Buck Buck – 18/12/2016

Following our chicken supreme based Nopi extravaganza, our freezer has been a bit:

So we did a bit of a chicken based blitz.

For dinner we piled on the spices and used up all the thighs and drumstick with Levi Root’s Puerto Rican Chicken and Rice.

We have his Caribbean Food Made Easy book, and we’ve been pretty impressed with quite a lot of his recipes.  His Butterflied Leg of Lamb is a thing of beauty.

The first time we made this we clearly followed the recipe to the letter and there is a small comment next to it that we should “remove the seeds next time.”  Well clearly we’ve either become more chilli hardened, or we were using less spicy chillies, but I could have certainly coped with a bit more kick.

Not that is wasn’t delicious.  It’s definitely been a reminder that we should cook Caribbean more often.

That’s the problem with constant experimentation. Very little replication.

Bad science really.

Lunches were from the other end of the spice scale, but from an equally neglected cook book.  We used one of the chicken carcasses (plus some duck giblets from the bottom of the freezer) to make Real Old Fashioned Chicken Soup from Comfort Food by Maxine Clark.  A meal that probably didn’t require a recipe, but it was nice to have one anyway.

Essentially take the chicken carcass, plus giblets, an onion, two carrots, lots of celery, a bay leaf and a generous quantity of salt and gently simmer until an excellent stock is achieved.  Chill in order to aid fat removal.  Then bring back to the boil and cook some spaghetti in it.

Nice, gentle and very soothing.  Definite comfort food.

We picked this book up from a clearance shop back when we were students and we used to cook from it all the time.    Pretty much anyone we entertained when we lived in Nottingham would have had the Lamb Shanks and Apricots with Minted Sesame Couscous, and the Hazelnut Pain Au Chocolat Pudding (or heart attack pudding as we generally called it) served to them.

Dammit. Now I want to host again.  Who’s free in January for a Scandinavian inspired multi course belated Christmas thing?

Spiced Nuts and Cocktails, Salad with Cheese, Roast Ham and Veg, Cheesecake and Truffles.

We’ll need another six Guinea pigs for this one.

Volunteers?

Drinkable Quincable– 17/12/2016

The recent journeys to New Mexico have given me an urge for quasi Mexican cuisine and vegetables.  Although any trip to the US usually gives me veggie cravings.  It’s when you always order the coleslaw as a side because you know it’s the most vegetable you will get that day you know you are in trouble.

That and the fact you start ignoring the majority of the breakfast selection, which includes fresh waffles and pancakes, and just head to the fruit salad.

So clearly the logical response to this was to go full vegan for a day.  Not an overreaction at all.

Actually, we probably had a few non vegan slips in the alcohol.  Our favourite corner shop lager (Tyskie) is vegan, but we can make no such assurances for the red wine.

Not that we really care that much.

Lunch was a starter by Marcus Wareing; Sautéed Mushrooms on Grilled Sourdough with Red Wine Dressing.  And it’s really rather nice.

It’s in keeping with our standard “things on top of toast” tradition for a weekend lunch, but feels a bit special with its fancy mushrooms and slightly more elaborate dressing.

Feeds four.

To make the dressing, bring 25ml of red wine vinegar to boil, then add 200ml of red wine, half a garlic clove, a clove, a bay leaf and some spring of thyme, and continue to boil until your down to about 75ml of liquid.  Strain through a sieve, discard the solids, and gently whisk in 125ml of extra virgin olive oil.  Season and add a splash more vinegar.

Toast enough sourdough slices to make everyone happy.  Rub with the remaining half of a garlic clove, drizzle with oil, and sprinkle with some chopped fresh thyme leaves and some sea salt.

Heat 100ml of olive oil (Wareing says EVOO, but you’re going to heat it up so high all the grassy flavours will be destroyed, so normal seems fine) in a large frying pan until “a light haze is visible”.  We heated it until it seemed really rather hot and the pan started to spit slightly.  Seemed to work.

