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.

 

Potted Duck

I made a lot of my own Christmas presents this year, so haven’t been able to write about any of them for fear of ruining the surprise... My biggest success was the Spiced Apple Chutney, people loved it... jars were empty in minutes... and I forgot to write down the recipe in all of the manic cooking stress, so will probably spend forever trying to recreate it. Handmade Cardamom Chocolate Truffles and White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies... both good, I will write about them very soon. Homemade Granola, Florentines, Potted Duck and Bread and Butter Pickle all became part of hampers, so my relaxing week off work before Christmas was more like a hyperactive Martha Stewart programme on fast forward...

This week has been a little less manic, Druridge Bay on Christmas Eve was a beautiful relaxing walk. We came home for warm potted duck on toast and a Negroni. It was a one of my favourite meals, as well as the Roast Woodcock preceded by Duck Livers and Hearts on Toast on Christmas Eve eve... Christmas day was lovely, the duck were cooked perfectly, no one missed the turkey and everyone gave and received lovely presents. As you can tell we've not really held back on the food... that's for next week...

This takes a little bit of time to make, but is totally worth it. In short you confit a duck, shred it, then pot it. You seal the meat with a little layer of the cooking fat which can then be kept for a few months in the fridge.

I cut one whole duck in half, it was a smallish wild mallard, which weighed about 1.5lbs. Then cover it in a light layer of salt and leave it in the fridge for half an hour, this draws out some of the water from the bird. Brush off the salt when it is ready and preheat your oven to 150C.

Put the duck in a pot that it fits in snugly and pour over 350g of warm duck or goose fat. You want the fat to cover the duck. Add a bay leaf and a little bunch of thyme. Cook in the oven for 1.5 hours or until the meat is falling apart, it will take longer if your duck is bigger.

When it is done take it out of the fat and leave to cool, you can keep the fat in a jar in the fridge and use again, reserve a bit to pour over the top of the finished duck. Shred the duck meat into pieces and add some fresh thyme sprigs and some pepper. Melt 25g of butter and add the juice of ¼ lemon and the zest of quarter of a lemon to it, add this all to the meat. I then pulsed the whole mixture in a food processor a couple of times, just to break it down slightly, not much, you can just leave it as it is if you have shredded it quite finely.

Pack the meat into a jar or small pots and pour over a thin layer of the melted fat, just enough to cover, this will keep for a few months in the fridge. These amounts will serve about 6 people, I made one jar for a hamper and one little pot for myself and TLI to share.

You can eat it cold on toast, but my favourite way is to warm it through slightly in a low oven, serve on toast, scattered with capers and a pile of rocket and watercress. After a cold walk on the beach I couldn’t have enjoyed it more...

Skate, Capers and Bread

This is a very quick and simple dish to prepare, yet I would easily put it into the top five tastiest dishes I have ever cooked... Number one being woodcock, last autumn, on toast... I still think about it on a regular basis. In both cases the recipes have come from 'Nose to Tail Eating' by Mr. Fergus Henderson of St. John restaurant fame.

The last few times I have been down in London I have visited St. John Bread and Wine for a long afternoon lunch. I remember skate salad with lemon and capers, crispy sprats, langoustine in fennel, a bit too much white wine, cheese plates and a generally lovely afternoon. Especially when it is mid week and everyone else is at work... The St. John Hotel is the groups latest addition, opening recently on Leicester Street. It is definitely next on my list for a visit. I hear they serve dinner till 2am and there is suckling pig to share on the menu. I'm going to look into trains right now...

Last weekend we picked up some skate wings, kippers and mussels from Seaview in North Shields, and the first thing to get some attention was the skate. You will need to ask the fishmonger to skin the skate wings on both sides. To start you will need a frying pan that can go in the oven. I didn't have one so used a large casserole type dish which was fine. Melt a splash of oil and a knob of butter in the pan and add the 2 skate wings when it is hot and bubbling. Let it cook for a few moments, shuggle (a St. John description, I knew exactly what they meant...) the pan to stop the fish from sticking, then turn for another few moments and shuggle again.

Transfer the skate to a hot oven for eight to ten minutes. The skate is done when the flesh comes away from the bone easily when you prod it with a knife. Transfer the skate to a hot plate and cover with foil.

Add 200g of butter to the skate pan to melt, when it is sizzling add about twelve 2cm croutons of day old bread, with the crust removed. I used 2 day old sour dough, it worked perfectly. Fry them in the butter until golden and crisp but still springy in the middle. Add the juice of half a lemon until it sizzles and turns brown, then add a small handful of capers and cook for a minute. Finally add a handful of chopped curly parsley and pour everything over the skate wings straight away.

Serve with a crisp salad with a sharp lemon and mustard dressing.

Marinated mozzarella salad and Roast pepper, watercress and Manchego salad

Mothering Sunday, or 'Mam's day' as Clinton Cards referred to it in their Newcastle stores, is a nice excuse to cook something for my mum who cooks for everyone else all of the rest of the time. It was a tough brief; healthy, but not too little food for the father, quick to prepare, the sister had to go to work, but tasty and impressive... I decided on a free range roast corn fed chicken with some loose crushed garlic thrown inside, some new potatoes, and two lovely salads from the Ottolenghi book that I hadn't made before. It was a lovely sunny day, with occasional torrential rain, otherwise I think it could have been nice enough to sit outside.

