Ratatouille

Ratatouille

Serves 4

Preparation time: about 40 minutes

- 1 onion, sliced thin

- 2 garlic cloves, minced

- 5 tablespoons (75 mL) olive oil, divided

- One 12-ounce (340-g) eggplant, scrubbed, quartered lengthwise, and cut into thin slices

- 1 small zucchini, scrubbed, quartered lengthwise, and cut into thin slices

- 1 red bell pepper, chopped

- 12 ounces (340 g) small ripe tomatoes, chopped coarse (about 11/4 cups or 300 mL)

- 1/4 teaspoon (1 mL) dried oregano, crumbled

- 1/4 teaspoon (1 mL) dried thyme, crumbled

- Pinch, ground coriander

- 1/4 teaspoon (1 mL) fennel seeds

- 3/4 teaspoon 4 mL) salt

- 1/2 cup (125 mL) shredded fresh basil leaves

1. In a large skillet, cook onion and garlic in 2 tablespoons (25 mL) of the oil over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is softened.

2. Add the remaining oil and heat over moderately high heat until it is hot but not smoking. Add eggplant and cook the mixture, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes, or until the eggplant is softened.

3. Stir in zucchini and bell pepper and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, for 12 minutes.

4. Stir in the tomatoes and cook the mixture, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

5. Stir in oregano, thyme, coriander, fennel seeds, salt and pepper to taste and cook the mixture, stirring, for 1 minute. Stir in basil and combine the mixture well. The ratatouille may be made 1 day in advance, kept covered and chilled, and reheated before serving.

Toad in the Hole

Ingredients

4 to 6 best quality pork sausages, depending on the size of your oven tray,

100g Plain flour (yes, NOT self raising and no added raising agents),

225ml Whole Milk,

¼ tsp Salt,

3 Eggs, Medium or Large

4 tbsp vegetable oil, or any high temperature flavourless oil

Optionally rosemary 

Equipment

A glass roasting tray (or steel, I prefer glass for the higher thermal mass)

A balloon whisk, preferably an electric one

Method

Cook the sausages, not too dark as they're also going in the oven for half an hour, and set aside, I usually cook a packet the day before. Plain pork or Cumberland are best.

Set the oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas 7 and place the roasting tray in the centre of the oven, do not add the oil yet.

Into your mixing container (I use a 1 litre measuring jug) put the flour and the salt in it, stirring the salt into the flour.

Next, make a well and break in the 3 eggs whole, add a splash of milk and whisk until smooth. 

Now you whisk while slowly adding the rest of the milk, whisk very well.

Leave the batter to come up to room temperature or prepare the bought before and let it rest for 24 hours. More resting tastes better but give it an hour at least. 

Once the oven is good and hot, add the oil and put it back in the oven. Optionally add your rosemary.

This needs 5 to 10 minutes to come up to high temperature.

Once ready, remove from the oven, remove the rosemary if using, and, with tongs, add the sausages. If it's hot enough it'll snap and pop, don't let it bite you. 

Take the battery and pour it evenly throughout the tray, it should snap again.

Place the tray back in the centre of the oven and cook for 30 to 35 minutes. 

The exact time will be about this but vary slightly depending on local water, flour, eggs, etc. 

At 30 minutes open it up and have a quick look, once medium dark and toasted it is ready. 

Serve immediately with rich mashed potato (riced or pureed with lots of butter and well seasoned with salt to taste, if you want to add pepper, use white pepper), some green vegetables and a good onion gravy.

The Room at the End of Time.

I have a thought experiment that I wrote for myself when I was young, about 11 or 12.

I've never met anybody who can give me the answer (well, my answer, although I've never met anybody who didn't just look confused, maybe I've not yet asked the right question) 

It goes something like this. 

For the assumption that the room you are in is the entire universe, it is the end of time, you share the room with one other. 

You are the last two. Of anyone.

There is no supernatural, there is no life after death.

You are in the room, you both are sitting on a sofa, watching television.

You are the one on the left side.

...

