Beetroot Soup

We had a surfeit of beetroot this year, so I made soup from them rather than waste and froze it. I find beetroot on it's own can be a little too earthy, so I added some tomato and good beef stock to this recipe to bring down the beetroot flavour a little, it's worked out very well, however it is shockingly red so be warned!

 

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed and chopped
8 beetroots, trimmed and peeled
5 large tomatoes, roughly chopped
500ml beef stock

Method

Heat the oil in a large pan and add the onion.  Sweat this off until soft but not coloured.  Add the chopped garlic and fry for a further minute or so while you make the stock (I use a cube, it's easier and just as good as buying the ready-made stock in this recipe).  Cube the beetroot into 2cm dice and add them to the pan with the stock and the chopped tomatoes.

Bring to the boil and simmer for approximately 3 minutes until the beetroot is soft, take it off the heat for a couple of minutes and blend until smooth with a stick blender.

Serve piping hot with some nice crusty white bread and stir in a little soured cream.

Mulligatwany soup

This is a cracking soup, of all you've ever had is the soup out of a tin, do try this, it's completely different and delicious!   My recipe is based on one i saw on "The Hairy Bikers" TV show, but I've added my own variations as ever.

Ingredients

25g unsalted butter
1 tbsp Rape seed oil
2 medium onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, sliced
3 medium carrots
4 celery sticks, peeled and chopped
1 fennel trimmed and chopped (optional)
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
3 eating apples (I use cox or gala) peeled, quatered and cut into cubes
1 tbsp medium to hot curry powder
2 tspn ground coriander
2 tspn ground cumin
1 ltr chicken stock (home made if possible, otherwise whatever you have)
1 tbsp tomato purée
2 tbsp mango chutney

100g basmati rice
50g leftover roast chicken (optional)
1 tbsp chopped coriander

Method

Melt the butter with the oil in a pan then add the onion, garlic, carrots, celery sticks, fennel and sweet potato.  Cook over a medium heat until all the veg are softened or taking on some colour.  Stir in the apples, curry powder, ground coriander and ground cumin and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.

Make the stock up if using a cube, or add the 1 ltr home made stock to the vegetables along with the tomato purée and mango chutney.  Bring the whole to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes or until the veg are nice and soft.

Meanwhile, cook the rice.  Cover the rice with boiling water leaving about an inch of water above the rice, boil it for 10 minutes until soft then drain.

When the soup is cooked, leave to cool for a couple of minutes, then blend with a hand blender until it's nice and smooth.  Add extra water to the soup to reach the consistency you prefer, I prefer a goo, thick soup.

To serve, put a spoonful or two of rice in the bottom of a bowl, add the hot soup and then put the shredded chicken on the top with the chopped coriander.

Pork and mushroom bake with a potato and butternut squash topping

This is like a shepherds pie but made from pork instead of lamb.  I'm not sure what to call it, maybe Hog herd's pie?  Pigman Pie perhaps?  Let me know what your suggestions are, I may even publish them!  Anyway, this is a lovely winter warmer recipe and is uses the principles of Mediterranean cooking that are supposed to be so good for us, so those of you who think Mediterranean cooking is just about summer food, think again!  It's also a perfect one pot supper dish as it has so many vegetables in it, you really don't need anything else to accompany it.  Perfect for a mid-week meal.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium onions
3 sticks celery
2 onions
4 cloves garlic
500g reduced fat pork mince
100g chorizo (optional) 
250g chestnut mushrooms
A small glass of white wine
300ml chicken stock
Tomato purée
½ a small butternut squash
3-4 small potatoes
2 or 3 gratings of whole nutmeg
Salt & ground black pepper to taste

Method
First, make your Soffritto by peeling and chopping the onion, celery and carrot, heating the oil in a non stick pan and frying the vegetables over a low heat with a pinch of salt to soften.  Make sure you chop the carrot finely or it takes a lot longer to cook.

Heat the oven to 220°C.  While the Soffritto is cooking, peel and chop the garlic cloves, wash and dry the mushrooms and chop them roughly.  If you have time at this stage you can also prepare the squash and potato mash.

Turn the heat up to medium then add the pork mince (along with the chorizo if using) and start to brown the mince.  When everything is taking on a little colour, add wine, turn the heat up to full and reduce the wine by at least 50%.  Add the stock, garlic and mushrooms to the pan, bring to the boil then reduce the heat to medium and cook until the mushrooms have reduced in size and lost their water.  Turn the heat to low, add 4-5 tablespoons of tomato purée, give the whole thing a good stir and leave to reduce for 5 mins so the mix is good and thick.

If you haven't already made the mash, do that now.  Peel and cut the potatoes and squash into 2cm cubes.  To cook the potatoes with the squash, boil a pan of water, add a little salt and add the potatoes.  Boil for 3 minutes, then add the squash and cook until soft.  Drain and mash with a little extra virgin olive oil, salt and black pepper to taste and 2 or 3 gratings of whole nutmeg.

