The gorgeous grub thread

[delph_ambi]

I put olive oil in and on everything except curries. Absolutely love the stuff, but it burns at the sort of heat you'd need for an authentic curry, so can't be used.

The Hairy Bikers are both overweight. I wonder why. Wonder what state their arteries are in too.

I've been an adoped northerner for the last 21 years, but have so far managed to avoid corned beef hash. With or without butter. 

[Ed]

My wife loves corned beef hash, but she's a Dorset girl. She ordered cornedbeef hash in San francisco and got a big slab of fatty beef draped over half a boiled cabbage. I'll never forget the look of horror on her face. Apparently corned beef means something completely different to Americans

[Dragoro]

My wife loves corned beef hash, but she's a Dorset girl. She ordered cornedbeef hash in San francisco and got a big slab of fatty beef draped over half a boiled cabbage. I'll never forget the look of horror on her face. Apparently corned beef means something completely different to Americans

Nah it means the same thing, I like corned beef hash too. I dont know wtf that was your wife was served in san fran lol

[Ed]

Made chicken Kiev with dauphinoise potatoes, and sauteed brussels sprouts and onion for the veg.

Made some herb butter by mashing two cloves of garlic with sea salt in a pestle and mortar, adding two tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley and another two of chives then mixing it in to 4 ounces of butter. Cut pockets into the chicken breasts and stuffed them with the herb butter. Seasoned the breasts with salt and fresh ground pepper, coated them in plain flour, then dipped in egg before coating in bread crumbs mixed with grated parmesan. Fried in oil for twenty minutes until golden brown - tasted lovely.

The dauphinoise wasn't so great - I went with James whatsisname's recipe on Saturday kitchen, which didn't have any cheese in it, and it needed that, I think.

Brussels sprouts were finely chopped with half an onion, then fried in a little olive oil and butter. They were ok, but again, could have done with some lardons added, and maybe a bit of cream, or vegetable stock. I'll suss it sooner or later

[delph_ambi]

Made a quick and simple Thai prawn curry last night.

Liquidise: fresh hot green chillis to taste, one inch chunk of galangal, four small shallots, four cloves garlic, chopped stick of lemon grass, large handful of fresh coriander, a little oil and water to help the liquidising. Put the liquidised paste in a pan with a tinful of coconut milk, teaspoon ground coriander seed, half a teaspoon each ground cumin, turmeric and black pepper, couple of teaspoons sugar, salt to taste. Bring to the boil. Simmer for a few minutes. Throw in a load of raw prawns. Cook gently until done (five to ten minutes). I served this with peshwari naans and raita, but rice would be a more traditional accompaniment.

[Ed]

Made an impromptu stir fry at lunchtime today. Had some leftover pork from a roast at the weekend, so I chopped that into bite-sized chunks, got the wok smoking hot with some peanut oil in it, flash fried the pork, then after a minute or so added a roughly chopped onion, quartered mushrooms, cooked them for a couple of minutes, then added about two tablespoons of dark soy sauce, about the same of port, then added a handful of bean sprouts. Tossed it all around for another couple of minutes, then added half a pint of chicken stock, a pinch of white pepper, pinch of salt, a couple of grindings of black pepper. Handful of egg noodles, then finally a heaped teaspoon of cornflour mixed into some cold water, which thickened the sauce.

Delicious. Especially the pork - that was lovely.

[Pharosian]

"Impromptu" he says...  I would have had to make an extensive shopping trip before I could have put that meal together. I can see having an onion on hand just waiting for someone to need it in one dish or another. But bean sprouts and egg noodles? And you always have fresh mushrooms and chicken stock on hand? Sheesh. No wonder I have such a boring diet. 

[delph_ambi]

Egg noodles don't have to be fresh -- you can store the dried ones the same as dried pasta, and they're incredibly quick to re-hydrate. Bean sprouts could be replaced by any fresh veg that happens to be lying around, or even frozen -- you can throw handfuls of frozen peas, green beans, etc into a stir fry perfectly successfully. The stock can be made up from a cube, which is a normal store cupboard provision. You should always have a bag of onions to hand, but at a pinch can replace with leeks. You might not always have fresh mushrooms, but you should have a few roots around -- carrots or parsnips cut into thin strips stir fry beautifully, as do leafy vegetables like cabbage or pak choi. The only thing I'd be unlikely to have from Ed's list there is the port, but I always have red wine on the go so could use that, or sherry possibly. Even a drop of brandy. Sake is best, but I rarely have any. The one thing I always put in a stir fry that's missing from Ed's list is fresh root ginger. I always have some of that in the fridge. It's remarkably versatile and adds zing to many meals.

