Beef Meatballs with Broad Beans, Lemon and Herbs

I spent some time in London last week... It was a flying visit to catch up on what was going on down there in shops, restaurants and galleries. Have a look at some new pop-ups, architecture, interiors, handbags... I was quickly calculating how many meals I could fit into the short time I was there. I loved Upstairs at the Ten Bells, my favourite of the weekend I think, elements of secret dining above a packed Spitalfields boozer, amazing food, lovely people, beautiful cosy dining room... tick.

Other highlights were Ducksoup in Soho, a seat in the window and a glass of red wine saw me in holiday mode pretty quickly. They had a turntable by the door, daily hand written menus and lovely booze list on wipe down white ceramic tiles - octopus with paprika and capers was great, a duck egg you had to peel with mayonnaise and sumac to dip was cute and tasty... Venison with potatoes, olives and aioli at the Canton Arms in Vauxhall hit the spot for lunch, and a piece of morcilla with soft red peppers and a little fried quail's egg at Morito would do me right just about now...

Before stuffing myself silly in London I had been immersing myself in Ottolenghi's book Jerusalem, much like every other food blog I read it seems. But these meatballs were just a bit too lovely to not tell you about for the sake of being different... Delicious fresh, lemony and herby, a nice contrast to my usual lamb meatballs, cooked in a lovely fragrant broth with broad beans, garlic and spring onions. Definitely my best Jerusalem experiment so far...

 

These amounts will serve 4 people. Start with the meat ball mix; 300g of minced beef and 150g of minced lamb, I got mine from Charlotte's Butchers, a cute little butchers newly opened in Gosforth. Add the mince to a bowl with a finely diced medium onion, 120g of breadcrumbs, 2 tablespoons each of chopped parsley, mint, dill and coriander. Add 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic, 1 tablespoon of ground cumin, 2 teaspoons of chopped capers, 1 beaten egg and 1 tablespoon on Baharat spice mix. You can buy this or you can make it...

 

I made myself a little jar by bashing together a mix of spices in a pestle and mortar: 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns, 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds, 1 small cinnamon stick, ½ teaspoon of cloves, ½ teaspoon of ground allspice, 2 teaspoons of cumins seeds, 1 teaspoon of cardamom seeds and ½ a teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Grind it all to a powder...

Roll the mix into meatballs the size of a ping pong ball and then fry them in batches in hot olive oil, until they are brown all over. I did mine in 2 batches for about 5 minutes each. Then remove them all from the pan and wipe it clean and add 2 tablespoons of fresh olive oil. Then sauté 4 sprigs of thyme, 6 cloves of garlic sliced and 8 spring onions cut into 2cm pieces for about 3 minutes. The recipe calls for 350g of blanched broad beans, half shelled and half unshelled, I couldn’t get any so added a tin of broad beans at this point. Also add 1 ½ tablespoons of lemon juice, 80ml of chicken stock, ¼ teaspoon of salt and lots of black pepper and cook for ten minutes on a low heat.

 

Return the meatballs to the pan and add another 420ml of chicken stock and simmer for 25 minutes. I found the meatballs soaked up a lot of the sauce so don’t worry if it seems a lot. You can also cook them to this point and reheat them later if needs be. Just before you serve them add a handful of chopped mint, dill, parsley and coriander, a tablespoon of lemon juice and a handful of fresh blanched peeled broad beans if you have them.

I served the meatballs with some steamed rice, they are delicious and sticky with a fresh tasty broth full of lemon and herbs. It is a lot of ingredients as Ottolenghi recipes often are, but is definitely worth the time and effort, I'll be making them again asap.

 

Broad Bean, Mint and Pomegranate Salad

The flood warnings didn’t put us off heading over to the Lake District this weekend. Having survived an epic storm and a flooded basement last week we shrugged at flood warnings and set off. There was another little guy along for the ride too, apart from TLI, Mr. Smokerson, my newly acquired smoker and firm friend; but more of him to come... My adventures in smoking have begun...

The weekend turned out to be warm and dappled in beautiful sunshine most of the time, apart from the bit when we were an hour from home up a deserted valley and the heavens opened. I thought it was snow at one point, but no, just huge, huge raindrops soaking us to the skin. Sheltering in the forest seemed a good idea at first; but when the rain stopped outside, we were still in the forest and the water falling from the trees continued to saturate us...

A few hours later I was sitting in the sun making a salad, it is a pretty funny kind of summer we're having... This salad is a little preview of sorts. I am hosting, alongside Carruthers and Kent wine merchants of Gosforth, a little food and wine evening. A taste of the Middle East with lots of different courses of sharing plates matched with different wines, I do the food, they do the wine. The event is part of the EAT Festival, which is currently in full swing. Our original date for the 19^th July sold out more or less straight away, so we have decided to do it again, on the Friday 27^th July. If you would like to come along you can find all of the details here.

