I have had a vision of a monstrosity of a desert for a long time, a very long time. And next weekend, I shall make it. The idea behind it is a gobstopper of goodness. A gobstopper, in case you don’t know, is some hard candy, a ball, that as you go through the layers, it changes colour and sometimes flavour. Like an onion where each layer is different. I expect this’ll be heart attack city, so a once in a blue moon treat. Some people have totally borked at this idea, others have been intrigued, but I don’t think anyone has been as crazy to put it into practice.
The Everlasting Desert starts off as a ball of something, maybe ice cream or maybe a vanilla sweetened mascarpone that has been frozen? Not a necessarily big ball, maybe only about 2” in diameter. Cover the whole thing in a thin crispy batter and deep fry it. Then cover that in something else, in this case, mashed banana, then batter and deep fry it. Next up can be some peanut butter, and, you guessed it, batter and deep fry. Why stop there? Nutella comes next, then golden syrup. Keep on going until you’re satisfied, slice it up and serve.
It’s going to be wonderful, both the beauty and the beast.
While watching my Ma’s Pin-up boy, Nigel Slater, this week, I got hullushing (longing for) over something fresh, green and summery. I love the way he cooks with things that anyone can get in their local shops. You’ll never see him cooking with some Asian spice that can only be found after a hike up the Himalayas; one that closely resembles basic mild curry powder in all forms but price and availability. I can’t see myself in the near future being an enthusiast for gardening, but I must admit, should I do find myself with green fingers, I would focus on the edible.
I can’t remember what part of this I made up myself, and what part I’ve copied from his show, but that’s part of the joy of cooking for yourself and friends; nobody cares if what you cook doesn’t exactly match the description, or you’ve run out of an ingredient and substitute it for another. You cook what you enjoy, not what some book or television incest’s.
For this dish, you will need
Frozen Petti Pois peas; they’re frozen on the field and that locks in the sweetness. Several times I’ve bought these and most of them are brown, this is generally because they have been left out in a stock room rather than going straight to the freezer. Return them if you find this is the case.
Corn on the cob, taken off the cob…or tinned sweetcorn. Either way, I’m not bothered.
Some dried pasta; to make life easy, you can boil this and the above all at once, if you use fresh pasta then by the time the other stuff is cooked, then the pasta would have turned to mush. Besides, it’s cheaper. I quite like Bow Ties for this dish. The pasta is optional; great for a main dish, leave out if using as a side dish.
Some mustard. Nothing strong like English Mustard, keep it light like Dijon or Grainy for an added texture.
Spring Onion and Chives. The chives really add an oomph to it, and besides, they’re my buzz-ingredient of the moment.
Crème Fresh. Yes, I’ve seen the Southpark. Yes, they’ve got me pegged on this one. I suppose you could use Greek Yoghurt instead, although I’ve not tried that.
Mint: Gotta love the mint, it makes everything taste of summer despite the days growing darker earlier.
How to put it together:
Get the kettle on, it’s always best to boil water from a hot kettle, it makes things move so much faster, I can’t be arsed bringing a pan to the boil straight from the tap.
When you’ve got a saucepan of water boiling, dump into it the peas, sweetcorn and pasta if you’re using it. Add a bit of salt; I’ll be honest, I don’t know why they insist that pasta is boiled with salt, on a flavour basis I can’t tell the difference. I think it’s something to do with lowering the boiling point. The advantage of doing all this in one means there is less washing up.
Chop up the mint, spring onion and chives. Make sure you wash them and squidge out most of the water so it doesn’t make your sauce go runny.
Add a 2:1 ratio of Crème Fresh and the mustard; mix in the spring onion and herbs and taste. If you think it needs a bit of salt or something, then add that now, personally though, I thought it was fine.
Try a bit of pasta, if it’s too your liking, then the peas and sweetcorn would be done. Pour the lot out into a colander and return to the now empty saucepan.
