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/

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.

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

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”.

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

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.

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.   

Christmas Chez Dulcima

Well Christmas wasn’t actually held in Dulcima’s Kitchen, it was in Dulcima’s Mother’s Kitchen this year.  I’m still not wholly sure why as I do all the cooking, anyway and being a cookware snob ended up travelling down to my mother’s house on the south coast complete with my own knives, knife sharpener, electric scales, two roasting tins, cookbook and two shopping bags of ingredients.

The menu

Yes those really are Peppa Pig crackers - bit of a family joke

Roast goose Mary-Claire (Leith’s recipe) the stuffing took a fair amount of time to make, but oooh it was tasty (apricots, pistachios, apple, chicken breast)

Roasted potatoes, parsnips and onions, all done in the goose fat naturally

Pigs in blankets (think the lovely fiancé would call off the wedding if I had deprived him)

Mashed carrot and swede (with lots of lovely black pepper)

Spiced red cabbage with pomegranate seeds (having the pomegranate makes a nice fresh addition to a heavy meal)

I was in charge of the goose, cabbage and pigs, with my mother who was referred to as ‘sous’ for the day handling the rest. 

We had goose as my sister can’t stand turkey - the last few years have featured duck, beef, venison, lamb  -  this year was goose’s turn.  Or indeed Lucy Goosey as the bird was christened for reasons I don’t really understand (I wanted to call it Gregory).  I’m pretty sure Leith’s wouldn’t be best pleased with me if I published the recipe for the goose so go buy yourself a copy of the Leith’s Cookery Bible, no cook should be without it.

Red Cabbage

Red cabbage, done well is one of my favourite accompaniments to a roast.  The trick is to not have too much liquid but make sure it never gets dry.  I did one medium sized cabbage, finely shredded (without the core), a sliced red onion and a couple of grated apples with a good glug of red wine and red wine vinegar.  Cook over a low heat for an hour, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t catch on the pan then add dark brown sugar and spices (nutmeg, cloves) and cook for another half hour. Once cooked sprinkle over a handful of pomegranate seeds.

A week in food

Firstly, my apologies for being so utterly lousy at blogging for the last week or so. Been busy, busy busy: started a new job, boyfriend's birthday, chums' wedding, yes I know I'm making excuses. So there is a huge amount to catch up on what's been happening in Dulcima's Kitchen and indeed what I have been nibbling elsewhere. So here are a few of my culinary highlights of the last 10 days as I have been eating like a king!

Friday 10^th December – lunch at Wagamama's with a chum. She introduced me to the Chicken Katsu Curry (how it had passed me by until now I will never know considering half the restaurant seemed to be ordering it). Chum's explanation for why she liked it was that it's like curry sauce you buy in chippies oop north but classier (!), sorry Waga's but she makes a good point.

Saturday 11^th - six of us out for dinner at La Luna in Godalming, wonderful food. We had various starters between us including fantastic arancini made from rocket and pea risotto (arancini are balls of risotto fried, so so good). For main course I had pheasant breast, which came with the most beautiful red cabbage – I can get strangely excited about red cabbage. Dessert of coconut panna cotta with orange jelly and sables was utterly divine.

Monday 13^th – first day in new job, has subsidised restaurant on site, was strangely pleased with the breakfast, porridge can be so uninspiring but with cinnamon apples and sugar I was very content.

Thursday 16^th – out for drinkies and dinner with friend's ahead of their wedding on Saturday to meet some chums over from the US. Lovely dinner at the local Thai, very good quality food and oodles of wine. Then home to make rum truffles for the lovely fiancé to take to work the next day for his birthday, for the record cooking with booze when tipsy is risky business, they were very rummy rum truffles, damn nice though.

Friday 17^th – celebrating the wonderful young man's birthday, dinner at home of duck breast cooked with star anise served with glazed bok choi and sticky rice, yum yum yum. Followed by pear and chocolate tart.

Saturday 18^th – the big wedding and five inches of snow covering all of Surrey! By some miracle we managed to get to the church, beautiful ceremony but sadly many couldn't make it due to the weather. Winter Pimms and cake (made by the stunning and very talented bride) in the church. Reception venue cancelled as roads impassable so we all trekked a few miles in the snow to the groom's parents house for a thrown together spread, very impressive and resourceful cooks indeed! Amazing day.

Sunday 19^th – Now I am hungover and am planning a corned beef hash and fried egg as my cure.

BBC GoodFood iPad launch

An evening at GoodFood HQ

I have a mild hangover and am presently hugging my third cup of tea and feeling very sorry for myself. I tell you this so you will not hate me quite so much when I gloat that I spent last night quaffing free bubbly and nibbling free nibbles at the launch event for BBC GoodFood iPad magazine. Please don't hate me. Even when I tell you that I also left with a goodie bag. I met some fascinating people, including fellow food blogger Nick Coffer of mydaddycooks.com who was very charming. I also got to have a poke around in the GoodFood kitchens (which though I expected to be a magical world somewhat like Santa’s workshop with eager little elves scuttling around, turned out to be very much like a normal kitchen!).

