Chicken with Porcini Mushroom

For me, when someone says porcini, I get a tingling in my fingers. These are, in my humble opinion, the best mushrooms you can get or forage (let’s leave the wonderful truffles out of this, shall we? They might be mushrooms as a species, but you can’t make a stew out of them). And, for me, porcini have a different background, as they were introduced to me by the one of the most incredible people in the world, meaning my grandmother. She used to pick them herself in the forest or buy them from other foragers and I loved every tiny bit of that mushroom, any way she would cook it for me: in a stew, with different meats, grilled, boiled, didn’t matter. She was also very picky with her mushrooms: she only used young, fresh porcini, that had no sign of disease or bruising and she didn’t hesitate to throw any mushroom that wasn’t up to some very high standard. Oh, and another thing, she only eats 2 kind of mushrooms: porcini and honey fungus. Anything else, she threw away…  Honestly, nothing else. Bit weird, but she still is amazing and a great inspiration for me. 

So, when I went to visit her a couple of weeks ago, she gave me half a kilo of porcini that she pre-boiled and froze for me. What can I say, I AM her favorite grandson. So, with the mushrooms and my grandmother in mind, I decided to make a dish using the beautiful porcini. Now, chicken wasn’t a choice because I just love it, this recipe works great with some game poultry, quail or pheasant, but chicken breast is plain enough to absorb any spices you throw at it and it doesn’t outshine the porcini, so it’s a viable solution for this dish.

So, 500 grams of boiled porcini means that you can use about 300 grams of fresh ones or about 75-100 grams of dried mushrooms. When using the pre-boiled ones the advantage is that you don’t  have to cook it very long, but with the fresh ones, you get a bit more flavor. 

The meat: 1 free-range (special thanks have to go to my mother for this one) chicken breast, deboned. 

Also: 

2 tbs. of chopped fresh sage, 

a red onion, diced, 

3-4 crushed garlic cloves, 

a spicy chili, 

ground fennel seeds and cloves, 

2 bay leaves, 

Greek yoghurt, 

olive oil, 

salt and pepper, 

some rose wine (go Provence here, the Bordeaux style ones can prove to be a bit too strong for this kind of meat. If using game poultry, replace with red) 

(optional) some turmeric. 

Start of by heating up 3 tbs of olive oil in a heavy base pan, add the sage and cook it for 30 seconds, enough to create a nice and crispy outcome. Add in the chicken, cut however you want, and cook it for 5 minutes, coating it constantly with the sage. Next add the onion, garlic and chili and cook for another 3-4 minutes, after which add the boiled mushrooms, also diced. Add in the spices. Mix everything together and cook for 2 minutes, the add about 1 glass of wine. Bring to a boil on high heat, then reduce to a medium low and let it simmer until the liquid is reduce to half. In the end, add a couple of tbs. of Greek yoghurt and, optional, you can chop some parsley on the dish. Plate it, pour yourself some more of the wine and raise the glass for grandmothers everywhere, be they picky about their mushrooms or not.

Enjoy,

PS:  if using game poultry, make sure to lightly coat the meat in some flour before cooking it. This will create a nice caramelized exterior, as well help the sauce thicken.

Bourbon Beef Steak with Blistered Broccoli and Napa Cabbage

You know those shirts that say:“I cook with wine, sometimes I put in my food”?. Think of that and replace wine with bourbon for this recipe. You would be surprised how versatile good old Jack can be not only for the meat, but also for the side dish. So let’s start breaking this recipe down.

The meat- grab yourself a nice piece of beef steak. Now, I wanted to mix things for the meat so I did a super easy and delicious trick that can give a real lift to any steak. Cook your meat to your desired result (remember that test to check your meat by comparing to different variations of your clenched fist? Use it!). 

With one minute or so to spare throw in the pan 20 grams of bourbon and flambé the meat. Also, it will impress anyone else in the room making you look like you performed a Holywood-like stunt. What can I say? The ladies enjoy a live flambee…. Back to business, let the meat rest for 3-4 minutes, lightly brush one side with some spicy mustard (try and get the type that has horseradish in it) then grab the meat and put the mustard side in some ground pepper. This will give your meat a strong, pregnant peppery taste and you can always use this trick to cover one or more sides of a steak that didn’t really came out your way.