Add the crème fresh mix, stir the whole lot so everything is covered (without being drenched)
Serve and enjoy =)
Some pictures…. sorry about the poor quality; I was lazy and used my phone camera
All the bits'n'bobs you need.
Chives, Spring Onion and Mint... use scissors.
Peas, Sweetcorn and pasta - All In One
Mix that bad boy up.
Pasta, Peas and Sweetcorn.
Mix it up so you get a bit of everything with each bite.
Today I woke up early and refreshed, ready for the day, but the day isn’t yet ready for me. So I went onto 4od and started watching “Jamie’s American Food Revolution”; and the long shot, he’s right; for the most part.
I would just like to point out that unless stated, I’ve done no research and is taking the show at its word.
The show is an American take on his British campaign to get people eating properly. It starts with a radio show by some bloke on 93.7 ‘The Dawg’, I don’t know the name of the presenter, but he and the local press completely slate Jamie Oliver. He is the sort of man who is one of the causes of American obesity in general. I really hope the show to develop into him changing his mind, or he is doing this just for controversy and ratings. Don’t get me wrong, I can see his point, Jamie is an Englishman, an Essex Boy who’s done a bit of telly, opened a few restaurants’, done very well for himself. And now he’s gone over the big ol’ You Ess Oh Aay and is telling them that they’re doing it wrong (not all of them; but a lot).
The truth is, that for the past last three decades, or longer, they’ve had adverts telling them that mass-produced processed real-food leftover’s is OK. I don’t watch a lot of American food telly, but I do watch a show on FoodNetworkUK. There is a show called “Unwrapped”, and it’s stunning. This show takes a product or ingredient, say, caffeine, sugar, chocolate, bread, pretzels… anything. And they show how it’s made. The ingenuity behind it is a showmanship for mankind. The fact that in a single factory, they can produce products by the millions on a daily basis; bread that doesn’t go off for months (but can you really call it ‘fresh’ at any point?), sold for pennies. You name any flavour, and they can take it, make a powder or synthetic out of it, and add that to any texture(s) you like, reproduce it by the billions and get it into supermarkets. You can go up to these factories and say “I want to make Avocado flavoured bread, with a crusty outside, chewy middle, an a banana gel centre”, and they will work out a way of doing it, on a mass produced basis, and most importantly; a profitable one. They’re quite rightly proud of these machines and conveyor belts that can knock out a million a day without the touch of a human hand. The trouble is, do you really want that inside your body?
Another show I watch on FoodNetworkUK is ‘Best thing I ever ate’, where they again set out a topic, and food celebs from the states talk about, surprisingly enough, the best thing they’ve ever ate. These are the Gordon Ramsey’s, Garry Rhodes, Nigella Lawson, etc, of the US. And do you know what the result is most of the time? And again, this is not all the time. Deep fried bacon. Deep-fried Brussels sprouts. Chocolate Gnash covered in fillo. Marshmallow Fluff. I’m pretty sure this stuff tastes damn good, and once a week or month is fine; but the truth is, people want the best all the time, and that is gluttony.
This goes on and on a lot throughout the FoodNetworkUK, “Man Vs Food” and “Diners, Drive Ins & Dives” are other prime examples. I actually really like Adam Richman from Man Vs Food, he seems like the kind of guy I can spend an evening with and enjoy his company. The challenges have got me from thinking “Damn, that’s gross” to “Wow, how cool, a 72oz Steak! PLUS SIDES!” And this is what is happening up and down not the country, but the entire western world. A lot of his food is about simply damn-tasty food, who wouldn’t want a lobster cault that morning cooked to perfection, or a plate of prawns with garlic butter. It actually reinforces my wanting to visit the States. But do I want a lifetime of this? Every day? Too much of a good thing can be a very bad thing.
