Author Archives: Christian Gott

My Next Six Nations Supper – Italy

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So last time I posted was my recipe for my French Six Nations Supper a classic Coq Au Vin. Today it is the turn of the valiant Italians and I wanted a full flavoured, heart-warming and filling dish to match the French recipe. I know the night before a big race or event athletes and sportsmen often eat pasta for a big hit of slow release energy from the carbohydrates so this being an Italian Supper it would seem suitable I create a pasta recipe.

Slow-cooked Beef Ragu II

Now in Italy, there are centuries of tradition and some very complex rules about pasta. Each shape is clearly defined and registered and suits a type of sauce or dish, your Bolognese sauce coats and lubricates Rigatoni or Penne pasta, Spaghetti is best suited to lighter coatings may be a recipe like Con Vongole with clams, a little garlic, oil and parsley. For my hearty rugby meal, I am going to use Fettuccini and make a delicious slow cooked ( ideal in fact for a slow cooker ) shin of beef ragout.

Fettuccini with Slow-cooked Shin of Beef Ragu                       serves 4 hungry rugby fans

1.2 kg Beef Shin brisket, cut into six to eight pieces,

( ask you butcher to cut up the Shin, it will be easier for him and to give you the bone )

2 large White Onions, peeled and very finely chopped

2 large Carrots, peeled and very finely diced

4 sticks of Celery, washed and very finely diced

4 Cloves of Garlic, peeled and crushed

1 bottle of good Italian Red Wine

500 ml good quality Beef Stock

100 ml quality Olive Oil

2 tablespoons of Tomato Puree

1 tablespoon of dried Oregano

3 Bay Leaves

½ teaspoon dried Thyme

½ teaspoon ground Nutmeg

Sea Salt and freshly ground Black pepper

 

500 gr Tagliatelli or other pasta of choice ( pappardelle is ideal)

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Fresh parsley, washed and finely chopped

 

In a large heavy-bottomed pan heat half of the olive oil over medium to high heat, season the beef and sear each piece on all sides until well browned, then set aside on a plate. Turn the heat down and add the remaining olive oil, add the onion, celery and carrots and sauté until soft. Add the garlic and cook for a couple more minutes*, then repeat with the tomato puree, stirring continuously to prevent burning. Return to beef to the pan and any juices and add all the remaining ingredients then bring up to a simmer, then turn it down to the lowest possible setting.

 

Cover the pan and let it cook for three to four hours until the beef is tender enough to pull apart with a fork. Remove the lid and let it cook for a further thirty minutes until the liquid has reduced to a thick sauce.

 

Remove the sauce from the heat and transfer the   beef from the sauce into a large bowl. Shred the beef with two forks and return it to the sauce. Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper and keep warm.

 

*Celery and carrots sautéed with the onions and garlic is called “soffritto” in Italian cooking. It is a very traditional base for many Italian dishes.

 

To Serve

Cook the pasta as per the instructions on the packet. You can reserve a little cooking liquid and toss the strained pasta, ragu and pasta water together or simply spoon the ragu on top of the cooked pasta. Serve with lots of freshly grated Parmesan and garnish with chopped parsley.

A Perfect Six Nations Supper

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With the storms forcing us to all batten down the hatches, I have temporarily swapped the gale force winds in the Channel Islands for the driving rain and bluster of Imogen blowing over Bristol just in time for the rugby. By now we will have had the first weekend’s Six Nations results but it is not too late for a perfect and suitable supper, coq au vin, the rich, satisfying, classic French peasant dish. It is generally accepted that it has a long history as a rustic, rural, recipe, however,  it only first appears in cookery literature in the late eighteen hundreds.

The two most popular stories about the creation of the dish involve Napoleon and Julius Caesar, of the two, as a long term Asterix fan, I like the Caesar story.After the conquest of Gaul, now part of modern-day France, the story goes that the natives presented the victor with an old gamey, rooster. The rooster is a tough proposition – excuse the pun and requires long, slow cooking. The rooster was cooked by Caesar’s chef simmered in wine ( a method of cooking extremely popular with the Romans, whatever else did they do for us ? ) and the end result was said to be very successful. Traditionally then the rooster or any tough old bird benefits from first marinating in wine* then gently braising, and the addition of the carcass adds a richness to the finished sauce.

A little Whine ! The Internet has failed to provide me the name of, at a cursory glance, the first person to say that if you would not drink a wine you should not cook with it. I certainly remember the late, great and sadly missed Keith Floyd elucidating, sometimes less than clearly, that this indeed is the case. He certainly was a fan of checking the quality of the vintage he was cooking with at the time. Your coq au vin does not need to be made with a first growth claret but will benefit from a full-bodied robust red. While it could be Australian or from Chile, I am at heart a traditionalist and believe that a Burgundy is best.

coq-au-vinMany regions of France have variants of coq au vin using the local wine, such as coq au vin jaune (Jura) and coq au pourpre (Beaujolais nouveau). In some variations of the dish, white wine is used, Riesling wine is popularly used in the Alsace region, with the addition of Morels and cream. In addition to the wine and chicken coq au vin is flavoured with the inclusion of fat bacon or salt pork, onion, garlic, mushrooms and a bouquet garni (thyme, bay leaf, parsley). The chicken is first marinated in wine, then seared in hot fat, this is essential to flavour and colour the finished dish. The meat, vegetables and aromatics are then simmered in the wine marinade until the meat is cooked and tender.

