The sauce that goes with everything.

I love the sunshine. I love summer. Even if I have to plaster on the factor 20 just to leave the house. Even if it does make it really difficult to sleep during the day before night shifts, so that I end up lying in bed writing up a blog when I should be getting another hour or two of kip.

It also makes for some interesting cooking. This year we don't have a garden, so barbecues are out of the question. In truth, it just means we spend a lot of time in our local beer garden just to ensure that we get out in the sun. It also means I'm often cooking after a G and T. 

See? A sunny spot by the canal. Not too shabby.

 So things to avoid when cooking in the summer: Gravy. Standing by the hob for hours. Stodge. Anything too complex that can't be done after a gin.

Luckily there's a sauce that goes with everything, and makes everything taste a bit summery. It's my version of salsa verde, and I've no idea if it's authentic (it probably isn't) but it's light, and herby, and really useful with meat, fish, halloumi and all sorts. Use whatever green leafy herbs you like. I also use it as an opportunity to use up any green things in the fridge, like spring onions or spinach.

Salsa verde:

Ingredients:

a big bunch of parsley

a good handful of basil

a clove of garlic, peeled

a spring onion, roughly chopped into chunks

a teaspoonful of capers

the juice and zest of half a lemon

a load of extra virgin olive oil, but if it seems like you're using too much you can thin it 

down with a bit of water 

Plenty of salt and pepper

1. Put everything in a blender with about three glugs of olive oil.
2. Blitz it. Add more oil if it seems too thick.
3. Blitz it some more. Add more oil/some water if it seems too thick.
   
   
   
   
   

We had it with some grilled pork chops. We also had buttery new potatoes, and because I had a leek to use up, leeks grilled with a bit of olive oil and red wine vinegar.

It will keep for a while in the fridge, but I decided to use it up fairly quickly by tossing it through a load of veg and roasting it. Add a bit of crumbled feta, and I'd made a few meals to take to work too. 

The Perfect Hamburger

Well I was going to do a vegetarian tapas thing this week. Honestly, I promise I was. But I have to work part of the Bank Holiday weekend so we have decided to treat ourselves to tapas out on Sunday night to make up for it. And although I seem to be craving a holiday in Spain (I've never been) tapas two nights running seemed excessive. So another day I will do a veggie extravaganza and make my own tortilla and buy manchego and make a couple of lovely salads etc.

I decided to go to the other extreme and make burgers. This wasn't supposed to be a fancy dinner, just a Friday night tea, so you might find it all a bit less hard work than usual. 

NB. There seems to be an unintentional American theme in these last two posts, I'm not sure why.

Burgers:

I have an enduring memory of reading “The Perfect Hamburger” by Alexander McCall Smith with my mum when I was wee. I loved it, and I asked my mum if we could make the perfect hamburger. My mum's a primary school teacher, and it turns out when she read this book to her class, they'd all made burgers afterwards. She had the mince ready, that night we made our own burgers for tea. Anyway, enough reminiscing, in all seriousness my burger recipe today will not differ wildly from the one I made with my mum when I was about seven. Two things I have decided to add are: some very finely chopped streaky bacon to give it an extra layer of fat and salt (healthy) and some finely chopped fried onion to add a bit of sweetness.

First, shove on your oven to preheat for your wedges. They'll take half an hour, so they want to be in the oven before you put your burgers on.

Finely chop and fry on a low heat in a little butter to soften. Let it cool a bit. Take a load of mince (I had about 400g for three big meaty burgers... too much really) add the onion, some very finely chopped unsmoked streaky bacon (I had three rashers) and an egg. Mix it up with plenty pepper. If it's a bit wet add some breadcrumbs. (Take the end bit of your normal loaf that never gets eaten, blitz in food processor, you've got nice fresh breadcrumbs) I've read recipes that say absolutely no to the egg, but it helps it stick together. And my mum always added egg. It doesn't taste of egg, so I have no problem with it. Anyway, mix it all together with your hands, or if you don't like touching raw meat a spoon, but it makes life much more difficult.

Heat up your griddle pan to a medium-high heat. Shape them into really fat burger shapes, as you want them to be quite thick so they don't dry out. Rub some oil on the outside of them, and salt the outside. And griddle. Put them on then turn down immediately to a medium heat, and don't touch them for at least five minutes. Turn them as little as possible, and cook for about 7-10 minutes on each side, depending on the size of your burger. You want a nice crust on the outside (that's where the flavour is). If you want to put cheese on, put it on when you've just flipped them. You might need to stick it under the grill to melt it properly for the last thirty seconds. 

Put it aside to rest for a few minutes while you shove your rolls on the griddle to soak up any remaining juices and get a bit crispy.

Potato Wedges:

You see this is almost a healthy meal, as we're not having chips. It feels a bit ridiculous putting a recipe up for potato wedges. (Cut potatoes into wedges, add stuff you like, shove in oven) Here goes anyway.

