Chicken in Cider

Clearly, my brother is the one whose good at photography in my family. You can find him over at http://findmatthewcoleman.tumblr.com. Clearly, I've already made this recipe unappetizing just through my inherent ability to capture washed out colour and blurred form. The thing is that the recipe is really simple, and the taste is incredible - the sharp bite of the cider the perfect foil to that thick oozy texture of the cream sauce. It's one pot cooking as well, which apparently people like. I did it for a couple of people again, because dishes like this cooked for one are a little bleak. If your life is a little bleak and you have no one to share it with, perk up - you can have the rest for leftovers tomorrow you massive, massive loser.

You'll need...

2 chicken thighs, boned, but keep the bones

500ml of a good dry cider, for example I used Frome Valley

6 or so chestnut mushrooms

few sprigs of thyme

2 carrots, peeled and chopped to chunks

1 leek, cleaned and chopped

quite a few new potatoes, I used fir, halved

3 heaped tbsp of creme fraiche

Take your chicken and bones and saute them in a little oil until lightly browned on each side. Remove and set aside and replace with the leeks. Give these a couple of minutes of light sizzling, then add your carrot and potatos and give them a similar amount of time.

Next pour in the cider, reintroduce the chicken and add a couple of sprigs of thyme, bring to a light simmer, cover and allow to bubble slowly for half an hour.

I did some washing up and watched television for half an hour. You can do whatever you like.

Go back to the pot, remove the chicken and keep warm. Add the creme fraiche and turn up the heat a little. You're looking to reduce it down to a thicker consistency, like a sauce instead of a soup. Add thyme and some seasoning around now, and when the sauce reaches the desired thickness, add the chicken back and get ready to serve.

So incredibly easy, and delicious to boot.

FOLLLLLOWWWWWWWWWWWERS!

I got over a hundred. I feel I should celebrate.

I don't drink champagne though...

Borcht Video Recipe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua7MuzWJbxc&feature=player_embedded

Yeah.

Luke is a new contributor. He is a vegetarian who likes cooking borscht but doesn’t like surfing. If you want to recreate the soup, please gather these things…

500g beetroot

500g potatoes

1 large onion

2 garlic cloves, chopped

2 pints of stock

soured cream for adding and swirling.

yeah. then just follow him.

Doughnut Recipe

I've never been one for sweet things. I don't eat dessert, don't like cute animals and get on very well with societies arseholes. But this means I have a hole in my cookery experience, and this saddens me. I will endeavour to improve myself on this front with the help of this blog. Truthfully though, I didn't enjoy making this, and at one point threw some dough across the room out of frustration. This made me feel better, but then I had to clean it up, which made me feel worse. I probably wouldn't make this if i was you, but they honestly tasted delicious. Really quite delicious. Yeah, actually do make them.

Take these ingredients...

2 sachets of dry yeast

quarter cup of warm water

1 and a half cups of milk, heated to just under boiling point, then cooled to lukewarm

5 cups flour, or six or seven, sieved.

3 eggs

half a cup of caster sugar

third of a cup of butter

1 tsp of salt

a very lot of vegetable oil for deep frying

And for the topping...lots of caster sugar and cinnamon

Firstly, add the yeast into the water in a big bowl and let it dissolve. Then add the milk, the sugar, the butter, salt, eggs and three cups of the flour. Whisk it into a thin batter, then add another couple of cups of flour and blend until smooth. At this point it should be dryish, like a bread dough. It wasn't when I did it. It was wet and stuck to me. If it's like this with you, add more flour until it isn't. Beat until smooth, then cover and let proof in a warm area for about an hour.

After an hour, its time to roll it out and cut it to shape. Flour your surface and your pin. I used a rum bottle, because I'm a real bad boy. If you can't roll this without it sticking to everything, then you haven't used enough flour. This is the point I started getting aggressive with the dough. Don't do the same. Roll out the dough to about quarter of an inch thick. Then either take a cutter or a knife and cut out circles, or alternatively roll it into little sausage shapes. Set aside, covered for another half an hour to forty minutes on a floured tray/s.

Now heat up a saucepan to about half way with the oil and bring up to temperature. It's ready when you drop a bit of bread into it and it bubbles and browns nicely.

Drop your doughnuts into the oil and fry for a minute or so then turn and do likewise on the other side, or until they get to the desired colouring. Take out, dry on kitchen paper and then roll in your cinnamon sugar concoction and get started on the next, then the next, then the next, then the next.

You will die fat.

xx.

doughnut mountain.

Cod Chowder

Hi...I use film as an inspiration for tonight's meal. Please watch the following link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEX3D54CHew

Chowder is very nice, and also very easy. Why not cook it? I've included enough food so you can eat it with someone else. Because that's what I did. It's nice to share.

You'll need...

500g of cod, filleted, skinned, boned and chopped into big chunks

a couple of slices of middle bacon

a leek

3 medium white potatoes, peeled and chopped into even cubes

4 blocks frozen spinach

big handful of frozen peas

small tin of evaporated milk

half a cup of full fat milk

spoonful of butter

half a cup of water/fish stock

plenty of salt and pepper

parsley to garnish

Fry the bacon until crispy, drag it out allow to cool. Chop into little chunks and set aside until the dish is finished. Add the butter to the pan and saute the leeks until softened. Add the potatoes and stir for half a minute or so, then add enough water/stock to cover. Simmer gently until the potatoes are well cooked.

Now it's time for the milk, the evaporated milk and the spinach and simmer until the spinach blocks have melted. At this point, it might still be a little thin, and if it is, maybe you could crush up a potato or two in the soup. This should do the trick.

Now drop the cod into the pot. Give it ten minutes or so, then add your peas and give it another couple of minutes or so, until the peas are done. Adjust your seasonings accordingly and turn out into a bowl, topping with parsley and the bacon. Proceed to shit your pants with joy.

New Video Recipe: Mackerel Rice Bowl

Mackerel Rice Recipe

We did another video recipe. This time it's makerel rice bowl. This time she quite likes it. Wahey!

To do likewise, you will need...

1 cup of japanese rice

1 and a half cups to cook the rice in

1 or two smoked mackerel fillets, depending on how hungry you are

2 or three spring onions

half a cup of peas

2 tbsp of soy sauce

2 tbsp of mirin

large pinch of sugar

Beef and Green Bean Stew

These rich meat stews are quite a staple for me. Ten minutes preperation and I can disappear for a couple of hours and come back to a rich, intensely flavoured dish. This kind of thing is perfect for batch jobs as well and is cheap as free papers and sunlight. This must, must, must be paired with some turkish/middle eastern bread, to scoop up all the meaty, sweet juices.

So you’ll need…

200g beef, a stewing cut, like shin, cut into half inch cubes

100g green beans, topped and tailed

4 tomatoes, peeled and chopped

garlic clove, chopped

red onion, peeled and chopped fine

half teaspoon of ras al hanout (spice mix)

1 tsp of red wine vinegar

1 bay leaf

half a cup of water/stock

salt and pepper

a few pitted black olives

handful of parsley to garnish

Firstly, season the beef with salt and pepper, then fry until browned. Fry in batches rather than all at once if space is an issue in the pan. It just won’t brown properly if it doesn’t have enough space. Once browned, remove the meat and set aside.

