It’s slow cook Sunday and I’m cooking a quick and dirty Cassoulet. Quick! not exactly slow cooking, I here you say, yes well it’s quick preparation and slow cooking over a couple of hours while I watch the Tour de France highlights. Dirty? It is not a traditional French recipe, it is my own gonzo slightly Spanish version.

So let’s get down and dirty and cooking. I started with some Chilli oil in my heavy faux Le Creuset pan from Ikea and browned off four chunky pork sausages. While they were colouring I chopped some picante chorizo, onion, garlic, potatoes and Romano peppers. They were all thrown onto the pan to sweat out. I assembled the rest of the stew and added it to the pot, dried oregano, beef stock cube, smoked paprika, a tin of butter beans and a couple of handfuls of Puy Lentils. Some hot water and its done, well after two hours slow cooking on the back burner.

In my rush I forgot the carrots oh well…I’m back to watch the Tour in the Pyrenees.

Allez Allez!

Jonah over at The Frontal Cortex has an interesting post about the matching of sweet and salty food combinations. He touches on some good research on how salt is processed by our body and brain and his conclusions concur with what I was taught as an Apprentice Chef.

What is not touched on, but something I find useful in the kitchen is the relationship between salt and bitterness. A pinch of salt in my chocolate cake/mousse will just reduce the bitterness of the dark chocolate and make for a more balanced dish. Salted Cucumber will be a little drier and less bitter and this is true of a number of foods.

My favorite sweet salty combo is crisp Granny Smith’s with some strong salty cheddar, what’s yours?

This spicy little number came about when cooking at a friends place recently. We were having Moroccan chicken (that’s an other post) as a main and I’d decided on Falafel as a starter but wanted it a bit more interesting than just hummus. I picked up some red peppers, red onion and some chilli’s from the Brixton market with the rest of our shopping.

I roasted the peppers first with olive oil, garlic and some salt and pepper. I peeled the peppers and sliced them, they went in a saucepan with the oil from the tray and a sliced red onion and some chopped chilli. Now I’d bought some bell chilli’s so only put in half a chilli as they are red hot. This all sweated of to soften then added brown sugar and red-wine vinegar. Then on a low heat it just cooks down for an hour or two.

We had this warm with the Falafel and the left overs went well with some cold cuts the next day.

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