ChezJ9

So here are some of my little seedlings coming along just lovely! These photo’s were taken  at the very end of April, so as you can see my Tomatoes are ready for planting into bigger pots now to keep sturdy.  Im very proud of them so far this year as last year my Tomatoes  were not a great success so keep your fingers crossed for me?!! 
 I will add some more posts as quite a bit is happening in the little Kitchen Garden here.  Now that the sun has made his presence, things are moving quite fast.  Exciting though.  Cannot wait to start eating my own grown grub! … Nothing better.

 Steak in Ale pie:

Now of course, most Pie recipes are all going to be very similar or even the same.  But one thing I do know is that with my Pie or pies they are always bursting with intense flavour and very rustic.  (As you will see by the picture).  I also love Puff pastry on most of my meat pies, So I have to admit, I always buy in my Puff pastry.  Shortcrust and sweet pastry is a different matter for me.

Recipe: Pie mixture:

Olive oil
Plain Flour (1-2 tbsp’s)
400g of Diced Beef (chuck, shin or just stewing beef)
1 white onion diced, half into 1 cm diced and the other half left quite chunky but no bigger than the meat.
1 Tsp Garlic powder
1/2 Tsp Mustard Powder
Beef Stock 1 or 2 cubes depending what you have with about 250ml water
400 ml Ale ( I used Newcastle Brown Ale)
1 tbsp Tomato Puree
A good splash of Worcester sauce
A Sprig of Fresh Thyme and 2 bay leaves strung together
1 slice of smoked bacon
1-2 carrots depending on how big they are
1/2 stick of celery
2-3 chestnut mushrooms
1/2 mushroom stock cube (porcini)

So the very first thing you must do is dry off your meat first. I.E pat the meat with kitchen cloth and coat the meat in Flour.  This will help Brown the meat better and lock in the flavour.
 Fry off the meat until Browned in colour. Fry off the Chunky diced onion with the beef until the onion slightly softens.  Add the fresh herbs, Tomato puree, Worcester sauce, mustard powder, garlic and of course the Ale! 
 You will need to cook the meat for a good 1 and a half hours until almost fully tender.  you may need even longer. 
 Turn your oven onto 180 c gas mark 4.
 Now what I usually do whilst this is cooking nicely, I chop up the rasher of smoked bacon and fry off just until cooked and place onto a plate or bowl.  Then dice up the carrot, celery and the other half of the onion finely and fry off until soft… in the same pan will be fine.  Again add the mix to the bacon. And finally chop the mushrooms as you require and fry off also.  Add the mushroom stock cube to the pie mix and all other vegetables.  Now if this isn’t thick enough you may need to add a little bit of gravy granules and also season to taste. 
  Flour your surface ready for your pastry and You just need to roll it out to about 1/2 cm thickness.  Place mixture into a pie dish (suitable for the oven) and place your pastry on top.   This part is totally up to you of how neat, rustic you want it to be?  Let the pastry hang over the edge and just use a knife to slice it off around the edges and press down to the dish.   Just don’t forget to egg wash the pastry to give it a lovely golden colour. 
 Bake for about 20-30 minutes.  If you try this recipe maybe on a Sunday instead of a roast… just promise me you will have it with Mashed Potato?! 
  

At this time of the year, there is nothing better than a bit of Spring Lamb.  As you can see, in this Recipe was the leg. ( I got a good deal from a local butcher 🙂 )

 Im my mind, It just has to be Uk lamb.  The More local the better in my eyes!  No offense to My Foreign Readers if I may have any in New Zealand!

  Now this marinade will Blow your Socks off if you marinade it for a good time…overnight even, if you can? Like all Marinades, the longer the better. Make sure you rest that lamb onto lots of lamb bones, Carrots, onions and celery to make a lovely stock for gravy. You can even  every so often splash some wine in the bottom, white, red or even a bit of both! 🙂 if you want less alcohol, use water.

Marinade Recipe:

I firstly put knife holes into the lamb to allow me to put in garlic and rosemary. And also to allow the marinade to really get in there and do its work!
                                                           4-5 cloves of Garlic in the holes 

                                                           along with a good sprig of fresh rosemary.

                                                           1 tbsp of Soy sauce ( preferably dark)

                                                           1 tbsp of Worcester Sauce,
                                                            A good handfull of fresh Mint.
                                                            1 tsp of jarred mint sauce as gives acidity, some people 
                                                            use red wine vinegar etc…

 

                                                        1 tbsp of honey,
2 tbsp’s of tomato puree,

3 Anchovies finely chopped ( yes fish! ) or a couple more again depending on the size of your meat and this is to add a lovely saltiness to the lamb and succulency.

Black cracked Pepper to season…No salt as you have the Soy and the Anchovies remember!

Turn your oven up to 220c gas mark 7 and blast it for about 20 mins or 30 if you have a whole leg of lamb. Then turn back down to 180c gas mark 4 for a further 45-60 minutes and If I remember rightly I think it is roughly 20 mins per 450-500g and cook for a further 20 minutes ish again depending on size and also how pink you like your lamb.

