Tag Archives: Aga living

Ossobuco

Posted on by
Ossobuco

When I made ossobuco yesterday, it was the first time I’d made this classic Italian dish, but it certainly won’t be the last. The gentle, long cooking required makes it ideal for the Aga. I accompanied it with risotto alla Milanese, even though I tend to think risotto is not ideal for Aga cooking, because of the need constantly to stir it, but in this case it was in my view necessary and worth it. I know there are ways to make risotto in the oven, and I have successfully made it that way, but on this occasion I wanted to be as sure as possible to achieve the authentic Italian dish, so I stood at the simmering plate, stirring away contemplatively, for twenty minutes or so.

The ossobuco recipe I used was Anna Del Conte’s from her book Gastronomy of Italy which my son gave me for Christmas. It’s a wonderful book. The risotto recipe I used was also from this book.

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

(You will need a large sauté pan or shallow casserole with a tight fitting lid which will hold the ossobuchi in one layer)

  • 4 ossobuchi (mine were Marks and Spencer from Ocado)
  • Flour, for dusting
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 40g unsalted butter
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1/2 celery stalk, finely chopped
  • 150ml dry white wine
  • 150ml chicken stock

For the gremolata (don’t skip it)

  • 1 tsp grated lemon zest
  • 1/2 garlic clove, very finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley

Method

  • Tie the ossobuchi around and across with string as you would a parcel, then lightly coat them in flour mixed with 1 teaspoon of salt
  • Heat the olive oil in the pan you have chosen and brown the floured ossobuchi on both sides. I started them on the simmering plate and then transferred them to the floor of the roasting oven. Cook them for just 4 or  5 minutes on each side. Remove them to a dish
  • Add 25g of the butter to the pan followed by the onion and celery. Add a little salt and soften without browing (shouldn’t take more than 10 or 15 minutes in the simmering oven)
  • Return the meat and any juices to the pan on the simmering plate
  • Heat the wine quickly in a pan on the boiling plate and pour it over the meat and boil to reduce by half  (could move it to the boiling plate for this but keep an eye on it so it doesn’t completely evaporate)
  • Heat the stock in the same pan you used for the wine and pour this over everything and add some black pepper. Put the lid on the pan and transfer it to the simmering oven for at least three but maybe four or five hours (as you know, it will not spoil in the simmering oven), depending on when you want to eat
  • Transfer the ossobuchi to a warmed dish, removing the string. Keep warm in the warming oven, on the warming plate or near the Aga covered in foil
  • Add the remaining butter, having cut it into a few small pieces, to the sauce and as soon as the butter has melted, remove the pan from the heat; you don’t want the sauce to boil
  • Pour the sauce over the meat
  • Mix the gremolata ingredients together. I spinkled mine over the ossobuchi, but have re-read the recipe and see I was supposed to stir it into the sauce before pouring it over. Perhaps it would have tasted even better if I’d done it the “correct” way!

 

 

 

Scandinavian Meatballs

Posted on by
Scandinavian Meatballs

I’m calling these “Scandinavian” because I consulted my Norwegian grandmother’s recipe for the meatballs themselves and stole elements of a Diana Henry recipe for Swedish meatballs (in her book “Roast Figs Sugar Snow”) to make the sauce.

Surprisingly, even though my mother gave me her mother’s meatball recipe years ago, I had never used it before. I make meatballs a lot, but usually Italian-style ones in a tomato sauce to serve with spaghetti. It’s good to have a change and these, dare I say it, are just as good or possibly better. If Italian flavours are what you’re after it’s simpler just to make a ragù.

The addition of baking powder to my grandmother’s meatballs is a revelation: it makes them wonderfully light and airy. You can serve these with lingonberry sauce or jam. My son bought me some at SkandiKitchen in London. Ikea sells it too, but if you haven’t got any, cranberry sauce would also go well. I served them with braised, spiced red cabbage and plain boiled potatoes, which struck me as being very Norwegian. I’d like to think my grandmother would approve and that she’d be pleased I served them on her Porsgrund china plates. IMG_3152

Scandinavian Meatballs

Ingredients

Meatballs:

  • 500g pork mince
  • 500g beef mince
  • 1 heaped tsp salt
  • 1 heaped tsp baking powder
  • 1 heaped tsp ground white pepper
  • 1 heaped tsp ground ginger
  • 100g breadcrumbs, soaked for about 30 minutes in 150ml milk until all the milk has been absorbed
  • About 1 tbsp sunflower or groundnut oil

