Isolation Food

Survival recipes for Coronavirus Isolation

OK, maybe not easy, not something we are used to doing, but maybe it's an interesting challenge.

Real Ragù - 19th July

Once you have tried this I guarantee you'll never again use minced beef to make your Spaghetti Bolognese!  This may look like a lot of work, but trust me it's not, it just takes some time and patience but the ragù you produce will give you the core ingredient for meals over four or five days, and no need to worry, it will keep perfectly in your fridge for over a week and indefinitely is you want to freeze some of it.

You'll need 600 gms of stewing beef, cheap stuff, here in France I buy "boeuf Bourguignon à mijoter" which costs less than 10€ per Kg!  The meat comes in rough cut chunks that are approximately 5cm cubes, that's fine, don't cut them up any smaller, try to cut out any large fatty or gristly bits but you don't have to be super efficient at this, it won't make much difference to the ragout but too much fat is not good for you.

Put the meat in a casserole with a well fitting lid that you can heat both on the hob and in the oven, add a splash of olive oil, a little salt & pepper, two red onions sliced and diced and heat on the hob until the meat chunks are just sealed on the surface.  Now add three large garlic cloves diced small and about 0.5L of good meat stock (chicken, duck, beef, rabbit whatever you have as long as it's not out of a packet), cover the casserole with aluminium foil and then the lid (to make a good tight seal) then cook in the centre or lower part of the oven at 170ºC.

This needs to be slow cooked for 4-5 hours, check it every so often, give it a stir and make sure that it is not drying out, add a little more stock to keep the liquid just level with the meat chunks if it is.  Test the meat with a fork, when ready it will come apart easily and you can take the casserole out of the oven and let it cool.  At this point you can either proceed with the cooking for use that day or leave the casserole in the fridge to be used the next day.

Using two forks pull apart all the meat chunks into shreds (this should be very easy), add the contents of three 400gm tins of tomatoes, mix it all up and cook (on the hob or back in the oven as you wish) for 45mins or an hour so that the tomatoes are well integrated.

Your ragù is now ready for use, it makes a delicious meat sauce for spaghetti, fettuccine or pappardelle, and see below for a lasagne recipe, the quantities above will make enough ragù for 4-5 meals for two people so you can keep any excess in the fridge to produce quick easy and delicious meals when needed.

Lasagne al Forno - 19th July

Baked lasagne is a pretty universal favourite and can be made quickly and easily now that you have a little stock of ragù, just follow this recipe to get a delicious, soft creamy result rather than the solid lump of cheesy stodge that is sometimes served up (no names no pack drill).

The first thing to do is to make the cream sauce.

Put 250ml of milk, 25gm of butter or spread and 15gm of cornflower in a small saucepan and heat carefully whisking all the time to avoid any lumps until the mixture is just simmering and thickens then continue to cook on a very low heat for another 5 minutes or so, remove from the heat and gently stir in 20ml of cream.

To make lasagne for four people I use an ovenproof dish about 16cm x 21cm x 5cm deep.

Spread a layer of ragù over the bottom of the dish and a layer lasagne pasta over this, I use the pasta sheets which can cooked from dry with no pre-cooking so that makes it very easy.

Now spread more ragù over this, sprinkle with salt & pepper and spread some of the cream sauce on top of that and sprinkle with ground nutmeg.  Repeat this layering - pasta - ragù - cream sauce - nutmeg until you fill the dish, when you have the last pasta layer cover that with cream sauce, add a handful of grated parmesan and another sprinkling of nutmeg.

Bake in the centre of the oven at 220ºC for 20 minutes and if necessary brown the top a little under the grill.

Buon appetito!

Cottage Pie - 19th July

If you still have some ragù left and fancy a change from pasta try this ...

