Author: Notnick

Pasta Salsa

The is a really quick pasta sauce that I discovered. A friend of mine makes a sauce for chicken like this- roasting the ingredients with the chicken in a hot oven. Anywho… frying it all up for a pan is quicker, and well, works a treat. It takes longer to cook the pasta than it does to prep and cook the sauce. the ingredients are a bit salsa-y, thus the name.

It works best if the cherry tomatoes are sweet and ripe. If they’re a bit sharp or hard, add a little extra sugar to compensate. You can make this with bigger tomatoes, but, well, it just ain’t the same. It also works quite well with a few olives thrown in for good measure.

Pasta- fuselli or similar
2 mugs cherry tomatoes
1/2 a chilli
1/2 clove garlic
1/2 tsp sugar
Pinch salt
Balsamic vinegar

Fry the chilli & garlic
Add 1/4-ed tomatoes + sugar
Put on lid & fry for 2 mins
Add vinegar
Fry & reduce (really hot heat, 2 mins tops)
Salt & black pepper to taste

Orange & Tomato Soup

A recipe borrowed from my auntie. Really quick and easy, and a a little different. Orange and tomato together, who’d have thought..

500ml tomato passata
1 large orange
200ml water
a little sugar to sweeten, if the tomato is sharp
Cornflour to thicken
Salt, pepper to taste
1/4pt single cream to finish
 
heat passata & water
Grate rind of orange & add
Add cornflour & thicken
Peel orange, remove pith. Cut segments into 1/4s and add
Season
Remove from heat and add cream
Serve adding final dash of cream

Red cabbage – spiced & braised

Ingredients
1 large red cabbage, shredded
2 large onions, sliced
2 large cooking apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 tsp nutmeg
pinch ground cinnamon
pinch ground cloves
2 tbsp soft brown sugar
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
knob of butter
2 tbsp redcurrant jelly

Method

1. Place all ingredients, except the redcurrant jelly into a large saucepan, bring to the boil, cover and simmer gently for about 1 hour or until the cabbage is tender.
2. Season well, stir through the redcurrant jelly and serve.

 

Red cabbage II – spiced & braised

1 small red cabbage
1 sliced red onion
70g soft light brown sugar
70ml cider vinegar
150ml red wine
a large knob of butter
1 cinnamon stick

Steak and Kidney Pudding

My Dad always goes on about a steak and kidney pudding- but I’ve never made one. I found this recipe- and intend to make i one day

 
To serve 6

First make the filling.

Trim and cut into large cubes a kilo of beef skirt, shin or chuck.
Cut up and remove the cores from about 500g beef kidneys. Season 50g plain flour well with salt and pepper.
Heat a little fat or oil in a large, heavy frying pan until fairly hot but not smoking. With floured hands, toss a couple of handfuls of beef in the seasoned flour, then put it in the pan. Brown well on all sides, then transfer to a large saucepan.

Brown all the meat like this, including the kidneys, in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan.
When all the meat is browned, deglaze the empty pan with a glass of red wine, stirring and scraping up any burnt, crispy bits with the edge of a spatula.

Add the deglazed juices to the meat in the casserole. Heat a little more fat or oil in the now-clean frying pan, add 1 large or 2 medium onions, sliced, and sweat for a few minutes, until softened.

Add to the meat. Add a scant tablespoon of tomato ketchup, a teaspoon of good English mustard, a bay leaf and about 750ml beef stock or water (it should barely cover the meat). Stir gently and bring to a gentle, tremulous simmer. Cook for about 11/2 hours, until the beef is fairly tender but not ‘finished’. It is going to get another couple of hours in the pudding. Note that skirt and shin will take a little longer than chuck steak. Check the seasoning towards the end of cooking and adjust as necessary.

At this stage the filling can be left, covered, in the fridge for a day or two. Or it can be very successfully frozen. If you like mushrooms in your steak and kidney pudding, gently fry about 250g whole button mushrooms or sliced larger mushrooms in a little fat or oil for a few minutes to let the juices run, then add to the filling before you make up the pudding (they will cook through in the pudding).
Now make the suet crust. Mix 250g beef suet with 500g self-raising flour and a pinch of salt. Add cold water by degrees (up to about 150ml may be necessary) until you have a workable dough that is not too sticky. Set aside about a third for the lid and shape the remaining two-thirds into a ball. Roll out on a floured surface to about 1.5cm thick and use to line a greased pudding basin of about 1.5 litres capacity. Pile in the meat with its gravy. Roll out the lid piece. Wet the edges of the lining crust and place the lid over it, pressing firmly with your thumb to stick the lid to the lining.
Tie a double layer of pleated greaseproof paper over the top of the pudding basin, then tie up the whole basin in muslin or a cotton cloth, if you like, to make it easier to raise and lower into the pan. Place on an upturned saucer inside a large pan of simmering water that comes a third of the way up the basin. Steam, with the saucepan lid slightly ajar, for 2 hours, topping up with boiling water from the kettle to stop the pan boiling dry.
Unwrap the pudding basin and run a palette knife carefully around the edge to loosen the pudding. Place a warmed plate over the top and invert the basin. Give it a shake to turn out the pudding. It should hold its shape – at least until you cut the first slice!