Sauce:

  • 400ml chicken or beef stock
  • 20g butter
  • 1 tbsp sunflower or groundnut oil
  • 1 tbsp plain flour
  • 200g sour cream
  • 3 tbsps chopped fresh dill

Method

  • Mix all the ingredients for the meatballs thoroughly in a large bowl. You could do this in a food processor
  • Using wet hands form the mixture into balls. I’ll leave the size to you
  • Fry in a little oil until brown. I “fried” them, drizzled with oil, on the large Aga baking tray for five minutes on the floor of the roasting oven before turning them over and frying for a further five minutes or until they were nicely browned. Doing it in the oven like this stops the Aga losing heat and means you don’t get fat splashing over the Aga top
  • Heat the butter with 1 tbsp oil in a large saucepan or sauté pan on the simmering plate. Add the flour and cook, stirring until the flour is golden
  • Take the pan off the heat and gradually add the stock, stirring well after each addition
  • Put the pan back on the simmering plate and bring the liquid up to the boil, stirring constantly
  • Add the sour cream and then the meatballs
  • Cover and place in the simmering oven for at least 30 minutes (but as you know, they will be fine if left there for much longer than that) until the meatballs are cooked through. (If you are short of time you could cook them for about 15 minutes in the baking oven.)
  • Taste for seasoning, add the chopped dill and serve

 

Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Sauce

Posted on by
Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Sauce

The combination of pasta and tomato sauce is one of my favourite things, and I make it a lot. I probably make Felicity Cloake’s “perfect” sauce the most but not every time. Another favourite is the one I told you about here.

Whenever we eat this I’m transported back to when my boys were young. I would make it for them at least once a week; clean plates were guaranteed. Of course one could easily pick up a tub of sauce from the supermarket, and sometimes on busy days I would do this, but in truth it doesn’t take long to prepare your own. I’d like to think that’s what Italians would do. In fact I happened to be chatting on the phone to an Italian friend when making tomato sauce yesterday, and he gave me a few tips. You see I had bought some fresh San Marzano plum tomatoes in my local Waitrose IMG_3587 and wanted to make my sauce with these instead of the usual tinned tomatoes. I’m sure in Italy this sauce is made with fresh tomatoes a lot of the time, but until relatively recently we couldn’t even buy fresh plum tomatoes here so we all use tinned. I knew the San Marzano was considered to be a superior tomato and a quick Google search revealed that it’s also sweeter and less acidic than other plum tomatoes. I normally add a little sugar when cooking tomatoes but didn’t in this case: they were sweet enough.

My friend Antonio said there was no need even to cook them: I could just chop them up, add a little olive oil, basil and seasoning, and add them to hot pasta. I will do that next time but I had already chopped an onion which was softening in some olive oil in the simmering oven. His next tip was to slightly undercook the spaghetti, drain it and then finishing cooking it in the sauce. He also said to add some grated parmesan at the same time as adding the pasta. I will describe everything I did below.

Fresh Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

  • 700g fresh San Marzano plum tomatoes, chopped (no need to peel)
  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1 fat clove garlic, peeled and crushed
  • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • About three basil stalks, chopped
  • Salt and pepper
  • A handful of basil leaves
  • Grated parmesan, to taste

Method

  • Add the olive oil and chopped onion to a sauté pan or wide saucepan and heat gently on the simmering plate
  • Cover and place in the simmering oven until the onion is soft
  • Add the basil stalks and garlic and cook for a minute on the simmering plate before stirring in the tomatoes, red wine vinegar and some salt and pepper
  • Place the pan in the simmering oven for about an hour but it could well be ready before that and will not come to any harm if you leave it for longer than that. I covered my pan for part of the time but am not sure it makes much difference
  • Meanwhile cook your spaghetti according to packet instructions but for 1 or 2 minutes less than prescribed
  • Drain and add it immediately, with some of the cooking water still clinging to it, to your sauce
  • Add some grated parmesan to the pan
  • Toss it all together for a couple of minutes with the pan on the simmering plate; the pasta will absorb a little of the sauce and finishing cooking
  • To serve, add the basil leaves, shredded if large, and have some more grated Parmesan on the table for whoever wants it

Rocket dressed with extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper is the perfect accompaniment, as is this bottle of Valpolicella.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Recipes: Norwegian Spiced Pork Belly

Posted on by
Christmas Recipes: Norwegian Spiced Pork Belly

For me Christmas is not the time for trying out new recipes so our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals don’t change much from year to year. When I was growing up (in England) with my Norwegian mother and English father we celebrated Christmas the Norwegian way on Christmas Eve and the English way on Christmas Day. This meant my brother and I could open our presents on Christmas Eve and our friends were rather jealous. The evening would begin with dinner and then we’d sit round the Christmas tree for the present opening. I’ve never opened presents on Christmas Day so I don’t know what it’s like but I can tell you there is something magical about doing it by candlelight when it’s dark outside.

