Category: Main course

The weather here in London is turning towards autumn after a summer that we hardly noticed. It’s time for some easy to cook comfort food. One of our family favourites is slow cooked lamb with prunes and pearl barley. It’s a classic one pot meal – well it’s two unless your slow cooker has a sauté function. Put it on in the morning and it’s perfect for dinner plus leftovers.

I have an amazing slow cooker that will brown and also make the sauce. If yours doesn’t have that function then make the sauce separately in a deep fry pan and add to the lamb in the slow cooker.

I use lamb shanks then strip the meat off them. It will also work well with a lamb shoulder or lamb neck. The recipe is for 6 lamb shanks, a generous two kilos with the weight of the bone or approximately 1 kilos if just using stewing lamb chunks. Ginger, saffron and the sweetness of the prunes gives this dish a Middle Eastern vibe. Adding the pearl barley a couple of hours before the end allows the barley to soak up all the juices. The recipe feeds 8 people with leftovers.

Recipe

Ingredients

6 lamb shanks

300 grams prunes

4 large shallots or an onion, chopped very fine

2 carrots, chopped very fine

45 mls (3 tablespoons olive oil)

Pat of butter

250 mls dry white wine

30 grams minced ginger (I use the jarred stuff for ease)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1/4 teaspoon saffron threads

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 litre (4 cups) lamb stock or chicken stock

250 grams of pearl barley or long grain rice.

Preparation

1. Put the saffron in a small amount of hot water. Sauté the onions, carrots and ginger in the olive oil with butter, until well softened. Add the white wine, cook at high temperature until all the alcohol in the wine has evaporated. Add the spices including the saffron and its liquid. Add the stock and bring to a simmer.
2. Pit the prunes and rough chop into halves. Put the lamb and the prunes in the slow cooker. If lamb shanks, stand them upright in the slow cooker with the bone ends up. Pour the sauce over the lamb. Cook on a low setting for six hours. Add the pearl barley or the rice about two hours before the cooking time is up. The barley will absorb most of the cooking liquid. Remove the lamb, bone it and return it to the slow cooker.
3. Allow the stew to cool for 20 to 30 minutes. You could add some mashed potatoes or Yorkshire puddings but I usually serve with a green salad or cooked green beans and a nice côte du Rhone.

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Roast leg of lamb has been an Easter tradition for longer than there’s been Easter. The tradition of lamb as a celebratory meal is as old as Passover. The Jews in captivity in Egypt marked the doorposts with the blood of a first born lamb so that the plague of the first born ‘passed over’ their houses. But it’s also a practical tradition, particularly in the northern hemisphere when lamb is readily available in the spring.

A fun fact about lamb – it’s the only meat (excluding poultry) that’s not banned by a major religion. And Americans eat much less lamb than Europeans. Several historical reasons for this: the rise of cattle ranching in America (sheep make pasture unsuitable for cattle for months) and the presence of more predators. Remember, Europe has been largely settled and agrarian for much longer.

Leg of lamb is nice but the first time I put a lamb shoulder in my slow cooker – I was a convert. I’m a big fan of slow cooking and making a stew that can be frozen in batches makes more sense this year when it’s just two of us. I have a CrockPot slow cooker that sautés as well as slow cooks. It makes this a genuine one pot dish. You can also make the sauce in deep frying pan on the stove.

There are a couple of variations to ‘finish off’ the stew. I prefer adding pearl barley towards the end of cooking – it takes care of the carbs and the pearl barley freezes well. You can also thicken the stew with either cornstarch or beurre manie, as you prefer.

Let’s cook.

Ingredients

Lamb shoulder, 2 to 4 pounds, jointed so that it fits in your slow cooker

20 pitted prunes

Mild olive oil for sautéing

1 clove of garlic minced fine (optional)

Salt and pepper

1 chopped onion

2 chopped carrots

1 tablespoon minced ginger (I buy mine in jars, can’t be bothered to keep fresh ginger in the house)

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

300 mls red wine (I like Beaujolais or a young Burgundy)

300 mls lamb stock or chicken stock if you can’t get lamb

200 grams or 1 cup of dried pearl barley (if using)