Fry two finely chopped garlic cloves and two finely diced shallots for about a minutes, then add 400g of chopped mixed mushrooms.  Stir fry for about 5 minutes until golden brown.

Add the juice of a lemon and about 2 tbsp. of chopped parsley.  Wareing advises to drain on kitchen paper before serving, but we couldn’t see much liquid so served directly from the pan.  It probably helped that we were cooking half quantities so had a lot less liquid to fry off.  It might be advisable if you do the full 400g.

Spoon the mushrooms on the toast, drizzle with plenty of the dressing, and serve.

For dinner we had the Speedy Sweet Potato Quesadilla which were a million miles away from the bacon loaded “Mom’s Quesadillas” I had in America.

 

Still very tasty though.

In other exciting news our Quince Liqueur is ready!

It went into a cupboard looking like this:

A large jar of grated quince and vodka

And with time, straining and the addition of sugar to taste, has turned into this:

Considerably more liquid than we originally put in

The unsweetened liquid tasted like not-quite cider, but the sugar has definitely enhanced the quince notes and it will make a fine sloe gin substitute for this winter.

Nopi Cubed – 13/12/2016

According to the introduction in Nopi there are certain recipes they consider “epic” due to their complexity.

One of which was “Twice-Cooked Baby Chicken with Chilli Sauce and Kaffir Lime Leaf Salt”.

But we decided that this was insufficient to sate our need for a cooking challenge and took on a further two recommended side dishes; Paprika Oven Chips and Green Salad with Sumac, Red Onion and Allspice.

Bring it!

Turns out we brung it, and it wasn’t that hard.  It just required forethought.

On the Friday when we were making Moussaka, we also made a batch of Asian Master Stock.  Which we’ve made before for the brisket balls, and is just chucking all the ingredients in a stock pot and simmering for 30 minutes.  The closest thing to complicated here is the need for 45g of julienned ginger.  And that’s more time consuming than complicated.

Our main issue was finding baby chickens.  We have one sad and lonely poussin in our freezer, but we couldn’t find another three.

We found two in Tescos, but that’s not quite enough.

The recipe suggested using chicken supremes, skin on, as an acceptable substitute, and we’ve played that particular game before.  Chicken supremes are not de rigeur at the moment and we’ve had many fruitless searches for them in the past.

So instead we bought two large chickens and portioned them up.  This is a pretty easy job and often works out cheaper than buying the individual bits.  We now have a freezer full of thighs, drumsticks and chicken carcasses.

On Monday we cooked the chicken for the first time by gently pouching it in the Master Stock.  The two ingredients then cool down separately, before being reunited in the fridge for some overnight marinating.

Tuesday is when it all kicks off.

First we took the chicken out the fridge and the marinade in order to bring it to room temperature.

The salad just needed some sliced red onion to be softened in a spiced vinaigrette.  So that sat nicely to one side, minding its own business, while we made the chilli sauce and kaffir lime leaf salt.

The salt was also pretty easy; blitz some salt and some dried kaffir lime leaves together, sieve and done.

Now we’ve bought the dried leaves (we keep fresh in the freezer for most things), we’re tempted to make this again as a dip for various Thai-ish bits.  A twist on salt and pepper squid perhaps.

The chili sauce was a slightly move involved single pan affair that ended up giving us a much spicier sweet chilli sauce with a good ginger kick.

Might have a long hard think about how long this’ll keep in the fridge, as would be useful for pepping up all sorts of dishes.  Especially when you’re on day three of Butternut Squash Crumble…

The paprika oven chips were probably the biggest faff since we foolishly cut all the potatoes into actual chip shapes.  In hindsight wedges would have worked just as well and would have involved distinctly less knife work.

The chips are then blanched for five minutes, before being mixed with garlic, paprika and semolina.  A certain amount of credit needs to go to a member of my work team, who’s been telling me to add semolina to my oven chips for ages.  Turns out he was quite correct.  We think the one thing we’ll be taking from this recipe is the addition of semolina to our usual spiced wedges recipe, instead of breadcrumbs.

