Post the Sixty-seventh (in which the Heineken Cup quickens)

Possibly the last Heineken Cup, in its current form, anyway.  Irish readers, even those with virtually no interest in rugby, will be well aware that PRL (Premiership Rugby Ltd., i.e. the English clubs) attempted a breakaway from the ERC this year.  In a nutshell, they wanted more money from the communal kitty, believing that the Premiership is a superior competition to the Rabo Direct Pro12, and, as such, they should be entitled to more money and more qualification slots.  They initially managed to get the French on board, but they abandoned ship shortly afterwards and rowed back in with the ERC.  So then the Welsh regions jumped on the breakaway competition wagon, but they're such a non-entity in European rugby at the moment that winning them over must surely seem like a bit of a Pyrrhic victory for Quentin Smith et al.

Anyway, the debate about the future of European cup rugby is definitely worthy of a post in its own right.  Nobody knows what form the competition will take next year, so for now, all we can do is enjoy the current showdown.  Round 5 finished this weekend with Leinster grinding out an away win against Castres to see us topping our pool, with Ospreys at home on Friday to finish out the pool stages.  All we need to qualify is a losing bonus point, while a bonus-point win would give us a very vague chance of getting a home quarter-final.  However, as shite as Ospreys have been this year, they have ever been our bogey team in the RDS, so a losing bonus point would do me, quite frankly.  Round 6 always throws up a few surprise results, but as it stands, the quarter finals look likely to shake out as follows:

Toulouse v Saracens
Toulon v Ulster
Clermont v Leinster
Leicester v Munster

Clermont.  Again.  I honestly don't know which team will dread that fixture more.  Travelling to the Stade Marcel Michelin is always a daunting prospect, and our back-to-back losses to Clermont put us out of the competition last year.  Having said that, revenge is always a great motivator.  And I don't think there's any team in the knockout stages who'd relish the prospect of hosting us.  It's going to be a very interesting set of quarter-finals, that's for sure.

So, onwards to the food.  Today's recipe is the third of the Lidl "7 Family Meals for €50" collection.  I should point out at this juncture that I'm not posting these in the order they appear in the booklet, but rather the order I felt like cooking them in.  This is the "Sunday dinner" of the booklet, probably because it's the most expensive dish of the lot.  But you know me, I'm nothing if not rebellious, so we had this for dinner on Friday night instead.  It might sound a *little* esoteric for the more beige-palated amongst you, but you really should give it a go, even if you think you don't like one or more of the individual ingredients, because they really do marry brilliantly together to give a whole that's a lot greater than the sum of its parts.

Pork Chops with Gorgonzola and Roasted Pears - serves 4

4 pork loin chops                                     4 pears, cut in half & cored
4 small onions, peeled & quartered         100g gorgonzola
20 sage leaves                                          1 tsp sugar
12 baby potatoes, quartered                     3 tbs olive oil
Knob of butter                                          150ml water
Salt & pepper

1. Preheat oven to 180C.  Put the potatoes, pears and onions into a large baking tray, drizzle over the oil, season with salt & pepper and give everything a good toss to coat.  Dot with the butter, scatter over the sage leaves, add the water, then cover with foil and roast for 20 minutes.

2. Remove the foil, jack the heat up to 200C, sprinkle over the sugar and return to the oven for another 10 - 15 minutes until everything is lovely and golden.

3. Meanwhile, pan-fry or griddle the pork chops for 3 minutes on each side, finishing with it on its side to crisp up the fat. 

4. Split the potato & pear mix between four warmed plates, scatter over the gorgonzola and top with a pork chop.  Enjoy!

 

 

Suggestions: I spread both sides of the chops with wholegrain mustard before cooking.  Also, the second time I made this, I added the gorgonzola to the baking tray for the last couple of minutes in the oven rather than waiting til it was plated up, and it made for extra-delicious oozey meltiness.

 

By the way, you should totally use the leftover gorgonzola to make the blue cheese butter used in the Mexican Lasagna post from last week.

             

Post the Sixty-third (in which our heroine attempts to resurrect the blog)

Behold, we shall have a Lazarus-style moment.  This blog, which many (your correspondent included) presumed dead in January of this year, shall walk again.  Having fallen victim to the fatal scourge of its author not doing enough cooking to maintain it, it is being resuscitated by virtue of the fact that I have finally moved out of my parents' house (two years after having moved back in) and am now back cooking on a nightly basis.

The good news is, this allows me to blog again.

