Cooking Rice

I meet so many people who are intimidated by cooking rice and I frequently see bad advice about it with unnecessarily complex procedures. You know, rinse the rice twice in cold water before letting it stand and dancing around the bowl three times naked before draining it and so on and so on – all laced with dire warnings balanced with reassurances that by following the author’s method, you’ll never cry again.

Here’s how I cook rice. It works for me every time and doesn’t involve more steps than a visit to the Priory. It can’t go wrong.

Sling basmati rice in pan, around 60g per person. Boil kettle. As kettle comes to boil, turn on gas under pan so that when you slosh in the boiling water, it froths and bubbles in the pan as it hits the hot metal. There’s no particularly good reason to do this, I just like the drama of it all. Now half-cover the rice and let it boil for 12 minutes. Don’t let it boil over, otherwise you’ll have to clean up the hob.

Test a grain – go on, be a devil – it should just bite a little bit but not have a chalky core. Now drain it in a sieve (pour off any froth first before you drain it) and put the sieve resting in the pan with the lid on it. Do whatever else you need to do, it’ll wait there for you for a good hour or so quite happily. When you’re ready to serve it, refill the kettle and pour the boiling water all over the rice, tapping it a couple of times to help it drain and loosen up. It will do this quite easily.

Serve. No fuss, no messing, no tears, no drama.

Cauliflower Gratin

I originally made this as a side dish and think that it would make a nice vegetarian dinner. That theory will never be put to the test, however, as I'm far too find of eating dead things.


Ingredients

• 1 cauliflower, approx 1kg, in florets
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 6 tomatoes, chopped
• 1 stick celery, chopped
• ½ onion, chopped
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 slices dry bread
• 2 tsp mixed herbs
• 1 tsp salt
• 50g grated parmesan

In a saucepan, fry off the onions in the oil until they’ve softened a little, then add the garlic, followed after a couple of minutes by the red pepper, celery, tomatoes and salt. Turn the heat to low and let this mixture cook away for 20 minutes or so.

In the meantime, drop the florets of cauliflower in salted, boiling water and par-boil them for five minutes or so. Drain them and then place them in a lightly oiled ceramic oven-proof dish.

Tear up the bread and whizz it to make breadcrumbs, adding in the herbs and parmesan. Pour the tomato mixture over the cauliflower, topping it with the breadcrumb mixture. Place this in a GM6/200C/400F oven for 30 minutes.

Crispy "Seaweed"

Alexander’s post below got me thinking about pak choy and a couple of things came to mind.

First of all we do have another pak choy recipe on the blog so check it out here .

Secondly the most common way the Chinese cook this vegetable is one of the most simplest, literally heat a wok over high heat, add 1 tbsp groundnut oil until smoking, throw in 3 chopped cloves of garlic and ½tsp sea salt, stir for 15secs, throw in roughly chopped pak choy, fry very quickly for 2 mins, tip out onto plate and serve.

Another recipe is for that old Chinese restaurant classic ‘Crispy Seaweed’, which isn’t seaweed at all but fried shredded pak choy. Thought I’d share.

You will need:

1kg pak choy
1 litre groundnut oil
1 tsp sea salt
2 tsp granulated sugar
50g lightly toasted pine nuts

And then you need to:

Heat an oven to 120C/250F

Wash and dry the pak choy thoroughly.

Remove the green leaves from the white stalks. Roll the green leaves up tightly and then finely shred them into thin ribbons. You can use the white stalks in a stir fry vegetable recipe.

Spread them out on a dry baking tray and place in the oven for about 10 mins. Remove and leave to cool.

Heat a wok over high heat, add the oil and when hot deep fry the greens in 3 or 4 batches. It will only take them about 30 seconds to turn crispy (don’t let them brown), remove immediately and place on kitchen towel to drain.

Once all cooked place into large bowl, sprinkle the salt and sugar and give it a good toss. Add the pine nuts and serve.

Pak Choi

I'm a sucker for pak choi (or bok Soy or whatever else you want to call it). You can sometimes find it lurking in Spinneys' local herbs section, although it's frequently a slightly sad version of what, when it's fresh, is a vibrant green and white, crunchy bunch of leafy wonder.

