And for tomorrow, there’s oxtail (schlepp, in AT parlance!) stew. I was surprised to see beautiful lean slices in a big-city SPAR, as I’ve never encountered it in Europe. First marinated in Port and garlic for 2 days, then seared in pork fat, deglazed with Calvados, and slow-cooked all day. Passata, a sweet onion (courtesy of The Lovely Ursula, who grows incredible onions and garlic), the marinade, and rosemary/bay leaf/thyme from the garden join in. Beef stock to halfway up the pieces. To be eaten tomorrow to let the flavours develop.
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It looks, however, as if it should be served up on a spaceship to alien dignitaries somewhere in the outer rim.
Yeah, that was before I stirred it up and closed the lid. Now that you mention it, it does look like some alien creature…
Looks like the small parts. The bigger the parts the more expensive, but the ratio bone-to-meat is better on that part of the tail.
I have this every Monday in Spain for breakfast ( l’esmorzaret en Valenciano). Sorry, recipe in Spanish:
The owner of the bar where I have that prepares in on Saturday and then puts apart some for me for Monday. It tastes even better at the second cooking…
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@cubanpete, That’s why I’m cooking it today, to eat tomorrow or the next. These 3 pieces are all from the large end; the biggest is 10cm. The tiny ones in the case were the same price (!) The fleischtheke lady tried to sell me all of them, but I declined for the reason you state–you are just paying for bone. Your recipe is almost the same as mine.
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The bone-to-meat ratio doesn’t matter so much to me, the magic of the oxtail is the comical amounts of gelatin it creates after a long braise, to be mopped up with good bread. Braised pig trotters is another sort of similar situation, with barely any edible meat on them, but nibbling on the gelatinous skin and sinews and mopping up the sticky sauce is all worth it!
Yup, many if not most braised dishes improve on the next day!
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Which entertained us kids–after Mum had pulled all the meat off the bones, we were given them to suck all the gelatin off. I loved pulling off the discs, with their little pads of goo.
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Did you ever get a hammer and a knittingneedle for the bones.
T-Bone, potaytos.
~4cm cut, sous vide @ 56°C for 3 hours, 3 minutes on the super hot fusion lit gas stove grill.
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Sign of a true gourmet (as if we needed more confirmation!).
Last night’s ‘it’s too hot to think let alone cook, and I have a mountain of zucchini to use before it becomes sentient and attempts world dominence’ dinner:
Grilled paneer and zucchini skewers.
Little work, and less thought went into dinner, but nonetheless it was mighty satisfying.
I added garlic chives and chilis to the sauce, because why not?, and briefly marinated the skewers.
Serve on a bed of greens, grilled sweet onions, and tomatoes, along side a nice crusty bread and hummus.
Next time I’ll probably add the cherry tomatoes to the skewers.
I am too ignorant/lazy to take, let alone post, photos of my efforts so a link will have to do.
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Prawn pasta roll-ups with cheese, spinach, and sweet pepper cream. As usual, I didn’t like the internet versions, and raw spinach in filling? Just no. So here we go with my version:
Filling: The day before, blitz a 250g container of cottage cheese (I use an immersion blender) and drain in kitchen towel/sieve for 24 hours–or use a tub of ricotta drained for 4 hours. It should be quite compact and dry. Sauté 2 shallots and 1 clove grated garlic in 1 tablespoon olive oil until soft, add 2 cups chopped baby spinach and cook until wilted. Siphon off any liquid with kitchen toweling. Remove to a mixing bowl with the cotttage cheese, a large egg, ½ cup grated mozzarella (the pizza kind) and ¼ cup parmesan. Shell 325g of headless prawns*, pat dry and chop. You should end up with about 300g. Sauté in the same pan until just barely cooked, cool, add to bowl. Season filling with salt and pepper.
Cook 6 lasagne noodles al dente (I only used 4, because I’m greedy for filling). Lay out on oiled surface. Divide filling evenly among noodles, roll up and place in buttered pan. Make a bechamel of 2 tablespoons (bärlauch!) butter and flour and 1-1/2 cups milk, and seasoned with salt. I used my new love, smoked Maldon. Immersion blend with one charred red capsicum (aka bell pepper—I do one on the BBQ every time we use it, but you can use jarred) and a pinch of pimentón. Pour sauce evenly over the lasagne rolls. Top with a handful of mozzarella, a dusting of parmesan, and cover with foil. Bake at 190C for 20 minutes, uncover and bake another 15. Then broil if you like a crispy top.
