Freestyle Cookery

Recipe - Meatballs and Spaghetti en papillote

2012-02-01T08:00:00.000Z

Most people just goes for something quick and easy to throw together when it comes to dinner on a weekday. As you might have figured out now, I'm not most people. Or very normal for that matter.

The night I cooked this I started with two tubs, pork and beef, mince that needed using up and it all ended with a fairly involved dish. Don't let that turn you off though, it is well worth the effort - even if I say so myself.

Cooking en papillote is quite easy and can be varied to you hearts content. Personally I would probably mostly associate it with cooking fish. However, as I am showing you here it doesn't just have to be fish. I've also cooked chicken en papillote for example.

The meatballs I made are made the way I'd call typically Swedish. That means that they are made with a 50/50 blend of pork and beef mince. Other variations are of course also welcome. Heck, if you don't have the time, just use pre-made meatballs and a jar of shop bought tomato sauce.

Yes, I did just say that - you can use some pre-made stuff if you feel like it. Go for it, at least you assemble the dish in a slightly more interesting way than a nuked ready meal of meatballs and spaghetti. It could be a good start down the slippery road of cooking from scratch.

After that bombshell, let's have a look at the recipe.

Ingredients (made far too many meatballs but freeze the leftovers)
Meatballs
500g pork mince
500g beef mince
Salt
Pepper
1 egg, beaten
Breadcrumbs

Tomato sauce
500g Passata
1 onion, diced
Salt
Pepper
Smoked paprika
Worcestershire Sauce
Brown sugar, optional

Olive oil

Spaghetti, cooked according to the instructions on the packaging

Parmesan cheese, grated

Fresh basil, torn

Method
Meatballs
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Shape meatballs about 3cm or so in diameter. Heat the oil in a frying pan on a medium heat. Fry the meatballs in batches, without crowding the pan, until nicely browned on all sides.

Tomato sauce
Heat oil in a pan on medium heat. Let the onion sizzle away until it starts to soften but not gaining any colour. Add in the passata, stir well and season to taste. Add sugar if you think it is a bit too tart .Let this simmer away until it has gained the thickness you desire.

Assembly
Stir in the spaghetti and torn basil with the tomato sauce. Place spaghetti and sauce on pieces of parchment paper, top with meatballs and grated parmesan. Make a small bag out of the parchment paper and tie together with butcher's twine or use silicone rubberbands to close it together.

Place the parcels in a oven preheated to 180c. Let cook for about 15 - 20 minutes or until the parmesan have melted sufficiently.

Place the bags on heated plates and open at the table.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Pork Mince Chili Soup

2012-01-30T08:00:00.000Z

This is a soup that I recommend on a cold winter night, it is sure to heat you up and give you a warm and cosy feeling.

At times I start doing things in a new way in the kitchen. One of these things is that I've changed the order of how I apply my spices in stews, soups and curries. I used to fry the meat and veg and then add in the spices. These days I do it a bit differently, I start by heating the pan and then adding in the oil. Once the oil is warm as well I add in the spices and fry them off for a while, almost making a spice past. Only then do I add in the meat and veg. It might just be imagination but for me that gives me a deeper flavour to the dish. Why not give it a go in your kitchen next time?

This is, as quite often happens on this blog, a dish that you can freestyle quite a bit. Use beef mince, whatever vegetables you got at home, make it yours. This is just an indication as to how you can cook it, the way I did it. I did add quite a bit of different spices but use what you got in the quantities you think will suit you.

If you kick it up a bit you can always have some sourcream on the side for the spicily challenged. Either that or make a wimpy version and serve it with some chillies and hot sauce on the side. Whichever way you think you can get way with.

Time for the recipe? I'd say so.

Ingredients (serves 4)
Olive oil
Ground coriander
Ground cumin
Dried oregano
Smoked paprika
Chilli powder
500g pork mince
1 - 2 onions, sliced
1 - 2 celery sticks, chopped
1 red pepper, diced
2 - 3 garlic cloves, diced
3 tbsp tomato purée
1 can chopped tomatoes
450 ml chicken stock
Salt
Pepper
Fresh coriander

Method
Heat a large saucepan or cassserole pan on a medium heat on the stove. Once hot, pour in the olive oil and let it heat up too. Add the spices and stir well and let this cook for a while, forming a paste. Keep stirring and don't let it burn.

Add in the pork mince and fry this until no longer pink. Now it is time to add in the onion, celery, pepper and garlic. Let this cook together for five minutes or so, stirring now and then.

Add in the tomato purée, chopped tomatoes and the stock. Give it all a good stir and let it come to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and let it simmer under a lid for about 30 to 40 minutes or until the vegetables have softened to your liking.

Ladle into soup bowls, garnish with coriander leafs.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Halloumi Salad

2012-01-25T08:00:00.000Z

This is not something you see every day on this blog - a vegetarian recipe. I have to admit that it did taste really nice, even if I say so myself. It was good enough for me to have it as dinner one day and then I had the leftovers for lunch the next day. Then swiftly I had lots of meat for dinner on the second day, just to even things out again.

Just to try and trick myself into thinking that I was eating meat I kept referring to the halloumi as moomin meat. One of my twitter friends, Johanna, soon informed me that cottage cheese is known as moomin mince. I'm not sure if the shops label it as that yet though.

Although vegetarian I'd say that this recipe is pretty much in the freestyling way I recommend. Use whatever stuff you got at home that you think could work together. Pickled beetroot could for example work really well with this.

I made a simple vinaigrette with some olive oil and Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar but you can leave that out or use any dressing you think would work with it.

Well, let's not spend too much time mulling over the fact that I assembled a vegetarian dish, let's have a look at the recipe.

Ingredients (serves 4)
Olive oil
Flour
Smoked Paprika
Halloumi (about 225g - 250g)
Black Beluga Lentils
Plum tomatoes, quartered
Red onion, thinly sliced
Edamame beans
Rocket leafs

Method
Mix the flour and smoked paprika on a plate. Take the halloumi cheese out of its packaging and pat it dry with some kitchen towel. Press the halloumi onto the flour and paprika mix, making sure to coat all sides.

Heat a frying pan on a medium heat. Pour in some olive oil and let that heat up. Add in the halloumi and fry on all sides until it colours up nicely. Remove from the heat and dice up the halloumi.

Assemble all components on plates in a nice and orderly fashion.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Half Special / Recept - Halv Special

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000Z

I'm sure the image above makes a lot of you go 'what the...'. Fear not, it shall all be revealed.

Here in the UK there's the burger van or chippie. In Sweden there's something called gatukök or street kitchen. They are fast food outlets that can be found in almost any city, town or village. Some are still independents and other are parts of chains like Sibylla.

From these you can buy hamburger dishes, sausage dishes, ice creams, magazines, pick-n-mix and much much more. Some are even doing pizzas, kebabs and other dishes that are more or less considered imports.

