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Chorizoy

I’ve been a vegetarian for a quite a while now and as a result I find meat increasingly less tempting. With the exception of chorizo and other spicy sausages; they, to an extent, still allure. The following is of course not a perfect substitute, but it is surprisingly nice and not entirely dissimilar. Also, once you’ve crumbled up the veggie sausages (and you will need soya-based ones for this, as opposed to the ones made from grainy vegetable matter) you can experiment by throwing in whatever ingredients you like.

A whole head of garlic (sounds alarming, but see below)

6 vegetarian sausages of the soya variety

1 small red onion, finely chopped

A tablespoon of ground paprika

As many pinches of dried chilli as you like

Salt and pepper

Pre-heat your oven at 180°C. Slice off the top of the head of garlic, drizzle a little olive oil over the exposed cloves then wrap the whole thing in tin foil. Place in the oven and roast for twenty minutes to half an hour, or until the flesh of the garlic is starting to look golden brown. Squeeze the cloves out of their skins (which you should then discard) and mash them into a sticky paste.

Break the sausages up into crumbs and put these in a mixing bowl along with the onion, paprika, chilli, garlic paste and a little salt and pepper. Mix everything up with your hands.

Most soya-based veggie sausages are quite spongy and so the mix should come together fairly agreeably without needing to be encouraged to bind with beaten egg or anything like that. Flour your hands then form the mix into a long sausage. Brush the outside with a bit of oil and bake in the oven until it has taken on a little colour and holds its shape.

(I decided not to include the photo of the chorizoy before it went in the oven; it looked a little... unappealing, as I’m sure you can imagine.)

It can now be sliced up and used in any number of ways. For example:

Pizza with olives, broccoli and chorizoy

Pasta with chorizoy, rocket and cream (and cheese, always and cheese)

#aberdeen #student #scotland #food #cooking #Experimental #vegetarian #veggie sausage #chorizo #meat substitute #pizza #pasta

Pesto

I’m not sure if these qualify as pesto in the traditional sense but it hardly matters. Which shouldn’t imply that I scoff at culinary traditions generally; on the contrary it can be fun and somewhat satisfying to observe and uphold them from time to time. However it doesn’t do to get too bogged down by these things. After all, if some purists had their way there’d be no pizza except the margarita and the marinara (plain tomato) and what a dull world that would be.

Coriander pesto, udon noodles

In spice shops you can generally pick up huge bunches of fresh herbs for far less than you’d pay in the supermarket. The only problem is what to do with it all. After having curry three nights in a row I made this pesto in an attempt to use up the intimidating amount of coriander that I still had left. I find it’s better to make this a couple of hours in advance of when you want to use it as it gives the ingredients a little time to get to know each other. With that in mind, the stir fry below can be put together in a matter of minutes.

Big bunch of coriander

1 clove of garlic finely chopped

1 red chilli

A small handful of toasted sesame seeds

Olive oil (or groundnut/sesame oil if you have it available)

Soy sauce

Bash the coriander, garlic, chilli and sesame seeds together in a pestle and mortar. If you don’t have a pestle and mortar use a sturdy bowl/pan and the end of rolling pin, or indeed any blunt object. Season, then add enough oil and soy sauce (roughly 1 part soy to 3 parts oil) to create a loose mixture roughly the consistency of... well, of pesto.

I like to slice carrots and courgettes into ribbons using a vegetable peeler, then stir fry them with some sliced ginger in a searing hot wok until tender but still crunchy. Throw in the udon noodles and pesto and toss vigorously, adding a splash of water to loosen the pesto and ensure that it coats each noodle and vegetable ribbon evenly. If you like you could garnish the noodles with sliced spring onion and radish then squeeze over a little lime juice to finish.

Roast leek pesto, gnocchi

At my university (of Aberdeen) there’s a student-run vegetable scheme. Every fortnight I go and collect a canvas bag full of organic locally grown produce. One of the many great things about it (another being that it costs only £6 a bag) is that I often end up with fruits and vegetables that I’m not in the habit of buying. I don’t mean overly exotic stuff (most of the produce is grown in Scotland after all) but the slightly grander vegetables that aren’t usually on my shopping list: celeriac, fennel, pumpkin, leeks, kohlrabi and chestnuts to name but a few. If I’m not sure what to do with a particular thing I tend to go for one of the old fail-safes of soup or curry, but every now and again I try to do something a bit more adventurous. Finding myself with a surplus of leeks, I decided to build upon the idea of the ‘old fail-safe.’ My thinking was that if leek and potato work so well together in a soup then they could be successfully combined in another dish. I’d love to be able to tell you that I made my own gnocchi to accompany this pesto, but unfortunately it’s something I’ve not yet got the hang of. I tried, but once again I found myself with a sieve full of soggy mashed potato. Hopefully I’ll master it eventually as the packet stuff isn’t something I can afford to buy all that often, but either way I’m proud of the pesto.