Serve with steamed seasonal greens, such as Savoy cabbage, winter greens or Brussels sprouts, and good English mustard. On a cold February day a real trencherman could no doubt manage a dollop of good buttery mash as well.

Blackberry Whisky


blackberry.jpg

Apparently, this is a little like slow gin. 
I borrowed this recipe from the The River Cottage web site. 
 
Ingredients:
2kg / 4lbs blackberries 
225g / 8oz sugar (or less according to taste) 
1 bottle whisky
Place the fruit, sugar and whisky in a large screw top or kilner style jar. Shake every few days until the sugar has dissolved.
Place in a dark cupboards for three months, turning slowly to mix once every two weeks or so.
Strain and bottle. The whisky will have turned a deep, dark purple. It can be drunk straight away, but the flavour will continue to improve for up to 2 years.

Roast tomato passata

Swiped from the River cottage web site again.

3 – 4 kg ripe Tomatoes (as many different varieties and sizes as possible)
Sea salt and black pepper
1 tsp fresh oregano
1 tsp fresh thyme
Small handful of torn basil
4-5 cloves of garlic
Good trickle of olive oil and rapeseed oil

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4.
2. Depending on the size of the tomatoes, cut them either into halves or quarters. With very small or cherry tomatoes, pop them in whole but slash the skins first to release the juices. Place all of the tomatoes into a large roasting tin.
3. Crush and roughly chop the garlic and sprinkle it over the tomatoes with the salt and pepper.
4. Roughly tear the oregano, thyme and basil and scatter over tomatoes.
5. Drizzle over a little rapeseed and olive oil then roast in the oven for 45 minutes until slightly blistered and soft.
6. Cool after cooking, push through a sieve and place into containers for freezing.

Pork Sausages

I’ve tried making these once, and it never really worked out. The pork I used was too lean, and the sausage were solid, and not overly nice. Use really fatty cuts like belly and shoulder.

Sausage casing, 2–3 metres
Free-range or organic pork shoulder, 500g, minced
Free-range or organic pork belly, 250g, minced
Fine dried breadcrumbs, 25g (optional)
Salt (start with 1 heaped teaspoon)
Sage leaves, 16
Black pepper
White pepper if you have some
Nutmeg or mace, a good grinding or 1/4 teaspoon
A little oil for frying

2 large bowls, wooden spoon, sharp knife, chopping board, teaspoon, frying pan, a wide-necked funnel (hardware shops sell cheap ones), something to act as a plunger to push the meat down the neck of the funnel (the handle of a rolling pin, perhaps), clean string, scissors, an assistant (sausage making is much easier and far more fun when there are two of you)

1. Put one of the large bowls in the sink and fill it with cold water. Drop the length of casing into it. Find one of the ends and hold it close under the cold tap. Turn the tap on a little. You’ll see the water run in and the skin will gradually swell as the water travels down, so it looks like a long, curly snake – an amazing sight! Keep running the water through the casing for a minute or two and then leave the casing to soak in the bowl of water while you make the sausage meat.
2. Put all the minced pork in the other large bowl. Add the breadcrumbs if you are using them (a small amount is good for the texture of the sausage), then add the salt and stir well with the wooden spoon.
3. Chop the sage leaves and add them to the mixture with some pepper and nutmeg or mace.
4. Before you start going into sausage production, make a little ‘cake’ of a couple of teaspoons of the sausage meat and fry it for a couple of minutes on each side until cooked through. Taste it for seasoning – do you need more herbs, more salt, more pepper?
5. Now to fill the sausages. Take the casing out of the water and slide your fingers down it to push out any water trapped inside. Find one end of the casing and draw it over the spout of the funnel. Gather up all the casing over the spout (rather like putting a legwarmer on over your foot), leaving a little bit of the casing overlapping the tip of the funnel.
6. Take a spoonful of the sausage meat and push it down through the neck of the funnel. When the meat appears in the tip of the casing, tie a piece of string around the bottom to pinch it closed (if you tie the casing closed before you put the meat in, you’ll get a big bubble of trapped air).
7. Take it in turns with your assistant to keep pushing the sausage meat through the funnel and into the casing, which will slide off the spout of the funnel as it fills up with meat. Try not to make the sausages too thick and fat or they’ll burst when you twist them into lengths. It’s difficult to make them really even at first and you’ll probably find that the end of your string of sausages is a bit more professional looking than the start.
8. When you’ve used up all the sausage meat, you’ll need to twist the filled casing into individual sausages – unless you’re going to cook the sausage in one big coil like a Cumberland sausage. Starting at the tied-up end, gently pinch the casing and twirl the sausage clockwise every so often, so that you get a classic ‘string of sausages’, like something out of a cartoon. Then find the middle of the string (roughly) and start twisting ‘opposite’ sausages into pairs (see the picture). There is a clever butcher’s way of twisting them into bunches of 3, but it’s too hard to explain!
9. When you get to the end, tie it up with string and snip off any remaining casing. Hang up the sausages somewhere cool and airy for a few hours and then either cook them straight away or, better still but you’ll need unbelievable patience, put them on the bottom shelf of the fridge overnight to let the flavour settle.
10. When you want to cook your sausages, heat a little oil in a frying pan over a low heat. Fry the sausages fairly gently, turning them every few minutes so that they brown all over without burning. They should cook gently for at least 15 minutes, depending on their thickness; cut one open to make sure they are cooked all the way through.

