Tamarind Soup with Beans and Mushrooms

Made with a soup base of diced leek, chopped carrot, and crushed garlic.

The vegetables were fried in olive oil under glass, until the leeks began to brown. Then 300mls of boiling water was added, and the soup was allowed to simmer for half an hour. Then the contents of the pot were mashed (blend them, if you prefer).

At this point add a quarter teaspoonful of tamarind paste, and stir through thoroughly. A handful of dried cannellini beans had been soaked overnight, and were added to the pot, along with half a dozen small and diced mushrooms, after the simmering. Plus some chicken stock,  tomato puree (two squirts), a quarter teaspoonful of paprika powder, and also a quarter teaspoonful of black pepper.

Simmer for another half an hour, stirring occasionally. Add more water to the pot if necessary.

Works well with other ingredients, in particular borlotti beans or chickpeas.

White bean Mediterranean Salad

A delicious salad made with cannellini beans, stoned black olives, cherry tomatoes, orange pepper, spring onion, garlic, and dressed in olive oil and vinegar, with a small drizzle of lemon juice.

The dried beans were allowed to soak overnight before being boiled for twenty five minutes, allowed to cool, and then drained.

All the vegetables (minus the olives and the lettuce salad) were diced and mixed together in a bowl with the oil and vinegar, the lemon juice, and then dusted with some coriander leaf and paprika.

Served on the bed of baby leaf salad, with a little black pepper. 

Toulouse Sausage Casoulet

This is a variation on the standard recipe, using plain pork sausages. Toulouse sausage is made with 75 percent pork, and is flavoured with wine, garlic, pepper and salt. All these ingredients are present in this dish.

Made with chopped onion, potato, carrot, tomato, plus haricot beans, tomato puree, pork or ham stock, white or red wine, garlic, and two sachets of Bouquet Garni, which is a mixture of Bay leaf, Parsley, Marjoram, Thyme, and Rosemary.

The sausages were cooked and browned first in a saute pan (in a couple of dessert spoonfuls of goose fat), along with the onion. Then the other vegetables were added, along with the garlic, and the contents were  soused in boiling water and the pork stock. Add a standard glass of wine.  Add pre-cooked haricot beans and tomato puree (other beans can be used in addition).Simmered under glass for at least forty-five minutes.

The sachets of bouquet garni were added last, during the final ten minutes, in order not to destroy the flavour. Serve with black pepper. Garnish the dish with some leaves (spinach in this case).

Pesto Chicken Salad

A really simple one-pot pesto chicken salad, with penne pasta.

I used 200g of fine beans from Kenya, two chicken drumsticks from the fridge (roasted in the oven the day before at 180 deg C for thirty minutes, after being dressed with some sea-salt), and a large handful of penne pasta (wheat-free variety from Sainsbury's). Plus two spring onions.

Wash the beans, and bunch together with the stems all facing the same direction, and slice off the stems. Then dice the beans with a sharp knife, into 1cm pieces. Add to a pot of salted boiling water along with the similarly diced spring onions. Cook for ten minutes under glass, after turning down the heat to a simmer.

Add the penne to the pot, along with a dash of olive oil, and cook for another 10 to 12 minutes at a simmer. Stir frequently.

Strip the meat from the drumsticks and cover. No need to strip the skin before cutting with a knife. Put to one side.

Once the pasta and the beans are fully cooked, drain the water from the pot, using a sieve or the lid of the pot to hold in the contents. Then add cold water to the pot. Drain and repeat. Allow the pot and the contents to cool to room temperature (if you prefer your salads cold, put into the fridge for an hour).

Add three teaspoonfuls of green pesto sauce to the pot (which is essentially a mixture of basil and parmesan or other Italian cheese). Stir in thoroughly. Add the chicken pieces, and again, stir together thoroughly. The dish is now ready to serve.

Serve with black pepper and perhaps some Tabasco sauce. Delicious!

Smoked Haddock in a Cheese and Pepper Sauce

Pan fried angel cut smoked haddock (uncoloured), with traditional cut runner beans, and a cheese sauce.