1 leek, washed and cut into thin strips

A handful of parsley

1 clove of garlic finely chopped

A little handful of capers (optional)

Olive oil

Lemon juice

Pre-heat your oven to 180°C. Place the sliced leeks in a roasting tray, season and drizzle over a little olive oil. Toss the leeks to coat them in the oil then roast for around 20-30 minutes until sticky and tender. Allow to cool then finely slice. Bash together with the parsley, garlic and capers then add enough olive oil and lemon juice (same sort of ratio as above) to create a loose pesto. I daresay the other classic pesto ingredients of pine nuts and parmesan would work well here but unfortunately I didn’t have those things at my disposal when I threw this together.

Cook the gnocchi according to the packet instructions (or make it yourself if you’re more capable than I), drain and toss with the pesto.

#aberdeen #scotland #student #food #cooking #recipe #pesto

Cheese, chips and chilli sauce #2: Pizza (again)

Granted this is rather far removed from the original ‘dish’, but I think it just about fits the brief. Putting potato on pizza, wild though it sounds, is an established thing and I felt that the over-the-topness of the idea was well suited to the spirit of these experiments. What’s more, it was extremely good.

You can of course ignore the chilli sauce-‘n’-chips angle and just treat this as a guide for making pizzas in general. The ‘amounts’ given here will make 3 large pizzas (and by large I mean as large as the standard oven can accommodate). Any leftover dough should be wrapped in oiled cling-film; it’ll keep in the fridge for a couple of days.

For cheese chilli and chip element:

As many fresh red chillies as you dare

1 small potato per pizza

3 to 4 heaped tablespoons of ricotta

A handful of grated parmesan

Zest of 1 lemon

Pepper

For the dough:

500g strong bread flour (you won’t need to use this much, but bread flour generally only comes in packs of 500g or 1kg)

1 teaspoon salt

7g sachet of dried yeast

Olive oil

1 teaspoon sugar/honey

For the sauce:

Olive oil

1 clove of garlic, sliced

2 tins of tomatoes

Salt, pepper

First things first: slice the potatoes into wafer thin discs (ideally with a speed peeler) and place them in a pan with a pinch of salt. Cover them with cold water and bring to the boil, then simmer briefly so that the potatoes are tender but not quite cooked. Drain them thoroughly, toss them with a little oil to stop them from sticking together and put to one side.

In a bowl, combine the ricotta, parmesan and lemon zest with plenty of pepper, making sure that everything’s thoroughly mixed together.

(You could do all this at a later stage, but I thought I’d mention it separately to the pizza recipe proper.)

Pre-heat your oven at 200°C.

Sift the salt and about half a 500g pack of flour into a mixing bowl. Dissolve the sugar/honey and yeast in a small cup of warm water and add a glug or two of olive oil. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the yeast mixture.

Using a fork, gradually bring the flour into the yeast mixture a little bit at a time. Have more warm water at the ready; a pint will be more than enough. Once you’ve mixed a fair bit of flour into the yeast mixture, slowly add more warm water until you have a smooth dough- you’ll probably end up abandoning the fork and getting in there with floured hands once the dough starts to get thick. Work the dough a bit with your fists until it feels nice and elasticised.

Sprinkle some flour into a bowl then put in your ball of dough and score a cross on the top with a knife. Sprinkle a bit more flour over the top, cover the bowl with a damp tea towel then leave somewhere warm for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.

While the dough’s proving, prepare the sauce. Put a frying pan on a medium heat, add a little olive oil and then fry the garlic for about a minute, being careful not to let it brown. Add the tinned tomatoes, crank up the heat and bring everything to the boil.

