Pancetta and squash soup

1 onion, chopped
Pinch dried chilli flakes
2 tbsp veg oil
Salt
Pepper
1 Butternut squash
150g smoked pancetta cubes
Cooked pasta/chickpeas/both (optional)

Sweat onion well in oil with chilli and salt until soft.

Add pancetta.  Turn up heat and cook until pancetta/onion are golden/brown in places.

Add squash in cubes (not an expert but sectioning squash into 1 inch discs then cutting off skin with a knife around each one works ok).

Sweat 5 mins.  Add water to cover perhaps 1-2 inches above squash.  Cook gently 30mins or longer.  Allow to cool.  Blend.  Add pasta/chickpeas.  If adding canned chickpeas cook for another 5 mins with them in there.

Recipe copying a dish from Get Foccacia in Crown Passage (London).

Epic bacon sandwich

3 slices back bacon
Brie cheese
Thickly sliced tomatoes
Rocket
Balsamic vinegar
Bread
Butter


Fry the bacon, though after turning place a slice of brie on each slice.

Fry the tomato slices alongside the bacon.

Toast the bread.  Butter.

Assemble as follows: Bread, bacon, tomatoes, seasoning, rocket, balsamic, other slice of bread.

Pizza Hawaii-Savoyarde

Ingredients:

Bought Hawaiian pizza
Lardons
1/2 onion
Creme fraiche
Cheese of some sort
Chilli powder

Fry the lardons in a little olive oil.  When done, remove, leaving fat behind.  Fry onion in this fat, having sliced with the grain, aiming mainly to soften/sweeten them.  Top pizza with lardons, onions, a few dollops of creme fraiche, a little extra cheese, salt, pepper and a dusting of chilli powder, before cooking.  Enjoy.

Minestrone soup (2 stage)

Basically you boil/poach the meat first then make a soup with the meat and the stock...

Serves c.8 generously

Full ingredients list

1 bacon hock (preferred), or 1 very large slice (300g) of slab bacon (like unsliced streaky bacon; not pancetta)
300g of stewing steak (eg. skirt; chuck; brisket)
1/2 btl red wine
5 onions
4 carrots
1 thing of celery
4 cloves garlic
2 cans whole plum tomatoes
Large bunch of thyme
1/2 spring or other tender cabbage
Handful green beans
Handful garden peas (assuming frozen here)
c. 100g small pasta shapes eg. little stars or orzo
3 tbsp very finely chopped flat leaf parsley (measured when chopped)
4tbsp vegetable oil
100g butter

To serve:
Grated parmesan cheese; extra virgin olive oil; ground black pepper

Stage 1

Place the bacon in a small pan.  Cover with cold water and bring to a boil with the lid on.  Boil for roughly 5-10 minutes.  This is to rid the joint of excess saltiness and is a vital (and easy) step.  Dump it into a sink, wash it with cold water.

Place the bacon, beef, and some of the stock vegetables, all finely sliced, in a snug pot.  Ie. 3 onions; 2 carrots; 3 sticks celery; all the thyme.  Add a bay leaf/parsley stalks/whatever else you have.  Pour over the wine and top up with cold water.  Bring to a simmer.  Simmer off any scum that arises then adjust to a very slow simmer.  It takes time to adjust it to the right level, over the heat, because if your heat is at its lowest level the boil will be very sensitive to exactly how 'ajar' the lid is.  Poach like this for 4 hours.

Stage 2

Empty the above into a colander over a bowl once cooled for 20 minutes.  It's practical here to put the liquid and meat (separated) in the fridge until the next day.  Discard all the other vegetables in the stock.

Chop all the remaining vegetables finely.  In the vegetable oil sweat them adding each five minutes after the last in the following order: Onions; celery; carrots; garlic (briefly) then add the canned tomatoes.  Slice these against the back of a wooden spoon.  Cook like this for 5 minutes.  Chop the meat small then add this along with the stock.  Add more liquid if you think there isn't enough (this is bulk cooking!), and cook at this point for 1 hour.

Add the cabbage, finely shredded, and green beans cut into 1cm lengths.  Simmer another 20 minutes.

Add the pasta shapes and when they are nearly done add the frozen peas which only need to simmer briefly.

Add the chopped parsley at the very last moment and season well with salt and pepper.  You can also adjust the flavour with sugar if there is insufficient sweetness or red wine vinegar for acidity.

