Jenny Eatwell's Rhubarb & Ginger: Taste Blog

Showing posts with label Taste Blog. Show all posts

14 April 2011

Gnocchi, fritters and kidneys - you don't get much more varied, than that!

The following blog can be seen in situ here.

Even though I do a weekly menu plan, sometimes life just conspires against me and insists on throwing all my plans into disarray. I’d had a big taste of that disarray last week, which meant that two recipes had been carried over to this week. Then, not satisfied with the confusion it had already created, disarray attacked at the end of the current week, causing us to have sandwiches instead of a lovely steak & kidney pie – which got put in the fridge until the following day.

The first recipe that got carried over was a Pot Roasted Chicken (which are always gorgeous). This one was to be accompanied by some gnocchi and tender stem broccoli, in a parmesan cream sauce.

I’ve not had a good track record with gnocchi – which is odd, considering I really like anything even remotely connected with a potato. Gnocchi have always seemed to me to be nasty glutinous little lumps of wallpaper paste with little or no flavour. So this was, pretty much, their last swansong before being consigned to the “don’t like it” pile.

I was using ready-made gnocchi and I do acknowledge that homemade gnocchi stand the change of being far superior – if you get them right. However, this dish had one thing in its favour before we began, which was that it was so quick and easy. Basically, while the tender stems & gnocchi are cooking, you cook garlic and chilli in butter, add some stock, crème fraiche and parmesan to make a sauce. Combine everything and you’re there.

The chicken was tender and moist, the broccoli and gnocchi were fresh and delicious.

I do have to add a rider at this stage, though, which is that I feel that the gnocchi and broccoli dish would be far better with some boiled bacon or gammon, than the chicken. So, the next time a piece of bacon hoves into view, I’ll be reaching for the gnocchi.

So. Having had one half of a chicken, it begged the question of what to do with the remainder.

I had seen a recipe for some carrot fritters that had intrigued me. Fried food is not something that I do very often (for all sorts of reasons) and as a consequence I’m something of a novice as regards pancakes and fritters. However, this recipe just made my mouth water and had to be done. I originally planned to serve it beside the cold cooked chicken, right up until a Coronation Chicken thought struck me.

The fritters contained fresh coriander and ground cumin, both of which would sit very well beside the curry spices of Coronation Chicken, so yet another sudden change of plan happened.

Once again, the fritters are a simple matter of grating carrot, adding flour, cumin, egg, some chopped onion and some crumbled feta cheese. Spoon big spoonfuls into a non-stick frying pan and, within a minute or so, you’ve got your fritters.

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed them – and they did indeed go admirably well with Coronation Chicken served on a bed of mixed lettuce.

Our Sunday dinner was intended to be this week’s piece de resistance. I’d bought a lovely piece of brisket of beef, along with three kidneys (except four kidneys arrived in the bag) to make a lovely steak and kidney pie. It wasn’t going to be a traditional pie with pastry top and bottom, nor a pudding with suet crust all around. It was going to be something of a halfway house, with a top crust being suet-based much in the same way as a Teviot pie. I suppose, it could be classed as a Steak & Kidney Teviot pie, if you wanted to be particular about its name.

Unfortunately, time ran away with me on Sunday afternoon (so much so, that I was doing my online shopping at 10pm) and the meat for the pie went into the oven at least an hour and half later than it should do. Being brisket, the writing was on the wall there and then.

At 6pm – dinner time – I tried the meat and found it to be crunchy. Not tough, not bouncy, the teeth went through it okay – but it had an odd crunch to it. Definitely not done.

So, out came a tin of tuna and we all had sandwiches.

Next day, and we’ve just eaten the Steak & Kidney Teviot – and according to my son, if zero marks where a shop-bought Steak & Kidney begins, then this is (moving his hands apart as far away as they would go) about here – and, engage thrusters – even further. I think, no, I know that he liked it. So did I – I doubt I will ever use a shop-bought steak & kidney anything from now on. Worlds apart.

6 April 2011

Bournemouth Echo "Taste" Blog : From failure to success!

This blog can be seen in situ here

You may remember that last week’s blog ended on my expressing a hope that the weekend’s fare would yield better results than had the previous few days. Well, my mojo returned and I’m pleased to say that it all went really very well.

The Oriental Beef & Butternut Squash we had on Sunday evening was, quite simply, a triumph. What made it especially good was that it purported to be a low-calorie meal. Well, if all low calorie meals tasted as amazing as that one, we’d all be stick thin!

The use of beef brisket in the dish is a sneakily wonderful idea, as brisket tends to be a fairly lean cut of meat – made even better by judicious trimming during preparation. I cooked it for rather longer than was dictated by the recipe, as I wanted to avoid any chance of it being rubbery. The extra-long cooking time worked a treat and the meat just fell apart. With the star anise, the five spice, fresh ginger, orange juice and soy combining into a beautiful rich, dark, aromatic sauce, you could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps you wouldn’t bother with the butternut squash. However, when it came to eating, the butternut squash provided that stroke of difference to the textures that kept your brain interested while your tongue went into rhapsodies over the flavours.

Next on the list of lovelies, comes the Cheesy Celeriac Slice. It’s a fairly ordinary name for something so wonderful. I have to blow my own trumpet here a bit (I hope you’ll forgive) and say that the recipe is my own adaptation of a standard cheese & potato pasty. Bearing in mind hubby’s total dislike for all things potato, I set my mind to wondering what would make an admirable understudy – and I instantly hit up on the gnarly charms of the celeriac. Celeriac will cook like potato, mash like potato and basically do everything that potato would do, in this recipe. Plus, celery in cheese sauce is one of my all-time favourites and as the two main ingredients were to be celeriac and cheese, I was sold. I used two cheeses – approximately 200g ordinary strong white cheddar, grated, plus another 200g of a lovely red Leicester, diced very small. Stirred into the mashed celeriac with chopped spring onions, a little Dijon mustard and a good dash of cayenne pepper, they made a rather odd-looking filling for the puff pastry.

However, once the lot had been cooking in the oven for around 15 minutes, everyone in the house had gathered around like the Bisto kids, with their noses in the air. I have got to say that it made an inordinate amount – we all ate it cold for lunch the next day – but it was as good cold as it had been hot and served with baked beans. Very definitely a “do it again” job!

Wednesday brought about our next big success, which was a slow-braised pork with cider, crème fraiche and mustard recipe. I used some of our local butcher’s pork steaks, which cooked up beautifully. The recipe recommended the use of pork shoulder but being leery of the amount of fat involved, I opted for their somewhat leaner loin steaks.

The cider I opted for was a single variety cider that is big on flavour and stands up very well to the onions and pork flavours. Bolstered with a little Dijon mustard (what would we do, without Dijon?) and enrichened with a little low-fat crème fraiche, it really was glorious. It really couldn’t have been any easier to make, either.

The really big accolades, however, should go to hubby for his Asparagus & Prosciutto risotto, which he crafted with love and skill for our dinner last night.

It is really magical – I think – how the use of the right kind of rice, some vegetable stock, a bunch of asparagus and a little prosciutto ham (basically) can result in such a taste-bud pleaser.

He had used the inedible woody ends of the asparagus to enrichen the vegetable stock as well as making the stock with the water from blanching the asparagus tips. All of which gave the asparagus pride of place in the chorus of delicious flavours. It was fresh, light, deliciously salty and perfectly creamy. Personally, I don’t think he’s ever made a better risotto, this one could definitely be right up there if ever he were to have to name a signature dish!