The Hedonethical Kitchen

Kinda Carbonara

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

This isn't really carbonara in the truest sense, it's a carbonara inspired leftover-ham-dinner, it was pretty tasty though.

The sauce is dead simple, you just need some kind of cured pork like ham or bacon for the main flavour. I used a few slices from the Christmas ham, which is still good for the moment but is probably on its last legs so it needs using up.

Fry up a little garlic and thinly sliced purple onion with a finely diced red chilli. When soft add in thickly sliced mushrooms and the pork, let them cook through.

Add the juice of half a lemon and a good sized slosh of single cream. Season with lots of black pepper and chopped parsley then serve mixed in with some lovely fresh pasta. Doddle.

Steak and Kidney Pie

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

This is another great winter dinner, although it does take a bit of effort to make. It can be expensive or cheap, depending on which cut of beef you use.

Skirt steak (bavette) was awesome when I tried it on Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's advice (in the River Cottage Meat book), so if you can get it maybe try that, otherwise any stewing cut will do - long slow braising before the main bake is the key.

You also need some kidneys, lamb or calves is fine, but be very aware of the source as some calves liver will come from inhumanely treated veal calves, imported to the UK. There's a little bit more info about this in my earlier liver, onion & colcannon post.

I was feeding four fairly greedy people (including myself!) and used two 360g packs of beef skirt and six lamb's kidneys. This was enough to allow for two people coming back for seconds! Use scissors to snip them into bitesized chunks before rolling them in well seasoned flour and pan-frying in batches.

When all the meat has been browned, tip everything into a large pan, then fry up a large, thickly sliced onion in the juices, deglaze with red wine (a good, large glassful) and put this mixture into the casserole pan as well. Finally, add a couple of bay leaves, a dollop of English mustard, a dash of worcester sauce, a tablespoon of ketchup and a pint of really good beef stock.

You can now partially cover the pan and leave to simmer slowly for a good hour and a half. Add in a punnet of halved or whole mushrooms (chestnut are my favourite) for the last 15 minutes.Take the mixture off the heat and season it to taste.

Line your pie dish with puff pastry and pile the filling in. Cover with more puff pastry and any design you like on top, then brush all over with beaten egg. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and bake the pie for another hour.
Serve with mashed potatoes and green veg, such as kale.

Balsamic Beetroot Soup

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

This is an easy, warming soup which uses up a bunch of lonely beetroot from the bottom drawer of the frdge. It was inspired by a recipe in the new HFW book "River Cottage Veg Everyday", but I pretty much completely changed the character of it based on what I had available.

Roast your beetroots with a few garlic cloves in the oven at 180 for about 45 mins to an hour, coated in oil and alongside some thyme leaves, a bay leaf, salt, pepper and a slosh of water. When ready, skin them and chop into smallish pieces.

Fry up an onion in a saucepan until soft, then add the beetroot and a pint (500ml) of stock. Bring up to a boil and then keep at a simmer on a low heat for ten minutes or so.

Season well with salt and pepper, then with a small dash of worcestershire sauce *, a squirt of lemon juice and a generous drizzle of balsamic vinegar. If the brew still tastes "unfinished", try a small blob of redcurrant jelly - it worked for me.

Shove the lot into a blender and process until smooth. Pour into bowls and finish with a swirl of cream and some fresh chopped parsley.

* btw, in case you didn't know, you can now get vegetarian worcestershire sauce if you are so inclined. I found this one on the internet, but am sure I also saw one in Waitrose the other day.

Ragu (Italian Meat Sauce for Pasta)

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Ragu is a hearty, happy dish with bags of flavour and is a lot less work than might be expected. I do feel that it needs a fresh egg pasta to do it justice, but that might just be me and my penchant for rich food! Tagliatelle is certainly a fabulous type of pasta for this sauce either way.

This is my made-up version of ragu, it isn't nearly as good as my Mum's but hers has a list of ingredients that fills a an A4 page and takes hours to cook... this one is a speedy little number which still manages a beautiful flavour and a great texture. The amount below serves two hungry people, with just enough left over for one of you to have lunch the next day.

So, dice an onion, a stick of celery and a couple of garlic cloves and set them to gently fry in a pan. When they're softened, add in half a pack of mince (about 250g) and give it a good stir. Once that's going brown, add in a tub's worth of chopped chicken livers and keep stirring to brown those as well.

Throw in a diced carrot and a couple of bay leaves, and a glass of red wine. Let that bubble for a bit before topping up with a tin of tomatoes, a squeeze of tomato puree and a large pinch of dried oregano. Add a little water to help form a sauce and leave to simmer for as long as you can manage - a good half hour at least.

Finally, season with salt and pepper before serving with hot pasta.

