Category: Slow cooked food

Beans…. for beans on toast

When I want to cheer the Bear up, or give him a special treat,  I tend to make him beans. It’s probably his favourite meal.

When he’s been travelling, he will phone from some far-flung corner of the world and ask me if I will make him beans on toast when he gets in.

This isn’t the ordinary, open a can, heat through and serve on white sliced sort of beans on toast… this is something that has developed in the time we have been together.

It all started when he asked me to marry him and I accepted (but you guessed that bit, right?) and then I went to Florence with my best friend for a little holiday. I have to point out, though, that this had been arranged for ages.. it wasn’t a reaction to being engaged. Anyway, D and I had a marvellous time, visiting her son and while we were there, often had cannellini beans with tomato and sage and pancetta, served with good Italian bread…. a traditional Tuscan dish. It is truly delicious – very simple but beautifully tasty.

I asked the chef at one restaurant, La Giostra how it was done. Now, I said these weren’t just any beans, nor was this just any chef…he is Prince Dimitri Kunz d’Asburgo Lorena.

It’s just beans he said…… cannellini beans in stock from vegetables, with some sage, olive oil, garlic, tomatoes and pancetta. But it’s slow…. you take your time. The flavours reflect the care you put into it.

When I came back I was telling the Bear about this wonderful restaurant, in a 16th Century building in the heart of Florence and how one of my favourite things had probably been this incredibly simple dish. He asked me to try and make it for him. And I did. I remembered what Prince Dimitri had said and I produced beans Tuscan style and it became a favourite of ours …. but as with all cooking, things change over time. I replaced, at one point, the pancetta with streaky bacon and chorizo, giving it a deeper, richer flavour and, after going out one day and leaving the beans bubbling down in the tomatoes until it became a thicker, more concentrated tomatoey bean dish, realised I liked it more with a thicker sauce. Maybe that’s because I’m not eating it in Florence….

I serve it with toasted No Knead Bread and we call it beans on toast.

First, get a bag of cannellini beans  – you will need about 250g for maybe 4 or so healthy sized portions. Dried beans need to be soaked overnight to get them ready for their proper cooking.

I once had dried beans that no matter what I did with them, they just refused to soften. Maybe they were a rogue batch, so after that I always made sure I had some cans of cannellini beans in as well. They are just as good and means that you can make beans that day, if you want them rather than waiting for the following day after they have soaked overnight.

So… either soak your beans and start the recipe the next day.. or open 3 cans of beans….

Give the beans a good rinse and then put them in a pot with some fresh water, some sprigs of sage and a carrot to add flavour to the stock.

Peel and chop 3 or 4 cloves of garlic (I cut it to roughly the size of the beans) and put them in the pot with a good slug of olive oil.

And then set the beans away – bring the pan to the boil, gently and then let them bubble softly away at a simmer until they soften. When I had that batch of beans that refused to soften I started adding a sheet of kombu to the pan (remembering to fish it out later) This is Japanese seaweed and it is supposed to help beans soften… it also adds a savour to the stock – more of the umami hit that makes everything taste so rich and full. Not seaweedy at all, so don’t worry.  It’s not hard to get hold of if you want to give it a go – it will be in the health food/world food sections in supermarkets.

Let everything bubble away until you know the beans are softening. Or, if you are using cans of beans, just get them heated through for a few minutes in water, with the garlic and sage.

Now add two tins of chopped plum tomatoes

Stir it round – see how the beans are still distinctly white against the tomato? You want to get them to the stage where they are infused with tomatoey colour and flavour.

If you have some spare red wine, add a sloosh of that – maybe half a glass or so.

Turn the heat down so that you get the pan to bubble softly – the effect you are aiming for is for the occasional lazy bubble to pop to the surface. You can leave it doing that for an hour or so. You might need to add some more water – just keep half an eye on it and watch how it goes.

Now, get your chorizo and slice it

Don’t forget to pull off the covering around it… you don’t want to eat that.

Then dry fry it gently – see how the oil comes out?

You need to colour both sides and then take it out of the pan to cool before cubing it. Don’t throw that oil out… you pour that into the beans.