*In a pinch, I made the mistake of buying a bag of SPAR E-Z peel prawns. They have a strange glibbery texture and I’m sure they are chemically plumped. Fit only for recipes like this. Never again.
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Congratulations to my wife, she did put up with me that many decades. A nice day like today 35 years ago we got married in beautiful Spain.
Today we went to a food temple, only one Michelin star, but I like it better than the 3 star shop we went another time. 22 plates and extraordinary wine with it.
That is one of 'em, some very special scallops:
The chef is Argentinian. That means I don’t have to leave hungry after dozens of plates of food like I did at the 3-star shop (I asked the chef for a chuleton when leaving and he thought I was joking… I wasn’t).
And it was not even expensive! That was the place:
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You’re a damn serious cook, we can’t/don’t have the time to put such effort unless it’s for guests/special occasions.
One idea: it sounds delicious, but also very sweet, what do you think adding a bit of chopped parsley to break the sweetness up?
@Refugee, you are right that the prawns (even yucky ones from SPAR) are naturally sweet, and that’s why I use cottage cheese, rather than ricotta. The cottage cheese they sell in AT is very tart and tangy. The spinach also helps to give a green edge to it, but my parsley has given up the ghost with this heat, and I can’t bring myself to pester The Lovely Ursula for some of hers. Maybe I’ll try that next time, though, because this was very tasty.
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These are the little pillows of ricotta gnudi I make by the hundred and keep in the freezer to make a quick dinner. They take almost no time to float to the top of simmering water. A piece of Saint Agur blue cheese followed me home, so I made a simple reduced sauce–shallot and a touch of garlic sautéed and deglazed with Calvados. Add milk, chicken broth, and when it’s reduced and thickened, add the cheese in cubes. Melt carefully so it doesn’t separate. Fry plenty of sage leaves crispy and strew on top. Served with a lollo lettuce salad with corn from the barbie, and avocado and tomato cubes.
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When the humidity finally drives us in from the garden, I like to hang out in the cool dim kitchen doing prep work for dinner.* I split a 300g salmon filet into two 1.5 cm-thick squares, gently pressing them to even thickness. From another 200g I make a quenelle-like filling blitzed with an egg white, a little cream, 3 tablespoons of cooked spinach squeezed dry, green Tabasco, Worcester, and seasoning. Slather it on and roll them up, poach in white wine and strong fish stock with peppercorns, tarragon, and shallot. Set aside to keep warm while making the sauce, which is a roux of butter and flour, sweet paprika and tomato paste**, and finally a tiny bit of cream and the strained poaching liquid. Plate the fish roulades, pour the sauce over and around, and top with fresh tarragon. Making these for 4-6 people is scarcely more work than it is for two. All it needs is a salad of crisp frilly green lettuce dressed with vinaigrette.
*While working under a task light, I watched a programme on the Beeb that was really heartwarming—Lorraine Pascale’s “How to Be a Better Cook.” She taught a guy who had never cooked anything but cheese toast to make an impressive meal for 8 and host a dinner party for his friends. In the end, after his triumph, he was teary.
**It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but a mishap with the tube of tomato paste sent a huge spurt of paste into the sauce, making it far too tomato-y and resulting in a lurid colour that clashed with the carrots. Oh well. It tasted good anyway.
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Sunday’s oven day (and washing day, too), so I popped these darlin’s in after dinner. They are a nod to the big lemon cake puddings of childhood–my sister used to make them as a weekend treat. Whipped egg whites and lemony buttermilk-yolk mixture magically separate into milky lemon pudding and fluffy delicate sponge cake that rises up like a soufflé, light as eiderdown. These bake in buttered and sugared cocottes and turn out with the sauce on top. They are easy to make, any leftovers (oh, right; breakfast!) keep very well in the fridge, and they are suitable even for a fancy dinner.
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