I suppose I should be a good blogger and actually talk about the product (and indeed stop gloating), thankfully it was actually very impressive and even my technology phobic fingers could successfully work it I won't have to tell any fibs. In some respects it is what you would expect – a iPad version of the printed magazine. However the team have definitely put a lot of thought into making it as user friendly as possible. For example select a recipe and it turns into a clearly laid out recipe card format, click on the instructions and they increase in size for ease of reading while you cook. The photography looks incredible on the screen.

For me the best bit was the instructional videos. I strongly believe the best cooks know the basics; better to be able to do something simple very well than fail at something complicated. So I was very pleased that techniques are demonstrated through video, I am very aware how hard it is to describe cookery techniques through text and a few photos so it definitely gets the thumbs up from me.

So back to the food! We had a knife skills demo from Barney Desmazery the Food editor, I felt very smug that while interesting to watch I do all my knife prep the same way. And to soak up the booze which I very happily had a few glasses of we had: prawn and chorizo skewers, stuffed prunes and figs wrapped in ham, mini sausages with utterly amazing ketchup and roasted mini potatoes in their skins with yummy garlicky mayo. For dessert rocky road/ tiffin call it what you will and mincemeat slices. I was cheeky enough to take an extra few rocky roads home to the lovely fiancé (thus allowing me to gloat at him a little bit too!).

Some techy info for you:

• The first 'issue' will be the February 2011 issue, which is available for download from the App store from late Decemeber
• It will be priced at an introductory rate of £1.79 rising to £2.99 after a trial period (therefore being cheaper than the printed version)

Bread and Butter pudding

Bread and Butter Pudding

I have recently been doing some research into Comfort Foods for a column I wrote for BBC Good Food (shameless self-promotion there – but check out the blog at: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/blog/503-comfortfood/ 

Ready for the oven

Anyway my ‘research’ of quizzing various friends and family on their preferred comfort foods revealed bread (and all things carbs) to be very popular. I felt inspired to make some tasty delights out of dear bread, specifically a ‘taste off’ between bread and butter pudding, and its oft-forgotten cousin bread pudding. Very quickly the difference for those not in the know: bread and butter pudding is buttered bread with vanilla custard poured oven and cooked in the oven in a bain marie, bread pudding is stale bread, dried fruit and spices all mashed up together into a sticky mess which is then cooked off in the oven (one of my mother’s favourite comfort foods – though I admit I haven’t made it sound very appetising).

So yesterday the battle commenced with the making of the b&b pudding. I decided to go for brioche as the basis of my pud, I don’t particularly like brioche ordinarily but it is fabulous in this recipe. I spread each slice with butter and my homemade peach jam and then topped with freshly made vanilla custard. Good god it was yummy. Indeed I can confess lovely fiancé and I just had the leftovers for our breakfast.

So next I shall be making the bread pudding and concluding which pud wins in a battle of the comfort foods.

Bread and butter pudding, serves 4 (or indeed two for dinner and then the same two for breakfast!)

8 slices of brioche

Enough unsalted butter to spread over the brioche and greasing the dish

Peach or apricot jam, again enough to spread over the brioche

Tasty good

A handful of sultanas or other dried fruit

For the vanilla custard:

3 large egg yolks

1 vanilla pod

½ pint milk

1 tbsp caster sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C.

Put the milk in a pan, then scrap in the vanilla seeds and drop in the pod as well. Bring to the boil and then leave to cool for about 5 minutes. Whisk together the egg yolk and sugar then remove the pod from the milk and slowly whisk in the milk.

In a clean saucepan heat the custard and keep whisking, at a low heat (too hot and it will curdle) until you reach the desired consistency.

Butter your oven dish and then butter and jam the brioche slices, cut across the diagonal so that you have 16 triangles. Layer the brioche slices overlapping butter side up, then pour over the custard.

Put the dish in a larger roasting tin and fill half way up the sides with cold water. Bake in the oven for 45 minutes or until the custard is set and the pudding is golden.

Dinner for twenty

Feeding the masses

One seriously huge shepherds pie

A few weeks back I hosted a bonfire night dinner for friends which was a great success and needing to cook for twelve I made a huge amount of cassoulet to keep the hordes happy (see Sausage Cassoulet). Well at the weekend my in-laws hosted a party for twenty, and found themselves in the same predicament of thinking up a crowd pleaser that didn’t mean too much time stuck in the kitchen so they could entertain their guests. They decided to ‘do a Jeffrey Archer’ and have a shepherds pie and champagne evening, if I were to be a pedant I would point out that it was in fact cottage pie and sparkling white, but nobody likes a pedant.

