Mama Dolson's Bakery & Hangout – When words fail us, food says love.
 

Divine slow cooked beef: stew or pie filling with pearl onions and mushrooms

| Comments Off on Divine slow cooked beef: stew or pie filling with pearl onions and mushrooms

This recipe makes beautiful slow cooked stew to serve over noodles or potatoes or even better filling for beef pies. I’ve taken my classic slow cooked beef stew recipe and added a Julia Child twist to it. One thing that makes Julia’s recipes taste fantastic is the separate cooking of key elements that are then combined at the end for maximum flavour. The recipe has 3 key processes: cook the beef, cook the onions and cook the mushrooms. These 3 elements are combined to make either fab stew or even better pie filling. I used my slow cooker for the beef but you could easily put it in the oven on a low heat. I do it in this in order: beef, onions, mushrooms.

Let’s get straight to the cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients – Main recipe

  • 1.25-1.5 kilos of stewing beef
  • flour for dusting, ground black pepper to taste
  • olive oil
  • 125 grams of lardons or chopped bacon
  • 1 large onion, halved and sliced
  • 3 tablespoons (45 ml) of brandy or cognac (I do use VSOP)
  • 2 bay leaves
  • a dozen whole black peppercorns
  • 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary or 1 tsp of dried rosemary
  • 250 mls concentrated beef stock
  • 750 mls good red wine

Instructions – main recipe

  1. Put slow cooker on high.
  2. Dust the beef with flour and black pepper (use a ziplock bag or a shallow plate) and place in the slow cooker.
  3. Heat the olive oil in a large flat bottomed skillet over medium to high heat. Add the lardons and brown slightly.
  4. Halve the onion and mandolin into thin slices directly into the skillet. Soften until translucent.
  5. Pour in the brandy, turn the heat to high and cook off the alcohol. When you can’t smell the alcohol, add the red wine and the beef stock. Again burn off the alcohol.
  6. Prepare a bouquet garni with the bay leaves, peppercorns and rosemary. Add to the sauce.
  7. Pour the sauce over the beef in the slow cooker. Cook on low/medium for 6 hours.
  8. The sauce should be quite thick by the end of the cooking time. If not, drain off the sauce and thicken on the stove top with a beurre manie (you know that thing that shouldn’t work but does).
  9. Combine the sauce, beef, onions and mushrooms (including cooking juices from both). Serve up over mashed potatoes or noodles. Or top with puff pastry and cook as pie.

Brown braised onions

Brown braised miniature onions

18-24 miniature onions

30 – 50 grams of butter, a shot of olive oil

125 mls of beef stock and red wine

A bouquet garni

  1. Peel the onions.  This is annoying so use this blog, it works great. https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/how-to-peel-pearl-onions
  2. Bring the butter and oil up to temperate in a skillet, add the onions and brown. 
  3. You will need to roll them around in the butter and keep them moving.  They won’t be perfectly even in colour.
  4. Add the liquid, salt and pepper to taste and the bouquet garni.  Simmer for 40/50 minutes.
  5. Put to one side with their cooking liquid ready to combine in your beef stew.

Sauteed mushrooms

250 grams of quality small mushrooms (double this recipe if you have mushrooms lovers in your house)

30-40 grams of butter

Splash of olive oil

2 tablespoons of finely chopped shallots (optional)

  1. Prep the mushrooms to a nice eating size, if small just remove stems, otherwise half or quarter.
  2. Heat the butter and oil.
  3. Add the mushrooms and shallots if using,
  4. Sauté for 2-3 minutes until browned but don’t overcook. 
  5. Put to one side ready to include in your beef stew.

Thank you for reading the blog and cooking the recipes. Please subscribe and share. Comments and questions welcome.

Roasted swede (rutabaga) cream soup

| Comments Off on Roasted swede (rutabaga) cream soup

We have a weekly delivery of box of organic vegetables. It’s a self imposed challenge to use up whatever they send. I’ve got 3 choices for ‘do not send’ – these are currently occupied by beetroot (beets you Americans), Brussell sprouts and avocado. It’s not just organic – they work hard on reducing the travel miles on the vegetables. Hence, the humble swede appears frequently in the box.

Why is it called rutabaga in America? And what is a turnip if its not a baby swede? Who knows, the weird and wonderful names of vegetables are beyond my expertise.

