Boozy Pork Souvlaki and Beef Tomato Moussaka Bombs!

Geia sas fíloi mou! (that's Greek for "hello my friends".)

As you may have guessed, this weeks recipe blog has two, yes two! fantastic Greek recipes. (well, there's actually three, if you include the spinach and watercress sauce.)

One is so very easy and so tasty I would be very disappointed if you didn't make it.

The other is for a lamb Moussaka, the difference is it is baked inside a whole beef tomato, I don't like using the phrase "twist on a classic" but I suppose that's exactly what it is. It takes a little time and care but it has a real "wow" factor when presented to your dinner guests.

Boozy Pork Souvlaki.

Beef Tomato Moussaka Bombs.

I wouldn't say either of these recipes are traditional Greek recipes, as I have adapted them from memories of  holidays in Athens and Crete. They both remind me of long hot days in that gorgeous part of the Mediterranean, drinking ice cold bottles of Mythos beer and Metaxa brandy, eating lamb kleftico, giros pitta, Kalamata olives and those fantastic Baklava I did the recipe for a couple of blogs ago. The sauce I'm going to show you packs a real iron-y punch from the spinach and is best used sparingly, more like a condiment.

So, first recipe then!

Boozy Pork Souvlaki. (6 good portions).

Equipment:

1 sealable tub, big enough to hold all the ingredients.

10-12 wooden skewers, soaked in boiling water for at least 1 hour.

Griddle pan (if you haven't got a griddle pan a normal heavy based frying pan will do, you just won't get the smoky score marks from the ridges.)

Large baking tray.

Ingredients:

1 whole pork fillet, approx 500g.

1 large red onion, cut into chunks.

200g of button mushrooms, wiped clean of any dirt.

2 tablespoons of dried oregano.

3 sprigs of thyme.

2 cloves of garlic, split with the flat of a knife.

2 glasses of decent robust wine ( I use Bordeaux.)

Half a lemon.

Salt and Black pepper.

Olive oil ( not extra virgin.) for brushing the souvlaki whilst griddling.

To Serve:

6 Lightly toasted and split pitta breads, salad leaves, Spinach and watercress sauce ( see recipe below.) marinade glaze.

Method:

Firstly, trim up the pork fillet, removing any sinew.

Then cut into bite sized pieces.












Next, in a saucepan, put 1 glass of wine, the thyme, garlic,
oregano and half a lemon. ( I used 2 halves of lemon in the recipe you see here, but they had been juiced for another recipe before, so 1 half a fresh lemon will be plenty.)

Heat the saucepan up to boiling then immediately remove from the heat and allow to cool.
 ( a lot of chefs will say, when cooking with wine, to boil the wine to remove some of the alcohol but I like to taste the alcohol in the finished dish, especially with these souvlaki.)

When the wine in the saucepan has cooled,  add the other glass, then put the pork, mushrooms and red onion in your sealable tub and pour over the wine, with the herbs, garlic and lemon and give it a light season with the salt and pepper.
Give everything a good stir round, pop the lid on and put in the fridge to marinate. I like to leave it at least 12 hours to get that red wine flavour all the way through the meat. You can leave it up to 2 days in the marinade, just give it a bit of a stir round a couple of times so that everything gets a good soaking in the wine.

Once the ingredients have marinated, remove them all from the tub, but don't throw the marinade away as you can boil it down to make a rich savoury glaze for the finished souvlaki. ( just put the marinade, with the herbs, lemon and garlic into a saucepan and boil it up. When its come to boiling, sieve out the aromatics and reduce down. You may want to add a good pinch of sugar to it as it reduces. You won't be left with a lot of glaze when it has reduced down but it is really tasty and finishes the griddled skewers off perfectly.)

Grab one of your soaked skewers and thread the ingredients on one at a time, alternating between pork, mushrooms and onion.
Repeat until you've used all the ingredients.
You should get 10-12 souvlaki's.












Turn on the oven to about 170 degrees c/ gas mark 4. Then put your griddle pan on the stove and get it screaming hot.
When it's hot enough put 3 of your skewers on the griddle and brush with the oil. You may need to turn on the extractor fan as it can get pretty smoky! Season lightly with salt and black pepper and
press down lightly on each souvlaki to get some nice char-marks on them. After 2-3 minutes turn them over, brush with oil again and griddle for another 2-3 minutes.

