Bangers & Mash

I love simple food – or as my mate Tim would say, ‘soul food’

For this dish you need to have the best sausages and a really good onion gravy!

Ingredients:

• Decent Sausages - Made by your butcher!
• Potatoes
• 2 Red Onions – sliced
• Butter
• 2 Tbsp of Redcurrant Jelly
• A pinch of dried Thyme (or a Tsp of fresh)
• 500ml of Beef Stock
• 100ml of quality red wine
• Salt and pepper to taste

Fry the onions in butter until soft.
Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for a while.
Reduce to produce a rich sauce. If you want, you can add a spoon of gravy granules for extra richness – depends on your stock you are using!
For the mash – just blend with plenty of butter and add a spoon of mustard – wholegrain and a pinch of fresh pepper.
Arrange a few sausages on top of the mash and pour the gravy over.
I prefer to use special types of sausages – you could even have a mixture on the plate – say Pork, Venison etc

Moroccan Salad

It’s close but not perfect!

I have tried to recreate the dish but it may be missing something – still very good! If anyone has any advice then please post a comment!

Ingredients:

• 1 large Onion
  
• 4 Tomatoes
  
• ½ Cucumber
  
• ½ Red Pepper
  
• 1 tsp Red wine vinegar
  
• 1 tbsp chopped coriander
  
• Mini Cos Lettuce Leaves for decoration
  
• 1 tsp Lemon Juice
  
• Ping of sea salt
  
• Pinch of cumin
  
• Optional – 1 tsp sugar
  

Finely dice the onion, de-seed and finely dice the tomato and red pepper, finely dice the cucumber. Mix in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients and serve in the centre of a plate with small cos leaves in the corners.

When I had this dish in morocco, some restaurants seemed to add a little dill (?) some a few hard boiled egg quarters and one. I am convinced had some white crabmeat in it. Either way it is a very refreshing dish and great in the summer sunshine.

Moroccan Memories

Over the last month we had a trip to Morocco. Whilst the aim was rest by the pool and sunbathe we wid take in a little local cuisine. The most notable dish that is perfect for a warm day is Moroccan Salad (I’ll post this recipe shortly) and of course the tagines. Quite a variety and all good wherever you go. As we were by the coast, fish was in plentiful supply – especially sardines – perfect! So for me my perfect Moroccan memory menu would be: Start with Moroccan salad, maybe follow with sardines and pig out with a lamb tagine – then be carried off !!

By the way, Moroccan wine is pretty good and some of the white wines are very good.

Spiced pork - in a hurry!

I know, it’s a little bit of a cheat but such a quick dish to do with bags of flavour.

Ingredients:

• ·       Tin of organic mixed beans - drained
  
•          1 small onion – chopped
  
•          1 clove garlic – crushed
  
•          ½ red pedder – deseeded and chopped
  
•          1tbsp curry paste –
  
•          1 tsp of tomato puree
  
•          ½ tsp sugar
  
•          Pinch of salt
  
•          ½ Cup of Water
  
•          Pinch of fresh pepper
  
•          Pork !
  

Peel and chop the onion and fry in a little vegetable oil. Add the garlic, red pepper and fry a little longer until all are tender. Add the curry paste (I used Balti paste but any will do!), tomato puree. Salt and pepper and cook through for a few minutes. Add the beans and water and reduce the mix until tender and almost drying out. Meanwhile take a couple of pork loin chops, sprinkle with some spices (either pre-mixed like Cajun or your own blend) And fry well in a pan of fairly hot oil. Serve the beans up in the centre of a plate and the pork on top – pan juices can be poured over if you wish – simples!!

Of course, there is nothing stopping you serving up the beans on toast – hows that for a difference. You could add a chilli if you wanted but I was after a milder taste.

 

Back for a while!

Its been a busy month and so apologies for the lack of updates.

The weather has been great (on the whole) and we seem to have either been away for long weekends, on holiday or fighting to get our 2 acres under control!

We tend to go to France quite a bit but as the Euro is so strong against the pound, this is not quite a frequent and so the garden is going to get properly attended to (see, I said it in writing!)

In addition to all of that I have been trying to get my AC3000 car on the road that has been up on ramps for a few months over the winter.

Anyway, hopefully you should start seeing a few more recipes appearing soon !

Lobster and Rice!

As Tescos were selling off frozen lobster at a fiver each, I thought I would buy a couple to have a salad with at the weekend. Once I had removed all the meat from the shells I found that the flavour was a little bland (what did I expect!) so there was a quick change of plan. I warmed the coursely chopped meat in garlic butter and served with a warm 'nut' rice.

 

Ingredients for rice (serves 2 - well!):

 

• 1/2 cup of basmatic rice
  
• 60ml shelled pistachios
  
• 60ml pine nuts
  
• 60ml of small sultanas
  
• 1 small onion chopped
  
• Butter and oilive oil
  
• Saffron
  
• 1/2tsp Salt
  

 

Boil the rice with the safron and salt until tender and then rinse, drain and leave to drain whilst preparing the rest.