I’m a single man who cooks for one, and it is expensive to get ‘real food’. If I wanted a roast dinner, even considering left over’s and stuff I’ve already got (salt, pepper, oil…etc), I’m going to be spending the best part of £15. That’s a lot for one meal when you’re on not much more than £5/hour. On the other side of the coin, this week I picked up two coated Birdseye chicken breasts for £1, a couple of buns and some salad; and I got change out of £3 for a meal that filled me up. I’ve made those chicken burgers twice this week, they weren’t horrible, they were just fuel; filler for when I was hungry. But thinking about it, about that processed chicken, how it’s made, I might as well be back on CT3211.
It’s not hard to make your own meal; throughout this blog I’ve done it loads of times. I can knock up a nice pasta dish that I’m proud of in the time it takes to boil some pasta. It’s not even expensive if you put in a bit of effort and plan ahead, look at that tomato pasta sauce a few posts down, out of that £15ish I’ve got a good body for 10 meals or abouts.
Back to Jamie Oliver. A lot of my friends can’t stand him, they call him “The fat tongued twat”, but I have more respect for that man than any other man I’ve never meet. He’s right about schools. He’s right about employment. He’s a family man who works hard and cares enough to do something a lot of us don’t; get off your backside and sort it out.
I can understand that schools have budgets and procedures, and that it’s so much easier to bung a frozen pizza in the oven (you know, the factory made one, 20 miles worth of the stuff). That to do that, it doesn’t require any real effort, even if you are feeding a thousand kids. But do you really want all that processed cheese and processed sauce and processed bread and processed toppings inside you? Ok, once a week, bung it in the oven, no big deal, but for breakfast, then lunch the next day? And the next? What the hell are they thinking!? I kid you not they made Jamie serve bread with his brown rice to fill a quota. I saw them using chocolate and strawberry milk on their sugar loaded cereal.
I’m not surprised the kids want the dinosaur shaped turkey bits, or the bright blue pudding. They taste good, that’s why they’re made. But they will want to play with guns and fire and electricity too… it’s just the effects take a few decades longer.
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That’s enough of my rant, but in my mind, Jamie Oliver truly is an inspiration and a hero; and I don’t even think his food anything special (not special; just normal should-be every day stuff). I’m still going to smoke, and I’m still going to drink cans of ‘V’ each day, but one thing I will try my best to cut out, is stuff that hasn’t touched a human hand.
Although this is a big mix of cultures, not quite conforming to the standard of any element of the dish, but coming out delish. The other night I was watching Jamie Oliver Does Greece, and at the same time, my flatmate was cooking a Tikka Masalar. This mix of flavours and tastes inspired me to create what I have done. I admit straight up that I had no clue what the result would end up like, I was hoping for something like a chicken Tandoori, what I ended up with was nothing like that, however, it was rather lush, and defiantly something I would make again. As a rare occurrence, all three of my flatmates were willing to try some, and they all give the thumb’s up.
I’m going to write this one a bit differently, in case you want to make each bit individually.
Some flatbread, I used Tesco’s “Tomato and Cheese Flatbread”, but you could use one of those pizza Garlic Bread things, or Nan bread. The idea was to fold it up, so a wrap would do too.
- or –
Some Rice, I like the rice from the local Turkish places.
- or -
Some couscous puffed in chicken stock with coriander and mint chopped through it, maybe some raisins and pistachios too?
What you need to do: Indian Lamb Cubes
Slice up the coriander, a red onion and crush/grate the garlic.
Get a bowl and mix in there the Greek yoghurt, and add the mixed stuff above, add 2tbs of Garam masala, 1tbs Turmeric, 2tbs of Mild Curry Powder, half a tube of tomato paste and the juice of a lemon.
Mix everything up until you get a thick pinkish paste, taste it to see if you want a bit of pepper or some salt.
When you’re happy, add the lamb cubes, cover the bowl (or put it in a sandwich bag), and leave it for a few hours.
– Intermission… this is where you should do the taziki.