If you have streaky bacon, slowly fry that too and then cut that into pieces, before adding that and the chorizo to the beans.

Stir it all round and add another glug or two of olive oil.

Give it time to relax together – taste the sauce.. is it to your liking? Does it need some salt? It’s really only at this stage you add salt – if you do it as the beans are boiling you will toughen the skins.

Chop some sage leaves finely to scatter into the pot

It should be a rich tomato sauce with hints of the paprika from the chorizo, a slight muskiness from the sage, aromatic from the garlic and olive oil….

Slice and toast some good bread – and by that I mean sourdough or the lovely No Knead Bread, or maybe good Italian bread… just as long as it isn’t white sliced, which would just dissolve into nothingness.

And serve proudly, knowing you have made a meal from simple ingredients, that cost pennies and makes people smile.

Plate of beef

One of the best things in the world is to be able to spend time with your friends.

And when one of those friends is someone you have known since you were eleven years old, well, it is even better. Let’s just say that more than one decade has passed since we met. We could, in fact, be talking about decades in the plural. Several decades.

Be that as it may, it is J’s birthday on Christmas Eve. This always gives me great joy because for a few short weeks she is, technically, a year older than me. The Bear and I always try to be back for J’s birthday and it is something of a tradition of ours that she and K, her husband, come to stay on Boxing Day.

We cook for them and make it a special night.

I decided to do beef and chose one of the cheapest cuts – plate of beef.  I didn’t choose cheap because I wanted to cut corners and costs, I chose it because it has the most incredible flavour.

Plate of beef is the cut from the cow’s diaphragm muscles, the underneath of the cow, with the rib bones attached. A related cut is beef skirt that I use when I want to make  steak and chips. Plate of beef is fattier and tougher than skirt and the best way to cook it is to let is cook slowly for a long time and make sure you have some liquid to keep it moist.

See the layers, interspersed with fat? They need to be cosseted in a low oven so the fat renders down and turns everything into a soft, juicy and unbelievably flavoursome piece of meat. A braise is a good way of doing it but I wanted it as a slow roasted piece of meat….

That’s a big piece of meat for under £5. The butcher scores the outside so you just need to season it and choose something for the liquid not-quite-braise.

I stand the meat on a rack at first and pour over my favourite marinade – a mixture made with

Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce which gives it a sharper savoury flavour

Some Indonesian Sweet Soy Sauce which adds a rounded sweet flavour

Half a glass of red wine… because, well, why wouldn’t you? 

(The Bear saw me walking across the kitchen with the glass and was horrified at the thought I had turned to drink – it was, after all, quite a bit before midday and I was going to be driving)

A grinding of white pepper finishes it off.

Pour a glass of water into the tin (not over the meat) to keep the moisture levels up and that’s it.

This truly is a delicious marinade for meat – it seems to deepen the meaty flavour and none of the ingredients overpowers the others. It all seems to work really well together. Try it.

I put it in the oven at 1 pm, at 120 degrees C, covered with foil to keep the steam and the delicious juices in and then set off to do other stuff.

When we came back at about 5 pm it all smelled deep and meaty and hinted at juicy, glistening pieces of meat to eat later. The best thing about this cut is that is very forgiving in terms of time.

I took it off the rack and let it lie in the meat juices and marinade, then I just left it as it was until it was ready to finish off.

About an hour before we were ready to eat, I turned the heat up to 175 and took the foil off for the final 30 – 40 minutes.

I set the table and got ready

I was going to make the meal a simple one… just meat and some veg… but it was going to be marvellously tasty meat and veg.

Potatoes were parboiled and drained. If you do this in a colander, give them a good shaking so they roughen a bit and and then throw them into sizzling goose fat . I use a baking tray with an shallow edge on it and put a good two tablespoons of goose fat on it and let it heat up for ten minutes or so before I throw on the potatoes.

If they have had a bit of roughening round the edges, it lets the goose fat get in and make a lovely crispy and crunchy crust. The insides stay beautifully fluffy.  They just need to be turned so they brown all over.

I steamed some carrots and parsnips ( I had prepared too many batons the day before for Christmas lunch, but, kept in the fridge, they were still perfectly fresh and just needed a light cooking) and then tossed them in with the potatoes.

