Pork & Chilli Goulash

This is a brilliant recipe to scale up and do for a crowd of people. It can sit in the oven for hours until you are ready for it. Taken from the Jamie Oliver Cook at Home book a very pleasing and hearty dish. These quantities feed 4-6.

Pork & Chilli Goulash

2kg Pork shoulder, off the bone, skin off, fat left on.

2 Red onions - slices

2 Fresh chillies, de-seeded and chopped
2 Heaped tablespoons mild smoked paprika

2 Tsp Caraway seeds

Small bunch Marjoram or Oregano

5 Peppers - Capsicum/bell peppers - mixture of colours - sliced
280g jar of grilled peppers, chopped

400g can plum tomatoes

4 tbs red wine vinegar.

Heat the oven to 180oc. Heat a large ovenproof pot on the hob. Score the fat on the pork, season with S&P, cook the pork fat side down in a glug of olive oil for 15 mins on medium heat to render the fat. Remove pork.

Add onions, chilli, paprika, caraway seeds, marjoram/oregano leaves and more S&P. Lower heat and cook for 10 mins.

Add the peppers, grilled peppers and tomatoes.

Put the pork back in the pot and mix. Pour in enough water to cover the meat.

Add the vinegar.

Bring to the boil and place in the oven for 3 hours or so - the meat is cooked when it pulls apart with two forks, if it does not, then pop it back in the oven for longer.

I serve it all pulled apart on a large serving dish, with boiled rice and soured cream and some chopped parsley.

Fish Pie

I have always loved fish pie, but sighed at the thought of having to poach the fish before hand, leave it to cool then flake the fish, whilst making a bechamel sauce and boiling the potatoes. It would always end up with a very fishy smelling kitchen and could be rather messy so I made them infrequently.

Until that is, I thought - why do I need to poach the fish? ... tradition? hmm maybe, its what my Mother and Grandmother both did, so I thought I would start a new tradition.

I have spoken many times of Gordon our great Fishmonger, he was once asked why his fish pies were so much better than the ones the person asking made, he replied "that's because I put twice as much fish in as you do". I remember those words when making my Firsh Pies.

Fish Pie

Fillet of Smoked Haddock - undyed

Fillet of Cod or Coley or any other white fish

Large Salmon Steak

Handful of prawns

Couple handfuls Frozen Peas

Homemade bechemel sauce - butter, flour, milk, pepper

Finely chopped parsley - enough to suit.

Mashed potatoes

Grated Cheese - I know its fish and cheese, but hey, I love a crispy cheese topping on mash.

Oh, so simple. Oven on at 200oc. skin and de-bone the fish.

Cut into hearty chunks, they keep their shape once cooked, giving you something to bite into.

Boil your potatoes and mash.

Make up your white sauce - usually its around 3/4pt, add chopped parsley.

Pour the sauce over the fish and prawns and peas, mix well.

Add the mash to the top with cheese if you wish.

Pop into oven for 25-35mins.

Best Ever Spaghetti Bolognaise

Hubby with low tolerance levels made another unexpected but welcome trip into the kitchen over the weekend. Whilst I was out shopping and failing miserably with any inspiration for presents he was getting all creative. Having listened to Nigel Barden on the Chris Evans Drivetime show on Radio 2 with his best ever Spaghetti Bolognaise recipe, Hubby decided to take this and customise it. Details of which are below:-

Spaghetti Bolognaise

Would probably serve 6 if you can bare letting anyone else have any!

500g Beef Mince

500g Pork Mince

200g Chicken Livers - Chopped (Hubby used 400g, great for me as I love liver, but too much for others)

2 Onions - Sliced

3 Carrots - Grated

3 Stalks Celery - Finely Chopped (Did not have in Hubby's, but he would recommend it for next time)

3 Cloves Garlic - Finely Sliced

500g Passata

150g Pancetta (Not included in Hubby's, but again he would recommend it next time)

400g Tinned Chopped Tomatoes

1 Tbs Tomato Puree

2 Tsp Thyme (dried)

1 Tbs Parsley (dried)

3 Bay Leaves

3/4 pint Stock

Sweat the onions in a little oil until translucent.

Add the mince and fry until almost dry.

Add everything else and mix well.

Bring to the boil.

Simmer or place in a low oven (130oc) for 3 or more hours, stirring occasionally. Hubby had it in the oven for almost 5 hours.

It really was the best ever Spag Bog I have had, there were leftovers after we'd had second helpings, so we scoffed those the following day as part of a Sloppy Joe Bagel, totally scrumptious and well worth the wait.

Old School Chocolate Crunch

When you think back to your school days and the school dinners, what is the first thing you remember? I think for a lot of people it is the Chocolate Crunch or Chocolate Concrete as is was often referred to.

I loved school dinners, thankfully I was at school a long time before the dreaded Turkey Twizzlers and chips with everything farce. We had well balanced, freshly produced food, none of this processed frozen ready to slam in a microwave crap. School dinners where were you learned to love food and expand your palate. At home if you whinged enough your Mum would end up giving you fish fingers, but at school, especially infants & primary you ate what was before you and you did it because your peers were eating it. So you had dishes like liver and bacon, ragout and baked fish on a Friday, but what you really, really looked forward to were the puddings - Jam suet pudding and custard, ginger cake with icing and of course chocolate crunch and green custard.

Once those schools days were gone, so were the meals contained within. A distant memory thought of fondly over time. Well I have a confession, my Grandmother was a head cook at a school in Perry Barr, Birmingham and when she retired she took with her the 1970 School Meals Handbook, chock full of nutritional tips, food plans and of course the recipes!

So without further ado here comes the recipe to re-live your childhood to.

Chocolate Crunch

8oz Plain Flour

6oz Fat - This recipe works better if the fat is margarine or a mix of butter and marg.