Take the cubes out the bowl and put then on a hot pan. I started off doing this by putting them on a skewer, but to tell you the truth, that was a waste of time. You want the cubes to be nicely coated. You can tell when they’re right because they should be slightly blackened, not completely, but a little bit. Remember: Char’d not Burnt. Towards the end, when you think the lamb is ready, and you can always cut one in half, it should be a greyish pink colour, now you can add the rest of the sauce to heat it up a bit.
What you need to do: Tzatziki.
Plonk the other half of the yoghurt in a bowl, add to that loads of mint and coriander all chopped up.
Deseed the cucumber (as the seeds would make it too watery), slice that up, and add it to the yoghurt.
Thinly slice a red onion as thin as you can get it, add that to the yoghurt too.
Add some paprika and half the juice of a lemon, some salt and pepper to taste.
Mix everything up; lovely!
What you need to do: Bring it all together.
I put the flatbread in the oven for 10 minutes so it went all nice and soft, the put over that the tzatziki and on top of that the lamb with the sauce and enjoy =D
This is a recipe handed down from generation to generation, from flatmate to flatmate (e.g., I got it off my flatmate who got it off her ma’). I was bored out my mind on Tuesday and fancied doing some cooking, on the cheap, nothing special. I was sitting there, pondering what to make, when I thought I’d do a tomatoes pasta sauce. Turns out, it was the right choice, well nice, and the left over sauce went towards a rather lush brushgetta type meal. This’ll take you 45 minutes, of which you’ll spend 5 of them chopping, and then a little stir every 10 mins, piss easy, well lush, better than anything you can get out of a bottle.
What you need
A large sauce pan
Two tins of chopped tomatoes
An onion
Some carrots
Some Garlic
Some Garlic paste
Some tomato paste
A nice glug of red wine… use your flatmates if you don’t have any or don’t want to open a big bottle.
Sugar, Salt, Pepper, Sweet Paprika, Bay Leaf and a chilli.
What you need to do
Chop up about 3 bulbs of garlic and a chilli, leave the seeds in, it’s not going to be hot.
Chop up an onion by cutting it in half, taking off the skin, making two cuts 90% of the way across horizontally, then chopping vertically.
Chop up the carrot too, I didn’t bother to peal it, but I nibbed off the ends.
Fry up the garlic and chilli in a drop of oil and let them soften up a little.
Add the tinned tomatoes, a bay leaf, I squidged out some garlic paste from a tube at this point, ‘cus I quite like garlic.
Add a nice glug of red wine.
Leave it to simmer gently, when the next ad break comes on the telly, in about 15 minutes, take another look.
If it’s a bit dry now, swoosh in some more red wine and let it reduce until you get the texture you want.
Now taste it, see what it needs. When I did it, it needed some Sugar, Salt and Pepper, remember: You can’t take it out, but you can always add a bit more. Add it, mix it about, taste it, when you’re happy, then I’m happy.
Nice Things you can do with the sauce.
Serve it over some rice or pasta; maybe add a bread crumbed chicken breast to it.
Cover some bread, like chiabbatta or a pizza base, or garlic bread; plonk some cheese and toppings (chorizo, sweet corn, cured meats, mushrooms… whatever you fancy).
Slice up some bread along the lines of a French loaf, top with sauce and some hallumni, and you’ve got a lovely burshgetta to serve your guests.
Put in a small ceramic dish some spinach, then on top of that the sauce, than crack and egg over and bake. I forgot what this is called, but it would work.
Put it into sandwich bags and freeze into portions.
Top a chicken breast with it, covered with cheese.
Plonk it over some chips (home made ones, prefably)
Stuff some mushrooms or red peppers with it; put some cheese on top and/or breadcrumbs.
Add some honey and more chilli cover with ribs (Waitrose do lush ones, they’re about a fiver and come in a long folded box, seriously good stuff) and bake.
Put it over a jacket potato
Use it as a salsa for Nachos, burritos, fajitas… that sort of thing.
