Tag Archives: Meat

Cooking

Cocido

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Whew! It’s been quite a while without an update! Well, that’s okay, because the one coming is definitely a big big big one. Cocido.

What is Cocido? It is, quite simply, a huge dish of boiled meats and vegetables. Quite simple to describe, huh? Well, let’s take a look at what we’ll be using:

Ingredients for Cocido
Ingredients for Cocido

So whatcha need?

  • Meat. Lots of meat. Whatever is handy, but you typically need:
  • Some sort of pork. Bacon hocks or some hard (old) raw ham works.
  • Boned beef, or just a big beef bone.
  • Some spicy sausage and/or black pudding.
  • Any other meat that happens to be handy. Like chicken, lamb, venison… you name it.
  • Chickpeas/garbanzo beans. Better the dry ones than the tinned ones. If dry, put them in water a few hours before making the Cocido.
  • Cabbage.
  • Potatoes.
  • Carrots.
  • Any other tough vegetable (turnips, parsnips, or whatever they’re called for example) that can survive a boil.
  • An onion and some cloves. I put them together because a neat trick is to stab the onion with the cloves so that they don’t go all over the pot.
  • Garlic (not shown because we don’t need it just yet).
  • Paprika powder.
  • Pasta or rice for the soup.

Really, just throw in anything you have handy. You can’t see the boned beef or the piece of pork because they were already in the pot (whoops!).

Anyway, fill a big pot with the meat and warm/hot water, and put on the stove on high (to begin with). As the water rises in heat, you’ll see some foamy scum rising to the top. Remove it with whatever kitchen tool you have handy, it’ll do so for a few minutes until it starts really boiling.

BIG pot!
BIG pot!

I use the “no more foam rising” mark to know when to add the chickpeas and the onion with the cloves – and the salt if you want salt. After you add them, put on medium/low, cover, and leave it for about an hour or so.

After an hour, get the vegetables ready and, if you’re adding them, the sausages and other “softer” meats like chicken.

A few vegetables, nothing fancy.
A few vegetables, nothing fancy.

If you have meats, throw them in, leave for 15 minutes, then add the vegetables. Some people recommend boiling the vegetables separated from the meat, but I can’t be arsed. And they taste better if you put everything in there.

Fuller big pot!
Fuller big pot!

So, leave for another 20 minutes or so (until the potatoes are cooked) and take out the stuff. Serve the things separately:

  • The meats on one side.
  • The vegetables on the other.
  • The chickpeas by themselves.
  • With the remaining stock, make a soup.
Cocido ready to eat... almost!
Cocido ready to eat... almost!

So, do I really have to puit a picture of how to make the soup? Put the stock through a colander/strainer to get rid of the little bits of stuff (mostly bone splinters), then add rice or pasta and that’s it. Lemon goes very well with that soup.

Also, you may want to spice up the cabbage a bit. To do so, chop it up and throw it in a frying pan with some oil, and after a bit add some paprika powder and garlic:

Frying the cabbage.
Frying the cabbage.

Stir quickly and efficiently so that you get a very consistent red through it all.

And that’s it!

…

Actually no, that’s not it. That’s it as far as the cocido goes, but! But the best part of the Cocido is the leftovers! Which is why I made cocido enough for like 6 or 8 meals. You’ll see how I’m going to get 6 or 8 meals out of it!

Cooking

Stuffed Meatroll

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So! It’s time for the non-vegetarian entry! The stuffed meatroll, a delicious dish my mom taught me, and a heavy yet awesome dish. The one I am going to make is “junior-sized.” It is advisable that, if you have more people to feed, you make a bigger one. Much bigger one (you’ll see, this dish is easy to scale).

So, to start with, the usual picture of the ingredients!

Stuffed meatroll ingredients
Stuffed meatroll ingredients

If you are wondering:

  • Beef mince.
  • Eggs.
  • Garlic.
  • Fresh parsley.
  • Ketchup – or other tomato sauce.
  • Grated cheese.
  • Mustard. Not shown because I didn’t have any, but it really adds a wonderful zing to the meat.

For the stuffing:

  • More cheese.
  • Some deli meat (typically shaved ham, turkey or chicken works too)
  • Carrot(s).
  • Eggs.

First step! You want to mix the meat with the tomato sauce/ketchup, finely chopped garlic (I put two cloves for that much meat), parsley, mustard, and one egg (or more if you have more meat). Be generous, and don’t worry if the resulting mix looks a bit too “juicy” since we’ll fix that in a second.

Mince and mixing thingies.
Mince and mixing thingies.

After the mix is thoroughly mixed (don’t forget the mustard if you have it!), add a lot of grated cheese, and mix once more. We add the cheese at the end for a reason you’ll notice immediately: If your meat mix before the cheese was juicy, after mixing the cheese in it’ll be just perfect. Cheese solidifies the mix quite a bit, and if you had added it at the same time as everything else, you’d have run into trouble trying to make a homogeneous mix.

Once that is done, extend the meat on a piece of tinfoil and put the stuffing ingredients on top. The cheese (could be sliced, could be more of the grated cheese you used before), the deli, the carrots sliced thin and lengthwise, and one (or more) hard boiled eggs. You can be more creative with the stuffing too, you can add bacon – which works really well if you like porky stuff -, you can add capiscum or other “hard” vegetable, it’s really up to you!

Meat and stuffing
Meat and stuffing

As I said before, this is a “junior sized” roll. Don’t hesitate to make the roll thicker, by making the meat extension wider. For that you will need an “extra-wide” roll or tinfoil, or to turn the tinfoil 90° and make a “stubbie” roll – shorter but thicker.

Now, the rolling part is the most delicate part of the operation. You want the roll to wrap around the stuffing well and to completely close over it. To aid yourself in this operation, don’t distribute the meat evenly over the foil. The layer of meat should be thinner in the center, where the stuffing is, and thicker on the edges. When you wrap the meat using the tinfoil, you’ll have to press more or less hard to make the meat come through, and finally, make doubly sure that the roll is properly closed everywhere, specially of course at the top. If you have to add more meat so that it closes, or redistribute the whole thing again, don’t hesitate to do it. If the roll doesn’t close properly, it won’t cook as well!

Closing the meatroll
Closing the meatroll

Finally, your roll is ready for the oven! 180-200°C pre-heated oven, and in we go!

Wrapped meatroll
Wrapped meatroll

You want to let it cook for about 20-30 minutes (varies with the over, I left mine for 20 minutes), then bring it out and open the tinfoil. With the tinfoil open, lower the oven heat a bit, and put the meatroll in again for another 20-30 minutes (again, I used 20 minutes for my oven). Times will depend greatly on the oven you use, mine is a rather potent fan baking oven, so things cook fast. Leave it more time if you want, it should be juicy enough not to go dry!

Opening the tinfoil
Opening the tinfoil

And it’s ready! Be careful when taking it out of the wrap. You’ll see that a lot of fat (mostly from the cheese) has come out, which is a good thing. Serve hot or cold, slice it up, make lots of it and freeze the slices in individual portions if you have too much. It freezes and de-freezes well.

Serving the Meatroll
Serving the Meatroll

As you can imagine, this isn’t exactly a light meal. Put something light like a salad or some steamed vegetables to go with it.

Enjoy!