The Greenhouse Supermarket (of which I have written reams and no, no emolument has been received by the author in consideration) imports pak choi from Thailand twice a week and these days are frequently the signal for a treat - stir-fried pak choi. Achingly fresh, nestled in threes and fours in their sealed plastic wraps, these grand, vibrant kings of Asian greens will be joined in the pan by whatever else my schoolboy with pocket money visits yield - perhaps Thai broccoli, celery leaves or garlic flowers, a handful of zingy, fresh Thai basil and chopped coriander. I chop the pak choi up and throw in some garlic, half a large red onion, thinly sliced and usually have a sauce of wine, soy sauce, perhaps a little fish sauce, sugar and a teaspoon of cornflour. The vegetables are stir fried until they have just started to wilt, then the sauce goes in to thicken and finish.

I'll usually do something Asiatic to chicken breasts to go with this, marinating them in lemon grass, garlic, ginger and chili or something similar, before grilling them and serving them on a plate of steaming green, crispy and fresh-tasting pak choi.

Fennel and Tomato Salad with Salsa Verde

I needed a new salad for a BBQ last Friday and this is what I came up with. I was very pleased with the result, especially as it was really a case of just using up some odds and ends in the fridge!

You will need:

1 bulb fennel, including the feathery bits.
6 plum tomatoes
1 red pepper
1 orange or 1 yellow pepper
Salsa Verde


And then you need to:

Slice the fennel thinly and fry gently with a little olive oil until it has browned just a little. Transfer to a glass bowl.

Roast the two peppers until the skin is blackened. Skin and remove seeds and pith etc. Slice in thin-ish strips and place into same bowl as the fennel.

Stir in two tbsp salsa verde to the fennel and pepper and check the seasoning.

Slice the tomatoes and lay on a platter in a neat pattern, slightly overlapping each other.

Spoon the fennel, pepper, salsa verde mixture on top of the tomatoes and serve.

Black Bean Salad

This absolutely delicious recipe comes from a good friend of ours and continues the Latin Amercan theme. Our friend lived in Chile for a number of years and this receipe comes to you, dear gentle readers, from her via there.

This is a great side dish to serve at a BBQ.

You will need:

½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon of orange zest
1 teaspoon of lime zest
60ml fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons white-wine vinegar
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
A splash or two of tabasco sauce
350g black beans, soak overnight, rinse, cook and drained, you can also use chickpeas or any type of bean
1 red bell pepper, finely diced
Big handful of fresh coriander sprigs, washed well, spun dry, and finely chopped
Big handful of parsley, finely chopped
300g of corn, ideally roasted on the bbq and kernals removed from cob

And then the hard part

Put all of the ingredients together in a bowl, toss well and leave in the fridge to rest and cool before serving.

Uber-Tomatoes

Almost sun-dried, but not quite – packed with flavour, still juicy and, well, uber-tomato! These slow-baked cherry tomatoes are great on canapés, served as a garnish, crushed to make a fast tomato base for dishes and used in any number of ways to add a little ‘Wow!’ of flavour.

Get a packet of cherry tomatoes and halve them, lay them out on a foil-lined baking tray and sprinkle them with sea-salt, pepper and a drizzling of incredibly fine EV olive oil. Bake at the lowest possible oven setting (the 'plate warmer' setting) for at least an hour, ideally two. Leave in the oven to cool down. These will keep for a good while in the 'fridge, particularly in an airtight container.

Date Caramelised Onions

Caramelised onions should ideally be cooked up over a low heat for 30 minutes or so until they brown and caramelise naturally. Few of us these days have the time for such niceties and so a faster heat and a couple of teaspoons of brown sugar do the trick. I'm fond of adding a few thin strips of red chili as well, just to spice things up. But I'm also fond of this way of doing them, using the super-sticky sweetness of the dates to give an extra depth to things.

Ingredients

• 2 onions, very finely sliced
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 10g butter
• 8 dates, halved lengthways & sliced thinly
• 1 tbsp date syrup or ‘dibs’

Heat the olive oil and butter in a frying pan over a medium heat, adding the onions. Cover and leave to cook for five minutes, giving the onions an occasional check and stir to make sure they don’t burn. Add the dates. Turn the heat to low and cook for a further ten minutes, again checking occasionally and then add the date syrup. Leave to stand, then reheat to serve.

Simple Potato Salad

I like to serve this basic potato salad when it is really pretty cold but its important to mix in the mayonnaise and the cream whilst the potatoes are still warm.

You will need:

4 medium sized potato
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp double cream
2 spring onions chopped fine
Small handful chopped fresh parsley
A few sprigs of fresh chives chopped
5 cornichons chopped fine
¼ tsp hot pimento
1 level tsp paprika
Salt and black pepper

And then you need to:

Peel and chop the potatoes into small chunks. I like mine really quite small but cut them how you want.

