A couple of foodie days

I had a bit of a foodie week last week.

On Thursday I bought a pair of squid from the local fishmongers.  Squid is not the easiest thing to prepare and I hadn’t done it for a long time.  But it’s a bit like riding a bike - once you know how you don’t forget.  The trick is to use a sharp knife to get the quill and the innards out.  The legs can be chopped and used in a sauce or soup but be careful not use the eye or split the ink sac.

This recipe was rather complicated. It required a stuffing of onions breadcrumbs, spinach and cheese, using little cocktail sticks to close the squids and then cooking them in a sauce of onions, tomatoes, thyme, a bay leaf.  The final flourish was a sprinkling of roast pine nuts.  I choose to serve it with potatoes.  It all went very smoothly, and I even leaned a new trick from the recipe – pour boiling water over the tomatoes for about a minute, then cold, then you can just rub the skins away.   The dish went down well with a foodie friend. The Belgians are really into their foods and I do feel a certain unspoken pressure to ‘up’ my standards.  But it’s a positive influence. 

I’ve also recently found a really good quick and easy recipe for brown bean salad, which I am in danger of over-using.  You need a large tin of brown beans (you can soak them from dry if you plan this hours in advance – but normally I don’t).   Wash the beans thoroughly. You can heat them or serve this dish cold.  Warm is better in winter.  Make a vinaigrette with garlic, crushed cumin seeds, olive oil, lemon juice, a sprig of thyme and salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle over the beans then add three to four chopped hard boiled eggs and a handful of chopped gherkins.   A quick supper -ready in less than fifteen minutes.