Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan. Add the onion, garlic and rice and cook, stirring, until the rice becomes translucent. Now add the lamb, herbs and spice, and cook for 3–5 minutes, until the lamb is browned. Finally, add the pine nuts, cook for a few minutes and remove from the heat. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.
Line a heavy baking dish with any ripped or extra cabbage leaves. This will prevent the stuffed cabbage from sticking. Stuff the cabbage by placing the leaves on a flat surface with the inner sides facing up. Put about 1 tablespoon of filling in the centre of each leaf. Fold the leaf over the filling, first from the bottom, then the sides, and finally bring the pointed tip of the cabbage down to form a parcel. Place the parcel seam side down in the baking dish. Continue until you’ve stuffed all the leaves, making sure that the parcels fit snugly against each other. If the pan is too large, simply add a few extra leaves around the side as a cushion.
Mix together the lemon juice and chicken stock, and pour enough over the stuffed cabbage parcels to just cover them. Cover the pan tightly and bake for 1–11/2 hours. If the stock evaporates completely during cooking, add a drop of water to the pan. Serve with a dollop of natural yogurt and garnish with dill.
Beef and Pointed Cabbage Pie
I could call this “raid-the-pantry pie” sometimes! If we haven’t got a can of tomatoes, I will use kidney beans, chickpeas, just about anything really. It’s the same with the cabbage, spring greens, carrots, even the odd random parsnip. But at the end of the day, it always goes down a storm when it comes out of the oven.
SERVES 6
1kg (21/4lb) potatoes
2 glugs of olive oil
500g (1lb) beef mince
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 small or 1/2 a large pointed cabbage, shredded, or use spring greens
1 can of tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp tomato purée
1/2 mug of beef stock, plus more if you need it
A couple of good splashes of Worcestershire sauce
A splash of Tabasco (optional)
1 tsp cornflour
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 mug of grated cheese
First, boil and mash the potatoes for the topping. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/gas 7.
Heat a few glugs of olive oil in a large frying pan. Add the beef, onion and garlic and fry until the onion is translucent – don’t move it around too much so you get some good colour on the beef.
Now add the cabbage and toss this through for a few minutes until it wilts down. Then throw in the tomatoes, including the juice from the can, the tomato purée and beef stock. Stir it all through and bring to a simmer. Add the Worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco if you’re man enough, and let this simmer for further 10 minutes.
If the mixture is starting to dry out at this stage, add 1/2 a mug more of beef stock (or the dregs of an old bottle of wine) mixed with a teaspoon of cornflour so you end up with a gravy in the pan. On the other hand, if it’s still very wet, just mix the cornflour with a little water and add this to the pan. Season with salt and pepper, check again that you’ve put in enough Worcestershire and Tabasco and pour into a suitable-size baking dish.
Top the mince with mash and cheese and bang into a hot oven for about 20 minutes, then finish under the grill for an extra-crunchy top.
Pan-Fried Chicken Breasts with Blood Orange Sauce
The sauce and the chicken take about the same time to cook, so this delicious supper takes about 20 minutes from go. Bookmark this page for when you’ve stayed at work (or in the pub) too long and have someone coming over.
This dish is fabulous with a pile of butter-sautéed spinach, or any greens for that matter, so don’t forget to get them on the go as well!
SERVES 4
2 knobs of butter
1 onion, peeled and finely diced
1 tbsp flour
1/2 cup of white wine
Juice of 4 blood oranges
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Zest of 1 orange
4 chicken breast fillets, skin removed
A glug of olive oil
To make the sauce, melt a couple of good knobs of butter in a medium-heated frying pan, add the onions and sauté until they are translucent. Now stir in the flour and pour in the wine and orange juice. Season with salt and pepper and let this simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until it thickens. Finally, add the orange zest before removing from the heat.
Season the chicken breasts with a little salt and pepper and pan-fry in a little olive oil for about 5 minutes per side in a medium-heated pan, or until just cooked through and the juices run clear. Alternatively, you could cook them under the grill until cooked through. Once cooked, let them rest for about 5 minutes and then carve diagonally across the grain into four or five pieces.
On warm plates, serve the chicken slightly splayed out like you would put down a good hand of playing cards and drizzle with the orange sauce.
Stir-Fried Chicken with Radish, Chilli and Lime
Some things don’t need introducing…serve with rice or in fajitas with a dollop of yogurt and garnish with radish leaves.
SERVES 4
6 large skinless and boneless chicken thighs, cut into 2.5cm (1in) pieces
Juice of 2 limes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
A few glugs of olive oil
1/2 mug of chicken stock
6 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
A bunch of radishes, trimmed, halved and sliced
Grated zest of 1 lime
A handful of chopped fresh coriander or 1 tbsp dried
natural yogurt, to serve
A handful