This Vietnamese Chicken Salad from Jill Dupleix really does have the essential flavours and kicks and yet takes less than half an hour to prep.
It tastes sensational, what with its simple nuoc cham relish undertone.
It has bite, it presents beautifully and it is crazy healthy.
Do a batch for your weekday lunches and live the good life!
Ingredients
2 chicken breasts 1 carrot, peeled 3 tbsp rice vinegar or lime juice 1 tsp sugar 1 garlic clove, crushed Sea salt and pepper 3 shallots, finely sliced Half a cucumber, peeled Dash of sesame or vegetable oil 1 tbsp Thai fish sauce 3 tbsp mint or coriander leaves ½ mild red chilli, finely sliced 2 tbsp roasted peanuts 1 lime, quartered
Method
Poach the chicken in simmering salted water for 20 minutes, then drain and leave to cool (or use left-over cooked chicken). Cut the carrot into 10cm sections, finely slice lengthwise then cut into matchsticks. Mix the vinegar or lime juice with the sugar, garlic, salt and pepper, toss with the sliced shallots and carrot and set aside for 10 mins.
Roughly shred the chicken. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and finely slice. Combine the chicken, cucumber, sesame oil, fish sauce, mint and chilli with the shallots, carrots and their dressing, and toss lightly.
Roughly crush the peanuts and scatter over the top. Serve with lime wedges.
It has been a while since I’ve had meatloaf and I wish it wasn’t after tonight’s dinner.
My mother used to cook the famous James Beard’s meatloaf when I was a kid and I loved it; plenty of peas, plenty of ketchup and if you were lucky, mash potatoes.
So why so long between drinks?
Maybe because meatloaf is so daggy? Maybe because it has a bad reputation thanks to the Simpsons? Because so many friend’s recall dry, unseasoned bricks of terror from their childhood?
Who knows?
But geez, a good meatloaf is heaven and this recipe is for a great one.
In fact at 231 calories a serve – for two generous slices – it is an awesome one.
Cooked up by Nat and in the oven whilst we went for a walk after work and served with – of course – peas and ketchup, I was in back in heaven and promising to become the King of Meatloaves.
I probably won’t claim that title with so much other great stuff to cook, though here is hoping.
(Nat adjusted a few ingredients to make it even fluffier and I have typed it up such.)
Ingredients
1kg extra lean beef 1 ½ cups passata ½ cup fresh breadcrumbs ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese ½ cup finely chopped onion ⅓ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley 1 tsp garlic powder ½ tsp dried basil ½ tsp dried oregano ½ tsp salt ¼ tsp black pepper 3 large egg whites Cooking spray
Method
Preheat the oven to 180c.
Combine the beef mince, 1 cup of passata and remaining ingredients except the cooking spray in a large bowl.
Shape the beef mixture into a loaf on a cooking tray lined with baking paper and lightly coated in cooking spray; or use a bread tin.
Brush remaining ½ cup of passata over the meat loaf.
Cook for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a thermometer registered 70c internally. Let stand for 10 minutes and then slice.
I cooked this dish some years back and it is truly outrageous.
It is from that iconic Sydney restaurant of the 90s, Banc; an exquisite restaurant, a bastion to the Packers, their bankers and advisers. It was Rodney Adler’s restaurant which should provide some idea of the whole establishment.
From time-to-time you need to do a blowout dish. A dish that is so far from the ordinary of weekday cooking.
You do it for the fun of preparing it, you do it because we all need a dollop of foie gras and truffle in our lives from time to time and you do it because it is a gift to anyone lucky enough to join you for the meal.
And lucky they are. The beef and foie gras is like butter. The potato galette is the last word on potatoes. And served with the creamed spinach, the truffle and that ‘OMG’ sauce… OMG.
The photo above is from the Banc cookbook. I include it to give you some idea of not only how you might plate this, but of just how special it is.
