Tag: Mushrooms

Now you see me…. now you don´t – Oven Baked Risotto

Chica Andaluza64 Comments

Oh dear, where have the last 10 days or so gone to? It´s busy, busy, busy here and while we are still (of course) working, cooking and eating, there has been very little activity on the blog. I do miss you all, and I am sorry that I haven´t had time to get over and comment.  House Number One is finished. Yes, you read that right!  Well, apart from 6 door handles that need to be put on. We even have a lovely tenant waiting to move in as soon as we move out.

So you can imagine that things have moved on apace in House Number 2 (I am sitting in a bare room while the kitchen floor is being grouted and windows are being replaced upstairs and the plumbers are doing things with copper pipes).

Photos to come, but in the meantime, back to the food. Best pal Ria sent me the recipe for her oven baked risotto which is given below. Believe me, if you ever thought you fancied risotto but didn´t have time to stand over the pot and stir, this is a fantastic way to do it.  I made extra (of course) and turned the remains into something else the next day and I would strongly suggest you do the same.  I have given Maria´s version and then afterwards my adaptation according to what I had available in my fridge. Perfect comfort food.

Maria’s world famous baked haddock & cabbage risotto

Serves 4 (easily halved or doubled – it’s very forgiving)

Prep 5 mins, Cooks in 35 mins

Dead easy and delicious!

Ingredients

  • 1  tbsp olive oil
  • 1  onion chopped
  • 300g/10oz  risotto rice
  • 1  litre vegetable stock (you can use vegetable bouillon powder)
  • 280g wedge savoy cabbage, thickly sliced (Tanya – I used about a dozen thinly sliced mushrooms and half a dozen rashers of finely chopped smoked streaky bacon instead of the cabbage and haddock)
  • 400g/14oz skinless smoked haddock (preferably go for the undyed sort and ask the nice fishmonger to skin it for you – but if you can only get with skin on it’s very easy to slip off after it’s been cooked, before you flake it)
  • 3 tbsp crème fraiche
  • 50g freshly grated parmesan

Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6.

  1. Heat oil in a 2 litre casserole dish, then soften the onion over a medium heat for about 5 mins.
  2. Tip in the rice and cook for 2 mins, stirring well.
  3. Pour in the stock, bring to the boil, then add the cabbage.
  4. Cover and bake in oven for 20 mins
  5. Remove the dish from the oven and give the rice a stir.  Place the fish on top of the rice, replace the lid, then bake for 5 mins.
  6. Flake the fish into large chunks and stir into the rice with the crème fraiche and half the parmesan.  Season with freshly ground pepper, then sprinkle with the remaining parmesan to serve.
  7. Eat and enjoy.
  8. Don’t forget to pretend it was really difficult to make!

So, there it is, the secret is out…you can make a great risotto in the oven and have time to nip upstairs for a shower, pour yourself a glass of wine and take a deep breath before dinner.

Prawn and Mushroom Quiche

Chica Andaluza42 Comments

Now, I know quiche isn´t remotely Spanish, but just think of it as a tortilla in a pastry case!  I have introduced Big Man to quiche over the last few years and it has become a big favourite.

It´s also an easy dish for me to prepare right now with just a few pots and pans at my disposal and (yes, I confess) I used ready made pastry this time.

Remember Clara´s Pastry for my mince pies? Well, here it is again, it´s a very versatile and tasty pastry. And when I´m not being so lazy or covered in dust, I´ll make my own again!

Ingredients for the pastry

  • 200g plain flour
  • Pinch of Salt
  • 50g each of cold butter and lard
  • One egg, beaten
  • Milk

Rub the fat into the flour and salt until it resembles fine breadcrumbs or pulse in a food processor.  Using a broad knife, work the egg into the flour.  Start to gently bring the pastry together with your hands.  You will probably need to add a very little milk but add drops rather than slugs.  Do not knead or overwork the pastry.

Now wrap in plastic and leave to rest in the fridge until you are ready to use it, but bring it up to room temperature first.

Roll it out on a well floured surface and place into your tin, prick the base with a fork and then fill with baking beans or pulses placed on top of greaseproof paper. Trim off any excess and bake at 180ºC for 15 minutes, or until it just starts to brown.

For the filling

  • 5 eggs and 100 ml of single cream beaten together
  • A cup of peeled cooked prawns
  • A cup of thinly sliced mushrooms (lightly sautéed first)
  • Seasoning

Mix all the ingredients together, if your tin is particularly large, add a drop more cream or milk.  Pour into the pastry base and bake for about 25 minutes at 180ºC or until the centre is set.

Remove from oven and eat hot or cold.