Instructions

1. Heat up the slow cooker.
2. Make the sauce, either in the slow cooker or in a deep fry pan on the stove. Heat olive oil, add onion, carrots, garlic, ginger, cinnamon and a twist of salt and pepper. Cook until the onion is translucent.
3. Add the wine, increase the heat and burn off the alcohol. Add the stock and bring to a boil.
4. Combine sauce, lamb and prunes in the slow cooker. I cook this for 6 hours on high in total but you’ll know how your slow cooker works.
5. About 90 minutes before the stew is done add the pearl barley, make sure it’s submerged in the sauce.
6. When complete, gently remove the lamb from the slow cooker, it will be falling off the bone. Allow it to cool until you can handle it, then shred it – use two forks to pull it off the bone. Return the meat to the sauce and it’s ready to serve.
7. If you haven’t used the pearl barley, the sauce will be thin. You can thicken as normal with corn flour (cornstarch to Americans). Here’s a link to BBC Good Food. Or you can beurre manié. Here’s a good description of how it works.

I serve this with some roast vegetables on the side. If you haven’t added the pearl barley, combine with your carbs of choice; mashed potatoes, rice or couscous.

Thank you for reading the blog. Let me know how it goes if you cook the recipes, find me on Twitter or Instagram @mamadolson on both.

I fail spectacularly at absolutes. ‘Janu-dry’ in our household has lasted – once – until 20 January. Now we practice ‘Janu-less’ and only have wine with our meals twice a week. Same with ‘veganuary’. I’m happy that I got the Davinator to embrace ‘meat free Monday’, essentially by not telling him it was happening. One of the kids ratted me out but now he rolls with it. So vegananuary is not going to work in our house. But I wanted to get more vegetables into our diet.

I’m a fan of positives and my January resolution is to have more fun with vegetables. There’s a long back story about my love hate relationship with vegetables. Netting it out – I grew up in farm country and we had a large kitchen garden. I was used to eating what had just come out of the garden or had been preserved (frozen, canned, stored) within hours of harvest. That was my experience of how vegetables should taste. That was not what I encountered in the wider world and I ate vegetables but didn’t enjoy them.

So, I’m trying to make vegetables interesting and exciting without breading and deep frying them (the Italian method) or shredding them into cake. Ironically, this recipe is an onion tart mimicking tarte tatin. It uses the same technique to make onions into an exquisite savory dish. Here’s a link to my tarte tatin recipe if you really want to make a dessert.

I must confess – I love this onion tart. Even the first attempt was excellent and I’m going to work on a couple of refinements. I started with a recipe from Delia Smith’s Winter Collection and there are many fabulous recipes there. Perfect for Lockdown 3.0

Equipment for this recipe: you need a round 9 inch pan that can go from the stove top to the oven and back again. I love my le Creuset pans. They are expensive and you might look for good quality clones ( enamel covered cast iron – still will be pricey) but I’ve got le Creuset pots and pans that are older than my children. You can do this with a sturdy cake or pie tin but it will be more difficult to handle. A pastry blender also comes in handy or you can use your food processor.

This a great recipe to brush up your onion cutting technique. You’ll find a lot of advice on how to cut onions without serious crying and honestly not many of them work that well. I use a combination of techniques: peel the onions but don’t cut them until you’re ready to use them, turn the extractor fan on high and cut nearby, throw the waste into a compost caddy with a lid after each cut and rinse your knife and cutting board from time to time. Also, I keep a candle burning nearby – but this is probably just superstition.

There’s an easy vegan flex for this one – use your hard fat of choice (should be firm at room temperature) to substitute the butter. Vegan cheese for the crust.

Time to make ourselves cry……

Recipe

Ingredients – tart

• 1 kg onions (red or white) of fairly uniform size, mine were on average smaller than a tennis ball
• 50 grams of butter
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• Fresh thyme if you have some but dried also works fine
• 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar (use the good stuff but sparingly)
• salt and pepper

For the pastry:

• 75 grams wholemeal flour
• 50 grams plain white flour
• 50 grams chilled butter (grated)
• 25 grams (grated)
• 1 teaspoon chopped thyme

Instructions – onions

1. Prep your onions. Remove the outer skin. Trim any roots very close to the body of the onions. Put to one side. We will cut them just before we place them in the pan. Turn your oven on to about 180C (160C fan).
2. Place the pan over a medium heat melt the butter. Add the sugar to the melted butter.
3. When the sugar is blended and the mixture is bubbling, scatter six sprigs of thyme (if fresh) or a tablespoon of dried.
4. Begin cutting your onions in half and arrange them cut side down on the base of the pan. Think about doing a jigsaw puzzle as you place the onions. Once you have can put anymore halves in, start cutting wedges to fill in the gaps and the sides. The cut sides will be showing when you flip the tart so this is the moment to make it pretty.
5. Seasons the onions with salt and pepper and then sprinkle in the balsamic vinegar. Turn the heat down under the pan and let the onions cook very gently for about 10 minutes.
6. Put the lid on the pan or cover it with foil. Place it on the middle shelf in the oven and leave it cook for an hour.

