Loin of Lamb with garlic, lemon & rosemary rub

When you find a cheeky little lamb loin staring up at you from the shelf in the Organic, it’s time to grab it and rush home to cook this dinner party pleaser – you need the skin on the loin, but not if it’s a great big fatty lump of a thing, hence the choice of the Organic’s lamb rather than Spinneys’.

I served this one on a bed of wilted Thai celery leaves (because I could, that's why) and with sautéed potatoes and peas, but you can do what you want. Each loin is cut into two, giving you pretty much what you’d serve up with a 4-bone rack, but just without the bones getting in the way.

Ingredients

• 2 lamb loins, each @400g
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
• 6 cloves garlic, roughly grated
• 4 lemons, grated zest
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Red wine sauce

• ½ onion, finely chopped
• 1 tomato, skinned, deseeded & chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• ½ stick celery, chopped
• 300ml red wine
• 300ml good stock
• 25g butter
• 1 heaped tsp flour
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Fresh peppercorns

Mix together the rosemary, zest, garlic, salt and pepper. Oil a foil-lined baking tray. (I like to line it with foil to cut down on washing up because I’m bone idle). Cut each of the lamb loins in two and brush them with oil, sprinkling a little salt and pepper on them as you do so. Heat a grillpan and quickly sear the meat side of the loins, then turn them to cook the skin side down for a little longer, about 2-3 minutes. Spread the herb mixture over the loins on the meaty side as the skin side is cooking, adding a bit to the skin side too as you remove them to the baking tray to sit skin side up. These can sit around for a while until you’re ready to finish them.

For the red wine sauce, fry the onion, garlic and celery gently in a saucepan until everything’s nicely softened, then crank up the heat a little and add the tomato and then the stock and wine, then leave to cook away, partially covered, for 20-30 minutes over a medium heat, before blitzing it with a hand blender. Heat it for another 10-15 minutes, then strain it. Mix together the butter and flour to make a roux and add this to the sauce, re-heating it when you’re ready to serve.

I’m also fond of adding in a teaspoon of fresh pink peppercorns at the last minute.

Heat the oven to GM7/220C/425 and bake the lamb loins for 15 minutes (20 minutes for well done just a hint of pink showing and 25 minutes for cremated, Lamb Grise á la Goute de Femme Irlandais). Let them rest for five minutes in a warm place then serve ‘em up!

Beef Wellington Recipe #2

Alexander already has a fabulous Beef Wellington recipe on TFE but I thought I would throw in my version, which of course is soooo much more betterer than his. Hmmm.

Anyway, this is a pretty much direct steal from Gordon 'Effing' Ramsey with a few of my own add-ins.

Before I start I just want to have one little lecture. This recipe is all about MEAT, it’s showcasing beef in a very opulent and sophisticated way, and so you need to make sure that the beef you buy and serve is of the very best quality.

In Dubai the beef available to us is pretty dire so we need to make the most of a bad lot. I am very fortunate that I have access to some of the best beef I have ever tasted through a great SA chum who brings it up from home but that avenue is closed at the moment sadly due to nonsensical local custom restrictions. Anyway, you need to splurge here, get the very best beef fillet that you can afford, a nice long thick piece, tied if necessary into a good log shape. Make sure the butcher has trimmed off any membrane or fatty bits. I work on approx 175-200g of beef per person.

You will need:

700-800g beef filet
500g puff pastry
2 large Portobello mushrooms
200g button mushrooms,
3 cloves of garlic
6 slices parma ham
1 heaped tbsp English mustard
3 tbsp brandy
Flat leaf parsley


And then you need to:

Put the mushrooms and the garlic in to a food processor and whizz to a coarse paste.

Scrape out the mushrooms into a large dry frying pan (no oil) add 1 tbsp of brandy and over a medium heat cook the mushroom mixture until it is dry. Add the chopped flat leaf parsley, seasoning and put to one side.

Lay the beef fillet on a board and grind a generous amount of black pepper all over. In the same frying pan heat 2 tbsp olive oil over high heat and sear the beef one all sides. Cook it pretty quick, just sear and colour the outside of the beef.

When almost done splash in 2 tbsp brandy and set light to it. FLAMBE!

Remove the beef and set to one side. Scrape any bits and pour the juices into a small pan in which you are going to make the port wine sauce.

Brush the English mustard over the beef.

Roll out the pastry into a large rectangle on a lightly floured surface.

Lay out the parma ham in the middle of the pastry in slightly overlapping layers. With a palette knife smear the mushroom mixture on top of the ham. Lay the beef on top and roll the pastry around the beef making sure it is covered first by the ham and mushroom layer. Trim off any pastry not needed and neatly tuck the ends in and lay on a lightly oiled metal baking tray with the seam side down.