Add the onion and garlic and cook until softened. Add the ras al hanout, allow it to cook out for a minute or two and then add your vinegar, bay leaf, tomatoes and stock/water. Bring to the boil and then turn the heat down to it’s lowest setting. Reintroduce the meat, cover the pan with a lid/cling film/tin foil and allow the contents to gently bubble for two hours or until the meat is melting and tender. At this point, add the green beans and olives to the saucepan and give them fifteen minutes or so.

Serve with a chunk of bread, maybe some rice, scattered with parsley.

Other bloggggggggggggg.

Hi, if anyone is on this site and likes it, I have a much cleaner and updated version over at tumblr.

http://eatwithdaniel.tumblr.com

enjoy.

if you want.

Steak with Triple Cooked Chips

Lately, I have been quite interested in peoples answer to the question 'You're last meal?' I am as tired of people replying 'steak' as I am the bemused look i receive on the utterance of 'ortolan'.

If so many people love steak so much, why do I always end up with shitty steaks unless I cook them for myself? Here, I present a solid steak recipe for myself as much as you, in the hopes that if you ever offer to cook for me, I won't have to spit some grizzled rump on your lovely tablecloth.

I like to accompany mine with an incredibly versatile base sauce, to which you can easily add a plethora of other ingredients such as green peppercorns, wild mushrooms, a light shower of blue cheese or a slug of brandy.

Also, a steak without chips is like an ear without lobes. This triple cooked method is by far the best method I know of.

I present all this as a pictorial timeline, so without further ado, you will need...

1 rib eye steak

salt and pepper

for the cream sauce...

a single shallot

a clove of garlic

a splash of white wine

75ml double cream

sel et du poivre

for the green beans...

handful of green beans, topped and tailed

two shallots

clove of garlic

knob of butter

splash of water

salz und pfeffer

for the three times chips...

king edward potatoes, peeled and sliced evenly

vegetable oil (lots)

The most time consuming element are the chips, so let's go ahead with them first. Take your peeled and chopped tatties, and introduce them to enough boiling salted water to cover. Blanch for a few minutes, until they start to soften. What you're looking for is the edges to be a little rough. If they start falling apart...well.

Drain.

MTV ANGLES!

Once drained, set them out on something absorbent, and spread them out. a clean dishcloth is ideal for this. We are looking for them to dry. The fridge is a good place to do this, but wait until they cool otherwise your housemate will probably tell you off for 'changing the internal temperature of the fridge, therefore costing us more in electricity as the fridge has to work harder.'

At this point, I like to precook the beans.

I always cook my beans sideways.

Add the beans to a cold pan, adding your water and the butter, then bring it up to a medium heat. It's a lovely technique because it allows you to both boil and saute, as once the water has evaporated and part cooked the beans, the butter takes over and finishes the job. Once the water is gone add your shallot and garlic. saute until everything caramelizes. Take off the heat, set aside for reheating later.

Now back to the chips. Take your dry, cold potato out of the fridge. Heat enough oil to cover these, preferably in a tall pot to cut the risk of spitting and infernos. This is the first fry stage, so we're looking for a temperature of around 150. If you don't have an oil thermometer, then set your hob to a medium heat. We are blanching in the oil, not colouring, and we want the chips to take on the oil, soften, but not crisp. This should take around ten minutes. If it's quicker than this, pull the pan off the heat while you bring down your hob temperature.

When done, they should look something like this :-

health kick.

Repeat the same draining, drying process as the first time around. I took a small break here and listened to a little music. Feel free to do the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ_5NC2ZpwQ&playnext_from=TL&videos=Fv52pyCjlro

Next is the tricky part and what it all comes down to. Timing. We need the steak to be cooked and rested at the same time as the chips come out all crisped up and the sauce is in the pan and ready to blanket the meal in decadence.

First things first, put the beans in a low set oven to reheat, then start bringing the oil up to temp and get a separate frying pan as hot as you can for the steak. We are looking to get the oil for the chips to around 190, which should be on a high heat on your hob. Not the highest, but pretty high. In other words, the chips should bubble and boil at a good rate when you put them in.

Probably a bit like this.

Season your steak at the last minute, then drop it into the smoking hot pan. I like mine rare, so i give them and minute and half on each side, no more. Once they've had their time, it is important they are set aside on a plate to rest, which will let the meat relax and the internal juices settle evenly. I rest them for four minutes minimum. In this four minutes you can get on with the rest.

The chips go in their preheated oil, they should take 3-5 minutes and then they're done.

During this time, make the sauce in the same pan you cooked the steak in by sauteing the shallot and garlic briefly, adding the wine and boiling down for a minute or so, then adding the cream, and cooking down until a little thicker. The meat juice that has escaped from your resting steaks is imperative for beefy backup, so add that as well.

Remove and drain the chips, drag out and plate the beans, the steak, then the chips and drizzle and drape the whole lot in your lovely new sauce.

Finished.

Now enjoy this, preferably with the bottle of wine you opened for your sauce and someone you don't mind having around. Try not to eat it alone, but if you really have to then please print the following out and place it opposite you. I will keep you company if no one else will.

Xo.

Laarb

The following is a recipe i wrote up a fair while ago for a website that never happened. Two things makes it not as good as originally intended.

1. One of the jokes doesn't work because i can't work out how to change the text colour on tumblr.
2. I lost my old picture, and have broken my camera for a second time, so i just stole someone elses picture from the internet.

It seems a shame to let it go to waste, so i cooked it again, checked if it was any good and now present it to you for your enjoyment...

This is quite good for poor people, unless they don’t have any of the ingredients, in which case it will be more expensive. If you have some of these things, or know you can get them, please read on. This dish is quite a treat; a pleasant mixture of textures and flavours.
I got this idea from a book I read on Thai food. The recipe is almost exactly the same but I changed the name and then put the real name in brackets afters.

Credit Crunch Thai Salad (Laarb really.)

There’s two ways you can cook this – the traditional Thai way or my way, but I like to think of it more as the not very good way or my way. The difference is in the way the meat is cooked, and it’s really just personal preference. For fairness sake I present both ways side by side, mine in black writing, and the original in a faecal brown.
Regardless of what way you choose, the ingredients are the same.

Pork mince, but please, not too much – you are getting a bit chubby, 100g
A couple of spoons of rice.
3 spring onions.
half a shredded little gem lettuce or some Chinese cabbage.
half a shredded carrot.
handfull of coriander.
A lime.
2 tbsp fish sauce.
a couple of squeezes of sriracha sauce.

Mine:

1. Get a pan on the hob and dry fry your rice. It will start to go golden and maybe fidget a little in the pan. Get it out and crush it up to a coarse texture in a pestle and mortar.