Instructions – pastry & assembly

1. Combine the flours, butter, cheese in a bowl with a pastry blender or in your food processor. Pulse or blend until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add cold water, a tablespoon at a time until it forms a soft dough.
2. Gather the dough and place it between two sheets of cling film. Roll into a 10 inch round. Tuck the cling film around the dough and put it in fridge to chill. egradually add enough cold water – about 2-3 tablespoons – to make a soft dough.
3. Test the onions with a skewer at the end of the cooking time. They should be cooked through but still have texture and shape.
4. Move the pan to the stove top, turn up the oven to 200C.
5. Cook the pan on the stove top to reduce the onion butter juice. Try medium heat, keeping a close eye on the onions so that they don’t scorch. You’re aiming to reduce the juice to a syrup. This might take ten minutes.
6. Take your dough round out of the fridge. Take the pan off the heat and carefully fit the pastry over and around the onions. Tuck in the edges around the inside of the pan.
7. Put the tart back in the oven on top shelf and bake it for another 30 minutes until the pastry is crisp and golden. Remove from the oven and allow it to cool for 20 minutes before flipping it. Loosen the dough around the edges if it’s stuck.
8. Find a flat plate or a cutting board. Get your oven mitts or other protection for your hands. Place the plate over the tart, take a deep breath, hold it firmly and flip it over. Be bold!
9. Some of the onions might stick to the pan or become disarranged when flipping. Just pick them up with tongs or a spoon and fit them back into your tart.
10. Voila – Red Onion Tarte Tatin!

I’m going to work on some flexes for this recipe – I fancy using concentrated beef stock instead of balsamic vinegar. Also, changing the spices. I’ve been enjoying this tarte cold as snacks and with some cheese on the side as a meal. There are no Davinator remarks because – he’s very sensitive to onions and so this one is just for me.

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We’ve had a pretty good summer in the UK. Okay, an entire test (cricket match) was essentially rained off, but in general it’s been good. Plus a couple of weeks of Indian summer in September. But it’s all change now and we’ve gone roaring into autumn – cool, windy, frequently overcast. Time for the first log fires, turning the central heating on and to make some comfort food.

This recipe is an easy low input recipe that uses your slow cooker or a low oven. Fifteen minutes early in the day gets you classic comfort food for your supper. Cooking time is a 6 to 8 hours depending on your cooker. The ingredients are simple and there’s not much special prep required. I make this is big batches, it freezes beautifully. Home cooked portioned meals in the freezer are a gift to yourself.

I use beef shin, on the bone, sliced about two inches thick by my butcher. Any beef suitable for stewing will produce good stew and feel free to substitute it for the beef shin. However, the marrow in the bones gives a lovely unctuous texture to your finished stew. I find it easy to fish the bones out at the end with any sinew or connective tissue that hasn’t fully dissolved.

I don’t brown meat when adding it to a slow cooked stew. What it the point of possibly toughening the meat to make it that little bit browner? Good quality beef stock will take care of that for you. Unusually, this stew has no wine or stout. I add pearl barley to the stew towards the end. It does a lovely job absorbing all the lovely juices. Give this versatile grain a try, lovely in stews.

Let’s get cooking.

Ingredients

• 2 kilos of beef shin (including the weight of the bones) or 1 to 1.25 kilos of stewing beef
• flour for dusting
• olive oil
• 1 large onion, halved and sliced
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped fine (optional)
• 4 carrots, sliced
• 200 grams (one cup) of dried pearl barley
• 2 bay leaves
• a dozen whole black peppercorns or 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary or 1 tsp of dried rosemary
• 2 litres of beef stock
• salt, to taste

Method

1. Lightly dust the beef in flour. Place in the slow cooker in a single layer. If using the oven, use a large oven proof casserole, preferably deep.
2. Heat olive oil with a small knob of butter in a skillet. Sauté the onions and the garlic until well softened and started to brown. Add to the slow cooker or casserole.
3. Add the beef stock. It should cover or come to the top of your beef pieces.
4. Make a bouquet garni with the bay leaves, peppercorns and rosemary. If using ground pepper and dried rosemary, add all directly to the stew. Just keep an eye out for the bay leaves later.
5. Put your slow cooker on medium, or your casserole into a 140C oven and go about your life.
6. After four hours or so (no need to be precise) add the carrots. Two hours later, add the pearl barley. If you’ve decided against the pearl barley, make up some mashed potatoes or pasta when you’re ready to eat.
7. The sauce may need thickening if you haven’t used pearl barley. An hour or so before serving, either thicken with cornstarch or beurre manié. Beurre manié is one of those things that you won’t trust until you’ve tried it. Good explanation here.

