Pork rissoles with Vietnamese mint #blogjune Day 10

A cold, wet day called for some fun cooking. There was minced pork to be had at Piedimonte's and I had a bunch of Vietnamese mint so pork rissoles with Vietnamese mint was the answer. I served them with some stir-fried vegetables.

 

Ingredients

600 gr minced pork
1/2 bunch Vietnamese mint
2 cloves of garlic
2 tsp chopped/crushed  ginger
1 tsp Sambal oelek
2 tsp chopped lemongrass
Flour
Olive oil

Mode

Place the pork in a large bowl
Peel and crush the ginger and garlic and add
Chop the Vietnamese mint and the lemongrass and add
Finally add the Sambal oelek and stir to combine fully, using hands to finish.
Using a spoon form the mixture into rissoles and roll in flour
Heat olive oil in a pan and add the rissoles
Fry until cooked through, turning regularly.
Meanwhile prepare vegetables which you wish to serve with them.

Preserved limes #blogjune Day 9

I was recently the fortunate recipient (or one of a number of recipients) of the bounty of my friend, Neville's lime tree.  So what to do with them?  I drank some of them instead of my normal morning lemon juice, but then I remembered years ago making preserved limes.  So that became my plan. 

There are many recipes for both preserved lemons and preserved limes around on the web and in various cook books on my shelves. I kept it fairly simple with limes, cloves, cinnamon sticks and salt.  I have purposefully been rather vague in my quantities as it depends on what you have on hand and what tastes good to you. I used 200 gr of salt flakes and I probably had a couple of dozen limes.  This made three reasonably sized jars of limes and I used one cinnamon stick per jar and scatterings of cloves.

I remember from last time that I made them that they took quite a while to reach their prime: much longer than lemons.   Now all I can do is put them away for a few months and see how they go.  But I will keep on eye on them for a while and top them up with extra lime juice if they seem to be getting dry.

Ingredients

20-24 limes
200 gr salt flakes
Cloves
3 cinnamon sticks
Extra lime juice (if required)


  
Mode

Place the salt flakes in a large bowl
Quarter the limes and add to the salt
Mix thoroughly to ensure that the limes are coated
Cover and set aside for 24-36 hours
Meanwhile sterilize the jars you plan to use (I simply do this by putting them in the dishwasher)
Place some of the salt in the bottom of one of the jars and add the limes interspersing them with cinnamon stick and cloves
During the packing and particularly at the end use a spoon to squash down the fruit and release the juice
Be sure to leave space at the top of the jar as they will expand.
Repeat the process until all the limes and their liquid are in jars
Check the levels and if necessary squeeze extra lime juice and add to ensure that the limes are covered.
Observe them for a few days in case the limes are getting dry and add extra juice if necessary.
Then label them and store them high away in the top of the pantry for a few months!

Chicken and dill balls with gnocchi #blogjune Day 5

What's not to like about the taste and texture of crunchy, fresh dill?  I brought some home with the aim of using it for lentil soup, but it ended up being used for making yummy chicken and dill balls.  I cooked them in tomato sauce, and served them with gnocchi and freshly shaved parmesan, but you could eat them by themselves without sauce, or with sauce served with rice or other sorts of pasta.

Ingredients

600 gr minced chicken
1/2 bunch fresh dill
3 cloves garlic
4 tsp minced ginger
1 tsp Sambal Oelek
Olive oil
250 gr ready made tomato sauce
Gnocchi
Parmesan

 

Mode

Place tomato sauce in large pan to heat
Reduce to simmer once it comes to boil
Crush garlic and ginger
Chop dill roughly
Add chicken, garlic, ginger, Sambal Oelek and dill to a bowl
Combine ingredients thoroughly with hands
Using a heaped soup spoon of mixture form meatballs 
Heat olive oil in pan on stove top
Add the meatballs in batches and quickly seal on both sides
Add sealed meatballs to the tomato sauce
Simmer on the top of the stove for 20-30 minutes
Meanwhile boil water, add gnocchi and cook for 6-8 minutes until cooked
Serve chicken balls on a bed of gnocchi
Top with shaved Parmesan