So where should we use more bourbon you ask? Why, the sauce, of course. 

Grab yourself 75 grams of butter, 

some shimenji mushrooms (or whatever type make you happy on the inside), 

50 grams of whisky, 

50 grams of stock and 

the same amount of cream. 

Start of by melting the butter in the same pan that you cooked the meat in. Add in the mushrooms and cook them for 3 minute on high heat, then pour in the whisky. Take advantage of this occasion to perform some more pyrotechnics, cook for another minute, then reduce the heat and add the stock and cream. In about 3 minutes add the salt and pepper and remove from heat. 

For the side dish, I served the meat with some blistered broccoli and stir fried Napa Cabbage. Regarding the last ingredient, it was a nice surprise for me as its taste proved to work very nice with the meat. Simply cut it any way you want and throw it in a pan with a couple tbs. of olive oil on high heat. Cook for 2 minutes and add just a touch of bourbon to, you guessed it, flambé the cabbage, cook for another 2 minutes. Touch of salt and pepper and you’re done.

The other vegetable didn’t get the bourbon treatment, but I can’t complain: Mrs. G liked it a lot, so much that I can’t cook broccoli in any other way. What can I say? Broccoli can do that to a woman. I found this recipe on Instagram, on the @bonappetitmag account. Cut the veggie into florets making sure you keep a long enough stalk for each floret.

Then cut each one in half so you have a flat surface for each broccoli. Heat up some olive oil on high heat, put the veggie with the flat side down in there and cook until you get a dark brown color. Flip the broccoli and place the pan in the oven for 10 minutes. Plate the broccoli and add a splash of lemon juice, some chili flakes and garlic slices. Absolutely delicious. It’s a wonderful way to give broccoli a nice twist, similar to a Ottolenghi recipe for a broccoli salad that applied similar that technique, but in which you first blanched the veggie before grilling it on a super hot grill.

So, that was our bourbon beef dinner, but feel free to use whisky instead of bourbon. As a suggestion here, go for Islay whisky, some Laphroaig would really hit the spot with its peaty, rich taste.

Enjoy,

Jamon Serrano Covered Turkey Roulade

I’m not a fan of cooking roulades, rolls or whatever you wanna call them. But I have to admit that they look nice on a plate and they give the possibility of pairing some interesting options as filling. In this case, I chose turkey meat because it is basically flavorless and thus, great for choosing strong spices or other ingredients to improve the dish. So the ingredients: about 400 grams of turkey meat, 4-5 mushrooms finely sliced (I used champignon), 1 medium onion, finely diced, 3-4 cloves garlic, 200 grams bacon, asparagus, jamon slices for covering the meat rolls, I used about 100 grams, thyme, olive oil, salt pepper.

So, about the turkey, I had an almost square piece of breast meat, that I cut in 2. For each piece, I cut it in the middle, but not all the way through (think it like it’s a book), then I tenderized the meat (to be read: beat it with a meat hammer which is also to be read rolling pin), reducing its thickness and creating 2 sheets of meat. 

For the filling, I diced the bacon, fried for 6-7 minutes on high heat, then added the onion, mushrooms and garlic, salt (taste your bacon, it may not be necessary) and pepper.

Cook this until the mushrooms have lost almost all their water (10-15 minutes). This is important because, otherwise, the water will come out of the roulade and flood the tray you’re cooking it in (or you can just cook the roll on a grill on top of the tray). Bacon wise, I diced the meat into medium chunks, you can try with a smaller size, it should give you a crispier outcome.

Before putting the filling in, I used the mortar and pestle to mash a couple tbs of thyme leaves into a paste to which I added some olive oil, and I rubbed the inside of the turkey meat with the resulting paste. After that, I put some filling on the meat (leave it to cool before this, it will make handling it a lot easier), and, in the middle, an asparagus spear that has decorative value when you slice the roll (I used the white type, green works better me thinks). Roll your turkey meat, and the cover it with some thin jamon slices (you could use prosciutto, pancetta, spek, or any other cured ham smoked or not) all the way around.