Faggots

• 250g fresh pig’s liver
• 250g fatty pork scraps
• 1 fresh pig’s heart, split in half and rinsed
• 100g ham or bacon scraps
• 100g fresh breadcrumbs
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• Salt
• Freshly ground white pepper
• ½ tsp Mace
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp all spice
• a handful of chopped fresh parsley
• a few sage leaves, finely chopped
• small sprig of rosemary, finely chopped
• small chopped red chilli (or dried chilli)

• Caul fat or streaky bacon for wrapping (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4.
2. Roughly chop then coarsely mince all the meats and combine in a bowl.
3. Add the breadcrumbs, onion, herbs, spices and some salt and pepper and mix together thoroughly
4. Shape mixture into six balls.
5. Wrap each in a square of caul fat. Cut it large enough to overlap – it will bind on itself to hold the faggots together.
6. If you’re using streaky bacon, stretch each rasher with the back of a heavy knife, making them as long and as wide as possible (approximately two per faggot).
7. Flatten the balls slightly and place on a baking sheet or in an ovenproof dish into which they fit snugly and roast for 50 to 60 minutes, basting once or twice.

Spelt Rolls

Not made these, but I saw the recipe, and thought it was worth a pop. Let me know how it is. 

1kg wholemeal spelt flour, plus extra for dusting

10g powdered dried yeast 

20g fine salt

600ml warm water

A little sunflower oil



 

Combine the flour, yeast and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the water and, with one hand, mix to a rough dough. Adjust the consistency if you need to, with a little more flour or water, to make a soft, easily kneadable, sticky dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and clean your hands. 


Knead until the dough is smooth, stretchy and no longer sticky – about 10 minutes. Shape the dough into a tight round. Oil the surface of the dough, put it in the wiped-out mixing bowl, cover the bowl with cling film and leave to ferment and rise until doubled in size, which should take about an hour. 


Pre-heat the oven to 250C/500F/Gas Mark 9, or as high as it will go. Deflate the dough by tipping it onto the work surface and pressing all over with your hands. 


Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces. Shape into tight rounds, coat with flour and press flat with the palm of your hand to about 5cm high. Lay them on a lightly-oiled baking tray, so they are just touching each other. Leave to prove for about 30 minutes, or until nearly doubled in size. 


Put the tray in the oven, and close the door as quick as you can. Bake for about 15 minutes, until well browned, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Nettle Beer

 

6 ltr water
A small carrier bag of nettle tops, washed

Juice of 1 lemon, strained

Juice of 1 orange, strained 

750g caster sugar

30g cream of tartar

5g yeast

1. Bring the water to the boil in a large pan.

2. Add nettles, stir, then remove the pan from the heat and leave to infuse for at least an hour until it is at blood temperature. 

3. Carefully – you might want to enlist a helper at this point – strain the nettle liquid through a colander lined with a large piece of unbleached muslin into a large brewing bucket or pan. Once the liquid has filtered through, squeeze the muslin to get the maximum amount of liquid into the bucket.

4. Gradually add the sugar, stirring constantly to ensure it is thoroughly dissolved, then add the cream of tartar, and lemon and orange juice.

5. Finally, once the mixture is tepid, stir in the yeast. Cover and leave for 2-3 days in a warm place, until it’s obviously fermenting.

6. Remove any scum which has risen to the top in fermentation and siphon the beer into sterilised bottles and seal with corks.

7. Leave for at least a couple more days or up to a month before drinking.