Royal potato salad a l'Ottolenghi

800 g new potatoes, washed 

150 g frozen peas

20 g parsley leaves

20 g basil leaves

60 g pine seeds

60 g parmesan

2 cloves garlic

200 ml olive oil

1 tsp white wine vinegar

handful of mint leaves

5 boiled eggs (or 15 quail's eggs)

salt and pepper

Wash the potatoes, boil for around 20 minutes until soft but firm. Boil the eggs until ready (I reckon about 4 minutes is enough), then refresh in cold water. Blanche the peas for 30 seconds in boiling water, then rinse and refresh in cold water.

While the potatoes are boiling, add the parsley, basil, pine seeds, garlic and parmesan to a food processor and blend. Add in olive oil bit by bit until you have a runny pesto. 

When the potatoes are cooked and have cooled enough to handle, cut them in half or quarters, then mix in with the pesto, mint leaves and vinegar. Season with plenty of salt and pepper.

Peel and quarter the eggs, mix in gently with the potatoes, and serve. Add extra mint or parsley as garnish if you want.

Kasukas, AKA "Fur coat salad"

This is another recipe from my mother-in-law, and another one where, like monkey gland sauce, you shouldn't mind the name. Use only the finest fur coats in your salad. Since it's Estonian, you should probably use bear or fox fur. It gives it a real Baltic taste.

This makes plenty. It's worth the effort, trust me...

2–3 potatoes, boiled and grated
3 large carrots, boiled and grated
2 big apples, grated
5 eggs, hard boiled. After boiling, keep the yolks and the whites separate. Chop the whites up finely.
2–3 pickled herring fillets (I find the German variant to be a bit sweet for my liking, so if you can, use a Baltic brand), finely chopped
1 or 2 smallish onions
400 g beetroot, boiled and grated
300–400 g mayonnaise
300–400 g sour cream

This is a layered salad, but it might be a bit bland, so read to the end of the recipe. The order is as follows:

Grated potato, mayo, herring, sour cream, onion, mayo, egg whites, sour cream, carrot, mayo, apple, sour cream, beetroot, sour cream, in that order. You can leave out one or two layers of mayo or sour cream, but make sure to add one or the other on top.

Add seasoning between some layers, and leave to sit in the fridge overnight. Before serving, crumble the egg yolks over the top. Enjoy.

Lancashire hotpot, or lamb stew

I wanted to make a lamb chop casserole, but when we went to the market to get some chops for the casserole, our friendly market butcher told us (in a blend of about 4 languages plus a lot of gesturing) that we'd ruin his very special chops if we stewed them, and so we should use shoulder meat instead.

It was fantastic.

I've adapted Nigel Slater's recipe ever so slightly, with a couple of extras on my part. All in all, it was very good, very quick, and rather tasty. This is perfect for a dark autumn evening, and the best part is it takes all of about 90 minutes to cook, from start to finish.

The portions are allegedly for 3, but I'd say you could stretch this out to about 4 or 5.

Ingredients:

Olive oil
600-700 g lamb shoulder, cut into bigger-than-bitesize pieces
1-2 carrots, roughly chopped
2-3 stalks celery, roughly chopped
2 onions, sliced
2 tbsp plain flour
900 ml-1 l beef stock (I used Bovril - 1 tsp per 250ml)
1-2 tomatoes
Thyme (8 sprigs or a lot of dried stuff)
1 bay leaf
100 g butter
2 roasting potatoes, cut into 0.5 cm-thick slices
salt and pepper to taste

Heat some oil in a medium- to large-sized pan (mine was 26 cm, which was big enough, or even too big) and brown the lamb on all sides (about 6 minutes all told) then move to a cast-iron pot (something you can heat over a flame on the stove and put in the oven). Depending on how fatty the lamb is, you might need to add some more olive oil in. If needed, do so now. Add the carrots, celery, and onion, cook for around 4-5 minutes until brown or soft, then stir in the flour, coating the vegetables in it. Cook for another 2-3 minutes, then pour in the stock, stir in so there is no lumpy flour, and simmer until the mixture has thickened. Pour the contents of the pan into the cast-iron pot, add in the tomatoes, 7 sprigs of thyme, and the bay leaves, season, and stir all together, then bring to the boil. Reduce temperature so the mixture is just simmering. Melt the butter, then layer the potato slices across the stew, overlapping where necessary and covering the top of the mixture. Brush the butter over the potatoes (or, if you're like me, you can pour the butter over everything), then shove it in the oven for an hour or so. I cooked it with the lid on for about 30 minutes, then took it off and cooked it without the lid for the last 30 minutes.

Serve with some crusty bread on the side.