You have just died, painlessly, of old age, ceased, the conscious physical structure present in you stops.

It happened instantly, no time to even blink or form a thought.

Here's the question. 

Who are you now?

Reset the experiment.

The two are now three.

You are in the center seat this time, with the two to your left and right.

Again you die.

Who are you now?

Reset the experiment.

Three are now a city.

You sit in your apartment, solitary. 

A million people bustle around you.

Again you die. 

Who are you now?

AI Pizza

My first time ever making pizza with AI (artificial intelligence) 🍕🤌!

@birramorettiuk have challenged me to put AI to the test and prove how Italian it can be!

I’ve had a longer-than-expected conversation with AI 🤖 on how I can live Italian within the UK and as stereotypical as it sounds, the points that came across were as expected. Yes! We really do care about our pizza and our friends are massively important ….. It was not wrong 🙂

Find the AI pizza recipe below if you want to give it a try, I promise you, I didn’t mess with it too much 😁

Ingredients:

500 gr bread flour (medium strong)

15 gr salt

10 gr sugar

4 gr fresh yeast

310 ml still water

10 ml olive oil

750 gr tinned tomatoes

2 sprigs basils

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 tbsp dried oregano

25 ml olive oil

250 gr mozzarella

Salt & pepper to taste

First melt the yeast into the water and then knead all the ingredients together. This is a fundamental step as the salt can attack the fresh yeast and it will not melt al all.

Once smooth & elastic let the dough proof in a bowl covered with a cloth and brush a little oil on the surface to make sure it does not dry out.

The dough needs to proof for a couple of hours to doubled in size and if you make it the day before or in the morning, simply let it proof in the fridge.

Now, gently stretch and flat the dough out to the length of the baking tray. Try to not knock out all the air from the dough. At this stage, let it proof again for about 45 minutes.

When the time is up, lightly oil your hands and press/stretch the dough one final time to make sure it covers the length of the tray.

Mix all the ingredients for the sauce and season to taste. Don’t be shy with the seasoning 🤌.

Spread the seasoning onto the pizza, remove the basil and garlic if you’d like and Bake at 220 C for about 14 minutes or until the pizza starts to color on the top and the bottom looks lightly golden too. This last step was not suggested by AI, it’s a personal touch, at this stage I like to let the pizza slide onto a baking rack, spread the diced mozzarella on top and bake again until the mozzarella has nicely melted.

#BirraMorettiAI #liveitalian #pizza #friends #italianstyle

Slow Cooker Beef Bolognese

Equipment

• A 6.5 Litre (6.9 US Quarts) Slow Cooker
• A Hand Blender
• A Lidded Saute Plan
• 8 to 10 plastic freezer tubs
• An automatic timer plug

Ingredients

• Oil for frying (I use Rape, any good high temprature oil will do)
• 4 x 400g (14oz) Cans of Peeled Italian Plum Tomatoes
• 140g Double Concentrate Italian Tomato Puree
• 2 Beef Stock Cubes
• 1/2 Bottle of GOOD red wine (Merlot or Rioja are best, certainly something full bodied)
• 1/2 tsp Oregano
• 1/2 tsp Rosemary
• 1/2 tsp Basil
• 4 Medium Onions
• 4 Large Carrots
• A Head of Celery
• A Half or a Whole Bulb of Garlic (your choice)
• 1kg (just over 2lb) 12% fat Beef Mince
• 4 Bay Leaves
• 1 or 2 Jars or Cans of crushed tomatoes (optional, adds to the texture)
• 2 Punnets of Mushrooms (optional)

Method

Into the slow cooker put the tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, beef stock cubes, red wine, oregano, rosemary, basil. Now blend very smooth with the stick blender. Switch the slow cooker on, set it to high and close the lid.

Peel, roughly chop and fry the onions, carrots, celery and garlic. Once they have softened and browned a bit, tip into the slow cooker and again blenmd it smooth.

