tortilla-style pasta frittata

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Shawn

Today I was going to make a tortilla de patatas for my flatmate (really, you want to be my flatmate!) and then saw that there weren’t any potatoes in the house. So then I thought that I would try making a tortilla with pasta instead, which of course is a frittata. Which I have never made before.

Except I didn’t want to have to bother with turning on the oven and all that.

So I decided to try making a frittata but “tortilla-style”. Which means that instead of popping the frittata into the oven when it’s partially cooked, I would flip it and finish cooking it in the pan. And I think it turned out really well.

One day I’ll try a proper frittata, but this is a great option for people who either don’t have an oven or, like me, can’t be bothered to use it most of the time. It’s also a great way to use up left-over pasta.

Ingredients and instructions below…

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hot butter lobster with chilli, scallops & parmegiano pastries

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Shawn

Another great recipe from guest contributor, fellow foodie & friend WeeRascal…

Everyone has their own theory about how best to kill lobster. Below is a link that will help you. Either way, you need to boil it. There should be 10 minutes at a boil for the first pound of lobster, and three minutes for every following pound. Unfortunately, this dish isn’t very linear and you will have several things on the go at the same time, but I have tried to explain the sequence as best I can.

How long to boil a lobster

Ingredients and instructions below…

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how to peel a head of garlic in less than 10 seconds

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Shawn

Has anyone ever tried this? Looks amazing if it works. Will let you know!

marinated tuna brochettes

Posted on March 20, 2011 by Shawn

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This dish was inspired by a lovely tuna ventresca marinated in soya sauce and served with black olive paté that I had the other day at La Azotea, which somehow ended up as brochettes and I forgot the olive paté. Anyhow, they were delicious and super easy to make – can’t wait to try them on the barbeque!

Ingredients and instructions below…

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chicken in spicy peanut sauce

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Shawn

I kind of just threw this together one day last week and have ended up making it three times since. It’s very satisfying and also low-carb, though my flatmate had it over basmati rice and said it was wonderful. I’d never made peanut sauce before so just used some crunchy peanut butter as a base and it turned out quite well. Measurements for the sauce are a bit slapdash, but it’s easy to just add and taste as you go along.

Ingredients and instructions below…

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chicken pesto risotto with portobellos

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Shawn

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a risotto recipe (or for that matter – anything!). This one actually happened “by accident” when I was planning to make some chicken pesto with spaghetti for my friend and she informed me she’d had a rather pasta-heavy week. So I improvised and used the same ingredients in this risotto. It was really good!

Ingredients and instructions below…

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potato “raclette” casserole

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Shawn

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

Posted on November 7, 2010 by Shawn

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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kitchen sink curry

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Shawn

I haven’t done a curry here yet, so why not start with a whopper. This is all part of my flatmate Peter’s education in preparing hot meals for himself ahead of time, which can then be frozen in individual servings and reheated whenever desired. So food purists (like my friend WeeRascal) will probably object to the over-abundance of ingredients, and in self defense I have to say that I usually keep my curries much simpler.

But this was a bit of an experiment in making a whole whack of curry with lots of extra veg added to make it a healthy all-in-one meal option.

And it was actually quite delicious! Even though I “cheat” by using curry paste – in this case garam masala – which is a hot spicy curry with cinammon & ginger. Smells and tastes gorgeous. For the record, this curry turned out more “soupy/stewy” than my usual ones, which tend to be thicker and more like a sauce. But it was great served on rice or potatoes.

Recipe and instructions below…

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paella

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Shawn

Well, it had to happen sooner or later, that I would get around to posting about what is probably Spain’s most emblematic dish. Truth is, I only started making paella a couple of years ago, once again using Janet Mendel’s fabulous Cooking in Spain as a guide. Here I’ve made a few small changes from her original and the result was very satisfying.

Recipe and instructions below the links.