* No jokes, please

On a personal note, I find coq au vin an ideal dish for the slow cooker. A good coq au vin improves immensely if you marinade the chicken overnight and improves further if you leave it when cooked, overnight, in the refrigerator. If you cannot get a piece of bacon try to use the thickest rashers, you can find so the lardons will not break up during cooking. Celery is not a staple of many recipes for coq au vin but I agree with Nigel Slater as to the benefits it adds to the resulting dish and have included it below. If you want to peel baby onions you can but I find the result is in no way spoilt by using frozen baby onions. The dish is served in France with flat noodles or rice, it is equally appealing with steamed potatoes that you can crush in the gravy. I personally love a hefty chunk of crusty bread to soak up the juices and a lightly dressed green salad as an accompaniment.

 

Coq au vin                                                                                                                                                         Serves 4

A large chicken, jointed into 6 or 8 pieces, giblets and carcass saved

( ask your butcher if he can source a rooster and if he will cut it up for you )

for the stock

1 Onion, peeled and roughly sliced

1 Carrot, peeled and roughly chopped

1 stick of Celery, washed and roughly chopped

A small bunch of Thyme

A Bay Leaf, a Clove of Garlic and a few crushed Peppercorns

 

Butchers string

125 gr whole Pancetta or Unsmoked Bacon

2 medium Onions, peeled and finely chopped

2 Carrots, peeled, halved lengthwise and sliced

3 sticks of Celery, washed and finely diced plus one extra stick

3 Cloves of Garlic, peeled and finely chopped

200 gr Button Mushrooms, washed and halved or quartered if required

75g frozen Baby Onions

A bottle of drinkable Red Wine, preferably Burgundy

2 – 3 tablespoons Flour

75g Butter

4 tablespoons Cognac

A good handful of curly Parsley, washed and picked and finely chopped ( keep the parsley stems )

A small bunch of Thyme

3 Bay Leaves

Sea salt and freshly ground Black Pepper

 

For marinade ( you can omit this stage but it truly makes the dish magical ). Place the chicken pieces in a glass bowl and add the crushed garlic. Take one stick of celery and cut in half, into one-half place five or six stems of thyme, the bay leaves and the parsley stems. Sandwich the herbs with the remaining half of the celery stick and tie tightly together with string. Add to the chicken and cover with the wine. Seal bowl with cling film and place overnight in a refrigerator.

For the stock, place all of the ingredients in a large heavy bottomed pan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Set to simmer and cook for one hour. Remove the chicken pieces from the marinade and drain thoroughly. Reserve the marinade. Cut the pancetta into chunky lardons or short strips, they need to be thicker than a match but not quite as thick as your little finger. In a large thick-bottomed casserole melt one ounce of the butter over a moderate heat and gently sauté the lardons until crisp and light brown. Remove using a slotted spoon leaving the excess fat in the casserole dish.

Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper and place them in the hot fat in the casserole, so that they fit snugly yet have room to colour. Sauté the chicken pieces and turn them when the colour is a nice light caramel brown. It is this colouring of the skin, rather than what wine or herbs you might add later, that is crucial to the flavour of the dish. Remove the chicken and set aside with the bacon lardons. Do not clean the casserole dish as the fat and juices in the dish are crucial to the flavour of the coq au vin.

Add the onions, celery and carrot to the pan and cook slowly, stirring from time to time, until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the remaining garlic, stir and then return the chicken and pancetta to the pan, stir in the flour and let everything cook for a minute or two more before pouring in the cognac and marinade including the bouquet garni. Strain the simmering stock and pour into the casserole until all the chicken is covered. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down so that the sauce bubbles in a gentle simmer. Cover partially with a lid.

Melt the remaining butter in a small heavy-bottomed pan and sauté the mushrooms. Let them cook until they are golden, then add them to the chicken with the baby onions and a generous pinch of salt and pepper. Check the chicken after 40 minutes to see how tender it is. It should be soft but not falling from its bones. It will probably take about an hour, depending on the type of chicken you are using. Lift the chicken out onto a large plate and keep warm.

Turn up the heat, under the sauce and simmer vigorously until it has reduced by about a fifth and become shiny and glossy. Divide the chicken into serving dishes and cover with sauce, garnish with chopped parsley and serve.

中国新的一年快乐 ( I hope this wishes everyone a happy Chinese New Year )

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The next couple of weeks is a busy time in my kitchen, Pancake Day, Valentines, I have to cook soul food for Mardis Gras, a rocking Jambalaya, Buffalo Wings for when I watch the Super Bowl and most definitely celebrate the Chinese New Year. I hasten to add I am not American but they would kind of have this month’s events sewn in the bag if not for Chinese New Year. Now everyone has most likely had at one time in their life a Sweet and Sour or Cantonese Pork or Chicken from the local take away. You know the big deep fried doughy balls of slightly tough meat in a sharp Day-Glo orange sauce. It is about as close to being authentic Chinese as my mother is.

