A Savoury Bread Pudding. Strata!

South veering southwest later 5 to 7, occasionally gale 8.

Moderate or rough, occasionally very rough.

Occasional rain or drizzle.

Good, occasionally poor.

Dont know about you, but I tend to “forget” food. If I encounter a new method or dish and like it, I tend to cook it for weeks on end and then it somehow slips my mind. I was once talking to my brother and mentioned my favourite vegetables. He then told me that his taste is somehow simpler and that he likes cauliflower. My jaw dropped, not because he has a simple taste (he hasn’t), but I have forgotten about cauliflower for years.

Same applies to Strata. I used to cook it a lot when I was much younger and I remember cooking it for my children when they were young. But somehow I forgot about it. Probably for 15 years or so. But yesterday it came back to me.

I looked in my fridge and gathered all loose ends of the last week. Since I am off work due to a nasty cold with fever and a horrible cough I did not want to go out- or if I did, not wanting to go shopping. And when I noticed the three slices of dried out sourdough bread, I remembered Strata.

It makes perfect sense since Strata has written Saturday all over it.

1. You can do it in advance on Friday night and have a hassle free Saturday brunch.

2. You do it on Friday night before you go out drinking and have the suspicion that Saturday means nurturing your hangover and even cheese on toast could provide a challenge.

3. You prepare it Saturday morning, take the dogs (or kids) for a long walk and come home and just need to bang something in the oven.

4. You can tie up all loose ends, from the sorry looking last slice of bacon to the dried out fennel in your vegetable box.

5. If you have neglected your kitchen and need to spend hours cleaning it, you don’t want to destroy your hard labour again by cooking a few hours later.

6. It is comfort food with a T and easy to eat for children without teeth, old people without teeth, after a dentist appointment or when you are too lazy to chew.

7. You can manage it if you have a cold and cough your little heart out. Poor me.

Strata is, I believe, NOT an Italian dish but has American roots and the name derives from the geological terms of layers. And this is what you do, you create layers. You can basically add what you want, but bread, eggs and cheese are a must.

In the past I used up chorizo and jalapeño peppers, spinach, leek and onion, barbequed leftover sausages, chicken leftovers with leek, smoked salmon, ham, just plenty of onions or made an English Fry-up in a casserole dish. No vegetables? Pear, some tarragon and blue cheese (trust me on this one, it is ace).

In short: Everything but the kitchen sink.

It is a good dish to use up the rest of your baguette, but be bold with the flavours. Anything smoked goes, strong cheeses or added ingredients like chillies. All filling ingredients need to be cooked in advance, unless they are already cooked, like ham or leftover chicken.

This recipe are today`s leftovers and it was bloody delicious.

Strata with mushrooms

3 slices of good quality white bread; slightly stale or dried out

5 brown mushrooms

3 stalks of spring onions

1 garlic clove

120gr grated smoked cheese (in this case around 2/3 of Applewood smoked cheddar and 1/3 Bavarian smoked cheese)

2 eggs

100ml milk

Dijon mustard

Butter

Salt and pepper

Slice the mushrooms and cut the garlic very fine. Heat a pan, add butter and the mushrooms and garlic. Fry for about 5 minutes until soft (it helps if you add a lid if the mushrooms are slightly dried out to begin with). Add the chopped spring onions and cook for a further 3 minutes, this time without lid, you don’t want liquid.

In the meantime spread the mustard thinly on the bread and let sit for a few minutes. Cut the bread into small cubes and use one third to cover the bottom of a small dish. Add half of the mushroom mixture, top with 1/3 of the grated cheese, add another layer of bread, add the next half of mushrooms and another third of cheese, top with the rest of the bread. Press it down.

Beat the eggs and the milk, add salt (not too much) and pepper (you can also add nutmeg or paprika) and pour over the bread mixture. Press it down again, everything should be submerged.

Let it rest for up to 8 hours or overnight (actually I once prepared it 24 hours in advance and it was as good as prepared a few hours earlier). By this time the bread will have soaked up the egg mixture.

When you are ready to cook, heat the oven to 180C, put the dish in and add the last third of the cheese on top.

Bake until brown and bubbly, about 30-40 minutes.

Serve with a green salad, a beer, or, as I did, with a rather spicy “Virgin Mary”

This recipe might be a bit too much for one person (the first picture represents about a third and I ate twice that amount) but it tastes nice cold too, so lunch for today was sorted.

In fact, after having it cooked now again for some time (I told you I get a bit obsessive with “new” cooking ideas), I believe it is better cold. Warm is comfort, cold an extremely quick high energy snack. And easy to use as an office lunch.

A Lamb Stew from the Philippines. Calderata!

Southwest 5 to 7, occasionally gale 8 later, perhaps severe gale 9 later.

Moderate, occasionally rough later.

Occasional rain or drizzle.

Moderate or good, occasionally poor.

 

Why lamb?

One of the most interesting experiences in the last year was that people don’t realise for a long time that you are a Vegetarian if you don’t mention it.

Don’t get me wrong, my colleagues notice each day what I eat and comment on it. My eating habits are a kind of good natured joke to them, mainly because I am the only one who brings home cooked food each day into work. They would eat either sandwiches, yoghurts, crisps (or all of it) or eat the food provided by their employer.

