Palate me no palette!

I've been busy the last week, rocketing around, dealing with the spring weather (i.e. the horrendous rain and cold winds), all of which combined has gifted me with an atrocious cold.

Really, an atrocious cold.

The sort of cold where you make a lovely Easter Sunday lunch for family, making a recipe that you've looked forward to making for a while, having saved it up... and you have to ask other people to taste for seasoning, because you cannot taste a thing.

How unfair.

I think most of it was due to being generally over-tired, but I certainly didn't improve matters by spending an hour on the balcony in a bitter cold wind on the Saturday, oiling my butcher's block. I'd sanded it down on Friday, looked around for my paintbrush to oil it, and realised that the brush had managed to vanish at the last move. So I had to leave it, and oil it on Saturday afternoon, in said cold wind, with Greta hurtling around on the balcony as well, trying to eat my lavender plant (No, baby! Eat the mint! Or the chives! Leave the lavender alone!), and I think that just finished me off.

And I'm not wildly happy about the butcher's block either. Before, it was a lovely soft, drift-wood colour. Now, it's quite aggressively golden. I strongly suspect that I might have to sand it down again in a few months... And even if the water does now bead off, it's still not as pretty as it was.



On Sunday morning, however, I bravely strapped on a box of kleenex, opened the book to page 441, and headed into the kitchen, to attack the braised pork in milk from Marcella Hazan.

Now, I'd read that this recipe was trickier than it seemed. That it didn't necessarily work. But I'm usually an optimist about recipes, and I can usually make things come out right at the end, and I really liked the look of this recipe, and Peter didn't say No, which is a definite step in the right direction...

I first browned my long, thick chunk of "cou de porc", to which the very nice butcher (not in the slightest bit inspired by my batting eyelashes) had added a large, and free, chunk of bone, "to thicken the sauce". Ooo-er, Mister!



Having browned my pork, I took a look at my Staub casserole, looked at the space around the meat, re-read the instruction about using a dish that was just bigger than the meat, and took out the Le Creuset casserole instead. I put my browned meat in there, poured a cup of milk, poured it over the meat, looked at it, and added about the same again. And then a bit more.



I really fail to see how you can "braise" a piece of meat in a pan with more than 2/3 of the meat out of the liquid. And I was right on that, as it transpired later...

Enough to say that I then brought it to a simmer, put the lid on slightly askew as instructed, and went in the shower.

The meat cooked for three hours. In the meantime, I knocked up a small gratin de cotes de bettes (Swiss chard), followed by a boiled salad of Swiss chard. All of which are on this webpage, btw. I wouldn't normally follow a whole menu like this, but there were lots of yummy heads of bettes at the supermarket, and we like them. Well, Peter and I do- Greta refused to even try a mouthful of one. No biggie, I will try again some other time!

(Cotes de bettes in my fruit bowl, as it normally lives on the butcher's block and said block wasn't dry yet.)

Normally, I'd have made a gratin by slicing the ribs and then adding them to a dish with a load of cream, some onion and garlic, and baking that, or I'd have cooked the ribs in a deep deep frying pan/wok in olive oil with some garlic until soft, then right at the end have added the chopped leaves and cooked them until wilted, and served that up by itself... Or amalgamated the two, cooking the stalks, then cooking the leaves, mixing them together and putting them in a gratin dish with cream... Anyway, it's certainly never occurred to me to gratin them "naked", and I don't think I'll bother again, as it didn't really work.

It tasted fine, but it didn't really work. Which was pretty much the leitmotiv for the whole meal.

After three hours, I took the meat out and set it to rest. In the mean time, I boiled the hell out of the sauce, reducing it down, but after ten minutes I'd had enough, so we served up.



The top half of the pork, that hadn't been covered by the milk (despite me basting it frequently with the simmering milk), wasn't cooked through. It was very pink and squishy. We cut around the outside, then I put the meat back in the remaining sauce, turned the heat up, and left it to cook whilst we ate.

The family said it tasted good. Me, I wasn't so convinced.

The second helping, with the meat cooked through, and the sauce finally reduced down to the "nut-brown clusters" (why couldn't she just say "cook until the milk congeals and separates"?), was much better.



Still, I'm not wildly happy with it. I don't think I'll bother again.

Fish Pie

Last weekend's experiment involved something that I very rarely cook (other than a couple of "steaks" baked in the oven for the necessary length of time, sometimes crusted with something like sesame seeds, other times just naked).

Fish. For some reason, I hardly ever cook fish. Or even with fish, although I have occasionally had a craving for pasta with tuna, cream and capers over the last few months.

However, I came across this recipe from the ever-delicious, ever-reliable Nigel Slater, and I had left the tab open for a few days, thinking that I really wanted to make this. Fortunately, there was a family event, namely Peter's Uncle visiting, and I had an opportunity to give it a try.

Despite Greta waking up right in the middle of the tricky part of the bechamel- whisking a sauce whilst holding an eleven-kilo baby in the other arm is tricky, to say the least!

And, of course, I made a few changes, and adapted to what I found in the supermarket fish aisle.