Roast Goose Risotto with Squash, Thyme & Chestnuts

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

What to do on the third day of using up leftover roast goose (or turkey or chicken)? Make a risotto of course! Easy leftover using-up strategy.

The prep is key here, so start by roasting a peeled and cubed squash until soft along with a handful of chestnuts, and chopping up your goose meat into small peices.

If you have leftover squash then use that, you could also use half of a vacuum pack of pre-prepared chestnuts if you like. Depends what you've got handy! Keep them hot in the switched-off oven if making the risotto right away, otherwise be prepared to reheat them before adding to the risotto.

As with so many recipes, kick off the risotto by finely dicing an onion, a couple of celery sticks and a fat clove of garlic or two. Warm up a splosh of oil and a big hunk of butter in a deep frying pan and gently saute them until soft.

At the same time, put a pint / 500ml stock in a saucepan on the heat to stay hot.

Add half a bag of risotto rice, about 250g, (to serve 4 people or 2 with leftovers) stir it in and let it sizzle for a few minutes before adding a wine glass of vermouth (or white wine). Stir until all the wine has been absorbed. Then, a ladle at a time, add the stock to the rice, stirring and stirring each time until it's all been absorbed into the rice. One thing I've found is that this goes much faster and works better if you keep the pan pretty hot, the stock should bubble a little when you add it to the pan.

Just as you finish the last ladleful of stock, add the squash, chestnuts, goose and lots of thyme leaves. Stir through to mix and then grate a load of parmesan into the dish, along with a few knobs of butter, some fresh chopped parsley, a squeeze of lemon juice, ground pepper and salt if needed.

Serve with a smile of satisfaction at thriftiness well executed.

Christmas How To... Bubble & Squeak

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Bubble and Squeak is a traditional British dish eaten on Boxing Day (26th December). It basically means leftovers...

More specifically, it's leftover meat and vegetables from the day before, pan fried until cooked through and served with mustard, chutney and pickles.

In my case, the meat has been steeped in gravy overnight which makes the dish moist rather than crunchy. A different variation is to add mashed potato and form the veg into patties before frying; with those you serve the meat cold on the side though, rather than mixed in.

Cut the leftover vegetables into small chunks and pop into a frying pan heated with a little oil, mix in any bread sauce or mashed swede left overs, as well as the shredded meat and, if necessary, a drizzle of stock or gravy. You can add any extras you fancy, such as chopped chilli or a fried egg.

Cook through until piping hot. Easy, filling and good for a hangover!

Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post

Christmas Dinner: The Biggest Feast of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

I'd be lying if I said I didn't get disproportionately excited about christmas and christmas food. I've been hosting xmas at my house for 3 years and cooking the food for several years prior to that, having inherited the duty due to my enthusiasm for the task. I haven't had any disasters but I don't think anyone would disagree if I said that each year I'm getting a bit better at it.

The ideal is to get the entire meal to the table, hot, before 3pm and without a single frustrated outburst or stress-induced teary argument. Difficult, but not impossible.

This post is to tie together all the other ones, each relating to an element of xmas dinner or xmas in general. You might think there are a few things missing, each family has their own traditional accompaniments, but partly that's because we had a small scale xmas this year so I didn't bother with stuffing or redcurrant sauce. I bought the pigs-in-blankets ready made too.

Spicy Glazed Ham
Roast Goose
Rich Gravy
Perfect Roast Potatoes
Bread Sauce
Vegetables
Trifle
Bubble and Squeak

I've got my inspiration from various cookbooks, from my family, friends and just from doing it year on year. Below is a list of the books I've turned to time and again in recent Christmasses:

Nigella Christmas ~ Nigella Lawson
The Good Housekeeping Cookbook (1998)
Sunday Lunch ~ Gordon Ramsay

Christmas How To... Cook the Accompanying Veg

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Christmas dinner isn't complete without a full array of delicious, seasonal vegetables. These are really easy, hardly a recipe at all, but I know I'm often interested in what other families cook for their dinner so I thought I would include them.

I also know there is interest from people new to the UK, who would like to create a British style christmas dinner for the first time but aren't entirely sure what it involves - so I thought I'd be comprehensive in my xmas posts!

Seasonally speaking, root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, beetroot and swede, plus brassicas like brussel sprouts, as well as broccoli are all at their lovely best right now. I'm particularly fond of parsnips myself, my Mum loves beetroot, my Dad loves carrots and my husband is a broccoli fiend, so each and every one has to make it onto the christmas table.

Unlike a lot of other families, I haven't messed around with our veg too much. Partly this is because my Mum absolutely hates sweet flavours in savoury food, so the traditional honey or maple glazes are right out, and she's frankly not fond of nuts like almonds, pine nuts or chestnuts either, so souped up brussels wouldn't be popular.