Brush the pastry with beaten egg yolk and then bake in a hot oven (400F/200C) for 40 minutes. This will produce beef medium rare.

I serve this delicious beef with these potatoes and with green beans cooked in a thick tomato paste. I also make a small bowl of port wine sauce to go with it.

The Stockbridge Tap

The Stockbridge Tap,
2 Raeburn Place
Edinburgh
T: 0131 332 6345
Map

Eating out in Edinburgh is something of a blinfolded dance through a culinary minefield – gastro-pubs and ‘fun’ restaurants sit side-by-side with 1970s-era Chinky and curry joints, the Karachi Kitchen nestled snugly next to the Fuk Yew, both inviting you to a nice dose of last night’s rubbish and last week’s fatty sauce.

The city also has more than its fair share of dodgy looking Italian gaffs, nasty whitewashed jobs with red, white and green everywhere, whitewashed walls, terracotta tile floors, red gingham checked tablecloths and wax-dribbled Chianti bottles with candles jammed in their reluctant necks.

Edinburgh also has a smattering of posh, contemporary fine dining eateries, many located in the new, uber-funky Leith area, a docklands reclamation project that includes the oddly-sited Royal Yacht, Brittania – a must-see piece of tourism if you’re in Edinburgh. This is reached, for some mad reason, by walking through a shopping mall. Both the Wedgwood and The Kitchin beckoned, serially lauded high-end plate decorators par excellence but when the chips were down, we couldn’t be arsed with getting dressed up and taking the risk of encountering cookery ring arrangements decorated with flavourless sauce bottle coloursplashes. I'm not saying that's what's on offer, just that there's always that risk lurking in the background of every funky website's promise of the best produce treated with respect.

So we went out for a meal to The Stockbridge Tap, a modern, bare-wood bedecked pub in the New Town area of the City. Edinburgh New Town, prosaically, is something like 200 years old.
They keep a good selection of ales at the Tap and you can’t help noticing that many local customers are digging into steaming bowls of mussels – an obvious favourite. A couple of excellent pints from the good selection of ales later and we’re sitting down in the rather sparse dining area and ordering from the helpful, pleasant staff.

Cullen skink. Oh dear, oh dear. Traditionally a rich soup of cream, smoked mackerel, lardons and potato garnished with parsley, my skink arrived laced with olive oil, piping hot, thick with flakes of moist, perfect fish - a complete treat and a cardiologist's nightmare. Sod 'em - it's brilliant. Other starters included a ham tortilla which looked more like a frittata but which was pronounced excellent by the startees.

The mains were straightforward, good food, a pan-fried sirloin steak with chips, two orders of fish and chips and a cassoulet. The sirloin steak was decorated with nothing more or less than pepper, salt and parsley butter, was pronounced cooked to perfection and was enjoyed thoroughly. My fish and chips was excellent, a crispy batter and fresh, perfectly cooked fish complemented with the Tap’s heart-attack inducing chips, fried in beef dripping and perhaps a little less crispy than a search for chipular perfection would dictate, but good for all that. I couldn't resist dipping into my fellow-diner's cassoulet and it, too, was excellent stuff - rich, thick and generous.

I took the cheese board and was stunned to find three generous chunks of excellent cheese (a Cheddar, a Wensleydale and a grin-inducing Stilton), wodges of bread and biscuits, a chutney and two big slabs of butter. Accompanied by a sneaky scoop of Lindisfarne mead, it was all simply too much food and I actually left some. Other finishers included custard ice cream with shortbread biscuits, chocolate fudge cake and cheesecake ice cream. All of these provoked grins of delight. And then a round of coffees and a couple of whiskies – the perfect finish to a meal that would have Weight Watchers tutting and frowning, waggling their fingers and making altogether too much fuss about things.

The whole evening, drinks included, came to less than £100, Dhs 550, for four. I heartily and unreservedly commend this most excellent public house to anyone visiting Edinburgh.

Fillet Steak

With Date Caramelised Onions and Red Wine Sauce



I have come close to employing physical violence when trying to get Spinneys' butchers to cut me a decent set of fillet steaks 'in the round' without gristle, lumpy bits and so on. You're after a 'restaurant' steak, a little round tower of warm, tender fillet - not some misshapen wodge of scraps that belongs in the mincer. And don't let 'em get away with the trick of wrapping said wodge in cling film. It might look like Keira Knightley on the shelf, but when you take that plastic wrap off, you'll be looking at Matt Lucas.

If you're a) super-rich or b) financially screwed so badly you're beyond caring, then the Organic Supermarket has steak that defies superlatives and butchers that give a hoot. The combination is compelling.

