Cornish Pasties - this time with suet pastry

For some reason, I had been hankering after making some Cornish Pasties for the longest time.  However, as hubby is always somewhat dubious about my pastry I hadn't broached the thorny subject.  What made the difference in this instance, was the advent of the suet pastry recipe from Jamie Oliver that I used in the making of the Kate & Will's Wedding Pie.  This pastry has been so successful that it has become both my menfolk's casing of choice for all savoury pies and pasties.

So when I suggested home made Cornish Pasties - for "English baking week" on one of my favourite Facebook pages - but made with the gold star of pastry recipes, hubby was won over and agreed.

Ready for the oven

Now I will admit that as regards the other Cornish Pasty recipe on Rhubarb & Ginger, it doesn't differ a very great deal.  However, I thought it was good to make a whole new blog posting about these pasties as opposed to simply making a note on the original recipe.  Clarity, and all that.  *wink*

All baked and ready for their paper bags and adventure!

Aside from the issue of the pastry, the only other significant differences between the two recipes are that this one uses chopped steak (rather than steak mince) and this one also utilises a half a crumbled Oxo cube by way of seasoning, to just up the flavour profile a wee bit.  Oh - and I paired mine with some healthy stir fried vegetables, whereas the menfolk had the ubiquitous man food of hash browns and baked beans with theirs.

The pasties turned out to be so very successful, as the pastry really is tasty and firm enough to easily cope with the filling.  Hubby felt that there still wasn't enough black pepper in them (even with my including it in the pastry!) for his liking and I do have to agree.  I think another half a teaspoonful would have done the trick, so feel free to add extra to the filling if you're a fan of peppery Cornish pasties.

I ate the one leftover pasty the following day for my lunch.  It was just as good, if not better, cold - and with some tasty pickle or relish would not be out of place on the lunch menu of any good Cornish pub.

Now I have a few Cook's Tips for you :

1.  It really is very important that the pastry is handled and worked as little as possible.  The longer it is handled or worked, the tougher it will bake.  As regards the water, I have found that carbonated mineral water adds a little lift, but if you don't have carbonated just ordinary very cold tap water will be sufficient.

2.  I roll the pastry out between two pieces of cling film rather than on a floured surface, which is by far the cleanest way I know of it do it.  Now this has the added benefit, once you've cut out your circle, of providing you with some cling film to close over the top of the pastry and prevent it from drying out while you make the other three!  I found it was worth turning the pastry over before adding the filling, as it was easier to pick it up from the cling film, that way.

3.  If you are using steak, rather than steak mince, you should ensure that the meat has a little bit of fat marbling it, for flavour.  Too lean and your pasties won't have that lovely beefy flavour.

4.  The black pepper is an essential - and more rather than less.

5.  A simple but most effective tip is always to egg wash before you cut the slits or holes in the pastry.  Do it the other way around and the holes will fill with egg which will seal as it cooks - and your pasties will unzip themselves in order to let the steam out.  It is also worth taking care to not let the egg drip off onto the paper lining or it will burn as the pasties cook.

There.  Who'd have thought making pasties could be so complicated?  *chuckle*  It isn't complicated at all really - it's just a matter of avoiding some of the little things that could so easily spoil what would otherwise be a perfect bake.

So now all you need is to find some brown paper bags in which to put your hot pasties, then off you go to somewhere suitably rural in which to eat them, along with lashings of ginger beer and some slabs of fruit cake.  Oh - that would be Dorset pasties then, not Cornish.  *wink*

Either way, in front of the t.v. or on a windswept hillside - enjoy them!

CORNISH PASTIES (suet pastry version)

Ingredients :

For the pastry ...
-  300g all purpose (plain) flour
-  100g vegetable suet
-  100g salted butter
-  pinch of sea salt
-  pinch of fresh ground black pepper
-  120ml very cold water (I use refrigerated and carbonated mineral water).

For the filling ...
-  300g lean beef steak, cut into strips, then diced finely
-  a medium onion, diced
-  1 medium sized potato, peeled and diced finely
-  one quarter (or less) of a swede (rutabaga), peeled and diced finely
-  a good pinch of sea salt
-  1 heaped tsp of freshly ground black pepper (more if you like it!)
-  half a beef Oxo cube, crumbled.

