Showing posts with label chorizo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chorizo. Show all posts

Friday, October 10, 2014

Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl


Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl
Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl

I’ve never made croquettes before, but when someone suggested on Skamp’s facebook page that it was a good way for using leftover roast sweet potato and pumpkin, I thought it was time to give it a go. I had almost exactly 200g of roast sweet potato and pumpkin leftover from a roast the night before and this made the perfect amount of croquettes for the two of us for dinner. These would be great served as a hot snack at a dinner party with maybe some sweet chilli sauce or creamy sriracha dipping sauce.


I had a fairly salty style Danish fetta in these croquettes, so if your fetta is less salty, you may need to season. I used coconut as well as bread crumbs for the coating, because I love that combination and it just tends to work for frying anything. Seriously.

To make it a complete meal, I served it with a chipotle rotkohl – a sauerkraut made with red cabbage. This is in no way a traditional recipe, but it tastes pretty amazing! A nice briny sauerkraut with a smokey kick of heat. This with the naturally sweet flavour of the roast veges in the croquettes was a match made in heaven. And then to round it out, some rye bread toast and some chorizo fried in muscat. The rotkohl makes way more than you’ll need for a meal for two, but it keeps well, just reheating it as you need it for a few days


Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl
Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey RotkohlUsing Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl


Roast Sweet Potato and Pumpkin Croquettes

200g roast pumpkin and sweet potato, mashed
85g fetta
1 tsp dried basil
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup panko
1/2 cup dried coconut
1 tsp coriander powder

In a large bowl, mash the sweet potato and pumpkin together, then mix through the dried basil to distribute evenly. Gently fold through the fetta. You want it to be evenly mixed through, but not necessarily smooth. A few small lumps of fetta are fine.

Set up a crumbing station. Have two shallow bowls, one with a lightly beaten egg. In the other, mix together the panko, coconut and coriander powder.

Form the croquettes by rolling 2-3tbsp of pumpkin mixture into logs. Roll in the egg, then in the panko mixture. Place on a tray and refrigerate for 30 minutes to set.

Heat a thin layer of olive oil in a pan, and fry each side of the croquettes until golden and crispy on the outside, and warm and gooey inside. About 2 minutes per side. Drain on paper towel for 5 minutes to cool to eating temperature and eat straight away!

Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl
Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl
Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl
Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl
Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl


Smokey Rotkohl (Red Cabbage Sauerkraut)

1 red onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt
1 red cabbage, thinly sliced
1 chipotle chili
1 cup hot water
2 roma tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp honey

Pour the hot water over the chipotle chili and set aside to soften.

In a large pot, heat the olive oil to medium heat. Add the red onion and salt, and sautee until translucent. Add the garlic and cook until aromatic.

Add the cabbage, tomatoes, apple cider vinegar, cumin seeds and honey. Remove the chipotle from the hot water, and add the water to the pot as well. Bring the liquid to the boil, pushing the cabbage into the liquid as well as you can. Then turn down to a simmer.

Core the chipotle, then finely slice and add to the rotkohl. Simmer for 30 minutes or so, until the cabbage is soft. Serve!


Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl
Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl
Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl
Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl
Using Leftovers - Sweet Potato, Pumpkin and Fetta Croquettes with Smokey Rotkohl



Thursday, August 21, 2014

Fancy Midweek Meal - Polenta and Vegetable Stacks

Fancy Midweek Meal - Polenta and Vegetable Stacks

In keeping with my ‘learning to cook new things’ decision, I decided to tackle something that’s been on my list for a while. Polenta. The thing that mainly worried me about polenta is that in most recipes I had seen they contained the one phrase that strikes fear into my heart – ‘stirring constantly’. When something is a side dish, I can’t be ‘stirring constantly’. But there’s been a few blog recipes about that had somewhat demystified the process somewhat and used the phrase ‘stirring here and there’. Stirring here and there I can do! I wanted to make polenta cakes, rather than the polenta ‘mash’ and every recipe for that that I had ever come across insisted that you needed to refrigerate overnight, then cut the polenta into shapes, then either bake or fry to make the crispy polenta cakes. I also didn’t have the time and patience for that. Not on a weeknight. So I just spread it out in the tray and baked it immediately, leaving the cutting until it was baked. It takes about 40 minutes to bake, but it was a good result for a lazy man’s version of this. I will give the chill, cut and fry method a go at some point, but this is a good option for week nights. The chill, cut, fry method also lends itself more to thicker polenta squares.

The sauce you might recognize as my hot white bean dip. It’s almost identical with the removal of the oil and the addition of using some water to thin it out. The texture becomes almost like a tomatoe-y herby béchamel. The roast pumpkin and capsicum work perfectly with the sauce and polenta. And being lazy again, I scrubbed the skin of the butternuts but didn’t bother peeling them. If you don’t want to eat them, simply peel them off after they’ve cooked.

