u/agmanning

This was inspired by a recent dish posted online by Tom Cenci of Applebee’s in Borough Market.

His dish was a Vadouvan-roasted Monkfish tail in a fragrant sauce.
I had some skate wing to use up so cooked that instead.

I largely followed his technique for the sauce, sweating off shallot and garlic, reducing white wine and fish stock down and adding spices.
Passing, adding cream, seasoning up and adding some yellow tomatoes just to soften.

For a side dish, I didn’t just want to cook chips or fries or new potatoes.
I decided I’d try to cook Pakoras for the first time and they came out really well. I used largely potato, with red onion and spinach. They were good. They’re essentially India Bubble and Squeak, aren’t they?

For wine I wanted to keep the French theme and wished I had something a bit more fruity to play off the spice and tomatoes, but chose Riesling. It felt a bit closed at first; but it was really good with the food.

Bavette steak for £10.50 per kilo from Sainsbury’s has recently become this household’s go-to steak. I’d long written off most steak as just too expensive with the cost of everything rising. Basic Rump is now all above £20 per kilo and Sirloin and Ribeye much more.
These skirt come trimmed and perfectly lean. They’re ideal for flash frying, even though they’re sold as braising steak.

The method I like is marinating it in good balsamic vinegar, which helps with the browning, and grilling until it reaches about 48 degrees.

The peppers are placed in a fish cage and roasted until turning black.
I dressed them in some herbs blended with oil.

The Jerseys are the last of the season I think. These were just dressed in chopped herbs and lemon zest.

Served with some Beaujolais Villages, which is one of the best supermarket wines I’ve ever tried. This particular one drinks like a bottle five to ten pounds more expensive.

This is inspired by a recent [side?] dish posted on Melbourne Wine Bar, Napier Quarter’s Instagram .
Theirs was just described as “Cannellini Beans & Herbs de Provence” and just featured the beans and some herbs drizzled on top. There wasn’t much more info.

For dinner we elaborated on the idea with some roasted pork tenderloin, started in a pan and brought up in the oven, and we cooked off some broccoli in the pork pan.

The beans were stewed in shallot & garlic, apple cider vinegar, Marsala, Brandy, white wine and stock.

For the herbs, it’s just extra virgin olive oil blended with loads of herbs from the garden - parsley, rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage - with some white wine vinegar and emulsified with some mustard.

For wine i had the most entry level wine that tried recently at a tasting. It was nice and fruity which worked well with the pork.

This was inspired by a recent video that Theo Randall posted on his Socials.

It starts with sweating off grated courgette before adding pasta water, and Mascarpone and bringing it together into a sauce.

My version has a little chilli and some basil in it, and we finished it with lemon zest and juice.
This was utterly delicious.
I really like how rich it is yet how summery it feels.
I’m also enjoying this thin cut egg pasta. It’s really rich.

Served with one of the Sauvy Bs I blagged last week. Much better pairing than the ragu, and a decent wine to boot.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUqsm4ciSvd/

Just a simple dinner after a long day at work last night.

Chicken thigh roast on the skin and served with “sauce vierge” which is essentially a salsa. It’s chopped tomatoes, shallot and in this case chives with loads of good oil, vinegar, and salt and pepper.

Crap picture because I didn’t have time but it was tasty.

Book shelves in the study.

There’s more books in places around the house and there’s ancillary shelves in the shed.

Today my wife asked me to cook something that my Father in Law would enjoy.

I made a pretty classic Ragù. Beef and pancetta, carrot, celery, onion and shallot. A few herbs from garden. Tomato purée. Brandy, Madeira, port. Milk, homemade chicken stock.
Kind of like a bolognese with a few bells and whistles.

I’ve made a lot of tagliatelle recently so made pappardelle instead.

As much as white wine, let alone Marlborough wine is not the classic with this ragu, I went to a New Zealand wine tasting today and blagged a few bottles.
Plus it’s too warm to even drink chilled reds.

I kind of didn’t want to cook in the heat but had committed to making this.