I can only hope to cap Sweet and Sour by giving you a version of a totally bastardised American Chinese dish. Again sweet, a little spicy and altogether created for the palates of mid-twentieth century America a dish called General Tso’s Chicken. The dish is named after General Tso Tsung-tang, a Qing dynasty general and statesman, however, any connection is very tenuous. The origins of the dishes invention are in the 1950’s influx of Chinese to the United States.

General Tso ChickenThe dish is reported to have been introduced to New York City in the early 1970s as an example of Hunan cooking though it is not typical of Hunanese cuisine, which is traditionally very spicy and rarely sweet. Fuchsia Dunlop, in the New York Times, identified the claim of a Taiwan-based chef Peng Chang-Kuei. Peng was the Nationalist government banquets’ chef and fled to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War. In 1973, he moved to New York to open a restaurant and experimented and developed Hunanese-style cuisine adopting it for western tastes.

Other chefs claim that they created the dish or variations which include vegetables, meat other than chicken in a sweetened sauce. Later the chicken was deep fried before being added to the sauce, now almost every American Chinese restaurant has General Tso’s Chicken on the menu. Where the dish is cooked outside of the United States the dish is less sweet with more vinegar or rice wine vinegar and soy sauce in the ingredients. This is more to my taste and I have an admission I’m really rather partial to it, so here is my version.

General Tso’s Chicken      serves 4
As always a general note of caution
BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN FRYING IN HOT OIL.

 

1 Carrot, peeled and cut into fine strips

100 gr Button Mushrooms, wiped and quartered
1 Red Pepper, diced
A small bunch of Spring Onions, washed and sliced into 2 cm pieces
1 small Red Chilli, finely sliced
3 Cloves of Garlic, peeled and crushed
3 cm piece of Ginger, peeled and finely chopped
100 ml quality Chicken Stock
2 tablespoons of Oil
2 tablespoons Soft Brown Sugar
1 tablespoon Tomato Paste
2 tablespoon Sherry Vinegar
2 tablespoons Rice Wine or Dry Sherry
1 tablespoon Corn Flour
2 Cloves
A good pinch of Chinese Five Spice

for the fried chicken
2 skinned chicken breasts, washed and diced
2 egg whites
Juice of 1 lemon
50 gr Corn Flour
Sea Salt and Cayenne Pepper
2 pints Vegetable Oil

For the sauce heat the vegetable oil in a wok and stir-fry the carrots, mushrooms, garlic and ginger for two to three minutes then add the peppers. In a small pan, heat the chicken stock, vinegar, rice wine, sugar, cloves and Chinese five spice and bring to the boil. Simmer for twenty minutes then thicken with the corn flour mixed with a little water and the tomato puree. After another five minutes simmering, strain into the wok and set on a very low heat.

For the chicken, sieve the corn flour into a large bowl and add a generous amount of salt and cayenne pepper. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites and lemon juice. Then dip the chicken pieces into the corn flour, the egg whites and back into the corn flour. In your wok or a large heavy bottom, pan heat the oil to 160°C / 320 F using a thermometer to check. If you do not have a thermometer have a few cubes of stale white bread to hand. Place a bread cube in the oil if it rises to the surface and cooks to a golden brown in a couple of minutes the oil is hot enough.

Fry the chicken in batches carefully lowering into the hot oil, for around six to eight minutes or until the batter is crisp and golden, turning from time to time with a large slotted spoon. When the chicken is cooked using the slotted spoon remove from the hot oil, drain on kitchen paper and place into the hot sauce. Add the Spring onions and simmer for a couple more minutes and then serve with steamed rice and garnish with a few extra, finely sliced spring onion tops.

Charles Dickens and The Star Chip Enterprise

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A few years ago was the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens, the Star Chip Enterprise is not, and here you may draw a breath of relief, his missing masterpiece and this is not an essay in literary history. However in 1859 Dickens published ‘ A Tale of Two Cities ‘ and included a typical rich description of ‘Husky chips of potatoes, fried with some reluctant drops of oil ’. This is the first acknowledged recorded use of the word chip used in reference to fried potatoes. In ‘ Oliver Twist ‘ he went on to mention fried fish warehouses. You can imagine the likes of Fagin and Dodger fighting over hot freshly fried fish and how tasty it would be.

Fish and ChipsFried fish quickly became a staple part of the lower class diet during the Industrial Revolution when the new steam trawlers could fish out in the Atlantic and bring back fresh fish from Iceland and Greenland. The increasing ease of travel with the vast railway network being developed would enable the efficient, fast delivery of fish across the country from the great coastal ports. The fish was fried in deep pots usually in rendered animal fat, such as lard, which has a high smoking point and is able to reach very hot temperatures.