At this stage I like to pour the not-quite sauce into a bowl through a course sieve, smashing the chunks with the underside of a ladle to squeeze out as much juice out as possible. You’ll be left with a tomato sauce that’s thin and runny, but extremely silky and smooth. Return that to the pan and simmer until it thickens to an adequate consistency. I find that doing this makes the sauce easier to spread over the pizza bases, but if you prefer a chunkier sauce then just turn down the heat after everything’s come to the boil and let it simmer down normally.

Oh and with regards to the chillies: if you’re using fresh ones, prick them all over with a fork and add them to the pan with the garlic. Put them to one side if and when you smash the sauce through the sieve and return them to the simmering sauce afterwards. When the sauce has reached the desired thickness, fish them out, chop them up and throw them back in. If you’re using dried chillies, just crumble them in while the sauce is simmering.

Once the dough has doubled in size, turn it out onto a floured work surface, bash the air out of it then divide it up into balls. You’ll need about a third of the dough to make one pizza. Flatten out the ball and then roll it into whatever shape you like (I’ve never managed to produce anything like a circle; I usually end up with a mangled rectangle of some kind).

Place the rolled-out base onto a sheet of baking parchment or a piece of tin foil that you’ve rubbed a bit of oil onto. Spread a thin layer of sauce over the base, scatter over the potato discs and dollop blobs of the cheese mixture on top. Bake in the oven until the crust is golden and the cheese is starting to go a light nutty brown. For best results, I put the pizza onto a flat oven tray that has been sitting in the oven while it pre-heats, as the base cooks quickly and evenly if blasted with heat from below as well as above. A drizzle of oil over the top before it goes in the oven makes a lot of difference as well.

P.S. Apologies to the legions of fans that have spent most of this month waiting with baited breath, refreshing their screens over and over again in the hope that I’d posted something― I’ve had exams.

#aberdeen #scotland #student #cheese #chips #cooking #cheese chips chilli sauce #pizza #Experimental

Cheese, chips and curry sauce

... or Bombay potatoes with paneer; a little obvious perhaps, but tasty nevertheless.

Serves 2-3

3 potatoes, peeled and cut into thick chips

A palm-sized block of paneer, cubed

3 tomatoes, peeled and diced

(For this I tend to extract the tomatoes from a tin of plum-peeled ones as the skin’s already been removed and they become sauce-like that little bit faster)

Vegetable oil and a knob of butter

A teaspoon each of mustard seeds, ground cumin, ground fenugreek, ground coriander, ground ginger, paprika and half a teaspoon of turmeric (though obviously you can uses whatever curry-type spices you like)

Salt, pepper

Juice of half a lime

A few handfuls of spinach (optional)

Put the potatoes in a pan with a pinch of salt and cover with cold water. Place the pan on a high heat, bring to the boil and simmer until the spuds are just short of cooked. Drain and set to one side.

Put a small frying pan on a high heat and pour in a little oil. Add the cubes of paneer and fry for a couple of minutes on each side; you may want to do this in batches depending on the size of your frying pan. Once the outsides are golden brown and crispy (rather like cooked halloumi), remove the cubes from the pan and place to one side.

Put a wok (or a large frying pan) on a high heat and let it get screaming hot. Pour in a few generous glugs of oil and add the mustard seeds. As soon as they start to pop, turn the heat down a little and add the butter, followed by the rest of the spices. Allow the spices to fry in the melted butter for about a minute, stirring constantly, until you have an aromatic, nutty brown paste.

Turn the heat up again and throw the potatoes into the wok, toss to make sure they’re coated in the spicy butter then fry for a couple of minutes. Add the tomatoes, stir, then let everything cook until the potatoes are fully tender and coated in thick, spicy tomato sauce; on a high heat this won’t take long.

Add the cubes of cooked paneer to the pan for the last minute of cooking to allow them to re-heat a little. Take the pan off the heat, squeeze in the lime juice and season to taste. If you’re using spinach, tear it in now; once it’s wilted the dish is ready.

#scotland #student #food #Experimental #aberdeen #cheese chips chilli sauce #cooking #cheese #chips #curry #paneer #Dinner on a plate

Macaroni Pie Experiment #3: Pizza (?)

This is the stuff. It occurred to me that one of the main challenges to this whole experiment is the fact that any dish which contains both pasta and pastry is always going to be a little over the top; I suppose that’s sort of obvious. In that respect this version wasn’t as subtle as the Greek one (see below) but it tasted really good and could certainly serve a purpose; I ate one in the late afternoon and was in no way hungry for the rest of the day.