I also don't want the veg to outshine the goose or the gravy, they are supporting actors and showering them in gifts of honey / cumin / sesame seeds / balsamic vinegar or any of the other common props won't help the stars of the show to shine!

I think the most important bit is the cutting - trying to make the parsnips and carrots fairly uniform in thickness before roasting them, to avoid burned tips or undercooked tops.

The beetroot needs to be pre-boiled in a large saucepan of water for a good hour until tender, before skinning and slicing into wedges.

Roast the beetroot in a separate tin if you can, to avoid the colour bleeding into the parsnips and carrots, which can go in together. Season with salt and pepper and coat in olive oil, mixing with your hands to ensure good coverage.
These root veg all take about 45 minutes to an hour until they're ready, but keep an eye on the beetroot; remove it and cover in foil if it looks like it's going to burn.

Swede needs to be peeled and chopped into inch square cubes, then boiled until soft and mashed with plenty of butter, salt and pepper.

Sprouts and broccoli only need the lightest of steaming or boiling with a small amount of water, keep the crunch - it's lovely.

Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post

Christmas How To... Make Perfect Roast Potatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

The holy grail... perfect roast potatoes: crisp and crunchy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside. Worth fighting your Dad for!

If you're cooking goose for lunch, take all that excess fat, pop it in a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and shove it in the oven at least half an hour before you intend to put the potatoes in.
You can also buy goose fat in jars or simply cook your roasties in another fat, such as olive oil.

While the fat is heating up, cut up your potatoes into thirds or quarters, depending on their size. Allow at least four potato peices per person, five to be on the safe side and six or seven if you want leftovers. Put them in a large pan and parboil them for about 15-20 minutes until fairly cooked on the outside but still firm inside.

Drain the water from the pan and sprinkle semolina over the potatoes. Put the lid on and give them a gentle bashing, to rough up the edges.

When the fat is hot, put the roasting tray on the hob, with the heat on if your kitchen is cool, and place the potatoes into the fat where they should start to sizzle.

Bung back in the oven for about 45-mins to an hour, turning them halfway through and draining off excess fat if necessary.

Roasties must be hot, so pre-warm the serving dish and keep them hot in a low oven until you're ready to eat.

Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post

Christmas How To... Make Bread Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Even my Dad eats this and he usually hates bread sauce. For me, a roast dinner isn't complete without it and I certainly wouldn't be happy if christmas dinner didn't include it. The trick is to leave the milk to infuse for a very long time.

Pop a pint of milk (about 500ml) into a saucepan with a small, halved onion (or two quarters of a large one) with a clove pushed into each peice. Add a bay leaf, a peice of mace and a few white peppercorns. Put on the heat and bring almost to a boil, but not to boiling point. When you see bubbles starting take it off the heat and leave. Just leave it alone, for hours.

Strain the milk into a bowl full of torn bread, preferably a bit stale. The best part of half a loaf will do the trick, just remember to take off the crusts. Pop in the fridge and leave until you are almost ready to eat it.

When you're ready, decant the milky bready mixture back into a saucepan with several knobs of butter and a splosh of double cream. Heat up gently and season with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg. Delicious.
Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post

Christmas How To... Make a Rich Poultry Gravy

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Mmm, gravy. You could use granules. You could use a pot or sachet from the supermarket. You could rely on deglazing the pan with stock made from a cube. But this is christmas and the absolute best thing to have on the table is lots and lots of rich, deeply flavoured, piping hot gravy, made from scratch (and from happy birds).

Hopefully, you've got some giblets from your goose / chicken / turkey / other christmas birdie. Take the liver out and put aside, you can eat it separately pan fried on toast but it makes gravy bitter so don't include it (it looks like this).

Along with the giblets, put a few chicken wings, necks or even just old carcasses, into a large saucepan. Most butchers will sell you wings and necks for gravy, abel and cole also sells them, I also keep a load of bones in the freezer for use in stocks.

To these, add a quartered onion, a couple of bay leaves, some parsley stalks, a couple of broken carrots, a couple of broken celery sticks and about 10 peppercorns. Cover with cold water (a couple of pints / a litre) and pop on the hob. Bring to the boil then turn down and simmer for a good couple of hours. Keep tasting it, and don't take it off the heat until it has reduced down and has a good flavour (remembering that there's no salt in it yet though, so don't expect it to taste "finished").

Strain it into a jug and either skim off the fat or use a fat separator jug - I found one in the kleeneze catalogue and found it really useful. Leave it to cool and pop in the fridge, covered with clingfilm, until ready to make your gravy.

