. Appropriate, but entirely accidental.

Tuna taco salad bowls

Not that you'd know it right now this minute, but the weather has been quite salady of late. Sunny, longer evenings, quite warm. All things that make a woman feel like eating sprightly vegetables with zingy dressings. Which is good, because it means something to send Deb for her Souper (soup, salad & sammy) Sunday roundup.

My two favourite salads in the world are the lettuce and herb salad at Hawksmoor and the Sonora salad from Wahaca. The Sonora salad is a delicious crisp taco bowl filled with a changing but always delicious array of grains, seeds, leaves and avocado, tossed in a delicious dressing and topped with a protein. I always get it with grilled steak strips.

The Hawksmoor salad is unimaginably delicious, but definitely a side dish, so I decided to have a look at ways of making something akin to the Sonora salad. It didn't take long for me to recognise that deep-frying my own taco bowl was not really an option, but it turns out that a baked bowl is almost as delicious and considerably easier.

What I did was take the labels off a couple of cans (one ex-chickpea, one ex-tomato) and run them through the dishwasher. Then I brushed one side of each large flour tortilla with a little pork dripping leftover from a roast (obviously not everyone has such a thing, so oil is the other possibility) and draped them, greased side up, over the cans, and pressed down a little to give them a basket shape. I baked them at 180C for about 10 minutes, watching like a hawk, until they looked toasty and brown and felt crisp.

I was sort of expecting them to open out a bit as they baked, but they didn't, so make sure you don't press down on them too much or you won't have room for your salad.

I filled the bowls with a layer of refried beans, then a big pile of leaves, avocado cubes, sliced red onion and tomatoes, dressed in a vinaigrette flavoured with a little mayonnaise and chipotle paste. Then I scattered on some pumpkin seeds and topped each bowl with a lightly fried tuna steak. I have been encouraged to make this meal again.

Fish tacos

Paul's going through a bit of a phase at the moment. He just can't get enough fish tacos. I think because we are at the tail end of winter, and it's been so mild, the usual seasonal stews and stodge are a bit less appetising. Something lighter with lots of fresh flavours is much more appealing.

We mix the fish up a bit - we've had them with salmon and mackerel, tonight we're probably having them with prawns, and he has threatened to put fish fingers on them. Aside from that, they are always fundamentally the same. A warmed tortilla, spread with a hefty smear of chipotle paste (it's a homemade one, following the recipe in Tommi Mier's Mexican Food Made Simple), a squeeze of garlic mayonnaise, a little tomato and avocado salsa and some leaves. And the fish is always cooked so that the skin is crisp and crackling, so there are lots of layers of texture.

Wahaca revisited

I met a friend for lunch this week - an old work colleague - and when we were deciding where to go we settled on Wahaca in Covent Garden. Partly because it was convenient for both of us to get to, and then to get where we had to go next, partly because we like the food and partly for Auld Lang Syne. We first went to Wahaca about a week after it opened, in 2007, and have been eating there both together and separately ever since.

Over those five years it has improved. The service is no longer kooky, but still warm and friendly and some elements that had erred on the side of blandness have been pepped up (the bottled sauces they are selling in supermarkets still lack flavour and fire though).

Pork scratchings

We started with our traditional pork scratchings and guacamole. Our waitress informed us that they have changed suppliers and that they are better now. I thought they were pretty much perfect before so I couldn't really see how they could get better. But they were. Vast, crisp and airy, dusted with fennel and very salty. Absolutely divine.

Chorizo Quesadilla

I then ordered two types of quesadillas. This was a bit excessive, I admit. I comforted myself with the thought that I was heading to dance class after lunch so I'd work some small portion of it off.

The chorizo quesadilla - deliciously stuffed with soft mashed potatoes, chunks of Mexican-style chorizo and cheese - is an old favourite. But then I couldn't resist an item on the specials menu, a chilli quesadilla. I don't think they've had a specials menu before, but this was certainly a good one. It was billed as a mix of jalapeno, habanero and another kind of chilli with two kinds of cheese and the waitress was very careful to warn us how hot they were. I don't go in for combat-eating, so I genuinely wasn't showing off when I ordered it, I just thought it sounded good.

