The gorgeous grub thread

[elay2433]

Oh man, now I'm hungry.

[Ed]

Mmm, chicken and streaky bacon

[Ed]

Haven't added anything for a while, but I've been on the hunt for a nice Chinese curry recipe -- theirs tastes of aniseed kind of flavours you get in Chinese five spice, like star anise and fennel. However hard I try, I can't seem to get the authentic chinese takeaway curry flavour that my local used to do. It unfortunately closed a while ago, and none of the others that are left behind compare favourably. There's a concentrated curry paste that most of the Chinese takeaways and chip shops use, by Wing Yip, and I've thought of trying that, but I reckon there must be a better way using spices.

Anyway, I haven't quite got there yet, but I found a spice recipe, and I've doctored it a bit, by adding a big strong clove of garlic, some soy sauce and white pepper. It tastes really good, but believe it or not, it's not at all hot -- there's little to no heat with it, but tons of flavour. Here's the recipe, if anybody fancies giving it a go.

8 chicken thighs (any cuts will do, but the dark meat is more flavoursome)
vegetable stock pot (knorr, but any stock will do)
chicken stock cube
1 large onion
olive oil for frying
salt
1 large clove garlic, or two small ones
Handful of chopped mushrooms
Handful of fresh peas
tablespoon soy sauce
Approx 1 litre of boiling water (if not using this quantity of stock) to cover
3 tsp cornflour

A quarter of this resulting powder, or two teaspoonfuls:

2 tsp ground tumeric
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
12 whole cloves
1.5 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp cardamom seeds (I didn't have these, so I missed them out)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp fennel seeds
1.5 tsp fenugreek powder
0.5 tsp ground ginger
0.5 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp ground white pepper

***

Stick the oven on about 170C

Chuck all the spices in a pestle and mortar, grind them to a fairly fine powder -- you'll still be left with a few husks, but they won't hurt. Heat the oil until just about smoking in a cast iron casserole dish, then add the spices, stir around. Add the chopped onion and garlic. Give it a minute or two, keeping it moving, then add the chicken pieces. Fry them off for four or five minutes, keeping them moving from time to time. Chuck in your chopped mushrooms. Pour on boiling water -- enough to cover the chicken pieces, or boiling liquid stock, whichever you've got to hand. If you've used water, add a couple of stock cubes -- I used a vegetable stock pot and a chicken stock cube. Chuck in your soy sauce, a teaspoon or two of oyster sauce if you've got some, give it a stir, put the lid on and slam it in the oven for a couple of hours -- longer wont hurt, but I'd lower the temp to 150C if you're giving it much longer.

When you're ready to serve it, chuck in your frozen peas, add a bit of water to your cornflour, mix to milk consistency, then use it to thicken your sauce. Serve with boiled or fried rice. It isn't bad on a jacket spud, either. So if you're out for a few hours you could stick a few spuds in the oven with your casserole dish and come home to a ready meal.

It's very tasty, without any heat, believe it or not. If you want a bit of heat, you could add more white pepper and chilli powder, I suppose. I haven't tried making it hotter, yet, so you're on your own with that one.

Enjoy

[Ed]

I make quite a lot of spag-bols, and I've gradually perfected a recipe that I like and also goes down well with two thirds of the family (my youngest whines that it's too tomatoey, even though he smothers every meal in disturbing quantities of tomato ketchup -- I think he's just being an awkward git.

1 lb good quality mince, preferably steak
1 medium/large onion, finely sliced
2 beef oxo cubes, or a couple pints of good beef stock
2 cans of decent quality chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon of tomato puree
1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon dried savoury
1 teaspoon dried oregano (six fresh stalks is better)
1 teaspoon dried basil (handful of fresh leaves is better)
4 finely chopped anchovy fillets
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Brown the mince, remove from pan and set aside. Cook the onion in the same pan with a drop of olive oil and knob of butter. Grind a pinch of salt onto the onions, to encourage them to let their juices out. Let the onions get a bit of colour, then chuck in the canned tomatoes, puree, and ketchup. It's also good to add a teaspoon of sugar at this point, to take away the sourness tang of the tomatoes. Chuck in the herbs, anchovies, mince meat and stock, or cubes and water enough to cover. If you've used 2 pints of real stock, you're going to have to reduce it a fair bit before you get the right consistency, so don't add 2 pints of water -- about half that would be fine with 2 stock cubes.

Let it simmer for as long as practical. 2 Hours is a good minimum. Don't worry about the anchovies -- the spagbol won't taste fishy. They just add a savoury depth of flavour. I sometimes put a clove or two of finely chopped garlic in, and a dash of whisky early in the cooking, for the same reason. It's good without, though. Sometimes simple is best.

What I do as well, is boil the spaghetti until tender, then add it dripping wet to the pan with the sauce in. The starch in the water thickens the sauce, and a good stir coats all the pasta nicely, ready to serve. Be careful of your seasoning, and only finalise it after the spaghetti is in the sauce, otherwise you can end up too heavy on the salt.

Dish it up with a good shaving of fresh parmesan on top, and a good grinding of fresh pepper, too. Lovely

[marc_chagall]

Sounds yummy. You're quite right about the anchovies (though I would tend to use anchovy out of a tube, the way you get tomato puree in a tube for convenience) not making it fishy but adding a certain piquancy instead. If I were wanting to show off, I'd probably flambé the mince in brandy after browning, but that aside, I'd make it much the same.

I made something last night that should have been yummy (contained peppers, onions, fresh herbs, tomatoes, etc) but wasn't because the purpose of the dish was to use up some quorn pieces (allegedly 'chicken' flavour) that were lurking in the freezer. Quorn is vile. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Either use real meat, or use beans or something. Never quorn.

