Roast Shoulder of Lamb with Boulanger Potatoes

Roast Shoulder of Lamb with Boulanger Potatoes

This one is off the scale when it comes to simplicity and deliciousness. Hold out to the end of the recipe to find out why they are called "Boulanger Potatoes".

Ingredients:

1.6 kilo shoulder of Welsh Lamb (on the bone)

Handful of Thyme, strip off the leaves, chop finely

5 sprigs of rosemary, chop finely

4 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped finely

500g of small new potatoes, skin on, quartered

Hand full of black, pitted olives

Extra virgin olive oil

1 heaped table spoon of cornflour

1 pint of strong lamb or beef stock

Cooking time: Minimum of 4 hours (best if left to cook all day) 

Serves: 6

The Cooking:

Wash your shoulder of lamb and score the fat in long, straight lines. Sprinkle, liberally with olive oil and rub it into the meat, all over. Sprinkle with the thyme, 4 out of your 5 sprigs of rosemary and garlic and season with coarse ground salt and black pepper. Cover with foil (creating as air tight a seal as possible) then put into an over, preheated to 130 degrees for a minimum of 4 hours (more if you can afford the time). Make sure you check on it every 30 minutes or so, and baste it in its own juices so it does not dry out. You want the edges to get a bit crusty though. That is one of this dishes best features.

40 minutes before you are due to serve up, par-boil your quartered new potatoes in boiling water for 10 minutes. Take your lamb out of the oven. Transfer it into a new roasting tin. Pour a table spoon of juices from the old tin over the lamb. Take another 2 table spoons of juices out of the old roasting tin, and set aside in a jug to make the gravy, and then take your par-boiled potatoes, drain them, and put them into the remaining juices and fat in the old roasting tin, with the black olives. Sprinkle with the last sprig of rosemary, finely chopped. Place both roasting tins (the one containing the lamb and the one containing potatoes and olives) uncovered, back into your oven. Turn the heat up to 210 degrees.

After 15 minutes, take out the lamb and put it to rest on your chopping board. Give the potatoes in their roasting tin a good stir so they cook evenly on both sides and don't stick. Leave them to bake for a further 15 minutes.

To make your gravy, pour your slightly cooled juices and fat that you have set aside in a jug into a saucepan and add a heaped table spoon of cornflour. Stir together with a wooden spoon over a gentle heat to create a roux (a paste). Stir for about 3 minutes, until it is both smooth and starting to darken in colour, Then little by little, start to add your stock. Replace your wooden spoon with a whisk. Stir continuously. Keep going until you have added the whole pint, then turn the heat up high, still stirring, until the gravy starts to thicken and bubble. Reduce the heat right down to minimum and let it simmer until you are ready to serve. Stir occasionally to stop a skin forming on the top.

The lamb won't need carving, you will be able to pull the meat away from the bone with a fork. Serve up with your boulanger potatoes and gravy. Best accompanied with baby carrots and petite pois peas. Gorgeous!!

And now the history lesson; why "boulanger potatoes"? At a time in France when domestic ovens were not common place, the only way you could roast meat or vegetables, was to take the food down to the local baker who would have the only oven in the village. So if you sent your potatoes down in a baking tin, covered in fat to be roasted, they became know as boulanger potatoes, as boulanger is french for baker. Feel free to bore the pants off your dinner guests with this bit of trivia every time you make them. I know I will. Cheers!

Steak Bearnaise

Fillet steak with a Bearnaise sauce

This is such a luxurious, indulgent dish. Like all the recipes in this blog; sensational results from embarrassingly little effort. And all the emphasis is on flavour not poncy presentation.This dish was always a favourite of my father's. He used to be a roofer. So Dad, if you're up there.... (I love that Stuart Francis joke).

Ingredients

4 matured, pedigree herd fillet steaks (better still get your butcher to give you a whole fillet and you cut your own steaks to the thickness you want. I love them about 1 1/2 inches thick)

2 egg yolks

2 tablespoons of double cream

1/4 teaspoon of salt

A pinch of cayenne pepper

1 table spoon of white wine vinegar

150g softened butter cut up into tiny cubes

1 teaspoon of chopped fresh tarragon leaves

1/4 teaspoon of finely chopped parsley

1/4 teaspoon of finely chopped chives

The cooking

Start by making a bain marie; find a heat proof bowl that is wide enough to sit on top of a saucepan of water, and deep enough so that when it is there, the base is just below the surface of the water. Keep the bowl cool and clear of the saucepan when you start your sauce, and heat the water in the saucepan so it is gently bubbling. In the cold bowl, mix your egg yolks, cream, salt, cayenne pepper and vinegar and whisk together so all the ingredients are mixed together. Then, place the bowl onto your saucepan of bubbling water and continue to whisk until it starts to thicken. Then, cube by cube, add your butter and continue to whisk as each cube melts. Continue this process until all the butter has been melted and blended and your sauce has become fairly thick. Add you tarragon, parsley and chives and stir in. Turn the heat off under your saucepan and leave your sauce in the bain marie to rest.

