Pugliese Focaccia

1) Peel and roughly chop 1 medium potato, and boil it in water, reserving the water for later.Crush potato with a fork or put it through a ricer.

2) Mix 500 gr flour with teaspoon salt and 7 gr sachet of dry yeast, add your potato. 

3) Top up potato water with plain water to 500 ml keeping it tepid. Add this to the flour mix, mixing it with your hands until the consistency of wet porridge. Add more tepid water if necessary. You will need to keep mixing it in the bowl using fingers of your one hand and securing the bowl with another hand, pulling the dough up and strectching it, until air bubbles start rising to the surface when you leave it be for a minute.

4) Pour into well oiled tin, sprinkle olive oil on top and leave to double in size. 

5) Arrange topping of your choice - olives, oregano, cherry tomatoes etc. Bake at 200C for about half hour, or until browned and sounding hollow when tapped.

Mushroom Noodle Soup

125g chestnut mushrooms
125g shiitake mushroom
1ltr good flavoured vegetable stock
1stalk lemon grass, finely chopped
2cm ginger, peeled and chopped
juice of 1/2 lime

2 kaffir lime leaves
1tbsp dark soy sauce
clove garlic, crushed

oil for srying chestnut mushrooms
125g instant noodles

1) Cut stalks off shiitake mushrooms and reserve. Slice all mushrooms, keeping shiitake and chestnut mushrooms separate. Set aside.

2) Put stock into a saucepan together with the shiitake mushroom stalks, lemon grass, ginger, lime juice, lime leaves and soy sauce. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain, reserving liquid and discarding vegetables. Return liquid to saucepan and reheat

3) Add sliced shiitake mushrooms to the pan and simmer for 10 minutes. 

Meanwhile saute the garlic and chestnut mushrooms in about 2 tablespoons of oil, stirring all the time, until the mushrooms are softened. 

4) Add noodles to the saucepan and cook for about 3 minutes or until noodles are done. Add mushrooms and garlic to the saucepan.

Ready to serve!

Poussin butterfly with gorgonzola and sundried tomatoes salad

According to wikipedia, "..Spatchcock is the traditional word for the French term "poussin", a juvenile chicken".

Bearing this in mind, I guess it would be a tautology to describe the picture above as a spatchcocked poussin. Although, it is exactly that: a poussin that has been spatchcocked, or butterflied.

Once you have done that (and there are myriads of videos on the web of how to butterfly a chicken), prepare your weights that go on top of the bird while it's cooking. Where I come from, they use a clean brick, as simple as that. Another solution (and I have just tested it positive) is to take off the knob of your pan's lid so the surface is flat, and read further..

Next step:

Put the pan on medium heat, butter well, and put the bird in when it's hot. Put your prepared lid on top of the bird, former knob side down.

Now put a saucepan full of water on top of that and press down. This is your weights.

Cook for ..hmm, you know what, I didn't time it, but if I had to guess, about 10 minutes. Disassemble saucepan-lid setup, flip the bird over, and re-assemble again. Cook the other side for the same duration.

For the salad, toss together salad leaves of your choice (original recipe says rocket), crumbled gorgonzola and sundried tomatoes. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and a tablespoonful of sesame seeds.

Voila!

"Pesto Apart" Linguine

Named Pesto Apart for a reason,- while putting this dish together, I suddenly realised that ingredients I decided to put in are actual ingredients of green pesto:

handful freshly basil

handful toasted pine nuts

two cloves garlic

30g grana padano (instead of parmesan)

dash of lemon juice

olive oil

Plus, can of broad beans, and cooked linguine for two. Serve with warm garlic bread and a glass of rustic red wine!

Moroccan Lamb with Giant Couscous

Quick moroccan dinner. The only not quick thing about it is if you decide to marinate lamb chops for a day or overnight which is not crucial to this recipe.

 

lamb chops, for 4 pieces use:

1 teaspoon paprika, half teaspoon cinnamon, half teaspoon cumin, 1 tablespoon olive oil

1 red onion, roughly chopped

handful dried apricots, roughly chopped

handful fresh mint leaves, chopped

1 tablespoon ras-el-hanout

giant couscous, half a cup per person

1) Pour giant couscous into a saucepan, cover with plenty of boiling water (about 1:1) and set to boil over medium heat for 10 minutes or until done.