Optional : 1 tsp chopped fresh parsley.

1 egg, for egg wash.

Method :

1.  Firstly make the pastry, by placing all the ingredients but the water into a bowl.  Rub the butter into the flour (doesn't matter if some suet comes along for the ride) until you have small cornflake shapes.

2.  Add the water, mixing through with a knife until the dough begins to come together.  You may need a little more water, or a little less, so add it in a couple of instalments to be on the safe side.  Do not knead the dough at all.  Just pat and push it until it comes together in a ball.

3.  Wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes.

4.  Take the filling ingredients and mix together in a bowl, making sure to crumble the half Oxo cube finely and mix it in well.

5.  Cut the pastry into four even sized pieces and roll each one out into a 4-5 inch circle.

6.  Egg wash around the edge of half of each circle.

7.  Divide the filling evenly between the four pastry circles, placing it on the opposite side to the egg wash.

8.  Fold the free edge gently over the top of the filling, pressing down lightly around the edges to seal.

9.  Crimp the edge in whichever manner you feel most confident, the important thing being that the edges are very well sealed.

10.  Place onto a parchment or non-stick silver foil lined baking tray.

11.  Egg wash the four pasties.

12.  Cut a couple of slits (or make holes) in the top of each pasty.

13.  Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200degC/400degF/Gas 6 for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 180degC/350degF/Gas 4 for another 40 minutes.  Remember to turn the baking tray half way through the cooking, to achieve an even bake.

Serve either hot from the oven, or cold the following day with a pickle such as my Rhubarb & Apple Relish.  Gorgeous!

Printable version

More Cornish Pasties!

Look at 'em, all golden and lovely!

Hooray!  We actually got around to making those Cornish Pasties we'd been promising ourselves for the last two weeks.

I made them exactly how I describe in the Cornish Pasty blog post here and didn't even tinker about with the ingredients.

Oh!  I'm fibbing.  I did change one thing, which was when putting the filling in each pastry circle, I decided to put half the steak mince on the bottom, then the vegetables, then the other half of the steak mince on the top.  I felt that would give a better distribution of meat to vegetable, which is exactly what happened.  So I'm pleased with that.  

Three lines cut into the top - traditional R us.

I'm also pleased that, this time, I was well enough to eat one!  Again, I served them just simply with some baked beans.  They are so huge that they really don't need anything more than that - and I did, in fact, consider not having baked beans but keeping the tomato ketchup bottle close by, which would certainly have worked.

You can even see the pepper!

Hubby did the rolling out of the pastry, thank goodness, and we had a little production line going.  We did investigate the proposition of making more, smaller pasties - but the division of the pastry was too confusing, so we just went with what worked previously.


Never mind your shop bought pasties, these pasties truly are the best I have tasted since my ex-fiance's Mum made some, around ooooh, some 34 years ago now.  Now that's not bad going, I'd say!


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Making a little go a long way - or trying to! Meal Plan for week beginning 30 August 11

There are a couple of things going on with our income this week that mean it would be good if we could try to just tighten our belts a little.  Hence, I'm afraid you won't be finding expensive cuts of meat, or fancy fish (well, apart from Scampi - but that's our one indulgence for this week!) on the menu list.

However, you will find a great deal of involvement with the wonderful thing that is mince.  Beef mince, turkey mince, pork mince - it's all there, in various incarnations.  That and the wonderful bacon we get from our local butcher.  It's not only cheaper than the supermarkets and so unbelievably good, but you get almost twice the amount in rasher size, too!

So.  Here's how this week of semi-frugality is shaping up :

Tuesday : Son - Lasagne, Adults - Pork Noodle Stir-fry

Wednesday : Tenderstem broccoli & bacon quiche, lemony new potatoes and salad

Thursday : Scampi and salad

Friday : Pasta with bacon, peas and mint

Saturday : Turkey meatball & sweetcorn curry, rice & naan bread

Sunday : Cornish Pasties and salad

Monday : Chilli con carne with rice.

I'm still not quite back firing on all four cylinders as I was prior to contracting Shingles, plus my right knee seems to have a life of its own in that it suddenly decides to not have anything to do with what we're trying to achieve.  It has brought tears to my eyes on more than one occasion, just lately.  I have resolved to deep breathe and carry on, once it has decided to let me.  Oh the trials of arthritis!  As such, I've kept my recipes to things that are easily achieved and don't require much time spent in the kitchen - or much walking to and fro.

