Boiled bacon etc

Am just back from sunny Spain and have been catching up with M. Roux and the Masterchef Proffs and Nigella (who by the way I find completly maddening and ridiculous!) - and am just finding time to blog while some brioche dough is rising. Have found myself on my own this evening having spent the day sat in front of a computer and feeling rather disheartened I thought I would try something active and new - having given up on a new yoga dvd I got out the french cookery book.

I bought this ages ago and have hardly used it. It's old. So old that I had to look up what a gill was earlier - it's 4 tablespoons by the way. It was published in 1965, us by Jean Conil and is called The French Cookery book. I love it, it smells like old books and has a pencilled in 25p in the front - bargain! Also, some handy person has scrawled in oven temp conversions and underlined some handy hints about chicken.

Anyway, being only halfway through the brioche recipe I'll hang on to write about it in case it's a disaster - which it won't be!

For now, I'll tell you about the delicious ham we had on Sunday, one of my favourite meals - boiled bacon and parsley sauce, with red cabbage, potatoes and carrots. Mmmmm. Mum's recipe of course, but they are always the best.

So, a bacon or gammon joint, smoked or unsmoked (- just never Danish). Into a tall pot with a star anise, bay leaf, peppercorns, and cloves. Water, nearly covering the meat. Bring to the boil, and then turn down to a simmer. If the piece is really big, double up the spices. Mine was just under a kg so an hour was plently - again, bigger pieces of meat take longer.

You can prep veggies here and turn on to cook when the meat comes out of the water.

After an hour, take the meat out of the water. Two choices here, cover with foil to keep warm and rest while you do the veggies. Or, glaze it.

I glazed. So, heat the oven to 200ish, and take the fat off the meat. You should be able to do this quite easily by just slipping a knife though it just above the meat. Then, mix a table spoon of honey with a couple of teaspoons of wholegrain mustard and spread over the meat. Pop this into the oven.

In the mean time, make the sauce. A simple white sauce is best starting with a roux, but adding the meat stock instead of milk. Taste the stock first, if it's very salty only use a little bit and use milk or veg water for the rest. When the consistency is thick and luscious, add lots and lots of chopped parsley and season.

The meat should come out of the oven. Rest, and then be served in thin slices.

In my opinion, this is the best meal. End of.

Oh, and for the red cabbage, give it a lot of time. Finely slice onion and soften, add the red cabbage, finely sliced, and a chopped apple (raisins too if you like). Mix it up and let it all get hot and start cooking before adding a little bit of water. Keep the lid and the heat in. Cook gently but keep it going. When it's soft, add balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, and season. Let it have some more time to let the vinegar soften and the sugar dissolve.

Back to the brioche....

Stock and Left-over-chicken Cakes

It's so sad when the roast is over. But, luckily, I've managed to make mine last most of this week! Slightly on the thrifty side I know but while on a budget, it's great. Fried up leftovers and nice hot gravy was delish on Monday andI made stock on Monday too. Here's how:

Pick all the chicken off the bones - keep all bones you can find, even from the drumsticks etc. Lose the skin - If I had a cat or dog this would go to them, and although tasty, I leave it out of stock as it adds grease.

Keep all the meat to one side. Yes, of course I'll use this later.

Then break the bones up and put all into a big pan with an onion, couple of carrots, and a couple of sticks of celery - all chopped chunky - and two bay leaves, a good sprig of thyme, and a few peppercorns. Add water to just cover the bones and veg. Boil for hours - or three, till the water looks really murky and there's a good chickeny smell wafting about.

When you think it's had long enough, put to one side, and leave to cool. Later, seive into containters and fridge (if you're going to use it soon - ie this week), or freeze.

Yum!

And all those bits of good chicken - are good for anything! Make a chunky chowder style soup with sweetcorn and some of the stock?
Or, risotto?
Or, chicken cakes?

I chose chicken cakes - sounds odd? Think fish cakes with chicken instead of fish, and trust me, they're good.

Put a few potatoes on to boil in small cubes.
Finely chop and onion and couple of cloves of garlic, put in a pan with some oil and thyme and soften.
When they're cooked, mash the potaoes, mix in the onion mix and leave to cool down.
Take the leftover chicken, and any leftover stuffing etc and chop into a fine mulch - don't mash it or blitz it - just run a knife over it a few times to make small chunks. (I added some chopped spinach to the chicken too, but only because it was hanging about!)

Add the chicken to the mash mix, with salt and pepper, a good dolop of dijon mustard, an egg, and a good grating of cheese (I only had cheddar, so used that, but have a feeling parmesan would work well here). Mix it all up well. I don't have any quantities as it's hard to know how much chicken you'll have left, I think roughly 2/3 potato, and 1/3 chicken should be a good guide.

Form into burger size patties and fry in a hot pan until you have a good brown crust on each side. As you're reheating chicken give them a good long time in the pan and make sure they're thoroughly heated through. This will be quicker if you don't make them too thick.