2) Rub mixture of cumin, paprika and cinnamon with little olive oil all over lamb chops. You can leave it for few hours, or use straight away. Slap onto hot grill pan and fry over midium-to-high heat about 3-4 minutes each side. Put inside preheated to 150C oven while couscous is cooking.

3) Using fat from the chops, fry onion until soft, add mint and apricots, and ras-el-hanout. Toss around for a couple of minutes. Drain couscous well, add to the pan with onions and mix well. Add salt to taste.

Serve!

Beef Potato Salad

Really quick dish, adapted from Morrisons magazine.

  

500g baby new potatoes, halves or quartered

oil for frying

400g beef frying steak (thinnest, cut into strips)

3 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce, tobasco, chilli flakes

200g cherry tomatoes, halved

mixed salad leaves, handful per plate (recipe makes about three-four servings)

1) Cover potatoes with boiling water, salt it lightly, and cook for about 10 minutes. Drain.

2) Fry beef strips, stirring almost frequently, until water starts to reduce, 5 minutes or so. Add chilli sauce, tobasco, chilli flakes, to the hot degree of your liking. Toss around, then add tomatoes and potatoes and cook some more stirring, until all the water evaporates, and the ingredients are sizzling in your pan.

3) Divide salad leaves between plates. Pile beef and potato salad on top, and serve hot.

Salad leaves soak in chilli beef dressing nicely!

Duck In Orange Sauce and Potato Sformato

 

for the duck:

2 duck legs

4 oranges

half cup sugar

salt

cup chicken stock

for potato sformato:

250ml milk

1 bay leaf

pinch nutmeg

25g butter plus for greasing the ramekins

tablespoon flour

400g potatoes, boiled and mashed

20g parmesan

2 eggs whites, beaten

salt and pepper

1) Rub the duck legs with salt, then bake at 180C until golden and crispy on the outside and cooked inside. Once it's cooked, allow it to cool slightly. Reserve and refrigerate the fat for later use, for example to roast potatoes some other time. Shred duck, discarding the bones.

2) While duck is roasting, make the sauce. Peel the zest off 1 orange, discarding any white pith) and shred it into fine strips. Split this peeled orange into segments and remove any membranes to free the flesh. It doesn't matter if the slices break. Set aside. Squezze juice out of remaining oranges. Now you have some zest, some flesh and plenty of juice.

3) Put the sugar into the pan and heat it up without any water until sugar just about starts to go brown. Add orange zest and cook for couple more minutes. Then add the orange flesh and cook for further couple of minutes. Stir in orange juice and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Add the stock and simmer for another 15-20 minutes.

4) Put the shredded duck into the sauce and simmer together for 10 more minutes to get the duck meat infused with this zesty sauce.

Serve it with sformato below, or mashed or roasted potatoes - also great!

To make sformato,

1) Heat milk in a saucepan with bay leaf, nutmeg, salt and pepper. In another pan, melt the butter and add flour to it. Stirring constantly, cook for couple of minutes. When milk is just about to boil, take out the bay leaf, then pour flour mixture into milk, whisking constantly. Keep over heat until sauce (and this is a classic bechamel less the onion) has thickened. 

2) Combine the sauce, the potatoes and parmesan. Then fold in egg whites and mix well. Divide mixture between ramekins, greased and bottoms lined with baking paper. Alternatively you can bake the sformato in one bigger tin.

3) Bake at 180C for 20-30 minutes depending on the size of the moulds.

To free the sformato, run a thin knife around the edges and then invert on to a plate.

Can also serve as a vegetarian starter or main, served with a cheese sauce.

 

Lemon Beans & Mint Pesto with Chicken

In this recipe, I've tossed in couple of chopped new potatoes, this is not necessary, it just adds somewhat to the body of the dish. However, the dish itself is very fresh and zesty, with aromas of dill and mint and lemon teasing your tastebuds.

4 chicken thighs

1 tin of flageolet beans

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 white onion, chopped

olive oil, salt and pepper

1 lemon, skin peeled in wide strips, with potato peeler and reserved

good handful of chopped dill

for the pesto:

handful of mint leaves

handful of blanched almonds

2 garlic cloves

1/3 cu olive oil

salt and pepper

1) Season the chicken pieces all over with salt and pepper. Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry chicken thighs quickly on both sides, until just beginning to colour. Set aside.

