Italian Lamb and Pea Casserole

Italian Lamb and Pea Casserole

I have to confess; I first came across this recipe on an episode of BBC TV's "Saturday Kitchen" and I've changed it very little. It's great if you have many mouths to feed as it will easily feed 6. Last time I prepared it was at my parent's house in southern Spain for a dinner party. I went to the local market on a boiling hot day to get everything I needed. But I could not find chillis any where on any of the stalls. And to make matters worse I didn't know what the Spanish word for chilli was so I asked one stall holder who appeared to have every other type of spice known to man except chillis. "Pimienta" I said (which means pepper) and mimed that I had eaten something hot by fanning my mouth with my hand (just like a twat would!). Any way, it worked. The woman exclaimed "Ah!Chiles!" (so I felt even more like a twat!). She then walked into the house behind the stall, disappeared through a door and brought one from her own kitchen and refused to charge me.Such kindness. Actually, that is all assuming it was her house! This is great peasant food. Rustic, filling, simple but bounteous in flavour.

Ingredients:

1kg of shoulder of lamb, off the bone and cut into 1 inch chunks (your butcher will do that for you. You will usually have to buy the whole shoulder. It does not really matter if it is exactly 1kg or not)
One 50g Tin of anchovy fillets in oil
2 sweet, white onions sliced
1 large carrot thinly sliced
2 celery stalks thinly sliced
5 garlic cloves, crushed under the blade of your knife and chopped
Handful of fresh thyme sprigs
250ml of white wine
20ml of white wine vinegar
250g of tiny little petit pois or generally small peas (frozen ones perfect)
400g of Pembrokeshire new potatoes (skin on) cut into quarters
200g cherry tomatoes cut in halves
1 red chilli cut into slices

You'll need olive oil and coarsely ground sea salt and black pepper
And buy a Tiger bloomer loaf (all the super markets do them these days) and cut into thick slices to make toast to eat with it (so it mops up the lovely sauce).

The cooking:

Start by putting your lamb chunks in a bowl. Really liberally season with coarsely ground black pepper and sea salt and leave to one side for about 10-15 minutes. While that is rendering you can crack on with all the slicing ('cos there's quite a lot with this one). Once you've got all your ingredients prepared, heat about 80ml of really good, extra virgin olive oil in a large, heavy pan.

First, fry your sliced onions, carrot and celery on a medium heat (not too hot as olive oil tends to burn at high temperatures and takes on an unpleasant smell and taste). After about 4 minutes, when it all golden, add you garlic, anchovies, chilli and thyme and continue to cook, stirring until the anchovies have completely dissolved. Add your lamb and maybe a splash more olive oil and fry it until it is browned on all sides.

Pour in your wine and cook it down until the volume has roughly halved, then add your vinegar, stir the whole lot in and then turn your heat down low to a simmer. Cover the pan and leave it bubbling for 20 minutes. Stirring occasionally.

Once your 20 minutes is up, pour in your potatoes and cover again, and cook for a further half an hour. Then you add your tomatoes and your peas and cook for another half an hour with the lid on. Stirring occasionally to keep it from sticking or catching.

For your last 10 minutes or so, cut your bread into slices and toast under a grill on both sides. 

This is a really good dish for a big family or a night when you have some friends around. I like to serve it by giving everybody a bowl, a glass of full bodied red wine and cutlery each, then plonk the casserole in the middle of the table with a ladle in it, and a plate next to it with a big pile of toast. Then just sit back and let every body get stuck in. Terrific!

Chicken in white wine, mustard and cream

Chicken in white wine, mustard and cream

I have mentioned before, that my inspiration for a lot of the recipes in this blog come from me having spent my summer holidays as a boy, with my mother's family in the Charolais region of Burgundy in France (the gastronomic capital of the world!). This dish is especially typical of the fantastic food my auntie used to cook for us when we stayed with her. And it consists of a lot of the great, local ingredients Burgundy is famous for: Chicken from Bresse to the east, white wine from the Maconnaise to the south, mushrooms from the Auxerrois to the north east, mustard from Dijon in the north and cream from the famous cows of the Charolais itself.