The bad news is, I'm well on the way to gaining back the stone I lost when the Ex and I broke up.  Le sigh.

Anyway, the 25-odd of you who actually bothered to follow the blog can now breathe a huge sigh of relief that the giant blog-sized hole in your life has finally been filled.  Or something.

Now, normally this is the point in a blog where the author would fill you in on all the drama and happenings in their life during the eleven months they were missing.  I can't do that, because virtually nothing has happened to me during that time.  I continued dating (none of it went anywhere), I continued working (desk-jockeying) and I went from blonde to very dark brunette to blonde again (cause I didn't like it), and that's pretty much it.  Kind of depressing, when I see it (or rather, the lack of "it") written in black and white there, actually.

Another thing that hasn't changed in the past year is my love of and addiction to chillies.  So, it should come as absolutely no suprise to anyone that my first recipe back is a Mexican-inspired one.  It's a lot like a lasagna, only with Mexican-style ingredients, so I call it Mexican Lasagna.  Original, eh?

The filling for this, like all mince-based sauces, improves with age, so feel free to make the filling the day before.  Or you could just use leftover chilli, if you ever happen to find yourself with two pounds of chilli leftover...

Mexican Lasagna with blue cheese bechemel - serves 6

450g round mince                                                 2 large onions, diced
Tin tomatoes                                                         125ml beer
2 chillies, finely diced                                            2 - 3 large flour tortillas
2 tbs oregano                                                        Juice of 1 lime
Tin refried beans                                                   Salt & pepper
25g blue cheese butter*                                        25g flour
350ml milk                                                            75g grated sharp cheddar
Tsp each of cayenne, paprika, ground cumin, paprika, ground coriander, garlic granules

1. Brown the mince in a little oil, and drain off any excess grease.  Add the onion, chillies and beer, and simmer til the onions have softened.

2. Stir in all the dried spices, and have a little taste to see if it needs a bit more of any in particular.  Stir in the tomatoes, turn the heat down nice and low and leave to simmer for as long as possible.  Keep an eye on it and if it looks like it's drying out at any stage, add a splash more beer (if you haven't already .  Just before assembling the lasagna, stir in the refried beans and lime juice and season with salt & pepper to taste.

3. Melt the blue cheese butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour to make a roux.  Cook for a couple of minutes, then whisk in the milk a little at a time, until you have a lovely thick, smooth bechemel.  Season with salt & pepper.

4. Spread half the chilli mix on the bottom of a lasagna dish.  Cover with tortilla, tearing them to fit if you need to.  Add the other half of the chilli, add another layer of tortilla, then pour over the bechemel.  Scatter over the grated cheese, then bung into an oven preheated to 190C for 30 - 40 minutes, until golden brown and bubbling.  Allow to stand for a few minutes before cutting into six and serving with a spinach salad, and accompaniments of choice.

Being a bit of a guac fiend, and having tried many a guacamole recipe, I can safely say that Thomasina Miers' is the absolute best by far that I've come across.  Do yourself a favour and make it - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/7967816/Thomasina-Miers-recipe-Proper-guacamole.html

*Blue cheese butter is something that's always worth having in the fridge, because it makes for the most awesome steak sandwiches you have ever tasted in your life.  Simply mash real butter and crumbled blue cheese together in a roughly 2:1 ratio.  Shape into a log, wrap tightly in clingfilm and it'll keep happily in the fridge for a couple of weeks, as you just slice off what you need.  Seemples.

Post the Fifty-fourth (in which our heroine waxes lyrical about Buffalo sauce)

It all started fairly innocuously.  The odd chicken wing in Tribeca if I was there with a group and we ordered a basket for a starter.  Little did I know I was on a slippery slope to a torrid love affair with all things Buffalo.  I can trace this descent back to one defining moment - the day I found out exactly what they use in those chicken wings that makes them so dangerously addictive.  It's Frank's Red Hot Sauce.  I've already posted a recipe using it.  If you've made it, I'm sure you'll agree with me on the crack-like addictive qualities of this wondrous stuff.  Their tagline is "I Put that Sh*t On Everything" and I do.  I really, really do.  It truly is the king of condiments.  This recipe came about as an attempt to recreate a starter I had in the Cheesecake Factory in Orlando.  Truth be told, it probably bears absolutely no relation to that dish whatsoever, but it's still really, really good.  Not something you'd want to be eating on too regular a basis, granted, but perfect for some hungover night in with a DVD and the need for major soakage.