Ingredients

• 4 fillet steaks cut ‘in the round’
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 4 bunches fresh local spinach
• 1 red chilli, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 4 spring onions, sliced
• 1 tsp salt

Red Wine Sauce

Date Caramelised Onions


Wash and de-stem the spinach and then leave it in a colander or large bowl to drain thoroughly.

Pan fry each fillet steak to seal them in 2 tbsp of oil and place them on an oiled baking tray.

When you’re almost ready to serve, put them in the oven (and have the red wine sauce and caramelised onions warming) at GM9/240C/475F for 5 minutes blue, 10 minutes medium rare, 15 minutes medium and 20 minutes cremated. While the steak is cooking, heat the rest of the oil in a large covered pan and add the chilli, garlic and onions, then the spinach, fry this, turning so that it wilts and then cover it on a low heat. You’re looking to time this so that you’re covering the spinach as the steaks finish, so about five minutes before the steak is due is about right.

When the steaks are cooked, turn the heat off and let them sit for five minutes while you get everything ready to plate up.

Use a cooking ring to place the spinach on each warmed plate (let it drain off when you remove each batch from the pan and then use a paper towel to soak up any liquid on the plate. Place the steak on top of the spinach, the caramelised onion on the steak and then the sauce around. Remove the ring, add the potato or other vegetables to the plate and you’re in business.

Breaded Mushrooms

With Dill Mayonnaise

These should really be deep fried, but this version cuts down on the fat attack while preserving the yumminess.

Ingredients

• 24 button mushrooms
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp flour

Coating

• 1 cup breadcrumbs
• ½ tsp powdered coriander
• 1 tsp powdered cumin
• 1 tsp powdered red chili
• ½ tsp madras curry powder
• 1 tsp salt

Dill Mayonnaise

• 2 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp plain yoghurt
• 1 handful finely chopped fresh dill

Clean the mushrooms using a brush or paper towels. Remove the stalks. Mix the eggs and flour together and then, using a bamboo skewer, dip each mushroom first in the batter and then into the breadcrumbs, making sure they’re thoroughly covered.

Place each mushroom on a well-oiled baking tray and bake for 20 minutes at GM6/200C/400F, turning once about halfway through.

Roasted Rib Eye of Beef

Spinneys sell 'em just the right size for a generous two-man roast: the key to this recipe is the rub - the idea of using curry powder on roast beef came originally from the Lake District's very own John Tovey and I've done it this way ever since...

Ingredients

• 1 Kg rib eye of beef on the bone
• 1 carrot, chopped roughly
• 1 onion, chopped roughly
• ½ bulb fennel, chopped roughly
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 250ml port
• 800ml good stock

Rub

• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp mustard powder
• 1 tsp curry powder

Make the rub mixture and rub this all over the beef. Let it stand out of the fridge for at least 30 mins. Toss the vegetables in the oil. Pre-heat the oven to GM 6/ 200C/400F and put a roasting tin with the other 2 tbsp oil in there for at least 10 minutes to heat up. Spoon the vegetables into the middle of the tin and place the beef on top. Add the port and 600ml of the stock and return to the middle of the oven. Bake for 30 minutes.

Remove the meat from the tin and as many gooey vegetables as you want. Then add another 200ml stock and a good glug of red wine to the pan and stir it all in (ideally over a low heat on the hob) so that the caramelised juices from the cooking mix in. At this point you can thicken the gravy with some flour mixed into a teaspoon of butter, or you can let it bubble away for a while. By the time you’re ready, your beef should have stood for a good ten minutes, so you’re ready to carve it and serve it - ideally with Yorkshire puddings!

Chicken Sticks

Hassle-free cookery at its best or a neat addition to the HMHB inspired week of BBQ... the imaginatively named 'chicken sticks' combines the flavour (and not the heat) of chili with the softness of a mildly spiced yoghurt mixture and tarragon - the perfect herb for chicken. The result is very good indeed and really easy to fling together. Serve it up with basmati rice, a salad and a nicely chilled chardonnay and you've got a perfect light weekday dinner for two in a jiffy!

Ingredients

• 500g chicken, cut into 2cm cubes
• 3 tbsp yoghurt
• 1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
• 1 tbsp dried tarragon
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp curry powder

Mix everything together in a bowl, adding the chicken last to marinade for at least an hour. Thread onto bamboo skewers before grilling: about 5-7 minutes then turning for another 5 -7 minutes until both sides have started to colour and brown off.

Pancakes

Shrove Tuesday is the last day before the beginning of Lent, the Christian fasting season, so it was traditionally a time when the richness in the larder was emptied in preparation for the fast. Over the years this has become pancake day in the UK: a day in which rich little omeletty waffles of eggs, flour, butter and milk are fried up and served with a squeeze of lemon and frosted with scatterings of sugar.