Now fry or grill your steak. Turn the heat up as high as it will go. While you are waiting for the pan or the grill to heat up, pour a dribble of vegetable oil onto your hands and massage it into both sides of all your steaks. Then season with a pinch of salt and plenty of freshly ground black or green pepper. Wait until the heat in your pan or your grill is absolutely searing before starting to cook your steaks. Then cook for 1 1/2 minutes on each sides for the perfect, pink in the middle rare steak.If you are frying, prod them occasionally to stop them from sticking. Alternatively, if you wish to ruin them, 2 minutes each side for medium steaks or up to 3 minutes on each side if you want it well done and shite.

Serve with sweet veg such as baby carrots or mange tout peas and crispy, sauteed potatoes or chips.Or if you are feeling really luxuriant, gratin dauphinois.

The Silverstone Midnight Burger

The Silverstone Midnight Burger

Here is a must for any BBQ. The story of it's inception gives away how simple it is to prepare and it tastes fantastic. My son and I went to Silverstone for the weekend to watch rich people drive cars really fast, round and round in circles (I can highly recommend it). One evening, it occurred to us round about the time that decent people were going to bed that we had not eaten since lunch time and we were hungry. So this is what I rustled up in the pitch black of night for us to snack on (admittedly; somewhat worse for wear!). If you make one of these in the day light, and you see the size of it, you will realise what a handicap eating it in the dark is. It is a pretty cumbersome thing, especially if you cannot see where it starts and finishes. But very gratifying!

Ingredients:

2 decent 1/4 pound steak mince burgers (from your butcher not a supermarket)

4 rashers of thick cut, smoked, back bacon (also from your butcher)

2 squared slices of Emmental cheese (the pre-sliced stuff is perfect)

2 slices of iceberg lettuce

2 thick slices of a beef tomato

2 sesame seeded bread rolls (halved) or 4 thick slices of a soft, rustic style bread (eg bloomer)

Preparation:

Get your barbecue lit and up to temperature and past the point where it is still flaming, and instead your embers are just glowing red (usually takes around 45 minutes). Pop your 2 burgers down and cook for around 13 minutes (or until cooked through), turning over every 2-3 minutes or so, to make sure they are not burning or sticking. For the last 8 minutes, place your bacon rashers beside them, also turning every 2 minutes. Make sure the edges are nice and crispy before concluding they are ready. Finally for the last 2 minutes, toast your bread rolls, flat side down, on the  barbecue and lay a slice of cheese on top of each of your burgers so it starts to melt over the top.

When the time is up, put the whole lot together; lay your 2 bottom halves of each bread roll on a plate or flat, clean surface. Add your lettuce slice as a base to each one, add your cheese smothered burgers as the next layer, then a bacon rasher on each, then your tomato slice, then your personal choice of relish (ketchup, tomato relish, corn relish, mayo or a combination of some or all - its up to you) then crown with the other halves of your bread rolls and serve up. You may want to slice in half with a knife if this meant to be finger food, so your dinners can actually get a mouth around it.

Serve with a nice fresh salad!

Poached Salmon Hollandaise with wilted spinach

Poached Salmon Hollandaise with wilted spinach

I admit, I am pushing it a bit with calling this one "simple". This recipe is incredibly simple in that it only takes a few minutes to prepare and does not use many ingredients. However, as simple as an Hollandaise sauce might be to make in principal, in reality it can be a bit of a bastard as it will curdle if you get it wrong. And once it does, there's no getting it back, so you'll have to start again. This recipe however, makes for a delicious, light supper or lunch and is something I have often chosen in some rather nice Parisian bistros.It's delicious and well worth persevering. Even if you might need more than one attempt with the sauce :)

Ingredients:

2 salmon fillets

2 egg yolks

125g unsalted butter

1/2 tea spoon of white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon of cold/refrigerated water

A squirt of lemon juice

Sprinkle of cayenne pepper
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 Bowl full of spinach leaves

The cooking:

Start with the sauce if I were you, so if you mess it up you have time to start again. Cut 125g of  unsalted butter up into little cubes and melt on a low heat in a pan. When it's all melted turn the heat off. Don't let it start to cook and bubble. Then half fill a saucepan (or "sospan" to use the Welsh!) with boiling water, and on a low flame, keep it at a gentle simmer. Then make a "bain Marie" by placing a heat proof bowl into it. The bowl needs to be wide enough to rest on the sides of the saucepan, whilst the bottom of it deep enough to touch the surface of the water in it.

