Spring Roll
As the action hero Super-Ram says:
It's Lambin' Time!. Probably.
I had another go at rolling some baby lamb's breasts and roasting them, and discovered the delicious glory of a slow-braised lamb's shoulder.
I really dunno why my kitchen is now covered in spare lamb parts?
And then I carried on cooking for the next 3 months.
And here it all is...
Mostly by Karl
Slow Cooked Braised Rolled Lamb Breast
main meat
Round 3 of my experiments with rolled lambs' breasts.
So far I've produced them
succulent with leathery hides,
or
crispy with (more) leathery insides.
I thought I'd try them in the slow cooker this time - and they turned out soft and succulent throughout.
So hurrah!
Either it was the longer cooking (8 hours in the slow cooker), or more likely the increased amount of liquid I used.
This time the rolls were almost covered, and I basted them a couple of times too.
Now, if I could only figure out how to get crispy skin
and succulent insides I'd have covered everything.
Unfortunately if you just take the rolls from the braise and roast them for 10 minutes at Gas Mark 8 they do crisp, but it's a bit on the stringy, chewy side.
Perhaps better fat larding?
Watch this space...
Serves about 2 per breast
- olive oil
- rolled lambs' breast(s)
- garlic
- onions
- hot-smoked anchovies
- thyme
- rosemary
- couple of tablespoons of tomato purée
- red wine
- zest of a lemon
- bay leaves
- splash balsamic vinegar
- water
First buy the rolled lamb breasts. Or, you know, buy lamb breast and roll it up yourself.
In which case you can salt the inside and cover it with the anchovies, lemon zest and herbs first. I guess.
Roughly chop the onions. Halve the head of garlic.
We're going to strain the sauce before using it, so you can leave the peel on these.
Sear the rolled lamb breast(s) all over in olive oil in a large frying pan. Put them into the slow cooker.
Add thickly sliced onions, halved garlic cloves, anchovies, rosemary and thyme to the pan with more oil if required and fry until they soften and begin to colour up.
Stir through the tomato puée and cook down for a few minutes, then add the red wine and bubble the alcohol off.
Pour the contents of the pan into the slow cooker and add the bay leaves, lemon zest and a splash of balsamic vinegar.
Maybe a tiny pinch of chilli flakes for some gentle warmth?
Rinse the frying pan with water or stock, using enough to cover ⅔ of the rolled breasts.
Cook in the slow cooker on low for 8 hours.
Decant the rolls and set them to rest for 10 minutes while you strain the liquid into a pan and boil hard to reduce to a nice jus.
Or you could thicken the liquid with cornflour slurry if you prefer.
Slow Braised Lamb Shoulder
main meat
Because of the amount of collagen and connective tissue in a lamb shoulder you can't cook it rare like you might for a leg.
Long and slow is the only way to go.
Following
Nagi more-or-less exactly
except for adding some grated lemon zest after the initial roast, before sealing.
Since I had a 2lb shank-side half-shoulder I only added 1 cup of liquid, half of which was white wine (and some of it was stock - just because I had some to use up).
I super-sealed the roasting dish before slow-roasting:
- Covered the joint with baking parchment, to stop it sticking, and prevent the bone from poking through the next layers.
- Wrapped air-tight in several layers of cling film.
- Covered again with baking parchment, to stop the cling film melting.
- Wrapped tightly in a couple of layers of tin foil.
Then roast it at my gas oven's lowest (
¼ or
S) level, which registered 90°C on my oven thermometer,
for 15 hours.
Since I cooked mine overnight, the joint was ready many hours before dinner.
So I just left the still-sealed dish untouched on the side, then reheated it for an hour at 150°C/300°F/Gas Mark 2-3, before opening it up to reduce the jus and serve.
I suppose I could have opened it immediately to check it and prepare the jus, and then reheated just the meat and veg, covered, in the roasting tin to serve at dinner time?
Serves exactly 5. Apparently
- 1.5-2.5kg / 3-4.5lb lamb shoulder, bone-in
- 2 cups water
- 4-6 large banana shallots, halved
- a few large garlic cloves, peeled
- zest from ½ lemon, grated
- 1 tblsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
- 1 tblsp dried oregano
- 2 large garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp cornflour
Mix the Marinade ingredients in a small bowl. Rub thoroughly all over the lamb surface. You can do this in the roasting tin.
Leave the lamb to marinate for a couple of hours, or 24 hours in the fridge.
Preheat oven to 210°C fan/230°C/450°F/Gas Mark 8.
Peel and halve the shallots (or onions) lengthways.
Peel a few large garlic cloves.
Make a bed for the meat using these and lay the lamb shoulder on top.
You can throw in a few extra rosemary sprigs too if you like.
Pour the water into the pan.
Roast uncovered for 45 minutes until nicely browned.
Turn down the oven to 100°C/210°F/Gas Mark ¼ or as low as your oven will go.
Cover lamb with baking paper, then a double layer of foil and seal very tightly to avoid water evaporation.
Braise for 12 hours.
Check the meat - test the side of lamb with two forks. The meat should be fall-apart tender. If not, cover and return to oven.
Remove lamb to a large dish. There will (should!) be a lot of liquid pooled under the lamb in the roasting pan.
Cover loosely with foil to keep warm. It will stay warm for 2 to 3 hours.
Strain the liquid into a small pan. Retain the vegetables.
There will tons of rendered fat which you will want to remove somehow.
Let the juices settle or cool to scoop it off, or suck the juice from underneath with a turkey baster.
Now you can either reduce the liquid to a decent syrupy jus by hard boiling, or you can thicken it to gravy by heating with a teaspoon of cornflour added in a slurry.
Season to taste.
Tear the meat apart with tongs or forks. Dress with the jus and serve with the well-braised shallots and garlic cloves, if you like.
By Karl
Gratin de Dattes
Potato Gratin with Dates
side
I had some fresh dates which needed eating, so I thought I'd invent a new gratin.
I used a rich chicken stock as the liquid, but I'm sure you could use cream instead.
It might even be better - the stock makes the gratin rather sloppy unless you cook it all off, and that risks mis-timing the cooking and burning the gratin.
- dates, stoned, thinly sliced
- potatoes, thinly sliced
- chicken stock
- butter
- rosemary leaves, finely minced
Thinly slice your potatoes into a bowl of cold water using a mandolin.
Fill a casserole dish with alternate layers of potato and a filling of sliced dates ssprinkled with finely minced rosemary and dots of butter.
Pour in stock until it almost comes to the top.
Cook uncovered in the oven at Gas Mark 3-4 for a couple of hours until the stock has mostly bubbled off. It will take a while.
By Karl
Crushed Broad Beans with Mint and Lemon
side veg
Depending on the quantities of ingredients you use this can basically become mostly gremolata thickened with beans.
But first a history lesson:
Fava or Faba beans, from their latin name Vicia Faba, are a broad bean
indigenous to North Africa and have been been consumed for several thousands of years during which time they have migrated throughout Europe.
The pods are the typical long green furry bean sleeves, which you can eat raw whole like mange-tout when (very) young. Or just grilled.
When they are mature the beans themselves inside grow a thick fibrous skin which many people also prefer to remove before eating.
You (or most people anyway) can eat fava beans raw.
Broad bean, on the other hand, is a description of the shape of the bean, rather than their species, and are generally flattened - the bean not the pod.
Usually in Europe Broad Beans means Fava beans, but might sometimes be used to refer to Lima beans. Also known as Butter beans.
These younger varieties come from the Americas and indeed are named after Lima - the capital of Peru where they were first cultivated a couple of thousand years ago.
They are best not eaten raw since they are wont to contain small amounts of cyanide and various other toxins.
If you plan on double-podding your fava beans it's best, if you can, to choose pods containing either beans large enough to easily remove their skins,
or small enough not to bother.
Otherwise you're going to be spending a lot of time popping hundreds of fiddly piddling-sized beans.
Be aware, especially if you're double-podding, that there is an enormous amount of wastage from these beans
- you'll need bushels of the things to finish up with anything more than a handful of kernels.
- broad beans, podded
- fresh mint leaves, minced
- garlic, crushed
- parmesan, grated
- lemon zest, grated
- lemon juice
- olive oil
- salt & pepper
Pop the broad beans out of their long outer sleeves.
Drop them into salted boiling water, bring back to the boil and simmer for a bare 30 seconds.
Strain them immediately into iced water to cool.
With a paring knife, slit one end of each bean's thick outer skin or rind
and pop out the bright green, tender kernels.
Keep these in the iced water until required, then blanche them briefly in salted boiling water to reheat before using.
Drain the double-podded beans and roughly mash with chopped mint, grated lemon zest, lemon juice, puréed garlic, grated parmesan and olive oil to taste.
Season if necessary.
By the Japanese
King Oyster Mushroom Tempura
mushroom oriental side veg
Yes, I still have leftover King Oyster mushrooms and tamarillo salsa.
These fat mushrooms are also pretty tasty halved, tempura'd and deep-fried.
I'm sure you could fry regular oyster mushrooms too the same way.
The batter flour proportions are not too critical but I mostly tried to follow my favourite
tempura batter number 8.
Add whatever spices you like to the dry mixture. You could even try some dried herbs like oregano.
- king oyster mushrooms, halved
- vegetable oil for deep-frying
- 1 tsp onion powder or salt
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsps wheat flour
- ½ tsp cumin
- ½ tsp paprika
- 2 tblsps rice flour
- 2 tblsps cornflour
- 1 tblsp wheat flour
- vodka
- ice cold water
- salt
Mix together the dry mix in a plastic bag .
Mix the tempura batter flours, season, then stir briefly with a splash of vodka and iced water (or iced soda water) to make a usable slurry.
Don't overmix - it's fine for the batter to have floury lumps.
Halve the mushrooms lengthways and make a pattern of shallow slashes in the cut surfaces.
Shake the mushrooms in the dry mix bag, then roll them in the wet batter mix to coat thickly.
Deep-fry the battered mushrooms in 350°F/175°C oil for 3-5 minutes until they are nicely crisped and coloured.
Drain on kitchen paper and serve with
smoked salmon dip ,
or aïoli, or maybe Sriracha or wasabi mayonnaise.
By Karl
Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Salad Dressing. Or Dip.
dressing sauce fish cheese
I wanted to make a
smoked anchovy salad dressing
but the
Wine 'n' Cheese didn't have any hot smoked anchovies and I didn't have any Boursin.
So I made this version with hot smoked salmon and Philadelphia instead.
It makes quite a good substitute for Hollandaise sauce on an Eggs Royale, Eggs Hemingway, Eggs Atlantic, Eggs Pacifico,
or whatever you like to call Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon.
