Goose with Pheasant stuffing and Hare.

Something a little different for Easter, using some odds n ends from the freezer, left overs from the Autumn season. The result was very rich, flavoursome and tender, enjoyed by all for lunch today, the quantities are very variable with this one, but the idea is sound and has worked well for us on a couple of occasions now.




 1 Goose breast--wild
3 Pheasant breasts
2 Hare legs, boned and diced
Bunch fresh herbs from the garden
3 Onions, finely chopped
3 Cloves garlic
6 rashers bacon
Tub of frozen stuffing from xmas!
Bottle red wine
Good dollop of Elderberry jelly
2 Tins plum tomatoes--chopped
3 Tablespoons tomato paste.

Cut the goose breast twice lengthways to create 2 flaps that can be lifted from the centre to result in a large flat escalope shape. Cover with cling film and bash out with a rolling pin to increase the size and to tenderise the meat.
Cut Pheasant breasts into chunks, place in a food processor with the stuffing and herbs, then pulse until blended. Place the resultant stuffing in a long sausage shape on the goose breast, roll the goose up to seal in the stuffing. Roll the bacon around the length of the goose meat.
Soften the onion and garlic in a large cast iron casserole, when soft add the bacon wrapped goose. Brown all round, add the hare and when sealed, add a dollop of elderberry Jelly, 2 bay leafs and a generous half bottle of red wine. Bring to the boil and allow the liquid to reduce by about half. Add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes, bring to a simmer, place in oven for approx 2 hours or until the hare meat is tender.
Serve and enjoy.

Roast stuffed leg of Lamb

One of the real delights of the year is the arrival of new season lamb, the one we ate today really lived up to expectations too. Quite a simple dish that will thrill your tastebuds and guests alike. The stuffing can easily be varied to suit your tastes, try adding lemon zest , chilli or use chorizo instead of bacon. No real measurements here either, just experiment a little and most of all enjoy. Again this type of dish is just spur of the moment, throw it all together and see what happens, which we really enjoy doing, makes food really interesting and different every time too.

1 Leg of local lamb
A handful of fresh garden herbs
Clove garlic
3 or 4 rashers bacon
Couple of slices stale bread--sourdough is great
Splash of white wine

Bone the leg of lamb, your local butcher will be happy to do this.
Pick over the herbs, pop the bones, along with some root veg and the herb stalks into a pot to make your stock.
Remove crusts from bread slices then dice them, roughly chop the bacon.
Whiz the bread and herbs in a food processor, place to one side then whiz the bacon to make a coarse paste. Mix into the bread and herb to make a stuffing.
Open out the leg of lamb and cut the meat so it opens quite flat, spread the stuffing onto the meat.
Roll up and tie to prevent it unrolling during cooking.
Peel and slice the garlic.
Season lamb with salt and pepper, then push the tip of a sharp knife into the skin and into the meat, lever it very slightly to make a small opening and insert a slice of garlic. Repeat evenly across the whole joint.
Place on a roasting tin, drizzle with olive oil, and splash of wine, roast.(The cooking time will depend upon the size of the leg and degree of cooking that you wish to apply).
Remove from oven when cooked, allow to rest for a while before carving into thick slices to enjoy with a simple gravy or sauce made from the stock.

Spiced Beef

With all this cold weather about, its time for a warming comforting dish, basically thrown together from ingredients that we found left over from other dishes or just in the cupboard anyway. The beef dish we've made here has good depth of flavour, is smooth and light yet really packs a punch with the warm spices used. Absolutely suited to winter weather!!

500G Diced beef
2 Spring Onions
2cm piece ginger
3 Garlic cloves
Half a dried scotch bonnet chilli
Half a dried chilli
5 Potatoes
1 Butternut squash
1 Tin coconut milk
1 Tin Butter beans-drained
500ml Chicken Stock
Sprig Thyme
Salt and pepper


This one is very straightforward to prepare.

Heat some oil in a pan, add the beef, season with salt and pepper. Meanwhile chop the ginger and chilli, slice the garlic and add to the pan with the thyme.
When the meat is sealed, cover with 500ml stock and cover with a lid. Allow to simmer for 40 minutes.
Meanwhile peel the squash and potatoes and dice these evenly. Add to the pot and simmer for a further 20 minutes. Now add the coconut milk and butter beans, simmer until the beef and potatoes are cooked to perfection. Sprinkle in the chopped spring onion and serve.

Great served with sour dough bread to mop up the juice. Should any be left over then next day it makes a great soup like light lunch, ideal following a walk on a frosty morning.

Garlic bread

Garlic bread

Well, having made the garlic butter it would be a shame not to make garlic bread! Be warned though, once you have made your own, you will never want to have that poor greasy and bitter tasting shop bought alternative again. Imagine the wonderful aroma as you open this up at the table for your guests to tear at with their meal.