It was hot. Runny-nose-and-sweating hot, but not ear-wax-melting hot. Not so hot that the flavours of the different types of chillies were lost, not so hot as to be uncomfortable. I did have to ask for a glass of water though.

I love this place. It's a chain now, although this is the only branch I've been to, and it shows that a chain doesn't have to be a bad thing. Anyway, I could find fault if I wanted to, but I don't so I won't*.

Chilli Quesadilla

*except you used to get a piece of chilli-flavoured chocolate with your coffee and we didn't this time, which was a bit sad.

Turkey taco salad

This is a very quick, very tasty, very satisfying meal. I made it for lunch one bank holiday Monday and it definitely won't be the last time. In fact, I think it would be very do-able as a work lunch, taking one container of salad veg and one container of the turkey chilli, and microwaving it.

I sauteed a small chopped onion in a splash of oil and added 1tbs of ground coriander, 1tbs of ground cumin and 1tsp hot smoked paprika, then browned minced turkey thighs in the spice mixture. I added a spoonful of chipotle in adobo and a bit of water and let it simmer until it was almost dry, then stirred through a handful of chopped coriander leaves.

In our big meal-sized noodle bowls I piled chopped little gem lettuce, avocado and tomatoes, and squeezed a bit of lemon juice over it. I divided the hot turkey chilli between the bowls and topped them with a spoonful of fat-free yoghurt and a small grating of cheese.

Sandwich heaven - torta

Continuing my love-affair with Mexican Food Made Simple... I cannot believe I hadn't had a torta before! A split ciabatta bun, toasted in the chorizo juices, laden with refried beans (and as an aside, I can't believe how good homemade refried beans are!) avocado, lettuce, coarsely-chopped fresh tomato salsa. A curl of freshly-grilled chorizo. A little chipotle mayo. Heaven.

It's a very clever combination of ingredients. The earthy beans, creamy avocado and sparkling acid salsa are equal players with the crisp refreshing lettuce, fatty, spicy sausage and subtle fire of the chipotle mayo. All conveniently encased in a sandwich thick enough to keep your fingers moderately clean.

I am particularly proud of this one because I entered it in a competition on Thomasina Miers' facebook page and it won. My prize funded an extremely pleasant dinner at the Covent Garden Wahaca, which was a celebration of the fact that Paul now has a job in London, so not only does he get to come home every night, but we can also do extremely decadent things like meet up after work for a meal!

I am also hoping I can sneak this under the wire to Deb's Kahakai Kitchen for her Souper Sunday (soups, salads and sammies) round-up!

Summer drinks make me feel fine

I think Laura's music puns are contagious. But this one really was irresistable!

Generally speaking, our alcohol drinking doesn't get a lot more complicated than a gin and tonic. We drink wine (red, white and sparkling), beer (usually Belgian) and the occasional cider. We don't keep a lot of spirits in the house and don't usually go in for cocktails.

But I have mentioned that my new favourite cookbook (I will get over it soon, I promise...) is Mexican Food Made Simple. And poring over that, combined with a special offer on Jose Cuervo at the supermarket, brought a bottle of tequila into my home and a couple of weekends of cocktails into my life.

We started off with Margaritas. On the rocks, with homemade 44 instead of triple sec.

We moved onto Bloody Marias. Tomato juice, lemon juice, tequila, celery salt and a dash of smoked hot sauce. Divine and utterly addictive. The second batch of these (much, much later in the day) reached the absolute pinnacle of Bloody Mariadom, with the addition of a slice of pickled jalapeno instead of the slice of lemon. Utter perfection.

Some leftover plum/rose/vanilla syrup combined with a touch of tequila and a good slug of chilled cava made a delicious "champagne" cocktail.

But I think my most inventive and refreshing use for my bottle of tequila was this, the frozen coconut margarita.

Frozen Coconut Margarita

375ml coconut water
50ml tequila
50ml 44 or triple sec
juice of 2 limes

Blended with ice.

Makes 2 long drinks.