Fish and Potato Stew with Saffron
15 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Fish Tags: fish stew, saffron, seafood
2 tbs olive oil
1 onion, sliced
1 tsp crushed coriander seed
1 leek, shredded
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 red chilli, deseeded and chopped
1 small can tomatoes, pureed
600ml fish stock (use a stock cube)
1 bay leaf
1 star anise
1 strip of orange zest
Pinch of saffron
salt and pepper
450f small waxy new potatoes, chopped
1 small bulb fennel, finely chopped
450g white fish fillets
8-12 raw tiger prawns (or any mixed seafood)
15g fresh coriander, chopped
In a large pan heat the oil and cook the onion and coriander seeds for 5 minutes. Add the leek, garlic and chilli and cook 5 minutes. Add the tomato, stock, bay, star anise, orange zest and saffron and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the potatoes and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the fennel and simmer for 5 minutes.
If the stew is too liquid boil down for a few minutes.
Cut the fish into small chunks and add, cook for 4 minutes. Add the prawns and cook for 3 minutes. Stir in the coriander.
Serve in warm bowls with some crusty bread.
How to get kids to eat their veg….
10 May 2012 7 Comments
in ....just a thought, Veggie Tags: children, kids, puree, vegetables
I’m lucky that my grandson isn’t a fussy eater and usually clears his plate with gusto. It’s still fun though to make mealtimes more exciting so this week we did ‘food painting’.
I’d made a tomato sauce from passata, onion, garlic and basil and a pea puree with a little garlic and cream for a ‘grown up’ meal so I sieved the rest of them both so that they were smooth, warmed them through and put them into squeezy bottles.
I served up a bowl of macaroni cheese and gave my grandson the two bottles to ‘paint’ his food with. Needless to say he squirted the whole lot over his food. Okay, it looked a bit messy but he ate every last bit!
Oxtail Suet Pudding
25 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in Beef Tags: Heston, how to cook like heston, oxtail, suet channel 4
After watching ‘How to cook like Heston’ I was inspired to try his Oxtail and Kidney Suet Pudding. Not only have I never cooked Oxtail but I haven’t used suet except for dumplings and steamed sponges! My local butchers -Aldens- had oxtail recently so I decided to have a go. Quite a long fiddly recipe but very, very worth the effort.
Quick, quick, slow, Beef Casserole
21 Apr 2012 1 Comment
in Beef Tags: aberdeen angus beef, beef casserole, beef stew, beef with beer
Had a busy afternoon icing and decorating my daughter’s birthday cake (shhhhhh!) so I wanted something simple to prepare for dinner. I had a pack of Aberdeen Angus beef so a casserole was the obvious choice! No time to brown, seal or sear! A small chopped onion, a few mushrooms, 2 chopped rashers of streaky bacon, the beef and a beef stock cube……..and a bottle of beer! Into a casserole dish, into a warm oven…..and that was it! Time to finish the cake AND have a bath!! Four hours later I thickened the stew with a little flour paste , cooked some new potatoes and broccoli and served….easy!!
Piglet Pie
19 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in Pork or Ham
Piglet Pie
1 tbs sunflower oil
1 onion
350g minced pork
2 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp French mustard
1 tin tomatoes, chopped
200g sweetcorn
Salt & pepper
100g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder, pinch of salt
100g butter
175g cold mashed potato
Heat oil in a pan, fry onion, add pork and fry until browned. Add coriander, salt & pepper, mustard and tomatoes. Cook for 5 minutes, add sweetcorn.
Spoon into ovenproof dish.
Sift flour baking powder and salt, rub in butter then add mashed potato to make a smooth dough.
Roll out pastry to fit top of dish.
Heat oven to Gas 5/ 375F/190C. Bake for 30 minutes.
Serves 4
Ginger Simnel Cake
09 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in Baking Tags: easter, ginger, ginger cake, marzipan, simnel cake
This is my variation of a Waitrose Easter recipe.
200g stem ginger in syrup, drained and chopped
250g marzipan
200g butter
300g light brown muscovado sugar
2 large eggs + 1 egg for glazing
25g fresh root ginger, grated ( or Waitrose lazy ginger)
200g self-raising flour
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and grated
Method
Preheat the oven to 170C, gas mark 3. Line a 20cm round, loose-bottom cake tin with baking parchment.
Melt the butter in a pan and stir in the sugar. Allow to cool slightly, then beat in 2 eggs and the root ginger. Stir in the flour, then the apple and stem ginger.