Pop your egg yolks, vinegar, icy water and some seasoning into the bain marie and whisk until combined and thick. Then, one tablespoon at a time start adding the melted butter, whisking all the while. Continuously taking care that your water in the saucepan is not bubbling too much. Keep it going at the gentle simmer. Repeat until you have added all the golden, liquid butter. Leave behind any white bits.Keep whisking while you then squeeze approximately a teaspoon full of juice from a fresh lemon. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper and stir in with your whisk. At this point, all the ingredients should be fully combined, and you should be left with a thick creamy sauce. If that is the case then for heavens sake leave it alone as you can over do the whisking and it goes over and starts to separate again. If you have done it right, then leave it and give your self a pat on the back.

The rest is really easy. Put your 2 salmon fillets, skin side down, into a fish kettle or deep pan with a lid. Pour cold water into the pan, enough to just about cover both fillets.Top up the difference with a glass of dry white wine and a dash of salt. Put the lid on, turn on to a medium heat and bring to a simmer. Poach your salmon in the bubbling water for about 10 minutes.

The spinach is also a doddle. Just add a table spoon of water to the bowl, cover it with cellophane, stab with a fork to make holes and cook on full power in a microwave for 3 minutes.

Dish up with some sweet Mange Tous (pronounced "Mange twat" - not really), may be on a bed of rice like I have in the picture or just as nice with some crispy chips. Smother with sauce. If you like your sauce thinner, add a bit more cold water and whisk in. Not too much whisking though!! It's a bastard!

Swordfish with basil, mint and lemon

Swordfish with basil, mint and lemon

This is a very simple and flavour full Italian recipe. You find it a lot on the southern coast. Tastes fantastic. Great for a summer evening meal. Because sword fish is such a meaty fish it can take strong flavours well. This recipe also would work with tuna steaks instead of swordfish. I also like this with a nice potato salad so I've added the recipe for that too.

Ingredients:

2 swordfish steaks
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
2-3 mint leaves, finely chopped
A hand full of basil leaves, finely chopped
Juice from 1/4 of a lemon
The best available quality olive oil
Freshly ground sea salt and black pepper

For the accompanying potato salad, 

6-8 boiled baby new potatoes (they will need time to cool before serving)
15g of butter
2 Table spoons of sour cream
1 finely chopped spring onion
A small hand full of chopped chives

The Cooking:

As it is more time consuming, make your potato salad first. Start by boiling your new potatoes, drain them, and while they are cooling, add 15g of butter, and gently stir it in. Once cooled, cut your potatoes into quarters and put in a bowl, pour any melted butter left in your pan over them as well. Add your chives and spring onion and spoon in the sour cream. Give the whole thing a good stir so all the potatoes are coated. Season with sea salt and pepper. Put to one side. This can be prepared well in advance if you like and refrigerated if need be.

For your fish, simply pop your finely chopped garlic, mint and basil into a bowl, pour enough olive oil into the bowl to cover it all, squirt with lemon juice and give it a good stir. Put to one side for 15 minutes or so to infuse. Spoon 1/2 your mixture onto one side of your swordfish steak, massage in the oil and sprinkle with freshly ground sea salt and black pepper, then cook on a griddle or in a frying pan for approximately 3 minutes (until sealed and golden). While it's cooking, spoon the rest of your oil and leaves and seasoning onto the upper side of your steak. After 3 minutes, turn over and cook the other side for 3 minutes. Serve up with your potato salad and a green salad.

The perfect roast beef and Yorkshire puddings

How do you cook the perfect roast beef and Yorkshire puddings? 

This recipe is really simple. It will help you create a beef joint that is crispy and caramelized on the outside and pink in the middle, fluffy roast potatoes and puffy Yorkshire puddings. But as always, the key is not to skimp on good ingredients. And also, don't feel compelled to over complicating it with garlic and herbs. Keep it simple for the best flavour. And as this dish is more a British institution than just a meal, then it deserves to be done properly. Once you've tried it cooked this way, you will never want to go out to a pub or restaurant for Sunday lunch again.

Ingredients (dinner for 6 adults or 4 adults and 4 children):

1.5kg beef joint. Go to a good, independent butcher rather than a super market and buy a matured, hung sirloin joint (or a cheaper alternative might be a rib-eye joint). And get your butcher to trim, score, roll and tie it for you. My own preference is for Welsh Black beef, but there are plenty of other types of good, pedigree beef around. 

1 onion, roughly sliced

25g of unsalted butter

200g plain flour

3 eggs

300ml full fat milk

20g of beef dripping (your butcher should have some, if not use cooking oil)

Salt and pepper

6 King Edward Potatoes, peeled and halved or quartered

A tub of goose fat (again, your butcher will have it, but if not, you'll have to use olive oil)

1 tea spoon of Mustard powder

A small palm full of rosemary leaves, finely chopped

A table spoon of cornflour

1 litre of strong beef stock (if you are using cubes or stock pots, dissolve 4 in a litre of boiling water)
(A sprig of thyme - optional)

The cooking:

Your first job is to make the batter for your Yorkshire puddings. If you are reading this recipe in time, and you are still aiming for the "perfect" outcome, then ideally this should be done the day before you are eating them and kept in the fridge over night. Don't panic if you haven't planned that far ahead. As long as you give it about an hour it should be fine (albeit, not perfect).