Sometimes Life Isn´t Too Short to Stuff a Mushroom

Chica Andaluza63 Comments

Now that I have some semblance of normality cooking back into my cooking life, it´s fun to start enjoying foods that are not so readily available to us in Spain. Stilton cheese (that beautiful, pungent English blue cheese) for one. And bizarrely flat mushrooms – we don´t get much mushroom choice available locally Up the Mountain unless we go foraging.

To go with an amazing T-Bone steak for Big Man (what else) and a fillet steak for me, I made some delicious mushrooms stuffed with spring onion, stilton and dolcelatte. Another simple dish, but oh so good with the beautiful local beef available here in East Sussex.

Ingredients (to stuff 2-4 flat mushrooms, depending on the size of your mushrooms)

  • About half a cup of coarse, fresh breadcrumbs (I made mine from day old ciabatta)
  • The finely chopped stems of the mushrooms
  • About 75g of cheese (I used a mixture of stilton and dolcelatte)
  • 2 medium spring onions finely sliced
  • 1 fat clove of garlic, crushed
  • Salt and pepper
  • Olive oil

Start by drizzling a little olive oil into each mushroom. Mix all the other ingredients together, season to taste and divide it between the mushrooms. Press the filling down a little and then drizzle a little more oil over the top.

Bake in a hot oven for about 15 minutes until the mushrooms are soft and the stuffing starts to crisp. Delicious as a side dish or a starter.

And for anyone feeling brave..take a look at the old kitchen/bathroom in house number two. Eek!

Mixed Mushrooms with Cinnamon and Lemon

Chica Andaluza59 Comments

Ok, I promise to stop singing the praises of my new best friend, Mr Yotam Ottolenghi soon, but dammit, he just keeps inspiring me with his lovely recipes. I´m not vegetarian, I couldn´t give up bacon, jamon and a nice blue steak, but his recipes are very vegetable focused and they could almost make you forget how wonderful a crispy roast chicken tastes. Almost.

Another of his recipes featuring mixed mushrooms appealed to me, although I had to use a bag of mixed frozen mushrooms at this time of year. Roll on autumn when I can make this with fresh ones. The method I used to cook them is a little different from the original recipe, I have put the original ingredients in brackets after my version. If you make this with fresh mushrooms I think it will be less “saucy” (it certainly looked drier in the photo in the book) but I rather liked having something to mop up with my bread!

Ingredients (my version serves 2, Ottolenghi version serves 6-8)

  • 450g mixed mushrooms (Otto recipe – 2kg)
  • 3 tbsp olive oil (Otto recipe – 160ml)
  • 2 sprigs of thyme (Otto recipe – 30g chopped)
  • 3 crushed garlic cloves (10 cloves)
  • 2 tbs chopped chives (100g chopped flat leaf parsley)
  • 1 cinnamon stick (6 cinnamon sticks)
  • 1 tsp coarse sea salt (25g sea salt)
  • 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper (1 tbsp)
  • Grated zest of 1 lemon and juice of half (60ml lemon juice)

In a large pan heat the oil slightly then add the garlic and mushroom, fry gently until they mushrooms release their liquid, add the thyme and cinnamon and turn up the heat. Cook until the liquid has reduced a little, turn off the heat then stir in the chives, lemon zest and juice. Remove the cinnamon stick, taste and season. I served with a chicken breast which I had cut into thin fillets, marinated for 30 minutes in olive oil and lemon juice and quickly cooked in the griddle pan.

Couscous – Two Ways

Chica Andaluza78 Comments

Now that the heat seems to have arrived (and looks to stay), we make the shift to summer food. Fast cooking, not so much time spent in the kitchen, and a lot of cooking on the barbecue…as long as we can find a shady spot for it.

Couscous ticks a lot of the boxes as it´s so quick and easy to prepare, and provides a blank canvas to work with. I´m sure many of you have your favourite ways of preparing it, and I´d love to hear what they are. Here are a couple of ways I´ve served it recently. Both versions serve 4 as a side dish and were made with 1 cup of cous cous prepared according to the packet instructions and served chilled.

Couscous with Mushrooms and Courgettes

  • 1 medium onion, 1 cup mushrooms and 1 medium  courgette all finely chopped and sautéed until soft.
  • Mix with the cous cous, season and dress with olive oil, lemon juice and some finely chopped parsley.

Couscous with “Gazpacho”

  • Inspired by our summer favourite, I mixed the cous cous with finely chopped red onion, tomato, cucumber, green pepper and mint and dressed it (after seasoning) with olive oil, white wine vinegar and some finely chopped mint.

Two simple dishes to inspire and feed you.

