Sunday 14 July - Crab

Yet another trip to the Fish Sheds in Old Portsmouth, and we returned with three live crabs and a bag of beautiful prawns to make a salad with.

The crabs were dispatched by chilling down, then boiling for 15 minutes in very salty water - after chilling the painstaking removal of the meat commenced.

However the strange tool that Mum brought me back from Boston did prove to be quite useful!

We ended up with quite a lot of white meat from three crabs, but not as much brown meat as we had hoped for.

Mayonnaise is a must with crab and prawns, and I made one with loads of lemon added at the end - this was made using the yolk from the first egg our Exchequer leghorn had laid this afternoon - bit of a soft shell so needed to be used quickly.

The crab and cooked prawns were served with various salads - tomato and basil, cucumber and fennel, green and a handful of radishes along with a big bowl of new potatoes from the allotment.

 

All delicious, but next time I'd buy a ready dressed crab as I don't think we did as well as we could have done extracting the meat.

Tuesday 2 July - Spicy Bean Burgers

I belong to a Facebook food group that sets a weekly challenge to the members - this is great fun and people take their entries very seriously. This weeks challenge was 'homemade fast food' so definitely one that is bound to be popular with all generations. I decided to try and make bean burgers for the first time in my life. Had a good google and came up with a few recipes which I cobbled together in my normal way.

I cooked some turtle beans - I did the quick soak method by boiling the beans hard for 10 minutes and the leaving for half an hour.

 

I then rinsed, boiled again, and popped into the slow cooker for the rest of the day. After about 8 hours they were cooked to perfection.

 

These were mashed, and added to some fried onion, spring onion, garlic, chilli, some mexican seasoning (don't tell anyone but after I'd added it I noticed that this unopened jar was best before Feb 2010) , chopped coriander, an egg, some breadcrumbs and finally some crumbled Feta cheese.

I shaped them into burgers, and then I dipped into flour, egg and panko crumbs before shallow frying.

I topped the burgers with cheddar and grilled for a seconds before serving in home made burger buns.

The burgers were topped with guacamole, salsa and some pickled jalapenos, and served with some potato salad with new potatoes from our allotment - the first batch of the year, so very little seasonings needed as they tasted so delicious - a simple yoghurt and chive dressing was all they needed.

Saturday 22 June - Stracotto on Polenta

Decided to try something new again, so ended up with Stracotto -  a joint of beef braised in Chianti and passata and served on Polenta.

The beef was studded with garlic, and then sealed in a pan. Then finely chopped onions, carrots and celery were sweated for 30 minutes (I also added garlic here which wasn't in the recipe.

 

Then a good glug of Chianti, a bottle of passata and some beef stock were added, and the beef was cooked in this along with a bouquet garni of home grown herbs - and into a very low oven for 6 hours.

Another change that I made was to make a gremolata of lemon rind, parley and garlic to serve over the final dish.

Once the beef was tender, the sauce was pushed the a mouli - one thing I really, really dislike to eat is cooked celery because of the texture, but it's ok hidden in a sauce!

The meat was thickly sliced and served over polenta with the sauce and gremolata - as it's still in season we added some asparagus and some spinach wilted briefly with garlic and chilli.

The left over meat was shredded and added to some sauce, and I will serve it with pasta later this week.

For afters some chocolate mousse served with salted caramel - not good for the diet, but delicous.

Saturday 15 June - Pink Pralines

I've had a pack of Pink Pralines lurking at the back of my cupboard since we came back from France last year, so I decided the time has come to use them up.

I tasted one out of the packet, and it was not unlike trying to eat a pebble - rock hard .

In order to be able to melt them a lot of bashing with a hammer took place, then they were placed in a pan of cream and slowly melted.

Once melted they were boiled until the mixture reached 100 degrees, and then this was cooled before filling some tart cases that we had blind baked.

First course was some bargain smoked salmon we'd picked up made into a pate with some cream cheese, dill and lemon juice - and this was served with some soda bread.

Main course was a sort of Osso Bucco but made with cubes of veal rather than the traditional slices cooked in white wine and tomatoes.

This was topped with a gremolate mix of parsley, garlic and lemon rind and served with a saffron risotto.

We rounded off the meal with a cheese board purchased from Chichester market

Friday 17 May - Beef Stifado

For once I was very organised on a Friday, and managed to get the beef into the marinade before starting work.

The marinade consisted of red wine, wine vinegar, oregano, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves garlic and allspice berries.

I left the chunks of braising steak quite big, and they were in the marinade all day.

 



 

The beef was then braised in this marinade, along with some peeled and chopped tomatoes and a spoonful of tomato puree for about 3 hours.

 

 



 

 

The rich stew was served with some orzo, and a Greek Style Salad with dill and mint stirred into it.

 







 

 

Saturday 11 May - Curry Goat

I'd seen goat meat advertised at a farm shop locally, so  decided to get my Levi Roots book out and find a recipe for Curry Goat - something I've never cooked or even eaten before.

I was surprised to find that the goat meat was fresh, and came cut into smallish chunks, but with quite a lot of bone left in it.

This meat was marinaded in lime juice, Jamaican mild curry powder, and what should have been all purpose seasoning which I forgot to buy, so we added grated onion, all spice, chilli powder, thyme and salt and pepper.

Then the cooking started - this took ages and was carried out in stages with much adding of stock at 45 minute intervals.

Finally the other ingredients, peppers, scotch bonnet, allspice, ginger, garlic and herbs were added and another 2 hours cooking.

 

 

 

For the rice and peas, a coconut was grated and soaked in hot water, before squeezing the milk out. (I think next time I'll use a tin of coconut milk!)

 

 

 

This milk was simmered with various flavourings before being used to cook the rice and black beans in

 





The final stage of the curry was to add some potatoes, and then cook until they were tender.

We served the curry with the rice and peas, and some sliced plantain which I fried in sunflower oil.

Wednesday 1 May - Pesto Bread

I've decided to blog this one, as it didn't turn out quite the way I'd hoped it would, so will use it to see how I can make improvements. I didn't use a recipe for this, it was a bit of a made up as I went along experiment.

Firstly, I activated some fresh yeast as I had some that needed using up - the block of yeast was creamed with some sugar.

Then some warm water was added and it was left until bubbly (about 10 minutes)

I used this added to 1lb of flour, some olive oil and salt - adding warm water to make a pretty wet dough.

The dough was left to rise, and then using semolina to stop it sticking formed into a flattish rectangle  - I didn't kneed it again at this point.

Left to rest again for about 10 minutes, and then I brushed it with pesto, which I diluted down with some olive oil to make it more brushable

 

 

I then make dimples all over the dough with my fingers  which I had oiled, and popped some pieces of sun dried tomatoes into some of them

 

 

 

It was then baked in a very hot oven, with a pan of water underneath to create steam

 

 

This was the finished result, and you can see the problem from the photo was that the Pesto cooked a bit more than I would have liked it to - it tasted OK, but not quite as nice as I'd hoped it would be - next time I need to find a way to get the pesto actually into the loaf I think.