Make a tart by putting it over some puff pastry, adding a bit of cheese.
Use it as a base for Mussaka or lasagne.
Chop up some garlic
Chop up some carrots and onions.
Cut like this in three places; then chop downwards.
Sweat the garlic, carrots and onions down 'till they soften and go sweet.
Plonk in the tomatoes and some red wine.
Cook out the wine.
There are the Chilis to give some heat, take them out afterwarsd. Here i've cooked it down to much, add some more wine if you do.
Lookin' good, Tastin' good !
Well lush, don't both with the poncy vine tomatoes.
I kind of made this one up based on various things I’ve seen on the telly, it took me three tries to perfect it, the first time was lush, the second time was a right mess (I got distracted by the internet and hollyoaks and the soup turned into a sauce) and the third time was fantastic. It’s a nice creamy soup, without being thick, packed with flavour and takes no longer than 15 minutes from opening up the packets of ingredients to taking your first bite. You can make it spicy-hotter by chopping up more of the chilli and adding that, or sprinkling more at the end, or you could make it weaker by leaving that bit out. What I made was just right for me. This is the first time I’ve used fresh herbs or limes before in cooking, and it really does add something to it.
What You Need For One Person (plus enough for lunch the next day)
Wok, Ladle, a good knife for chopping things up, serving plate. I can’t work out weather it’s a Spoon Soup or a Fork Soup, so I opted for both.
A packet of noodles, don’t get pre-cooked, as they don’t’ soak up the soup as well; the ones in nests are what I went for.
A packet of stir-fry veg, or some mixed veg that you like. I used baby sweetcorn, Mushrooms, Sugarsnap Peas, Spring Onion…cut up into bite-sized pieces.
Thai Curry Paste, but I suppose any kind of curry paste you like would work. I used Marks’n’Spark’s “Malaysian Rendang Paste”, it’s nice and peanutish, not to hot at all. I suppose this isn’t really ‘Thai’ thinking about it now, oh well.
Uncooked Prawns, ‘cus I like them, but would work with beef or chicken.
A touch of oil, whatever you got, it’s not important.
A lime, a bunch of coriander, a chilli, garlic (didn’t use, but would work) and fat man’s two-fingers-up of ginger.
What you need to do to make it work =)
Preparation first. Cut up the veg into bite-sized pieces if you’ve not used a packet of stir-fry mix.
Cut off the end of the chilli at about ¼ of the way from the tip and chop that up. If you like it hotter, cut ½ or more, or even the whole one and use another for this next bit. With the rest of the chilli, cut a line down it, that way when it comes to cooking, it’ll release some of it’s heat and flavour without making the dish too hot.
Chop the ginger into matchsticks, as thin as you can get. I found I used too much in these photos but use your own judgement.
Open the can of coconut milk.
Heat up a bit of oil in a DRY wok, doesn’t need a lot of heat at all as he wok gets hot easily. Put your hand over the wok and if you can hold it there for about 5 seconds before it starts to really feel hot, you’re about right.
Add the ginger, about 3 dollops of paste and the chopped bit of the chilli to the oil; give it a minute or two (it might spit at you a bit) for everything to do its business.
Add the veg and mix it up, about 4-5 minutes should do it, keep on sturing it around so it’s all coated.
Now add the can of coconut milk and then again about ¼ to ½ the can of water on top, mix it up a little. Plonk on a nest of noodles on top, it doesn’t matter if half the nest is covered by coconut goodness, and half of it is sticking out the top. Add the stabbed chilli thing here.
After about 5 minutes, the bottom of the noodles should all be the way they should be, so you can stir them around a bit and get the non-covered part under the coconutty goodness. It’ll still hold its nest shape though at this stage, so flip them ‘round.
After about 5 minutes, chop up the coriander, and add that. I got it from the shop across the road that’s by a busy road, so ran it under a tap before I chopped it to get any sort of car-crap out of it. Add that to the wok and stir it up. You don’t wanna do this to early ‘cus then it’s too coriandish. All the noodles should have separated by now.
