Steak with Peppercorn and Mushroom Sauce

A simple but delicious recipe for steak. In this case I used rump steak, but generally I now prefer ribeye.

I seasoned the steak with crushed peppercorns.

I took a heavy based frying pan and placed it on the heat. I put in a splash of olive oil and once this was hot placed the steak in the pan.

Cook the steak to your liking, I cooked mine to medium.

Once the steak is cooked, remove to a warm plate and let it rest.

Add the mushrooms to the frying pan and cook on a high heat. After cooking the mushrooms, remove and then remove the pan from the heat and then add some creme frache or cream.

I sliced (carved) my steak and then added the sauce and mushrooms.

Chicken with Lentils

This is my simple and quick way of cooking a wonderful French peasant style dish of chicken, pork, sausage and lentils.

Place some chicken thighs and drumsticks in a roasting pan, add some chunks of pork belly. You could use a jointed chicken if you wanted. Drizzle with olive oil and place in a hot oven and roast for about 25-30 minutes.

Cook some large pork sausages in the oven, as these take less time, put them in a little later.

In a large pan, soften some pancetta, diced onions and peppers. Once soft, add a knob of butter and some flour, stir well. Now add herbs, wine and stock. Cook for about ten minutes.

In a hot frying pan, cook some chopped mushrooms.

Prepare the dish.

Take the cooked liquid, add the roast chicken and pork. Slice the sauages and add them and the mushrooms to the pan. I used tinned Puy Lentils, but you could use cooked lentils or a tin of another kind. Mix well and heat through.

Serve with crusty bread.

Grilled chicken on green lentils

 Grilled chicken on green lentils

For the grilled chicken, take a chicken breast, I used a free range corn fed chicken breast which I flattened with my hand (though you could take a rolling pin to it). I seasoned the chicken with seasoning and olive oil before placing under a hot grill for 15-20 minutes.

For the lentils eat a frying pan and add some chopped pancetta. There is no need to add any extra oil as there is usually sufficient fat in the pancetta.

Pancetta

Finely chop an onion. Add the onion to the frying pan with the pancetta.

I softened in a frying pan, the finely chopped onion with the pancetta. When the onion was nicely soft I then added some red wine and beef stock before simmering it down.

I use beef stock over chicken stock just because of the colour rather than flavour. I then reduced and reduced this.

Then add some sliced mushrooms.

I then added the green lentils, I used a tin, for convenience and speed. Once the lentils had heated through I then plated up.

On go the lentils and then slice the grilled chicken and place on top.

Serve with steamed vegetables.

Pasta with steak and mushrooms

Though I eat pasta a fair bit, I do like to try different things, though more often then not it is a variation on a theme as is the case with this dish.

I cooked the steak in a hot pan, generally in the same way I cook any steak. Hot pan, no oil in the pan, but oil the steak with a good olive oil and season with black pepper (but no salt, as the pancetta used later has more than enough salt to season the dish).

I cook the steak and leave to rest.

While the steak is cooking, cook the pasta of your choice, I used a specialty air dried pasta from the Taste the Difference range from Sainsburys.

After removing the steak from the pan, add some diced onion and pancetta. When the onion has softened and the pancetta cooked, add some button mushrooms. When the mushrooms have cooked add some freshly chopped parsley, a few spoonfuls of creme frache and the steak which should be sliced.

Place the pasta on the plate and spoon the steak and sauce onto the top of the pasta.

Serve.

Ambassadors at Bloomsbury Part One

I was recently up in London and stayed at the Ambassadors Hotel in Bloomsbury. Staying with friends we had the Christmas dinner at the Number Twelve attached restaurant. I started off with the Chestnut Pasta and had the Ribeye steak for my mains.

The home made chestnut pasta was served with seasonal wild mushrooms and a white butter sauce. I did enjoy this dish, the pasta was cooked well and nice selection of mushrooms.

