Comfort Recipe: Smokey Linguini - Vegetarian (works w/ Spaghetti, why not add Chorizo!)

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

When I’m feeling like something that’s going to satisfy me, and not be a giant pain in the arse to make this really hits the spot!!

It does have one shortcut which is the garlic and onion reduction, I usually make a batch and store it in the fridge in an old mayo jar - one of the big ones!! Then I don’t have to chop onions or garlic or mess about at all!! Recipe for the garlic onion reduction is here (it’s basically lob ingredients into a pot and reduce it for a couple of hours).

This one’s just as simple!!

ingredients (serves 2-4)

for the linguini

200g linguini 

1 tsp salt

1.5L water

for the smokey flavour

2 tbsp garlic onion reduction (recipe)

1 tsp smoked paprika

10g picked thyme (optional but really nice)

slug of olive oil

for the garnish

chives or spring onions (chopped)

apparatus / equipment

colander

boiling pot

method

for the linguini

Bring 1.5L water to the boil (use kettle for high speed results!) 

Add the water to a boiling pot with the salt, dissolve the salt and add the pasta.

Cook for ~9-11mins depending how you like it. (9min al dente - 11min sooooft)

Then strain it, keeping the water to add a little to the sauce.

smokey flavour

First make sure you get hold of some decent smoked paprika: I use La Chinata - it has a great smokey flavour much better than most of the generic ‘smoked’ paprika you get in a lot of places. (you can get it at the supermarket too!!)

OK that said, dust a healthy tsp of smoked paprika over a medium hot dry frying pan. As soon as it starts to change colour and start giving off a smokey aroma (which will be 5-10seconds) add 2 tbsp of garlic reduction, a slug of olive oil and the thyme and mix well! Add the pasta and a 1/2 ladle of pasta water and toss the pasta with a couple of wooden forks. 

to serve

Serve on hot plates dusting with chives or spring onion.

thinking ahead

Now the pasta purists out there would probably have me shot, but this is just as good the next day and microwaves pretty well so it’s great to load up a takeaway box and have it for lunch the next day!

variations

Make it meaty!! Dice 100g chorizo and cook until browned on the outside, add the picked thyme, cook for 2 more minutes then put aside. Use the same pan for more flavour and add the paprika etc and follow recipe above, adding the cooked chorizo just before the pasta!Makes for a nice meaty variant!! 

Recipe: Zero Fat Salmon & Pork Wonton Soup

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

A friend of mine came round to lend a hand with hanging a door, a bit of sawing cutting varnishing that kind of thing. As a thanks for lending a hand I knocked this recipe up for a late lunch. I’m not gonna lie, it would have gone down exceptionally well accompanied by an ice cold beer! Unfortunately no beer allowed today - booooo! - watching that there waistline : /

Not bad for a bit of lunch - to be fair we'd earned it!!

Salmon is optional!! : )

Cucumber noodles

This recipe is a great recipe because you can have it with carbs or as a carb-less cucumber version!! Aye! So really good if you’re cooking for others while watching your own intake. Oh the sneakiness!! : )

It’s also quick and simplicity to make!

ingredients (serves 2 hungry people)

for the noodle soup

500g fresh noodles

1 chicken stock cube

1 tsp yellow bean paste (soya bean paste)

1L boiling water

1 medium red onion (finely sliced)

2 small green chillies (cut into rings, keep seeds)

1tbsp fish sauce (season to taste)

for the pork wontons

10 pork wontons (recipe post coming soon)

for the cucumber noodles

Mint & Sweet Basil

1/3 cucumber (mandolin to noodles)

1 tsp soy

for the salmon

300g salmon (cut into 2 pieces)

olive oil

salt

Ready for action!!

for the topping ~ garnish

2 tbsp cucumber noodles

10g sweet basil (stalks removed, torn)

10g mint (stalks removed, torn)

10g coriander (stalks removed, torn)

2 spring onions (cut into strips and then thirds)

~

2 spring onions (fine sliced into rings)

sweet basil (picked)

crispy fried onion

1 lime (sliced into 1/4’s)

apparatus / equipment

mandolin

method

for the noodle soup

Put the yellow bean paste and chicken stock cube in a pot, dissolve in the boiling water.

Add the green chillies, 1/2 of the red onion and the wontons, bring to the boil then set to simmer.

Add the spring onions just before serving. (or to the noodles, either will do)

for the cucumber noodles

Run the cucumber through the mandolin. Add a touch of soy if you fancy it!

