Cheese and Pears

Archive for January, 2010

Canned Tuna Recipes: Tuna Pasta

Posted on Jan 28, 2010 06:50:31 AM

Tuna pasta is the most common of the canned tuna recipes, and also the typical lunch of college students. After all, what’s quicker and cheaper that that? Drain the pasta, open the can of tuna, and it’s done, no need to add extra oil either, the one in the can will do,  just don’t expect to be of the highest quality.

The only problem is, this is too simple to have any taste, but when you are a penniless student you hardly care. When you’re older though, with a job and more refined tastes (well, sort of), pasta with tuna needs to be more sophisticated, even for a lazy Saturday lunch. So here we go, just to remind us that we’re getting older and fussy about certain things.

For two people:

• 160-200g (5½ – 7 oz) short pasta (ie no spaghetti)
• a tin of  200-250g (7-9 oz) tuna in brine, drained
• ½ onion or 1 stick of leek, thinly chopped
• 3-4 tbsp olive oil
• a handful of olives
• 1 tbsp capers
• salt and pepper
• ½ tin tomato purée (passata di pomodoro) or  plum tomatoes

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, add the onion or the leek, let sauté for 10 minutes at medium heat. Add the tuna and the tomatoes and let it cook on a medium heat for 10-15 minutes.

Cook pasta according to the packet instructions (here is a little help on how to cook pasta), drain and keep some of the cooking water. Add the pasta to the frying pan, and mix it with the tuna sauce on a medium heat. Add  a tbsp or two of cooking water if it’s too dry. Finish with the olives and capers, and you’re good to go: tuna pasta recipe for adults.

Back to the library now.

Pear Risotto With Walnuts

Posted on Jan 27, 2010 07:45:22 AM

If  you have done risotto properly a couple of times (if not, you can start from this mushroom risotto or the saffron risotto), this pear risotto with walnuts looks like an easy one, but it’s actually very easy to mess it up.

Here is what you’ll need for 2 people:

• 2 medium pears
• 150-200g (5-7oz) risotto rice
• 1 glass white wine
• a handful of walnuts, thinly chopped
• ½ liter (1 pint) vegetable stock
• 30g (1oz) butter
• grated Parmesan
• ½ onion, thinly chopped
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

About the pears: I’m not an expert and I’m also too lazy to google it, but you’ll need two different types: the soft yellowish one, and the hard green one.

Preheat the oven at 200°C (400°F).

Peel both pears, slice the soft one and thinly dice the hard one. Put the slices of the soft pear in a small pan, on low heat, pour ½ glass of white wine and enough water to cover them (probably one tablespoon or two). Cook for a few minutes until the slices are really soft and put aside.

Put the walnuts on the baking tray and toast them in the oven for 10 minutes.

Now you can start your risotto routine:

• sauté of olive oil and onion
• rice
• white wine
• one ladle of stock at the time

Add the soft pear half-way through, and the hard one almost in the end with walnuts. The point of all this is to have two different tasting pears: one soft, cooked and winy, the other one fresh and slightly sour.

When the rice is done, add butter and Parmesan, cover with a lid for 3 minutes, give a good stir and serve.

Cauliflower Pasta

Posted on Jan 27, 2010 07:06:04 AM

This cauliflower pasta recipe is the proof that you can make pasta with pretty much anything.The cool thing about this cauliflower pasta is that you cook the cook the pasta and the cauliflower in the same water: additional taste guaranteed.

For 2 people you will need:

• 160-200g (5-7oz) short pasta (ie no spaghetti)
• a cauliflower
• olive oil, salt and pepper
• a handful of raisins
• a handful of grated Parmesan
• ½ glass whit wine
• a clove of garlic

Chop the cauliflower and cook it in boiling salted water for 10-15 minutes until tender. Turn off the heat. Take the pieces out of water using a ladle, but keep the water, as you will use the same for the pasta.

In a frying pan heat the olive oil with the garlic and gently stir-fry the cauliflower. After 2-3 minutes add the white wine. When it’s evaporated, add pepper and raisins and, and some more salt if necessary. Continue stir-frying for about 10 minutes more.

