Rummaging around on Sunday morning, looking for stuff to eat, I found eggs, onion, chorizo, a couple of cold boiled potatoes, and some leftover pastry that needed eating. Hence; breakfast quiche! (Danielle’s idea, not mine.)

I diced about 60 g of chorizo (it was the uncooked kind), and fried it briefly to release some oil. Added a sliced onion and the potatoes and continued to fry until they’d crisped up a bit. Danielle rolled the pastry out and somehow made it fill our pie dish (if you look closely you’ll see it’s a very thin layer — I don’t know how she managed it!). Poured the potato/chorizo/onion mixture into the pastry base, topped with grated cheese, and poured over four beaten eggs, well seasoned, with a little milk added. Finally, I baked the whole lot for about half an hour at 175 deg C.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Problem: Leftover pie crust, but not enough to fill any pie tin we have. For some reason, we have no muffin tin in the house.

Solution: individual pies in a Yorkshire pudding tin.

Problem: no pastry cutters the right size for the tin.

Solution: use an upside-down saucepan.

Pasta alla carbonara

This was what I made for dinner tonight. I’ve been making a lot of carbonara lately, trying out various minor variations; this one was based on this post at Serious Eats which was in turn based on a recipe from Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon. I doubled the cheese, though (using a 50/50 mix of pecorino and parmigiano-reggiano), and on a whim I added half a finely diced shallot in with the pancetta.

Overall, I’d say this was the most successful one I’ve made yet. All my previous attempts have used a modest amount of cream and wine in the sauce, and consequently have been too wet on the plate. This one had a much better texture to the sauce. The only criticism I’d make is that the caramelised shallot added a slight brown tinge to the sauce which I wasn’t quite happy about. On the other hand it added a subtle sweet note to the flavour that I really liked, so maybe I’ll use shallots next time too.

Dinner tonight was my first attempt at quick-brining meat ¹; in this case, pork chops.

We used a brine based on this one; a simple mix of water, brown sugar, salt with peppercorns, thyme and a clove of garlic. We gave the meat 24 hours in the brine before washing it, patting dry, and frying over medium-high heat for about eight minutes.

It turned out great — nicely seasoned, and with a strong taste of pork (but not overpowering). In the past I’ve often found pork chops bland but these certainly didn’t suffer from that. The texture was good too, although that’s probably partly down to buying good quality meat from my local butcher (Douglas Willis in Cwmbran) and cooking it well. The last time I made pork chops was years ago; I expect I was using supermarket meat and probably massively overcooked it.

I served the pork with green beans and smashed potatoes based on a method from The Pioneer Woman. They are just visible in the photo, lost in a haze of bokeh. These also turned out very tasty, and I would recommend that recipe to anyone. —Rich

Chorizo, red onion, and cheese quesadilla

Just something we threw together for a quick lunch based on the contents of the fridge.

Thinly slice about 60 g / 2 oz of cooking (raw) chorizo. Fry for a few minutes until it’s given up its fat, then add half a red onion cut into thin slices. Fry for a few minutes more to soften the onion.

Thinly slice about 60 g / 2 oz of cheese. We used some Mexicana brand spicy cheese, but almost anything will do.

Get a tortilla and wipe both sides of it with a piece of kitchen towel dipped in oil or melted butter. Put it in a hot, clean pan and cook for 30 seconds. Flip it over and quickly scatter the chorizo mix and the cheese over one half of the tortilla. Fold the other half on top. Keep on the heat for a minute or so to crisp up the outside and melt the cheese. Repeat with a second tortilla and the remaining chorizo, onion, and cheese.

Delicious served with sour cream. —Rich

Dinner tonight: leftover jambalya enchilada

Last night, we had blackened tuna with a “chorizo rice” recipe from the BBC. The rice dish ended up basically being jambalaya, particularly once I’d finished throwing celery, mushrooms, and some extra spices and herbs into it.

We had a lot left over though. Lacking inspiration, I idly asked my friend Scott how he thought I should use it up and he suggested a burrito. Of course, a burrito is good, but it’s sadly deficient in melted cheese; and hence we arrived at enchilada town. I bulked the rice out with some chunks of chicken seasoned with fajita seasoning and my wife Danielle made fresh guacamole and assembled the burritos for me.

It was delicious. It wasn’t as greasy as that photo makes it look either. The halogens in my kitchen are quite harsh, you see, and —- oh, who am I kidding. It was exactly that greasy. And definitely delicious. —Rich

Beef and chorizo stew with suet dumplings

Stew is something I’ve been cooking for years, and something I can knock together with approximately zero mental effort. But it’s also a recipe which is endlessly flexible and adaptable to your whims — and whichever wilting items of vegetation lurking in the bottom of your fridge are in the most urgent need of being eaten. Which is why, this time, I decided to search for a recipe which did things as differently as possible to my usual methods.