Put the skewers onto the baking tray and put in the bottom of the oven, just to keep warm while you do the rest. Repeat this process until all of your skewers are griddled and on the baking tray, in the oven.

Toast and split the pitta breads, give them a smear of the spinach and watercress sauce, and a few salad leaves then the souvlaki. ( I use two skewers per pitta.) Drizzle or brush on a little of the reduced marinade glaze and serve!


Now for that spinach and watercress sauce recipe. ( I don't think this is even remotely Greek, but it goes really well with both the other recipes.)

Spinach and Watercress sauce.

Equipment:

Large saucepan.

Hand blender.

Measuring jug.

Ingredients:

100g of fresh watercress.

300g fresh spinach, washed and drained.

150ml double cream.

Half a teaspoon of grated nutmeg

1 tablespoon of butter.

Salt and pepper.

Method:

Put the saucepan on a medium to low heat on the hob and add the butter.

When the butter has melted add the spinach and watercress.

cook down gently for 10-15 minutes until almost all of the water in the leaves has evaporated, give the leaves a good squeeze with the back of a wooden spoon to remove as much water as possible. Add the grated nutmeg and the double cream and heat through gently.
Pour the mixture into a measuring jug. ( this makes it much easier to blend without getting it all over the kitchen!)

Now go at it with the hand blender until you get a smooth, vivid green, thick sauce. Check the seasoning, it should taste a little bit bitter but if it's too bitter for you add a pinch of sugar, then season with salt and pepper.











Okay, moving swiftly on to the star of this weeks blog!

Beef Tomato Moussaka Bombs.

I love these! it's a great way of making a simple moussaka a bit more sophisticated.
I got the idea from the Mediterranean tradition of serving a main meal baked in a vegetables ( or in this case fruit!).Greek stuffed peppers, or the Turkish vegetarian "Imam Biyaldi" ( baked aubergine stuffed with rice, tomatoes, diced veg, lots of herbs and fruit.) and stuffed butternut squash.

If you have a local green grocer, go in and ask, a few days before you want to make this recipe, if they can get you some good, large and, most importantly, ripe beef tomatoes. That's exactly what i did with my green grocer (Jessica's fruit and veg in Cannock.) and he was more than happy to oblige.
I've tried using supermarket ones before but they are usually too small and too unripe to use and too expensive!

There's a few processes to do in this recipe but none of them are difficult. As I said at the start of this blog, it requires a little time, patience and care.

Equipment:

A good, sharp, small knife, preferably with a rounded end rather than a point. ( I use a sharpened bone handled butter knife, as my grandad used to use.)

Frying pan.

Baking tray.

Small saucepan.

Colander or sieve.

Ingredients for the filling:

4 very large ripe beef tomatoes.

750g/ approx 1 1/2 lb lamb mince.

2 red onions, finely diced.

1 large aubergine.

1 large courgette.

2 tablespoons tomato puree.

3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced.

2 tablespoons dried oregano.

1 tablespoon cumin seeds, ground.

3 bay leaves.

1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon.

approx 1/2 tablespoon freshly grated nutmeg.

5 allspice (pimento) berries, ground.

2 tablespoons olive oil ( not extra virgin ).

And a very special ( and not Greek at all!!) ingredient.

Say hello to my little friend! This, if you didn't know, is "nam pla" or Thai fish sauce.

It gives such a rich, meaty, savoury boost to all sorts of lamb dishes. Its made from fermented anchovies, which, I must admit, doesn't sound nice at all, and if you taste it or smell it on its own you might think I'm mad to use it in this recipe but, believe me, it adds so much Umami to the finished dish that I think it's essential.
You could use Worcester sauce, which is also made from fermented anchovies with a few other ingredients, but I think it adds too much of a vinegar-y taste to the lamb.

Ingredients ( for the creamy white sauce topping.)

1 tablespoon butter.

1 tablespoon plain flour.

approx 300ml milk.

150g feta cheese.

Grated nutmeg.

Salt and fine ground white pepper.