Fry the onions in a small amount of butter until starting to turn golden. Then add the remaining ingredients to slightly toast the nuts etc. When toasted, add the drained rice and cook until warmed though for a few minutes or so.

 

Serve with the lobster spooned over the top!

Monkfish and Chorizo Hotpot

I did this recipe on Friday and whilst it went down well, I thought it a shame to use monkfish as it was drowned in the stong flavours.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/roastedmonkishandcho_90936.shtml

 

I was also unsure as to the paprika / salt mix, so I will try it again but tone down the paprika etc.

 

It was still a decent and unusual dish.

Liver & Bacon with mash

A slightly simplistic title to a wonderful dish. (This recipe was adapted from a Rick Stein recipe)

Ingredients (serves 2):

• 2 large slices (thinly cut) of best calves liver - each cut in half
  
• Seasoned Flour
  
• Salt & Pepper
  
• 1 Tbsp oil

• 6 drycure rashers of streaky bacon

• 1 large red onion, halved and thinly sliced
  
• 2 tsp of balsamic vinegar
  
• 1/2 tsp sugar
  
• salt and pepper
  
• 25gms butter

• 225gms of swede
  
• 225gms of potatoes
  
• 225gms of carrots
  
• handful of wild rocket
  
• 25gms of butter
  
• Salt and Pepper
  

Prepare the onions by cooking in the butter until nicely browned. Then add the balsamic vinegar and sugar and cook for a further minute. Keep warm.

Peel and dice the vegetables and cook until tender. Mash through a ricer and mix in the butter, salt and pepper.(make sure you let the vegetables drain well and steam off before mashing) Keep warm. Just before serving, stir in the rocket. Yes I know it sounds a bit weird but I can assure you it really good!

Prepare the bacon by grilling until the fat is brown - keep warm under the grill until you are ready to serve.

Now wash the liver, dry on a towel and then coat the liver lightly in the flour. This is then fried in the oil on a high heat. The outside should be slighly browned and the inside nice and pink.

Serve the liver on the mash mix, spoon the onions around the meat etc and garnish with 3 rashers of bacon on the top. Enjoy!

Liver tonight..

I was brought up to enjoy liver, kidneys etc. but as Jacqui does not like this type of meat and as tonight is Jacqui's book club meeting, its pans at the ready and pan fried liver with onions here we come! Nick is popping over and will help the proceedings along with a decent claret (or should that be Chianti!) If I get time, I'll knock up an orange creme brulee to round it all off!

 

Last night saw a return to the instant curry sauce (Meah's) which I am working my way through. Best so far is the Madras one, followed closely by the Dhansak and then the Rogan. Korma and Masalla yet to try - not my favourite curries but I will make a judgement when I have tried them.

 

Will post the liver recipe tomorrow.

Cottage pie with a difference

As I had mash left over from the weekend, I thought I would russle up a cottage pie.

Try adding a can of lentils (cooked) instead of veg and a teaspoon of ground cumin - simple and tasty!

Red Wine Sauce with Balsamic Vinegar

Ingredients (serves 2):

• 2 Tbsps Balsamic Vinegar
  
• 80ml Red Wine
  
• 100ml good beef stock
  
• 4 shallots
  
• ½ tbsp Paprika
  
• ½ tsp Thyme
  
• Butter
• Sea Salt & Fresh crushed pepper

Peel and quarter the shallots and gently fry in some butter. Add the balsamic vinegar and boil for a moment. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer until reduced and slightly thick - I also add the juices from the resting meat to give the sauce a fuller flavour. Serve liberally over a fillet steak! This sauce is quick to make and tastes good.

Steaks and being tired!

On Friday I really wanted a nice steak, red wine sauce and some mangetout. Its my sort of soul food, like chilli and cottage pie. (in fact I must post up my gran’s recipe for sausage and tomato pie!)

Well, I cooked the steak in butter and then let them rest in the oven. I prepped the sauce – wine, stock, salt pepper, red current jelly and then did the mash – desiree potatoes, plenty of butter and added ustard horseradish at the end. Well – it just about all failed – the steak was very tender but very blue. I put too much recurrant in the sauce and the wine, I think, had turned. The mash was lovely and then I spoilt it with the mustard etc. Amazingly the mangetout was perfect.

It had been a bad week and I was tired – so it showed in the meal. Jacqui was diplomatic and said she enjoyed it!

A photo of said meal! - an attempt to add some gloss to the blog. Could do better but at least it is a start! I can assure you it looks better than it tastes! 

Not wishing to have this black mark on my copy book, a re-trial was arranged for Sunday! 2 more steaks from the same fillet. We had Roseval potatoes (a new variety that look like charlotte potatoes but have a red skin), a different red wine sauce and French beans. Success!

(See the recipe for the sauce above this post.)

Comfort food!

There are times when you just want to sit in front of a fire, watch TV and chill out – a rare treat for me. So to join this trio together will be one of Jacqui’s favourites – Fillet Steak, Mash with Mustard and Horseradish and a red wine & redcurrant sauce – maybe a few Mangetout on the side!

I’m going to have a go at photographs so will post one a two to try out – mind you my photographic skills need honing, to say the least!