I came upon this recipe from Delia Smith which was unusual (to me at least) for a few reasons:

1. slow-cooked for five hours (I generally cook at medium heat two or so hours).
2. a gravy made from cider (I use stock, maybe with some wine).
3. the meat wasn’t fried first (I always fry mine to provoke the Malliard reaction and all its tasty, tasty byproducts).
4. beef suet dumplings (a bit of extra work, but a tradition that harks back to an earlier era of British cooking).

Obviously, being me, I didn’t cook Delia’s recipe as-is. I made some changes of my own, and I ended up with this recipe. It still turned out delicious, though. I think it’s hard to go very wrong with stew.

Beef and chorizo stew

(serves four)

100 g (4 oz) chorizo
600 g (1.5 lb) of stewing beef — shin or a similar cut
2 medium sized or 1 large carrot (about 220 g / 7 oz in weight)
Half a swede or rutabaga (same weight as carrots)
3-4 parsnips (same weight as carrots)
4-5 small onions or large shallots (same weight as carrots)
25 g (1 oz) plain flour, seasoned with plenty of salt and pepper
568 ml (1 UK pint / 20 fl oz) of premium dry cider (I used Stella)
2 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp tomato purée
1 beef stock cube

Preheat the oven to 140 deg C (275 deg F).

First, the mise en place. Cut the beef into two-inch chunks. Cut the swede into half-inch chunks — it’s much harder than the other vegetables, so needs to be smaller to make sure it cooks through. Cut the carrots and parsnip into two-inch chunks. Skin the onions or shallots, but leave all except one whole. Dice the last onion and dice the chorizo too.

Put a little oil in the casserole pan you’ll be using for the stew and warm it a little. Add the diced chorizo and keep it on a low heat until it gives up its oil and aroma. Add the diced onion and fry slowly until softened. Turn the heat off and add the cider to deglaze and cool the pan. (Note that Delia’s recipe calls for quite a bit less cider; I prefer my stew to have a bit of sauce with it.)

Put 25 g of seasoned flour in a bowl. One piece at a time, dip the beef chunks in the flour. Make sure each one is well coated then put it in the pan. Once they are all done, toss the vegetables in any remaining flour, and put all that in the pan too. Sprinkle any remaining flour in on top.

Put the heat back on under the pan and start bringing it to a simmer.

While that’s happening, add the rest of the flavourings: the mustard, Worcestershire sauce, tomato purée, thyme, and the stock cube. Add salt and pepper too. Stir to combine. Once it’s simmering, put a lid on the pan (with a piece of foil if it’s not a tight fit) and put in the oven for four and half hours.

Go out, because it’s going to start smelling really good a long time before it’s ready to eat.

After four or so hours, check on the stew. The vegetables should be tender but hopefully not falling apart, and the beef should be cooked. You can serve it up like this, but there’s an optional step you can add if you’re feeling indulgent and/or nostalgic.

Caramelised onion dumplings

Suet is an incredibly old-fashioned British food, consisting of the hardest, most saturated fat a cow has — taken from around the loins and kidneys. It’s used as a shortening to make pastries and doughs, as well as being an important ingredient in the traditional version of mincemeat and Christmas pudding. Obviously, it’s incredibly unhealthy, so has rather fallen out of favour as dietry science came to understand the dangers of saturated fats. As such it’s not something I’d eat very often.

Americans — you can probably stop reading now. It’s almost impossible to find suet outside the UK, and there’s no substitution that is close in flavour or richness. Note that these dumplings don’t bear very much resemblance to the sort of ones you’d make for chicken and dumplings.

1/2 a small onion
100 g (4 oz) self-raising flour
50 g (2 oz) shredded beef suet — I used Atora brand
1 tsp mustard powder
1 Tbsp fresh chive

Ahead of time, finely dice the onion and fry in flavourless oil (groundnut or vegetable) over a very low heat for half an hour or so until caramelised and brown. Leave this to cool.

Once the stew is cooked, sift the mustard powder and flour into a work bowl. Add the suet and stir that through, followed by the onions and chives. Sprinkle over about five Tbsp of cold water and bring the mixture together with a knife or — if you have one — the dough paddle of a freestanding mixer. The mixer is a lot less work! Add more water if you need it to make a firm but soft dough.

Separate the dough into eight portions and roll them by hand into spheres. Get the stew out of the oven, pop the dumplings in the top so they are half-submerged in the gravy, and put it back in the oven for 20-30 minutes.

Now, this is where my advice parts ways from Delia’s. She suggests leaving the lid off the casserole at this point, and increasing the temperature. I tried this and found that too much of the sauce boiled away and the tops of the dumplings became quite dark, almost burnt, where there were tiny pieces of onion on the surface. You can see this in the photo at the top of the post. Next time I will keep the lid on the pan, which is the usual way to cook dumplings, to give a softer, part-steamed texture.

Finally, serve with some good bread and a glass of full-bodied red wine.