Scallops with spiced sausage meat
The combination of pork with shellfish is a proven delight, especially in the cooking of Portugal. Sweet scallops love a bit of spice, and this combination works a treat. You could use spicy frying chorizo from a good deli, but it’s great fun to make your own.
To serve 4
Rinse, trim and pat dry 12-16 fresh scallops, depending on size. Leave the corals on if they are fat and bright orange, but discard them if they are grey-brown and withered. If the scallops are very large, slice them horizontally through the middle, turning 1 scallop into 2 scallop escalopes, if you get my drift. If keeping the corals, then cut so as to leave the whole coral on one half of the scallop.
Mix 250g good quality sausage meat with 2-3 finely chopped cloves of garlic, 1 heaped teaspoon sweet paprika and the same of smoked paprika (if you can get it), 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, up to ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper, a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Leave in the fridge for at least an hour or, better still, overnight.
Form the spiced sausage meat into thumbnail-sized meatballs. Heat a good film of olive oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan over a medium heat. Fry the meatballs, not too fast, shaking the pan occasionally, until well cooked and lightly crispy. Remove with a spatula and keep in a warmed dish. Turn up the heat, so the oil in the pan is almost smoking. Add the scallops at once, turn them after a minute, and cook for no more than 2 minutes overall. Remove the pan from the heat and add the meatballs again, shaking them up to combine with the scallops. Serve without delay, either plain or over a bed of undressed rocket leaves.
Fish (and chorizo) soup
Serves 5-6
This soup has become a classic at River Cottage. We make it with all sorts of fish, from black bream to pouting. Many things can be added but the three basic ingredients are always the same: fillets of very fresh fish, sometimes lightly salted, roast tomato sauce and fish stock. You can make it a bit more ‘deluxe’ by adding squid and/or various shellfish. Usually, but not always, we add some of our homemade chorizo for an extra kick of spice and texture. And you can turn it from a starter soup to a main-course stew by adding potatoes, chickpeas or shredded greens, as suggested below.
The tomato sauce is an old favourite of ours, and very versatile. It’s a brilliant way to deal with a glut of tomatoes, if you have one, as it freezes beautifully.
4 small, hot chorizo sausages, about 250 g in total,
sliced on the diagonal (optional), or a little olive oil
2 garlic cloves, sliced
2 onions, sliced
2 celery sticks, finely chopped
A pinch of fennel seeds
200 ml white wine
500 ml fish or shellfish stock
500 g lightly salted white fish fillets such as pouting, whiting or pollack
(or unsalted bream or sea bass)
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley
FOR THE ROASTED TOMATO SAUCE:
1 kg ripe, full-flavoured tomatoes, halved
2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
OPTIONAL ‘LUXURY’ EXTRAS:
Up to 200g small-medium squid or cuttlefish, cleaned and ‘butterflied’
1-2 scallops per person, shelled, cleaned and sliced in half
½ dozen mussels per person, steamed open in a little white wine
OPTIONAL ‘BULKING’ EXTRAS:
Up to 750g potatoes, peeled and cut into chunky cubes
Up to 500g pre-cooked or tinned (rinsed chick peas)
Up to 250g spinach, Swiss chard or other greens finely shredded
First make the tomato sauce. Arrange the tomato halves in an ovenproof dish so they sit snugly side by side, rather than on top of each other. Mix the garlic and oil together and trickle them over the tomatoes. Season lightly, then roast in an oven preheated to 180oC/Gas Mark 4 for 35-45 minutes, until the tomatoes are soft, pulpy and slightly browned. Rub them through a sieve, discarding the pips and skin, and set aside.
Put the chorizo (if using) in a large, heavy saucepan and fry over a medium heat until lightly coloured. Otherwise heat a little olive oil in the pan. Add the garlic, onions, celery and fennel seeds. If using potatoes, add them at this stage. Fry gently for 20 minutes, to soften the vegetables without browning them, then pour in the wine and simmer until reduced by half.
Add 250ml of the tomato sauce (you might have a little more than this, but any extra will keep well in the fridge) and the stock, plus the chickpeas if you are using them, then bring to a simmer and cook, covered for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, skin the fish fillets and remove any pin bones by slicing down either side of the bone line. Cut the fish into fairly large chunks – small pouting or whiting fillets can be used whole.
When the tomato soup base has had its 20 minutes, add the fish, together with the squid or cuttlefish and scallops if using. Cook briefly in the gently simmering soup for 2-3 minutes, adding any mussels and shredded greens after a minute.
Season the soup with pepper, adding salt only if necessary (with chorizo, you really shouldn’t need it). Ladle into warmed bowls, garnish with chopped parsley if you like, and serve with crusty bread.