 Put this in the oven for 30- 40 minutes on high heat, and leave it to cool for 10 minutes when getting it out.
 We served it with tabbouleh, as shown in the previous post you can enjoy here. 

Have a great day,
Mr. G.

The Return of the Vengeful Gnocchi- Gnocchi with Spicy Seafood Ragu

The previous gnocchi recipe, with butter and sage sauce

 Guess who’s back? I really felt like eating some more of this wonderful potato pasta, so I decided to give it a try with a nice, thick, red ragu sauce. Initially, I opted for rabbit, but I couldn’t find a decent piece of meat, so we’ll leave that for another time.

Regarding the pasta, this has been done before, check it out here (it actually went better then than now).

For the sauce:

200 grams of baby squids, 

200 grams of shrimp tails, 

2 small red onions, 

3 garlic cloves, 

2 tbs of fresh thyme leaves, 

6 mushrooms (I used champignon), 

2 tbs  dark sugar, 

1tsp chilli powder, 

½ glass of medium red wine, 

salt, pepper, olive oil.

So, on medium heat cook the onions (diced), mushrooms (finely sliced) and sugar, for about 5-6 minutes then add the diced garlic, thyme and chilli and cook for another minute. Add the squids then cook those for about 10 minutes, the put in the shrimp and give that 1-2 minutes. If you’re using frozen seafood, keep in mind that the meat will shrink and it will lose a lot of weight on the fire, so you can increase your quantities. 

Ok, next pour in the wine, lower heat, and let it simmer until the sauce thickens (shouldn’t be long). In the end, pour in the pasta, and mix everything for another minute, adding more of the gnocchi water if you feel the sauce is too thick. Plate your dish, then add some more thyme leaves for an extra kick. 

The previous gnocchi recipe, with butter and sage sauce

Enjoy!

Prosciutto Wrapped Beef Tenderloin, Mushroom and Spinach Sauté and Polenta

This was, without the shadow of a doubt, one of the best dishes I tried in our kitchen. The ingredients themselves were great and the combo proved to be top notch quality. So, I’m going to take it step by step, and explain every dish separately.

The meat: for this dish we had a nice piece of beef tenderloin, about 400-450 grams, that we cut in to 3 equal parts. The advantage of using the loin is the fact that the mat has a round shape and it’s easier to wrap the prosciutto around it. Besides the beef, I had 6 slices of the prosciutto, 2 tbs of finely chopped sage and  a couple of tbs of olive oil. Wrap 2 prosciutto strips around the length of each beef portion, leaving the sections clear (you can use string to keep the met on, I didn’t find it necessary).  Rub some sage on the parts that are not covered by the ham.  Next, heat up the olive oil in a oven-proof pan, and, when it’s nice and hot cook on all sides for about 1 minute each. After that, transfer the pan to a preheated oven (180 Celsius) for around 15 minutes or how long you need to cook the meat the way you like it. After that, just let it sit for a couple of minutes before  cutting it an transferring to a plate.

Mushroom and Spinach Sauté : Meanwhile, heat up some oil in a pan, and add 1 medium onion and 1 clove garlic, finely chopped, and about 500 grams of button mushrooms, cleaned and cut into quarters. Saute this over medium high heat until the mushrooms are soft, add about 200 grams of spinach leaves, salt, pepper, and cook for another 2 minutes, then remove from the stove.

For the polenta, put to boil in a tall, heavy base pan, 500 ml water, a pinch of salt, and a sprinkle of cornmeal. When this mix starts boiling, slowly add more cornmeal, mixing constantly. When it gets hard to mix, stop adding the flour, but keep on stirring the polenta. This whole operation should be done in 12-15 minutes.  Remove the pan form the heat, add 50 grams of butter and about 75 grams of grated parmigiano and mix it all together.

So, these are the 3 parts of the recipe, actually pretty easy to cook at the same time. You can also make a very easy reduction, like the one here. 

Enjoy!