2. Pan back on, wait till it’s very hot, add oil and fry pork until browned.

3. Remove from heat and season with fish sauce and half a lime. I like to add the spring onion now because I despise raw onion.
4. In a mixing bowl, add the meat and springers, carrot and some of the toasted rice.
5. Add a little sriracha and then a little more fish sauce and lime until it tastes nice.
6. Add coriander and mix well, then serve on either a bed of gem lettuce or some finely chopped Chinese cabbage with the rest of the toasted rice on top.
7. Just really enjoy it.

Original:

1. Do the rice thing as above.
2. Marinate the pork mince in lime juice for a few minutes while you put a pan or wok on the hob. This starts to cook the pork instantly and ruins the texture.
3. When the pan is hot, add a few tablespoons of water to it and then add the pork. Try not to cry as the meat boils away to a concrete gray.
4. Follow the rest above

stolen.

Thai Fish Curry: Fatboy Version.

this is a bit of a larger recipe, bit more complex, but incredibly enjoyable. i actually stole it from a menu of a little pub in the north lanes in brighton, and did what i could to recreate it at home. there's a lot of textural complexity in the fish, between the crunch of the crumbs or the almost doughy aspect it takes on soaked in the curry and the creamy fillet beneath. i think it's worth making the effort for this. it's good.

for the curry...

1tbsp red curry paste

2 spring onions

clove of garlic

1 red chili

a bunch of coriander stalks

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp of palm sugar

juice of half a lime

optional vegetables. i would recommend snow peas/mange tout or some delicious mushrooms, but anything else, just slice thin and it'll be fine.

for the fish...

nice white fish fillet. i chose whiting for some reason, but it was delicious

breadcrumbs

flour

1 egg

shitload of oil

chop, slice and hack and grate everything up for the sauce. then get the paste in a saucepan with a little oil and cook it for a couple of minutes. if it's getting dry and sticking, add a little water. when the paste splits a little from the oil, it's done.

drop the spring onions, red chili, coriander stalks and garlic in and simmer for five minutes or so. add the coconut milk, fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar. adjust as required. set aside to be heated up later. if adding snow peas or mushrooms, then do it during the later reheat so they retain a little bite.

take your fillets and flour, egg then breadcrumb. if you're using fine breadcrumbs, think about doing this twice.

do they look like this? if not, throw them away.

not really! put them in the fridge to set a little, until you've go your oil hot. you can either deep fry or shallow fry, but i prefer to deep fry because i find it easier to control timings.

medium high heat, don't start frying until you can drop a little bit of bread in and it sizzles. keep you're eye on the pan. if it's smoking, turn down your temperature, take it off the flame. safety first and that. give it some minutes, until the breadcrumbs are crisp and golden, then gently remove and set aside to drain on kitchen towel.

compile the dish now - fried fish with your curry, topped with shredded coriander and roasted chopped peanuts. serve with rice and a singha beer.

eat it and wipe your hands and face afterwards.

Mushrooms

I can genuinely say they are some of my favourite things in the world. I used to get a punnet every now and then when i worked at a greengrocers when i was little. Imagine all those wild mushrooms on toasted bread, a little garlic, a lot of butter, a touch of creme fraiche, parsley if you give a shit...
anyway, someone put together a decent guide over at guardian. I think i might go and get my walking boots out the cupboard. Anyone ever gone mushroom hunting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2010/sep/16/wild-mushrooms-brief-guide

lebanese bread

I need some more lebanese bread in my life. Bread is the stuff of gods. What kind of bread is your favourite?

Aubergine with Tahini Sauce

The tahini sauce is very versatile and goes incredibly well with so many things. Pork or chicken kebabs, roasted vegetables or best - some spiced roast chicken. I’ve paired it here with aubergine because I had a lovely plump one sitting around.

I tried to write something funny about aubergines, but my head didn’t work today, so I put ‘aubergine jokes’ into google and found this…

‘An aubergine walks into a bar and buys a pint of lager. The barman says to him ‘we don’t get many aubergines in here’ and the aubergine goes ‘at 4 pound a pint, i’m not surprised.’

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL! rofl.

Thanks internet!

————

First we do the aubergine, for which you’ll need…

1 medium sized aubergine

pierce it a few times and put it in an oven at 200 for 40 minutes. right. done that…

The tahini sauce…

4 tbsp tahini paste

juice of half a lemon

touch of olive oil

a handful of chopped fresh parsley

salt

a few tbsp of water to loosen it up

Combine everything bar the water, stir, then add the water slowly until you get the right consistency. I like it about the thickness of cream. Cover and set aside.

To finish, pull the aubergine out of the oven and split it down the middle. Throw some feta in there if you want. I did. Top with the sauce and then some fresh coriander.

Oh, hang on. I just thought of a joke…

‘Knock knock’

‘Who is there please?’

‘Aubergine’

‘What?’

‘I’m an aubergine’

‘Why have you got a voice?’

‘…aubergine’

‘Fuck off!’

Thanks brain!

Thai Fishcakes with Pickled Cucumber

I was torn between crab cakes and fishcakes for dinner tonight. It’s a little muggy today and I wanted something light and fresh, and this pickled cucumber is the gastro equivalent of having a cold bath. Crab is delicious, but a little expensive. Cod is cheaper, but our consumption is unsustainable. I truly worry about the fact that such a beautiful fish will disappear from our plates if we aren’t careful…I chose the fish.

Regardless, you have to make this dish at least once this summer. This pair go together like Jenny’s and Forrest’s.

For the cucumber salad you’ll need…

chunk of cucumber as long as your index finger, unless you have long fingers, then one as big as your ring finger, seeded and sliced length ways

white of one spring onion, sliced length ways and finely

2 tbsp white vinegar

1 tbsp sugar

1tbsp fish sauce

1 birdseye chili chopped

Combine vinegar, sugar and fish sauce and allow the sugar to dissolve. Add everything else and put in the fridge for later.

Now we move onto the fishcakes…

175g of cod, filleted (but honestly, i just grabbed a piece not quite as big as my hand, but i talked to my housemate and he and i guessed 175).

1 tbsp of red curry paste

1.5 tbsp of fish sauce

1 tsp palm sugar. you can use white, but it won’t taste the same.

1 stalk of lemongrass

a palmfull of fresh coriander, chopped

1 egg

1 clove of garlic

green shoots of one spring onion

Throw all this into a blender and blitz it up into a paste. Meanwhile, heat up half an inch of oil in a frying pan and shallow fry spoonfuls of the mixture. Cook until brown and crispy and handsome. When they’re ready, drain them off on kitchen paper.

To serve, dot a few fishcakes on the plate and dress with the pickled cucumber. A bit like the picture.

Vegetarian Quesedilla and Guacamole

Despite the amount of pleasure I take in gnawing on flesh and bones, I also don’t mind vegetables. Here is my favourite current meat free recipe, and it’s quite alright. I’ve included a recipe for home made flour tortillas as well, because they really make the dish. They’re more flavourful, easy and cheap. Some people might even say they were ‘gnarly’ or ‘wicked’. I’m trying to be humble lately though, so I just say they’re ‘quite nice’. I don’t mean it though. I think they’re bodacious!

