Last Chance Saloon Leek and Parsnip Soup

I can’t remember what we bought leeks and parsnips for, but they were languishing in the fridge and looking sorry for themselves, so I turned them into soup. These things happen.

Ingredients:
2 good glugs olive oil
3 leeks (white and light green parts) cut into 1 inch pieces
Generous pinch of coarse sea salt
4 parsnips, peeled, quartered and cut into 1 inch pieces
1/4 cup sherry
1 litre chicken broth
3 sprigs fresh thyme
2 dried bay leaves
1 tsp Ground white pepper

Method:
Add the oil to a large soup pot. Add leeks and salt and cook over medium heat until leeks soften and begin to get a bit golden (8-10 mins).
Add parsnips and cook for another 2 mins
Add sherry, turn up heat, and cook until liquid is mostly gone
Add chicken broth, thyme, bay and pepper
Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and cook, partially covered about 25 mins until parsnips are soft
Remove bay leaves and thyme springs
With an immersion blender, blend until smooth
If you’re feeling fancy, serve with fresh thyme garnish.

Optional kitchen porn:
Immersion blender

French Bread

I’ve made this bread many times and if you have a mixer with a dough hook, it is possibly one of the simplest bread recipes you will ever find. The measurements are for two small French baguettes but I usually make smaller rolls which can then be frozen and used as required.

Recipe:
1 cup warm water
1 tblsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp yeast (or one sachet)
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups bread flour
1 egg yolk

Method:
Add the sugar and yeast to the warm water in the mixer bowl until the yeast activates and it starts to bubble (see photo below). Add the salt and the flour. Use dough hook or stir quickly until the mixture comes together. If using a mixer, turn down to the lowest speed and let dough hook do its work for 10 minutes. If your doing this by hand, knead well for 10 minutes and have someone on hand to keep wiping your brow (do not allow sweat to enter the mixture).
Once kneaded, place in a greased bowl, cover and leave in a warm area for about 30 minutes until the dough has doubled in size.
Preheat oven to 190C, 375F, gas 5.
Punch down the dough and then roll out on a floured surface until about 1/2 cm thick. Cut into portions. The size of the portions depend on what size rolls or baguettes you want. Roll the dough tightly, pounding out any air bubbles as you go. Lay your rolls on a greased baking tray and use a knife to score the top. Cover with a tea towel and leave for another 1/2 hour to rise again.
Mix the egg yolk with some cold water, brush the top of the rolls and cook for about 20-25 minutes.
I bake these for 15 minutes and then let them cool. They are then great for freezing. They can then be cooked for 10-15 minutes from frozen at the same temperature as above and will be perfect.

Optional kitchen porn:
Kitchenaid mixer with dough hook

The Spicery (Part I) with Jemma

I’ve been wondering for a while how to blog about this meal. My Secret Santa got me a 3 month subscription to The Spicery. They send me spice packets every month with recipes for main course and dessert.

We were joined by our good friend, Jemma, to help with this meal. As Liz had just broken her finger earlier in the day, Jemma was thrust to the fore to assist and I’m thinking we should now have a guest chef for the next two meals as well (see bottom of post).

This meal consisted of lemon saffron tagine with herb cous cous and Harissa. Dessert was an orange flower halva cake.

The tagine was simple with all the ingredients put into a pan, brought to a boil and just left to cook for an hour. Couscous just had the spice mix added and cooked as normal.

Recipe:
6 chicken thighs
2 small onions (thinly sliced)
3 cloves garlic (thinly sliced)
3 large carrots (cut into chunks)
3-4 waxy potatoes (cut into large chunks)
2 tsp honey
2 tblsp plain flour

Method:
The flour is made into a paste with water and added to the other ingredients with the spice packet which contained ground coriander, ground cumin, crushed cumin, black pepper, ground ginger, parsley, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, turmeric, ground cardamon and saffron. Once cooked, it was served over the couscous which included the couscous spices (mint, parsley, coriander leaf, garlic powder, onion powder and salt).

The cake was a bit more involved.