Ingredients
Beef 4 x 180gm fillets of beef (eye fillet) 4 thin slices of prosciutto, large enough to wrap around the beef fillet 4 x 15gm slices of foie gras (ask your partner to buy this and hide in shame around the corner) 20gm foie gras trimming (basically, more foie gras) ½ tsp chopped truffle 25ml (5 tsp) vegetable oil 4 slices of truffle Salt and freshly ground pepper 4 x Potato Galette
3 large potatoes, cut into cylinders 120gm clarified butter Salt and freshly ground pepper 160gm Creamed Spinach
1 ½ kg fresh spinach 1 diced shallot 1 clove garlic ½ cup cream 20gm butter Salt and freshly ground pepper 100ml (7 tbsp) Périgueux Sauce
20ml (4 tsp) truffle juice 20ml (4 tsp) port 20ml (4 tsp) madeira 400ml beef base (essentially, a good beef stock based on a good veal stock) 25gm chopped truffles 20gm chilled, diced butter Salt and freshly ground pepper
Method
Begin by preparing the Périgueux sauce:
In a small saucepan, reduce the truffle juice, port and madeira to a syrup over a medium heat.
Add the beef base and bring to the boil and reduce until the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Add the chopped truffle. Whisk in the butter piece by piece until it is fully incorporated. Remove from the heat and season.
Continue with the beef:
Using a sharp knife, make an incision in the centre of each piece of meat to form a pocket.
Mix the foie gras trimmings and chopped truffle together and divide between 4 pockets. Wrap each piece of beef in a slice of prosciutto to the hold the foie gras and truffle in place during cooking and tie with a piece of butcher’s twine.
Preheat the oven to 200c.
Prepare the potato, where I have reproduced their notes as below:
“To make potato galettes, take large potatoes and slice the top and bottom ends off so that they stand upright on a chopping board. Take a 5cm diameter steel tube which has a sharp end on it and press through each potato to create a perfect cylinder. If you don’t have the correct implement for stamping the potatoes out, use a sharp knife to peel the potato and form it into a neat shape without washing too much flesh.”
Using the method above to make cylinders of potato, using a mandolin or sharp knife, cut the prepared potatoes into 3mm slices. You will need 18 thin slices for each of the galettes.
Place the potato slices onto a tea towel and pat try. Season with salt and pepper.
Each galette is prepared separately. For each one, heat 30gm of clarified butter in a blini pan. (Essentially, a small fry-pan about the size of a compact disc). Arrange one portion of potato slices in a circle, allowing the slices to overlap each other. (Essentially, you’re making a compact disc of potato with a hole in the middle).
Cook the potatoes over a gentle heat for 5 – 6 minutes until slices are crisp and golden brown, Carefully flip the potato over and cook for a further 5 – 6 minutes until crisp and golden brown.
Lift the galette out of the pan and drain on paper towel. Lightly season and repeat for the other galettes.
These can be reheated in the oven closer to serving.
Creamed spinach:
Pick the spinach, discarding all the stalks, then wash the spinach under cold water to remove any grit or sand.
Blanch the spinach, cooking for 1 minute in boiling salted water, then plunge into iced water to refresh, Remove from iced water and squeeze dry. Chop spinach very finely.
Place the cream in a saucepan with the glove of garlic, reduce by two-thirds and remove the garlic.
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the shallots and sweat until softened. Do not allow the shallots to brown. Remove the shallots from the saucepan.
To serve, heat the cream in a saucepan, add the chopped spinach and shallot and warm through. Season to taste.
Continue with the dish:
In a heavy-based saucepan (which can go in the oven), heat the vegetable oil. Season the beef all over with salt and pepper and seal all over in the pan until evenly browned. Transfer to the oven and cook to your taste, though no more than medium-rare to medium or the foie gras will render down and leak out. Remove and set aside to rest in a warm place.
Warm the potato galettes on the oven. Reheat the creamed spinach and check the seasoning. Gently warm the sauce over a low heat.
