Wednesday 7 September - Pork and Apple Shepherds Pie with Rosti Topping

This is a recipe from a Waitrose recipe card, that my Mother made several times. I borrowed it from her as it was something that she had persuaded George to eat back in the days that she used to look after him.
My only change the recipe was to make my own rosti, rather than using the long life one recommended in the recipe.

Onion and garlic fried in oil, then a pack of pork mince was added and browned off

Then peeled cored and grated eating apple, and some sliced mushrooms were also cooked through.

In with some flour, then a tin of tomatoes and some stock, and it was simmered. I always think you can never simmer mince for too long, so it was left for around an hour, then added to the serving dish

While this was cooking I made the rosti, I used the Delia Smith method of parboiling the potatoes in their skins, then peeling and grating. I added melted butter, and lots of mature cheddar to the potato, along with seasoning

This topped the mince, and it was baked for about 40 minutes.

I had actually forgotten about this recipe, but one to add to the regular list as it all got eaten!

Tuesday 6 September - Butternut Squash Risotto

We have a bit of a glut of tiny butternut squash off our allotment, having made an interesting beetroot risotto last week, we thought we'd try a butternut squash one. This was based on a recipe by Tom Kerridge, but I roasted the squash cubes with some sage, rather than frying them.

The recipe was just a basic risotto, made with vegetable stock and white wine, but then all the extras were stirred in at the end.

I roasted cubes of squash with olive oil, and finely chopped sage, until tender.

Then made the risotto.

Once this was cooked in went cubes of mozarella, toasted pine nuts, the squash, chopped sage and grated parmesan.

We served this with ready made olive bread, but as it was quite filling this wasn't really needed.

Sunday 28 August - Beef Rendang

George requested this, and after a hunt through a few books, I settled on the Rick Stein version from his Far Eastern book.

The basis of the curry paste, is grated coconut, so I was rather pleased to find this frozen in our local Thai supermarket.

The coconut was fried in a dry pan, until golden.

 

 

This was then added to the food processor with garlic, onion, galangal, chopped red chillies and a spice mix of cumin, coriander and dried red chillies ground together until fine.

 

 

 

 

The spicy pasted was added to fried beef cubes, along with coconut milk. At the same time lemon grass stalks, whole kaffir lime leaves and cinnamon sticks were thrown in to the pan, along with some tamarind water made from the pulp, soaked for about 20 minutes

 

 

 

 

 

This was all simmered for a few hours, until reduced and the meat was tender.

 

 



 

 

We ate this with a cucumber salad, dressed with lime and fish sauce, steamed jasmine rice and a few spring rolls - it wasn't very spicy, but very fragrant and absolutely delicious