Ballotine of quail with bacon infused polenta, crispy kale and girolles

Well this monday lunch was a bit of a challenge. When I started this blog it was just to write about the everyday things that I cooked, but it seems like I have unleashed an absolute monster. Now I find large chunks of my days off taken with making extravagant lunches, and the days in between mulling over what to do the next time. It’s funny to see how things have changed, but I do really enjoy it and I am definitely a better and more imaginative cook as a result of having to motivate myself every week. Having a weekly blog to write means that I have a deadline and drives away any laziness!

It also means that I have to try and vary things as much as possible. Pasta and fish are probably the foods that I love the most, but what would be the fun in writing about them every single week... Frankly, I dread to think how boring it would be to read too! 

I thought it was about time that I returned to poultry, probably the thing I cook the least outside of very simple day to day cooking. If I'm planning a special dinner then something like chicken is often one of the last things that I think of. So this week I have made a quail dish. Quail is something that I’ve never really cooked with before, but I had an idea in my head for a recipe using quail with polenta, mushrooms and kale so thought that it would be worth an experiment.

Boning a whole bird to use as a ballotine was something that I was worried about the most. I don’t think that my knife skills are too bad, but I’d never tried doing anything like this before. After doing a bit of research and watching some videos on youtube, when it came to it the process wasn’t too bad. Somehow I managed to bone the tiny quail without any ruptures on my first go, I just took my time and was very careful. I feel like this is a bit of a personal achievement; my dad often bones a whole duck for Christmas dinner and it’s always so impressive, now I feel like I can talk to him about how he does it.

Kale and girolles are bang in season and are great things to be eating at the moment. They’re so delicious fried quickly with a bit of butter or in hearty soups. 

Serves 2

Ingredients:

For the quail: 

2 quails

2-3 chicken livers, sinew removed

1 bulb garlic

50g spinach leaves

1 tsp thyme leaves

5 thyme sprigs

1 knob butter

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

For the polenta:

50g quick cook polenta

400ml whole milk

1 shallot, sliced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 rashers streaky bacon, cut into small pieces

5 sprigs of thyme

Salt and pepper

For the kale:

1 large handful kale leaves, shredded

1 large knob of butter

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

For the mushrooms:

15-20 girolles, brushed clean

1 garlic clove

1 knob of butter

Salt and pepper

For the sauce:

The quail carcasses

500ml good chicken stock

1 large glass dry white wine

2 shallots, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed

5 thyme sprigs

1 bay leaf

2 knobs of butter

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180ºC Fan. 

Start by preparing the quail. Break up the bulb of garlic but leave the skins on the cloves. Put into a small oven dish with the thyme sprigs, seasoning and a little olive oil. Mix well, cover with foil and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the cloves are soft and tender. Peel the garlic while still hot and mash up with a fork to a rough puree. Set aside to cool down. 

Heat up a medium saucepan to a medium heat and add the knob of butter. When melted drop in the spinach and seasoning, and cook for a couple of minutes until wilted down and tender. Allow to cool then squeeze out the moisture. 

While the garlic is cooking and the spinach is cooling down prepare the quail itself. Holding the quail breast side down on a chopping board, make an incision down the length of the bird. Very carefully follow the contours of one side of the carcass with the point of the knife, making sure that you don’t break the skin. This is quite tricky without practice so worth taking time over. Repeat on the other side until you are left with a clean carcass and one boneless piece of meat. Keep the bones for the sauce.

Lay the boned quail skin-side down on a board lined with cling film. Lay some of the cooked spinach leaves on top, then spread on some of the roasted garlic. Cut the chicken livers into long strips and arrange down the centre. Sprinkle over the thyme leaves and season well. Try not to over-fill, as this will make it likely to fall apart later on. Taking one end of the cling film, carefully roll the quail so that the filling is completely encased by the skin, then seal the cling film around the ballotine and tighten the ends. This package needs to be sealed enough to keep out any water when they are poached later. 

Fill a medium saucepan with water and bring to the boil. When hot, drop in the quail packages and cook for 3 minutes before removing. Allow to cool in the cling film. This will help the quail stay in a sausage shape for the rest of the cooking process. You can secure the ballotines with string if they need it once unwrapped.  

To make the sauce, heat a large frying pan on a medium-high heat and add the olive oil. When hot, add the quail bones and cook until well browned on all sides. Add the shallot, garlic, thyme and bay and fry for another couple of minutes until softened. Pour in the white wine and reduce by half, then top up with the stock. Season well. Reduce right down until only about 150ml remains and the sauce has thickened a little. Strain into a small saucepan and allow to cool to finish later. 

Preheat the oven to 200ºC.