We opted to utilise "Pizza Tuesday" at the beginning of the week and indulged in a Stir Fry.  We had already put aside a Lasagne in the freezer for Son & heir for just such an occasion, which when he came to the kitchen to ask what was for dinner, he was heartily relieved to learn was headed in his direction.  He'd been looking very dubiously at the stir fry out of the corner of his eye, with a distinct air of consternation in the enquiry.

The Pork Noodle Stir Fry wasn't a resounding success, regrettably, as hubby found the sprinkling of fresh mint to be a challenging flavour too many.  Everything else he was relatively happy with - even the dressing of lime juice, soy sauce, wine vinegar and honey.  The recipe used pork mince and I took a short cut and bought a fresh stir fry mix (with bamboo shoots and water chestnuts - yum!) to take the place of the vegetables.  I was enjoying the meal to begin with, but found I quickly got bored with the flavours.  So, we won't be indulging in this one again - not when there are much nicer stir fry recipes out there!

This evening, we've just had a lovely Tenderstem Broccoli & Bacon Quiche (see the original recipe here on the Tenderstem website) accompanied with Lemony new potatoes and salad.

You know, hubby said it and I completely agree with him - Tenderstem Broccoli is almost as nice as Asparagus.  I won't go into raptures here over it, as I'm intending to do a blog post specifically for both the quiche and the potato recipe, as they went together so well.  Plus, if ever the Tenderstem website disappears at least I'll have the recipe on my blog!

I'll be at work on Thursday and we had been wracking our brains to try to think of something easy for hubby to cook that evening.  Suddenly a shaft of inspiration came down from on high (or from somewhere, anyway!) and hubby exclaimed "scampi!".  So, scampi it is - with salad and lovely crusty bloomer bread.  Yummy!

Last Sunday I had been reading other folks' blogs and came across "Senses in the kitchen".  Detailed thereon, was an intriguing and deliciously simple recipe for Pasta with Bacon, Peas and mint.  You can find the recipe here if you're curious.  Now I won't deny that following on from hubby's problem with the mint in the stir fry, I'm not as confident as I was.  However, this is a much simpler mix of flavours which are all compatible, so I've got my fingers firmly crossed!  As for son & heir, well, he's a different matter - there is no saying whether he'll like it or not, so I'll carry on and hope for the best.

Saturday's Turkey Meatball & Sweetcorn Curry has been trying to be made for the last couple of weeks, without success.  Turkey mince is so economical and the meatballs stay together most beautifully when they are cooked, so they are perfect ammunition for a curry.  I suspect I'll add a few curry spices to the meatballs, just to get them headed in the right direction.  As for the inclusion of sweetcorn - well, there's so much of it about and it is so deliciously sweet, it seemed a perfect accompaniment to the gentle flavour of the meatballs.

The Cornish Pasties are a request from hubby.  Again, they are relatively easy to make - I'll have to get hubby to do the rolling out of the pastry this time, as it nearly did for me the last time!  With the addition of the mandolin which makes slicing so easy, it should be a fairly easy job.  Fingers crossed!  (If I've any left, having used the mandolin!).

Last, but far from least, we've booked in a Chilli Con Carne for Monday.  The advantages of having a chilli on a Monday are that we won't be needing to try to keep any vegetables fresh for use in it (other than an onion!) and hubby can make chilli with one hand tied behind his back - and a cracking good chilli, at that.

We'll have it with your standard boiled rice, but Son & heir and myself like to sprinkle our chilli with grated cheddar cheese and, um, weasels.  Yes, you read that right - weasels.  When Son & heir was just a little 'un, he couldn't pronounce sultanas - and for some unknown reason, they wound up being "weasels".  So - chilli with weasels and cheese, anyone?

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The best (and biggest!) Cornish Pasties

If I can remember that far back (last Tuesday - it's a close run thing, to be honest!), I seem to recall that I made some crackingly good Cornish Pasties.

Now, of course, one wonders whether they should in fact be called "Dorset Pasties" as we're in Dorset, not Cornwall.  However, I think we can safely leave that a moot point and in calling them "Cornish", I trust everyone will know what sort of pasty we're talking about.

