Italian Warm Bean Salad

These incredibly tasty, spoon-greedily-into-your-mouth, comforting beans are perfect on their own but can also used as a base for so many meals.  

I'm calling this a salad but it doesn't have to be...serve the beans hot with wilted spinach and cooked chicken tossed through; or with melting mozzarella and sizzling pancetta; served warm with peppery rocket leaves and a fillet of seared salmon or tuna; cold with cooked prawns stirred through; or mixed with chunks of feta cheese, fresh cucumber, tomato and green olives.

I often make a large quantity and keep it in the fridge to be used over a couple of days.  It's also great to take to a party when someone asks you to take a salad...you'll be thanked for this.

Borlotti are generally my bean of choice here as I love their earthy richness, however the beautiful cannellini bean also works very well.  It's entirely your call, I'm seeing the borlotti as Javier Bardem compared to the cannellini as Brad Pitt (or Chris Hemsworth, younger version)....completely a personal choice*.  Actually, why not throw caution to the wind and do a combination of the two?  Imagine that...bean heaven.
* In a bid not to appear to be sexist, if you prefer to compare Salma Hayek to Gwyneth Paltrow it does the same thing.

Serves 2 very generously or 4-6 as a side

Ingredients

2 tins (400g) Borlotti beans 

or around 150g of dried (soaked overnight then cooked for about an hour)

Olive Oil

1 Red Onion, diced

1 Red Chilli, diced (optional, if you like a little spice)

4 Cloves of Garlic, minced or diced

Salt and Black Pepper

White Wine

1 Red Pepper, skinned under the grill (if you can be bothered) and diced

2-3 Ripe Tomatoes, deseeded and diced

a handful of Fresh Basil (one of those small packs in the supermarket)

a squeeze of Fresh Lemon

• Heat a generous glug of olive oil in a large frying pan or skillet and tip in the diced red onion and chilli (if using) along with plenty of salt and pepper.  Turn the heat down and sizzle for approximately 5 minutes until the onion is soft.
• Add the garlic, cook for a couple of minutes then pour in enough white wine to cover the base of the pan.  Let this bubble away until the liquid is reduced by about half.
• When the liquid is quite syrupy tip in the beans and stir well to coat them.  Add the diced pepper and tomato and again give it a good stir.
• Turn off the heat and leave to cool slightly before stirring through torn basil leaves.
• Just before serving squeeze in half a lemon and check for seasoning, it usually benefits from a last sprinkling of sea salt and a few grinds of black pepper.

Jerk Chicken

Jerk is arguably the very best marinade for chicken; spicy, sweet, earthy, tangy, hot...it covers all bases.  
The most authentic jerk chicken uses the whole bird, jointed, however I often make it to serve in wraps so in this case use boneless and skinless thighs.  If you want to be authentic but don't want to go down the whole chicken route you can use one or two packs of legs and thighs that most supermarkets sell.

This recipe has been slightly adapted from the one given to me by my lovely cousin-in-law, Nadia Mahabir who regularly cooks Trinidadian food for the good people of West Sussex.  I feel the need to confess, she would not approve of using boneless thighs as in Trinidad they always use meat on the bone...and while I'm in the confessional mood I may as well admit that I don't always use scotch bonnet chillies (those days that I fancy a gentle hum of heat rather than a searing fire!).

For 1 whole jointed chicken or around 2kg of legs and thighs.  It's also fantastic with pork and works amazingly well with salmon.

Ingredients

100ml Malt Vinegar

2 Scotch Bonnet Chillies, finely sliced with seeds

1 Red Onion, roughly diced

100ml Dark Soy Sauce

2 tablespoons Olive Oil

6 Garlic cloves, minced

50g Dark Muscovado Sugar

100ml Orange Juice

1 tablespoon Fresh Thyme
Generous grinding of Black Pepper

2 teaspoons All Spice

2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon

1 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg (best grated directly from the whole nutmeg but use ready ground if you don't have a suitable grater)

1 thumb size piece of Fresh Ginger, peeled and finely sliced (use 1 teaspoon of ground ginger if you can't get fresh, still great, a bit more earthy)

Juice of 2 Lemons
Juice of 2 Limes

• Measure and tip all of the ingredients into a large bowl including the squeezed pieces of lemons and limes.
• Give it all a big thorough stir.
• Place the chicken (or pork, salmon, anything else you fancy jerking) into the marinade and squish it all around to cover all surfaces of the meat.
• Ideally let the meat marinate for 24 hours or, if not, at least 8 hours, giving it a stir occasionally to make sure the marinade is permeating as much of the meat as possible.
• This really is best barbecued, however if the weather doesn't allow it, cooking on a high heat in a ridged griddle pan also works well.  If you are using large pieces of jointed chicken oven-cook them at 200C for 20 minutes then finish them off on the barbecue.  Make sure that it is thoroughly cooked by cutting right into the middle of the chicken piece to check there is no pink.



Sicilian Sausage Meatballs

Packed full of Sicilian flavours...the fennel, lemon, garlic and thyme work perfectly together in these incredibly tasty, succulent meatballs.
Rather than losing the meatballs in a vat of tomato sauce, I love to serve them on top of pasta simply tossed in creamy leeks (cooked slowly in butter and white wine with a touch of cream).  Top the finished dish with a grating of pecorino cheese and you have a very happy bowl of Sicilian heaven.

Serves 6

Ingredients

Olive Oil and Butter

1 Large Onion, diced

3-4 Garlic Cloves, minced

Salt and Black Pepper

1 tablespoon Fennel Seeds

75g Breadcrumbs

Fine zest of a Lemon

1 tablespoon Fresh Thyme, roughly chopped

500g Pork Mince

450g Sausage meat

1 egg

• Heat a glug of olive oil and a knob of butter in a frying pan until bubbling, then add the diced onion and a generous seasoning of salt and pepper.
• Turn the heat down and cook slowly for about 10 minutes until the onion is soft, add the garlic and cook for another few minutes, then turn the heat off and allow to cool.
• Heat a small dry frying pan then tip in the fennel seeds.  Toast the seeds for a few minutes, shaking the pan around until they are starting to smell aromatic and nutty.  Transfer them to a pestle and pound them into a powder (if you don't have a pestle and mortar you can crush the seeds on a chopping board with a rolling pin).
• Put the pork mince and the sausage meat into a large mixing bowl.  Add the cooked and cooled onion, the pounded fennel seeds, breadcrumbs, lemon zest, thyme and egg.  With a fork mix everything together lightly but thoroughly until all the ingredients are incorporated evenly through the mixture.
• Shape them into balls about the same size as golf balls, you should get approximately 18.  They can now be chilled until you need them or cook them straight away.
• Preheat the oven to 220C (fan).
• Lightly oil a large baking tray and place the meatballs on it, evenly spaced.  Roast for 15 minutes then turn the meatballs and return to the oven for another 10 minutes until the meatballs are golden brown, sizzling and cooked all the way through.