Tag: onion

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit…………… ragu

While I was in the north and at the butcher’s, I spotted some rabbit

 Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 035

£2.20! I bought that and started to think of things to make with it. Because the rabbits are wild they have very little fat on them but they are high in protein… a very delicious meat but they need to be cosseted in order to get the best from them. I thought a lovely rich ragu, slowly cooked until the rabbit was tender and served with pasta would be gorgeous.

What you will need is rabbit, of course, carrots, onion, some streaky bacon, a couple of bay leaves and some peppercorns. You’ll need either fresh tomatoes or a tin of the lovely Italian plum tomatoes, some wine, garlic and some butter.

Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 045

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I got the bay leaves from the tree on the balcony

Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 044

You will need pasta to serve it with – I make it when I have time but just buy some if you want to.

It was the weekend so I had the time to do this….. first of all, if the rabbit isn’t jointed, then do it now. Mine was, so that saved me a job. If it isn’t then you need to take a sharp knife and carefully cut through the joints. If you have poultry shears snip down the ribs. Get it into roughly evenly sized pieces.

                                                                 Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 037

Heat your casserole and some oil and then start to brown your rabbit. What you are about to do is get the meat ready and make a delicious stock that you will add to the tomato sauce to pour over your pasta.

                                                                                         Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 041

Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 047

While the rabbit is browning, get the rest of the stock ingredients together

Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 046

 

Chop the carrots and onion, get some black peppercorns and add that to the browned rabbit. Add some water – don’t entirely cover the rabbit – and see all the lovely browning caramelisation mix with the water already……

 

Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 048

 

Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 050

Just leave that to simmer quietly for an hour and a half or so until the rabbit is tender and falling off the bone.

Now get cracking on the ragu…..Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 053

Usual routine… chop the onion, start to sweat it gently…

Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 057

Never put the garlic in with the onion as it burns too quickly.. so while the onion is gently softening, chop the garlic

Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 055

Then the bacon… chop that and add it

Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 059

Once that has started to cook down, add the tomato. Chopped plum tomatoes in a tin are fine… excellent, in fact. You should always have tins of them in the cupboard.

Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 064

The juice sticks to the side of the tin so pour some red wine in and swish it round… then pour it in

Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 065

Well, you might as well get the last of the tomato out and you don’t want to dilute the delicious ragu with water, do you?

Bear Bars and Rabbit ragu and tagliatelle 066

Now that, too, can simmer for a while…..

Crumpets, ragu, chicken pie 001

See how rich it is looking?

Back to the rabbit…..

Crumpets, ragu, chicken pie 002

See? It is tender and starting to come away

Crumpets, ragu, chicken pie 003

Get it out and put on a plate.. don’t throw the stock out! Look at how the wooden fork can gently pull the flesh away ….

Meanwhile, strain the vegetables from the stock.. you don’t need them but you do need the stock

Crumpets, ragu, chicken pie 005

Boil down the stock with a good old slug of vermouth for a few minutes so it reduces slightly then add it to the ragu…. I decided to blitz it as I wanted a smooth base to go with the soon-to-be shredded rabbit

Crumpets, ragu, chicken pie 006

Start shredding the rabbit… well, you don’t need to shred, it just falls apart when you pull at it

Crumpets, ragu, chicken pie 007

Do watch out for the bones though.. a rabbit always seems to me to have more bones than are necessary… look at them

Crumpets, ragu, chicken pie 009

Still, you get a lot of meat for your £2.20

Crumpets, ragu, chicken pie 010

Then, add the lovely, tender, delicate rabbit to the gorgeously smooth sauce

Crumpets, ragu, chicken pie 017

Stir it round.. that rabbit need to be covered in the sauce

While that is gently simmering, get some pasta ready

Crumpets, ragu, chicken pie 019

And then…? Well then you put the two together…

Crumpets, ragu, chicken pie 027

That is something I will be doing again. There was enough rich and tasty ragu there to easily feed 6 of us. Pity there was only the two of us……. don’t you wish you had been passing and had called in to share?

