Rabbit & parsnip pie

Rabbit and parsnip pie.  Insert very big grin here.

Many moons ago, we bought a wild rabbit from a local butcher and it turned out to be the mankiest, smelliest, half cleaned and extremely tough bit of ancient rabbit you could ask for.  Perhaps not surprisingly, that put me off dealing with whole rabbits for quite some time.  However, when Farmer's Choice (Free Range) Ltd offered me a chance to have another go with some quality wild rabbit, how could I say no?  After all, I'd had a rabbit pie quietly baking in my imagination for quite some time.

Now I wanted this rabbit pie to be one that anyone could make, made with ingredients that are readily accessible or that could be in anyone's kitchen.  No wild and wacky ingredients, just good honest rabbit compatible flavours that would make this pie acceptable to most people, might even go as far as demystifying rabbit a little - and who knows, perhaps even rabbitophobes might consider giving it a go.

Beautiful rabbit, dredged in seasoned flour and in the pan

The Farmer's Choice rabbit was beautiful.  Clean as a whistle and smelling as fresh as a daisy, it was no more cringe inducing to handle than a fresh chicken - and even easier to joint up into pieces.

Oh and I must add, my three mobile dustbins were VERY interested in it and were there begging for offcuts within seconds of removing the rabbit from its packaging.  However, they were all out of luck as rabbit has negligible amounts of fat on it and they arrive unzipped, undressed and ready to go.  (The rabbit, that is, not the dogs).

The smell that wafted from the cooker as the rabbit slow cooked in the casserole dish was utterly mouthwatering - and we had to suffer that for two hours.
 

Seared, in the casserole and into the oven for the next 2 hours

Naturally, as a cook it is entirely your responsibility to taste your ingredients as the cooking proceeds ~koff~ and I can confirm that the flavour of the rabbit was sublime.  Everyone says that rabbit is a sweet flavoured meat and I can see that, yes - but it isn't sweetly sweet in a sugary way, it is mild, slightly woodland with a touch of earthy and reminds me very much of the texture of a chicken thigh, but no - it doesn't taste chickeny at all.  It is really lovely and something I would be very happy to entertain regularly on the menu plan.

No spare space for anything other than a bit of gravy

I will admit that this recipe involves a lot of steps.  It took me best part of a day - although I wasn't in the kitchen for the entirety of the day.  First making the pastry, then preparing the meat for the casserole, then a bit of a pause while the casserole did its thing, then it was all go through to the end.  So it isn't a recipe for when you're in a hurry! It would be perfectly possible to split the preparation between two days - make the filling on the first day, then refrigerate it until the following day when you can make the pastry, fill the pie and bake it.  Just remember to get the filling out of the fridge to come to room temperature in good time, or the baking time will be incorrect.

Golden and crisp, a thing of absolute beauty

I'm fairly sure that the ingredients are as economical as possible, with most wild rabbits costing between £5-£7 each (February 2015 prices) and currently £6.71 for a 1kg rabbit from Farmer's Choice (Free Range) Ltd.  Of course, you would need to factor in the delivery charge there, too - but rabbit is still one of those few fairly economical meats.

The pie would serve 5-6 hungry people and go further if children were involved.  So far as I can see, the only expense in the cooking is your time and the power required to fire up your oven.

Now, I have a few Cook's Tips for you.

I have stated to use "strong" stock and by that I mean stock that has rather more stock powder (once again, I thoroughly recommend Essential Cuisine's chicken or vegetable stock) than one would ordinarily use.  In order to gain the intensity of flavour, I made up my chicken stock with 1.5 tsp of stock powder for 500ml of water instead of the customary 1 tsp.  For this reason - and the reduction of the stock for gravy - it is essential to use a low salt stock cube (and Essential Cuisine's stocks are all naturally low salt).  It would be an easy thing to spoil the pie by making the stock too salty. 

My second cook's note is not to work the dough more than is absolutely necessary and certainly do not knead it at all.  The less you work the flour and the smaller the amount of water you use to hold it all together, the lighter the end result will be.  Incidentally, you won't need the egg until much later in the pie making process so keep it standing by!

This was son & heir's first taste of rabbit and he was very happy with it.  Everyone cleaned their plate and gave the dish a big thumbs up.  The leftovers of the pie even stood up well to being microwaved for lunch the following day.  The pastry stayed crisp and the filling was just as yummy.