Salteado de Espárragos, Habas y Setas – Sautéed Asparagus, Broad Beans and Mushrooms

Chica Andaluza56 Comments

This recipe of sautéed (or stir fried as very little oil is used) vegetables is fantastic as it can be used as a vegetable dish, a starter, or served with fried or poached eggs as a light lunch or supper. Add jamon or bacon for non vegetarians (as I did) and it becomes more filling or stir it into scrambled eggs.  See? Lots of options!

Ingredients

  • About 24 thin spears of asparagus, finely chopped (reserve spears)
  • ½ cup of broad beans (no need to skin)
  • 2 or 3 large oyster mushrooms cut into thin strips
  • About 6-8 mushrooms and stalks finely sliced
  • 2 cloves of crushed garlic
  • 4 slices of jamon or bacon finely chopped (optional)
  • Olive oil

Start by simmering the asparagus (not the tips) and broad beans for 3-4 minutes in boiling water. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and then cook the tips of the spears for a minute or two until tender, reserving them separately. The stock is good for using as a soup base or for cooking rice.

In a frying pan warm a little oil and gently cook the garlic until it is soft but not brown. Add the mushrooms and stir to coat in oil then cover and cook gently until the mushrooms are soft and giving off a little liquid.

Add the asparagus tips and broad beans, stir and cover and cook for a further 5 minutes. If you like your vegetables very tender, add half a cup of water and cook until it has evaporated. If using bacon or jamon, add, turn the heat up and fry until slightly crispy. Stir in the asparagus tips, season and serve.

Fried for Big Man…I prefer poached…

This would also be lovely used in a risotto or stirred into pasta….or add cream and mix with gnocchi.

Setas Asadas – Fire Roasted Oyster Mushrooms with Poached Eggs

Chica Andaluza68 Comments

I have mentioned previously that we have some mushrooms growing, intentionally I might add, in our garage.  It was a slow start, but we are now getting regular supplies of oyster mushrooms to enjoy.

After a week away, they had gone a little crazy, and some of the ordinary mushrooms which we are also growing had turned into monsters which I´ll chop up and use in sauces or soups.

Back from London with not much in the fridge, we had to “make do and mend”, as my grandmother used to say.  The fire was blazing merrily, so we put some of the larger mushrooms onto our parilla (which is a grill which you can sandwich things between) and cooked them over the embers of the fire. You could do this over a barbecue or even under the grill (for grilling I´d recommend you brush them lightly with oil first).

Once they were done we seasoned them with Maldon sea salt, freshly ground pepper then drizzled some olive oil over and added a little squeeze of lemon juice. With a softly poached egg and a plate of jamon we enjoyed a simple supper but felt that we had dined like Kings!

PS. Our dogs Luna and Alfi stayed with our lovely neighbours while we were away. Our dogs love being there and they get loads of walks.  It seems this week they discovered the joys of goat manure and spent lots of time playing in it, which was much less fun for our neighbours who had to deal with two very stinky dogs.  Alfi is now in need of a major haircut and they were both happily exhausted yesterday when we got them home.  I took this snap of them “recovering” from their week of fun whilst trying not to laugh too much at Alfi´s lack of energy to get either into or out of the bed.

Huevos Revueltos con Gambas y Setas – Scrambled Eggs with Prawns and Mushrooms

Chica Andaluza54 Comments

This is a bit of a “non recipe” recipe, as scrambled eggs are not really so tricky to do.  And as for my photos of the end result – well, not so appealing.  I know that many of you out there can make them look creamy and gorgeous but it was a case of “snap ´em quick as we don´t want to eat cold, dried out scrambled eggs”. Sorry.

Funnily enough, these are such highly prized dishes here that scrambled eggs (in different variations) often appear on restaurant menus as starters and top chefs demonstrate the art of cooking them on TV cooking programmes.  I do find that a little odd, as scrambled eggs was the first thing I was “taught” to cook by Sister Sylvia in my convent school cookery lessons.  I had already been baking and making meals at home so was a little insulted when a tiny chain smoking nun who wore high heels and a very elaborate hair do told me off for not getting into the corners of the pan with my wooden spoon.

When I told her that round saucepans don´t have corners (and between us convent girls we all knew she bought cigarettes and sherry with our cookery money) a wary truce was established but, much to my family´s surprise, I loathed cookery lessons at school. I was quite a bratty and opnionated 13 year old as you can see…

So, I digress.  Back to a quick and tasty and very Spanish supper dish for two.