The humble potato chip did not begin with Walter Raleigh bringing Queen Elizabeth the first potatoes from the new world.* They probably, dare we admit it, originated in France or more hopefully Belgium, clever people the Belgians, think Hercule Poirot he was Belgian. In the United Kingdom, chip shops became popular in the north of England and across the border in Scotland. Dundee City Council claims that “…in the 1870s, that glory of British gastronomy – the chip – was first sold by Belgian immigrant Edward De Gernier in the city’s Greenmarket.” The first chippy or chip shop stood on the present site of Oldham’s Tommyfield Market and is commemorated with a blue plaque. So who was it who first sold fish and chips together and created the nation’s favourite dish.

There is as often the case some rivalry as to who first offered the combination, some confusion and more than a little north verses south pride involved. What is certain is in 1863, a John Lees began selling them in Mossley market in Lancashire while Joseph Malin opened the first recorded fish and chip shop in East End London in either 1860 or 1865. The concept of the fish restaurant was introduced by Samuel Isaacs a successful wholesale fishmonger. His first restaurant opened in 1896 serving what is now a fish and chip shop standard, fish, chips, bread and butter and a hot tea for nine pence.

His restaurants were carpeted, had waited for service, tablecloths, flowers, china and cutlery and for the first time what was seen to be the luxurious standards that went only with fine dining for the very wealth was available to the working classes. The chain expanded throughout London and across the popular south coast holiday resorts to eventually number thirty restaurants. His Brighton restaurant at the then prestigious location, number one Marine Parade eventually became a Harry Ramsden’s fish and chip shop, arguably now the country’s most famous fish and chip restaurant chain and operator of the world’s biggest fish and chip shop in Guiseley, West Yorkshire.

Samuel Isaac, god rest his soul, also started what is now almost an art form with his trademark logo of a fish and a pun with the words ‘ This is the Plaice ‘ . Many of today’s fish and chip shops have great names like The Cod Father, Doctor Chipargo’s and Cod by Mr. Chips ( all book and movie themes, what a well-educated bunch of fryers ). An enterprising English couple Nicky Perry and Sean Kavanagh-Dowsett took on the might of New York’s finest deli’s and eateries with A Salt and Battery but my own personal favourite excluding today’s title is the snappy;

SuperCodaFriedulisticChipspeAlliRoeshop. 

Simply stunning.

 

The Technical bit

So fish and chips became a staple of the nation’s diet and our number one favourite dish. Indeed, it was so popular and such that during World War II fish and chips remained one of the few foods in the United Kingdom not subject to rationing. Today the fish used is commonly Cod or Haddock but other fish such as Pollack, Whiting, Coley and even Rock Salmon can be substituted. Because of concerns about over fishing, it is best to source from a reputable supplier or consult the Fish Online guide. More traditional chippies and some restaurants still use beef fat to fry their fish and chips because of the flavour it imparts. Obviously, this makes the chips unsuitable for vegetarians and so many fry in blended vegetable oils,

Chips are traditionally thicker than French fries. How much cooking fat soaks into a chip depends on the surface area to volume of potato ratio, the frying temperature and how long they are cooked. Chips generally absorb less oil then fries due to their structure they do however take longer to cook than fries. Chips are often blanched or cooked through at a low temperature then flash fried to reheat and crisp the outside at a temperature between 175 and 190 °C (345–375 °F). The best potatoes to use are floury potatoes with a soft, dry texture look for King Edwards, Maris Piper, Romano or Desirée potatoes.

Many fish and chip shops traditionally use a simple water and flour batter, adding a little sodium bicarbonate or baking soda and a little vinegar to create lightness, as they create bubbles of carbon dioxide in the batter. Many restaurants now use a beer batter as the naturally present carbon dioxide in the beer lends a lighter texture to the batter. The sugars present in the beer also help produce a wonderful golden brown colour on frying. A simple beer batter might consist of a 2:3 ratio of flour to beer by volume. The type of beer makes the batter taste different, the alcohol itself is cooked off, so little or none remains in the finished fried fish.

 

My Perfect Beer Battered Fish

I cannot state how simple my recipe is just beer, flour and seasoning. No eggs, baking powder, turmeric for the colour it could not be easier or tastier. Experiment with some local ales and lagers until you find your own favourite. Lagers are fine and produce very light fine results almost like tempura. I find a nice session bitter or IPA will create a nutty, tasty batter. Your batter is always better made slightly in advance to allow the flour to absorb a little of the liquid and let the gluten relax. Do not make it to early however as the raising agents will effervesce and disappear with time leaving a flat batter mix.

4 thick White Fish fillets ( around 200 – 225 gr per portion )

100 gr Self Raising Flour plus a little for dredging the fish

A Bottle of Beer

Sea Salt and freshly ground Black pPepper

for the frying

3 pints Lard or Dripping to cook

Sieve the flour into a large bowl and add a generous amount of salt and pepper. With a whisk, mixing continuously, add the beer to the flour until you have a thick, smooth batter about the consistency of thick cream. Place the batter in the fridge to rest for between 30 minutes. In a large heavy bottom, pan heat the oil to 160°C / 320 F using a thermometer to check. If you do not have a thermometer have a few cubes of stale white bread to hand. Place a bread cube in the oil if it rises to the surface and cooks to a golden brown in a couple of minutes the oil is hot enough.