In the meantime, bring the cauliflower water back to boil and cook the pasta (follow this post on how to cook pasta if you’re not sure), without adding salt.

When you drain the pasta, make sure you keep some cooking water. Put the pasta in the frying pan with the cauliflower, on a medium heat, and mix everything together. Add a tablespoon or two of cooking water if it’s too dry.

Sprinkle with Parmesan and that’s how this cauliflower pasta is done.

Scallops

Posted on Jan 26, 2010 07:51:09 AM

This scallop recipe is probably the first seafood recipe ever of this blog, except for the shrimp risotto and the shrimp and zucchini pasta. I must admit I prefer meat rather than seafood, but these scallops almost made me change  my mind. The Italian name for Scallop is capasanta, I’m not sure where it comes from though, strangely enough there’s no explanation in Wikipedia, and the only account that I found is that the shells were used in the Middle Ages to pour holy water during baptism (“santa” means holy), but this could be the usual regurgitated info with no reference you find on the Internet.

Anyway, back to scallop recipes, this is a typical seafood starter in Italy, and a very easy one to prepare. Shells are important in this recipe, so go to a fishmonger’s first, he may keep them in the back of the store. Buy six of them, you can put them in the dishwasher and re use them as many times as you want.

Except for the scallops, I’m not able to give exact quantities, as each ingredient goes in the shell in tiny amounts. Go with your instinct. However for 4 people you will need:

• butter
• 2-3 scallops (depending on how big they are) for each shell
• a drizzle of white wine
• a pinch of parsley, freshly copped
• a pinch breadcrumbs

Preheat the oven at 180°C (256°F). Put the ingredients equal amount in each shell in the same order as above. Stick the shells in the oven for 15-20 minutes, and you got yourself a pretty amazing seafood starter.

Homemade Pizza Recipes: a Recap

Posted on Jan 25, 2010 07:38:40 AM

This is a recap of my homemade pizza recipes for the past 3-4 months. Friday night is pizza night at the Cheese and Pears household. The pizza dough recipe remains the same, you can find it here with this thin crust pizza, or this thin pizza crust where, I just found out, I used to do things differently.

Or, you can read it here below. Dough for 2 people:

• 250g (½ pound + 1tbsp) strong flour
• 30g (1oz) fresh yeast
• 115g (4 fl oz) water, possibly filtered.
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil

You should be able to find find fresh yeast in a supermarket with a very good bakery sections. Once you find it, you can buy even a pound and freeze it.

Pour the water in a container with the yeast and stick it in the microwave for 40 seconds, or until it’s lukewarm. Add the oil and the sugar, stir for 2 minutes and let it rest.

In a bowl, sift the flour and salt, make a hole in the middle and pour the yest mix. With a wooden spoon or with two fingers, bring the flour in towards the center, until you have to use the whole hand to mix. When you have managed to put together the flour, transfer it to the working surface and knead it for at least 5 minutes. The water should be enough for a slightly damp dough. but not too much. It should stick to the working surface, but also come off easily.

One you are done, out it back in the bowl, dust with flour, cover with a cloth and let it raise for 2 hours or until it doubles in size. If it’s winter time, don’t be afraid to put it close to the heater, as the ideal temperature for yeast is over 20°C (68°F).

Once the dough is ready, start preheating the oven at 220°C+ (428°F+). The quantity of flower should be enough for a thin crust pizza, so start rolling with a rolling pin on a sheet of oven paper, until you have reached the rectangular shape. Now, if you want you can cut the pizza in 4 squares and roll up the edges a little bit. This is great if you’re sharing the pizza with someone with tastes different from your and you won’t have to cut it after it’s cooked.

Now, for the pizza toppings, the one thing you will always need is tomato purée (passata di pomodoro), 1 tin, plus salt, pepper and oregano. Put them in a small bowl, stir and cover the whole surface of the dough with it.

Put it in the oven for about 7-10 minutes. In the meantime, start lookinf in you fridge to see what else you could put on top. The (fabuolous) pictures in this page have the following pizza toppings we have used over the past months:

• Mozzarella cheese
• Brie
• Camembert
• Parmesan
• Feta cheese
• Sweetcorn
• Capers
• Bacon bits
• Cooked ham
• Olives
• Mushrooms
• Tuna
• Salami
• Peppers

When you have decided, take out the pizza, add the rest of the ingredients, and finish cooking until the edges are brown. Add a drizzle of olive oil if you like.