Peri-peri chicken

Last night's dinner, with small changes. The original source can be found here.

Should serve 4 people

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken
700g of potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
Salt
Thyme (dried or fresh)
2 or 3 onions, sliced thickly
For the peri-peri sauce:
3 or so tsp chilli paste
1-2 tsp harissa paste
1 or 2 fresh chillis (bird's eye if you can get them)
1 tsp dried chilli (or to taste)
2 tbsp smoked paprika
5 cloves garlic
2 cm ginger
1/4 cup wine vinegar (white or red, but I used white)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
Juice from 1 lemon
Limes to serve (optional)

Heat the oven to 200. Soak the potatoes in cool salted water until needed. Cut along both sides of  the spine of the chicken using a sharp knife or scissors to remove it, then press flat. Rinse and dry the chicken (probably not needed, but it seemed to work). Throw all the ingredients for the sauce into a blender. Once it's ready, taste to see if you need more chilli (the answer is probably yes). Remove the potatoes from the water and pat dry.

Take a fairly deep roasting pan, oil it, and spread a layer of sauce on the bottom. Put the potatoes in the bottom, season with salt, pepper and thyme, add the onions on top of the potatoes, then use about half of the remaining peri-peri to cover the chicken all over, inside and out, then place it skin down on top of the potatoes and put in the oven for 15 minutes. Then, flip the chicken over (skin up), cover it again with half the peri-peri, and put back in the oven for 15 minutes. Finally, brush the last bit of peri-peri over the chicken and return to the oven for 20 minutes, or until the juice flows clear when you pierce the thigh (when it's ready). When it's ready, remove the chicken from the oven and leave it to rest for about 10 minutes. While it's doing this, put the potatoes back into the oven to cook for another 10 minutes or so.

Very nice, very recommend.  

Cream of celery soup

What to do with extra celery. This was an emergency recipe that's turned out quite nicely:

Ingredients:

Around 500-600 g celery (the better part of a head of celery), sliced
A large potato, diced
A large onion, diced
A red pepper, diced
A chilli or 2, diced
50-100 g butter
750 ml chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
100ml cream or creme fraiche

Melt the butter in a large-ish pot. Add the celery, potato, onion, pepper, and chilli, season with salt, and cook for around 10-15 min over a low heat. When soft, add chicken stock and pepper, bring to a simmer, and cook for another 10-15 min on a low heat. When ready, take off the heat, add cream/creme fraiche, and blend. Serve with extra cream if so desired.

Fish in a foil box/bag/thingy

Another one courtesy of Jamie Oliver. Some minor tweaks, but the original recipe can be found here.

Ingredients:

tinfoil (wider is better. You're obviously not going to eat this, but if you're like me, you'll need reminding to get some from the shops next time you're there)
1 onion
1 120-200 g fillet white fish (don't use salmon or anything similar - I tried this, and it doesn't keep the flavour as well)
100 g potatoes, peeled and diced into 1 cm pieces. If you're using new potatoes, keep the skin
1/2 bulb fennel, cut in segments, keep the frond (leaves? frilly bits that look like dill)
1/2 lemon, finely sliced
handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
olive oil
handful of pitted olives
salt and pepper to taste
white wine

Boil the potatoes until almost done. While they're boiling, preheat the oven to 200 degrees and make a sort of box out of the tin foil. Tear off a big piece and make it into a box with a lid. Put the onion, fish, fennel, lemon, tomatoes, olives, oil and salt and pepper into a biggish bowl and mix together. Once well mixed, put these into the foil box/bag, and sprinkle over the frilly bits of the fennel. Once the potatoes are done, add these to the mix, pour over some wine, then shove in the oven (carefully, of course) for about 25 min or so, until the fish is done and flaky. Add veg on the side if you so wish. 

Goulash

Something from a while back. Very rich, very filling, very good.

Ingredients:

500 g stewing beef, cut up into 1 cm cubes
50 g oil
100 g onion
5 tsp paprika
1 chilli (or to taste)
2 litres water
2-3 potatoes
1.5 tsp salt
2 carrots
Parsley to taste (although I left this out and replaced it with celery)
1 tsp caraway (also known as fennel or cumin, I guess, or harilik köömen)
25 ml thick cream
For the dumplings:
1 egg
150 g flour

1) Dice onions and fry until soft.
2) Add 1 tsp paprika and the chilli.
3) Add beef, mix well, then add carrot, parsley/celery, cream and caraway seeds. As the mixture cooks, top up with water if it dries out.
4) Once the beef has cooked, cover with water and add diced potatoes and salt. Cook until soft.
5) Once potatoes are ready, mix the egg and flour together, break off small pieces to make dumplings, and boil the pastry until ready.