15 April 2007

Shallot tart

I like dishes with lots of onions or shallots.


Puff pastry
500 g shallots, peeled and sliced
red wine or red wine vinegar
vegetable or chicken stock
200 g smoked bacon, in small cubes
125 g mozzarella, in cubes
1 tbsp sugar
butter

Fry the shallots for a few min. in butter.
Add sugar and fry this for 1-2 min.
Add a little wine (or wine vinegar) and top up with stock; the shallots should be just covered.
Add very little or no salt.
Let it simmer for 30 min. until the shallots are cooked and all liquid has evaporated.
Roll out the puff pastry in a baking tin, add bacon and mozzarella, put the shallots on top.
Bake this for 30 min at 200 °C.
I served it with a salad of mixed lettuce, raw fennel and roast pine nuts, seasoned with gomasio, pepper and olive oil.

Note:
I used red wine, it's delicious.
I sliced the shallots but you can also leave them whole.

10 April 2007

Butter bean casserole

I ate a lot at restaurants lately and then I got fed up, so yesterday I bought a lot of vegetables and cooked myself a meal again. I decided to try butter beans. I researched a few recipes and came up with this simple dish. No quantities recorded, so use your experience ;-)


butter beans, rinsed and soaked overnight
green celery, washed
mushrooms, washed and cut into pieces
runner beans (? the green ones), washed and cleaned and cut into pieces
1 potato, peeled and cut into pieces
shallots, peeled
garlic cloves, peeled
parsley
pepper and salt
bean herb??? (in French: sarriette)
olive oil

Rinse the butter beans, add fresh water and bring them to the boil. Let them boil vigorously for 10 min. without cover. Add a few stalks of celery and of parsley, 2 whole shallots, a few garlic cloves and peppercorns. Bring to the boil again, then lower the heat, cover the pan and let the dish simmer until the beans are soft. This takes 1h - 1,5h.
Pour off the liquid and collect it in a pan. Remove celery etc., just keep the beans.
Cut a few more shallots into pieces and fry them a few min. in olive oil on medium heat. Add celery, cut into pieces and fry a bit more. Then add mushrooms and fry 1 min more. Then add runner beans, potatoes and butter beans. Cook this mixture for 5-10 min in a covered pan on medium heat.
Meanwhile heat the stock that you collected from boiling the butter beans. When it's boiling, add it to the vegetables. Bring to the boil, add salt, lower the heat, cover the pan and let this simmer for around 45 min. Add some chopped parsley during the last min.