There are some dishes that most Swedes I know consider as classics. This being one of the most classic of them all. Basically a 'half special' means that you get a hotdog in a bun with mash on top. A 'whole special' would be two hotdogs.

It's up to you if you want grilled or simmered hotdogs. Personally I go for simmered if they're of the slim variety and grilled for the thicker ones. But that's just me.

You can also add toppings like a gherkin and mayo 'salad', diced gherkins or the daddy of them all - the West Coast Salad. As you can see from the photo there's just crispy onions on top of this one. I was going to do a gherkin mayo salad but I found that the gherkin monster had been visiting and had eaten all my gherkins.

There's another version of this where instead of the sausage being served in a bun you get it all rolled up in what is called 'thin bread' in Sweden. That is basically our version of the tortilla. I might be wrong here but I think it originates from up north and was made by the Sami people. For an idea of how a 'thin bread roll' looks - have a look here.

If you visit Sweden, make sure that you try our version of fast food from a gatukök. It might not be highbrow or very advanced but it is part of the culture and something different to savour.

Before I head over to the recipe I must admit that I cheated a bit and didn't make my own sausages. It is on the list though. The ones I used was of really high quality though and the flavour of them really brought memories back. It was an almost exact replica of what I had stored in my 'food flavour memory'. The ones I used were frankfurters from unearthed. And no, I'm not sponsored to say that. ;-) I just saw them in the shop and bought a pack, something I'm very happy about.

Let's head over to the recipe now, there's really not much to this.

Ingredients
Water
Bay leaf
Salt
Pepper corns
Good quality hotdogs/frankfurters
Hotdog buns
Mash (make it a bit firmer than you'd probably normally do)
Crispy onions (optional)
Mustard (optional)
Ketchup (optional)

Method
Pour water into a pan that it large enough to easily hold the sausages. Add the bay leaf, salt and pepper corns and bring it all to a boil. Turn off the heat, pop in the sausages and put the lid on.

While the sausages heat through you can make your mash. Make sure to season it well and make it quite firm.

To assemble, just pop a hotdog (or two if you're making a whole special) into a bun. Spread with mustard and ketchup if you so wish. On top of this we add the mash, I used a ice-cream scoop to try and make it look a bit prettier, and the other toppings of your choice.

Enjoy!

Review - "Butchery to Pimp Your Home Cooking" course

2012-01-20T10:12:00.000Z

This is a knife, M'kay?

A couple of weeks ago I saw a tweet mentioning a butchering course. This course was being advertised as being run by Nathan Mills, @naththebutcher.

Given the fact that I've wanted to learn better knife skills for quite some time as well as wanting to get a better understanding of how to cut up and treat my meats I quickly signed up.

The day for the course soon came around and I left Gods own county for London and all its lights and distractions. Having arrived at Bermondsey tube station I headed for Nathan's place. I have to be honest and say that finding the place in the dark wasn't the easiest thing. We did talk about this though and I believe some photographs will be added to their site in order to aid you in finding itt.

Once I found the place I was very warmly welcomed by Nathan and Ruth. I had a quick tour of the facilities that was very new, clean and impressive. They have the look around them that makes you expect Vinny Jones to come in with some poor sod of a gangster that is being 'disposed' of.

After some chat I was treated to some thinly sliced roast beef, bread and condiments as a quick snack as we were waiting for the other course delegates. This time there was only two other delegates, the maximum amount of delegates are five.

Once everyone was gathered and had tried some of the beef we were handed our coats, aprons, gloves, cloths and knives. It was getting serious.

We started with the chicken. First we were given instructions on how to truss the chicken and were all giving this a go. Chicken trussed, we cut off the twine in order to start butchering the bird. For each 'sub-part' of the bird Nathan gave us a talkthrough, then he demonstrated whilst talking us through it again. Then it was our turn to try it, with Nathan offering us assistance when needed. This methodology was used throughout the evening and at least for me it worked really well. Once we had the chicken breasts off the bird we were given ziploc bags. The breasts were put into the bags and apple juice were poured onto them together with sliced chilies and some herbs. Marinating, ready to be cooked.

Sawing the pig.

Next we went on to the shoulder of pork. First though, Nathan got half a pig out for us and showed us how they butcher down a pig. All the time giving us the names of the parts, tips about good cuts that are unknown and generally good tips and pointers about pork. Feeling suitably humble about my lack of skills with the knife it was now time to turn my attention to my shoulder of pork. We boned it, generally tidied it up and applied some herbs and spices in order to make porchetta out of it. If we didn't make it all the way, I do think we were close to the world record for the amount of garlic in three porchettas. This is when we got to the knots...

Leave no garlic behind.

Either Nathan got the patience of a saint or he got his knife out and made some serious damage to dead animals when we had left. He had to teach the three of us how to make the butchers knot. Without wasting too much time on the subject let's just say that we were probably not the quickest to learn or the most nimble of the finger. In the end thought we had managed to roll and tie up our porchettas and it was time to head over to the leg of lamb.

Making knots, or not.

Just like with the pig, Nathan got half a lamb out and proceeded to butcher it down as he was telling us what he was doing and why. That done, we proceeded to get our legs of lamb butterflied and smothered in a pesto-like marinade that Nathan prepared for us.

Busy at work.

Lamb put away and the place tidied we sat down for a very nice meal of slow cooked beef, sauce, bread, salad and some good wine. It seems like all of us fitted together quite well because the conversation flowed during the meal, just as it had all evening.

All the meat we prepared, including the chicken carcass, were packaged up as the evening progressed and as we left we were carrying some serious amounts of meat with us. We were joking about being being put through a 'stop and search' and trying to convince the police that we were not carrying around a butchered whore or two.

So, what's my conclusion of this course then and would I go for another course with Nathan again?

I thoroughly enjoyed the course and picked up lots during the evening. Nathan had a very easy way of teaching us and the entire evening was peppered with small tips and good advice. At times you did notice that we were the first class and there's room for some improvement but that is just to be expected. I went away feeling more confident in my abilities to work with a knife and that's what I came there for. The added bonus of a shedload of nice meat to cook and a nice evening in very good company was a most excellent bonus.

As for going again, hell yeah. I'm quite tempted to go for one of the courses where you get to butcher a pig or lamb but I think I'd need to get myself another freezer to fit all that meat in.

For more information on the courses, to book a course and all that - have a look at Edible Experiences here.

[Disclaimer 1: All photos are kindly supplied by Nathan and Ruth. I was so busy that I didn't have time to take any photos.]

[Disclaimer 2: Booking this course was my own decision, I paid the full price out of my own pocket and I have no affiliation with either Nathan or Edible Experiences. All views and opinions above are my own.]

Recipe - Sailors Stew ; Recept - Sjömansgryta

2012-01-18T08:00:00.000Z

Once again we're looking at a very classic Swedish recipe. This recipe has roots way back in time and was something simple that poor people cooked. The name indicates that it might have been cooked on ships in the past as well, something that would work well since it stews on its own.

My twitter friend Linda pointed out that this reminds quite a bit about scouse as well. I guess that most countries have versions of dishes like this.