A couple of mugs full of orzo pasta (or any other small pasta)

2 eggs

Zest of a lemon

A big pinch of pepper

A couple of handfuls of grated parmesan

4 heaped tablespoons (probably about 150g) of ricotta

A little handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

A hefty amount of green pesto

A little ball of mozzarella

1 250g block of ready-made puff pastry

Pre-heat your oven at 220°C.

In a large bowl combine the eggs, lemon zest, pepper, parmesan, ricotta and cherry tomatoes.

Cook the pasta in salted boiling water until it’s cooked but retains a slight bite. Drain in a sieve then run the pasta under cold water to cool it down; you don’t want it to be in any way hot or it might start the eggs cooking prematurely. Stir the pasta into the egg and cheese mix.

On a floured work surface, roll the pastry out into a sheet a bit less than half a centimetre thick and cut it into four roughly equal squares.

Put a spoonful of pesto in the middle of each square and spread it out a little, so that it’s surrounded by about an inch of clean pastry on all sides. Spoon a generous amount of the pasta and cheese mix onto each of the pesto splodges. Tear little bits off of the ball of mozzarella and press them into the tops of the pasta-cheese mounds. Dollop on a little more pesto.

To close the parcels, take hold of a corner of one of the squares and fold it over the mound of pasta and cheese, then fold its opposite corner over the top of it. Do the same with the other two corners, then pinch the sides so that they’re roughly sealed. You might want to brush the undersides of the folds with a little beaten egg so they stick together; I forgot to do this and the parcels bloomed somewhat spectacularly in the oven. Mind you, depending on how much filling you put in there that might happen anyway.

Place the parcels on an oven tray covered with a sheet of baking parchment, brush the tops with a little olive oil then put them in the oven until the pastry is puffed up and golden brown. It’s good to let them cool down a little before you get stuck in; if you like them hot then you can give them a quick blast in the oven later.

#aberdeen #scotland #student #food #macaroni pie #Experimental #experimental pie #recipe #pastry #pizza

Digression

Hello. This has nothing to do with food, but I wrote a couple o'short stories and some people have obligingly published them on their short story related websites; links below. One of the stories has a sandwich in it so it's sort of relevant.

http://thepygmygiant.com/2012/04/29/andres-posada/ http://www.nftu.co.uk/2012/04/30/beard-by-max-brown/

Anyhow, doing another pie experiment this evening, so do please check back soon.

Cheese, chips and chilli sauce #1

This seemed like the logical next step. It tasted interesting, like a sort of monstrously spicy potato lasagne, but it’s an idea in need of some refinement. A couple of slabs of it went very well with veggie sausages so I imagine it’d also go well with normal ones, though I suppose that doesn’t necessarily follow. I’ve got a plan for another version of cheesy chips et al that should work better as a stand-alone meal, as well as being somewhat more presentable, although I must admit I rather like that this looks like a creature from the pink lagoon.

3 big potatoes, peeled

1 beetroot, peeled (optional)

Grated parmesan

For the chilli sauce

Olive oil

About a shot glass of balsamic vinegar

Sugar, salt, pepper

5 ripe tomatoes

3 scotch bonnet chillies (I used 4 and it was hot)

1 small red onion, peeled and quartered

For the cheese sauce

About 50g soft goat cheese

3 tablespoons of crème fraiche

A handful of grated parmesan

Juice of half a lemon

Lots of pepper

Pre-heat your oven at 200°C.

Prick the chillies with a fork and place them in an oven-proof dish with the whole tomatoes and red onion. Add the balsamic vinegar and a pinch each of sugar, salt and pepper. Drizzle liberally with olive oil, toss everything together then place in the oven for half an hour to forty minutes, or until the tomatoes are starting to burst out of their skins.

Meanwhile, use a vegetable peeler to cut the potatoes and beetroot into wafer thin discs. Throw these in a pan with a generous pinch of salt, cover with cold water and place the pan on a high heat. Bring to the boil and simmer until the potatoes are tender but not completely cooked; this probably won’t take too long given the thinness of the slices. Drain and toss them with a little oil to stop them from sticking together then put them to one side.

In a bowl, mix together the goat cheese, crème fraiche, parmesan, pepper and lemon juice until you have a rudimentary white sauce. It should be smooth and thick.