Monkfish

I was cooking for some friends recently and bought monkfish tails. I didn’t use all the monkfish so I froze a tail fillet knowing that it would come in handy one night as a quick supper for the two of us.

That night was Friday night.

I had a few tomatoes and the last bit of a pot of cream.  It was cold and grey outside so I wanted  something bright to look at and there’s nothing more cheery than saffron added to food, with its lovely golden colour and that gorgeous deep tang of its flavour.

 Bone Idle Bread, Monkfish 011

This wouldn’t take long so I thought rice would be good. Basmati cooks really quickly and all you need to do is measure the rice then add the same amount of water and maybe a tablespoon extra.

Bone Idle Bread, Monkfish 013

Just put that on the heat with a pinch of salt and get cracking on the rest of the supper…

Bone Idle Bread, Monkfish 014

Start by chopping up a small onion and gently sauteing it in some butter till it softens and sweetens . Add a good pinch of saffron

Bone Idle Bread, Monkfish 018

And some finely chopped tomatoes

Bone Idle Bread, Monkfish 019

Stir it round and then pour in a good old slug of vermouth… maybe a cup full, add some salt and pepper..

Bone Idle Bread, Monkfish 020

Stir that round and let it bubble down a bit.  The alcohol will cook off so don’t expect to get lashed on the sauce 😉  and don’t worry, you can give it to youngsters!

Get the monkfish and cut it into rounds.  Check the rice… has the water all been absorbed in? Is it tender? If it needs a drop more then add that but keep your eye on it. If it is ready, take it off the heat and put a tea towel over the top and then put the lid on to absorb the extra steam. By now the tomatoey sauce will be coming together. Add a knob of butter and stir round then carefully put the monkfish slices in

Bone Idle Bread, Monkfish 021

Let it gently, very gently, bubble away for about 5 or so minutes until the fish is cooked.

Take the fish out and put on one side because you are now going to make the most delicious sauce…

Bone Idle Bread, Monkfish 023

Pour in some cream and stir it in then turn up the heat so the sauce can reduce and thicken

Bone Idle Bread, Monkfish 028

See how it is still a sauce but it has thickened?

Now pile up the rice in a bowl and add the monkfish

Bone Idle Bread, Monkfish 029

Doesn’t it look gorgeous?

Then pour the sauce over

Bone Idle Bread, Monkfish 032

And settle down to eat….

Bonfire Night

Yesterday was  Guy Fawkes, or Bonfire Night and, for us in the UK, we gather round bonfires, watching fireworks and eating sausages, commemorating the failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament and the resulting punishment given to Guy himself. It’s also a special day for us as it is our wedding anniversary. And yes, we’ve heard all the jokes about there being fireworks on our wedding night 😉

From our dining table we can look down onto the city below us and see all the fireworks – a fantastic sight and, as a plus point,  it also saves us standing around outside. We don’t like to ignore tradition completely though, so we thought that we would at least have the sausages as part of our anniversary meal. Sausages and our favourite sparkling wine – the one we had at our wedding. Because it was cold we thought that red wine would be better than champagne – more warming, even though it was chilled. I’m sure you know what I mean. We’d wanted sparkling drinks to go with the fireworks going on outside and  chose Hardy’s Crest Sparkling Shiraz

I had to do more, though, than cook sausages and serve some wine and I decided that one of my favourite wintery standby recipes would be perfect – roasted, spiced winter vegetables. I have a recipe that I must have copied down from somewhere – it is written in a very old diary from 1977… not that I first did it then, just that I used the diary…it was already old when I found it….Old and empty, which is why I decided to use it for scribbling down recipes.

Bonfire Night Part 1 001

Goodness knows when I wrote that, though, but it must have been at least 17 years ago.

