Stifado - Greek lamb stew

Traveling. Oh, how it broadens one's horizons. Culinary ones, too. My family firmly believed in the merits of domestic expeditions, so I was almost in my twenties before my first real foreign holiday.

Already then something awoke in the mind and palate of yours truly, born and bred in a small town at the Arctic Circle. Olive oil can taste like this? There are other fish in the word besides salmon? But the biggest shock came somewhere in Greece in the form of mouthwateringly tender stifado. It was somehow familiar, yet exotic. It took me a while before I could put my finger on it: there was cinnamon in it! " Say what? Cinnamon in meat? Do they not know it's something people only use in rice pudding and apple pies?" Yeah. 

It's probably good I didn't go out of my way lecturing them about the proper ways of doing things in the kitchen - if a nation has given the world democracy, the principal upon which the entire Western world is built, then maybe, just maybe, they know their way around the kitchen too...?

Since then my excursions have taken me to Arab word and those gentle, warm spices have found a loving home in my own kitchen, too. Grab yourself this recipe for bokharat spice blend, fall in love with these sambousek- pasties or spoil your loved ones with these Andalusian-style lamb shanks!

A "behind the scenes" photo I published on Instagram immediately garnered a grateful response. "At last stiffed that actually looks like a stiffed!" shipped one of my followers. Oh yeah - none of those oregano, olives or feta in my recipe that apparently seem to turn any dish into a "Greek" one. 

For meat I used lamb: 1,4 kg slab of boneless lamb shoulder to be precise. After trimming off the excess fat and membranes I was left with 1 kg of meat. Lamb could just as well be substituted with any stewing meat: beef or rabbit!

Serves four

Stifado:

1 kg boneless lamb shoulder/ other stewing meat
salt,  black pepper
oil for frying

5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
10 allspice peppers
2 sticks of cinnamon
3 bay leaves
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1,5 tbsp tomato concentrate
1 tsp ground cloves
350 g passata
1 tbsp sugar
4 dl red wine
750 g pearl onions

If using shoulder, trim off excess fat and membranes. Cut into 1 inch- cubes.

Brown the meat in a couple of batches, season (generously!) and move aside.

Add garlic into a pan along with rest of the ingredients (apart from onions) and bring to boil. Add meat and simmer, over medium heat, covered for 1-1,5 hrs. Every now and then check to make sure there's enough liquid.

Peel the onions and brown them too. Add into the pot and continue cooking for another hour. Check the taste and season as needed.

Serve with rice, bulgur, couscous or boiled potatos. For extra yumminess sauté the potatos in a garlic and rosemary-infused butter after parboiling them.

Our most successful wine pairing for this spicy, warm, comforting dish is this. Australian Lindeman's Bin 50 Shiraz has soft tannins and full-bodied richness that is perfect for dark meats and stews, even gamey ones. It also has a lovely spiciness that matches well with the warm spicy notes of the stifado itself.

PS. Those Andalusian lamb shanks are our entry in Finnish food bloggers' monthly food challenge, too. This month the theme is Easter and the voting is open...! Cast your vote over here!

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ANYONE FOR SECONDS?

      

Duck a l'orange

My career in domestic goddessing has not been without its glitches. Once I set The Gentleman's oven on fire. Another time I burnt one of his beloved Le Creuset pots as I was caramelizing carrots (?) for sushi (?!). Bent knives remind of my "we don't need any of those Japanese miracle knives they sell on QVC that cut through soda cans and soles of shoes"- attempts to saw cubes of frozen seafood. The all time low would still probably have to be the time I gave him a food poisoning.

At one point some years ago there was a legendary recipe circulating in American glossies called "The Engagement Chicken". It was named that because it was so good and comforting in a way only a  home-cooked meal is that several women who cooked it for their significant others were proposed to as the men realized this was exactly the kind of woman they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with.

I approaches this challenge with carelessness and always-as-elegant "how hard can that be"- attitude. Well, featuring an entire bird, very. I went on waiting for that proposal for another four years - that night we were both far too busy running to the loo...

Since then The Gentleman has been in charge of cooking endeavours of that scale. I have strived to keep mine smaller (both in scale and in ambition...)

Duck is my favourite dead animal and one we eat quite often - it, too, being so cheap in Spain. Around Christmastime shops sell whole ones and even those sell for €10.

Duck in orange sauce is so retro it just might be downright tragic. Though mine is´n't very sweet but in it's spiciness rather Christmasy. Perhaps this marks its comeback...?

For 2

2 duck breasts (appr. à 350 g)

salt, pepper

Orange Sauce

4 dl chicken stock
2 dl freshly squeezed orange juice
2 tsp orange marmalade (not sweet)
2 tsp grated orange zest
1 cinnamon stick (or 1/2 tsp cinnamon)
1/2 tsp cardamom
2 cloves
1/4 tsp ginger (dried is fine)
1 tbsp sugar
knob of butter
salt, pepper

Take the duck ito room temperature at least an hour in advance. Heat the oven 200°.

Pat the ducks dry, score the fat side with a sharp knife almost all the way through to the meat. Season. Put the duck in a cold pan, fat side down and then start bringing the heat up.This way the fat melts, keeping the duck moist but without burning. Once the fat side has a good, brown colour, turn around and cook the other side until beautifully browned. Move the duck in the oven and continue cooking for 4-8 minutes, depending on the desired doneness. I like mine very rosé, so I'm a 4-minute-girl.  Wrap the duck in foil and let rest for 10 minutes. This gives the meat and the juices the chance to recollect their composure (a.k.a. redistribute the juices evenly)  and stay moist.

