Slow cooked spiced lamb shoulder, a wedding and Sunday night supper with the Foxes

A short post this week (I hear you all drawing a huge sigh of relief), I’ve got to get packed for a rather exciting wedding in Northumberland.  Katie Witts and Angus Peckham-Cooper are getting married!

In the wedding vein, this recipe reminds me of the delicious tagine HB and chose for our wedding ‘breakfast’ almost 2 years ago; slow cooked and spicy, it was perfect to fill everyone up after a few glasses of champagne and little lunch on a chilly March evening.

I’m not sure what I was thinking last Saturday when I chose to buy a whole lamb shoulder for just HB and me.  Luckily we managed to lure the Foxes out of their set for a Sunday night supper to help us make some headway into it.

SPICED SLOW COOKED SHOULDER OF LAMB WITH CORIANDER YOGURT
For 6

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

For the marinade:

2 tsp rose harissa (I like the Belazu one)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp chilli powder
Zest of 1 lemon
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
2 tbsp olive oil
Black pepper

For the lamb

1 unboned shoulder of lamb
1 onion, sliced
2 cups of water
250ml red wine
2 handfuls of chopped fresh coriander
salt and pepper

For the yogurt

4 heaped tbsp Greek full fat yogurt
1 tsp sumak (or zest of 1/2 lemon if you can’t find it)
1 handful chopped coriander
salt and pepper

WHAT TO DO

1. Toast the spices together in a dry hot pan until they smell aromatic and grind in a pestle and mortar
2. Mix together all of the marinade ingredients and rub into the lamb.  Leave to marinate for at least 2 hours but overnight is best
3. Preheat the oven to 160C and put the marinated lamb into a roasting tray.  Make sure that you scrape all of the leftover marinade that may be left in the bowl into the tray too
4. Pour the water into the tray with the lamb along with the sliced onions and cover with foil.  Put into the oven for 3.5 hours until the meat is really soft and coming away from the bone
5. Once the meat is cooked, remove it from the juices in the roasting tray and set aside on a warmed plate.  Cover with foil and a tea towel to rest
6. Put the roasting tray onto a hob, add the wine and reduce the juices by 1/2.  Make sure that your scrape all of the gloggy bits from the bottom of the roasting tray with a wooden spoon
7. Meanwhile mix the coriander yogurt ingredients together
8. Shred the lamb from the bone into a serving dish, check the seasoning of the sauce and pour over.  Finish with the fresh coriander and serve with the coriander yogurt

I served this with some roasted butternut squash and steamed edamame and peas.  Sumak seems pretty readily available now and it gives a lovely lemony / fresh flavour to the yogurt that works brilliantly with the rich and spicy lamb

Pheasant Pate and Shooting

It’s that time again when game is all over the butchers’ counters.  Many a happy man is trotting around the country to various friends’ and colleagues’ estates (gun in tow) to spend a jolly day in the countryside shooting free range birds out of the sky.  I’m sure there’s a large group of people who may think shooting, and therefore eating pheasants a cruel thing.  I’d like to ask those people if they’d prefer to be a battery chicken, cooped up in a shed with nowhere to stand, let alone walk?  Or a pheasant living freely in the countryside?  We should see more pheasant and game in our supermarkets.

I’ve been going shooting as a spectator and beater for as long as I can remember.  When I was small, my sister and I were often recruited by Granny Mary to go ‘Flag Wagging’.  In effect (or in-effect some might have said) we would jump up and down, madly wagging our flags made out of a bits of wood and old pheasant feed bags with the aim of trying to make the birds fly higher.  Later on we would then trudge happily through the woods in competition with brambles, rushes and marshland, bashing the undergrowth with the ‘flag wagging stick’ to wake the pheasants up and get them into the air.

Shooting really is a great day for everyone involved.  The guns love the sporting nature of it, the beaters and their dogs return home well exercised with a few extra quid in their pockets, and the ‘picker uppers’ enjoy using their dogs for what they’re bred for.  The WAGS make the most of a day of gossiping, a bit of loading, beating or picking up, a good lunch, and often, in my case, an afternoon in front of the fire.  Everyone spends a good day with friends in the countryside.

HB is lucky enough to go shooting every other week between October and February.  Consequently, we often seem to have a lot pheasant in our fridge.  It may seem incredibly wasteful but we often take the breasts off the birds and discard the rest in order to avoid the dreaded plucking and gutting scenario.  Our London (gardenless) flat is not really the best place to be plucking pheasants.  Also, I’ve always found pheasant legs a tricky nut to crack and unlike with chickens, the breast is the best meat.

