Prawn Linguine with Chorizo Tomato Sauce

This recipe is from Lorraine Pascale and when I saw it on her new TV programme, I knew we had to cook it.  The best thing to do is link to her online recipe - I pretty much followed it but used a glass of the rose wine we were drinking rather than cabernet sauvignon.  I also left out the harissa, as we wanted more of an Italian vibe than a southern Spanish/Morrocan one.  The fennel seed is essential though, as is the oregano - all of these make it Italian in spirit. This was a fabulous recipe, and I would urge you to make it!  We made the full amount of sauce and saved half to make Patatas Bravas tomorrow.  Definitely one to make again.  My camera was out of juice, so I have pinched Lorraine's photo.
Photo courtesy of Daily Mail/Lorraine Pascale/myles new

Not Quite Paella

I make no claims about the authenticity of this but it makes for a delicious Paella-style dish.  I sauteed sliced onion, a Romano red pepper and the remains of last night's fennel bulb with half a horse-shoe of chorizo in olive oil, until all was just beginning to become tinged gold and the oil has rendered from the sausage.  Grate in a couple of garlic cloves, add half a teaspoon of hot smoked paprika and a teacupful of Bomba or Callasparra Valencia rice (Waitrose sells it).  Stir well, then stir in a mixture of 3/4 pint veg stock, a teaspoon of tomato puree, a good pinch of best-quality saffron (I use Iranian, brought from there by my friend Noshin) and 1/4 pint of dry white wine.  Bring to the boil, turn the heat right down, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.  Then stir in about 12 peeled de-veined King prawns and tiny broad beans or petit pois.  Cover again, and simmer for 4-5 minutes.  Finally, add chopped parsley and serve with lots of lemon chunks.  Lovely!  We started the meal with fresh corn cobs with chilli and coriander butter and washed down with Margaritas - Ay Carrumba!!!!

Caldo Verde

This Portuguese soup is great for a not-particularly-warm summer evening, and provided you watch your timings, you'll have a fresh veggie-packed, vibrant supper, best eaten with lots of crusty bread.  There are as many recipes for Caldo Verde as there are Portuguese.  However, most seem to require the presence of onion, potatoes and fresh leafy greens such as kale or chard (my green of choice today).  You can then add layers of texture and flavour depending on what you have available - I added fresh sweetcorn kernels, some tinned chickpeas, a couple of finely diced tomatoes and half a 'horse-shoe' of good chorizo, sliced.  Simmered in chicken broth, with garlic and a little smoked hot paprika to boost the sausage flavours, it was a fabulous, filling, savoury, brothy soup, packed full of veg.  Just make sure you add the greens and tomato if used) a few minutes before serving to preserve their colour and texture.  As this only uses half a chorizo, this qualifies for 'Under a fiver' easily.  You could make it veggie/vegan too, by using veg stock and omitting the sausage.

Chorizo, Potato and Courgette 'Frittilla'

So, tonight's effort was a cross-cultural blend of Spain and Italy - was I making an egg tortilla or frittata?  It was a combination of both, really, so lo!  The Frittilla is born!  I sauteed some sliced chorizo, thinly sliced potatoes and a red onion in a couple of tablespoons of oil until the potato is soft and the sausage has given up its oil.  At this point, throw in a couple of diced courgettes and cook for a few minutes more to soften.  Meanwhile, beat 6 eggs with a couple of tablespoons of milk, some salt and pepper and a handful of chopped chives if you have any - don't worry if you don't.  Stir in a ball of chopped Mozzarella.  If your pan fits in the oven, simply pour the egg and cheese over the contents of the pan, shake to settle and distribute well, and cook in the oven at 170C for 25 minutes  until brown and just set.  Alternatively, line a roasting tin with baking parchment and tip the contents of the pan in follwed by the egg and cheese.  Again, shake to distribute and then bake in the oven as above until just set.  This quantity serves 4 people generously and, using maybe a third of a 'horseshoe' of chorizo and a ball of bog standard 'essentials' mozzarella from Waitrose, this comes in at around the fiver mark - a filling, hearty meal, served with salad and leftover guacamole from last night (I had planned on courgette fritters but really couldn't be arsed).  And we have a delicious filling for some wraps for lunch tomorrow.

Roast Pork Loin with Black Eyed Beans

This is a fabulous recipe from Jamie Oliver, and I knew I had to make it after my boss talked about it last weekend.  He came in with a magnificent French-trimmed loin of pork from Hedges, the organic butchers in Oxford's Covered Market and described the recipe to me.  It is simplicity itself - in a roasting tin, prepare a bed of lots of sliced red onion, red and green peppers, celery, bay leaves, garlic, chilli (some wonderful fresh ones from Riverford), chorizo, tinned black-eyed beans and tinned tomaotes, along a with a couple of glasses of wine.  Nestle the loin of pork on top, cover really well with strong foil, and roast slowly for 3 hours at around 160C.  Towards the end, remove the foil and turn up the heat to 220C to allow the skin to crisp and the liquid to reduce.  Being French-trimmed, you still have the bones attached, and this helps keep the shape and adds depth to the delicious sauce.  To serve, cut through the bones to give each person a tender, melthing chop and serve with generous spoonfuls of the beany vegetables and fresh green veg - runner beans and spinach in our case.  I don't think it needs potatoes, but don't let me stop you.  Marvellous recipe - thanks Jamie!  (Oh, and thanks Graham for alerting me to it)