Simple and fast! WARNING: Be so sooo careful with your fingers on the mandolin!!

Cook it 90% skin side down!! (Don't forget to de-scale it!)

for the salmon

I like my salmon ‘mit cuit’ but that’s a lot of ****ing about for lunch, so a nice quick alternative is to literally half cook it!

Quickly sear the remaining sides

Pat the salmon dry and coat it in olive oil. Salt the skin side to give a really nice crispy skin, and put it into pan on a medium high heat, skin side down. Leave it for 5mins until crisp and golden. the sear the remaining sides to finish. The centre should warm and still pink! If you’re using the skirt of the salmon, which is a lot thinner and fattier (and really nice) use a hot pan on a high heat for a shorter time.

for the pork wontons

I grabbed these out of the freezer!! I’ll put up a post on how to make them soon!

to serve

Unpack the noodles then loosen them and put them in a bowl. Microwave them so the broth stays warm when you pour it in.

Dress the noodles with herbs, cucumber noodles, spring onion and the red onion and pour in the broth. Sprinkle with round spring onion slices, crispy fried onion and chillies. Pop the salmon on top and serve with a slice of lime.

variations

If you’re making the cucumber noodle version replace 250g noodles with 2/3 of a cucumber that’s been sliced into noodles!

Recipe Shortcuts: Garlic, Onion, Chicken Stock Reduction

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

This (I’m not kidding!!) is one of those Sunday afternoon, background tasks that I do when I’m writing posts, or soaking up TED or youtube that kind of thing. You just need to kick it off and let it do it’s thing for a couple of hours! 

What’s it for? Succulent Chicken Breast Rigatoni (aka Teriyaki Mac 'n' Cheese), Smokey Linguini with Chorizo, Quiche of Kings See links (below) for recipes . . .

The nice thing is you can have it sat in a jar in the fridge and just dump a tbsp or two of it into what ever you’re cooking. It saves you the time of making a mirepoix or sofrito base. So on those days when you fancy some really nice fuel ‘and rapid like’ (said in my best RAF voice) you can knock up a bowl of smoked chorizo linguini in 10minutes! (including boiling the kettle!)

ingredients (fills 2x 600g mayo jar!)

for the reduction

4 bulbs of garlic (peeled and crushed)

6 chicken / vegetable stock (crushed)

12 onions (fine dice)

300ml olive oil

3 chillies (fine chopped including seeds)

method

Prep the ingredients, put them all into a stock pot (oil first), bring to the boil then set to simmer with a lid on. Stir occasionally so that it doesn’t catch, it’s ready when the onion has caramelised - medium dark brown.

It should be a thick coating consistency, with a low water content and should taste pretty salty, don’t forget it’s a stock and seasoning mix to use as a base!!

Once cooled a little pour the mix into a sterilised jar. There should be enough oil in the mix so that when it settles there will be a 5-10ml (protective) coating of oil on the top. If not add a little more olive oil until there is. The oil layer acts as a protective barrier against oxidation. It will last for a month in the fridge no problem.

links

I’ll add links to the recipes I use this in as I post them. Succulent Chicken Breast Rigatoni (aka Teriyaki Mac 'n' Cheese), Smokey Linguini with Chorizo, Quiche of Kings and more . . .

Succulent Chicken Breast Rigatoni (aka Teriyaki Mac 'n' Cheese)

if the common Quiche were fit for Kings

Smokey Linguini with Chorizo

Recipe (leftovers): Turkey Pie, Celeriac and Potato Rösti, and Avocado Salad

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

I think my memories of Christmas are probably some of the oldest that I can recall. One of the core ingredients in every Christmas were my mums sausage rolls! Bloody hell pure bliss!!! Pork sausage sometimes with herbs in, some times not, but me mum always made the pastry. Pastry and meat is a winning combo!! Specially after you’ve spent all day unwrapping presents, and running around terrorising granny’s dog, making stupid noises running into walls tipsy on bailies or vermouth that we’d nicked from the drinks cabinet! (or that granny had given us) Anyway Christmas wouldn’t be up to scratch without those awesome home made sausage rolls!

Excuse the digression! Some years later . . . . 

I’m not one to waste food, so if I see a little pastry leftover at the end of a sausage roll making session I’ll snag it and either freeze it or pop it into the fridge, for the making of pies, yes sir. 