Chop up some veggies, carrot, leek, celery, onion, peppers, mushroom, whatever you have available, sauté them in a little olive oil then put them in the bottom of an ovenproof dish, I use one 16cm sq. and 5cm deep for a two serving pie.  Now spread a layer of ragù over the veggies and a very thin layer of mashed potato over that (back when we had shepherds' pie at school the potato layer was about 2 inches thick, we don't want that).  Sprinkle some grated parmesan on top and bake for about 15 minutes at 200ºC, it shouldn't need any longer as all the ingredients are pre-cooked.

The good news is that this will taste infinitely better than the school dinner version of my youth!

Reliable Risotto - 9th June

All this time and I have only just realised that I have not shared the secrets of the perfect risotto!  Well, there are are just three:
1) Use only the best rice, Arborio or better still Carnaroli.
2) You must use real stock made from boiled up bones (chicken or rabbit) - just remember "The bagged stuff won't hack it".
3) Use Parmesan or Pecorino cheese.
OK - 4) Don't spare the olive oil or the garlic.

So - chop small an onion or half a leek and heat in olive oil till almost caramelised, turn off the heat, add two or three garlic cloves chopped finely, ground black pepper and a decent shake of salt, the rice (a half cupful for 2 people) and heat slowly again while adding the stock.  This will take a while so have a glass of wine while you add stock little by little and check the rice.  When the rice is nearly done add whatever you fancy - rabbit or chicken, pre-cooked in small pieces works very well, then towards the end add a handful of grated parmesan and fold this in carefully. When ready the rice should be tender (taste it), the surrounding sauce sticky and sweet but not visibly liquid.
Note that prawn risotto works very well too but use raw not cooked prawns and stock made from the discarded shells & heads.  Risotto can be a bit bland visually so I often add a few diced cherry tomatoes when it is nearly done and sprinkle the finished dish with a little chopped parsley - it's just decoration, it tastes just as good without it!
I apologise for the pic - this is not one of mine as we got stuck into our dinner tonight before I realised that I needed to take a pic - so this is a mushroom risotto from the Internet, but it looks pretty good.  Note that it is NOT dry and NOT sloppy rice pudding either, that's important!

Lazy Chef Linguine - 25th May

You will probably have noted by now that my recipes are more 'Truck Stop Food' than haute cuisine, but they are healthy, easy to make and taste really good - this one is no exception!

Dice a smallish red onion and fry in olive oil, meanwhile slice up some small cherry tomatoes into quarters and an equal amount of red pepper chopped into very small chunks (If you don't have cherry tomatoes - like me for this picture - you can use  bigger ones but the little sweet ones are best.)  In a few minutes the onion will be caramelised and you can add the tomato and pepper to the pan along with a clove or two of garlic chopped very small, stir it all up, turn off the heat and cover.

While you are doing all this the linguini is cooking in boiling water, I always use Barilla dried linguini which will cook to perfect al dente pasta in just 8 minutes.  When cooked drain the pasta, add it to the tomatoes etc in the pan, add a little tomato & basil pasta sauce (Barilla again) not too much, just enough to colour the pasta a little, stir it all together, warm through, add a splash of olive oil and serve.

This makes a good first pasta course - Italian style - or you can serve it with a main course, I like it with salmon as an alternative to potatoes.  The salmon can be cooked in a 200ºC oven in 25 minutes, so the whole thing can easily be on the table in less than half an hour - while you sip on your glass of wine!

Prawn Frittata - 17th May

I have to credit Jamie Oliver for this dish right away, I think this is pretty close to the original, Jamie's recipes are invariably delicious and this is no exception.

The frittata is basically a thick omelette so you'll need to cook it in a pan that you can start on the top of the cooker and then finish off under the grill, the quantities below make a frittata for two and I cook it in a pan 20cm. in diameter (at the bottom), to make the dish for four people double the quantities and use a pan that's about 28cm. in diameter.

Beat 4 eggs with a little ground black pepper and stir in a handful of chopped flat leaved parsley, a few drops of tabasco and the prawns peeled and halved (200gm before peeling & beheading) then a handful of grated parmesan, and just before you start cooking, the juice and zest of half a lemon. Cook the mixture in your pan with a little olive oil until it is about half cooked (see

picture above left).

