When I was in New York last year I was lucky enough to have been told about a lovely place on the Lower East Side which specialised in serving macaroni cheese. S'MAC took the humble dish and added a plethora of different flavours to it. My eight-portion sampler included some French, Cajun, Italian, and of course American flavours. Probably a bit to heavy for lunch, but when in America, who cares about portion size?
Here’s my macaroni cheese recipe
Ingredients
Macaroni – purists will protest, but I have been known to use penne or frusili too
Butter
Milk
Plain flour
Grated cheese – I find it best to use these three types: mozerella, mature cheddar and parmesan, cut so long as it melts, I think you'll be OK.
Cook the pasta to packet instructions, until al-dente
Melt the butter gently in a saucepan then add the plain flour. Mix until it forms a paste. Make sure all of the flour is mixed in.
Slowly add the milk and stir out any lumps. Lumps only form when the flour isn't mixed with the butter properly.
Add the cheeses and season to taste. I use lots of pepper.
Once the pasta is cooked and rained, add it to the milk, butter and flour mix and stir so the past is coated.
Transfer to an oven dish and top with more the parmesan and more grated cheese, if you wish.
Cook in the oven until the top is brown. Leave it to cool down for a bit before eating it.
Showing posts with label comfort food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comfort food. Show all posts
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Porcini mushroom and chestnut pie
Ingredients:
Porcini mushrooms
Chestnuts
Other mushroom varieties of your own choosing. I use field, chestnut and button
Tomato puree
Onions
Garlic
Potatoes
Cheese
Milk
Boil the potatoes and make a mash in the way you prefer. If you're like me, this will involve lots of cheese.
Soak the porcini mushrooms in luke warm water. Make sure they are covered completely, but down drown them.
Chop and fry the garlic and onions until they start to brown. Chop and fry the other mushroom varieties.
Add the soaked porcini mushrooms and the water they were soaking in so that all the ingredients ate just covered with the water.
Roughly chop the chestnuts, not too small, and add them to the frying pan.
Turn the heat down and let it reduce, adding the tomato puree if you need to thicken.
Season to taste.
Once the mushroom mix is nice and thick, transfer to a baking dish and pile the mash on top. Smooth it out, as if you're making a shepherd's pie, and top with some cheese.
Put it in the oven at gas mark 7 (220C) for about 15 mins, until the top browns.
Porcini mushrooms
Chestnuts
Other mushroom varieties of your own choosing. I use field, chestnut and button
Tomato puree
Onions
Garlic
Potatoes
Cheese
Milk
Boil the potatoes and make a mash in the way you prefer. If you're like me, this will involve lots of cheese.
Soak the porcini mushrooms in luke warm water. Make sure they are covered completely, but down drown them.
Chop and fry the garlic and onions until they start to brown. Chop and fry the other mushroom varieties.
Add the soaked porcini mushrooms and the water they were soaking in so that all the ingredients ate just covered with the water.
Roughly chop the chestnuts, not too small, and add them to the frying pan.
Turn the heat down and let it reduce, adding the tomato puree if you need to thicken.
Season to taste.
Once the mushroom mix is nice and thick, transfer to a baking dish and pile the mash on top. Smooth it out, as if you're making a shepherd's pie, and top with some cheese.
Put it in the oven at gas mark 7 (220C) for about 15 mins, until the top browns.
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
Just like Mum made: Banh Xeo
At the weekend I was thrown into a haze of childhood nostalgia on the train when I stumbled upon a recipe for Banh Xeo (pronounced in my poor anglicised Cambodian as Ban Cheow - it's acutally a Vietnamese dish) in the Guardian.
This is one of the few things my mum cooked and I actually liked. It’s one of the few things that my mum cooked that wasn’t boiled rice (fair enough she gave me the deposit on my house but I did have a childhood of no toys, no holidays and 18 years of boiled rice for dinner EVERY DAY to pay for it).
Anyway, this dish reminds me of happy, simple times. Helping make the coconut milk (by painstakingly taking a rinder to the flesh and carving it out) drinking the juice (bizarrely I had a hatred of coconut for a long time – too many Bounty bars and bad frosting on Victoria sponges) and rushing home to stuff my face and going back for seconds.
Mum used to make us top and tail bean sprouts by hand, everything was very methodical when she cooked, rhythmic. It always took ages. I give her less credit as a cook then she deserved, but I put that down to 18 years of eating boiled rice.
The Guardian recipe for Banh Xeo was a vegetarian adaptation, but here’s my mum’s version, as I remember it.
For the pancakes
Rice flour
Coconut milk (you can buy it tinned, or spend hours making your own)
Egg
Some people advocate adding tumeric, but I don’t ever remember my mother doing so
For the filling
Minced pork
Shrimps
Onion
Bean sprouts
Salad leaves
Cucumber
Thai mint
For the sauce
Fish sauce
Lemon juice
Crushed garlic
Crushed peanuts
Chili (optional)
It really makes a difference if you can make the sauce the night before. Simply mix the fish sauce, lemon juice, crushed garlic together, altering quantities to taste. Mum used to add warm water to dilute, the flavours are quite strong.