The advantage of blanching the chips means they can be put in a much hotter oven for a shorter period of time, and still some out cooked.  Fortunately the chicken wanted the same temperature as the chips, if a little less duration.

The main struggle came at the end, when the chicken wanted grilling, but the chips wanted keeping warm.  This led to an elaborate tray shuffling game, where the chips came out while the chicken went under the grill, but the chicken came out and the chips went in to a cooling oven whilst the sauce got reduced.  Definitely a final sprint in the marathon that was this dish.

The chicken was also lovely.  If occasionally a bit lost in the noise.

Fig & Feta – 9/12/2016

So I’m back from Albuquerque and I see Mexican food in our future…

The chilli levels were a bit of a shock to the system.  At the start we assumed the heat would be at the same insipid levels as the rest of the Deep South (well, Tennessee and Alabama), but by the end we were asking for the chilli on the side.

Spicy, but delicious.

I can also recommend the flight back from Salt Lake City, landing at 1.15 pm ish.  Yes, I was tired on Friday, but I wasn’t deliriously tired.  Not the kind of tired that gets mistaken for drunk.

This meant I could actually help Dan in the kitchen rather than being an oversized toddler requiring constant monitoring.

“Is this hot?” she asks as she picks it up.

Following last week’s delightful rabbit lasagne/moussaka mash up, we decided to make our moussaka.  It’s the result of much trial and error and many underwhelming moussakas.  It’s a very simple recipe and it’s the topping that really makes it.

We make it in batches of two, just because it’s not much extra work and fills up the freezer nicely.

Also it turns out there’s no such thing as a “proper” moussaka, as there are so many different variations involving layers/no layers, potatoes and sometimes serving it cold.  We get the name from the Greeks, who got it from the Turkish, who got it from the Arabic word for “chilled”.

So here is our recipe for an Arabian Chill:

First heat up an oven to pretty damn hot.  It’s about 200°C on our oven, but our thermostat is all kinds of wonky.   Thinly slice about 1.3 kg of aubergines.  We generally raid the market for the aubergines and use a mandolin for the slicing.

Paint one side of the slices with oil and lay on a large baking tray oil side up.  They need to be in a single layer so you may need to do this is batches (we certainly do), but feel free to use as many tray as you have shelves in the oven.

Roast for ten minutes, flip over and repaint with oil, then roast for another ten minutes.  The aubergine should be nicely golden by this point.  Stick the finished ones in a bowl while you rattle through the batches.  At the end reduce the oven to about 180°C.

For the filling, heat a large pan over a high heat and cook 1 kg of lamb mince for about five minutes, with regular prodding with a spoon to break up any chunks.

Add 2 large, chopped, onions and 4 crushed garlic cloves.  Cook for a more until all the meat has browned and the onions have softened.  Drain the whole lot in a colander to get rid of the excess fat, and then return to the pan.

Add 4 tbsp. tomato puree, a tsp. ground cinnamon and a 1.5 tbsp. of dried mixed herbs and stir it all together over a moderate heat for about a minute.  Stir in two cans of chopped tomatoes, then half fill one of the empty can with water and chuck that in as well.  Season and bring to a rapid simmer for about 15 minutes, or until most of the liquid has gone.

For the topping, combine 2 large eggs with 500g of Greek yoghurt, then stir in 200g of crumbled feta.  Add lots of black pepper and you’re done.

Lay it all up in a couple of oven proof dishes, starting with meat and ending with aubergine.  We generally only do two layers each (meat/aubergine/meat /aubergine/topping).  Then spread the topping on and finish with a final sprinkle of grated parmesan.

Now you can either freeze the moussaka before cooking or you can cook it, portion it and freezer single person servings suitable for microwaving.  If you do freeze the whole thing, let it defrost and come to room temperature before cooking.

