Pepper and Lentil Gratin

In keeping with my aim of cooking at least one vegetarian main course every week I made this old family favourite last night. We just ate it on its own and kept coming back for extra helpings so: Feeds 4 or 2 very hungry people

Prep 10 minutes Cook 60min

175g red split lentils

1 tbsp light olive oil

2 medium onions, 1 red, 1 brown if possible, chopped

1 clove garlic finely chopped

1 green pepper, deseeded and cut into approx. 1cm squares

1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into  approx. 1cm squares

150g mushrooms sliced

½ tsp chilli powder or to taste

¼ tsp smoked paprika, optional

½ tsp sweet paprika

1 tbsp tomato ketchup

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

seasoning

Topping

25g panko breadcrumbs, or ordinary breadcrumbs

25g pine kernels

25g pumpkin seeds

25g cheddar cheese grated

25g parmesan grated

Pinch sea salt

Pinch cracked black pepper



Pre heat oven to Gas Mark 5, 190C

Wash and drain the lentils and add to 600ml of boiling water, return to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes until tender. Drain in a sieve to remove any excess water.

In a large pan fry the onions and garlic gently in the olive oil for about 5 minutes until the onion is translucent but not browned. Add the peppers and the mushrooms, cover and sweat on a low heat for about 10 minutes. Add the lentils, spices, ketchup, and soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste. Stir well and put into a greased oven proof dish.

Mix together the ingredients for the topping and spread over the vegetable mixture. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 30 minutes.

　

My take on Boeuf Burguignon

This was very nearly Beef Gonrong! As I said a couple of days ago, I read a number of recipes from different sources before deciding how to make this dish. When it was time to eat, the sauce was too thin and too acidic and the meat was edible but still a bit chewy. There was ample for two meals so the next day I boiled it up again then transferred the stew to my slow cooker and let it cook in there for about 4 hours on low. What a transformation! The meat held its shape but you could cut it with a fork. So what follows will be the way I intend to cook it next time:-

900g shin beef cut into 5cm chunks

150g streaky bacon cut across into approx 5mm wide strips

40g butter

Light olive oil

2 medium onions finely chopped

2 carrots about 5mm dice

3 cloves garlic finely chopped

2 cups red wine

2 cups beef stock from cube or Knorr Stockpot

Heaped tbsp tomato purée

2 bay leaves

Pinch smoked pimento ( optional)

Bouquet garni sachet

200g button mushrooms or closed cup mushrooms quartered

12 round shallots peeled

Handful of chopped parsley

Plain flour

Salt and pepper.

Serves 4 - 6 people

This is a long process and cannot be rushed. Preparation time about 15 minutes. Cooking time about 7 hours.

Shin beef contains lots of connective tissue, which increases the flavour but needs long slow cooking to become tender. Make sure that the wine you use, if not Burgundy, would still be wine you would be happy to drink. If you don’t want to use wine you could use beer or stout. It will not be Boeuf Bourguignon but it will still be very tasty.

Put some plain flour on a plate and season with pepper. Coat the pieces of beef in the flour and shake off the excess.

Heat a little oil in a large pan approx. 23cm dia. Add the bacon pieces and fry over a low heat until golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Increase the heat slightly and add the pieces of beef to the pan and brown on all sides then remove these also and set aside. Do not crowd the pan and brown the meat in batches, you want to get some colour on the meat not stew it.

Pour off any excess fat, then melt 20g of the butter and add the chopped onions, garlic and carrots with the pinch of pimento if used. Stir well, reduce the heat to low, cover the pan and sweat the vegetables for about 5 minutes until the onion is translucent.

Add a little of the wine to the pan and with a wooden spoon scrape the bottom of the pan to remove any crusty bits or particles stuck to the bottom. Add a bit more wine if it evaporates before you finish. Add the rest of the wine, tomato purée, bouquet garni, half the mushrooms and the bay leaves then bring to the boil.

Return the beef and bacon to the pan together with any juices and add enough stock to just cover the meat and vegetables. Bring back to the boil then transfer the contents of the pan to a slow cooker. Cover the surface of the stew with a cartouche of greaseproof paper and cook on slow for about 6 hours or until the meat is really tender.