Time to start getting things ready.. so the candles were lit

The meat taken out to rest. The pan was deglazed with another half glass of red wine – it sizzled  and spluttered and the meat juices and marinade turned in a gravy that was so delicious you might be happy drinking it.

The meat looked fantastic.

The champagne was poured and the birthday girl was toasted (while I laughed quietly to myself because I am not as old as she is…… yet!)

And the meat carved into great, luxurious slices of rich and juicy beef…

All I needed to do now is call the birthday girl to the table, and get everyone to join her for her birthday meal

The plate of beef was considered a resounding success – it’s an underused cut and perhaps people think it is tricky to deal with or maybe ordinary and boring. It was easy – a marinade, a slow cooking throughout the afternoon with a final burst of heat to finish it off. The flavour is incredible – rich, deep and complex. The essence of meaty beefiness.

Just because it is inexpensive doesn’t mean it can’t be part of a special dinner.

Find a decent butcher who will sell you this cut and try it yourself. You will be very glad you did.

Pomegranate and Saffron Lamb

 I was looking in the freezer for something to cook while I was at work and found some lamb neck and decided that would be perfect for the slow cooker but the gloom of December is getting to me and I need something with a bit of zing to it… some brightness to cut through the dark…

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Lamb neck is inexpensive and, if cooked correctly, incredibly tasty. Those four fat slices cost just £1.70.

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There’s a good amount of meat on them, with fat running through it that, if cooked slowly and cossetted with spices, will turn the meat into something that is so tender and melting and so mouthwateringly lovely you can’t help but  smile.

I wanted spices with it, spices and a touch of sharpness and thought that a kind of Middle Eastern theme would work. In my cupboard I had a bottle of Pomegranate Molasses which would be perfect. The flavour it adds is a rich and tangy one – a mix of sour and sweet and it goes perfectly with all sorts of meat, particularly the fattier kinds as it cuts right through, really letting the meat flavour expand , if you know what I mean.

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As with any kind of slow cooking, the best thing to do is to brown the meat – not only does it add a deeper flavour but it makes it look better too.

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Then, maybe other Middle eastern flavours…. garlic and ginger – crush some, or squeeze some from a tube and fry it off in the pan after you have taken the meat out.

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Add some stock and stir it round to loosen up the caramelised meat bits and the lovely garlic and ginger.

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A good pinch of saffron will add a deeper note and the most wonderful colour.

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And crush some cardomom seeds – break them open first and then crush the little seeds inside the papery cases…. they are the bits with the flavour… sprinkle them over the bits of lamb in the slow cooker..

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Add a couple of teaspoons of honey

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And a couple of tablespoons of pomegranate molasses, then pour over the saffrony stock.

You know the chilli oil I made? Well those chillies are soft now after their long bath but just as hot… one of them dropped in there will add another layer of flavour… a spike of heat

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And that’s it.

Well that’s it till the next day, anyway. The slow cooker can go on before setting off for work in the morning and then,  on getting in from work?

Then you will find your home filled with the most beautiful smell and know that you are going to eat the perfect supper for a dark and gloomy night…. oh it was gorgeous.

There was this deep, rich smell blended with a  fruity sharpness and the underlying tang that comes from saffron. Quite mouthwatering

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The meat was falling away from the bone… all I had to do was make some couscous and then spoon the tender, aromatic lamb and gravy over it….

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And then tuck in…..

Lamb shanks with rose coco beans and tomatoes

It’s cold. It’s dark. I need something warm and filling. I am planning something that can cook by itself while I am out the following dayand be ready when we return.

When I look in the freezer I spot two lovely looking lamb shanks that I bought when I was last in the North and I know I have a packet of very beautiful looking beans…

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I’d never seen them before but they looked so pretty that I had to buy them. Well then. I can imagine them going so well with some slow cooked shanks…..perhaps a sort of Italian feel to the meal?

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First step has to be get the beans ready. They had to be soaked overnight first  and then they need to be boiled for 10 minutes or so. That would fit in with my timings for tomorrow…

So they were left overnight to soak and then the following morning put on to boil

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And the froth scooped off

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Make sure that there’s  no more froth and then rinse them clean.