What follows is a testament to what you can do with left overs!!

ingredients (serves 4-6)

for the turkey pie - 200C / 20min

300-400g pastry off cuts are fine. (pastry how to)

450g left over turkey (coarse dice)

2/3 large aubergine (large dice) or 1 medium aubergine

100ml olive oil

2 spring onions (chopped into rings)

1 red onion (medium dice)

1 tomato (chopped)

1 egg (beaten)

for the cheese roux

250g cheddar cheese (grated)

60g plain flower

250ml chicken stock

250ml milk

for the accompaniments

some potato and celeriac rösti recipe here 

juniper and cranberry cabbage recipe here 

and a simple avocado tomato salad

apparatus / equipment

pie dish (18cm x 26cm)

pastry brush

method

cheese roux

For a nice sauce with substance a roux is essential, and really simple. 

On a medium heat melt the butter in a pan and add the flour. Use a wooden spoon to work it into a smooth paste then add the liquids and whisk into a homogenous liquid, keep stirring on a medium high heat until it’s thickened and the flour case cooked out. Add the cheese and stir until it all melted and made a smooth sauce.

turkey pie

Pre-heat your oven to 200C. Dice the aubergine and toss it in oil. 

Add the chopped onion and pop them into a pan on a medium heat, turning occasionally until the aubergine has started to brown an the onions are translucent.

Add the rest of the ingredients (except the pastry obviously) and mix together. Leave them to warm through.

Then put the in the pie

I like pastry! Did I mention that? 

It’s nice to have a generous amount and for it to be crunchy, flakey and shiny!!!! Oooh yes!

So once it’s rolled out, roll the rolling pin underneath to lift it onto the pie. 

Trim the pastry where it needs it, use the trimmings to add extra crunchiness to the pastry topping.

Brush with beaten egg to make it all shiny and lovely looking then into the oven it goes for 20minutes!!

thinking ahead

If you want to make the pie in the morning, you can: Just let the filling go cold before you put the pastry on, cover in cling film and put in the fridge until needed to feed the starving masses!

Don’t forget to take the cling film off, and put the egg wash on just before you bake it.

The cranberry and red cabbage concoction will keep for 3-5days in the fridge no problem.

what could go wrong? 

When working with pastry it’s important to keep it as cold as you can. Which is why pastry sections in professional kitchens have marble work surfaces. So work quickly and don’t let your pastry get warm. 

to serve

Make the rösti while the pie’s in the oven, grab a helper to make the salad. If you give them some random bits and tell them to improvise you can often learn a thing or two about different flavour combinations. (So I’ve found!!)  Risky business! ; )

variations

You can fill a pie with all manner of things: Oxtail Pie, Apple Tart Tatin, Banana Tatin & Passion Fruit Sorbet and, coming soon . . . Duck & Date Pie & Quiche. 

Only limited by your imagination!

Recipe: Mac 'n' Cheese (Macaroni Cheese - Rigatoni Actually)

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

Mac 'n' cheese is an uber classic! It was one of the first things I tried to perfect when I left home! It's a super comfort food, and so versatile. As far as the basics go all you need to be able to make are a béchamel sauce and to make that a simple roux. the rest is cheese, your favourite pasta and all manner of variations depending on your mood! It's great for incorporating leftovers and stands on the plate without need for accompaniment. In fact I suggested an accompaniment for this one and got a reet (I think that's a northern term I might be wrong) good re-educating from my Italian flatmate . . . . . You do not serve a salad with a mac 'n' cheese, that's a different course!!

The cheeses I used for this particular mac 'n' cheese - which make's it the mac daddy were these:

murgu - swiss from belp - raw cows milk

vintage gouda 3yr - dutch from het groene hart - pasturised cows milk

schneeflockli - swiss from rougemont - raw cows milk

munster - french from alsace-lorraine - cows milk

They were leftovers form a rather nice cheese board I put on just recently! (sacrilegious I know . . . but soooo goood!)

My flatmate liked the mac 'n' cheese, I chucked the salad out of the window while no-one was looking!! ; )  

ingredients (serves 6-8)

for the mac 'n' cheese

500g rigatoni / macaroni

300g cheese (grated) (your favourite - better to pick a relatively strong one)

4 tomatoes (diced)

2 onions (fine dice)

4 cloves garlic (fine dice)

2 tbsp dijon mustard

1 tsp cumin seed

50ml olive oil

1L water

100g butter

100g flour

Cheese: a nice mix that wont hurt the bank too much - Red Leicester, Parmesan or Gran Padano and Mozzarella.

for the topping 

200g mature cheddar (grated)

apparatus / equipment

stick blender (optional)

Hard to tell but this mac 'n' cheese is over a foot wide!!! 

method - the basic steps are as follows:

* Cook the rigatoni / macaroni

* Make stock for the sauce

* Thicken the sauce with a roux

* Add the cheese to the sauce

* Mix sauce and pasta

* Sprinkle with cheese and bake for 20mins @ 180C

here's how in more detail:

stock

Put 1L of water, the onions, cumin, tomatoes and olive oil in a pan and bring to the boil, then set to simmer for 20mins.

