Bentheimer Rare Breed Pork Loin Chop

Saturday, 17th January 2015

Slice the fat through to prevent curling, then fry hot with the fat down for 2 minutes, holding the chops upright with tongs. Then 2 minutes more on each side, then transfer the pan to a 150 degrees oven for 5 minutes. Stew a mix of potato, celery root, carrot and garlic then puree with a little milk and butter. Served with some leftover red cabbage, which seems to benefit from reheating.
Lovely juicy and flavoursome meat, with perfectly cooked fat. The puree was still a little chunky, but very tasty. Excellent cabbage.

Chicken legs and tomatoes

Friday, 28th March 2014

Thanks to Jamie Oliver for this one.
I used less garlic and chilli and added a can of cannellini beans, which made for a thicker sauce and suited me very well. They probably would have been better going in half an hour before serving, rather than right at the beginning. The chicken was good, but it didn't come out as tender as I would have liked.
Served with a sort of colcannon of mash, leeks and bacon.

Cheesey Shepherd's Pie

Wednesday, 12th March 2014

I made this with the leftover lamb from Sunday, put through the mincer.
Soften some onions and garlic in butter, add the mince and brown a little. Then add stock, worcester sauce and tomato purée. Mix and heat through, season and transfer to a baking dish. Top with potato mashed with butter, cream and grated cheese. Then put a little more grated cheese on the top. Bake for 30 minutes or so.
I can't remember the last time I had this, but I was amazed at how it tasted exactly as I remember.

Slow Braised Beef Shin

Sunday, 8th December 2013

Turn on the slow cooker with a little wine in it, to warm up. Season a slice of Beef Shin or Leg generously and then brown it for several minutes on both sides in a hot pan. Move it to the slow cooker, and add onion to the pan and brown it for a few minutes. Add a generous amount of red wine and deglaze the pan and then some stock, bay leaves and rosemary. Reduce by about a third and pour it all into to the slow cooker. Add some whole, unpeeled cloves of garlic. Cook on medium for several hours. Add some quartered mushrooms and whole button onions and cook for another hour.
On this occasion, I decided to serve the gravy as it was, but I should have removed some of it from the pot and thickened it.
I served this with mash, which was OK, and leeks, which I burnt and which were horrible. A wide pasta would probably have been better. Still the beef, mushrooms and onions were very good. The whole cloves of garlic do not overpower the dish when cooked this way, but are still pretty garlicky when you squeeze them out of their skins to eat.

Bratwurst in the Hole

Friday, 11th January 2012

Something for the Weekend, Jamie Oliver p 16.
A classic and absolutely fantastic. Bratwurst is a tad on the dense side for this, but you can't knock the quality of the sausage, freshly made from the butcher. The batter came up beautifully golden and crisp, with just the right amount of burnt edge to satisfy my love for charcoal. Served with onion gravy and mash. It went down very well with a glass or 3 of italian red!

Chicken with Red Peppers

Friday, 17th June

Sainsbury's Cooking of Spain, p67. Served with mashed potatoes and aubergine fritters, ibid. p48. Very tasty, especially the fritters, but the chicken I used was an older, larger bird and it came out very dry, despite long cooking. The fritters are just sliced aubergines dipped in milk and a little egg, and then floured and fried. Lovely contrast in texture to the chicken sauce. I don't usually do mash, but this came out nice and creamy, with plenty of chives, butter and cream mashed in.