While all that has been happening, you can get cracking on the vegetables

 

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As lamb is a lovely, sweet meat I thought that sweet potato in with the shanks would be a nice mix, alongside the usual suspects…. I think I may have been influenced by the pretty pink beans because I realise now that the sweet potato is pink as are the little shallots that are going to sit alongside the lamb.

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I browned the shanks to make sure there was a decent colour  and good depth of flavour – if you don’t, the shanks will still cook perfectly but will look pale and uninteresting.

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And really that’s it…. all you do now is put it into your slow cooker or casserole

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Put some vegetables in first, lie the shanks on top, then add more vegetables, a clove or so of chopped garlic….

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Put those boiled and rinsed beans on top

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And I topped the lot with a tin of chopped plum tomatoes. Well, beans and tomatoes go so well together. I really was thinking pink, wasn’t I?

Some salt and pepper…. lid on and into the oven it went.

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That was it maybe four or so hours later….

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And once spooned out…. oh the delicious smell…. it went perfectly with a glass of red wine and some  freshly baked focaccia

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Lamb stew and minty dumplings

While I was preparing to get back to work I went shopping to get supplies in. I saw that the butcher had some stewing lamb and I thought that there would be nothing nicer to come home to, after a day at work than some slow cooked lamb that I could pop some dumplings into, to cook while I got changed and then we could settle down to a hot meal.

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The lovely thing about slow cookers is that you can get everything prepared (and when I say prepared, I am not talking about a huge investment of time… maybe 5 minutes or so?) anyway, you can do that the night before and then start the slow cooker in the morning before you leave for work.

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Fry off the meat (you can see why it is a good thing to do this at night… I certainly wouldn’t want to be frying meat at 6am) until it is browned on the edges. This helps the gravy develop a good colour and a decent flavour.

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While that is sizzling, chop an onion and some garlic and think about the way you want to go with the lamb stew. I thought about using some spices… sort of a tagine feel but in a toned down way. I looked about to see what we had and found a bag of dried peaches. I had thought there might be some apricots but there wasn’t, so peaches it was going to be.

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They are pretty sharp in flavour which is a good thing with lamb as that is sweet in itself . I hadn’t actually used dried peaches before so this really was going to be an experiment.

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Because I was using fruit in there I looked for spices to go with it… and found a tin of tagine spices…

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By now the lamb was browned off and I put it into the slow cooker with the chopped onions.

Then scattered a handful of dried peaches on top

And then sprinkled the spice mix.

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Some stock granules over the top of that and pour in some water.

 

That took just over 9 minutes and that is because I was having to wash my hands in between each step to take a picture. If you aren’t doing that  😉 you can expect it to take a lot less time

 And that’s it for the night. Lid on and leave it unto the morning when you can turn it on before you go to work.

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Set it to Auto and then set off to work.

 

The good thing about a slow cooker is that the Auto function starts it off as high to get things going then goes right down to low to tick over until you get home….

 

What to do with it? When I started out I was thinking of minty dumplings but then I hadn’t thought of the tagine hint….and by the time I got home we had a friend to feed as well. That was good news and there was certainly no problem about that but what it did mean was that dumplings for three people wouldn’t fit in the small slow cooker…

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Anyway, I got in and tasted it.. it wasn’t too spicey… there was a hint of spice, sure enough, but it wasn’t totally tagine. It was a mix of sharpness from the fruit, warmth from the spices and and meaty juiciness. Dumplings would go, after all. Maybe not dumplings poached in the gravy… but they could be baked and then placed on top…

I needed to thicken the gravy slightly – at the moment it was just the slow cooked lamb juices and the water… a delicious stock but it needed to be thicker. mashed celeriac, lamb and dumplings 028 If you take a  couple of spoonfuls out of the pot and mix it with some cornflour, it mixes easily in the bowl you can add it straight back in to the main pot without making it lumpy. Now that is is thickening nicely… on to the dumplings!

First of all, put the oven on, if it isn’t on already. 200 degrees C should do it.

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So, in a bowl put 80g of self raising flour ( add a couple of teaspooons of baking powder if you use plain) and 40 g of suet..

