Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie

In a conscious effort to eat less meat, I’m on a quest to find flavoursome vegetarian dishes. This is hard for me, as I’m pretty much the “if there’s no meat, it ain’t no food” type. I’ve already posted a few meatless risotto dishes (though, yes, they do contain chicken stock… sigh) that I can survive on and this Shepherd’s Pie can be added to the list. “Shepherd’s Pie without meat!?” I hear you shriek. Yes, gentle reader, I’m just as appalled. And to add insult to injury, it also contains that dreaded thing, the bane of every man’s appetite, the Chickpea. It’s sheer horror to contemplate, but bear with. I promise it’ll be alright in the end. We’ll make it through, gentle reader. Together.

Chop up a red onion, neither roughly nor finely, and soften it in some olive oil and butter for about ten minutes. Add two finely chopped garlic cloves, a chopped red chili and two teaspoons of ras el hanout. Fry for a minute or so, then add a tin of (drained) chickpeas (be brave!) and a tin of chopped tomatoes. Add 150 mls of stock (I want to say chicken, but I leave that up to you and your fierce inner strength) and a tablespoon of sugar. Season with salt and pepper and cook for about fifteen minutes. Stir regularly.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 200 degrees and slice up some nice potatoes. Leave the skins on and parboil, drain and leave to blow off some steam for a while. When the chickpeas are tender, add a bag of baby spinach leaves and stir to help them wilt.

Ladle the chickpea mixture into two oven dishes and place a few potato slices on top. Grate over some Parmesan and add another layer of potatoes. Top with a handful of grated cheese (the kind that turns nice and golden and crispy) and into the oven they go. Give them about fifteen minutes before diving in.

Keeping the potatoes sliced instead of mashing them adds a really nice hearty texture to the dish and the amount of spice and heat means that even the dreaded chickpeas turn out okay. Well more than okay, if you’d believe it. This dish is an absolute revelation and you won’t miss the meat at all. Just please don’t use the term “veggie”… Ugh, there goes my appetite.

Broad bean salad

A wonderful, toothsome salad that goes well with any and all pasta dishes and deserves a place on any Italian table.

Cook the broad beans until tender and cool them back down under the cold tap. Squeeze the juice of one lemon and chop up a generous handfull of fresh flat leaf parsley and the same amount of fresh mint. Stir the juice and the herbs through the beans and season with some salt and pepper. Crumble in some rashers of crispy fried bacon and decorate with a few lemon slices and some more mint leaves. Perfection.

Nigella's Mother's Praised Chicken

It does indeed deserve a lot of praise.

Swirls & Spirals

Cinnamon buns, recipe by The Hairy Bikers

Pea and mint risotto

If I'm being completely honest I'd have to say there's just no beating my leek and tarragon risotto. In terms of what a human being can achieve with a grain of rice, it's the absolute epitome.
However tarragon can be in painfully short supply and when you simply can't get any, this is a worthy substitute.

Finely chop a shallot and soften it in butter and oil. After a few minutes, add a finely chopped garlic clove and when the shallot is translucent, add the arborio rice (200 grams for two people). When the rice is turning translucent at the edges, add a slosh of white vermouth (this way you don't have to open a bottle of white wine). Wait for the vermouth to be absorbed and then start the soothing, soul-restoring process of stirring and ladling in chicken stock (1,5 litres). It'll take anywhere between fifteen and twenty-five minutes for the rice to cook so do start tasting in time. When the rice has about three or four minutes to go, add 150 grams of frozen peas, some salt and pepper and a good handful of fresh mint torn to shreds. If you have a garden/balcony/window box I'd advice growing your own mint as the flavour is so much more intense than store-bought. The heated mint gives an amazing flavour and of course mint and peas are the very best of buds. Serve with Parmesan.

Note: a lot of recipes call for the adding of a great lump of butter at the very end, or a horrible amount of cream... Or both! Shudder to think. This is absolutely unnecessary as the rice gives of it's own lovely, starchy creaminess. Also the delight of this dish is it's lightness and freshness of flavour. Adding a hideous bucket-load of fat makes the dish heavy and unpleasant and not at all like the Temple Food it deserves to be. 

Aniseedy goodness

A while back we went to Royal Leamington Spa for a few days and had dinner at Carluccio's... Twice. Apart from the spectacular pistachio ice cream (is there any other kind?) I had the following pasta dish... Twice. It's incredibly Italian in it's simplicity: just a few well chosen ingredients that get on well together and elevate each other to heretofore unknown heights.
I hasten to claim that this dish inspired me to create a similar feast back at home, but, gentle reader, you and I both know that "ripped off beyond the telling of it" would be a better description.

Heat some olive oil in a pan and slice open some sausages (three or four). Italian sausages would be ideal, but if they're nowhere to be found simple pork sausages will do just as well. Peel off their skins and gut them viciously, tearing out their innards. A curiously satisfying task.
Break up the meat as you lower it into the oil and go to town with a wooden spoon. You don't want to completely pulverize it, but a variety of textures would be nice. Let it brown and, as it does so, put two tablespoons of fennel seeds and one teaspoon of chili flakes (or more, if you're so inclined) in a mortar and grind away. Again, to beat it to dust is unnecessary, but you do want to break the fennel seeds so they'll release more flavour.
Add this mixture to the meat as well as some salt and pepper and allow the spices to fry a little, becoming ever more aromatic, before tipping in two cans of cubed tomatoes. Let this come to a rollicking bubble and cook for about ten minutes during which time you can cook the accompanying pasta (penne will do). The more idyllic scenario would be to leisurely make this sauce in the afternoon and leave it to sit until dinnertime whilst you lounge and bask in the sheer idyllic-ness of it all. The more likely scenario is that you're tired after a long day's work, slightly sweaty and gross from the commute home and irritated by the fact that you still have to clean the litter box. Whatever the situation may be, this dish will be a soothing balm but, as the best balms are, with a roundhouse kick to the taste buds.