You may not be altogether surprised to hear that the name of this meatloaf is one of my own devising. Of course, it's because the herbs involved are parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. LOL
You see, I was after a midweek, no frills, relatively plain, good and savoury, tasty meatloaf that could be served with some denomination of potato dish and a selection of vegetables. A meat & three veg. meatloaf, if you like!
I used beef and pork mince in a two thirds/one third combination because the pork mince just serves to lighten the texture of the beef. Adding loads of extra flavours - mustard, herbs, onion & garlic granules - helped pep up the savouriness and my now indispensable method of draining off the cooking juices halfway through the cooking time as ever, resulted in a good firm loaf. I do so hate meatloaf that you could serve with a spoon. Gak!
Now you might be wondering why I used the onion & garlic granules instead of adding fresh onion and fresh garlic. Good question! I find that fresh onion has to be almost grated or minced, so as not to leave small pieces of quite firm, almost crunchy, onion behind in the mix. Some people might like that, but I'm not a fan. Grating or mincing the onion just serves to increase the liquid in the mix, which I pour off at half time anyway so its not a good method.
It's a similar thing with garlic. I'm allergic to raw garlic, so it has to be incredibly finely chopped to wind up cooked sufficiently for me. Hitting on a piece of semi raw garlic is so overpowering to the other flavours, that again, it's just not a good method for me. However, if I add onion and garlic granules - which are simply dehydrated and finely minced - I get all the benefit of the flavour and none of the drawbacks. It's a personal taste thing. If you like to find onion or garlic in your meatloaf, or have the time and energy to pre-cook and caramelise them, then by all means go ahead and use fresh!
Oh and I'm also assured that this meatloaf is fairly epic when used, cold, as part of a sandwich. Happy days!
SCARBOROUGH FAIRLY MEATLOAF (Serves 5)
Ingredients :
1 bread crust, blitzed into breadcrumbs
500g reduced fat beef mince
250g pork mince
1 large egg
1 heaped tsp wholegrain mustard
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
pinch of sea salt
pinch of ground black pepper
1 tsp onion granules
half a tsp garlic granules
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped fine (dried parsley would work too - use 1 tsp)
1 tsp dried sage
1 tsp dried rosemary
half a tsp dried thyme
1 tsp beef stock powder or 1 tsp Bovril.
Method :
Pre-heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas 4.
Place all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix together well, using your hands. Try not to over-mix or the meatloaf will become tough, but ensure all the ingredients are distributed well across the mix.
Line a 1lb loaf tin with silver foil and pack the meatloaf mix in well. I find it best to put half in and press into the corners, pushing it well down and ensuring all air bubbles are out, before adding the second half and repeating the process.
Using your fingertips, create a small space along the edge of the mix between the loaf tin and the ingredients - a gutter, effectively! This will help when it comes to draining off the excess liquid, later.
Place onto the middle oven shelf and bake for 30 minutes.
Remove the meatloaf from the oven and carefully drain off any accumulated liquid. Take care not to let the loaf slip from within the tin, into the sink!
Place back into the oven for another 30 minutes.
Remove from the oven and, using the silver foil, pull the meatloaf from inside the loaf tin. Place onto a chopping board and carefully unwrap. Cut the meatloaf into slices and serve with mashed potato and seasonal vegetables of your choice.
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I'm not really sure what made me choose smoked haddock for this quiche, other than the fact that white fish is one of my "safe havens" where the risk of gout is concerned and as such, bacon, ham or sausage were out. Obviously, I fancied making a quiche and I think I've become quite passably good at them over time. It is unusual for me to pick fish as a quiche ingredient, but this combination of smoked haddock and asparagus worked really well.
(It is worth bearing in mind, if you - like me - have to watch gout triggers, that asparagus is also a very famous gout trigger. However, I think that the amount of asparagus in each portion of quiche isn't at danger point for me. Do judge that for yourself, though).
If you're looking for a quiche in the style of Quiche Lorraine, i.e. super cheesy and stuffed with bacon, then you may need to up the cheese quota and/or change from Gouda to mature Cheddar. However, I didn't want the primary flavour to be cheese in this quiche, so I opted for the milder Gouda.
The smoked haddock is poached in milk, which also tends to mellow out the flavour a wee bit - although I used some of the poaching milk in the filling, to catch as much flavour as possible. I have issues with throwing good flavour away down the drain!