While the oven is heating up make the polenta. Pour the milk into a medium saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the bacon, garlic, thyme, shallot and seasoning and simmer for a few minutes until the bacon is cooked. Turn off the heat, cover the pan with cling film and allow to infuse for about 20 minutes. 

Once the milk has infused, strain the milk - discarding the flavourings - and pour back into the pan. Bring to the boil. When hot, tip in the polenta and stir well for a couple of minutes until the polenta has expanded and is a wet, spoonable consistency. Taste, season and keep warm while you finish the dish.

Heat a medium frying pan with a large knob of butter and a tablespoon of oil to a medium-high heat. When frothing place the unwrapped and secured quail ballotines and fry for a couple of minutes each side until the skin is golden. Basting with the butter continuously will help achieve this. Remove from the pan, place on a lined baking tray and put in the oven for 6-8 minutes, until a skewer poked into the middle comes out hot. 

While the quail is cooking, reheat the quail frying pan and a separate medium pan on a medium heat, with a knob of butter in each. Add the garlic and girolles to the quail pan with some seasoning and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the kale to the other pan with seasoning and 1 tbsp of water and again cook for 2-3 minutes until slightly crispy.  

Heat up the sauce, then add the butter and whisk well to emulsify. Taste and season if needed. 

Reheat the polenta and adjust the seasoning. 

To serve, spoon some of the polenta into the middle of the plate and top with some of the kale. Slice each ballotine into three pieces and arrange on top of the kale, then place some of the girolles round the sides. Pour over some of the sauce and serve.

Braised pork ‘chop’ with crispy cheek, scratchings, roasted beetroot, celeriac puree and a maple syrup sauce

Today I have had another day off, and it was the perfect opportunity to make a dish that I’d had in my head and had been looking forward to making for a while. I had really wanted to make something nice with pork for a while, particularly involving pork chops and the cheeks. I have had chops a few times in the last few months, but although each time had been delicious, I had failed to get it quite right with the flavour combinations. It’s always difficult when trying to create dishes in your head, as it’s never guaranteed that they will turn out as good as imagined!

Pork is such a versatile meat, and at a time when meat prices are rocketing, is still really reasonably priced. The main thing with buying pork is getting good quality, well reared meat. Although there has been a spotlight on pork welfare standards in recent years, loads of dodgy stuff still gets through to the supermarket shelves, and it really does have an impact on the taste of the finished meal. You only have to look at pork in a quality butchers to see the difference; the colouring is so much richer, and far less waterlogged and anaemic. It actually looks like it has come from a living animal! And the thing is, you don’t even need to spend that much more to get better meat. The first time I bought a chop from the butchers I was astounded; it was massive, and put all of the thin chops on the supermarket shelves to shame. 

Recently I have heard loads about using pork cheeks and have been very interesting in using them myself. Now this is the most budget of all pork cuts, and the two free range cheeks that I bought for this recipe came to a massive 66 pence. Like all hard working muscles, they need a lot of slow cooking a patience, but once ready offer the most tender and flavoursome meat. In this recipe they add another element to the pork, with a different taste and texture to the chop and the scratching. 

Pork goes fantastically well with sweeter things like maple syrup, beetroot and apple, but you need to be careful to balance out the sweetness. There’s nothing like having a lovely meal in front of you ruined by a really sickly sweet sauce. The key is to keep tasting as you go, and add the sweet ingredients in moderation so that they can be controlled. 

Although there are loads of elements in this dish, you can make most of them in advance, and have them ready to be heated up when the meat has been cooked. I haven’t added potatoes to this recipe as there is quite a lot of meat on the plate, and it might make it a bit heavy. However, you could easily add some roasted potatoes, or a gratin if you so wished. 

Serves 2

Ingredients: 

For the chops: 

2 thick pork chops, around 1 1/2” thick

1 fennel, sliced, fronds saved

1 carrot, roughly chopped

1/2 leek, roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic, skin removed

5 sprigs thyme

200ml dry cider

20g butter

For the cheeks:

2 pork cheeks

1 litre chicken stock

1/2 leek, roughly chopped

1 carrot, roughly chopped

1 fennel bulb, roughly chopped, fronds saved

1 onion, roughly chopped

3 garlic cloves, skin removed

1 bay leaf

8 peppercorns

1 small handful panko breadcrumbs

1 egg, beaten

100g plain flour

1 tsp wholegrain mustard

20g butter, melted

1 litre of vegetable oil, for frying

For the sauce:

1 shallot, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, skin removed

6 sprigs thyme

The bones and trimmings from the chops

100ml brandy

4 tbsp maple sypup

1 bay leaf

1 star anise

30g butter

For the celeriac puree:

1/3 celeriac, roughly chopped into 1” pieces

3 tbsp double cream

20g butter

2 thyme sprigs, leaves picked

For the roasted beetroot:

2 large beetroots

2 garlic cloves

5 sprigs of thyme

Olive oil

For the scratchings:

The skin and fat from the outside of the chops, sliced into long, thin pieces

Sprinkle of salt

2 slices of streaky bacon

1/2 Granny Smith apple, sliced into small dice

1/2 lemon, juice only

First put the cheeks on to slow cook. Put the cheeks into a large saucepan with the stock, leek, carrot, fennel, onion, garlic, bay leaf and peppercorns. Bring the stock up to the boil, then turn the heat down to low, cover, and cook for 4 hours. When the cheeks are falling apart and tender, turn the heat off and allow to cool in the stock. Drain the saucepan, keeping the liquid in a bowl, and discard the vegetables. Put the cheeks in a small bowl and shred apart. Add the mustard, melted butter and season well. Mix together, taste and adjust. Put in fridge to cool for 20 minutes. 

To turn the cheeks into croquettes, put the flour onto one plate, the panko onto another and beat the egg in a small bowl. Season all of the elements. Take the cooled shredded cheek mixture out of the fridge and make two small golf ball sized balls, compacting them in your hands. Carefully coat the balls in the flour, then dip them into the egg before rolling them in the panko, making sure they get totally covered. Repeat the egg and panko process with each, then put aside for cooking later. 

Heat the oven to 210ºC (fan)

To make the scratchings, trim the outside skin and fat from the chops, and cut into long pieces about 1cm wide. Put the fat pieces onto a lined oven tray, sprinkle with salt and put into the hot oven for 15-20 minutes, or until crispy and golden. Set aside.

Lower the oven to 200ºC (fan)

Put the streaky bacon onto a lined oven tray and cook in the oven for 10-12 minutes, or until crispy and brittle. Remove, drain and finely chop. Set aside.

Lower the oven to 180ºC (fan)

Put the whole beetroot into a small oven dish and add the thyme, garlic and seasoning. Drizzle over a little olive oil and mix well to coat everything. Cover with foil, and put in the oven for 1 hour. 

To cook the chops, trim the bone and fat away so that you are left with the loin pieces. Keep the scraps and bone for when you make the sauce, but throw away any excess fat. Heat up a frying pan to a medium-high heat. Rub some oil into the loin pieces and season well. Fry in the hot pan for a couple of minutes on each side, then add the butter and quickly baste the pork until it is a golden colour. Pour in the cider and bring to the boil. Put the carrot, leeks, fennel, garlic and thyme into a deep oven dish, and nestle the browned pork amongst this. Pour over the pan juices and top up with some of the stock left over from the pork cheeks until the liquid goes 2/3rds of the way up the sides of the pork (make sure you save 500ml for the sauce). Put into the oven uncovered for 45 minutes.

To make the sauce, heat up a little oil in a large frying pan to a medium-high temperature. Fry the bones and trimmings of the chops and cook until well browned on each side. Add the shallot, garlic, thyme and bay and cook for another couple of minutes until golden brown. Pour over the brandy and flambe, then add 500ml of the leftover stock from cooking the cheeks. Add the star anise and maple syrup and season well. Let the liquid bubble away and reduce until there is about 150ml left, about 20 minutes. Strain the sauce and return the liquid to a clean pan. Taste, adjust and set aside until the meat is ready.

For the celeriac puree, heat up some salted water in a saucepan until boiling. When the water is hot, add the celeriac and boil for 8-10 minutes or until tender. Drain the water away and tip the celeriac into food processor along with the cream, seasoning, thyme and butter. Blitz until very smooth. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve to remove any lumps. Taste and add seasoning if needed, then transfer into a small saucepan to be reheated later. 

Pick the fennel fronds from the leftover bits of fennel and set aside. Cut some thin slices from the apple and finely dice them. Put the small pieces apple into a bowl and squeeze over the lemon juice to stop from browning. 

When the meat has cooked, take out of the oven and put the pork onto a plate to rest for 10 minutes.

When the beetroot is ready, carefully peel off the skin, trim the top and the bottom and cut into a disc with a round cutter. 

Put 1 litre of vegetable oil into a large saucepan and heat to 150ºC. Carefully lower the breadcrumbed cheek balls into the hot oil, and fry for a few minutes until golden brown. Remove and drain on kitchen paper. 

Heat up the puree and sauce in separate saucepans. When the sauce is hot, add the butter and stir well, before having a final taste and season. 

To plate up, put a tablespoon of the puree onto each plate. Add the cheek croquette, the rested ‘chop’ and the roasted beetroot disc. Place a couple of scratching on top of the beetroot, and sprinkle some of the apple, bacon and fennel fronds onto the pork. Spoon over some of the sauce and serve.