Bonfire Night Part 1 002

I have no idea where I got it from, so I can’t give due credit. Anyway, it has evolved, almost beyond recognition since then and I think the tweaks I made have improved it. Well, it has improved it to MY taste, anyway. Still, in order to make it  I needed vegetables, so set off to the greengrocer to see what I could get.

It’s great to be able to go to a traditional greengrocer

Fruit and veg 3

All the fruit and vegetables are piled up so you can see what you are buying and choose just what you want

Fruit and veg

Fruit and veg 2

I came back with lovely, knobbly Anya potatoes, sweet baby Chantenay carrots, sweet onions, broccoli, baby tomatoes, a sweet potato, a couple of parsnips, some baby corn, some garlic and some ginger. I also bought a packet of Merchant Gourmet roasted chestnuts, which must be one of the best things ever – the time that saves in roasting and peeling, well, I wouldn’t be so keen on chestnuts if I had to do it all myself… and as for the sausages? I chose Toulouse sausages – they are  small French sausages made of coarsely diced pork and bacon flavored with wine, garlic and unlike other sausages tend to have more meat and less of the normal breadcrumb filler.

Bonfire Night Part 1 003

The aim is to have the perfect mix of roasted vegetables. I love the soft sweetness of the sweet potato, with a bursting little tomato, a tasty, slightly charred bite of broccoli with the gorgeous chestnut…. lovely little garlicy roasted potatoes and mushrooms…. it really is delicious. It can easily stand alone as a vegetarian meal but with the addition of sausages…..oh it is just perfect!

And best of all it is simple! Start by putting the oven on high – about 230 degrees (210 if it is a fan oven) so that when the vegetables are ready they go into a hot oven and get just a hint of charring. It really deepens the flavour.

Then, prepare your vegetables. Start with the root vegetables –  peel and roughly cube the sweet potato. Chop the Anya potatoes (or any other potato) into roughly the same size pieces. Same for the parsnip. The onion needs to be cut into manageable pieces.  Obviously they are going to take longer than the other vegetables.

Bonfire Night Part 1 009

Scatter them into a large roasting tin and drizzle oil over them to give them a good, but light and even coating

Then prepare your spice mix. You need ground coriander, ground cinnamon and some cardomom pods.

Bonfire Night Part 1 008

Crush the cardamom pods and take out the seeds inside (I hate it when you leave the pods in and then you chew on the inedible outer casing…it’s a sort of medicinal taste. Not good when you are aiming for a comforting supper) Give them a grinding in the  mortar with your pestle

Bonfire Night Part 1 011

The cases split open and inside are the aromatic black seeds.

Bonfire Night Part 1 012

You need to separate them from the husks.. either through your fingers

Bonfire Night Part 1 013

Or in a large draining spoon so the seeds fall down.

Bonfire Night Part 1 014

Then crush the seeds to a powder. You’ll need a teaspoon or so

Bonfire Night Part 1 015

Scatter the spices and ground seeds lightly over the vegetables (maybe a large teaspoon of each) and add some grated ginger and chopped garlic. Sprinkle some salt over the top and drizzle with some more oil.

Bonfire Night Part 1 016

Into the hot oven for ten minutes or so till you can see it starting to brown….

Bonfire Night Part 2 004

Turn the oven down to about 175  degrees (less if it is a fan oven) and before you cover with foil, scatter in the softer vegetables, the baby tomatoes, broccoli florets, quartered mushrooms, the baby corn,  and the packet of chestnuts.

Bonfire Night Part 2 007

Bonfire Night Part 2 009

That will take another hour or so. Just check how things go as it steams in its own juices under its tin foil cover.

Now, I suppose, you had better set the table

Bonfire Night Part 2 012

Once I did that, we really entered into the spirit of Bonfire Night… Fireworks? Hah! We had a sparkler each. No expense spared for our anniversary dinner……..

Bonfire Night Part 2 022
Back to the cooking. Is everything softening well?

