Category: Stews

Caribbean roasted vegetable curry

There are lots of delicious vegan and vegetarian dishes on Original Flava, introduced to me by my daughter’s mother-in-law. Some of the ingredients used are not readily available locally, but there are some substitutions and good options still. I have ordered some scotch bonnet paste online, and for the rest, I’ve stuck to recipes that I can adapt to local ingredients. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 200g butternut squash, peeled and cut into large chunks
  • 200g sweet potatoes, cut into large chunks
  • 200g small potatoes, with the skin on
  • Olive oil
  • 2 onions (preferably one red onion, one white onion)
  • 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • A 2cm piece of ginger root, peeled and chopped
  • 3 spring onions
  • 2 large tomatoes, chopped
  • 2-3 tbsp curry powder (you can buy West Indian curry powder online at Seasoned Pioneers) 
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 100ml coconut milk
  • 100ml vegetable stock
  • A good handful of spinach or homegrown Japanese kale
  • 1/4 tsp scotch bonnet paste
  • salt and pepper

METHOD:

  • Heat the oven to 180C
  • Cut the vegetables to 3 cm chunks. You don’t need to peel anything, but I’m not a fan of butternut squash rind. Onion squash rind is softer and is a good alternative. Put the vegetables onto a baking tray, and add about 1 tbsp olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for at least 30 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. 
  • Heat another tbsp oil in a pan, and gently fry the onions, garlic, ginger, spring onions and chopped tomatoes until they are soft.
  • Add a pinch of salt, 2 tsp ground black pepper, curry powder and paprika. Mix together and cook for a minute, and then stir in the coconut milk so that you have a thick paste. 
  • Take the roasted vegetables, and add these to the pan, along with the stock, thyme, spinach and scotch bonnet. Bring to a simmer, check for seasoning, and then keep simmering until the spinach is cooked. 

 

Ital rundown – Hebridean style

I’ve been given a book on Caribbean cookery, full of ideas and new ingredients. The limitation is on which ones I can purchase locally – not a lot of cho-cho or okra or scotch bonnet peppers. I tried this recipe, leaving out the cho-cho, and using some fresh garden kale, and it was really good, tasty and filling. This makes a lot of vegetable stew, to be served with rice, or perhaps alongside a chicken dish, or on its own. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  • 1/4 tsp scotch bonnet pepper sauce or 1 scotch bonnet pepper (available online) (or use red chillies from the co-op – use a lot; this is meant to be very spicy)
  • 1 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp dried thyme leaves
  • 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger root, peeled and chopped, or half a teaspoonful of dried ginger
  • 1 tsp allspice
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric
  • 1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 1 large corn cob, chopped into 5 segments 
  • 200ml marigold stock
  • 3 bell peppers, mixed colours, sliced
  • 100g Japanese kale, or spinach
  • 200ml coconut milk (half a can)

METHOD:

  • Heat the oil in a large casserole pan, and fry the onions and garlic, until softening. 
  • Add the scotch bonnet sauce, black pepper, thyme, ginger, all-spice, turmeric, and stir in, before adding the sweet potato, squash, corn and stock. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. 
  • Add the kale, peppers and coconut milk, adjust seasoning. Simmer for another five minutes or so until the kale is cooked. 

This is a very filling, hearty stew, brightening up a winter’s evening. 

Persian Vegetable Stew (Yatimcheh)

There were some aubergines reduced in price at Neillie’s shop, and I had most of the rest of the ingredients already, so I tried out this recipe from ‘Nightingales and Roses’ – really delicious and also vegan and virtuous. Best served with flat bread and Greek yoghurt. 

INGREDIENTS: 

  • 8 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 3 aubergines (or 2 if they are large) – 1cm slices
  • 6 red onions
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp chilli powder
  • 1/2 tsp dried lime powder (optional, I got mine online)
  • 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced.
  • 1 large red pepper – cut into 2cm pieces
  • 4 tomatoes – 1 cm slices
  • 2+ potatoes – peeled, 1cm slices

METHOD:

