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Making Salmorejo Sarah’s Way

Salmorejo, as I am sure you know, is a Spanish recipe, but that is no reason for not making it when on holiday in Italy. I used to wonder what the difference is between this soup and the more commonly known Gazpacho. I have come to the conclusion that salmorejo includes bread, whereas gazpacho does not. They can both be smooth or chunky, and have essential ingredients of: tomatoes, olive oil, a bit of spice and some fresh herbs. They should also be served very cold with some toppings for extra texture. I give you below my latest version for Salmorejo. If you are making gazpacho, you can include other finely chopped salad ingredients such as cucumber and fennel. Some people may protest that this recipe is not authentic, but who cares?! It tasted good and used up some of the stale bread.
Recipe to Serve Two People
First cut up, or hack or tear your bread, depending on tools available. I used half of an average-sized crusty loaf. Blitz it in a blender or food processor, although large crumbs are best. If your loaf is not as stale as mine was, you could just tear it into small pieces.
Skin 6 large, juicy tomatoes by pouring boiled water over them and pulling off the skins with your hands. Add these to the blender with the bread still in. Add half a can of tomatoes, a glug of olive oil, half a handful of parsley and the same of basil, a teaspoon of hot, smoked paprika, some rosemary leaves and some tabasco if you have it. You could add a splash of any type of vinegar. Add a can of water and plenty of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Blend it all together until it is not too smooth. Put into a jug in the fridge and add a few ice cubes if you have them. Chill for at least an hour. Meanwhile hard-boil two eggs, fry some chopped bacon with some cubed bread and chop a few cherry tomatoes. Chop some more parsley and basil. Serve the soup in bowls with the chopped garnishes on the side for people to help themselves to.
You will have noticed that this soup contains a little meat. The good news is that if you remove the bacon, it becomes a vegetarian recipe! Furthermore if you remove the eggs it becomes a vegan recipe! So simple! Enjoy!


Slale Bread for making Salmorejo
Tomatoes to be blended for Salmorejo
Eggs and Tomatoes for Salmorejo Garnishes
Croutons and Bacon for Salmorejo Garnishes

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Cooking in Sardinia – the first few days

First Dinner cooked at the Apartment in Lu Bagnu

 

 

I love cooking on holiday more than eating out. Those who know me well will know that I am ever amazed at the lack of vegetables in meals in Southern Europe on restaurant menus.

I look forward to cooking in  our self-catering accommodation, and spend a lot of time and money buying local produce. Admittedly we do tend to use the supermarkets more than the street markets. From a practical point of view, markets tend to be in cities, and so, apart from buying non-perishable goods and really firm fruit and vegetables, the question of how far it is to dash back to the villa to get the food into the fridge. This year we are having average daily temperatures of 85 degrees plus; no joke when you need to keep food fresh.

All of my recipes are a blend of Southern European, with a touch of Modern British and some Indian and Asian thrown in for good measure. The pictures above are of the first dinner I made in the apartment: Pasta with roughly sliced Italian sausages, canned tomatoes, fresh fennel, courgette, onions and garlic, with some white wine and fresh parsley and basil thrown in for good measure.

I also cannot resist making my version of Spanish tapas. Whether or not these are entirely authentic does not matter to me. I always think it is worth taking some good base ingredients, and a wonderful concept such as tapas, and creating a snack that you really enjoy. The other night we had a meal entirely composed of my tapas recipes. In the following pictures you see:

Tuna and Chick Pea Salad with Fennel and parsley, dressed in olive oil and balsamic vinegar

Olives with feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and some mushrooms from a jar, in olive oil

Egg Mayonnaise

Warm Ratatouille

Squid cooked with Chorizo and Hot smoked Paprika

We ate all of these with thin Italian bread, which is a speciality of Sardinia

I’ll be posting more holiday recipe ideas as we continue our jolly jaunt in Sardinia!

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Getting Ready for our long summer holidays: don’t let those left-overs fester in the fridge!

Recently we left for our long jaunt to Sardinia and Corsica via Bilbao and Barcelona. Now, just be aware that this is not an announcement that our house is empty for a month! Sorry, but we don’t leave the house empty, as my daughter will be staying behind. We also have family and neighbours watering the garden and painting the house whilst we are away.

My daughter Jess is a chef, and like many chefs, has little time to cook at home. I therefore aimed to use up most of the food in the fridge, leaving a few bare necessities and, more importantly, some money for her to buy easier to cook food. As we ate up the food, every time I looked in the cupboards and the fridge, the chance of making just one more tasty meal seemed ever less and less likely. I surprised even myself with the amazing dinner I managed to rustle up on Saturday night. It started with a lamb bone I took out of the freezer. This was one of a few left over from a roast lamb feast the previous weekend. I catered for a party and cooked for my mother’s birthday all over two days, and basically did the same menu twice. Cutting lamb legs off the bone and butterflying them was hard work, but so worth it for the tasty bones left behind! I also found half a bag of raw prawns in the freezer – one of my stock items for the freezer.