I am constantly trying to think of new things to do with pheasant at this time of year.  My Stepmother makes a delicious casserole of the whole bird with red wine, bacon and redcurrant jelly.  We make a great creamy casserole at Finns with apple and calvados.

At the weekend I experimented with making a pate and it worked really well.  I will definitely serve this with some melba toast and red onion marmalade at my next dinner party

PHEASANT PATE
for 12 as a starter 

1 large onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
6 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, chopped
1 heaped tsp dried thyme
1 heaped tsp cayenne pepper
6 pheasant breasts, sliced
150ml red wine
250g butter: 160g, cubed / 90g, melted
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Tabasco, salt and pepper to season

WHAT TO DO

1. Sweat the onion, thyme, cayenne and garlic over a low heat until soft
2. Turn the heat up, add the bacon and pheasant and fry for 5-7 minutes until the pheasant is fully cooked and the bacon is cooked but not crispy
3. Add the wine and bubble for a couple of minutes until the alcohol has burnt off
4. Transfer contents of the pan to a Magimix or blender and blitz
5. Whilst blitzing, add the butter cube by cube until it is all incorporated
6. Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice and blitz again until well mixed.   At this stage the pate may need a little tabasco, depending on your taste
7. Transfer to individual ramekins or a bowl and top with the melted butter.  Try to use only the top part of the butter.  Avoid the white deposits that will have sunk to the bottom
8. Put into the fridge for about 4-5 hours and serve with melba toast.  The pate will keep in the fridge for about a week or will freeze well
   

   Smithy with his gun

Beef Bourguignon, Rachel Khoo and Smiths of Smithfield

Last week I went to a wine and meat masterclass at Smiths.  My very clever little sister, Bella had organised the evening.  We arrived to a rather deliciously seasonal pear bellini and so began the evening.

On the demonstration table (in front of the tables where we were sitting) were the burgundy forequarters of a well hung piece of a rare breed beef.  HB was a salivating, the crowd was on tenterhooks, the butcher, Steve Turton was calm and good humored; he took us through the various cuts of meat and expertly dissected the beast in front of us with descriptions of all of the different cuts.  The well prepared chef then brought out  his interpretations on how one should cook these underused and truly delicious pieces of meat.  We  started with slow cooked short ribs where the rich meat fell off the bone; the chef served them with a salty, sour, crunchy Asian salad that cut through the rich meat; the salad made the dish – dish of the day for me.  We then moved on to a meltingly tender tomato braised shin with polenta, and finally rolled shoulder fat with capers and anchovies – a good bit of salt and acidity again to balance the fat.  At the end of the ‘Masterclass’ I thought: “Beat it fillet; the shin’s the S**t”

The other side of the evening was some wine tasting.  Bella ran through a few really good Australian wines, 2 white, 3 red.  We began with 2 delicious rieslings, the first, a Mount Horrocks Watervale riesling Clare Valley, 2009 and the second, Dean Hewitson ‘Gun Metal’ riesling, Eden Valley 2010.  I loved the Horrock perhaps because it matched my favorite dish.  Acidic enough to cut through the richness but floral too in order to work with the Asian salad, it made me think of orchids, smooth and fragrant.  The ‘Gun Metal’ riesling was also delicious but after the Horrocks it wasn’t going to match up.

We then tasted 3 different years of Clonakilla Shiraz / Viognier Canberra District, 2004, 2005, 2006.  Being a complete wine luddite, I’m not really one to give an informed view but it was very interesting to recognise the bearing of temperature on the 3 different vintages. 2004 was AMAZING, well rounded, bursting with berries and fruit (a sunny and not too hot year with a bit of rain – perfect for wine).  2005 tasted like cigarettes and coffee, smokey and dried out; burnt (the hottest year on record).  2006 was tasty and  similar to 2004 but not nearly as outstanding, less balanced (a moderate climactic year).  I’ve never tasted 3 vintages of the same wine and the temperature bearing was staggering.

The main thing I learnt from the evening was to look at pictures like this one of the cuts of beef.  I will challenge my butcher from now on.  EAT CHEAPER CUTS!!

I had a bit of a girl crush on http://www.rachelkhoo.com/   earlier this year (in fact I still do) and I made her wonderful Beef Bourguignon this weekend to feed many hungry and subsequently happy mouths.  She loves the shin!  This recipe is copied from her “The Little Paris Kitchen” cook book.  Go and buy it, it’s wonderful.