The sauce was prepared first, with four dessert spoonfuls of Greek style yoghurt (instead of the more usual milk), plus two heaped teaspoonfuls of cornmeal (instead of the more usual cornflour). Add water. Stir the ingredients together, and bring to the boil. Add a quarter teaspoonful of Dijon mustard, and a quarter teaspoonful of black pepper. Add two pinches of salt. Add a quarter teaspoonful of turmeric powder. Stir together. Finally, add about 80g of medium strength cheddar cheese, sliced into squares. Stir together until the cheese has dissolved into the sauce. Turn down the heat, and allow to simmer for ten minutes, stirring regularly.

Drizzle a flat non-stick pan with some sunflower oil, and heat it untl the oil is hot. Add the haddock fillet, and cook for seven minutes, turning once (carefully!) after three and a half minutes. Turn down the heat, and allow the cooking to take place mostly under glass.

The runner beans were cooked in a small pot in water. They should be cooked for around seven minutes in boiling water.

Decant the fish to the serving plate first, then drizzle it with a little of the sauce (the instructions above are for a sauce which will accompany several meals). Add the runner beans with a slatted spoon so that they are drained.

Truly delicious! The combination of smoked fish with a cheese sauce is rarely bettered!

Chilli con Carne with Potato

Ground beef, browned in a saute pan for twenty minutes to half an hour. Add sliced onion, diced carrot, and cook until the onions are softened and beginning to brown.

 Add some boiling water, plus six chillies with the stems removed, three chopped cloves of garlic, a tin of kidney beans in juice (add the juice), and six sliced mushroooms. Add three squirts of tomato puree, and four finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes, a pinch of paprika, beef stock, and some chopped basil leaves.

Turn down the heat and simmer the beef for two hours under glass, until tender. Stir occasionally. Remove the chillies before serving if you do not want to eat them. They provide lots of heat just by being in the dish while it is cooked.

Serve with boiled potatoes. Delicious!

Chorizo and Red Onion Cassoulet

Made with red onion, green and yellow peppers, carrot, potato, sugar snap peas, haricot beans, spring onion, chestnut mushrooms, celery, tomato puree, plus ham and vegetable stock.

The onions were stir-fried first, and the rest of the vegetables were added as prepared (chop everything!). I used some oil left over from a jar of grilled peppers, but sunflower oil would be fine. The last thing to be added was the chorizo sausage. Turn down the heat and stir everything together. Cook for fifteen minutes.

Add boiling water to the mix, and stir together. Add the haricot beans (soft), the tomato puree, and the ham and vegetable stocks. Simmer under glass for at least half an hour.

Serve with black pepper, or just as it is.

Chorizo and Bean Stew

A delicious bean stew, made with chorizo sausage (about 150g), flageolet beans, chopped fine beans, chopped roasted red pepper, chopped mango (peeled), chopped onion, spring onion, a 400g tin of Italian plum tomatoes.garlic, chillies, sunflower oil, a pinch of coriander seed, and a little cornflour.

Stir-fry the chopped fine beans, the chopped chorizo, and the onion, until the onion begins to brown.

I used dried flageolet beans which were soaked overnight. Add boiling water to the pan, and add the other vegetables, including the soaked beans, and stir together. Add the ham or pork stock. Then add the plum tomatoes, and mash them into chunks with a wooden spoon or a spatula.

Mix up cornflour and water (a heaped teaspoonful), and add to the other ingredients. Stir well in. Turn down the heat and simmer under glass for at least half an hour, stirring every five minutes.

Can be served as it is, or with some kind of flatbread or garlic bread, or with rice or potatoes, according to choice.

Chilli con Carne, with Yoghurt and Spring Onion

Aberdeen Angus beef, browned in a saute pan for twenty minutes to half an hour. Add sliced onion, diced carrot, and cook until the onions are softened and beginning to brown.

 Add some boiling water, plus six chillies with the stems removed, three chopped cloves of garlic, a tin of kidney beans in juice (add the juice), and six sliced mushroooms. Add three squirts of tomato puree, and four finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes, a pinch of paprika, beef stock, and some chopped basil leaves.

Turn down the heat and simmer the beef for two hours under glass, until tender. Stir occasionally. Remove the chillies before serving if you do not want to eat them. They provide lots of heat just by being in the dish while it is cooked.

Served with natural yoghurt which has had three finely chopped spring onions, one shredded baby plum tomato, and some coriander leaf mixed in. Add the yoghurt mix to the chilli as you eat. Delicious!

Lima Bean and Spinach Soup

Soup made with lima beans (or similar), leek, shredded spinach, and chicken stock.