  • Put a couple of spoonfuls of the oil in a frying pan, and fry the aubergine slices in a single layer in batches; cover the pan and fry for 4-5 minutes until one side is brown, then turn to fry the second side. Add small amounts of oil as required for each batch. Set aside the fried aubergine. 
  • Chop two of the onions finely, and fry in a couple of spoonfuls of oil over a medium heat for around 10 minutes, until golden brown. Stir in the turmeric towards the end of the frying time. 
  • Meanwhile, mix salt, pepper, chilli and lime powder in a small bowl or cup. 
  • Use a large wide casserole dish. Put 2 tbsp oil in the bottom. Slice the remaining onions into 1cm slices, and arrange them across the bottom of the dish in a single layer (you may need more or less onions depending on their size). Cover with the fried aubergine, then 1/3 of the spice mix, half of the fried onions, and then half the sliced garlic. Then add the red pepper, the rest of the garlic, the rest of the fried onions. Next, a layer of sliced tomatoes, the rest of the spices, and a layer of sliced potatoes. Put the lid on the pan. 
  • Bring to a simmer on the hob, then turn the heat to very low and cook for at least an hour, until the sauce has reduced. If it looks as if it is drying out, add a little hot water. 
  • Serve with rice or bread, and a bowl of yoghurt. 

 

Marrow, fennel and tomato stew

There is a tale in here, as to how I had a good marrow. Susannah had four ailing wee plants, she said they were squash plants, could she plant them in the open in my garden. I was a bit doubtful, I have never had much success with growing curcurbits in the open in South Uist. The plants weren’t great either. 

I planted out the best three, and one died. Now, in September, when the gales are beginning, they are flowering, and they appear to be courgette plants. I have a few tiny courgettes. I left the first one to get big, thinking it was a squash plant, and I ended up with a small marrow, weighing about 1 kilo. Marrows are just big courgettes. 

So I made this stew. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 small marrow, or 1kg of large courgettes
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 sprig of rosemary
  • 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
  • 2 onions, finely sliced
  • 1/2 tsp red chili powder
  • 1 small fennel bulb, sliced
  • 2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
  • 50ml dry sherry or dry white wine
  • 1 can chopped tomatoes, or 500g of tomatoes peeled and chopped
  • 1 tbsp wine vinegar

METHOD:

  • Halve the marrow lengthways, and remove any seeds. Chop into chunks, arrange in a colander on a plate and salt it so that excess moisture is removed
  • Heat the olive oil over a medium heat, and add the rosemary and fennel, frying this for a couple of minutes
  • Add the onions, chilli and fennel, and gently fry for around 10 minutes
  • Add the garlic, and continue to cook for another couple of minutes.
  • Drain the water off the marrow, and add to the pan with a good grating of pepper, and cook, stirring regularly for another ten minutes. I usually read a book and stir after every couple of pages. 
  • Add the sherry or wine, and stir to mix all the juices together, and let this simmer down and reduce before adding the chopped tomatoes and wine vinegar. Bring to a simmer and cook at a very low temperature for around half an hour. 
  • Adjust the seasoning, and then serve garnished with oregano and rosemary. It might need a bit of salt, and it works well to let it sit and develop. 

This can be customised. Try adding a tin of beans with the chopped tomatoes, or some capers. Some waxy potatoes, cut into cubes works well. I have reheated it with a layer of sliced potatoes on top, baked as a pie. 

Yesterday evening, I served it with a grilled pork chop, pitta bread and goat’s cheese. 

Balaton beef goulash

I kind of made this up,  basing the flavours on a vegetarian recipe that I have. There may be edits as I try out tweaking the recipe. It was good enough the first time, though.

INGREDIENTS:

  • Approx. 200g onion, chopped
  • 200g pancetta (or streaky bacon) (optional)
  • 2 tbsp olive oil or lard
  • 2 tsp Hungarian paprika
  • 1 tsp caraway, lightly crushed
  • 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • salt
  • 300 to 400g beef, cut into cubes
  • 300ml beef stock
  • 300ml tub of sour cream
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • 2 or 3 potatoes, peeled and diced (or use small salad potatoes, around 200g)

METHOD:

  • Set the oven to 160℃
  • In a large oven-safe casserole pan, fry the pancetta until crispy on the outside, and set aside. 
  • In the same pan, fry the onion and garlic over a medium heat until golden yellow and soft
  • Add the paprika and caraway seed, and stir into the onions, around 15 seconds. 
  • Add the meat and stir to brown the meat on all sides as well as coating it with paprika
  • Add the stock, bacon, tomato puree, black pepper, salt to taste, and bring to a simmer. 
  • Cover and put the pan into the oven for around 2½ hours
  • Add the peeled chopped potatoes, and check the seasoning, and then cook for another half an hour or so, until the potatoes are cooked. You can add other vegetables as well, such as carrots, or celeriac, if you wish. If the stew is not thick enough for your taste, simmer on the stove top with the lid off, to reduce it down. 
  • Stir in the sour cream, and garnish with chopped parsley to serve. 