When you get your bird out of the oven and put it aside to rest, pop the roasting tray on the hob and add the stock to it (if it's been in the fridge it will be jellified, that's a good thing!). To this add a slosh of wine (red or white, your choice) and a spoonful of redcurrant jelly. Get it bubbling and burn off the booze, scraping the bottom of the tin to get all the caramelised bird juices into the mix. Result = awesome gravy.

Serve piping hot in a really twee gravy boat.

Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post

Christmas How To... Roast a Goose

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Both turkeys and geese have featured as traditional British Christmas fare, at least for those who could afford to eat them, for about 500 years. I'm not a big fan of the turkey myself, I mean, it's ok but it's not quite delicious enough for me to consider it an amazing treat. It's the goose that makes me dribble in anticipation, and so it's the goose I prefer to cook for our feast.

Unlike turkeys, which really do require brining and all the other associated work to ensure their moistness, goose is easy to prepare as it requires so little fussing. I ordered a "small" goose. Hahaha. Small means around 13 lbs / 5.5 kgs and would happily have fed six or more hungry guests, even without an extravagant number of side dishes.

For the perfect roast goose, here's what you need to do:

Leave your goose out to come up to room temperature for a couple of hours.
Pop her in a big baking tray on top of a trivet and preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
Trim off any excess fat and put to one side (for your roasties).
Use a fork to prick the skin all over.
Dribble a tiny amount of olive oil over the skin, sprinkle salt over and then massage in with your hands.
Tightly wrap the legs with tin foil.
Loosely wrap the whole bird with tin foil.
Bung her in the oven for 15 mins per lb (450g) + a further 15 mins. Drain off some or all of the fat about halfway through, and take the main peice of foil off for the last 15-30 minutes.
Take her out of the oven and leave to rest, covered in foil, for at least half an hour and preferably for a full hour (though not longer) before taking to the table as a glorious centerpeice.
Make the gravy.

A final tip: after the christmas meal get someone to remove all the meat from the carcass and store this in a shallow dish with the leftover gravy, topped up with stock if needed. Overnight the juices keep the goose really moist, giving you the best bubble and squeak the next day.

Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post

Christmas How To... Make a Swiss Roll

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Ok, so I'll admit that swiss roll doesn't immediately spring to mind when you think of Christmas, however it is an essential part of my trifle, so it has to be given a place.
It's a sort of sponge cake cooked in a very specific way, to ensure that it is light and flexible enough to roll without breaking. You will need an electric whisk for this.

Measure out 125g of caster sugar into a basin, pudding bowl or other heatproof vessel. Crack in 3 eggs and get out your whisk. Boil a saucepan of shallow water with a low trivet in and place the bowl over the top. Whisk and whisk and whisk until the mixture is pale and extremely light and fluffy looking, almost overflowing the bowl.

Remove from the heat and whisk for a bit longer, letting it cool down a bit. Measure out 125g of plain flour, seive it into the eggy mixture and gently fold it in, followed by a tablespoon of hot water.

Line a shallow baking tray with greaseproof paper, sprinkled with a little sugar, and pour the mixture in. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 200 degrees, depending on the thickness of your baking tray. Check on the poor thing: don't let it burn!

Lay a damp teatowel onto your worksurface with another sheet of greaseproof paper on top, again sprinkled with a little sugar. When the cake is done, quickly upend the cake onto the paper on the teatowel. Peel the used paper off the bottom of the cake (now the top).

Heat up some your favourite flavour jam in a saucepan, this will make it nice and easy to spread. Spoon or pour it onto the cake and use a knife to spread it all over. Since my Dad is diabetic, technically he shouldn't eat any swiss roll at all. However, that would be what happens in fantasy land, in the real world he will inhale it until the whole family shout at him, so I have used a bare scraping of jam to try to minimise the damage.

Roll the cake up towards you, using the teatowel to help grip it firmly and taking care not to break the sponge. The centre should be tightly rolled, the outer layers less so. Leave to cool, if you can, before eating slices off the two ends. The rest, at least in our house, belongs to the trifle.

Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post

Christmas How To... Make Custard

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Making custard sounds like a pain... it really isn't. The stuff you can buy in pots in the refrigerator section isn't terrible tasting, at least from some suppliers.
However, it doesn't hold a candle to the real thing and, when you make it yourself, you have a lot more control over where those eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla pods came from. It also tastes fabulous in a trifle...

Separate six egg yolks into a bowl and add 60g caster sugar and a tablespoon of corn flour (to help it thicken). Whisk up until thoroughly mixed.

Put 400ml of milk into a saucepan with 120ml double cream and the seeds from a vanilla pod and the pod casing. Gently warm until almost at a boil, but not quite.

Take off the heat and slowly pour onto the eggy mixture, while constantly whisking. It's even easier if you have a kitchen helper to hold the bowl!