The original plan, with this pasty meal, was to have the Cornish Pasties with an accompanying salad.  I had thought that would be somewhat healthier (less fat & sugar, potentially) than baked beans and chips.  However, when I checked on them in the oven and saw what a humungous size they had reached, I quickly revised that idea.  It seemed to me that the pasty itself would be quite enough for a meal (as indeed, was the original idea behind them) with perhaps a few baked beans in order to provide something to lubricate the jaws.  Quite apart from anything else, I was beginning to feel distinctly peculiar - and the idea of putting together a salad was rapidly becoming less and less attractive both from a personal point of view and from a "not passing on whatever I've got" point of view.

So, the chaps had one each with some baked beans - and indeed, they proved perfectly adequate for a meal.  All of which leads me to suppose it might be better to draw 4" circles in the pastry, rather than 8" circles, in order to produce a smaller more manageable pasty!

I used shop-bought frozen puff pastry and it was brought home to me just how enfeebled I had become, because the simple act of rolling out the pastry was incredibly difficult.  When I'd done the first quarter - and cut out the first circle - I can remember thinking "OMG - I've three more of these to go!".  Which is crazy, when you consider that I used to think nothing of picking up 25kg of horse feed bag and slinging it over my shoulder.  How times change!

I kept the ingredients for the filling completely traditional, apart from the fact that I used some lovely steak mince, rather than cut up a piece of steak.  I felt this would rule out any pieces of steak being too "bouncy" and not tender enough, plus there was the outside chance that some fat would get through the net.  

Another interesting point regarding the pasties, is that I used the Mandolin to cut the potatoes, onions and swede.  This ensured that they were cut to the exact-same thickness and although each slice wasn't cut in the exact-same way, so some were bigger in diameter than others, it seemed to work beautifully where the cooking time was concerned.  I have, in the past, had pasties come out of the oven with the potato or the swede still really quite hard, where I've diced them instead of sliced them.

I put the slices into a bowl, which enabled me to balance the quantities of all three much more easily than taking a little handful for each pasty.  You could see, once you'd added the onion, how much potato you would need and likewise the swede.  It also enabled me to season with freshly ground black pepper - loads of it! - and sea salt, mixing the slices to ensure the seasoning was carried throughout the filling.  I did give each pasty a little extra grind of both seasonings just before closing them, but hubby reckons that although they were very nice, I could still have given them more pepper.

A note about the pastry.  I rolled the pastry out between two pieces of cling film (a la Rachel Allen), which is by far the cleanest way I know of it do it.  Now this has the added benefit, once you've cut out your circle, of providing you with some cling film to close over the top of the pastry and prevent it from drying out while you make the other three!  I found it was worth turning the pastry over before adding the filling, as it was easier to pick it up from the cling film, that way.

As for the crimping, well, in the past my pasties have looked rather like a rabid dog has put them together.  However, this time, I was quite pleased with the crimping and it looked even better once they'd cooked.  For once - faint! - none of them came undone in the cooking!

CORNISH PASTIES  (makes 4 x 8" circles = 4 pasties)

Ingredients :


1 pack with 2 blocks of Puff Pastry
300g steak mince
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 medium potatoes, peeled, thinly sliced
175g swede, peeled, thinly sliced
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
beaten egg.


Method :


1.  Pre-heat oven to 220c/fan 200c/gas 7.


2.  Roll out the pastry, a half a pack at a time, in between two pieces of cling film and until you can place an 8" plate on top with extra to spare around the edges.  Remove the top layer of cling film and draw a knife around the plate to remove the extra pastry.  Close the cling film over the circle and leave it to one side while you prepare the remaining circles.


3.  Using a Mandolin - or by slicing as finely and evenly as possible with a knife - slice the onion, potatoes and swede.  Place the onion directly into a bowl, however with the potato and swede, cut each slice (you can heap them and cut a number at one time) into four, then place in the bowl.


4.  Add the seasoning - and go wild with the pepper, as these pasties can take a huge amount of black pepper - and mix through with your fingers.


5.  Take the first of your circles and peel the cling film from it, turn it over and place it back onto the cling film.  Add a handful of vegetable mix along the centre line and add a quarter of the steak mince, broken into pieces, along the same line and on top of the vegetables.