Method 1:

Pre-heat your oven to 160 degrees c/gas mark 4.
 
slice up the aubergine to about 5mm thick. sprinkle generously with salt and leave in a colander or sieve to extract the moisture for about 30 minutes.

Slice up the courgette about the same thickness as the aubergines, brush lightly with oil and put them in the oven, on a baking tray for about 10 minutes, after 10 minutes, take them out and flip them over, bake again for approx 5 minutes until they start to colour up.











Saute the diced onions in the olive oil on a low heat for around 15 minutes. remove from the frying pan.

Give the aubergine slices a rinse under cold running water to remove the salt then put them on a clean tea towel.
Put another clean tea towel on top and gently press down to remove all the water.








Brush the aubergine slices with oil and put them in the oven on a baking tray, bake for approx 15 minutes until they start to brown. Once they're browned remove from the oven and set aside with the courgettes.

Cut the tops off the beef tomatoes and, with your small sharp knife cut out the flesh, being careful not to pierce the outside of them.
Scrape any remaining juice and seeds out with a spoon
Keep all the flesh and juices to use later.
You should be left with 4 hollowed out beef tomato "bowls".

 Add the lamb mince to the frying pan and brown on a medium heat for approx 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent it burning.  Add the sliced garlic, oregano, nutmeg, cumin, bay leaves, ground allspice berries and cinnamon and continue to cook on medium for a further 10 minutes.

Add the flesh and juice from the tomatoes, the tomato puree and the onions you sauteed earlier along with a good couple of slugs of the fish sauce. Continue to cook for another 15 minutes on a medium heat.

When the moussaka mixture is done you'll probably notice there is a lot of fat in the pan, to get rid of the majority of it scrape the lamb to one side of the pan and let the fat run down to the other side (I like to raise the pan up on one side at an angle to do this so you can get rid of as much fat as possible.)
Spoon as much fat out of the pan as you can and leave the mince mixture to one side so you can prepare the tomato "bowls".

In the bottom of your hollow tomatoes lay a slice of the baked aubergine, then a spoonful of the lamb mince,then a couple of slices of the baked courgettes. Layer the tomatoes up like this until they are full, pressing the mix down as you go.

Method 2 (Creamy Feta Topping.)

In a saucepan gently melt the butter over a medium heat, then add the flour.

 Mix together well  ( this is called a roux.)

Add a splash of milk and beat until smooth, then add another splash and beat again.










Now you can add the rest of the milk and whisk together to get a smooth white sauce about the thickness of double cream.

let the sauce gently start to bubble, stirring all the time, but don't let it boil.

Finally, break the feta into chunks and add to the sauce.Add a good pinch of white pepper and a grate of nutmeg. Mix together until the cheese has melted into the sauce. Have a taste and add a little salt, if needed. Bear in mind that the feta itself is quite salty, so you may not need any salt.


Now you can spoon the feta sauce onto the stuffed tomatoes.

Place the topped tomatoes onto a baking tray and bake for about 20 minutes on a low shelf in the oven until the feta topping is nicely browned and the moussaka bombs are ready to serve!






Once again, the spinach and watercress sauce goes really well with these and it looks fantastic on the plate!

Phew! That was a big blog this week! I hope you have enjoyed it.

Sorry to say that there won't be a review blog this week as I just haven't had time to go out for food.

There will be a review next week so watch out for it!

And, as usual, there will be another recipe blog next week which will be something really easy.

Until then, blog buddies.

Happy cooking!

Mat.

Easy Peasy Peanut Butter Jelly Baby Brownies!

Hello Again!

Before we get on with this weeks recipe I'd just like to say thank you to everyone who has "liked", "shared", Re-tweeted and read my blogs so far, and especially those people who have actually cooked some of the dishes. I've had almost 3000 views in total already from places as surprising as Poland, New Zealand and quite a few in America!
I'm told, by people who know about these things, that that's pretty good going. I'm going to try and set up an actual "Mats 'Da' Chef" Facebook page so you can post pictures of your finished dishes and also so I can answer any questions you may have. Thanks again!

Right then, I'm betting that this weeks title has already got your taste buds tingling so lets get on with it shall we?

Peanut Butter Jelly Baby Brownies.