Top each serving with grated parmesan cheese, and pour a little extra virgin olive oil over then finish with extra pepper.  Should work!

Simple caldo verde

Serves 4 (at least)

1 bacon hock (ie. smoked or unsmoked cured pork hock - raw not a cooked one)
1 onion, peeled whole and stuck with 2 cloves
1 carrot peeled

Cover the above with cold water very generously.  Bring to a simmer and skim off and discard any scum that arises.  Cover and place over the lowest possible heat to maintain a very light simmer (poach) for 3 hours.

Remove and discard the vegetables with a slotted spoon.  Also remove the hock to a board.  Let it cool enough then flake the meat with your hands and discard the fat, tendon and bone.

You now have a lovely broth to which you can add back the meat along with whatever else you fancy, to cook alongside for as long as it needs to.  A simple version would be broken up spaghetti and peas, which could be topped with chopped mint and a little extra virgin olive oil.

A different version!

Lentil and bacon soup

If you poach a ham for Christmas this is a nice easy thing to do with the poaching liquid, if it's not too salty.  Indeed it is worth cooking the ham in a way that requires poaching (usually prior to roasting) so you get the stock.

20g butter
1 tbsp vegetable oil
4 rashers smoked streaky bacon
1 onion, chopped
2 tins 'green' lentils (they are more brown when you open the can actually)
1 litre lovely ham stock
2 tbsp finely chopped mint

Cut up the bacon and fry in the fats until a little coloured.  Add the onion and sweat until translucent.  Add the stock and the drained and washed lentils.  Bring to a boil, skim off any scum that rises to the surface and simmer for 15 minutes.  Add the mint, blend and season with pepper.

Tartiflette Savoyarde

Reblochon is quite an expensive cheese.  Probably because it tastes so good.

Other than clarifying that you should use waxy potatoes, I really can't improve on the brilliant recipe in the link below.

Tartiflette Savoyarde

Spaghetti carbonara

My housemate James Marshall and I tested a decent number of carbonara recipes while at university.  In fact, we ate little else for about a year.  This is how I cook it these days.  It's actually very similar to the recipes described by both Rick Stein and Marcella Hazan, in ingredients.  Rick Stein's fantastic YouTube video is available here but I have spelled out a few details below.  Note that with regards to the spaghetti, fresh pasta is possibly too rich and eggy for a rich and eggy sauce, so use dried, and leave it firm to the bite when cooked.  Chewing releases the flavour.

Spaghetti Carbonara

Serves 2

Dried spaghetti of a good brand
1 egg plus 1 yolk
Grated parmesan (or pecorino or half-half)
Pancetta or streaky bacon strips
Olive oil
Butter
1/2 small clove finely chopped or crushed garlic (depending on strength)
Finely chopped parsley

Begin by boiling the kettle to get the spagetti cooking as soon as you can.  Get the pancetta pieces frying with a bit of olive oil in a small saucepan.

Meanwhile prepare the sauce by combining the egg and yolk with around a tablespoon of grated cheese and some black pepper in a mug.  You might not need salt given the salty cheese and bacon.  Note that the recipe can easily be done for one person (post work?), in which case I would use one egg and break it gently over a sink to dispose of a small amount of white and keep the right balance with yolk.

If the well cooked bacon has thrown off a huge amount of fat you may like to remove some of it, otherwise proceed by adding a tablespoon of olive oil, a knob of butter and the garlic and parsley.  Return to a low heat to just infuse the oil with the garlic.

By this time the spaghetti will be cooked, so you can drain it, however here comes a crucial detail.  You are going to add the spaghetti and the egg mixture to the pancetta pan, however you must allow the pancetta pan to cool first otherwise the egg will scramble.  And note that if it is a thick, heavy based saucepan you will probably need to let it cool for a good few minutes.  If the pan is already cool enough you can transfer the pasta straight into it with tongs and spoon in a little of the salty pasta water to boost the sauce.

All the recipe books tell you not to put the pan back on the heat once you've added the egg, but I don't agree with this.  It's fine, as long as it's a very low heat and you keep stirring the contents.  Of course the aim is to thicken the sauce without scrambling the egg.

One tip is to grate some parmesan onto the plate before placing the spagetti on top (with more cheese and black pepper).  It's not heathly but it is cheap, quick and delicious!