If I were to literally translate the Swedish name of this dish we'd end up with 'seaman stew'. I choose not to use that name. ;-)

You can of course pimp it and add lots of extras but I kept it simple for once and that is the recipe you'll get below. One thing to think about is that the beer you choose (I used Spitfire Ale - thanks for the Christmas present Mark and Kate ;) ) have a impact on the 'gravy' in the end. The darker the beer, the darker the gravy turns out in the end.

I used feather cut steak but if you can't find that just use whatever steak you got. Make sure to whack it good with a meat mallet if it's too thick though. You don't want it to be more than 3 - 4 mm thick in this recipe.

The classic accompaniment to this is sliced pickled gherkins. Trust me, you want that on your plate with this.

Before we head over to the recipe, just a quick question to you readers - I've posted some what I consider classic Swedish recipes recently. Is this something you find interesting so I should continue or is there something else you'd prefer me to post about? Please use the comment form in this post to let me know what you think.

Now over to the recipe, this really isn't rocket surgery cooking.

Ingredients (serves 4)
300g or so worth of feather cut steak
800g or so worth of potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1 cm thick slices
1 tbsp butter
2 onions (or more to taste), sliced
A sprig or two of fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
300ml beer
Salt
Pepper

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180c.

Heat up a casserole pan (with lid) on a medium heat on the stove and melt the butter. Once the butter is nice and ready, add in the onions and fry for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the pan and add in the steaks instead.

Fry the steaks until sealed on both sides. Pop the onions back into the pan and add in the thyme, salt and pepper. Top with the potatoes and pour in the ale.

Lid on and into the oven for about an hour or until the potatoes are soft but not a total mush. Serve with the aforementioned sliced pickled gherkins.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Braised Red Cabbage

2012-01-16T08:00:00.001Z

We're not talking advanced cookery here but it is still a recipe that is worth having tucked away. Braised red cabbage goes well with quite a lot of dishes and people have been known to eat is cold as well as heated.

It is definitely something that you can freestyle quite a bit.This time we cooked it quite safe and boring, mostly due to the fact that we were serving it to people whose preferences we weren't sure about. Next time we might swing it a bit more. Add in some freshly squeezed orange juice and grated skin from the orange? Why not. Add some grated nutmeg and grated allspice, why not? We actually had some star anise in from the beginning which we removed once we thought it had added enough aniseedy flavour.

We had this on the side with a beef and blue cheese pie we served on New Years Eve but that's just one thing to have it with. I think you'll be able to think up some other combinations to go with.

Just a note though, if you cook it on the stove top - make sure to check it often and add liquid as and when needed. Alternatively, lid on and in the oven at 180c for about an hour and you shouldn't need to worry too much about it running dry.

Enough chit-chat, we got a recipe to look at.

Ingredients

2 red onions, sliced

1 red cabbage, about 1 kg, sliced
1 large Bramley apple, peeled and roughly diced
250 ml water (more needed later as you cook away)
60 ml red wine vinegar
3 tbsp brown sugar
Salt
Pepper

Method
Heat a large casserole pan on the hob. Once hot pour in some olive oil and fry off the onion until soft. Add in the other ingredients and stir well. Let this cook under a lid (or alternaively in the oven as per above) for about an hour or until soft to your liking, stirring now and then. Adjust the seasoning as you go along.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Celeriac Remoulade

2012-01-11T08:00:00.000Z

Since I try to be honest with my postings I'll admit it straight away. This recipe is stolen from Jeans excellent blog Delightful Repast, her version with a very nice picture can be found here.

In my view celeriac remoulade is just a slightly posher coleslaw but I find that it goes extremely nicely with smoked meats. One of our regular haunts, The Five Horseshoes, quite often have smoked dishes on the menu.Celeriac remoulade are more often than not part of those dishes.

The inspiration from those dishes is what led me to want to make some celeriac remoulade to go with the smoked duck breasts we were bringing for New Years Eve. Some google-fu later and I had found Jeans excellent recipe and Robert was married to your mothers sister.

The remoulade definitely benefits from staying in the fridge at least over night, the flavours generally gets deeper that way.

I guess this is such a simple recipe that there's really no need for me to waffle on any longer. Let's have a look at how this is made. Just a quick note - you can of course cut/slice the celeriac by hand if you don't have a food processor.

Ingredients (made enough for eight people not to miss out)
700g celeriac (celery root)
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
6 tbsp mayonnaise
3 tsp minced pickled gherkin
2 tsp drained, rinsed and chopped capers
2 tsp Dijon mustard
Ground black pepper

Method
Clean up the celeriac root, trimming off all the nasty stuff. Cut the celeriac into smaller pieces that fits into the feeder tube of your food processor. Pop a shredder disk into your food processor and shred the celeriac.

Put the shredded celeriac into a non-reactive bowl and toss with the salt and two tablespoons of the lemon juice. Cover the bowl and let this sit for about an hour.

Mix together all the other ingredients and stir in with the shredded celeriac.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Forgotten Cookies

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000Z

I haven't researched it but I would hazard a guess that the name for these cookies come from the fact that you leave them in the oven and forget about them for quite some time.

I'm not much into sweet stuff but when I tasted some of these over Christmas I really liked them. What you seen on this picture is our attempt at making them.

Ours didn't turn out quite as nice as Mrs T's but I blame that on our oven. Make sure that the seal on your oven is intact so the heat doesn't go down too quickly. A long and slow cooking is what's needed to make these extra delicious.

I'm sure you could pop some other nice stuff in them but this is a good start at least. Basically they're just some meringues with walnut and chocolate so there's loads of room for freestyling. Some chopped up raspberries anyone?

There seems to be quite a lot of different recipes around for this but this is sort of what we freestyled together from a bunch of them.....

Ingredients (makes about 30)
2 large egg whites
120g golden caster sugar
120g roughly chopped walnuts
150g good quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180c.

Whisk the egg whites until stiff and dry. Whisk in the sugar a little at a time until you got a nice and glossy meringue. Fold in the walnuts and chocolate carefully, using a metal spoon.

Spoon teaspoon-sized mounds of the mixture onto baking sheets that have been covered with tin foil.

Pop the baking sheet into the oven, turn off the oven and let the cookies sit in there until the oven is cold.

Be careful when you remove the cookies from the tin foil.

Enjoy!

Two quick links...

2012-01-05T21:04:00.002Z

I was greatly surprised, and felt quite proud, when I got an email from Kevin from The BBQ Smoker Site.

Apparently he had spotted my site and liked it enough to put it as a Blog Spotlight on his excellent site.

I have followed Kevins blog in my RSS reader for quite some time but this came as a complete surprise to me. A very pleasant surprise though.

So head over to have a look at Kevin's site - there's quite a lot of goodness there.

Secondly, hell has not frozen over totally - yet. However, this blog now has its own Facebook Page. This is just the blog, not me. I'm still being a bit of a luddite and refuse to get my own Facebook account but if you are of that persuasion, please like and follow the Freestyle Cookery Facebook Page.

