Ground Pork Chilli Hash

A ground pork chilli was in the fridge, and I used that as the basis of this dish.

The pork chilli component was made with stir-fried pork, onion, red pepper, red chilli. The pork was stir-fried with white onions and diced red pepper in sunflower oil until the pork began to brown. I added water and a hanful of oat flakes (oatmeal will do as well). It was simmered for at least an hour under glass, stirring every few minutes. I added two squeezes of tomato puree, and two dried red chillies, two pinches of dried sage, two pinches of paprika, and two dessert spoonfuls of dark soy sauce. It was cooked  until the dish began to thicken.

The hash was made with chunks of potato, two sliced red onions, some diced green, yellow and red pepper, four chopped spring onions, four finger chillies, a clove of garlic, and a handful of diced celery. The vegetables were stir-fried in sunflower oil until the potato chunks began to brown. After that I added a dessert spoonful of vinegar which had been used to preserve red peppers (ordinary vinegar will do instead), and then two cupfuls of water.

I added the pork chilli, and stirred it in thoroughly. Cooked at a high heat for five minutes, then at a low heat under glass for at least another forty-five minutes. Et voila: ground pork chilli hash. Delicious!

Parsnip and Green Pea Soup

A simple soup made with twenty five pods of fresh peas, two parsnips, one leek, a dozen Chantenay carrots, vegetable stock, two small handfuls of porridge oat flakes, vegetable stock, and some Herbes de Provence (the link is to a Wikipedia article which points out the relatively recent commercial homogenisation of the idea of Herbes de Provence). Tarragon or Marjoram are good choices, as are Rosemary and Thyme. Sage also. Experiment. 

Peel the parsnips, slice the leek, and top and tail the carrots. Place in boiling water along with the podded peas, and simmer for half an hour. Then mash the vegetables. Add the vegetable stock and the herbs, and the oat flakes. From this point on there is the risk of the oats sticking to the bottom of the pan, so frequent stirring is required to prevent this. Cook for another twenty minutes or so before serving. 

Parsnip and Green Pea Soup

Beef Olive

A popular favourite in Scotland, beef olive is rather mysteriously named, since it contains no olives. The essence of the dish is thinly cut beef which is wrapped around a filling, usually of some kind of sausage meat enriched with herbs. So it has been suggested that the association is with olives, which are often stuffed with pimiento once the olive stone is removed. So in a sense a beef olive is beef stuffed with sausage. 

The filling can be either beef or pork sausage meat, mixed with soya flour, rice flour, oat flakes, or something else which isn't wheat. The proportions should be about 50 per cent meat, 30 per cent flour, and about 20 per cent finely chopped red onion, enriched with lots of herbs. If the stuffing is pork, one of the best choices of herb to use is sage. The choice is yours. Add a little salt. 

Place the thin cut beef on a chopping board, dust the inside with a little flour and a small amount sunflower oil,  add the stuffing, rolled, and wrap it in the beef. Press the olive a little (with the overlap of beef on the bottom) to ensure that it will stay in its wrapping in the casserole dish (a bed of vegetables helps secure this). 

Place Beef Olives in the dish (with the lid on, otherwise the olives may dry out) and add  half an inch of water. Add seasonal vegetables (in this case curly kale and slices of red onion) and dress with some salt and pepper. Cook for approximately 50 minutes at 180 deg. C.  

Beef Olives

Raw Beef Olives on a bed of Curly Kale and Red Onion