It's Nothing Like - Gallette de Pomme de Terre

I was feeling rather hungry one Saturday morning in the days before I starting watching my carbohydrate and calorie intake. The fridge was fairly empty as we hadn't done the weekly shopping. So I came up with a filling variation of a gallette de pommel de terre.

It's Nothing Like a Gallette de Pomme de Terre

Ingredients

A couple of large potatoes

Half a red onion

A chunk of cheddar cheese

A large knob of butter

An egg

A wholewheat tortilla

Method

Peel and thinly slice the potatoes.

Melt the butter in a wide, flat-bottomed pan until it starts to foam.

Carefully place the potatoes in the pan overlapping the slices lightly. Try to keep to a single layer, two at most.

Cook the potato slowly so it softens and cakes before it browns. Then carefully turn it over to brown the other side.

Cooking the Potatoes

Before the bottom of the potatoes starts to brown, grate the cheese over them. Once the bottom is browned and the cheese has melted, sprinkle a little sliced onion over the gallette. Let the onion cook for a short while until it has lost its rawness but is still crunchy.

Melted cheese and onion garnish

Finally, serve on a warmed tortilla and to with a lightly fried or poached egg.

Asparagus, Feta and Pea Salad

We regularly eat grilled salmon and I'd fallen into a lazy habit of serving simply prepared asparagus with it. One evening as I was about to prepare dinner, the thought of another meal of grilled salmon and asparagus just didn't appeal.

The salmon and the asparagus were sitting waiting to be cooked. So I started to think how I could make our meal a little more interesting. I found a recipe for this Asparagus, Feta and Pea Salad on the Internet.

Asparagus, Feta and Pea Salad

It turned out a treat and really complimented the grilled salmon. You can find the recipe here. The only change I had to make was to use frozen peas instead of fresh ones as it is almost impossible to find fresh peas here. I did cook them and let them cool before using them though.

Rare Blends - Moroccan Greek Salad

We often serve something that resembles a Greek salad as an accompaniment to our meals at The Chubby Chops. They're quick to prepare and compliment many dishes. I always add a few ingredients that you wouldn't normally find in a Greek salad such as apples and sultanas.

One evening, I thought I'd go a step further and came up with my Moroccan Greek salad. It looks quite interesting but, to be honest, it tasted a little bit flat. Still if you don't try, you'll never know. 

Perhaps the orange wasn't as juicy as it could have been? Perhaps a little rose water sprinkled over the orange would have helped? A pinch of cumin? A few quite minor changes could make this into a family favourite. See what you can come up with.

Moroccan Greek Salad

Ingredients

A tomato or two

A small cucumber

A small dessert apple

A chunk of feta cheese

Some black olives

A few sultanas

An orange

A handful of mint leaves

The juice of half a lemon

Some olive oil

Honey to taste

When it comes to the volume of olive oil, I usually squeeze the lemon first and use somewhere between two and three times as much olive oil.

Good quality black grapes, sliced in two, are even better than sultanas.

No need for salt, the feta cheese has plenty of it.

Equipment

A salad bowl

Method

Squeeze the lemon into the bowl, poor in the olive oil, add the honey, and stir vigorously. (You could use a whisk, I usually use a fork).

Very roughly chop the tomato, cucumber and apple. When chopping the apple it is best to discard the core. Add them to the bowl.

Throw in the olives and sultanas.

Cube the feta cheese and add it to the bowl.

Now stir gently so that everything in the bowl get nicely coated with the dressing.

Next peel the orange, cut it into small cubes, and add it to the bowl.

Give the salad one more very careful stir so that the orange mixes with the other ingredients.

Finally, tear the mint leaves and spread them over the salad.

The Most Basic Tomato Sauce

Whenever I visit a new Italian restaurant, I usually order penne in tomato sauce. It's the most simple dish but the quality of the tomato sauce speaks volumes about the restaurant. This is my version, it's simple, it's quick and it passes The Chubby Chops taste test.

The Final Product

Ingredients

A can of tomatoes

A good slug of olive oil

One chunky clove of garlic, peeled

A pinch of salt

Two pinches of paprika

Two pinches of sugar

About the canned tomatoes and olive oil. For this dish, it is better to avoid ring-pull cans.

In trying to eat healthy, I attempt to minimise the amount of processed carbohydrates in our diet. White sugar, white flour and white rice being three of the worst in my eyes. So the sugar that I use for tomato sauce is raw cane sugar. Apparently, it retains the vitamins and minerals that our bodies need to digest the sugars whereas white sugar doesn't. I've read that refined brown sugar is no better than white sugar as it is basically white sugar coloured with one of the by-products of the refining process.

