Interesting BBC News item on mispriced special offers.
Pancakes for Breakfast
Well it was pancake time again for breakfast, one advantage I guess of getting woken up early.
I make a simple batter of flour, eggs and milk, with a spoonful of caster sugar and some vanilla extract; and then cook using a hot pan. I have one just for pancakes, well I sometimes use it for omelettes or when I need an extra frying pan… shouldn’t really, but like any good cook, I need more pans.
I serve them with proper maple syrup. Personally I can’t stand the maple flavoured syrups you can buy, and will only buy the proper stuff. Yes it is expensive, but I would rather have the good stuff now and again rather than the horrible stuff all the time.
Beef & Red Wine Casserole
Cooked a really nice beef and red wine casserole today. I find the key with any casserole is time.
I took some diced braising steak from Waitrose and in small batches browned it in a pan. The key here is to brown the meat to add colour and flavour to the final dish. If you try and brown too much in one go, you will be stewing the meat rather than browning. After browning the last batch, remove the final batch of beef and add diced onion, swede and carrot to the pan. You can add other vegetables depending on taste.
Saute the vegetables for a few minutes before adding back the beef. Stir and add some red wine. Now you could use a whole bottle of red wine, I used a small ¼ bottle of red wine. If you prefer ale then this would be the time to add the ale.
I then added some beef stock, I used the new Knorr Rich Beef Stock Pot to make the stock. Bring to the simmer and then place in the oven.
After cooking for at least two hours, topping up with stock if needed, I then added some pan fried pancetta and mushrooms. I let that cook for another 30 minutes before adding some home made dumplings made with suet and self-raising flour. This with a lid on the casserole dish was cooked for another 30 minutes.
Serve.
Was really nice and full of flavour.
Boned Rolled Shoulder of Lamb
Sometimes despite all your best efforts, you fail to impress.
Though I know that shoulder is not the best cut of lamb, I hoped that a little slow cooking would make it tender.
However that didn’t work out as I hoped, though elements of the joint were tender, other bits were quite chewy or had a lot of gristle.
Another problem I had was that I bought this ready boned and rolled and as a result the “heart” of the joint was solid fat! Not particularly pleasant.
Overall I was disappointed, the last shoulder joint I had cooked was really nice, this wasn’t.
Double chocolate loaf cake
The recipe for this delicious chocolate cake is from the BBC Good Food magazine.
Ingredients
175g softened butter , plus extra for greasing
175g golden caster sugar
3 eggs
140g self-raising flour
85g ground almonds
½ tsp baking powder
100ml milk
4 tbsp cocoa powder
50g plain chocolate chips or chunks few extra chunks white, plain and milk chocolate , for decorating
Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3. Grease and line a 2lb/900g loaf tin with a long strip of baking parchment. To make the loaf cake batter, beat the butter and sugar with an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, flour, almonds, baking powder, milk and cocoa until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips, then scrape into the tin. Bake for 45-50 mins until golden, risen and a skewer poked in the centre comes out clean.
Cool in the tin, then lift out onto a wire rack over some kitchen paper. Melt the extra chocolate chunks separately in pans over barely simmering water, or in bowls in the microwave, then use a spoon to drizzle each in turn over the cake. Leave to set before slicing.
I found that I needed to cook it for longer than 45 mins. I also used less milk than 100ml.
I also used extra white chocolate as I had run out of plain chocolate.
Roasting Lamb
Lamb neck fillet can be tricky to cook, the last time I pan fried it, it was slightly underdone and slightly tough. Most of the time I prefer to roast it. I do add vegetables to the roasting tray to add flavour and keep the lamb moist.
Roasting Chicken Breasts
This is one technique I use to roast chicken breasts that adds flavour and stops them drying out.
In the roasting pan I add (in this example) chunks of onion, parsnip and squash. Though you could add other root vegetables of course.
Towards the end of cooking I then add bread chunks, mushrooms and courgette chunks.