Over and out for now...

Recipe - Merguez Sausages

2012-01-04T08:00:00.000Z

As regular readers will know I recently bought myself a sausage stuffer, something I wrote about here, and this was my first attempt of trying to use it.

I better give some background as well. Patience have never been one of my strong sides and I might not always have been the best at dealing with things not going exactly as I want, especially when it comes to new things that I think I should be able to master.

There was much joy in my family regaling the story about how as a four year old I was trying ice skating for the first time. Having seen ice hockey on telly many a time even at that tender age I was certain that I knew exactly how to skate.

Needless to say the ice and the skates conspired to show me differently. The tantrum that followed was of epic proportions. The ice skates were thrown across the ice with all the might of a royally pissed off four year old. My parents spent the next couple of weeks quizzing friends and family as to who might have taught me the very spicy language I used.

It took them another three years until I agreed to go near an ice rink again.

With that background, and many more examples that I should not share with you, I did approach this entire sausage stuffing adventure with quite a bit of apprehension. I was envisaging things going horribly wrong, sausage mix all over the kitchen and a very nice and shiny sausage stuffer being smashed into pieces.

No one was more surprised than I when it actually went quite well and I responded maturely to the small setbacks I encountered. The quality of the sausage stuffer I bought from Franco's Famous Sausage Making was probably part of this. A really good piece of kit, top quality. I can't praise it high enough, I'm glad I went for a decently sized machine, I think that will pay off in the end.

The worst bit was probably getting the casing onto the spout, but with some patience and deep breathing I managed to figure out some kind of knack and got it done.

I did have a couple of hiccups where the sausage mixture did some funny things but all that I did then was to cut off the casing and re-tie it in both ends and keep going.

The recipe I used comes from a most excellent Swedish book called Korv (Sausage) written by a bloke named Kristofer Franzén. It is a truly inspirational book and I really hope it would be translated to English because I believe it is worthy of a much bigger audience. It sure beats quite a lot of the English language books I've read on the subject matter.

You might be a bit surprised as to the very exact measurements in this recipe, it's not my normal cavalier freestyling approach. That approach doesn't really work on sausage making, but fear not - once I've managed to understand things a bit better I'll soon be coming up with my own weird and wonderful attempts at making sausages that taste exactly my way.

Well, there's been one quite embarrassing story from my childhood and some other waffling so I think it is high time to head over to the recipe.

One final thing first though, there will be some recipes in the near future where I use these sausages so if you don't know what to have them with - despair not.

Ingredients (makes 2kg mix, enough for about 35 sausages)
Meat
1200g lamb, not too lean - diced
800g beef chuck - diced

Spices
32g sea salt
36g olive oil
6g ground black pepper
3g ground fennel seeds
20g crushed garlic
24g harissa

Method
Make sure that the meat has the right temperature, preferably frozen on the surface. Alternatively freeze it completely and then let it defrost in the fridge over night.

Pour some luke warm water into a bowl and put about 8 meters worth of lamb casings into it to rehydrate and flush out the salt. Let this sit for two to three hours. Rinse through the casings a couple of times to make extra sure that the salt is gone.

Spread the salt on the meat and mince the meat using a medium sized mincer plate.

Mix the minced meat, oil and spices either by hand or in the bowl of a stand mixer on a low speed until it all binds together nicely. Try not to let the meat mixture to get warmer than 4c at any stage of these processes.

Transfer the meat mixture into the container of your sausage stuffer, or whatever apparatus you will be using to stuff the casings.

Thread the casings onto the sausage stuffer spout and feed the meat mixture until it is at the end of the spout and ready to start filling the casing.

Tie a knot at the end of the casing and start filling, making sure not to fill too hard. Finish by tying a knot in the other end too.

Make 15 - 20 cm long sausages by pinching with the thumb and index finger of one hand about one sausage length into the casing and then the same thing with the other hand another sausage length in. Twist the sausage you have between your hands forwards. Measure another sausage length and repeat. Repeat until all sausages have been 'created'.

It's good to let the sausages rest for a couple of hours, or over night in the fridge, before you cook them.

Cut links between the sausages and grill them or fry them in a frying pan with a little bit of olive oil until they start browning up.

Try not to overcook them since they don't contain much fat at all.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Cold and Hot Smoked Duck Breast

2012-01-02T08:00:00.000Z

We were invited over to a couple of friends for a New Years Eve celebration and we said that we'd bring some food with us.

This is what we brought for starter, cold and hot smoked duck breasts which we served with celeriac remoulade. You'll have to wait a bit for the celeriac recipe but you can have the duck recipe now.

This is a quite simple recipe but the end result is very rewarding. This time I cooked two duck breasts, which I thought would be enough for starters for us. If you cook more, just increase the brine proportions accordingly.

As for the brine, I added some brown sugar, black peppercorns and ground allspice to the recipe below. That's not necessary at all but if you feel like it, go for it. If not, just skip it. Even better - freestyle it with the flavourings you think will work.

Adjust the smoking times to suit you, the cold smoking can be in the region of two to three hours (mine was in for two hours and twenty minutes) and the hot smoking is normally fine with around an hours smoke. However, freestyle it to your hearts content as always.

I used alder wood for this, but guess what - if you prefer a different flavour go for it.

As I said in the beginning I served this with celeriac remoulade but I could just as well have gone with a red onion marmalade or chutney for example.

Enough chit-chat, let us have a look how to make this....

Ingredients (enough for 4 very generous starter portions)
Brine
1.5l water
400g salt

Two duck breasts, skin on

Method
Bring the water to a boil, remove from the heat and stir in the salt. Let this cool down before pouring into a non-reactive container.

Score the skin on the duck breasts in a crosshatch pattern, trying not to cut into the meat. Add the duck breasts to the brine, weighing down with a plate if needed to make sure they're fully submerged. Let this brine for 2 - 3 hours, depending on the size of the duck breasts.

Remove from the brine, rinse well and pat dry. Let them sit in the fridge, uncovered, over night to dry out properly.

The next day remove them from the fridge as you prepare your smoker for cold smoking.

Once the smoke is rolling, pop the duck breasts into the smoker and smoke for 2 - 3 hours according to taste.

When the time is up, remove the duck breasts from the smoker and prepare the smoker for hot smoking at 100c/210F instead.

Once the smoker have reached that temperature and the smoke is rolling again - add the duck breasts back into the smoker.

Smoke for an hour and then turn off the smoke generator. Staying at the 100c/210F temperature let the duck breasts cook until they reach an internal temperature of 71c/160F.

Once they've reached that temperature, remove them from the smoker and let them cool down a bit. When they're a bit cooler, heat up a frying pan on a medium temperature.

Pop in the duck breasts, skin side down, and let them render down the fat for about 2 to 3 minutes. If you cook the duck breasts in batches, make sure to remove the rendered fat between each batch.