Take the foil off and stir things round….. dot the top with small nuggets of butter and then let it cook, uncovered for the last half hour or so.

Bonfire Night Part 2 023

That is, I can assure you, the most lovely aromatic mix of roast vegetables you’ll have had in a long time.

The only other thing to do is cook the sausages

 Bonfire Night Part 2 036

Make sure they are beautifully browned

Pour some wine… the bubbles are just so right for Bonfire Night. A glass or two of lovely rich sparkling shiraz is just the thing for sausages and veg…. and just the thing to celebrate with!

Bonfire Night Part 2 027

 

And… serve!

Bonfire Night Part 2 028

 The roasted vegetables are beautifully soft with just the right hint of charring. The spices are perfect and smell is just gorgeous. Look at how beautiful it all looks.

But Bonfire Night isn’t Bonfire Night without some fireworks… and we needed to celebrate…..

 Bonfire Night Part 2 034

And the result?

Bonfire Night Part 2 040

Clean plates. Always a marker of how successful a meal has been.

And I did, in the end, manage to get a photograph of  the fireworks going off below us

Bonfire Night Part 2 042

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Bonfire Night Part 2 044

So… a simple meal of roasted vegetables and sausages – perfect for Bonfire Night and even more perfect to celebrate an anniversary…

Cheers everyone!

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.

Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 018

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.

 Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 020

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.

 Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 021

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

 Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 022

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

 Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 023

 

Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 024

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

Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 025

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.

Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 027

Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 028

Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 029

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!

 Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 026

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

 Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 030

Look how the colour changes slightly as it comes together

 Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 031

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.

Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 033

Then, add the dumplings.   

Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 034

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.

Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 036

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

Brisket, chcicken casserole and dumplings 037

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!

Pumpkin Soup

After gouging out the seeds and making snacks of them the other day, I really had to get a move on with  the rest of the pumpkin and thought pumpkin soup would be the answer. Besides I wanted to make a Jack O’Lantern with it, ready for Halloween.

(When I was young, in the far North of England, we never saw a pumpkin and instead carved lanterns from turnips!)

Still, civilisation has advanced since then and even in the Grim North, pumpkins are freely available now. I started by scooping out the flesh

Lamb shank, pumpkin soup, bread, mayo 005

There was a fair amount of flesh in there

Lamb shank, pumpkin soup, bread, mayo 008

I thought that the best way of dealing with it was to roast it first to deepen the flavour. I sprinkled it with chilli oil, salt and paprika ….

Lamb shank, pumpkin soup, bread, mayo 009

That went into an oven at 175 degrees and while that was roasting I started on the soup base. Onions, of course, a clove of garlic, a little bit of chopped dried chilli

Lamb shank, pumpkin soup, bread, mayo 023

After the onion had softened in some oil and some stock, the pumpkin was browning nicely

Lamb shank, pumpkin soup, bread, mayo 025

The dark bits were caramellised and sweet, the rest of it was soft and golden… perfect. That could now go into the pan with the softened onions

Lamb shank, pumpkin soup, bread, mayo 028

Stir it round and watch it all sink into a lovely, soft mess of pumpkin and onion. Now you can add some more stock to thin it down… maybe some milk or, remember I told you about adding dried milk? That doesn’t add extra fluid but does add extra taste.

Then stick in your hand blender (surely one of the greatest inventions ever? This is my Dualit which I would hate to be without and that we got as a wedding present. Thanks B&T!)

Lamb shank, pumpkin soup, bread, mayo 033

See how the colour changes? Lightens as it becomes smooth and silky?

And that’s it.

Serve it in a bowl, with a swirl of chilli oil to spike it up a bit and a lovely fresh baked roll to go with it….

Lamb shank, pumpkin soup, bread, mayo 035

 

And at the end of it… I still had the pumpkin and a sharp knife. Happy Halloween!

Lamb shank, pumpkin soup, bread, mayo 036