I made the dressing without any anchovies to begin with, but it didn't seem quite fishy enough for me, so I added a half-dozen of the regular kind.
Your fishy-sense may vary!
Some sun-dried tomato or red pesto blended in might go quite well too. It would certainly look the part.
Serves 2-4
- piece of hot smoked salmon
- 100g cream cheese
- 2-3 garlic cloves
- dollop of cream or crème fraîhe
- juice of 2-3 clementines
- ½ red chilli
- olive oil
- half a dozen anchovies
- splash of red wine vinegar
- teaspoon mustard
- paprika
- sun-dried tomatoes
Remove the salmon skin.
Blend the salmon, garlic, chilli ,
anchovies, sun-dried tomatoes , cream and orange juice to a smooth paste.
Blend in as much cream cheese as needed to enrich the mixture, season,
then drizzle in olive oil whilst beating or running the food processor until you have a consistency like mayonnaise.
Sweetcorn Velouté
sauce veg
A velouté is technically a stock thickened with blond roux, but blended sweet corn is pretty much thick enough on its own.
The
recipe which inspired me for this uses crème fraîche, but I don't think the sourness really works.
Go for regular cream.
It also adds turmeric, which seems too coarse for the sauce, so I went with saffron.
I used my velouté to lubricate some Culinary Masterclass
spinach and mascarpone tortellinis (no, that's not an idle boast!)
and served them dressed with red pepper slices and artichoke hearts.
You don't get a lot of edible heart out of an artichoke though, especially considering the effort involved
🙁
Serves 2
- 2 corn cobs
- 2 tblsps double cream
- 1 large banana shallot
- ½ small fennel
- 2 garlic cloves
- glass white wine
- pinch saffron
- light chicken stock or water
- salt & ground white pepper
- butter
- artichoke hearts
- red pepper, charred, skinned and sliced
- a few corn kernels, toasted if you like
Simmer the corn cobs in a large pot of salted water for 10 minutes or so until it softens.
Drain, allow to cool enough to handle, and slice the kernels off the cobs. Reserve some for decoration.
Meanwhile sweat the shallots, garlic and fennel slices in olive oil and butter in a small pan until they soften.
De-glaze with white wine and bubble off.
Add the corn kernels to the pan with enough water or light stock to cover.
Add a pinch of saffron strands with the water/stock.
Cook until the corn is well-softened, then blend until smooth and pass through a seive back into the pan.
Reheat, season with ground white pepper and salt, and stir in cream, and perhaps a knob of butter until the sauce is thick and glossy.
Add lemon juice to the pot of boiling salted water.
Pull off the artichoke's larger outer leaves and trim the stalk.
Use a Y-shaped vegetable peeler to peel off the fibrous outer layer of the stop of the stalk and the bottom of the artichoke bulb.
Cut the stalk away leaving an inch or two attached to the bulb.
Cut the top of the globe off somewhere below the mid-point.
Using a paring knife remove leaves and coarse skin from the bottom of the artichoke and right in to the hairy choke.
Now quarter the artichoke base vertically and cut away the choke with the paring knife, which you can now easily access.
Add to the boiling water and cook for 10-15 minutes until softened. Strain and keep in acidulated water until required.
Core and quarter a red pepper and char the skin over a flame or under the grill. Let them rest in a plastic bag to soften the charred skin, then peel it off and slice them thinly.
Toast a handful of corn kernels in a hot, lightly oiled frying pan.
Boil up some
spinach and mascarpone tortellinis, if you like,
and serve them with the artichoke hearts dressed with the corn velouté and the red pepper slices and toasted corn kernels.
By Karl
Minted Pea Purée
side veg cheese
One of very
many pea purées on this site,
though perhaps more complex than most.
- peas
- mint leaves, roughly chopped
- lemon zest
- olive oil
- crème fraîche
- parmesan, grated
Blanch the peas then shock them in iced water.
Drain and blend them with the other ingredients, adding enough crème fraîche to lubricate the blender without diluting the puré too much.
Heat gently when required.
Pickled Jerusalem Artichokes
pickle veg vegan
Although
Thyme Farm does not specify how long you should leave this pickle to mature before using it,
most other sites recommend leaving it for a week or longer.
Mind you, they don't thinly slice their artichokes. So up to you I guess.
I don't believe I left mine for very long at all!
Serves 2
- 6 Jerusalem Artichokes
- ½ juice of a lemon
- 3tbsp water
- 250ml good quality vinegar
- 25g sugar
- pinch salt
- ½ teaspoon fennel seeds
- ½ teaspoon mustard seeds
- Sprig rosemary
Add all the pickling ingredients to a heavy pot and bring to the boil.
Peel the artichokes under running water or using a large bowl of iced water.
Slice them straight into the pickle using a mandolin.
Return the pot to the boil, then immediately set aside to cool.
Press the artichokes to keep them submerged.
Pheasant Normandy
fowl main
On a visit to Edinburgh, Flora and I cooked this Two Fat Ladies recipe from their
Gastronimic Adventures cookbook,
which seems to be just about the only place to find it. I've scoured their TV series but it's just not in there.
Which is a pity because it's pretty good.
Here's what they have to say about it:
This is a sumptuous way of preparing pheasant.
It also makes the birds go quite a long way due to the richness of the sauce
and the fact that it arrives fully prepared at table so there is no waste from badly carved carcasses.
Serves 2
- a brace of young pheasants
- 4 sweet apples (Cox's or similar)
- 115g/4 oz butter
- 1 tsp brown sugar
- 150ml/¼ pint Calvados
- 660ml/1 pint thick cream
- salt and freshly ground pepper
Peel and core the apples, slice into rings and fry in 55g/2 oz of the butter.
Add the sugar and cook until golden brown and slightly caramelised. Reserve.
Melt the rest of the butter in a flameproof casserole large enough to take the birds.
Brown the creatures on all sides, turning and coating with the butter.
Cover with the lid and place in a preheated oven at 190°C/375°F/Gas 5 to cook for 40 minutes;
or you can cook them on top of the stove, turning at half time.
Carve the birds into good-size pieces and lay them in a shallow gratin dish.
Make sure to pick every little piece of meat from the bones.
Place the legs at either end. Keep warm.
Scrape any morsels from the carving into the casserole juices and heat until bubbling then pour in the warmed Calvados.
Set fire to the mixture, but take care not to singe your eyelashes.
Roll the juices round and round until the flames subside.
Add the cream and continue cooking, stirring the while with a wooden spoon, until the sauce thickens.
Season to taste.
Place the apple rings over the pheasant pieces, then pour the sauce over the whole dish and bring to the table.
If you prefer, you can serve the apple rings separately.
Wild rice with fried celery would be excellent with this dish, and a watercress salad should suffice.
By Roslyn's Friend
Roslyn's Kebabs
meat snack
Roslyn passed along this masala paste recipe from a friend of hers, with which she coated some field mushrooms for barbecueing.
And said were delicious!
I'm ashamed to say that I have yet to try it out.
Incidentally, she also barbecued aubergine slices dressed with tamarind paste, which sounded interesting too.
- diced chicken
- oil
- 2 tblsps soy sauce
- 2 tblsps Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tblsps tomato purée
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- 1 tsp garam masala powder
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp green masala
- ½ tsp salt
- dash of lemon juice (optional)
Mix well and marinate for a minimum of half an hour, the longer you leave it the better the taste!
(Marinate overnight for best results.)
Put on skewers and cook in oven under grill or barbecue.
By Roslyn's Friend
Roslyn's Green Masala
sauce veg vegan
This green masala is an ingredient in Roslyn's friend's kebab recipe.
According to her friend's notes:
A teaspoon of Green Masala can be added to any Indian dish to give it flavour and a kick.
The idea is that it is pre-made to save you making it every time you make a curry.
It only has 3 ingredients, balanced as follows:
Makes about 4 teaspoons
- 4-5 green chillies (preferably birds eye chillies)
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 inch ginger
Cut the stem off the chillies and take the skin off the garlic and ginger.
Throw into a food processor and mix until it becomes a finely minced paste (not liquified!).
You can chop by hand if you do not have a food processor.
The above is how much a curry should contain.
If you are making a small batch then times the above by 5 or more and consume with a week.
The key thing my parents told me is that it should be greener than it is white, so if your paste isn't that green, then add more green chillies.
If you wish to make a larger batch that will cover you for a longer period of time then add a tablespoon of oil and a teaspoon of salt into your Green Masala to extend its life.
Keep your Green Masala in a pot in the fridge, or keep half of it in the fridge and freeze the other half for another time.
You can even put your Green Masala into an ice cube tray (one teaspoon per ice cube hole) and use one cube per curry, which will extend the life of your Green Masala hugely!
By Nature
Cordyceps
mushroom ingredient veg vegan
Cordyceps are thin wormy orange mushrooms.
Pretty nice tasting raw, in fact, but they have a nice mellower nutty taste when cooked too.
You might need to be warned that they are also known as the
Zombie Fungus
and do have an unpleasant habit of parasitising insects brains in order to operate them like a meat suit.
So perhaps don't stick them in your ears.
Although you
can just stir-fry them,
apparently, I deep-fried mine for a fairly short time in really hot oil to crisp them up a bit.
Less than a minute.
They colour up nicely, but don't go exactly crispy, though they might if you fry them longer I suppose. I didn't experiment too much with them since they're pretty expensive.
Though not as expensive as Lion's Manes: £33 a kilo they are!
- cordyceps
- oil for deep frying
Heat oil.
Throw in cordyceps.
Swirl.
Remove.
Drain.
Serve.
Choy Sum with Garlic and Ginger
oriental side veg vegan
The method write-up below is more-or-less verbatim from
Daddy Lau.
Except for the changes required for legal fair use, of course
😉
Serves 4
- 1 lb choy sum
- 1" ginger, shredded
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tblsp cooking oil
- 1 tblsp mirin
- 1 tsp sugar
- salt or soy sauce
To prepare the choy sum, you want to separate the quick-to-cook leaves and the slower-to-cook stems.
You can either make one horizontal cut to separate the leaves and clump of stems of each plant all at once,
or you can separate the joined stems (at an angle for extra style points) and then cut away the leaves and set aside.
Slice the garlic: For maximum visual appeal, slice a couple of cloves and mince the rest.
Cut the (small amount of) ginger into roughly 1/8 slices. He (Daddy Lau) uses about 4 slices of ginger for 1 lb of choy sum.
Heat your wok over high heat for a bare minute. Add a dash of oil (about 1 tbsp), then turn the heat to medium low.
Lowering the heat here is important to avoid burning the aromatics.
Add the ginger and garlic.
Stir-fry for 15 seconds so that you can smell the ginger and garlic releasing their aromas.