 

Equipment:

 1 Measuring jug, either plastic or glass.

Kitchen scales.

1 mixing bowl.

Baking tray approx 11"x 5"x 2" deep.

Wire cooling rack.

Greaseproof paper or cooking liner ( A cooking liner is best, you can get them from bargain shops like Pound land, Home Bargains or B&M and they are cheap, washable and re-usable.)

Ingredients:

200g of good quality 70% cocoa chocolate.

175g of butter.

325g of caster sugar.

130g of plain flour.

4 medium eggs.

approx 150g of jelly babies. ( I like to use Asda's own brand, you can get them in little bags and they're smaller and firmer than Bassetts ones, which makes them ideal for
this recipe. )

2 good tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter.

Method: 

Pre heat the oven to 160 degrees c/ gas mark 3
Break the chocolate up into rough chunks, cut your butter up and put both in the measuring jug. Set your microwave to its lowest setting and pop the chocolate and butter in for about 5 minutes. You want the butter and chocolate to melt together slowly and with as little heat as possible.
After 5 minutes remove the jug from the microwave and stir together, if the chocolate is still not melted put back in the microwave for another couple of minutes, until you can mix them together into a smooth sauce.

Pour the sauce into your mixing bowl and add the sugar, mix together until everything is combined. You should now have a slightly grainy chocolaty base. 










 



Add the flour to the bowl and mix in thoroughly. (Don't beat it too hard, you just want to get the flour combined with the base.)

 
  








 







Now crack your eggs straight into the bowl and mix in until you have a smooth batter.

Now drop in two tablespoons of peanut butter.

To get a nice swirl of peanut butter through the batter don't mix it in, just drag a spoon through it so you get a nice marbling effect.









 

Now grab your baking tray and rub it all over 

with butter. ( I find that a knob on the butter wrapper is the best way to do this.)
Then put your cooking liner or greaseproof paper into the tin and smooth it down so it sticks to the buttered tin on the bottom and the sides. 
Don't worry too much about the liner or 
greaseproof paper sticking up over the edge of the tin, in fact, this will make it easier
to turn out when your brownie is baked.

Then, just to be on the safe side, give the
liner or greaseproof a rub over with butter too.

When the tray is ready pour or spoon your brownie batter into the tin and give it a gentle couple of taps on the work surface.
There's no need to smooth the surface over as it will
level out when baking.




Lastly, drop your jelly babies onto the surface of the brownie. Try and space them out a little so when you cut the brownie up each portion will have a
 lovely sticky fruity burst of jelly baby goo.
















Now, you're ready to bake!

Put the brownie in the oven on the bottom shelf. If you have an electric oven like mine, with a heating element in the top of the oven, put a flat tray on the shelf above the brownie to protect the top from burning before the rest of it is baked through.
 Bake for 40 minutes. You can take the protective baking
 tray off the shelf above after about 20 minutes.
Once the time is up, remove the brownie from the oven. It should have risen a little and sound hollow when you tap the bottom of the tin. The jelly babies should have sunk into the brownie.

Leave the brownie in the tin to cool for about 30 minutes then place a chopping board or large flat baking sheet on top of it. Turn the brownie, in the tin, so that the chopping board or large flat baking sheet is now on the bottom. Don't be tempted to shake or tap the brownie out of the tin, it will come out in its own good time and, if you've buttered and lined the tin correctly, will not stick to the baking tin.

When the brownie has released, remove the baking tin. Now you can carefully take off the cooking liner or greaseproof. be aware that the jelly babies will make the bottom of the brownie very sticky. Remove the liner or greaseproof VERY slowly. If, when you are peeling it off, it starts to tear the brownie stop and try again in a different place. With a cooking liner this should be quite easy. With greaseproof don't worry too much if the paper tears a little, as you can remove any stray bits when its a bit cooler, or slice them off with a sharp knife after.
Allow the brownie to cool a bit more upside down on the chopping board or baking sheet.The middle of it may look a little under done but that's OK as it will firm up as it cools and will give a lovely fudgey texture to it.