Fry the mince, breaking up all the lumps, turn it down and reduce some of the liquid. Tip the mince AND the juice (never throw this away) into the slow cooker and stir

Add the bay and crushed tomatoes and stir

Quarter the mushrooms and fry, put the lid on the saute pan. Wait 5 minutes for the water to come out of the mushrooms. Remove the lid and continue to fry gently until the water is reduced down to a dark liquer. Tip the mushrooms AND the liquer (never throw this away) into the slow cooker and stir.

Clap the lid on the slow cooker and leave it on high. Check every hour, once it's good and hot and bubbling, turn it down to low. At this point I conenct the timer plug and set it to run for 4 hours on low and go to bed. The next morning I unplug the slow cooker and move it to one side. This is the important bit. Leave it to cool until the evening. At this point it should be about 24 hours since you started. Now you ladle it into my plastic tubs for the freezer. I make labels with the contents and the date (month/year) using masking tape and freeze, switching the freezer to quick freeze.

Thats it, defrost and then reheat on a stove, serve with spaghetti (I prefer linguine) and garlic bread.

Curry Pie (Serves 4)

Ingredients

500g Beef Mince

4 Baking Potatoes

2 Large Onions

3 Carrots

1 tbsp Mustard

100ml Milk

4 tbsp butter

250ml good beef stock (use a whole stock cube even though it's only 250ml)

1 tbsp Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper

4 tbsp Pataks Vindaloo Paste

Optional: misc fixed vegetables, frozen mixed veg is fine, use fresh of you can

Optional: Thickening granules if your filling isn't thickening up well

Method

1 Preheat oven to 180°C (170°C fan)

2 Peel, chop and boil potatoes 

3 Peel, chop and fry the carrots and onions in the olive oil and the Vindaloo Paste

4 Add the mince, stir and cook

5 Add the water

6 Drain and mash the potatoes with the milk, butter and mustard (use a potato ricer of you can)

7 Reduce the filling over a medium heat, thicken with thickening granules as needed

8 Season with salt and pepper, tasting as you go, until the flavours are enhanced but before it tastes salty

9 Assemble pie and cook in oven for 20 minutes or until browned, when ready, brown under grill if necessary

Serve with courgettes

Really Dumb But Really Good Chicken Fajitas

Some made up nonsense I used to use up a packet sauce, chicken and salad that needed eating up

Ingredients

2 large chicken breasts, in long thin strips

2 bell peppers, I like green and red, also long 'n thin

1 medium large brown onion, sliced into thin half rings

1 or 2 packets of Levi Roots Jerk Coat 'n Cook sauce

A bag of mixed salad leaves

Small bunch of coriander, chopped

5 or 6 corn or wheat wraps/tortilla

A Tex-Mex dip selection

Cooking oil of choice

Optionally, more salad like baby plum tomatoes, cucumber, pickled gherkin or spring onions, all finely sliced

Utensils

1 oven tray with at least 1 cm of lip

Method

Combine in the oven tray or a separate bowl the chicken, peppers, onion, packet sauce(s) and a few glugs of your cooking oil to this tier sauce our slightly

Line the oven tray with kitchen foil

Transfer contents into the oven tray

Cool in a pre-heated oven at 190°C for 25-30 minutes

With you're happy with how cooked it is, remove from the oven, turn the foil into a pouch to keep it warm and put aside

Heat your tortillas slightly in a microwave

On your board or a plate, place a warm tortilla

Lightly coat the inside of it with your choice of dips

Spoon the chicken mixture in a line from the top to the bottom of the tortilla

Repeat with the salad, coriander and optional salad you chose, if any.

Perpendicular to the chicken mix line, pull the tortilla over the line, 3 or 4 cms worth

Now roll the left and right 'edges' up and over the mix, getting tight and straight

Flip it over so the weight pins the wrap in place

Hand it off on a plate to who's serving, optionally tie a ring of kitchen twine around it with a bow knot.

Serve with beer with lime in it.

Keeps for days in the fridge, chicken in its pouch, salad in a clip seal box or reseal the salad bag with an electric bag sealer (get one, they're fantastic), wrap the dips in cling field, wrap the wrap packet with cling film but don't store them in the fridge.