Add the choy sum; stems first since they'll take longer to cook through. Stir-fry the stems for about 30 seconds.
Then, add the leaves. Raise the heat to high and add the mirin and sugar to balance the texture of the leaves; these ingredients help make the dish silky smooth.
Mix these in and stir-fry for another 30 seconds.
DON'T ADD THE SALT YET!
If you add salt now, all the water in the vegetables will release (thank you, osmosis) and you'll end up with less tender vegetables in a puddle of juice.
Lower the heat to medium or low heat. Cover with the lid and let it steam for about 1½-2 minutes, or until the choy sum is tender and just cooked through.
Uncover the wok and bring the heat up to the highest setting. Stir-fry on high heat for a minute, then add the salt.
Drizzle a table of oil over the leaves to finish for a smooth texture, a glossy look, and to help preserve their vibrant green color.
Toss with the finishing oil for another 20 seconds, and then plate.
Enjoy!
Lion's Mane with Garlic and Tamari Soy Sauce
mushroom side veg vegan
You could dust the mushrooms with flour before frying to try and give them a bit more of a crunchy texture.
Serves 4
- 8 ounces Lion’s Mane mushrooms, thickly sliced
- 2 tablespoons ghee or butter
- 2 tablespoons tamari, or coconut aminos
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- pinch of salt
- freshly chopped parsley for garnish
Place ghee or butter in a skillet over medium-high heat.
Once hot, add the sliced mushrooms and cook until browned on both sides. Don't touch the mushrooms as they cook to let them deeply caramelize on each side.
Add the tamari and garlic to the pan and cook for an additional minute until the liquid is absorbed by the mushrooms, tossing them in the mixture.
Garnish with parsley and serve as desired.
Pimientos de Padrón
spanish veg vegan snack
Often served as a tapas, these bright green heirloom peppers from Padró in Galicia, Spain are pretty mild for the most part.
But you get the occasional surprisingly hot one, so snacking on them is a bit like playing chilli roulette.
Enjoy!
Serves 4-6
- 1 tablespoon neutral oil, like canola or grapeseed
- 12 ounces Padrón peppers
- flaked sea salt
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Heat oil over high heat in a cast iron skillet large enough to fit the peppers in a single layer. Heat until lightly smoking, then add peppers.
Cook without moving until blistered on first side, about 30 seconds.
Flip and shake the peppers and continue to cook, turning occasionally, until well blistered all over and tender-crisp, about 1½ minutes total.
Season with salt.
Transfer peppers to a serving plate. Drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and sprinkle with more flaked salt. The need to be well-salted!
Serve immediately.
Son-In-Law Eggs
oriental snack
Apparently, because these eggs resemble shrivelled amputated bollocks, they are prepared as a warning to wayward sons by their mothers-in-law.
In Asia.
Well, where else?
1 tsp of tamarind concentrate is approximately the equivalent of 1 tblsp of the liquid from soaked, strained tamarind pulp.
So if using concentrate in the recipe below, substitute 2 tsps of concentrate diluted with 4 tsps water for the 2 tblsps of tamarind paste.
Serves 4
- 1 tblsp finely diced shallots
- 2 tblsps tamarind paste
- ¼ cup/4 tblsps palm sugar, chopped, packed
- couple tblsps water
- ¼ cup/4 tblsps fish sauce
- 4 medium boiled duck eggs, or 5 chicken eggs, peeled and cooled completely
- 2 head of shallot for fried shallots, thinly sliced lengthwise
- 3-4 cloves garlic for garlic chips (or make as much as you like and keep for miscellaneous sprinkling!)
- dried chilies
- coriander leaves
Add palm sugar, tamarind, water and fish sauce. Let simmer, stirring and crushing, for a few minutes until the sugar is all dissolved and the sauce is thickened slightly.
After simmering for 3-5 minutes, the sauce should have a darker colour, becomes shiny, and has the consistency of maple syrup (it will thicken slightly as it cools).
Taste and adjust seasoning, keeping in mind that the sauce will be mellowed out by the eggs.
Thinly slice the shallots and lay them on a plate lined with paper towel.
Sprinkle salt over them and let sit for at least 10 minutes.
Once it has had time to sit, press a piece of paper towel onto the shallots to absorb all the liquid that has been drawn out by the salt.
Heat just enough oil in a wok or a shallow saucepan to cover the shallots.
Turn the heat on medium high and add all the shallots to the oil without waiting for the oil to become hot.
Once the shallots are bubbling, turn the heat down to low and keep them bubbling gently until they are golden browned and crispy. Keep an eye on them as they burn quickly!
Remove the shallots with a slotted or mesh skimmer and drain on paper towel. Turn off the heat.
To the same oil you used the fry shallots, add the garlic slices THEN turn the heat back on low.
Keep frying the garlic on low heat (gentle bubbling) until the garlic has turned a light golden colour and the bubbling has stopped.
Remove the garlic chips and drain on paper towel.
Turn off the heat.
To the same oil, add the dried chilies and fry them on low heat until they turn a maroon colour and smell smoky.
This will take less than a minute so do not walk away!
Remove and drain on paper towel.
Add more oil to the pot so that it comes halfway up the eggs.
Heat the oil on medium high heat until the oil reaches 375-400°F.
While you wait for the oil, dry the eggs really well with paper towel to prevent oil from splattering too much.
Then add the eggs to the oil, one at a time and fry them until they become golden brown (it should take just less than 1 minute).
Flip the eggs and brown the other side.
Remove from heat and drain on paper towel.
Cut the eggs in half with a sharp knife and arrange on a plate, cut side up.
Reheat the sauce (add a little more water if it has become too thick) then drizzle the sauce over the eggs.
Top with fried shallots, garlic, chilies and cilantro.
Serve immediately with jasmine rice.
Enjoy!
Liquorice Pudding
sweet veg
Nigella
says:
I use the tiny liquorice pellets that come, usually, from Calabria and are seen everywhere in Italy.
Outside of Italy, you can find them in Italian delis and via the internet.
I followed her advice and ordered some from
Amazon. Worth every penny!
Serves 2
- 60 millilitres water
- 1 teaspoon pure Italian liquorice pellets (such as Amarelli Rossano)
- 2 tablespoons light brown muscovado sugar
- 175 millilitres double cream
- 2 teaspoons cornflour
- 1 tablespoon milk
- Maldon sea salt flakes (to serve)
Put the water and liquorice pellets in your smallest pan and bring to the boil, stirring or whisking frequently to help the liquorice melt.
Once it starts bubbling, turn off the heat and leave for 5 minutes, stirring or whisking every now and again.
Turn the heat back on and whisk in the sugar, then the cream, and bring to a bubble.
Remove from the heat.
Spoon the cornflour into a little bowl, cup or ramekin and slake it with the milk: which is to say, whisk in the milk until you have a smooth paste.
Pour this, whisking as you go, into the mixture in the saucepan.
Still whisking, put the pan back on the heat and bring back to a bubble, whisking all the while, for 20-30 seconds, or until thickened.
Divide between 2 heatproof glasses or cups and - unless you want to eat this hot - cover, touching the surface of the puddings, with clingfilm
or baking parchment that you've wet with cold water then wrung out (this is to prevent a skin forming, a thing she cannot tolerate),
and put them in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Let the puddings come to room temperature before serving, and remove the clingfilm or baking parchment and smooth the tops with the back of a teaspoon.
Put the soft sea salt on the table to sprinkle over as you eat, if wished. For those of us who love liquorice, this pudding is a sheer, spine-tingling joy.
The Week After the Morning After The Week Before
And is there runny cheese still for tea?
Yes, dear reader, yes there is!
About a month later I'm finally chewing through the last of the Christmas cheeses - mostly Gorgonzola.
I
rolled some into a surprisingly long puff pastry log, which I then struggled to fit into the oven.
In the end I had to slide it in at a diagonal, and keep rotating it to limit the scorching of the ends.
I combined the finished, and impressively glossy, cheese roll with some colourful celeriac and pea purées and experimented with different presentations.
What do
you think?
The Tête de Moine, or
Monk's Head cheese, with which I
creamed some kale, was believe it or not, a post-Christmas purchase.
It's a fine-grained semi-hard Swiss cheese which coincidentally originated from Bellalay Abbey near Berne, and is usually scraped or pared for serving, rather than being cut or sliced.
In fact there's a whole device called a
Girolle which is sold for scraping this conveniently cylindrical cheese into beautiful rosette-like swirls.
You
can manage to produce similarly attractive curls with a regular cheese slicer, or if you are particularly skilled, a sharp knife.
So after that, it's back to my habitual weekly steak, obtained at the end of my
meat walk into Brighouse.
Now serving with a
fruity liquorice sauce.
Chestnut, Gorgonzola & Spinach en Croûte
main veg cheese
I had the last of my Christmas gorgonzola to use up, and this seemed like an ideal vehicle.
Indeed, it's not too bad - just a couple of observations:
- Firstly the filling quantity is huge - far too much for a single roll.
Probably you should halve the quantities for the same amount of pastry.
- Secondly I used about ⅔ volume of stock in the sauce, and also correspondingly less cream.
It seemed to produce a reasonably flavoured sauce, which I think would have been far too dilute with the recommended stock volume.
- Although the original recipe calls for Shropshire Blue cheese I used Gorgonzola. Of course any blue cheese will be satisfactory.
- I reduced the oven temperature from Gas 7 to 6. But perhaps it should have been even lower?
- I kept back some of the sauce leeks and fried them in oil and butter until they caramelised to make a crispy topping.
Which Flora described as The Spider Corpses. So maybe you shouldn't do that?
- Finally I found 200g bags of whole cooked chestnuts
and puréed chestnuts at my Local Fucking Supermarket™
and that seemed like sufficient quantities.
- Good luck finding all-butter puff pastry at your Local Fucking Supermarket™.
Serves 8
- 50g butter
- 500g pack leeks, thickly sliced
- 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 240g bag baby spinach
- 415g can chestnut purée
- 3 large eggs, plus 1 for glazing
- ½ nutmeg, finely grated
- 200g pack vacuum-packed whole cooked chestnuts, halved
- 85g fresh white breadcrumbs
- 220g blue cheese, rind trimmed, diced
- 500g pack all-butter puff pastry
- 500ml vegetable stock
- 2 leeks, thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp cornflour
- 300ml pot double cream
Melt the butter in a large frying pan.
Add the leeks and garlic, stir well, cover and cook for 10 mins until the leeks are soft, stirring a few times to check that they don’t catch.
Tip into a large bowl.
Put the spinach in the pan and allow it to wilt.
Leave to cool and, when cold, squeeze out as much liquid from it as you possibly can.