Amazingly, in the Levant, Christian families still take Lent seriously. I’m talking really, truly, Ramadan style seriously. None of this giving up something convenient like chocolate or prawn cracker flavour crisps for Lent stuff: we’re talking no meat, no richness, no booze, no nothing nice kind of fasting. Because, of course, that is the true intention of the fast of Lent.

The English Pancake is a close (if sniffy) cousin to the French crêpe: it’s poured into a hot pan of buttered fat to bubble up in a thin, albeit slightly less obsessively thin than the French, layer of richness. The Americans prefer to create something wodgy, thick and all too much like a crumpet for us ‘old world’ folk.

The trick to this is a decent batter, a rightly warm pan (crisply hot, but not over-sizzly: you’re looking to cook the batter smoothly and briskly and yet not have it bubble up or blacken beyond redemption: brown around the edges and marbled with brownness is good) and a measure of fat in the pan that supports a brisk slide and toss, because pancakes have to be tossed. The higher up in the air the better. For no particular culinary reason: it's just more fun that way.

Ingredients

• 125g plain flour
• 300ml gold top milk
• 50ml water
• 15g caster sugar
• A good pinch of sea salt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 50g butter
• A bottle of decent oil: groundnut is good

Sift the flour into a roomy bowl, adding the sugar and salt. Slide the beaten eggs into the middle and then whisk the eggs, salt, sugar and flour together. Add the milk and water slowly to form a dough and then, as more liquid joins the floury concoction, a batter, beating out any lurking lumps or other unscheduled irregularities as you wield your whisk of choice. Add the vanilla and leave it to stand, the longer the better: an hour is great if you give it a quick stir up before you use it again.

A good quality, small non-stick saucepan is best for this. Melt a small knob of butter together with a splash of groundnut oil in the pan. Now ladle a spoon of mixture into the centre, twisting the pan to spread the mixture around. You’re looking to create a thin layer of cooking batter on the base of the pan and it’ll take a couple of tries to get the quantity right as you acclimatise to the cooking temperature and amount of oil. A great pancake is created from a uniformly thin spread of batter on the pan. Let it cook, don’t be hasty, and give it the occasional nudge to see if the pancake is moveable: even lift the edges a little with a silicon or wooden spatula. You’re looking at a minute or two at the absolute most for a reasonably thin pancake over a lively medium heat. When the time is right, the pancake will move in the pan when you nudge it. Now you go for the mad spin into the unknown that excites the hot blooded, insane spirit inside you. You toss the pancake.

This is a forward movement performed together with an upward flick that sends the pancake flying into the air in a glorious back-flip trajectory. Time it right, move the pan to meet the descending confection and you’ve got yourself a perfect pancake cooking on the other side like a cooking pancake thing. Get it wrong and you’ve got a mess in a pan, a mess on the cooker or, even worse, a mess on the wall, ceiling or even cook.

Keep trying, it’s worth it.

Once the whole tossing thing is mastered (and yes, I did master being a tosser many years ago, thank you), you can cook the other side of the pancake for a minute or so. Slide it onto a plate and use greaseproof to divide the pancakes and you can freeze them, keep them, reheat them or whatever. But there’s nothing in the world quite so nice as sliding that freshly cooked pancake onto a warm plate with a spoon of caster sugar and a squeeze of lemon and then cooking the next as the last pancake disappears!

Do what you want with them. Serve them plain with sugar and lemon, add chocolate, cream, strawberries or mango. Add all three if you like. Whoosh a squoosh of brandy into the pan and set fire to it or just layer them with cream and banana cooked in rum and vanilla, orange segments and cointreau (in which case you can call 'em Crêpes Suzette and be all posh like) or cherries steeped in kirsch. Suit yourself, in short.

But do have a great, laughing, stupid time of it – ideally with family and friends joining in!

Green Soup

Another in the series of The Fat Expat’s Most Romantically Named Dishes. There are two things you should know about this soup, my Lord. Firstly, it is a soup. Secondly, it is green.

There’s a glut of dwarf green beans in the Emirates right now, which is nice because I’m quite fond of them. But should you find yourself, as I was, in possession of half a pack of the little suckers and a head of broccoli with no clear immediate purpose, then you might like to consider the following totally simple but utterly delicious soup. It’s also totally fat free, if these things matter to you. Unless, of course, you serve it with a drizzle of fine ‘green’ tasting olive oil, a dash of luxurious truffle oil (try it, it’s amazing) or a dollop of good, fresh cream in the middle. Then it’s not quite so holier than thou.