Buffalo Blasts - makes about 8

500g turkey mince                          1 pack filo pastry, defrosted
150ml Frank's                                 4tbs butter or dairy spread
1 tbs white wine vinegar                 Pinch garlic granules
1 egg, beaten                                   Good handful very sharp cheddar, grated
Black pepper                                   Oil for frying

1. Heat up your deep fat frier or if, like me, you don't have one, heat a couple of inches of oil in a wok (don't use olive, it has too low a smoke point and has far too strong a taste anyway).

2. Fry your turkey mince over a medium high heat until cooked through. You'll need to really work it well with a fork, because it clumps like a muthafucka. Add garlic granules and black pepper to taste, then set aside.

3. Combine the Frank's and butter or dairy spread (this is one of the few cases where you can genuinely use the low-fat crap without it affecting the end result) in a small pot over a low heat, stirring until it's nice and silky.  Add a splash of white wine vinegar (you can use red if it's all you have) and stir in the turkey mince.

4. Cut the filo into rectangles. Place a small spoonful of filling on the bottom left corner of the rectangle with a sprinkle of cheese and a grind of black pepper, leaving a small border. Fold the pastry over from the right to create a triangle shape. Continue to fold over from side to side till you have a triangular package. Brush the end of the pastry with the beaten egg and seal.

(Google videos on how to fold a samosa if you genuinely have no clue what I'm talking about here.)

5. Cook the blasts in the oil in batches until the pastry is golden brown. Drain on kitchen towels and serve with blue cheese dip or sour cream.

Blue Cheese Dip

120ml buttermilk                         60ml sour cream
115g blue cheese, crumbled        Black pepper to taste

1. Very complicated this - bung the whole lot into a blender and whizz til smooth.

Erm, I didn't really think a ramekin of blue cheese dip warranted a photo, sorry!

Anyway, as I said, these are perfick Friday-night-in-with-a-DVD-and-a-few-beers fare.  And, shamefully, they're just as good cold, a few hours later when you just can't help yourself wandering into the kitchen to pick.  Do it in your dressing gown and pretend you're Nigella Lawson.

Post the Fortieth (in which our heroine drowns in a vat of creamy, buttery, cheesy deliciousness)

Those of you who are dieting, look away now.  The other day I made one of my absolute favourite things to eat.  I don't eat it very often.  Maybe once a year.  This is despite the fact that it is quick, easy to make and abso-frickin-lutely GORGEOUS.  The reason for this is that you can pretty much feel your arteries clogging up as you swallow.  Why oh why is this the case with so many nice things?  I love a vibrant green salad or some crunchy veg as much as the next person, but let's face it, if we could get away with it, we'd all eat this kind of shit all the time.  Quite frankly, vanity is the only thing stopping me.  If I was one of those bastardly lucky souls who can eat whatever the hell they like without getting fat, I wouldn't give a fiddlers what my cholesterol or blood pressure was like.

We all know someone like that.  And we all hate them a little bit.

Now, before anyone jumps down my throat, I'm well aware that strictly speaking, gnocchi should only ever be served in a tomato sauce.  But it's just so, so good like this.  A friend once had an argument with the maitre'd in an Italian restaurant because they wouldn't give her gnocchi in a cream sauce.  The chef was having absolutely none of it, and I don't blame him at all.  Italian cuisine is bastardised enough in Ireland.  But the joy of cooking at home is that you can do whatever the hell you like and no-one can give out to you.

Except put cream in a carbonara.  You still can't do that.

Anyway, without further ado I give you...

Heart Attack on a Plate

Gnocchi in Gorgonzola Sauce - serves 2 (pigs)

500g gnocchi                     2 tbs gorgonzola
2 tbs butter                        6 (yes, 6) tbs cream

1) Cook the gnocchi in plenty of boiling, salted water until they rise to the surface.  Drain, then sit the colander in cold water to stop them sticking together.

2) Melt the butter over a medium heat.  Add the gorgonzola and the cream and stir slowly until the cheese melts.  Increase the heat and allow the sauce to simmer for 5 mintues or so to thicken a little.

3) Drain the gnocchi again and add to the sauce.  Stir gently to coat the gnocchi thoroughly, and allow to heat through for another 5 minutes.  Season with lots of black pepper, but no salt (the cheese is salty enough).  Serve immediately on warmed plates or bowls.  Have the defibrillator on standby.

You could, of course, use an Irish blue cheese in this, but I think gorgonzola has a slightly more mellow aspect to it, which suits this dish perfectly.  Experiment, and let me know how you get on.