Ingredients:

2 fresh chicken breasts with the skin on

A hand full of small, closed cup button mushrooms

50ml of white wine

25ml of cream

Dessert spoon of Dijon mustard

100ml of boiling water

1 chicken stock pot or cube

2 tea spoons of corn flour

25g of butter

Preparation:

Preheat an oven to 200 degrees centigrade. Prep your chicken breast by giving them a swill under the tap, then lay them on a chopping board skin side up. Pour a drop of sunflower oil into your hand and massage it into your chicken breasts. Then break about 1/4 of your stock pot off from the rest and also rub that into them. Then season with salt and pepper. 

Warm a deep pan on the hob, and once ready, place your chicken breasts into it, skin side down and seal on a medium heat. Occasionally give them a prod with a fork to stop them from sticking. Once the skin side is golden brown and crisp, turn them over and seal the meaty side so it is golden brown as well. Then place your chicken breasts into your pre-heated oven and bake for 20 to 22 minutes. Make sure you test that they are properly cooked before serving up by prodding a skewer or pointy knife into the fattest part of the breasts to be sure that the juices run clear. If it is pink, pop them in for a bit longer, but not so long they dry out. 5 minutes tops should do it.

10 minutes before your chicken is due to come out of the oven, get started on your sauce by mixing what's left of your chicken stock pot with the 100ml of boiling water to make your stock. Then, melt your butter in the pan you sealed the chicken in, on a low heat. Once it is melted scoop in your corn flour and stir to make a roux (the base of your sauce). Turn the heat up, still stirring, so the mixture starts to froth in the heat, then add your wine. This should make the mixture coagulate. Don't panic about it. Just keep stirring until it is smooth. Add your stock and whisk until the sauce is smooth. Turn the heat down and add your mustard and your cream and continue to whisk. The sauce is meant to to be about as thick as a standard gravy. If your mixture is a lot thicker than that then add more wine (a little bit at a time) until you have the desired smoothness. If it's too runny, keep the heat turned up for a bit longer until it thickens. If nothing happens, add more butter. This should still leave you 4 -5 minutes to quickly fry your mushrooms in a knob of butter.

When you take your chicken from the oven, plate it up either on a bed of rice or with chips (as you will want something to mop up this sensational sauce) and I would recommend some french beans and asparagus if its in season. Pour what ever liquid is left in the roasting tin that the chicken came out of, into your sauce and stir it in. place your mushroom on top of your chicken breasts and smother with sauce. It is not a decision you are ever likely to regret!

French apple tart (Tarte aux pommes)

French Apple Tart (Tarte aux pommes)

When I was growing up, my family and I would stay in a gite somewhere near  Honfleur or Coutance for a week every Spring. One thing I always looked forward to on these holidays was a trip to the boulangerie - patisserie in the nearest village where we would invariably buy a Tarte aux Pommes (the regional speciality, or "specialite de la region" as they say), along with our croissants for the morning. And we'd take it back to the gite, to have as a dessert after dinner. Having grown up with this as the pinnacle of treats, imagine my surprise when I found out that this rather impressive looking, and fantastic tasting tart is so easy to make, although it does need a bit of time, so not something you can throw together in an evening after work I'm afraid. But none the less, it is yet another classic example of how simple "peasant food" can be as good as it gets.

Ingredients:

175g plain flour (and more for dusting, rolling and a couple of spoonfuls for the frangipane)

250g butter (I know!!)

1 egg

2 egg yolks

100g caster sugar (and a bit more for sprinkling)

1 dessert spoon (or a cap full) of calvados (Normandy apple brandy) or brandy

100g ground almonds

3 tablespoons of water

5 table spoons of apricot jam

3 or 4 large cooking apples

The cooking:

Start by mixing together the flour, half your butter, one of your egg yolks and the 3 tablespoons of water and mix to a dough that you can knead with the ball of your hand. If it is really sticky to the touch then you might have added a whole egg rather than just the yolk? Duh! I know because I've done that before! But if you have not made this school boy error but still find it overly sticky, just add a bit more flour. If it is so unsticky, it is not picking up all the dry mixture in your bowl, then add a tea spoon more of water. Once you have a dough ball, wrap it in cling film, and put it in a fridge for about half an hour (or until it firms up).