Once the stock is ready use a stick blender to make it smooth and pass the stock through a sieve. If you don't have a stick blender skip this step and go for an artisan style sauce personally I quite like it with a little texture!! Smooth is good too!

pasta

In a separate pan add 1.5L water and 1tbsp of table salt and bring to the boil. Once boiling add the rigatoni and boil for 7mins.

Worth pointing out here that this is undercooked. If the rigatoni was for meatballs for example, or another sauce to be served immediately 7mins wouldn't be enough!!  9mins would be al dente and 11mins would be soft. We want it undercooked because it's going to be in the oven for 20mins in sauce cooking more!! : )

But you can cook it longer if you want to have a softer mac n cheese. 

roux

Next make a roux to thicken the stock. A roux is a mix of flour and fat. This recipe is vegetarian so I'm going to use butter, but you can use most fats, veg oil, bacon fat, duck fat etc for different flavours.

Melt butter and add the flour, mix well, and stir continuously over the heat to cook out the flour.

Add a fifth of the stock and bring to the boil and mix it in to create a smooth paste.

Repeat: adding the rest of the stock to the mix a third at a time, stirring until you have a smooth and even sauce.

add cheese

Next add the cheese to the sauce, stirring until it's melted and completely dissolved in the sauce. Season it with salt and pepper. Then add the pasta and mix well.

sprinkle

Put the mix into an oven proof dish, sprinkle with grated cheese and bake for 20minutes @ 180C until it's golden brown!!

thinking ahead

This is a great dish because, it will last over night in the fridge and be easily reheated in the oven (or microwave if you insist!) and you can also freeze it with very little side effects. 

variations

Are you kidding the list is endless, it's a great way to use up odds and ends: Use a tomato based sauce and just top with cheese for a healthier version. Add aubergine caviar, or ham and oregano. A chicken based variation is also pretty good!! : )

As you can see I tried an avocado topping as an experiment, and although it didn't detract from the dish it was a bit like adding double cream to single cream - pointless!

Aubergine caviar mac 'n' cheese

Classic cheddar and chicken mac 'n' cheese

Retro Recipe: Mini Toads - Picnic Toad in the Hole / Yorkshire Pudding

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

I was having a look though and ancient directory on one of my backup drives, and I came across a bunch of old recipes from when I used to live in Barcelona, I always used to write down the ones that worked out! A well fed girlfriend is a happy girl friend I find. Well, it's one check box anyway!

We would often go up into the mountains for walks or to the beach (my favourite), usually a little further up the coast. Away far from heavy touristy bits of city. Pop a small kite up so we're easy to find on the beach when the others arrive and get down to the arduous business of sunbathing! 

After a good swim in the sea and a bit more of a sunbathe, grab a couple of beers from the nearest chiringito and crack open the picnic box. I don't think we ever came back with any of them left!! Soooo morish! Balance with a nice goats cheese and tomato salad. You know that, well, rather screw faced reaction you get when offering your friends kids (little feckers) food? Well you wont get one of those!!! 

They take 10mins to make. In it's simplest form the recipe goes: 1. whisk batter, 2.cut sausages, 3.bake. And it's a classic crowd pleaser, for BBQ buffet or for a picnic hamper, and they freeze too!

The batter is quite loose and it makes for a gloriously sticky mini toad in the hole, for less stickiness add more a touch more flour.

ingredients (makes 12)

for the mini toads

3 medium eggs

3 heaped tbsp flour

1/4 pint (~140g) milk 

2 tbsp olive oil

4 large good quality sausages

  (or 9 herbed mini bratvurst)

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

Mix batter : )

salt to taste

apparatus / equipment

12 mould muffin tray.

method

Pre heat the oven to full blast ~230C

Make the batter: Mix the eggs, flour, sugar salt oil and milk until smooth.

Leave it to warm to room temp.