Ingredients

  • About a cup and half of mixed mushrooms (they sell very good bags of mixed frozen mushrooms here which, when defrosted, are perfect for this and other dishes)
  • A cup of peeled prawns (shrimp) – or keep it vegetarian by leaving these out
  • One clove of crushed garlic
  • Four eggs (free range if possible)
  • A splash of milk
  • Seasoning
  • Olive oil or butter for frying (we use oil and I sometimes stir in a knob of butter to the eggs at the end)
  • A heaped tablespoon of finely chopped parsley,

Beat the eggs, milk and seasoning together and put to one side.  Now slowly fry the garlic and mushrooms until the mushrooms have given off their juices and are tender. How long this takes will depend on your mushrooms. Now turn the heat up, add the prawns and stir fry until pink.

Keeping the heat at medium, add the eggs and scramble to your liking (don´t forget the corners!). When they are a few seconds away from being done, stir in the parsley and serve with crusty bread or toast and a glass of something gorgeous.

Quick Braised Wild and Oyster Mushrooms

Chica Andaluza40 Comments

Remember our beautiful walk recently?  We had such a wonderful morning and came home with about half a kilo of wild mushrooms.

Because they were so fresh, I knew they would keep for a day or two, so in the first dish I made, I used half of them and kept things very simple.

We grow oyster mushrooms in our garage. No, don´t worry – there´s no nasty fungus creeping up the walls or anything.  You can buy bales of straw which are impregnated with mushroom spores and then wrapped in black plastic.  You cut slits into the plastic and keep the “alpaca” as these bales are known in the dark and ensure that they are kept damp.  About a week after acquiring your little treasure your first mushrooms will appear.  Just cut and eat.  Then when you´ve harvested as many as you can, you flip the alpaca over and cut a few more slits.  If you keep it going you can be eating your own grown oyster mushrooms for several months.

I took about the same quantity of oyster mushrooms as wild, cut the wild mushrooms into thick slices and tore the oyster mushrooms into strips.

In a deep terracotta dish (or you could use a frying pan) I added three crushed cloves to garlic to the mushrroms together with about 3 good tablespoons of olive oil, some Maldon (or kosher) salt, several good grinds of black pepper and two red chillis (these are optional).  I turned the heat up to high and as soon as the mushrooms began to sizzle I reduced it and covered them to let them sweat and get tender for about 10 minutes.  I then removed the lid and added a small glass of dry white wine and let everything bubble away until the liquid had reduced by half.

We ate this as a starter with plenty of rosé wine and some crusty bread to mop up the delicious juices.

 

PS. On a totally different subject – since I changed the look of my blog (i.e I changed the theme) my photos don´t seem to appear properly.  They are cut off on the right hand side!  Has anyone come across this and do they know how to resolve it? Thanks for any advice anyone might be able to offer me.

Gardens and Puff Pastry with a Side Order of Steak and Chips

Chica Andaluza41 Comments
Bushy Garden Oct 2011

It´s that time of year here when you need to “put the garden to bed”.  Before you tuck it in for the winter, you can hack back the summer growth and give it a little room to breathe.

The interent and phone were down most of Sunday and all day Monday.  Frustrating but being “incomunicado” forces you to get up off your nether region and do something!  Gardening was the answer.

After a morning of hard work in the garden, we needed something to reward ourselves with – what better than steak and chips?  Steak is a rare treat for us, so we tend not to mess around with it too much.  A little massage with olive oil and seasoning, and onto the grill pan.  Chunky potatoes cooked in olive oil, and a little English mustard mixed with mayonnaise do it for me.

I had some leftovers from making my Chicken, Mushroom and Bacon Pie (recipe to follow another day) , so decided to make an easy dish to go with the steak and chips.

I cut what remained of the puff pastry into two rectangles and lightly cut (but not all the way through) another rectangle about one cm inside the outer edges of the pastry.  I brushed the pastry with milk and baked at 200ºC for about 15 minutes until puffed up and golden. When the pastry had cooled down I pushed in the middle section of the rectangle to leave a hollow space.

Save on the washing up and have a starter and main on the same plate

With very little oil I fried 4 thinly sliced mushrooms with 2 crushed cloves of garlic until soft then added 2 heaped tablespoons of chopped bacon.  I then added 1 heaped tablespoon of plan flour and stirred until it was cooked through.  I gradually added splashes of milk (about 5 or 6 in total), stirring all the time until I had a thick sauce and then filled the pastry cases with this.  I put them back into the oven on a low heat until I was ready to dish up the rest of the meal.

Bald Garden Nov 2011

A lovely glass of El Coto Rioja went down well with this and we sat outside for 15 minutes in the last of the afternoon´s sunshine admiring out work and drinking a good strong coffee.  It was a good day.