Take two tablespoons of flour and place in a shallow tray, season well. Dredge each fish fillet in the seasoned flour until covered. Shake off excess flour and dip into the batter mix before carefully lowering into the hot oil. Fry the fillets for around eight minutes or until the batter is crisp and golden, turning the fillets from time to time with a large slotted spoon.

When the fish is cooked using the slotted spoon remove the fish from the hot oil, drain on kitchen paper, cover with greaseproof paper and keep hot to serve with home-made chips, plenty of lemon and chunky tartare sauce.

* I have to include a link to one of my favourite comedians ever Bob Newhart

( Fish and Chips are not as unhealthy as you would first think, fish and chips have 9.42 grams of fat per 100 grams – the average pizza has 11, a Big Mac meal with medium fries has 12.1. Fish and chips have 595 calories in the average portion with an average pizza around 871. For a healthier method of frying use vegetable oil instead of the beef dripping ).

Ain’t Soup Super – A Brief History of Soups

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The word restaurant ( or restoratif ) was first used in sixteenth century France to describe a cheap, concentrated soup or broth served by street vendors. It was marketed with almost miraculous properties, said to be able to cure exhaustion, the word means ‘something restoring’, and from the very earliest times, a soup or potage was often the staple diet of invalids due to it being able to be easily digested. Most cultures have an example of this tradition in some form, the cure all kosher chicken soup or the squaddie sipping beef bullion from a cube or paste.

These early soups probably bore little resemblance to what we eat today made from a few carefully chosen fresh ingredients. The word restaurant as we use it today, took on the modern association in the 1760’s when a Parisian shopkeeper started serving pots of soup on his premises. As French gastronomy developed so did the soup from the traditional hearty Pot-au-feu becoming elegant, refined Consommé, luxurious cream-based velouté and velvety puréed vegetable classics.

The word soup is most certainly derived from the Latin suppa meaning ‘ bread soaked in broth ‘. There is probably little to distinguish early soups from stews, made with whatever ingredients were available, meat scraps, bones, vegetables, maybe grains and lots of herbs. The pot would hang over the fire and cook for several hours. The French Petite Marmite is perhaps the closest we have to these early soup dishes, the aromatic meat and vegetable broth served in the pot in which it is cooked.

From a culinary perspective, soups can be broken down into four groups, broths and Consommé such as Cock-a-leekie. Vegetable purées such as tomato, curried parsnip or carrot and coriander. Thickened soups such as Mulligatawny, using rice or a traditional chicken velouté made with stock and a roux. The last group is the soup / stews like the Petite Marmite and rustic Minestrone.

Soup

Preprepared Soups

The first concentrated, portable soups were devised, mostly likely by trial and error in the eighteenth century by reducing stocks down to form a very thick syrup that could then be dried out and stored. Today the Japanese make their favourite miso soup is from concentrated pastes. Commercially made soups really came of age with the development of canning, Americans consume approximately two and a half billion bowls of the Campbell’s Soup Company condensed soups three most popular flavours Tomato, Cream of Mushroom, and Chicken Noodle Soup alone. Microwaveable bowls have further expanded the ready-to-eat soup market, even more, offering an almost instant, convenience food.

The concept of dried food is not particularly new but it was not until the twentieth century and vacuum technology allowed scientists to perfect freeze-drying or dehydrating food stuffs. Maxwell House developed a technique to produce coffee granules in 1963. The rest of the food industry soon saw the potential and powdered soups grew to account for just under twenty-five percent of the UK market by 2000.* Food manufacturers continue to innovate and changes in packaging saw the growth of fresh soups and today Heinz are introducing soup pastes to replace powder bases.

 

* Fresh chilled soups, however, still only accounted for 14.4% of retail soup sales in 2000, compared to 61.5% for ambient wet (mostly canned soups) and dry soups, 23.6%. The relatively small size of the sector was reflected by only 13% of adults interviewed agreeing that chilled soups in cartons were actually better quality than canned soups.

The Soup Market Market Assessment Key Note Publications Ltd, January 2001

 

The Recipe

I make soup regularly and always have onions, garlic, leeks and celery to hand to add some base flavours to whatever soup I am making. A stick blender or food processor quickly makes light work of pureeing the cooked vegetables into a smooth soup. The rest of the ingredients are pretty common and essential in a well-stocked kitchen. The secret to this classic is a spoonful of marmalade to add a little extra sweetness and an orange undertone to the finished soup.

