Tuesday 25 January 2011

Pub Food Blog

My latest piece for the BBC GoodFood blog is now up - in which I rant about pub food, enjoy!
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/blog/519-pub-food/

Sunday 23 January 2011

Lamb shoulder and ragu

Lamb shoulder and the ultimate lamb ragu

We had the lovely fiance's work chums over for dinner, too many of them to sit around the dinner table so it was to be a buffet affair. For a bit of informal dining for a crowd I often fall back to my loved lamb shoulder in tomatoes and wine recipe. Served with some roasted baby potatoes and garlicky green beans it was a very tasty casual dinner.

I love making this recipe because I look forward to using the leftovers so much, I always ensure I cook more than we need (although that didn't stop me nervously hovering as guests helped themselves to a third serving).

Lamb shoulder
Serves 4, with yummy leftovers

1 lamb shoulder, weighing about 1½ – 2 Kg
3 garlic cloves
3 sprigs of rosemary
Olive oil
250ml red wine
1 x 400g chopped tomatoes
(sugar)

Preheat oven to 200C. Crush the garlic cloves and chop the rosemary leaves from one sprig as finely as possible (you could always lob the garlic and rosemary in a mini blender) use some of the olive oil to make a thick rub for the lamb and season. Before applying the rub stab the lamb a few times so that the rub will penetrate the meat. Then rub the rosemary mixture all over (thus giving yourself a rather pungent hand treatment). Pop the lamb in a roasting tin, tucking in the two remaining rosemary sprigs ensuring you will have space for the wine and tomatoes later. Cook the lamb at this temperature for half an hour.

Best leftovers EVER
Turn the temperature down to 130C and cook for another hour. Put the wine and tomatoes and some seasoning in a pan and bring to the boil for a minute or so. Give it a taste and if necessary add a wee bit of sugar. Carefully pour the fat out of the lamb tin (keeping the lovely juices), then pour over the wine mixture.

Cook for another two hours, covered with foil for the first hour.

Leftovers-
If you have managed to stop people gobbling it all and have some leftovers. Chop the meat into small pieces and put in a pan with any remaining sauce and an extra glug of wine and tomatoes if it needs it, bring to boil then simmer until cooked through. Serve mixed into pappardelle.

Sunday 16 January 2011

Beetroot and apple salad

We recently had arancini (see here) and seeing how it is hardly a health food I thought I would balance it out with a seasonal salad.  As earlier blogged about I made my own raspberry vinegar in the summer (see here) and I’m going to use it to make for a fruity salad dressing, which will be drizzled over beetroot, apple and leaves.

Couldn't decided if it looked better with or without dressing
This is what I would call a salad course sort of salad, if you want to make it more substantial crumbling over some cheese would be a lovely addition.

Beetroot and apple salad

Serves 2
1 medium sized beetroot cooked and cooled, skin removed
1 tart tasting apple – I recommend granny smith
2 handfuls of watercress, rocket or a mixture of the two
1 tbsp raspberry vinegar
½ tbsp orange juice
½ tbsp good quality olive oil or better yet walnut oil if you have it

Keeping the beetroot whole cut it into thin slices (less than 1mm ideally), not forgetting to admire your fetching pink fingers when you’re done. 
.... so you're getting both
Make the dressing by combining the vinegar and juice and mix and season, then add the oil a drop at a time, whisking as you go.  Put aside.
Chop the apple into quarters and remove the core, or use an apple corer (though I don’t like the things) then slice the apple as thinly as you can without loosing a finger, keep the skin on. 
To assemble the salad I would place a handful of leaves in the middle of each plate then layer the beetroot and apple in a circular pattern alternating between the two to show off the lovely colours.  Then drizzle over your dressing.

NB if you are not eating straight away toss the apple in some lemon juice, this will of course slightly alter the taste of the salad

Beetroot on Foodista

Friday 14 January 2011

January 2011 - Roadkill

Roadkill
A surprisingly evil pheasant

I have just finished chatting with my father on the phone and his closing words were: ‘Right, I’d better make the pastry for my pheasant pie’.  Not too unusual a thing to do I’m sure you’ll agree, what made me laugh (and got me typing) was my automatic presumption that said pheasant most certainly did not come from the local butcher. 

You see my father lives in the middle of Wales, he has a rather splendid water mill with a dozen acres or so of land, right in the middle of those acres is quite a busy road and busy roads mean roadkill. 

So far my father’s roadkill meals have been limited to our feathered friends, pheasants and ducks to be specific, he has shied away from badger as he has been told it has a very strong flavour and is hopeful, though so far unsuccessful, of finding a rabbit.

I was talking to friend the other day about all things roadkill and they told me about someone they know who moved into a new house and on the day of the big move found a deer at the side of the road, still warm but very much dead.  So, seeing the potential of many a tasty meal, chucked dead Bambi in the back of the van. 

A surprisingly pleasant badger

Bambi needed to be bled of course, so new home-owner constructed a tripod-thing in the garden and hung up the deer before bleeding him out.  Now a dead deer (or indeed, any deer) contains a hell of a lot of blood.  So picture the scene of a new neighbour moving into your street, you pop round to say hello, do the ‘welcome to the road’ bit only to see a garden full of blood and a deer hanging upside down from a make-shift tripod, I’m sure he made quite an impression.

Another friend’s father is, like my own, prone to eating things he finds at the roadside (please do not judge my friends on the fact they all seem to have road kill related stories). Her father however does not limit himself or birds or meats one would find in the butcher. He has been known to serve badger, squirrel, fox; if it’s dead and free, he’ll eat it and in turn so has my friend. Unlike said friend I have never been served roadkill, well not knowingly anyway, but would I eat it? Yes I think I would.

Lunch.  Nom nom nom.