Leftover roast pork is DELICIOUS whatever you do with it. Makes a great sandwich with home made cranberry sauce. I made three jars of sauce for Christmas and they were all gone within days, partly because I also had Wensleydale cheese in the house, and of course that's a classic combination.

Cranberry sauce: A pound of cranberries in a large pan, add cold water to cover (about a pint), bring to the boil. When all the cranberries have 'popped', add a pound of sugar (I use golden granulated, but white sugar works perfectly well). Boil hard until setting point is reached. Depending on the freshness of the cranberries, this might be only five minutes or so. Pot in the usual way. Some recipes will tell you to add orange zest or port or all sorts of other things. Forget it. Simplest is best with cranberries. They have more than enough flavour to hold their own.

[Ed]

The chicken stock was courtesy of a stock cube, must admit, although I quite often buy a pint of stock. We always have a tub of mushrooms on hand, though, along with a sack of onions. Occasionally buy fresh egg noodles, and bean sprouts are great in salads, so quite often have a bag of them kicking around. As Delph says, you can replace pretty much any ingredient with something else, though. There's nothing to stop you using spaghetti instead of noodles - they're essentially the same thing.

The port was usede because I didn't have any sherry, which would have replaced sherry vinegar or sake in an authentic Chinese stir fry. My wife doesn't like ginger, so I didn't put any in. I usually keep a fresh root in the cupboard, plus there's powdered ginger in the spice cupboard and crystalised ginger in the pastry cupboard (I love that, especially when combined with dark chocolate).

Up until the rebellion a few years ago, when I stamped my foot and said no more to ready meals, we had nothing but tins and packets in the cupboards, and cellophane wrapped cartons of polystyrene in the fridge. Mealtimes were miserable affairs where I struggled to eat what was on my plate, because it all tasted like cardboard soaked in MSG. Life is way too short to suffer bad food, especially when it can be a high point in the day. I still have to suffer my wife's cooking throughout the week, because I'm usually too late home to cook, but the weekends are mine - all mine, I tell you, muahahahahaaaa!

[Ed]

Yeesh. I decided to try and perfect really good mashed potato - find a recipe that makes mashed spuds taste exceptionally good. Personally, I like to boil the spuds in salted water with a couple of bayleaves, drain them, then mash with olive oil and a touch of butter, salt and pepper. I like that. The mash is firm and tasty when done like that, but my wife doesn't like it - she says it's too firm. She likes to chuck milk into it, which makes the mash looser. I don't like it like that. Too sloppy.

Anyway, I looked on the bbc site and found a recipe by Heston Bloomenthal, which seemed like a whole load of fannying around for no good reason. Heat them up, cool them down, heat them up again and then add butter. Not worth the hassle, I thought. Then I spotted a recipe by the British Potato Council. Who knew there was such a thing? I bet they're a laugh at parties. The recipe's here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/mashedpotatoes_2467.shtml

Basically, the main difference here is adding boiled milk to the spuds before mashing. Hmmmn, I think to myself - maybe that will taste a little different, and besides - they ought to know what they're on about. I poured the boiling milk over the spuds and began to mash. Within seconds the whole lot turned into a starchy gloop. It was like a lumpy cross between wallpaper paste and dough. I added more milk, hoping that would sort it out, but no. So I put a blender onto it to get the lumps out. Horrible. Turned into a slippery but viscous, sticky mixture. Never seen anything like it. Inedible. Awful. Won't be trying that again

[delph_ambi]

You should've thinned it down a bit more and used it to stick down any bits of wallpaper that were coming up. It would've worked -- bit like flour and water paste. Just never paint it on your car. You'll never get it off. Not that you're the sort of guy that would put mashed potato on a car, but I thought I'd better just mention it.

The novel I'm writing at the moment mentions the British Potato Council. I am absolutely serious. It really does.

I made a store cupboard meal tonight that I thought was going to be revolting, but it ended up very tasty. Here's what I did. Cubed one small swede and fried it in olive oil with a sliced leek. Kept frying until it was just starting to brown here and there. Added boiling water to cover, plus salt and fresh ground black pepper. After ten minutes, added four chopped tomatoes and a good dash of Encona extra hot Jamaican pepper sauce, plus some more because I love the stuff. Cooked for a further ten minutes or so. Added a drained tin of mixed beans (haricots, black-eyed, etc) plus some fresh chopped parsley. Heated it through. Squeezed in a load of tomato puree to thicken it up. And that was it. Ended up somewhere between a very thick soup and a not so thick veggie stew. Made enough to feed two hungry people. Tasted great with a rather nice little Merlot. Could've poshed it up with some ciabatta, but not having any, I used ASDA sliced wholemeal bread. Perfectly good for mopping up the sauce.