I don’t want that. Food in OAP homes is a) vile (even in the very expensive homes) and/or b) often fortified. And I don’t eat horrible food which has, due to extra powder, double the amount of calories. Hence I bring, what they mockingly refer to, my “picnic basket with a full Sunday lunch”. And I get asked each day what is in that basket. And there will be always a comment on it, and the second comment will arise when I eat it and they compare their food to mine.
On top of it I talk “food”, mainly with the cooks. Compare recipes, exchange ideas and tricks, and occasionally I cook for the whole bunch (my cheese and onion pastries are the favourite of every night shift team, the second most requested dish is my take on Keema Curry and here again..no one asked what is in it, otherwise they would know that the beef is replaced with Vegetarian haggis)). Yet no one ever asked: “Are you Vegetarian?” It puzzles me, since by now it must be obvious to them.

The only question in regards to meat resulted in the lamb which is part of today`s recipe. I made a Thai Green curry with tofu and was asked why not chicken. To which I answered that I am not fond of chicken, and lamb, which is my favourite meat, doesn’t work here. Again, this was accepted without further questioning.

The next day one of my colleagues brought me some lamb meat from his brother, who owns a farm in the Rye Salt Marsh. Salt marsh lamb..it cant get better. Well, it does. Happy little cute lambs who live a life outdoors on (in this case) organic fields and are only slaughtered when they are just on the verge of becoming officially mutton. Pity that mutton puts many people off and, according to my colleague, doesn’t sell that much, especially if it is from the (fatty) shoulder. So he gave me (for free) a good three kilos of organic Salt Marsh Lamb shoulder and challenged me to make a stew the others would enjoy.

So I put 500gr aside to try out several recipes, hence the meagre amount in the picture above. This represents maybe 1/3 of the recipe for one, and even if you cant be bothered to eat it with rice, it will be enough to satisfy you.

Calderata is considered one of the most beloved dishes from the Philippines (I cant verify this bold statement since I have never been to the Philippines and have to rely on the internet for this assumption) and shows, like the dishes from Goa (Portuguese colony), the influence of the Mediterranean (in this case Spanish). It can be done with any meat, but is traditionally done with goat, another strong tasting meat which is not to everyone`s liking. Like any stew there are millions of recipes and everyone claims that this is the authentic. Is mine authentic? Who cares! It might not be because I found many references that pig`s liver should be included. Now, I am quite partial to liver. Especially veal`s liver, chicken liver, or, if I have to, beef liver. But pig`s liver? No. Actually..a double NO with several exclamation marks!!!!

So, just call it a lamb stew inspired by the spirit of Calderata and you will be fine.

The vinegar in these kind of recipes serves two purposes: To make originally strong tasting meat milder (hence game is often “washed” with vinegar) and to mask meat which is on the verge of going off (there is a reason most recipes from the Middle Age ask for vinegar in combination with meat- either as a marinate or as a condiment)

The original idea was from Madhur Jaffrey`s “Far Eastern Cooking”, in my opinion one of the best cookbooks as a starter point for everything Far East Asian. As always, serves one.

Lamb Stew with Potatoes, Peppers and Olives

200gr of boneless lamb

1 tbsp of white wine vinegar

A sprinkle of salt

Some black pepper

1 clove of garlic

1 shallot

1 tbsp olive oil

1 red hot dried chilli pepper or one fresh with the seeds removed

1 stick cinnamon

1 bay leave

1 squirt of double concentrated tomato paste

1 potato

1 green pepper (bell pepper) or whatever leftover pepper you have lurking in your fridge, cut into small stripes

About 4 green olives

Cut the meat in small cubes and mix it with the vinegar, salt and ground pepper. Set aside and marinate it for at least one hour, preferable over night.

Chop up the garlic and shallot, dice the pepper, chilli pepper and potato.

When you are ready to cook, drain the meat, but reserve the marinate. Pat dry. Heat the olive oil and add the chilli pepper. Give it a few seconds and remove with a slotted spoon. Add the meat and brown on all sides. Remove from the oil. Turn the heat down. Add the garlic and onion and then the cinnamon and bay leave. Give it a few minutes, and then add the meat, the tomato paste and the marinating liquid. Cook for 30 minutes, then add the diced potatoes and cook for another 30 minutes. Add the pepper stripes and the olives and cook for 10 minutes more.

Depending on how you want to serve it, add water as you go along. If you want to serve it with rice, make it fairly thick and don’t add water beyond a few splashes. If you regard it as a real stew, be generous with water and serve with a spoon.

Verdict:

Well.. how to phrase it without sounding smug. My experiment went very well, the above dish was devoured by all my colleagues (I used the “with rice“ version) and you will find this recipe next year in the annual calendar from a Salt Marsh Farm. Be a trendsetter. Try it out before everyone else does it.

And I think that no one will ask me for the next months: “I kind of noticed you never feature meat..are you by any chance a Vegetarian?”

Am I still? Good question. How many meat dishes is a Vegetarian allowed before he is no longer considered a Vegetarian? One strike and you are off? Three?

How about if I eat once per month meat. And the rest of it neither meat nor animal products? Out of the wish to reduce the killing of animals because we have a choice to not do it? But being human? Yes, I had the choice to dismiss the gift and the challenge by declaring that I am a Vegetarian.

But first of all I am human and I cant bloody resist Salt Marsh Lamb. I am neither Jesus nor Mother Theresa. And frankly, the lambs were dead anyway without me creating a market through demand.

And second this is not me. I rather introduce people casually to a diet without meat without them knowing it.

Honestly, I don’t care if you eat bacon or chicken or love a steak. But I am glad if you try out the recipes and declare them as truly scrumptious and not at all frightening. My humble victory? To show people that Tofu or Seitan is nothing to be scared off or means boring food. It is just an alternative to something we take for granted out of tradition or lack of imagination.

Will this dish work with tofu? Dont be ridiculous, it wont. If you find a way to make it Vegetarian, let me know.