May
18

Burger ‘n’ fries (from scratch)

Well, not really from scratch, of course. As Carl Sagan once said, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” I’m afraid my commitment levels don’t include creating a universe, nor even growing my own wheat or rearing my own cattle. Still, as a weekend project I decided to go as far back to basics as I could and make, to the best of my ability, a simple burger and chips — shorn of trendy adornments like pulled pork, bacon, chilli jam, or chipotle mayonnaise. I find this quite difficult because my natural cooking style is to pile on flavour after flavour. Lately, though, I’ve been making some efforts to reign this in, such as working hard on my six-ingredients-only spaghetti alla Carbonara and this burger is in that spirit.

So here’s what I made:

  • A steak burger I ground myself from rib of beef (approx 1.5 kg) and skirt steak (approx 150 g). I formed quarter-pound patties in a ring mould and sprinkled some salt on the outside; in keeping with my “as simple as can be” principle there was nothing mixed in with the meat. I fried them to medium-rare.
  • A “light brioche” burger bun I baked, working to this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. The bun was split and toasted — I really enjoy the little extra crunch of a toasted bun.
  • Hand-cut chips (well, I used a mandolin), triple cooked (i.e. boiled, then fried at 130 deg C, then fried again at 180 deg C). This gives a fluffy interior and a crisp exterior.
  • A slice of processed cheese (I vehemently believe that burgers call for processed cheese only; I don’t feel they are improved by strong cheddar or blue cheese or what-have-you.)
  • Shoestring fried onions, using this recipe from The Pioneer Woman. I figured I might as well make some, as I had the oil hot to fry the chips anyway; these were the one extra thing I allowed myself to add to the burger.

It was delicious, which is just as well as I have enough meat in the freezer for another eight patties. The burgers were succulent, thanks to the generous amount of fat running through the beef, and with a bit of extra beefy taste from the addition of the skirt steak. Reasonably economical too — although the rib of beef is a premium cut, it still only cost £21 from my butcher, plus £2 for the skirt steak (skirt is technically an off-cut so pretty cheap). That works out to £2.30 per burger, which is a bit more than you’d pay for a steak burger in my local supermarkets but not outrageously so.

May
14

One of my favourite things to eat (and by extension, cook) is a traditional British Sunday lunch and my go-to meat to roast is chicken (because I can’t afford a rib of beef ever week!) Of course, having gone to the effort of roasting a whole chicken for just me and Danielle, I typically choose a big one so there’s leftover meat to use in a quick weeknight dinner or two. This means I’m often trying to come up with ways to use up leftover roast chicken, which is admittedly no bad problem to have. This week, I decided I was bored of fajitas and stir-fries, and I’d already used some of my leftovers to make a tomato pasta sauce we’d eaten with gnocchi. So I was searching for inspiration. Pies are another obvious answer for leftover meat of all kinds but it’s rather a lengthy process for a weeknight dinner, even with store-bought pastry. So I decided to cheat, sort-of make the pie filling (but leave the pie out) and serve with some vegetables that I had lying around and needed eating up. Here’s how I made the sauce, if you’re curious. Note that this was a rather improvised process, so all quantities are approximate. Fry 1/2 onion and 1 clove of garlic until softened. Add about 125 g of mushrooms (chunky dice), fry until they’ve stopped giving off water. Add a glass of dry white wine, deglaze the pan, and boil until reduced to about 1/3rd Add some thyme leaves, a dash of mushroom ketchup, another dash of Madeira, and about 300 ml of chicken stock. Continue to boil and reduce. My aim here was to only have enough sauce to coat the chicken, not to make a casserole. Add cornflour to thicken the sauce. Reduce heat to low. Stir through several tablespoons of double cream. Stir in the shredded cooked chicken, put a lid on the pan, and leave for five minutes or so to (gently) reheat the chicken. I served this with some charred purple sprouting broccoli and some sweet potato wedges, roasted with cumin, paprika, and smoked sea salt.

One of my favourite things to eat (and by extension, cook) is a traditional British Sunday lunch and my go-to meat to roast is chicken (because I can’t afford a rib of beef ever week!) Of course, having gone to the effort of roasting a whole chicken for just me and Danielle, I typically choose a big one so there’s leftover meat to use in a quick weeknight dinner or two.

This means I’m often trying to come up with ways to use up leftover roast chicken, which is admittedly no bad problem to have. This week, I decided I was bored of fajitas and stir-fries, and I’d already used some of my leftovers to make a tomato pasta sauce we’d eaten with gnocchi. So I was searching for inspiration. Pies are another obvious answer for leftover meat of all kinds but it’s rather a lengthy process for a weeknight dinner, even with store-bought pastry.