After five minutes now, it’s all more or less done, give it another stir and add the prawns. About 5 minutes should do it depending on size. Give it a stir every minute to make sure all the prawns are covered. I’m gonna do a chicken version of this for Ma’ next week, where I’ll cut the chicken thinly and add it a bit earlier. My mate Nielly P says that if you dust them in cornflower first, the chicken will go slightly silky and tender, so I’ll give that a shot when I do that.
Roll the lime on a hard service with the palm of your hand to break it up a bit, cut it in half, add the juice and serve (remembering to take out the stabbed chilli thing). Sprinkle some more coriander on top and some chopped chilli if you want it hotter.
Sorry about the mess, photo was between Try 2 and Try 3 and I didn't clean up between them (it was only 5 minutes while i nipped to the shops to stock up again)
Lovely _Malaysian_ Curry Paste... Ok, not Thai.
ERmmm.... prawns. Quite small so only need a few minutes to cook. Bigger ones would take longer.
Veg: Use half a stir-fry pack or chop your own.
The stabbed chilli bomb.
Fry up the paste, chopped chilli and ginger.
Stir up the veg in the paste and bits.
Add the coconut milk, corriander and 1/4-1/2 cup of water.
Noodles ! (use one nest, not two as in here)
Add the prawns !
KAPLOWIE ! Serve and enjoy =).... I used to many noodles though, wasn't quite soupy enough.
Hello blog, long time, no post. I’ve been a right sicko recently, but have been racking up the recipes to write about, and I’m opening up with a great one.
I’ve never understood Britain’s passion with pies, at least, until now. Gingsters, Pukka, Supermarket-own-brand, it’s all weak flavoured filling in clangy pastry that holds no appeal to me what so ever. But I do see so many people enjoy them, and I want in on that. And now with this, I can see exactly why a good pie is just, gosh darn it, one of the nicest things I’ve ever made. I admit, the pastry part of the pie is irrelevant to me, it’s just as good as a stew with a bit of mash, but it does make it look pretty.
Ingredients…
900g of braising steak in bite sized chunks
25g Plain Flour
5tbsp sunflower oil
25g unsalted butter
A punit of button mushrooms
2 onions thinly sliced (I used a packet of shallots, not realising what a bitch they are to slice)
Some sugar
300ml Beef Stock (get the real stuff rather than stock cubes… you’re going through all this effort, not point skimping on this one)
A bottle of stout, like Guinness
Thyme, Bay Leaves and whatever herbs you think would go, tied up together.
Worcester Sauce
Salt’n'Pepper
Egg and Puff Pastry (egg is just to egg-wash it)
What to do.
Toss the beef in flour, season with salt’n'pepper, add some oil to a very large saucepan/casserole dish, brown the meat in two batches and put on the side.
Put a big dollop of butter into the pan, add the mushrooms and fry for a little while, and then put it on the side with the beef.
Put in a spoon of sugar in the pan and over a medium heat, sweat and brown the onions, it should take about 20 minutes.
Add the flour (that you tossed the meat in), herbs, stout, Worcester sauce, some salt’n'pepper and stock. While stirring, bring it to the boil, that way the flour dissolves properly. Then add the mushrooms and meat, put the lid on and simmer for about two hours. Warning, don’t taste it now, it taste rank, but by the time it’s finished simmering, it’ll be amazing.
Spoon out the meat, mushrooms and whats left of the onions (they’ve basically dissolved), and put it in your pie dish.
Remove the tied up herbs/bay leaf, turn up the heat and reduce down to about a pint or soo. Pour over the mushrooms’n'meat in the pie dish and leave to cool. This is basically what it’s going to taste like now, so here is your chance to add a bit of seasoning, or maybe a bit of sugar if it’s to bitter.
