Sammy has once again provided me with a list of ingredients, for which she will trade from me a swifty written recipe for her dinner.
Realising that I would be a bit time-poor, as chefs often are (that’s right. I am a chef), or maybe I just realised I can now palm this blog off to other people to do the hard work and call them a guest chef, I’ve asked Pauly to have a go again. He was mighty obliging and this is what he came up with…

Napisan challenge

Napisan challenge you say…. well if by napisan you mean food and if by challenge you mean conjure something amazing from next to nothing…. I accept this so called napisan challenge!!!

I’ve been given sausage (no dirty remarks please) cannellini beans, tomatoes and chilli. Now I’m guessing, as this is for you lovely people at home that there just normal sausages, tinned beans, tinned tomatoes and dried chilli.

Firstly who ever had these four items and didn’t know what to do with them, I truly worry for you as they are four perfectly matched ingredients in fact they all love each other and often find themselves beautifully intertwined in a sexy dish we call cassoulet. (Cassoulet can have many other ingredients in but the nuts and bolts of it are meat, beans and tomato.

And with the risk of over simplifying a very complex dish you can pretty much cook off onions, sausage meat and chilli with a little thyme then add your drained and rinsed beans and your tin of tomatoes, maybe a splash of whatever wine you’re drinking and then whack it in a low oven to cook for several hours…. then BAM deliciousness personified.

But I thought I’d break the dish down into something a little more cheffy, something a lot of chef’s called deconstructed, and by chef’s I mean twats…

 

Rosemary meatballs, horseradish white bean puree, chili tomato sauce.

Meatballs

Cut the skin off all sausages so only the meat is left

1 lg onion, fine diced

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary (this grows everywhere so no excuses)

s&p (if by now you don’t know what s&p means…your dead to me!!)

• Simply mix all ingredients together and form into balls about an inch in diameter
• Fry off and place to one side

Horseradish white bean puree

1 tin cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

I lg onion, diced

2 tablespoons horseradish (if you don’t have it, then use wasabi or mustard)

s&p

1 teaspoon lemon juice

• Fry off your onion in a little oil until they go translucent, then add a tiny amount of butter to help them caramelize (go nice and brown)
• In a blender add all ingredients and blend until nice and smooth
• Then just check seasoning and if its to thick then you can add a little cream (sour cream, crème fraiche etc.)
• Now place to one side

Chilli tomato sauce

1 tin tomatoes

1 lg onion, diced

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon dried chilli

100ml of whatever wine you have (red preferably but white could work, just not fruity lexia)

• In a sauce pan cook off your onions in a little oil
• Add chilli and bay leaf
• Add wine and reduce by half
• Add tomatoes and cook for 10-15minutes until its nice and saucy
• Season and remove bay leaf

 

• Add the meatballs into the sauce and cook on low heat until there cooked through, should only take 5-10 minutes

 

Now you can plate your dinner, I would place a large amount of the puree/mash in the middle of the plate and make it into a well, then fill that well with meatballs and sauce…. right on!!

 

This is winter food at its best and with ingredients that are this well matched it would be hard to make to many mistakes…

 

But lets not forget that from most mistakes we learn the most, for instance how about the first guy to milk a cow!!!!

 

What the F@*# was he up too for a start…but from his freaky experiment we now have so many products we rely on.

 

And on that note I’ll goodbye…. napisan challenge complete!!!

 

PS heaps more guest chef’s to follow, I think… plus a conversation about that first guy to milk a cow and what he may have been up too….