When I married my husband I was fully expecting to leave the Norwegian Christmas Eve behind but he loved this way of doing it with all the cosiness and candles and insisted we kept the tradition going. I’m so glad we did because our children have always loved it, partly because it makes their Christmas a little bit different from their friends’. 

Christmas Eve: Herrings

Our Christmas Eve meal always starts with Norwegian pickled herrings. We buy them from the Christmas Bazaar held every November in the The Norwegian Seamen’s Church in Rotherhithe, London. When she was younger, my mother used to spend a couple of days with friends in London helping to prepare these for sale at the bazaar. She doesn’t do that anymore so my sons have accepted the mission of going along on the Saturday of the bazaar and purchasing a few jars of this most delicious food. I haven’t managed to join them yet but intend to go along one year, if only for the waffles, cake and coffee on offer inside the church! We eat the herrings on rye bread accompanied by ice cold Linie Aquavit straight from the freezer and cold lager. So delicious.

Herrings
Our Norwegian Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve: Spiced Pork Belly

There is more than one traditional Christmas Eve meal in Norway. On the West coast they have cod cooked in a special way.  It is bought very fresh, cut into steaks, put in salted water overnight to tighten the flesh and then poached. It is served with melted butter and lots of chopped parsley and plain boiled carrots and potatoes. Perhaps surprisingly, Norwegians always drink red wine and not white with this dish. My mother’s family always had reindeer for their Christmas Eve meal but spiced pork belly, popular as a Christmas dish on the south coast of Norway where my grandfather was from, would also form part of their festive fare. We have made pork belly our traditional Hardy family Christmas Eve dish. I make it according to my grandmother’s recipe, passed to me by my mother, who has given me permission to share it with you here.

You will need:

  • Pork belly (you decide how much, depending on how many people you are feeding, but remember, it tastes just as good cold so any leftovers will not go to waste) with the skin removed (I get my butcher to do this) but the fat – very important this – left on
  • Ground ginger, salt, mustard powder and white pepper. I’m not giving you quantities except to say: be generous

Method

  • The day before you want to serve the belly score the layer of fat with a sharp knife and rub lots of white pepper, ground ginger, mustard powder and salt into it on both sides and wrap it in clingfilm IMG_4150
  • Place it in the fridge fat side down for at least 24 hours
  • On Christmas Eve in the morning take the belly out of the fridge and let it come up to room temperature
  • Sprinkle on some more salt
  • Choose a roasting tin (I always use the large Aga roasting tin because I tend to cook a whole belly), remove the clingfilm and place the meat in the tin, fat side down
  • Add about a cupful of water and cover with foil
  • Hang the tin on the second or third set of runners of the roasting oven, taking care that the foil doesn’t tear as you slide it in
  • After twenty minutes take it out, remove the foil, turn the pork over and add a little more water if it looks dry
  • Slide the tin onto the floor of the simmering oven and leave it there for the rest of the day, checking the water level every now and then. It will be cooked and delicious after five hours but even better and falling off the bone after eight or nine

I serve it with spiced red cabbage and roast potatoes, having made a divinely spicy and gingery gravy by adding some wine and sour cream to the meat juices.

For pudding we usually have this Norwegian apple cake which my mother makes for us according to my grandmother’s recipe.  

 

 

 

 

 

Pappardelle with Porcini and Pancetta

Posted on by
Pappardelle with Porcini and Pancetta

Baked pasta is comfort food and this particular baked pasta dish is more comforting than most. It is no less delicious and perfectly flavoured than I would expect from Simon Hopkinson. I found the recipe on the BBC website. I seem to remember watching him make it in his TV series, “The Good Cook”, a few years ago. I never got around to buying the accompanying book of the same name but am seriously considering doing so now.