To finish off, tip the meat and vegetable mixture into an appropriate size baking dish and top with the mash.  Don't worry if you don't use all of the meat and vegetable mix, you can freeze the rest for another day.  Bake on the top of the oven until the top is nicely browned and serve as it is.  There are som many vegetables in this dish you don't need and side dishes with it, so an ideal one pot supper!  You can up the carb if you like by having some crusty white bread with it, but it's actually pretty filling as it is.

Bonfire night and a cassoulet - it's a bit of a tradition in our house.

For some years now I've been making a Cassoulet on bonfire night - it's a great party dish for a winter get together when you're going out and not sure when you'll get back as it really benefits from long, slow cooking and it's a one pot dish, perfect!  Traditionally, Cassoulet doesn't have tomatoes in it, but I like to add them to give colour and a bit more flavour.

A note before we start, a lot of the ingredients may take some time to get hold of, so I'd recommend buying and preparing well in advance and keeping them in the freezer or store cupboard until you need them.

If you've never had Cassoulet before, you should try it, it's from the Languedoc region of France and is a bit like a turbo charged sausage and beans. Let the fireworks begin.  This recipe served 12 comfortably.  Whatever's left over freezes well though and makes an extra special evening meal straight from the freezer.

Ingredients
4 duck breasts
750g dried haricot beans
300g pork belly

2 large onions
4 celery sticks
2 carrots
12 cloves of garlic
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato puree
2 bay leaves
A pinch of ground cloves
24 sausages, a mix of your favourite (we love Clarks Hertforshire sausages) and some Toulouse sausages if you can find them.

Method
First, make your duck "confit".  You can buy it in tins of you like, but I like to make my own and although it's not genuine, it works very well in this recipe and it's really easy to make.  Heat the oven to 140C, put the duck breast in a shallow dish, add a little salt and pepper and roast them for 2-3 hours until all the fat has come out and the duck is cooked all the way through.  Take them out of the oven, let them cool and then freeze them with the cooking juices and fat until you need them.

The night before you are going to make the dish, put the haricot beans in a large bowl and add lots of water, at least 3 times the volume of beans, cover and leave to soak until the next day.  Take out the duck breasts you froze before and let them thaw overnight.

On the day, start by choosing a casserole that is large enough to hold all the ingredients (the beans will at least double in size, so it needs to be big).  Peel and roughly chop the onion, celery and carrots.  Peel and crush the garlic and roughly chop it.  Cut the rind off the pork belly and keep that to one side, then cut the pork belly into bite size chunks removing any bones that may be left over.

Heat the pan and add the duck fat and juices (but keep the breasts aside)  and a little olive oil, then once it's hot add the strips of pork belly rind and the diced pork and sauté over a medium heat until they are starting to brown.  Add the onions, celery, carrots and garlic and sweat them over a low to medium heat with the pork until everything is soft and the pork and garlic is golden.

Now drain the beans and add them to the dish with the tomatoes, tomato purée, bay leaves and ground cloves, now add water to fully cover the ingredients, bring to the boil and then cook over the lowest heat you have to simmer very gently for around 3 hours until the beans a lovely and soft.

While the beans are cooking, grill the sausages until they're cooked as you like them and leave them to cool.

Finally, 30 minutes before you're ready to eat, slice the duck breasts into bite size morsels and add them and the sauces to the casserole, give a good stir and wait for them to heat through.  If the sauce is looking a bit thin at this stage, take the lid off, turn the heat up and reduce it down, but be careful as it will burn easily on the bottom of the pan unless you stir continuously.

Serve directly from the casserole into bowls and we like to eat our Cassoulet with fresh, crusty bread to mop up any juices, but you could equally have baked potatoes.

Butternut Squash and Spiced Lamb Stew

A tagine by any other name, except this doesn't have the dried fruit.  Nonetheless, it's still a great dish, good and warming for those autumn evenings and a nice reminder of the heat of summer!

Ingredients

3 tbsp olive oil
500g cubed lamb
2 onions, roughly chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2.5cm piece fresh root ginger, grated
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 tbsp harissa paste (or to taste!)
25g plain flour
1.2 litres lamb or vegetable stock
1 butternut squash
4 tomatoes, roughly chopped (alternatively, use a tin of tomatoes and reduce the stock liquid)
400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
225g baby spinach
2 tbsp lemon juice
Couscous and crusty bread to serve

Method
Heat the oil in a large casserole, add the lamb and brown all over, stirring occasionally. Lower the heat to medium then add the onion, garlic and ginger and cook for another 3 or 4 minutes until softened. Sprinkle in the flour and stir, then add the tomato purée and Harissa and cook for a further 1 or 2 minutes. Add the stock, bring to the boil, cover tightly and simmer for 1-2 hours - the longer the better.

Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Peel and cut the flesh into bite-size chunks.