When it's all combined, pour it back into the saucepan and put back onto a low heat. Keep gently whisking over the heat until the custard thickens. Perfect!

Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post

Christmas How To... Make a Trifle

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Some people love christmas cake, some people love christmas pudding, some love mince pies... we might not agree on any of the above, or what film we want to watch, but the one thing my whole family can agree on is that we all love trifle!

It does help with this one if you've already made the swiss roll and the custard!

Take a large mango (or a few peaches, nectarines... anything of that nature. I chose mango because they're still in season in Southern Spain in December and can be shipped here without airmiles). Skin and slice into small wedges. Melt a couple of tablespoons of dark sugar in a frying pan, chuck in the fruit and sprinkle a tablespoon of brandy over. Cook until the fruit is lovely and soft and the sugar has turned to caramel.

Slice the swiss roll and layer the bottom of a trifle dish with it. Sprinkle over a couple of tablespoons (or more!) of brandy, and then tip all the cooked, caramelised fruit on top. Spread the custard over the top, cover with clingfilm and put in the fridge for as long as you can - ideally a day.

Mix together two tubs of creme fraiche with the seeds of a vanilla pod and a tablespoon of dark sugar. Slather on top of the custard and pop back in the fridge.

Melt a couple of tablespoons of caster sugar in a non-stick pan and throw in a small packet of salted peanuts. Cook, stirring, until the sugar has turned light brown, then tip out onto a sheet of greaseproof paper. Let cool, then crush with a rolling pin and sprinkle on top of the trifle before serving.

Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post

Spicy Glazed Ham

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:39:00 +0000

This ham is now a christmas tradition for our family (and some of our friends), enough so that I received complaints last year when I made a 4.5kg one - it was too small! This is a straightforward gift from Nigella and honestly it is worth every moment of time and scrap of effort involved in making it.

First, get hold of a cured, smoked gammon on the bone. You may need to phone your butcher a few days in advance if, like mine, they smoke their meats on premises. If you don't have a butcher, you could see if there's a stockist like mine near you, use their online delivery service (choose "gammon - smoked and bone in") or have a look around the internet for an ethical stockist in your area.

6.5kgs is basically a massive pig leg and will feed 10 greedy people a gigantic meal. If you aren't serving it as a main meal, but as a pick and nibble treat for sandwiches, ham-egg-n-chips and general snaffling, it will last you and your guests for a good week. You can make a smaller one though, just adjust the amounts of the other ingredients.

We had a bit of a problem finding a pot big enough for ours. In fact, this is an issue we usually have every year but yet never get around to buying a big enough pot in advance. I got my husband to deploy a hacksaw to remove a peice of it (ready to make a tasty soup after xmas), so that the ham would fit into the biggest vessel we have - one of those ceramic slow-cookers.

The ham goes into the pot with a large (250ml) glass of red wine, a large quartered onion, a quartered fennel bulb, a couple of fat cloves of garlic, a couple of star anise and a tablespoon each of coriander seed, fennel seed and peppercorns. Top it up with water as far as you can and then turn the heat on and leave for at least 3.5 hours (if on the stove) or about 5 hours in a slow cooker on high - especially if the lid doesn't fit tight! Keep checking on it, top up with more water if needed and turn it over halfway through cooking.

When ready, fish the ham out and pop it in a big baking tray. Cut the outer skin off and use a knife to lightly score criss-cross diamond shapes. Stick a clove in at every X.

Heat up a saucepan containing 4 tablespoons of redcurrant jelly, a teaspoon of smoked paprika and half a teaspoon each of ground cinnamon and red wine vinegar. Give it a good old boil for a few minutes and then use a spoon or a pastry brush to coat the ham with the glaze.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and bake for 15 minutes or so, until the glaze has caramalised and the corners are going black.
Leave to cool before eating or you will burn your fingers!

Simple Moules Mariniere

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:46:00 +0000

Mussels are a pretty good bet if you're looking for sustainable seafood, although it's worth avoiding those collected using dredging methods. The MCS have given them a range of ratings from 1-3 depending on collection method, 1 and 2 is the best place to be.

This is so incredibly easy to make, but you can make it a little harder (and much tastier) by pairing it with some Kingshill Bread!

Take both the mussels and the butter out of the fridge to come up to room temperature.

Thickly slice a white onion and smash/crush a couple of garlic cloves. Heat up a deep saucepan with some olive oil and fry the onions and garlic until soft. Add a finely chopped red chilli and slosh in a glass of white wine.

Pick through your mussels (1kg serves 2 people) giving them a sharp tap, or in my case stick a teaspoon through the opening and giving them a gentle nudge, to make absolutely sure they are safe to eat. If they don't close then they aren't safe - don't eat them.