Heat a non-stick pan on the stove. Season the foie gras slices lightly with salt and pepper and quickly sear the foie gras for 45 seconds on both sides.
When both sides are golden, carefully remove from the pan.
Place a slice of foie gras on top of each piece of beef and a slice of truffle on the foie gras.
To serve, spoon creamed spinach in the centre of each plate. Place a potato galette on top of the spinach and place the beef onto the potato galette. Spoon the Périgueux sauce over and around the beef.
They were invented by an English food company, Shire Foods in 1997. Sold at football games, sales of the pies exploded; according to Wikipedia, the pies have a cult status and clubs including Manchester have Shire Foods as their exclusive pie supplier.
Any why not?!
Anyone who brings together a spicy chicken curry and puff pastry is a genius. Genius, just like these pies.
Which of course begs the question, why aren’t all curries covered in pastry?
Start with this pie and you’ll ask the same question.
(The original recipe asked to make individual pies. We made one large pie. Obviously, up to you so have kept the pastry/pie step pretty loose…)
Ingredients
4 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 tsp finely grated ginger
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp chilli powder
½ tsp ground turmeric
3 tsp garam masala
4 cardamom pods
1kg chicken thigh cut into 3 cm pieces
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 long green chilli, deseeded, finely chopped
10 curry leaves
375ml (1 ½ cups) chicken stock
1 tbsp plain flour
6 sheets puff pastry
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp nigella seeds Buttered peas and ketchup to serve
Method
Heat oil in a pan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until softened. Stir in the ginger and garlic and cook for another 2 minutes. Add spices and stir for 1 minute, then add the chicken, tomato paste and chilli and cook, stirring to coat in spices for 6 minutes or until the chicken is browned all over.
Add curry leaves and stock and bring to a simmer. Cook until the stock has almost completely reduced; you are ultimately after a thick pie gravy. Add flour and stir for 1 minute until thickened. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Preheat the oven to 180c. Line your pie trays or casserole dish with puff pastry; fill with the pie mixture. Complete your pie by covering and sealing with the remaining puff pastry. Brush with the egg wash and scatter with nigella seeds.
Beautifully delicate and mild, so much so, you could be eating a contemporary French starter.
The lightness of it of course allows the prawns to sing rather than smothering them as merely a protein as so many curries do.
It is a Rick Stein number and the recipe from Kerala.
With some boiled basmati rice – and coriander – this will make your night.
Wow.
Ingredients
2 tbsp coconut oil
¼ tsp ground black pepper
3 cardamom pods, lightly bruised with a rolling pin
6 cloves
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
5cm ginger, finely shredded
2 green chillis, slit lengthways, deseeded
1 tsp salt
Small handful fresh curry leaves
Small pinch turmeric
400ml coconut milk
1 ½ tsp white wine vinegar
500gm large tail-on raw prawns
2 tomatoes, thinly sliced for garnish Boiled basmati rice to serve Coriander leaves to serve (us, not Rick)
Method
Heat coconut oil in a heavy-based saucepan over a medium heat. Add the pepper, cardamoms and cloves and fry for 1 minute until fragrant. Add the onions and fry for 5 minutes until translucent. Stir in the garlic, ginger, chillies, salt and curry leaves and fry for 1 minute.
Add the turmeric, coconut milk and vinegar. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 5 minutes until reduced slightly. Add the prawns and simmer for a further 4 minutes until the prawns are cooked through. Scatter the tomatoes on top, turn off the heat, cover the pan and set aside for 4 minutes.
Late last year, I typed up Armando Percuoco’s Truffle Egg Pasta, a gorgeous – and outrageous – pasta made famous at his restaurant, Buon Ricordo.
In my write-up of the recipe, I said do it and certainly, if you haven’t, I still highly recommend you do.
Though if you have, here is your next recipe along the same line.
It is from Tobie Puttock from whose book The Chef Gets Healthy we have been cooking recently. This recipe however, isn’t about getting healthy.