Lovely with a robust red wine, some crusty bread and green vegetables on the side. Thank you for reading, sharing and commenting and for cooking the recipes.

Summer time means time to eat more vegetables. Warm weather and lighter food go together. Also, I grow vegetables with varying degrees of success. Still not sure why given my childhood memories of vegetable garden serfdom. This recipe is a great ways to use what you’ve grown plus a few store cupboard staples to produce satisfying yet light food.

I was challenged to eat ten different vegetables in a single day – this recipe was the result and knocked out 8 vegetables in a single recipe. It was a Davinator favourite from the very first taste. It keeps well in the refrigerator for two or three days. I have not tried to freeze this. I’m not sure that freezing is a great choice because it will have a negative impact the texture of the chickpeas and the potatoes. But needs must sometimes.

The recipe is very flexible – the crucial elements are chickpeas, tomatoes and potatoes. Beyond that feel free to improvise. It is easy and forgiving to make a double batch as well.

I use my slow cooker for this and it takes 5 to 6 hours. You could also use a covered casserole in a low to moderate oven for the same time. Slow cooker does not heat up the kitchen in the same way.

Let’s get cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 400 gram can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 400 gram can of chopped tomatoes or 6 fresh ripe tomatoes peeled and chopped
• Olive oil for sautéing vegetables
• 2 garlic cloves peeled and crushed or chopped fine
• 2 onions peeled and sliced
• 4 celery sticks, sliced
• 4 medium carrots, scrubbed and sliced
• 1 pepper (red, yellow or green) cored seeded and chopped
• 1 tsp mixed herbs (use any mixture of oregano, thyme, basil)
• 225 grams of potatoes in 2 cm pieces (if using new potatoes or young potatoes a good scrub is enough, don’t peel them. More mature potatoes you might want to peel)
• Vegetable stock cube or 1 tsp of loose stock granules
• salt and pepper to taste
• Chopped olives and either crumbled feta cheese or Greek yoghurt to serve).

Instructions

1. Heat the olive oil with a small knob of butter in a large deep skillet until warm. Get your slow cooker or casserole dish ready.
2. Add the garlic, cook over low heat until softened.
3. Onions next and turn up the heat to medium. (Tip – I use a handheld mandolin and slice many of the vegetables straight into the pan. I dislike extended vegetable prep and this speeds things up). Cook until softened and starting to turn transparent.
4. Add the celery, carrots and pepper. Continue to cook over medium heat. I often pour a generous slug of brandy over the vegetables at this point and turn up the heat to high until the raw alcohol smell has gone.
5. Add the stock cube and a bit of water to soften it. When your stock cube has dissolved pour in the tomatoes with their juice. If you used fresh tomatoes, add a quarter cup of water. Bring the mixture to a simmer.
6. Transfer to your slow cooker or oven proof casserole. Stir in the potatoes, chickpeas and herbs.
7. Wait. Your kitchen will start to smell great. Stir from time to time and take a sneaky taste. It’s ready to eat when the potatoes have reached a good eating consistency. Correct salt and pepper, if necessary.
8. Serve with Greek yoghurt or feta cheese and a handful of chopped olives. Lovely with a chunk of crusty sourdough bread.

This is an easy recipe to adapt for vegans. Eliminate butter and make sure you’re using vegan stock cubes. Then consider your toppings. A vegan yoghurt or cheese would be perfect.

Thank you for reading, commenting, sharing and cooking the recipes. Your feedback is what makes blogging worth doing.

Ratatouille is a classic vegetable stew from the south of France. Don’t show this blog to any French people you know because we’re going to colour outside the lines with ingredients and preparation methods. Recipe is great for the vegetarians and vegans. We are trying for zero food waste and fewer trips to the market for ingredients so this recipe is all about flexibility.

