Sunday 2 November 2014

Spiced Pumpkin Soup

One of my all time favourite recipes.  I'm not too big on hallowe'en but this just screams autumn and bonfire night to me...

This recipe's fairly forgiving, I've included a spiced vegetable stock but you can use any stock that you have to hand, or even a cube.  I usually use whichever pumpkin comes in my veg box, crown prince and red lantern give great colour, but butternut squash is always a good substitute.

For the stock
1 onion
1 head of garlic
2 large carrots
3 sticks of celery
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 star anise
1 stick of cinnamon
1.5l cold water

For the soup
2 onions
1 tbsp veg oil
1 large or 2 small pumpkins / squashes
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp garam masala
Salt to taste

Method

1) To make the stock, half the vegetables (wash but don't peel there's a lot of flavour in skins and the onions give it a good colour) and place all of the ingredients in a large saucepan.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 hours before straining.

2) Peel and slice the onions and sweat with no colour over a low heat in a large pan with the oil (5-10 minutes).

3) Dry roast the cumin and coriander seeds over a medium heat in a  frying pan until fragrant and then grind (skip this step and use ground spices if in a rush, but if you have the time you can taste the difference!).

4) Peel and deseed the pumpkin, cut into large dice.

5) Add the cumin and coriander once the onions have softened and stir, add pumpkin and stir to cover in the spice mix.

6) Add enough stock to just cover the pumpkin, put a lid on the pan, turn down the heat and simmer until the pumpkin is tender (around 10-15 minutes).

7) Blitz until completely smooth, adding a little water / stock if too thick.

8) Add garam masala and salt to taste, it may require a lot if you're using homemade stock, considerably less if using a cube.

To get all cheffy and ponce this one up a swirl of cream or yoghurt and some roasted pumpkin seeds on the top always look good.  A nice slice of homemade sourdough also goes wonderfully with the inherent sweetness of the pumpkin.

Enjoy, and let me know how you get on!

Sunday 8 June 2014

Barbecued mackerel

I love mackerel it's quite probably my favourite fish.  There is one caveat however, it has to be super, super fresh, if it's not super fresh, or if you have any doubt just don't bother.  This recipe can be used with any oily fish, it's great with herring or sardines (although the same freshness rule applies) or small, farmed sea bass and sea bream. I love to serve a whole fish with new potatoes and a char grilled salad (recipe soon to be posted!).

Ingredients (for 4)

4 very fresh mackerel, cleaned and gutted
4 cloves of garlic
4 sprigs of rosemary
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Directions

1) Take the mackerel from the 'fridge and season with salt and pepper inside and out.

2) Crush one clove of garlic (I'm using new season 'soft garlic' in the picture but ordinary garlic works just fine) and gently bruise the rosemary, place both inside the cavity of the fish.

3) Oil the outside of each fish sparingly and put onto a very hot barbecue or grill.  Even quite large mackerel will only a take a couple of minutes each side (do not overcook), obviously a largish bass will take a little longer.

I love the combination of smoke, oily fish, garlic and rosemary, it works well with added lemon and even mint for a north african / sicilian twist.

Tuesday 20 May 2014

(The best) Pulled Pork (Sandwich)

It seems that 'pulled pork' is everywhere these days, this is my very simple version that tastes great when assembled into a massive sandwich!

The only 'cheffy' twists here are making separate crackling and the long, slow cooking technique.  I thinks it's fine to bypass the first, but the second twist is essential to get anything that resembles pulled pork. This takes 12-24 hours to cook, so it does require a little forward planning, but scale the recipe up to a full shoulder (the cooking time remains the same) and it'll happily feed 10.

Ingredients (for 5-6 sandwiches)

Half shoulder of pork, ideally bone-in
1 tblsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried sage
1 tsp cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper
Cider vinegar
Splash of beer

And to complete the sandwich;
Sourdough loaf http://flavoursomefeast.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/sourdough-part-1.html
Tomato salad http://flavoursomefeast.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/tomato-mint-and-caper-salad.html
A few lettuce leaves
Mayonnaise and / or mustard

Method
1) Carefully cut the skin from the top of the pork, if the joint's been boned by your butcher then you may have to remove some string to this, that's fine it's all going to be pulled apart at the end anyway!  Try not to take too much fat with the skin or it won't crackle.  Spread out on a plate skin side up, ensure that it's completely dry and put in the 'fridge.
2) Preheat an oven to 220C whilst you combine all of the pork ingredients except the beer and cider vinegar and smear them lovingly all over the joint.

