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.

Pea Shoots and Smoked Pancetta Soup

I shamelessly acknowledge that I got the inspiration for this from The Frolicking Foodie. Until I read that post I had never heard of pea shoots, so when I saw them in Marks and Spencer yesterday I had to buy them to make the soup.

I have made a few changes (as you do!), such as using lovely Italian Pancetta instead of bacon and using a chicken stock as I had some, and didn’t have ham stock. I was also a bit concerned that the ham might overwhelm the taste of the pea shoots.

Ingredients

2 Tbsp olive oil
4 shallots, diced
1 medium potato, diced
120g Smoked Italian pancetta***
1 pint chicken stock


Method

Fry the shallots in the oil for about 5 minutes until soft, but not brown.
Add the pancetta and potatoes and continue to fry for another 5 minutes.
Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes until the potatoes are soft.

Leave to cool a little, add the pea shoots then blend.

As frolicking foodie noted, they do try to fight their way up out of the soup, but I kept pushing them down with the hand blender (known in my family as the "feersum enjin").

Perhaps I should explain the reason for this:

Younger son and daughter in law gave me a hand blender as a housewarming present some years ago. When I was asked what I had been given, on a couple of occasions (obviously suffering from early alzheimers) I said it was an um.... And so it was christened an "Um". Later I had to buy another one, which was rather more powerful, so I christened it the "FeersUM Enjin".

Fans of Iain M Banks will understand the allusion, the rest of you will just have to scratch your heads and say "She's at it again!"

LATER

*** I think that 60g would be enough of the pancetta, and would also be inclined to try unsmoked. I would love to hear how anyone else got on with this recipe.

Risotto with Peas

This is one of my favourite risottos, as it is so easy and uses very readily available ingredients.

Daughter telephoned me for the recipe this week, so I shall share it with you.

Basically all risottos are the more or less the same, and it is worth trying out variations on the theme.

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
85g / 3oz butter
3 shallots, chopped finely
115g / 4oz pancetta diced (or bacon bits)
280g /10oz Arborio rice
150ml / ¼ pint dry white wine
225g / 8 oz fresh peas
Salt and pepper
Parmesan cheese to garnish

Pour the stock into a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer gently.

Melt 55g / 2oz of the butter in another large, heavy-based saucepan. Add the shallots and pancetta and cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally until the shallots are softened.

Add the rice and cook, stirring constantly, for 2-3 minutes, until all the grains are thoroughly coated and glistening.

Pour in the wine and cook, stirring constantly, until it has almost completely evaporated.

Add a ladleful of hot stock and cook, stirring constantly, until all the stock has been absorbed. Continue cooking and adding the stock, a ladleful at a time, for about 20 minutes.

Add the peas, then continue adding the stock, a ladleful at a time, for about a further 10 minutes, or until the rice is tender and the liquid has been absorbed*.

Stir in the remaining butter and season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer the risotto to a warmed serving dish, garnish with Parmesan and serve immediately.

* I often find that it takes longer than 10 minutes for all the rice to be absorbed

Liver and Onions

Yesterday, on my way home from my physiotherapy, I called in at the big garden centre. Amongst other things, I bought 2 slices of lambs liver. I don't remember the last time I had that - and the butcher said that it is not always available.

So tonight, that was what was on the menu - no liver and bacon (as I had no bacon!), so just liver and onions. This is a very easy recipe.

First, toss the liver in seasoned flour.

While potatoes were boiling, I added a sliced onion to a reasonably large frying pan with olive oil and fried it for about 10 minutes.

Greens need to be cooked for an appropriate time to suit.

I remembered to turn the potatoes down (!)

After 4 minutes, I pulled the onions to the outside of the pan and added the liver, cooking it for about 3 minutes on each side.

Just before the potatoes were ready, I removed the liver and placed it and the onions on a heated plate.

At that point I added some red wine to the frying pan and raised the heat to leave it to reduce and thicken.

Serve all on a heated plate.

I use microwave plate warmers, which are the best thing since sliced bread. I bought them from Lakeland limited, but don't know if they are still available.