 Now I have a quick confession…My personal taste, I love pink lamb, but I had too much wine cooking this and thus cooked for longer, oops! but however it was Moist and very tender from the marinade. Lush!
One thing I will add though with this recipe is that there are so many versions out there of Leg of Lamb recipes that I have just taken bits of each that I think work and adapted it to my taste 🙂

Oh and if you haven’t figured it out…that was the wine we had with 

                                    the dinner.

                                                            

When this year’s Good Friday came.  I did not want to just do the same old thing I normally do or have some sort of fish with a “New type of Crust?!” etc etc…So I thought well why not us have a Three course meal and pull out the stops.
  We decided to take a trip to the local Market and see what the fishmonger had to offer.  And there they were… right before my eyes were huge hand dived King scallops. My eyes started to dilate and My partner could already see I was in Heaven.  Now they were a little more expensive but very much worth it.  I picked up some fresh cockles and mussels (which I wasn’t sure at that point what I was going to do with them! )  Seabass for the main.  I also Managed to pick up a generous bag of fish bones, trimmings and heads for my stock.
   I must stress at this stage that the recipes in this post are quite complex, alot of components to these dishes. So please, please, at any point  email me with any questions you have?
Starter:
Seared King Scallops with a Celeriac and Truffle Puree, Crispy smoked bacon (confetti) and  Apple Caramel:-

:
Homemade Fish stock: (Takes a good 4 hours or so)
Fish Heads, trimmings, tails (white fish)
Celery
Leeks
Onions ( leave skin on)
Tomato Puree
Parsley
Oregano 
White wine…..Once the stock is drained…reduce down to 
thicken and intensify.
King Scallops
Celeriac approx 200g
Black summer truffles (from a jar, couldn’t get fresh)
Double cream
Butter
Good Coarse Sea salt
1 slice of Bacon
Apple juice (I used Copella)
Pea shoots

Reduce down the apple juice until it starts to bubble into a caramel. Then do the Celeriac Puree…
Celeriac Puree:
Boil some Celeriac until soft. The minute it is ready, drain of the water and blitz away. Add a touch of white wine and dash of double cream. Chop the truffles finely and add to Blitz again.
 Now You can put a little sea salt onto the Scallops and start to sear in a hot pan in some butter. Once they are nearly done add the finely chopped Bacon to the pan and then start to plate up adding a finely shaved slice of truffle next to each scallop. Originally with this dish I wanted Micro garlic chives instead of pea shoots but out of stock and add Celeriac crisps on top but I didn’t have my deep fat fryer to use 😦 But that Is in my Original recipe. So I will do it next time. 

Main:
Seared fillet of Seabass, Saffron Mash, spinach, cockle and mussel bisque and 
shellfish foam:












Recipe:

Seabass
Potatoes ( maris piper)
Milk
Double cream
Garlic
Seasoning
Saffron
lemon
Spinach
Butter
Mussels
Cockles
Homemade Fish stock as above
Brandy
Dill to Garnish

Boil the potatoes for the mash. Meanwhile have No more than 500ml of milk infused with a bashed clove of garlic, Saffron and seasoning. When you are ready to mash, strain this mixture and add until the mash is fluffy and add a dash of double cream and a very small spritz of lemon. Whilst this is going on, you have to think like a chef and do the other components too. So sear your Seabass, Take some of your fishstock and add a dash of brandy and touch of cream to make your bisque. when your Seabass is done, add the cockles and mussels to the same pan just to warms really. Sautee your spinach in butter and finally you take a little of your bisque sauce and add a touch of milk and fowm up with a hand blender, but only add right at the end when plating up! Hope you enjoy these recipes. Look forward to your comments 🙂
© ChezJ9 2013

So, I’ve had a little break from writing due to health problems, blah blah, blah blah… nothing to bore you guys with 🙂 But in between I did cook and bake so so much, when I could.  Just I haven’t been able to write to you! 😦 so so sorry. I know , none excusable!
   But,… ( another but?!) Do I have some great things that I can write up NOW!  We have so much to catch up on!  I did alot before Easter. But also Easter food was just AMAZING! So If you don’t mind, First I will Start with Easter food first and then maybe go back a little…we shall see hey?! Here goes…

So it all started on the thursday before Good Friday Maundy Thursday:

Now with being Maundy Thursday I thought, Hmm Maybe we should have a big Feast like the last supper but then I thought, hang on…We have Good Friday, Sat, Sun, Mon to come etc… Oh dear we can’t do that! So we settled for something less extravagant to start the weekend of the feast My Chicken Risotto. But My was it nice! 🙂












So it started with a pretty much straight forward recipe for risotto…  However, a couple things I did differently, which I always make the mistake of was making sure I kept that Chicken stock on the hob warming or even hot whilst adding as I know Im a Buggar for that! ( ooh am I allowed to say that?! :-S) .
 Secondly I added alot of butter at the end to make it so so moist as I normally forget to! 
  And then Thirdly, I added oregano Into my recipe which I took as a whim but went luurvly!! 
  If any of you want the full recipe…please contact me and i will be most happy to give it to you 🙂 

This is just the first of the Easter feast, lots more to come people! …keep reading!