 

Italian Lamb Stew

Oh, this is so delicious, I would cook it every week if I had enough local lamb. I got the basic recipe from ‘Dear Francesca‘ but adapted it to use some ingredients that I already had. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 2 to 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
  • 2 onions, finely sliced
  • 1 kg (+) gigot chops (or other chops) or lamb shoulder – trim the chops of fat, 
  • salt and black pepper
  • 1 can chopped tomatoes
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 pinches of dried thyme, or 1 tsp of Italian dried herbs
  • 1 tbsp red pepper paste
  • 200ml stock or water
  • 8 small new potatoes, or 4 large potatoes peeled and cut into chunks. 

METHOD:

  • In a large casserole dish, heat the olive oil, and fry the garlic and onion over a low low heat for ten minutes. 
  • Set the onions aside, and fry the meat in the olive oil to seal it. 
  • Return the onions and garlic to the pan, and add the tinned tomatoes, pepper paste and herbs. Bring to a simmer. 
  • Cook in the oven at 180C for 30 minutes. At this stage, the stew can be frozen or kept in the fridge to finish cooking alter. 
  • Add the potatoes to the pan, and the extra stock if required, and cook on the stove top until the potatoes are cooked (about half an hour or so) 

And you’re done! The book suggests chicken or beef versions of the same stew, but with lamb it is just glorious. We served it with a green side salad. 

Lamb stew with dried limes, vegetables, and borlotti beans (Khoresht-e Gormeh Sabzi)

I can’t believe I haven’t shared this recipe before. It uses the vegetables that are making a come-back after the winter, and is also a good way to use some of the Allium triquetrum leaves as they start to grow. It is a very unusual flavour for western palates, the dried limes and turmeric give the stew a rich flavour. I used the recipe in ‘Nightingales and Roses’ and added the vegetables growing in the garden. I wonder what it would be like with a bit of lovage?

INGREDIENTS

  • 3-4 dried limes (from Persepolis or other online shops)
  • 100g parsley
  • 100g coriander
  • 100g spinach or chard
  • 1 handful of kale tops
  • 1 handful of Allium triquetrum or inner leaves from small leeks
  • olive oil
  • 2 onions, finely chopped
  • 500g lamb (from shoulder or best end of neck) in large pieces. 
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1 can borlotti beans, drained 

METHOD:

  • Cover the limes in hot water, and weigh them down with a small plate so that they soften over the next couple of hours. 
  • Strip the leaves from the parsley and coriander, and rinse all of the green vegetables, and leave to dry. 
  • Heat 2 tbsp oil in a casserole dish and cook the onions until they are golden.
  • Add the lamb and turmeric and fry until the meat is browned. Add enough stock or water to cover the meat and bring to a slow simmer. Continue to cook on a low heat for an hour. 
  • Use a food processor to chop the green vegetables finely. You’ll need to do this in batches. 
  • Heat 2-3 tbsp oil in a pan and add the chopped vegetables, and cook until they begin to darken. Add the fried vegetables to the stew. 
  • Add the limes to the stew. To enhance the flavour, stab them a few times before putting them in. Braise for another 30 minutes
  • Add the borlotti beans and simmer for another 30 minutes. Check the flavour and add salt to taste. 

We had this with plain rice, and it was phenomenal. The main part of the stew is the beans and vegetables, with lovely tender lamb morsels. 

Vegetarian Balaton-style hotpot

I made this and it was good, so I looked up to find out more about this cooking style. One-pot cookery is a very simple style of preparing a meal, perfect for unsophisticated cooking facilities. A goulash is just such a dish, and around lake Balaton, the style of goulash includes sour cream and potatoes, caraway and paprika. 

This vegetarian version comes from The Quick After Work Cookbook, for which I shall have to provide a review soon.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 1 green pepper, finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 75g long-grain rice
  • 1 large potato, around 250g, chopped into 2cm chunks
  • 1/4 tsp caraway seed
  • 2 tsp Hungarian paprika
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • 3 tbsp sour cream
  • 300ml stock or water
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 can of red kidney beans, haricot beans, or borlotti beans. 

METHOD:

  • In a medium pan, gently fry the onions and green pepper until the onions are browning. 
  • Add the rice and potato, and cook for another minute
  • In a measuring jug, mix the stock, sour cream, salt and pepper, paprika, caraway seed and tomato puree, and pour the mixture into the pan and stir. 
  • Bring to a simmer, cover and reduce the heat and cook for 20 minutes
  • Add the beans, any extra water, and cook for another 10 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked. 