Chilli Con Carne
Serves 8-10
Ingredients:
1kg coarsely mined beef
500g shoulder of pork, cut into 1cm cubes
250g spicy chorizo sausage, cut into 1cm cubes
500g dried red or black kidney beans, soaked in cold water overnight (or 1kg tinned beans, rinsed)
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
1-5 fresh green chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
2 tablespoons malt, wine or cider vinegar
2 teaspoons dark brown sugar
2 x 400g tins of plum tomatoes
250 ml beef or pork stock and/or the cooking liquid from the beans
1 cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
½ teaspoon dried oregano or marjoram
1-5 tablespoons chilli powder
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method:
If using dried kidney beans, drain and rinse them after soaking and put them in a large pan of fresh water. Bring to the boil, boil hard for 10 minutes, then simmer gently for up to 2 hours, until completely tender. Reserve some of the cooking liquid, especially if you don’t have any stock.
Heat a little over half the oil in a large frying pan and brown all the meats in batches, then transfer to a large casserole or stockpot. Add the rest of the oil to the frying pan and sweat the onions, on a slightly lower heat, until soft and translucent. Add to the meat, along with all the other ingredients except the beans, and not too much salt at this stage. Bring to the boil and simmer gently, stirring regularly and adding a little extra stock or water if ever it looks dry. Cook for at least 1 hour, maybe 1 ½ hours, until the pork is tender and the sauce nicely amalgamated. Add the beans for the last 20 minutes or so, and taste and adjust the heat and seasoning towards the end of cooking. Serve with tortillas, either soft or fried as tacos, Guacamole and soured cream. Or, of course, with buttered baked potatoes.
Feijoada
Serves 12-20
Essential Ingredients:
About 2 pig’s trotters, split lengthways (and ideally dry-salted for 12-48 hours)
About 500g green gammon and/or 500g fresh pork shoulder, cut into cubes
About 250g smoked pork belly, pancetta or bacon cut into 3cm cubes
About 250g spicy Chorizo cut into 2cm chunks
About 250g fresh pork sausages
Optional Extra Meats:
2 or 3 of the following if you can get them; up to 250g of each
Pig’s tails, salted as for trotters, in short lengths
Pot’s ears, salted as for trotters, thickly sliced
Spare rib, cut into short lengths and salted, as for trotters
Salt beef (brisket) in chunks
Morcilla (small Spanish black puddings), left whole
Lomo (spiced cured loin of pork) in chunks
Other ingredients:
1kg dried black beans (or use black eyed but not kidney beans which are too big)
2 bay leaves
A bunch of parsley stalks
A few sprigs of thyme
25 lard or 2 tablespoons sunflower oil
2 large onions, finely chopped
4 celery sticks, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
4 large tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
To accompany:
Plain boiled rice
Steamed greens (ideally kale)
Piri piri (chilli sauce)
3 oranges
Farofa (toasted cassava flour), if available, or very fine dried brown breadcrumbs
Method:
Two or three days ahead of time, put the split pig’s trotters (and tails, ears and ribs if using) into a non-metalic bowl and sprinkle thoroughly with salt. Cover and refrigerate for 1-2 days. The night before cooking the dish (ideally two nights before serving it), life the meats out of the bowl, discard the liquid and rinse the meats thoroughly in cold water. Cover with fresh cold water and leave to soak overnight. (You can omit this salting process and use fresh trotters, tails, ears and ribs, if you like, but you should simmer them on their own for about half an hour before transferring them to the main dish. This means you can leave behind any scum.)
Also the night before, soak the gammon, and any salt beef that you are using, in fresh water, leaving them overnight. Thoroughly rinse the beans and put them to soak separately overnight in enough fresh cold water to cover by at least 10 cm.
The next day, allowing at least 5 hours for the overall cooking time, put the beans and their soaking liquid into a casserole large enough to hold all the ingredients, with the bay, parsley and thyme tied up in a bundle. Top up with enough cold water to cover by 5 cm. Bring to the boil and boil hard for 10 minutes.
Add the drained pig’s trotters, along with the tails, ears, ribs and salt beef, if you are using them, then simmer gently over a low heat, covered, for about 1 ½ hours.
Now melt the lard or oil in a heavy pan and brown, in batches, the cubes of smoked pork belly, gammon and/or shoulder and the chorizo. As they are done, transfer each meat to the pot of simmering beans and mix in. Brown the fresh sausages, too, but do not add them to the pot yet, just set them aside. By the time you’ve done this, the beans/trotters etc will have had about 2 hours.
In the fat that remains in the pan, gently sweat the chopped onions, celery and garlic. When soft and translucent, add the tomatoes, cook until you have a soft, pulpy sauce, then set aside. Continue to simmer the beans and meats gently, stirring occasionally and adding a little water if the beans at the top are being left high and dry.
