Red Onion and Salami Salad

A simple salami salad made with a quarter of a red onion, halved green seedless grapes, sliced yellow pepper, garlic, and shredded salad tomatoes. Plus, in this case, some roughly cut pieces of Wild Boar salami, though any salami sausage will do. Mixed together in a bowl, with some sunflower oil, tomato puree (just a dash), and two dashes of lemon juice. Allow to stand for an hour or so, stirring occasionally, and serve with black pepper. 

Red Onion and Salami Salad

Chicken Cambozola

Fried pieces of chicken breast in a spicy chilli and Cambozola sauce, served with wheat free fusili.

The chicken pieces were cooked the day before the dish was prepared, and stored in the fridge overnight. The sauce was made with stir-fried chilli, red onion, yellow pepper, red pepper. After cooking at a medium heat for ten minutes, stirring occasionally, I added tomato passata, and some boiling water to the saute pan. I cut about 100g of Cambozola cheese into strips and added them to the sauce, stirring constantly until the cheese melted (you might want to remove the rind of the cheese first). Add the chicken pieces and allow the dish to simmer under glass for twenty minutes or so. 

Prepare the fusili ten minutes before the dish is to be served. I used ASDA's own brand wheat free fusili, and cooked it in salted water, stirring frequently.  Add oregano and basil to the sauce, stir, and decant the chicken pieces and the sauce into a serving bowl. Add the fusili on top, and stir once with a fork. Add freshly ground black pepper to taste. 

Chicken Cambozola

Salted Pancakes

Made with brown wheat-free flour (Dove's Farm), milk, two eggs, salt, coriander leaf and oregano. 

Mix two heaped dessert spoonfuls of the brown flour into 200 mls of whole milk until the batter is smooth, then add the two eggs, and beat thoroughly. Allow the batter to stand for half an hour, then add a teaspoonful of salt, a large pinch of coriander leaf and a small pinch of oregano. Whisk the mixture thoroughly. 

Cover the base of a large saute pan in a thin coating of sunflower oil, and bring to a medium heat. Pour some of the mixture into the centre of the pan, until it reaches the edge of the base. Turn the heat down if you do not want to brown the pancake, and cook slowly for five minutes each side. At a medium heat the pancake will cook in a shorter time, and should be cooked for at least two minutes on each side. Repeat the process until the batter mixture is used up. 

These pancakes are ideal for eating with ham and cheese pizza-style, raw or grilled, and are thin enough to use as savoury wraps. 

Salted Pancakes

Ham Omelette with Grilled Cheese

 A simple omelette made with ham, chopped tomato, sliced red pepper, and spring onion, Topped with a cheese of your choice, Cheddar, mozarella, Parmigiano Reggiano, blue stilton, etc. 

Chop and slice the vegetables and the thin slices or squares of ham, and stir-fry in sunflower oil in a small pan with high sides, until the tomato and spring onion start to lose definition. Beat together three eggs in a bowl, and add to the pan. Cook at a low heat until the bottom half of the omelette has cooked. Preheat the grill. Chop cheese into squares, or grate, and cover the surface of the omelette. 

Put the omelette pan under the grill, and near the front, with the handle facing outwards. Grill for 5 or 10 minutes until the surface properly grilled, turning the pan to the left for a few minutes, and then to the right, to ensure all the cheese has melted, and the result is golden brown. 

Serve with freshly ground black pepper. Delicious!

Ham Omelette with Grilled Cheese 

Chilli Chicken with Brown Basmati Rice

A simple dish which can be made with a range of vegetables. In this case, tomato, green beans, spring onion, mushrooms, peppers, chilli, and garlic. With chicken, chicken stock, peppers, and some tomato puree. 

The brown basmati was cooked with some camargue wild red rice. Takes thirty minutes to cook. 