Chickpea, Chorizo and Spinach with Poached Eggs

Inspired by a recipe from the wonderful Mark Hix, this is a simple, yet full-on flavoured dish for a quick supper.  You saute a sliced onion in a tablespoon of olive oil, with about 120g of chopped chorizo - let the onion soften and the sausage render its smoky paprika oil.  Add a clove of garlic, crushed, and half a teaspoon each of ground cumin and coriander, along with a pinch of cinnamon.  Tip in a tin of drained chickpeas (I use the dead cheap but brilliant East End brand) and add 200ml of water.  Allow to simmer for 10 minutes to amalgamate the flavours and reduce the liquid a bit.  Now throw in about 100g of rinsed baby spinach leaves and allow to wilt.  Finish with a tablespoon of chopped coriander leaf, and serve with a poached egg per person.  With crusty bread to mop up the oily juices, this is ample for 2 people.

Spinach, Mushroom and Chorizo Frittata

Lovely and light for a gorgeous spring evening.  We had been expecting wild garlic from our Riverford delivery, but they had got cold feet over this crop, worrying about sustainability and also whether they can guarantee a wild product to be free from unwanted weeds that might kill you.  Never mind, they substituted it with some very nice baby spinach leaves instead.  They went into the pan with some fried cubes of chorizo and sliced Riverford mushrooms, and were then set into a lovely eggy frittata.  We served this with some purple sprouting broccoli (Riverford again, of course!) and some cubes of potato roasted in olive oil and garlic butter - lush, as the young folk say.

Cavalo Nero, Cannellini Bean and Chorizo Broth

I drew inspiration for this recipe from a site called The British Larder, run by a restaurant with the same name in Suffolk.  They have some wonderful recipes on here - we must seek it out when we next visit Suffolk, one of our favourite places in the country.  This was a delicious, elegant, warming broth - good chicken stock as a base, and with chunks of leek, carrot, butternut squash and chorizo, along with some cannellini beans and chopped cavolo nero and parsley added at the end.  The chorizo gave a warm smoky backnote to proceedings.  Loads left over for lunch on Monday.

Risotto of Butternut Squash and Chorizo

So cold in Oxfordshire tonight!  At least we don't have snow, but temperatures are forecast to drop to -3C and possibly -10C with wind chill factored in.  So strange for this time of year.  There is a real need for warming carbohydrate, and a bowl of piping hot risotto hits the mark.  Made the usual way, but with some finely-chopped celery along with the onion, and some fresh sage half-way through.  At the end, I stirred through chunks of sweet roasted butternut squash and freshly grated parmesan, along with some cubes of sauteed cooking chorizo.  Warming, filling, and another butternut squash bites the dust!  However, another one arrived in the veg box today.  Doh!

Chickpea and Chorizo Stew

Delicious, Spanish-style meal tonight, largely inspired by some fabulous recipes and produce from the increasingly wonderful Riverford Organics. What did I do before them? Anyway, this is the first of three dishes, and was a doddle. For 2 with leftovers (erm....that was the plan anyway). I sauteed half an onion with some garlic and finely chopped celery for a few minutes in a little oil, then threw in about 50g of chopped chorizo - make sure it is a good one. I added a teaspoon of hot, smoked paprika for some extra 'poke' (phew-wee!) and carried on sauteeing until the sausage released it paprika oil. Then, just tip in a tin of rinsed chickpeas and pour in a little water (don't swamp the chickpeas) and lots of black pepper - it won't need salt, in my opinion, because of the sausage. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes until all is tender. If it is very liquidy, remove the lid and boil hard to reduce. Stir in lots of fresh parsley and - voila! Or whatever the equivalent in Spanish is. Hot stuff but gorgeous.

Chorizo, Butternut and Feta Frittata [#234]

So, we were meant to be eating the leftover Asian Ribs tonight. Who was I kidding? So, a lovely baked frittata from Rachel Allan instead, with some crusty bread. I slightly over-baked it, as I was distracted whilst reading about.....food! Delicious though, with a lovely blend of salty, spicy and sweet.

Winter Vegetable Broth with Chorizo and Haricot Beans [#203]

The snow is lying nearly a foot deep around Oxford tonight, in common with the rest of the country. We want carbs and plenty of them to keep the cold out. This lovely fragrant broth from Rachel Allen was just the ticket and used up the remaining chicken stock from the chicken pie earlier. Finely diced carrot and onion (no leeks sadly, they are all frozen in the ground), a little diced red pepper and a potato, and around 70g or so of diced chorizo. Simmered with 900ml of stock, with a drained tin of haricot beans added towards the end. I also threw in a handful of baby spinach. Just before serving stir through masses of chopped coriander, which really lifts the flavour. Plenty for lunch tomorrow. Yum! However, we still weren't full so followed with Potato, onion and cheese bake.......see next entry.

Ham and Butter Beans [#168]

The title of this recipe really doesn't do it justice - a lovely piece of unsmoked gammon, cooked in a rich tomato sauce spiked with hot smoked paprika and chorizo, with big fat Spanish butterbeans. Perfect for an Autumn evening with a mound of creamy mash and some bitter, bright green spring greens and savoy cabbage. I have been looking forward to this recipe for ages, and it really didn't disappoint. Loads of leftovers too. Another one for the Top 10 (there are about 25 recipes in the Top 10, by the way.........). I really can't believe that such a fine recipe hasn't appeared in Nigel's newspaper columns or on the BBC, so I can't give it here....but if you have the book, go and dig it out and turn to the October pages right away - you will want to cook this too!