When a boring root vegetable appears – soup is the answer. Oven roasting does wonders for root vegetables going into soup, really adds a layer of taste. It’s worth the extra prep time and clean up. I like to really scorch the swede just to the edge of burnt. I did it by accident – oh the dangers of multi tasking a well known recipe – and now it’s required by the Davinator.

Handy tools for this recipe: parchment paper for roasting, a mandolin for slicing in the vegetables, a stick blender to puree the soup at the end. Or a good sized blender. Can also be done in a food processor but both of those alternatives add messy clean up steps.

I add croutons and sautéed chorizo to make the soup a meal. If you’re feeling a need for more vegetables, a green salad on the side would be lovely.

Make this recipe vegan by omitting the butter and avoiding cream or chorizo.

Let’s get cooking.

Ingredients

The recipe proportions are for 450 grams of swede. Adjust if your swede is larger or smaller. Usually larger, in my experience.

  • 1 swede, peeled and cut into 2 cm (1 inch) cubes
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 onion (mandolin into the soup or chop well)
  • 2 tablespoons of brandy (trust me)
  • 2 medium carrots (mandolin into the soup or chop well)
  • 2 stalks of celery (mandolin into the soup or chop well)
  • 1 tablespoon dried thyme
  • 1.25 litres vegetable stock
  • Optional garnish: cream, croutons, fried chorizo
  • Plain bread croutons – 6 to 8 generous sized croutons per bowl of soup
  • 50 grams of chorizo per bowl of soup

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 180C(fan)200C(nonfan)/400F
  2. Peel the swede and cut into 2 cm (1 inch) cubes
  3. Put some olive, salt and pepper in a bowl, add the cubes of swede and toss
  4. Line baking trays with parchment paper and put the well coated swede in a single layer on the baking trays. Don’t crowd the cubes together because then it steams more than roasts.
  5. Roast for 20 mins, remove, turn thoroughly with a spatula, return to the oven for another 20 minutes. Keep an eye on the swede, you want to caramelise not burn but the more brown the better.
  6. Meanwhile, heat another tablespoon of olive oil and a similar amount of butter in a large deep saucepan. Add the onions – either pre-chopped or mandolin. Cook over medium heat until well translucent. Pour the brandy or cognac over the onions and turn up the heat to burn off the alcohol. (Sniff the vapours, you’ll know when the alcohol is gone).
  7. Return pan heat to medium, add the carrots, celery and thyme. Cook for another five minutes, add the stock and the roasted swede.
  8. Bring to a gentle boil, cover and cook for 25-30 minutes. Turn the heat down once you’ve covered the mixture so it’s just ticking over.
  9. Purée the soup by your chosen method – if you tneed the exercise, you can put the soup through a ricer or a potato press as an alternative. Return the soup to the pan and cover while you prepare the garnish.
  10. If you’re adding chorizo, slice into diagonal rounds and add to a warm skillet, sauté to release the oil and throw the croutons in. The chorizo will shrink and look a bit dry but it makes the flavour more concentrated and the fried croutons are little flavour bombs.
  11. Serve in pre-warmed bowls, with a swirl of cream if you want and your choice of garnish.

Thank you for reading and sharing the blog and the recipes. Tag me on Twitter or Instagram @mamadolson if you post a photo.

Holiday Red Cabbage

| Comments Off on Holiday Red Cabbage

Red cabbage is a favourite of the Davinator and is always on our table at Christmas and Thanksgiving. It’s the perfect dish for holiday entertaining; easy to make, can be made in the days ahead, stores easily. It’s purple red colour looks festive and it is very low fat and high in fibre – a nice contrast with much of the rest of traditional holiday menus.

I make this on Christmas Eve or the day before and refrigerate it in the pot you cooked it in. If it’s cold enough, I leave it in the Davinator’s unheated workshop. It freezes well and makes a fantastic addition to a turkey sandwich on Boxing Day.

Useful equipment for this recipe: a substantial oven ready pot with a lid (le Creuset or similar), a hand held mandoline and an apple corer. I’m not an advocate of giving drawer space to single use gadgets but an apple corer is one of few exceptions – speeds up the preparation of the apples considerably.

Cabbages vary in size so the main ingredients are expressed in relation to the weight of the cabbage. The recipe is flexible and forgiving so feel free to omit or substitute the fruit, pears are also very nice.