It’s about living the good life.
In his foreword, Tobie explains that he was taught the recipe by Gennaro Contaldo who in turn is famously Jamie Oliver’s Italian mentor; Tobie ran the restaurant Fifteen for Jamie Oliver.
So there is also a bit of heritage to it all as well.
Anyway, we cooked this as a starter a few weeks ago and it is excellent. Actually, more like superb.
Truffle, pasta, butter, ricotta, pecorino and egg superb. Poaching the egg in the stock after blanching the pasta in the boiling water is a neat trick with the ultimate treat being a runny, yellow egg yolk opening up all over the pasta as you eat it.
Yum!
For by-far the best result, make your own pasta and have a fun afternoon in the kitchen like we did. And an incredible starter on your hands following that.
Do it!
Ingredients
⅓ cup (80gm) fresh ricotta 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 tbsp grated pecorino, plus extra to serve 100gm salted butter, softened 1 tbsp truffle oil (or 2 tsp truffle paste) 40cm thin fresh pasta sheet 4 free-range egg yolks 300ml vegetable stock
Method
Preheat the oven to 180c. Place ricotta on a lined baking tray, season then drizzle with 2 tsp of olive oil. Bake for 12 minutes or until slightly browned and dry. Cool. Mix ricotta with pecorino, 2 tsp olive oil and a pinch of talk and cover and chill until needed.
Combine butter and truffle oil (or paste) in a bowl. Cover and chill until needed.
Lay pasta flat on a bench. Cut into eight, 10cm squares. Shape ricotta into 4 rounds. Place each one in the centre of 4 pasta squares. Lightly flatten the ricotta with your palm and with your fingers, make a deep well in the centre. Pop an egg yolk in each well.
Brush a little water around the pasta edges then carefully top with the remaining pasta sheets. Use your fingers and a fork to seal the pasta, pushing out as much air as possible while taking care not to break the yolk.
Gently heat the stock in a large frying pan over a low heat. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil.
Plunge the ravioli into the boiling water for 45 seconds then carefully remove with a slotted spoon and place in the stock, egg yolk side up to finish cooking.
Add truffled butter, in pieces and gently shake pan for 3 minutes until it melts into the stock and the pasta is al dente.
Season, divide ravioli and sauce among bowls, then top with extra pecorino.
I cooked it a few years back for dinner with a friend and despite almost an hour and a half of ribbing that I was cooking a vegetarian dinner – and one primary around onions at that – the ribbing pretty quickly wrapped up after plating.
The flavours are just beautiful. The simplicity, depth, warmth and completeness of it all is just so comforting. The sweetness and texture of the onions after almost one and half hours of cooking. The parmesan. The pasta. I’m excited just thinking about it!
Read those ingredients and then the method and seriously tell me you aren’t thinking how good this dish would be!
(I think I have no choice but to cook this again this weekend!)
Ingredients
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
3 large onions (700gm in all), using a combination of white and red, very thinly sliced
2 fresh bay leaves
2 rosemary sprigs
⅔ cup (160ml) dry white wine
2 tbs chopped flat leaf parsley
500gm spaghetti
⅓ cup freshly grated parmesan
Method
Place the oil, onion, bay leaves and rosemary in a large frypan. Cover and place over a very low heat. Gently cook, stirring occasionally for at least 45 minutes until the onion is extremely soft.
Uncover, increase heat to medium-high and cook, stirring, for another 20 minutes or until onion is a deep golden colour. Any liquid should have evaporated by now.
Season well with salt and pepper (to balance the sweetness of the onion).
Add the wine, increase the heat to high and cook for 15 minutes, stirring constantly, until the wine has evaporated. Stir in the parsley, cover and keep warm.
Meanwhile cook the spaghetti in salted water according to instructions and al dente. Drain then add to the pan with the onions and toss over medium heat to combine well.