Evenly distribute the cut up sausage into the baking tray, 4 sausages into 12 pieces, 9 small sausages in 36 pieces.

Sizzling hot - the bater should start to cook on contact!

Add a small squirt of oil and put into the

oven until they are sizzling.

Once they're sizzling pour over the batter half filling each mould.

Bake 15mins - don't open the door before this!!!

Depending on your oven they'll take 15-25 minutes.

thinking ahead

You can make them when ever you want, and then freeze them.

When you wan to use them defrost them and pop then into the oven at 180C for 5mins

what could go wrong? 

You're impatient and you open the door early, and they sink leaving you with hockey puck with a sausage in the middle.

Solution, don't open the door before 15min.

to serve

Serve with a little ketchup or aioli or both, and a light salad. Or ahem, cough, thick onion gravy, buttery mash and cabbage or peas

variations

Why not try making a giant yorkshire pudding!! The trick hear is to get the quantity of mix to tin size right! 

No deeper than 1cm!!

A high sided tin will also guide and contain your yorkshire pudding. Which means it will contain your onion gravy!!

But not your excitement!! : )

Video Recipe: Roasting a Ribeye Joint of Beef to Perfection

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

This is a beautiful cut of beef, personally I think a good ribeye steak is pretty hard to beat!! (Wistfully dreams of all the different cuts of beef and ways of preparing it hmmmmm, post on roasting fore rib, bone in cooing soon!)

Here's my video of how to roast a ribeye joint (by the way 3kg will easily feed 12 people):

Roasting a Ribeye Rare - Video

How To Cook A Rib Eye Roast Rare

And the moral of the story is??? Never do a video shoot the day after a stag do . . . . . . bad idea!!

Anyhoo here are a few more details that aren't explained in the video:

At ferdiesfoodlab we actually rest it from 15 minutes to 30 minutes while it's sat on top of the oven to keep the joint up to temperature. The purpose of resting the meat is two fold, to give an even distribution of moisture (juices) and an even distribution of temperature. That is to say the juice from the centre of the joint travels to the outer more roasted less moist part of the joint, making it juicier, and the heat travels to the cooler centre giving a more even temperature throughout the joint.

ingredients (serves 10 - 12)

"The best roast beef I've EVER eaten" - James (Camera man)

for the beef
3kg joint of ribeye beef
olive oil
salt

apparatus / equipment
Temperature probe.

beef (180C / 40m-55m)
This has to be the simplest recipe I've ever posted. Good quality ingredients are key, we use a 28 matured ribeye.

Coat the beef in oil and salt and, using a hot frying pan, (or in the roasting dish - even better) brown the outside of the beef.
Place into a preheated oven for 40 - 55 minutes. I always probe the joint after 40minutes. Variation in the size of the joint means that they all cook at different speeds. At ferdiesfoodlab we aim for medium rare, 45C at the centre. Don't forget it will continue to cook a little once you've taken it out. 45C = Rare, 55C = Medium, 65C = Sacrilege. I mean well done ; )


what could go wrong?
Overcooked it!! Arse! Keep an eye on the core temperature of the joint with a thermometer, the smaller the joint the faster it will cook so check it after 20 minutes if using a 1.5kg joint for example.

The probe said 65C but when I carved the joint it wasn't cooked in the middle?? When probing for temperature make sure the tip of your probe is in the centre of the beef and that it hasn't gone all the way through to the other side where the meat will be a higher temperature giving you the impression that the joint is more cooked than it is!!

to serve
Make sure your plates are hot, plate roasties or chips then veg, then the beef and jus/sauce.
We serve this with Liquorice Salt and White Tomato Emulsion to accompany the beef and roast potatoes with ginger carrots. It's a real crowd pleaser!

 
variations
A friend of mine Ramirez, does a nice variation. He likes to add about 4 cloves of garlic into the roasting tray and with a 10g of thyme and about half a bottle of red wine. He also coats the beef with anchovy fillets, which gives it a nice salty crust! When the beef is finished cooking put it to one side to rest. Just before you serve, add a touch more wine to the baking tray and bring it to the boil scraping all the crusty bits off the side to make a tasty sauce, pass it through a sieve, then back to the tray. Take 50g of butter cut into cubes and stir it in to give you a sumptuous sauce to pour over the beef. Result!

links
One of the great things about roast beef is leftovers!! You can use the leftovers for the obvious beef sandwich, or for any number of recipes, maybe one of these if you fancy:

Cambodian beef salad and chips




                                     Herefordian beef pho