For the tortillas you’ll need…

2 cups of plain flour, sieved

half a cup of milk

2 tsp of oil, perhaps sunflower

1 and one half tsp of baking powder

salt

To make, you need to add everything in a bowl and mix by hand. If it’s a litle too sticky, then add a sprinkle/s of flour until it is. Knead it for a fair few minutes, until you have a smooth dough. Cover and set aside for twenty minutes or so. I would make the guacamole now.

So for the guacamole…

1 avocado

half a lime

sprinkle of dried chilli flakes

bit of seasoning

palmful of coriander, chopped

Split, seed and scoop the flesh out. Mash it up with a fork, add the rest of the ingredients. That should have taken two minutes at most, so you could start the filling if you want.

So for the filling you’ll need…

half a tin of beans - preferably black beans, but kidneys, black eyed or something like that will be fine. also, drained.

half a cup of chicken stock

half a tin of tomatoes

garlic, chopped

half a red onion

a lovely red pepper, roasted and peeled

a nice hard cheese. i used cheddar.

Saute the onion in a little olive oil until soft, add garlic and then the beans. Add the stock and tomato, stir a little and add the pepper. Simmer lightly for 10 to fifteen minutes, or until the beans are soft and the sauce has thickened and reduced. While it’s thickening, get on with the final stage of the tortillas.

Take out the dough, flour a chopping board and roll out dough balls about half a fist big. If you don’t have a rolling pin then just use something cylindrical, like a booze bottle or somesuch. Roll them out as thin and round as you can and cook them in a dry frying pan on a medium heat, about a minute on each side, or until they resemble tortillas.

Take a pair of the tortillas, apply the filling to one side, sprinkle liberally with cheese and then top with the other tortilla. Plonk it back into your frying pan and cook for a minute or so, flip, another minute then out on a board. Cut up and serve however you want, with the guacamole and maybe some nice sour cream.

Video Recipe: Chantal and her kebab

Here’s another video recipe, this time with a girl instead of a boy. Also, she has longer hair and a different voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z1ON7TbvbY

Enjoy…

Video Recipe: Cannelini Bean Salad

This is just a little video me and Andrew made. It’s about cooking. please look at it. I think it turned out pretty well considering we’ve never made a video before, or edited it. Yeah. Not bad. Also, I felt I needed to showcase andrew’s new earring. He’s really proud of it. Apparently it’s very en vogue in Valencia at the mo!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC0JOjc4I7s

Look at it.

Congee/Camera

This is a recipe for congee. I put congee/camera because I have got a camera now that is above 2.6 megapixels which will benefit the visual representations of such eloquently put menu ideas. The congee is seperate from the camera in every other way. Please keep your cameras away from your pots and pans, because they might break and you’ll have to wait for christmas to get a new one or start saving up your money from your paperound that you were going to spend on football stickers.

cCongee is called lots of other things with cool names like ‘jook’ or ‘babaw’, but is essentially a rice porridge. It does sound terrible, but it is very nice when done correctly, which if you follow me, should happen. It’s all about the combination of bland, bland soupy rice topped with flavoursome meats and vegetables, which, when mixed in, gives you little spikes of flavour and texture. I’ve chosen a thai style one to do, because that’s what I had in my cupboard, but it’s well worth trying a few variations.

It’s also really easy to cook, and I even managed it really really drunk last night. Here, I recreate the process, but omit the stumbling, tears, the burping and arguing with my neighbours.

For the rice porridge you will need:

quarter of a cup of jasmine rice, washed

5/6 cups of chicken stock

thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped

for the topping you will need:

leftover roast pork or 100g pork mince

garlic, smashed and chopped

spring onions

handful of beansprouts

quarter of a carrot shredded

a chilli

tbsp palm sugar

2 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp rice vinegar

To cook the porridge, bring a pot to the boil containing the chicken stock and the ginger and add your rice. Turn the heat down low and simmer for 30-40 minutes or more. You’re looking for the rice to start breaking down and the starch to thicken the stock.

In the last ten minutes or so, grab a pan or a ken hom wok and set it on the highest heat. Stir fry your pork until it starts to get crispy, then add your garlic, chilli, spring onions and carrot. Stir fry that for thirty seconds or so, then add your sugar and fish sauce, then the vinegar. To finish, add the beansprouts and stir it a couple of times off the heat.

Arrange nicely on top. Eat.

p.s it’s not very good drunk food.

Quicky Photo Recipe: Chicken Escalope

I did this is a picture form one : here it is

And this is just a nice picture: isn't it just?

Guest Recipe 2 : Toad in the hole but better than it.

Hi. No one I know wanted to submit anything for the site, so I let Andrew submit another one. Up yours to everyone else, thankyou to Andrew…

Pigs in blankets in holes (toad in hole but better than it)

Hi I am Daniels friend Andy, me and Daniel have only seen one another
twice since my last recipe but I think are still quite good friends,
but not as close as say Ross and Chandler from friends, more like as
close as Gunther and Chandler from friends or Arjen and Emma from the
junior apprentice. As this is my second recipe I will just say a few
things about myself so you can get to know me a little better : my sort
code is 266 102 and my account number is 9237 4389 2476 and my bank is
NatWest in Worthing on Chapel Road. I’ve got another recipe that I
invented but it might already exist, but I didn’t know that when I
thought of it. I Hope you like it, it’s ideal for eating with others
because of its large proportions or just sharing with a life partner.
This time there is slightly more to it and with that in mind I would
say it’s about as difficult as carrying a ladder.

The reason I invented this dish is because I use the right side of my
brain a lot (which is the creative side, the left side is the more
academic practical side and I didn’t use that half when I made this
recipe up.) I would advise that this dish is reserved only for special
occasions for example after you have just won or passed because it’s
probably a total brick shithouse of fat and in turn v unhealthy, which
as you know is bad for the ongoing struggle to become a healthier
Britain. With this in mind I have tried to include some aerobic
movements and fitness manoeuvres throughout the recipe to combat the
problem.

To cook I want you to have:

3 big eggs
300ml of cows milk
130g’s of plain flour
6 slices of Parma ham (or you can use streaky bacon if you aren’t
feeling that majestic, if i’m honest streaky bacon is probably better
actually now i think about it)
12 chipolata sausages but if i’m honest you can use whichever sausages
you like really, and it doesn’t even have to be 12 either it could
quite easily be 8 or 7
Some Colman’s mustard]
Some salt and pep
A kitchen

!1. PUT in 3 big eggs the milk and the flour and whisk hard to make
batter, this whisking is as good as doing forty rounds on a peck deck
and it is rumoured that this whisking is good to improve the size of
your lats, quads, obliques and tries and that this is the main secret
of how Ricky Hatton got into shape when he fought against Floyd.