After another hour or so (i.e. 3-3 ½ hours overall), add the browned port sausages, each cut into 3 or 4 pieces. Also at this stage, if you are using them, remove and cut up the salt beef into large chunks, then return it to the pot, and add the morcilla and lomo.
By now the beans should be very tender. Ladle about a mug’s worth of beans into the pan containing your pulpy tomatoes and onions. Heat gently, mashing the beans into the sauce as you go. When you have a thick, pasty sauce, stir it back into the main pot, mixing thoroughly. Simmer for another half an hour or so. Taste the beans. They should be completely soft and yielding, and pretty salty, having taken on the salt from the meats. Add a little black pepper if you like. The liquid should now be thick and saucy. If it isn’t, remove and mash some more beans and stir them back in.
At this point you can serve the feijoada or leave it to cool, keep it overnight and reheat it gently the next day. If you are trying to sell this dish to the squeamish, then you might want to pull out the trotters and cut them into more manageable (and less recognisable!) chunks, then stir them back into the dish.
The correct accompaniments for feijoada are plain boiled rice and steamed greens (usually kale), which are both served on the side. On the table should be a bottle of chilli sauce (Portuguese piri piri sauce is authentic but Tabasco or any good chilli sauce will do), to be applied according to your taste, and some slices of orange, on a plate. These are used to refresh the palate occasionally between salty, creamy, beany mouthfuls. Finally you should offer a bowl of farofa. It is sprinkled directly on the feijoada to create a crisp, granular texture. Fine brown breadcrumbs, toasted until hard and crisp, make a very acceptable alternative.
Clams with Pork Fillet and Chorizo
Serves about 6 as a starter, 4 as a main course
Ingredients:
1 pork fillet (about 500g), diced into 1 cm cubes
1-2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 garlic cloves, chopped
About 1 kg live clams, razor clams (or cockles)
A glass of white wine
A glass of water
Olive oil for frying
250g chorizo (or other spicy sausage), sliced
A handful of parsley, chopped
½ - 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped (optional)
Method:
Mix the diced pork with the black pepper and garlic and leave for at least 30 minutes in a cool place.
Wash the clams thoroughly in cold water and leave in a colander for 30 minutes. (If using cockles gathered by hand, following the degritting procedure shown below*). Put the white wine and water in a large, heavy-based pan and bring to boiling point, then throw in the clams and cover the pan. Check after 2 minutes whether the shells have opened. If not, give them another 30 seconds or so with the lid on. Once the shells are all open, take the lams out of the cooking liquor with a slotted spoon and remove the flesh from half of them. Set the shelled and unshelled clams aside (if using razor clams, cut them into 2.5cm lengths).
Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan and fry the seasoned pork fillet until golden brown. Add the chorizo, then the clams, with a ladleful or two of their cooking liquor to moisten.
When all is heated through, toss together with the chopped parsley and chilli to taste (depending on the heat of the chorizo, extra chilli may not be necessary at all). Check for seasoning – it probably won’t need any – and serve at once.
*Cockles can contain quite a lot of sand. The best way to purge them of it is to rinse them well, then leave them in a large bucket of clean sea water in a cool place for several hours. Rinse again in clean fresh water before cooking.
Purple Sprouting Broccoli with Chorizo
To serve 4 as a starter
Ingredients:
500g – 600g Purple sprouting broccoli
125g spicy chorizo
2 tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of cayenne, hot paprika or chilli flakes (optional)
50g butter
Method:
The fresher the broccoli the less cooking it needs. Just-picked stems get no more than 3 minutes steam-boiling (i.e. in a pan with about a centimetre of lightly salted boiling water). Shop-bought purple sprouting broccoli, two or three days old, needs about 5-6 minutes to help bring out the sweetness, but no longer or it will be too soft.
Finely chop the chorizo and fry gently in the oil for about 4-5 minutes. Add a pinch of cayenne or hot paprika or chilli flakes depending on which one you have chosen if you are using it. Take off the hob and melt the butter in the pan. Pour the mixture over the cooked PSB in a warmed bowl and toss well. Serve immediately.
Baby Broad Beans with Chorizo
To serve 2 as a starter
Ingredients:
250g baby broad beans
100g piece of spicy chorizo
1 tablespoon olive oil
Method:
Cook the broad beans in boiling water for just 2 minutes, then drain. Finely slice the chorizo. Heat the oil in a small pan and fry the chorizo for a minute or so, until lightly crisp. Throw the broad beans in the pan and toss with the chorizo for a minute, so the beans are heated through and coasted with the spicy oil. Serve at once.