6oz Sugar

1oz Cocoa Powder

1 Egg

Dash Vanilla Essence

Melt the fat in a pan, don't get it too hot. Add it to all the dry ingredients and mix. Pour in the beaten egg and mix well.

Press the mixture into a baking tray so it is about 3/4" thick.

Draw a fork over the top to create a checked patterned the brush over with a little water and sprinkle a little extra sugar on top.

Place in an oven at approx 150oc for 15 mins approx.

To test if the crunch is done press the top and it should still be fairly soft and slightly crisp at the edges. If you wait until the entire cake is firm then you have gone too far and you will end up with 'concrete' once it is cooled.

Remove from the oven and scored the cake into slices and leave to cool before removing from the tin, don't forget until the fat has re-solidified it will be extremely friable.

Enjoy.

Slow Baked Lamb Hearts & Stuffing

I want to talk offal today! Really, it is so underrated and can give you such a cheap and delicious dish if cooked right. Take lambs hearts 4 for £2.

Ok they look a little scary and a little too much like our own but, once you have cut out the tubing you are left with a perfect pouch for stuffing.

I like to make up a batch of sage and onion PAXO stuffing (if you wish, make your own with whatever grabs your fancy, but I am a girl all who like the easy way of life so good old PAXO for me) I add in to the mix a lightly fried chopped onion, just because I can and lots of pepper. Leave the stuffing to cool and then stuff it inside the hearts.

There will be leftover stuffing so either make up balls to add to the dish or to baked them separately.

Take an OXO beef stock cube and make up some stock, arrange the hearts in a tight fitting oven proof dish, pour the stock over, till it covers the hearts about halfway up. Season a little more and then cover with foil or a lid. Pop into the oven at 160oc and cook for approx 2 hours, occasionally turning the hearts so the don't burn and all parts get a chance to bathe in the gravy.

The sauce will reduce and thicken with the stuffing that falls out, but that just makes it super unctious.

The hearts will be tender, but still firm, like liver. Utterly scrummy and packed full of flavour and certainly a hearty winter dish (excuse the pun). So get your heads around offal and give it a try.

Luscious Lemon Baked Cheesecake

Hubby with low tolerance levels was rather miffed when after three days I had still not told you all how wonderful and thoughtful he is. Well he is.

He and his colleagues are having a bit of a hectic and tough time at work and with us leaving for a holiday in Menorca this Friday, I can imagine that there was more chaos than usual as he tries to palm his workload off onto others.

So Mr. Thoughtful took over and decided on feeding the colleagues with unctuous grub to cheer them up. Now Hubby does not enter into the kitchen that often, he claims he does not enjoy cooking that much, this from the only guy in his Home Ec. class at school - he claims he only took the class as a way to get all the juicy gossip from the girls - I am not so sure.

Anyway, you may have noticed that I rarely make any sort of desert or cakes - I find the the fact that most sweet recipes need to be followed closely - rather like chemistry in order to create the desired dish, I am much more from the chuck it together and see if it works school of cooking, but Hubby with his finely honed engineering mind likes the precise quantities, concise instructions to be followed to achieve the desired result so when he does venture into the kitchen it is usually to produce a cake. Monday night was one of those occasions.

He had received requests for a Lemon cheesecake and chose this baked one from the BBC Good Food website.

Well, pictures were taken, but I have not got the camera with me to download them, but will rectify this at a later date, but I can assure you it looks just like the piccy taken from the website. Now rectified and actual piccy posted, still in the tin, but he didn't want it to spoil on the jouney into work!

The Cheesecake was taken into work and scarfed down by appreciative colleagues, leaving a couple of portions to come back home for me to enjoy.

He is now under orders to bake a couple more for the Christmas period as I know my family will adore this lovely lemony, cheesy, firm pudding. Total Yum!

Curried Chicken Tagine

After the ad hoc tagine meal my brother and I created in Holland a couple of weeks ago it got me thinking that I should drag out my tagine again and cook something different in it. Normally I cook lamb dishes slowly or homemade meatballs in a tomato sauce in my tagine, but I thought why not a chicken? The recipe needs a bit refining and probably would have been aided by not having a knock at the front door just as I was frying spices which subsequently ended up a little burnt, but on the whole it was alright.

1 small corn fed FR Chicken

1 Onion chunky sliced

2 cloves sliced garlic

1 heaped teaspoon each of ground coriander, cumin, turmeric and curry powder - mixed together

Oil

Chicken stock

1 cup cous cous

Handful spring onions

Handful chopped parsley

Heat the oven to 190oc and place the tagine in to warm with some water inside.

I took a huge knife and cut the chicken in half length ways. Coated it in half the spices and seasoning. Added the chicken halves skin side down into a frying pan with oil in until the skin was crispy and brown, turn to get all the chicken sealed.

Remove the chicken a place to one side whilst you add the onions, garlic and remainder of the spices to the frying pan - at this point don't burn it like I did! Add the chicken stock approx 2 cups worth and bubble away for a while.

Transfer the onions and stock to the hot tagine (having removed the water first) place the chicken halves on top, cover and put back into the oven for 45mins. Next time I think I will try adding olives or lemon pieces to give a tang.

After this remove the tagine lid and continue cooking for a further 15 minutes to crisp up the skin.

Whilst this is crisping make up your cous cous, 1 cup of cous cous per one cup of hot stock, cover with cling film and leave for 10 mins. It will end up light and fluffy, stir in the chopped parsley and spring onions.

Remove the chicken from the tagine and place onto a heap of the cous cous, thicken the remaining sauce slightly with a little flour or tomato puree and pour over.

The chicken remained very juicy and tender with this way of cooking, certainly will try this method again.