Place in cold salted water and bring to the boil, cook until quite tender.

In a large bowl combine all other ingredients

When the potatoes are cooked drain in a colander and throw them into the bowl with the creamy mixture. Give a good but gentle stir and mix well.

Smoked Potatoes

This is a quick side dish for barbecues, and it is really delicious and different. It cooks by itself, almost impossible to overcook and has always been a hit. I use a Cameron`s stovetop smoker, but it can be done in a wok, a saute pan or even a large aluminium  foil roasting pan. If you do use your favourite wok, line it with foil first.

You will need:

3 large roasting potatoes, cut into  1,5 cm slices (leave the skins on if they are clean)

5g hungarian paprika

5g freshly ground black pepper

5g kosher, or large- grained salt.

Smoking mixture - I use applewood chips, but you can use the following mixture

200g rice (any kind)

30g brown sugar,

30g tea leaves

To this you can add szechuan peppercorns, cumin, or whatever turns you on. You

only need about 220g in total of the mixture.

If not using a smoker, line the wok  or saute pan with foil. Place the smoking mixture or wood chips in the bottom, place the sliced potatoes on a rack in the pan or smoker, season with the next 3 ingredints and close the smoker cover, or cover the pan or wok with foil.    Make sure there is plenty of ventilation or do this outdoors. When smoke starts to curl around the outer edges of the pan, turn the heat to low. Leave on medium heat for 35-40 minutes, or until cooked. Check the seasoning  and that`s it.

Goes well with chicken, sausages, any  barbecued meat.

Dauphinoise Potatoes

Can’t believe that I haven’t posted this recipe before......what an omission! To cook something 'à la Dauphinoise' means to bake it in a slow oven with cream and garlic.


You will need

500g potatoes
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
100ml full-fat crème fraîche
100ml double cream
100ml fresh milk
2 bay leaves
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 onion, sliced into thin rings
100g grated gruyere
50g grated parmesan


And then you need to:

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350F

Peel the potatoes and slice them wafer-thin, preferably using a mandolin and preferably without including the tips of your fingers. Put in large bowl, cover with cold water and leave to sit for about 10 minutes.

Put the milk, creme fraiche, double cream and bay leaves in a large saucepan and gently bring to the boil.

Drain the potatoes well and put into the saucepan with the heated milk/cream. Simmer gently for no more than five minutes.

Rub butter over the bottom of a baking dish, and then spread a thin layer of sliced onions. With a slotted spoon remove about half of the potatoes and layer them roughly in the baking dish.

Sprinkle half of the chopped garlic and half of the remaining onions over the potatoes. Cover with half of the gruyere cheese.

Season generously with salt and black pepper.

Then layer the rest of the potatoes on top. Try and make the top layer look neat and tidy with overlapping slices of potatoes.

When all the potatoes are in, sprinkle the rest of the garlic and onions on top and pour over the milky, creamy mixture from the saucepan. Remove the bay leaves. Sprinkle the parmesan cheese and the rest of the gruyere on top.

Season again.

Cover with foil and place in the oven.

After 50-60 minutes remove the foil and cook for a further 20 minutes.

Pak Choy with Chinese Mushrooms in Oyster Sauce

This is a great side dish and accompaniment to something like the Kung Po chicken. It takes about 2 minutes to cook as well so it is perfect.

You will need:

1 head of long pak choy
50g dried Chinese mushrooms (you can buy these in Spinneys)
2 tbsp oyster sauce
3 tbsp soaking liquid from mushrooms
Salt
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
Small knob of fresh ginger, finely chopped.


And then you need to:

Lay the whole head of pak choy lengthways on a chopping board. Chop off the root end so all the stalks separate and then slice them through every 3cm into chunks.

If you are using baby pak choy you will probably only need to make one or two slices.

Discard the root end.

Wash very well and spin dry.

Place the mushrooms in a deep bowl and cover with boiling water. Put a plate or lid over them and leave to soak for at least 30minutes. Preferably longer.

Once done, remove the mushrooms (reserve the liquid), squeeze dry and cut into largish pieces. Discard the central stem as that will still be very hard.

Heat a wok over medium high heat with 1 tbsp groundnut oil until smoking. Throw in the garlic and ginger immediately followed by the chopped pak choy. Sprinkle with a little coarse sea salt, and give it all a very good stir.