2. Add the salt and pep, add a teaspoon of mustard, whisk hard, girls
this whisking is good for your cellulite and fat deposits, and is no
different from going to bums and tums, it is rumoured that this is
another one of the main secrets of how Ricky Hatton got rid of his
cellulite and fat deposits for his big fight against Floyd.

3. Put the batter to one side.

4. Cook your sausages, browning them a bit. When they look two thirds
done just pop them on the work top and leave to cool, do ten squats and
then keep all the sausage fat because you can smear it all over your
cooking dish a bit later so the batter doesn’t stick.

5. wrap your sausages in the Parma ham, tearing each one in half so
that we can make ends meet with the quantities, pop these LOVELY
specimens in the oven for only about ten to five minutes at 220 so that
the ham can get a little crisp and become less of a membrane and more
of a crust, if you are doing it with bacon then maybe a bit longer you
know?

6. Once that has happened grease up your dish and pour in the batter
and then try to arrange the sausages willy-nilly and higgledy-piggeldy
so it looks like you have struggled a bit with cooking so that when
your mum sees the dish she will think you are sweet. When she says this
tell her her hair looks nice and hug. She will give you some money

(this technique can also work with girlfriend or with a girl whom you
are wooing, although this might be a lie because I have never tried
this variation, but I think it may work, but I don’t really understand
women, but I’m pretty sure they like gestures and eating, so I would
offer a 92% guarantee of success)

7. FAB 25 MINUTES HAVE PASSED SINCE YOU PUT IN THE DISH AT 220 IN THE
OVEN AND YOU HAVE JUST DONE SEVEN CHIN UPS, SO TAKE IT OUT AND LOOK AT
IT. IS IT PUFFY? DOES IT LOOK NICE? WHAT COLOUR IS IT? IS IT BURNT?
WHY? BUT IS IT STILL EDIBLE? DOES IT LOOK LIKE NORMAL TOAD IN THE HOLE
BUT SLIGHTLY BETTER BECAUSE OF THE ADDITION OF THE HAM OR BACON? Ask
yourself these questions and make your own conclusions.

8. Whilst its cooling you might like to know that the origin of the
name “Toad-in-the-Hole” is often disputed. Many suggestions are that
the dish’s resemblance to a toad sticking its little head out of a hole
provide the dish with its somewhat unusual name. I prefer to imagine it
the other way around though where someone has actually wedged a toad
into a hole, any hole will do, my favourite holes to imagine a toad a
wedged into are, key holes, man holes and arse holes.

9. Do ten sprints in the hall, or five up and down the stairs
remembering to be careful on the way down.

10. Serve your food up, I would do it with some potatoes and some green
beans, but you could use mashed potatoes and peas, or sweet corn but
definitely do have gravy please.I have noticed on cookery programs
these days that the presentation of a contemporary dish is very
important and often quite daring. With this in mind I usually serve my
toad in the hole on The Bourne Supremacy to give it that extra boost
(it also works just as well on The Born Identity or The Born Ultimatum)
thanks byee

Thai Pork Patties.

I’m trying to do something new with the pictures until i find a better camera. Won’t it be nice and handy to have a saved jpeg to follow rather than a thick stack of writing? Possibly.

Here is another thai recipe using the same sauce as the last, which is a bit like cheating, except for it accompanies these moist, juicy little pork burgers that I would like you to try.

I don’t actually know if you’ll be able to read the info on the picture though, so I repeat the instructions here…

For the sauce:

2 spring onions sliced

1 or 2 birdseye chillis

half a lime, juiced

crushed and chopped garlic clove

2 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp palm sugar

3/4 cup of chicken stock

coriander stalks

for the pork patties:

200g minced pork

1 birdseye chilli

coriander leaves

1tbsp red curry paste

1 tbsp fish sauce

To make the sauce, throw all the sauce ingredients into a pan and bring up to heat. Make sure the sugar has melted and then take it off the heat. Sauce done. Unless you want to add some coriander leaves.

To make the patties, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix, then form into tiny burger shapes. Pan fry. You could also stir fry some mushrooms and more spring onions with a little garlic and some of the sauce to flavour.

Serve over rice, as pictured, or roll up in some fresh little gem lettuce leaves, dipping in the sauce. Mostly i do both of these, because i’m a growing lad.

The pork mix also makes insanely good meatballs for noodle soups, which i suppose i’ll do a recipe for soon.

love daniel coleman x

Chicken with oyster sauce

I’m getting tired of people ragging on my phone camera, so i’m trying out a different tact. Please tell me if this suits or not. Personally, it doesn’t suit me, as i spent almost two hours and developed accute RSI on the above picture, and using my trackpad for anything remotely intricate is a little like herding a blue whale with an eyelash.

Here is a sturdy recipe from my chinese back catalogue. It’s relatively simple, incredibly edible and will show off some interesting technique you don’t really find in oher cuisines. J'adore real chinese food, as opposed to the shit that often gets passed for chinese food in our takeaways and all-you-can-eats, and defy anyone who tells me the pork scratching with strawberry jam dishes can even be mentioned in the same breath as this.

Some of the ingredients here might make you feel like you don’t want to make it. Perhaps you feel like buying a bottle of oyster sauce just for one recipe is madness, or ten pounds for shaosing wine is an outrageous price to pay. But these ingredients are the building blocks to a cuisine. with them, you can make endless other dishes. Essentially what i’m saying is that they’re an investment, like gold bullion, except you can eat them, and you can’t eat gold. Unless you’e this man.

You’ll need…

marinade:

tablespoon of oyster sauce

tablespoon of sesame oil

tablespoon of light soy sauce

tablespoon of shaosing wine/dry sherry/omit because you’re cheap/recovering alchaholic

cornflour

the rest:

chicken thigh, boned and sliced thin

spring onions

half a thumb sized piece of ginger

garlic clove

a pepper

1 bok choi/pak choi

sauce:

half a cup of chicken stock with a teaspoon of cornflour stirred in

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

We need to start with the marinade, but a marinade with a difference, in that it’s really velveting the chicken. This just means it’s marinating with cornflour, which gives the cooked meat a soft, velvety texture and helps the seasoning stick to the meat. To velvet, add the chicken and marinade ingredients to the bowl with enough cornflour to thicken the liquid ingredients into a paste. Set aside in the fridge while you continue prep. It should be in there for half an hour or so.

Thinly slice the spring onions, the garlic and ginger and cut the peppers how you like. Wash the pak/bok choi and seperate the leaves.

To cook, we need to get the pan really hot. All your previous attempts at chinese food were failures because (1) you don’t cook at a high enough heat and (2) you don’t follow my recipes. So get a solid frying pan or wok and let it heat until the metal starts to smoke. Open your kitchen window. Add sunflour oil and when it starts to shimmer, just on the brink of smoking, add your meat to the pan. Shimmy it around a bit and allow it to form a nice little crust, then take out the chicken and set aside on a plate. Into the same pan, add the spring onion, ginger and garlic and swizzle it around until the garlic starts to colour a little, then add the peppers. Push that around, add the stock and turn the heat down to medium. Add the chicken back in, the oyster sauce and finally the pak/bok choi, and allow to bubble for a short time or until the sauce reaches the thickness you desire.

