Category Archives: comfort food

mushroom stroganoff

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Way back in July 2021 while scrolling through Instagram I came across this video by Hotel Los Castaños in Ronda, showing them making a mushroom stroganoff. I immediately thought about my portobellos in the fridge that were probably close to the “use it or lose it” stage, so I decided that I was going to make mushroom stroganoff too. Then I also checked out a few recipes online as I never have cream (used in the video) and saw that sour cream is more usual in a stroganoff. I never have that either, but I have found that straining greek yoghurt for an hour or so using a melitta coffee filter makes a more than acceptable substitute. Los Castaños added chopped spinach to theirs at the end of the vid, which I thought was an excellent idea, though I found out later that fresh parsley is the usual addition. Having neither of those at the time, I tossed in a handful of arugula and it turned out great.

Since then I have made roughly a gazillion different versions of this but somehow have never got round to publishing any of them here (though many have ended up on my azahar Instagram hashtag #thestroganoffvariations. I’ve made it with different meat options (chicken, meatballs, sausage, bacon, beef) and vegetable combos (spinach, arugula, courgette, parsley, cilantro) with portobellos being the one constant ingredient, along with the onions and garlic.

I’ve also served it in various ways, on fat egg noodles, spaghetti, penne or fideos, with roasted or mashed potatoes, and even on crusty toasted bread. As you can tell, it’s quite a versatile dish if you’re not too concerned about making AN ACTUAL STROGANOFF 😉 (in which case it’s probably best to google “authentic beef stroganoff recipe”).

I think what’s happened is that MY stroganoff has turned out to be a bit like a risotto bianco, which you can use as a base and just add whatever the heck you want. Which, as is often my case, whatever happens to be hanging around in the fridge. So yeah, it’s not a classic or even remotely authentic, stroganoff recipe. But damn it’s always good. And so here is the basic mushroom version and hey, just have some tasty fun with it.

Ingredients and instructions below…
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mini chorizo toad in the hole

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The other day I saw a friend’s pic of toad in the hole on Instagram and I said, hang on that’s just yorkshire pudding with sausage in it. Duh. I don’t know what I thought it was before, I just knew it involved sausage and some sort of pastry. So then I wondered how this would work with the mini yorkshire puddings, with mini chorizos. Spoiler: omg they were good.

So obviously you can play around with different types of sausage. I liked how the mini chorizos ended up lightly flavouring both the onions and the dough with smoky pimentón. Bear in mind that these were raw chorizos, not cured, and are meant to be either pan-fried or cooked on a bbq. The puddings didn’t rise as much as when they are cooked without a filling, but they were still very light and crispy. Perfect snack food, or for a party. And the mini versions are easy to store in the fridge and reheat the next day.

Ingredients and instructions below…
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meatloaf

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meatloaf (2)

So I was lying in bed a couple of mornings ago, scrolling through my Twitter timeline, and up popped a recipe video for meatloaf. And I thought… meatloaf! Wow, I hadn’t had meatloaf in YEARS. So that day I went out and got the basic ingredients, then did a bit of improvising. Result – delish. Total comfort food. Leftovers make great sandwiches.

This recipe ended up making two loaves that could easily feed six people or more, depending on the side dishes. The meat ratio is 2/3 beef and 1/3 pork, so you can play around with quantities.

Ingredients and instructions below…
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cheesy garlicky courgette potato bacon bake

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So it’s another “fridge forage” lunch, this time using up a couple of courgettes and potatoes that needed eating. It’s fast and easy and you can play around with the ingredients (obviously leave out the bacon for a vegetarian option). Really nice comfort food for a cold rainy November day.

Ingredients and instructions below…
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albóndigas (meatballs) with 2 sauces

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albondigas (1)
I started off with an urge to make some good old fashioned meatballs, but couldn’t decide on a sauce. Eventually I went with a traditional Spanish tomato sauce but then – oops – ended up making way to many meatballs for the amount of sauce I had. So I had to come up with a second sauce for the extra meatballs and decided to go with a sherry sauce. The original tomato sauce recipe I had called for pancetta, but I chose to use up some jamón and chorizo threads I had in the fridge instead and the result was very tasty. Then for the sherry sauce I used bacon bits. Just to say that the pancetta can be switched for something similar.