So I decided to cheat, sort-of make the pie filling (but leave the pie out) and serve with some vegetables that I had lying around and needed eating up.

Here’s how I made the sauce, if you’re curious. Note that this was a rather improvised process, so all quantities are approximate.

  1. Fry 1/2 onion and 1 clove of garlic until softened.
  2. Add about 125 g of mushrooms (chunky dice), fry until they’ve stopped giving off water.
  3. Add a glass of dry white wine, deglaze the pan, and boil until reduced to about 1/3rd
  4. Add some thyme leaves, a dash of mushroom ketchup, another dash of Madeira, and about 300 ml of chicken stock.
  5. Continue to boil and reduce. My aim here was to only have enough sauce to coat the chicken, not to make a casserole.
  6. Add cornflour to thicken the sauce.
  7. Reduce heat to low. Stir through several tablespoons of double cream.
  8. Stir in the shredded cooked chicken, put a lid on the pan, and leave for five minutes or so to (gently) reheat the chicken.

I served this with some charred purple sprouting broccoli and some sweet potato wedges, roasted with cumin, paprika, and smoked sea salt.

Mar
14

Tonight’s dinner: haddock with leek and potato sauce and sautéed potatoes, from Heston Blumenthal At Home My first chance to use both birthday gifts I received from my sister Hayley: a Kenwood hand blender (which I used to make the sauce) and a copy of Heston Blumenthal At Home (from which I took the recipe). Turned out pretty good. Perhaps a little elaborate for a weeknight meal — the recipe (with some minor alterations) can be seen here if you’re curious. Wasn’t my prettiest plate of food; the fish had been manhandled by the fish counter staff in Morrisons so wasn’t holding together very well, unfortunately. I’m pleased with the composition of the plate, though. I’ve been putting a lot more work into how I present my food lately, and although I still have a long way to go, I feel like I’m at least making progress.

Tonight’s dinner: haddock with leek and potato sauce and sautéed potatoes, from Heston Blumenthal At Home

My first chance to use both birthday gifts I received from my sister Hayley: a Kenwood hand blender (which I used to make the sauce) and a copy of Heston Blumenthal At Home (from which I took the recipe).

Turned out pretty good. Perhaps a little elaborate for a weeknight meal — the recipe (with some minor alterations) can be seen here if you’re curious. Wasn’t my prettiest plate of food; the fish had been manhandled by the fish counter staff in Morrisons so wasn’t holding together very well, unfortunately. I’m pleased with the composition of the plate, though. I’ve been putting a lot more work into how I present my food lately, and although I still have a long way to go, I feel like I’m at least making progress.

Mar
10

Dinner tonight: risotto alla milanese, roasted silverside of veal, glazed carrots The risotto was by the numbers. The veal was the last piece I bought from a food festival late last year, left to languish in the freezer ever since; I wrapped it in bacon to roast it, as silverside is a pretty lean cut and the delicate veal meat needs some protective fat to protect it from drying out. The carrots were glazed to the recipe from Heston Blumenthal At Home, which means they are essentially deep fried in melted butter. I was fine with that, although I’m not planning on making a habit of cooking carrots this way for obvious health-related reasons. One small variation there: I swapped the sugar out for a touch of maple syrup. The veal came from Bocaddon Farm, which means it’s ethical veal. It’s true that veal has a very bad reputation, with many Brits associating it with distasteful animal welfare issues on the Continent. But the fact is that veal is a byproduct of all dairy farms; the male calves born to the cows are often shot at birth, as many as 150,000 a year, because there is no market for them. Farmers like Bocaddon Farm and Jimmy Doherty are trying to reverse that wastage by creating a domestic market for so-called “rose veal” (because the calves are fed normal cow feed, rather than the traditional milk, so the meat is pinkish rather than the more typical off-white). It’s certainly an argument that makes sense to me, and I’ll be looking out for rose veal in my local markets in the future.

Dinner tonight: risotto alla milanese, roasted silverside of veal, glazed carrots

The risotto was by the numbers. The veal was the last piece I bought from a food festival late last year, left to languish in the freezer ever since; I wrapped it in bacon to roast it, as silverside is a pretty lean cut and the delicate veal meat needs some protective fat to protect it from drying out. The carrots were glazed to the recipe from Heston Blumenthal At Home, which means they are essentially deep fried in melted butter. I was fine with that, although I’m not planning on making a habit of cooking carrots this way for obvious health-related reasons. One small variation there: I swapped the sugar out for a touch of maple syrup.