It is not a food for the squeamish certainly, but it’s free, the death was probably instantaneous and it’s about as free-range as you can get. It’s actually a rather ethical way to source your meat. I suppose it depends where you live, eating roadkill in the countryside does not seem as bizarre as it would in the middle of say, London – casseroled skanky urban fox anyone?

p.s. If memory serves me correctly, there is something about it being illegal to eat an animal you have hit with your own car however as long as your car didn’t do the hitting you are free to eat the meat.  (Yes a cynic could suggest that you could hunt in convoy, but that’s a little sinister). 

Tips on eating roadkill

Not being an expert on all things roadkill, here is some advice from my father for anyone wishing to cook up a road-side pheasant or duck:

“Here in Wales, pheasants are abundant; the locals call them sheep with wings, for neither are very bright. Apparently there is more conscience regarding eating duck.

The process is quite simple, don’t hang them for that increases the flavour and you will soon get tired of it, don’t pluck but skin, and don’t let the contents of the crop go everywhere. If you do hang then upside down in the cellar, I’d recommend warning anybody before they go down for wine, or if you choose not to warn them then listen out -  it can be entertaining.

Slow cook or pressure-cook the bird; let the meat fall of the carcass. Or simply just take the breasts off and chuck the rest away”.

How to Cook Roadkill on Foodista

Friday 7 January 2011

Arancini (risotto part 3)

Arancini

When I cook risotto I purposefully cook more than I need so that I can make arancini the next day.  Arancini, which means little orange, are small balls of risotto which are crumbed and then fried and are oh so good.  I had butternut squash as a nibble at a friends wedding reception in the summer with lots of mozzarella stretching out of it as you bit in to it, people still talk about how scrummy they were – though maybe not the best choice for people dressed in their finery with all that hot cheese oozing about.  I serve mine with a small bowl of homemade passata (cold) for dunking.

Arancini (using leftover risotto)

Ready for the pot
Serves 4-6 as nibbles or part of an antipasti selection or 2 with a salad for a main meal.

Roughly 2 persons worth of leftover risotto (nothing too chunky or you’ll struggle to roll it into balls)
60g mozzarella, cut into rough 1cm cubes
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp plain flour
White breadcrumbs
Litre sunflower oil

Preheat the oven to 190C
Take a golf ball sized amount of risotto and flatten in your palm, then pop in a cube of mozzarella and roll until the mozzarella is inside and cannot be seen (it may need a bit of a squidge).  Repeat with the rest of the risotto and cheese. (Do try to resist nibbling the cold risotto, not that I ever can).  

Not exactly a diet food
Pour the oil into a large saucepan or wok and heat the oil to the point where a cube of bread takes twenty seconds to turn golden.  Pop in your balls* (men – do not take that too literally or you could have a horrid accident), and fry for about 5 minutes until golden all over, cook in batches if necessary. 

Lift them out of the oil using a slotted spoon and place on kitchen paper so any excess oil is absorbed.  Then pop in the oven in a dish for another 5-10 minutes to ensure that the mozzarella inside has melted.

*Do not be as stupid as me and accidentally get the tip of a finger in the scalding hot oil, it really hurt

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Risotto (part 2)

Top tips for risotto

See risotto part 1 for the basic recipe

A good risotto is a beautiful thing, a bad risotto is a bit of a splodge on a plate, and nobody wants that.

Weak-willed cooks give up now, mastering risotto is harder than you think but here are some basic tips no risotto maker should be without:

1. Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum (put rubbish in, get rubbish out), if you want to make a good risotto you need good ingredients; use poor quality wine and stock and you will have a risotto that tastes of poor quality wine and stock, funnily enough.

2. You cannot, I repeat cannot, make a risotto in the oven, I don't care if you've seen recipes that say otherwise they are lying.  Risottos need constant stirring as the starch in the rice grains gets damaged through the stirring process thus making the thick creamy sauce.

3. Keep the stock warm, if you had cool stock you slow down the cooking process.

4. Get the texture right: it should be wet enough to need a bowl, but only just, and there should still be an al dente 'bite' to the grains.

Tuesday 4 January 2011

Risotto (part 1)

How to make a basic risotto

I am on a bit of a crusade to rid the world of bad risotto, so you will notice a bit of a flurry of risotto related blogs over the coming days/ weeks. Today I'll cover the basics of a good risotto and then look at extra tips etc later.

Firstly get your equipment right, you need a heavy bottomed saucepan, a spatula for stirring and remember to have a saucepan going with your stock (see risotto tips).

Serves 4 (or 2 with enough left over for aranchini the next day)

A very good glug olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped finely and evenly
350g arborio rice
1 glass of white wine
1 litre chicken stock (or veg stock if you'd rather)



Heat your glug of oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan, medium-low heat, then throw in your onions. 

You want to cook the onions evenly, stirring with a spatula and not let them colour, once they are soft add your rice and cook, stirring, for a good few minutes, again not letting it colour, until the grains are glossy and look a little translucent. 

Stir, stir, stir
Now add your wine, which will smell wondrous. Stir, stir, stir.

Once the wine has been absorbed it is basically a job of adding a ladle of stock whenever the risotto looks dry and stirring, stirring, stirring. It will probably take about 15-20 minutes of stirring and stock adding, I recommend enjoying another glass of white wine while you do this. 

It is ready when it is creamy and cooked through, though you want the grains to still have a little bit of bite to them.

Enjoy.

Once damn nice bacon, leek and blue cheese risotto
Once you have mastered the basics of a good risotto you can play about with different flavour combinations, favourites of mine include prawn, lemon and rocket; and leek and bacon. If cooking a chicken risotto I wouldn't pre-cook the chicken, instead keep the pieces small and add them at the same time as the wine and it should be perfectly tender once the risotto is cooked.