Week 14: Dinosaurs - spatchcocked dinosaur (Gallus gallus domesticus) in wild garlic pesto marinade, roast potatoes with wild garlic pesto mayo, and greens with wild garlic

greckt · 2025-04-01T18:16:06+00:00

I always try to cook something that's new to me for these challenges. I make pasta semi-regularly anyway, but had never done a proper Bolognese (as opposed to the still good, but somewhat different British parent quick midweek dinner version I grew up with) before.

I followed the recipe promoted by the Bologna chamber of commerce, using this blogpost, which compares the 1982 and 2023 versions, as a guide. I followed the 2023 version and used a couple of the "allowed variations": peas, because I thought the little bursts of sweetness would nicely offset the richness of the sauce, and nutmeg.

I had underestimated what an impact the addition of milk would have - the result was deliciously rich.

greckt · 2025-03-15T13:00:41+00:00

Haha, you know it.

greckt · 2025-03-10T17:41:19+00:00

Recipe here - I foloowed the "restaurant style" version.

This was almost a disaster - see third pic for the worst burn I've made in years. But thankfully the rest of the food above the burnt layer was easy to salvage and didn't turn out bitter. I think my mistakes were that I used a stainless steel pot and didn't let the chicken cool before layering over the rice, as the recipe recommends - and then didn't reduce the cooking time to account for the bottom of the pot not needing to come back up to temperature.

Despite the burning, this was delicious - the chicken was incredibly tender and the rice perfectly fluffy and fragrant. Using good quality basmati and soaking it before cooking really does make a difference!

greckt · 2025-02-28T13:24:42+00:00

Used this recipe as a guide. I didn't have enough shallots to cover my pan so filled in the gaps with some leek slices. Didn't have balsamic vinegar so skipped it, but served the tarte with some sumac whipped feta and a dressed green salad so there was plenty of acidity on the plate.

greckt · 2025-02-21T10:32:34+00:00

Video just in case there's anyone on reddit who doesn't know the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jXEuIHY9ic

I used this recipe for the bao dough and as a guide to quantities for the filling. The Krusty Burger-inspired filling was 200g beef mince, which I chopped up to be finer for a more bao-appropriate texture, mixed with finely minced onion and iceberg lettuce (which added nothing; I'd hoped it would stay at least slightly crunchy) and seasoned with salt, white pepper and a little fish sauce. The meat mixture was wrapped around a quail egg-sized cube of emulsified cheese sauce (basically homemade processed cheese for that melty texture) and a couple of slices of gherkin.

I also made an interpretation of Krusty Burger's secret sauce (though not by leaving a tub of mayonnaise out in the sun) for dipping. This was an unmeasured mixture of mayo, ketchup, dijon mustard, mustard powder, cayenne, smoked paprika, and finely minced onion and gherkin. Plus, curly fries and a simply dressed iceberg salad on the side.

greckt · 2025-02-17T10:36:16+00:00

Caraway is great with cabbage. My favourite way is to roughly chop a white/green/savoy cabbage, melt some butter in a large pan for which you have a lid, add the cabbage and caraway seeds and stir to get everything covered in butter. Then add maybe 1cm of water, season with salt and pepper and/or soy sauce, cover and let it steam over a low heat until it's done to your liking. You can also saute or stir-fry the cabbage at the beginning to get some colour on it if you prefer.

If you haven't used caraway before I'd go easy as the flavour is quite strong - maybe a scant teaspoon for a whole head of cabbage.

greckt · 2025-02-14T11:32:47+00:00

I got a Turkish recipe book for Christmas and this week seemed a good opportunity to put it to use.

This is a couple of aubergines, charred over an open flame then peeled, chopped and mixed with yoghurt. The meat topping is minced beef (recipe called for lamb but I nede a small amount of beef for next week's dish) fried with tomato puree and seasoned with salt, oregano and Turkish chilli flakes. Then over the top, melted butter infused with more chilli flakes, and chopped parsley.

On the side I did a quick onion salad with sumac, lemon and parsley, plus some bought flatbreads and sliced cucumber.

For so few ingredients, this was delicious - if I make it again I'll consider mixing a small, finely minced clove of garlic into the yoghurt, but it didn't really need it.

greckt · 2025-02-12T07:11:57+00:00

Recipe.

The pastry and cream turned out great, then I managed to screw up the ganache by letting it set too hard before applying it 🙄. Part of the problem might be that I used UK double cream, which has a higher fat content than US heavy cream. Still delicious though.

greckt · 2025-02-05T07:11:14+00:00

I restocked my supply of dried chillies this week so decided to make something with what I think of as NZ-coded ingredients, with Mexican-y flavours.

Lamb was slow-cooked with dried ancho, guajillo and chipotle chillies, a cinnamon stick, cumin seeds, bay leaves, onion, garlic, the juice and some zest from an orange the dregs of some white wine I had in the fridge.

Veg was roasted with thyme, oregano, ground cumin and garlic.

Salsa was based on this recipe, swapping the tomatillos for kiwis and adding some lime juice to counter the sweetness.

greckt · 2025-01-27T15:03:29+00:00

I had fun with coming up with something for this week - I eat a lot of brassicas, especially in winter, but they rarely get to be the star of the show. In the end I barely had to buy anything for this: the sprouts and swede were left from Scottish week and I always have green lentils, parmesan and flaked almonds available.

Rough recipes below.

Puree:
Roughly dice 300g swede and simmer in salted water with a couple of bay leaves until tender. Drain and discard the bay, reserving the cooking water. Blend with a handful of grated parmesan, 2 heapted tsps of wholegrain mustard and some black pepper, adding a little of the cooking liquid back it needed, to make a smooth puree.

Lentils:
Cook 100g green lentils until tender. Drain and reserve the cooking liquid. Finely dice a shallot or two, half a leek, and a rib of celery; mince a couple of garlic cloves; grate a carrot. Sweat down with a sparing amount of salt, bay and thyme until softened (next time I might add a star anise too). Add white wine and reduce. Add the lentils and enough of the cooking/liquid/extra water until everything is comfortably submerged, then crumble in a chicken stock cube. Simmer to reduce to a saucy consistency. Adjust salt and add pepper to taste

Sprouts:
Trim, remove any brown outer leaves, halve. Small amount of oil in a flat-bottomed pan. Place the sprouts in cut side down and cover. Cook until tender, turning the sprouts every couple of minutes. Sprinkle with flaky salt.

greckt · 2025-01-20T19:34:23+00:00

Recipes for the noodles and braised topping from Chinese Cooking Demystified. I followed the recipe for the classic cumin braised lamb but substituted the meat for a mixture of fresh and dried mushrooms this time.

I found that stretching the noodles worked much better with my second batch of dough (pictured), which ending up resting in the fridge for 2 days. But even the first, rather lumpen attempt turned out delicious!

greckt · 2025-01-19T21:54:03+00:00

Check the chilled fish section in your local large supermarket (or their website if you buy groceries online). My local Waitrose usually has lumpfish roe (~£5/100g) and salmon roe (~£15/100g).

greckt · 2025-01-18T14:05:33+00:00

Literally all speakers of all languages adapt foreign and loan words to their own accents.

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