The veal came from Bocaddon Farm, which means it’s ethical veal. It’s true that veal has a very bad reputation, with many Brits associating it with distasteful animal welfare issues on the Continent. But the fact is that veal is a byproduct of all dairy farms; the male calves born to the cows are often shot at birth, as many as 150,000 a year, because there is no market for them.

Farmers like Bocaddon Farm and Jimmy Doherty are trying to reverse that wastage by creating a domestic market for so-called “rose veal” (because the calves are fed normal cow feed, rather than the traditional milk, so the meat is pinkish rather than the more typical off-white). It’s certainly an argument that makes sense to me, and I’ll be looking out for rose veal in my local markets in the future.

This weekend was adventures with home-cured salt beef (that’s “corned beef” to you Americans), mostly because it’s been over a year since I last made it. First and fourth pictures are the hash I made for breakfast today; second pic is the salt beef sandwiches we had for dinner last night (with Emmenthal, tater tots and sweet pickled gherkins); third pic is the fresh-from-the-braise salt beef itself, in all its glory.

The hash was one of my more successful meals of late.

I let the leftover salt beef from last night cool before dicing it (that stops it falling apart, as would happen if you tried to dice it warm). Diced a small onion and a red pepper. Microwaved two medium sized potatoes for five minutes on high, then let them cool before dicing them, too. Threw in some tater tots I had left over from the night before.

Fried onions and peppers first over a medium heat for 10 minutes or so. Removed them from the pan, melted some butter, increased the heat, and added the potato. Fried to a good colour and crunch, then removed it, lowered the heat, and added the meat to rewarm it. Finally, I stirred the potatoes, onions, and peppers back through and put the whole lot in a warm oven while I poached the eggs.

Frying each element individually meant everything still tasted of itself, and helped stop the potatoes dissolving into mush from the stirring necessary while rewarming the salt beef. It also means I could use my smaller cast-iron pan, without having to step up to my largest frying pan, which is an inferior non-stick number.

I seasoned the potatoes with a little toasted caraway seed, in the style of Austrian hash. I liked this a lot — I’m mad for caraway seed — but Danielle wasn’t so keen.

Mar
01

Feb
24

Tonight’s dinner: roasted pepper and leek soup, followed by spaghetti alla bolognese

Sometimes you go out and shop for the perfect ingredients to make the perfect meal, and sometimes you open the fridge, find all the things that are about to go off, and throw them together. This soup came from the latter school of thought, and I got lucky; it was great.

Leek and roasted pepper soup

  • 3 peppers (I had one orange, two yellow), cut into strips
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 leeks, sliced into fine rounds, washed and drained
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • 300 ml / 0.5 pint of chicken or vegetable stock
  • smoked sea salt (optional but recommended)
  • olive oil
  • double (heavy) cream, to serve

Put the peppers in a large, shallow roasting tray. Toss with smoked sea salt and olive oil. Roast at 200 deg C (400 deg F) for around 20-30 minutes, until just starting to char.

Meanwhile, melt butter or put olive oil in the bottom of a large pan. Sweat the onion, garlic and leeks for ten minutes until soft and golden.

Add the stock and the peppers. Bring to the boil and simmer for twenty minutes. Season to taste with pepper and smoked salt. Using a stick blender, purée thoroughly, adding water if desired to thin the soup. Serve immediately, decorated with a swirl of cream.

Feb
11

Feb
10

I’m a real fungi to brunch with Just a (fairly) simple brunch I made today. I melted some black truffle butter in a big pan and added a finely diced clove of garlic. Fried fresh chestnut and portobello mushrooms (about 300 g total), then added some dried porcini and shiitake mushrooms for good measure. After it had cooked down, I thew in the soaking water I’d used to rehydrate the dried mushrooms, reduced that to almost nothing, and stirred through a little double cream and some fresh parsley just before serving. Pairing this with lightly toasted brioche is a really nice idea that I picked up from my fellow O:S! writer Nick. The sweet, rich bread is a lovely pairing with the earthy mushrooms.

I’m a real fungi to brunch with

Just a (fairly) simple brunch I made today.

I melted some black truffle butter in a big pan and added a finely diced clove of garlic. Fried fresh chestnut and portobello mushrooms (about 300 g total), then added some dried porcini and shiitake mushrooms for good measure. After it had cooked down, I thew in the soaking water I’d used to rehydrate the dried mushrooms, reduced that to almost nothing, and stirred through a little double cream and some fresh parsley just before serving.

Pairing this with lightly toasted brioche is a really nice idea that I picked up from my fellow O:S! writer Nick. The sweet, rich bread is a lovely pairing with the earthy mushrooms.

Feb
05