Add the tomatoes, squash and chickpeas to the casserole and cook for 30 or so minute until the squash is tender but not too soft giving an occasional stir.  Stir in the spinach and lemon juice and cook for a further 1–2 minutes.  Adjust the seasoning to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve with rice or couscous and lots of crusty bread to mop up the juices!

Roasted Spatchcock Poussin with Bulgar Wheat salad

This is a lovely transitional autumn dish for those days that are bright and warm before winter really sets in. It has a Mediterranean feel to it with the middle eastern style salad and the Italian style Poussin. It would be delicious over summer too cooked in the oven then finished off on the barbecue as spatchcocking the Poussin means it can be cooked pretty quickly. If you haven't spatchcocked a bird before, there's a great BBC video on how to do it - it isn't hard as long as you have a large, sharp knife :)  I used two small Poussins, one per person, but you should adjust the number of birds to suit the number of people you're feeding. You could also use Guinea fowl too which would work equally well.

Ingredients
For the roast Poussin
2 small Poussins
A small bunch of fresh thyme
3 lemons
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
12 garlic cloves
Salt and Pepper
250ml white wine
250ml chicken stock

For the Bulgar wheat salad
50g Bulgar wheat per person
250ml chicken or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ a red pepper
1 small Courgette
2 sticks Celery
2 small tomatoes or one medium
3 spring onions
1 preserved lemon or half a roasted lemon from the roasting tin.
A small bunch of fresh coriander

Method
First preheat the oven to 220°C. Next, spatchcock the Poussin using the technique from the video link above. This will take about 10 minutes.

Once you've completed that, prepare the marinade. Peel and crush the garlic cloves with the flat of a knife and add them to a casserole dish. Next halve and squeeze the lemons and add them to the dish (if you're using roasted lemon instead of preserved, put one half lemon in the dish to the side without squeezing it). Place the Thyme in the dish with the garlic and lemon halves and place the Poussin on top. Finally, drizzle the olive oil over the birds, drizzle the lemon juice over and season with salt and black pepper. Cover with cling film and leave to marinade for at least an hour at room temperature.

While the birds are marinading, make the salad. Measure out the Bulgar wheat in a cup and add to a saucepan, then add 5½ times the volume of cold stock to the pan, bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

While the Bulgar wheat is simmering, slice the peppers and cut each slice into 2 or 3, peel and chop the celery into ½cm cubes, slice the Courgettes using a potato peeler and cut the slices into three even pieces and roughly chop the tomatoes. Add the olive oil to a pan and heat it until it's smoking, then add all the veg to it and stir fry until they are softened and slightly coloured. Drain in a sieve. Prepare the rest of the ingredients by peeling and slicing the spring onions, chopping the coriander leaves roughly and by thoroughly rinsing the preserved lemon (to get rid of as much salt as possible), slicing into thin slices and halving the slices. Keep half the lemon for the Poussin. Once the Bulgar wheat is cooked, drain it and leave to cool for 5 minutes, add it to a bowl then mix in the roasted veg, onions, coriander and preserved lemon. Cover with cling film and set aside. This salad can be served warm or cold depending on taste. I prefer serving it slightly warm so I leave it next to the cooker to keep it warm.

Now pop the Poussin in the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes until it's cooked all through and the skin is nicely browned. Once it's finished cooking, place the Poussin on a hot serving plate, cover with tin foil and let it rest. While the Poussins are resting, make the sauce by adding the white wine to the casserole dish and deglazing the pan. Add the stock and boil rapidly to reduce and get rid of the alcohol. When you have reduced the sauce by ½, strain though a fine mesh sieve, adjust for seasoning and add a small amount of sugar or honey to take off the bitterness of the lemon - careful, you'll only need about a teaspoon of sugar!

To serve, put the Poussin on a warmed plate and add some sliced preserved lemon pieces and a little sauce.  Add a tablespoon or two of sauce to the salad and serve with the Poussin.  Add some good company, a couple of glasses of chilled bone-dry white wine and enjoy!

Carrots with butter and thyme

This is especially for Rowena as it's her favourite way of cooking carrots - she asked me for the recipe, how can I resist?  :-)

Ingredients

1 carrot per person (more if you wish)
1 large and 1 small knob unsalted butter (about 25g)
½ a teaspoon of sugar
2 good size sprigs of fresh thyme
A squeeze of lemon juice - fresh of bottled, it doesn't matter
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Remove the thyme leaves from the stalks, then chop them roughly and rinse in cold water. Peel and cut the carrots into thin slices (Julienne), rinse in cold water, boil a pan and cook them for 2-3 mins until just cooked. 

Heat the butter in a pan until it's melted, add the carrots and sugar, then sauté until they are slightly browned.  Drain and leave in the colander to steam while you prepare the thyme butter.  Melt the remaining butter in a pan until liquid but not coloured, add the chopped thyme and a splash of lemon juice, mix together well, then add the carrots back into the pan, heat through and serve.