To make the pancake batter, beat the egg and add to the rice flour. Add the coconut milk slowly, stirring out any lumps. The mixture needs to bit a little thinner than a conventional pancake mix.
Set the batter aside a while to work on the filling.
Chop the onions and fry. Add the pork, then the shrimps at the last minute add the bean sprouts. Take off the heat and leave to one side while you cook the pancakes.
Heat some oil in a large wok. The oil needs to be hot, but not smoking, make sure the sides are coated and the oil doesn’t just sit in the base. Using a ladle, spoon in the pancake batter, swirling it around to make a big, thin pancake – it should have thin, crispy sides.
Spoon in the meat and bean sprouts into the middle of the pancake and fold it in half. Transfer onto a plate and garnish with the salad leaves, mint and cucumber. Spoon some sauce, it's like a sharp vinaigrette, over the top with some of the peanuts.
We always ate this with chopsticks. It’s a challenge.
This is one of the few things my mum cooked and I actually liked. It’s one of the few things that my mum cooked that wasn’t boiled rice (fair enough she gave me the deposit on my house but I did have a childhood of no toys, no holidays and 18 years of boiled rice for dinner EVERY DAY to pay for it).
Anyway, this dish reminds me of happy, simple times. Helping make the coconut milk (by painstakingly taking a rinder to the flesh and carving it out) drinking the juice (bizarrely I had a hatred of coconut for a long time – too many Bounty bars and bad frosting on Victoria sponges) and rushing home to stuff my face and going back for seconds.
Mum used to make us top and tail bean sprouts by hand, everything was very methodical when she cooked, rhythmic. It always took ages. I give her less credit as a cook then she deserved, but I put that down to 18 years of eating boiled rice.
The Guardian recipe for Banh Xeo was a vegetarian adaptation, but here’s my mum’s version, as I remember it.
For the pancakes
Rice flour
Coconut milk (you can buy it tinned, or spend hours making your own)
Egg
Some people advocate adding tumeric, but I don’t ever remember my mother doing so
For the filling
Minced pork
Shrimps
Onion
Bean sprouts
Salad leaves
Cucumber
Thai mint
For the sauce
Fish sauce
Lemon juice
Crushed garlic
Crushed peanuts
Chili (optional)
It really makes a difference if you can make the sauce the night before. Simply mix the fish sauce, lemon juice, crushed garlic together, altering quantities to taste. Mum used to add warm water to dilute, the flavours are quite strong.
To make the pancake batter, beat the egg and add to the rice flour. Add the coconut milk slowly, stirring out any lumps. The mixture needs to bit a little thinner than a conventional pancake mix.
Set the batter aside a while to work on the filling.
Chop the onions and fry. Add the pork, then the shrimps at the last minute add the bean sprouts. Take off the heat and leave to one side while you cook the pancakes.
Heat some oil in a large wok. The oil needs to be hot, but not smoking, make sure the sides are coated and the oil doesn’t just sit in the base. Using a ladle, spoon in the pancake batter, swirling it around to make a big, thin pancake – it should have thin, crispy sides.
Spoon in the meat and bean sprouts into the middle of the pancake and fold it in half. Transfer onto a plate and garnish with the salad leaves, mint and cucumber. Spoon some sauce, it's like a sharp vinaigrette, over the top with some of the peanuts.
We always ate this with chopsticks. It’s a challenge.
Thursday, 28 February 2008
More comfort food: Mira's sweet soup
I wanted to create a recipe for my friend Mira, who can't chew after suffering after an operation on her jaw. It has to be delicious and easy to make, because her cooking rarely extends beyond "pierce film lid and heat on full for 4 mins." Here goes…
This recipe has lots of sustenance and carbs, because Mira can't eat solids and she's skinny anyway, but it also features lots of goodness. Mira hates greens, but the spinach (a good source of iron) should reduce down enough to fall under the radar.
Sweet potato
Butternut squash
Garlic
Leek
Spinach
Ghee (Mira's mum is of Asian heritage, so she should have some of this, but I guess butter would also do)
Crème fraiche
Vegetable stock
1. Peel and chop the sweet potato and butternut squash (these can bought pre-cubed, if you're feeling lazy)
2. Boil these in the stock and leave to simmer for 10 mins, until they are soft.
3. Chop the garlic and leek and fry them in the ghee until they are soft and then add them to the stock.
4. Take the stock off the heat and add the spinach.
5. Leave to cool for a while before blending it all together in a food processor or blender.
6. Re-heat and stir in the crème fraiche to thicken up.
7. Season with whatever it needs - salt, pepper, paprika is a good one, so is mustard and tarragon.
Cook time: 30 mins
This recipe has lots of sustenance and carbs, because Mira can't eat solids and she's skinny anyway, but it also features lots of goodness. Mira hates greens, but the spinach (a good source of iron) should reduce down enough to fall under the radar.