This broad bean and pomegranate delight forms one half of the salad course, alongside a tomato, feta and tarragon salad with sumac dressing. As well as smoky dips, Moroccan breads, slow roast salted lamb, pistachio bombs, Lebanese reds, raki and more, it promises to be a lovely evening...

Shell and peel about 600g of broad beans and set them to one side. Then cut a pomegranate open and remove the seeds, you only need the seeds from one half, make sure you pick out all the skin. Finely slice 4 radishes and add them to the bowl with the pomegranate seeds. Remove the leaves from 4 sprigs of mint and finely shred them, add them to the bowl too. Then pick the leaves from 6 sprigs of parsley and add them whole.

Drop the broad beans into a pan of boiling salted water and blanch them for 2-3 minutes. Allow them to cool then add to everything else. At the very last minute dress everything with a glug of extra virgin olive oil and a splash of sherry vinegar. These amounts will serve 4 with other salads, or 2 as a larger portion.

It is a salad full of flavour, crunchy sweet pomegranate seeds, creamy smooth broad beans, peppery radishes and tons of herbs. We ate it in the sun alongside Mr. Smokerson, while he did his smoky thing with a piece of pork for 9 hours. I'm currently documenting the build, the smoking and the mistakes made...

Things on Toast

'Things on Toast' is what I eat when I'm tired and I don't really have any energy to cook. As in 'I can't really be bothered to make anything shall we just have 'things on toast'? A hunt through the fridge usually produces a couple of options; there's often some bacon lying around or chorizo or black pudding. Pork is always a welcome addition, eggs, stray vegetables, herbs... and the resulting meal is two little slices of toast, each with a different topping... It's actually one of my favourite meals, maybe not grand enough for weekend dining or guests, but a pretty lovely treat on a Tuesday in front of the TV... It began as cheese on toast, what better place to start, and has evolved, mainly over the past year, into a whole chapter of options...

One of the first guises of 'things on toast' was Lemony Courgettes, this was a Hugh recipe originally that I read in some supplement a long time ago. It is chopped courgettes cooked in olive oil, slowly, with a chopped clove of garlic added after about 10 minutes. Continue to cook them until very soft and a bit golden, then add lemon juice to taste, salt and pepper and a big handful of chopped mint... This is one of my favourites. The oil goes all green and lemony and delicious and soaks into the toast. I've also made a yoghurt with more chopped mint in it to dollop on the top in the past. This is probably the most complicated of my toast dishes.

Others include Bacon and Broad Beans on Toast. Fry diced bacon, blanch the beans, add the beans to the bacon pan with loads of chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon juice. That's one of the easiest ones...

The scrambled eggs are self explanatory, but a few tips I have picked up from Elizabeth David; don't add milk, just lightly beat the eggs with a pinch of salt, they are ready before you think they are... Add the eggs to a pan and heat, I then take them on and off the heat as I'm cooking as I'm so fearful of an overdone scrambled egg. Take them off the heat finally before you think they are done, when they are creamy but still loose and a little raw, and continue to stir in the pan until they are soft and silky. Top with fried chorizo chunks.

The Chorizo, Chestnut and Thyme Toast is a new one to the list. Chestnuts fried slowly in butter for five minutes, add some diced chorizo and fresh thyme leaves and fry until the chorizo has turned a little brown but not too crispy. Add to the top of the toast with all the juices.

Wild mushrooms, fried with butter and garlic and lots of chopped parsley... I was given some lovely hedgehog mushrooms in the Autumn, they were pretty special. Sometimes it is just a bit of black pudding, especially if it is a really good one. Puréed fresh blanched broad beans and peas with mint, salt and pepper and olive oil, toast, black pudding and bacon, anyone fancy? Or just the Black Pudding with Broad Beans and Mint... I loved the Duck Hearts on Toast and have since tried duck liver as well, fried in butter with a splash of chicken stock and balsamic vinegar, it is totally delicious and not nearly as scary as it sounds! The combinations are interchangeable, the end result is always tasty... I will continue to expand my things on toast repertoire over the coming year and get back to you with more ideas...

Broad Beans and Bacon on Toast

We had the Blonde and her fella over at the weekend, with Boozer too, we ate pork and broad beans; bacon and black pudding with a broad bean and pea purée, it was delicious. We ate pork and broad beans last week, and here I am cooking pork and broad beans again for supper... The theme will stop, I will tell you about other ingredients again after this I promise... Like the fact that I have ordered stuff to start making my own Homemade Salami this weekend. By 'stuff' I mean 3 spools of 38mm English hog casings to be precise, yes, intestines... I have been reading all types of different advice on how to go about making salami and I think I'm ready with a chosen method... I will keep you posted on how I get on, during construction and the end results... They will be ready in a month, I'm looking forward to it already and I haven’t even begun...