Recipe:
2 large oranges (zested and juiced)
3 medium eggs
160g salted butter
150g sugar
100g ground almonds
160g polenta
200g runny honey

Method:
Preheat oven to 180C, 350F, gas 4. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well in between. Combine the ground almonds, polenta, a pinch of salt and the cake spices (ground coriander, ground cinnamon, ground star anise, ground green cardamon and all spice) and gently stir them into the butter mixture. Fold in all the orange zest and juice from 1 1/2 of the oranges. Bake for 30 mins until a knife comes out clean.
To make the syrup, bash up the syrup spices (orange blossom, crushed coriander seeds, green cardamon pods, allspice berries) and heat with honey, remaining orange juice and 100ml of water. Bring to the boil, turn off the heat and then let it stand to infuse while the cake is cooking.
When the cake is cooked but still hot, strain the syrup over the cake, making sure the whole surface is covered. Allow to cool and then cut into small (or large) pieces.

We are now taking expressions of interest to be the next guest chef. If it helps, the spice pack arrived this morning and you would be cooking Cincinnati 5-way chilli and cinnamon and apple whoopie pies. Comment on the blog or Facebook. We will provide all ingredients and ensure you have a bottomless glass of drink.

Birthday Breakfast

This morning it’s my birthday. As Liz is such an amazing wife, and is taking me out for lunch and a steakhouse dinner (at Hawksmoor, no less) I decided to treat her (and me) to breakfast.

It’s not nouvelle cuisine. It’s bacon, eggs and fadge. Only thing missing was sausages, beans, soda bread, mushrooms, tomatoes, black pudding, white pudding and some toast…but then I’m not in Ulster anymore.

Potato Bread (Fadge)

This is my Gran’s traditional recipe for proper potato bread. There are measurements somewhere but, to be honest, I can’t remember ever seeing my Gran measure anything. She just knew and it always tasted great.

Recipe:
Mashed potato (or preferably riced if you have a ricer)
Self raising flour
Salt

Method:
Use left over mashed potato or rice boiled potatoes. Mix with a little butter and some salt. If you have added milk or cream to your mash, you will need a lot more flour. Simply add flour to the potato until it is a nice dough consistency. If it is too wet, add more flour. If it is too dry, you’ve added to much. Roll it out until it is about 1/2cm thick and cut into circles or whatever fancy shape you like.
Cook in a dry frying pan until nicely browned on both sides and set aside on a cooling tray.

You can serve them now, warm with a bit of butter. You can serve them with your traditional Ulster fry. You can freeze them and have them for breakfast whenever you like. This is one of my favourite recipes, mainly because I think of my Gran whenever I cook it and I know she’d be pleased.

Half-assed Cottage Pie

I’m sure the purists out there will say this isn’t cottage pie but mince with stuff in it and potatoes on top, will always be cottage pie to me. You can really put whatever you want in the mince as far as I’m concerned but this is what I did (this time).

Recipe:
250g mince beef
Onions (finely chopped)
Garlic (finely chopped)
Chilli (finely chopped)
Tin of baked beans
Handful of frozen peas
Potatoes
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method:
Sweat the onions, garlic and chilli in the olive oil. Add the meat and cook. Add the peas, beans, salt and pepper and heat through. Add to a casserole dish and once cooled, cover with some mashed potato. Couldn’t be simpler. We froze ours but cook it at about 180 C, 350 F, gas 4 for about 30-45 minutes.

Poached Eggs on Toast

If you want beautiful poached eggs without any mess, give this a go. Take a length of cling film and lay it over a small bowl, pushing it down to line the bowl. Add a drizzle of olive oil, wipe around and then add salt and pepper. You could also add herbs, chilli or whatever else you fancy. Break an egg into the cling film and then just twist it down to form a loose seal. Repeat for as many eggs as you require.

Place the cling film parcels into a saucepan of boiling water and leave for 4 minutes. Remove from the pan, unwrap the eggs and serve on toast. There is no need for vinegar, salt or whatever else your granny’s mum told you would stop the eggs from going everywhere. You can also do a lot of eggs at the same time in a small saucepan, therefore helping to save the planet.

Roast Beef Dinner

This is actually a recipe which we didn’t use somebody else’s book to make. I checked on line to see how long to cook the beef to make it medium rare but it was still a bit overdone for me…but then I do like it just about dead with the juices flowing out of it. These are the measurements we used but adjust as necessary.