Either way, stick it in the oven for 35-40 minutes.  We put it on a tray as it has a tendency to enthusiastically bubble, and we can’t be bothered with that.  Stick foil over it if the top starts to catch.

This weeks starter/lunch comes from James Martin and is Figs Roasted with Blue Cheese & Proscuitto.  Which is kinda what it says it is…

Figs get split, cheese gets shoved inside, fig gets wrapped in fancy ham.  Drizzle with a little balsamic and shove in the oven for 10 minutes.  Garnish with mint leaves.

Dan took some into work as a posh lunch box.  He thought they would be better as a proper meal with rice.  I thought they were much too salty.

Not going to bother with that one again.

 

Thumper & Dory– 2/12/2016

After a few weeks of travel and freezer meals and then a bleak few days of utter panic, we decided to do some proper cooking and try out new things.

Inspired by some, frankly awful, rabbit in Glasgow, we ventured to Cuba via “Around the World” and made Rabbit Lasagne.

It’s an odd little recipe that contains elements of both Lasagne and Moussaka.  It is also very much a recipe that has been formed by available ingredients and a low wastage policy.  Everything, but the ears and the little cotton tail.

The recipe asks for one rabbit, weighing about 1.75kg.  Now clearly Cuba has much bigger bunnies than Bedford, because we needed two corpses to make that weight.

We also need to find a better supplier.  We ambled into a butchers (not our normal), that was advertising wild bunny, and asked for two rabbits, jointed, please.

At which point the butcher pulled two rabbits from the freezer and grabbed a hacksaw.

Errrr…

And that’s the story of how we learnt how to joint rabbits in the safety of our own home.  And why we are now looking for a better source of bunny.  This recipe is seriously tasty and we are tempted to use rabbit again.

The recipe slow cooks the browned legs and bones (ribs and spine) with mushrooms, onions, spices and wine to both break down those muscular hopping legs and make a rich stock.

This stock is used to make a roux and double cream based sauce, which then has the onions and mushrooms stirred back into it.

A third of this is put on the base of a very large lasagne dish.  We used two dishes because we genuinely didn’t have a dish close to big enough. Then a layer of fresh lasagne.

The leg meat gets picked off and stirred up with a tin of chopped tomatoes.  This forms the next layer and get topped with another layer of lasagne.

Then another third of the creamy sauce and a layer of roasted aubergine slices.  More lasagne and then some sliced piquillo peppers and the chopped raw rabbit loins, belly, liver and kidneys.

Finally the last layer of lasagne, the last of the sauce, and a good grating of parmesan to finish it off.  Then bake it for 30-40 minutes whilst finishing that bottle of wine you opened for the stock.

It is very good.  The lasagne, not the wine.  Although the wine was good as well.

Bunny fact:  Rabbit is such a lean meat that an exclusive diet of rabbit meat will lead to fat starvation (protein poisoning).  There was quite a heated discussion in Chateau Catchpole as neither of us could remember exactly why rabbit only was a bad idea.  We thought it was either too much or too little of something, but we got stuck on vitamins and had to look it up.  Also an issue with a Caribou only diet, especially over winter.

This is why it’s important to add the double cream to this recipe.  It’s for your own good.

We are also playing with starters at the moment.  Usually we use starters as weekend lunches when it’s just the two of us, as it allows us to try them without a multi course meal.

We liked the look of a Rick Stein recipe for Marinated Sea Trout with Chilli, Lime and Coriander.  It’s essentially a ceviche; raw fish cured with citrus juice, and we haven’t done that before.

We couldn’t find sea trout, so we used salmon.

We also made the recipe smaller which made cutting the fish into very thin slices harder.

We also bought skinned salmon, rather than skin on which made cutting the fish into very thin slices tidily a virtual impossibility.

This rod?  Yes, we made it.  It’s for our backs you see…

However, slicing the fish is actually the most difficult part of the recipe by a considerable margin.  Once the fish is sliced and chilled, you just make up a marinade, spoon it over the fish, leave for 5 minutes, and serve with some good bread.