Side note: Ratatouille, the movie, is one of those Pixar cartoons that’s secretly aimed at adults but also amuses children. We’ve got access to Disney+ while our son is home from university and we are shamelessly exploiting it. In the movie, they make an incredibly posh nouvelle cuisine version of ratatouille. We’re not cooking that today. There are posh versions – carefully colour coordinated and layered. That’s cooking as performance art and nobody has the time for that.

The beating heart of ratatouille is aubergine (eggplant you Americans) and tomatoes. Those are the only two mandatory ingredients for me (ducking now while purists hurl things at me). Most ratatouille also includes bell peppers, courgettes (zucchini again for you Americans), onions and garlic.

I consulted the hive mind of Twitter for other things you can and cannot put in ratatouille. No support for root vegetables (I suggested parsnips and carrots) and that includes potatoes, sweet potatoes and radishes. In fact several Tweeters more or less accused me of cooking heresy. Also beans (as in pulses) are verboten. I would tend to avoid cabbage as it has a strong taste and it needs bacon to make it edible. Cucumbers have so much liquid I would also avoid them.

Things you can put in ratatouille – pretty much any other vegetable in just about any form. Frozen mixed veg, corn from cans, summer squash, pumpkin, leeks, shallots. Kale, spinach and other sturdy greens are also acceptable. Go for it.

I consulted my vegetable drawer and my store cupboards and my latest ratatouille had one aubergine, two tins of tomatoes, one red bell pepper, 2/3 of an orange bell pepper, one truly ancient courgette, some leeks and assorted onions (one Spanish, two white ones). I found some dried basil in the store cupboard that expired in 2007. 2007. Used that too.

I’ve included the ingredients in the recipe in the order that I put them in the pot. I use a large deep enamelled cast iron soup pot, don’t use aluminium – it doesn’t like the acid from tomatoes. You can find hundreds of ratatouille recipes on line – this one works for me.

Recipe

Ingredients

• olive oil to coat the bottom of the pot
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped fine (I don’t cook with garlic but its widely used)
• 2 medium onions, peeled, halved and sliced thinly (I use a hand held mandolin and slice them directly into the pot)
• 2 bell peppers, cored seeded and chopped into cubes of about 1.5 cm (half an inch or so) pieces
• 1 medium aubergine (eggplant) chopped into cubes, same size
• 1 medium courgette (zucchin) chopped into cubes, same size
• 2 tins of chopped tomatoes with juice or 6 fresh tomatoes, cored and seeded
• bunch of fresh basil or 2 tablespoons of dried basil
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Coat the bottom of the stock pot with a generous layer of olive oil and heat until it smells sweet (medium heat). Add the garlic, give it a couple of minutes.
2. Add the sliced onions, stir to coat with oil and cook until they begin to soften, about five minutes
3. Repeat with the bell peppers, then the aubergine, then the courgette.
4. Add the tomatoes and stir to coat. Bring to a slow simmer and cook for about 20 minutes once simmering.
5. Watch to see that it doesn’t get too dry and start to stick to the bottom of the pan. Cautiously add water if it looks dry.
6. About 5 minutes before it’s finished add the basil (chopped if fresh) and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve up with your favourite carbohydrate base. I’ve seen the Davinator eat ratatouille on bread, pasta and mashed potatoes (not all at the same time). It’s been eaten as a breakfast dish with a couple of fried eggs as well.

It will last several days in the refrigerator.

Thank you for reading, commenting, cooking the recipes and for sharing on social media.

We are only four people in social isolation in our household: the Davinator plus younger son and his roommate from university. The Davinator is the middle of a big building project (redoing some of our hard landscaping) and is eating accordingly. University students are Olympic standard eaters. A fair amount of catering to do and I was looking for things that can be precooked and served in different ways. Meatballs are the answer.

Meatballs are easy for non-expert and ingredients are flexible. Kids seem to love them and there are many ways to serve them. The more expert a cook you are, the more confidence you’re likely to have with substitutions and changes. I go over each ingredient below to help you figure it out.

Meatballs are minced (ground) meat, usually mixed with bread crumbs, egg and seasonings. My recipe calls for Parmesan cheese but this is a lovely addition and not vital to the recipe. Remember google is your friend so just ask ‘substitutes for……’ and see what comes back.

Meat

Use any type of minced or ground meat. My favourite is 50/50 beef and pork. Lamb, chicken, turkey and even sausage meat bought in bulk or squeezed out of the casings. I’m guessing you could make duck meatballs if there’s such a thing as ground duck. Be aware of how much fat you’ve got in the meat, ultra lean meat like chicken or turkey won’t hold together as well and doesn’t have the same mouth feel on eating.