When the tomatoes are ready, remove the dish from the oven. Remove the skins from the tomatoes and the stalks from the peppers and discard. Pour the vegetables and the juices from the bottom of the dish into a food processor and blend into a sauce. If you don’t have a food processor, either finely chop everything or attack it with a potato masher; the sauce will be chunky but no less flavoursome.

Get yourself another oven-proof dish (or do as I did and re-use the one in which you roasted the tomatoes). Cover the bottom of the dish with a thin layer of the potato and beetroot discs. Pour over a ladle-full of the chilli sauce, moving the dish around a bit to make sure that the sauce is spread out evenly, then dollop over about a third of the cheese sauce. Repeat this process; you should have enough to create about three layers.

Put in the oven and bake until the sauce is bubbling around the edges then remove and switch on the grill. Liberally cover the top of the dish with grated parmesan, then place under the grill until a crisp, golden brown crust forms

#aberdeen #cheese chips chilli sauce #cooking #experimental #food #scotland #student #recipe

Macaroni Pie Experiment #2: Beetroot and Goat Cheese

Not too sure about this one. It tasted surprisingly similar to the macaroni pies that are available in shops, possibly because I decided to try using short crust pastry, but unfortunately I think the pastry was also the thing that let the dish down. Pasta and pastry is a risky combination at the best of times and the buttery richness of the short crust made the whole pie a little too stodgy; both I and my friend Helen (who also helped me roll out the pastry and put everything together) ended up with stomach aches. I think it was because of the pastry anyway.

Nevertheless, the pasta mix itself was good and well worth making; the rich cheese sauce enhances the natural sweetness of the beetroots whilst also serving to tone down the earthy flavour which some find objectionable. Admittedly though, its inclusion in this particular recipe is mainly due to the vibrant colour that it imbues.

2 medium-sized beetroots

2 tablespoons of butter

2 tablespoons of plain flour

About a pint of milk (you won’t need all of it)

A small mound of crumbled goat’s cheese

250g pasta (whichever kind you like; something similar in shape to macaroni, penne for example, makes portioning it up easier)

A big handful of breadcrumbs

A few pinches of dried herbs

A pinch of crushed chilli (optional)

For the pastry:

I can’t claim to have come up with my own recipe unfortunately; I used one from the food section of the BBC’s website. The short crust version may be to your liking, but I reckon puff would work better.

Pre-heat your oven at 200°C.

On a floured surface, roll your pastry into a sheet a few millimetres thick. Use oil or melted butter to grease an oven-proof dish, ideally one no more than an inch or so deep. Drape the pastry over the top of the dish, gently press it down and trim off any excess that hangs over the edge. Cover with a sheet of baking parchment which should you weight down with something; traditionally one would use baking beans but I found that a handful of pennies work just as well. Place the covered pastry in the oven and blind bake for around twenty minutes; it should be starting to become golden but by no means fully cooked. (I’m told that puff pastry doesn’t need to blind bake for as long as short crust.)

Peel and halve the beetroots, place them in a pan with a few pinches of salt and cover with cold water. Bring the water to the boil, then remove the beetroots and leave to one side. Cook the pasta in the purple water, draining when it is a few minutes short of done; it should still be a little on the chewy side. Toss with a little oil to stop it from sticking then put to one side also. If you’re short on time and not averse to multi-tasking you can cook the beetroots and pasta whilst you prepare the cheese sauce as opposed to beforehand.

Make the cheese sauce in the same way as described in the spinach and feta recipe (see below). When it’s ready take the pan off the heat, stir in the cheese, grate in the beetroot and season with a little salt and pepper. Pour in the pasta, mix well then pour the whole lot into the pre-baked pastry case. Place in the oven and bake for about twenty minutes until the sauce is bubbling around the edges.

Meanwhile, mix together the breadcrumbs, dried herbs (oregano is my favourite) and the chilli if using. Once the pie is ready remove it from the oven and turn on the grill. Sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture evenly over the top and then place the dish under the grill until the top turns a lovely golden brown colour.

#macaroni pie #student #cooking #food #experimental pie #recipe #aberdeen #scotland #dinner on a plate #beetroot goat cheese

Macaroni Pie Experiment #1: Feta and Spinach

I think this worked rather well. It’s worth using orzo if you can track any down; its rice-like texture makes you forget that you’re eating pasta, which is good because I think it’s the pasta/pastry combination that many find to be the objectionable aspect of macaroni pies, though I daresay there may be other factors. I’d also forgotten how soft and chewy and somewhat subtle filo pastry can be once it’s cooled down. For budgetary reasons I tend to buy supermarket brand ‘salad cheese’ as opposed to actual feta, but for this experiment I spent the extra 50ish pence and indulged in the latter, mainly because the former is usually a little rubbery and so doesn’t melt nearly as well.