Serve it over rice, or better, cooked noodles you’ve allowed to cool and then deep fried; a bit like this. Or just phone a takeaway and don’t bother you lazy prick.

little thai salad.

I quite like thai food. Here is a thai salad. It should have a papaya in it, but i didn’t have no papayas. If i didn’t write that it needed papayas though, you would have never known. Unfortunately, my delete key isn’t working, so there’s no way i can keep it a secret from you now. I wouldn’t anyway...i like you too much to lie. Hopefully as much as you’ll like the following recipe…

smoked mackerel fillets (one or two. your choice fatty), chopped.

shredded carrot, half per person

shredded cucumber, quarter per person

tomato per person

coriander

couple of tablespoons of unsalted peanuts

and for the sauce…

quarter cup of chicken stock

heaped teaspoon of palm sugar

birdseye chilli

spring onions

half a lime

2 tablespoons of fish sauce

clove of garlic

coriander stalks

First we’ll make the sauce. Put all the ingredients in a pan, bring to the boil and then tun the heat off. Give it a little stir to make sure it’s amalgamated. If you need to, adjust the ingredients as you see fit. As long as it tastes delicious then it’s done. My palatte will be different from yours, mainly because i smoke a lot and drink a lot and sometimes kiss questionable women with my mouth, so it might need a little tweak if you are young, innocent and have a soft, pretty little mouth.

Next, toast the peanuts in a dry pan, and put some oil in another pan on a high heat. Hard fry the mackerel, and when it gets crisp and brown, take it out and lay it on some kitchen paper to drain and cool. Chop up the peanuts.

To serve, just dump it in a big pile and toss it with some of the sauce.

Guest Recipe : Andrew’s chorizo stew.

I’m going to be including a guest spot here in the blog, and here is the first submission. If anyone else is interested in submitting then please get in touch. But without further ado, i give you Andrew’s chorizo stew.

Andy’s Chorizo stew with lentils

Ciao, I’m Daniels friend, we have been friends for a long time maybe something like seven years or eight, that’s not as long as he has been friends with other people like Mark or his brother Matt but I still think it’s long enough to be classed as old friends, although we weren’t that close whilst we were doing our degrees because we lived so far apart and I just couldn’t be fucked to visit him on the train, because he would always say the same old shit over and over and I preferred hanging out with my girlfriend. But we are mates again now so relax. Here is one of the top ten Chorizo stew recipes I have made up this year, its v easy, about as easy going up the stairs or looking at a notice board. Also it’s great for sharing with friends, like on the Doritos adverts or just having all to yourself like on the magnum adverts or for having in an awkward date scenario with just man and woman like on the tampons adverts.

To cook it you will need these things:
Four shallots or five (if you can’t get any do a red onion and a half, or a white onion and a half)
1 Red pepper
1 Green chilli (YOU COULD ALWAYS SWAP THE COLOURS OF THE PEPPER AND CHILI AROUND FOR A LUAGH IF YOU LIKE, IF YOU ARE GETTING BORED WITH YOUR LIFE OR IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD THE SPECIFIC COLOURS IN THE RECIPE)
HALF A good CHORIZO OR WHATEVER A WHOLE ONE IF YOU LIKE
250g of red split lentils but maybe slightly less (don’t worry about soaking them, they’ll soak while they stew)
A whole pan of chicken stock
A variety of 5 or 7 tomatoes (if you can get the sorts that are all deformed and green as well as some red it would be good, like on Jamie Oliver, if you just have normal tomatoes I’d say it’s a shame but don’t be so pretentious, you could even just do a tin of tomatoes if you want guys, so just chill out)
Three cloves of garlic
A heap of parsley about as big as a fist or cats head
Half a lemon
Some baby oil

IF YOU ARE A GIRL PLEASE START AT SECTION 1.
IF YOU ARE A GUY PLEASE GO STRAIGHT TO PART 3.

1. Strip off all of your sexy clothes, gym slips, slinky knickers, plimsolls, skirts that are too short, wonder bras, knicker bockers, nylons, lippy, stilt shoes, tight leather leggins, golden hotpants, etc…..in a slow and erotic way, maybe put on some music, some sexy music, like pan pipes.
2. Rub the baby oil all over your nude body, getting it everywhere, all over the boobs, behind the knees, private parts, shin, middle of spine etc…but not the eyes please, you’ll need these to be clean for checking the stew with, and weighing out the lentils.
3. Cut the chorizo into coins, fry in a small amount of olive oil in a big deep pan or stew pot, once the chorizo has produced all of its oily juices then…
4. Chuck in the shallots, cut up roughly, sweat them until they are transparent.
5. Cut up and add the chili and pepper and garlic, fry a little and then add the tomatoes, cut them up first and make sure you keep all the juices as well in there, it should smell delicious at the moment and your family or friends should be making comments about how brilliant you are and you should feel like Monica from Friends in the episode where she does cookery classes even though she is already a pro just so she can belittle amateurs and be praised by the cookery tutor.
6. Once this looks like a nice sludge of oil and colors and textures you might want to think about filling the pot up with the stock, but grind some pepper in there for seasoning, no salt though please.
7. Fill the pot up with stock/
8. Put all the lentils in it and bring to the boil
9. After that it will need to be stewed, this means you can just stir it every ten minutes for the next two or three hours on a low heat, if it gets to thick and dry just add more water.
10. Girls you might want to think about re applying baby oil now to your naked body.
11. OH WOW IT’S DONE NOW IT’S BEEN TWO AND A HALF HOURS AND THE TEXTURE IS LIKE A STEWY PORRIDGE TEXTURE BRILLIANT!
12. Squeeze in half a lemon and put in all of the parsley chopped.
13. I like to just have it in a bowl (if it’s a rustic looking bowl it works best, but any type of bowl will do) with a lovely loaf of bread and butter but you can do what you like, for example maybe put it in a potato on a plate bye
14. Oh here is a picture underneath, I have served it in a traditional rustic bowl used by Spanish shepherds in the old days
15. Also Daniel if you have anything to add please add it here:

i have nothing to add.

Eating Fish : Mackerel Recipe

I’m recently unemployed as of about two weeks ago, so as well as being an absolute catch (ladies!), I’m also having to tighten the purse strings (ladies!). This is a dish in which simplicity is everything, the sweet sauce contrasting beautifully with the strong oily mackerel, like my pretty blue eyes and strong manly jaw (ladies!). It also takes almost no skill at all to pull off, which pleases me greatly, owing to my terminal laziness (ladies!). Also mackerel is a delicious fish (ladies!). Ladies, you will need…

two mackerels!

three tomatoes!

one red onion!

one garlic clove!

suzy salt and percival pepper!

You need to skin the tomatoes. There are two ways to do this…

First way: cut a little holy cross on the bottom of the tomato, then drop in a pan and cover with boiling water. After a while, pull them out and peel the skins off.