6.  Season again, then brush a little of the beaten egg mixture around the outside edges of the circle.  Bring the half furthest away from you up and over the top of the meat & vegetables, towards you, sealing it on its opposite side.  Then, starting from one end, crimp the edges - sealing as you go.


7.  Once done, cut three lines into the body of the pasty and place onto a baking tray.  Brush with the egg wash and place into the oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 180c/fan 160c/gas 4 and bake for 45 mins or so until golden.


Serve warm.









 

It all started so well, with Cornish Pasties, of all things ...

As I recall (and a lot has happened since then, so I could be wrong), the last thing I spoke to you all about, was the Chicken Caesar Salad.  Seems like a lifetime ago!

First of all, I have to publicly thank Dominic for the box of Picota Cherries that reached us safely on Saturday morning.  Such a cute box!  I set out with great intentions of making a cherry clafouti, or individual cherry tartlets - but fate just has a hand in these things sometimes and unfortunately, I didn't get around to making anything other than the odd lovely bowl of "fresh from the fridge" cherries with greek yoghurt on top.  I am ashamed to say that I didn't even (goodness knows how) manage to get a photograph of them.  I hang my head in penitence.

What Pad Thai SHOULD look like!

On the Sunday, we were due to have the Pasticcio - but due to unforeseen circumstances, I lost all will to cook the darned thing at around 3pm that afternoon.  So, we opted out and had a Chinese Takeaway instead.  From No.1 Wok, it was predictably yummy - all except the Pad Thai, which was so over cooked, it had degenerated into a sloppy, slimy mess.  The Nasi Goreng was lacking in chilli and had obviously been seriously westernised, but the King Prawn curry, Honey Chilli Chicken, King Prawn sweet & sour plus all the rices were delicious.

Monday saw hubby doing battle with the smoke alarm, as he cooked his way through grilled sausage, grilled bacon, fried egg, mushrooms, baked beans, tinned tomatoes and a fried slice of his own home-made bread, for everyone.  It's just as well we've got a kitchen door which shuts effectively, or I'd have been camped out under the smoke alarm with a fan!

As ever, Tuesday is shopping day.  We go directly after dropping Son & heir at school, which gets us to the supermarket at around 8.30am.  This ensures that a) there will be a disabled buggy available and b) that it will be charged up and ready to go.  It also has the added bonus of there not being too many people around, at that time in the morning.  In fact, by the time we leave, the car park will have just about filled up.

Needless to say, we haven't had breakfast by then and so we tend to pick up something to have with a cup of coffee when we get home.  On this occasion, it was a pack of two innocent-looking Belgian Buns from the Bakery.  Which were very nice - a naughty treat - right up until I began to feel a bit peculiar later in the evening.  In fact, it was just as I was about to serve up our home-made Cornish Pasties (of which, a blog will appear later)!  This "feeling peculiar" continued across the next two days, hubby joined in around 2-3 hours after I began to go down with it and we both were completely out of action (barring taking Son & heir to school and collecting him again, then making him something to eat) for the next two days.

Just as well I don't have claws, really!

We were both fighting nausea, had debilitating stomach pains and I broke out in an alarming-looking itchy rash.  It occurred on my arms on Tuesday evening, but progressed to my back by Wednesday evening - but the odd thing was that it went away during the day.  It was very like the rash I get when I've had too much garlic, so I take it to be my body's way of dealing with something it really doesn't like.  Poor old Son & heir was quite concerned about the pair of us, although he did get the added bonus of a particularly nice pizza which we'd bought for him on Wednesday evening, as a defence against having to cook.

So there we are.  The sorry and somewhat un-nerving tale of our lost two to three days.  I think I'm just about over it now, and hubby is following along - although he's had a rather harder time of it, as he was required to pitch in and do a whole heap of housework on the Wednesday, before the Occupational Therapist arrived to check out our new patio.  Poor soul, he did a brilliant job that obviously didn't do him any good at all, health-wise.

Of course, all this has thrown my meal plan into disarray.  Although, I am ultimately happy to report that we've been able to keep to the plan for every day other than Wednesday, when we opted for the ready-made dinners in Sainsbury's chiller cabinet, rather than cook.  What did I have?  Well you won't be surprised to hear that I chose a Shepherd's Pie.  What else would do the trick?  Hubby chose sausages, but ultimately had one of the leftover Cornish Pasties from the day before and Son & heir chose what looked to be a completely gorgeous pizza with a stuffed crust.  It was only the circumstances that prevented me from mugging him for a taste.