While that process is under way, make your frangipane. You need to soften up the other half of your butter, by cutting it into small cubes, then popping them in a small, oven proof mixing bowl and in to the micro wave for about a minute. Once soft, pour in the cater sugar and with a wooden spoon and some muscle, stir together into a creamy consistency. Leave that to one side and beat together your remaining egg yolk and an egg in a bowl. Now gradually, bit by bit, add your beaten egg mix to the creamed sugar and butter, stirring furiously after each drop to keep the mixture creamy, otherwise it will curdle and separate. Once your eggs have gone in, add your calvados (or brandy will do if you haven't go any). Once it has all been blended together, pour in your ground almonds and add a couple of tablespoons of flour as well to give the mixture some weight, and stir the whole lot together until it is all perfectly blended.

Now might be a good time to preheat an over to 200 degrees centigrade.

When your 30 minutes on your dough ball in the fridge is up, take it out of the fridge, dust a surface with some flour and roll it out until it will fit into 30cm pie tin. Grease your pie tin with butter, then lay your pastry into it, pushing down into the corners and sides and prick all over with a fork. Then pop it back into the fridge for another 15 minutes or so.

When your base has firmed up in the fridge, take it out, and use a spoon to evenly spread your frangipane into it. Then peel, core and slice you apples, laying the slices in a spiral pattern on top of your frangipane base. Start from the outside and work inward, making sure at least one edge of each apple slice is buried into the frangipane.

Put your pie tin into your preheated oven for 20 minutes then drop the temperature down to 180 degrees. After 10 minutes, take the tart out of the oven and sprinkle liberally with sugar and then return to the oven for another 10 minutes. Meanwhile scoop your apricot jam into a ramekin (or anything small and oven proof really), add a couple of spoon fulls of water (to help liquidise it) and put it in the oven to warm up as well.

When the 10 minutes is up remove your tart and remove the ramekin with the jam in it.  Give the jam and the water a good stir to mix together so it is a runny liquid, then with a pastry brush, brush the jam solution all over your tart to give it a nice, golden glaze. Then  put it back in the oven for the final 5 - 10 minutes, or until the edges of the apples have just started to catch and the rest of the tart topping is golden all over.

Take it out of the oven and cool it on a wire rack.

When it's at room temperature, serve it cut into slices, with a posset of really thick cream (clotted cream would be ideal) on each plate, and dust with a sprinkle of icing sugar. 

Get you you debutante!

Plaice baked in cream with chives

Plaice baked in cream with chives

This is a traditional dish from the South Coast of England. It is a proper fisherman's supper. If you have ever wondered; how can I make a fantastic fish dish with the least effort? The answer is this. In fact, if there was a Venn diagram showing where tasty dishes and simple dishes over lap, this one would be smack in the middle. You get the message; it's tasty and simple to cook. And the fact that this is being posted on a Monday evening tells you all you need to know. I managed to knock this up this evening while on a conference call.

Ingredients:

2 fillets of plaice (or sole would work just as well)

75ml of single cream

Small hand full of chives, finely chopped

About the same amount of parsley leaves finely chopped

2 knobs of butter

Juice from 1/4 of a lemon

Small sprinkling of nutmeg

Salt and Pepper for seasoning

The Cooking:

Preheat an over to 200 degrees centigrade.

With one of your knobs of butter, grease the base and sides of a small oven proof, shallow dish. Lay your plaice fillets inside then pour your cream over it until it's covered. If the fillets are too large to fit in, don't worry about tucking the edges in. No need to be neat with this. Sprinkle over the top a dash of nutmeg and salt and pepper, then pop it uncovered into your oven for 15 minutes. 

Just before the time is up, melt your second knob of butter in a skillet or small frying pan on a low heat. Once the time actually is up on the fish, plate up the fillets with a slotted fish slice, and pour the liquor from the dish it was baked in, into the melted butter. Squeeze the juice from your lemon segment, toss in the parsley and the chives and give it all a good stir with a wooden spoon, until everything is blended together and smooth. Spoon your sauce over your fillets.

Serve up with chips, creamy mash or rice and some seasonal fresh veg. Don't thank me. I know!!