Let’s get cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 red cabbage, approximately 1 kilo or 2 pounds, shredded with a knife

Onions or shallots; by weight 50% of the cabbage

Apples or pears; by weight 50% of the cabbage, cored and chopped small

1 clove of garlic, chopped small or forced through a garlic press

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

45 grams (3 tablespoons) brown sugar

50 mls (3 tablespoons) red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon of butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 150C (300f).
  2. Remove the tough outer leaves of the cabbage, quarter it, then coarsely shred with a knife and put to one side. I don’t use a food processor because it tends to produce tiny bits of cabbage and cabbage juice.
  3. Core and chop the apples, coat with a teaspoon of lemon juice, set to one side.
  4. Thin slice the shallots or onions (the mandoline is a life saver here).
  5. Mix the dry spices, garlic and brown sugar.
  6. Put 1/3 of the cabbage in the dish. Top with 1/3 of the apples, then 1/3 of the onions. Sprinkle with some of the spice mixture and repeat to use all of the ingredients.
  7. Cut the butter into squares and add to the top.
  8. Pour the vinegar over the top, put the lid on and put the pan in the oven,
  9. The cabbage will cook very slowly for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Take it out half way through, stir thoroughly, recover and return to the oven.
  10. Remove from the oven and keep warm until ready to serve.

Enjoy! Thank you for reading the blog and cooking the recipes. Share photos on Instagram or X (Twitter) tagging @mamadolson.

Five ingredient omelette.

I have a friend who loves food and hates to cook. By special request, I’m going to establish a special category of recipes on the website – known as the Love Food Hate Cooking recipes. Scrambled eggs on toast was the traditional default dinner of a busy single woman. My omelette recipe takes only a bit more time and effort but is extremely versatile.

The trick to the easy perfect omelette is to start it on the stove top, finish it under the grill and never ever flip it. All you need is butter, eggs, filling(s) and an oven proof skillet. The omelette above is made using crab, parmesan cheese and chives. It is infinitely flexible on ingredients and combination – any kind of cheese, protein that’s precooked (ham, smoked, salmon, thinly sliced sausage, cooked chicken, etc), vegetables that have been properly prepared. Both the recipe and method are straightforward.

I use a le Creuset skillet – they are expensive but stand the test of time. My youngest son is 25 years old and I have le Creuset cookware that predates him. There are other brands of enamelled cast iron cookware that will work well – the heavy bottom pan makes a difference.

Let’s get cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients – two servings

Butter, plenty of it

4 eggs

Tablespoon of dairy – milk, yogurt, cream – any unsweetened dairy (optional)

150 grams of crab meat

40 grams of finely grated parmesan cheese

Handful of chives

Method

  1. Beat the eggs with the spoonful of dairy. Including dairy makes the omelette a bit fluffy, it’s optional though.
  2. Melt butter in the oven proof skillet – plenty of butter to coat the bottom and sides of the skillet. Don’t let the butter brown.
  3. Turn the heat down to medium-low and add the eggs to the skillet. Cooking the omelette a bit more slowly at a lower heat keeps the eggs from turning tough or rubbery.
  4. Preheat your grill at this point.
  5. Cook until the edges and bottom of the egg mixture are starting to firm up. You should be able to run a rubber spatula around the edge. Carefully add the crab meat, then the cheese and herbs.
  6. Place under the grill and cook until lightly browned and fluffy. Depending on the heat of your grill – this is likely to be 5 to 10 minutes.

The omelette just before it goes under the grill.

Thank you for reading the blog and cooking the recipes. Let me know how it goes and send requests.

Strawberry Jam – Summer in a Jar

| Comments Off on Strawberry Jam – Summer in a Jar

Image by Roberto Barresi from Pixabay

I was nervous about jam and jelly until a friend said these immortal words ‘if it doesn’t set, pour it back in the pot and boil it some more’. That and a new sugar thermometer and I was off. We’ve had a great strawberry season in the UK – at one point strawberries were £2 per kilo ($1.15 per pound weight for los Americanos). I found sugar at a good price and I have made a lot of jam.

Don’t worry the Davinator will not be at risk from strawberry jam poisoning. The same friend doesn’t make strawberry jam or jelly so we have an exchange programme – I’ll trade strawberry jam and crab apple jelly for whisky marmalade and damson jam. Plus I take away her crab apples and make jelly with those. Crab apple jelly (recipe here) is the best combo with peanut butter.