 

Carrot and Coriander Soup                                                                                       serves 4

1 kg carrots, peeled and roughly chopped

2 large Onions, peeled and roughly chopped

3 sticks of Celery, washed and roughly chopped

2 cloves of Garlic, peeled and chopped

50 ml quality Olive Oil

1 litre of Water or light Chicken or Vegetable Stock if available

2 tablespoons thick cut Orange Marmalade

1 tablespoon Coriander Seeds

Sea Salt and freshly ground Black Pepper

 

Heat the oil in a large, heavy bottomed pan and sauté the vegetables and garlic for ten minutes until soft without colouring. Toast the coriander seeds in a small pan or under the grill for a couple of minutes to release the essential oils then blitz in a food processor. Add to the vegetables along with the water and marmalade. Bring to the boil, cover with a tight-fitting lid and simmer for twenty minutes. Take off the heat and allow to cool for a while before blending in a food processor or with a stick blender. Correct the seasoning and return to the heat to warm thoroughly before serving. You can finish with a little cream if you are feeling decadent and some chopped fresh coriander leaves.

 

Time To Talk Turkey – Get Ready for Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving, the traditional start of the American Holiday season, is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. The Thanksgiving Dinner meal is supposed to reflect one famously held in 1621, between the indigenous Wampanoag Indians and the Pilgrim Fathers who settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Roast turkey is usually the centre piece served with an abundance of sides, numerous stuffing’, buttery creamed potatoes with pan gravy, caramelised sweet potatoes, green bean casserole made with Campbell’s condensed mushroom soup, squashes, sweetcorn, cranberries and Autumn root vegetables all followed by slices of pumpkin and apple and pecan pies.

Traditional Roast TurkeyMost of these ingredients, native to the Americas, would have been new to the European settlers. The exception would be the Turkey which the Spaniards had brought back from Central America in the early seventeenth century. It was not until the late Victorian era that Turkey became the symbol of a traditional Christmas dinner, an alternative to the more common goose. So whether you are thinking of celebrating with our American cousins or you need a to roast the perfect Christmas dinner centrepiece here is my perfect Turkey recipe.

 

Roast Turkey with Bacon, Apricot and Cranberry Stuffing                       Serves 8

4-4.5 kg Gold standard Turkey

6 Rashers Smoked Streaky Bacon

150 gr Butter

3 medium Onions, peeled

2 large Carrots, peeled

1 large Lemon halved

A small bunch of Thyme

3 Large Pieces of Rosemary

2 Bay Leaves

Sea salt & freshly ground Black Pepper

For the Stuffing

400 gr Quality minced Pork

8 Rashers Smoked Streaky Bacon

1 large White Onion peeled and very finely diced

2 sticks Celery, washed and finely diced

2 large cloves of Garlic, peeled and crushed

100 gr dried Apricots

50 gr dried Cranberries

1 large free-range egg

2 teaspoons fresh Thyme leaves

1 large handful of fresh bread crumbs

Zest of 1 Lemon

1 good pinch Grated Nutmeg

Sea salt & freshly ground Black Pepper

Olive Oil for frying

For the Turkey Gravy

2 heaped tablespoons Plain Flour

1-litre quality Chicken Stock

A good Splash of Port

Sea Salt & freshly ground Black Pepper

For the Stuffing ( Can be made in Advance )

Heat a generous splash of olive oil large frying pan and cook the bacon strips until crisp. Remove and drain on kitchen paper and cut into thin slices when cool. Add the onion, garlic and celery and onion to the saucepan and sauté for about ten minutes until soft and golden brown. Take the pan off the heat, add the breadcrumbs and stir together, transfer to a large bowl and allow to thoroughly cool. When cool add the pork mince, thyme, fried fruits, lemon zest, nutmeg, egg and lots of salt and pepper, and mix everything together well.

For the Turkey

Take the turkey out of the fridge a couple of hours before roasting to get up to room temperature. When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 450 F / 230 C / Gas mark 8. Give your turkey a good wipe, inside and out, with kitchen paper, and season the cavity really well. Next place the turkey on a board, with the neck end towards you. Find the edge of the skin that’s covering the turkey’s breasts and carefully peel it back. Gently ease your fingers and then your hand under the skin, teasing it away from the meat. You should be able to pull all the skin away from the meat, keeping it attached at the sides. Carefully spoon your prepared stuffing between the skin and the breast, tucking the flap of skin underneath to stop anything seeping out. Weigh the stuffed turkey and calculate the cooking time allow twenty minutes per every five hundred grammes.

Place the lemon halves, one onion, half the thyme and one piece of rosemary inside the turkey cavity. Dab the butter all over the turkey, especially over the breasts, season generously and then cover with the streaky bacon. Place the turkey on a large roasting tray, and add the chopped carrots, onions, and remaining herbs, cover with tinfoil and place in the preheated oven. Cook for twenty minutes then turn the heat down to 350 F/ 180 C / Gas Mark 4 and roast for the allotted time, or until the juices run clear from the thigh when pierced with it a small, sharp knife. Remove the tinfoil for the last forty minutes to allow the turkey to brown. Carefully lift the turkey out of the tray and rest on a tray, somewhere warm, loosely covered in foil and a couple of folded tea towels, for about an hour.

For the Gravy

Very carefully skim the surface fat from the roasting tray and add port. Place on a medium heat and sift in the flour. Stir really well and slowly pour in the stock, when the gravy starts to thicken, reduce the heat and simmer for five minutes stirring regularly. Strain it into a pan ready to reheat. Carve your turkey at the table, serve with all the trimmings, the gravy and enjoy.