Transfer to a warmed serving bowl, top with parmesan then toss thoroughly and serve.
A traditional recipe from Abruzzo – where you would refer to the dish as stufatino di agnello con l’aceto – you will love.
Served with mashed potatoes and a green salad, it is beautifully comfortable food. Dark and slightly rich, you could eat the flaking lamb all day.
If you need warmth one Saturday lunch, start the weekend well by serving this and a glass of red and in turn, setting a pretty awesome mood for the rest of the day.
Ingredients
½ cup olive oil
1.2kg diced lamb shoulder
½ onion, chopped
⅔ cup good quality red wine vinegar
450gm green beans, trimmed, cut into 4cm lengths Mashed potatoes and a green salad to serve
Method
In a casserole dish or heavy saucepan, heat oil over medium-high heat. Brown the lamb in batches for 6 – 8 minutes until browned all over.
Add the onion and stir for 4 minutes or until translucent. Return all the lamb to the pan, add the vinegar and season. Increase the heat to high and cooking, stirring, for 1 minute, then reduce the heat to low. Add beans and further season. Cover and gently simmer for 1 ½ hoursor until the lamb is very tender.
A simple question to ask a prospective friend: “Mulled wine?”
Because if the answer is ‘yes’, you have a friend.
Because mulled wine is also your friend.
It’s the acceptance that wine is great though worthy of a reboot from time to time. That wine isn’t the end-point and really just part of the heavy-lifting.
It’s winter and we are all bored.
Get the music cranking, mix up a batch of this wine and toast the best part of winter.
Nat and I did.
Ingredients
10 cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
¼ cup caster sugar
1 roughly grated nutmeg
2 cups water
Roughly grated rind of 1 orange
1 apple, roughly chopped, skin on
750ml (1 bottle) fruity red wine such as merlot
Method
Don’t drink the wine yet.
Heat cloves, cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, water, orange rind and apple in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes.
Add red wine and simmer for another 5 minutes. Strain and serve.
Marinated (though uncooked) pork is (still) a win!
Serves: 4
This is a really tight, really nice execution of this style of dish.
The pork is aromatic, full of flavour, sweet, sour and of course, chargrilled with a wonderful crust.
The peanut sauce is sophisticated; sweet and sour again, dry and with a slightly earthy undertone. Nothing like the crap you’d find in a bottle.
And a fresh slaw to round it off.
Everything compliments the other. A real balance of flavour.
I found this in a magazine and as long as you can start it the night before, you have the week’s winner on your hands.
No washing up for you.
Cook it and seriously enjoy.
Ingredients
Pork
½ bunch coriander, leaves chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
100gm ginger, finely grated (a good 6 or 7cm piece at least)
3 small red chillies, finely chopped
¼ cup honey
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
1kg pork neck fillet, sliced into 1cm strips (we used pork loin though only to feel healthy)
Peanut sauce
1 1/3 cups (200gm) roasted unsalted peanuts
1 tbs sesame oil
2 tsp grated palm sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp fish sauce
Juice of 1 lime, plus wedges to serve
Cabbage slaw
¼ sliced red cabbage very thinly sliced
1 red onion, very thinly sliced
1 long red chilli, finely chopped
1 tsp caster sugar
2 tbs apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 bunch coriander, leaves picked Method
You will need 12 metal skewers or soaked skewers; start the pork the night before.
To make the marinade, combine coriander, garlic, ginger, chilli, honey and oil in a large bowl; add pork, turn to coat, cover with plastic wrap and chill overnight.
For the peanut sauce, process the peanuts and sesame oil in a food processor to a rough paste. Add remaining ingredients with 2tbsp of water and process until smooth and combined. Set aside.
For the slaw, place all the ingredients in a bowl and toss to combine.
Remove the pork at least 1 hour prior to grilling; preheat the grill to a high heat.
Thread the pork onto skewers and cook for a few minutes each side until charred and cooked through.
Robby Dog Cooks 