Leek and Potato Soup, with Cumin

A simple winter soup, made with two medium leeks, four carrots, and two peeled potatoes, all roughly chopped. Cook in water in a lidded pan at a low simmer, until all the vegetables are soft. Mash. Cook again for at least twenty minutes, and puree with a hand-blender. 

Add some coriander leaf, a couple of pinches of ground cumin, a pinch of nutmeg, chicken stock, a dash of Tabasco sauce, and some Worcestershire sauce. Cook for another ten minutes, and serve. A real winter warmer!

Leek and Potato Soup, with Cumin

Peppered Salami Salad

Four slices of German peppered Salami, cut into strips, two shredded salad tomatoes, a dozen halved black seedless grapes, two chopped spring onions, and half a green pepper, cut into strips. The salad was dressed in olive oil, a dash of lemon juice, and one squeeze of tomato puree. The mixture was stirred together in a glass bowl, and some coriander leaf, and oregano added. Decanted into a serving bowl, with a dusting of freshly ground black pepper. 

Peppered Salami Salad

Aberdeen Angus Beef Chilli

500g of lean Aberdeen Angus ground beef, fried in its own fat until browned. Then add the chopped vegetables, which are: red and yellow pepper (capsicums), one shredded tomato, one large purple onion, garlic, fresh red and green chillies. Stir-fry with the beef for twenty minutes, stirring frequently. 

Add a cupful of boiling water, two squirts of tomato puree, beef stock, and four bay leaves. Stir together, and cover with glass, reducing the heat to a simmer for at least an hour. 

Remove the bay leaves if you can, and serve with basmati rice. 

Aberdeen Angus Beef Chilli

Wild Boar Salami with Chilli and Quinoa

 A simple dish made with chopped salami, green chilli, garlic, shredded tomato, spring onion, onion, and chopped red pepper. No herbs, no stock, no salt, and no white or black pepper. Just a couple of spoonfuls of tomato puree.

The salami was stir-fried for four minutes in a saute pan, then the vegetables were added. Cook until the tomato pieces start to lose their structure, then add boiling water, and the two spoonfuls of tomato puree. Simmer for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serve with drained quinoa (cooks in around twenty five minutes under glass at a low heat).

Wild Boar Salami with Chilli and Quinoa

Wheat Free Smoked Paprika Brown Bread

I modified a standard wheat-free recipe for brown bread, using Dove's Farm brown flour, by adding a heaped teaspoonful of Spanish smoked paprika. The recipe and preparation details are available on another page.

This loaf has a cracked surface, probably because the preheated oven was too hot when the loaf was put in. Better perhaps to have the start temperature a little too low, and to raise the temperature after that. The first yeast I used was ineffective, so I added another batch of yeast and remixed the dough. That might also have had something to do with it. But the integrity of the loaf was fine, and it was very easy to cut thin slices from it.

The result is delicious! The texture of the bread seems to be softer than without the addition of the smoked paprika. Great to eat with French Brie, or a cottage cheese with pepper and a dash of Tabasco Sauce.

Wheat Free Smoked Paprika Brown Bread

Tomato, Onion and Brocolli Soup

You could make this with a tin of tomatoes or some tomato passata, but I made this dish with a bag of tomatoes bought for a bargain price at Lidl's supermarket. I chopped up about ten medium sized tomatoes, and cooked them in boiling water until they were soft (about twenty minutes or so. An Italian chef would take me to task for not removing the skins first by dipping them in boiling water and peeling them). Then I made the tomatoes into a puree with a hand blender. 

Add chopped onion, and about half of the spears from a head of brocolli, chopped into thin strips. Cook until both the onion and brocolli are soft enough to mash. Mash for one minute. Add shredded basil and a little oregano, plus some vegetable stock. Cook for another twenty to thirty minutes or so. Put freshly ground black pepper in the bottom of the bowl before serving (according to taste). That's it! Utterly delicious, and can be made from scratch in under ninety minutes. 

Tomato, Onion and Brocolli Soup