Steak and Doombar Ale Pie with Creamy Mash

Steak and Doombar Ale Pie with Creamy Mash

The best steak and ale pie I can remember is the one I had in a pub on the banks of the Trent somewhere in  Nottinghamshire. My friends and I had just finished our finals and my then girlfriend had driven up to my uni to see me. Spotting her car (something none of us had) someone had the bright idea that we should all go water skiing in a nearby reservoir. When it was put to her, she said that she didn't feel up to water skiing as she was not feeling well. So I did the decent thing and borrowed her car and took my mates to the reservoir, leaving her on her own in the flat to recover (can't go around letting people down can I). Anyway, we found this pub on the way back and their steak and ale pie was fantastic. You could actually taste what sort of ale it was made out of. And the meat just melted in your mouth. As ever this is my take on it (using a Cornish rather than a Nottinghamshire Ale):

Ingredients:

800g of cubed braising steak
A knuckle of oxtail on the bone

Handful of thyme

plain four

1/2 pint of good nutty ale (Sharp's Doombar is my first choice)

2 beef stock cubes diluted in 300ml of boiling water

100g peas

2 large carrots, finely sliced

1 large onion finely chopped

2 garlic cloves crushed and chopped

100g of mushrooms, diced

Salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper

Puff pastry for your lid (I do know a recipe but the stuff you buy in supermarkets is one cheat that does not compromise on taste)

and egg for the wash.
Optional addition: 200g of mature, blue stilton cheese

For the Creamy Mash:

1kg of floury potatoes (maris piper, desiree or Roosters)

25g of butter

4 tablespoons of creme fraiche

250ml full fat milk

Salt and pepper

Method

In a bowl, pour in some flour and infuse it with chopped thyme, salt and pepper. Roll your diced steak in it, to coat the meat. Then, in a pot melt a knob of butter in a tablespoon full of vegetable oil and gently fry the onions, carrots and garlic. When golden, add your beef (including the oxtail on the bone) and stir over a low heat until browned on all sides. Now gradually add all the stock and about 3/4 of the beer, just a bit at a time, and stir in as you do so. Turn the heat up so the mixture starts to bubble. Keep stirring so it does not stick. You should end up with a fairly thick gravy. You do not need it to cover all the mixture as once you start cooking, the fat from the meat will render and make more liquid. Add your peas and mushrooms. Now turn the heat down low, put a lid over the pie filling and leave it to slow cook for about 2 hours. Keep stirring it every 20 minutes or so, so it does not stick.

Now in an ideal world. Once this mixture has had 2 hours slow simmering, you leave it to cool on the hob. Once cool enough, put the whole lot in the fridge over night, then come back to the next stage of this recipe, the next day. If you dont have that luxury of time, you can of course progress straight to the next stage.

For the final stage, roll out a sheet of puff pastry. Enough to cover what ever container you are going to use to cook your pie in (traditionally a pie dish). Pour your filling into the dish, then pour in the ale you have left from your 1/2 pint (important it goes in at the end to bring out the beery taste that otherwise gets cooked away).  Season with salt and what seems like, too much black pepper. Pull the meat off the bone of the oxtail and disguard the bone. Give the whole lot a good stir.Then lay the puff pastry cover over the top, crimping around the edges with your fingers to make a crust. Cut holes or a cross in the top to let steam escape while it is baking, and brush the top with a beaten egg to create a nice, golden glaze when the pie is cooked. Then put your pie into an over pre-heated to 180 degrees centigrade for 40 minutes (or until the pie is golden).

While you pie is baking, time to get onto the mash. Peel and slice your potatoes. cook for 25 minutes or until you can easily push a fork through your potatoes. Drain, mash, stir in your butter, cream and milk. Then whisk until pureed. Serve up your pie and creamy mash with seasonal veg. And drink the rest of the Doombar while you enjoy it.

If you want to add an extra element of "Wallop" to it, while the pie filling is still warming on the stove (ie before you put pastry over it) crumble up 200g of mature, blue stilton cheese and stir it into the filling until it is smooth and dissolved.