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Chop up some mint

Add that and a sprinkling of stock granules to the flour and suet and then add a couple of teaspoons of water and mix together

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Form into dumpling shapes and put on a baking tray

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Fifteen minutes later… look!

Serve up the lamb and balance the  dumplings on top….

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Oh they were delicious! Light and fluffy with a soft middle and a gorgeously crispy outside…. what a good thing it was that we needed more than could be cooked in the slow cooker.

Sometimes you discover things by accident and are really glad you did.

Chicken in cider casserole with apple and chive dumplings

I was wondering what to make for supper and looking round to see what we had when I spotted the last  Bramley apple in the fruit dish. My aunt has a huge tree in her garden so whenever I go to see her, I come away with the cooking apples.

Chicken, I thought. Chicken casserole and I’ll add the apple… and make the gravy with a bottle of cider! And maybe dumplings to go on top…. just the thing for a blustery day. So off I went to the butcher’s and came back with legs and thighs (my favourite bits of the chicken – so juicy and flavoursome) I got a leek, some sweet onions and a couple of carrots, too.

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First thing to do was brown the chicken in the casserole dish. If you are using a slow cooker, just brown them off in a frying pan. It won’t take long and it does make a difference. Besides it melts out some of the fat which is a good thing.

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While they are browning chop your vegetables. You of course can add whatever you fancy. Onion and leek are good as they sweeten over the cooking time and I am going for a sweetly savoury, rich and delicious casserole here, a soothing meal rather than a spicy one. Carrots look pretty, so they can go in!

Take the chicken out and add your vegetables, stirring them round gently so they pick up some of the brown and caremelised bits of the chicken that are stuck on the dish.

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Then lay your chicken bits on top the vegetables. I sprinkled some Knorr Granulated Bouillon over the chicken (much easier than cubes) as I needed some stock in there

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Then, pour in the Bulmer’s apple cider!  Look at it froth beautifully. That is going to go perfectly with the apple and make the stock taste delicious. The smell as it hits the hot dish is incredible

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I peeled the Bramley, cored and cut it into pieces and quartered some mushrooms. They went in on top of everything.

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And that was it….into a preheated oven at 160 degrees so it could bubble away this afternoon. A couple of hours at the most and it would be ready.

But I wanted this to be the perfect casserole. Dumplings are always a good move… light and tasty, floating on top of delicious gravy….

For them you need flour – I used 40 g of self raising  – and 20 g of beef suet. This will make 6 lovely little  dumplings, perfect for the two of us and with two of them left over so that a certain person can take some casserole for his lunch the following day. Double the quantity, I think, for more people.

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When I make dumplings, I often chop into the mix some herbs – maybe lemon zest and some thyme, or chives… and there I was staring at the chopping board where the peel from my Bramley lay…. why not, I wondered? I nibbled a bit of the peel – definitely sharp flavoured and appley. If they added just a hint of appleness to the savoury dumplings… well, that might just be considered a triumph!

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So I chopped the apple peel finely and chopped up some chives

 

I added some salt to the suet and flour and a tablespoon or so of  cold water… then stirred in the chopped chives and apple peel

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Look how the colour changes slightly as it comes together

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Then I rolled the dumpling mix into 6 little balls.Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 032

Before you put the little morsels of dumpling loveliness into there, stir in, if you have any, a spoonful cream. Cream in a chicken gravy is perfect. The apple and cider sharpen it so it isn’t too rich and the mixture of it all together is just so delicious.

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Then, add the dumplings.   

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I pop them on top of the casserole (remembering to leave space for them to expand a bit) maybe half an hour before I am ready to serve it. If you are doing this in the slow cooker then just turn the heat up to high for the last half hour.

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Look at them… flecked with the green of the chives and the apple…

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And that, let me tell you, was delicious. The chicken was tender, the gravy was smooth, both sweet and savoury and the dumplings had a gorgeous taste of apple running through them. How inspired was I to think of adding the peel?

I think I am on to something with that!

The beginning….

 

 
October morning mists
October morning mists

…. it is the beginning of October, the beginning of this blog and, it seems, the beginning of Autumn. When I got up this morning instead of being able to see for miles from kitchen window, it was cool and misty. When I went out onto the balcony there was a definite chill in the air. The kind of chill that suggests a need for big meaty dishes.

