October 28, 2012
A cheap, tough piece of meat – brisket requires a nice slow cook to allow that toughness to give way to beautifully moist, fall apart meat. Cooking in the Sousvide Supreme allows you to cook the brisket for a couple of days at a low temperature – 56.5c. What to serve it with? Earthy flavours were the direction I took – a beef and mushroom sauce to coat the meat. Cannellini purée to add a nice nuttiness. Earthy beetroot with a slightly sweet twang and wonderfully sweet parsnip crisps to add a nice texture to the dish. Here’s what you’ll need For the...
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October 15, 2012
What to cook in my new Falk Culinair copper pan? It wasn’t really a difficult decision – Coq au vin was the perfect test – frying off the ingredients, cooking the chicken in wine and then finishing off the sauce would really let me see what this pan was made of. Here’s what you’ll need 1 chicken 1 tablespoon lardons 8-10 shallots 1 handful baby button mushrooms 2 cloves garlic 2 tablespoons brandy 1 bottle red wine Thyme, parsley + 2 bay leaves A small splash of balsamic vinegar A handful of chantenay carrots 3 or 4 baby leeks Olive oil Salt and...
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October 11, 2012
There’s obviously a reasonable amount of planning ahead when cooking your dinner for 48 hours – you need to anticipate what sort of food you’ll fancy eating in 2 days time. Nothing to worry about here though – is there ever a time when you don’t fancy eating a rack of Sous Vide Ribs? I think not. The process was made possible by cooking the ribs at a low temperature in the SousVide Supreme. You could of course cook them covered in a low oven but the benefits of cooking in a temperature controlled water-bath are many – You can...
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September 23, 2012
I used British rose veal in this dish – and so should you. I’ll spare you the ethical reasons for choosing this meat (there’s a perfectly good article here if you’re not yet up to speed on the subject). All I’ll say is this – this meat is beautiful in both taste and texture and Osso Bucco is the perfect way too cook it – the bone marrow melts into the sauce adding a beautiful, sweet flavour – how can that be anything but perfect. I bought my rose veal from these guys – hopefully it will become more popular...
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September 2, 2012
Shoulder of lamb… possibly my favourite piece of meat. The texture, the flavour – it’s ultra-classy. I’ve been cooking shoulder of lamb for years and have relied on my tried and tested method – cook at 170c, covered with foil, for 4 hours or so. It’s a beautiful thing. But – we can always go better and I’ve been meaning to try this cut on a lower heat for a longer cooking time for a while now. It also made sense to try a different cooking technique. This is how I cooked 10 Hour Shoulder Of Lamb. This lamb was cooked...
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August 16, 2012
This is a great way to use leftover stew – something like slow cooked oxtail would be perfect. Any sort of stew will work – I used a beef stew that I whizzed up slightly into a paste using a hand-held food processor. To make the pasta: I may make a separate post on pasta but this is a quick and dirty low-down. I use half “type 00 flour” (zero zero) and half semolina flour. For each 100g of flour I use 1 egg or 2 yolks depending on how rich/coloured I want the pasta. So – for example: 250g type 00...
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August 12, 2012
I was slightly reluctant to post my version of a beef chilli. Anyone who cooks will have their own chilli recipe with their own secret ingredients and their own secret method of cooking – chilli’s a personal thing! So – the reason I’m posting this isn’t because this is my normal method of cooking chilli but it was something I put together today with left-overs and the result was most pleasing. If you follow this recipe exactly, you’ll really need about 3 days to make it so might not be the snappiest dish to put together mid-week. The dish started...
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August 5, 2012
There’s actually a fair amount going on in this dish – chicken in an aromatic, pungent sauce but then there’s potatoes and peanuts and a slight smokiness from the black cardamom. First you need to make the paste: 2 cloves 1 stick cinnamon 1 tsp cumin seed 1 tsp coriander seed Dried chillies – as many as you think you’ll need I used 10, it was reasonably hot. Add as many as you can take. 1 tsp shrimp paste 2 sticks lemongrass, outer skin removed, chopped 1 thumb-sized piece of galangal, chopped A splash of fish sauce. Roast the spices gently in a...
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July 30, 2012
Those jelly stocks you can buy in the supermarket are actually pretty good – they give a decent depth to your food but I think they just don’t really taste, well, beefy enough. You need to control the stock yourself to get something that really has that beautiful beef taste. What you’ll need: Beef bones – I used leftover rib of beef – you can use uncooked bones if you can get them but there’s nothing wrong with using bones from cooked meat where you’ve not over-cooked them – the bones won’t have cooked too much first time round. 2...
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June 17, 2012
Oxtail is perfect for slow cooking, in fact, it’s pretty much the only way to cook it. On the bone it will be full of flavour and the gelatin will give a silky, rich sauce. For this dish you’ll want 2 decent sized pieces of oxtail per person. Preheat the oven to around 150c. First you’ll need to prepare the veg – carrot, onion and celery. Roughly chop the onion and celery – they will melt down in the cooking. The carrots should be cut with a little more care as they will retain their shape. Use an oblique cut...
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May 23, 2012
Fennel and lamb work perfectly together. The fennel has an almost medicinal flavour that cuts through the dark meat of the lamb. Both fennel seed and leaf can be used with lamb – in this recipe for Butterflied Leg Of Lamb With Fennel I used just the seed. I cooked this a few weeks back on the BBQ and it worked really well. Unfortunately summer seems to have come and gone in a matter of days so I’m back to cooking indoors. No problem though – it’s a good excuse to try this recipe on the griddle. What you’ll need: Leg...
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