Apologies for not providing a more comprehensive guide to handling filo but I’ve not quite got the hang of it yet; I found myself layering up numerous torn fragments of pastry, such was the difficulty I experienced in attempting to peel whole sheets off of the roll provided. Never mind though; most packets come with a frighteningly detailed set of instructions printed on the side so you can’t go far wrong.

Incidentally, I was unable to find filo pastry or orzo pasta in my local Sainsbury’s, which is strange as I would have thought that those were exactly the sort of items that Sainsbury’s would make a point of stocking. An independent Indian supermarket down the road (http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/1168/42747.php) put them to shame by having both.

½ pint of milk

A small onion (or half a big one)

A few cloves and peppercorns

A tablespoon of plain flour

A tablespoon of butter

200g feta

A handful of grated parmesan (optional)

About 200g orzo pasta (or another type of very small pasta)

Several handfuls of spinach

Zest of 1 lemon and a pinch of grated nutmeg

About 10 sheets of filo pastry

A substantial amount of melted butter

Pre-heat your oven at 200°C.

Peel the onion, stud it with the cloves and place in a small pan with the milk and peppercorns. Heat gently for five to ten minutes, making sure that the milk doesn’t start to boil (it’ll taste a bit manky if does). Take off the heat, remove and discard the onion, cloves and peppercorns and put to one side.

Cook the orzo in salted boiling water for about five minutes so that it’s just short of tender and retains a slight bite. While the pasta’s cooking, sit a sieve on top of the pan and steam the spinach in it. Once the spinach has wilted remove it to a bowl and toss it with the lemon zest, nutmeg and a little pepper then leave to sit in the fridge. Drain the pasta, toss it with a little olive oil and put it to one side in a covered pan or bowl.

Put a small saucepan on a medium heat and add the butter then the flour once the butter has melted. Mix these two together to make a roux then add the milk a little at a time, stirring constantly to prevent lumps from forming. When all the milk has been incorporated and the sauce is silky and a little runny, remove the pan from heat and crumble in the feta, along with the parmesan if you’re using it, stirring vigorously so as to produce a thick sauce. Retrieve the spinach from the fridge, give it a little squeeze to remove the excess water, and add to the cheese sauce. Tip the orzo into the sauce and mix everything together.

Get yourself an ovenproof dish at least a couple of inches deep and brush the inside with a little melted butter. Drape a sheet of filo over the dish and gently press it in, so that the pastry lines the dish and overlaps it by an inch or so all the way around. Brush more melted butter onto this sheet then place another over the top, repeating this process until you have layered up about five sheets.

Pour the pasta and cheese sauce into the dish, spreading it out into an even layer. Gather up the overlapping edges of the pastry and fold them inwards so that they embrace the sauce. Lay another five sheets of pastry over the top, remembering to brush each one with melted butter, trim off the overlap and tuck the edges into the dish. Bake for twenty minutes to half an hour, or until the top is golden brown and crispy.

#macaroni pie #experimental pie #aberdeen #student #scotland #recipe #cooking #feta #feta spinach #food #dinner on a plate

Reclaiming junk foods

Since reminiscing about the joys of home-made deep-fried pizza a few weeks ago (see below) I’ve been thinking: can certain foodstuffs typically thought of as gross and greasy and generally not fit for consumption outside of a chip shop at midnight be turned into dishes potentially suitable for any time of day (or at least dinner time)? It seems an experiment is an order.

I’ll be starting with the macaroni pie, one of my favourite things about Scotland. Watch this space...

#dinner on a plate #macaroni pie #experimental pie #food #cooking #aberdeen #scotland #student

Peasant's Pie

This was intended to be an approximation of shepherd’s pie, but essentially it’s a bean stew with mash spread over the top. I tend to avoid cooking vegetarian versions of certain things as seeking out an appropriate meat substitute for a dish that was designed with meat in mind is often a frustrating and somewhat unrewarding task; I find it far simpler to build a meal around ingredients I’m keen to use.