[Ed]

I've never tried Quorn, but from what you've said it matches my expectations.

My wife bought some packs of of that microwaveable risotto they keep advertising on tv. You add milk and then nuke it for a couple of minutes. I had some the night I came home from Austria, because I was starving -- all I'd had to eat all day was a small bowl of cornflakes and a sandwich around midday -- it was 9:30pm when I got home. It tasted disgusting, but I ate it with some bread, because I had to eat something, but I soon wished I hadn't bothered. It sat heavily in my stomach and left a lingering aftertaste in my mouth that I couldn't get rid of. It was touch and go whether it would make it through digestion. Urf...

[marc_chagall]

That sounds truly disgusting! I always make sure I have a tin of baked beans in a cupboard in case of starvation emergencies. That's the only convenience food that's actually edible, in my experience.

[Ed]

True -- I like beans on wholemeal toast with a knob of butter and plenty of freshly ground black pepper on top.

Had a bit of an experimental meal last night. We had an additional kid in tow, which meant the only thing we had enough of, to feed five people, was pork sausages. The missus was on about doing sausage, egg and chips, but I didn't fancy it -- too greasy and bland. I could have gone for a sausage casserole and mash, but the youngest moaned about it, and the eldest isn't keen on mash. I offered to do spaghetti and meatballs, and the kids went wild for that, but the missus really hates meatballs. Awkward lot. The thing is, the only meat we had a lot of was sausages, so these weren't going to be like the ones she's used to hating, so I got the go ahead.

Put a big pan on the heat, olive oil, knob of butter. Finely chopped half a huge onion, fried it until tender, added two tins of chopped tomatoes, half a teaspoon of dried oregano and basil, a good grinding of black pepper, salt, two beef stock cubes, clove of finely chopped garlic, and a heaped teaspoon of sugar, to counteract the acidity of the tomatoes. Then I let that reduce down while I prepped the meatballs.

I skinned the raw sausages, chucked all the meat into a bowl. Very finely chopped a quarter of that huge onion, added that to the meat with a generous grinding of black pepper, a sprinkling of sage and savoury, a touch more salt, then mixed it all together. It's a pretty claggy mixture, but it was easy enough to form small meatballs, about the size of a walnut. Pan full of boiling water for the spaghetti -- started that going. Frying pan out, more olive oil, nice and hot. Cooked the meatballs in two batches, tossing the pan around in a circular motion, to make the meratballs brown all over. Strained them off, chucked them into the sauce, then added a few sprigs of finely chopped fresh basil a couple minutes before serving.

Tasted great. Even the missus was pleasantly surprised. I was relieved -- it could have gone either way.

[marc_chagall]

Simple and effective nosh. Sounds great!

[aexombie]

well after reading all that, i might as well have another microwave dinner...meatballs, wine smelling gravy and mash.

[marc_chagall]

Just made some cranberry sauce. Now's the time to make it, while the cranberries in the shops are still fresh. It's incredibly easy, and makes the best sandwich in the universe (cranberry and Wensleydale) as well as being good with roast turkey, ham, etc.

You need a pound of fresh cranberries, a pound of sugar (I use golden granulated), a pint of water and a few clean jam jars.

Put the cranberries and the water in a preserving pan. Bring to the boil and cook until most of the cranberries have 'popped' (a few minutes). Add the sugar and stir in. Keep stirring until it's dissolved, then boil fast until setting point is reached (this only takes ten minutes or so if the cranberries are fresh). Pot up in the usual way. No need to sterilise the jars or anything. Store in a larder. No need to refrigerate.

Try not to eat it all before Christmas, or you'll have to make some more.

[Ed]

Umm... what's a settling point? Is that where you draw up the horses and say, I ain't goin' no farther, perchance?

[marc_chagall]

You find the setting point by putting a little bit of the sauce on a cold china plate, leaving it forty seconds, and then pushing it with your finger. If it wrinkles, it's reached the setting point. If it's still clearly liquid with no skin forming, it hasn't, so you keep boiling. Repeat the process every five minutes or so with a new bit of the sauce. It's exactly the same method you'd use if you were making jam or marmalade or anything like that. The alternate way is to use a sugar thermometer, but I prefer the low tech method.

[marc_chagall]

Baked a whole salmon yesterday, and decided to serve hollandaise sauce with it. Never made hollandaise before. Was not too optimistic, as some recipes reckon first time you make it, it's bound to be a disaster. It wasn't! Here's how I did it (based on Escoffier's classic recipe):
Put a couple of egg yolks in a bowl (I used a round plastic one that the Christmas pud had come in). Heat three tablespoons of white wine vinegar with a bay leaf and six peppercorns. Boil until reduced to one tablespoon. Strain off the herbs and allow to cool a little. Melt 4oz butter. Allow to cool a little. Whisk the reduced vinegar into the egg yolks, and then whisk in the butter, leaving behind any residue in the pan. Have a large pan of boiling water ready so that you can hold the plastic bowl in the water with one hand whilst whisking with the other. Keep going until it's nicely thick and emulsified. Add a little lemon juice and keep whisking.  Amazingly, doing it this way it thickens to a perfect consistency and never looks as if it's going to turn into scrambled eggs. And French men love it (my French son-in-law is staying at the moment).

[Ed]

Sounds good -- I keep meaning to have a go at a hollandaise sauce. I thought you were never meant to have the bowl touching the water, as the heat is too fierce and results in the scrambled egg thing happening. I guess a plastic bowl would maybe transfer less of the heat than a glass one, though