Andalusian Salad (a Spanish take on a Nicoise)

Andalusian Salad

When ever you have people over for a barbecue, no doubt you always feel duty bound to provide a salad. But wouldn't it be nice if it actually got eaten rather than got thrown out at the end of the evening? A salad that tastes great? Really? Well try this one. I came across it last summer. My partner and I drove across Spain and ended up at my parents place in the South-East. We opted to go out to the "local" for dinner. It caters exclusively for farm hands and villagers and does not usually do food in the evening at all. When we went down there to ask if they could russel something up for us, there was a small handful of locals shouting at a football match on the tele, who at no time even notice that we had arrived. When we asked if we could eat, we were ferried into a side room (they turned the lights on as we walked in) and no sooner than we had started to chat over a bottle of wine, than this salad (below) was summoned out of thin air and put on our table (without any body needing to ask for it) while we chose what we wanted off the menu. I have to confess, it was the highlight. Yet another example of how some of the simplest things (a salad for heaven's sake!!) can  taste fantastic if they are done well.

Ingredients

Do your self a favour - buy your fresh ingredients the same day you make your salad.

A Crispy, cone shaped lettuce (gem or similar), thinly sliced and washed

1 Chicory (also known as endives) thinly sliced and washed

1 celery stalk thinly sliced and washed

1 red pepper washed and cut into small cubes

1/2 a sweet white onion (or 3 spring onions) peeled and cut into thin slices

4 salad tomatoes washed and sliced

A jar of white artichokes cut into 1/4s

100g of green olives

a tin of tuna chunks

2 eggs

A handful of peanuts

4 sun dried tomatoes

1/2 a cucumber, skin cut off and thinly sliced

For your dressing: 

3 table spoons of vegetable or sunflower oil (not olive oil as it has too strong a flavour)

2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar

1/2 a teaspoon of mustard powder

A pinch of Salt and pepper

Preparation

Start by hard boiling your eggs. Put your pot of boiling water on the hob. Once the water is bubbling, pop your eggs in using a slotted spoon. Boil for exactly 10 minutes, then lift them out and put them in a bowl of iced water to cool them down.

The rest is so simple it hurts. Wash everything thoroughly and drain surplus water off. Put you shredded lettuce, chicory, cucumber, tomatoes, celery plus the olives and the white artichokes into your salad bowl, flake your tuna up and add in, and mix the whole lot up thoroughly. Sprinkle your peanuts over the top (some grated cheese as well if you fancy it). Shell and slice your hard boiled eggs and lay the slices, along with your sun dried tomatoes over the top. Season with salt and papper. Either serve straight away, or refrigerate for up to an hour before hand. But don't leave it hanging around. The freshness is part of what makes it good.

Now make the dressing - put the oil, the vinegar, the mustard powder, the salt and the pepper into a small bowl. Grab a whisk and batter the hell out of it. Until it turns into a viscous, cloudy liquid. Genuinely that simple - it makes you wonder why you ever pay for bottles of the stuff from super market really?

Taxing isn't it? - but don't under estimate how good something so simple can be. And I bet it all gets eaten!

Cornish Fish Pie

Cornish Fish Pie

All these pies, casseroles and stews and other specialities in this blog came about as they were made of what ever ingredients were most abundant and cheap in that particular place. And frequently they were nothing more than a way of using up left overs. This fish pie is based on a modern example of just such an inception. As a youngster, I went to stay with a friend who had a holiday job on a campsite in Cornwall. Turned out; he was not allowed to have guests in his caravan so I ended up sleeping in the back of his car. Woken by sun streaming in through the windows every morning. One day, at the end of his shift, the chef who worked in the fish and chip shop on site knocked up a fish pie from bits that needed using in the kitchen. It was better than anything on the menu, by miles. Here is how I recommend you recreate a proper one.