For the pork, I used a technique by Chefsteps, where you take a whole pork shoulder, cook it overnight and then chill and portion and cook to order. The idea is that the shoulder is more fatty than conventional pork chops and it results in a tender “steak”.
I froze my portions so just cooked them from chilled until golden.
(Off £7 worth of pork shoulder we have four “steaks” and two portions of trim to make a more conventional slow cooked braise with).

The remoulade is celeriac, with pink apple and some celery leaves. Classic seasoning, but of grain mustard.

The sauce is made in the pork pan, with shallot, deglazed with brandy, Madeira and white wine. Cook it down with chicken stock and herbs, mustard, capers and green peppercorns, and add mascarpone and butter at the end.

Served with some frites on the side.

Had some off dry Riesling that was nice and light at only 7.5%.

https://youtu.be/gzXXKTEQOJc?is=fG26RBNCz6NKZeiQ

I kind of didn’t want to cook in the heat but had committed to making this.

For the pork, I used a technique by Chefsteps* where you take a whole pork shoulder, cook it overnight and then chill and portion and cook to order. The idea is that the shoulder is more fatty than conventional pork chops and it results in a tender “steak”.
I froze my portions so just cooked them from chilled until golden.
(Off £7 worth of pork shoulder we have four “steaks” and two portions of trim to make a more conventional slow cooked braise with).

The remoulade is celeriac, with pink apple and some celery leaves. Classic seasoning, but of grain mustard.

The sauce is made in the pork pan, with shallot, deglazed with brandy, Madeira and white wine. Cook it down with chicken stock and herbs, mustard, capers and green peppercorns, and add mascarpone and butter at the end.

Served with some frites on the side.

Had some off dry Riesling that was nice and light at only 7.5%.

*
https://youtu.be/gzXXKTEQOJc?is=fG26RBNCz6NKZeiQ

In case you’ve haven’t heard the UK complaining; it’s very hot here.

Trying to cool off with a Daiquiri, although its cooling effects are short lived.

55ml Havana Club Profundo
15ml Strained lime juice
10ml 2:1 sugar syrup
4 drops saline 20%

Shake

Frozen Nick and Nora by u/Ok_Performer3566

After shaking it, I’m more hot than I was before. Will have to try again.

I managed to book holiday today so we made some things in the garden for my Father in Law.

Everything has a bit of a Mexican theme, but understanding that it’s all a bit freestyle.

Chicken thighs in chipotle.

Cornish new potatoes in paprika

Sweet long peppers in salsa verde and Racine dressing

Charred sweetcorn, feta and jalapeños.

Cherry tomatoes, charred courgette, black beans.

I thought the chicken thighs really held up to being grilled and I really liked the sweet peppers that i grilled in fish cages. The Racine dressing is essentially a vinaigrette with soy sauce. The soy just accentuates the savouriness of the peppers without feeling overtly like soy. It’s very clever.

Pretty much the last of the Asparagus, the last of the Jersey Royals.

Tonight we roasted off some salmon, the asparagus was cooked in its own water and a little oil.
The potatoes were boiled then steamed in wild garlic compound butter.

When I’ve posted similar dishes before people have asked “where is the sauce?”
Completely fair question so I made a beurre blanc based on some English wine (for theme’s sake) and finished it with lemon and chives.

I was gifted the wine and didn’t know what to expect.
Whilst it’s pretty tart, the flavours worked and it cut through a lot of the richness.

I’ve been playing around with the idea of Smoky Whisky, Sherry and Sparkling water for a while and this is the most recent iteration.

30ml Caol Ila

30ml Amontillado Sherry.

1 teaspoon Caper Leaf Brine

Sparkling Water,

Built

High ball glass

Garnish with a caper leaf.

We had some cherry tomatoes to use up, so the red ones went in a pan with plenty of olive oil and cooked them down until sticky. I built the sauce with plenty of pasta water.
Towards the end I added the yellow tomatoes so they didn’t break down as much.
I then folded through plenty of basil, parsley, the wild garlic butter and some pecorino and Parmesan.
Garnished with some really nice olive oil from Andalusia that has a tomatoey flavour.