Remove the duck breasts from the pan and pat them dry with some kitchen towel and let them cool down again. Suitably cooled, wrap them in cling film and let them rest in the fridge over night.

The next day you can slice them up nice and thinly and either eat them right then or vacuum pack them for later consumption.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Guinness Mustard

2011-12-26T08:00:00.000Z

The other night I overheard(?) a conversation between some Swedish food bloggers on Twitter where they discussed different mustard versions they were making.

As the discussion went to and fro the memory of seeing Guinness Mustard at some farmers market came to my mind and I chimed in with that suggestion.

Having given them the suggestion I also said that I'd try and chase down a recipe for them. Having applied some Google-Fu I soon had lots of version of the same recipe from various blogs. The source of that particular recipe seems to be one published in Saveur magazine.

Having suggested that they tried this and having taken the time to hunt a recipe down I realised that I might as well make some myself.

I'm not proud so I decided to use the same recipe as everyone else, after all - it's not all that often that I can find major faults with recipes from Saveur.

This mustard will last in the fridge for up to 6 months - but I don't think it will last that long for most people. A most excellent mustard and a good start down the slippery slope of playing with different flavourings for your mustards. I'm sure there's space for more jars and stuff in our cupboards... ;)

One thing I'd like to add to the recipe is that it will take some time in the old food processor before it starts thickening up. Fear not, give it some time and it will thicken up nicely.

Ingredients (makes around 800ml)
350 ml Guinness
375 ml brown mustard seeds
250 ml red wine vinegar
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice

Method
Combine all the ingredients in a nonreactive bowl. Cover with cling film and let sit at room temperature for 1 - 2 days so that the flavours mix and the mustard seeds soften.

Transfer the mixture to a food processor and mix until the seeds are coarsely ground and the mixture thickens, stopping to scrape down mixture from the sides of the bowl when needed, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a jar and cover.

Refrigerate overnight before first use.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Meatloaf à la Lindström

2011-12-21T08:00:00.000Z

Long time readers of this blog might remember a recipe for classic Swedish dish called Beef à la Lindström that I posted back in 2008? No? To be honest, I couldn't remember if I posted it or not so I had to search for it myself.

The other day I saw this take on Beef à la Lindström combined with meatloaf in some email newsletter from a Swedish supermarket chain that I subscribe to just to get some new ideas. Since both Beef à la Lindström and meatloaf are two of my favourite dishes I thought I'd give it a go.

Being me, I freestyled it a bit - at least enough for them not to sue me. I hope. ;)

This is a bit of a different approach to meatloaf but hopefully it can inspire you to try some new variations. I've made cheeseburger meatloaf in the past, where you layer in some crispy bacon and cheese - worked like a charm. Give freestyling your meatloaf a go, what's the worst that can happen? Hang on, please don't answer that. ;)

As you see from the photo, the beetroot juices seeps out and gives the meatloaf a slightly pink tinge. Maybe you could sell it to your kids as a Barbie-loaf. Or not.

Enough waffling, let's see how this was made.

Ingredients (serves 4)
4 tbsp breadcrumbs
100 ml milk
1 kg beef mince
2 eggs
8 - 10 pickled baby beetroots
1 onion, chopped
100 ml capers, finely chopped
Salt
Pepper

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 200c.

Mix the breadcrumbs with the milk and let that stand for a couple of minutes.

In a bowl, mix together the breadcrumb paste with the other ingredients, minus the beetroots. Season to taste.

Take two 1kg loaf tins, or one 2kg one if you got one, and make a bottom layer of mince mixture in each. Portion out the beetroots and top with the remainder of the mince mixture.

Pop this into the oven for 40 - 45 minutes or until it is cooked through.

Serve with potatoes and some vegetables.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Dill Chicken / Recept - Dillkyckling

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000Z

This is a recipe that really brings back memories. We used to be served this in school fairly often and I do think that we had it at home regularly too.

I might be mistaken but I believe that there's also a very similar recipe but for lamb instead. Swedish readers might want to pipe up and correct me if I'm wrong?

It is funny, I had not eaten this for over 12 years - I don't think I'd be lying if I said that it was over 15 years - but as soon as I sat down to eat it memories flushed over me. Food is one of the things that memories get the strongest associations with, at least for me.

I might have to revisit some of the old dishes I associate with my childhood. There's already been some posts, like my Flying Jacob / Flygande Jakob recipe but there's lots of others that I think (hope?) that you readers might find interesting? Then there are some that are just innuendo heaven when I translate them, Seaman Stew anyone? :)

After that bombshell, let's talk about this recipe a bit.

You can use any chicken meat really, thighs are to prefer for the flavour and texture but 3 - 4 chicken breasts works too if you're not into your thighs.

The amount of water, 1 liter, might look a tad bit little but fear not, it will be ok. If you want to add some more carrot or leek, go ahead. In the recipe I say to use about 500ml of the stock, use more or less to get the thickness of the sauce you want. Guess what - freestyle it! :)

The classic side dish for this is potatoes but I would just as well serve it with rice.

Ingredients (serves 4)
1 l water
1 carrot, peeled and cut into medallions
1 leek, cut into 2 cm wide pieces
2 bay leafs
5 - 6 white pepper corns
2 tsp salt
600g chicken, cut into bitesize pieces
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp plain flour
100 ml single cream
1 tbsp distilled malt vinegar
2 tbsp golden caster sugar
1 bunch of dill, chopped
Salt
Pepper

Method
Put the water, bay leafs, pepper corns and salt into a pan and bring to a boil. Add in the carrot, leek and chicken and let this simmer for about 15 - 20 minutes. Remove any foam etc that gets onto the surface of the water.

Drain the stock into a container and keep the rest in a colander or sieve for the time being.

Clean out and dry the pan. Melt the butter and whisk in the flour, trying not to get any lumps. Slowly add stock, whisking all the time, until you've incorporated about 500 ml of it. Stir in the cream.

Heat the vinegar and sugar either in another pan or in the microwave until the sugar is dissolved. Stir this mixture into the pan.

Add the vegetables and chicken back into the pan and let this heat through for another 5 minutes or so.

Season with salt and pepper.

Enjoy!

Oh my, that's a big one you got there...

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000Z

Why, thank you. But enough about that - this is after all, at times, a family friendly blog. ;)

Followers of this blog and my Twitter feed will have noticed that I'm getting into smoking, making my own bacon and so on. The next logical, at least to me, step is to start looking at making my own sausages.

I do have the sausage stuffing attachment for my KitchenAid but to say that one looks flimsy is like saying that Paris Hilton seems to be a bit of a slapper. As I quite often do at times like this I used my Google-Fu to look at what other people recommend as well as good reviews for companies to purchase from.

One company that kept popping up, with good feedback, was Franco's Famous Sausage Making. I had a look at the site and there was lots of options, anything from small sausage stuffers to kits with industrial size stuffers complete with rusk, spice mixes and so on.