The dried lima beans should be soaked in a covered bowl overnight, and  cooked separately while the soup base is being prepared, and then drained.

Once the chopped leek and the shredded spinach have been brought to the boil, add the lima beans, and the chicken stock. Simmer together for at least an hour under glass.

Serve with freshly ground black pepper.  I served this soup with a garlic naan bread (which is what I had in the fridge at the time), but any variety of garlic bread would be fine.  

Lima Bean Soup

A simple bean soup, which exists also in more complex versions, fortified with more vegetables and other kinds of bean.  This version consists of Lima beans, celery, onion, carrot, leek, chicken stock, white pepper, ,

Soak the Lima beans overnight in water. Chop two sticks of celery, white onion, the white part of a large leek, and the carrots. Stir fry the vegetables for a few minutes, and then add boiling water. Add the beans and the chicken stock, and the white pepper. Simmer under glass for at least forty-five minutes. Stir occasionally.

Add other beans and herbs according to choice, though this version of the soup is just fine as it is.

Spanish Omelette with Green Beans and Blue Stilton

 An omelette made in a standard flat non-stick omelette pan, with chopped onion, chopped pre-cooked green beans, crushed boiled carrot, about 75 grams of blue Stilton cheese, a pinch of paprika, and four large eggs.

The small chopped onion was fried first in some olive oil, until it was golden brown. Meanwhile I chopped the green beans, and crushed the boiled carrot, before adding these to the pan. Then I cut the Stilton into smallish squares, and stirred the cheese into the mix. The temperature was increased from a low heat to medium heat. Stirred frequently, until all the cheese had melted.

I had preheated the grill while cheese was melting into the vegetables, and while I beat the eggs, with the paprika and two pinches of salt.

I turned down the hob heat to zero after adding the beaten eggs, and waited until the surface of the omelette was bubbling from the heat of the hob. Then the pan was removed from the hob and placed under the grill, at a distance of about four inches from the grill element. Cook for around ten minutes, checking continuously.

Start the process with the handle of the omelette pan sticking straight out of the oven, then turning the handle to the left, and then to the right. When the surface is golden brown, the omelette is ready.

Be careful when removing the pan from the grill, as the handle may be very hot. Use a tea-towel or oven gloves.

Use a plastic spatula or fish slice to loosen the contact between the omelette and the pan, then cover the pan with a plate, and invert the pan and plate (this takes practice!). The omelette should drop from the pan onto the plate in one piece.

Cut into four portions, and serve with black pepper and a small spoonful of mayonnaise.

Lamb and Green Bean Risotto

A simple dish. Arborio rice, plus lean Scottish ground (minced) lamb, browned in its own fat for twenty to twenty five minutes. Two chopped onions were added, plus four shredded cherry tomatoes, and the pot covered.

Cooked at a low heat for another half an hour, stirring frequently. Lamb stock was added, and then boiling water. Add chopped green beans. The lamb was allowed to simmer for two hours until tender. One red chilli was added to give some bite.

The rice was cooked separately in a saute pan for twenty minutes with no salt, and then drained and returned to the pan. Add the lamb and stir together over a low heat. Serve piping hot.

Add a slice of lemon to squeeze over the risotto. Serve with freshly ground black pepper.

Lamb and Green Bean Soup

Lots of  Egyptian green beans in the kitchen. So I made a spicy lamb and green bean soup. No actual lamb in the fridge and freezer, so the lamb flavour came from stock. In addition to chopped green beans, the dish is made with tomato passata (about 200g),  two chopped onions, five carrots, one red chilli, a pinch of oregano, a pinch of basil, a small handful of Khorasan wheat (for flavour and thickening), a quarter cup of green mung beans (green lentils could be substituted), and freshly ground black pepper. 

Two days after making the soup I roasted a lamb leg joint in the oven, and so the last of the soup had some actual lamb in it, in addition to the lamb stock. 

Lamb and Green Bean Soup

Pork and Beans

Referred to in a song by Jim Morrison and the Doors ('Back Door Man', written by Willie Dixon), which didn't make much sense to a Brit on first listening. After the start of WW2 baked beans in Britain became just that: baked beans. Before the war tins of beans in the UK were like those in the US - a mixture of pork and beans. The excuse was saving money and making beans cheaper in straightened times. But in Britain we never went back to pork and beans, and plain baked beans has been ever since an important component of the British diet. I always have about eight tins of beans in my kitchen cupboard. 