That's an 8-inch plate it's sitting on!

So!  These Cornish Pasties - completed against the odds (and I have sampled one since) are truly the best Cornish Pasties I've managed to produce, to date.  I kept the recipe simple - just potato, swede and onion, plus the best steak mince I could find - and a whole heap of freshly ground black pepper and sea salt.  I also used the mandolin to cut the vegetables, as I figured they would benefit from all being a similar thickness.  Seemed to do the trick!.

They baked up to be the most enormous pasties I've ever seen - one each was more than enough for a dinner, with the addition of a few baked beans to help them go down.  As said before, hubby managed one before being struck down by the lurgy and Son & heir happily waded his way through his, with a big smile on his face.

I've dealt with Wednesday above, but Thursday should have been Calzones & salad.  Hubby was in no fit state to be making bread dough, so the Spicy Lamb Mince & Ottolenghi's Green Couscous that we should have had on Wednesday, filled the gap.

It's the first time I've cooked this Spicy Lamb Mince and I have to say that I'll very definitely be doing it again, as it was really delicious.  Together with the Green Couscous - which came up trumps and was as gorgeous as the first time I made it - they went really well and made a healthy plus flavoursome meal for jaded tastebuds.

I won't deny that both hubby and myself had a bit of a tummy-twinge thereafter, but it was worth it to get some "proper food" down your gullet!

Well, that brings us to tonight and the rest of the week, which is shaping up as follows :

Friday : Mozzarella Bolognese Bake

Saturday : Ras-al-hanout Chicken with salad

Sunday : Chicken & Fennel Ragu with Jacket potatoes & peas

Monday : Sausage meatballs in gravy, with mash & vegetables.

I don't think anything there jumps out at you as being particularly special or even challenging - which is just the way I like it, at the moment!

The Mozzarella Bolognese Bake is based (lightly) on the Pasticcio idea, but with a view to using up the two Mozzarella balls that are left over from the Calzones that didn't happen.  I make a Mozzarella & Sausage Pasta Bake which is a family favourite, so it's going down those sorts of lines.

Saturday's Ras-al-Hanout chicken is an incredibly simple dish of chicken rubbed and marinated in Ras-al-Hanout, then grilled and paired up with a salad of chargrilled peppers, olives, cherry tomatoes and lettuce with some buttered new potatoes.  Nothing to frighten the horses involved with this, but hopefully will prove to be very nice, all the same.

Now the Chicken & Fennel Ragu on Sunday is something I'm looking forward to cooking.  I picked it up from the internet somewhere - but for the life of me I can't remember where and I forgot to note down on the page where I got it from.  Hence, if it's your recipe - do let me know and I'll credit you with it!  I've managed to get some of the lovely Marabel baking potatoes again, which were so nice the last time we had them.  I can't see it requiring much more than a few peas to bring colour to the table, so again, another simple but (hopefully) lovely meal.

Hubby's in charge on Monday again, and he's further exploring his sausage meatball line.  This time, it's going to be sausage meatballs in gravy (I'm hoping for onion gravy), with mashed potatoes and vegetables - probably involving carrots and broccoli.  Well, if that doesn't get us back on our feet, nothing will!

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Quick! Here's the meal plan for this week.

I should really be watching "The Apprentice", but no - I'm here typing away just so that I won't be too late with the meal plan for this week.  Feel sorry for me, because not only am I missing "The Apprentice", but I also just bashed myself on the forehead with our griddle pan, whilst trying to sniff the centre of it because it smelled of char-grilled peppers.  *blush*  Oh, I can't help it - and yes, I should have known it was that heavy as I've spent all afternoon cooking with it.  But there you are.  *chuckle*

So, without further ado, here's the meal plan for this week :

Quick stroganoff & pasta

Tandoori chicken & Jun Tanaka's char-grilled vegetable couscous

Minced beef, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots

Ken Hom's Broccoli Chicken with rice

Anthony Worrall-Thompson's "Health in a Bowl" with char-grilled Ciabatta

Phil Vickery's Pepperpot Beef & Orange stew with rice & peas

Cornish pasties, oven chips and baked beans.