While I am telling you about how lazy I am with midweek cooking, let me tell you about Mexican chorizo. Unlike Spanish style chorizo, Mexican chorizo isn’t cooked/cured and it has to be cooked before eaten. It’s essentially a flavoured mince. I haven’t ever seen it available here in Perth BUT, you can make it really easily at home, following Alejandra’s recipe. When I do have a spare half hour or so on the weekend, I whip up a batch of this, freeze it into individual ‘sausages’ ready for a super easy flavor hit. It makes the most amazing tacos and scrambled egg and potato hash and…the list goes on. It’s so much easier to be lazy during the week if you can occasionally do some prep work. The spicy chorizo here really makes this dish, but if you really don’t want to make some yourself, simply find a nice spicy style sausage, remove the filling from the casing and fry up as below. Or, at a pinch, dice up some normal chorizo and fry until some fat renders out and it’s crispy. But you really want that smokey/spicy hit to bring out the rest of the flavours in the dish.

A little sriracha on plating adds a little extra chilli kick. And if you’re really feeling lazy then you can serve the components separately and not even bother making it look fancy. But how pretty is this?

Fancy Midweek Meal - Polenta and Vegetable Stacks
Fancy Midweek Meal - Polenta and Vegetable Stacks
Fancy Midweek Meal - Polenta and Vegetable Stacks


Polenta

1/2 cup polenta
2 cups water
1/4 tsp fresh black pepper
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp olive oil
½ cup grated parmesan

Roast Veges

Top half of 1 small butternut pumpkin, skin scrubbed and sliced into 1cm thick rings
1 large red capsicum
Olive oil

Sauce

1 tin white beans (cannellini)
4 sundried tomatoes, cut into thin strips
1 cup water
½ tsp salt
3 sprigs thyme, leaves stripped
1 tbsp oregano, minced.

200g Mexican chorizo (or other spicy raw sausage, skins removed)

Line a lamington tray with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 170C

In a medium saucepan, bring water, pepper and sea salt to a boil. Pour the polenta in to the boiling water and stir quickly for a minute or so. Cook for around 10-15 minutes, stirring every few minutes until it thickens to a creamy mash potato consistency. It should pull away from the sides cleanly as you stir it. Stir through the parmesan, and then the olive oil.

Spread in a layer around 2cm thick in the baking paper and smooth over the top. Pop in the oven.

Line a baking tray with baking paper and spread the pumpkin slices out. Drizzle with olive oil. Cut the capsicum in half lengthwise and remove the core and seeds/membranes. Place skin side up on the baking tray . Chuck in the oven.

After 20 minutes, turn the flip the pumpkin slices. Check the polenta. If it’s solid and getting golden on top, gently flip the whole thing over with two spatulas.

Rinse the beans, then add to a medium pot with a cup of water. Bring to a gentle simmer. Using a stick blender (or a real blender), puree until smooth. Add the salt, thyme, oregano and sundried tomatoes, puree that all together too. Check for seasoning, then set aside, keeping warm.


Heat a frypan to medium heat and add the Mexican chorizo. Break it up with a wooden spoon and keep it frying until brown and crispy. Set aside, keeping warm.

Remove the capsicum and gently pull the skins off and discard. Slice into ribbons.

Take the polenta out, and cut into squares about the same size as the pumpkin rings. Cut one square into thin ‘chips’ for decoration.

To plate, add a slice of polenta, a ring of pumpkin, a few ribbons of roast capsicum. Spoon a few tablespoons of the bean sauce, then sprinkle some Mexican chorizo over the top. Repeat the pattern. Balance a few polenta ‘chips’ on top, then decorate with a thyme sprig. Dot some sriracha about the plate decoratively.


Fancy Midweek Meal - Polenta and Vegetable Stacks
Fancy Midweek Meal - Polenta and Vegetable Stacks
Fancy Midweek Meal - Polenta and Vegetable Stacks
Fancy Midweek Meal - Polenta and Vegetable StacksFancy Midweek Meal - Polenta and Vegetable Stacks
Fancy Midweek Meal - Polenta and Vegetable Stacks

Monday, July 28, 2014

Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi


Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi
I wrote before that as a teenager, I had the dream of writing a cookbook called Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Bacon. But that seems a little restrictive these days. Chorizo also definitely has it’s place in that ‘improving vegetarian recipes’ scenario. So it’s much less catchy, and would probably sell a whole bunch less copies but maybe we should go with “Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats”. This dish is a riff on the classic dish Turkish dish Imam Biyaldi. That in itself is often already made non-vegetarian through the use of minced meat. But it is a garlic, tomato braised eggplant dish that is perfect in this cold weather. The smokiness of some fried chorizo kick up the rich creaminess of the eggplant into the next realm of deliciousness. I took some of this with me for a wintery Down South escape with friends and it was a huge hit.

