Category: Main Courses

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.

Potato & Sausage Bake

30 minutes preparation time
1 hour 5 minutes cooking
time
819 Kcal per portion
59.7g fat per portion of which
26.8g is saturated
4 servings
Baking potatoes 900g (2lb), peeled and cut into 1cm (%in) dice
Onions 2 large, peeled and halved, each half cut into three lengthways and the wedges fanned
Smoked pork sausage rings 2 x 227g, each one cut into thick diagonal slices
Butter 50g (2oz), melted Olive oil 2 tbsp
Mixed dried herbs
1-2 tsp
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Single cream 4 tbsp
Cheddar cheese 75g
(3oz), grated
Torn flat-leaved parsley
to garnish

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/ Gas 6. Put the potatoes into a large saucepan, cover with cold water and add a little salt. Bring to the boil and cook for 2 minutes. Pour into a colander and drain well.

Transfer the potatoes to a large baking dish, or small roasting tin, add the onions, sausage slices, butter, oil and herbs. Season lightly with salt and mix well. Cover with a lid or foil and bake for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove the baking dish or roasting tin from the oven and uncover it. Drizzle the cream over the potato mixture, season with freshly ground black pepper and then sprinkle with the cheese.

Increase the oven temperature to 220°C/425°F/Gas 7. Return the potato and sausage bake to the oven and continue cooking for a further 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown and the potatoes are cooked. Serve hot, sprinkled with parsley.

Roast Beef

Roast beef is soo English, it’s what the the French still call the English as a nick-name/ insult- “les rosbifs”- although wikipedia believes this may be because the English have a reputation for turning up in the France, and burning their lilly-white skin in the hot sun.

For a few years, you couldn’t get beef on the bone. You can now, and it’s worth tracking down, because it adds to the flavour of the beef. The other thing you need is some fat on the meat. Without the fat it just doesn’t taste, well, of beef. 

The other thing it needs is a little bit of colour. Perfect beef, for me, is on the bone (beef rib) with some fat marbled through it, roasted in a hot hot oven for not quite long enough. It needs to be dark on the outside, and pink and juicy in the middle.

To the outside of the beef, before it goes into the oven, run in a mix of salt, dijon mustard and worcestershire sauce. To rest the beef on, under the beef, throw in some whole garlic cloves, 1/2 or 1/4 onions (2). This’ll help the stock flavour up as the beef roasts. Roast for 20 minutes in the hottest oven you can (240C ) then for 20 minutes a a kilo, at 190C . Less for Rare beef, and more for well done. 

Once the meat is roast- AND THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT- let the meat rest for at least 30 minutes. It will be mildly warm when you carve it. If you’re serving it with gravy then carve it nice and thin- it should be mild pink and tender. 

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.

Tartiflette

      I’ve been trying to find a good recipe for this savoyard region – and this is a bit of a mix of a few. I’ve seen a few recipes with cream, but am pretty sure this is wrong. I’m going with the bacon, spuds, onion and cheese version.
      • 5 medium potatoes (waxyish, or something that won’t fall apart)
      • pancetta (cubed smokey bacon. 1 big handfull/ 2 supermarket packs.)
      • an onion, sliced 
      • 1clove garlic
      • 1 petit reblochon cheese (bottom crust cut off
  1. Boil the potatoes and slice.
  2. fry the lardons, add the onions and finally garlic. (don’t overcook the garlic, it’ll taste nasty)
  3. In a dish, layer the potatoes with bacon/onion mix,  potato = top layer.
  4. Place the cheese on top (crust up). it’ll melt around the dish.
  5. Bake in a moderately hot oven until the cheese melts and bubbles.

Job done. You’re now a french peasant.

Tripe & Onions

OK -first the warning. I’ve never made this dish. My mum told me about Grandma (Aunt Nora) making this. She told me the tripe was cooked in milk, and I’ve sniffed round the internet to find a Lancs recipe for Tripe and Onions – for the sake of history rather than gastronomy.

Tripe is a cow’s stomach lining. You can get blanket, honeycomb or thick seam – depending on which stomach it comes from – 1st, 2nd or 3rd respectively.
Tripe is usually sold cleaned and parboiled. (AKA white tripe). Undressed tripe is green tripe, and usually only tackled by a butcher (who cleans it and par boils it)

1 lb dressed white tripe
1 pint full milk
3 medium onions,  sliced in 1/2 moons
pinch of grated nutmeg
1 bay leaf (optional)
salt and pepper to season
1 oz butter
3 tbsp plain flour
chopped fresh parsley, to garnish

In a saucepan cover the tripe with cold water, bring to the boil for  couple of minutes then drain and rinse under running cold water. Cut the tripe into 1 inch pieces.

In the pan, add the tripe, onions, milk bay and nutmeg and seasoning. Simmer for 2 hrs, or until tender. Strain off and keep 1 pint of ‘stock’ back.

 In a pan, make a white sauce with the butter, flour and milk stock. (melt the butter, add the flour, and stir till the roux is thick, add a little milk at a time, and cook out till smooth and thick. repeat till you have a sauce of the right consistency)
Add the cooked tripe and onions back to the sauce and serve. parsley on top for a spot of decoration.
 

Twice cooked Pork Belly

 

Pork belly, skin on, in a roasting pan, with foil on top.

cider (enough to cover the pork)

1 tblspoon sugar (less if using a sweet cider)

1/2 tsp salt

tightly wrapped, cook the pork for about 5 hours in a low oven (160c).

Take the pork out of the stock and into a plastic bag. but the pork between 2 chopping boards with a weight on, so that it cools  perfectly flat. It’ll keep in the fridge for several days.

When you need it, you can cut a piece of pork and roast for 15 mins in a hot oven. The skin will crisp up and bubble (crackling) and the meat warm through again. serve immediately.