Being known as the family 'foodie' I was tasked with chopping enough carrots and swede to feed the masses. I set to work, diligently chopping up the mountain of veggies, very neatly indeed I might add, only to have father-in-law point out ‘well, you’re hardly as fast as Jamie Oliver are you?’. I don’t know, do a man a favour! - and I got a rather sore blister on my index finger from all that chopping.

Tiramisu

My other task (apart from making sure everyone’s glasses were kept topped up) was to make a tiramisu for dessert. A nice simple recipe of sponge fingers dipped in coffee and Kahlua (which I couldn’t resist adding a splash of to my morning coffee) layered with a creamy mascarponey layer of decadence.

Genius coffee cooling!

Seeing how I had originally only come downstairs in the hunt for coffee and breakfast I wanted to make the dessert quickly, however the scalding hot coffee had other ideas. It simply refused to cool down, but lovely fiancé then proved most useful by running off with my bowl of coffee to return with it surrounded by snow from the garden. Silly though it looked, it most certainly worked!

November Column - Booze

November's column, in which I ramble on about booze, is now up on the 'Columns' page.

Pizza

I love making pizza, there is something so therapeutic about kneading the dough and it is the perfect meal for when you have lots of odd and sods that need using up. Indeed this evening I find myself with a glut of peppers, a few mushrooms and half a can of sweetcorn (has to be green giant, nothing else is welcome in my house, and not the no added sugar and salt stuff oh no no, proper original stuff). Anyway so chuck in a few extras from the supermarket and we have the makings of a really yummy dinner. For some reason it is a meal that lovely fiancé and I always make together which makes it all the more fun.

Home-made pizza (makes enough for 4 people person sized pizzas or two large pizzas)

To make the dough:

500g strong white flour, plus extra for dusting

½ tsp salt

1 7g sachet dried fast action yeast

1 tbsp olive oil

300ml warm water

For the topping:

Passata

mozzarella

A selection of the following or whatever you like: onions, mushrooms, peppers, ham, chorizo, cooked sausage chunks, olives, tomatoes, spinach, ricotta … use your imagination

Oregano and/ or basil

To finish

Basil oil or chilli oil if you like (see Flavoured oil entry)

Preheat your oven to its highest setting and pop in a baking tray to heat.

To make the dough mix the yeast and oil with the water, sieve the flour into a bowl and make a well in the centre, pour in the water mixture. Give it all a good stir then sprinkle in the salt and knead everything together. Have a bit of fun kneading the dough and pretending you are one of those show-off pizza chefs tossing it around all over the place. Then roll it out to the desired size or if you are only wanting enough for one or two servings then the rest can be frozen in a freezer bag at this stage.

I like to give the base a couple of minutes in the oven without a topping to make sure it doesn't go soggy. Then you can get to work on assembling your pizza. Start with a thin layer of passata, then chuck on your desired ingredients before finishing with herbs and mozzarella. Pop him back in the oven and cook until golden at the edges and the cheese is melted, depending on how hot your oven goes this should take between six and ten minutes.

I like to serve with a sprinkling of basil or chilli oil.

Sausage Cassoulet

Bonfire night Cassoulet

I'm hosting bonfire night festivities this year. There is always a big bonfire and fireworks in a field in town so I am hosting for drinkies beforehand and then dinner afterwards. So my mission – something warming and yummy to feed a crowd (circa 12) that doesn't need much attention, not too expensive and in-keeping with the following allergies – diary, wheat, soya, celery, red meat, raisins (I need less fussy friends!).

Well presuming people would like it to feature some sort of meat and red meat is out that leaves poultry, pork (one person doesn't eat pork but does eat sausages). Anyway, I have concluded that a nice cassoulet is the answer, not least as it is in-keeping with my current obsession with French cuisine. That way I can serve everyone a nice steaming bowlful and it is a meal in itself especially with some nice bread to mop up the sauce.

Cassoulet is one of those dishes that has dozens of variations dependent on region or family tradition. I don't tend to stick religiously to any recipe as long as the sausages, red wine and stock are good quality and it features beans, chorizo and veggies then I am happy.

I'm being awfully sexist and guessing that women would have two sausages and men three, roughly anyway, so for six couples that's 30 sausages. But I'll give you the recipe for 2 people and then you and can multiply it as necessary.

Sausage Cassoulet for 2

5 or 6 Sausages (please, please, please good quality if you want to use cheap bangers then use someone else's recipe!)