The original dish is usually stuffed eggplants, so this is a lazy man’s version as well as a meated version where I’ve turned it more into a casserole. I’ve also added black rice to make it an all-in-one meal. The Nanna Shop had bags of the cutest little baby eggplants, I used 10 or so. If you only have normal sized eggplants, you’ll only need one or two for a dish for 4 people.

Serve with lemon wedges and some fresh parsley sprinkled over the top for a fresh kick. Oh, and red wine. A nice, full bodied Cab Sauv would be perfect.
Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi
Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi
Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi
Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi
Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi
Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi
Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi

Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi

(serves 4)
10 baby eggplants, tops cut off and sliced lengthwise
1 chorizo sausages, sliced into rounds
Olive oil
1 brown onion, diced
1 tsp sea salt
2 big cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 chipotle pepper, soaked in warm water to rehydrate 15 minutes, minced
350g jar tomato passata
2 cups water
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp oregano
One cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
1 heaping tablespoons capers
1 ½ cups cooked black rice
¼ cup toasted cashews
1 tbsp cacao nibs
fresh parsley, chopped for serving
lemon, cut into wedges for serving

Heat the base of a tagine or large, lidded frypan to medium-high heat. Fry slices of chorizo until crispy on each side, and a lot of the fat has rendered out, approximately 4 minutes per side. Remove to a paper-towel covered plate. Turn the heat down to medium.
Add the eggplant halves to the chorizo oil, cut side down first. Cook until softened slightly on the edges, around 5 minutes, flip and cook for a further 3 minutes. Remove to a bowl.
If the eggplant has soaked up all of the oil from the pan, add a little olive oil. A tablespoon should do. Allow it to heat in the pan and then add the onion and salt. Cook for 5 minutes until translucent. Add the garlic, balsamic vinegar and chipotle pepper. Cook until the garlic is translucent and very fragrant.
Add the passata, water, honey, organo, cinnamon stick and bay leaf and stir it all together well. Simmer for 5 minutes, then add the eggplant halves back into the pan. Put the lid on, turn the heat down to low and simmer for 20-25 minutes, or until the eggplant is completely soft.
You can use this simmering time to cook your rice if you don't already have some cooked.
When the simmering is done, stir through the rice, capers and chorizo. Leaving for 5 minutes for the flavours to mingle and the chorizo to reheat. Stir through the cacao nibs and cashews.
Serve, with fresh parsley and a lemon wedge if desired.
Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi
Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi
Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi
Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi
Vegetarian Recipes Improved by Cured Meats - Deconstructed Chorizo Imam Biyaldi

Saturday, June 21, 2014

White Vegetables - Mushroom, White Bean and Cauliflower soup


Things got a bit involved on this site. The dishes became very involved and fancy. But things got very busy at work, and out of work. And it got really cold at night times quite suddenly. So now there is flannelette sheets on the bed and there is this soup. Creamy and comforting and incredibly simple to make. I got home from the gym, 10 minutes of prep cooking. Leave it to simmer while I showered, came back and blended it up and voila. Perfect soup for sitting on the couch snuggled under my quilt.

This is naturally vegan and gluten free. It’s full of protein and things that are good for you. I added diced fried chorizo bits on top of mine because it is amazingly delicious but somewhat takes away from the vegan status. Bacon bits would be equally delicious. But the chopped toasted almonds are pretty amazing if you want to keep it vegan/vegetarian.


Mushroom, White Bean and Cauliflower Soup
Olive oil
1 – 2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and Pepper
500g mushrooms of choice, thinly sliced
1 brown onion, diced
1 small head of cauliflower, broken roughly into large florets.
1 litre vegetable stock
1 litre water
1 cup of almond meal
Tin white beans, rinsed

Garnish
Diced, fried salami
Toasted almonds
Dried oregano
More black pepper

Drizzle a good glug of olive oil into your soup pot and heat to medium. Add the garlic, and cook 1-2 minutes until softened and fragrant. Thinly slice the mushrooms and add to the pot, and a good few cracks of pepper and fat pinch of sea salt. Stir well to mix through the garlicky oil across all the mushroom slices. Fry until the mushrooms release their liquid, then it absorbs/evaporates back again. Remove from the pot and set aside.

Add a tablespoon more olive oil to the pot and add the onion, cook 5 minutes until translucent but not browned. Add the stock, water and cauliflower. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer 15 minutes, until the cauliflower is tender. Add the white beans.

Remove from heat, then puree with a stick blender. Add the almond meal and blend it in, too.

Add mushrooms back to pot, place back over low heat. Cook 2 minutes so that the mushrooms heat up again. Check for seasoning.

Serve, garnished with oregano flakes, plenty of black pepper and toasted almond bits.

If you don’t mind breaking the vegan-ness of this dish, serve with fried diced salami pieces or bacon bits