The Bear had set off early to work and crept out trying not to wake me so I thought I would make a decent effort in return and have something  ready for him tonight. I also needed to make sure there was enough for him to eat tomorrow night as I was going back to the north for a couple of days. Not that he couldn’t cook for himself, but  I had plenty of time and he was busy. Might as well make myself useful. What I wanted was something with minimal effort and maximum kudos. I had bought the November issue of “delicious.” at the weekend and one of the recipes in the slow cooking section,  Spiced Shoulder of Lamb,  sounded just the sort of thing for a chilly day – with the added bonus of gorgeously aromatic smells filling the apartment while it cooked. The sheer simplicity of the recipe meant that it had a lot going for it as certain of my friends (yes, you know who you are) prefer not to exert themselves too much…… and they need encouragement.

It did suggest making it in a slow cooker but as the one I have is a very small two person pot and this recipe serves 4-6, then it seemed a good idea to do it on a low heat in the oven all afternoon… and that would also warm the place up a bit.

Spiced Shoulder of Lamb from delicious. November 2009 issue

1.5kg shoulder of lamb,

good pinch of saffron,

1 onion finely sliced,

2.5cm bit of ginger, peeled and cut into matchstick sized pieces,

2 garlic cloves, 

1 tsp chilli flakes, 

1 tsp coriander seeds,

1 tsp. cumin seeds,

 2 tsp garam masala.

I bought a piece of rolled shoulder – not for any other reason than that was what Mick the butcher had.   

 

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           Ingredients

The lamb was browned all over in a hot frying pan before I put it in my Le Creuset casserole. While that was browning, I soaked the saffron in 2 tbsps of warm water and started on the paste. All of the other ingredients needed to be blitzed to a rough paste and then the saffron and water added. The paste was seasoned well and then rubbed all over the lamb

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That was it. Into a preheated oven (160 degrees/140 degrees, fan assisted/gas mark 3) and leave it to do its stuff for 4 or so hours.

Now I’m just lolling around while the apartment smells gorgeous…… ‘delicious. ‘ suggests serving it with couscous, which I will make later and making a garlic, mint and yoghurt sauce to go with the lamb.

The sauce is made with 150ml Greek yoghurt, 1 crushed garlic clove and a handful for chopped fresh mint, all stirred together .

So, my friends, do you think you can make this? It’s not hard is it? Five minutes work and then leave the oven to deal with it?

The outcome?

Lamb Lamb – the finished dish

Finally… after several hours, the Bear returned home from work and demanded to be fed. I should have taken a photograph of it before I took the string off (carefully with scissors… no running around waving knives, please!) and broke up the meat with two forks.

Oh, and then we took several portions out so there was a lot more than this. It really did fall apart. It really was soft and luscious. I made the couscous – which for coeliac/gluten intolerant amongst us wouldn’t be appropriate, you’d be better off with a jacket potato – anyway, for those that can eat couscous it is a simple matter of pouring boiling water on it and letting it fluff up.

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I made the sauce with Greek yoghurt, some chopped garlic and the last handful of mint growing in the pot on the balcony. I just put it in a jug and whizzed it till everything  was smooth then put it in the fridge to chill. I think if you make the lamb then the yoghurt sauce is a must have – it gives the finished dish a bright sharpness and livens up the couscous.

Pastryless pie 005

I possibly could have presented it more attractively but after a full day of taking photographs whilst cooking (I kept forgetting… I was into “The Zone”) and trying to upload them… well, by the time it got to putting it in a dish, I just dished up.  No doubt the style gurus amongst us will suggest a white dish for better effect but hey ho… I have these. I like them. They’ll do.

Final thoughts? It was easy, it wasn’t expensive (£5 for the lamb and that is from my butcher who doesn’t do cheap) there’s enough there for at least 6 people. The apartment smells nice, the Bear seems happy. You can prepare it and stick it in the oven or the slow cooker and then get on with other stuff. It is very forgiving if you don’t know when you will be serving it up. I say do it. You won’t regret it….