The marinade consisted of 50ml sunflower oil, the juice and zest of half a lime, half a medium hot chilli, a small clump of fresh coriander and 0.5 tsp.caster sugar.

This should be sufficient to cure about 300g of fish.

It was nice, and we’re glad we did it, but it’s definitely more of a starter than a meal.  Not sure we’re in any rush to do it again.

Unlike the bunny.

The Day After Roast Dinner– 23/11/2016

Obviously on my return from Kiltland we found ourselves with a fridge full of roast beef.

I don’t care how “growing” our nephew is, 4kg of finest bovine is not a sensible meal for a three year old.

So we turned to the ever dependable River Cottage Every Day, and made Beef with Mustardy Lentils and Mint.

We would have made his alternative option of Beef with Horseradishy Lentils, but we just got a new fridge freezer and did a bit of a clear out in the transfer between old and new.

Some of those jars were pushing it even for us, and the horseradish was one.  Positively geriatric.

So back to the mustard.

Like a lot of Hugh’s recipes this is pleasingly handwavey except for the dressing.

It is pretty much:

• Cook some lentils with a bay leaf.
• Fry some onions and celery until mostly softened.
• Mix together and dress whilst still warm.
• When cool add some roast beef and some chopped mint (at this time of year our mint looks pretty crap so it’s not a huge amount of mint).

The dressing is a slightly more precise affair of 2 tsp. each of English mustard and cider vinegar, whisked together with 3 tbsp. of good rapeseed or extra virgin olive oil, and some seasoning.

Very good work lunch.  Serves four.

Nibbles for Nibblings -18/11/2016

Apologies for the radio silence, but we’ve been busy with work/passport disasters/knitting for Christmas.

Speaking of that most wonderful time of the year, we’ll start with Xmas 2016 #1.  This is when the niblings descend on our tranquil home and we exchange gifts, eat food and drink wine.

Well not the niblings.  We’re not quite that bad with miniature humans.

Last year we did the full Turkey roast thing, and, since it was so close to Thanksgiving, finished it off with a gluten free pumpkin pie.  It seemed more small person friendly than Christmas Pudding and it worked bloody brilliantly.

So, the Friday before everyone arrived we did a lot of cooking.  We made vanilla ice-cream, we made soup, we made dessert, we made cauliflower cheese, we made a gluten free loaf and we made Chicken, Pumpkin & Borlotti Beans from Leon Ingredients.

We’ve just checked the blog archives, and we cannot believe we haven’t made this dish this year!

It’s a lovely dish that takes marinated chicken thighs, borlotti beans, tinned tomatoes and leeks and turned it into a hearty stew.  This is further improved by stirring in some chunks of roasted pumpkin (or squash in our case).

We made double quantities, with the intent that it would feed us Friday night and then get reheated Sunday lunch for the six of us.

Oh, the best laid plans etcetera.

As we sat down to eat on Friday night we realised it was both delicious and slightly spicy…  This led to a frantic exchange of text messages to determine how much spice a three year old and five year old could take, before we admitted defeat, froze the remainder and quickly reorganised.

For Saturday we took the entire day’s menu from a Rick Stein Sunday Lunch Menu that appeared in an ancient copy of Delicious Magazine.  We tweaked it a fair bit in order to make everything gluten free and we served the soup as a lunch instead of a starter.

Tiny folks have tiny stomachs and we thought a three course dinner might defeat them in an upsetting “can’t fit in ice-cream” way.

Thus lunch was Pea and Ham soup.

Ham soup is always a favourite in this household, mostly due to how bloody cheap a ham hock is.  It’s about £2.99 in our local butchers and it’ll happily feed six.

To make a ham soup, first you must make a ham stock.  This is done by putting a smoked ham hock (ideally about 800g), a large quartered onion (don’t bother peeling), 2 large, halved, carrots, 3 thickly sliced celery sticks, 3 bay leaves, half a tsp. of black peppercorns and a pinch of dried chillies.  This is an ideal recipe for using all those bits in the fridge that have gone a bit soft.  Especially the celery.