Now finish off the cooking under a grill, I use a pan with a detachable handle so that the pan without the handle fits nicely in a little worktop toaster oven.  Don't overcook it, when ready it will be light and fluffy inside, more like a soufflé than a regular omelette.

I usually serve the frittata with sautéed potatoes which can be cooked in another pan and will take just about the same time as the frittata, cut the potatoes into slices 3-4mm. thick and pre-cook them in a microwave for 3 minutes, then when salutéed in a little hot olive oil they should be nice and crisp on the outside and soft inside (picture above right).  Serve with beans, courgettes or other green veggies.

Fish 'n Chips (newspaper optional) - 8th May

If you don't fancy all the boning work involved with the dourade above try this salmon recipe instead.  Buy a salmon fillet and cross-cut it into steaks, or the fish shop will cut it into suitable portion sizes for you, either way your salmon will contain few or no bones at all. Garnish the fish with a few capers, halved cherry tomatoes and maybe a sprinkle of chopped flat leaved parsley or tarragon.  Cook for 25 minutes in an oven at 200ºC just like the dourade with oven chips on a tray above them.

This is a really tasty, nutritious dish and ridiculously easy to cook, all you have to do is enjoy a glass of good wine while the salmon is cooking, and, optionally, read the newspaper!

And here's a great wine - 30th April

I know I've been a bit remiss in posting new recipes recently, and since I'm surprised (and pleased) to hear that some of you have been trying them out I promise to add a few more, in the meantime here's a very special wine recommendation.

Gourt de Mautens is a smallish (13 Ha) domaine in Rasteau owned by Jérôme Bressy who is is dedicated to doing all the right things in both vineyard and winery.

Rasteau wines are generally good, a close second to Gigondas in my opinion but Bressy's wines are truly exceptional with great intensity and complexity of flavours, a rich silky texture and a seductive bouquet that hints of cherries and jammy red fruits.

I was lucky enough to visit the domaine with a winemaker friend sometime in 2008 I guess, Bressy would only let me buy three bottles (his wines are much sought after by the top restaurants) but since the price at the winery was around €30/btl. (maybe twice the price of a good Gigondas back then) I was not too disappointed.  We drank the first bottle several years ago and it was great, the second one we drank two nights ago and it was even better, outstanding, even though now 17 years old!  We have one left!

A quick check on the Internet showed 2007 (another great year) now selling for €100/btl. and up.  If you find it at a price you're prepared to pay I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

Here's another nice mess ... I guess we could call this "Duck Casserole" - 19th April

Take one duck thigh, "cuisse de canard", and strip off and discard the skin and excess fat (or you can omit this bit and the resulting dish may taste a little smoother and richer but your cardiologist won't be happy).  Just brown it a little in your casserole (one of those heavyweight French cast iron casseroles is good but anything that you can heat on the hob as well as in the oven will work).  Add a couple of large carrots, peeled and halved, a large garlic clove sliced thinly, and a 400gm can of tomatoes, cover tightly with aluminium foil and the casserole lid and cook in the centre of a 180ºC oven.  After an hour take it out, add a red pepper that you have sliced into about six large pieces and put it back in the oven.  After another hour take the casserole out of the oven, remove the lid and foil and layer thinly sliced courgette over the contents and a layer of potato sliced at about 3mm over that, if it's looking too dry at this stage add a slurp of white wine then put it back in the oven at 200ºC.  Have a look after 15-20 minutes when the potato slices should be looking cooked, turn the oven to "Grill" at the maximum setting and in 10 minutes or so the potatoes should be nicely browned and the dish ready to serve, the duck will just fall of the bone so you can easily split it and the veggies between two plates.  That's it, this is a real easy meal to make as it cooks itself and needs no accompanying vegetables.   Enjoy!
P.S. You could make this with chicken or turkey instead of duck but it won't taste as good.