Me being me, always forgetting that I'm a happy amateur in a small kitchen and not actually a fully fledged chef in a commercial kitchen, decided after much deliberating to go for the "Deluxe Sausage Making Kit". That one comes with a 5L Pro stuffer, rusk, spice mixes and so on. There are smaller models. Much smaller models, that fit in normal kitchens, for normal people. I'm not normal.

Once the decision had been made it was time to order it. When I tried to access the site it was down. Hang on, what's going on here? After checking through a couple of different paths out of our network I decided that the fault was in the other end.

A quick tweet was sent off to @sausagemaking to check what was up. Shortly after that, the site was back and a reply was received over twitter. After I placed my order I was told that due to the problems there would be some extras in the parcel. Ace!

The next day the parcels arrived and I started to realise just how big a 5L sausage stuffer really are. On the plus side, I won't have to refill it as often as I would a wee one. ;)

There was definitely some extras thrown in, very generously indeed.

So now I have my sausage stuffer, casings, spice mixes, rusk and all the other stuff. Coming up on this blog you will follow my trials and tribulations as I try to teach myself how to make different types of sausages. I can foresee quite a lot of swearing, tantrums and chucking of things in the near future. So if you're a fan of car-crash television you might want to check in here every now and then.

Now where can I keep this monster of a sausage stuffer...

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Recipe - Dan Lepard's Alehouse Rolls

2011-12-14T08:00:00.000Z

As I mentioned in the last post I made some rolls to go with my home made bacon. I can quite happily freestyle 'normal' cooking but when it comes to baking I'm fairly useless.

Working with dough etc. is definitely outside of my comfort zone, although I'm working on it.

The reason I'm mentioning this? This recipe is stolen straight off from Dan Lepard's excellent book Short and Sweet (Amazon UK / US ). I will try and review it properly at some stage but let me just say that I think it is a must in the collection of anyone who likes to bake.

Getting back to track...

If you read the Making Bacon - Part II post you'll know that the bacon took a bit longer in the smoker than what I had anticipated.

The next day the idea was to have bacon rolls for breakfast. Well, there was bacon rolls. Just not for breakfast.

This recipe takes some time and I think that if you don't want to be in the shooting line for some lethal staring due to the time frames being a bit askew - have a read of what Dan Lepard himself says:

"To make my life a bit more relaxed I make these ahead but only lightly bake them, perhaps 20 minutes in the oven. Then I leave them on the tray to cool and freeze them in a ziplock bag. Then just before dinner, or whenever I need them, they get baked once more from frozen in a preheated oven at 200C/180C fan/390F/gas 6 for 10 - 12 minutes."

It might have been better for the happiness of everyone if I had followed that advice. ;)

If you bake them by the 235g size recommendation you'll get some quite big rolls - just be aware if you got people who don't eat much.

Other than that - awesome rolls made from an recipe from a great book. Best of all - they made the bacon taste that bit extra good.

At the time, eating my home made bacon on home made rolls, I was feeling so smug that I almost wanted to punch myself in the face. ;)

Enough of that, over to Dan's recipe.

[RECIPE REMOVED AS PER REQUEST IN COMMENTS BELOW]

Enjoy!

Making Bacon - Part II

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000Z

Followers of this blog know that I recently got myself a smoker and set out on the path of curing and smoking my own bacon.

This is part two of that story, for those of you that didn't read part one - have a look here to get in the mood for this riveting and fascinating story. Or something like that.

Where the last part left of was with the belly of pork curing in the fridge. This being my first attempt I was worrying quite a bit about the progress etc. Some more knowledgeable and experienced bacon makers over at the Bradley Smoker Forum soon calmed me and the experiment continued on.

Due to some external circumstances that I couldn't do much about, apparently friends weddings are more important than my homemade bacon, I left the bacon curing for 10 days.

Once I was back from the wedding the bacon was rinsed and air-dried in the fridge over night.

Belly of pork, complete with temperature probe, ready to go into the smoker

The next day the smoker was heated up to 49C/120F and the maple smoke started rolling.

My lovely smoker

Moody smoke picture

I kept it as this temperature with smoke rolling for two hours. Once the time was up I increased the temperature to 71C/160F and started waiting for the internal temperature of the bacon to reach 65C/150F. And I waited. And waited. And waited.

An hour or so into the smoking process

The fact that is was really cold out probably didn't help but the wait was quite long and certain interested parties lost interest and stamina long before the remote temperature monitor gave up the releasing beep that indicated that we'd reached the correct temperature.

I removed the bacon from the smoker and let it cool down before cling filming it and leaving it in the fridge over night to firm up a bit.

Finally finished, about to go into the fridge over night

The next day I got it out of the fridge and headed out in the garage to try my meat slicer for the first time.

You have no idea how wide my smile was when the first slice hit the plate. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it was one of the happiest and proudest moments of my adventures in cooking.


Sliced bacon

I sliced and vacuum packed the majority of the belly and diced the last bit into lardons that also got vacuum packed and frozen for future use.

Vacuum packed lardons ready to go into the freezer

At the same time as the slicing was going on I was making rolls for the bacon butties I thought we had deserved. The recipe for those will have to wait another couple of days though.

So, some questions that I guess some of you might have.

Was it worth it? - Hell yeah!
Would you do it again? - Hell yeah, already thinking of other cures that might work.
Did it taste ok? - Hell yeah, really nice and sweet flavour.

Review - Le Charcutier Anglais by Marc Frederic

2011-12-10T08:00:00.000Z

As followers of this blog and my Twitter feed might have noticed I've recently taken quite a large interest in the arts of smoking, Charcuterie, sausage making and so on.

Pair that with my cookbook collecting mania and you'll find that there's been quite a large number of books about these subjects shipped from Amazon to me.

I had actually followed and talked with Marc Frederic on Twitter before my new found interest, just purely out of him being quite an interesting character.

Having followed his feed I knew that he was in the process of publishing a book about these matters so it felt quite natural to pop in an order for it with Amazon.

Having patiently waited the book finally arrived today (the 9th of Dec) and I have already read it from start to finish. From that I think you can deduct two things - 1: I read quickly and 2: the book is very interesting.

I mentioned that I have bought quite a lot of books on this subject matter so I got some comparison material to go by.

This is by no means the most technical of these books, there's not table over table of curing times and how to make every percentage level available of brining liquid.

It's also not the one of these books with the most perfect layout or regimented structure.

What it do have though is lots of things that I feel goes missing in quite a lot of those other books. They feel more like manuals whilst this one feels like a book created out of a love of the subject matter.

The pictures are generally of a very high quality and adds value, there's even some cartoons and drawings thrown in for the fun of it.

His text shows the deep love and interest he has for this although at times I must admit that I had to re-read parts of instructions etc just to get the full understanding. However, since that's not overpowering I think it adds to the charm.

There's also lots of little tip boxes that add value to the book as well as some anecdotes thrown in as a little bonus.