2) In the same pan, saute garlic and onions until golden, then add beans together with juices from the tin. Add lemon peel and squeeze lemon juices into the pan. Stir together. Season if necessary.

3) Pour beans into oven dish. Put chicken pieces on top of it. Bake at 190C for about 40 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. 

4) While it is cooking, make the pesto. Blend well all the ingredients in the food processor until fairly smooth. Season to you liking. More olive oil can be added if you think the pesto looks dry.

5) When your are ready to serve, take the dish out of the oven, dish out the chicken, then mix the dill into the beans, stir quickly and spoon onto the plates with chicken. Add pesto to the side, or on top. 

Enjoy!

Aubergines with saffron rice

This layered dish reminds me of moussaka or lasagna, but the taste is different due to saffron rice, so it makes a nice alternative.

olive oil

1 white onion, finely chopped

200g Arborio rice

generous pinch of saffron

150ml white wine

3-4 cups vegetable or chicken stock

salt and pepper

2 large aubergines, cut into 5mm thick slices

1 cup passata

200g mozarella, torn

100g parmesan, grated

1) For the rice: fry the onions until soft, then stir in the rice, coating all over. Move around the pan for about 3 minutes, then add the saffron and wine. Let it bubble stirring once and again, until wine slightly reduces. Then add 3 cups of stock, season and bring to the boil. Allow to cook for about 20 inutes, checking on stock levels, and if necessary (if it looks dry) adding extra cup. Take off the heat, cover and let sit allowing stock to soak into the rice. Rice can be let to cool significantly, or be used warm, so do not hurry around it.

2) For the aubergines: coat slices with olive oil and bake in one layer at 200C until golden brown.

3) Coat an ovenproof dish with some of passata. Lay half of the aubergines, following with half mozarella and half parmesan. Next layer is all of the rice. Top it with remaining aubergines. Then passata. Then remaining mozarella and parmesan.

4) Bake at 180C for 30 mins, or until golden brown and bubbling on top.

Summer Sunday Chicken

 

2 chicken breasts

2 eggs

100g breadcrumbs

30g parmesan

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

salt and pepper

3 tablespoons flour

sunflower oil for frying

1) Cut thick chicken breasts side on through the middle to make each slice not more than 1-1.5cm thick, then cut into smaller, medallion-size portion pieces if desired. Season chicken pieces all over.

2) In a shallow bowl, mix breadcrumbs, parsley and parmesan. Put flour into another bowl. And in a third bowl, beat the eggs.

3) Heat about 1cm of oil in a pan. Dip each chicken piece into flour, then egg, then breadcrums. Fry on each side until golden brown.

This is perfect picnic food, and can be served best with summer salad and fresh bread.

Japanese Beef Noodles

I have to say, Japanese ingredients selection in local supermakets with their asian shelves, is pretty poor. I was disappointed not to find most of what I needed, and having to search for something as simple as wasabi in two supermarkets. However, the taste that we got in the end, was still delicious and conducive to Japanese dish.

5 tablespoons dark soy sauce

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tablespoon cornflour

1 tablespoon wasabi

450g lean sirloin steak, trimmed of fat and cut into thin strips

300g ribbon noodles, or even better - soba if you can find them

sunflower oil

1 large red pepper, seeded and thinly sliced

1 bunch of spring onions, sliced diagonally into 5 cm (2 in) lengths

125g shiitake mushrooms, sliced

1 cup beef stock (or dashi stock for authenticity)

1 sheet nori if you can find it, cut into thin strips

15g fresh coriander, chopped

1) Mix together soy sauce, garlic, cornflour and wasabi in a medium-sized bowl. Add the beef and stir until well coated. Set aside.

2) Depending of what kind of noodles you have, bring them to ready-to-eat condition (it helps with straight-to-wok noodles to cover them with hot water and then separate them with a fork). Drain and set aside.

3) Heat a wok or heavy-based frying pan until really hot, then add about 3 tablespoons of oil and swirl to coat the wok. Toss in the red pepper, spring onions and mushrooms and stir-fry for 4 minutes or until softened. Remove from the wok with a draining spoon. 

4) Heat about same amount of oil in the wok, then add the beef and stir-fry for about 5 minutes or until just tender, stirring pro-actively. Remove with the draining spoon.  

5) Pour the stock and 2 more tablespoons of soy sauce into the wok and add the noodles and vegetables with the nori (if using) and coriander. Toss well, then add the beef and toss again. Pile the noodles, vegetables and beef into bowls. Serve immediately. 