Heat half the remaining butter in a frying pan with a little olive oil to stop it from burning and gently fry the whole shallots until golden brown. Remove and set aside. In the same pan add the last of the butter and sauté the mushrooms until golden and set aside with the shallots.

About half an hour before you want to eat transfer the stew back to the original sized pan. Remove the bay leaves and bouquet garni. Add the shallots, mushrooms and chopped parsley, reserving some parsley for garnish and cook for a further 30 minutes.

Check and correct the sauce consistency, seasoning and acidity. Serve with potato and celeriac mash or boiled potatoes and seasonal vegetables.

When things go wrong

When I started this blog, one of my aims was to encourage more people to cook from scratch. Obviously we can’t all be Michel Roux, Raymond Blanc or a domestic god(dess) and things do go wrong. We all have culinary disasters or near misses. I think the important thing to realise is that if we could all cook perfect dishes at the first attempt then life would be too easy. There would be no sense of achievement at mastering a tricky dish or even putting a plate of edible food on the table.

Recently I have cooked two dishes which have been too acidic. One was a dish I have made countless times before without a problem and the other was from recognised recipes, even though I adapted the version I made. In neither case did I add or subtract ingredients which would have affected the acidity of the dish.

In the case of the ragu I corrected the acidity by adding sugar. The other dish was the beef stew, and I did not really want to add sugar. After some research on the Internet, the suggested solution was to add a small amount of baking soda ( sodium bicarbonate). This caused the stew to foam like a fermenting bed of lava. Once this initial reaction had occurred I was able to taste, then add a little more bicarb until I was happy with the result. I think it would be important to add a small amount at a time otherwise it could become too salty. Remember the old adage, you can add but you can’t take away.

Beurre Manié

The unconventional Bouef Bourguignon cooking method worked well but the gravy was too thin. I did not want to use cornflour (corn starch) to thicken the gravy so I used beurre manié. This consists of equal quantities of soft butter and plain flour mixed together to form a dough which looks rather like marzipan. Pieces of this can be stirred into the sauce without any danger of lumps. Because the flour is raw you need to keep stirring for a few minutes to cook it out.

Bangers and Bourguignon

Yesterday I made straight forward bangers and mash, using some of Nick Brown's excellent traditional pork sausages. They were very meaty and filling, not full of bread and water, two sausages each were ample for us. I know it's not healthy, slimming or clever but the secret of good mash is to add plenty of butter. I understand that one should not add cold milk when making mash so I generally drain the potatoes in a colander, then pour a little milk into the bottom of the hot pan, return the potatoes, add butter and mash together with some salt and pepper. If I still need to loosen the mash I do add additional cold milk and it seems OK to me.

When I was at the butcher's I also bought 1kg of shin beef which needs long slow cooking so I decided to make Bouef Bourguignon. There seems to be as many recipes as there are cooks, some add tomatoes, some don't, some cook it in the oven, some don't. I'm combining what sounds the best to me and am adapting it so it will cook while I'm having a few pints. Then I will only have to finish it off when I get home. I've cooked the bacon, browned the meat and vegetables, added the wine and stock, herbs etc. and put it in a casserole in the oven. I've covered the top of the stew with a piece of greaseproof paper to stop the surface from drying out. The oven is set to automatic so it will just be a case of adding the small onions ( I'm substituting shallots), and button mushrooms when I come home. I've already sauteed the onions and mushrooms and they are in a bowl covered with cling film waiting to be added. Hope it works

Chana Dal

Last night I de-frosted a North Indian Chicken curry which needed something extra to make a meal so I cooked chana dal.

Chana Dal, also spelt Channa Dal or Channa Dhall  is split yellow gram, a type of chick pea and makes a fantastic accompaniment to a meat curry or can be a nutritious vegetarian meal in its own right.

Enough for four as an accompaniment or two as the main dish

1 cup chana dal
1 onion chopped quite finely
2 tbsp dessicated coconut
1 tsp ground turmeric ( haldi)
1 tsp chilli powder or to taste
pinch asafoetida (hing) Optional
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp black mustard seed
1/2 tsp cumin seed (jeera)
1 tbsp ground nut oil

Pick over, wash and drain the dal. Put 3 cups of boiling water in a large pan and return to the boil then add the dal and boil for 5 minutes. Add the onion, dessicated coconut, chilli powder, turmeric and asafoetida. The asafoetida is reputed to reduce the flatulence content of pulses. Reduce the heat and simmer until the dal is soft, about 30 to 40 minutes, mix in the garam masala and salt to taste. I am told that you should not add the salt earlier or the dal will stay hard. Keep an eye on the pan towards the end of cooking and make sure that the dal does not catch on the bottom of the pan. 