In this dish I have used free range corn fed chicken which has a lovely chicken flavour, much more so than the “plain” chicken you can buy in supermarkets these days.
Cooking Chorizo
If you have eaten chorizo in the past, either the thinly sliced stuff you get in packs next to the ham, or the whole chorizo sausage that you are finding more and more in most supermarkets, then you probably will find that cooking chorizo really should be on your shopping list.
Now this is cooking chorizo and really does need to be cooked. I have been using it in a few recipes recently, in the main paella, but also chorizo frito al vino.
My method is to cut the chorizo into slices about quarter of an inch thick. Fry in a large frying pan until sealed on both sides and just starting to go a little crispy. At this point I add the red wine (Spanish red wine is best, but I am sure you can use any good red wine).
Cook the chorizo for a few more minutes. Serve as part of a tapas or with salad. The red wine with the chorizo makes a wonderfully spicy sauce which you can dunk warm soft bread into.
Sainsbury’s cooking chorizo comes as smaller whole sausages and these can be cooked whole, but will take a little longer.
Another recipe was to add it to lentils. In a large frying pan, saute some diced onions, pepper and pancetta. I added some stock and tomato puree and simmered for about ten minutes before adding the sliced cooking chorizo. This I cooked for a further five minutes.
The next stage was to add the lentils, I usually use tinned green lentils. I finished the dish with some basil, though parsley would have been better.
Another way I use chorizo is to add it to a tray of roasting vegetables to add texture, flavour and spice.
In many ways cooking chorizo is a versatile ingredient that is in many ways much easier to use than tradition air dried chorizo. I would air caution though, make sure it is proper cooking chorizo and not chorizo style sausages otherwise you will be disappointed.
Perfect Roast Potatoes
I do like roast potatoes and after trying many different varieties and techniques I believe I have now got a repeatable recipe and process for perfect roast potatoes.
Firstly you need to use the right kind of potatoes. It’s not as simple as buying any kind, the cheapest or whatever.
I have in the past used King Edward potatoes which have worked, but more recently I have found Maris Piper to be a better choice.
After peeling and cutting into chunks the potatoes are blanced in boiling water for about 7-10 minutes depending on the size of the chunks. Now the size if dependent on how you like your roast poatoes and how long you have to cook them. Obviously smaller chunks means a shorter cooking time, whilst larger chunks though take longer are preferred by some people.
While the potatoes are blanched, place the roasting tray into the oven, with a good splash of olive oil. Now you can use goose fat, and I have done in the past, but I am now using olive oil. You could use sunflower oil. I avoid butter generally because it burns and adds a bitter taste. The key here is to heat the pan and the oil.
After blanching the potatoes, drain and the key here is to let the heat dry the potatoes. If they go into the pan “wet” they won’t crisp up well.
The next stage is to slightly “bash” the potatoes by shaking the colander or sieve, this will aid the crisping process too. Then remove the roasting pan from the oven and add the potatoes, turning them and maybe a little more “bashing”. You could add some flavouring, fresh sprigs of rosemary works well. You should also ensure that the potatoes are not too crowded, in other words they need air to be crisp.
Cook for 30-45 minutes depending on the size of the chunks, if you have parmentier sized chunks cooking time could be as low as 20 minutes. It is a good idea to turn the potatoes half way through to ensure a more even crispness.
The end result should be tasty, crisp potatoes with a fluffy centre.
That’s my recipe for roast potatoes, what’s yours?
Paella with chicken and chorizo
I seem to be cooking paella more and more recently.
The key for me is the right kind of rice and saffron. I really do like the way the saffron adds not just colour, but also flavour.
After that you can add many different things to make a really nice paella.
The dish above contains in addition to the rice and saffron, the following, chicken, chorizo, prawns, onions, pepper, pancetta and peas. This is different to the last time I cooked paella.
There is something about paella, the richness, flavours that I really enjoy.