3) Place the pork inside a heavy casserole, leave the lid off and put it at the top of the oven for around 30 minutes until it's browning nicely.

4) Turn the oven down to 80-100C, add a splash of beer to the casserole, place foil under the lid to create a seal and return to the bottom of the oven for anywhere from 12-24 hours, it just gets better with time...

5) When you can bare the delicious smell no longer take the pork from the oven, it should look quite dark.  
6) Tip off the excess fat and shred the pork adding the cider vinegar and salt and to taste.
7) Place the pork back in the warm oven whilst you prepare the crackling.  Heat a grill to as hot as it'll go and smear the pork skin with vegetable oil and salt, place under the grill and leave until crisp.

8) Construct your monster sandwich and serve with the crispy crackling.

I love this dish, maximum flavour, minimum effort and great for sharing.  


Friday 21 March 2014

Jerusalem artichoke soup


This is the world's simplest soup to make, just beautiful nutty jerusalem artichokes cooked and blitzed in a tasty stock.  I used to think that life was too short to make stock at home but I now make almost all that I use.  I tend to buy only whole chickens and then joint them, saving the carcass and bones in the freezer for making stock.  The aromatics can be varied to your tastes, I usually add ginger, garlic and star anise if I'm intending to use the stock for an asian style broth.  A key is always not to salt until you use the stock as you then have a base that you can freeze and reduce without it becoming overbearingly salty.  If of course you hold with my former view you can easily use a stock cube, or when it's a big part of a recipe (as it is here) store bought fresh stock.

Ingredients

500g Jerusalem artichokes
2 onions, halved (skin on)
2 large carrots, halved (skin on)
4 sticks of celery
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 chicken carcass, raw or cooked (omit if making vegetable stock)
Small bunch of parsley stalks (optional)

Method

1)  Add all of the ingredients bar the jerusalem artichokes to a large pan.  Cover with cold water and bring to the boil.  Once just simmering skim any scum from the surface and simmer gently for 4 hours if making chicken stock, 1 hour if making the vegetarian option.  I cook on a range so I often leave stock on a very low heat in the oven for up to 24 hours.

2)  Strain the stock through a sieve and add 500ml to a saucepan, bring back to the boil.  You will have excess stock, freeze this for later use.

3)  Peel the jerusalem artichokes and cut into quarters, add to the stock and boil until completely soft, this should take around 30 minutes.

4)  Using a stick blender blitz until completely smooth and then add salt to taste (you will need more than you may imagine as the stock is entirely unsalted).

5)  I served this with a hard ewe's milk cheese on toast to bring out the sweet nutty flavour of the soup.

Use this stock to make gravies, soups and casseroles, it's always great to have some in the freezer and the ingredients are very flexible, so use any veg that you have in the 'fridge!

Monday 17 March 2014

Raw cauliflower salad


Another very simple post, almost too simple to be considered a recipe.  We have fantastic cauliflowers grown locally and in season, as I've stated before I'm a big fan of their distinctive flavour, be it roasted, in a curry as a classic cauliflower cheese (with a bit of truffle and jamon slipped in if I'm feeling cheffy).  However sometimes it seems a shame to do too much to that raw crunchy flavour and texture hence this very simple approach.

Don't worry if you don't have all of the ingredients, as ever experiment away.  Anchovies are a good substitute for capers, you can add a creamy or mustardy dressing if you prefer, cumin and paprika work well in there, as does chilli, basil, parsley and coriander.  I'm giving the recipe for the version pictured but I make it differently every time I do it.

Ingredients

1 small cauliflower
1 small red onion
1 tbsp capers
1/2 sweet red pepper
1 tbsp chopped mint
1 tbsp good rapeseed oil
1/2 tbsp cider vinegar
Salt and pepper

Directions

1)  Finely dice the red onion, cauliflower (stalk and all) and red pepper.

2)  Combine all of the ingredients, toss and taste.

It really is that simple.

Try, taste, and let me know how you get on!

Thursday 13 March 2014

Smokehouse at the Obar

This is a little bit of a departure for me. I was asked to review a local pop up and, to be entirely transparent, was offered dinner.  I went with the intention of being totally honest (dinner for two doesn't buy my loyalty) and so honest I shall be.

The Smokehouse is a US style barbecue themed pop up, upstairs at the Obar on Braunstone Gate in Leicester.  I agreed to review the restaurant after scoping the menu online. It looked promising and was limited to 4 or 5 small and large meals with optional sides all of which sounded tempting.  Anyone who reads my blog will know that I am a huge fan of doing a few things well with locally sourced ingredients and the menu delivered on this.