Chicken & Mushroom Pie - 19th April

By now you'll have guessed that I like vegetables, and this recipe is no exception in that the pie filling includes a lot more besides chicken and mushrooms.  To make the filling I lightly sauté all the ingredients together, carrots, leek, courgette, mushrooms (don't chop these too small, small button mushrooms halved work well), a garlic clove chopped finely, a small (150gm) can of sweet corn and of course the chicken, left-over roasted chicken (or rabbit) is best as it won't need cooking and you can add some of the juices from the roasting.  Add about half a glass of white wine and thicken the juices with cornflour over a low heat.
Pour all this delicious mixture into a pie dish, I use a 30cm dia. flan dish about 4cm deep and your filling should be at least 3cm deep, if it's not you haven't made enough; this will make a pie that will serve four (don't worry if there's just the two of you, eat half tonight and the other half will keep in the fridge for tomorrow or the day after).
Now my mother used to make real pies that had pastry top and bottom but these days when none of us pushes anything much heavier than a mouse around I think just a thin crust of flakey pastry on top is quite enough.  I'm also lazy so I  use pre-made pastry that I buy at the supermarket and keep in the freezer, it's convenient and delicious, just remember to take it out of the freezer to thaw an hour or so before you need it.  Unroll the pastry, flip it on top of the pie dish, squish the pastry to the edges of the dish using a fork, brush the pastry with a little milk and make a few holes with a knife point to let the steam out while it is cooking.  Cook in the middle of a pre-heated oven at 200ºC for about 25 minutes or till the pastry has browned nicely.
I serve with broccoli and baked potato, as you can see from the picture above it was very popular!

Stir Crazy - 15th April

Regular readers of this page (Oh come on, there must be some) have probably noticed that I've not been posting so much recently and not living up to my stated aim of providing two weeks worth of isolation recipes.  The fact is that now that we have discovered 'Carrefour Drive' we have a totally 'contactless' way to get just about anything we want whenever we need it so the need for a two week supply of isolation recipes has evaporated.

However, following overwhelming requests for more recipes (OK, actually only one), here is another of my favourites -

Stir-Fry chicken/duck/rabbit/pork/prawn etc.

I have the feeling that a lot of people think stir-fry is difficult (I did) but it is not, it's easy and very tasty, it does however involve a lot of vegetable chopping so my first piece of advice is to pour yourself a decent glass of good wine to sip as you chop - sip not chug or we'll have too many fingers in the mix and we don't want that (especially if vegetarian).

It is really important not to overcook ingredients and destroy the taste and texture so my plan is to prepare all the ingredients first then add them to the wok (yes a wok is essential and well worth the purchase) just as required, done this way you don't need to bother with a fancy wok with racks around the side and all that stuff.  Chop all the vegetables into thin pencil shapes 5-8 cm long, they cook easily that way and I think they look pretty.  There it is left cooking in the wok.
First in the wok with some olive oil are any root veggies that you are using, carrots, parsnips (fennel if this is a fish or prawn stir-fry) as these will take longest to cook, plus thinly chopped onions and/or leeks as we want these to cook on a high heat for a short while and caramelise a little, add a splash of balsamic vinegar.
After 2-3 minutes add the softer veggies, celery, red peppers, along with a clove of garlic finely chopped, some grated fresh root ginger and a good slosh of soy sauce.
Cook for another 2-3 minutes then add the green veggies, green beans or mangetout peas, (halved bok choy is good too) plus whatever your choice in protein - chicken or prawns etc., half to one glass or so of white wine, stir the original items over the newly added greens etc., cover and cook on a medium heat for another couple of minutes so that the greens get steamed in the wine & soy sauce till they are just done but still crispy.

