It’s a hard life. It’s Monday morning, I’ve got a week off, I’m on my third cup of tea, the Test Match Special is on the ‘puter & I’m tucking into the leftovers of yesterday’s Thai seafood salad. T’is a very versatile dish, Thai (insert protein) salad. Once the basic noodle & dressing bit is sorted you can chuck a whole variety of veggies, meats and/or fishy things into/onto it. Some recipes for this call for a staggering amount of raw onion which is a shame really coz the dish is all about balance, each mouthful ought to offer something different depending on which morsels sneak into your gob with the noodles.
Basic Thai Glass Noodle Salad
100g glass noodles (serves 2)
Juice of 3 limes
Good glugg of fish sauce
Pinch of sugar
A couple of red bird’s eye chillies finely chopped
A cucumber cut into small inch long sticks
1 small red onion or a couple of shallots sliced into semi rings
A handful of coriander leaves
The noodles are soaked in hot water for 3 or so minutes. As soon as they’re al bundy you bung them in cold water then drain. Then you mix the lime juice, fish sauce, sugar & chillies, tasting to make sure the balance is right. Chuck everything together & now you’re ready to add your whatnots of choice……
A Choice Of Whatnots
Seafood – we had mussels, prawns & squid yesterday. I steamed the mussels, removing them as soon as they opened. We had a kilo which was rather a lot so I saved the biggest 20 for a Spanishy tapas thing (see below). The juice was then strained & added to a pint of so of water, some tamarind paste, sliced ginger & a few whole cloves of garlic. The squid & prawns were “barely” cooked in this broth, which can be used for making soup with. The garlic was added to the salad.
Cow – marinate a nice, lean steak in olive oil, black pepper & garlic. Flash fry it on all sides, leave it to rest then slice it thinly. We like our meat still mooing in the middle, it should at most be rare.
Duck's Breast – Done like the cow but should be pink not rare
Tuna – Rub olive oil into a nice, thick tuna steak. Season then flash fry it on all sides. As soon as the last bit of “flipping” has taken place pour a good slurp each of soy sauce & balsamic vinegar into the pan. It’s all-action stuff as the liquid will spit & splatter. Turn the tuna over in it before removing. Now reduce to a thick syrup which you then spooned over the fish. You can roll it in toasted sesame seeds if you want. When cool it’s sliced. Like the steak it should be raw in the middle. It’s also very impressive visually.
Minced Pork – Fry the pork “hard” to evaporate any liquid it might contain. Add minced garlic, shrimp paste, pepper, fish sauce & a pinch of sugar.
Veggies – Carrot cut into sticks, mange tout, asparagus, baby sweet corn, spring onions, bean sprouts, even halved cherry tomatoes. They’re not very “Thai” but their acidity suits the dish well.
Topping – A handful of dried shrimps get a good pestling in a mortar then fried, adding chopped ginger, shallot & garlic. When they’re all nice & crispy they’re sprinkled atop the salad. The garlic & ginger, especially, are rather essential to the dish imo. Make sure the garlic doesn’t burn.
Finally a little fresh mint can be added along with the coriander leaves for a slightly Vietnamesey twist.
You might need to tweak the dish with some more lime juice and/or fish sauce before serving.
Garlic Mussels
Terribly simple yet totally moreish. A couple of cloves of minced garlic are mixed with olive oil, pepper & finely chopped parsley. Place the barely steamed mussels (left in one of their valves) on a baking tray adding a spoonful of garlic goo to each. A sprinkling of fine bread crumbs can be added too for a toasty effect. Grill for a minute or so and serve with crusty bread.
Monday 27 August 2007
Thursday 23 August 2007
Bangers & Cash
I think sausage making rocks. Homemade sausages are generally eons better than anything you can buy. Basically because you can guarantee the quality and quantity of the meat going into them. Years back I knew a butcher who worked in a supermarket and she told me the story of how a nice piece of pork would be removed from the display fridge once it had reached its sell-by date, get sliced into chops & returned with a new date. This would repeat itself, the meat becoming cubes, then mince, then "homemade" sausage all with an extended shop-lifespan. By the time the sausage was sold or binned the original meat had been in the supermarket so long it probably had tenancy rights. This is the reason I never buy mince from a supermarket with a proper butcher's department. Or from a small butcher's for that matter unless I have reason to believe they're not up to tricks. But where was I? Ah yes, sausage making. With my old tiny manual meat grinder, bought from a second-hand shop for a pound, it’s a tad tricky making bangers as you need one hand to push the meat down the funnel, one hand to wind the handle and one hand to gently caress the sausages as they roll off the nozzle. As one does. Which leaves you decidedly short of hands, and unable to drink beer. So a year or so ago I invested in a Kenwood sausage making machine thingy but decided not to use it until the kitchen was finished, the plan being to produce lovely, home-made bangers as one of my first projects once the “playground” was completed. So I felt a bit of, no, a right royal twat when I unpacked it last month only to find it was but an attachment for a proper big mother-copulating food processor which would set me back £3-400 should I want one. Which I didn’t. So I bought a cheapo electric meat grinder instead.