Rabbits aren't as easy to get hold of as they once were, but if you see some rabbit in the shops - or even better, would like to order one from Farmer's Choice - do consider giving this pie a try.  If I can turn out a fabulous pie like this, anyone can. 

RABBIT & PARSNIP PIE   (serves 5-6)

Ingredients :

1 leek, quartered and chopped
3 tbsp olive oil (each tbsp used individually)
1 wild rabbit, jointed into 6 pieces, or 500g diced rabbit
2-3 tbsp plain flour
half a tsp sea salt
half a tsp black pepper
3 rashers back bacon, diced finely
1 small carrot, peeled & finely diced
1 stick celery, de-strung and finely diced
1 onion, finely diced
3 mushrooms, halved and sliced
2-3 bay leaves
half a tsp dried thyme
1 parsnip, cut into bite sized pieces
500ml strong chicken or vegetable low salt stock
3 semi dried prunes, sliced finely
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped finely.

For the pastry :

300g plain flour

100g Atora shredded suet (I use vegetable suet)

100g butter

120ml sparkling mineral water (although tap water will do)

sea salt

an egg, beaten, to glaze.

Method :

1.  Begin by making the pastry.  Place the flour into a large bowl and add the suet, butter and sea salt.  Rub the fat into the pastry by rubbing it between your fingertips, until you have what appears to be a cross between cornflake shapes and breadcrumbs.

2.  Add the water gradually - you may not need the whole amount, or you may need a little more - mixing with a knife and patting and pushing the dough together to form a ball.

3.  Once the pastry has formed a ball, wrap it in cling film and put it in the fridge to rest.

4.  Take a large, deep frying pan and add enough olive oil - up to 1 tbsp - to cook the leek in.  Heat over a moderate heat and add the leek.  The object of the exercise is to cook the leek without any browning or caramelisation.  You want soft leeks with bright green colour still.  Once cooked (around 10 mins) remove from the pan and reserve.

5.  If the rabbit isn't already jointed, cut it into six joints - the two back legs, saddle, ribcage and two front legs.

6.  Place the flour, sea salt & black pepper into a large plastic bag and shake to combine.  Add the rabbit pieces and give a good old shake about, to dredge the rabbit with the flour.

7.  Add another tbsp of olive oil to the pan and heat over a high heat.  Once really hot, add the first three rabbit joints and sear them until golden.  Remove into a casserole dish and retain.  Repeat the process for the next three rabbit joints.

8.  Reduce the heat under the pan and add the bacon.  Cook until the fat has rendered and the bacon is just beginning to colour.

9.  Add onion, carrot, celery, mushrooms and bay leaves and a little (100ml) water to mobilise whatever oil is in the pan and deglaze the pan base, which will steam the vegetables until the water has evaporated, then fry the vegetables.  Aim for a slight colouring and softened vegetables.  Add the thyme and parsnip and decant the vegetables into the casserole dish.

10.  Pour the stock into the frying pan and heat it through until just boiling.  Decant into the casserole dish, cover the casserole and place into a pre-heated oven at 170degC/325degF/Gas 3 for the next 2 hours.

11.  When the two hours are up, remove the rabbit onto a plate and using a slotted spoon, sieve out the vegetables into a bowl.  Decant the remaining stock into a small saucepan and reserve.

12.  Place the stock onto a moderate heat and bring to a boil.  Reduce the quantity until the flavour of the stock is sufficiently intense - you will probably have reduced it by half and it will have thickened somewhat.  You can then spoon any excess oil from the top of the stock.

13.  Remove the meat from the rabbit bones and discard the bones.  Place the chunks of meat into another bowl and add the leek, prunes and parsley along with sufficient of the casserole vegetables to make up the quantities for your pie dish.

14.  Add two or three tbsp of reduced stock to the pie filling and stir gently to combine.  Set aside to cool completely while you roll out the pastry.

15.  Cut the pastry ball into one third/two thirds and re-wrap the two thirds.  Roll out the one third to the correct size to line your pie dish.  Lay it into the pie dish and make sure no air bubbles are between the pastry and the dish.  Trim to size.

16.  Add the cooled pie filling, heaping it towards the centre of the dish.  Press down lightly as you go, you want to have as deeply filled a pie as is possible.

