Beetroot Arancini with Goat's Cheese

Beetroot Arancini with Goat's Cheese

Arancini are deep-fried Sicilian risotto balls and I'm really pleased with how these turned. These are also great for a picnic, especially if you make them slightly bigger and put a piece of goat's cheese in the middle. Posh veggie scotch eggs, innit. Follow the recipe for beetroot risotto, but double the quantities and make this the next day with the leftovers. I'm not going to lie – they are a faff (and your hands will be a bright shade of red for about a week), but utterly worth the effort.
Makes 12-16

Ingredients:
half of the beetroot risotto
3 eggs
flour
breadcrumbs
vegetable oil

Method:
1. Take tablespoon amounts of the risotto and roll into a ball. Cover in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs and place on a plate ready for frying. Repeat until you have the number you desire.
2. If you are making large arancini, use more risotto and make a cavity in the middle to place a piece of goat's cheese before sealing with rice. For small arancini, melt goat's cheese over the top once cooked.
3. When ready to cook, heat vegetable oil in a heavy-bottomed pan to 170C and fry until golden brown and piping hot.

Beetroot Risotto

Beetroot Risotto

Bored of boring old risotto? Liven it up with an amazing burst of colour and the pungent, earthy flavour of beetroot. Serves 4.

Ingredients:

Beetroot Purée
3 small to medium beetroot
olive oil

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas 4.
2. Scrub beetroot thoroughly to get rid of any dirt. Top and tail each and place in a roasting dish. Drizzle with a little oil and roast until tender – around 45-60mins.
3. Allow to cool slightly, peel and place in a food processor. Drizzle in a little olive oil while processing until it forms a smooth purée. Season and set aside.

Risotto
1 small onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
250g Arborio rice
2 sprigs fresh thyme
150ml red wine
1 litre vegetable, heated and kept warm
250g parmasan, grated
50g butter

Method:
1. Sauté onion in a couple glugs of olive oil until softened. Add garlic and cook for a further couple of minutes.
2. Add rice and thyme and stir for a minute until the rice is sealed. Add the red wine and deglaze the pan. Once wine is absorbed add a ladleful of stock to the rice. Continue stirring until absorbed.
3. Continue doing this until rice is cooked al dente. Add parmesan cheese and butter and stir through. Rice should be slightly wet, but creamy and glossy.
4. Add beetroot purée a tablespoon at a time, to your tastes. It is a strong flavour so make sure you taste after each addition.

Chicken Kievs

Chicken Kievs

I haven't eaten chicken kievs for about 15 years. They're just not something on my culinary radar, ever since I was a student and one of my flatmates at the time used to think nothing of seeing off two of the big buggers with a whole bag of oven chips thrown in for good measure. It put me off, to be honest. That was until the Euro Championships this summer, held in Poland and Ukraine, with the final in Kiev. With a recipe from Gordon Ramsay downloaded, this was the obvious choice for dinner. It was good. Damn good, in fact, and I've got loads of the tarragon butter left over to use for fish.
Serves 4

Ingredients:
200g butter, softened
3 fat cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
small handful chopped tarragon
small handful chopped fresh parsley
4 free-range skinless, boneless chicken breasts, about 150g each
100g plain flour
pinch paprika
2 large free-range eggs, beaten
100g dried breadcrumbs
2-3 tbsp olive or sunflower oil, for frying
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 190°C/gas 5.
2. To make the filling, mix the softened butter with the garlic, tarragon, parsley and seasoning. Chill in the fridge until ready to use.
3. For the chicken breasts, check first to see if they have a separate under-fillet, which chefs call a supreme. If so, don't detach it. Using a small, very sharp knife, make a slit in the flesh of each breast fillet from top to bottom, creating a pocket at a slight slant.
4. Spoon the butter mixture into the pocket. If you have fillets with supremes, then simply fold these over the slits to cover them.
5. Mix the flour, pinch of paprika and seasoning together in a shallow bowl. Tip the beaten eggs into another shallow bowl and the breadcrumbs into a third. Toss the stuffed chicken breasts first into the flour to coat, shaking off any excess, then slide them one at a time into the egg and turn until covered. Finally, dip each into the breadcrumbs, again shaking off any excess. Lay the breasts, slit sides down, on a plate and chill to help firm the crumb coating.
6. When ready to cook, pour the oil into a medium frying pan to heat until you can feel a good heat rising. Add the chicken breasts and colour for 1-2 minutes on each side, until lightly golden. Transfer the pan to the oven and cook for approximately 12-14 minutes until golden brown and the chicken is thoroughly cooked.

Thai Turkey Burgers

Thai Turkey Burgers

Bit of another quickie as I realise I haven't posted for a while and I've had this recipe knocking around for a bit. These were an absolute winner at The Albion Tavern, eagerly devoured by two hungry boys and one even hungrier dad. From opening the packet of mince to shoving cooked burger in gob took no more than 30 minutes. These were served with a huge mound of sticky rice. Probably best not to serve this to a two-year-old who eats everything with his fingers. We were finding remnants of rice all over the place for hours. Recipe from BBC Good Food. Makes four burgers.

Ingredients:
400g turkey mince
4 spring onions , finely chopped
1 tsp grated root ginger
1 red chilli , seeded and finely chopped
1 egg yolk
small bunch coriander, chopped
1 tbsp sunflower oil
4 ciabatta rolls
a few sprigs watercress


Method:
1. Put the first 6 ingredients in a bowl, season and mix well. Form into 4 burgers.
2. Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan and fry the burgers for about 5 minutes on each side until golden and cooked through.
3. Serve the burgers in rolls with some watercress and a little sweet chilli sauce if you like.