Equipment

A 15-20 cm diameter saucepan

A garlic press

A handheld food mixer

There's no need for a non-stick pan. I use a thick-bottomed steel pan but that brings its own challenges. A thin-bottomed pan would do.

My hand mixer fits nicely in an open "standard" can.

Method

Heat the pan so that it is warm rather than hot, cover the bottom with a decent layer of olive oil and let the oil warm up.

Crush the garlic into the warm oil and let it very gently simmer so that it softens but does not brown. I find this very tricky with a heavy-bottomed pan and it takes constant attention. Somehow it's easier with thin-bottomed pans as they don't retain so much heat.

Once the garlic has softened, open the can of tomatoes and carefully drain the juice into the pan retaining the tomatoes. Turn up the heat a little.

The juice from the tomatoes simmering in the oil and garlic

Now blend the tomatoes in the can until they are as smooth as you like your sauce. Add them to the pan.

If your blender doesn't fit into the can, you will need to blend the tomatoes in a suitable container. Which will of course add to the washing up. My blender is too large to get into a ring-pull can so I try to avoid them. It's not a problem if I remember before opening a ring-pull can, I simply open it at the bottom with a can opener.

You may be wondering why I blend the tomatoes before cooking rather blend the sauce once it has been cooked. The reason is that I believe the tomato sauce both tastes and looks better this way. If you blend the sauce, your blend all the ingredients not just the tomatoes. This deadens the tastes for me. When you blend the completed sauce, the bright red colour of the tomatoes gets diluted to an orangey-red somewhat akin to the colour of tinned cream of tomato soup. I like my tomato sauce to look the colour of ripe tomatoes.

Add the pinch of salt and a couple of good pinches of both paprika and sugar to the pan. I find paprika adds a touch of smoothness and nicely deepens the colour of the sauce.

A quick stir, bring to the boil, and simmer until the sauce thickens a little.

Variations

Add a splash of olive oil once the sauce is finished and removed from the heat if you like a really rich tasting tomato sauce.

 

Olive drenched, smashed tomatoes

An attention grabbing name for a very satisfying, inexpensive dish. Simply cooking good ingredients usually results in good tasting food of which this is a classic example. Subsistence food for many people, it's great comfort food for me. 

Ingredients

A can of tomatoes

A few good slugs of olive oil

A good pinch of salt

One of the things that I've found out about food is that there is little correlation between cost and quality. Whilst this is especially true of eating out, it is also true of some of the humblest ingredients such as canned tomatoes. In England, you can hardly go wrong with a tin of own brand tomatoes in tomato juice from one of the major supermarkets. 

The situation is much, much different in Malaysia. Supermarkets don't have their own brands with the exception of Tesco (and they have a very small range). There is a choice of American and Italian brands. I find that La Valle, one of the cheapest brands, has the best taste, texture and juice. The only additive is ascorbic acid so they should be pretty healthy.

When La Valle is out of stock, I go for one of the other Italian brands. I try to avoid the American brands. The American brand tomatoes are so stiff it's as if rigor mortis has set in before they were canned. It must be down to all the preservatives in them.

When it comes to olive oil, I always use an extra virgin oil. The price difference in Malaysia between extra virgin oil and plain old olive oil is relatively small. It doesn't seem worth the hassle of buying and storing two different oils.

Equipment

A 15-20cm diameter saucepan

A desert or serving spoon

I use a copper-bottomed stainless steel pan but any old saucepan will do. There's no need for a non-stick pan, the smashed tomato will not stick unless you forget the oil or you actually burn it so badly it turns into charcoal.

Method

1. Make sure the pan is completely dry by placing it over a high heat.
2. When the pan is getting hot, add a couple of good slugs of olive oil so that the bottom of the pan is covered.
3. Whilst the oil is warming, quickly open the tin of tomatoes.
4. When the oil starts to release it's fragrance, plunge the tomatoes into the pan. Leave them whole at this stage. Don't reduce the heat yet.
5. Sprinkle a good pinch of salt over the tomatoes.
6. When the tomato juices are heated, take the spoon and gently cut the tomatoes so that the juice inside them is released.
7. Once the tomatoes are nicely bubbling, turn down the heat so that the contents of the pan are nicely simmering.
8. After five minutes, take the spoon and crush the tomato flesh against the side of the pan until that all the lumps are gone.
9. Continue to simmer until the tomatoes thicken a little and the oil glistens on the surface.
10. The tomatoes can now be served.

Eating

Olive drenched, smashed tomatoes are best enjoyed with a few slices of hearty, crusty bread. 

The loaf pictured is a rye sour dough loaf from a Hiestand franchisee in Malaysia. It's decent bread but doesn't stay crusty for long due to the humidity. (It isn't easy to find good bread in Malaysia).