 

Spiced lamb heart stew

This recipe is probably not that authentic, but it is based on a US recipe for a Moroccan stew. I have adapted it to use locally available ingredients and metric measures. I feel very strongly that if we are to eat meat at all, it should be local, and there should be no waste. This ‘nose to tail’ approach covers ingredients that are not commonly available in supermarkets, but can be acquired locally, before they are discarded.

Before you start, be aware that this recipe requires marinating overnight, and a slow cook the next day, so not a quick cook. I managed to set the oven onto automatic, so it was ready when I came home. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 6 lamb hearts
  • 100ml good quality olive oil
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp fennel seed
  • 1 tsp grated ginger
  • 1 tsp turmeric powder
  • 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 100g sliced dried apricots
  • 2 medium onions, sliced thickly
  • 50g chopped black olives
  • 500ml stock
  • 4 large carrots (or squash or pumpkin or sweet potato) in 1 inch chunks

METHOD:

  • Prepare the hearts. cut away the coronary arteries around the top of the heart, as well as the auricles (small flaps at the top) and then cut the muscle into 1 inch chunks, or as close as possible. Put them in a sealable container and add the marinade ingredients as you prepare them. 
  • Grind the fennel seed in a mortar and pestle, and add this to the lamb hearts along with the cumin, coriander and turmeric.
  • Add the grated ginger, crushed garlic, olive oil and lemon juice. Mix well together. Seal the container and put it in the fridge overnight.
  • The next day, slice the onions into thick slices. Fry in olive oil, over a low heat, for around ten minutes, until soft and brown, and transfer to a casserole dish. 
  • Remove the meat from the marinade, and fry in the same pan to brown it, and then add it to the casserole dish. 
  • Add the vegetables, stock, the marinade, cinnamon stick and bay leaves to the pan, and bring this to a simmer, check the seasoning, and add salt and pepper to taste. 
  • Cover and cook at 180C for 2 hours. Remove the cover for the second hour, to reduce the gravy a little. 
  • I garnished this with chopped parsley and coriander. 

Pollock with chickpeas and chorizo

A friend of ours came to the back door with a couple of very fresh large pollock, just as I was contemplating what to have for tea. I was about to make a Norwegian dish from Davidson’s, involving cheese and macaroni, but then I turned to Google. 

When I search for recipes online, I type in the ingredients that I have, and then pick out interesting sites to check what they suggest. I sometimes pick up flavour suggestions, or some interesting methods. I don’t like sites with too many photographs, it makes it hard to find and follow the recipe. I also don’t like sites with poor formatting, or dodgy programming that don’t let you download the recipe so that it is readable.

The BBC food website is reliable, informative and full of good ideas, so when I spotted this recipe, I had to try it. I had to tweak it to fit my ingredients and timescale, though. I get all my spices and herbs from Seasoned Pioneers, if you wondered. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • coarse sea salt
  • a pinch of saffron
  • 1 large pollock, filleted, skinned and boned
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 onions, finely chopped
  • 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  • 2 red chillies, finely chopped, 
  • 4 cooking chorizos (about the size of a standard sausage, and soft) cut into 1 cm lengths
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 200ml chicken stock
  • 1 can chopped tomatoes
  • 1 can chick peas (or 150g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight and cooked until tender)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 125g spinach (could be more, but that is all I had)

METHOD:

  • Cut the fillets of pollock in half to make four good-sized portions, In a close-fitting plastic container with a lid, sprinkle the pollock with coarse salt and a pinch of saffron, and ensure that the fish is well-coated. Cover, and put in the fridge.
  • After an hour and a half, start preparing the rest of the stew. Preheat the oven to 170C.
  • Put a casserole dish on a medium/high heat, add the olive oil, and fry the onions, garlic and chillies for 6 minutes or so. 
  • Add the chunks of chorizo, and cook for a further 5 minutes. 
  • Add the cumin, paprika, bay leaves and cinnamon, and continue to cook for another 4 minutes or so. 
  • Add the drained chickpeas, chicken stock and chopped tomatoes, bring to the boil and then put it in the oven for 45 minutes. 
  • Next, remove the stew from the oven, check the seasoning, and add salt and pepper to taste. I also reduced the stew a bit on the stove top at this stage. 
  • Take the fish from the fridge, thoroughly rinse off the salt and pat dry, before adding to the top of the stew, and returning the casserole to the oven for a further 12 minutes. 
  • To serve, lift the fish onto warmed dishes, and then stir the spinach into the stew before ladling it onto and around the fish. 

We also had some fresh bread and olives at the table, and a Spanish white wine.