There are chapters on Utensils, Butchery, Fat, Pork, Sausage Making, Smoking and so on. All of these have their own value but also link in with each other and gives you ideas on how you can combine techniques and ingredients.

You also get top quotes like "DRY CURING - my favourite method because it is so therapeutic". This is a man who clearly loves what he writes about.

The recipes are all well written and easy to understand for anyone who regularly reads recipes.

Mikey's verdict: This is a very well written book that conveys a love for a subject that makes you want to test the recipes and techniques that it describes. It might not be the one and only book you'd want on the subject. Some of the other books on the marked describe some of the underlying chemistry more in depth as well as gives you some more formulas etc to get brines correct.

However, this is a very worthy addition to your cookbook library and will teach you quite a lot about these subjects at the same time as it inspires you to no end.

I also want to point out that I bought my own copy for my own money and wrote this review on my own accord without Marc's prior knowledge of me planning to do so. To be honest - I haven't even asked Marc if I could use the picture above. I sure hope he doesn't mind. ;)

I bought my copy at Amazon and here's a link to Marc's blog with info about other places where you can buy your own copy.

Now I think I'll go away and work on an email to Marc to ask him if he thinks that my idea of adding some cold smoking to his recipe for 'Carpaccio of Cured Venison" would work. The fact that he got a book published on the subject doesn't mean that I can't find ways of freestyling his recipes! ;)

Recipe - Stilton Soup with Chili and Rosemary Croutons

2011-12-07T08:00:00.000Z

This recipe is very good for you. Disregard all the cheese and the cream. It does contain the rind from a lime and some rosemary. That is bound to count as two of your five a day - something that should more than negate the cheese and cream. I'm of course applying the same logic here as those people who order a Big McFatfucker and then goes for the diet Coke in order to stay healthy. Hey, if it works for them - it should work for you and me - right? ;)

What could be bad for my health is that I have messed a bit with what is in essence a traditional recipe from the T*****e family. There are some things you probably shouldn't mess with, this recipe might be one of them. Let's see what happens when this is published, this could be my last post ever.

This is a quite versatile soup that can be adapted to the occasion. You could have it for dinner as a winter warmer with some nice rolls or you could serve it in dainty little bowls as a posh-ish starter.

By adjusting the amount of stock you can make it more or less creamy to fit the occasion and your personal taste. When I cooked this I used about 560ml (1 pint or so) of stock which kept it very creamy. I've adjusted the recipe below to use 750ml for a slightly less creamy texture - but please feel free to freestyle it to your hearts content.

As for the croutons... Yes, I know that you can buy them but let's face it - it is not really rocket surgery to make them yourself. It's quickly done and is a good way of using up some stale left over bread. As you can see from the recipe I used rosemary and chili infused oil. As always, freestyle it. Don't like rosemary, use thyme. Bit of a wuss, skip the chili oil and use a good quality normal olive oil.

You still with me? Good. Let's look at the recipe now then.

Ingredients (makes enough for 3 - 4 normal portions or quite a number of starter portions)
30g butter
15g plain flour
The grated rind from 1 lime
750 ml chicken stock
340g good quality Stilton cheese, crumbled
150 ml single cream

Method
Melt the butter in a saucepan on a medium heat. Once it start bubbling and fizzing a bit, stir in the flour and keep stirring as to try and not get any lumps.

Let this cook away for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in the lime rind and keep stirring for another couple of minutes.

Pour in the stock and keep stirring whilst bringing it to a boil. Keep at a simmer for about 5 minutes.

Add in the cheese, and let it melt on a slightly lower heat whilst still stirring quite frequently.

Once properly melted, sieve into another bowl or pan. Rinse and dry the first pan and then pop the sieved soup back into it.

Put the pan back on a medium heat. Pour in the cream and keep stirring whilst you heat it through.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Murgh Kari-esque Chicken Curry

2011-12-05T08:00:00.001Z

When I first moved to England I had not encountered Indian food at all before. I guess Sweden, at least not where I come from, wasn't all that culinary adventorous and we didn't have that many 'foreign' restaurants. Growing up I think there was two Chinese restaurants and one Pizzeria in my hometown.

Not knowing anything about Indian food made me feel a bit uncertain when we went for meals with work and so on. Quite often I'd rather not go than sit there not knowing what to go for due to my lack of knowledge.

Thankfully that all quickly changed through the years and I'm more than happy to join you for a curry if you invite me. Besides, these days I got a foolproof way of ordering just the right thing in Indian restaurants. I just say "please bring me the spiciest dish you have" to the waiter. That way I always get what I want.

Still, even though I like Indian food quite a bit it is still rare that I try my hand at emulating any of the dishes at home. That is something I should change in order to broaden my kitchen repertoire, so here you go. This is my attempt of creating a Murgh Kari-esque chicken curry.

Play a bit with the seasoning to fit your own likings, remove some of the cayenne and use a milder curry if you are of a wussy disposition. Add some fresh chilies if you are of that disposition. As always, just freestyle it.

Oh, and as you can see from the photo - I didn't get around to adding the coriander this time. Do as I say, not as I do. It will lift the dish even more, trust me.

Ingredients (serves 4)

A couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil

4 skinless chicken breasts, diced (or equal amount thighs)

Salt

Pepper

2 - 3 onions, diced
2 - 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped (or to taste)

4 -5 cm knob of fresh root ginger, finely chopped (or to taste)
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon water
2 tbsp tablespoon chopped fresh coriander, divided

400g passata
200g Greek yogurt
100ml water
1 - 2 tbsp of brown sugar (optional)

Method

Heat the oil in a frying pan with lid on a medium heat.

Add in the chicken pieces and some salt and let them seal without starting to brown. Remove the chicken pieces onto a plate with a slotted spoon.

Lower the the heat a tad bit and add in the onions. Let them fry for about 8 - 10 minutes, stirring every now and then, and try not to let them start to brown too much.

Add in the spices, 1 tbsp of coriander and a tablespoon of water. Stir well to combine with the onions and oil. Increase the heat a bit again and let this cook together. Make sure to stir well and often.

After 3 - 5 minutes, once the spices have been toasted a bit, add in the yogurt, passata and 100ml of water. Stir well and let it come to a simmer. Simmer for a couple of minutes and then add in the chicken pieces - complete with any juices from the plate. At this stage - taste it and if you feel that is too tart due to the tomatoes - add some brown sugar to taste.

Pop the lid on the pan and let it simmer for 20 minutes or so - make sure that the chicken is cooked through.

Before serving it, stir in the other tablespoon of coriander and adjust the seasoning to taste if needed.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Pierogies stuffed with mince, gherkin and onion

2011-11-30T08:00:00.000Z

I know that I quite often get accused of being a food snob but there are some really nasty skeletons in my culinary wardrobe.

One of the nastier skeletons is some mass produced pierogies that went under the name of Gorby's. I guess the tenous link behind that name was that pierogies have a Russian connection and Gorbachev was in the limelight back then.