BEEF BOURGUIGNON A LA RACHEL KHOO
FOR 6 – very generously

900g beef shin (ask your butcher to keep it in large chunks, not to dice it)
A sprinkling of seasoned plain flour
150g smoked bacon (chopped into chunks) or lardons
10 peeled pickling onions or shallots
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and squashed a bit to let out the juices
1 bay leaf
A bunch of parsley stalks
1 sprig of thyme
1 sprig of rosemary
3 cloves
10 peppercorns, crushed
500ml red wine
300ml water
1tbsp tomato puree
a pinch of sugar
10 chestnut mushrooms
Chopped parsley to garnish
Vegetable oil
Salt and Pepper

WHAT TO DO

1. Preheat the oven to 150C
2. Season the flour and dust the beef pieces with it
3. Heat some vegetable oil in a non stick frying pan and brown the beef in batches, removing to  a large casserole dish with a lid as you go
4. After the beef has been browned, add the bacon and shallots to the frying pan with the herbs (apart from chopped parsley) and keep on the heat until slightly caramelised.  Then add the garlic for 30 seconds or so and make sure it doesn’t burn
5. Transfer everything to the casserole (make sure you scrape all the gluggy bits from the frying pan) add the remaining ingredients (except the mushrooms and parsley) and put into the oven, covered for around 3 hours until the meat is really tender
6. Remove from the oven 30 minutes before the end of cooking and stir in the chopped mushrooms; return to the oven
7. Check the seasoning and serve garnished with parsley, French beans and mashed potato

Rachel suggests that you make this the day before eating and I agree.  The flavours seem to intensify overnight – a brilliant dinner party stalwart

Slow Roast Pork and Sunday Lunch

Last Sunday HB and I had some people over for lunch.  I say ‘some’ but ‘quite alot’ is probably more of an apt description.  I got rather overexcited on the invitation front and gayly kept exclaiming:  “When you’re cooking for 6 you may as well be cooking for 8″… “When you’re cooking for 8 you may as well be cooking for 10″… eventually we stopped at 11.

11 is all well and good when you have a table that seats 11 but our table is meant to seat 6 really – 8 at a push; we also only have 8 chairs.  With the help of our rather lovely and unexpected sleepover buddy, we managed to cobble together enough spaces with the use of a few other seat like items.  Said sleepover buddy is very resourceful and creative with her table decoration too – lucky she decided to stay over!

Having been given some rather delicious leftover pork shoulder by HB’s business partner and his wife two weeks ago, I was keen to give a bit of slow cooked pork a try.  We had invited our friends for 3:00pm so plenty of time for the long and slow tenderisation.  Business Partner said that the pork should be cooked for 8 hours + a bit of time to rest, so in theory it should have gone into the oven at 6:00am.  Following a cocktail, rose and paella fueled eveningwith Team Fox of Spanish potato fame, I didn’t really fancy waking up at 6:00am so put the pork in the oven at 80C at 2:30am (when we got home) uncovered with lots of salt rubbed into the skin.  At 8:00am (on HB’s advice) I turned the heat of the oven up to 140C, wrapped the pork in foil at and cooked it for a further 5 hours.  At 1:00pm I removed the foil and further increased the heat to 200C for the final hour.

We had a very jolly lunch and I think everyone enjoyed the food and some good downloads on the previous night’s escapades. There was lots of crackling and the meat was really meltingly tender.  I made some mashed potato and garliky cabbage to go with it and of course some gravy.

SLOW ROAST PORK SHOULDER WITH MASHED POTATO & GARLIKY CABBAGE
FOR 11 – 12 PEOPLE

YOU WILL NEED:

FOR THE PORK
1 whole shoulder of pork with the blade removed and rind scored, it’s best to leave the rib attached for flavor
8-10 shallots, skins on
a large bunch of thyme
a handful of Maldon or crunchy salt

FOR THE GRAVY
2 tbsp grainy mustard
2 tbsp runny honey
2 glasses of red wine
500ml water

WHAT TO DO:

1. Preheat the oven to 140C
2. Lay the shallots and thyme in the bottom of a roasting tray and put the pork on top
3. Rub the rind of the pork with lots of salt, make sure you get into all of the scored grooves
4. Roast the pork for 1 hour uncovered and then cover with foil and return to the oven for a further 6 hours
5. After the pork has been in the oven for 7 hours in total, turn the heat up to 200C, remove the foil from the meat and roast for a final hour – “the crackling time”
6. Take the pork out of the oven, put it onto a carving board and cover with some foil and a tea towel.  Allow to rest in a warm place for about an hour.
7. In the mean time, make the gravy.  I always use the roasting tray and all of the caramelised gloggy bits that have accumulated throughout the roast
8. Put the roasting tray onto the hob and add the wine and the water to the pan.  Scrape all of the residue from the bottom of the tray and allow to bubble for a few minutes
9. Add the rest of the ingredients to the tray and any resting juices from the pork and taste.  You may need to add more honey, mustard, salt and pepper
10. Drain the gravy through a sieve and serve with the pork

MASHED POTATO
2.5kg white potatoes
200ml full fat creme fraiche
120g butter
salt and pepper

WHAT TO DO:

1. Peel and boil the potatoes until really soft then drain
2. Mash with the rest of the ingredients and seasoning until smooth

GARLIKY CABBAGE
2 sweetheart or Savoy cabbages, shredded
50g butter
2 garlic cloves, crushed
salt and pepper

WHAT TO DO:

1. Steam the cabbage until tender
2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a frying pan and sweat the garlic with some salt over a very low heat – don’t let the garlic burn!
3. Add the cabbage to the pan with salt and pepper and coat with the garliky butter

Roast Beef, Asia and Asda

A couple of weeks ago I had friends coming round for Sunday lunch. On waking reasonably early, I felt full of beans and ready to cook up a storm. I had a delicious looking rib of beef in the fridge but little else. No matter, I thought, I’ll nip to Asda…

Now, in retrospect, the idea of a ‘nip’ to the gazillion sq foot Asda in Clapham Junction was unrealistic at the best of times but on a Sunday when the whole of South West London and their families flock there to (as far as I can gather) argue, it was plain foolish. I came out distinctly empty of beans, happiness sapped from my soul, with a shopping trolley full of the Ethnic section and little else; perhaps not the best ingredients for a Sunday roast? Next time Milly, WRITE A LIST!

Nevertheless, on leaving the depressing airport hanger with my rice noodles, sweet chilli sauce, fish sauce and vegetables (along with enough washing powder to service a family of 8 for a year) there was nothing I wanted to do less than get home, roast potatoes and make gravy.

This time my unfocused, dazed and confused shopping style served me well. ‘Good riddance to you roasties’ I thought ‘Away with you gravy’ and my Asian take on a Sunday roast was born.

ROAST BEEF WITH A COUPLE OF ASIAN SALADS

If I was doing this again, I’d probably use a beef fillet instead of a rib as I think the leaner cut would work better with the Asian flavours. Probably good to marinade the meat in some dark soy, honey, a bit of garlic and grated ginger over night too. Either way, cook your meat as you like it, leave to rest and make these two side dishes in the mean time:

The salads could be made in advance as they are both served cold:

VIETNAMESE RICE NOODLE SALAD
(Enough for 6 people)

FOR THE DRESSING:
2tbsp lime juice
2tbsp fish sauce
1tbsp sugar
6 spring onions, finely sliced
2 red birds eye chillies, finely chopped (This amount makes for quite a fiery salad so if you like things mild, reduce the chilli quantity)
2tsp sesame oil

FOR THE SALAD:
2 carrots (use a potato peeler to not only peel the carrot but to cut long, thin ribbons)
1 cucumber cut into thin strips
2-3 handfuls bean sprouts
300g dried rice noodles cooked to packet instructions and rinsed in cold water to cool and remove starch
About 40g (a good handful) each of coriander and mint leaves coarsly chopped

TO SERVE:
Lime wedges
Toasted sesame seeds or peanuts a (if you like?)

METHOD:

1. In a large salad bowl whisk the dressing ingredients together
2. Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl and toss the salad
3. Garnish with sesame seeds or peanuts and serve with lime wedges

EDAMAME, RADISH & ROCKET SALAD
In the frozen section ‘edamame beans’ are often labelled as ‘soya beans’ – they can be substituted for peas if you can’t find them

600g frozen edamame beans
8 radishes, finely sliced
90g rocket
Zest of 1 lemon
3tbsp good olive oil
Salt and pepper

METHOD:

1. Boil some well salted water and cook the edamame beans until tender (this is usually when the water comes back to the boil after you have added the beans)
2. Drain and refresh the beans by running cold water through the beans colander until the beans have cooled through
3. Choose a serving bowl and pour the olive oil into it along with the lemon zest and salt and pepper.  Whisk.
4. Toss the edamame beans and radish with the lemony oil and wait until you serve to add the rocket to avoid any wilting