Tip the chestnut purée into the bowl with the leeks and add the 3 eggs, the nutmeg, chestnuts, spinach, breadcrumbs, cheese and seasoning, and stir until well mixed.
Chill for at least 1 hr until the mixture firms up.
Heat oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 6.
On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the pastry to a rectangle large enough to completely enclose the filling.
Carefully lift onto a large, long baking tray that has been lined with baking parchment, then brush round all the edges of the pastry with the remaining egg.
Spoon the filling down the centre of the length of the pastry, leaving the ends clear.
Tuck the ends over the filling, then firmly lift up the sides to wrap them round, trimming away any excess pastry as you go.
Brush with more egg to glaze, then make a few holes in the top so steam can escape as it cooks.
Bake for 40 mins until golden and the filling is firm.
Remove from the oven, brush with more glaze and then bake for 10 mins more.
To make the sauce, heat the stock in a medium pan, add the leeks, boil for 5 mins, then take off the heat and scoop out 2 tbsp of the leeks.
Blitz the rest in the pan with the cornflour using a hand blender, then cook, stirring, until thickened.
Pour in the cream and reserved leeks and warm through.
Can be made 2 days ahead and chilled. Serve the pastry in thick slices with the sauce.
By Karl
Celeriac and Sun-Dried Tomato Purée
side veg
I really wanted a pink purée to suit my meal plan's colour scheme.
This seemed like it would work, and the flavours are quite complementary too.
Bonus!
It's the celeriac and the sun-dried tomatoes which are puréed by the way, not just the tomatoes.
To clear up any confusion 😉
- celeriac
- sun-dried tomato
- large knob of butter
- cream
- splash stock
Peel the celeriac and chop into chunks.
Simmer in salted water until soft and drain.
Blend together with a knob of butter and as many sun-dried tomato pieces as you need to get the colour or taste you require.
Lubricate and thin with cream or stock as needed.
Season and serve.
By Karl
Red Wine, Redcurrant and Liquorice Steak Sauce
meat sauce
A rather thick and delicious alternative to
McPhail's steak sauce,
and another step taken in my crusade to combine liquorice with
everything.
The fruit jelly is optional.
Serves 1 Steak
- butter
- garlic
- red wine
- herbs - rosemary and thyme
- redcurrant or rowan jelly
- liquorice pellets
After you've fried your steak, add a large knob of butter and some garlic and herbs to the pan, if you didn't already.
Fry until the garlic becomes to colour, then de-glaze with red wine.
Add stock and bubble to reduce and thicken.
Grind liquorice pellets to a powder in a mortar and mix through the sauce to taste.
Season, strain, and serve with the steak.
Kale with Tête de Moine and Lemon Cream Sauce
veg side cheese
You'll need a generous amount of kale - it will disappear almost like spinach in this recipe.
You'll want to use a melty cheese. I liked the tète de moine, but any hard melty cheese like gruyère, emmental, or even parmesan would work well.
You can make a decorative rose out of a Tête de Moine by shaving thin slices from the around the centre of the cheese wheel with a specialist Girolle.
Or a coarse approximation using a potato peeler or a cheese slicer.
Serves 4
- 10 oz kale leaves
- 1-2 garlic cloves, sliced or minced
- large knob of butter
- 4 tblsps double cream
- stock
- ¼ cup Tête de Moine or similar cheese, grated
- juice of 1 lemon
Cut away the stalks from the kale, wash and drain them and roughly tear or chop.
Mix the lemon juice with about an equal quantity of the cream.
Heat a large knob of butter or a splash of olive oil in a saucepan or skillet and sweat the kale until it begins to collapse, but still retains its vibrant green colour.
Add sliced garlic and sweat until fragrant.
Add some cream, bubble and then add grated cheese and stir until it thickens and all melts together.
Off the heat stir in the cream and lemon juice mixture.
Season if required and serve.
The Morning After The Week Before
Today I will be mostly eating cheese. And brussels sprouts.
And catching up with the cooking and eating I've been doing over the last few weeks.
Vacherin Mont d'Or is a winter cheese made on the French/Swiss border using milk from the same cows responsible for Comté.
They come down from the mountains when the season turns cold and their milk is too meagre and too fatty to make the summer cheese.
It's delicious baked in its spruce-bark box and scooped out with sourdough soldiers.
Like Époisse it also pairs surprisingly well with a
Tamarillo Salsa.
The delightful snowy scene on the river Wharfe above comes courtesy of
Otley's Traditionale Victoriane Fayre - well worth a visit on the first Sunday in December.
So a bit of a wait now then.
In the meantime - have some more local wintry scenes...
By Karl
King Oyster Mushrooms with Cream Cheese and Bacon
meat starter side cheese
Making my annual Advent
tom khaa kai I came across King Oyster mushrooms in the Chinese supermarket.
Some of them went into the soup, and the others went into some bacon.
You could probably use some other kind of fat mushroom, but it will have to be substantial enough to wrap bacon around.
About 2 per mushroom.
- king oyster mushrooms
- bacon slices
- Boursin
- olive oil for drizzling
- garlic
- butter
Mash up a garlic clove with some butter .
Drag the blade of a knife along the length of the bacon slices to stretch them out a little.
Slice the fat mushrooms in half lengthwise, and cut or scoop out a groove the length of the insides.
Fill the grooves with Boursin.
Smear the cut surfaces with garlic butter if you're using it.
Press the mushroom halves back together and wind bacon slices around each mushroom starting from the bottom of the stalk, until it's completely wrapped, possibly excepting the head.
Pin the bacon in place with a cocktail stick right through the mushroom.
Place in a small oven dish and drizzle with olive oil and a dab of garlic butter, if using.
Throw in any of the mushroom cuttings too - waste not want not!
Roast at Gas Mark 4-5 for about 20-30 minutes until the bacon is starting to crisp at the edges and the mushrooms are cooked through.
Remove the cocktail sticks and serve the mushrooms dressed with all their lovely juices.
Perhaps with a few green vegetables. Maybe some broccoli.
Braised Celery with Cheese Sauce
veg side cheese
Delia's Recipe has a lot more onion than mine,
and a lot less bacon.
And I didn't bother with the egg yolks.
Or the parmesan.
Or par-boiling the celery.
But they're otherwise identical!
Serves 4
- 1 large or 2 small heads of celery
- 1 oz (25 g) butter
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 carrot, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- 6 slices of bacon, cut into fat batons
- splash of Kümmel
- ½ teaspoon celery (or fennel) seeds
- Salt and freshly milled black pepper
- 150 ml stock or water
- 3 oz (75 g) mature Cheddar cheese, grated
- 1 smallish onion, finely chopped
- about 5 fl oz (150 ml) milk
- 1 oz (25 g) butter
- ½ oz (10 g) plain flour
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon Parmesan, freshly grated
Preheat the oven to gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C).
Prepare the celery by discarding any outer stalks if they are coarse and damaged.
Separate the rest of the stalks, leaving the inner ones attached to the root.
Clean any dirt off under cold running water.
Cut the inner stalks and their roots vertically, then cut all the stalks in half horizontally.
Blanch the celery by putting it in boiling, salted water for about 5 minutes. Drain well, reserving the cooking water.
Now, in the flameproof casserole, heat 1 oz (25 g) butter and the oil, add the prepared carrot and onion and cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the drained celery and 5 fl oz (150 ml) of the cooking water .
Sprinkle with the celery (or fennel) seeds and season with a little salt and black pepper.
Place the casserole in the oven and bake, covered, for 30 minutes or until the celery is tender.
When ready, transfer the vegetables to a shallow ovenproof dish, using a slotted spoon.
Empty the cooking liquid from the casserole into a measuring jug and make it up to 10 fl oz (275 ml) with the milk.
To make the sauce, heat the butter in a saucepan and fry the finely chopped onion until golden
,
then blend in the flour and cook for a couple of minutes before adding the milk mixture a little at a time, stirring well after each addition.
Bring to simmering point, still stirring, and simmer gently for a minute or two, then remove from the heat and beat in the Cheddar cheese and egg yolk.
Pour the sauce over the vegetables, sprinkle on the Parmesan cheese,
and bake in the oven for a further 25-30 minutes or until it's heated through and the top is starting to colour.
Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad
veg salad cheese
When Christmas gives you Brussels...
The
inspiration for this salad uses pine nuts and dried cranberries.
But I didn't have those.
However I did have flaked almonds.
Serves 4
- 4 cups brussels sprouts, thinly shredded
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- lemon zest
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ½ cup flaked almonds, toasted
- ½ cup pecorino cheese, finely grated
- salt & pepper
- chives or parsley, minced
Trim the sprouts, then slice them very thinly on a mandoline.
Break the slices up with your hands or a fork.
Grate over lemon zest and a squeeze of lemon juice.
Dress with olive oil until glistening.
Mix through some grated pecorino.
Add chopped herbs, if using.
Heat a small frying pan and dry-fry a handful of flaked almonds and toss over the salad before serving.
Beetroot and Cider Soup
soup veg vegan
An unusually fruity beetroot soup, if a bit on the thick side.
Serves 2
- 1 large onion
- 1 bulb fennel
- 4 beetroots
- 4 cloves garlic
- 4 bay leaves
- 2 granny smith apples
- 500ml dry cider
- stock, as required
- crème fraîche
- mussels, cooked
- black pudding cubes, fried
Roughly chop the onion, fennel and garlic and sweat in butter over a medium heat until softened.
Peel the beetroot, finely slice and add to onion and fennel.
Add bay leaves and cider and enough stock or water to cover the vegetables.
Simmer over a medium heat until the beetroot is softened.
Peel, core and slice the apples and add to pan.
Remove the bay leaves then blend the soup, in batches if necessary.
Season with salt & pepper.
Pour into bowls and garnish with a dollop of crème fraîche.
By Karl
Steak and Kidney Pudding
meat main
You can either pre-braise your pudding filling for a couple of hours to give you more control over the result as I do here,
or cook everything from raw inside the pudding.
In that case you would need to steam it for a good few hours longer - perhaps 5. You might be able to do this in a slow cooker on high, or for 8-10 hours on low.
You should also then chop the vegetables up small and consider dusting the meat with cornflour rather than wheat flour, which will clump less.
And don't add too much liquid.
Your stewing steak could be neck, chuck, blade, shin, skirt or cheek. Or maybe brisket.
I used shin, and had so many trimmings that I fried them up with some chopped onions, carrots and celery and then boiled them to make a simple stock.
Which I strained and used for the pudding filling. Though you could also use them to make a gravy.
Don't cut the pieces too small or they'll disintegrate before you even get them in the puddings.