For my mains I had ribeye of 28 day Donald Russell beef, served with celeriac, braised red onion, wild mushrooms and roast potatoes.

ribeye of 28 day Donald Russell beef

The steak was not the best I’ve had, slightly tough and was certainly not full of flavour compared to others I have eaten. The celeriac was nice as was the onions and mushrooms.

Overall I did enjoy both the started and the main course.

Breakfast at Bloomsbury

I was recently up in London and stayed at the Ambassadors Hotel in Bloomsbury. I generally dislike having breakfast in hotels, as more often than not they are overpriced and though have extensive choice are not really value for money. For example a month or two back I stayed at the Thistle Barbican Hotel and breakfast (though included in my room rate) would have cost you £15.95. For that you would have to queue up unless you got up really early. Having sat down in the Thistle, if you were lucky, the waiting staff would bring you some coffee and toast. Then it was self-service for the cooked breakfast, which was not very inspiring.

So I was well pleased with breakfast at the Ambassadors Hotel in Bloomsbury. It was about the same price as the Thistle, but unlike that place, at the Ambassadors they served you your cooked breakfast at the table, and what an excellent cooked breakfast it was.

breakfast

Beautifully served, it consisted of an excellent meaty sausage, some very nice grilled bacon, a small bowl of baked beans, grilled (and skinned) tomato, mushroom, bubble and squeak, black pudding and egg. You had a choice of eggs (chicken or duck) and cooked to your liking, I had a poached duck’s egg. It was also garnished with lettuce, not sure about the lettuce.

There was quite a choice of other cooked items as well, such as boiled eggs and kippers.

Along with the cooked breakfast, there was also a (self-service) selection of toast, bread products such as croissant and panettone, fruit, yoghurt, juice, cold meats, cheese and smoked fish.

Overall I was well impressed and would recommend the breakfast, though still not sure about the lettuce.

What a load of crepe!

One of the issues I have with a lot of department store restaurants (and visitor attraction restaurants) is that they cook the food in advance and then keep it warm for hours on end… Now that is possible with some dishes, but with others it just means dried out food.

One of the dishes that you can get at my local John Lewis is freshly cooked to order crepes. They make them as and when needed, rather than make them at 9am in the morning and keep them warm till 6pm in the evening!

We had crepes the last time we were there, one with chilli beef and one with mushroom stroganoff; both were served with salad.

The beef chilli was well cooked and nice and spicy. A little too hot for my tastes, but not excessively so.

Crepes

The mushroom stroganoff was really nice and went well with the crepes.

Crepe

The salad though was disappointing, I have had much better salads before at John Lewis, this was in the main lettuce with a tiny bit of red onion and pepper.

Overall for a department store restaurant they were really nice and probably one of the better items available. The fact you can buy wine and beer to go with the crepes makes the place even more attractive as a place to go out and get a quick bite to eat whilst shopping.

Beef Wellington

This is my version of the classic Beef Wellington.

Beef Wellington

I used sirloin steak, which I cooked in a pan until it was cooked medium rare. You can of course cook the steak how you prefer it. Ensure it is cooked to a point before you would call it perfect, as it will cook more in the oven.

I then cut the steak into portions, about two inches square.

The steak was then spread with a mixture of chopped mushrooms and mustard. I used French whole grain mustard.

Using some puff pastry (and I will admit I do buy ready made puff pastry as I have no idea on how to make it).

I cut out some circles, about four inches in diameter. Placed one circle on the baking tray, added the steak. Using beaten egg and a pastry brush I brushed egg around the edges of the circle and placed a second circle of puff pastry on top. This top puff pastry circle was then brushed with beaten egg.

The parcels were then baked in an oven for about ten to fifteen minutes until golden brown.

I served mine with a mix of salads.

Chicken and Irish Sausages

Well I mentioned I had purchased Paul Rankin’s Irish Pork Sausages again.

This time I roasted them in the oven with chicken, red pepper, mushrooms and pancetta.

Chicken and Irish Sausages

I served it with a lemon risotto.