Once you are happy that your brownie is fully cooled ( you can pop it in the fridge for half an hour if you like.) Put the cooling rack on the bottom side of the brownie and turn it over to remove the baking sheet. then you can cut it up into portions. I usually get about 16-20 portions from one. They will keep in the fridge in a sealable tub for up to 5 days.

Well, that's it then for this week. I hope you enjoyed it!

My next recipe blog should be published next week, keep an eye out for it! Also in a few weeks I'm going to be doing a full menu recipe blog with all the timings as well!  Until next time then.

Happy cooking!

 

Mat.

Littleton Arms Let Down.

Hello There Discerning Diners!

 Welcome back to my restaurant review blog.

I don't know about you but I will read the menu, back to front, usually more than once,  in any food place I go to. Restaurant, pub, cafe, chip shop, Chinese takeaway, MacDonald's ( not that I go in MacDonald's very often!), pizza place, anywhere!

I like to see a good menu, especially in a place where you can tell they've really tried to tempt you with their own dishes. There's a trend at the moment, in high-end restaurants, to just list the basics of what the dish contains, so you might see "quail, salsify, confit duck egg yolk, pan juices." Then, when the dish comes out what you actually get is a beautiful plate of food with little extra bits and sauces, that shows such skill in its presentation you cant help but be impressed and you also feel like you're getting more than you paid for. (You actually are, in fact, as the skill of a good chef is, in part, that first mouthful you take with your eye and to add more than monetary value to the ingredients used .)

The menu at The Littleton Arms is a bit like one of those menus, the sort you might find in a nice restaurant in a city like Birmingham. There's things done 3 ways, cold and hot things together, a bit of game, ham made from meat other than pork, confit this and smoked that.

. I have been to The Littleton Arms a few times for a spot of late lunch after visiting Penkridge Market on a Saturday. The lunch menu is pretty good, simple stuff like homemade fish finger sandwiches, steak baguettes, that sort of thing and must say it's been fine ( apart from the expensive "triple cooked chips" I tried once, they weren't.)
I took my dinner date for the evening, the enigmatic and twinkly eyed Mitch (as she prefers to be called ), on a busy Thursday night. I had to book a couple of days in advance and was told I couldn't have a table for 8pm but 8.15 was fine. Hmmmm.

After a nice chat with Mitch and ordering a drink each we had a good look at the menu and I have to say at that time I would have gladly tried anything on there. Mitch agreed with me, I was a little worried that she might not like the sound of some of the dishes but was relieved when she said she would "have a go at anything" ( I must admit, it's so nice to dine out with a woman who is in no way a fussy eater, and is not put off because there might be rabbit or venison, or pigeon, or any other cutesy fuzzy woodland creature on the menu, I mean if you're going to be a meat eater, why stop at cows, chickens, pigs and sheep?)

We decided to go for a starter to share, a main each and one of the amazing sounding desserts to share. I was to pick the starter, Mitch to pick the dessert, very democratic I thought!

They did have a special deal on, which looked a bit spartan to be honest, but came with a "free" medium glass of wine. It was, however, £25 per person, so, having already got the drinks of our choosing, we picked from the full menu.

Now this is an unusual thing, as the menu for the evening did not match the menu on their website, although both were called "winter menu". A bit of an oversight I suppose, but none the less a tad unprofessional for a restaurant offering this kind of food at these kind of prices.

A perfectly friendly waitress came and took the order for our starter and mains. My choice of starter was the "pigeon ham, savoury scone, smoked butter and beetroot and gin granita" (£5.95 )

For my main I chose the pork belly, crackling, braised red cabbage and smoked sausage with black pudding dumpling.(£15.95 )

Mitch went for the chicken breast with smoked wing,crispy parsley, ratatouille and chorizo parcel. (£12.95 )

( I must apologise for anything I've missed out from the dishes, unfortunately I didn't take a photo of the menu and, as I said, the menu on the website doesn't list these dishes. It makes life a little bit harder for food bloggers like myself but I won't forget in future, dear reader!)

Mitch and I continued with our chatting and taking in the feel of the place, its a nice looking restaurant/pub, tastefully decorated, not too in your face modern and not too twee in a country pub kind of way.

We were asked by the waitress if we were sharing our starter
and brought out extra cutlery when we said "yes please". Which was a small but none the less nice touch.