A word on the meat or fish.  The easiest way is to add a little chicken or duck that has been cooked (roasted) earlier, that way you just need to warm it as the greens cook.  If you are going to use raw meat, chicken or pork say, then you have to make sure that this is thoroughly cooked which is a little more tricky.  Prawn stir-fry is one of my favourites, if you can always use raw prawns and cook till they just turn pink, do not overcook them or they will be hard and loose their delicate flavour.  If you can only get pre-cooked prawns just warm them through.  By the way raw prawns peel much easier than cooked ones.
While you are doing all this put a splash of olive oil in a saucepan and fry some Basmati rice in it till it is just going brown - be careful as it is easy to burn it!  When browned add some water and cook it slowly so that all the water is absorbed by the time the wok cooking is done, this takes a little practice.  A small cupful of rice is about right for two people and it will need twice that volume of water to cook.
When it's all ready put the rice on the plates and the stir-fry on top like the pic above of a chicken stir-fry, a spicy white wine should work well, or of  course any wine you enjoy!

Les asperges sont arrivées! - 7th April

This is just to cheer you up with the news that asparagus is now in season, ours comes from the Gard, just across the Rhone.  I usually serve it wrapped in Parma ham and topped with mayonnaise, this one uses that Spanish ham from the special black pigs that feed on acorns, but I think my favourite is the lightly smoked ham from northern Italy, I forget what it's called.  They are all good with fresh green asparagus!

Mushroom linguini - 4th April

I have to admit that this was supposed to be pasta with mushrooms and rabbit offal, however in my haste I picked up the wrong package at the supermarket - rabbit joints instead of a whole rabbit - hence no offal, but the upside is this really authentic veggie (vegan even) alternative.
Chop up half a red onion and lightly sauté that in olive oil, add a couple of big mushrooms and a clove or two of fresh garlic, all chopped up small and cook on a low heat till the mushrooms just start to turn.  Personally I prefer the 'ordinary' mushrooms but nice big solid ones, the more expensive varieties are rarely worth the cost, unless you can get good fresh chanterelles or porcinis (but only in Italy).  Meanwhile cook some linguini and when done strain and add it to the mushrooms in the sauté pan.  Add a little Barilla tomato & basil sauce, just enough to colour the pasta and make it sticky.  Stir it all up and serve.

Dourade & Chips - 4th Arpil

Dourade (Bream in the UK) is probably our favourite fish, here in France it universally available, either 'wild' or farmed which actually I prefer, I have never seen it in the US.  This morning I went hunting and gathering at the supermarket, Isobel met me on return in her hazmat suit and decontaminated everything so tonight we can feast on fresh fish!  I believe fish always tastes better if it is cooked whole and filleted afterwards, so that's what I did with the dourade.  Here the fishmonger will gut and clean the fish, rub off the scales and trim the fins for you, but all that is really easy to do yourself as well.

Put a little olive oil in an ovenproof dish (I use one of those ridiculously heavy French cast iron dishes but I'm sure something from a recent century would work just as well), add the dourade and roll it around in the olive oil, cut a few little tomatoes in half and put these on top of the fish (to keep it moist during cooking), cover with aluminium foil and pop it in the oven at 200ºC, it should take 25-30 minutes depending on size.  When the time is up take it out and try to slide a spatula between the bone and the flesh starting at the tail end and working up to the head, if you meet resistance it's not done so put the foil back on and pop it back in the oven for another five minutes.  When it is cooked the flesh will separate easily from the bone underneath, lift that (top) side of the fish out of the dish and flip it skin side down onto a plate, now you can carefully lift off and discard any bones.  Now go back to the coking dish and lift up the tail (which may be hot), pull it up and away which should remove the backbone, most of the larger bones and the head which you discard.  Scoop up the bottom half of the fish from the cooking dish, put this on a second plate and again remove any bones you see with a fork.  This might all sound tricky but with a little practice you'll find it only takes a few minutes and you'll have delicious dourade fillets that should be pretty much bone free.  Add the little tomatoes and whatever veggies you like, I usually make oven chips as they will cook on a higher shelf in the oven in the same time as the fish.