Vegetarians, I bet you could make meatballs with Quorn mince. It then ceases to be a meatball but let’s not worry about the ontology of naming things today.

Bread crumbs: I have a big supply of panko breadcrumbs, because I hate to run out so I buy in bulk from Amazon Subscribe & Save. So many possibles substitutes here. You can make some from bread. Here’s a video but essentially you oven dry them and then whizz them up in food processor. The video uses fresh whole wheat bread but bread type and freshness don’t really matter. Use wheat bread though.

The quantity might not substitute straight across, so keep mixing in until you have a good consistency.

Other substitutes, grind in a food processor or put in a plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin:

• plain water crackers or saltines, basically any kind of savoury biscuit,
• unsweetened cereal like corn flakes or weetabix,
• rolled oats or porridge oats
• pretzels, crisps, corn chips (be careful with weird flavours like prawn).

Even more creative:

• cooked rice or quinoa
• flaxseed
• potato flour
• cornstarch

Egg

The egg in this recipe is a binding ingredient – it helps the meatball hold together. Hopefully, you’ve got eggs but if not you can substitute yogurt (unsweetened and unflavoured) or try about half the same quantity of milk. Getting a little bit more unlikely: ground flax or chia – one tablespoon with 3 tablespoons of water = one egg. Tofu, if you have any, or melt some butter or vegetable shortening.

Seasonings: salt and pepper are enough and it may be all you want if you’re going to make a flavourful sauce or soup for your meatballs. But if chilli flakes, Italian seasoning, whatever takes your fancy from your spice cupboard.

Serving suggestions:

• make a simple clear soup with celery and carrots, add the meatballs at the end
• heat up a can or jar of prepared sauce and serve with pasta,
• make marinara sauce, (see this simple recipe) and serve with pasta
• serve warm with some barbecue sauce (put them on toothpicks – kids will eat anything on a toothpick),
• crush them into a sandwich with lots of ketchup or HP.

Once cooked, meatballs will keep in the fridge for 3 days or until a teenage boy finds them.

Let’s get cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 450 grams of ground meat, can be mixed
• 1/4 cup (25 grams) of panko bread crumbs (very fine dry bread crumbs – you’re using a substitute be prepared to adjust to get a good firm consistency when you’re rolling the meat balls)
• 1/4 cup (25 grams) grated parmesan cheese (optional)
• 1/4 cup (40 grams) finely chopped onion (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 egg or substitute binding agent

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 200C (180 fan). Line a baking sheet or a shallow pan with foil. Drizzle with the olive oil and spread the oil to cover the pan.
2. Combine the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Easiest to use your hands to smush it all together and combine well. Add any additional herbs as you go. You’ll be able to tell if the meatballs are going to bind together. If it’s too wet, add some more bread crumbs. If it’s too dry, try adding milk a tablespoon at a time.
3. Scoop out a generous tablespoon and roll it into a ball. Place on the baking tray. They will brown better if not touch each other. This is a job that children love to ‘help’ with. And the meatballs are going in a hot oven, so its fine.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Cut one in half and make sure they’re not pink in the middle. Consume your test meatball to hide the evident.

Enjoy. And happy cooking.

An omelette Arnold Bennett is one of the most decadent (and fun) things you can do with eggs. There are various recipes available – ranging from the brain melting versions including hollandaise sauce to ‘simple’ ones that don’t actually making anything like an omelette Arnold Bennett. I hope my recipe below strikes the right balance between authenticity and complexity. It arrives at a beautiful balance between eggs, smoked fish and velvety sauce.

The omelette Arnold Bennett was invented by the chef at the Savoy Hotel in London. There was a long staying guest (the author Arnold Bennett) who was bored with the breakfast menu in particular and asked the chef to do ‘something different’. Anyone who travels on business will be familiar with this feeling. And the result was this wonderful omelette.

I went on an egg course with my friend Lisa and the culmination of the day was the teacher making an omelette Arnold Bennett. Of course, we were so stuffed full of gorgeous eggs by that point that we could only eat a couple of bites – but I marked it down as a real keeper.

This omelette makes a lovely light supper. I confess its too much work for me to be an actual breakfast dish (unless I’m having breakfast at the Savoy). There are several distinct steps to making this dish and it’s not an ‘easy’ dish but the skills are not that difficult. Approach it methodically and it’s yours.