Lemon Olive Cake

This recipe features extra virgin olive oil, which gives this cake distinctive flavour. Not too sweet, but yet not savoury.

4 eggs, separated

0.5 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for dusting

0.5 cup olive oil

4 heaped tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons cornflour

1 lemon, first zest grated and then juice squeezed

1) Sift flour and cornflour together into a bowl. Add grated lemon zest and mix it in.

2) Beat yolks with half the sugar until creamy and thick, about 3 minutes. Beat in olive oil and lemon juice, until just combine. It may appear separated. Stir in flour until just combined.

3) Beat egg whites with a clean whisk until soft peaks. Keep beating after that, adding rest of sugar by tablespoon, until stiff peaks.

4) Gently fold egg whites into yolk mixture and mix thoroughly but softly.

5) Pour into greased and lined baking tin (preferably springform), tap the tin few times to release any trapped air. Sprinkle extra sugar on top. Bake at 170-180C for about 30-40 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool cake in the tin on a rack for 10 minutes, then run a thin knife around edge of the tin and remove sides. Cool cake to room temperature, about an hour. Remove bottom of pan and peel off baking paper.

Pasta Pesto Salad

 

For this summery light salad you will need to toss together:

300g cooked pasta shapes

200g cherry tomatoes, quartered

200g mozarella, torn into strips

There's penne on the picture, but I personally found that thinner and smaller pasta will work better. Something like farfalle.

After you brought it together, add your pesto and mix well but gentle.

for the pesto:

two handfuls basil leaves (makes about 25g)

2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

half cup ligtly toasted pinenuts (at 170C in the oven, very briefly as they burn fast)

cup finely grated parmesan

enough olive oil to make it moist (about half a cup)

salt and ground black pepper

For a really rustic pesto, just mash and bash ingredients in a mortar: first basil leaves and garlic, then pinenuts; then mix in parmesan and olive oil, season and presto!

But if you prefer finer pesto, process it mechanically before adding parmesan and olive oil.

It smells and tastes so much better than store bought pesto!

Croissants

It might take a long time, but it takes a little effort, and makes up for a great breakfast!

Makes 8 medium-sized croissants:

half cup milk
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon sugar
half teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry active yeast (one that needs to "activate" in warm water)
1/4 cup warm water

1 1/2 cup flour
130g butter at room temperature to layer

Making the dough:

1) Combine milk, first amount of butter, sugar and salt in a small pot and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and cool to room temperature.

2) Dissolve the yeast in warm water, let it stand in warm place for about 10 minutes until it forms a foam on top. Then add it to the cooled milk. Add the mixture to the flour and mix with a spoon or a table knife quite vigorously until the dough is well mixed, it would be elastic and sticky.

Place in a bowl, cover with a tea towel and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours. Place in refrigerator and chill for 30 minutes.

Tip: Each time you refrigerate the dough, cover securely to keep air out. This prevents the dough from drying out. 
3) Roll the dough on a floured board to form a 0.5cm thick rectangle. Spread the butter over 2/3 of the rectangle closest to you. Fold the unbuttered third over the center third. Then fold the bottom 1/3 over the doubled portion. Swing the dough around a quarter turn. Roll it again into a 1/4-inch thick oblong. Fold again in thirds.Cover the dough and place in the refrigerator for 2 hours or more. 

Tip: It is important to keep the dough cold while working with it. This can be achieved by working fast and rolling the dough on a cool worktop surface.

4) When the dough is chilled, remove from the refrigerator and repeat the folding and turning twice more. 

Making the croissants:

5) Roll the dough to 0.5cm thickness once more. Try and roll it into rectangular shape that will allow for cutting it in two lenghtwise. Then, in a zigzag motion, cut the dough to make triangles. At this point, you can put the filling at the wide side (the base) of each triangle. It can be:

>semi-soft cheese with freshly cut herbs;

>cubes of cooking chocolate (2 cubes per each)

>teaspoonful of jam etc.

Tip: Cut the dough of recipe croissant with a very sharp knife or pizza cutter.

6) Roll each triangle beginning with the wide side, then shape the rolls into crescents (or leave them straight). Place on baking sheets lined with baking paper. Leave enough room for each croissant to double in size. Chill for 30 minutes in the refrigerator before baking.
7) Preheat oven to 200C. Bake for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 170C and continue to bake another 10-15 minutes.

