Catching up with the rest of 2014

Spareribs - glaze including orange marmelade, devon fire chutney and other random store-cupboard ingredients. Excellent.

Pheasant with glazed onions. Good flavour but the pheasant was rather tough.

Venison loin. Tender, flavoursome and delicious. Not quite as underdone as the photo suggests.

Shepherds pie. Very nostalgic, but perhaps a bit too cheesy.

Pork fillet flambé with apricots. Delicious and with some spectacular flambéing.

Meatballs and pasta. Lovely, fluffy but flavourful meatballs. Chilling before cooking helped to retain the right shape.

Herb crusted rack of veal. Looks good, but disappointingly sinewy veal, that needed at least 10 minutes more cooking.

Slow cooked pork with orange. Slow cooking resulted in lovely tender pork. The skin went into the oven separately at the end to crisp up and got a little bit too burned.

Venison with blueberries. Very nice flavour with the fruit, but not as tender as I had hoped.

Grilled mackerel. Simple and good but more attractive with the head and tail still on!

Veal Fricasse

Saturday, 26th October 2013

Based on this but with a mix of wild mushrooms (chanterelles, cèpes, oyster mushrooms, kräuter-seitling) instead of just button mushrooms.
I haven't had much luck keeping the meat tender in stews recently, but this came out fine. Strangely some pieces of meat were chewier than others though. I browned the meat in two batches to start with, and one cooked much more quickly than the other, so I wonder if that had something to do with it.
Lovely rich and flavourful sauce, although the mushrooms, especially the cèpes, were a little overcooked and should have gone in 5 minutes later.

Pork and Veal in Sherry

Saturday, 2nd March 2013

Based on this Delia recipe. I bought a nice looking piece of boar shoulder but, when I got it home, I realized it would be too small, so I added some veal I had in the freezer.
I left out the olives but otherwise stuck pretty close to Delia's recipe. As often seems to happen the meat itself was a little dry, Interestingly, it was next to impossible to tell what was boar and what was veal. But the sauce had a lovely flavour and the chorizo was great.

Veal shoulder with red wine, bacon and onion sauce

Saturday, 1st December 2012

This wasn't the right cut of meat for quick cooking in the pan and it turned out pretty chewy. The pasta with cream and a selection of mushrooms included some dried mushrooms, which I hoped would beef up the flavour, but they came out chewy too. Ah well.

Veal shoulder in red wine sauce

Friday, 26th October 2012

To start, smoked brown trout and goats cheese on black bread. Pan fried veal with a simple red wine reduction, roast potatoes and sauteed mixed peppers and onions.

Veal escalope

Monday, 23rd July 2012

Pan fried the veal escalope and served with pasta with a simple tomato and onion sauce.
Although the veal is quite thin, I almost didn't cook it long enough.

Leg of Veal

Sunday, 22nd July 2012

Got a thick slice of veal leg with the bone in from the local deli.
After searing the veal on both sides I added some marsala and let it mostly boil away. Then I casseroled it with small onions, tomatoes and sage, for about two and a half hours.
Pretty simple, but the flavours were fantastic and the meat tender and juicy.
Served with small roast potatoes and (not enough) bread to mop up the sauce.

Veal Escalope with Boccatini

Friday, 29th April

Another attempt at veal escalope, which worked much better. Flattened the veal and dusted it with flour, then gently pan fried it in butter with sage, for about 2 minutes each side. Added some lemon juice after turning the escalopes. Sauce for the pasta is very simply gently sauteed onions and garlic, with diced tomato and chopped basil added shortly before serving.
The tomato sauce was very good, but the pasta needed more of a coating, so we poured on extra olive oil at the table. The meat came out pretty well, although still not as tender as I would like. Veal with lemon and sage is a great combination.
A very nice caprese salad as a starter and a good bottle of Prosecco, made for a delicious meal.

Veal Escalope with Pasta

Wednesday, 13th April

Pan fried veal escalopes, pasta in a tomato and basil sauce and sauteed mushrooms with bärlauch (from the balcony!).  The meat was flavourful and juicy, but not tender.  I still have not worked out the trick for getting pan-fried meat to come out tender.  Nice simple pasta sauce with tomato, onion and basil. I had intended to include the mushrooms in the sauce but decided to do them separately with the wild garlic from a pot on the balcony, that needed picking.