Make sure the wine mixture is bubblingly hot, keep the flame up high, put the mussels into the saucepan quickly and clamp the lid down.

While they are cooking, slice up some bread and apply outrageous amounts of butter.

Keep an eye on the mussels, it should only take about 8 minutes to cook them but what you are looking for is all the shells to be open. Any that don't open should be thrown away as carriers of instant stomach death.

Spoon out the mussels between two bowls, spooning the oniony, winey sauce over the top. Eat with your fingers and don't spare the butter.

Wild Mushroom Risotto

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:18:00 +0000

If you can get hold of fresh wild mushrooms from somewhere, like Borough Market, during autumn and early winter then definitely make the most of it. Otherwise, a lot of shops sell them dried in little tubs or packets, which can be reconstituted in water prior to cooking.

All risottos start with the same basic essentials, or at least mine do: a diced onion and a couple of diced celery stalks, sauteed in butter and oil until soft.

Add 300g of risotto rice and stir it through, letting it get hot. From experience, it is worth forking out for the pricey arborio stuff, it cooks in half the time of the other, cheaper, short grain varieties I tried using. Slosh in a glass (or teacup) full of white wine and stir through the rice mixture until it's all been absorbed.

Keep 750ml of hot vegetable stock in a saucepan on the heat and pour the first ladleful into the rice. Keep the rice on a medium heat, at least enough to keep it at a low sizzle. Stir, stir, stir and stir again. Keep stirring. Even if your arm is about to drop off, keep gently stirring the rice.

Eventually the stock will be absorbed and you'll need to add another ladle of stock and do it all over again. I mean, don't beat it up or anything, but do keep stirring and adding stock and stirring.

After adding all the stock, the rice should be near cooked. At this stage I turn the heat down very low (or even off), put a lid on the pan and get on with the exciting part.

Pick over and clean your mushrooms, in this case we had a good few handfuls each of chanterelles, trompettes, girolles and ceps. Heat up a frying pan with a little oil and butter, with some crushed garlic. Saute the large mushrooms first, adding in the smaller ones after the chunky ones have had a bit of a start.

When the mushrooms are ready mix them into the hot rice mixture with tons of grated parmesan and chopped parsley.

If you can get hold of one (and I'm soooo lucky, my husband bought me one as a present!), grate in a lovely load of black truffle - also known as winter truffle.

Finish with some butter and freshly cracked pepper and some truffle shavings.

Rosemary Roast Pheasant & Chestnuts

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:00:00 +0000

This is properly entitled "big fat roast dinner for lazy, lardy layabouts". At the very least the trimmings deserve more of a mention: rosemary and pancetta wrapped pheasant with roast chestnuts, curly kale and roast potato cubes. That was a bit too long for the title though!

It sounds a bit complicated and lengthy to make but it really isn't, it didn't even take a full hour.

First of all take some pheasant breasts (1-2 per person depending on appetite; I had one, my husband had two) and pat clean with some kitchen roll. Lay a small sprig of rosemary on top of each one and wrap it in a couple of slices of pancetta. Place in a small roasting tray with some oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Cover with foil and leave to one side while the oven preheats to 200 degrees C.

Boil up some small potatoes until mostly cooked but still firm in the middle. Drain and cut them into little cubes. Add to another small baking tray that has been lined with greaseproof paper. Drizzle some oil over and season with salt and pepper. If you like (and I do) sprinkle some finely chopped pancetta in as well. Mix until the potato cubes are coated with the oil.

When the oven is hot bung both trays in together and leave be for 15-20 minutes.

In the meantime you can decant your chestnuts * onto a third small baking tray and tear up your kale into a saucepan. If you find any little green caterpillars you could pop them into the garden with a complementary kale dinner of their own, as we did - that was a very narrow escape for a cabbage white butterfly-to-be. If your garden is full of brassicas though you might not - it depends on your take of these things!

After the 15-odd minute roast, remove the foil off the pheasant breasts and pop the chestnuts in on the shelf below. Cook for a further few minutes until the pancetta has crisped up.

Turn the oven off, but leave the potatoes and chestnuts in there. Put the pheasant breasts onto a warm plate and re-cover with foil, leave to rest while you sort out the gravy and briefly cook the kale, with a sparing amount of hot water, until tender.

To make the gravy just pop the roasting tray the pheasants were in onto a medium heat with a slosh of red wine, a dollop of redcurrant jelly and a small amount of cornflour. Scrape and stir and let it bubble away until it tastes good and has the right consistency.

* You can get pre-cooked and peeled chestnuts from, as far as I'm aware, abel & cole, waitrose and sainsburys. The brands I know are Organico and Gourmet Merchant.