Second way: cut them in half and then grate them. the skin stays behind.

Now we can start the sauce. Slowly saute a finely chopped onion in a frying pan with some good olive oil. We want the onion to break down slowly, get tender and sweet, not burnt. Add chopped garlic and continue to saute, then add your tomatoes. A lid to your pan comes in incredibly useful here, as the moisture that evaporates out of the tomatoes and onion will be retained, giving you a lovely sauce. Without the lid, you may need to add a little water to keep the sauce from drying out, which will dilute the flavour. While the sauce is bubbling away slowly, turn your grill up as high as it goes. Next we prep the mackerel.

Make sure your mackerel is gutted. season it inside and out with s&p. put it under grill.

Cook the mackerel until it’s ready, which will vary depending on the size of the mackerel, but 4 minutes each side is a solid guideline.

I serve the sauce over the top of the fish and like a chunk of good wholemeal to go with it.

Braised Recipe 3 : Mexicanish Pork.

I like mexican food, or at least the idea i have in my head of mexican food. No doubt this isn’t really mexican food, but i imagine if i gave it to a mexican they wouldn’t hate it. Why would they? It’s delicious.

boneless rolled shoulder of pork
chicken stock
carrot
onion
celery
chilli
tomato puree

Take the pork shoulder and pre-boil it like you might have the ribs if you bothered to look at that recipe. This will boil out the impurities and blood and muck you’d only have to spoon off the top during the cooking process. Give it about ten minutes or so. Clean out the pot and then throw everything else in and the pork, with stock to cover, put a lid on, and simmer slowly for three or four hours, or enough time so the meat just falls apart when you touch it. Take out the pork and allow to cool.

In the forever you’ve got to wait for the meat, you might as well make some accompaniments. I like to have some refried beans, and a little salsa with my pork. I present both here. For the refried beans you will need…

tinned kidney/pinto beans
garlic
onion
stock from the cooking pork

Drain off the beans; you can use dried, but i don’t see the point. Add to the pan with finely sliced onion and a clove or two of garlic and cook it down lightly in the pork stock in a covered pan. If it boils dry, add more stock. Wait for the beans to turn tender and then mash dem up. When mashed, the pulpy insides will suck up most of the stock, but just add more to adjust the consitency to something resembling a thick humous.

You’ll have plenty of time to make some delicious salsa as well, for which you’ll need…

tomatoes

roasted peppers

spring onions

garlic

chillis

coriander

lime

olive oil

salt

Chop up the tomatoes, springers, then crush your garlic and finely dice. I use one birds eye chilli or a couple of average chillis chopped. Next, add the coriander, squeeze half a lime over what you’ve got chopped, a couple of glugs of olive oil and season. Alternatively just throw everything in a processor.

Back to the meat: when cool, break apart the meat into about thumb size chunks and apply a dry rub of…

cumin seeds
coriander seeds
cinnamon
salt
pepper
a little all purpose caribbean seasoning

Dry pan, toast the cumin and coriander, then grind. Add the rest. Apply to meat. The built-in fat in the shoulder means no oil. Put it into a hot oven. We’re looking to crisp the edges and get a decent crust on the meat and no more, otherwise it will get dry…incredibly dry. As soon as it starts to turn, grab it out, throw it on a chopping board and cut into little chunks. Meat done.

Cooking completed, place everything you’ve made into a warmed tortilla with a little sour cream and eat it with some friends you like.

Bbq Recipe 2 : hamburger.

Round two of bbq series is here, with a recipe for one of my favourite things in the whole world - the hamburger. There isn’t much i can write that hasn’t already been written about hamburgers, except perhaps that i would lose an eye and an ear as opposed to never eat another hamburger in my life. unless someone else has written that, then perhaps i’ll write that i’d take my own life and that of my best friend rather than never gobble down another morsel of greasy patty…which is 100% not true, but i feel i’d have to write something to trump the last one, and offering a body part would almost be plagarism. they’re just words anyway…

Yeah. You’ll need -

minced beef

salt

pepper

processes cheese slice

bun

Now i don’t believe a hamburger should be embellished in any other way. You are more than welcome to fill your hamburgers with spices, herbs, garlic, breadcrumbs or eggs, but i like a burger to taste like well seasoned meat. Others worry it won’t stay together, but it will if you keep it at the right temperature. The only thing i do do differently is place the cheese inside the burger, as if it was an infamous and elusive treasure waiting to be discovered by a gallant and handsome explorer named daniel, but it is mostly because i am single and people don’t phone me enough. I’ve heard this is called a ‘juicy lucy’ in some quarters, but i just call it ‘hamburger with some cheese inside’. You can feel free to change up the cheese depending on your preferences, and so many cheeses work so well in this, but for some reason, the gooey yellow fat of the processed cheese works best on my palate/love handles.

To compile the hamburger, take a good handful of meat seasoned with salt and pepper and split this in two. Form into half inch burgers about the size of your palm. Take your cheese and place in the middle of these two burgers, then crimp the edges down. The key to keeping your burgers from falling apart is keeping them in the fridge before you cook them. It’s quite simple really.

Throw the little fellows on the bbq when you’re ready, or like i have here, cook in a hot frying pan, until you’ve got a pretty brown crust on the outside and some medium pink meat on the inside. The added bonus of the pan is that you can fry a split bun in the meat juices, which is the cooking equivalent of buying your burger a gift or beating your waistline to death with a blunt weapon made of fat.

Top it with whatever you like or some gherkins and caramelized onion.

picture coutesy of http://findmatthewcoleman.tumblr.com/

Bbq Season : Lamb Kebabs.

It’s bbq season, or at least it was last weekend when i made this. Over the next few weeks i’ll try and cover as much as i can before the tiny window of opportunity closes once more. I like bbq a lot because i like to get drunk and cook, and it never seems quite as appropriate when i’m alone in a kitchen at three o’clock on a wednesday afternoon.

This is a pretty good recipe to pull out if you’re getting tired of the 3 for 2 deals, the 20 burgers for a high five deals, or the quails legs dipped in food colouring offers in your local supermarket. It requires a modicum of effort and is guaranteed to make people rethink bringing a bag of dog cocks from Iceland to your table. Here’s what you need…

a good helping of minced lamb, lets say 500g.

1 tbsp each of cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds and ras-al-hanout.

salt and pepper

olive oil

coriander stalks

Just like the previous lamb recipe, you need to toast your seeds for the spice mix, so get to it. Once cooled, add them to a mortar with the ras-al-hanout and salt and pepper and give it a pounding. Add this spice mix to the meat and mix well, add your chopped coriander stalks and form into sausage shapes. To finish your prep, coat them with a little olive oil once they’re formed so they don’t stick together between the time you make them and the time they go on the grill.