This soup freezes like a dream and is great served in small cups as a ‘tiede’ soup for a starter or ‘amuse bouche’, but is more wonderful served in great big generous bowls. Consider serving it along with a few chunks of crisp French bread torn from a loaf that’s been lurking in the oven for a few minutes.

Ingredients

• 200g broccoli florets and chopped stalks
• 200g dwarf beans, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 courgette, chopped
• 100g spinach
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1.25 litres good stock
• 1 tsp salt

Throw everything into a pan and bring to the boil. Turn to low and cook up for a good 30 minutes, cover and leave to cool for a while and then whiz it. Check and adjust the seasoning when it’s still slightly warm and then, at your leisure, reheat to serve.

Cheese Bites

It's not a very inspiring name, is it? But I can guarantee that you will eat one of these, go 'mmMMmmm' and then reach for another. And another. They're tangy, salty, crispy, smoky and wickedly moreish.

I always make these with Stilton, but if you’re truly Stilton averse, you can use a strong cheddar. Serve them with drinks before dinner or even as a starter with a dip made up of mayonnaise, wholeseed mustard and perhaps a little finely chopped chilli.

Ingredients

• 200g stilton
• 8 slices white bread
• 12 rashers smoked streaky bacon
• Cocktail sticks

Slice the cheese and lay it between two slices of bread to make a cheese sandwich. Cut the crusts off and then cut each sandwich in half lengthways and slice it again three or four times across (depending on the size of the bread you’re using) to make ‘soldiers’ or finger-sized mini sandwiches. Using the flat of a knife blade, flatten out the streaky rashers, lengthening them and then cut into sections of three or four pieces per rasher (again, depending on the nature of the rashers you have!) so that each piece is enough to wrap generously around a finger. And then do precisely that, securing each in place using a cocktail stick. Repeat until you run out of stilton, bread, rashers or oven space.

Put them all in a baking tray lined with foil and bake them in the oven at GM6/200C/400F for 30 minutes. Peel them off the foil and serve with plenty of drinks – they’re pretty salty!

Cottage Pie

This morning it was an unbelievable 10 Centigrade, which is pretty Arctic by Emirates standards, although of course any passing brass monkeys are safe - it's only cold for us lilly-livered expats in our unheated villas... But it feels cold, so the comfort food push continues - and this recipe is pretty much perfect comfort food!
Cottage pie or shepherd's pie? People apparently argue about this, which goes to show that there are those with way too much time on their hands, but in my little world, cottage pie is made with beef and shepherd’s pie is made with lamb. Whatever. This is a smasher served with peas and a dark, rich gravy. I like to add a sploosh of truffle oil to the mash, just to make it all a touch richer and more wicked. Because we all secretly aspire to be rich and wicked…

Ingredients

• 500g mince
• 600g potatoes, peeled & cubed
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 50g smoked bacon
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 large mushrooms, finely chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 3 bay leaves
• ½ tsp dried thyme
• ½ tsp dried sage
• ¼ nutmeg, grated
• 50g butter
• 2 tsp tomato puree
• 100ml red wine
• 2 tsp tomato puree
• 1 tsp salt
• 100g cheddar, grated

Fry the mince to colour it and set aside. Fry the onion over a medium heat in a little oil for a while until it starts to colour and then add the bacon, mushroom, garlic and carrots. Turn the heat up and return the mince to the pan, mix it all up then sprinkle the flour, thyme, sage and bay and stir it all up. Add the chopped tomato, the tomato puree and finally the red wine and salt. Stir it all together and turn the heat to low and cook the mixture, covered, for a good 30-45 minutes.

Meanwhile, boil the potatoes (about 12-15 minutes) until they’re just softened and drain them. Leave them to steam, ideally in a strainer, so that they start to become fluffy around the edges. Mash them with the butter and nutmeg as well as some salt to taste and a good dash of olive oil. I like to add a splash of truffle oil at this stage, too.

Pour the meat mixture into a dish, topping with the potato mixture to coat the base evenly – do this by hand so that the potato stays light. Smooth the potato topping with a fork and then top it all off with the cheddar and a quite enormous amount of black pepper and then bake it in an oven at GM6/200C/400F for 30 minutes or until the top browns.

Beef Stew

Here's something to chase the winter weather blues away! When it's rainy, cold and generally crap outside, what you need is a really big beef stew - almost black, piping hot, thick, round and rich.

It almost hurts to chuck a whole bottle of fine ale (I heartily commend Fullers London Pride) into a stew, but the end result’s worth it, believe me. Serve this with peas and perhaps a little braised red cabbage for a hearty, winter warmer main course. You’ll find kecap manis (an Indonesian ingredient, it’s sweet soy sauce: soy sauce mixed with palm sugar) in the Asian food section of Spinneys and many other supermarkets. It’s worth buying as it’s fantastic stuff and can be used in a whole range of recipes - like sticky chicken!