National Seafood Week – A perfect Recipe

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Did you know it’s the last day of National Seafood Week and the middle of National Curry Week? Who makes these arbitrary decisions? Does anyone care? Well, it is Friday today and I have gone for a fish and seafood recipe, for that Spanish masterpiece the Paella. Now like a lot of classic recipes Paella, at first glance may seem pretty daunting, but I assure you just keep in mind all you are really cooking is rice, and with that statement I have annoyed the entire Spanish nation.

I really love rice and it is easy to cook if you follow the basic rules. The principle about making a good paella is very simple, much like a risotto you want to drive as many of the flavours from the stock and accompanying ingredients into the rice. There are many myriad of varieties of paella and a huge number of ingredients that go into different regional recipes, some call for chicken, rabbit or snails, but this recipe is for a great paella, perhaps the greatest, Paella de Marisco or Seafood Paella.

Seafood PaellaIt is really important to use the right rice, many Spanish people use a short grain variety called Bahia, grown in South & South-eastern Spain. It requires around two times its own volume in cooking liquor. For that extra special Paella, there is a variety of rice called Bomba – this is a slow growing rice that absorbs three times it’s own volume when cooked without falling apart. As Paella is primarily about the flavours of the stock being absorbed into the rice, this is a particularly excellent variety, although it can be quite expensive. About a 100g of rice per person, Bomba or standard paella rice will give a good main-course size portion, which means 1Kg of rice will make a Paella for around ten people.

Your Paella pan, the name Paella is a Catalan derivative of an old French word for pan, should be a sturdy and made of polished steel, and to care for it follow the technique as you would for a steel wok. The reason there are so many different sizes of Paella pan is because it is important not to create a Paella that is too deep. Your final Paella needs to be a “dry” rice and having the dish too full will not allow any excess cooking liquor to evaporate out once cooked. As a basic rule of thumb, a paella should not be deeper than the rivets for the handles on the paella pans. Traditionally paella is cooked over an open fire as you may have seen in Spanish fiestas or festivals. The way to achieve that really authentic Paella is to allow me to introduce Sofrito and Socorat.

The Sofrito and the Socorat
The Sofrito and the Socorat are not characters or events in Don Quixote. They are the key to you making an outstanding classic Paella. The sofrito is a fried tomato paste, do not worry if you don’t like tomato – you will never know it’s there. It adds a rich sweet note to the finished Paella. The scocorat is perhaps the most highly prized part of a paella. It is the dark caramalised rice that sticks to the bottom of the pan.

 
Seafood Paella                                               serves 4 to 6

150 gr cleaned Squid
250 gr Monk fish fillet,
100 gr good quality Smoked Chorizo Sausage, very finely diced
12 Prawns, the bigger the better, peeled and de-veined
4 Crayfish or Gamba’s , as big or bigger than the prawns
500 gr approximately fresh Mussels, washed and scrubbed
Sweet Paprika (Pimentón Dulce)
100 gr cooked Butter Beans
2 Red peppers, thinly sliced
A generous quarter teaspoon Saffron Threads
Paella Rice, one cupful per person
Seafood or Fish Stock, approximately twice as much as the rice
4 cloves of Garlic, peeled and very finely chopped
1 large Spanish Onion, peeled and very finely chopped
1 small tin of chopped Tomatoes
Peas (as many as you like)
A glass of quality Dry White Wine
A really generous glug of good quality Olive Oil
Sea Salt and freshly ground Black Pepper
Freshly chopped Parsley

A large 6 person Paella pan

In a small heavy-bottomed saucepan, place the diced chorizo sausage and generously cover with olive oil, heat until the oil just starts to bubble then turn down to lowest setting and keep on the lowest possible simmer for thirty minutes. Be careful not to have the sausage on a high heat and burn the chorizo, the aim is to slowly confit the meat in the oil to release the delicious flavours. Remove from heat and cool, then store in airtight container in the fridge. This can be made up to a week ahead of time. This braised chorizo is great gently re-heated in stews, casseroles, with chicken, as a garnish to monk fish, sea bass and oysters. As with many recipes some people are probably shaking their heads at the addition of chorizo to a seafood paella but once you smell the heavily flavoured oil sizzling in your pan I think you will be convinced.

Score and cut the squid into cubes about two centimetres each and then slice the monk fish fillet into finger thick escallops. Heat a generous serving spoon of the flavoured chorizo oil in the paella pan, when the oil is smoking add the prawns and crayfish, sauté for a minute or two then remove and put to one side. Next, put the squid in the pan and fry until light golden brown. Remove and add to the prawns.

For the sofrito
In a little further oil gently sauté the onion for five minutes without colouring. Add the tin of chopped tomatoes. Turn up the heat and cook the tomatoes with the onion until it reduced into a very thick dark red paste. Stir continuously to prevent the sofrito from sticking and burning, but reduce it right down.