So as a result of left over bacon and my broad bean plants still rapidly producing pods I cooked up a simple supper that was pretty quick and easy to put together.

Start by podding the broad beans, about a handful per person. Blanch them in boiling water for 1-2 minutes if they are very fresh, longer if they are not. Remove and drain them and keep to one side. Chop 4 slices of unsmoked streaky bacon per person into small strips and add to a dry frying pan, it will produce its own fat so there is no need for oil. Fry until it is crispy and browning at the edges, then add the broad beans, the juice of half a lemon, some black pepper and cook for a minute longer.

Pour the beans, bacon and lemony juice over some toasted brown bread, I used an Irish wheaten loaf that I love, and finally add a large handful of chopped flat leaf parsley. I suppose you could call it beans on toast, only it is a bit tastier... The sweet soft beans with salty bacon, tart lemon and warming brown toast are delicious all together.

Chorizo, Broad Bean and Mint Risotto

While I've been off gallivanting around Cornwall the allotment has really come on. The cauliflowers are huge with tiny curds, the cabbages have come up, the wall of sweet peas is in full bloom. The broad beans are covered in pods, as are the peas and the runner and french beans have shot up their canes. The courgettes and squashes are coming along well, still small but surviving. It looks like a proper vegetable garden, I'm really quite pleased. There are still hundreds of weeds but I just keep on pulling them up over and over in the hope that one day I will be in control of them...

This is my first dish with my own broad beans, and you can really tell the difference, they are soft and sweet, compared to the big sometimes bitter supermarket ones. Broad beans love chorizo and vice versa, the mild sweet creamy beans go so well with the spicy salty sausage. So I decided on a simple risotto for the beans first outing. With shredded mint to finish, another great friend of the broad bean.

We listened to quite a lot of radio on our 15 hour round trip to Cornwall and back, part of which was Angela Hartnett on Radio 4 cooking red wine and chorizo risotto, I took her advice and made the simple risotto first and then topped it with the ingredients instead of cooking them through it.

Heat a pan of chicken stock through, I used about 600ml of stock reserved from poaching a chicken. I keep it in the freezer in old soup pots labelled with the type of stock and when I froze it. It makes me feel incredibly organised... my freezer is probably the most organised aspect of my life actually!

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil and add a finely chopped onion and a pinch of salt, cook until the onion is soft and sweet, add a finely chopped clove of garlic half way through. You don't want them to brown so keep them on a low heat. When the onions are ready turn the heat up a bit and add 200g of arborio rice, this is enough for a modest sized serving for two people, add a bit more if you're really hungry. Allow the rice to heat through with the onions, this starts its cooking process, after a few minutes add a glass of white wine or a small glass of vermouth. Allow the alcohol to bubble off for a few minutes before you start adding your stock. You then need to continue adding the stock a ladle at a time, stirring slowly as you go until all of the liquid has been absorbed. You want the rice to be creamy, but still have a slight bite to it. It will take about 20 minutes.

When it is almost ready blanch a couple of large handfuls of broad beans in boiling water. I only left mine for about 2 minutes as they were small and very fresh, some of the larger supermarket ones may take 4 or 5 minutes. Fry off about 150g of diced chorizo in a frying pan at the same time until it begins to crisp up.

Finally stir a handful of grated parmesan and a knob of butter through the risotto and ladle it into bowls. Divide the chorizo and broad beans over the rice, drizzling over a little of the cooking oil too. Then add a handful of shredded mint over the top of everything. It really is delicious, especially knowing they were my own broad beans planted from a few little seeds all those weeks ago.

Black pudding, Broad Beans and Mint

This isn’t really even a recipe, more just some tasty things gathered together to make a tastier thing, and it really is. Black pudding, mint and broad beans. That's all.

My broad beans are coming a long nicely, but not quite big enough to eat yet. I'll have to try this again when they are ready. They are such beautiful little things when you have taken them out of their sleeping bag furry pods. I think they look like little green aliens. I read that the Egyptians believed that when a person died his soul temporarily resided in a broad bean before passing into the next life. It made me smile.

Dry fry some cubes of black pudding. I got some from Donald Gilbert butchers in Gosforth, it was especially good. I am keen to try making my own some time, I think it's pretty messy and I'll have to look in to where I can buy gallons of blood... I'm going to start with my own salami and brasola first. I've been reading a lot about salting, curing and preserving and am going to make a start.

Fry the black pudding until it is crispy and dark brown on the outside and still soft in the middle. While it is frying boil the broad beans in an inch of salted water for 3 or 4 minutes, until they are tender, timing really depends on their size.

Then simply combine on a plate with some shredded fresh mint. The mint goes incredibly well with the black pudding, it's really delicious...