Strawberry jam is traditionally ‘macerated’ overnight. Maceration means you cut up the strawberries, combine them with sugar and pectin and leave them to do their thing. Next morning they are floating in strawberry juice and ready to cook and jar up.

If you’re new to preserving, do your homework first. Youtube is full of ‘jam for beginners’ videos and there is a legion of blogs. My recommendation is to identify your ‘method’ and stick to it. I was making jam, jelly and preserves from a young age – my sisters and I were mom’s kitchen slaves. So I come to this with a fair amount of experience. Your first jam experience may well leave your kitchen looking like a bomb went off but every time after that it improves.

Gadgets do help with jam. Below left is my 2 bowl scale for weighing sugar and pectin separately and below right is a gadget that takes the stem and slightly fibrous centre out of the strawberries in one smooth movement. See the short video I made here.

The other gadget I highly recommend is a proper sugar thermometer – old school analogue that clips to the side of the pan. This is my new KitchenCraft. (other brands are available). It’s predecessor was so old that the numbers were unreadable. Why analogue? You will stand there waiting for your jam to hit 105C and you don’t want to be dipping your high tech digital gadget every 10 seconds. And there’s no annoying tiny battery that is always dead just because it is and it’s not a size you have. Trust me on this one.

Let’s get on to the recipe. My instructions assume some experience but not a jam maestro level.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 kilo of strawberries

750 grams sugar

Pectin

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Jars and lids for approximately 1,000 mls of jam.

Instructions

  1. 12 hours before (at least – I leave mine for 36 hours) hull your strawberries and cut large ones in half. If you’ve got giant ones, maybe 4 pieces. But the lovely thing about this jam is the chunks of strawberries so don’t go too small.
  2. Get your sugar and pectin ready. I use plain sugar and add powdered pectin. Pectin is necessary for this jam. You can also use liquid pectin or jam sugar which has pectin included. My preferred pectin has me adding 8 grams per kilo combined fruit and sugar so 12 -15 grams for this recipe.
  3. Stir the sugar and pectin into the fruit to coat well – avoid the temptation to eat the sugared strawberries. I use a ceramic bowl, I’m always nervous about letting fruit juice sit in a metal bowl. Cover loosely with a shower cap or plastic wrap.
    ************************** Next Day *******************************
  4. Find your jars, lids, jam funnel, tongs, ladle, wax circles, gloves for handling hot jars.
  5. Sterilise your jars – I run mine through the dishwasher and then put them in the oven at about 130C in a baking pan. I take the pan out and leave the jars in it as I fill them – it contains any mess. I put the lids in boiling water with the jam funnel then lift them out with tongs as I go.
  6. Tip the strawberry sugar mixture into a heavy pan – I use one of my le Creuset pots. Add the lemon juice and set over a low heat. Dissolve all of the sugar before you turn the heat up or you may have sugar lumps in your jam.
  7. Sugar all dissolved, it’s time for the scary part – boiling the jam mixture until it reaches 105C (220F) on your thermometer. There are other methods for checking the set – here’s one from BBC Goodfood. Personally I prefer the thermometer. n
  8. As the jam is boiling you can skim any scum that has risen to the top. Use a metal spoon, only do this once near the end – it reduces wastage.
  9. Your jam is ready to put in the jars – I have a pair of oven mittens that I use for this step (see photo below – gift from one of my sisters in Michigan) because they are flexible enough to allow me to use the ladle and tongs and insulated enough to protect my hands and wrists. Fill your jars, top with wax circles or liquid paraffin. Put the lids on and tighten as soon as you can handle the jars.
  10. Label your jars and remember to put the date on them. Your jam should last a year stored in a cool dark place. Refrigerate after opening is recommended. Jam doesn’t last long enough in this house to need that, though.

Don’t be tempted to double batch the recipe. It will be difficult to reach the correct temperature without scorching the jam. I tend to have two batches ‘working’ at the same time. One coming up to the boil and the other on a gentle simmer to dissolve the sugar.

Thank you for reading the blog – sorry its been so intermittent, it’s been a busy social and sporting summer here in England. Let me know if you try the recipes and have any feedback – I did leave out a crucial step in herby courgette bread until someone pointed out that at no point did it tell you to add the grated courgettes 😳.