We arrived for dinner and ordered a pint, with chatty, friendly service we were taken up to our table.  The room was quirky with art for sale on the walls, mismatched furniture and blues playing at a respectable volume. In short there was a lot to like about it.
I ordered St. Louis cut barbecue pork ribs with a fennel and jalapeño slaw as I'm a sucker for a big chunk of meat on the bone. My other half ordered pulled pork and pork chilli, with garlic and rosemary mashed potatoes with house gravy (we'd read another blogger raving about the mash).  Our food arrived after a reassuring pause, with more good service.

My wife's pulled pork was incredibly, meltingly tender, delicately spiced and smoky, complimented by a tasty vegetable rich chilli and smooth buttery mash.  My ribs were big and meaty (due to the hard to get hold of 'St Louis cut'), crispy on the outside and subtly smoked with a heavier barbecue spice flavour. The ribs were delicious if a little tough, although as the flavour was so good this wasn't a major concern.  The fennel slaw worked perfectly with the pork and the jalapeño added a nice chilli spice kick.
Somehow we found space for dessert and shared a sticky toffee pudding with a salted caramel sauce spiked with bourbon.  This was a revelation and we fought over the last mouthful - enough said.

I think that the American barbecue theme worked perfectly here, the concept was a very good one and the food tasted wonderful.  I was glad to see that there was no option for the ubiquitous 'fries' on the menu as they really weren't required when there were so many interesting tasty alternatives. Fries would be doing the rest of a menu a disservice.  As you'd expect from somewhere that was primarily a bar, there was

a great American craft beer list to go with the food.

With drinks our dinner for two came in at £40ish, a reasonable price point for well executed, great quality food.

Monday 10 February 2014

Vegetable red curry

A slightly more in depth recipe this week, and I can make no great claim for authenticity, but this is a delicious, simple, tasty curry.  You could add chicken or seafood to the curry sauce for a meaty alternative and obviously any seasonal veg can be used.

Ingredients (to serve 4)

2” piece of fresh ginger
5 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
3 red chilis (dried or fresh)
1 heaped teaspoon of paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp shrimp paste (or use anchovies and extra fish sauce)
1 tblsp vegetable oil.
1 tblsp Thai fish sauce
1 tblsp brown sugar
1 lime
1 can of coconut milk
300 ml veg stock
1 squash or small pumpkin
5 carrots
1 Cauliflower

Directions

1 Take all of the ingredients down to the shrimp paste, add to a food processer and blitz to form a fine paste, adding a little water if necessary.

2) Heat the vegetable oil to smoking point in a wok and then stir fry the paste until starts to release a wonderful aroma (2-3 minutes) do not allow it to burn.

3) Add the coconut milk and stock to the wok and stir to combine, bring back to the boil.

4) Deseed the squash and add in chunks, along with the peeled, chunked carrots.  Allow to cook for around 10 minutes before dividing the cauliflower into florets and adding to pan.

5) Cook until the vegetables are as you like them, add the lime juice, sugar and fish sauce and taste for seasoning.  The curry should be sweet, sour, hot and salty, add more lime / sugar / fish sauce to taste.

Serve this curry with rice, if you have kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass they’re a great addition to the sauce and paste.  Galangal is great in place of the ginger but I often have difficulty finding this, and the substitutes listed give a good store cupboard alternative.


Tuesday 4 February 2014

Roasted winter vegetables (with or without sausages!)

This is another veg box favourite, the winter vegetables are so delicious that they need little more than some time in the oven, oil, salt and pepper.  Obviously the vegetables are a movable feast, just use whatever you have in appropriate quantities.  I often add some Lincolnshire sausages and then a little flour and stock towards the end of cooking to produce a kind of one pot sausage casserole…

Ingredients (to serve 4)

1 squash or small pumpkin
2 large onions
1 Celariac root
1 Swede
4 medium sized potatoes
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Directions

1) Preheat the oven to 220C. Peel the celeriac and swede, wash the potatoes and wash and deseed the squash / pumpkin.  Peel the onions and cut into segments (like an orange).

2) Mix the veg together in a large, heavy roasting tray, season well and add two tablespoons of olive oil.

3) Roast for 1 hour, turning occasionally until all softened and lightly browned.

Serve as a side dish or a snack.  Alternatively go down the sausage route and have a wonderful winter warming main course…

Enjoy, and let me know how you get on!