If you're thinking that perhaps some of the flavours look a little brash (curry powder? Yup!), then don't worry. The cooking brings them all down into a fine, intense richness.

BTW: If you don't 'do' alcohol, then substitute a dark stock for the beer.

Ingredients

• 1 kg lean beef in 1-2 cm cube
• 800g potato in 2cm cube
• 2 carrots, roughly chopped
• 2 onions, roughly chopped
• 4 largeish mushrooms, roughly chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, crushed
• 500ml excellent ale
• ½ tsp curry powder
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp sage
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 tbsp kecap manis
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tsp salt

Dumplings

• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 50g light suet
• 100g self raising flour
• 5 tbsp water
• Pinch salt

Fry off the beef in small batches in a little olive oil over a really high heat to brown the cubes all over and reserve them in a roomy bowl. If you put too much beef in the pan at a time, it’ll stew rather than fry: about 4-5 batches is about right. Deglaze the pan with a splash or two of the beer and strain the resulting liquor into a handy bowl or jug.

Add the flour to the beef in the bowl and mix it up. Meanwhile fry off the chopped onions in the remaining oil over a medium heat so that they cook and start to brown but don’t catch and burn. Add the mushroom and turn the heat to high, throwing in the carrots, potato, the garlic and then the beef. Stir to combine and then rinse the bowl out with the beery liquor and then add this to the pan along with the other ingredients, including the rest of the beer. Give it all a good stir then cover the pan and turn the heat to as low as it’ll go and leave to cook, stirring every 15 minutes or so, for about an hour and a half or even, if you've got the time, two hours. Each time you stir it, throw away any water that’s collected on the lid of the pan.

Take the stew off the heat and let it gently cool down. When you’re ready to eat, mix the dumpling ingredients together, adding more water until you’ve got a firm dough: scoop the mixture up using two wet spoons and dump it into the reheating stew: you’re looking to get four dumplings out of this. Cover and cook for 20 minutes, then finish it off under a hot grill to brown the top of the dumplings. Serve with a really fat red wine!

Cauliflower Cheese

This is a straightforward enough recipe that results in a deliciously cheesy sauce around tender cauliflower that just demands to be served with warm French bread or warm crusty rolls - but with plenty of butter to hand!

Ingredients

• 1 large cauliflower, washed and cut into four pieces
• 2 oz butter
• 2 tbsp flour
• 500ml milk
• 100ml single cream
• 150g grated strong cheddar
• 1 small red onion
• 4 cloves
• 8 peppercorns
• 1 small carrot, thinly sliced
• 6 sprigs parsley
• 2 tbsp breadcrumbs
• 1 tbsp walnuts, chopped finely
• Salt and freshly grated black pepper

Mix together the walnuts and breadcrumbs, and toast them on a baking tray under a grill until the breadcrumbs brown. Set aside.

Peel the onion and stud it with the cloves. Add this, the peppercorns, the sliced carrot and the parsley to the milk and cream in a pan, and bring to a boil for five minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to one side.

Fill a large pan up to about a 5cm depth of water, add a decent pinch of salt and bring to the boil. Remove the green leaves from the cauliflower and chop them, and cut the cauliflower into four pieces. Add the leaves to the water, and the cauliflower on top of these, and turn the heat down to simmer for ten minutes. Drain, discard the leaves, and reserve on a dish in a low oven.

Strain the vegetables out of the milk and add the cream to it. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour and mix together over a low heat. Add the milk slowly, stirring to avoid lumps forming, and keeping the heat low. When all the milk has been added, turn up the heat and bring up to boiling point to thicken until the mixture will coat the back of a spoon lightly. Turn the heat to medium, add the grated cheese and stir until it has melted into the milk mixture. Pour this over the cauliflower, and sprinkle with the walnut and breadcrumb mixture and with plenty of freshly grated black pepper.

Show it to the grill for a minute then serve immediately.

Pork Fillet, Carrot Fondue and Sherry-Shallot Dressing

Do not be put off by the rather strange title of this recipe. It is really very simple, yet looks absolutely stunning as the colours are just fabulous and every time I have served this it has been a huge hit.