Recipe:
750g topside steak
Pepper
Goose fat
Potatoes
Yorkshire puddings (recipe has been blogged previously)

Method:
Put steak in roasting dish, coat with olive oil and cover with freshly ground pepper. Cook in oven at 220 degrees C, 425 F, gas mark 7 for 30 mins. Turn down to 160 C, 310 F, gas 2 1/2 and cook for 30 minutes per kilo. That is allegedly for medium rare so we did ours for 22 minutes which was a bit too long. Leave to rest for about 20 minutes before carving.

Cook roast potatoes in goose fat and Yorkshire puddings as previously blogged. While the meat is resting, add some flour to the roasting dish and put on the hob, stirring with a whisk. Add a splash of red wine to deglaze the pan and then add water slowly to make the gravy. Add excess water and allow to cook down and thicken to desired viscosity.

Guinness Lamb Shanks

This is another Jamie recipe with a few amendments. It is from his ‘Jamie’s Great Britain’ book although as we cooked this to freeze, we didn’t do the celeriac mash he recommended and only did the meat bit.

Recipe:
6 lamb shanks
3 red onions (finely chopped)
2 handfuls dried apricots (Jamie said raisins but they’re horrible)
3 heaped tblsp marmalade
1 heaped tblsp tomato ketchup
2 tblsp Worcestershire sauce
200ml Guinness
8 sprigs fresh rosemary
1 litre chicken stock
Olive oil
Cider vinegar (we used red wine vinegar as we didn’t have cider vinegar)
Salt and pepper

Method:
Put the onions in a large casserole with olive oil and salt and pepper. Cook over medium to high heat until onions start to caramelise. Add the apricots (or raisins if you’re weird), marmalade, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and Guinness. Stir well and leave to simmer.

In a large frying pan, add olive oil and brown the lamb shanks all over. You will probably have to do this in batches. When complete, add the rosemary leaves and stir in the pan until they get crispy but don’t burn.

Move the lamb shanks to the dish with the onions, pour over the juices from the frying pan and the crispy rosemary. Add the stock, put the lid on, turn the heat down and leave for about 3 hours. Turn the lamb carefully half way through. When it’s finished, the lamb will fall off the bone. If it doesn’t, just leave it to cook longer.

Remove the shanks from the sauce. If you’re serving it on the same day, try to keep them together for asthetic purposes but if you’re freezing like we were, don’t worry about it.

Use a hand blender and blend the sauce until smooth, then reduce down and thicken. Add some more Worcestershire sauce and some cider vinegar. If you see Jamie’s book, his sauce is a lot darker than mine but he used raisins instead of apricots and it’s not my fault he burnt it.

Optional kitchen porn:
Le Creuset large casserole dish
Bosch hand blender

Kashmiri butter chicken

Another one from 200 Slow Cooker Recipes. It costs £4.99. Just buy the damn thing. Page 64. Also, buy yourself a damn Crock Pot. It doesn’t need to be a 6 litre one like ours, but just get one and improve the basic quality of your life.

Anyhoozle, here’s what you need:

2 onions, quartered

3 garlic cloves

Thumb sized chunk of ginger, peeled

1 hot chilli, deseeded

8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 tbsp sunflower oil

1 oz butter

1 tsp crushed cumin seeds

1 tsp crushed fennel seeds

4 crushed cardamom pods

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

300 ml chicken stock

1 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp tomato puree

5 tbsp double cream

Salt

Method:

Blend onions, garlic, ginger, and chilli in food processor.

Cut chicken thighs into 4 pieces. Heat oil in your biggest frying pan and brown chicken over high heat. You’ll probably need to do this in a few batches. Transfer to a plate.

Add butter to the frying pan. When melted, add onion paste over medium heat and cook until it begins to color. Stir in crushed and ground spices and cook for a minute. Mix in the stock, sugar, tomato purée and stock. Bring to the boil, stirring

Put the chicken and the sauce mixture into your slow cooker, cover, and cook on low for 5-7 hours.

Stir in the double cream. Serve with sprigs of coriander and basmati rice.

Optional kitchen porn:

Crock Pot
Le Creuset mortar and pestle
Bosch hand blender