Preparation and cooking time: 

Feeds 4-5. Takes 30 minutes to prepare and 45 minutes to cook

Ingredients

One or two salmon fillets (approx 300g) - skin off
A whole smoked haddock fillet ( again about 300g) - skin off
100g - 125g of king prawns (shelled - heads and tails removed)
100g of small garden peas
Handful of finely chopped parsley
1/2 a garlic clove
1 chopped shallot
2 eggs and 1 egg yolk
1 kg of potatoes (floury, mashable ones such as maris piper, desiree or rooster)
150g grated, full flavour, mature cheddar
50g unsalted butter (split into quarters)  )
Freshly ground sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Cayenne pepper
Paprika
Chopped chives
1/2 pint of milk for poaching
1/2 pint of milk for your sauce
1/4 pint of milk for your mash
1/4 pint of double cream
Corn flour or plain flour

Preparation

Start by preheating your over to 190o C.

Get the ball rolling by peeling and cutting your potatoes into slices and boiling them in slightly salted water for 20 minutes, or until they are soft enough for you to easily penetrate with a fork. Once boiled, drain off the water and leave in the pan with the lid on. 

You also need to hard boil your 2 eggs. Get the water in your pan bubbling hot first, then lower the eggs in one at a time with a slotted spoon and boil for exactly 10 minutes. On the 10th minute, lift them out of the boiling water and place them in a bowl of iced water to cool them down.

To recreate that desired "left overs" taste (which I appreciate sounds weird), you need to cook your fish in different ways so they come together in the pie as blended, rather than merged flavours. So, make a parcel out of aluminium foil, pop your salmon fillets into it with half of one of your butter portions and a small sprinkling of chopped chives, Bake in your oven for 18 minutes. While it is baking, put your haddock fillet into a pan (cut it in half if you need to) pour in half a pint of milk, which should be enough milk to just cover it (if it isn't, just top it up). Add your chopped shallot and the other half of your first butter portion and heat gently for approximately 8 minutes. Do not allow to boil. When done, lift the poached haddock and put into an oven proof dish. Keep 1 table spoon of the liquor it has cooked in. Discard the rest.You should still have time to lightly fry the prawns in the chopped garlic clove, a small sprig of chopped parsley and the second butter portion, before the salmon is ready. They only need a minute or two on each side until they are properly pink.

Add the salmon to the dish with the haddock (scrape off any chives that have stuck to it), break the fish up into 2 inch chunks, add the cooked prawns and the peas (which can go in raw or still frozen if you like). Take your cooled, hard, boiled eggs, cut into slices and add to the dish, sprinkle over half a teaspoon of paprika and half a tea spoon of cayenne pepper, and cover with plenty of ground black pepper and ground sea salt and give it all a good mix.

Now in a pan (re-use the one you poached the haddock in) melt your penultimate butter portion, over a low heat and add a table spoon of corn flour and mix together quite vigorously with a wooden spoon to make a yellowy paste (a "roux" if you want to be technical about it). Now. put you wooden spoon down and pick up a whisk and start to add half a pint of milk, one splash at a time, whisking furiously as you do so. At first, you will get quite a thick paste, but the more you whisk and the more milk you add the more it should thin out. By the time you add the last drop of milk it should be fairly runny. Add the liquor recovered form the pan you poached the haddock in and then, right at the end, add your egg yolk and whisk smooth. This should thicken your sauce to a "custardy" consistency. If it's any thicker than that, add some more milk and whisk away until it is smooth enough to pour. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour your sauce over your fish and peas. You want enough so every surface of everything is covered with sauce. What you don't want, is a big pool of sauce with fish and peas floating in it. So hold back any surplus sauce. You don't have to use it all. Then sprinkle the whole pie filling with finely chopped parsley.

Mash up your potatoes until they are smooth and lump free add your last portion of butter, all of your cream and stir it together with a fork. Then slowly add your quarter pint of milk while whisking your mash so it's nice and smooth. You may not need to add all the milk as you want quite a thick mash rather than a puree. Then spoon the mash onto your pie filling and spread it across the top so you end up with the whole thing covered. Run a fork over the top to rough up the surface, and pierce a few time to let any steam that builds up while its cooking to escape.

Finally, take your grated cheddar and sprinkle it all over the top of the mash so it makes a beautiful crust once its been cooked. Now pop the whole pie into your pre-heated oven for about 45 minutes (or until the cheese is golden and crusty).

Serve up as it is or with fresh, sweet green veg. Spinach particularly good.

Great dish to plonk down in the middle of a table and let everyone help themselves.