Yet another courgette (zucchini) recipe! Why, you ask? It’s too early for garden glut. I have signed up for a veg box delivery service to help us eat more vegetables in the winter. There’s a couple of purple cabbage recipes on the way as well. Guess what there’s a lot of in the veg box – oh yes, courgettes.

This is a quick bread recipe, so raised with baking powder and baking soda, not yeast. I used buttermilk (full fat obvs) for my recipe but any fermented milk product will probably do the trick; Greek yoghurt, creme fraiche, sour cream. There’s no butter or oil in the recipe so it does need the fat from the dairy products to achieve a good texture. Keep an eye on consistency, I found this batter relatively dry. If yours is too dry to spread in the pans, thin it out with milk.

You can also be flexible with the herbs: I used dried basil and dried chives because that’s what I had in the cupboard. You can also try some garlic or add in a handful of finely chopped spring onions.

One ‘must’ with this recipe – use small (1 pound) loaf pans and line them with parchment or purchased paper liners. Otherwise – a sticky mess and possibly new pans in your future. Also, try disposable miniature loaf pans for single portions, reduce the cooking time. My recipe made 3 modest small loaves, you could possibly cram the batter into 2 small pans.

Let’s get cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients

450 grams of courgettes (2 medium)

1 tsp sea salt

125 grams of plain white flour

125 grams of whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)

1/2 tsp sea salt

2 tablespoons dried chives

2 tablespoons dried basil

150 grams cheddar cheese

3 large eggs

170 grams buttermilk (3/4 cup)

Instructions

  1. Grate the courgettes, add the teaspoon of sea salt, stir through, put in a colander in the sink and drain out the liquid. Leave for at least 30 minutes. When you’re ready to cook the recipe, put the courgettes in a clean tea towel and squeeze out the remaining liquid. Put to one side.
  2. Preheat the over to 180C (350F). Needs a lower temperature and a longer cooking time to bake through.
  3. Grate the cheese, put to one side.
  4. In a large bowl, mix together all of the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, baking soda, remaining salt) until well combined.
  5. Add the shredded courgettes to the dry ingredients, it should look like the individual shreds are coated with flour.
  6. Add the basil and chives (and any other spices of your choice) and the grated cheddar, combine with your hands or a baking whisk.
  7. Beat together the eggs and buttermilk, in a separate bowl.
  8. Fold the buttermilk and eggs into the dry mixture. As with any quick bread – do not beat or overstir, just until its combined. Makes it tough.
  9. Using your trigger scoop, fill your prepared pans about 2/3 to 3/4 full. If you’ve gone for fuller pans, line a baking sheet and put them on that. Unless you like cleaning your oven, you’ll be glad you did this.
  10. Bake for an hour in the lower part of the oven, if using 1 pound loaf pans, 45 minutes if using smaller loaf casings. It seems like a along time, but it’s a thick batter and needs the time to cook through. If the tops look too brown, cover with a piece of foil but don’t undercook.
  11. Cool completely before removing. Lovely with just butter. We also toasted and had with our boiled eggs in the morning.

Thank you for reading the blog and trying the recipes. Let me know how it went in the comments below or on social media @mamadolson on Twitter and Instagram.

This recipe is adapted from Julia Child’s classic recipe in ‘Master the Art of French Cooking’. You might want to read this blog also: The 10 Commandments of Coq au Vin but not until after you’ve made the recipe(s) below. There are three: the main coq au vin, the onions and the mushrooms. There is no ‘one pot’ short cuts here. Settle in and cook.

Ingredients – Main Recipe

4. ounces unsmoked bacon lardons

Butter

3 pounds of jointed chicken – legs & thighs with the bone in are best

Salt & pepper

½ cup of cognac

2 cups of decent red wine

2 cups of chicken stock (approximate)