This is so simple to make; simple recipes often are the best. I never thought I’d be regularly cooking recipes for only two people but the truth is it’s often just my husband and I at the kitchen table these days, and if my elderly mother-in-law isn’t up to cooking, there’s always enough to take a small portion of whatever we’re having downstairs to her. Don’t look at the quantity of pasta and worry that it’s not enough; I promise you it is. This is a filling dish. It’s also good for you: I recently read that mushrooms, especially porcini, are the best food source of two anti-ageing antioxidants. So that’s a bonus.

Pappardelle with Porcini and Pancetta

Ingredients

  • 500ml milk
  • 20g dried porcini mushrooms
  • 40g butter
  • 25g plain flour
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 100g pappardelle
  • 50g pancetta, cut into small cubes
  • 2 tbsps grated parmesan cheese

Method

  • Bring the milk up to simmering point in a pan on the simmering plate
  • Add the porcini mushrooms and remove from the heat
  • After 10 minutes or so drain the milk through a sieve into a bowl, pressing out as much liquid from the mushrooms as you can
  • Melt the butter in a clean saucepan on the simmering plate. Add the flour and stir for a couple of minutes with a wooden spoon until you have a smooth roux
  • Pour in the porcini flavoured milk in one go and whisk vigorously until smooth and starting to thicken. Season, cover and place in the simmering oven for at least 10 minutes (can be longer: as ever where the simmering oven is concerned, it will come to no harm) while you cook the pappardelle according to the packet instructions until it’s al dente. (I bring a large pan of water to a boil on the boiling plate and add salt before adding the pasta.)
  • Drain the pasta and then in a large bowl mix it with the porcini, pancetta and sauce. Tip this into a lightly buttered oven-proof dish and sprinkle over the parmesan
  • Place in the middle of the Aga roasting oven for about 25 minutes until it’s bubbling and golden brown
  • Serve with a green salad and you might want some extra cheese too

 

fullsizeoutput_2fc9

Italian/New York Meatballs

Posted on by
Italian/New York Meatballs

I make meatballs fairly regularly: Italian ones with garlic and herbs in tomato sauce, Thai ones with ginger, chilli and lime in a broth and Scandinavian ones with nutmeg and white pepper in a sour cream sauce. These are just the basics; there are so many variations, I feel I could spend my life making delicious meatballs without serving the same ones twice. And I haven’t even mentioned the accompaniments: pasta, noodles, potatoes or bread? I feel a whole series of blog posts coming on.

When a recipe I spotted recently promised to give me Italian-style meatballs like they make in New York, I couldn’t wait to try them. The meatballs proposed by chef Stephen Harris in the Telegraph are, as he says, quick to make and to cook. While they are not the best I’ve made, they’re pretty good and do conjure up that New York/Italian vibe.

Ingredients

For 2 people

  • 500g beef mince
  • 1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves (optional)
  • 1 ½ tbsp olive oil and some for drizzling
  • 100g baby spinach
  • 1 x 400g tin tomatoes
  • About 30g parmesan and a squeeze of lemon

Method

  • In a bowl mix the mince with about 5 pinches of salt and the thyme leaves if using
  • Roll the mince between your palms into 10 x 50g balls
  • Heat half a tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan and gently fry the meatballs, turning them until they’re brown all over. They will not yet be cooked through to the middle
  • Remove the balls to a plate and heat another half tablespoon of oil in the pan and add the spinach leaves, cooking them until wilted
  • Add the tomatoes, bring to the boil and stir in a little more salt
  • Add the meatballs, turn down to a simmer and cook. If you’re using an Aga, you don’t need to cover them: just place the pan in the simmering oven for about half an hour or longer if you need to. If using a conventional hob, loosely cover the tin (with a lid or some scrunched up foil) and simmer for about 10 minutes
  • Drizzle with a little olive oil, add a squeeze of lemon and serve with grilled ciabatta (see below) and a rocket salad

Grilled ciabatta

  • Split half a ciabatta lengthways
  • Take a ridged griddle pan if you have one (or a regular frying pan if you don’t) and pre-heat it in the roasting oven
  • Place it on the boiling plate and add your ciabatta slices and toast on both sides
  • Rub the pieces of ciabatta with the cut sides of two halved cloves of garlic and drizzle over some olive oil

If I was making these again, I’d add breadcrumbs soaked for half an hour in milk to the meat mixture. I find this makes the meatball texture softer and less rubbery. But that’s for another day. In the meantime, these will do fine.