So after a short wait and both of us rubber necking at any food that was brought out to other tables our starter arrived.

 It looked a lot more appetising than the picture shows, I really must get myself a proper camera, as it does feel a little awkward
getting your phone out to take picture especially when you leave said phone in the car and have to dash out to get it, leaving a hungry dinner date with Carte Blanche to scoff it all down whilst you're away from the table!
Fortunately Mitch managed to hold off till I got back and took the
admittedly poor snap you see here.

The Pigeon ham, we both agreed was very good. Nice ans salty
like the more traditional  pork ham but still with a gentle liver-like gaminess. The scone was nice too, a little herb taste to it, and just warm.
The beetroot and gin granita? Well, put it this way, neither of us could taste anything of it at all, in fact, so bland was it that we had to ask the waitress what flavour it was! A real let down.


Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of the disappointment either.

We had to wait for quite a while for the mains, and the measly morsel of a started had done nothing to satiate our appetite. As Mitch said " I think I am actually more hungry after that starter than I was before".

Eventually our mains did arrive, both looking very handsome. I just want to make a quick point about food being served on slate tiles. Why? okay, a starter on a slate is fine, but a main, in my opinion belongs on a plate. Yes, it looks attractive but the sound of a knife and fork scraping the rough surface of a slice of shale sets my teeth on edge, and its inevitable that a main is going to leak it's sauce over the edge of a slate. Sorry, I just don't like it!

Anyway, as I was saying, the mains looked good.

...So we both tucked in with ravenous abandon.

Once again I was disappointed. There is almost no cut of any meat I like more than a hunk of pig belly when it's done properly. Slowly braised or roasted so the natural fat in the meat bastes it whilst cooking, keeping it moist and rendering it slightly sticky and breaking down the stringy connective tissue between the layers of pork. This piece was underdone so the meat had to be hacked through with the inadequate table knife ( a steak knife would have been better.) and the black pudding dumpling was a slithery under seasoned ball of flour and suet with no redeeming qualities. The braised red cabbage and the crackling were good, as was the smoked sausage, the cabbage being properly reduced to a sticky sweet purple mass and the crackling beautifully crunchy and well seasoned. The sauce with the dish was a little sweet but the few deep fried sage leaves were a nice touch As a whole the dish didn't live up to its cool and funky menu description. It was like buying tickets to go see Prince live and someone like Bruno Marrs coming out on stage in his place.

I was so busy picking out the faults in my main that by the time I had looked up Mitch had almost finished hers. I had been told by my great friend and pit-master Andy Stubbs that the chicken dish wasn't that great (he and his girl Donna Church had been to eat here the night before) however, Mitch said she really enjoyed it. She said the chicken was juicy and tender and she really liked the ratatouille. She also said that the chorizo
dumpling was her favourite bit.

So, with me a little disappointed and Mitch pretty full we decided to go for a gorgeous sounding stacked chocolate dessert. (£5.95)
Again, this is not listed on their website so I will try to remember what it was made up of.

There was a choc- mint parfait ( ice cream ) and a stack made up of layers of chocolate mousse, white chocolate bavoir ( cream and white chocolate set with gelatin), layers of sponge and a chocolate ganache on top with a crumbled Flake served with a chocolate sauce. We both dug in and were equally impressed at the balance and variety of flavours and textures. I let Mitch finish it off as I'm a gentleman like that!

To sum things up then. The prices in this pub in Penkridge are on a par with a few restaurants in Birmingham. I think I would prefer to get the train into town and go somewhere there is a bit of competition, so the food has got to be good. The total bill for the evening, without a tip, was nudging £50. Too much for what we got I'm afraid. If we had maybe had a bowl of veg included in the price, or some of their alleged "triple cooked chips" or even some home baked bread it may have been worth the money, if my meal had been properly done.

For my final few words I'd like to say that if you have a menu that comes at you with its chest all puffed out then it'd better be able to deliver a good punch, or what's the point?

Thanks for reading, and a special thanks to my beautiful guest for the evening, Mitch.

My next recipe blog should be published on Thursday20th march, and I can guarantee it not only talks the talk, it walks the walk!

Happy Eating!

Mat.