from Jamie Oliver’s the naked chef.
Cut 4 medium endives into eighths. Wash and drain and dry well. Blitz or finely chop (or pestle and mortar) 6 anchovy fillets with 1 tbsp capers. Add 5 tbsp olive oil and 2 tbsp lemon juice, black pepper.
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roasted red peppers with fennel
Written on Saturday, December 2nd, 2006 at 6:19 pm
Another way to fill a red pepper! One of the important thing to watch when cooking with seasonal and local ingredients is to make sure that you can get the ingredients for a recipe at the same time of year. As we get a lot ingredients brought up from Spain, this should be good from early summer through to the end of the year. (It’s 2nd December today, and both peppers and fennel are available in the local greengrocers. There are fresh plum tomatoes as well, so need to use tinned ones).
Ingredients
4 large red peppers
2 small bulbs fennel
1 x 14 oz (400 g) tin Italian plum tomatoes
8 dessertspoons extra virgin olive oil1 rounded teaspoon mixed pepper berries
¾ level teaspoon whole coriander seeds
½ level teaspoon fennel seeds
juice ½ lemon
finely chopped spring onion for garnish (optional)
sea salt
Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C).
You will also need a shallow baking sheet (I use a Swiss-roll tin).
Slice each pepper in half lengthways, cutting right through the green stalk end and leaving it intact; though it won’t be eaten, it adds much to the look of the thing. Remove all the seeds. Place the pepper halves on the baking sheet, then drain the tomatoes (you don’t need the juice), and divide them into eight equal portions, placing each portion inside a pepper half.
Now pare off any brownish bits of fennel with your sharpest knife and cut the bulbs first into quarters and then again into eighths, carefully keeping the layers attached to the root ends. Now put them in a saucepan with a little salt, pour boiling water on them and blanch them for 5 minutes. Then drain them in a colander and, as soon as they’re cool enough to handle, arrange two slices in each pepper half. Sprinkle 1 dessertspoon of olive oil over each one, using a brush to brush the oil round the edges and sides of the peppers.
Next, lightly crush the pepper berries, coriander and fennel seeds with a pestle and mortar or rolling pin and bowl, sprinkle these evenly all over the fennel and peppers, and finish off with a grinding of sea salt. Then bake the peppers for about 1 hour on a high shelf in the oven until they are soft and the skin wrinkled and nicely tinged with brown. After removing them from the oven, sprinkle the lemon juice all over, cool and serve garnished with a little finely chopped spring onion or as they are.
This recipe is taken from Delia Smith’s Christmas.
roasted tomato salad
Written on Saturday, December 2nd, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Again on the theme of roasted vegetable salads, this is very similar in execution to the piedmont roasted peppers.
It’s another from Delia’s summer cooking. Personally, I don’t bother by skinning the tomatoes; too much effort, and leaving them on helps hold them together. If people don’t want to eat the skins, they can just eat the innards.
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Ingredients
12 large tomatoes
2 large or 4 small cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
12 large fresh basil leaves
salt and freshly milled black pepper
For the dressing:
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
To garnish: fresh basil leaves24 black olives
Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 6, 400°F (200°C).
You will also need a shallow roasting tin 16 x 12 inches (40 x 30 cm), oiled.
Skin the tomatoes first of all by pouring boiling water over them and leaving for 1 minute, then drain and, as soon as they are cool enough to handle, slip off the skins. (Protect your hands with a cloth if necessary.) Now cut each tomato in half, around the middle rather than vertically, and place the halves in the roasting tin (cut side uppermost) and season with salt and freshly milled pepper. After that, sprinkle on the chopped garlic, distributing it evenly between the tomatoes. Follow this with a few droplets of olive oil on each one, then top each one with half a basil leaf, turning each piece of leaf over to get a coating of oil.
Now place the roasting tin in the top half of the oven and roast the tomatoes for 50-60 minutes or until the edges are slightly blackened. Then remove the tin from the oven and allow the tomatoes to cool. All this can be done several hours ahead.
To serve the tomatoes, transfer them to individual serving plates, then whisk the oil and balsamic vinegar together and drizzle this over the tomatoes. Finally top each one with an olive and garnish with basil leaves. Lots of crusty bread is an essential accompaniment to this.
This recipe is taken from Delia Smith’s Summer Collection and Delia’s Vegetarian Collection.
piedmont roasted peppers
Written on Saturday, December 2nd, 2006 at 5:55 pm
My variation on a recipe originally published by Elizabeth David in Italian Food, then Delia Smith in her Summer Cooking.
Where the original recipe calls for anchovy, I use a teaspoon of tapenade (black olive paste) per pepper. As tapenade often contains capers, this seems to substitute well for the saltiness of the anchovies. And it makes the whole dish fine for veggies.
I took a whole tray of these to Jo’s garden party in les Pilles last September, and they went down a storm.
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Ingredients
4 large red peppers (green are not suitable)
4 medium tomatoes
8 tinned anchovy fillets, drained
2 cloves garlic
8 dessertspoons Italian extra virgin olive oil
freshly milled black pepper
To serve: small bunch fresh basil leaves
Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C).
For this it is essential to use a good, solid, shallow roasting tray, 16 x 12 inches (40 x 30 cm). If the sides are too deep, the roasted vegetables won’t get those lovely, nutty, toasted edges.
Begin by cutting the peppers in half and removing the seeds but leaving the stalks intact (they’re not edible but they do look attractive and they help the pepper halves to keep their shape). Lay the pepper halves in the lightly oiled roasting tray. Now put the tomatoes in a bowl and pour boiling water over them. Leave them for 1 minute, then drain them and slip the skins off, using a cloth to protect your hands. Then cut the tomatoes into quarters and place two quarters in each pepper half.
After that, snip one anchovy fillet per pepper half into rough pieces and add to the tomatoes. Peel the garlic cloves, slice them thinly and divide the slices equally among the tomatoes and anchovies. Now spoon 1 dessertspoon of olive oil into each pepper, season with freshly milled pepper (but no salt because of the anchovies) and place the tray on a high shelf in the oven for the peppers to roast for 50 minutes to 1 hour.
Then transfer the cooked peppers to a serving dish, with all the precious juices poured over, and garnish with a few scattered basil leaves. These do need good bread to go with them as the juices are sublime – focaccia would be perfect.
This recipe is taken from Delia Smith’s Summer Collection.
goats cheese and tapenade toasts
Written on Saturday, December 2nd, 2006 at 5:44 pm
either serve as a starter on a bed of leaves with a balsamic vinegar dressing; or as they are to go with aperitifs out on the terrace …
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sliced baguette, lightly toasted; spread with tapenade (the paste made with olives) and top with a slice of goats cheese cut from a goats cheese log.
put under grill or into hot oven to slightly melt the cheese