In a mixing bowl, season your plain flour with plenty of salt and pepper (stir it in), then add your eggs 1 at a time making sure each one is absorbed into the flour before adding the next. Then gradually pour in your milk. A few splashes at a time, stirring it in thoroughly as you go. Once all the milk has gone in, whisk the batter smooth to make sure that there are absolutely no lumps. Then cover your bowl with some cling film and leave it in your fridge over night.

Next job, beef preparation; allow your beef to "chambreuse" or acclimatize to room temperature before you roast it, rather than put it in the oven straight from the fridge. Half an hour should be enough. While it is standing, sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper and dot the top with slices of unsalted butter. That's it. That's all you need.

Lay your onion slices in a heap in the middle of a roasting tin and place your beef on top. Preheat your oven to 220 degrees. Once at temperature, put the beef in (uncovered). After 20 minutes, reduce the temperature down to 200 degrees and roast for a further hour. It is really important that every 10 minutes or so you baste the beef with its own juices. The added acidity from the onion will also help ensure that the juices you are basting the meat with will make it really tender when cooked. Once the beef is done, you will need to let it rest for 30 minutes before carving it. It will secrete a lot of liquid while resting which I suggest you may want to add to your gravy, so I would normally place the beef on a wire tray over a bowl so as it rests, all the liquid is being captured.

While the beef is still cooking, put your peeled potatoes in a covered pan filled with cold, salted water. Bring the water to the boil with the potatoes in it, and once bubbling, boil your potatoes for 10 minutes (or longer if they are especially big). While they are boiling, spoon the goose fat from your jar into an oven proof dish or roasting tin and put it into the oven with the beef for 2 to 3 minutes to melt thoroughly. Once your potatoes are done, drain all the water from the pan, then holding the lid firmly in place, give the pan a really good shake so the potatoes inside crash into the sides of the pan and each other. This is what will make them fluffy once roasted. Using a slotted spoon, lift each potato out of the pan and into the hot goose fat, rolling them thoroughly so they each get a full coating of the hot fat. Then sprinkle them with mustard powder, salt, pepper and coarsely chopped rosemary leaves. Turn them all over, and sprinkle the other side as well. Put into the same oven as the beef and roast for 45 minutes, (or until golden and crispy all over). Turn them every 12 minutes or so to stop them from sticking.

Now your Yorkshire puddings need to be cooked at 220 degrees (a lot hotter than the beef and potatoes) so if you have 2 ovens, happy days. If not, you will need to plan for this. The good news is, they cook in 30 minutes - the same amount of time you need to leave your beef to rest before carving, so as long as you time your spuds to be ready at the same time it need not be a drama (but you will obviously need to either keep them warm or reheat them for serving). I usually bake my Yorkshires in a baking tin intended for making small tarts and pastries. Before baking your puds, distribute equal sized lumps of beef dripping into each cup in your baking tin and put it in the hot oven until all the dripping has melted down to a hot liquid. Using a ladle, spoon your batter into each cup so it is full and return the tin to the oven. Make sure you have allowed plenty of room for the puddings to rise (because they rise a lot!!) and do not open the oven door until the half hour is up and they are cooked. If you like them crispy, leave them in for an extra 5 minutes or so.

Finally; your gravy. Drain away all bar two table spoons of meat fat from your roasting tin and warm it on a medium heat on your hob. Add a table spoon of cornflour and using a wooden spoon, stir the flour into the fat and make a paste. Stir it for a couple of minutes until it starts to darken in colour. Then start to add your stock a few splashes at a time. Be prepared for the fact that it will congeal. Just keeping stirring through it, so it stays smooth, and keep adding more and more stock to thin it out. Once all the stock has been added turn the heat up high, add the juices collected from the resting beef joint, and the onion slices that were roasting under the meat and stir it all together. If you want to make a more "herby gravy", an optional extra would be a couple of sprigs of thyme. It's not necessary but some people prefer it that way. Once you have reached the desired thickness for your gravy, strain it to remove the onion (the thyme if you added any) and any lumps, return it to your roasting tin and let it simmer for 5 to 10 minutes or until you are ready to serve it. It should continue to darken through the simmering. Whisk it through to make sure it is thoroughly smooth and de-glazed before serving.

Dish up with carrots, peas and may be some cauliflower with cheese sauce as well if you're feeling flash. It will knock your socks off it's so good and just what you need for a family get together. Enjoy with red wine.

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!