[Ed]

Sounds like it needs meat

[delph_ambi]

I toyed with putting in some chorizo, but the chunk of chorizo at the back of the fridge is practically growing legs. I'd forgotten it was there.

[Ed]

It's been a while since I tried anything new that I ended up liking enough to record here, but last night I made some soup from a recipe I found in a book, and it was delicious to the last mouthful - I actually sat and savoured the last morsel, not wanting it to end. Too full to eat any more.

It's really simple to make, and it only takes about 20 minutes.

You'll need:

For the soup (serves 6)

1 can of tomatoes
1 leek
1 onion
1 courgette (I didn't use)
A few fresh tomatoes, chopped, deseeded (I didn't use)
Handful of haricot beans (didn't have any)
sprig of thyme
1 litre of stock
1 clove of garlic
1 stick of celery
Butter (knob of)
Oil (2 or 3 tablespoons)
Salt, pepper
Pasta bits - I just snapped up some linguini and chucked it in

For the Pistou

Handful of fresh basil
2 tablespoons of grated parmesan
Half clove of garlic
5 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt, pepper

Method:

Finely slice the leek, onion and celery, then gently fry in a large pan with some butter and oil for about ten minutes - keep it moving, because you don't want it to brown. Finely chop the garlic, add and fry for one minute. Add the tomatoes, thyme, seasoning and the stock, bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. I used two chicken oxo cubes in a litre of boiling water and added the pasta to the jug before I poured the water on, which gave it a head start in the cooking process.

The original recipe called for fresh chopped tomatoes, deseeded and added to the mix, along with a chopped courgette, but I didn't bother with either. I thought it had enough tomato in it, and I'm not overly fond of courgette.

Anyway, you leave the mixture to simmer for ten minutes, et voila - c'est tout. Final seasoning to taste, and pour into bowls.

While it was simmering, I made the pistou, which I take it must be the French version of pesto. The recipe tells you to blitz the ingredients in a blender, but I couldn't be bothered to get it out, so I chopped the basil fine with a knife and mixed it all in a pestle and mortar. When it's finished and seasoned to taste, you sprinkle it over the soup in the bowls to garnish. Although the recipe didn't call for it, I also added a swirl of double cream to the soup just before serving. You need to keep the temperature below boiling after it's added, though, otherwise it splits, which doesn't affect the flavour, but looks dodgy.

Luckily, we had some fresh bread, which we sliced into chunks, thickly buttered and served with the soup. It really was delicious. My eldest son (12 yrs) said it was the best soup he had ever had. All the bowls were mopped clean. It tasted very Italian to me. Amazing how you can get so much flavour from so few ingredients.

[Ed]

I took the afternoon off today (perks of being self employed). My wife had taken the kids to the beach, so I had the house to myself, which was nice, because the weather was gorgeous, so I sat out on the patio for a while and sunned myself. At about five, the missus rang to say they were on their way home, and if I happened to have a bit of time spare it might be nice for me to cook something ready for tea.

There wasn't much in the fridge, but I found two chicken supremes and decided I could make them stretch between the four of us with the help of some streaky bacon.

I beat the chicken flat with a rolling pin, drizzled some olive oil over them, seasoned them with salt and pepper, and added a sprinkling of freshly chopped thyme. Got the griddle pan smoking hot, slapped the chicken on for a few minutes, oiled, seasoned and thymed the other side before turning it over. Once cooked, I lifted it off and wrapped it in foil to rest. Meanwhile I had potatoes boiling, ready to make some mash, and I'd chopped a big fat clove of garlic, a few sprigs of parsley, and ground them in a pastle and mortar with some butter (about a tablespoon of parsley and the same of butter). I fried the mixture with a teaspoonful of olive oil (to stop the butter burning) on a lowish heat to soften the garlic, then added a few tablespoons of double cream. Reduced the mixture until it was the consistency of mayonnaise. While the chicken was resting and the sauce thickening, I fried the streaky bacon until crisp, mashed the spuds with butter, salt and pepper and a dash of milk. Boiled some peas with fresh mint, too.

Served it up when the clan returned. Even the kids said it was delicious, and cleaned their plates. I enjoyed it to the last mouthful - delicious, even though I say so myself