Sweet potato
Butternut squash
Garlic
Leek
Spinach
Ghee (Mira's mum is of Asian heritage, so she should have some of this, but I guess butter would also do)
Crème fraiche
Vegetable stock
1. Peel and chop the sweet potato and butternut squash (these can bought pre-cubed, if you're feeling lazy)
2. Boil these in the stock and leave to simmer for 10 mins, until they are soft.
3. Chop the garlic and leek and fry them in the ghee until they are soft and then add them to the stock.
4. Take the stock off the heat and add the spinach.
5. Leave to cool for a while before blending it all together in a food processor or blender.
6. Re-heat and stir in the crème fraiche to thicken up.
7. Season with whatever it needs - salt, pepper, paprika is a good one, so is mustard and tarragon.
Cook time: 30 mins
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
More comfort food: Potato and mushroom gratin
I do have other ingredients in my cupboard, than cream and mushrooms, I promise.
Finely sliced Potato
Sliced Mushrooms
Double cream
Milk
Chopped garlic
1. Fry the garlic in a pan and add the sliced mushrooms. Fry until just soft.
2. Arrange a layer of slice potatoes in an oven dish. The slices don't have to be super-thin, 1cm should do it. You don't have to peel them either, but when you're arranging them, it's best if they don't overlap too much
3. Add some of the fried mushrooms on top of the 1st layer of potatoes, then add another layer of potatoes, and so on until there are none left.
4. Mix the double cream and milk half and half with some more garlic and pour over the potatoes and mushrooms, so that it's just covered.
5. Move the oven dish around a bit so the cream penetrates each layer, rather than just sitting on top.
6. Bake in the oven at Gas Mark 7 for 45 mins. Try to avoid the temptation to keep opening the oven and peer in.
If you've got some cream and milk left over, then you can make a creamy sauce by heating it in the same pan you used for the mushrooms, then add some tarragon and whole grain mustard. Thin it down a little with milk, or white whine, or some three-day opened Veuve Clicquot which is what I found lurking in my fridge. It goes very well with chicken and fish.
Hmm, maybe this is actually why you'll never see me on a diet.
Cook time: 1 hour
Finely sliced Potato
Sliced Mushrooms
Double cream
Milk
Chopped garlic
1. Fry the garlic in a pan and add the sliced mushrooms. Fry until just soft.
2. Arrange a layer of slice potatoes in an oven dish. The slices don't have to be super-thin, 1cm should do it. You don't have to peel them either, but when you're arranging them, it's best if they don't overlap too much
3. Add some of the fried mushrooms on top of the 1st layer of potatoes, then add another layer of potatoes, and so on until there are none left.
4. Mix the double cream and milk half and half with some more garlic and pour over the potatoes and mushrooms, so that it's just covered.
5. Move the oven dish around a bit so the cream penetrates each layer, rather than just sitting on top.
6. Bake in the oven at Gas Mark 7 for 45 mins. Try to avoid the temptation to keep opening the oven and peer in.
If you've got some cream and milk left over, then you can make a creamy sauce by heating it in the same pan you used for the mushrooms, then add some tarragon and whole grain mustard. Thin it down a little with milk, or white whine, or some three-day opened Veuve Clicquot which is what I found lurking in my fridge. It goes very well with chicken and fish.
Hmm, maybe this is actually why you'll never see me on a diet.
Cook time: 1 hour
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
My favourite comfort food: Tagliatelle with bacon and mushroom carbonara
Smokes streaky bacon
Mushrooms
Tagliatelle
Single cream
One egg, beaten
Black pepper
1. Boil water in a pan and cook the pasta
2. Meanwhile heat a large frying pan and cut the bacon into small bits
3. Fry the bacon on a lowish heat and slice the mushrooms
4. When the mushrooms are browning add the cream and stir
5. Add the beaten egg and continue to stir until the sauce thickens. Add the black pepper and keep stirring over a low heat or the egg will scramble and you’ll be forced to eat scrambled eggs and bacon for tea
6. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Dish it up or eat it straight from the pan to reduce washing up (I’m only partially kidding)
Cook time: 30 mins
Mushrooms
Tagliatelle
Single cream
One egg, beaten
Black pepper
1. Boil water in a pan and cook the pasta
2. Meanwhile heat a large frying pan and cut the bacon into small bits
3. Fry the bacon on a lowish heat and slice the mushrooms
4. When the mushrooms are browning add the cream and stir
5. Add the beaten egg and continue to stir until the sauce thickens. Add the black pepper and keep stirring over a low heat or the egg will scramble and you’ll be forced to eat scrambled eggs and bacon for tea
6. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Dish it up or eat it straight from the pan to reduce washing up (I’m only partially kidding)
Cook time: 30 mins
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