Resist eating your croissants when they come from the oven. Croissants need time for the layers of dough to settle.  And yes, sometimes jam runs away :)

Blueberry Cheesecake

In this recipe, you ony bake half of the cheesecake, topping it with berries and whipped cream. I will later be trying another recipe where all of the cheesecake is baked altogether. So, this is Cheesecake Recipe No.1

 

50g butter

1 cup crushed biscuits (easy to put in a plastic bag and roll with a rolling pin)

350g tub plain Philadelphia cheese

3 tablespoons sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

150g double whipping cream, whipped with 2 tablespoons sugar

150g blueberries and half-cup blueberry juice, or same from a tin

1 tablespoon cornflour

1) Melt the butter and mix with the biscuits. Press the mixture over cake tin, lined with baking paper. Best if the tin is a springform one. Allow for borders for your cheesecake, when you are spreading the biscuit mixture.

2) Beat the creamcheese with sugar until smooth, then beat in eggs and vanilla. Spoon this into the tin on top of biscuits, and bake at 180C for about 25 minutes. It will shrink a little. Don't worry, it's normal. Let cool completely.

3) Dissolve cornflour in blueberry juice and heat over the hob until starts to bubble. Add blueberries and take off the heat. You might want to add few drops of lemon juice to deepen the flavour. Spoon blueberry mixture on top of your baked base cheesecake.

4) Top the cheesecake with whipped cream and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

Sweet-And-Sour Aubergines

Caponata

 

1 large aubergine, diced

half-cup olive oil

6 celery stalks, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 tablespoon tomato puree

salt and ground black pepper

400g tin plum tomatoes

3 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon capers

12 green or black olives, chopped

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

1) Toss aubergine dice with salt in a colander and set aside for half an hour. Then wash in running water and dry on paper towels.

2) Saute celery in about 4 tablespoon of olive oil until browned, then spoon out. Add some more oil and fry aubergine until tender. You might need to add more oil in the process. Set aside.

3) Pour rest of the oil, and saute onion until golden. Add tomato puree and tomatoes, and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Add sugar and vinegar, and cook for 10 minutes to make a nice thick sauce. Season. 

4)Stir in your sauce: capers, olives, celery, aubergines and parsley. If it looks too dry, add a ladleful of water. Check and season to taste, if necessary.

Walnut Fingers

Extremely simple recipe, leading to delicious result!
This pastry is good for any filling, really, as long as you roll it relatively thin, think 0.5cm as a guide.

 

100g butter

1.5 cup flour

100g sour cream

1 tsp baking powder

100g walnuts, roasted slightly at 180C for 10-15 mins, and finely chopped

100g sugar

2 tbsp honey

1) Chop butter while cold and add it to the flour. Rub it with your fingers until roughly combined. Don't spend too much time on it. As long as there's no big lums of butter left, it's fine. Add baking powder and sour cream, and bring the dough together using your hand. Shape it into a ball and put in the fridge for 20-30 mins. The whole process of making the dough should not take longer than 20 minutes itself, so do not dwell on it.

2) Combine roasted walnuts, sugar and honey in a bowl.

3) Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it into an oblong sausage form, approximately 3cm in diameter. Cut small pieces off and roll them into thin circles, 3-5mm thick. Put about a teaspoon of walnut mixture onto each, working one by one, then roll it into a roulade, pinching the ends close.

4) Brush lightly with milk. Bake on the tray lined with baking paper, at 180C for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

La Dolma Vita - Stuffed Peppers and Aubergines

This is another Azeri (Turkish) dish, slightly adapted. In addition to aubergines and peppers, you can use tomatoes.

Dolma

250g lamb mince

1 onion, chopped

1 teaspoon freshly cut or dry mint

1/2 teaspoon dry basil

1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

salt ans ground black pepper

pinch of chilli flakes

olive oil

half a cup any rice, boiled plain in salted water, drained

3 long thin aubergines, or 6 small round ones

6 small bell peppers, green and red work best

cup chopped tomatoes (tinned work just fine)

1) Rub aubergines and peppers with olive oil, and bake them in the baking tray at highest temperature, turning once until they are lightly charred and soften up. It should not take not more than 20 minutes. Tomatoes will need much less time. Aim is to keep them wholesome while half-cooked and roasted on the surface.