Heat the ground nut oil in a small frying pan and add the mustard and cumin seeds. As soon as the seeds begin to pop, pour the contents of the frying pan into the dal and stir. Cook for a few more minutes then serve with rice, naan or chapattis.

Ragu

I made a batch of ragu on Tuesday, as I normally do every month or two, using fresh minced steak and tinned tomatoes, onion, garlic etc. I sweat a chopped onion in a large pan with a couple of chopped cloves of garlic until translucent, about 5 - 10 minutes. In a separate frying pan I brown the 500g of minced steak until it releases its fat. I drain off the surplus fat then add the mince to the onions together with tinned tomatoes, a couple of  crumbled beef stock cubes, a good tablespoon of dried oregano and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. I add a lot of tomatoes e.g. four 400g tins. I bring the whole pan up to the boil then transfer the contents to a slow cooker and cook on low for about 4 hours. I don't generally need to add much salt since the stock cubes are quite salty.

This "recipe" has stood me in good stead for many years but this time the sauce was very acidic and I had to add what seemed a lot of sugar to correct the seasoning. Obviously I do not want to be adding significant amounts of sugar to my food so I will have to try a different brand of tinned tomatoes and / or try a different recipe next time.

A Funny Thing Happened

I was going to cook a vegetarian meal yesterday but I went out with a friend for a few pints and came home with yet another cookery book and 2 Barnsley chops. They were delicious, just grilled for 4 minutes each side and nicely pink in the middle.

Organisation and Planning

I expect we all have our own methods of organising our lives to make things easier, and I do not wish to try to teach Grannies to suck eggs. It just seems sensible to write down what works for me in the hope that someone else may find it useful.

I was watching Paul Merrett in My Kitchen, a TV programme about famous Chefs in their own homes, the other evening and gained the impression that he follows a similar system to me. He has gained his experience from formal training and working in professional kitchens, I’ve picked mine up by trial and error.

When I first started cooking, I tended to shop two or three times a week and often had to run out to buy ingredients I needed that were not in the cupboard. Sometimes as I was preparing the meal. I now plan my menu for the week. This is not too onerous since there are only normally the two of us in the house and I only really plan the main meal of the day. Breakfasts and lunches tend to look after themselves, so long as there are cereals, bread, eggs etc. available. In the evening we only eat a main course. I only make starters and desserts on high days and holidays or when we have visitors.

Having planned the menu, I then list on a spread sheet all the ingredients I need for each day and this forms the basis of my shopping list. I can check to see what I need to buy and know for which day I’m buying. This is useful in store when checking use by and best before dates. I try to buy things when they are in season and also keep some flexibility in my menu so that I can buy the special offer or for example buy trout instead of mackerel because one looks fresher than the other.

In the store cupboard, where room permits, I keep a spare packet or jar of the most used items so that I always have a back up. When I finish a packet or jar I immediately make a note on a list I keep in the kitchen to remind me to buy that item the next time I go shopping.

I have collected well over one hundred recipe books, which became very unmanageable when I tried to find a recipe I had seen somewhere for a particular ingredient or occasion. So just over two years ago I started cataloguing recipes, that I may like to cook, on a database. I categorise the recipe by type of dish: starter; main; dessert etc. ; if it is vegetarian; main ingredient; book title; author; page number; name of recipe etc. I also keep a record on the database when I cooked it and my comments. So far, I have a database of about 1400 recipes of which I have made just over 170. At the present rate of progress it is going to take over 16 years to cook them all, but that isn’t really the object of the exercise. I can search the database by the main ingredient and immediately see a list of recipes for that ingredient and where to find them.

If this makes me sound like some sort of nerd so be it, but I do have other interests and activities in my life apart from food and cooking.

　

　

Peas with Lettuce

We finished off the fish pie last night and for a change I cooked peas with lettuce and shallots as an accompaniment. It was alright but not very visually appealing. I think I'll try a different recipe next time.