Add the chorizo, garlic, saffron and a teaspoon of paprika and stir everything around before adding the rice. Stir well ensuring every grain of rice is covered in the sofrito. Pour in the fish stock, wine, pepper slices, around a ½ teaspoon of salt and plenty of freshly ground pepper and bring it up to the boil and simmer. After 10 minutes of cooking add the butter beans, peas, prawns, the crayfish and the mussels. Cook for an extra 5 minutes until almost all the liquid has been absorbed. Occasionally gently shake the pan to prevent the large ingredients from sticking to the bottom of the pan, DO NOT STIR.

For the socorat
Turn up the heat to full for no more than a minute or so. You will hear the rice start to “pop”. After a short time “popping” (30 seconds or so) turn off the heat completely. Interestingly this is how popped rice cereals made without the fish flavouring!

Resting is important for the final flavours to develop and for the rice to finish cooking . If you want to decorate you paella with extra pre-cooked prawns and mussels on the half shell, then this is a good time to add them so they can warm through. Cover with a double layer of foil and leave it to rest for ten minutes. Serve with lemon wedges and parsley straight from the pan.

The Best Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Baking Recipes / The Part Time Vegetarian

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I come from a family of food lovers, not of fine dining, but good honest home cooking with the best of locally farmed or grown ingredients, the benefit of growing up in the countryside. One of our closest neighbours when I was little, was the married daughter and her family, of a local farmer who pioneered a farm shop, butchering his own meat and serving local produce over thirty years ago. As we children grew up and played together there were many outings, trips, walks, picnics and visits to the distant seaside. Now the lady in question was also a culinary pioneer and catered for these events with lots of pies, pasties and sweet pastries made with wholemeal flour long before the modern, organic, healthy eating movement began, and I have to say, they were really bad. My sister and I buried them in the sand on the beach and even the Seagulls refused the crusts and half eaten baking.

Book Reveiw I
Now a good many years later as a chef I have to admit I still have an aversion to healthy cooking, compounded by a classical training using a cannon of French recipes, requiring copious amounts of cream, alcohol and butter. But times have changed. We are much more aware of diet, healthy eating and can make informed decisions about what we eat. We can make choices about low fat, low sodium, high fibre, organic, ethically sourced or gluten free dishes or menus. So two of my biggest challenges as a chef are to find inspired, tasty and healthy recipes, like vegetarian dishes a little different to a vegetable lasagne or three bean chilli, and to find reliable alternative methods to make gluten free pastry and biscuits that are slightly more palatable than my memories of buried jam tarts that will be around for hundreds of years.
It is then a real pleasure to have found the Nourish imprint and in particular two very excellent cookery books. The Best Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Baking Recipes by Grace Cheetham and The Part Time Vegetarian by Nicola Graimes. For someone who deals with recipes every day at work and in my own kitchen it is really encouraging to discover some real distinct and different dishes in The Part Time Vegetarian and I like the concept of adapted recipes including meat and fish if you so choose.
From the very moreish, crumbly Butternut squash scones with goats’ cheese served warm from the oven, to a particular favourite the Halloumi Hash, a really clever idea to use up any leftover roast potatoes and vegetables for a Monday lunch, the book is packed with well written, thoughtful recipes. Not only did I learn several new dishes and ingredients I have been inspired to go meat free at least one day a week. I have tried my hand at making Labneh, a simple, tangy Middle Eastern style cheese that was delicious with flatbread and Balsamic cherry tomatoes. I made Okonomiyaki for my lunch, this is another great way to use up a fridge full of leftovers and is a kind of really delicious, grilled Japanese pancake cum pizza. I found this book to be a total joy and a treasure trove of wonderful ideas some of which will no doubt find their way on to one or two restaurant menus.

In the Part-time Vegetarian there is a very adaptable recipe for an asparagus and Parmesan Panzanella, a classic Italian tomato salad that uses up yesterday’s stale bread. Nicola adds chicken for her non vegetarian version. I have done a similar dish on a menu using pan fried king prawns, but I was really impressed by the Best Gluten-free and Dairy-free Baking Recipes book with a recipe for Panzanella. You just don’t think to make a salad using up old bread for someone who is gluten intolerant. The author Grace Cheetham provides a failsafe collection of recipes for gluten breads, biscuits and cakes so you can enjoy the same dishes as anyone who is not intolerant.
I am in total admiration because I have to say these alternative recipes are every bit as delicious and palatable as the gluten originals. You will have to stock up on a few items such as chickpea flour, maize flour and brown rice flour but the results are well worth it from a moist Chilli Cornbread to an excellent Beef Wellington that would impress the most discerning dinner guest. Best of all there are some really astounding chocolate brownies and melt in the mouth Millionaires shortbread that went down amazingly well in the office. So if you are intolerant, on a restricted diet this is a detailed, practical and impressive cook book with recipes that really work and you can the adapt or use in lots more of your cooking.
If you know any chefs you will be aware that they are seldom wrong, well I would like to admit that there is a big place for some of these recipes in my work and I am very pleased to have found both of these books. If I am not going to swallow my own word’s I am at least going to do the next best thing make another batch of gluten free Millionaires shortbread and swallow the results of reading someone else’s.