We had these with branston pick and a corn on the cob - because that was what we had in the fridge! But it did work well. Tasty.

A Delicious Chicken Roast

Ok, I know everyone has their own roast method. I haven't braved it since I moved out of home, but have just sucessfully roasted up a small chicken in my new kitchen. Hooray. And here's how I did it.

My chicken was only small (3lb) and I don't have a proper roasting tray, so, I cut 3 small lemons in half and put them in the bottom of a deep roasting tray. In here too I put three cloves of garlic, towards the edge.

With the chicken, I rubbed butter under the skin, salt and peppered it, and stuffed it (with box stuffing - yes Paxo is the best!). I tied up the legs making sure the skin was tight over the stuffing to keep it safe inside the chicken. The chicken sat on the lemons and I arranged par-boiled potatoes and parsnips around it (and drizzled a little olive oil on them).

The chicken went into a hot (200 degree c) oven for 20-30 mins until the skin was golden brown. Then turn the oven down (to 170ish) and cook for another hour. If the skin is getting too brown cover the top of the chicken with foil. Halfway through coooking you can take the chicken out and look around the bottom of the legs and breasts to see pckets of fat - I poke a hole in these and let the juices run into the dish. You should be able to tell when the chicken is done - but just to be sure - poke deep into the breast then press the flat of the knife near the hole. If juices run out they should be clear - if they look even a little bit pink put it back in the oven.

When the chicken's just about done it's gravy-time! I took the chicken out of the oven and rested it on a plate (discard the lemons which should have gone soft and caramelised). I rolled the potatoes and parsnips in the fat and lifted them out onto a flat baking tray - and put them back into the top of the oven - just to get that bit more crispy. The juices from the chicken went into a small saucepan with lots of flour to soak up the fat. (You may find you have far too much of this mix - if so, put half aside and you can use it for more gravy to go with leftovers tomorrow!)

Cook the roux-gravy mix out until it turns a lighter colour, and then slowly add liquid - use the water you've been boiling veg in if you can (I did green beans so used the water from those). So, add the liquid slowly, stirring all the time until you have a thick gravy consistency. Season if you need to and it's ready to go!

And that's that. Get the roasties from the oven and carve the chuck! This was really tasty, the lemon seemed to get into everything - making a really tangy crust on some of the potatoes and parsnips and making the gravy lovely and fruity. Perfect for a Sunday.

Cannelloni

So, the night before last I attempted a cannelloni in a last minute attempt to do something intersting with mince. I used every pot and pan, as it is rather labour intensive, but a great success! Here's what I did!

Cut up 3 cloves of garlic and two onions - split them between two pans with a little oil in the bottom. Sweat with the lid on until soft.

To one pan add lean beef mince. (This is going to be the filling). Season and fry until all brown. Put the lid on.

Meanwhile, dice a pepper and small (or half a large courgette), add to the other pan. Let soften with the onion.

Make a well in the centre of the mince and let the juice collect, add a beef stockcube and let it dissolve in the juice, also add tomato puree - stir through. Sprinkle with a little flour and put the lid back on.

To the pepper and onion mix add a tin of tomatoes (with salt, pepper and a teaspoon of sugar), and tomato puree. Let this simmer.

So, while these are carrying on in their own little ways - give them a stirr occasionally to make sure they're not misbehaving.

Put an pan of water on to boil, with salt and oil. When it's at a rolling boil, add lasagne sheets (I used about 7). These will take about 7 minutes (depending on what you buy). You only need to cook them unitl they're flexible - they will cook more in the sauce later. Drain them - make sure they don't stick together.

While the water and pasta are boiling, make a while sauce. I use a roux method - flour and butter, cooked out, then cold milk added gradually. Season, take off the head and add cheddar cheese.

So, now all the parts are ready! Put half the tomato sauce in the bottom of a deep baking tray. Take a lasagne sheet, cut in half and spoon the mince mix onto one end. Roll over, so that it makes a tube - pasta on pasta at the end. Lift - carefully - works best using a knife or palate knife. Keep going until the mince and/or pasta are gone, or the dish is full! Then put the remaining tomato sauce on top, try and cover all the pasta. Then pour over the cheese sauce - again, cover as much as you can, but it doesn't matter if tomato sauce shows (just not pasta!).

Then, into a hot oven for 20 mins or so until there's some colour on top. Yum!

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This was great - and a good turn out for a first attempt and without a recipe! I've made a spinach one before with fresh homemade pasta which also works brilliantly.

If having friends over, would be good with a green salad and garlic bread!

Tips! (Oh yes, and I think I've got tips too - except, they're more like my cooking ticks!)

Whenever you use tinned tomatoes, add a squirt of puree, sugar, salt and pepper - this stops them tasting like tin and gets them tasting like tomatoes again!

For vegetarians, or to make mince stretch a bit further - aduki beans are great!

When adding a stock cube to mince (to make it really beefy!) push it to once side, or make a well to get at the juice, crumble the cube into the juice and mix to make it dissolve - this makes it mix better into the mince.