Simply take a french stick or baguette and cut it three quarters through, every 2cm all the way along its length. In  each cut place a generous helping of garlic butter, wrap in foil and bake for 10 minutes until all the butter is melted, serve and enjoy. 

See the pictures, simple to make and a pleasure to eat.

Garlic Butter

Garlic butter

Everyones favourite, yet seldom made well today. Garlic butter can be made in advance, frozen in little cylinders ready for later use, all you need to do is to remove it from the freezer a few before you slice it and place it carefully over your fish or steak or even to flavour a sauce. It is of course a great base for making garlic bread too.

500g Butter, retain both wrappers

Good bunch chopped parsley

Garlic to taste, use your own discretion!

Sea salt,

Black pepper

Place the butter in the bowl of a mixer and turn on to beat. Leave beating whilst you prepare the remaining ingredients, the butter needs about 10 minutes to become soft and very light in colour.

Meanwhile, chop your parsley finely and place to one side.

Peel the garlic by placing a clove on your chopping board, then cover with a wide flat implement (we just use the knife blade place flat on the clove) and strike it quickly with the side of a clenched fist. The skin should split open and then peel away easily, you can also achieve this by striking down on the clove with the base of a tin can.

Place garlic in a mortar and pound into a paste along with a good pinch of salt and a generous helping of ground black pepper.

The butter is probably ready by now, so stop the machine, and fold the garlic into the butter, followed by the parsley.

Place the some butter mixture onto a butter paper and roll carefully, twist each end to form a christmas cracker shape and gently press each end to help even out the mixture.

The butter can be placed in the fridge to set, or frozen for later use, it keeps well and gives you a wonderful standby ingredient that add depth and flavour to your food.

Enjoy

Sourdough Pizza

Sourdough Pizza

Thought that we could have a change from bread, so knocked out a little sourdough pizza base, then whilst it was proving nipped out for a couple of hours on the bike. Just a case of rolling out, baking off and topping then for a quick warming and thoroughly enjoyable meal. Just great on these sunny winter days....

For the bases you will need:-
200g Sourdough starter-see earlier recipe May 2012
125ml warm water
30ml olive oil
10ml maple syrup
400g strong plain flour
10g sea salt
Quarter teaspoon garlic salt

Simply place all ingredients, except for the salt, in a mixer bowl and using a dough hook, mix thoroughly for 4 minutes or until a soft very slightly tacky dough forms.

Allow to stand for 10 minutes, then add the sea salt and thoroughly knead for 2 minutes. Cover with a cloth and allow to stand at room temperature for up to 6 hours prior to use. Knock back a couple times during this period of time.

Turn oven on to 180 centigrade. Knock dough back and knead into a ball. Divide the dough equally into 4-6 pieces (depending on your chosen base size). Roll out on a lightly floured surface to make thin bases, approx 2mm in thickness. Place base on a pizza tin, bake for about 5 minutes during which time it may ballon like a pitta. Remove from oven and cool slightly.

Spread the base with provencale sauce (see June 2012) and your favourite toppings. Place back in oven and bake until the cheese is lightly golden. Remove, cut and enjoy...

Your choice of topping is dependant upon your tastes, or in this case what we had in the fridge, some Bolognese,  homemade Mozzarella, chorizo, spinach etc.

We prefer very thin bases, and have done since we experienced wood baked pizza in Sardinia some years ago. These were very effective simple pizza, topped purely with a tomato sauce, local cheese, folded and served with a quiet beer in the village square, where we ate these as the sun slowly dipped behind the horizon to end a perfect day at the beach.....just delightful.....must return one day.....soon.

Provençal Sauce

Simple ingredients, stunning result.

One of those great standbys to have in the fridge and the basis of so many good tasting dishes. Why buy one of those jarred alternatives when this is so easy to make? Just use a spoonful to give extra taste or texture to sauces, or as a sauce on vegetables, heat and serve on top of pasta or even spread it on a pizza base. The sauce is a great with fish, wrapped in foil and baked together in the oven, or with prawns and peppers, maybe simply spread on an omelette and topped with cheese, once again this sauce base is only limited by your creativity and imagination. It will easily keep for 2 weeks stored in the fridge and the flavour can be adapted simply by adding fresh basil, paprika, chilli, roasted vegetables etc again the combinations are endless and a whole world better than those you can buy. Have a go, you will not be disappointed. Enjoy.

Ingredients

2 medium onions, chopped finely
5 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
A glass white wine-optional
4 tins plum tomatoes
Salt and black pepper to season

Method

1. Place a pan onto warm, peel and chop onion. Add a little olive oil to the pan, add the onion and sauté gently to soften, but not colour.
2. Meanwhile, peel and slice the garlic and add to the pan too.
3. When onion is softened add the glass of white wine, if using and reduce until syrup like in consistency. Add seasoning.
4. Add the tomatoes, bring to a simmer and reduce again until the watery appearance of the liquid disappears and the sauce thickens somewhat.
5. Pour into container, chill until ready for use.