1 tablespoon of tomato paste

1 clove of mashed garlic

1 bay leaf, 1 sprig of thyme

1 ounce of flour

1 ounce of very soft butter

Instructions – main recipe

  1. Cook the bacon in the butter in a deep cast iron stock pot, remove with a slotted spoon when crisp.
  2. Dry the chicken thoroughly, season with salt and pepper then brown the chicken quickly in small batches. 
  3. Heat the cognac in the microwave and return to the pot with the chicken and the bacon, VERY CAREFULLY flame the cognac.
  4. Turn the heat to low, pour in the red wine, enough chicken stock to cover the chicken, the tomato paste, garlic, bay leaf and thyme.
  5. Simmer slowly for 30 minutes or so until the chicken is cooked.
  6. Remove the chicken from the cooking liquid, cover and keep warm.
  7. Boil the cooking liquid down so there are about 2 cups left, remove the bay leaf and thyme.
  8. Make a beurre manie (combine the butter and flour) and whisk into the cooking liquid to thicken and make gravy.  It’s going to be a purple brown colour depending on your red wine. This is the thing that you think won’t work, but it does. 
  9. Return the chicken to the pot, add the mushrooms and the onions (see following recipes).  Bring up to heat and serve.

Ingredients – brown braised miniature onions

18-24 miniature onions

2-4 tablespoons of butter, a shot of olive oil

½ cup of chicken stock or red wine (or a combination of the two

A bouquet garni

  1. Peel the onions.  This is annoying so use this blog, it works great. https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/how-to-peel-pearl-onions
  2. Bring the butter and oil up to temperate in a skillet, add the onions and brown. 
  3. You will need to roll them around in the butter and keep them moving.  They won’t be perfectly even in colour.
  4. Add the liquid, salt and pepper to taste and the bouquet garni.  Simmer for 40/50 minutes.
  5. Put to one side ready to combine in your coq au vin.

Ingredients – sauteed mushrooms

½ pound of quality small mushrooms (double this recipe if you have mushrooms lovers in your house)

2 tablespoons of butter

Splash of olive oil

2 tablespoons of finely chopped shallots (optional)

  1. Prep the mushrooms to a nice eating size, if small just remove stems, otherwise half or quarter.
  2. Heat the butter and oil.
  3. Add the mushrooms and shallots if using,
  4. Sauté for 2-3 minutes until browned but don’t overcook. 
  5. Put to one side ready to include in your coq au vin
Pumpkins and gourds in an antique wagon.

Autumn has well and truly arrived; 3C here this morning. Time to get out the slow cooker and make some hearty food. I have a great butcher, Hatto & Son, specialising in meat from British farms. Some times I go with a list and some times I go in and see what looks interesting. One day there was goat meat, prepped for stewing. Of course I bought it. Oh happy accident that has resulted in one of our favourite recipes; slow cooked goat curry Jamaican style. If you can’t get goat or mutton, then stewing lamb is a good substitute.

The Davinator accompanied me on a business trip to Jamaica and we stayed in a quirky little place. The evening menu was soup, plus a choice of three main dishes. If there was goat curry, the Davinator chose it every time. There was a great cook in that kitchen – cooking her authentic heart out every night. This is my homage to her great cooking.

I put mine in the slow cooker but you can also use an oven proof stock pot and put it in a low oven. I make this recipe for 8 people and start it about 10 am for dinner at 6 pm. Let’s get cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients

  • 2 large onion
  • 15 cloves of garlic (you can omit)
  • 200 grams of ginger (I used pre-chopped from a jar, but fresh is amazing if you can get it)
  • 200 mls olive oil
  • 4-5 scotch bonnet chillies (see photo below) or equivalent heat
  • 1 tablespoon of dried curry leaves (worth finding and buying)
  • 6 thyme sprigs (or 1 tablespoon dried)
  • 8 tablespoons mild curry powder
  • 1.5 kilos goat or mutton diced
  • All purpose flour for dredging the meat
  • 2 cans (400 grams) chopped tomato
  • 500 mls lamb or beef stock (recommend lamb stock cubes if you can find them)
  • 2 cans of beans; pinto, kidney or black eye peas as you prefer
  • Lemon juice
  • Fresh cilantro (coriander)

Instructions

  1. Get your slow cooker out. Dredge the meat in flour and place in the dry bowl of the slow cooker or your casserole dish. Turn it to high while you prep the remainder of the ingredients. If using the oven, say 150C or 300F.
  2. Put the onion, ginger, chillies and garlic (if using) in your food processor or chopper and blend to a paste. As always, be very careful when working with fresh chillies. Use gloves or oil your hands beforehand and wash them thoroughly after. Do not touch your face!
  3. Heat the oil in a deep fry pan. Add the onion mixture and cook until softened: 5 to 10 minutes.
  4. Add the curry leaves, thyme, curry powder and salt (say 2 teaspoons). Cook for 5 minutes.
  5. Add the tomatoes and the stock. Bring to a boil, back down to a simmer and reduce for 10 minutes.
  6. Carefully pour the sauce over the meat and stir gently to combine.
  7. I cooked mine for 6 hours on ‘low’ heat, you know your slow cooker, adjust the time accordingly. For oven cooking – probably 3 to 4 hours.
  8. About an hour before the end of the cooking time, drain the beans and stir in. I remove the lid at this point to thicken up the sauce. Taste and see if you want more chilli and adjust accordingly.
  9. Add the lemon juice and coriander just before serving.

