Saturday 21 September - Hairy Bikers Beef Biryani

I spotted the Hairy Bikers making this on TV during the week and really liked the look of it. I found the recipe in their Curry book so it had to be tried - also Curry is one of the few things that I can guarantee George will eat.

It was quite a long winded recipe with lots of stages to it.

First stage was the beef- a paste was made in the food processor of onions, ginger, garlic and chillies

Freshly ground spices were added to the onion paste - coriander, cumin, cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and salt

This spice paste was fried, and then seared braising steak was added to it, along with some yoghurt and water, and it was left to simmer for a couple of hours

The other layers were prepared - basmati rice was part cooked and mixed with some chopped coriander, and some finely sliced onions were fried until golden.

Once all the components were ready, the dish was assembled.

First layer was half the beef.

  

 On top of that went half the rice, then half the fried onions - this was then drizzled with milk and saffron infusion. Then the layers were repeated.

The top layer was dotted with butter, then wrapped tightly in several layers of foil and into the oven. Garnishes were sultanas, toasted flaked almond and boiled eggs.

 We served this with popadoms, coriander chutney and cucumber raita and some home made onion bhajis.

Friday 30 August - Tomato Ketchup

A bit of a tomato glut, and this year I'm trying not to waste anything, so thought I'd have a go at Ketchup - using the vinegar bottles kindly supplied by The Bytham Kitchen for storage.

I based this on a Jamie Oliver recipe, with a few tweaks.

Firstly onions, garlic, ginger, basil, fennel, celery seed, cloves and cardamoms were sweated in a pan.

Then in went the tomatoes and some water and it all bubbled until reduced by half.

 

Then the mixture was blended and seived.

 

Finally, sugar and vinegar were added, and it was all reduced again, before being poured into sterilized bottles

Saturday 24 August - Pork Pie and Piccalilli

Last weekend was spent in Lincolnshire, and we had a visit to Melton Mowbray where we bought a delicious pork pie. I've made them before, but not for years, and as we had picked up some mini springform tins (childrens cake tins!) we thought we'd give it a go.

We read up lots of recipes, and came up with a sort of hybrid recipe of our own - the meat we used was shoulder, and we just cut this into small cubes, rather than mincing it.

The meat was seasoned with ground mace, mustard powder, a tiny bit of cayenne, salt and pepper and fresh chopped sage and thyme.

For the pastry we used Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls recipe for hot water crust - this is made with half butter and half lard which seems to add a bit more flavour than just using lard.
The tins were lined, and then packed with the seasoned pork.

We had to guess a bit on the cooking time, as the tins were quite small, but when they looked ready (after about 90 minutes) we took them out of the tins, and brushed them all over with egg, then cooked for another 15 minutes.

When they were nearly cool, the jelly was added - this was made by boiling pigs trotters in water flavoured with onion, carrot, bay leaves, sage and peppercorns.

We used a meat baster to add the jelly through the top of the pies - a lot of boiling was needed to make the jelly. and not much of it was used up.

While the pies were in the oven, we made a batch of piccalilli - we used onions, cucumbers and green beans from our allotment, and added some cauliflower from the market.

The vegetables were all chopped up into quite small pieces, and then left for an hour with some salt sprinkled over. They were then rinsed and left to drain.

The sauce was vinegar and sugar which was boiled and then mixed with a paste of mustard powder, turmeric, cornflour and I also added a big pinch of chilli flakes.

The was poured over the veg and popped into kilner jars. This won't keep too well as the veg weren't cooked in the vinegar.

Everything was left in the fridge overnight, and we've just tried the pie for lunch.

The best pastry I've ever made, and the meat was lovely and tender - tastes quite different from a bought pork pie - but in a good way!

 

Monday 29 July - Crispy Chicken and Puttanesca Potatoes

This meal was invented after George said he was bored with potatoes - I have to admit that we've been having them with everything as we have so many on the allotment, and it seems a shame not to eat then while they are so delicous!