Ingredients serves 4

• 2 pieces of pork fillet (about 500g will feed four.)
• 6 slices of streaky bacon/parma ham/proscuitto
• 1 tsp chopped garlic
• 2 tbsp sherry

For the fondue

• 500g carrots peeled, chopped
• 1 onion chopped
• 50g butter
• 300ml double cream

For the dressing

• 200ml dry sherry
• 2 or 3 shallots peeled and sliced into ‘rings’
• 1 tbsp sherry vinegar
• 3 tbsp EV olive oil
• 1 tbsp brown sugar


And then you need to:


In a heavy saucepan melt the butter over a low heat, throw in the chopped onion and carrots. Put lid on and soften for about 30 mins until very tender. Add the cream and cook over low heat for a further 10 or 15 mins. You can play around with this and add all sorts of things; a mix of half carrots and half butternut squash is great. Adding 1 heaped tsp curry powder, or just cumin powder would also be great. Once cooked carefully pour mixture into food processor and whiz for quite a long time until very finely pureed. You want something that is quite sloppy and so add more cream if necessary. It should be just too thick to pour but not thick enough to stand up in a pile, it should sort of ooze over the plate!

Lay the slices of bacon/parma ham side-by-side on a board, place one pork fillet across the slices, spread 1 tsp chopped garlic along the fillet, grind some sea salt and fresh pepper over it, place the second fillet on top and then roll and wrap the bacon/parma ham around the two fillets. Place the pork fillets on a oiled baking dish, spoon 2 tbsp of sherry over the fillets, cover in foil and place in hot oven (400F/200C) for 30mins (take the foil off half way through the cooking time).

In a small saucepan put the sliced shallots and the sherry and bring to a gentle boil. Simmer until reduced to about 1 tbsp of syrupy liquid. Remove from heat and add vinegar, EV olive oil, sugar and seasoning. With a fork or whisk stir it all together.

To serve spoon some of the carrot fondue into the middle of a warmed plate, slice the pork fillet into “rounds” and carefully place in the middle of the carrot fondue. Drizzle a little of the dressing over each (it should sort of run all over the place) and serve to your lucky guests!

Simple and Quick Lamb Pie

This is a great dish to do with leftover lamb though you can of course use fresh; it is quick, easy and very tasty. It is also a great dish to play around with, add some vegetables, make it a little spicy, mix some herbs or something into the topping….whatever takes your fancy.

Ingredients, serves 4

• 500g cooked or fresh lamb
• 1 onion chopped
• 2 cloves garlic chopped fine
• 2 tbsp sherry
• 100ml lamb or beef stock
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• Pinch dried mixed herbs
• 1 tsp paprika
• ½ tsp pimenton
• Small handful of washed chopped fresh parsley
• 1 medium sized potato
• Breadcrumbs, enough to make a crust about 1.5 inches (3 cm) deep.
• 100g hard cheese (cheddar, gruyere) - grated

And then you need to:

In a small saucepan put the whole unpeeled potato, cover with water, add 1 tsp salt and bring to boil. Boil in water for 20 minutes.

In a heavy casserole dish heat a glug of olive oil, and gently sauté onions and garlic. If you are using fresh meat cut the lamb into smallish cubes and add at this stage. If you are using leftovers add a little later (see below).

Once the lamb/onions have cooked add sherry and stock and reduce by about half. Add tomato puree, pinch of dried herbs (rosemary, oregano, thyme, etc), the cooked lamb (if you are using the leftovers from a roast) and the can of chopped tomatoes. Simmer over low heat until the sauce is quite thick.

Cut the potato into thin slices. No need to peel.

In a food processor whiz up some breadcrumbs and then add the grated cheese. Whizz with a blade to mix thoroughly.

Remove the casserole dish from the heat, stir in chopped parsley, place the potato slices in a thin layer over the top. Sprinkle the breadcrumb/cheese mix over the potatoes and cook in an oven (175C/375F) for 40 mins. Keep an eye on it to make sure the top doesn’t burn.

Alternatives:

On top of the sauce and under the potatoes you could also place a layer of sliced aubergine. The aubergine will need to be sliced and gently fried in olive oil (then drained on kitchen paper) first because the cooking time might not be enough to do them properly.

You could add diced carrot, peas or some beans (cannellini, flageolet) to make it a more hearty pie.

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

If there is a dish more comforting than creamy mashed potatoes I don’t know what it is.

The way I make mine are not for the faint-hearted, and certainly not for those on any sort of low fat crusade. This dish is based loosely on the classic Irish dish of ‘champ’.

Ingredients

• 4 medium sized potato (1 per person).
• 2 spring onions, chopped very fine
• 1 tbsp cream cheese (Philly)
• 50g or a good sized knob of butter
• 100ml double cream
• A good grind of fresh black pepper.


Peel and chop the potato into quite small chunks. Place in pan of water, add a little salt, bring to boil and cook for about 12-15mins until soft.

