I had three egg whites left over from making ricotta gnocci last night, so this morning a frittata for breakfast seemed like a great way to use them up.
For two people, three egg whites plus two full eggs is about right.
Chop a small bell pepper and slice a purple onion, then throw them in a frying pan with a little oil and get them cooking until nicely softened and sweet.
Meanwhile beat your eggs with salt, pepper, grated parmesan * and torn, fresh basil
leaves. When the pepper and onion mix is ready, pour over the egg mix.
Cook until pretty firm and then sling under the grill to finish off - this is not for flipping like a pancake, or at least not first thing in the morning whilst still bleary eyed. Serve hot, in quarter slices with a tomato salad.
* - If you're vegetarian you can buy a cheese very similar to traditional parmesan but which is made without animal rennet. "Twineham Grange" is one brand but I'm sure there are others out there.
Mmm, I'm dribbling just thinking about this Indonesian / Malaysian delight. I made tons of the spice paste and we've had it twice this week without any complaints at the repetition. Whoever gave this dish to the world was a culinary genius and great pie philanthropist. Sadly, as that hero's name is lost to history, I will instead thank Rick Stein for his version of it, which forms the basis of this dinner.
It does take a little while to do all the chopping for the paste, and shallots always make me cry, so it's well worth making up a big batch and either freezing it for long term storage or popping it in the fridge and using it up over a month.
The paste
Heaped teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 nutmeg (grated)
Handful of peanuts
1 tsp sesame seeds
60g chopped shallots
25g chopped fresh ginger
40g chopped fresh galangal
1 tsp turmeric
3 lemongrass stalks, chopped up finely
20g chopped garlic
2 ordinary red chillies
2 really hot chillies (like birds eye, I used dried)
1 tsp shrimp paste
1 tbsp palm sugar
Juice of half a lime
1 tsp salt and 3 tbsp oil
I ended up having to add a tiny little bit of water just to get the mini-processor going, but it smoothed up perfectly after that. This is enough paste for 8 portions so, if you're cooking for two then use 1/4 of the paste, for four then 1/2 and so on.
The amounts below feed two people.
The dinner
Get a cup of rice on to cook, it doesn't really matter what kind you use. I used brown jasmine rice and it worked well.
Blanch a large handful of green beans by boiling them for a few minutes until cooked but still pretty firm, then holding them under cold water until cool. Also hard-boil a couple of eggs, to use as a topping later on.
Prepare a carrot cut into batons, a few sliced shallots, some garlic cloves and a couple of chillies. You'll also need a pack of prawns and/or a couple of peices of chicken, cut up into bitesized peices (thigh, breast, leg... it doesn't matter). Leftovers from a roast is fine too.
Get a spash of oil on to heat up and, if the prawns and/or chicken are raw, cook them through and put to one side. Add the carrots, shallots, garlic and chillies to the pan and cook for a few minutes before adding 1/4 of the spice paste. Cook for a couple more minutes then add the green beans, a big squeeze of tomato puree, a tbsp palm sugar and 2 tbsp soy sauce.
Lastly add the rice, prawns and/or chicken and make sure everything is well coated with the spicy mixture before adding a good handful of sliced spring onion. Serve up in bowls, topped with chopped egg, sliced cucumber and crushed peanuts.
Ok, so I'll admit that swiss roll doesn't immediately spring to mind when you think of Christmas, however it is an essential part of my trifle, so it has to be given a place.
It's a sort of sponge cake cooked in a very specific way, to ensure that it is light and flexible enough to roll without breaking. You will need an electric whisk for this.
Measure out 125g of caster sugar into a basin, pudding bowl or other heatproof vessel. Crack in 3 eggs and get out your whisk. Boil a saucepan of shallow water with a low trivet in and place the bowl over the top. Whisk and whisk and whisk until the mixture is pale and extremely light and fluffy looking, almost overflowing the bowl.
Remove from the heat and whisk for a bit longer, letting it cool down a bit. Measure out 125g of plain flour, seive it into the eggy mixture and gently fold it in, followed by a tablespoon of hot water.
Line a shallow baking tray with greaseproof paper, sprinkled with a little sugar, and pour the mixture in. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 200 degrees, depending on the thickness of your baking tray. Check on the poor thing: don't let it burn!
Lay a damp teatowel onto your worksurface with another sheet of greaseproof paper on top, again sprinkled with a little sugar. When the cake is done, quickly upend the cake onto the paper on the teatowel. Peel the used paper off the bottom of the cake (now the top).
Heat up some your favourite flavour jam in a saucepan, this will make it nice and easy to spread. Spoon or pour it onto the cake and use a knife to spread it all over. Since my Dad is diabetic, technically he shouldn't eat any swiss roll at all. However, that would be what happens in fantasy land, in the real world he will inhale it until the whole family shout at him, so I have used a bare scraping of jam to try to minimise the damage.
Roll the cake up towards you, using the teatowel to help grip it firmly and taking care not to break the sponge. The centre should be tightly rolled, the outer layers less so. Leave to cool, if you can, before eating slices off the two ends. The rest, at least in our house, belongs to the trifle.
Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post
Making custard sounds like a pain... it really isn't. The stuff you can buy in pots in the refrigerator section isn't terrible tasting, at least from some suppliers.
However, it doesn't hold a candle to the real thing and, when you make it yourself, you have a lot more control over where those eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla pods came from. It also tastes fabulous in a trifle...
Separate six egg yolks into a bowl and add 60g caster sugar and a tablespoon of corn flour (to help it thicken). Whisk up until thoroughly mixed.
Put 400ml of milk into a
saucepan with 120ml double cream and the seeds from a vanilla pod and
the pod casing. Gently warm until almost at a boil, but not quite.
Take
off the heat and slowly pour onto the eggy mixture, while constantly whisking. It's even easier if you have a kitchen helper to hold the bowl!
When it's all combined, pour it back into the saucepan and put back onto a low heat. Keep gently whisking over the heat until the custard thickens. Perfect!
Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post
This recipe is a real gem from the Abel & Cole cookbook. It can be on the table in under an hour and has a wonderfully moist, dense, almost cakey texture. It's very filling and, at least in my mind, contains two of your five a day!
First of all grate a squash of any kind, honestly I'm not even sure what kind of squashes I used, I think any barring the squat pumpkins you get at hallowe'en would be fine (the carving pumpkins are watery and fibrous, not really good eating).
I did enough to fill a teacup to overflowing, even with the gratings pressed down hard, which is probably about the same as the mugful suggested in the recipe.
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C.
In a large mixing bowl add the squash to a cup and a half of self-raising flour, a large pinch of salt, about half a cup of grated parmesan, lots of black olives (halved), a generous tablespoon of dried rosemary and lots of ground black pepper.
Using the (now empty) teacup, whisk up 2 eggs and a tablespoon of milk with a fork, then tip this into the dry mixture above. Mix with your hands until you have a sticky ball of dough.
Line a small baking tray with greaseproof paper and wipe with oil, then drop the sticky dough ball on top. Grate over some extra parmesan and sprinkle with flour. Bung in the oven for 45 minutes.
Leave it to rest for 10 minutes before you eat it; we had it for dinner with prociutto and a tomato and basil salad.