I serve these in turkish flatbread or pitta with tzatziki. the recipe for which is as follows…

a cucumber

few tablespoons worth of yoghurt

a twist of lemon juice

tablespoon of good e.v olive oil

chopped coriander and mint

salt and pepper

Split the cucumber in half horizontally and then take one piece, take a peeler to the skin and split it vertically. Spoon out the seeds and mince with a knife or grate it. Put it in a sieve over a bowl and throw some salt over it to extract the water. Let it sit for 20 minutes or so, then wash the salt off and squeeze out as much of the juice as possible.

Combine this processed cucumber with the rest of the ingredients and season to taste.

Now go and get drunk.

picture coutesy of http://findmatthewcoleman.tumblr.com/

Leftovers : Lamb.

I had a lot of leftover lamb from the last recipe so i decided, rather than rinse and repeat, i’d make a shepherds pie. I only use roast lamb leftovers for this dish because minced lamb just doesn’t make a rich enough gravy, and for me, the shepherds pie isn’t anything without a decent gravy.

leftover roast lamb and roasting juices/leftover gravy
white onion
carrot
celery
stock
leftover
butter
potatoes
cheddar
parmesan
salt & peps

Strip all remaining lamb off the bone and hand chop into tiny pieces. Foam a little butter in a frying pan and brown the lamb off in it. Take it out with a slotted spoon and set aside in a bowl somewhere while you deal with the vegetables. They should all be peeled, chopped and julienned (chopped fine). Fry them in the same pan the lamb was in until softened, then reintroduce the lamb, add enough stock to cover this and a bit and simmer it lightly while you prep the potato.

Peel and cook your potato. the best way to do this is by steaming them before you peel them, but boiling water is fine i suppose. By the time the potato is done, the lamb and gravy should have reduced a little and thickened ever so, so take it off the heat. Push the cooked potato through a sieve to make sure there’s no lumps and introduce a little hot milk and butter. Season it all nice, but remember that parmesan is a little salty, so please be careful.

Now just compile. lamb and gravy on’t bottom, tato on’t top, then grate cheddar and a bit of parmesan over that, and into an oven about 200 for 30 or 40 minutes.

Yeah it’s alright.

Also featured in the terrible quality picture is a little sugar snap garlic and caper combo which i just sauted lightly in a touch of good olive oil.

Yeah they were alright.

Braising Recipe Number 2 : Lamb Shoulder.

This is a nice little recipe that reminds my stomach that i am its closest confidant, dearest friend and most despicable lover. It’s quite a nice way to prepare lamb, and it’s easy as shit to pull off. I’ve paired it here with a little yoghurt carrot salad that a friend of mine wants the recipe for. When he isn’t getting blazed and hitting bongs, he’s constantly pestering me for it. I’ll come to that later. First the lamb; for which you’ll need…

half a lamb shoulder
harissa paste, a couple of tbsp
coriander seed
cumin seed
fennel seed
ras al hanout
salt
pepper
oilive oil

First you need to roast the spices, so take a spoon of the fennel, coriander and cumin seeds and put them in a dry pan. Dry fry until they start to toast slightly, smell a lot and pop a little. Take them out and throw them in a pestle and mortar or a grinder or something heavy and grind that all up. Add the ras al hanout, salt and pepper and give it a mix.

Throw the lamb in a roasting dish apply plenty of olive oil and rub in the spices and the harrisa. Drop some unpeeled garlic around it, a few shallots if you want them and then cover with foil and put in the oven you should have preheated to 140C before you started the prep.

Leave this in the oven for a few hours. Let’s say three or a little more. Four tops. You can do five if you want, but i probably wouldn’t. Turn up the oven for the last 20 minutes or so if you want it to crisp a little, but please keep an eye on it.

In the meantime you might want to make the carrot yoghurt salad. You should. It’s nice. You’ll need...

grated carrot

yoghurt

lemon juice

olive oil

salt, pepper

Fry the carrot in good olive oil until softened and a little lighter in colour. I added a little of the roasted garlic from the lamb at this point. It’s optional. Allow to cool. Put in a bowl with some yoghurt, more olive oil and a touch of lemon if you need it, then season.

After such trials you’ll have a big chunk of sweet, moist meat and a pan full of fat. Set the meat aside and drain as much fat away as you can. There should be a rich pool of meat juices you can salvage underneath. Either make it into a gravy or spoon a little as is over the meat. I served as is, the meat, the salad and some pitta, but i wouldn’t be adverse to a good pilaf or some well made couscous to accompany. You could have it with chips…i don’t really care.

Braised Recipe Number 1 : Ribs.

Here’s a recipe for pork ribs braised in lu shui, aka master sauce. This is by far the best way i know to cook ribs, the best way to bring out the potential of what i see as a much misused cut of meat. I tire of these stiff, tasteless sticks of bbq meat that bypass the melting, fatty qualities of a good rib, and the slow braise in soy - what the Chinese call red cooking - means you get highly seasoned meat from surface to bone.

pork ribs, rack or split

1/2 cup of dark soy

3/4 cup of light soy

couple of glugs of chinese rice wine

4 tbsp palm sugar

tbsp schezuan peppercorns

bunch spring onions, cleaned, trimmed and halved

thumb sized chunk of ginger

one star anise

water/light stock to cover

If you get a rack of ribs, remember to take off the membrane that runs along the underside of the cut, because it’s a bit shitty and will only work against you in your mission of deliciousness.

Take a pot large enough to contain your ribs, and heat up a kettle of water. We need to pre-simmer the ribs to extract some of the blood and impurities that you’d have to skim off the braising liquid later otherwise. So boiling water and ribs into the pot, give it about ten minutes at a rolling boil and then drain them off.

Replace the ribs in the pot and the pot on the hob, then add your master sauce ingredients and enough water to cover the meat. Bring these up to a slow simmer, a really tender simmer and put the lid on. then walk away.

Three or four hours later, get some white rice if you want it, perhaps braise a little choi sum or pak choi in the pot and lay a few ribs on the plate. Most of the time i just eat it with a tsing tao and a boner.

———

Please, please, please consider keeping this leftover sauce. after cooking these ribs, you’ll have added a deep rich pork flavour. Next time you use it it will flavour you’re new meat further, resulting in more delicious meat. Obviously there are some concerns that this isn’t exactly the most healthy thing you can do, but i assure you that if the sauce is brought back up to temperature again, and you’re heating it for hours at a time then it won’t give you rickets or make you poo and sick so hard you scream my name and curse me, beating your fist into a steaming pool of your insides, weeping diseased master sauce tears. If it makes you feel any better, the Chinese also call it ‘thousand year sauce’, ‘the sauce that goes on and on’ and ‘fine to reheat sauce’.

To store the master sauce, wait for it to cool completely. You’ll have a thick layer of fat on the top which you need to remove, and then pass the sauce through a sieve. Store it in a bottle, a pot, or a watertight boot in the fridge or freezer. Next time you want to cook with it, top up with a little more soy, wine, stock, et al.

Think about braising whole chickens, chinese sausages, eggs in shells..............

I've made it to blogger...

yeah! food blog. i've already started one on tumblr a bit ago, and i'll be transferring it over to this blog; so expect an ongoing braising series and bbq series, bad food photography and step dad jokes.