An overview of the process;

• poaching the fish
• make the bechamel sauce
• enrich the bechamel sauce
• cook the egg base
• assemble the omelette
• grill the top.

Most of the ingredients are easy to find. The best smoked fish to use is haddock that is undyed (not undead, just not dyed bright yellow). If you can only find the bright yellow it’s okay. It doesn’t taste any difference, but it will make your sauce more yellow than cream coloured. I use the best eggs I can buy – usually Duchy Organic free range large eggs. The eggs are the star in this dish – augmented by the sauce and poached fish but eggs are king.

Recipe

2 generous servings.

Ingredients

• 200 mls of milk (whole or semi-skimmed)
• 1 bay leaf
• 5 whole cloves
• 10 whole black peppercorns
• 2 shallots or 1 small onion
• 200 grams of smoked haddock
  ********
• 30 grams butter
• 30 grams flour
• Milk from the poaching
• 2 large egg yolks (in addition to the 4 eggs below)
• 1 tablespoon of heavy cream
• 30 grams of mature cheddar cheese
  *****
• Butter for the omelette pan
• 4 large eggs

Instructions

Poaching the fish

1. Put the milk in a shallow pan over very gentle heat.
2. Peel the onion and cut off the top and bottom. Add to the milk with the cloves, peppercorns and bay leaf.
3. Heat the milk to just below boiling. Gently lower the haddock into milk (skin side down). Poach until it starts to flake – 4 to 5 minutes.
4. Remove the fish with a slotted spoon to a plate. Strain the milk to remove the onion and aromatics. After the fish cools, break it into pieces. Get ready to make the sauce.
   
   

Making the sauce

1. Melt the butter in a small deep saucepan. Whisk in the flour and foam until it is golden brown. This cooks off the raw taste of the flour.
2. Add several grinds of salt and pepper.
3. Whisk in the milk over the heat. Beat vigorously to get rid of any lumps and have a smooth sauce. The sauce should be thickened but still liquid. Remove from the heat.
4. Beat the two egg yolks with a tablespoon of heavy cream.
5. Start to add the sauce to the egg yolk mixture, one or two tablespoons at a time. After the first 3 or 4 additions you can add more sauce each time whisking until smooth. Put to one side.
6. Pat yourself on the back and take a deep breath. The sauce was the tricky part.
   

Making the omelette

1. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat with a fork.
2. Find a omelette pan than you can put under your grill. Put the pan on the heat and add a generous knob of butter and melt. When the butter starts to foam, add the eggs.
3. Stir them continuously, tilting the pan from side to side until the bottom is well set and the top is soft and creamy.
4. Heat the grill.
5. Sprinkle the cheese over the top of omelette.
6. Stir the flaked fish into the sauce and pour it over the top of omelette.
7. Place the omelette under the grill for a few minutes until the top turns golden brown.

Serve with crusty bread, green salad and glass of crisp white wine.

It’s that time of year – the clocks have gone back, it’s cold, damp and dark. We need comfort food. I hope the baking followers are not too disappointed with a blog or two on great autumn and winter food. I’m also on a mission to eat more vegetables – not that easy for someone who doesn’t really like salad.

This roasted cauliflower soup ticks all the boxes. And it is suitable for those on a keto or low carb diet. Easy to make a vegan version – omit the bacon and swap in some grated vegan cheese at the end. If you’re trying for a vegan version be careful about stock cubes – even vegetable stock cubes may not be vegan.

The cauliflower is oven roasted before being included in the soup. This gives another layer of flavour to the soup, making it even more satisfying. If you’ve never had roasted cauliflower before you may find yourself just eating the roasted cauliflower and abandoning the soup. At least the first time.

My soup comes out with a dark tint because of the rich vegetable stock I use, my tendency towards lots of black pepper and very caramelised cauliflower. You could use a lighter chicken stock and less pepper if you wanted a whiter soup.

The Davinator has suggested an explanatory note. I made the soup, garnished it and then we ate it. Forgetting to take a photo. So the next day when we ate the leftovers I said ‘where is the leftover bacon?’. Apparently ‘someone’ had eaten the rest of the bacon. So we tore some lovely prosciutto into shreds and had that on our soup.