Add the mushrooms, the oyster sauce and the mushroom soaking liquid and stir fry for about 1 minute. Tip out straightaway onto a warmed serving platter.

Boulangerie Potatoes

I love these, less heart-stopping than 'dauphanoise' but still pretty damn good.

Apparently the name comes from the tradition of housewives in France of sticking a pot of these in the baker's ovens after the morning baking had been finished. The residual heat would cook these in time for dinner.


You will need:

675g potatoes
200ml Good quality, home made chicken stock
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 large onion, cut into very thin slices
Butter
Seasoning

And then you need to:

In a heavy casserole dish smear a generous amount of butter on the bottom. Line the bottom of the pan with half of the thinly sliced onion rings (this stops the potatoes from sticking).

Peel and then slice the potatoes very thinly. The best thing to use is a mandolin if you have one, but please be careful, these things have chopped off more fingertips than anyother kitchen implement!

Layer the thinly sliced peeled potato on top of the onions. When you have layered half the potatoes generously sprinkle chopped garlic, chopped onion, salt and pepper and then layer the next half of the sliced potatoes. If, heaven forbid, you are using stock cubes, don't add any more salt. Make sure the top layer is all neat and has lovely overlapping slices.

Once finished again add garlic, onion, salt and pepper to the top. Grate gruyere cheese all over the top (not traditional I know but I like it), add 200ml of very hot good quality chicken stock. The stock should come about halfway up the layered potatoes. It is imperative you use very good quality stock here, it is really worth making your own. Dot a couple of small knobs of butter on top.

Place lid on top, or cover tightly with foil, then cook in 375F oven for 75-90 mins. Don't underestimate the time that these take to cook, it usually ends up being longer than you think so make sure they are in the oven with lots of time to spare just in case. At the end the potatoes should be all soft and all of the stock absorbed. Some people like to take the lid or foil off for the last 20-30mins or so to make the top all brown and crunchy. Personally I don't but its up to you!

There are a couple of other options to consider:

Use a mix of normal potatoes and the orange-fleshed sweet potatoes and do alternate layers. It looks wonderful. The sweet potatoes will cook much faster than ordinary and so might go a bit mushy but the colour contrast is rather wonderful.

Substitute sliced leeks for the onions (or use both)

Very thinly sliced fennel could also be used if you are serving the dish with fish.

Poached Eggs

Here’s a really smart trick: poached eggs the short order chef way. It means never having to angst about a poached egg served up at a dinner party again – because you can cook ‘em earlier that day or even the day before. It also means poached eggs for breakfast in two minutes flat!

First catch your eggs. Break ‘em into a ramekin one at a time. Put aside a bowl of iced water.

Now boil up a pan of water and slosh a splash of vinegar into the water. Slide each egg into the boiling water, ideally not more than two and never more than four at a time. The idea is to keep the egg as together as possible, but I’m actually a fan of an imperfect looking egg so don’t buy into all that cling film stuff.

Give them 90 seconds, two minutes at the absolute most, then remove them with a slotted spoon and pop ‘em in the iced water. You can trim them if you like. These will now store in the ‘fridge happily for 24 hours or so. When you’re ready to eat them, heat up a pan of water and cook the eggs for a further two minutes. Hey presto! Perfect poached eggs every time – runny in the middle and cooked on the outside. Just right for topping salads, enriching tartlets and generally garnishing, embellishing and just plain eggifying things!

Melanzane alla Parmigiano

This makes a wonderful side dish to roast lamb and is incredibly easy to throw together. Both aubergine and lamb are still in season so get out and there and make the most of it.

If you want to jazz this up a little and make it a bit posh serve it individually by layering the aubergines, tomatoes etc in a ramekin dish. It’s the little touches you know.



You will need:

2 good sized aubergines
4 plum tomatoes
100ml basic tomato sauce
200g fresh mozzarella
50g fresh parmesan, grated
Small handful fresh basil shredded.
Seasoning


And then you need to:

Slice the aubergine into quite thin rounds and then dry fry them in a frying pan until browned on both sides.

Slice the tomatoes into rounds

Wipe the bottom of a medium-sized baking dish with olive oil and then layer the cooked aubergine on the bottom. Next layer the sliced tomatoes. Spoon over the tomato sauce, sprinkle over the basil.

Chop the fresh mozzarella into little pieces and sprinkle over the top and then sprinkle the grated parmesan.

If you are serving this individually in ramekins try and make two layers of each.