Lamb paparadelle - 4th April

This was another one for late in the isolation cycle when I was running low on fresh supplies because in my case the lamb came from the freezer.  The lamb in question being a 'shank', the lower part of the hind leg - note the French call this joint a 'souris', a mouse - either the French have very strange eating habits or very small sheep ... It's very easy because all you have to do is cook the shank in the oven at 170ºC for 2-2.5 hours (depending on the size of the shank) that's all you have to do.  Put the shank in a casserole dish with rosemary, thyme and garlic, olive oil and just a little water, cover with aluminium foil and the casserole lid to make a tight seal.  Just check it from time to time, if the bottom of the casserole dish is getting dry add just a little more water as we don't want the cooking juices to dry out and burn.  When done the meat should fall off the bone when poked gently with a wooden spoon, break up the chunks of meat a bit with the spoon add the pasta (which you cooked & drained a couple of minutes ago) and stir it all around so that the meat gets distributed and the pasta coated in the cooking juices.  Serve it with whatever you have, in my case (inevitably) ratatouille.  Delicious!

Easy Peasy - 1st April

Don't forget that there are things that you can safely keep in your fridge for 10 days or so, thus putting off exposure at the supermarket for a little longer without resorting to frozen food.  This simple meal needs just eggs, mushrooms, potatoes, mangetout peas and a little olive oil to make a mushroom omelette with sauté potatoes and peas, nothing fancy but quick, tasty and all sourced from ingredients that keep well in the fridge (or out, for the eggs).  Of course a good red wine is essential too, maybe more about that later.

Don't forget the 'rat' ... 1st April

Staying healthy while self isolating requires that we eat healthy food including fresh vegetables and that can get tricky as we get towards the end of our fresh food stash, so here's what I do to make the best of the odds and ends that I have left.  Make ratatouille.  My 'rat' may not bear too much resemblance to classic ratatouille but it's very tasty, colourful and will certainly keep the scurvy away.  This one included red onions, leek, celery, romamo cauliflower stalks, red pepper, garlic and herbs all sautéd in olive oil, then I added some mangetout peas, a splash of Worcester sauce and a little white (or rosé) wine and a slurp of tinned tomatoes then warmed it all through.  However the recipe varies every time, just depending on what I have left in the fridge so sometimes carrots, fennel, courgettes, green beans and aubergine are part of the mix too.  Bonne appétit!

First Thoughts - 30th March

In the old pre-isolation days we used to shop several days a week at our really good 'local' supermarket and every Saturday at the market in St. Cecile les Vignes (we'd go to the market every week even if we needed nothing just because the coffee & croissants are so good at our favourite café).  Now all that has changed.  I like to cook because I like eating, I also like eating good stuff and I've found that we can eat really well at home at a fraction of restaurant prices, oftentimes better as well.  I do simple stuff, nothing fancy, but usually it tastes pretty good and I think it's healthy.

Now we have a new challenge.  I want to limit my visits to the supermarket to once every 14 days but still eat good, tasty, health giving fresh food.  So, ... I thought I'd detail here our menu for the next couple of weeks, as it rolls out, and please add your contributions as well - I need to expand my repertoire!

So - tonight we were 8 days from our last shop and down to a chicken pasta with Romano cauliflower - and it was pretty good, but I've had too much wine to get into the all the details of that so I thought I'd just tell you about the wine instead.

Brusset is a medium sized producer from the neighbouring village of Cairanne, not a 'boutique' winery but a good reliable producer with a range of wines from several of the local villages including Gigondas plus some less expensive Côte de Rhônes at sensible prices.  This wine, the "Tradition le Grand Montmirail" is one of his top cuveés from vineyards high up in the Dentelles, I don't recall what it cost, but whatever it was it was worth it!  2007 was a great year, it's not likely you'll find it in a wineshop anymore and it will be quite pricey in a restaurant.  However, in Bistro Rouvis it is still available and is a wonderful antidote to Isolation.

This is a lovely wine, full, rich, yet classy and sophisticated, some might say it is reminiscent of a Chateauneuf du Pape, but I'd say it's a pretty decent Gigondas!