My first batch made about 30 meatballs (which is why I needed another sauce). I’ve halved the recipe to make 15 meatballs with one of the sauces, or you can double it and make both sauces. Frankly, it takes almost as much effort to make 30 meatballs as 15, and they freeze well, so I’d always opt for going with the larger batch.

Ingredients and instructions below…
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migas

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migas

Traditionally migas (literally: bread crumbs) was a peasant’s or shepherd’s dish, a tasty way to use up stale bread using little more than some garlic, olive oil, and whatever bits of meat or charcuterie happened to be about. At casa az, migas has turned out to be a great way to use up the bread scooped out of crusty loaves when making pan cristal (more on that later) and then fed to skinny flatmate who always needs to “carb up”. Obviously there are loads of variations on what can go into migas, as well as various ways of preparing it. What I’ve done, as usual, is look up a few different recipes and then make something that looks good to me, though on this occasion I *almost* burnt the garlic and onions… so try not to do that.

Ingredients and instructions below…

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sausage sarnie

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sausage sarnie
So there I was with a sudden craving for a meatball sandwich (something I haven’t had in YEARS) and all I had was some chorizo criollo in the fridge. It was time to improvise! The addition of spinach meant (to me) that there wasn’t any need for a side veg or salad, making it a super-simple all-in-one kind of dish, which I served open-faced as I prefer more filling/topping than bread. It also had a whack of parmesan sprinkled on top but was more photogentic without it. Makes 2-3 servings, depending on how hungry you are.

Ingredients and instructions below…

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huevos rotos

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Huevos rotos (literally “broken eggs” in Spanish) is a very traditional dish with many variations, but all including perfectly crispy fried eggs with soft yolks and fried potatoes. The ones you see below include jamón and chorizo Ibérico, caramalised onions and shaved truffle. The one you see above is my first attempt at making this at home. I used chorizo criollo and added some pimentón piquante as my favourite version so far (from Vineria San Telmo) includes spicy chorizo with lots of pimentón inside, which blends perfectly with the hot egg yolk and fried potatoes.

I served it with a tomato and spring onion salad, both of which are just coming into season now, and it was a great side dish that added a fresh touch and balanced the meal out quite nicely.

[huevos rotos at Gusto Ristobar, Vineria San Telmo & El Gallinero de Sandra]

Ingredients and instructions below…

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potato “raclette” casserole

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Just so you know, this has nothing to do with a proper raclette, nor does it use raclette cheese. But as it does involve mostly potatoes and melted cheese this is what came to mind as I was making it. It all started yesterday when I realised that the very special Swedish Vasterbottensost Cheese that my friend Karin had brought for me in October was about to reach its expiry date. I’d been saving it for a special occasion…

Anyhow, it was such a miserable wet and cold day that some comfort food was definitely required and, after trying a bit of the Vasterbottensost (delicious!) decided it needed to be eaten as simply as possible. And so I came up with this. It was a perfect rainy day meal … and also made for great leftovers!

Ingredients and instructions below…

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triple grilled mac & cheese

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Another fab recipe from guest contributor, fellow foodie & friend WeeRascal
(previous contribution was his angus beef & coriander casserole)

[click to enlarge]

 

What’s your favourite part of Mac and cheese? For me, a slightly burnt, crispy, extra cheesy top when it pops out of the oven is heaven. So I had an idea: why not make a Mac and cheese that has this sort of texture all the way through? The recipe is actually very similar to the way my grandmother used to make it. It’s not at all like the over-rich, creamy, liquid dish you’ll get from a tin, or from a restaurant – I find that a couple of mouthfuls of this “white lava” can be far too sickly. On the other hand, because of the layering and grilling process used here, the cheese adheres to the pasta like iron filings to a magnet and it’s very addictive. From a culinary point of view, this is about as easy as it gets, but it’s not exactly healthy. It’s perfect for the odd comfort food fix and I will say from experience that it is a superb hangover cure – served cold. Incidentally, you may think that there’s far too much mustard power in this, but bear with me – it really does turbo charge the sharpness of the cheese.

Recipe and instructions below…

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