Cut potatoes into wedges. Toss in sunflower/vegetable oil (don't bother with nice fancy olive oil, there's not much point. Season really generously, and shake over some paprika and chilli flakes. Shove in oven at 180 degrees for about half an hour, or until cooked. It depends how fat your wedges are.

If you want to speed this process up, you can parboil the wedges, then add the oil and seasoning and whatnot, then shove in the oven for 15 – 20 minutes, or as long as it takes to cook a frozen pizza. (ahem.) 

Serve the whole thing with salad, and top with anything you like, I like mustard and ketchup. Joe hates mustard. Add gherkins if you're a fan of things that are pickled, etc. The home made coleslaw from last week's post would, of course, have been brilliant with this. (see here: http://tinyurl.com/ck2mahj) but I'd done that. Plus we struggled to eat an entire cabbage worth of the stuff this week, so I've gone and bought coleslaw from the shop.

It's not fancy, but it is lovely. In all the meals I've cooked and blogged, Joe seemed the most delighted with this one. Seriously.

A picture so good I put it in twice (didn't take many pictures)

In other news: I have just read an article which says that British asparagus season is delayed. I'm gutted. The shops are still full of Peruvian stuff. I'm hoping this will change soon as I love asparagus. Click on the link to the right for some of last year's asparagus season cooking. Maybe when I'm doing my veggie tapas feast I'll do something with asparagus too...

Fancy barbecue in the rain

When I originally decided I wanted to have a barbecue, the forecast was much nicer. As soon as I’ve decided on something I’m going to cook, I tend to think about it a lot and formulate a plan. So when the weather looked fairly rubbish this weekend, I had planned too much to change my mind.

As well as this, my parents had given us a barbecue ages ago and I’ve been itching to use it. I put it all together this morning, and only had a few bits leftover when I’d finished!

Now there is no need for a barbecue to be like this, last time we had one we just had burgers, but I spent all today doing boring jobs and was ready to hang out in the kitchen for a while.  Plus, inspired by our trip to Turkey I had an urge to cook meat on sticks.

So the menu is: Halloumi kebabs, lamb and aubergine kebabs, tabbouleh, and watercress and carrot salad. Poncy, eh?

First, prep the lamb. Lamb is really expensive at the moment, my butcher actually apologised for the price! But like I said, my heart was set on it, and it was a one off. I made a little rub for the cubed lamb, with pepper, cumin, paprika, chilli flakes and salt, mushed up in a pestle and mortar. You don’t need loads of it.

Throw it in a freezer bag and put in the lamb. Tie the top and give it all a squidge round so all the lamb gets some of the coating. Leave this out of the fridge to get the flavour into the meat, for at least half an hour.

Next I made the halloumi kebabs by chopping into big chunks the cheese, some courgette and some peppers. I skewered all this with a little bit of basil on the cheese, than drizzled it with a bit of olive oil and black pepper.

The irony is, after spending a small fortune on the lamb, we both actually preferred the halloumi. I think that’s probably just because halloumi is absolutely amazing stuff.

Then I made the tabouleh (out of interest, how do you pronounce this, TAB-ouleh? Tab-OU-leh?) Cook bulgur wheat according to the packet instructions (I think it varies slightly depending on the packet)

I would normally say that life’s too short to peel tomatoes unless they’re going in a sauce so you really need to get rid of the skin. However, today I was quite happy listening to music and pottering in the kitchen, so I though I may as well. Slightly score the skin, then pour over boiling water. Leave it a few minutes, but no more or they’ll start cooking. Then run under cold water. The skin should come off really easily. Then pull out the stalks and the seeds and finely chop.  

Finely chop red onion, mint and parsley, then mix it all together with the cooled bulgur wheat. Add the juice of at LEAST half a lemon, a really good slosh of olive oil and some salt and pepper. 

Once the lambs been sitting in the rub for a while it’s good to go. Put it on some skewers with some big chunks of aubergine and rub a little oil on to help prevent it sticking.

The watercress salad is just loads of chopped up salad stuff with some grated carrot, and a quick balsamic dressing. (one part balsamic to two parts olive oil and a little salt and pepper). Ours had watercress, cucumber, celery, spring onion and a handful of mixed seeds. Because I’m a hippy.

I also threw some asparagus on there, because I find it completely impossible to see half price asparagus at this time of year without buying it. Just toss it in a little olive oil and salt and pepper, it only takes 5 – 10 minutes on the barbecue so put it on last.

Prep done! A couple of top tips for barbecuing I heard on Woman’s Hour the other day (so rock and roll):

- Make sure all the coals have gone grey and there are no flames.

- Make sure the meat is at room temperature; it stops it from being too tough when it gets the shock of going on the heat.

- Don’t turn things too much, as you risk losing a lot of the juices which keep the meat moist.

My own tip is just to work out how long things need so you put it on in the right order, and not play with it too much. Our new barbecue has a lid, which is really handy for more even cooking.

So for this I put the lamb on first. They don’t take that long, about 5 – 10 minutes on each side. Then the halloumi, and finally the asparagus.

Frankly, yum!