In the meanwhile make the sauce. Pour the stock and the juice into a pan with the spices and cook over fairly high heat until it starts reducing. Add marmalade (mine was tangy kind, but if you must use the sweet one, you might want to tone it down with a little dash of soy sauce) and sugar. Whisk until smooth and run through a sieve. Add orange zest, check taste, season as/ if needed and add a know of butter to round up the flavours and to add a nice sheen to it.

Serve the duck with sauce and roasties (that duck fat rocks when frying potatos!) or grilled veg. Such as asparagus.

Albondigas en salsa de tomato - Spanish meatballs

Probably the most beautiful thing The Gentleman has ever uttered to yours truly is his comment on one of my visits to Sweden, his residence at the time. He told me that when I'm around, the house he lived in "smelled of home". Awwwwww.

And what's more homely that meatballs. Or albondigas, as they're called in Spain. Its name echoes the Arabic influence still prominent in Andalusia today- it comes from the Arabic word al bunduq. The word means hazelnut which I would imagine refers to shape of these meaty nuggets.

Albondigas is one of the most common tapas dishes and just like with meatballs everywhere, there are as many recipes as there are cucinas. This is mine. This recipe changes from day to day, based on my mood and the ingredients available. Today they were like this. 

I like to soften the onions in oil before adding it to the mince, but each to their own. Some like the chewiness of raw onions in the meatballs. After the onion is done, I fry the spices in the oil too, to wake them up a bit. Some don't.

You can use any mince you like: pork, beef or even chicken. Or their blend. In our kitchen the mince is usually beef.

Many recipes use an egg, but I don't - I prefer the softness in the texture. I also don't fry them first, but cook them in the sauce as they soak up some of the flavours while and remain juicy. Some people roll their meatballs in flour before adding them to the sauce as it helps thicken the sauce. Feel free to do entirely as you want. 

Some use milk for soaking the bread, I use diluted tomato sauce or, like today, stock. SO again: each to their own!

Andalusia and especially Jerez, is known for its sherry, which some recipes use to add a bit of oomph to the sauce (and occasionally even to the meatballs). We have never learnt to drink sherry, so we never haev any spare bottles lying around the cupboards. So, I normally substitute it with dry white wine- seeing how we never have any shortage of that.

Any self-respecting chef obviously makes his/her own tomato sauce from the scratch by roasting the tomatos and onions and then liquidizing them and reducing the sauce to a desired consistency but the canned stuff available these days is just so good that I don't even feel bad for taking the shortcut.

For serving as tapas I usually make the balls bigger, in which case this recipes yields about 15 meatballs. The standard size ones you get about 24.

5 tapas portions

400 gr mince

2 slices of white bread 
(I used toast with the crusts cut off)

0.6 l stock

400 gr tinned tomatos 
(I use fritura, which is the pureed variety)

1 smallish onion, finely chopped

2 tsp pimientoa (any paprika works)

1 tsp cinnamon

2 small or 1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped 
 (if you use the powdered kind, 1 heaped tsp)
1 small chili finely chopped
a couple of dashes of white wine
salt, pepper to taste
1 heaped tsp chopped coriander leaves
1 handful chopped parsley




Soak the bread in appr. 0.5 dl of stock. In the meanwhile heat some oil in a pan. Sautée the onion until soft and transluscent. Then add half of the pimiento powder, chili, half of cinnamon and garlic. Add a dash of white wine and mix it together in a hot pan. Add into the bread- mixture. Add the mince, coriander and half of parsley. Season with salt and pepper and work it all together.

Let sit in the fridge for half and hour allowing the tastes come together. Roll into even-sized balls. 

Heat the oil in which you fried the onions and spices. Add another dash of white wine to get all the taste from the pan, then add the remaining pimiento and cinnamon. Pour in the tomatosauce and the rest of the stock. If needed, reduce over high heat.

Drop the balls into the sauce. Be gentle and avoid breaking them. Let simmer in the pan, covered, for about 10-15 minutes. No need to fret, since the balls are cooking in the liquid, they're not going to dry even if you forget them for a moment as you're sipping some of that wine. 

In the end sprinkle the remaining parsley on top and enjoy. With that remaining wine, perhaps...

Breakfast in bed

Sunday mornings are for lazying around and for delicious breakfasts, of course. And on Sundays The Gentleman gets his served in bed.

One thing where the French really are on to something is their delectable contribution to the world of breakfast dishes: French toast. Egg-soaked bread fried in butter, served with berries and a dusting of icing sugar. That is also my niece's and nephew's favourite way to start the day.

If there's one thing these 6- and 9-year-olds have learnt it is this: proper French toast is definitely not cooked in a whiff of health-conscious low-fat cooking spray substitute. Answer to "what do we need now?" comes from these chef apprentices immediately: BUTTER!

This is a delicious way to recycle stale bread otherwise going to waste (I suppose that's how the treat got its original name pain perdu, wasted bread from?) so we often use regular toast for this.

Today's coconutty version was served with blueberries. And it was yummy. I think I'll declare tomorrow Sunday as well...

Serves 4 

4 slices of toast

2 eggs

appr.4 dl milk

1 tsp vanilla sugar

1 tsp cardamom (or 1/2 tsp cinnamon)

1 heaped tbsp coconut flakes or ground coconut

1 tbsp sugar

butter for frying

Whisk the eggs and mix with milk. Add the coconut flakes or coconut meal along with sugar, vanilla sugar and cardamom (in case you're using coconut meal, you might want to add a bit more sugar).

Slice the toasts diagonally and let them soak thoroughly in the egg-mixture.

Heat the butter in a pan and fry on both sides until crisp and golden brown on the outside.

Dust with icing sugar and serve with berries.