Green Bean Salad With Cod: Super Fast and Easy

Posted on Jan 24, 2010 06:32:13 PM

This green bean salad with cod is a very, very easy salad recipe, made with frozen beans and cod (fresh frozen as the cook of an unfortunate restaurant said about his food in an episode of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen nightmare USA).

This salad is so simple that I wasn’t even sure if I should post it, but in the current economical climate I cannot afford to waste anything. And it’s so quick that you don’t even need to weight the ingredients, it all works with handfuls.

For two people:

• two handfuls of green beans
• two fillets of cod
• a handful of olives
• olive oil and vinegar
• salt and pepper
• ½ glass white wine
• a clove of garlic

Put the runner beans (frozen or not) in salted boiling water, and cook them for 10-until tender, drain and put aside.

In a frying pan, heat the some olive oil with the garlic, then add the cod (roughly cut in pieces) and stir fry for 2-3 minutes, pour the wine and let it evaporate and cook it in its water until tender.

In a bowl put together the green beans, olives and cod, dress with olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.

Fastest green bean salad recipe ever.

Savory Pie With Broccoli Zucchini and Potatoes

Posted on Jan 10, 2010 11:22:19 AM

After surviving Christmas with the family and Year End at the Company, Cheese and Pears is back, trying to cope with a fall in the number of visits to the site, that is only second to the fall of employment rate over here in Ireland (bad joke, I know). Ice has taken possession of the Country and this afternoon it will snow again, hopefully for the last time. Luckily enough I can work from home and save myself a 7 km journey at 5 km per hour.

Let’s go back in the kitchen with this great savory pie, “torta salata” in Italian, where salata means salted (as opposed to sweet of course). Now, don’t ask me the difference between a torta salata and a quiche lorraine, maybe there is some real foodie reading this (as opposed to a fake one like me) able to explain that to me. Actually I’m not going to pass this off as authentic Italian but hey, my mom makes it, my sister makes it, and I make it, and that’s enough to make it Italian food.

The pastry for the quiche is a shortcrust pastry but without sugar. For 4 people you will need:

• 200g (7oz) plain flour
• a pinch of salt
• 100g (3½oz) chilled butter, diced
• 1 medium egg, beaten
• a pinch of salt
• a tbsp of cold milk just in case

(Confession, in case I haven’t said that before: I don’t know if someone out there enjoys making shortcrust pastry, but I don’t)

Put the flour in a bowl, add a pinch of salt, make a hole in the middle and put the butter cubes in it. Using your fingertips, rub flour and butter together until they are like breadcrumbs. Add the beaten egg and work the dough just enough to put the ingredients together. If the dough is too dry, add just ½ tbsp of cold milk at the time. As soon as you have a ball that can hold together, cover it with clingfilm and stick it in the fridge, but before doing that, flatten it with the palm of your hand, as it will be easier to roll it afterwards. Leave it in the fridge for 30 minutes or one hour until firm.

In the meantime start preparing the filling. You will need:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 broccoli, chopped in small pieces
• 3-4 medium potatoes, finely diced
• 1 zucchini, finely diced
• 1 medium egg
• 50g (1½oz) grated parmesan
• a handful of breadcrumbs
• salt and pepper

Heat the olive oil and the garlic in a frying pan, add the diced vegetables and cook them for about 15 minutes until they start to soften. Pour them in a bowl and let them cool, then add the egg, Parmesan, salt and pepper.

Preheat the oven at 180°C (356°F). Grease a 22cm (9inch) cake tin with butter and dust with flour. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll the shortcrust pastry with a rolling pin. This is the most delicate part (for me, at least), because the pastry crumbles very easily, so be gentle. I usually roll the pastry on a sheet of baking paper, keeping the shape as round as possible, until it is a little larger then the tin, then transfer it, and press it down gently with the fingertips to make it stick to the bottom and the side of the baking tin.

Add the vegetable mix, sprinkle the breadcurmbs and bake it in the oven for about 40 minutes, until the top is golden.