Italian Fennel and Orange Salad
Posted: 01 September '10 by Niall
Italian fennel and orange salad
As the temperature in Northern Ireland soared to a stifling 23° last week, we were in the mood for a lighter meal when we got home from work. What better than a zesty Meditteranean salad!
Kelly is a big fan of citrus flavours so this Italian Fennel and Orange salad was a sure-fire winner.
I have to admit, I’ve only braised fennel before, never eaten it raw, so this was a bit of a revelation. The secret lies in slicing the fennel into very thin slivers. The lemon and orange juice effectively “cooks” the fennel in citric accid, so you don’t get overwhelmed by the aniseed – it’s actually very subtle.
All in all the salad is so light, clean and fresh you’ll feel very virtuous after your meal.
Although the salad can be eaten on it’s own I served ours with some butterflied and griddled chicken breasts – the salad made a very tasty accompaniment.
Serves 2
You can see more photos hereImage 2Image 3Image 4Image 5
Ingredients
- 2 good-sized fennel bulbs
- 1 Navel orange
- 1 lemon
- 3 tbs of pine nuts
- some good olive oil
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
- Drizzle a drop of olive oil into frying pan and add the pine nuts, toasting them over a low heat.
- Trim the fennel bulbs by removing any wilted or unsightly outer shoots or flesh from the bulb, and keeping the delicate fronds from the fennel.
- Slice the fennel bulb in half and cut an inverted “V” in the bulb so you remove the central, woody core.
- If you have a mandolin you can easily slice the bulbs into wafer-thin pieces – otherwise you need to use a sharp knife.
- Place the sliced fennel into a bowl and add the zest of the lemon and the zest of the orange.
- Peel the remaining skin from the orange, removing as much of the white pith as possible.
- Using a sharp knife, slice the orange into segments by running the blade down the flesh inside each vertical membrane – you should end up with lots of nice, wedge-shaped orange pieces. Place these segments into the bowl.
- Squeeze the juice from half of the lemon over your salad.
- Roughly chop the fennel fronds and add these to the fennel along with the toasted pine nuts, a splash of olive oil, and the salt and pepper.
- Toss the salad ingredients together and serve immediately.
Enjoy!
More information
There are both male and female fennel bulbs. The shorter, round bulb is the female while the taller, more slender bulbs are the males. Some think that there is a subtle difference in flavour, with the female bulbs slightly more preferred to the male.
Categories: Featured Post > Italian Food > Recipes > Side Dishes > Starter Course > Vegetables
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Chicken Parmigiana
Posted: 10 June '10 by Niall
Chicken Parmigiana
I honestly can’t remember where I came across this recipe, but I always thought that it would make a quick and easy mid-week meal.
We were housing-sitting for Kelly’s Mum and Dad recently and had to come up with a menu that Kelly’s sister would also enjoy. Katie has very exacting standards when it comes to meal-times, so there was some doubt whether this recipe would ever be made. There was no need to worry though – the Chicken Parmigiana was a resounding success! So much so that it got a mention in Katie’s phone-call to her parents that night – if that isn’t a sign of approval, I don’t know what is.
If you’re thinking of adding this dish to your repertoire, I have a word of advice – you need a sharp knife to butterfly the chicken breasts. While this may not present a stumbling block to most, my experience is that when you’re cooking in your mother’s house a sharp knife is impossible to find (this is based on a study of 2 out of 2 mothers). To save yourself a lot of heartache, come prepared..
Serves 4 (or a very hungry 2)
You can see more photos hereImage 1Image 2Image 3Image 4Image 5Image 6Image 7Image 8Image 9
Ingredients
- 4 bone-less and skin-less chicken breasts
- 1 cup of plain flour
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 4 tablespoons of olive oil, for cooking
- 2 tablespoons of butter, for cooking
- 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 3/4 glass of red wine (optional)
- 2 tins of chopped tomatoes
- 250g of grated mozzarella
- 100g of grated parmesan
- A handful of fresh basil
- 450g packet of spinach (or a 260g packet if you’re cooking for 2)
- A packet of Stirato bread
Method
- Trim any fat from the chicken breasts
- We need to make the chicken breasts nice and flat, and thin enough so that they will cook quickly. To butterfly the chicken breasts delicately slice at the start of a thicker piece of the meat, angling the blade to 45 degrees. If the knife is sharp you won’t need to exert any pressure, and one stroke will have a nice, shallow slice in the meat. Repeat this procedure until you have a flat piece of chicken breast.
- Mix the flour, salt, and pepper together on in a deep bowl.
- Dredge the flattened chicken breasts in the flour, making sure that the meat has been covered. Now, set the chicken aside on another plate.
