Plat du Jour

Butternut Squash and Goats' Cheese au Gratin

 

This is a great dish for a cold evening... perfect for Hallowe'en (which isn't for months, but what the hey). It's very easy to make; it's really just a case of throwing everything into an oven dish and popping it into the oven. You could buy the squash in a ready-cut pack instead of buying a whole one and doing all the peeling and cleaning; that would cut the preparation time down a bit. And here's a tip for cutting goats' cheese into small cubes... run your sharpened knife under a hot tap before each cut... it will glide through the cheese without sticking. Oh, and the pumpkin seeds are optional. This dish will feed two comfortably and it's best served with some warmed ciabatta bread. Yum!

Ingredients:

1 large butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into bite-sized chunks (we ended up with about 520 g of chunks)

2 fat cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped

1 tsp cumin seeds

5 fl oz (150 ml) vegetable stock

5 fl oz (150 ml) white wine (we use a Riesling)

5 fl oz (150 ml) single cream

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 oz (25 g) pumpkin seeds

1 oz (25 g) white breadcrumbs

7 oz (200 g) goats' cheese, cut into small cubes

freshly ground black pepper

 

Cooking Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 180°C (gas mark 4).

Place the squash pieces into an ovenproof dish. Scatter the garlic, rosemary and cumin seeds over the top of the squash, then season with black pepper (see photo below).

Mix the stock and wine together and pour them over the squash (see photo below), then place the dish on the middle shelf of the oven and cook for 45 minutes, by which time the squash should be almost tender. Remove the dish from the oven.

Increase the oven temperature to 200°C (gas mark 6).

Mix the mustard into the cream, then pour that mixture over the squash, making sure it gets a nice even coating. Scatter the pumpkin seeds, breadcrumbs, then the goats' cheese on top (see photo below).

Return the dish to the oven, on the middle shelf again, and cook for a further 20 minutes.

Bon appétit!

Four Cheese Macaroni

 

I thought we'd get back into the swing of things in the kitchen with a nice basic dish. Despite it being spring, the weather here is decidedly wintery in the evenings; the wind has been rattling the windows all day long, and I'm currently wearing my double-knitted winter bed socks. In light of the weather conditions, we were in the mood for some comfort food today, so we decided to make macaroni cheese with four lovely Italian cheeses. This is definitely a posh macaroni cheese, and it's very good indeed... though I do say so myself. It will comfortably feed two hungry hippos.

Ingredients:

3½ oz (100 g) Parmesan, grated

4 oz (110 g)  Gruyère, grated

4 oz (110 g) Dolcelatte, diced

3½ oz (100 g) Ricotta

1 oz (30 g) white breadcrumbs

10½ oz (300 g) macaroni

1 pint (570 ml) milk

1½ oz (40 g) plain flour

1½ oz (40 g) butter

2 fat cloves garlic, crushed

2 fresh bay leaves

good pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

4½ fl oz (125 ml) dry white wine

1 rounded tsp Dijon mustard

2 heaped tbsp fresh flat leaf (Italian) parsley, finely chopped

salt and freshly milled black pepper

 

Cooking Instructions:

Start off by mixing the breadcrumbs with 25g of the Gruyère and a third of the Parmesan, then set aside. Mix the remainder of the Gruyère and Parmesan with the Dolcelatte and Ricotta and set those cheeses aside too. Next, put the water for the pasta on to boil in a large saucepan. Preheat the oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5.

While you're waiting for the water to boil, put the milk, butter and flour into a medium-sized saucepan and place it onto a low heat. Whisk them together until the sauce begins to simmer and thicken, then add the garlic, bay leaves and a grating of nutmeg, then season with salt and pepper to taste (see photo above).

Turn the heat down to its lowest setting and continue stirring while the sauce cooks for a further 5 minutes. Remove the bay leaves, then add the four-cheese mixture (that was set aside earlier), mustard, parsley and wine and stir in well (see photo below). This can go on simmering as you move on to cooking the pasta.

Add the macaroni to the pan of boiling, salted water and cook according to the packet instructions. Once the macaroni is cooked, drain it in a colander and then return it to the pan. Pour the cheese sauce over the pasta immediately and stir everything up together. 

Butter a deep ovenproof dish and then transfer the macaroni cheese to it. Top with the cheese and breadcrumb mixture (see photo above), then bake it in the oven, on the middle shelf, for 30 minutes, until golden and bubbling. Yum!

Bon appétit!

One Year On...

 

When I started this blog, in an attempt to get me (and my sous chef, Ryoma) back into the kitchen, I planned to try a new recipe every week. Well, by the end of April we should have tackled fifty-two recipes... we managed forty-six. In truth, life got in the way and we've not had time to eat, let alone time to cook in order to do so. In an attempt to spark the enthusiasm to venture forth once more unto the cooker, we watched Julie & Julia again last night, as it was the Julia Child part of the story that started us off on our foodie adventure to begin with.

Watching the film again, however, made me think about the Julie character and her claim to have cooked her way through the entire Julia Child cookbook in one year. I have to say, I believe she fibbed. She is supposed to have held down a full-time job and still had time to cook 524 recipes in 365 days. It's not just the prepping and cooking time; what about the shopping time? And she did so after robbing which bank to pay for all those ingredients? Ingredients which, I might add, aren't always readily available in the average grocery store. And it's not just ingredients that you need when you cook... what about the equipment? Yup, she fibbed. And I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know, right?

Anyway, getting back to my own little culinary adventure, Julia has once again inspired me to simmer and sauté to my heart's delight. We're hoping to do a few sweet things in the not too distant future too. I do think that it's every cook's duty to become adept at the art of chocolate cake making... I think it may even be a requirement of the law. So, we'll be back in the kitchen this weekend!

Bon appétit!