I serve with flatbread and rice; it’s tasty and rich. If you’ve gone a little overboard with the chilli, serve with a big scoop of Greek yoghurt to cool it down.

Thank you for reading the blog. Let me know if you’re cooking the recipes, publish photos and tag me @mamadolson on Instagram and Twitter.

Baked buffalo cauliflower

| Comments Off on Baked buffalo cauliflower

I love buffalo wings. I remember eating buffalo wings so hot it burned our lips and made us cry in the snack bar overlooking the ice rink at Rockefeller Center. If food had no consequences for weight or health I’m pretty sure I could live on buffalo wings, chocolate ice cream, deep fried zucchini and champagne. Sadly, this is not the case. I’ve had to seek out an alternative to buffalo wings. And inspired by the buffalo cauliflower (discontinued!) at Smith & Wollensky London, I’ve been trying out various methods for oven baked buffalo cauliflower. I do have a deep fat fryer but I’m afraid to try a deep fried version – it might be irresistible. So baked it must be.

Good news and bad news. Baked buffalo cauliflower tastes fabulous = good news. I cannot make it crunchy = bad news. My recipe below makes it less soggy and less messy but crunchy it is not. Still a great way to make cauliflower interesting (without cheese sauce and macaroni) and it’s relatively healthy.

There is a bit of ‘in and out’ of the oven with this recipe. And some tips to decrease the soggy quotient but it’s fairly simple. I started with a recipe from Cookie&Kate and adapted it for European ingredients, methods, measurements and eliminating garlic.

I use Frank’s Red Hot Sauce in my wings, feel free to use your favourite. Here’s a great article on hot sauce from Spruce Eats. Make it vegan by using your favourite butter substitute.

Make cauliflower interesting!

Recipe

  • 1 large head of cauliflower (kilo or more)
  • 15 grams or 2 tablespoons of corn flour (corn starch for Americans)
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon of ground cumin
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 3 to 4 tablespoons of your favourite hot sauce, to taste (see above for choices)
  • 30 grams unsalted butter, melted

Equipment

Four things can help with this recipe – it’s all about more crisp and less soggy.

  • Use a Ziplock bag to coat the florets with corn flour and spices.
  • Put parchment paper on your baking sheet(s)
  • Try using a fine mesh rack over the baking parchment
  • Use the fan oven

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 200C fan oven (220C no fan)(425F) with racks in the bottom half of the oven.
  2. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper to prevent the cauliflower from sticking. If you have fine mesh racks (say for cookie cooling or similar use those as well)
  3. Cut the cauliflower into florets no more than 5 cms (2 inches) in size.
  4. Put the cornstarch, cumin and pepper in a Ziplock. Shake to mix. Add the cauliflower florets and shake until well coated.
  5. Drizzle in the olive oil and toss again until lightly and evenly coated.
  6. Arrange the florets evenly across the prepared baking sheets. Space them out well – they would fit on a single baking sheet but spaced out gives a better result.
  7. Roast the cauliflower for 20 minutes on the lower rack, then gently toss. Return the pan to the lower rack and bake until the cauliflower is tender and golden, about 10 more minutes. 
  8. Meanwhile combine the hot sauce and melted butter. Whisk to combine. Taste, and stir in another tablespoon of hot sauce if desired. Once the cauliflower is golden, transfer it to the bowl and gently toss until the cauliflower is well coated. 
  9. Arrange the cauliflower on the pan in a single layer once again. Return the pan to the oven and bake until the cauliflower is blistered in spots, about 10 more minutes. Serve as desired with blue cheese or Ranch style dressing.

Thank you for reading the blog and cooking the recipes. Tag me @mamadolson on Instagram or Twitter if you’ve got photos. Leave your comments and ask your questions below.