Drank a spritz.

I’ve been buying these little Sanbitter clones for years but always found them very sweet. I started by pouring two and adding lots of bitters but that makes the serve expensive and still sickly.

Recently I’ve been using one at a time and topping up with sparkling water.
The texture and the mouth feel is just right and the carbonation is increased.
I really enjoy them when I want a flavourful drink without alcohol.

“Sans Alcool”
One bottle of Sanbitter or Clone
About 100-150ml of sparkling water.
Two Dashes of Regan’s Orange Bitters

Pour the water into a frozen high ball glass with ice.

Add the bitters.

Add the Sanbitter [clone]

Top up with sparkling water.

Garnish with bitter citrus.

I’ve been doing a lot of cheap fridge clear out pasta dishes lately. And a lot have been inspired by Aglio e Olio and similar dishes. (The other day I did half a fennel bulb braised down, that I didn’t post).

Today I found a third of a bag of spinach that was going a bit wilted.
I binned off the really sloppy bits and but the rest to one side to use.

Set some Linguine from Gragnano on to boil.

Started with the last three small garlic cloves from the other salad drawer. Sweat them down in olive oil. Added some leftover oil from a tin of anchovies that is still hanging on, some chilli flakes and a couple of dashes of Colatura Di Alici which is an aged fish sauce.
Then added the spinach and wilted it down, adding pasta water to build the sauce.
Added some capers, dried parsley and black pepper at this time.

Transferred the linguine over when it was just before al dente and continued to cook in the sauce, adding the water to keep it moving. The pasta takes a lot more water than you anticipate to finish cooking like this so be aware you can dry your pan out if you’re not careful.

Added chopped parsley and when the dish was finished and ready to plate, some lemon juice and a good final drizzle of Puglian olive oil from Bari.

Plated with a bit more parsley, pepper and olive oil.

I thought this was really good. The way the spinach and anchovy sauce combined with their briny, irony flavour was really powerful and intense.

This takes second place to the recent “miso cacio e pepe” that I did.

A few weeks ago I discovered a kilo of sardines in the freezer section at Lidl for about a fiver and I’ve been waiting for a break in the rain ever since.

Today was the day.

Grilled on the bbq with a little side salad of shaved fennel and golden raisins.
Doused in olive oil and parsley and served with a decent, if slightly too oaky Chardonnay for my tastes.

As good as fresh out the sea when you’re abroad? No, obviously not. But an incredibly cheap, summery dish with some nice flavours.

Went out today on a day off after 60
Hours in work.
Came back a bit tipsy, but in need of something easy to cook.

Roast thigh on the skin. Left to rest in the plate-warming oven.

Gently cooked the asparagus in its own juice in nice olive oil.

Rested the chicken and built a peppercorn sauce based on some shallot, brandy, Madeira, and mascarpone because that’s all
I had available.

Served with some decent white Rioja.

Tasty AF. The asparagus could have been more evenly trimmed otherwise no notes from me.

After yesterday’s more experimental pasta lunch I decided to have something more traditional.

Just a take on Aglio e Olio using the oil from a leftover jar of Cantabrian Anchovies with some crushed chilli flakes, fennel fronds and parsley from the garden.

Finished with some lemon, more parsley and a glug of Puglian olive oil.

The most notable thing is the quality of the pasta.
This was using 28p Lidl Spaghetti that I always have a couple of packs in stock for emergencies.
Whilst it’s nice to think that you’ve made a pretty decent plate of food for about 15-20p given the other ingredients, the gulf between the cheapest available pasta in the UK and something that costs 10x the price (but less when on offer) is wide. You get better texture, a broader margin for error and frankly a better flavour out of the nice pasta from Gragnano.
That said, I can’t shame anyone if this is their staple. Those feeding families, those without good incomes - you can make something really good with not much; literally store cupboard and the dregs of the salad drawer. It’s tasty.
If you can stretch to getting a “better” brand of pasta, I feel for dishes like this it would really shine.