Pork with green olive tapenade pie

I am lucky enough to have a nephew who keeps me supplied with tapenades. So when I was doing shingles cooking with staples I had on hand, olive tapenade not surprisingly came to mind. This one is a pork pie baked with delicious green olive tapenade. One of the few benefits of having shingles (maybe the only one in truth apart from learning about the kindness of friends) was that I came up with a number of recipes that I could cook with ingredients that were hanging around the kitchen as staples.  I have been pleased with them and will definitely be making them again - without shingles to provide the trigger.

Ingredients

2 pork butterfly steaks (about 400 gr)
100 green olive tapenade
1 sheet puff pastry


Mode

Preheat the oven to 180c
Remove pastry from refrigerator or freezer and bring to room temperature
Spoon half the tapenade into the base of an oven-proof pie dish
Place the pork steaks on top
Spread the rest of the tapenade over the pork
Cover with puff pastry and decorate as desired
Bake in the oven for 45 minutes.

Chicken with red pesto pie

This recipe happened as part of "my I'm sick with shingles what can I cook easily campaign." It is fairly clearly a variant of my chicken and pork recipes which are baked in the oven with pesto.  But in this case, rather than covering the dish with foil, I decided to cover it with puff pastry and make the dish a pie!  And the result was a delicious chicken pie.



Ingredients

500 gr chicken thighs
100 gr red basil pesto
Parmesan
1 sheet puff pastry

Mode

Preheat the oven to 180c
Remove pastry from freezer or refrigerator
Roughly chop the chicken thighs
Spoon half the pesto into the base of an oven-proof pie dish
Arrange chicken on top of pesto
Spread the rest of the pesto over the chicken
Grate Parmesan over the chicken
Cover with pastry decorating as you wish
Bake in the oven for 45 minutes.

Pork with olive tapenade

In my current (and eternal) search for iron-rich foods, I was delighted to find that black olives are a good source of iron. So what better thing to do with my pork rib eye chops than to bake it with some blackolive tapenade that I had been given as a gift. I baked potaties in olive oil and rosemary for a delicious accompaniment.

Ingredients

2 pork rib eye steaks (about 400 gr)
100 gr black olive tapenade


Mode

Preheat the oven to 180c
Spoon half the tapenade into the base of an oven-proof serving dish
Place the pork steaks on top
Spread the rest of the tapenade over the pork

Cover with foil and bake in the oven for 45 minutes.

Stuffed peppers with a punch

One thing that the wretched @#$% shingles has not stopped me doing is cooking and thinking about recipes. Just before the disease hit, I had had a longing for stuffed red peppers and had been thinking of a recipe that contained some Indian flavours. I like the combination of those flavours and the Greek fetta.

As I was sick, this recipe was made with a number of readily available ingredients rather than much cooking preparation.  But let's face it, we all like to have some recipes on hand to make quickly. Two of the key ingredients were bought from the supermarket: a Tilda multi-grain rice pilau flavoured with cummin, curry leaf and fenugreek, and a Dolmio spicy pasta sauce with chilli.

I really liked the result of this easy recipe.  I hope you will too!

Ingredients

2 large red peppers
250 gr rice pilau
200 gr spicy pasta sauce
1 handful currants
20 gr fetta
1/2 cup water

Mode

Preheat the oven to 180c
Remove the head of the peppers and clean inside
Heat pasta sauce on stovetop
Add rice pilau and stir to combine
Add currants and stir to combine
Simmer until all ingredients are combined and liquid absorbed
Crumble fetta
Spoon rice mixture into each pepper until half full
Add half of the fetta to each
Spoon remaining rice mixture into peppers
Add pepper heads and place in a baking dish
Add water to baking dish
Place in oven and cook for 45 minutes.