ScandItalian Meatballs in Spicy Tomato Sauce

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:00:00 +0000

These are a weird scanditalian fusion that I made up when I couldn't think what I was going to cook for dinner. These would work just as well with pasta as they did in a baguette. They're easy, cheap and really tasty.

You need about 250g of beef mince (half a pack) to feed two greedy adults. First finely dice a yellow onion, a couple of celery stalks and a carrot and fry them gently with a crushed clove of garlic until they are soft. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.

Split this mixture, removing half to a bowl and leaving the other half on the heat. Add the mince to the vegetables in the bowl and season with salt, pepper and a generous sprinkle of ground allspice. Mix up by hand and form into little balls, lay these on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and pop in the oven for about 20-30 minutes until cooked all the way through.

Add a tin of chopped tomatoes to the vegetables still in the frying pan, a squeeze of tomato puree, a capful of vodka, salt, sugar, pepper and a finely chopped, deseeded chilli. Let it come to a bubble and then leave to simmer for 5 minutes. Stir in a generous amount of finely chopped parsley and basil.

When the meatballs are done mix them into the tomato sauce and pop the baguettes, sliced lengthwise, under a hot grill to toast up. Butter the baguettes, fill them with the saucy meatballs and enjoy - eat them with your hands, it's much more fun than cutlery.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:27:00 +0000

I have a lovely neighbour who looks after my car ("Big Sil") as I am rather mechanically challenged. Last week he very kindly filled her up with coolant, checked the oil and tyres and things so I thought I'd make some cookies for him and his family.

The recipe comes from Kitchen by Nigella and worked out absolutely perfectly. Instead of a bag of chocolate chips, which I think sometimes taste a bit... funny, I just got a bar of organic cook's chocolate and cut it into chips.

First, melt 150g of butter in a pan and then set on one side to cool down. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.

Measure out 125g of soft brown sugar and 100g of normal caster sugar into a large mixing bowl, then pour the warm butter over the top and stir together. Add 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence followed by a chilled egg and extra yolk. Beat them together until lovely and creamy and then slowly fold in 300g of plain flour and 1/2 a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.

When you have a beautiful, golden, sticky dough, chop up your chocolate to make chocolate chips - about two thirds of a large bar - and stir it through.

Lay out a baking tray and line it with greaseproof paper, oil it lightly to make sure your cookies won't stick. Use an ice cream scoop to place dollops of dough on top, cook them in two batches as they spread out quite a lot when they cook. The recipe said this would make 14 cookies and that's exactly what I got.

Bake for 17 minutes and leave to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack. They do need to be cool before you eat them for the texture to be just right.

Liver, Onion Gravy & Colcannon

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:00:00 +0000

I used to hate liver, really really hate it. I think a lot of people do. The taste and texture of overcooked liver, as often served in schools or by grandparents, is not dissimilar to that of soggy cardboard marinated in angostura bitters.

Properly cooked liver is brilliant though. Even high-welfare organic offal is cheap as chips and, cooked with care, is tender, juicy and delicious. It's also full of vitamin a, iron and vitamin c.

There are three different kinds of (non-poultry) liver that you can commonly get hold of: pig's, lamb's and calves'. I've had all three and they all cook up a treat, simply prepared as in this recipe.

However, a little note on buying liver... organic liver generally is fine in most cases but be cautious about where you get calves liver from. Make absolutely sure it hasn't come from veal calves whose treatment you wouldn't want to subsidise. Where possible, I'd look for liver from British raised pink or "rose" veal calves. I'll post more on this, rather touchy, subject in the future when I have time to do it justice.

Thickly slice a couple of onions, fry them up until really nice and soft and put them to one side. Make up your gravy using some stock thickened with cornflour and enhanced with a little red wine and redcurrant jelly.

Slice up the liver and fry for literally a minute or so on each side. Be really, really careful not to overcook it, you just want it tender and barely cooked through.

Basic colcannon is just mashed potato with cabbage in. I had leftovers from dinner the night before, so I just mashed them up, added a bit of seasoning and butter and heated them through.

The mash goes first on the plate, then the liver, onions and finally the gravy. Fabulous old-style food at its best.

Roast Venison Haunch & Jerusalem Artichoke Mash

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Lovely, juicy, rich venison is the perfect roast dinner in late autumn. I had my first proper venison in Stockholm several years ago and have been a convert ever since. It's terribly sad that I had to travel so far from home before being properly introduced to this meat, especially as we've got fabulous and well-managed deer right here.

I'm not sure whether it went out of fashion while I was growing up, I don't remember seeing it very often though. Fortunately, these days, finding a nice bit of deer isn't difficult.

Pre-heat the oven to 220°C, and take the meat out of the fridge to come up to room temperature for at least half an hour.