For the kidneys you will be best using veal or lamb. Ox might be a bit strong.
You can add any extra fillings or flavourings you like, I suppose even (shudder) carrots. Though I did add mushrooms, and garlic, so who am I to talk?
You could substitute red wine for the stout, include some kind of tomato in the filling, and some type of mustard is quite a popular addition,
either as a powder in the crust, or a paste in the filling.
I grated some gorgonzola into my pastry after cohering it with the water. But then it is post-Christmas, so now I've got 10 pounds of cheese to get through.
Serves 4
- 1 tbsp plain flour
- 400g chuck or stewing-type steak, cut into 1" chunks
- 150g rose veal kidney
- 1½ tbsp beef dripping or oil, to cook
- 1 onion or leek, thinly sliced
- 1 bay leaf
- Small bunch of thyme, leaves picked
- 150ml stout
- 150ml beef stock
- half a dozen chestnut or field mushrooms, chunked
- garlic, sliced
- gorgonzola!
- anchovies
- oysters
- soy sauce
- Worcestershire sauce
- whole grain mustard
- 250g self raising flour
- ¼ tsp salt
- 125g chopped suet
- butter, to grease
- ½ tsp English mustard powder
- herbs - thyme/parsley/sage/tarragon
- cheese, crumbled or grated
- nuts, chopped
- lemon or orange zest
Cut the beef into chunks about 1-1½ large. Be sure to remove any silverskin or connective tissue. Especially if you're using shin.
Quarter the kidneys and remove their core along with any additional stringy bits.
Put the meat and the kidneys in plastic bags and shake up with well-seasoned flour.
Heat the dripping, or oil, in a large frying pan. Adding more along the way as required:
Fry the floured beef in batches to brown, then scoop into a pot.
Fry the floured kidney in batches until browned, then scoop into a pot.
Chop or slice the onion or leek and fry until they begin to caramelise, then scoop into the pot.
De-glaze the frying pan with the stout and bubble until reduced by half. Add to the pot along with enough stock to cover everything.
Add a dash of soy and Worcestershire sauce, thyme, and a couple of bay leaves and simmer gently for 1¾ hours until the meat is tender.
Adjust the position of the lid, so as to finish with a thick gravy. You may need to boil more vigorously at the end.
Taste and adjust the flavourings and seasoning. Remove the bay leaves and allow to cool.
Two hours before you want to eat, sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the salt.
Add mustard powder if using.
Rub in the suet briefly to mix together with herbs/cheese/nuts if using.
Add just enough cold water to bring together into a firm dough using a knife.
Pinch off a quarter of the dough and set aside, then roll out the rest to about ½ cm thick.
Butter a 1 litre pudding basin generously, and use the pastry to line it, being careful not to stretch it.
Fill the pastry with meat and gravy, stopping about 2cm from the top, and then roll out the lid and stick it on with a little cold water.
Cover the basin with foil, with a pleat to allow the pastry to rise, and fashion a handle out of string to lift the basin out of the water.
Put the pudding in a large pan half-filled with boiling water, cover and simmer for 1½ hours.
Check the water level regularly and top up with more boiling water as necessary. Turn out and serve immediately.
Ecuadoran Tamarillo Salsa
salad veg vegan
Tamarillo, or tree-tomato is a South American fruit. Bright red and pretty tart.
The skin is rather tough, but you can eat all the rest of the fruit even though the seeds are a bit on the large side.
I looked these facts up, because my Local Greengrocer had some, and I therefore had to give them a try.
Makes about ½ cup
- 1 fresh tamarillo (tree tomato)
- 1 fresh serrano chilli (preferably red), coarsely chopped, with seeds if desired
- 2 large scallions or ½ red onion, coarsely chopped
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon chopped coriander
- 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
- brown sugar
- salt to taste
Either halve the tamarillo and scoop out the flesh and seeds with a spoon,
or quarter it and remove the skin with a horizontal cut with a knife by holding the tamarillo piece flat on a chopping board.
Chop the flesh. Mince the other solid ingredients.
Mix everything together.
Season with salt and sugar if required to take some of the edge off the bitterness.
By Karl
Roast Poussin Stuffed with Black Pudding and Apple
fowl main
Poussin is French for spring chicken, but you could also manage this with any small bird.
Serves 2
- 1 poussin
- 100g black pudding
- 100g fresh breadcrumbs
- 1 apple
- herbs, chopped
- streaky bacon
- brown sugar
- butter or olive oil
- paprika
Break up the black pudding with a fork - avoid turning it to mush.
Fry small cubes of apple in butter to brown, then mix with the black pudding and some chopped herbs.
Stuff the poussin with the mixture, lard the breast and top of the legs with bacon and roast at Gas Mark 5-6 for about an hour until the stuffing is hot in the centre.
If the bacon starts to burn, cover the bird loosely with tin foil.
Leave the bird loosely covered to rest for 10-15 minutes.
Peel the remains of your apple and cut ¼" slices across the near-middle. Remove the cores if necessary.
Roll in soft brown sugar, then fry both sides over high heat in clarified butter until nicely caramelised.
To serve, carve away the birds legs and breasts.
Scoop some stuffing from inside, pile onto fried apple disks and decorate with chicken pieces.
By Karl
Liquorice Beetroot
side veg
Another stage on my mission to combine liquorice with everything.
Serves 2
- 3 beetroots
- 6 liquorice pellets
Cut a beetroot into cubes, or use a melon-baller to carve out spheres of beetroot.
Juice the leftover parts, and two more beets until you have enough juice to cover the balls.
Throw in a half dozen pieces of liquorice and simmer gently until the beetroot is cooked.
Drain to serve.
By Karl
Celeriac Chips
veg vegan side experimental
Serves 2
- celeriac, cut into chips
- oil for deep-frying
Peel and trim the celeriac and simmer in salted water until softened, but not collapsing.
Cut into chips and deep-fry twice: First at 140°C until cooked but not coloured, then 190°C until brown.
By Karl
Raspberry, Beetroot and Red Wine Sauce
sauce veg vegan
Handy for using up beetroot leftovers.
Slice garlic and shallots or red onion.
Fry until coloured in a little butter along with any spare parts of herbs you have.
De-glaze with red wine, and throw in a large handful of raspberries while you bubble off the alcohol.
Add the liqourice-y juice from cooking
liquorice beetroots and continue cooking until the raspberries completely collapse.
Strain the sauce, return to the pan, and bubble until reduced to a sufficiently thick syrup.
That's Not a Goose!
Ducks are not geese, you know. And when you order a goose for Christmas, you expect to collect a goose for Christmas.
Not a small goose and duck.
Sigh.
Fortunately even a small(er) goose is large enough for one dinner for three people. And even provides enough for leftovers.
Plus you get to make
two stocks.
Christmas is saved!
This year's pre-christmas preparations involved some of our traditional undertakings
but this year Kurt also pushed the boat out on Elfy activities. Or Elf-On-The-Shelfy activities.
He spent many late nights building complex Elf dioramas, featuring regular
and naughty elf, for George's dawn delight.
Any morning they might be found playing Hungry Hungry Hippos, toasting marshmallows over the Advent candle, TP'ing the light fitting
or taking a shit in George's breakfast juice glass.
Those little minxes!
So then finally we have all the usual trimmings - the food, the drink , the lights and the presents.
The MERRY CHRISTMAS to one and all!
Kirsch-Cherry and Black Pudding Canapé
meat starter
It's easy to overwhelm the cherry with too much black pudding, so do your best to roll the pudding as thinly as possible around the cherry, while being sure to cover it completely.
You are also going to need some quality cherries for these canapés. I first tried using an inferior black cherry by
Opies.
They're too feeble, soft and squidgy to stand up to the wrapping process, never mind packing insufficient flavour.
Griottines' Morello cherries are definitely better here, though the quality does cost extra
😉
Makes about 30-40 balls
- kirsch-cured cherries, 1 jar of at least 30
- 400g of black pudding, good quality
- 2 eggs
- 20g of cornflour
- 100g of flour, for coating
- 300g of Rice Krispies, placed in a large bowl
Drain the cherries thoroughly and use kitchen paper to absorb any excess liquor. Blitz the black pudding in a food processor, then add 1 egg and the cornflour and blitz again.
Place a small amount of the black pudding mix in the palm of your hand and flatten out slightly.
Place a cherry in the centre and lift the sides of the black pudding mix around the cherry to enclose, like you would do to make Scotch eggs.
Repeat until all of the cherries are enclosed.
Add the remaining egg to a bowl and whisk lightly to make an egg wash. Lightly coat the black pudding balls in the flour and shake off any excess.
Dredge each ball in the egg 3-4 times to coat well, then place in the Rice Krispies bowl, shaking vigorously so the balls are well-coated.
Deep-fry the balls at 180°C for 2-3 minutes, drain on kitchen paper and serve warm.
By Karl
Savoury Cherry, Beetroot and Red Wine Sauce
sauce
The basis for a terrific sauce for your
Black Pudding Canapés.
I've left the quantities up to you, and some extra flavours you might want to try.
As long as the stock is reasonably good quality you'll be able to reduce the sauce to a suitably rich and sticky consistency.
- shallots
- garlic
- thyme
- butter
- red wine
- balsamic vinegar
- cherries
- beetroot juice
- stock
- nutmeg
- almond essence
- liquorice!
- Kirsch cherry syrup
Finely slice the shallots and garlic and sweat in butter until collapsed.
Cover with red wine, drizzle in balsamic vinegar add the cherries
and bubble until the alcohol cooks off.
Add the beetroot juice and stock and cook until the red wine mellows and the cherries disintegrate.
Strain, taste, add flavourings, adjust the seasoning, then boil to reduce until it coats the back of a spoon, or as required.
Livin' La Vida Liquorica
It all started with the squid.
On my weekly Meat Walk through Brighouse I noticed that the outdoor market's squalid fish stall had some surprisingly attractive-looking squid.
Now I've been burned there before with the
worst scallops I've ever eaten so I kept on going,
but as I collected my fillet steak for dinner I just couldn't stop thinking about that damned squid.
And as I passed the little traditional sweetie shop my mind turned to thoughts of liquorice. And squid. Liquorice and squid. And after all, why not?
So I bought some liquorice and went to collect a squid,
just as the guy was packing up his van to take his rotting fish home to marinate in their own exudation before bringing them back again the next week.
Probably.
I noticed the stench of decaying squid wafting out of the bag on my way home on the bus,
so I immediately gave the smelly fellow a damn good scrubbing, peeled him, chopped him up, and left him to soak in some milk in the hope of him being edible the next day.
And reader, he was.
Squid and liquorice is delicious. Who knew?