Chicken Stock

One of your kitchen essentials is simply stock. Rather than reach for the stock cubes, have a go at making some yourself. Very straightforward and very rewarding and very easy to store too.

Bones from 1 raw chicken
2 Carrots
2 Sticks Celery
1 Medium Onion
Handful fresh herbs-parsley, thyme, sage
1 Clove Garlic, whole but crushed.
Half glass white wine
25ml White wine vinegar
750ml Water

1. Place stock pot onto heat gently. Peel carrots and onion, then chop all coarsely with the celery. Crush garlic by covering unpeeled clove under side of blade of your chopping knife, and thumping down sharply with the underside of your fist.
2. Pour a little vegetable oil into the stock pot and add the chopped vegetables, your herbs and garlic, when sweated and softened, add the chicken bones. Cook all until golden brown.
3. Pour the white wine and vinegar over the vegetable and chicken bones, stir in and allow to reduce until the liquid becomes syrup like.
4. Add the water, bring to boil, then turn down to simmer. Allow to reduce by half. Skim off any scum that forms carefully. Strain through a sieve into a suitable container. Use stock as your recipe requires.

The stock can be reduced still further, if you wish, until it becomes even stronger in taste, at which time you can cool it and then pour it into ice cube trays and freeze for later use. This way you can always have your own instant stock in the freezer, ready to use, simple add them to your cooking for an instant taste boost. Great for gravies or sauces, or adding depth to lighter cream based reductions too. Should you wish for a lighter coloured stock then simply seal the chicken and vegetables and do not brown.

Tagliatelle

One of the real pleasures that we get  from food is to just open the fridge, look around the garden, market or shop, wherever and just to collect up some ingredients together and then to simply knock out whatever falls into place. A fridge and larder are never devoid of a meal, just follow your senses and see what happens, some of the tastiest dishes that we have made happened this way, this recipe is the result of one of those moments. Luckily we had Salmon in store, but it could just as easily have been bacon, various sausage, ham, tuna or even based upon vegetables alone, peas, broad bean, carrot, courgette to name but a few. This technique can be applied to so many ingredients, just experiment, be brave and do it.

Just a quick supper, using the now dried Tagliatelle from the Cannelloni we made earlier. No real ingredients list this time, simply put on a large pan of salted water to boil (remember pasta likes to swim), now chop an onion, slice a couple of garlic cloves and sweat these till soft with a knob of butter in a hot pan. Now, slice some Salmon into bite size pieces, toss these into the pan with the onion, add a splash of white wine and reduce volume by half on a high heat. Add finely grated zest of a lemon plus the juice from half along with a teaspoon of sugar, reduce again by half. Add your tagliatelle to the now boiling pan of water. Chop a good handful of fresh herbs, we had chives and parsley, and place to one side. Add a generous amount of double cream to the Salmon pan, bring to boil, add the herbs. By now the Tagliatelle should be almost cooked (homemade cooks more rapidly than shop bought) add some delicate shoots of fresh broccoli, boil for 1 minute, drain this into a colander, return to the pan, or serving dish, pour over the Salmon mixture, stir lightly to combine, serve with thinly shaved Parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil over the top.



Enjoy.

Croutons

Its lad again, I got in from school and decided to make dinner. I made a simple stuffed jacket potato meal with a salad. So to make the salad have a better flavour and texture I just made a few croutons. These are very basic to make but some people find them a bit dull so i decided to add interest to them as detailed below.

All you need is;

• A couple of slices of bakery style bread
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Couple pinches mixed herbs
• olive oil

Then to make them you simply;

1. Cut the bread into equal bite size pieces.
2. Heat oil in a large frying pan.
3. When oil is slightly hot add the garlic, it can be crushed or sliced, and it should start to sizzle.
4. Add the bread and it might stop sizzling so turn it up a bit so it sizzles again, add herbs.
5. Wait for them to crisp and brown and serve on top of the salad with a nice italian dressing.

Broccoli

Is it two c's or is it two l's it makes no difference when your broccoli is fresh from the garden and in season. What can make a difference is perhaps the way we cook it so here we offer a few simple ideas to add extra interest without compromising the fresh taste of the broccoli itself.

Our Home Grown Broccoli

Simply boil your broccoli in salted water for 1 minute then drain. Heat a wok and add a little sunflower oil, toss in some sliced garlic cook for about 10 seconds then add the hot broccoli and toss together for about 15 seconds then serve and enjoy.

For other options just repeat the above but use a finely chopped, fresh ginger, or red pepper, bacon or chilli to taste.