First thing to do with a bit of venison haunch is to season it with salt, pepper and rub with a little oil. Lay a sprig of rosemary or thyme on top (dried is ok, but don't overdo it) and then wrap with thinly sliced pancetta or other cured meat. Tuck a couple of bay leaves in amongst the pancetta and grind a final bit of pepper over the top.

Pop the joint in the oven and roast for 20 minutes, before turning down to 160°C, for a further 13 minutes per 500g.

When ready, place the cooked joint to one side, covered in foil to rest. Put the roasting tray over a low heat and give it a good scraping (de-glazing). Pour in a glug of red wine and a nice big spoon of redcurrant jelly. Stir until the alcohol has cooked out and the jelly dissolved, reduce until the sauce tastes as intense as you like it.
Jerusalem artichokes are delicious, nutty little roots full of fibre, iron and vitamin c. They do have a reputation for inducing wind, however mixing them with a similar amount of normal potatoes (to make mash) goes some way towards allieviating that particular after effect!

Just give them a good scrubbing, the same as you would potatoes, you can eat the skin quite safely and it has plenty of flavour. Boil the two up together and steam some greens over the top.
When tender, mash the 'chokes and potatoes up together with some butter, salt and pepper.

Home made Gyoza (Fried Dumplings)

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 14:21:00 +0000

Gyoza are those wonderful pan-fried dumplings available in specialist restaurants, bars and some of the busier food courts at shopping centers, train stations and airports. If you aren't already familiar with them I'd urge you to give them a try - they've become one of the most popular Japanese imports to the UK, alongside sushi.

I believe they were originally Chinese and are served as part of the new year celebrations, however the style I'm most familiar with is Japanese.

This was my first attempt at making them but they turned out really well. The only thing I'd change next time is to be a bit more patient, cooking them in batches rather than overfilling the frying pan.

First things first - you need some gyoza pastry rounds. It's not the mythical ingredient it sounds, you can find them in the freezer at loads of Asian grocery shops. Just like anything, you should be able to make it yourself too, I found a recipe on japan-guide.com that suggests 170ml water to 200g strong flour which I'm going to try next time.

I think the filling is pretty flexible, I made mine with a reasonably cheap cut of pork, the shoulder, cut into chunks and then minced in a food processor. You only need about 250g at the most to make loads of gyoza.

You definitely need alliums in this mixture, I didn't have enough spring onions so I also used a finely diced purple onion as well.

To this, I added a couple of handfuls of mushrooms, some broccoli (any greens will do, particularly cabbage), a tablespoon of fresh ginger and a couple of small garlic cloves. I seasoned with salt, pepper, a dash of soy sauce and another of sesame oil.

A quick whizz in the processor and you should have a nice fine-grained filling ready to go.

Next, lay out a gyoza wrapper on a chopping board and lay a heaped teaspoon of filling slightly off-center on top. Using a finger, wet the edges of the wrapper and then fold the wrapper over and around the filling. Make sure you press the edges together firmly. Repeat until you've used up all the wrappers, run out of filling, or gotten bored.

Heat up a frying pan with a small amount of oil and lay the dumplings flat. Add just enough hot water to come up about a third of the height of the dumplings. Cover and cook on a high heat until all of the water has evaporated.

At this point, drizzle with sesame oil and continue to cook until the pastry is crisping up and going brown; almost, but not quite, to the point of burning.

Serve with a dipping sauce mixed to taste using soy sauce, rice vinegar, chilli oil and caster sugar.

How to make Paneer

noreply@blogger.com (Ayls) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Mmm, who doesn't like paneer? Not many people I'm guessing! It's got to be in the top ten most ordered main courses in Anglo-Indian restaurants, just has to be. The mere thought of muttar paneer makes me salivate...

This is easy to make but, be warned, the saucepan you use will want a long soaking and an introduction to a brillo pad afterwards.

All you need to remember is the ratios: for every 2 litres (4 pints) of whole milk, you need 2 tbsps fresh lemon juice or 4 tbsps of diluted "squeezy" lemon juice. Each 2 litres will give you 250g, or enough for 2 people as a hearty main course.

So first bring the milk up to a boil. Once it starts to foam, turn down the heat and stir in your lemon juice. Keep stirring until the curds and whey have separated out.

Line a large seive with a peice of natural muslin and pour boiling water over it to sterilise the cloth. Pour the milk mixture into the seive, which should leave you with only the curds. Tie up the muslin and hang it off the tap over the sink, or a hook over a bowl, for 40 minutes or more.

Then pop it on the work surface with a heavy weight resting on it, such as a big saucepan filled with water. After a few hours it should be solid enough to cut into chunks and either cook with, or store in the fridge for 1-3 days.