The meal that resulted with these two basics was absolutely divine, and completely unplanned. I give you a vague recipe below, but the point of this kind of meal is that quantities and exact ingredients should be flexible.

Warm Lamb and Prawn Salad with Fresh Flowers and Herbs

Roast one lamb leg bone for about half an hour with olive oil, salt and pepper (both freshly milled), chunks of onion, fresh chillis and herbs – use them from the garden if you have them. I used rosemary, sage, marjoram, mint and lemon balm. Meanwhile cook some carrots and fresh sweetcorn (cut off the cob) in a pan with a small amount of water and butter. You could of course roast these with the lamb. Cook some puy lentils until just soft. Cook a handful of prawns in a pan in some olive oil.

When the lamb is cooked, cut it off the bone, and mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl. Toss with more olive oil and some balsamic vinegar, plus plenty more pepper. Mix in some chopped olives and, if you have them, a few snipped anchovies. For the fun bit, toss in a few edible flowers. Obviously you need to be sure that your flowers are edible and have not been sprayed. I used rose petals and nasturtiums. Day lilies are also edible and suitable. If you have some spinach or salad leaves, these would be great tossed in too.

This is the kind of salad which needs to be eaten warm and fresh. If you have to chill it to keep it fresh, it just will not taste as good! I would serve this in smaller portions as a first course, although it worked very well as a last supper at Vine Cottage! I am so pleased with this recipe that I want to share it with the world. See the picture below for how it looked on the night! Oh, and this recipe is meant to be flexible. If you want to give it a go and don’t have a lamb bone, you could try some lamb neck fillet instead. Or it would be great with pork too.

Image may contain: flower, plant, food and indoor

 

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Slow Food, Fast Food (October 2015)

Beans for Easter Dinner

My passion is food and for years I have been creating amazing food for my family and friends. I decided not to pursue catering as a career, taking the view that the hours would be anti-social and unless you have your own business the pay is not good and it could also take the pleasure out of cooking at home. So for over twenty years I worked as a professional librarian and enjoyed coming home and cooking after a long day at work. I have worked full-time for most of my career, although I took 3 months maternity leave and worked term-time for a couple of years. Now I have come full circle and I work part-time and, more surprisingly for me, I actually cook as part of my job. But it is not full scale catering in a hot, pressured kitchen. I work as a housekeeper and my job includes housework, companionship and cooking a proper lunch. In fact I eat lunch with my employer, as that is in the nature of the job and I don’t think it would work as well otherwise.
What amazes me is the number of cookery books and television programmes there are based around preparing meals very quickly. To be honest, I’d be lost if I only spent 15 or 30 minutes in the evening cooking dinner for the family. After all, cooking a meal is also time to listen to the radio and (some evenings) enjoy a glass of wine. If I have a left-over meal in the freezer I am often reluctant to use it, as I always prefer to make something fresh.
But what is fast food? For me it is definitely not a take-away. For a start, most take-aways are pretty bad to eat and bad value. I think that pizza is particularly bad value, being comprised mainly of dough with a very small amount of topping. And for me, a take-away is more inconvenient than a home-cooked meal, as we live miles from any shops and restaurants. It would be quicker to make an omelette or do a fry up. So really on both counts most take-aways fail to be either ‘fast’ or ‘food’ for me. I make an exception for Indian take-aways, for which I do have a weakness (but this does not make them any more convenient to buy).
And at home quickly cooked meals can be more difficult to plan and get ready on time. Think of steak and chips or the simple cheese on toast, or perhaps scrambled eggs for 3 people. When I make scrambled eggs I quite often have to enlist the help of my daughter for watching toast and buttering it. And then I have to assemble everyone before actually cooking the eggs; otherwise they will probably decide to have a shower or make a long ‘phone call at the crucial moment! And hey presto, one runined pan of scrambled eggs!
Now a casserole may take several hours in the oven, but the preparation time can be quite short, depending on the recipe. And then all that waiting will be rewarded with wonderful smells and a dish that will not mind if the diners decide to make a ‘phone call, have a shower or be late turning up if invited as a guest. Just add mash and you have a meal fit for a king!
But as Paul my dear husband once said to me, to him all food is fast and convenient, because he knows that if I cook it, he does not have to worry about a thing and his dinner will be on the table at the required hour.