Turn the mixture into the tin, put this on a baking sheet, then bake in the oven for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes (cover with baking parchment if it is browning too quickly). Leave to cool in the tin then turn out onto a baking sheet.
Heat the grill. Roll out the marzipan to make a 20cm circle. Use the trimmings to make 11 marble-sized balls. Lay the circle of marzipan on top of the cake, and brush with some beaten egg. Arrange the marzipan balls around the edge and brush with more egg. Grill the cake until the marzipan is patched with golden brown.
Transfer carefully to a serving plate. Serve at room temperature or slightly warmed.
Calçots for lunch
28 Mar 2012 1 Comment
in ....just a thought, Life's little extras, Out and about Tags: Calçots, Catalunya, Priorat
We spent last weekend visiting friends in Barcelona. Saturday was a lovely warm sunny day so we drove down to the Priorat area of Catalunya for a walk and some lunch. We ended up in a little restaurant called Cal Pep in La Vilella Baixa, chosen because they had a traditional Catalan dish called Calçots on the menu. Calçots are a type of onion, as they grow they are earthed up so that they grow a long white stem like a thin leek. The season for them is between the end of winter and March or April when they are eaten in huge quantities. Calçots are barbecued and served by the plateful. Before eating you strip off the outer layer and then dip the onion in salvitxada or Romesco sauce, made from almonds, tomatoes, garlic, peppers, vinegar and oil. They make very messy eating so we were supplied with bibs and gloves to eat them!
The Priorat area is best known for its wines,better even than wines from the Rioja. Vines were first grown in this area in the 12th century by monks from the Carthusian Monastery of Scala Dei but the vineyards were wiped out by a pest in the late 19th century. The vines were only replanted on the steep terraces in the 1950′s. Old-style Priorat wines were rough and massively alcoholic,but since the 90′s things have changed and now the best Priorat wines are some of Spain’s most sought-after and expensive……and alcoholic……hic!
St David’s Day Pie
01 Mar 2012 1 Comment
As it’s St David’s day I made a Leek and Potato pie. Very much a spur of the moment decision so it’s a ‘make it up as you go along’ recipe. Came out really well so I’ll share it with you. And it will taste just as good on any other day!
Serves 3- 4
150g plain flour
75g butter
25g cheddar cheese, grated
1 tbs olive oil
15g butter
1 leeks,finely sliced
1 medium onion, finely sliced
2 or 3 rashers of bacon, cut into thin strips (optional)
200g waxy potatoes, finely sliced
75g cheddar cheese, grated
3 eggs beaten
2 tbs crème fraiche
1tsp wholegrain mustard
A little black pepper
Make shortcrust pastry with the first three ingredients plus enough cold water to bind it together. Roll out the pastry and line a flan tin, leaving a little pastry overhanging the edges. Bake blind at 180° gas 4 for 20 minutes. Remove the paper and cook a further 2 minutes. Remove from the oven.
Parboil the potatoes until just soft. Strain the water off. Fry the bacon until cooked then remove from the pan. Cook the leeks and onion slowly in the oil and butter until soft but not browned. Stir in the bacon and cooked potato and put the mixture into the flan case.
Mix the cheese, crème fraiche, mustard and black pepper into the eggs and pour carefully over the mixture. Bake for about 20 minutes at 180° gas 4 or until set.
Steak, Kidney and Potato Pie
16 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Beef, Recipe Books Tags: Beef, kidney, pie, potato, Simon Hopkinson, steak, steak and kidney, The Good cook
Husband is the whizz with pastry in our kitchen so he made this amazing pie at the weekend. It’s a Simon Hopkinson recipe from his book ‘The Good Cook’ Yum-yum!!
Heston v Baker Brothers
06 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Reviews Tags: Baker Brothers, Channel 4, cookery programmes, Heston
There were two new food programmes on Channel 4 this week – How to cook like Heston and The Fabulous Baker Brothers. One felt ‘real’ and one seemed totally manufactured ……but which one was which? We expect Heston to be whimsical and off the wall but what he explained about how to cook beef properly made total sense and made me want to head off to my butcher NOW! We are definitely having steak this weekend.
The Baker Brothers however, were just eye candy. Do I believe they are brothers with adjoining baker and butcher shops? Not really. The spaces they worked in were styled to the nth degree. It looked like a production company had dreamed them up.
Apologies to the brothers if that is what they are but for me Heston was the more real.