- Pre-heat the oven to 200°
- Place the olive oil and butter in a non-stick pan and heat over a medium heat. When butter is melted and the mixture is foaming and hot, fry chicken breasts until nice and golden-brown on each side.
- Remove chicken breasts from the frying-pan and place on a clean plate.
- In the same pan, add the finely chopped garlic and allow to sweat until it has become translucent.
- If you’re using the red wine, pour the wine into the pan and allow the liquid to reduce by half.
- Pour the chopped tomatoes into the pan and cook until the watery juice has virtually disappeared and you’re left with a thick sauce.
- Add the chopped basil to your sauce and stir thoroughly.
- You’re ready to cook the spinach – place the spinach leaves in a large saucepan with a little water in the bottom of the saucepan, and place over a medium heat.
- Pour your tomato sauce into a deep casserole dish and carefully place the chicken breasts into the sauce, making sure that the surface of the chicken stays well above the sauce.
- Sprinkle the grated mozzarella on top of the chicken breasts, followed by the grated parmesan.
- Place the casserole dish in the oven – along with the Stirato bread – and allow the Chicken Parmigiana to heat through until the mozzarella has melted.
- Once the spinach has fully wilted, press the back of a spoon against the spinach leaves until the water in the leaves has been released. Drain the liquid.
- Spoon the spinach onto the plate and, using a large spoon, scoop a chicken breast (along with plenty of the sauce) onto the dish.
- Roughly tear off a portion of the bread and place it on the side of the plate – you’ll need this to mop the sauce up!
- Sprinkle any remaining parmesan over the chicken and serve.
Enjoy.
Categories: Chicken > Featured Post > Italian Food > Main Course > Recipes
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Pasta al nivuro di siccia
Posted: 21 May '10 by Niall
Pasta al nivuro di siccia
Ever since I managed to find some sachets of squid ink I’ve been dying to make pasta al nivuro di siccia – pasta in squid ink sauce.
I’d never seen the dish in person and I’ve only managed to track down a few photographs online, which only added to the mystique. It’s always seemed like the most exotic attack on the senses – delicate rings of squid mixed through a healthy serving of pasta, drenched in a midnight-black sauce – you have to overcome some subsconscious barrier which tells you that, despite the marvellous aroma, nothing that looks like that should be in your mouth.
With St. George’s market still several days away we paid a flying visit to the Chinese supermarket on Donegall Pass to locate the last elusive ingredient, the squid.
Finally, and with a growing sense of trepidation, I was ready to attempt the recipe..
You can see more photos hereImage 1Image 2Image 3Image 4Image 5Image 6Image 7
Serves 3-4
Ingredients
- 2 large squid tubes
- 2 sachets of squid ink
- 1 can chopped tomatoes
- 1 medium red onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 500g long pasta (such as spaghetti or linguine – we used the latter)
- 120g grated pecorino cheese (parmesan will do at a pinch)
- Flaked red chilli
Method
- After washing the squid tubes, carefully peel off the outer membrane, taking care not to tear the soft, white flesh.
- Slice the squid tubes into 1cm-thick rings and leave to one side.
- Finely chop the red onion and garlic.
- Cook your pasta in a separate saucepan with some lightly salted water – drain and leave to one side when the pasta is al dente.
- Pour a good glug of olive oil into a deep saucepan and sweat the onion and garlic over a low heat.
- When the onion has softened and become translucent, add the chopped tomatoes and stir thoroughly.
- When the tomato sauce has heated through, add the squid rings and allow them to cook for 5 minutes.
- Add the squid ink and watch your sauce transform from a vibrant red to an inky black.
- Add the chilli flakes (as much as you think you could handle) and stir thoroughly.
- Take your cooked pasta and tip the pasta into your sauce, stirring the sauce through the pasta.
- Serve each portion of your pasta and squid ink sauce in deep dishes, grating the pecorino and drizzling some good olive oil over the pasta at the last moment.
Enjoy!
Thought for food
Traditional Italian cookery dictates that it’s sacrilege to add cheese to any seafood dish – but seafood with pecorino (well, anything with pecorino) is our guilty pleasure. Kelly and I just love the flavour far too much to leave it out. Whether you add cheese to this dish or not is between you and your conscience.
Squid ink is an intense black colour and has a strong iodine taste which is strangely addictive. I just couldn’t get enough of the pasta in squid ink sauce – it was on my mind for hours after our meal, and I found myself making excuses to visit the kitchen for another nibble.
Other information
Image 7 is taken from another, excellent blog – FX Cuisine (just until we get a decent one ourselves!).
Categories: Featured Post > Italian Food > Main Course > Pasta > Recipes > Seafood
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Feliz Cumplanos, Eamann!