Next up I needed sausage skins, which I’ve been successful in procuring from butcher’s in the past. As we’ve moved house since my last sausage adventure I paid our local purveyor of carcass a visit. “No probs” he said, “how much do you need?” I thought 5 to 10 meters would suffice to which he informed me it would cost about £2 a meter. Shocked I asked him if that included the stuff you put inside the sausages to which he replied something about them being expensive things requiring much work in preparing them etc, etc ie complete and utter bollocks, like he did all that himself. My guess is he didn’t want to sell them to me. The cock.
Acting on information given to me by my godfather Ray I then went shopping on the intaweb, www.sausagemaking.org to be precise. And brill fab, they not only had pigs intestines( sorry “casings”) but cows’ ones for salamis, sheep’s for chipolatas, collagen for veggies (they’d have to avoid the inside bit tho’) as well as curing powders and other “kit”. So I ordered a bundle and was as pleased as a nun in a cucumber patch up until I had to put in my address. Free postage & packaging in the UK, within the EU add £20! To make things even more confusing if I’d lived in what’s called The Rest Of The World it would have been free too. Now, I’d only ordered about 20 quids worth of stuff so I thought “logger that” and bugged off.
To the rescue came Mrs B who, through dubiousish means, has acquired an access card for the big cash & carry in the middle of Copenhagen. They don’t sell to private peoples y’know. Anyway, it’s like an Aladdin’s cave, especially in the meat and fish departments. I knew they had sausage skins but last time I looked you had to buy a few miles worth at a time but behold & lo if they didn’t have them in dainty little tubs of a mere 5 meters. And at pound a tub all I can say to my local butcher-cum-knobhead is “you can go and fork offal”.
So, armed to the teats with sausage making gadgetry and more intestines than you can stake a shit at, I set about fulfilling my sausage destiny. Or something like that. Here are the two best banger recipes I’ve come up with so far….
Classic Sage’n’Onion Pork Sausages
You really can’t beat the combination of pork, onion & sage when making bangers. I use very little bread & it can be totally omitted if y’like ya sausages really dense. It’s important to let the sausages rest for at least 12 hours before cooking to let the flavours party a bit. I actually think they benefit from being frozen for a while.
500 g minced pork (8-10% fat is a good amount)
2 biggish onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 slices of whitish bread blitzed into fine crumbs
A big handful of fresh sage leaves finely chopped (dried ain’t half as good)
A pinch or two of mace
A little olive oil or a modest knob of butter
Lots of crushed black pepper
Salt
About 2 meters of pig’s intestines or the equivalent collagen ones
Ok, if you’re using salted swine bowels they have to be soaked in fresh warm water for a while so start by doing that. The onions & garlic need to finely chopped then softened in the oil/butter. This is very important, raw onions will ruin yer bangers. Then simply mix everything together in a mixing bowl. Very well. To check the seasoning fry a small ball of your creation in the used frying pan (this is my first how-to-be-economical-with-the-washing-up tip). I like my sausages nice and peppery so I tend to bung in loads. Now to the kitchen erotica bit. Take the casings and thread them onto your sausage-making-funnel thingy. Then, leaving a couple of inches dangling, start feeding the meat mix into your machine. As it starts filling ease off the skin from the nozzle forming the sausage as you go. By pulling it off quickly you get a thinner sausage. Likewise, if you hold back your sausage will get fatter. I must have made a good fifty meters of sausages so far & I still can’t do this without giggling. Jesus, I'm smirking just writing it. When done the sausages are twisted into the required lengths.
When it comes to cooking your bangers remember they don’t need pricking. This will only succeed in letting the lovely pork juices run out. Because your nice, homemade beasts don’t contain excess water they won’t explode and any expanding they need doing takes place out the ends anyway. I usually brown them in a little oil then chuck them in the oven for half an hour at 200 degrees Celsius.
Thai Pork & Prawn Sausages
Where as the previous recipe was simple and classic this one is deffo more of a mad-experiment-that-went-right sort of thing. We’ve had these both fried/baked as well as steamed and I have to say the steamed ones won by a whisker. When you cut into them the prawns look like large lumps of fat which I find amusing. But then I’m easily amused.
500g minced pork
5-10 black tiger prawns shelled & chopped into smallish pieces
1 large onion chopped finely & softened
4 cloves of garlic chopped
1½ inch cube of ginger ditto ditto
2 stalks of lemon grass bashed & chopped
5 or so kaffir lime leaves de-stalked & chopped
A handful of dried Thai shrimps pounded in a mortar (with a pestle) and fried with the onions
½ teaspoon of fish paste (mixed with a bit of warm water to thin it down)
2-4 small chilies chopped finely
A big handful of chopped fresh coriander
½ teaspoon of ground dried coriander seeds
2 spring onions chopped
Fish sauce (instead of salt)
Ground white pepper
Ok, mix well together, test for seasoning (if it gets too fishy before it’s salty enough then use salt) and make as before. A teaspoon or two of red curry paste can be used too for a different effect. These are delicious with a sweet chili sauce. Happy Banging...