1 medium onion, finely diced

1 carrot, peeled and diced

1 small red or yellow pepper, remove the seeds and dice to the same size as the carrot

a good chunk of chorizo, diced to match the pepper and carrot

2 tbsp Olive oil (better yet rosemary oil if you have it)

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 small glass red wine

1 small glass chicken stock

1 small glass chopped tomatoes

70g dried haricot beans, soaked in cold water overnight and drained

fresh sprig of rosemary and thyme

optional – handful of breadcrumbs

Heat the oven to 200C and whack in an oven-proof dish with one tablespoon of oil in it. When hot toss in your sausages and cook for about 20 mins (no lid). When cooked reduce to 180C.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a heavy bottomed frying pan over a gentle heat, then chuck in your onion, carrot, pepper and garlic and cook stirring regularly until softened but not coloured. Now chuck in your chorizo, beans, red wine, stock, tomatoes, herbs and seasoning and bring to the boil and reduce until you have a sauce of your desired consistency.

Pour this mixture over your sausages, pop a lid on it and give it at least two hours in the oven. If you'd like twenty minutes from the end sprinkle on a handful of breadcrumbs and remove the lid for a textured crunchy topping.

Serve with crusty bread for mopping up the sauce and a green salad, if you like.

Scrummy no flour chocolate torte

When we recently had the neighbours over for dinner I was in a bit of a pickle as to what to serve for dessert as Mrs Neighbour can't eat wheat. Over the years I have stumbled across quite a few chocolate cake recipes that use almonds instead of flour but when I looked into it further I really struggled to find a decent one. So I did a bit of experimenting and here is my version. Not only is the rum a yummy addition but it is also rather apt as these are the same neighbours with whom I once got incredibly drunk on rum a few months back! Mmmm rum, enjoy!

Ultimate flour-less chocolate cake

200g good quality dark chocolate

2 tbsp rum

150g caster sugar

150g butter

100g ground almonds

5 eggs, separated

Icing sugar for dusting

Melt the chocolate, rum, sugar and butter in a bowl sitting on top of a pan of barely simmering water (see Random Tip 1: Melting chocolate). Remove from the heat and stir until well mixed.

Add the ground almonds and mix well. Beat in the egg yolks, one by one.

In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until stiff and peaky, and then gently fold in the chocolate mixture.

Turn into a buttered and floured 20cm (8in) round cake tin and bake at 180C for about 45 minutes and firm to the touch.

Leave to cool before removing gently from the tin, and dust with icing sugar to serve.

What to feed a pregnant friend??

Hmm... maybe not

On Saturday night we were all having a few drinks down the pub and one of my very dear friends announced that she's pregnant (as she glared at our glasses of wine and pints).

I know nothing of babies or pregnancy, I have never been pregnant myself and this is the first of my friends to be 'in the family way' (really, what a ghastly expression). The two words that sprang to mind were 'Folic acid' and 'spinach' okay that's three words, stop being so pedantic. I couldn't tell you what foods contain Folic acid and I imagine spinach is something to do with iron? (and I don't suppose I should be offering her a Guinness...).

It seems I am going to have to do some research then aren't I? I have just gone online and bought a book about pregnancy cooking. Call me a cynic but even just scanning through the available books online I already have a strong feeling that all the books are likely to be rather preachy and uninspiring but if recipes need some tweaking to make them more fun and interesting then bring it on.

Oh and just to make things more complicated she's dairy intolerant, so any advice on tasty things to feed my friend would be very welcome and I'll be posting all the recipes I come up with.  

Boulangère potatoes

Boulangère potatoes

I forgot to take a photo of the
finished dish... sorry!

Usually if I was to make some sort of gratin with potatoes it would always be gratin dauphinoise as the mixture of cream, potatoes and garlic is truly one of the greatest dishes. However recently we had the neighbours round and I was serving a roast chicken with rich garlicky sauce to be followed by a very decadent chocolatey dessert, so I thought we should have something less artery clogging. It was incredibly yummy to the point that Mr Neighbour and lovely fiancé were fighting over the last scrapings of the dish.

The name comes from boulangerie, (french bakery) as it is meant to be like a baguette with its very crispy top revealing an incredibly soft underneath.

Boulangère potatoes

Serves 4

75g butter

1kg floury potatoes, such as maris piper

1 medium onion

400ml Stock (preferably chicken, but vegetable would also work)

Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 170ºC.

Butter an oven-proof dish with half the butter. Peel the potatoes and onions and slice as finely as you can, I would recommend using a mandolin for this. Make a layer of potatoes over the bottom of the dish with the discs overlapping, follow by a layer of onion and a good grinding of fresh pepper and salt. Repeat layering potato, onion, seasoning, ending on a layer of potatoes.

Press it all down firmly. Pour on the stock slowly, you may not need all of it, you want all the potatoes to be submerged but only just. Dot with the remaining butter then bake in the oven for about 2 hours until all the stock has been absorbed by the potatoes, the top is crispy and potatoes are tender.