Cover everything with 2 litres of cold water and bring to the boil, skimming off any scum that rises to the top.  Reduce the heat and simmer, lid off, for about an hour.

Strain the stock and chuck out everything except the ham hock.  Check the quantity of stock and, if required, reduce in a clean pan until you only have 1.5 litres.

In a large saucepan melt 75g of butter and gently cook 225g of roughly chopped onions for about 10 minutes.  They should be soft, but not browned.

Stir in 2 tbsp of plain flour/corn flour and cook for a little bit, with constant stirring.

Gradually add the stock, again with constant stirring, then bring to the boil.  Add 900g of frozen peas, return to the boil and simmer for 3 minutes.  Blend until smooth.

Returning to the ham hock, discard the skin and break the meat into bit size pieces.  If at this point you discover the ham hock hasn’t cooked properly because the butcher didn’t have anything as small as 800g, swear gently under your breath, break it up as best you can, and boil for another half an hour.

Once you, finally, have a large pile of cooked ham, stir it into the soup and season with black pepper.

Warm gently and serve with some good quality bread.

Yes, Dan will add hot sauce to anything.

For dinner we served a very large chunk of cow with roasties, Yorkshire puddings, gravy and cauliflower cheese.

We were particularly impressed with the roast beef and roasties recipe as it allowed us to do both with only one oven, even if Dan side-eyed the recipe throughout.

The potatoes get par boiled, cooled a bit, and roughed up as per usual.  Equally the fat get preheated in a hot oven, before the potatoes are coated and put into roast.  So far, so Delia.

Where it deviates is that they go in with the initial browning step of the beef.  So they get 30 minutes of hot hot heat and then come out ant sit around the kitchen for most of the remaining two hours as the beef cooks at a lower temperature.

Half an hour before the beef comes out the potatoes go back in the oven, still at the lower temperature.

When the beef comes out it all becomes much more familiar.  The potatoes get turned, the oven temperature get wacked up, and the Yorkshires and gravy get made.

That is a crazy 1.5 hours of roasting for those potatoes, but it worked remarkably well.

Our only slight fluster was that the cauliflower cheese was demanding a grill when everyone else was demanding an oven, and we don’t have separate ones of thoses.

In the end we grilled it the day before and reheated it by using any spare oven shelves and copious amounts of foil.  Fortunately it was still hot when it got to the table.

The beef is slightly more well done than we’d usually have it, but, niblings.

Dessert was a mini disaster.  Lured into a false sense of security by the success of last year’s gluten free pumpkin pie we didn’t pre-trial this treacle tart.   We had failed to remember that the pumpkin pie uses a pastry that you grate and press into the tin.  This is infinitely more forgiving than a pastry that is rolled.  This is further not helped by pissing around with the ingredients to make it gluten free.  Fortunately we made it on the Friday so all our undignified kitchen flapping was done without guests present.

The pastry cracked.  Badly.

Then we discovered that “Gluten Free Breadcrumbs” are more for breading fishfingers than making treacle tart.  Think powder.

So there was a quick trip to the shops to buy some gluten free bread to turn into breadcrumbs.

At this point we were making snide comments about the recipe not actually containing treacle.  In our defence we had done a lot of cooking by this point.

In a move that surprised no one, the filling leaked.

We would like to say we shrugged gracefully and decided to serve it anyway, with a back up of pre-bought gluten free brownies with vanilla ice cream.  I mean we got there eventually, but it involved considerably more ill will.

The tart was eventually quite tasty, but with more of a chewy flap jack texture than it was probably supposed to have.

Lunch on Sunday was the ever comforting, mostly child friendly, Tomato & Mozzarella Risotto.

And with all that done I magically flew away.

Well.  EasyJet.  To Edinburgh.

Close enough.