So I reconstructed pork and beans with some sliced roast pork. A delicious combination. What would you serve it with? Potatoes are the obvious option, which may have been served with the pork and beans on the cattle herding trail in the old West. Boiled, roasted, or even plain hash browns, cooked on the fire. Excellent with black pepper. 

Pork and Beans

Lentil and Green Bean Soup

A great winter soup, made with half a cup of red lentils, 150g of chopped green beans, half a chopped parsnip, three chopped carrots, one stick of celery, chopped Cavolo Nero cabbage (from Tuscany), one chopped potato, one quarter red onion, a pinch of coriander leaf, four dashes of Tabasco sauce, one dash of Squid brand fish sauce. and two chicken stock cubes. 

All the vegetables were prepared and added to boiling water in the soup pan along with the chicken stock, coriander, Tabasco and fish sauces. Cook for forty five minutes, turning the heat right down, and covering the pan with a glass lid. Stir Occasionally. Then the contents were mashed for two minutes, and allowed to simmer under glass for another hour. Serve with buttered bread (or wheat free bread). 

Lentil and Green Bean Soup

Chicken in an Oyster and Spring Onion Sauce

A simple stir-fry dish, served with flat rice noodles (Blue Dragon brand). I chopped a breast of chicken into small strips and stir-fried them slowly for ten minutes at a medium heat, in a little bacon fat (sunflower oil will do instead, if you prefer). Then I added six sliced mushrooms and a handful of chopped green beans to the stir-fry. Cooked for another eight to ten minutes, stirring frequently. The oyster and spring onion sauce came from Aldi, who do a small range of stir-fry sauces. Cooked for another four or five minutes before serving. 

The rice noodles take eight minutes to cook, unless you intend to add them to the stir-fry, in which case they should be cooked for around six minutes. 

Chicken in an Oyster and Spring Onion Sauce 

Ground Beef, Parsnips, and Brocolli Spears

Made with Aberdeen Angus ground beef, peeled tomatoes and tomato passata, blended Bramley apple, chopped onion and green beans, with basil and oregano. Plus beef and vegetable stock. 

The beef (12% fat) was browned before the chopped onion was added. The peeled tomatoes, the blended apple, and the green beans were prepared first, in a steamer. The vegetables and the passata, and the herbs, were added after the onions were mostly cooked. Water and the beef and vegetable stock were added. Simmer under glass for ninety minutes.

The parsnips were boiled in the bottom of a steamer, for twenty minutes. The brocolli spears were added to the top tier of the steamer for the final ten minutes, and removed when ready. 

Ground Beef, Parsnips, and Brocolli Spears

Cottage Pie

Made with Aberdeen Angus ground beef, peeled tomatoes and tomato passata, blended Bramley apple, chopped onion and green beans, with basil and oregano. Plus beef and vegetable stock. 

The beef (12% fat) was browned before the chopped onion was added. The peeled tomatoes, the blended apple, and the green beans were prepared first, in a steamer. The vegetables and the passata, and the herbs, were added after the onions were mostly cooked. Water and the beef and vegetable stock were added. Simmer under glass for ninety minutes. Allow to cool. 

Boil five medium to large potatoes for twenty five minutes. Allow to cool. Then mash in a glass bowl with a large knob of butter and a couple of dashes of white pepper. Add the ground beef to the pie dish, and then spoon the potato on top. Texture the surface with a fork. Cook in an oven preheated to 150 deg C for an hour. Don't cook at a higher temperature, or the gravy will bubble vigourously, and break through the potato layer, causing it to sink. 150 deg C is fine. You can cook for longer if you want a crispier potato topping. Served with green beans. 

 Cottage Pie

Spaghetti Bolognese

Spaghetti Bolognese, made with Aberdeen Angus ground beef, peeled tomatoes and tomato passata, blended Bramley apple, chopped onion and green beans, with basil and oregano. Plus beef and vegetable stock. 

The beef (12% fat) was browned before the chopped onion was added. The peeled tomatoes, the blended apple, and the green beans were prepared first, in a steamer. The vegetables and the passata, and the herbs, were added after the onions were mostly cooked. Water and the beef and vegetable stock were added. Simmer under glass for ninety minutes. 

Served with wheat-free spaghetti and black pepper. Can also be served with parmesan or parmigiano reggiano cheese.  

Spaghetti Bolognese