2) Heat couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and lightly fry onion. Then add minced lamb, mint and cinnamon, and season with salt and pepper. Fry mince, breaking it up constantly with a spatula, for about 10 minutes, or until water from the mince evaporates. Set aside.

3) When vegetables are done baking, let them cool just a bit out of the oven. You need to cut the stalk top off the aubergines and discard it, but cut the top off the peppers with the stalk and keep it to use as peppers' "lids" later (same with tomatoes if using). Slit the aubergines lengthwise, but not through, as if you wanted to butterfly them. Now stuff the vegetables with your mince, take care not to over-stuff. Lay them, compact and neat, inside a spacious pot drizzled with olive oil, ideally in one layer, but it is not crucial. Top the peppers and tomatoes with their lids and stand them upright next to the aubergines.

4) Pour the chopped tomatoes out of the tin over your vegetables, sprinkle with basil and chilli flakes, and add about a cup of water, or to almost cover the dolma.

5) Cook on top of the stove at low setting (electric 2-3) for about 20-30 minutes. Be gentle with dishing it up, if you want to preseve the shape.

Nush Olsun! (Bon Appetite!)

Tempura - Way to make vegetables dirty

If you thought that vegetables are the healthiest food choice you can make, we tell you: not if you dunk them in the batter and then deep fry them in lots of oil, you don't!

To cover 2 carrots, 2 celery sticks, 6-7 baby corns and 1 bell pepper:
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar

1) Mix with cup of water thoroughly and refrigerate for 10-15 minutes.

2) Carrots and baby corn will need to be boiled first for about 10 minutes. Cool them off by running cold water over them in a colander, shake off excess water, then tip all the veggies into your batter, coating them evenly.

3) Deep-fry in batches. It only takes few mere minutes per batch.

Don't forget your dipping sauces. And how about adding herbs or/and spices to the batter ;)

Upside Down Deep Dish Pizza

 Another dish from American Deep South

This will greatly resemble yorkshire pudding, just softer. If you ever cooked your own pizza, this is much less trouble in my opinion, and will make easy one-pot family dinner.

200g of shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 tablespoon of oil, fair enough we used olive
1 chopped red onion
1 chopped green bell pepper
2-3 ounces of chorizo, roughly chopped
250g of minced beef
1 x 400g can of chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon of basil and oregano each

for the "pizza base" which goes on top:
1 cup of milk
1 tablespoon of oil
2 eggs
1 cup of all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese

1) Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celcius. Spray a 9 x 13 inch glass baking pan with non-stick cooking spray or drizzle a litte oil. Arrange mozzarella cheese evenly on the bottom of the baking pan.

2) Heat the 1/2 tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium high heat and cook the onion and bell pepper until soft, but not browned. Add the beef and cook until browned. Stir in the chorizo and cook another 4 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes from the tin and herbsg and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes, watching so it wouldn't dry out. Remove from heat and set aside.

3) Whisk together milk, oil and eggs. Add the flour and the salt to the milk mixture and whisk until well blended and smooth. Sieve if too lumpy.

4) Carefully transfer the meat mixture evenly over the layer of mozzarella in the prepared pan. Pour the batter on top of the meat mixture, making sure to cover completely. Sprinkle the Parmesan cheese evenly on top.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown and puffy. Once you have taken it out of the oven it will deflate. Don't worry, it's normal :)

Bon appetite! 

Recipe adapted from deepsouthdish.com

Szechuan Pork Stir-Fry

1) Marinate 500 g of cubed pork fillet, for at least an hour or preferably longer, in: 2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon cornflour

1 tablespoon water

2) Combine and set aside: juice of 1 lime

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoons vinegar (rice or white wine)

1 teaspoon cornflour

3 teaspoons dark sesame oil 3) Heat 1 tablespoon of oil, stir in: 3 teaspoons crushed ginger 2 chopped green chillies Fry for 1 minute, then add the pork and continue stir-frying for about 5 minutes. Then add 1 julienned carrot and 100g julienned sugar-snap peas and continue to stir-fry for another 5 minutes or so, until pork is tender. 4) Pour in lime mixture and continue to stir almost constantly for another 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat and mix in 2-3 chopped spring onions and handful of finely chopped roasted peanuts. Serve with rice as a side. It could be cooked just plain in slightly salted water, as it is designed to extinguish and cushion chillies in the stir-fry. Enjoy!