I included marmite and Worcestershire sauce as a nod to shepherd’s pie’s reputation as a rather naff English dish, something which is probably due, at least in part, to its presence on the vast majority of pub menus across the country. My mother was an enthusiastic upholder of the grand old English tradition of culinary tackiness; whenever she cooked spaghetti Bolognese for me and my sister she would always add a liberal quantity of dried mixed herbs in at the end and insist on serving it with grated cheddar cheese. And obviously we always referred to it as Spag Bol.

Having said all that, the marmite and Worcestershire sauce imparted a subtle, smoky flavour that I wasn’t expecting. I daresay this would even be acceptable to haters of marmite, though lord knows they’re difficult to persuade.

1 onion

A biggish carrot

A few sticks of celery

A couple of cloves of garlic

A carton of tomato passata

A decent-sized spoonful of marmite

A 400g tin of kidney beans (or any other bean you fancy)

Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco sauce

Salt, pepper

Juice of half a lemon

Olive oil

A few handfuls of grated parmesan (optional)

For the mash:

Half a swede (or, if available, a small one)

A couple of potatoes

A few carrots

(Basically roughly equal quantities of each)

Butter, salt and pepper

Peel the swede, potatoes and carrots and cut them into rough chunks before placing them in a pan and covering with cold water. Put the pan on a high heat, bring to the boil and simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes, until the vegetables are tender.

Meanwhile, place a deep frying pan on a medium heat. Peel and finely chop the onion, carrot and celery (obviously you won’t have to peel the celery). Add a splash of oil to the pan, throw in the vegetables and fry for a few minutes. Peel and finely slice the garlic and add it to the softening vegetables.

When the onions have become soft and translucent pour in the passata and dollop in the marmite, stirring to make sure that it disperses. Allow everything to begin bubbling then add the drained kidney beans and several generous lugs of Worcestershire sauce. Simmer until you have a thick sauce-like consistency, then turn off the heat and add the lemon juice and Tabasco sauce; season to taste.

Drain the vegetables then mash thoroughly, add salt, pepper and as much butter as you dare. Pour the bean sauce into a shallow oven-proof dish and spoon the mash over the top, using a fork to spread it out into an even layer. Scatter over the grated parmesan and place under the grill until the top is golden brown.

P.S. 'Peasant's pie' is probably a bit of a rubbish name; I'd be open to suggestions.

Beer-battered on the left, bread-crumbed on the right (awful vegetarian haggis lurking behind)

About deep-fried pizza

Shortly after I accepted my place at Aberdeen, a friend of mine’s older brother, who also went to university here, told me that I’d find deep-fried slices of pizza being sold in all of the fast food outlets around town; a rather exciting prospect, or so it seemed to me. In the weeks following my arrival I scoured the chip shops and greasy spoons of Aberdeen, accompanied by a handful of new-found friends who were also intrigued by the idea, but to our collective disappointment the search proved unsuccessful (apparently it’s more of a ‘Glasgow thing’). Undeterred, we resolved to make it ourselves.

Using the cheapest available oven pizza, which seemed suitably ‘authentic’, we spent an evening attempting to discover the best method of preparation. The experiment had three main phases: regular batter (i.e. flour and water), beer batter, and bread-crumbing, with the last of these yielding by far the best results. I’ve since had the chance to sample deep-fried pizza as produced by a chip shop and I think our bread-crumbed version was somewhat superior. Admittedly this is generally the feeling one has about homemade things, but nevertheless I would strongly recommend that anyone who has ever tried it, or had their curiosity aroused by its presence on a chip shop menu, have a go at making it themselves. Possibly you’ve sampled it in the past and found it perfectly acceptable, but still feel it to be one of those things that would be bizarre and revolting outside of a chip shop context (the macaroni pie springs to mind here); even so, I assure you that the tried and tested formula of taking any foodstuff, dunking it in batter and sticking it in a fryer for a minute or so doesn’t do the deep-fried pizza justice.

It could be said that deep-fried pizza is ‘meant’ to be liberally battered and served with chips in a polystyrene box, given that it belongs to that host of lovely greasy things, practically a food group in itself, that seems so desirable when you’ve had a few, and there’s probably some truth in this; when I was a meat-eater I wouldn’t have dreamt of making a bacon sandwich with anything other than white bread or serving it with anything more upmarket than ketchup- certain things work best when they’re done ‘right’. That being said, the homemade bread-crumbed version, with its contrast of crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside, is really surprisingly good, especially if you first cook the pizza in the oven then let it rest in the fridge so that the cheap rubbery cheese gets revitalised as it’s plunged into the hot oil.