Cook in a medium hot oven (180C/370F) for about ten or fifteen minutes until cheese has melted and browned slightly.

Toast

Slices of bread brushed with olive oil and herbs, then grilled. What could be easier? But if you do want to get really complicated, rub the bread with some garlic as well!

Using the most interesting bread you can find (the organic shop's seedy rolls are good for this, pictured above), this produces a crisp, delicious accompaniment to stews (traditional, for instance, with Coq Au Vin), a perfect side to a soup or an ideal base for a fast bruschetta - just chop some plum tomatoes, add a splash of good olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt and Robert's yer father's brother.

Ingredients

• 4 thin slices of bread
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp dried herbs
• Salt
• Pepper

Mix the herbs, salt and pepper into the oil, brush one side of the bread and then grill under a hot grill but with as much space from the grill as you can get. When the bread's browning and crisp around the edges, remove it from the heat, turn and brush and grill to finish.

Pan Fried Cherry Tomatoes

A handful of sweet little cherry tomatoes, a squizz of oil in a hot frying pan and a good drizzling of pepper and sea salt combine, with a little swishing around and a few minutes' cooking and judicious turning, to create a pretty enough garnish. Using a larger, high sided, pan and a larger quantity of tomatoes plus a top secret ingredient (yes, I will have to kill you now) makes a great vegetable side, ideal with beef dishes, steak, stews and the like. Truffle oil is available at delicatessens (Panini at the Grand Hyatt sells it as well) and is well worth the expense - it'll last a long time and is a deliciously indulgent treat that, when used in the right place and at the right time, is simply transformational.

Incidentally, if you're worried about how you'll justify buying a whole bottle of truffle oil, bear in mind you can always try this, this, this, this, this, this or this!!!

Ingredients

• 24 cherry tomatoes
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• Pepper
• Truffle oil

Obviously the 24 is a totally arbitrary number, but you're looking to serve up enough tomatoes to actually provide sustenance. Heat the oil in the pan and fry the tomatoes for a couple of minutes: add the pepper and salt and cover the pan. Turn the heat to low and leave them to cook in their own juices for ten minutes or so. Add a splash of heady, aromatic truffle oil and then serve them up!

Red Mung Dal

Mung dal is a naturally yellowy green colour, but this combines red spices and ingredients to give a distinctively rich coloured (and flavoured) dal. If you're looking for subtlety and delicate flavourings, give this a miss: it's a whammy of a dal but ideal for something as strong and rich as beef madras.

Ingredients

• 200g split mung dal
• 2 tsp cumin
• 2 tsp coriander
• ½ tsp red chilli powder
• ½ tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 small red onion, halved
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 red chilli
• Oil

Rinse the dal and then place in a pan together with a litre of water and bring to a boil, skimming off any brown foam from the surface. Turn the heat to low and stir in the turmeric and the salt. Partly cover the pan (if you fully cover it you’ll be playing ‘wash the dal off the top of the cooker’ in no time) and let it cook away for 40 minutes or so, giving it the occasional stir. While that’s cooking, halve the onion: chop one half finely and slice the other half finely. In a small pan, fry the sliced onion in oil until it browns and crisps up. Reserve. In the same pan, heat a little more oil and then add the chopped onion, the chilli, the garlic and the spices. Cook these up for a couple of minutes and then stir into the dal. Heat through and stir until you’re happy you’ve got a nice, thick, rich dal and then serve with the browned onion to garnish.

New Potatoes with Olive Oil and Herbs

Enough New potatoes for four, give them a wash
50ml EV olive oil
2 tsp chopped chives
2 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
Salt & pepper

Boil the potatoes in pan with salted water until tender.

Drain and place in large bowl. Crush lightly with a fork. Pour over the olive oil, it should be enough to lubricate the potatoes, and add the herbs. Give them a gentle stir to mix and coat.

Serve warm.

New Potatoes with Bacon, Garlic and Rosemary

Enough New potatoes for four (you will know how much they will eat!), give them a wash
100g lardons or pancetta pieces
2 cloves garlic, chopped fine
A couple of sprigs of rosemary, chopped roughly

In a large frying pan over medium-low heat, fry the pancetta pieces with a little olive oil.

Add the potatoes, garlic, rosemary and fry for a couple of minutes.

Add a tbsp of water. A good grind of sea salt, cover the pan and cook gently for about 12-15 minutes. Give the pan a good shake every couple of minutes. Take the lid off and continue to cook for another couple of minutes until the potatoes are tender.