I forgot my mother's day card too, so was off to a good start...

The first of the salads was a marinated pepper, watercress and manchego salad.

Start by chopping 2 yellow and 2 red peppers into quarters, remove the seeds and stalks and put them in a baking tray. Splash a bit of olive oil and salt over them and put them in the oven for half an hour at 190°C. Give them a shake around once or twice and take them out when they are softened and a bit browning. Set them aside in a bowl covered with cling film, this will help their skins come off.

While they are cooking make the dressing. Pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a bowl, add 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon of water, the leaves of 3 sprigs of thyme, a thinly sliced clove of garlic and a teaspoon of muscovado sugar. Whisk it all up together.

When the peppers have cooled a bit peel away their skins and put them all in the dressing and leave to marinate. Leave them for at least an hour, or overnight if you can. I was a bit short on time so didn’t leave them quite long enough, it was still very tasty but I knew it could have been even better.

Scatter a bag of watercress into a big salad bowl. Chop a big handful of basil and a big handful of parsley and mix it through the watercress. Then finely slice some manchego or pecorino cheese in amongst the leaves. Scatter over a load of tiny capers and then place your peppers over the top, mixing them into the leaves a little. Finally pour over some of the dressing.

To go alongside this I made a marinated mozzarella salad with tomatoes.

Tear a ball of mozzarella into small pieces and put it in another big salad bowl. Shred a big handful of basil into thin slices, along with a small amount of sliced oregano and add to the bowl with the grated zest of one lemon. At the same time toast a teaspoon of fennel seeds in a dry pan for a few minutes until they start to brown, when they are done crush them in a pestle and mortar, and add to the mozzarella. Crush a small clove of garlic and chop it very finely and add this with a big glug of olive oil, salt and pepper. Mix everything up and let the mozzarella sit for about 20 minutes.

Finally add some torn up cherry tomatoes, make sure you get ones that are as tasty as possible, if they smell of nothing they are likely to taste of nothing, so start sniffing them in the supermarket...

Chicken, bacon and caper pie

I went out for martinis last night, to Popolos in Newcastle. We were celebrating the American's engagement; The Little Idiot, the Blonde, Boozer and Greggles were all in attendance and it was a very good night. We started with violet martinis, which taste of parma violets and are pretty much just vodka. They are dangerous, but delicious... We then moved on to apple martinis, which may explain feeling a bit fuzzy this morning. It's a good job we'd had a lovely big bowl of seafood pasta and warm bread at Greggles and the Blonde's before we started on the cocktails.

I am finding sustenance in left over chicken pie after having already had a walk to town, a look at the Sunday market on the Quayside and a wedding fayre at The Baltic this morning. I'm exhausted already but at least there was free cake...

The Little Idiot and I spent Friday evening making chicken pie. The recipe was from Beyond Nose to Tail by Fergus Henderson and Justin Piers Gellatly. Their restaurant St. John is one of my favourite place to go when I'm down in London. The recipe is actually for Chicken and Ox Tongue pie, but ox tongue proved hard to get hold of after work on a Friday, so we adapted it to suit. I'll tell you the version we made.

Poach a whole chicken in a large pot with a chopped leek, a few cloves of garlic, a chopped onion and some peppercorns. Let it simmer for 45 minutes. Keep the stock for other things it's delicious. They often poach meat in this book and it makes for a delicious pie, the meat is really juicy and tasty compared to roasting it.

While the chicken is poaching slice 2 onions into chunky rounds and cook them in a knob of butter 'until totally submissive'. About half an hour we found. Then fry off 5 or so slices of streaky bacon after the onions in the same pan.

Remove the chicken from the bone and cut it all into pie-size chunks. Mingle the chicken, onions and bacon all together in your pie dish.

Now make the white sauce. Melt a knob of butter in a pan and add a handful of plain flour, stir for a few minutes. Don't let it colour but let it cook a little until it smells biscuity. Start to whisk in the whole milk. The recipe asks for 1.2 litres of whole milk but we didn't actually use that much. I'd say about 800/ 900ml. Whisk it in a little at a time as it thickens and add a little of the chicken stock towards the end. You're aiming for a silky creamy sauce.

Add a big handful of capers to the sauce, extra fine ones if you have them. Season the sauce and then pour it over the chicken, bacon and onions.

The recipe is for puff pastry, but I accidentally bought shortcrust, it didn't make any difference, it was still delicious. You can make your own if you want, but the shop bought ready rolled sheets are very good. Place it over the pie and brush it with a beaten egg for a lovely golden pastry crust. Cut a cross in the centre of the pastry for the pie bird to poke through. This is Peter, our pie bird, I've been wanting to introduce him for a while... If you don't have a pie bird just leave a cross in the middle to let the steam out.

Bake it in a hot oven, about 190°C for 30 to 40 minutes. It really feels like you've achieved something with your own pie. A labour of love. This one was delicious.

1 whole free range chicken
1 leek
3 onions
4 cloves of garlic
a few peppercorns
2 knobs of butter
a handful of plain flour
800/900ml whole milk
a big handful of capers
1 sheet of puff or shortcrust pastry
1 egg beaten
salt and pepper