A very good point with making any quiche, is that you can get on with the making and baking in the morning, then take it relatively easy where putting dinner together is concerned. Just assemble a few tasty salad ingredients and maybe add a few buttered new potatoes - or in our case in this instance, chips - and you're done. A good one for those make-ahead days!
SMOKED HADDOCK & ASPARAGUS QUICHE (serves 4-6)
Ingredients :
Sufficient shortcrust pastry to line an 8" loose bottomed sandwich tin or quiche dish
125g asparagus tips
250g smoked haddock fillets (chunky ones are best)
250g or thereabouts semi skimmed milk
2 whole very large or 3 whole large eggs
150ml single cream
pinch of sea salt
pinch of black pepper
half a tsp onion granules
75g Gouda cheese, finely grated
a pinch of dried parsley, to garnish.
Method :
Pre-heat the oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas 4.
Carefully line the sandwich tin or quiche dish with pastry, ensuring the pastry doesn't become pierced. Cover the pastry with greaseproof paper and fill the case with baking beans or ceramic pellets then bake for 15 minutes. Remove the greaseproof and baking beans and bake again for another 3 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside.
In the meantime and in a small saucepan, boil some water and add the asparagus tips. Cook for 3 minutes, then drain and run under cold water to arrest the cooking process. Set aside to drain fully.
Place the smoked haddock into a small lidded frying pan and add the milk. The milk shouldn't cover the fish, but come two thirds of the way up. Place on the heat to simmer with the lid on until the fish is just cooked. Set the pan aside to cool slightly.
In a large bowl, add the eggs and quickly whisk them together. Add the cream, sea salt, black pepper and onion granules and whisk them all together.
Cut the asparagus tips to fit the surface of the quiche in an attractive pattern. Cut the excess into small log shapes and add them to the egg mixture. Set the decorative pieces to one side.
Remove the fish from the milk and take off any skin. Flake the fish into the egg mixture and add the grated cheese.
Judge the quantity of egg mixture according to the pastry case and add a little of the poaching milk. Gently stir everything together, so as not to break up the fish any further.
Using a slotted spoon, spoon the solids from the egg mixture into the pastry case and spread evenly. Pour the egg mixture into the pastry case, but make sure it doesn't overflow or the quiche will argue about coming out of the tin once baked. Any excess can be poured into a ramekin and baked for a cook's bonus taster.
Arrange the remainder of the asparagus spears attractively over the surface of the filling and press lightly so that they are partly submerged. Add a light sprinkle of dried parsley and a grind of pepper, then bake for 35-40 minutes until golden and firm to the touch.
Serve with a side salad and buttered new potatoes or chips.
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I'm really quite proud of this soup. Not because it's particularly difficult to make or requires intricate processes, but because it means I have made the most of a plump chicken. It always pains me terribly to throw away the carcass of a roast chicken, as - in the days before I had room in my freezer for chicken stock - I very often had to.
To start at the beginning, we had a good old traditional roast chicken for our Sunday dinner and quite apart from the three roast dinners it made, there was leftover breast meat, plus the leftover little taggy bits of meat (which are destined to be divided between a ramen noodle lunch and a chicken sandwich) and of course, the skeletal remains of the carcass. So, feeling all worthy and ambitious, I included a chicken noodle soup for the following day.
I see so many gorgeous looking chicken soups, made from scratch, go past on various Facebook groups that I really felt I was missing out - and the blog was missing out - on not having a great chicken soup recipe. Well, this evening fixed that one!
Yes, it is a bit of work, but with my trusty pressure cooker I was able to make the stock for the soup in a fraction of the time it would have taken without it - and without giving myself nightmares that always happens when I make stock using the slow cooker and leave it on overnight. True, the pressure cooker does scare me but in years of using them only one has ever blown up (when I was living on the boat. It blew the valve and painted the inside of the wheelhouse with boiling linseed that I was cooking for my horses' tea. I had to put up an umbrella to go turn the burner off and rescue us) and nowadays they have inbuilt mechanisms that make them considerably safer to use.
Once the stock is made, cooled and de-greased, it is a simple matter of a bit of chopping and a-peeling, then simply chucking stuff into the saucepan and watching it cook. Oh and tasting it get better and better, of course.
The spaetzle, I have to admit, came from Lidl. Yes, I know people are going to tell me that it's so much nicer/tastier if you make your own, but I was curious about this dried egg spaetzle, okay? As it turned out, it went superbly in this soup and provided the substance that otherwise would have been lacking. Took FOR EVER to cook though - so bear that in mind if you get a similar product. Their 10-11 minutes was closer to an actual 15-20.