And thus began my period of liquorice experimentation. It turns out that there are very few things that don't actually go with liquorice.
And many more that are definitely improved. I may make it my signature flavour!
Since Flora no longer joins us for Christmas she is obligated to visit in November, usually around my birthday
🙂, in order to deliver our Christmas presents.
And collect her own, if she's been a good girl.
Reader, she has been a good girl.
Her reward was a ludicrously expensive (but delicious) bottle of Burgundy
and a
Fondue.
I tried working with a few different liquorice forms:
- The spongy molasses-based sweet is the least palatable,
- Barrett's floury sticks are certainly the worst to work with,
- but hard
Italian pellets of pure liquorice
are definitely (and probably unsurprisingly) the best.
Grind them up with a pestle and mortar, catching the ones that leap out - they're
really hard.
I guess you could use a spice grinder but I'm not convinced they aren't so hard they'd crack the blades!
So anyway, here are a couple of the liquorice meals I've produced recently, with my new-found enthusiasm for the unprepossessing brown root...
A Man-Overboard Buoy goes Overboard off Naples
Why-oh-why would you attach a man-overboard horseshoe buoy to a yacht by miles of floating plastic line?
Or any line for that matter.
In a typical use case, in which a crewperson fell overboard while the boat was underway and not immediately brought to a stop,
the boat would either drag the buoy away from the struggling victim at speed, or possibly drown them if they'd been unlucky enough to get a hold of it.
Potentially breaking their arms in the process.
Or just snapping the line.
And now you have an even worse problem to deal with, which is that the line you have trailing in the water around the victim
presents a serious propeller-fouling hazard should you attempt to motor back up to rescue them.
It just doesn't make sense!
Anyhow, long story short, some friends and I recently rented a yacht for a week out of a marina on the picturesque Italian island of
Procida
just off the coast of Naples;
home to the Bourbon fort and ex-prison
Palazzo d’Avalos.
The boat was a comfortable, but somewhat tired Oceanis 48
Serenesse, not without its problems.
Probably due to it being the end of season - when the rental is cheaper but the weather livelier.
We sailed from Procida to the charming ex-prison island of
Ventotene
and anchored off its historic Roman harbour
Porto Vecchio carved from the volcanic tuff around the time of Christ.
From there a hop back to Sant'Angelo harbour on
Isola d'Ischia - the island next door to Procida featuring fine views of
Castello Aragonese - its prominent medieval castle and ex-prison,
then across the Gulf of Naples to pick up a mooring buoy off the fishing village of
Nerano.
The short hop from there further along the coast, past the dolphin-shaped monastic and ex-prison island of
Gallo Lungo,
to
Amalfi harbour gave us the time to hike the terrifying
Path of the Gods (
il Sentiero degli dei)
- a high trail with spectacular cliff views
carved into the earth by the Gods in their haste to save Ulysses from the Mermaids' song,
that runs along the top of the mountains from
Bomerano to
Nocelle,
finishing up with a descent to
Positano down more steps than the human frame can bear to catch a bus back to Amalfi along the coast road.
In the face of increasingly threatening southerly winds, next day we made a lively retreat from the south-facing Amalfi coast, round the libidinous island of
Capri,
to
Marina Piccola under the fantastically carved cliffs of the northern side of the
Sorrento peninsula.
Our final day of sailing took us back across the choppy Gulf of Naples to Procida, with a brief stop for lunch. Over which, apparently, we had no time to linger.
But the important point is that while we were sailing between Ventotene and Ischia, at some speed in strong winds,
our horseshoe buoy blew overboard due to the aged weakness in its elastic clips.
The line very quickly uncoiled from its reel (quickly enough to burn the hand of anyone foolish enough to try and grab it),
then snapped off at the end, leaving the buoy and a massive cloud of cheap floating plastic line rapidly receding into the distance.
We decided to attempt a (successful) recovery under sail, turning on the engine but not engaging the gear.
Pretty safe you might think.
Unfortunately somehow the line still managed to wrap itself around the prop shaft so tightly that it couldn't be pulled out.
We had a couple of swimmers jump in to brave the bath-temperature waters and try to get a proper look at the problem,
and for a while we were seriously worried that we might not be able to free it at all,
but fortunately the line was so sunburned and frail that it simply tore apart when we eventually gave the prop a couple of experimental spins.
Problem solved!
Overall the sailing was pretty good, warm enough to be fun even in strong wind and rain, and I realised how much I'd missed it.
We packed in a lot of it too; even the Sunsail staff seemed genuinely impressed at the amount of distance we had covered.
It was also nice to be sleeping at sea again - though many of my shipmates struggled with the rolling:
I just lay crossways on my bunk which helped enormously.
Naples itself, however, seemed to me an ugly, dirty, confusing mess consisting of filth-covered graffiti-ridden buildings,
a transport system that struggles to function, or that I struggled to understand,
and a vast industrial zone that resembles a dystopian ruin.
And now I come to think about it, does seem to be surrounded by an awful lot of prisons!
Seen from offshore the Campanian coastline is quite beautiful, even if like much of Naples the settlements look better after dark,
but it is beset with arbitrary sailing and anchoring restrictions, and mooring or berthing is limited and expensive. Even in the off season.
I also found the heat difficult to manage at night despite having my cabin fan running at full blast.
Still, the Mediterranean sea was warm, the fish plentiful, the food excellent if pricey, and the Aperol spritzers the perfect end to many perfect lunches afloat.
Arrivederci!
By Karl
Marinated Salmon Risotto
fish main italian
I made this risotto (mostly) to use up our leftovers - and we had gherkins so that's what I added.
But I think capers might have worked better.
The salmon slices I used, marinated in oil, were pretty tasty, and kept well on the boat. But I'm sure you could use fresh salmon. Or smoked.
If you're making some
Aperol fennel with this you can use their trimmings to make a vegetable stock
and wash in any orange zest trapped in your grater. Or you could use a fish, or a chicken stock.
Otherwise include any other spare vegetable and basil stalks.
I followed the traditional five stages of risotto cookery (your terms may vary):
- il soffritto:
Finely chopped onions (and possibly other vegetables such as the classic celery and carrot) are sweated in oil or butter without browning.
- la tostatura:
The rice grains are pre-cooked so they retain some coherence. You can toast the rice separately in a dry pan, or in the sweated onions.
- lo sfumato o l'umidità o Il Sospiro:
Wine (or spirit or even lemon juice) is added, whereupon it should sizzle as it hits the hot rice, then is cooked off.
- la cottura, la bagnatura o il brodo:
The main ingredient may be added here, then broth is added a little at a time to the rice, stirring until each is absorbed to the preferred degree of sloppiness.
This continues until the rice is cooked, retaining just a little bite. About 15-20 minutes.
- il riposo:
An optional step to allow the rice to cool slightly and finish cooking off the heat before adding the cheese.
- la mantecatura:
Off the heat add cold butter and grated cheese and beat until smooth.
- Serve!
Serves 6
- 1 pack bacon/pancetta, chopped
- bag shallots, minced
- 3 cups risotto rice
- a few cloves garlic, minced
- 1 cup white wine
- 2 litres stock
- tub marinated salmon, chopped
- 2-3 gherkins chopped, or capers
- large handful rocket, chopped
- zest of ½ orange, grated
- 150g butter
- 150g parmesan, grated
- mozzarella, sliced
- basil leaves
First chop and fry the pancetta or bacon in a little olive oil until it crisps.
Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Chop the salmon, gherkin , roughly chop the rocket and mix everything with the reserved crisped bacon.
Add a light grating of orange zest.
Soffritto: Mince the shallots and sweat gently in the fat left in the pan until they turn transparent.
Tostatura: Raise the heat. Add the rice and stir well to coat and lightly fry, without allowing the onions to brown.
Umifità: Add the minced garlic, stir through then pour in a generous amount of white wine and cook it off. Lower the heat again.
Bagnatura: Have the stock simmering in a pot to hand and add one ladleful at a time to the rice until each is absorbed.
Continue this process until the rice is cooked. Leave the risotto as sloppy or firm as you like it.
Mantecatura: Remove from the heat and beat in the butter and grated parmesan until the risotto turns smooth and creamy.
Now carefully stir through the other prepared ingredients, season if necessary, and dress with a layer of thinly sliced mozzarella.
Once the mozzarella has begun to melt , serve with a few basil leaves for decoration.
By Karl
Aperol Fennel
side
I used some fresh red chillies, but dried chilli flakes would work fine.
You could substitute maple syrup for the honey, which is what
inspired this dish.
There was no oven thermometer on board the yacht, so I have no idea at what temperature I roasted these, but I'd guess Gas 4-6.
The Aperol is, of course, optional - but when in Naples...
Serves 6
- 2 large fennel bulbs
- 6-12 anchovies, minced
- a few tblsps honey
- a splash of Aperol
- orange juice and zest
- olive oil
- 1-2 red chillies, minced
Trim the fennel bulbs of tough or brown bits, strip the fronds for garnish, and par-boil them whole until you can pierce them with a knife.
Drain and cut into fat segments vertically from root to stalks. Pack them into a single layer in a shallow oven dish.
Mix together minced anchovies, a good glug or two of honey, a splash of Aperol, the juice of an orange and the zest of about half, 1 or 2 minced red chillies,
and a generous amount of olive oil. Season.
Pour this over the fennel, and mix thoroughly.
Pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 4-6/175-200°C/350-400°F.
Bake for about an hour until the sauce melts into the fennel and they begin to caramelize.
Keep an eye on them and baste the juices over the fennel occasionally. Don't let the honey burn.
Serve dressed with the chopped fennel fronds. Perhaps extra grated orange zest. Maybe some parsley.
By Karl
Feta Salad with Lemon Honey Dressing
salad veg
I didn't have any cucumber, or rather, it turns out we did but I thought they were courgettes so didn't include them.
But you could.
I also used green olives, since that's what we had, but you could also use black, I reckon.
- feta, broken
- crisp lettuce, torn
- tomatoes, chunked
- olive, sliced
- cucumber, de-seeded, chunked
- pecorino, grated
- juice of 1 lemon
- 2 tblsps honey
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- olive oil
- salt & pepper
Chop or tear the crisp lettuce.
Chop the tomatoes into decent chunks.
Slice the olives.
Remove any coarse peel from the cucumber, de-seed and cut into chunks.
Grate pecorino and mix everything.
Break or cut the feta into chunks and add to the salad.
Mash a garlic clove or two with a grinding of salt & pepper using the side of a chef's knife.
Mix the juice of a lemon with the garlic and about the same volume of olive oil and honey to taste.
Dress the salad and serve.