These little abominations against what I now know as decent food was sold frozen (they might just had been chilled - can't really remember) and you either nuked them or heated them in the oven if you had the extra time. I'm sad to say that due to what only can be described as financial circumstances and lack of sense I ate more than one of these back in the day.

I live in the hope that these things have disappeared from the shops but I honestly don't know if they have or not. If you want to see what one looks like, have a look at a picture of a Gorby's here.

Having gotten that off my chest I can now move on to a slightly more proper version of a pierogie. This one is made from scratch and even if I say so myself, it plays in a completely different league than the Gorby's. I'm not sure how authentic it is, there might be an angry Russian outside my door one day but this is my version of it.

Regular readers know that I actively encourage freestyling of my recipes and this one is no exception to that. Don't like pickled gherkins? Replace with some diced pickled beetroot for example. Don't feel like replacing, add the beetroot as well. Add in the fact that you can spice the mince to your hearts content and the possibilities are almost endless.

I know that it might seem a tad bit faffy to have to make the pastry the day before, but give it a go. The effort is well worth it. The quantity of ingredients in this recipe is enough for four large-ish ones but if you want to you could always make them a bit daintier and serve them as nibbles.

Let's head over to the recipe before I admit to more crimes against the culinary gods. ;)

Ingredients (makes 4 large-ish ones or more smaller ones)
Pastry
500ml plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
115g cold butter, cut into pieces
115g cream cheese

Filling
300g minced beef, cooked - spice it your own way
1 pickled gherkin, very finely diced or minced - to taste (about 2 tbsp or so)
1/2 onion, very finely diced or minced - to taste
1 tbsp ketchup
Salt
Pepper

50g butter, melted

Method
Pastry
Pop the flour, salt, butter and cream cheese into a food processor. Process until a firm dough is formed. Pat into a ball, cover with cling film and put it in the fridge over night.

Pierogies

Pre-heat the oven to 200c.

To make the pierogies take out the dough from the fridge and remove the cling film. Split it into four equal pieces.

Mix together all the ingredients for the filling and season to taste.

Roll each bit out on a lightly floured surface until it is about 3mm thick. Spoon equal amounts of the filling onto each one and fold together.

Put the pierogies on a baking tray that you have lined with parchment paper.

Brush each pierogie with melted butter, sprinkle with some flaky sea salt and pop the baking tray into the oven.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until nicely golden to your taste.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Pimped up Brussels Sprouts

2011-11-28T08:00:00.000Z

Brussels sprouts will probably never win any popularity contests but if you like them, they are good.

I know people who'll only eat one sprout a year, and that is just as to please their mother on Christmas. (Hi Mark! ;) )

Personally I quite like them but this is a recipe that is tried and tested to make non-believers at least try them. Some of them have survived and lived to tell the tale of sprouts that were at least tolerable.

The seasonal box I received from Knorr recently didn't just contain that mahoosive turkey, it also contained some (Christmas) seasonal vegetables as well. Brussels sprouts were of course part of this so I cooked them up in this way.

Maybe this could be something to try on the sprout haters in your circle of friends and family? Because let's face it - everything gets better with a bit of bacon added.

With all that having been said, let's move on over to the recipe.

Ingredients
Brussels Sprouts
Salt
Pepper
Lardons
Balsamic vinegar

Method
Bring some well salted water to a rolling boil. Chuck in the brussels sprouts and let them boil for 4 minutes or so. Drain and dump them into some ice cold water to refresh. Let them sit there for a minute or two and drain again. Slice them in half and put to the side.

Heat a non-stick frying pan on a medium heat. Once heated add in the lardons and let them fry for a bit. If they don't release all that much fat - add in a splash of olive oil too.

Once the lardons start to crispen up - add in the brussel sprouts and a dash or five of balsamic vinegar.

Let this fry away until the lardons have crisped up nicely and the sprouts have started to caramelise. Season to taste.

Enjoy!

Recipe - Peppadew Chicken

2011-11-22T08:00:00.016Z

This is a quick and easy recipe that I picked up when I was attending a South African cookery course at the WI.

Yep - you read that right. I went for a course at the WI. As a matter of fact, I've attended a number of courses there over the last couple of years - cat among the pigeons anyone? ;) The kitchens you use and all the equipment are all top class. The tutors I've had so far have all been really good as well.

I know that the WI have a bit of a reputation, but I've always enjoyed myself there and have come home with a fair amount of new skills and knowledge. Ok, I do get stared at a bit but that's just something you'll have to live with as a bloke on one of their courses. ;)

For a look at what courses they currently offer, have a look at the Denman College website.

Enough about my lovely ladies at the WI, let's talk a bit about this recipe. The recipe just states 'chutney' but for the authentic touch, try and chase down some of Mrs H.S. Balls Original Recipe Chutney.

Also - there's no need to adjust your television sets - the rice is supposed to be yellow. I chucked in some turmeric with the rice and water in the rice cooker to get the (allegedly) proper colour for this dish.

Moving swiftly on....

Ingredients (serves 4)
4 chicken breasts
Salt
Pepper
1 small onion, roughly chopped
6 peppadews, or to taste
120 ml yoghurt
60 ml chutney

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 190c.

Put the chicken breasts in a oven-proof dish that is large enough to house them all without being crowded. Season.

Put all the other ingredients in a food processor (or use a hand-held mixer) and blend together.

Pour the sauce over the chicken and pop the dish into the oven. Cook for 20 - 30 minutes or until cooked.

Enjoy!

Making Bacon - Part I

2011-11-20T08:00:00.001Z

Like most people I know I really enjoy bacon. For example, there's few things that are easier to make and nicer to eat than a bacon buttie, with some ketchup.

Being me I need to push the envelope a bit and this time I'm trying to make my own bacon. After lurking around on the Bradley Smoker Forum I found enough evangelistic posts to realise that this is something that could turn out very nice indeed.

The only thing that might stop normal people is the part where you smoke it for a couple of hours during the cooking. However, as I've been told far too many times - I'm not normal. Since a little while back I'm the proud owner of a six-rack digital Bradley smoker ( UK / US ).

Making my own bacon seems to be a good way of getting some mileage into the smoker.

For my first try I've decided to follow this recipe, found on another Bradley smoker forum.

This morning I picked up my 5lb/2.3kg pork belly that my local butcher, R G Park Butchers, kindly had ready and waiting for me.

Pork belly, before anything happened to it.

Once home I prepared the cure as follows:

The ingredients for the cure.

2 oz. Kosher salt (about 1/4 cup)
2 tsp. Cure #1 (aka pink salt, InstaCure #1, Prague Powder #1)
1/4 C. Maple sugar or packed brown sugar
1/4 C. Maple syrup

The finished cure.

When the cure was properly mixed it was massaged into the pork belly and then it was all transferred into a very large ziploc bag and it is now doing its magic in our fridge.

The pork belly again, now with cure massaged into it.

The curing should take 5 - 7 days and it will be flipped over once a day. I will post updates as I (and the pork belly) progress....

In the bag, just before going into the fridge.