Roll out the pastry, put it over the top, make a little hole in the middle for the steam, egg wash it (and maybe do a few pretty bits with the excess pastry), and bung it in the oven at 190ish for about 30 minutes, until the top looks done and the pie-guts are all bubbling.
…… serve and enjoy, I had it with mash, and believe me, you will enjoy.
Get everything you need out on the table, to make life easier.
Dust the meat with flour and seasoning
Once browned, remove the meat
Use the butter to de-glaze after browning the meat.
Shalots browning in the butter and meat juices
Stout, flour, stock and herbs; boil then simmer
Add the meat and mushrooms to the liquids.
Give it a taste if you want before it's finished simmering for two hours, but it won't be nice (yet).
Once cooled, this is your time to adjust with salt/pepper/sugar.
Put a hole on top of the pastry for steam and use some trimmings to make pretty bits.
With some left over pastry, I made twists with cheese, chilli and egg-wash.
OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY !
Does that look good, or does that look GOOD?
Serve that bad-boy with some mash and a crap film on the telly; evening - sor'ed !
I really like Roast Beef. I grow up not having it, I don’t think my mum ever cooked it for me, but when I go to the likes of a sandwich shop, a roast beef and horseradish sandwich is one of my favorites. My mum did make Salt Beef, which I’ll try to make myself one day, but it just isn’t the same (in fact, it’s far better, but still, not the same).
By chance, I was browsing around ASDA with my flatmate, Russingleton, when I spied a ‘brisket’ and my juices got flowing about having having lovely roast beef sandwiches for a week.
I couldn’t find any recipes on the video websites by any of my favorite chefs, so I thought I would piece together what I thought I remembered from Telly and do something myself.
Here’s what you need.
A bag of carrots
2 onions
2 Garlic bulbs
Some port or red wine
Some concentrated beef stock
A brisket of beef.
Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper
Mustard (Grainy or English)
Here’s what I did….
Put the oven on full-whack
Cut the onions into 6 or 8 pieces, all put together.
Cut the carrots up into bite sized chunks.
Cover the beef in Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper
Make up about 1½ pints of beef stock, I used some concentrated stuff because I thought it would taste stronger.
Add three good glugs of port to the stock.
Brown off the beef in a frying pan
Cover the beef in grainy mustard, or English if want a fuller flavour.
Rest veg in the pan, with 2 bulbs of garlic separated into cloves (I didn’t bother to peel it, life’s to short) cover the veg with stock.
Place the beef on top, cover with tin foil.
Put the oven down to about 150ish.
Cook it for about 3 hours, turning it every now-and-then.
Leave to rest for 30 minutes, carve and serve.
Most of the stuff I used.
Brown off the beef.
Veg in a pan
Beef covered with mustard, veg covered in stock.
The liquid doubled ! Oops, oh well, makes a nice soup.
Looks good, but was way too tough.
The soup bit is amazing though.
The garlic is nice and squidgy, but the other veg was too hard.
I’ll admit to it, I hate cooking with rice. I can never get it quite how I like it, it’s either over or under done. I’ve not gotten around to buying a metal strainer either. I like eating it, just hate cooking it. I was sitting at the doctors, going through the “20 minute meal” Jamie Oliver app, and he showed me how it’s done. It looked a bit of a palaver, but I was determined to try it, and it turned out good (the second one, the first one I wasn’t keen on.)
What you need for two people…..
200g Arborio Rice
A glass of White Wine
An onion
Some frozen peas
Asparagus
Some butter
A pint of Chicken Stock (Make your own, pre-made or stock cubes/gels are all good)
Parmesan Cheese (get Flaked or fresh if you can, not sawdust).
Same garlic
Olive Oil
What you need to do….
Put the stock in a pan and on the hob, if you’re using cubes/gel, add one cube/gel to boiling water. Let it simmer and stir.
Chop the Asparagus tips into 3 pieces.