By Karl
Breaded Aubergine
veg side
I made this using grated gluten-free bread, for our gluten-intolerant skipper. And we didn't have any gluten-free flour so I skipped that dressing step.
You'll need to season the aubergine slices. You can do this directly, or add the seasoning with the garlic, or season the egg wash. Whichever you prefer.
You can also add lemon zest to the breadcrumbs, but don't mix the garlic in there because it will probably burn and turn bitter.
- aubergines, sliced thinly
- flour
- egg, beaten
- breadcrumbs
- lemon zest
- garlic
- salt & pepper
- olive oil for shallow frying
- pecorino, grated
- lemon zest, grated
- parsley, chopped
Slice the aubergines pretty thinly.
Set out bowls containing the flour , the beaten egg, and the breadcrumbs .
Mash the garlic with salt & pepper.
Take each slice of aubergine, rub with the seasoned garlic, then roll through the flour , the egg wash, and finally the breadcrumbs.
Lay in a single layer in a large frying pan and fry in a generous amount of olive oil until browned and crispy, turning to fry the other sides.
Lay the slices on a warmed serving dish, then repeat the frying in batches until all the slices are cooked.
Scatter with grated cheese, grated lemon zest and some chopped parsley to serve.
Scone
Ha - fooled you! It's not that kind of scone!
I recently made trips up to Scotland, once to visit the ashes of my Mum, or the river where they were scattered,
and once to visit
Scone Palace, amongst other things.
Those things included Flora,
Cambo Country House,
and the
Lands of Loyal hotel, where we drank possibly the most revolting red wine I've every tried:
an unfiltered, organic Nero D'Avola
horror from Sicily.
To be fair, they did warn us it might not be what we expected, if what we had expected was drinkable.
It turns out to make an
excellent cooking wine though - so nothing wasted, nothing lost.
The hotel is an impressive building, even if their wine cellar leaves something to be desired, featuring a striking sitting room with obligatory open fireplace, a fine bird-cage,
and a magnificent Lagonda.
Scone Palace is, of course, the original home of the
Scone of Destiny
- whose recipe was famously stolen in 1296 by Edward Longshanks and removed to Westminster Abbey from where it was broken up and distributed to all the seaside tearooms of England.
It was also the seat of most, if not all, of Scottish history between Shakespeare's 11
th century MacBeth and the crowning of Charles II there in 1651.
After which its story ended.
It is now a
venue for meetings of Scottish dog-fanciers.
Though it still possesses remarkable gardens, including an historic arboretum,
and a delightful maze which will reward your dedication to navigating your way to its centre with a nice statue of a lady and an empty pond.
And an emergency exit, so you don't have to Ariadne your way back.
My family, or at least
some of us, have been regularly heading up to Eskdalemuir in the Scottish Borders
to celebrate Mum's death. Obviously
celebrate isn't the right word, though you wouldn't know it from the photos.
We visit the Buddhist monastery at
Samye Ling and the Naga House in the White Esk river where we scattered Mum's ashes.
But our usual camping ground became unavailable over COVID so we've had to find somewhere else.
Fortunately there's a lovely place near Hawick called
Rue Du Chateau;
it's a bit further away but it's a much nicer campsite, since you don't have to share it with caravans and mobile homes.
It has a river and a composting toilet in an old horse box, and if you're lucky you may be visited by the local ducks and chickens.
If you're unlucky you'll be visited by the wasps.
As is traditional we dined on
camping spag bol
for which I had prepared an ersatz
Campbell's oxtail soup at great expense.
It tasted almost like the real thing
😢
Lamb Shanks Braised in Red Wine
main meat
During an otherwise pleasant dinner at a very old-fashioned Scottish holiday lodge Flora and I made the mistake of choosing a particularly horrible
organic, vegan, unfiltered Scicilian Nero D'avola red wine by Fabrizio Vella. It was utterly undrinkable.
Fortunately it makes an excellent braising wine.
Thanks to
Nagi for the basic outline,
though I enhanced the recipe with a touch of soy and fish sauce, and some extra shallots and mushrooms à la beef bourgignon.
Don't worry you won't taste the fish sauce, but maybe you could throw in a few minced anchovies instead?
Serves 4
- 4 lamb shanks
- oil for shallow frying
- 3 carrots, finely chopped
- a few bay leaves
- 1 large onion, finely chopped
- large handful of thyme
- 3 sticks celery, finely chopped
- half a dozen cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 tblsps tomato purée
- glass brandy
- 1 bottle red wine
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 tin chopped tomatoes
- chicken stock
- oil
- butter
- a dozen round shallots or pickling onions, peeled
- 200g button mushrooms, cleaned
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
Pre-heat the oven to 180-200°C/360-400°F/Gas Mark 5-6.
Heat a large oven-proof casserole with a generous puddle of oil.
Season the shanks with salt & pepper and sear them all, all over. Do it in batches so as not to overload the pan. Set aside.
Over high heat add the chopped carrots and fry until colouring.
Throw in the bay leaves, the chopped onions and the crushed garlic cloves and fry until colouring.
Add the chopped celery and the thyme and fry until softened.
Add the tomato purée and cook until the oil separates. De-glaze the pan with a glass of brandy, then add the red wine and bubble it up.
Stir in the tin of tomatoes, the soy and fish sauce.
Then tightly pack the browned shanks back in to the pot along with any of their juices.
Add enough stock or water to almost cover everything.
Bring to the boil, cover and put in the oven for 2 hours until the meat is tender.
Now lift out the shanks, pour out the cooking liquid and press it through a sieve.
Return everything (except the exhausted pulp which you can keep for sandwiches )
back into the casserole and put it back in the oven uncovered.
Continue cooking and reducing for 30-60 minutes until the meat is almost falling off the bones.
In the meantime heat oil in a frying pan and brown the shallots all over, shaking occasionally, and add them to the casserole.
Then add a generous knob of butter and the sliced garlic to the pan, allow the butter to foam and the garlic to begin to colour then add the mushrooms.
Fry until they begin to colour, shaking occasionally. Add these and their juices to the casserole.
Serve each shank on bed of mashed potato or
cauliflower purée
with a selection of the shallots and mushrooms and a drizzle of the reduced sauce.
By Karl
Minted Butter
ingredient
- mint leaves, minced
- squeeze of lemon or lime juice
- lemon or lime zest
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- salt & pepper
- softened butter
Mince the mint leaves then grind them in a pestle and mortar with a grating of sea salt and coarse pepper.
Add crushed garlic, a squeeze of lemon or lime and some of the zest and churn to a paste.
Blend with melted butter, roll up in clingfilm or baking paper and chill.
Cauliflower Purée with Parmesan
side veg cheese
I took
Nagi's mashed cauliflower, replaced the parmesan with pecorino romano and multiplied the quantity by 10.
It seemed to like it.
I also threw a bunch of dill into the water to cook with the cauliflower florets for extra flavour, then just discarded it before draining and blending.
You could cook garlic cloves with the cauliflower and blend them in too as Nagi does.
Serves 4
- 1 cauliflower
- 200g parmesan or similar hard cheese
- cream, sour cream or milk
- parsley or dill, chopped
- butter herbed or minted, melted
Break or chop the cauliflower into similar-sized florets.
Cook until completely soft in boiling salted water.
Drain, then blend until smooth with just enough of the cooking water, cream, crème fraîche, or milk.
Beat in the grated cheese.
Season to taste and serve with melted herb butter, chopped parsley or dill.
Warmed Burrata Salad with Roast Tomatoes and Grilled Nectarine
salad cheese
The
recipe from which I stole this idea used apricots,
but I had nectarines - so there.
I'm sure any stone fruit would do it justice.
- rocket
- cherry tomatoes
- burrata cheese
- apricot, peaches, nectarines or green plums
- red or spring onion, or shallots, sliced
- garlic, minced
- sliced ham
- olive oil
- salt & pepper
- parsley, thyme, or basil
- balsamic vinegar
- chilli
- vinaigrette
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6.
Heat a grill or griddle pan.
Mix cherry tomatoes with olive oil, minced garlic and thinly sliced red onion, spring onions or shallots.
Season with a little salt and pepper and some thyme leaves if you like.
Lay in a layer in a small ovenproof dish, and bake for 10-15 minutes until the tomatoes begin to split.
Place the burrata on top and return to the oven for another 2-3 minutes until the cheese begins to soften, but don't let it collapse.
Meanwhile, halve the apricot, peach, nectarine, or plum, remove the stone, season the cut with salt and a generous amount of pepper, drizzle with olive oil
and grill the cut-side or fry it in a roasting hot griddle pan until the griddle lines are nicely charred into the fruit.
Add a slice of ham and griddle that too. Slice up the ham across the griddle lines.
Dress the tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and serve everything up on a bed of rocket, topped with the warm burrata.
Scatter with herbs of choice and preferred salad dressing.
Langoustine and Black Pudding Crumble
fish meat main
Whilst on a recent holiday in Edinburgh, Flora treated me to a haunch of
McLeod's Stornaway black pudding.
But we couldn't eat it all, so she generously donated the leftovers for my return to Bradford,
whereupon I thought I'd match it up with another Scottish staple - langoustines.
Well, I couldn't find any langoustines
- there's a
rumour Sainsbury sells them,
but not in the poxy Sainsbury near me, apparently.
So I used a bag of frozen king prawns instead.
I took some
advice on the subject of making shellfish stock
and roasted the prawn heads and shells before frying them to make the sauce.
I also added paprika and deglazed with brandy before adding the white wine.
It's not the season for wild garlic, so I threw a couple of minced garlic cloves in with the bread,
as well as a very generous handful of parsley leaves and all the fennel fronds that came with the bulb so it blends up good and green.
I felt the sauce was a little thin, so I sliced half the fennel bulb and cooked it in the sauce for a few minutes before adding the beans.
If you wanted to bulk it further you might add some cubes of cooked potato.
Serves 4
- 16 langoustines, cooked (or about 400g prawns)
- 1 onion, peeled, chopped
- 1 leek, chopped
- 1 fennel bulb, chopped
- couple garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 star anise
- 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
- 200ml of white wine
- 200ml of double cream
- 200-250g of white beans, cooked
- vegetable oil
- 150g of black pudding
- 10 wild garlic leaves or a few garlic cloves
- 150g of white breadcrumbs
- 60g of butter, melted
- parsley
- salt
Remove the tail meat from the langoustine and set aside, reserving the shells to make a stock for the sauce.
Lubricate the shells and heads with a little oil, then roast for 20-30 minutes at Gas Mark 4 until they colour deep red and slightly caramalise.
Heat oil in a large pan and fry the roast shells until nicely coated, then add the onion, leek and fennel.
Add the garlic, star anise and paprika . Fry a little more, then deglaze with brandy then white wine.