I served the soup with simple buttered crusty bread rolls and it was perfect. I consider us to now be immune to all cold and flu viruses for at least the next month, as this kind of soup is very well known to cure all known ills. I'll have to spread a spoonful across the bank statement and see if it can cure the bank balance. *wink*
Now as far as Cook's Tips go, I really only have one which is more of a warning than a tip. For all that the making of the stock from a roast chicken carcass is time consuming and a tiny bit gross (to some people, I didn't find it so), it really is worth it. A stock cube is a supremely useful thing, but it can't take the place of this liquid gold. As I did, you can always add commercially produced stock to increase the liquid content, but you won't be able to find the depth of sheer chicken flavour - not even from the very best commercially produced chicken stock. So go that extra mile and make the most of your roast chicken carcass. You'll be so glad you did!
GERMAN STYLE CHICKEN SOUP WITH SPAETZLE (serves 3)
Ingredients :
For the stock
A roast chicken carcass, stripped of all useful meat but including all the ghastly bits you would normally throw away : skin, fat, gristle, bones - the lot
2 carrots, peeled if they're a bit gnarly or dirty, sliced into chunks
1 large brown onion, peeled and quartered
1 garlic clove, peeled but left whole
2 large celery sticks, cleaned and with feathery leaves left on, sliced into chunks
1 large handful of fresh parsley, stalks included
half a tsp of dried thyme
a pinch of sea salt
half a tsp of ground black pepper
1 tsp of vegetable stock powder, dissolved into 1 litre of hot water.
For the soup
1 litre of home made chicken stock
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 potato, peeled and diced
2 celery sticks, de-strung and chopped into similar size pieces as the carrot & potato
1 small parsnip, peeled and diced
2 tsp good low salt chicken stock powder (to taste - you may require less or more)
500ml hot water
half a tsp of ground black pepper
two fistfuls of dried Spaetzle
a good handful of petit pois
1 tbsp plain flour, mixed into 50ml warm water
150g minimum of roast chicken meat, chopped into bite sized pieces
chopped fresh parsley, for garnish.
Method :
To make the chicken stock, place all the ingredients into a pressure cooker and give it all a quick stir. Fix on the lid and place over the heat to come up to pressure. Cook at medium pressure for 20 minutes, then de-pressurise and remove the lid.
The stock can also be made, using the same ingredients, by cooking for a minimum of 8 hours in a slow cooker, or the good old fashioned way of simmering it all in a huge pan on the stove top, for as long as you can bear it. Just remember to keep an eye on the liquid level if you opt for this method.
Drain the liquid through a sieve over a large bowl or jug (don't make the schoolboy error of forgetting to catch the stock!) and set aside to cool. You should have at least a litre of stock. The solids can all be discarded once cool.
Once the stock is cool, you will find that the fat has accumulated on the top. Skim the fat off using a spoon - you don't have to be exact, just get rid of the worst of it. The stock is now ready to make soup with.
Pour your stock into a large soup saucepan and add the carrots. Bring the contents up to the boil, then reduce to a lively simmer and cook for some 3-4 minutes.
Add the potato, celery, parsnip, chicken stock powder (how much depends on how strong your stock flavour is) and the additional hot water and black pepper. Stir everything in well and bring back up to a lively simmer. Cook until the carrots are tender.
Using a potato masher, break up some of the vegetable pieces, leaving the majority intact. Taste for chickeniness (if it's a bit pale in flavour you can either leave the lid off and reduce the soup, taking care to leave enough to feed everyone, or add a little more chicken stock powder - but remember that the chicken meat has to be added yet) and for pepper and salt. This is when you find yourself very happy you were using a low salt stock powder!
Add the spaetzle to the soup and continue to cook at a lively simmer until the noodles are al dente.
Add the petit pois and the flour slurry, making sure to stir it in very well. This will thicken the soup. If you would like the soup to be thicker, simply add more flour slurry but take care to cook the rawness out of the flour.
When you are happy with the texture of your soup and the noodles are soft, add the chicken meat and heat through well. Once the soup has returned to a lively simmer, remove from the heat and serve into warmed bowls. Add a good sprinkle of chopped fresh parsley to each bowl as garnish and serve with warm crusty bread.
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