Fish Pie

The evening meal last night was fish pie

750g potatoes and celeriac or just potatoes
300g mixed skinless salmon and whitefish fillets (I used frozen Alaskan pollock thawed)  cut into chunks about 2.5cm
175g mixed frozen seafood, thawed
1 leek, trimmed, cleaned, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced about 2mm thick
1 garlic clove crushed or finely chopped
1 tbsp of light olive oil
50ml Extra Dry Vermouth or dry white wine
125ml fish stock from a cube
1 tbsp cornflour mixed with a little water to form a runny paste, about 2 tbsps
2 tbsps creme fraiche
Small handful of parsley chopped, save a little for garnish
Milk, butter, salt and pepper

Preheat oven to Gas Mark 5, 190C

Boil the potatoes and celeriac if used, for about 20 mins until tender, mash with a little milk and a good knob of butter. Season to taste. Set aside.

Grease a pie dish, roughly 17.5 cm dia. and 7.5cm deep, liberally with butter.

Put about 1/2 tbsp of olive oil and a small knob of butter in a frying pan and heat until the butter foams. Turn down the heat, add the sliced leek and garlic and sweat them over a low heat for about 5 minutes until softened. Pour in the vermouth and boil off the alcohol smell, add the stock bring to the boil then simmer for 2 or 3 minutes. Add the cornflour paste and stir in, then add the creme fraiche to form a creamy sauce. Season to taste. Set aside.

In a separate frying pan, cook the salmon and whitefish chunks in a little olive oil, just for a couple of minutes. Add the fish to the leek sauce together with the thawed shellfish and chopped parsley. Transfer to the pie dish. Top with the mash and bake in the centre of the preheated oven, on an oven tray to catch any sauce that escapes during cooking, for about 35minutes until golden on top.

This made far too much for two, so I guess we will be having fish pie again today

Winter Vegetables with Lentils

Yesterday, I decided to cook the self-promised vegetarian dish and found a recipe in a book from the 90s. I had to adapt the recipe somewhat since it called for frozen baby onions. I have never seen a frozen baby onion and can't imagine wanting to buy them. I did some research on line and they do sound to be somewhat rare these days. The recipe also stated that the dish was unsuitable for freezing, so I more or less halved the quantities given. I don't understand why the dish is deemed to be unsuitable, I can't think of any valid reason. If anyone out there can come up with a reason please let me know. Unusually, another ingredient I did not have in my store cupboard was mustard powder. I could have ground mustard seeds but decided to substitute ready made English mustard instead. The recipe was also frustrating in that it referred to thinly sliced carrots, thickly sliced leeks and diced parsnips, which are not very clear descriptions.

We both enjoyed the final dish but it would have been better served with brown rice or rotis. It was interesting to get the warmth from mustard instead of chilli.

Here is my version to serve 2

N.B. All weights are approximate, the original recipe was in ounces

2 tbsps olive oil
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tbsp ground coriander
1/2 tbsp ready made English mustard
2.5cm piece of fresh root ginger peeled and finely chopped or grated
( The easiest way to peel ginger is with a teaspoon - honest)
1 garlic clove skinned and finely chopped, crush or grated
110g of round shallots, peeled and quartered
110g carrots, peeled and sliced about 1mm thick
110g trimmed leeks cleaned and sliced into 1cm rings
110g button or chestnut mushrooms quartered
150g parsnips peeled and diced into approx 5mm cubes
90g split red lentils washed and drained
450ml of vegetable stock made with a stock cube
Handful of chopped fresh coriander (cilantro). (I think parsley could be substituted)
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a large pan and sweat the shallots, carrots, leeks and parsnips on a low heat for about 5 minutes. Add the cumin and coriander powder and stir for about 1 minute. Then add the mushrooms, the lentils, mustard and stock. Bring to the boil then cover and simmer for about 15minutes or until the lentils are just tender. Reserve some of the chopped coriander for garnish and stir in the remainder just before serving. Adjust the seasoning and serve.

The sauce looked a little runny which accounts for the 70s presentation but it was fine.