In a small saucepan add all other ingredients and heat gently until butter and cheese has melted and you have lovely creamy mess. This process not only makes the mixing easier later but also cooks the spring onions a little bit and takes away some of the strong oniony taste.

When cooked drain the potatoes and put through a food ricer. I have a contraption that looks like a huge garlic press and it does a wonderful job. Using a hand held plunger type affair is never going to get a silky smooth finish I am afraid.

Add the cream/spring onion mixture and stir to fully incorporate. I personally like quite a sloppy consistency and so if the creamy stuff hasn’t quite achieved that add some fresh milk and mix again. You can also add fresh natural yoghurt, marscapone, creme fraiche, whatever you like really!

Strawberry Salsa

This should probably be filed under Californian, but the hell with them: I'm claiming it as British.

This salsa mixes the sweetness of strawberry with the bite of the vinegar and onions and a nice bit of 'erb. Great with chicken or fish and you can dice everything small and warm it all to make a drizzling sauce for grilled chicken, too.

Ingredients

• 1 small red onion, chopped finely
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp orange juice
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 tbsp chopped coriander
• 1 tbsp runny honey
• 2 tsp seed mustard
• 1 tsp grated orange peel
• 2 tsp chopped jalapeno peppers
• 200g strawberries, chopped

Reserve the strawberries. Throw everything else into a bowl, give it a good toss around and then fold in the strawberries. Job done!

Sage Derby Hotpots

Sweet potato, tangy cheese, cream and lots of pepper. That's all it takes, but the combination of flavours is daftly delicious. If you can't get hold of Sage Derby, a prince among cheeses, then try something really adventurous like a Dolcelatte! This will make four normal ramekins. When you're sweet potato shopping (the orange ones are always so much nicer than the white variety) try and bear the size of your ramekins in mind, as you're cutting rounds to fit.

Ingredients

• 150g sage Derby cheese
• 1 long sweet potato
• 4-6 tbsp double cream
• Black pepper

Heat the oven to 400F/200C/Gas 6. Take the black rind off the cheese and, as far as you can, because it’s quite crumbly/sticky, slice it thinly. Peel the sweet potato, and slice it into thicknesses of about 3-4mm. Now place a slice of the sweet potato on the bottom of each ramekin, then top this with cheese. Add a smattering of pepper. Place another sweet potato slice on top, and then cheese and then pepper. Repeat, until the last potato slice is tottering above the lip of the ramekin. Push the whole lot down firmly, and add a final layer of cheese. Now pour a generous tablespoon of double cream over the top and down the edges of the pushed in mixture, adding a little more cream if you think it’s necessary. Top with lashings of freshly ground black pepper.

Bake the whole lot in the oven for 30 minutes. Smile smugly at the compliments and make a note to self to post a 'loved the recipe' comment...

Quick Apple Chutney

This probably qualifies more as an apple sauce, but it's made in 2 minutes and made for serving with cold pork or as a side to a slice of hot black pudding laid on an oat cake with a salad dressing around it. Or as a tasty tidbit with cold roasted ham.

Ingredients

• 2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 125ml water
• 1 large spring onion, chopped
• 2tsp dried sage

Throw the lot into a heavy-based saucepan and boil it up, with the lid loosely over the pan, until the apples have absorbed the moisture. Give it the occasional mix up to distribute the sugar, sage and onion throughout. Serve warm or cold.

Mango and Lime Sorbet

With strawberry cream

This is a dessert sorbet: a soft, shandy-drinking Southern pouf of a sorbet, designed to nestle in a bed of fluffy strawberry cream like a pampered pussycat in a bean bag. Until you rip its head off with your spoon, of course. Try not to think about that when you're eating it...

Ingredients

• 1 large ripe mango, @500g
• 3 limes, zest and juice
• 225g caster sugar
• 500ml water
• 2 egg whites, beaten to soft peak
• 150ml double cream
• 8 ripe strawberries

Slice the mango in half and remove the stone. Scoop out the flesh using a serving spoon, removing as much flesh from the stone as possible, and then whizz the flesh. Place the water in a pan over a low heat, and dissolve the sugar in this. Add zest and juice of the limes and then heat, a softly rolling boil, if you please, for 15 minutes, then remove the pan and leave it to cool. Strain the mixture into your freezer bowl. Freeze. After about 2 hours, remove the mixture from the freezer, give it a quick bash to remove any crystals then fold in the egg whites, mixing them in thoroughly. Replace the sorbet in the freezer and re-freeze.

Whizz the strawberries and then strain to remove the pips. Beat the cream until thickened, adding the strawberry mixture slowly. Refrigerate, and serve the sorbet on a bed of the cream. If you can't get really ripe strawberries, consider throwing a tablespoon of honey into the cream mixture.