So, who is coming over for what dinner?  LOL

There's quite a lot of chef accreditation going on up there, isn't there?  Unusually so - but then I have been trawling the Good Food Channel's "Healthy Recipes" section, which is where the most of these have come from.

I'm afraid it's no good trying to book for the Quick stroganoff & pasta, because we had that yesterday and I have to say that it was truly disgusting.  However, in my own defence, I cooked it especially for Son & heir, as he's had to suffer some quite vegetable-heavy dishes just lately, and it was a little culinary thank you for doing his best with them.  It hit the spot with him in that he cleared his plate and declared it delicious - so job done.  (Even if it did make me feel very peculiar, later on in the evening!).

Jun Tanaka's version - mine was a lot chunkier!

We've just had the Tandoori chicken with Char-grilled vegetable couscous and, wonder of wonders, I won again on the couscous front.  Oh, well, apart from with Son & heir, who has decreed he doesn't like the char-grilled flavour on anything (well, except a Burger King burger, of course.  ~rolls eyes~).  As for the Tandoori chicken being even remotely Tandoori - it wasn't.  Yes, I know we don't have a Tandoor oven here, but the chicken was supposed to have been able to be cooked on a griddle pan (are you sensing a bit of a fixation here?) which I had thought might lend it the charred flavour that goes with Tandoori foods.  As it was, thankfully, I only tried the little mini-fillets on the griddle pan.  As they welded themselves to it, I put the breast fillets into the oven!  25 minutes at 200deg and they were really quite tasty, if entirely NOT Tandoori.

We didn't manage to catch a photograph of the dish (forgot!), but I have a little couscous left over which I'll try and take a decent photograph of, just so that I can pass the recipe on - as it was really extremely nice and worth doing again.

We're having a de-constructed Cottage Pie tomorrow.  Well, I'm at work so it's unlikely I'll want to make a Cottage Pie, but you never know!  I've actually been having dreams (like, every night!) about Shepherd's Pie, so perhaps I should, just to see what will happen.  Son & heir will be okay with this one, as he loves minced beef in all its guises.  Hopefully it will also mean I can use up the Maris Pipers I got for the Cheesy Champ Mash plus the Chantenay carrots I got for Son & heir's Sunday chicken dish.

Ken Hom's version - looks good!

Friday will be one of Ken Hom's lovely easy dishes.  This one, Broccoli Chicken, will help to make use of the Oyster Sauce I bought recently.  It's also not quite a stir-fry and is served with rice, so I'm hoping that Son & heir will be okay with it.  I'm sure hubby will, as he really likes all the oriental style dishes.

Somebody had better remind me, though, that on Friday evening I'm supposed to be putting some Lentils on to soak, ready for making Anthony Worrall-Thompson's Health in a Bowl on Saturday.

Health in a bowl - well, we'll see!

I am super-intrigued by this one.  It has got everything bar the kitchen sink in it - everything that's good for you, anyway!  Plus, it is based on some thick cut gammon ham - which is something we haven't had for ages.  I'm sure it would work perfectly with a smoked ham hock, too - but I'll be darned if I can source one of those around here at the moment!  Of course, owing to the fact that I haven't used the griddle pan for a few days, I've scheduled us to have griddled Ciabatta with a smudge of garlic and a drizzle of olive oil, along with it.  I'm feeling healthier just talking about it - goodness knows how I'll feel the day after making and eating it.  (Fingers crossed).

Sunday's dish is another interesting one.  Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to do any more heavy old stews because it was spring time, but this recipe says it isn't heavy - and as it's based on a Caribbean recipe, I guess it's got a 50:50 chance of being healthy.  Anyway, it's another (very good) excuse to use some lovely Brisket of beef.  The rice and peas I've put as accompanying it, I have yet to decide whether to do traditional rice and peas, or just make rice with some green peas in it.  Authenticity -v- colour.  Hmmmn, the jury's still out on that one.

Now as for Monday, let's just pretend that Monday isn't going to happen, shall we?  Although, I will just quickly say that I'll be having a jacket potato instead of chips, but that still doesn't mitigate the damage done by a shop-bought Cornish Pasty.  *sigh*  All I can do is try.  Well, you've got to serve some Man-food sometimes, just so that he knows you're listening to him, isn't that how it goes?

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