Crumble Crust Fish Pie

Serves 8.
1kg firm white fish fillets
500g smoked fish (I used smoked trout fillets)
a little butter for the dish
1 litre milk
4 bay leaves
12 black peppercorns, 2 pink, and a green one
ground nutmeg
150g butter
150g flour
2 packs of dill, chopped
1.5 packs of parsley, chopped
5 leeks- white part only

For the crumble topping:
190g butter
160g plain flour
150g rolled oats
50g finely grated parmesan

Lightly butter a baking dish or shallow pan, place the white fish in it, skin-side down (if any- my fish had no skin), and pour over the milk, topping up with a little water to just cover the fish. Add the bay leaves, peppercorns and a very fine grating of nutmeg. Place over a moderate heat, turning it down just before the milk boils. Leave to simmer gently for 5-10 minutes, until the fish is opaque and tender.

Nigel says you should cook the smoked fish together with the white fish, but when I opened the packet, I decided that it was already pretty well cooked by the smoking process, so I didn't bother.

Turn off the heat, remove the fish and strain the liquor to remove the bay leaves. Remove the skin from the fish and discard. Break both types of fish into large pieces. Chop the dill and the parsley.

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour and cook till pale biscuit-coloured, stirring almost constantly. Pour in the strained cooking liquid from the fish (adding more, if necessary, to make 1 litre- I had some milk left over, and used this later on), stirring over a moderate heat till smooth. Cook over a low heat for 10 minutes, then with salt and pepper, and stir in the dill and parsley. I was a bit wary of this step, thinking that it would "cook" the herbs and change their colour, but they stayed a nice bright green right through the cooking process.

While the sauce is cooking, slice the leeks thinly, give them a thorough rinse, then let them cook with a chunk of butter in a deep pan, covered with a lid, until they are soft. It is important that they don't colour, Nigel says, and suggests putting a round of greaseproof paper over the top. I didn't bother with that, just cooked them very gently. And I had half a finely chopped onion in there too, as I'd been making guacamole earlier (no spring onions available in the market!).

Gently fold the cooked leeks into the sauce. I then put a layer of the sauce in the bottom of a big Le Creuset pan that I was given for Christmas, put a layer of the white fish over the top (not a solid layer), then more sauce, a layer of smoked fish, a layer of sauce, a layer of the white fish, and then finally a layer of sauce. Over this, I poured some of the milk that was left from poaching the fish, just to make sure that my sauce didn't get too thick as it baked. I only had a few tablespoons of the milk left afterwards, so I didn't mind tipping that down the sink.

Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4. To make the crumble, rub the flour, butter, parmesan and oats together.

My pie then sat for a couple of hours before everybody turned up- I put the crumble on top just before putting it into the oven.

Distribute the crumble over the top of the dish, and bake for 40 minutes in the preheated oven until crisp and golden, and the filling is bubbling, says Nigel- I think it would be better to cook for about 50 minutes at 200C, as although my topping was nice, I think it would have been better a bit crisper. I reheated some for myself the next evening, and it was definitely improved. I froze the rest, and think it should work well as a freezer dish.

The result was very tasty, but I think I should have had a heavier hand with the black pepper in the sauce. I will probably make this again- it went down very well with the family. Maybe next time I'll add a handful of prawns or mussels, as Nigel suggests. In the meantime, with a green salad, it was deservedly popular.

My best Bolognese

I made this for a family and friends lunch party during the holidays, and served it on fresh fettucine. I was asked for the recipe from all participants- and both husbands insisted on me giving it to their wives! (Peter just smirked.)

Well, I'm a nice girl...

about 750g minceed beef
about 350g minced pork
2 packs of 3 thick slices of lard fume, cut into lardons that aren't too thin (if you cut them too thin, it just melts, and I like the odd bit of bacon in my sauce!)
3 big carrots, peeled, diced
2-3 onions
1/2 a head of garlic (or a whole head, up to you), sliced, it melts into the sauce so you don't need to cut it too finely
1 bottle of red wine
2 litres passata/coulis de tomates
some water
pepper, no salt because of the lard, oregano, other spices, chili flakes
cooking olive oil
some full-fat milk- about 1 dl

In a big casserole dish, heat some olive oil gently, add the oniongs, garlic and carrot, season with pepper, herbs and chili, put the lid on and cook gently. When the onions are translucid and the carrot softening, pour the bottle of wine in.

At the same time, in a frying pan cook the lardons without adding any oil. Put the meat into the casserole, leaving the fat in the pan. Cook the other meats in the fat (you might need to add some oil for the last batches!). Cook the meats separately, as you will need to keep on prodding the pork to make sure that it doesn't go into lumps, and don't put too much in the pan at the same time, or it will steam and won't brown. Add as you go along to the casserole.

Pour the passata into the caserole, add a bit of cold water for the sauce to cover the meat. Stir, bring to a boil, turn down, and simmer for at least three hours. Longer is better- five hours is perfect!

Turn the heat off, leave overnight. The next morning, spoon the fat off- you'll understand why when you take the lid off! Heat it gently, for about 40 minutes to an hour, until you are ready to serve it up. Season with pepper, and, five minutes before serving, pour in the milk, stir it in.

As I said- I served it with fettucine, as I understand that the traditional way of serving involves tagliatelle, but I didn't want to be fiddling with dried pasta and fresh pasta takes hardly any time to cook! We also had a big green salad.