Stovies

Someone asked for a recipe for this and I promised to post my mother's recipe, however I cannot find it, so this is one that I have made.

Many recipes call for corned beef, but I don't think that is nearly so good as beef (roast, pot roast or even boiled)

I love onions, so have put in two, although I know my mother would have put in only one, whole, to be removed when the stovies were cooked; this was because my father could not eat onions.

As for the dripping, if you have roasted the beef, you will have your own, but many butchers (if you can find one that is not a supermarket) will sell dripping for stovies. This often has a layer of lovely beef jelly underneath, in which case you will not need beef stock, just a little water added to the cooking stovies.

I never give seasoning as I use very little and if you use the butcher's dripping with jelly you will probably need none.

I have vivid memories of going to Hunt Balls in my young married days and having stovies served up at about 6am before you went home.

Anyway, enough of this blethering - here is the recipe.

Ingredients

2 lb potatoes
2 onions
2 oz dripping left over from roast beef
½ pint water or beef stock
Left over beef, cut up

Method

Melt the dripping in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over a low heat
Add the onions and increase heat to medium
Stir until all are browned
Turn down heat to very low
Peel and slice potatoes into pan
Add a little of the water or gravy
Cook over a very low heat until potatoes are soft and breaking, stirring every 10 minutes or so, and adding a little stock when necessary to prevent sticking.
Add the meat, stirring until hot through.

Easy peasy!

Kohl Rabi

Someone left a comment on my blog about kohl rabi, wondering how to cook it.

If you do a Google search, you will come up with several recipes.


One says that it is something that often turns up in organic vegetable boxes and then lies lurking in a corner of the fridge until it is thrown out.

However, I reckon that all these new experiences are a challenge to be tried at least once.

The one I had was a purple one and instead of doing anything fancy, I served it up with a cauliflower cheese this evening. I cut off all the extraneous bits, then peeled it. The flesh is white.

I chopped it and put it in the pan with the potatoes, with the greens steaming on the top.

It tastes somewhat like turnip (a cross between white turnip and Swede). I would certainly welcome it again.

I think I have probably said before that the organic vegetable box has changed my eating habits - and very much for the better.

Smoked Trout Pate

I bought some beautiful smoked flakes of trout at the Farmers Market and made this pate to take to elder son next week - after making it I froze it.

Ingredients

125g/4½oz smoked trout
100g/3½oz crème fraîche or soft cream cheese
2 tsp horseradish sauce
juice of ½ lemon
To serve

slice lemon, sprig flat-leaf parsley, brown bread or toast

Method

Place all the ingredients into a food processor and whiz until smooth.
Divide between four small ramekins and decorate with a slice of lemon and flat-leaf parsley. Serve with thin brown bread or toast.

I am not a great fan of horseradish, so I stick with the lemon and add a little paprika.

Salmon Steak

This is hardly worth calling a recipe, but at the Farmers' Market today I bought a salmon steak from Loch Duar and served it obviously for tonight's meal.

I dipped it in seasoned flour and fried it in butter while the potatoes boiled. In fact along with the potatoes I boiled some white turnip and above that I steamed some flat beans.

I served it with a nice Claret (a bargain from Tesco) and kept remembering the scene in Moonraker where the two villains came in with the dinner trolley, and a bombe surprise on the bottom shelf. They produced a nice claret (emphasis on the second syllable) and James Bond exclaimed "A claret - with fish?", so of course he was on to them and pulled the villain's hands down between his legs and hooked the bombe surprise onto them before tossing the two of them overboard. Of course it really was a bomb without the e!

Always makes me laugh, that scene, but I think a nice Claret goes well with poached salmon.

After I had raspberries with Greek style yoghurt.

I think I could besaid to be 'stappit fu'

We got the best of the weather this morning as later it has rained intermittently.