Pour in enough water to just cover.
Simmer for 1 hour then strain through a sieve into another saucepan.
Place back on the heat and reduce down to 200ml, then add the cream and reduce to a sauce consistency. Keep the sauce warm.
Cut the black pudding into 2cm pieces and deep-fry at 180°C until just crispy. Remove and drain on kitchen paper.
For the wild garlic crust, add the breadcrumbs, a few parsley leaves and 6 leaves of wild garlic
to a blender and blitz until green in colour. Add any fronds from the fennel bulb.
Place in a bowl, mix through the melted butter and season with a little salt .
Warm the sauce over a gentle heat,
add the white beans and cook until the beans have warmed through. Add the crispy black pudding and the langoustine meat.
To finish the sauce, add a little chopped wild garlic and reheat for 2 minutes. Spoon the mixture into a shallow serving dish or 4 individual dishes or ramekins.
Sprinkle the wild garlic crumbs over the top and place under a hot grill to colour and crisp up the crumb. Serve immediately.
By Azerbaijan
Accidental Liver, Deep Fried
main meat
On my weekly meat-walk into Brighouse I developed a craving for devilled kidneys, so
kidney is what I tried to order when I finally arrived at the butcher's.
Unfortunately, the word which came out of my mouth was
liver.
After the butcher spent ten minutes rummaging through the bottom of his fridges (I always seem to arrive just before he closes up)
for the last bag of calf livers I didn't have the
heart to tell him.
So I went home with accidental liver.
I bought a couple of cheeses from Brighouse's
wine-and-cheese shop to try some possible liver pairings,
and hunted around for novelty cooking ideas:
It seems American southerners will deep-fry their chicken livers (they'll deep-fry
anything), and Azerbaijanis like flouring and deep-frying beef liver.
So I thought I'd try that out.
I can report that deep-fried liver is pretty good - crispy on the outside and oozing bloody succulence in the centre.
Served with a
blue cheese dressing on an onion-heavy salad makes for a great match.
Yum!
Shallow-fried with
feta and sweetcorn is less good.
Especially if you overcook the liver
🙁
Too late to trial, I also came across an intriguing suggestion for poaching liver in a mixture of butter and Vermouth.
As a particularly disappointing movie sequel puts it:
A good question, for another time...
- liver
- milk or buttermilk
- flour
- salt & pepper
- oil for deep-frying
Trim the livers of membranes, gristle, connective tissue or excess fat.
Cut into equal-sized pieces (if they're large); use the natural lobe-lines as guides.
Put in a bowl, cover with milk and leave for an hour.
Sieve some flour into a shallow bowl and season it generously.
Preheat a deep pan of oil to 350°F/175°C.
Drain the liver and roll the pieces in the flour. Drop them into the oil and fry for 2-3 minutes until golden.
Scoop out the liver and drain on kitchen paper.
Thai-Red of Curry Paste
I bought some Thai red curry paste before last Christmas for my annual
Tom Khaa Kai,
because I read it would help. .
It's a whole thing I have going on; to do with needing to eat a chicken so I can use its bones to make stock for the gravy for the Christmas goose. Long story.
Anyway the only
decent prepared pots of this stuff are really big,
so now I have toooo much Thai red curry paste! I'm getting tired of it.
Thai-red of it. Geddit?
Oh please yourselves...
By Karl
Fried Thai Red Curry Salmon
thai fish main
I thought I'd try coating some salmon with Thai red curry paste, of which I currently have excess, for frying.
You'll need to thin the paste enough that it will smear over the fish.
I used fish sauce, rice vinegar, and toyomansi sauce as thinners but I thought that the thick cream from coconut milk might be ideal.
I'm sure you could also use mirin, citrus juice or most salad vinaigrettes. Even water!
Serves 2
- a side of salmon
- 1-2 tblsp Thai red curry paste
- 1-2 tsps fish sauce
- 1-2 tsps toyomansi sauce
- 1-2 tsps rice vinegar
- plain flour
- more toyomansi sauce
De-scale the salmon if necessary.
Mix the curry paste with the liquids until you have a smearable consistency.
It will probably remain coarse, but you need to be able to scrape it thinly over the surface of the fish.
Cut the salmon into fat steaks. Pat them dry, then roll them in flour and shake off excess.
Smear the loosened paste thinly on all sides.
Heat a frying pan with a fairly generous puddle of neutral oil until smoking hot.
Fry the salmon pieces skin-side down over high heat until singed and crisping nicely, then turn and brown on all sides.
Check the centre of the salmon has reached 45-50°C then remove and allow to relax for 5-10 minutes before serving.
You can use this time to pan-fry some side vegetables in the flavoured oil if you like.
Blanched, halved tenderstem broccoli stalks charred cut-side down in the same pan worked well for me.
By Karl
Thai Red Curry Marinated Steak
thai main meat
More Thai red curry paste used up.
At this rate I won't have any left for my Christmas
Tom Khaa Kai
and I'll have to buy another huge pot and start the cycle all over again!
Coconut cream is just thick coconut milk, which you can buy separately, or scrape off the rich thick crust which floats to the top of settled coconut milk.
Serves 2
- 24 oz sirloin steak
- 2-3 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
- 2 tablespoons coconut cream
- 1-2 teaspoons fish sauce
- spring onions, sliced on a bias
- cream or coconut cream
- peanut dressing
Mix the curry paste and the coconut cream and cook it gently in a small pot until it starts to bubble and the aromas are released.
Stir through the fish sauce and leave to cool.
Cut the steak widthways into two fat pieces, put them in a freezer bag, smear them with the paste and squidge everything together.
Leave to marinate for 24 hours.
Put a large frying pan over a high heat, add a drizzle of neutral oil and when it's smoking hot put in the sirloin fat-side down.
Allow to crisp for a couple of minute and then fry each side so they caramelize and blacken slightly.
Remove fat-side up to a low oven until the centre of the steaks reach your preferred temperature (50°C for rare), then allow the meat to rest tented in foil for ten minutes.
Meanwhile rinse out the freezer bag with hot water and use it to deglaze the pan.
Bubble off to reduce, add a couple of tablespoons of
peanut dressing
then pour in a little cream and bubble until it thickens to coat the back of a spoon.
Slice the steak, scatter with sliced spring onions and serve with the sauce.
By Karl
Thai Salad
thai salad veg vegan
Is it a lettuce? Is it a cabbage? Yes: it's Chinese leaf!
Store the chopped lettuce separate from the juicy fruit if you're keeping them for any length of time to retain the lettuce's crispness.
There's a common Thai salad made with hard green papaya, but I couldn't find any of those. Or any ripe papayas for that matter, despite finding mangosteens and rambutans.
So this is what I used.
- napa cabbage/Chinese leaf lettuce
- a few mangosteen
- a dozen rambutan, or lychee
- a few spring onions, sliced
- red chilli
- 10 cherry tomatoes
- 1 papaya or mango
- 2-3" cucumber
- a few lemon grass stalks
- generous bunch of coriander
Put out a bowl for the fruit.
Split and peel the rambutan skins. Cut the white inner flesh away from the central seed, and add the flesh to the bowl.
Split and tear away the mangosteen skins and inner purple sponge. Break apart the fleshy white segments and add them to the bowl.
Slice the spring onions on a bias. Include the white and green parts - stop before the leaves become gritty. Add to the bowl.
De-seed a red chilli or two, slice thinly and add to the bowl.
Halve or quarter cherry tomatoes and add.
If you're lucky enough to find a proper green papaya, peel it, and holding in one hand make long vertical cuts in the upper surface,
then slice thinly horizontally, or use a peeler to create thin strips.
If it's a ripe papaya then halve, scoop out the seeds from the middle with a spoon, peel and cube the flesh.
If you're using a mango - run a large knife down either side of the mango stone. Cut the flesh in each (almost) half into squares down to the skin.
Press flat and cut along the skin to release the cubes.
Add the flesh to your bowl.
Take a length of cucumber, wipe the skin, and quarter it vertically. Cut away the watery seeds from the middle, then thinly slice the outer part with the skin on.
You can use a potato peeler for this. Add the strips to the bowl.
Cut away the (probably) dirty tip of the lemon grass root. Remove thick, hard and coarse leaves to reveal the pithy interior.
Slice this thinly from the root end until you reach more leafy covering.
Remove more tough leaves and continue to thinly slice the pith. Keep going until you run out of soft(ish) centre.
You'll probably end up with a disappointingly small amount of edible stalk 🙁 (though you can crush the woody parts to flavour a neutral oil or a salad dressing).
Add to the bowl.
Roughly chop coriander leaves and mix with the fruit.
Starting from the top, slice the napa cabbage and break the slices apart.
Dress or mix the lettuce with the fruit to serve.
Coconut-Lime Dressing
salad dressing
I used coconut cream, which produced a richer dressing.
Leave out the coriander and the chilli if you like.
- 4 tablespoons coconut milk or cream
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 3 teaspoons fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped spring onion
- 1 tablespoon palm sugar
- 2 tablespoons coriander leaves
- 1 green chilli, minced
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Blend everything together except the oil until smooth. Adjust the flavour balance to your preference.
Beat in a neutral oil (avocado/grapeseed/sunflower etc.) until you have a dressing consistency.
Thai Peanut Dressing
salad dressing
I loosely followed
Culinary Hill in creating this fairly generic Indonesian satay or Thai peanut sauce.
Though I say so myself!
You can mix up any or all of the ingredients below in whatever proportions you prefer, though I guess the peanut butter, rice vinegar, and the soy sauce are pretty standard.
I might also have been inclined to add red curry paste for heat and complexity, and tamarind for sourness.
I used crunchy peanut butter, didn't have any ginger and blended the lime's zest and a red chilli up with everything else.
It was pretty fabulous!
- ½ cup smooth peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons coconut cream
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons palm sugar
- 2 tablespoons lime juice (from 1 lime)
- zest of 1 lime
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon spring onion, chopped
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger minced
- tamarind paste
- Thai red curry paste
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 red chilli, finely chopped or ¼ tsp red chili flakes
You can grind your own peanut butter from roasted de-skinned peanuts if you like. Otherwise use something from a jar.
Whisk everything together, or if you've got some big lumps or just prefer a smoother result, blend it all up.
Adjust the balance, add salt, pepper or chilli flakes if you think it needs it (mine didn't).
Add a teaspoon or so of water if it's too thick.
The result was a moderate crisping, but still with some tough, woody, spots.
I think I'm inclining to the notion that lamb breast is just not really suited to the production of crispy skin.
There really isn't much of a fatty layer compared with, say pork belly. Or even lamb's leg.