The chicken was dipped first in flour, then a mixture of beaten egg and mustard, and finally some dried white breadcrumbs - these were browned in a frying pan, then finished in the oven for 20 minutes.

Now to the potatoes  - they were cut into even sizes and once cooked were cut up roughly with a sharp knife - skins and all.

Stirred through these - chopped deseeded and peeled tomato cubes, fried red onion, garlic and chopped red chilli - I added a spoonful of anchovy paste to the fried mixture while it was warm but you could add chopped tinned anchovies here, black olives and capers, and loads and loads of basil.

Once we'd tasted it we added the juice of half a lemon to brighten the flavours up

The potatoes were served warm with the crispy chicken, drizzled with some home made basil oil that was left over from Saturdays meal - and for once three completely clean plates at the end of the meal.

Saturday 27 July - New Dishes

Watching Rick Stein on Saturday Kitchen this morning made me reach for one of his books from my shelf - and a hunt through led to a couple of dishes for supper that were new to us.  Much of our menu planning at the moment revolves around the vegetables we have on the allotment, and so finding meat to serve with them - so Dauphinoise Potatoes were the star of tonights show.

I found an unusual recipe for a starter - flavours I wouldn't put together myself and thought it time to branch out - so here it is -  a salad of mozarella, parma ham, tomatoes and nectarines, with a basil oil dressing - and surprisingly delicious it was too!!

Main course was the potatoes, but we found a recipe for pork chops with a cider butter sauce in Rick Steins French Odyssey book - the sauce was made from cider vinegar and soy sauce which I thought would be horrible, but it worked brilliantly.

For afters, from the same book, Prune and Amagnac (or Lidl Brandy in our case) Tart - a bit like a sweet quiche with some almonds in - and again delicious, and enough left over for tomorrow.

Sunday 21 July -Trofie Pasta and The First English Cherries

A new Italian cookbook called Bocca Cookbook appeared in my kitchen, and the first page I opened showed a recipe for Trofie with potatoes, green beans and pesto. This sounded lovely and Summery, and also included instructions for making the pasta, so we decided to give this a go.

The Pasta was simply semolina and water -  I mixed it in the Kenwood using the dough hook as it's too hot for major kneading.

After resting the dough was shaped - there is a definite technique to doing this, and it took me a long time to get it!

 

Once the pasta was all shaped, it was left for half an hour to dry.

To serve with this, home made pesto - I've not made this myself for years, and the difference from bought pesto is incredible.

To serve, the pasta was cooked, and added to cooked green beans and new potatoes, and the pesto was stirred through. This was so simple, but probably the nicest thing we have eaten for ages  - I'd probably buy the pasta ready made for a midweek meal though!

 

 Summer is well and truly here, and we had also picked up the first English cherries of the year.

As the chickens are laying really well at the moment we had a surplus of eggs, so Clafoutis seemed the obvious thing to make here.

The cherries were stoned, and placed in the buttered tin and then the batter - similar to yorkshire pudding batter but with some sugar and vanilla added - was poured over, and it was baked.

This was served warm with some cream, and was absolutely delicious.

Thursday 18 July - Pork, Prunes and a Glut of Raspberries

We popped into Lidl for milk this morning, and spotted that their special this week was fillet pork medallions - perfect for Pork and Prunes

The pork was quickly fried, and served with a sauce made out of reduced white vermouth and chicken stock, finished with creme fraiche and some dried prunes

This was delicious, but probably took second place in the meal to the vegetables, which were all home grown, either on our allotment, or in the raised beds in our botttom garden - tonight we had roasted potatoes with rosemary and garlic, carrots and rainbow chard.

We had been given a large punnet of raspberries by my parents, and decided to use these to make a raspberry ripple icecream

The left over egg whites from making the custard base were used for meringues to serve alongside.

Basic vanilla icecream was churned until nearly frozen and then pureed raspberries with a touch of sugar and framboise added to it were swirled through before it went into the freezer to firm up.

This was served along with the meringues which we had baked topped with some chopped pistachios, some more raspberries, and the left over coulis.