Lamb Kofta

Lamb Kofta

Tabouleh

Yes, yes, yes, it looks like a poo on a stick, but try to get past the fecal lollipop image because these lamb kofta are just amazing. Bursting with all those flavours that remind you of Mediterranean holidays (or trips down the local kebab house for the credit conscious) – cumin, coriander, cinnamon. Oh my god, maybe I've some sort of scat fetish because my mouth is wetter than an otter's pocket just thinking about them. These kofta (a marriage of recipes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Rick Stein) were devoured with a simple mint yoghurt (natural yoghurt, a handful of freshly chopped mint, done) and a version of tabouleh, but with quinoa instead of bulger wheat (because I'd run out) and nowhere near enough flat-leaf parsley (because I'd run out). Makes 8 kofta.

Ingredients:
900g minced lamb
2 onions, finely grated
2 tsp fennel seeds

2 tsp cumin seeds

2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tbsp sweet paprika

1 tbsp harissa paste

1 tbsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

4 garlic cloves, very finely chopped
2 tbsp olive oil

Method:
1. Heat a dry frying pan over medium heat. Add the fennel, cumin and coriander seeds, toast until fragrant – about a minute – then pound with a pestle and mortar until fine. In a bowl, mix with the other seasoning ingredients. Add the minced meat and combine with your hands. Cover and refrigerate overnight for the flavours to develop.
2. Divide the mixture into eight and mould each portion firmly around a skewer in a sausage shape. (If using wooden skewers, make sure you soak in water first.)
3. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat and fry the kofta until they're cooked through – about 10 minutes.

Cauliflower Cheese

Cauliflower Cheese

You can't beat cauliflower cheese. It's a welcome addition to any Sunday roast – just brilliant with beef or chicken – or just have it on its own with hunks of crusty bread. The key to its success is the cheese sauce. It needs a good zing of black pepper and nutmeg (or try adding a teaspoon of Dijon mustard), and by Christ it needs to thicker than a BNP pub quiz team. This recipe comes from Nigel Slater, a "celeb" chef who I  have a ridiculous amount of time for. Serves 4.

Ingredients:
1 large cauliflower, cut into florets
550ml full-fat milk
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
2-3 cloves
1 bay leaf
50g butter
50g plain flour
125g mature cheddar, grated

To finish:
nutmeg, freshly grated
parmesan or cheddar, grated

Method:
1. Steam cauliflower until tender.
2. Make a rich cheese sauce by warming 550ml of milk in a pan. Season with peppercorns, a couple of cloves and a bay leaf and bring to the boil. Turn off and allow to infuse for 15 minutes.
3. Melt together butter and flour, stirring until it thickens, then whisk in the strained milk. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and stir in grated mature cheddar and simmer for 15 minutes.
4. Finish with a little grated nutmeg. Pour the sauce over the cauliflower, scatter with a little parmesan or cheddar and bake at 200C/gas 6 for 25-30 minutes.

Tagliatelle alla Carbonara

Tagliatelle alla Carbonara

I've only had one experience with home-made pasta before, when my wife had a go at making some sort of beetroot and ricotta ravioli a few years back. I remember it being tasty, but my over-riding memories of the meal were waiting what seemed like a whole weekend for it to be ready and then going into the kitchen afterwards and almost weeping at the mess that met me. Home-made pasta has since been off the menu at The Albion Tavern. That was until I bought this beauty from Amazon.

Two days later, pasta flour bought and the wife banished from the kitchen I was ready to pop my pasta cherry with a classic carbonara. And when I mean classic, I mean classic. Made the Italian way, without – and this is the important bit – cream. Search for authentic carbonara recipes and you will find that it's the addition of beaten eggs to the dish at the last moment that coats the pasta and gives it its rich creaminess. The actual pasta making process itself was pretty straightforward and mess-free, and within 30 minutes I had perfect-looking tagliatelle ready for cooking. The result was pretty impressive. Look, I'm not to lie here and say that home-made pasta is infinitely better than fresh shop-bought, but it's certainly more satisfying to make. Here's the basic pasta recipe, with classic carbonara. Serves 4.

Basic Pasta
Ingredients:
340g pasta flour
2 eggs, beaten

Method:
1. Make a well in the centre of the flour. Add the eggs and combine until a smooth dough comes together. Add small amounts of tepid water if too dry.
2. Knead with the palm of your hand for a couple of minutes. Wrap in clingfilm and leave for 20 minutes to firm up.
3. That's it. It then needs to be rolled through a pasta maker and cut with the desired attachment. Cook in salted boiling water for 2 minutes.

Tagliatelle alla Carbonara
Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
125g streaky bacon, diced
3 clove garlic, finely chopped
400g fresh tagliatelle
3 large eggs, beaten
handful parsley, chopped
50g pecorino or parmesan, grated
black pepper

Method:
1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add the bacon and fry gently for 5 minutes until golden. Add the garlic and fry for a further 2 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and cook the pasta for 2 minutes. Drain, but save a little of the cooking liquid.
3. Add pasta and reserved liquid to the bacon and garlic. Remove from heat. Toss to coat and add beaten eggs. The heat from the pasta will be enough to cook the eggs. The pasta wants to be shiny. Again toss to coat and add parsley and cheese.
4. Toss a final time and divide between four plates or pasta bowls. Serve with more cheese and a twist or two of black pepper.