Makes four generous servings of soup.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 large cauliflower head
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Sea salt
• Black pepper
• 200 grams unsmoked bacon lardons
• 3 additional tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 large leek, chopped small
• 2 celery stalks, chopped small
• 1 large carrot, chopped small
• 2 garlic cloves, diced
• 30 mls cooking brandy
• 2 vegetable stock cubes
• Approximately one litre of boiling water
• 50 grams of cheddar cheese
• Fresh chopped chives or parsley to garnish

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 220C (450f).
2. Put 2 tablespoons of olive oil, with sea salt and pepper in a roasting tin and then in the oven.
3. Chop the cauliflower into florets. Don’t need to be elegant, you’re going to blend the soup at the end. However, you want smaller florets for more even caramelisation and quicker cooking.
4. Carefully remove the hot roasting tin, tip the cauliflower in and stir to coat the florets in the hot oil and spices. Put the tin back in the oven and roast for 15 minutes. Meanwhile work on the other vegetables and soup base.
5. Use a deep heavy bottomed stock pot – coat the bottom with additional olive oil then add the bacon lardons. Cook until crisp. Remove from the stock pot with a slotted spoon and drain on some paper towel.
6. Add the vegetables and the garlic to the pot. Cook over medium heat until well wilted. Add the cooking brandy, turn the heat to high and burn off the alcohol.
7. Turn back to medium heat. Drop the stock cubes in, add the hot water and bring to a boil, dissolving the stock cubes.
8. Add the cauliflower and bring to a simmer. Cook for 5 minutes.
9. Puree your soup using a stick blender or your actual blender.
10. Grate the cheese and chop the herbs.
11. Serve in bowls topped with cheese, bacon and herbs.

Thank you for reading, following, commenting and cooking along. Please send requests, comments and questions.

I grew up in a small town in Michigan; my father didn’t hunt but many of my male relations; uncles, cousins, etc did go deer hunting. Genuine wild venison was a feature of the autumn in my childhood. Cooking venison was focused on two things; moderating the game taste and getting the best from genuinely free range lean meat. Slow cooking is one great way to accomplish both of those things.

Much commercially available venison is close to ‘ranched’ but if you’ve got your hands on genuine wild venison, this is your recipe. I suggest a cut with the bone in – venison shanks do amazing in this recipe but monitor the cooking time. The more bone and connective tissue, the longer it will need to cook.

I had a piece of boneless venison haunch and I probably cooked it for an hour longer than it needed. Still tasted great but the meat got a little bit drier than it should have.

There is no browning of meat here – why brown meat you’re going to cover in herbs, dark beer, vegetables and stock? It is very easy to make your venison tough when browning. If it makes you feel better, roll the meat in a little flour before putting it in the slow cooker.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 200 grams bacon lardons
• 2 large or 4 small carrots
• 2 beef stock pots or 4 stock cubes
• 1.5 to 2 kilos of venison, either whole or cut in chunks. If on the bone, leave on the bone, this really adds flavour
• Cooking brandy
• 1 large bottle (or can) of Guinness Extra Stout or other dark stout. I had a bottle of chocolate stout (who knows why) that I used
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 square of bittersweet chocolate
• 1 cup of pearl barley

Instructions

• Get your slow cooker ready and put the meat in it on high heat while you are prepping the sauce and vegetables.
• Use a large deep frying pan, heat the olive oil with a small pat of butter to medium high heat.
• Add the onions, garlic and carrots. Cook over medium high heat for two minutes. Then add the bacon lardons. Cook until the onions and garlic are softened.
• Throw a couple of tablespoons of cooking brandy on the vegetables, turn up the heat and burn off the alcohol.
• Turn the heat back to medium, add the beef stock cubes or stock pots and soften.
• Pour in the dark stout, again turn up the heat to burn off the alcohol. Get it to a nice burble, then add the brown sugar, the herbs and the square of chocolate.
• Once all the above are incorporated, add some water (not too much). Once back to a slow simmer, pour all the sauce onto the meat in the slow cooker.
• Cook for 4 to 6 hours on high, depending on the cut of meat you’ve used. This is not exact but the bigger the piece of meat and if it has a bone in it – the longer it will need to cook. A shank will take longer to cook than a piece of boneless haunch. Keep checking the meat for tenderness, when you can see it is falling apart or you can stick a table knife in, it’s ready. About 90 minutes before your expected finish time, add the pearl barley. (Or add the pearl barley after 3 hours). It absorbs the excess sauce, cooks up beautifully and makes this a direct to the bowl meal.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did. Keep on cooking, baking and commenting. Let me have your feedback and requests.