Maria's mediterranean meat pie with potatoes and caramelised pepper starter

Last friday we had an exceptional lunch prepared by Maria. For a starter we had baguette with philadelphia and caramelised peppers - I swear they looked like gummy bears! But they tasted absolutely delicious :-)

And as a main dish Maria had made mediterranean meat pie with roasted potatoes. YUMMY!

Stout and chicken pasta by Jochen

And then finally last friday, Jochen cooked very tasty and surprisingly spicy tomato-stout-chicken pasta for us.

 

STOUT AND SPICY PASTA

Guinness dishes are usually pretty heavy, but this one packs an unexpected punch. Smoked chillies (chipotles) are best, but regular jalapenos will do. Serves 4-6.

3 tbsp cooking oil
68og (1.5 lbs) chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 medium onion, finely diced
8 garlic cloves, crushed
2 2 1/z tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 tins chopped tomatoes, drained
1 tin (15oml) tomato paste
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp dried thyme
2 fresh large red chillies, finely chopped
440ml can Guinness (or other dark stout)
375g pasta
Fresh parsley, chopped fine, for garnish

 

Cook the chicken breasts in the oil over a medium-high heat until browned and cooked all the way through. Lift them out, turn it down a bit, and cook the onions and garlic in the same pan for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft. Stir in the tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, herbs and chillies, pour in the beer and bring to the boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat and let the sauce thicken about five minutes. Cook the pasta while this is happening and when all is ready, mix the chicken back into the sauce and serve immediately.

 

Taken from: Cooking with Booze



Antón's Greek Lunch

Then about 2 weeks ago, Antón who had just come home from the greek islands cooked a greek lunch for us: stuffed tomatos with greek salad and baguette.

For the salad:
You need olives, feta cheese, tomatoes, green peppers, red onions, cappers, cucumber, olive oil and salt. Chop and mix all the ingredients and add as much olive oil and salt as you like.

Stuffed tomatoes:
Ingredients: One or two big tomatoes per person. Rice, olive oil, oregano, onions and garlic.
How to make them:
Cut the top off of the tomatoes and remove the seeds reserving them.
Saute the onions and the garlic with olive oil. Add the seeds and the oregano. Mix with the boiled rice and stuff the mixture into the tomatoes and place them in the oven (pour water and olive oil over them).

Bake them (around 1 hour).
Enjoy!

Sweet chilli chicken by David

Again, I'm a little behind in posting our yummy meals, so here's an update of the most recent friday lunches.

A few fridays ago, our summer student David made lovely sweet chilli chicken.

Unfortunately we don't have a recipe, but it seemed quite easy to make. Just buy lots of sweet chilli sauce!!!

Nick’s Beef with red wine and carrots recipe

Ingredients needed (for 8 portions):

vegetable or sunflower oil , for frying
1½ kg shin of beef or stewing beef, cut into cubes
3 tbsp flour
2 large onions , sliced
600g carrots , cut into batons
4 garlic cloves , crushed
glass red wine (about 175ml/6fl oz)
850ml beef stock
3 bay leaves
few thyme sprigs
jacket potatoes or mash, to serve

Cooking:

·         Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large frying pan. Put the beef in a bowl, sprinkle with the flour and seasoning, then mix until well coated. Fry in batches, adding more oil if necessary, until everything is well browned. Transfer to a casserole dish.

·         Add another tbsp oil to the pan and stir in the onion and carrots. Cover and gently cook for 10-12 mins until softened, then remove the lid and cook until just beginning to brown. Stir in the garlic and cook for 1 min more. Pour in the wine and stir well, letting it boil up for 1 min, then pour the whole mixture over the meat. Add the stock, bay leaves and thyme, bring to a simmer, then cover and gently simmer for 2½ hrs until the meat is very tender. If the sauce looks a bit thin, remove the lid and continue to cook until it thickens.

Polish Golabki by Karolina

Last friday Karolina made a polish speciality for us: GOLABKI; basically mince wrapped in cabbage. It was delicious as always and apparently also very easy to make.

Here is the recipe:



·  Remove core from cabbage. Place whole head in a large pot filled with boiling, salted water. Cover and cook 3 minutes, or until softened enough to pull off individual leaves.

·  When leaves are cool enough to handle, use a knife to cut away the thick center stem from each leaf, without cutting all the way through.

·  Chop the remaining cabbage and place it in the bottom of a large pot.

·  Saute the chopped onion in butter in a large frying pan until tender, and let it cool.

·  Mix cooled onions with beef, rice, garlic, salt and black pepper until well combined. Don't overmix or the meat will become tough.

·  Place about 1/2 cup of meat on each cabbage leaf. Roll away from you to encase the meat. Flip the right side of the leaf to the middle, then flip the left side. You will have something that looks like an envelope. Once again, roll away from you to create a neat little roll.

·  Place the cabbage rolls on top of the chopped cabbage in the pan, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper. Pour beef stock over rolls, cover and simmer for 1 hour or until cabbage is tender and meat is cooked.

·  To make the sauce, remove the rolls and thicken the remaining stock with sauce flour, crème fraiche, tomato concentrate and spices.

Alex's "Meaty leek soup for cold days" (it's July in Edinburgh haha)

As the summer is so cold this year, Alex has decided to cook a winter dish from Germany for us - Leek soup with mince meat.

Okay, so this will look shamefully short in comparison to all the othere recipes on here.
I will give you a version of the recipe, that produces less volume, than what I made for
Lab Lunch, to reproduce that volume basicly just double everything except for Leek and stock, here
you should use 3kg/3L respectively, should you ever want to cook for ~13 people.
Here goes:

You will need:
500g Steak Mince
2kgs of Leek
Garlic
Stock cubes, beef is best, if you use minced beef for the meat
100g Creme Fraiche
100g cheese, I used ground cheddar,
Salt
Pepper

Optional:
Starch


Protocol:

Clean the leek and cut it into rings
Take a big pot and put some oil in, heat it up
Fry the steak mince, till its kind of granular, the smaller the granules, the better your
meat/volume ratio will be
Add the leek rings, sweat them for some time
Add a few garlic cloves (2+ depending on taste)
Deglaze with 2 litres of stock
Lightly cook for ~10mins
Season with salt and pepper

Optional (I didn't do this):
Mix 1 tablespoon of starch with cold water and add it, to thicken the soup

Add Creme Fraiche, mix in
Add Cheese, mix in, it melts

Let it cook, for as long as you like, the longer the better, or at least I think so, the
leek will become softer

Eat with Baguette or any other bread you like.