Chop up some garlic and an onion, shallow fry ’till translucent in butter and a bit of olive oil
Pour in the rice and cook it for a few minutes (the point if this is to break the rice’s shell and let the stock and wine get in)
[For the next few bits, keep on stirring every few minutes]
Pour over the wine, and let it evaporate.
Keep on adding a ladle full of stock when it all gets evaporated. Over the 15 or so minutes this takes, add the Asparagus, the thick end after 5 minutes, the middle after the next 5, and the tips right at the end. On the last one, add the peas too
Once the stock is absorbed, if the consistency is too stodgy, add some water, or cook it for longer, use your judgement. Remember though, the Parmesan will thicken it.
Add a nice nob of butter and the Parmesan, stir it all in, take it off the hob and leave it for about 10 minutes.
Serve and enjoy =)
All the bits you need
Simmer the stock (using Gel here)
Sweat down some garlic and onions in butter.
Add the rice and let it cook.
Thick bits of aspagous first, then thin bits. Let the stock get absorbed into the rice.
Once all the stock and stuff is in, it tripples in size.
Have I come up trumps, or have I come up trumps. Oh boy, this is a great recipe. There was a bit of flaffing about, cutting up all the vegetables (and braving ASDA a few days before Christmas), but I think this one is worth it, and it makes so much that if you give 3/4 of it away as a gift, you’ll still have enough to last you a good while. There is a Sweet Chili sauce I buy from the local butchers, “So!Go sweet chili”, it’s about £4 a bottle, and although it lasts a little 200ml bottle. It’s great stuff, but if I was charging that for this stuff, I’d be a millionaire after the 5th batch, and let me tell you, it’s a damn sight better.
This is the first time I’ve made a Jam/chutney/thinggy. If It sets, then I’m calling it a jam, if it doesn’t, it’s a sauce… I’ll let you know in the morning.
What you’ll need….
8 ‘pointer’ red peppers (they’re nicer than normal peppers)
10ish Red Chilis (don’t worry, it won’t blow your head off)
A bundle of Spring Onion.
Two red onions
A bottle of Red Wine Vinegar (350ml)
1kg of Preserve Sugar (or I hear you can use Golden Caster Sugar).
A nice thumb of ginger
A haa-aaa-UGE pan.
Some jars to keep it in.
Two ‘things’ of Cherry Tomatoes… about 500g.
Hand Blitzer
What to do
De-seed the Chilis, you can just cut the top off, slice them in half and use a spoon to scrape out the seeds.
‘Rusticly’ fine-slice all the various vegetables, (if you’ve got a blender, it’ll make life easier, but I don’t, so I did it by hand)
Shove half of all the veg, sugar and vinegar into the pan and mix it about. If you do it in that order, the vinegar will melt the sugar, rather than taking up so much room.
Do as above with the second half, in the same pan. There is to much there to stir around if you do it in one go.
Put the heat on under the pan, and let it boil, then put the heat down at let it simmer for 50 minutes, making sure you give it a good stir every 5 minutes.
After then, give it a little taste, if needs a little bit of this or that, add it. Personally, I thought it tasted perfect.
Let the mixture call down a little bit, about another hour.
Get a hand blitzer and blitz it down a bit, but keep it slightly course, it’s about getting a good mix.
Get some jars, I needed 4 coffee jars and two bigger ones.
The idea is to sterilize them, so you fill them half way up with water and microwave them for about 2 minutes, making sure that you’ve removed all the labels as in the ones that I used had metal in them.
Fill the jars up if the Sweet Chili goodness, and enjoy =)
Cut off the top, slice in half, use a teaspoon to scrape out insides
8 Chillis, but mild and not hot.
Use a rough chop on everything, or even better, a food proccessor.
It's a lot of Red Pepper, but it's good.
Bung it in, in two halfs, to make life easier (I did it in one and it was too much)
oops, forgot the tomartoes, never mind, they'll break down when cooking so don't bother chopping... to much hassle.
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