My version of Basque Chicken

I've been asked for the recipe so here goes:-

Ingredients

8 chicken pieces skinned. I leave them on the bone but that's optional
2 Tbsps olive oil not Extra Virgin, or any cooking oil you prefer
2 banana shallots or 1 onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic chopped
4 peppers green and red, yellow whatever
1 chilli of choice
Sprig fresh thyme
1 Bayleaf
125ml dry white wine or Extra Dry Vermouth
3 generous Tbsps of tomato puree
1 tomato chopped, skin and deseed it if you like
50g Olives of choice Black or Green
375 ml chicken stock made from a cube. I like Knorr

Pre heat the oven to gas mark 4, 180C

Get a casserole that is large enough to hold the chicken pieces in one layer and heat the olive oil and fry the chicken pieces until golden. Remove them from the pan and set aside. Add the shallots, garlic, peppers to the pan  cover and fry on a very low heat, stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes until the vegetables have softened.

Add the thyme, bayleaf, and white wine or vermouth to the pan. Prick the chilli and throw that in as well. If you like chilli heat just chop the chilli instead. Bring to the boil and cook until the raw smell of alcohol has boiled off.

Add the tomato puree and chopped tomato to the pan. Pour in the stock and bring back to the boil.

Return the chicken pieces to the pan together with the olives. Push the chicken pieces down into the vegetables so they are just covered or at least coated with the sauce.

Cover with the lid and place in the preheated oven for about an hour until the chicken is cooked. If you pierce the thickest part of the meat the juices should run clear.

I serve this with brown rice. Enjoy

Did not cook anything special yesterday for our evening meal. We had some ham that needed eating so I made ham, egg and chips. The chips were healthy oven chips.

Take large potatoes such as Desiree, wash and remove any blemishes. Do not peel. Pre-heat oven to Gas Mk 6. 200C. Cut the potatoes into good sized chips like steak chips, put into a pan of cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 5 minutes. While this is happening, spray a large roasting tin or oven tray with cooking oil such as Fry Lite. Drain the chips, spread them out on the tray, spray with oil, season with salt and put in the top of the hot oven for 30 minutes, give them a shake half way through. Delicious.

I made Basque Chicken yesterday, loosely based on John Burton-Race's recipe in French Leave. I halved the quantities, used skinned chicken thighs instead of a jointed chicken, extra dry vermouth instead of white wine, a variety of coloured peppers and finally green olives stuffed with pimiento instead of black olives. I didn't skin or deseed the tomato either. It was still very tasty served with brown rice. I hope it freezes well since I made far more than we could eat at one sitting. I almost forgot to mention that I used Anjum Anand's trick of just pricking the chilli and throwing it in whole. I was then able to fish it out and put it on my plate later since my wife doesn't like too much chilli heat.

I'm not making much progress trying to link this blog to the Facebook page I've created, in fact I'm not even sure that is a possibility.

Yesterday, I baked six fruit cakes for the local Country Market and cooked a very simple dinner of Shepherd's Pie and veg. I had frozen the pie filling when I last made a batch so only had to make the mash for the topping. I did remember to use Delia's tip and cover the filling with a thin layer of sliced tomato before adding the mashed potatoes. It does make a difference. I left the cheese off the topping since I'm trying to lose some weight and it was fine.

This morning I've planned my menu and shopping list for the week. I'm determined to try some new dishes this week, it is very easy to get into a rut making the same things week in week out. Hugh F-W has also reminded me of my intention to eat more vegetarian food so I am planning to include at least one meal each week without meat.

I have to go to the dentist later today so it will be good old Spag Bol for dinner. It's really a ragu with fusilli since I'm told the Italians don't eat Bolognaise sauce with spaghetti. The meat sauce sticks to the fusilli better and it's not so messy to eat. I always seem to get sauce on my shirt when I eat spaghetti. Now I'm thinking it's a long time since I made a Spaghetti Carbonara which ought to be rectified soon.

First Post

This is my first attempt at the art of blogging, so please bear with me if things are a little muddled to start with. I am just a normal bloke who happens to enjoy cooking. When I retired from work a few years ago, my wife was still working so I took over in the kitchen and discovered that I actually enjoyed planning, cooking and eating what I made. Since then I have gradually increased my repertoire, cooking dishes from different cultures and amassing an ever growing collection of recipe books.