Seeming as we had a pan full of hot oil at our disposal we passed the rest of that evening happily deep-frying whatever could be found to deep-fry, and it’s amazing how many different things are suitable if you’re in the right frame of mind; kiwi fruit works particularly well, its tartness offset by the frying process so that you’re left with something that tastes rather like a nugget of cheap but cheerful apple pie.

Incidentally, since our fruitless search over two years ago a few of the chip shops of Aberdeen have now started serving deep-fried pizza slices. Are we trendsetters? It’s not for me to say...

#dinner on a plate #student #scotland #aberdeen #recipe #cooking #experimental #deep fried pizza

The kings of things made from chickpeas. Except perhaps houmous

Falafel (makes about 12)

It took me a while to get the hang of making falafel. No matter how thin I made them and how long I cooked them for, they would always end up completely uncooked in the centre. I eventually found out (though I can’t remember who from) that falafel is traditionally made from chickpeas that have been soaked in water but not cooked beforehand. It seems that this is the key. The first time I tried making them with this method they came out as near to perfect as I’ve ever managed. As long as you don’t make the falafel too big they should cook quickly and evenly all the way through. They’re best if you allow them to rest a little before serving, so that they’re warm as opposed to piping hot.

About 400g dried chickpeas

A level tablespoon of cumin seeds

1 small onion

2 fat cloves of garlic

A handful of flat lead parsley

A teaspoon of smoked paprika

Olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

Salt, pepper

Vegetable oil

Soak the chickpeas in cold water for at least 12 hours.

Drain then smash them into a course grainy paste. The quickest way to do this would be in a food processor, but if you’ve not got one then a pestle and mortar (or indeed a mixing bowl and something heavy and blunt) would work just as well, though you may need to smash the chickpeas in batches. Once smashed, place the chickpea paste in a biggish bowl.

Toast the cumin seeds in a hot dry pan until they’ve darkened and their scent has begun to waft around the kitchen then add them to the chickpeas. Finely chop the onion, garlic and parsley and add them to the chickpeas along with the paprika. Season with salt and pepper, squeeze in the lemon juice and then use a fork to roughly bring everything together, adding several lugs of olive oil to loosen the mixture and make it easier to stir. Once everything is incorporated, cover the bowl and leave the mix to rest in the fridge for at least half an hour.

When you’re ready to start cooking, half fill a medium-sized saucepan with vegetable oil and put it on a high heat. A good trick is to leave a little nugget of raw potato floating in the oil; when it has become golden brown that means the oil is sufficiently hot. Divide the mix into tablespoon-sized lumps and use floured hands to form them into balls. Cook them in batches (no more than five at a time) until the outside is a deep golden brown colour, then leave them to rest on layers of kitchen towel for a few minutes. Serve whilst they’re still warm, preferably with flat breads (see below) and some kind of crunchy salad.

Flat breads

This is a good all-purpose flatbread that can be knocked up easily and quickly. You can wrap them around falafels, kebabs and pretty much anything cooked on a barbeque. They can also serve as tortillas when putting together a burrito spread. You needn’t worry about exact amounts here, let the amount of people eating and your collective level of hunger be your guide. It’s really just a question of gradually mixing water into flour until a dough forms, though a big handful of flour per person may be a good starting point. If you’ve got any leftover it’ll sit happily in the fridge for a couple of days, or you could stick it in the freezer until you next need it. Also, plain flour mixed with a few spoonfuls of baking powder will work just as well if you’ve not got any self raising flour at your disposal.

Self raising flour

Salt

Oil

Warm water

Sift a fair amount of flour into a mixing bowl, mix in the salt and make a well in the centre. Fill the well with warm water and pour in a little oil. Combine by using a fork to gradually bring the flour into the middle, adding more water if necessary, until you have a smooth dough. You’ll probably end up putting the fork to one side and working the mixture with floured hands once it reaches a certain thickness. When ready, wrap in oiled cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for about half an hour before using.

I generally divide the dough into balls and roll each one out into a circle no more than a few millimetres thick. Rub a little oil onto each side and cook them one at a time in a hot dry frying pan for about five minutes. Turn them over half way through cooking to ensure both sides become blistered and golden brown.

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