Not quite perfect pizza.

After a week in food heaven (Andalucia; amazing tapas, dirt cheap and lots and lots of ham) we're going to be staying in a bit for the next while... which might mean more blog updates. This post is a total cheat. I'm sure you can all follow someone else's recipe but hell, it's the first proper cooking I've done in a while and I'm quite excited about it.

Tonight's weekend treat was pizza and a film. I've always loved pizza. When I was growing up frozen pizza was our Friday night tea, when my mum had been working all week and couldn't really be bothered to cook. To this day it's the only ready meal type thing I really have in the freezer. I've made my own pizza a few times, but always found that the base was a bit bread-y (it's a word) and doughy, and time consuming. I haven't quite worked out how to avoid that yet.

Then I watched Lorraine Pascale and she made a basic bread dough and used it almost straight away. I thought this could revolutionise pizza making in my house! Her recipe is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/pizza_expressed_three_77124 and I used that for the base. But I'm still not sure this nails it. I think it needs to be left to prove then just be rolled really seriously thin, but that's for next time. This was still good, just not as bubbly and crispy as I would have liked.

I've made my own pizza sauce, my own toppings, and two tasty salads to go with it.

Before you do anything, put your oven on to preheat as high as it will go. It's the only way you'll get anything resembling crispiness.

The salads:

Spinach salad with tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and toasted pine nuts. I made a lemon-y dressing:

- one part lemon juice

- two parts good extra virgin olive oil

- plenty of salt and pepper

- half a teaspoon of grain mustard

I'm sad enough to keep jars specifically for making dressings in. Give it all a good shake about, then dress the salad just before serving.

Bit blurry. Sorry about that, I was really hungry.

The second salad had beetroot (because it was reduced), grated carrot, spring onion and celery. Autumnal, eh? It would have been REALLY good with some feta in it, but I decided two types of cheese in one meal was probably enough. Two go with this I made a balsamic dressing:

-  one part balsamic vinegar

-  two parts good extra virgin olive oil

-  plenty of salt and pepper

- half a clove of very finely grated garlic

And again, dress it just before serving.

  

The pizzas:

First make a pizza sauce, I like to keep it fairly basic.

- some passata/seived tomatoes (I used a whole carton, as it's going to be pasta sauce later)

- a clove of garlic, finely chopped (or a clove and a half if you've got a random half clove of garlic after making the balsamic dresing)

- a splash of red wine vinegar (a teaspoon?)

- salt and pepper

- a handful of fresh basil

Fry the garlic in a little oil on a low heat for a minute or two. Don't let it colour. Then add the passata and red wine vinegar, season and let it bubble away for a little while before adding your chopped or torn basil. You could add some thyme, or some chilli or whatever you like really. That's it. Let it cool a bit before you use it.

For the pizzas you want the sauce to be a very thin layer so it's not too gloopy. Any leftover sauce can be used in pasta/with chicken or whatever during the week.

Follow the base recipe as above (or leave it to prove for an hour then roll it). Without a pizza oven or even pizza stone it's always going to be difficult to get a really crispy base. You just need to make it as thin as possible and hope for the best.

I'm not sure about pizza “expressed” three ways in Lorraine Pascale's recipe, I made two different types.

Of course you can add whatever you like. I made one with goats cheese and red onion. Just thinly slice a red onion, put it on top of a thin layer of sauce then add big chunks of torn up goats cheese. Season it well. 

The other was a more standard pepperoni and mozzarella. A thin layer of sauce, then a load of pepperoni (try not to lay it flat so some of it goes crispy) then some proper mozzarella torn up over the top. Season well. 

When you've put the toppings on your pizza shove in the hottest oven you can for ten minutes. That's it.

Don't pile the toppings up too high, remember it's all going to melt and go everywhere anyway.

We had it with artichoke hearts in olive oil, lots of olives, and the salads. And some wine. Happy days. 

This week's soup: Celeriac. It was reduced. With some home made stock, white wine and parmesan in there it's pretty tasty.

Whilst making this I mostly listened to: Fleetwood Mac – Rumours on vinyl, then 6music. Because it's brilliant.

Pork chops with warm bean salad

So the football season’s started again, which means I have significantly more free time of a weekend. Yesterday I took advantage of this by cooking a cracking meal.

Despite the fact it’s supposed to be summer, it’s grey, cold and miserable so I fancied something properly comforting.

First, get a couple of proper meaty pork chops, skin on and bone in. Make up an easy marinade with the grated zest of half a lemon, a finely chopped clove of garlic, some finely chopped rosemary, olive oil and salt and pepper.

 Rub this into the meaty bits of the pork chops on both sides, and leave them to one side to soak it up. 

Get potatoes ready for roasting by chopping them up and boiling them in some salted water until nearly cooked. Then toss them in some salt and pepper with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Cook them in the oven for a good half an hour.

Make a dressing for your bean salad with two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, four of olive oil, a finely chopped clove of garlic and some salt and pepper.  Shove it all in an old jam jar ready for shaking up just before serving.

Use any old beans for the salad, I had haricot. Shove a tin of beans and some chopped spring onion in a pan with a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Put on a low heat and shove in a good few handfuls of spinach. Put a lid on and leave it on a low heat for five minutes. The spinach should start to wilt down. You can add any old veg to this really, I put in some cooked green beans too. Give it a stir around. And when you’re ready to eat stir through the dressing you made earlier. Don’t leave it on the heat for too long, you don’t want the beans to break down or the spinach to overcook.

I was quite a fan of this, I reckon it would go well with a barbecue too; it’s really tasty and a bit different.

Rub some salt well into the fat and skin to try and encourage it to turn into crispy crackling. 

 

Heat up a roasting dish on top of the hob until it’s pretty hot, and put in a splash of vegetable oil. Put the pork in let it sizzle for a couple of minutes, the skin should start to crisp up. Now flip it and shove it in a really hot oven (about 220 degrees) for about ten – fifteen minutes until crispy.  Turn it once while it’s cooking.

My crackling didn’t work out too well this time, I don’t think my oven was hot enough, so I ended up just taking it off.

Take the meat off the roasting dish and leave it to rest for five minutes. Deglaze it with the juice of half a lemon and a touch of water, and scrape up the tasty bits off the bottom of the pan. It’s not a gravy, but the juices are well worth pouring over the top of the chops. Now plate up!

It was a shame about the crackling, but nonetheless it was a really tasty meal, as well as a welcome distraction from the start of the football season. Expect more regular blog posts for the next ten months!

Whilst making this I mostly listened to: Laura Marling.

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!