Next up I needed sausage skins, which I’ve been successful in procuring from butcher’s in the past. As we’ve moved house since my last sausage adventure I paid our local purveyor of carcass a visit. “No probs” he said, “how much do you need?” I thought 5 to 10 meters would suffice to which he informed me it would cost about £2 a meter. Shocked I asked him if that included the stuff you put inside the sausages to which he replied something about them being expensive things requiring much work in preparing them etc, etc ie complete and utter bollocks, like he did all that himself. My guess is he didn’t want to sell them to me. The cock.
Acting on information given to me by my godfather Ray I then went shopping on the intaweb, www.sausagemaking.org to be precise. And brill fab, they not only had pigs intestines( sorry “casings”) but cows’ ones for salamis, sheep’s for chipolatas, collagen for veggies (they’d have to avoid the inside bit tho’) as well as curing powders and other “kit”. So I ordered a bundle and was as pleased as a nun in a cucumber patch up until I had to put in my address. Free postage & packaging in the UK, within the EU add £20! To make things even more confusing if I’d lived in what’s called The Rest Of The World it would have been free too. Now, I’d only ordered about 20 quids worth of stuff so I thought “logger that” and bugged off.
To the rescue came Mrs B who, through dubiousish means, has acquired an access card for the big cash & carry in the middle of Copenhagen. They don’t sell to private peoples y’know. Anyway, it’s like an Aladdin’s cave, especially in the meat and fish departments. I knew they had sausage skins but last time I looked you had to buy a few miles worth at a time but behold & lo if they didn’t have them in dainty little tubs of a mere 5 meters. And at pound a tub all I can say to my local butcher-cum-knobhead is “you can go and fork offal”.
So, armed to the teats with sausage making gadgetry and more intestines than you can stake a shit at, I set about fulfilling my sausage destiny. Or something like that. Here are the two best banger recipes I’ve come up with so far….
Classic Sage’n’Onion Pork Sausages
You really can’t beat the combination of pork, onion & sage when making bangers. I use very little bread & it can be totally omitted if y’like ya sausages really dense. It’s important to let the sausages rest for at least 12 hours before cooking to let the flavours party a bit. I actually think they benefit from being frozen for a while.
500 g minced pork (8-10% fat is a good amount)
2 biggish onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 slices of whitish bread blitzed into fine crumbs
A big handful of fresh sage leaves finely chopped (dried ain’t half as good)
A pinch or two of mace
A little olive oil or a modest knob of butter
Lots of crushed black pepper
Salt
About 2 meters of pig’s intestines or the equivalent collagen ones
Ok, if you’re using salted swine bowels they have to be soaked in fresh warm water for a while so start by doing that. The onions & garlic need to finely chopped then softened in the oil/butter. This is very important, raw onions will ruin yer bangers. Then simply mix everything together in a mixing bowl. Very well. To check the seasoning fry a small ball of your creation in the used frying pan (this is my first how-to-be-economical-with-the-washing-up tip). I like my sausages nice and peppery so I tend to bung in loads. Now to the kitchen erotica bit. Take the casings and thread them onto your sausage-making-funnel thingy. Then, leaving a couple of inches dangling, start feeding the meat mix into your machine. As it starts filling ease off the skin from the nozzle forming the sausage as you go. By pulling it off quickly you get a thinner sausage. Likewise, if you hold back your sausage will get fatter. I must have made a good fifty meters of sausages so far & I still can’t do this without giggling. Jesus, I'm smirking just writing it. When done the sausages are twisted into the required lengths.
When it comes to cooking your bangers remember they don’t need pricking. This will only succeed in letting the lovely pork juices run out. Because your nice, homemade beasts don’t contain excess water they won’t explode and any expanding they need doing takes place out the ends anyway. I usually brown them in a little oil then chuck them in the oven for half an hour at 200 degrees Celsius.
Thai Pork & Prawn Sausages
Where as the previous recipe was simple and classic this one is deffo more of a mad-experiment-that-went-right sort of thing. We’ve had these both fried/baked as well as steamed and I have to say the steamed ones won by a whisker. When you cut into them the prawns look like large lumps of fat which I find amusing. But then I’m easily amused.
500g minced pork
5-10 black tiger prawns shelled & chopped into smallish pieces
1 large onion chopped finely & softened
4 cloves of garlic chopped
1½ inch cube of ginger ditto ditto
2 stalks of lemon grass bashed & chopped
5 or so kaffir lime leaves de-stalked & chopped
A handful of dried Thai shrimps pounded in a mortar (with a pestle) and fried with the onions
½ teaspoon of fish paste (mixed with a bit of warm water to thin it down)
2-4 small chilies chopped finely
A big handful of chopped fresh coriander
½ teaspoon of ground dried coriander seeds
2 spring onions chopped
Fish sauce (instead of salt)
Ground white pepper
Ok, mix well together, test for seasoning (if it gets too fishy before it’s salty enough then use salt) and make as before. A teaspoon or two of red curry paste can be used too for a different effect. These are delicious with a sweet chili sauce. Happy Banging...
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