Posted: 10 May '10 by Niall
Making Crema Catalana for Eamann's birthday
Kelly and I wanted to celebrate fellow Chilli and Chocolatier Eamann’s birthday in style this year, but couldn’t decide on which restaurant to book. It was then that inspiration struck – we’d throw a Spanish tapas party!
We both love the tapas bars in Barcelona (although the Catalans call tapas “pintxos”) – the dishes are small and easy to eat, just perfect for a party. With great timing we also noticed that we were being followed on Twitter by Orce Serrano Hams, a business run by ex-pats Iain and Gayle from their home in Andalucia where they source and export Spanish delicacies. After a few quick emails we had our centre-piece – a whole fore-leg of Serrano ham!
You can see more photos hereImage 1Image 2Image 3Image 4Image 5Image 6Image 7Image 8Image 9Image 10Image 11Image 12Image 13Image 14Image 14
After whetting our appetites with some salted almonds and chilled sherry earlier in the day, we all sat down and stuffed ourselves silly with the tapas dishes in very un-Spanish fashion. Kelly and I served:
- Wafer-thin slices of Serrano ham
- Salt cod croquettes
- Chorizo and manchego tortilla
- Spinach tortilla
- Meatballs in tomato sauce
- Morcilla and fried pepper on baguette
- Mushrooms and aioli on baguette
- Chilli and garlic prawns
- Chorizo braised in red wine
We finished the party with individual Crema Catalanas – very similar to Creme Brulee, but with a hint of orange in the custard. With a fire extinguisher to hand we all had a go with the blowtorch, searing the sugar-topped custard to produce a crunchy layer of toffee.
You can download the Chilli and Chocolate tapas recipes here.
Feliz Cumplanos, Eamann!
Other information
We bought our fore-leg of Serrano ham and a sweet Chorizo Redondo from Orce Serrano Hams. You can click here to visit the Orce Serrano Ham website.
I managed to find a chef’s blowtorch in The Cook Stop on Bruce Street in Belfast. You can click here to visit The Cook Stop website.
Categories: Featured Post > Recipes > Spanish Food > Starter Course
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Jamie Does..
Posted: 07 May '10 by Niall
Jamie Does.. Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece and France book cover
After weeks (and several small forests worth) of election pamphlets being forced through our letterbox, Kelly and I have stopped running to the door each time we hear another sheaf of paper being delivered. Pointedly ignoring the front-door for several hours, it was a nice surprise to find that Jamie Oliver’s new book “Jamie Does..” was sitting there waiting for us.
Narrowly avoiding lower back damage (it’s a whopping 360 pages – remember, lift with your knees) we sat down and took a look.
What’s in the book
Published to complement the “Jamie Does..” series on Channel 4, the book is a culinary tour of Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece and France. The recipes come thick and fast – Jamie’s versions of classic recipes from the regions and countries that he’s visited – from Moorish Pork Chops to Greek Lamb Fricasse to Spaghetti Vongole.
Jamie is a bit over-the-top for me sometimes (too many “pukkas”, “bootifuls”, and “yeah, mans”) but he does make very good television – “Jamie’s Italy” and “School Dinners” are two of the best and best-intentioned programmes I’ve ever watched – and good cookbooks too. They always seem to be perfectly pitched at the home-cook: the recipes are tasty and not too demanding, the dishes range from rustic mid-week family meals to recipes that could be used for a dinner party, and the ingredients can usually be tracked down even here in Northern Ireland. This book is no different, and it’s filled with some of the best food photography I’ve seen – it just makes you want to cook!
Obviously you’re not going to get an in-depth look at the different cuisines here, but “Jamie Does..” is a very good introduction. I really like the “essential ingredients” features where he introduces some of the ingredients that define the cooking in the different countries. The Spanish section, for example, includes pictures and descriptions of jamon, pimenton, green olives and chorizo, while the Swedish ingredients include mustard and dill, salmon and pickled herrings.
I know I didn’t know much about Swedish cooking before, but I’d be tempted to give some of these recipes a go.
Job done Mr. Oliver.
Details
- Title: Jamie Does.. Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece and France (hardback)
- Author: Jamie Oliver
- Pages: 360
- Publisher: Michael Joseph
- ISBN: 978-0718156145
- Cost: RRP. £26 (now £10.49 on Amazon)
- Where to get it: From www.amazon.co.uk
Our Verdict:
You should buy it.
The recipes are good, the book gives you an easy introduction to some very diverse cuisines, and the photography will make your mouth water.
Useful as a cookbook, and wouldn’t look out-of-place on your coffee table.
Chilli and Chocolate members:
Like to win a copy? Jamie Oliver has sent us a copy of “Jamie Does..” to give away. Visit the Members’ Section for more details.
Other information
You can find out more about the author by visiting the Jamie Oliver website.
Categories: Books for Cooks