17.  Using the beaten egg, brush a little egg wash around the pastry edge.

18.  Roll out the two thirds piece of pastry to a size larger than the pie dish, that will cover the filling and comfortably meet the edges of the pastry.   Lay the rolled out pastry over the pie and smooth it down to the edges.  Press the pastry lightly over the egg washed edges, then using a decorative knife point, or fork, or any other method of your choosing, press an attractive pattern into the edge which will not only look nice but will secure the two pastry pieces together.  Trim the pastry neatly and remove the excess.

19.  Neatly cut a hole into the top of the pie and give the pastry a good coating with egg wash.  If you're feeling creative, you can now cut some leaves, or a likkle rabbit, out of the excess pastry to decorate your pie with.  Lay the decoration onto the egg washed pastry and give them their own coating of egg wash.

20.  The pie is now ready for baking!  Place into a pre-heated oven at 180degC/350degF/Gas 4 for 45 - 50 minutes or so.  Keep an eye on the pastry in the last 10 minutes, you are aiming for a golden top with discernibly golden pastry sides (presuming your pie dish is transparent, that is!).

Once baked and when you remove your pie from the oven, remember to take a moment to appreciate your creation.  You've taken enough time to bring it to life, a bit of appreciation before you cut it and destroy its natural beauty, is only right and proper.

Serve the pie with seasonal vegetables of your choice and the remaining stock as gravy.

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Greek style gorgeousness - Chickaleekaka!

Well, what a thing of great beauty this recipe turned out to be!  I found it on Petit Chef, in a vegetarian version without the chicken (and other bits), here.  I really liked the combination of flavours and was intrigued by the use of the white wine.  However it didn't have enough "oomph" for my menfolk as a main course, yet seemed too heavy for a side dish.  So after a bit of mental juggling with a few protein sources such as ham (which I'm sure would be great, but good ham is hard to find for an affordable price), salmon, smoked haddock or sausage - I decided to continue the theme of delicate flavours and go with chicken.  After all, chicken and wine, chicken and leek, chicken and cheese, all go well together and it certainly isn't going to argue with eggs!

Just baked - and you can see the importance of the cheesy crust.

Yes, it takes a little bit of fiddling around as it's a three-stage dish where cooking and assembly is concerned, but if you start early and leave yourself a bit of time in which to give the ingredients the respect they deserve, it really isn't difficult at all.  I served mine with a tomato, spinach & red kidney bean salad (primarily for me!) and a few garlic butter doughballs (as a bit more carbohydrate for the menfolk).

Evaporating the wine.

This family all have a marked soft spot for a Greek recipe - there's something about the ingredients and the style of cooking that just hits the spot with us.  It must be the rich/healthy combination of a baked dish paired with a side salad, using indulgent ingredients like cheese and eggs, plus juicy tomatoes and healthy spinach.  Put it this way, not one person had an ounce of anything left on their plate, so it must have been good!

I was very interested to see how the wine infused itself into the chicken and suffused the leeks with a subtle but very much "there" flavour of sunshine and fruit which added the necessary acidity to cut through the richness of the Bechamel and cheese.  I added a small amount of thyme for an additional layer of flavour, which worked beautifully and didn't swamp the dill at all.

The additional mustard in the Bechamel was a great idea too, as it gave the mild, creamy sauce just that tiny edge which stopped it from becoming too much.

I can hear you wondering what cook's tips I might have for you about this one.  Well, as it happens, I do have a few!

Now you might wonder why I used skimmed milk, but added double cream.  Well, I wanted a richness through the sauce but not too much and considered that using semi-skimmed milk would mean I had to reduce the amount of cream I used.  Using the skimmed gave a perfect balance between milk and cream that didn't make the sauce too heavy.

However, the biggest tip I have for you is to make the Chickaleekaka (which, by the way, is a combination of "chicken", "leek" and "Moussaka-like-thing") in a dish which you've lined with non-stick silver foil, so that once cooked, you can lift it out of the dish and onto a chopping board.  From there, you can gently peel down the edges of the silver foil and the Chickaleekaka should stay, in one set piece, without collapse.  (The eggs are fundamental in this as they are what cause the lower layer to set).  You can then cut it into neat portions which helps to make it look that little bit more deliciously intriguing - and you don't lose those lovely crusty edges by leaving them in the dish!

A quick word about what size dish you choose might be in order, too.  You need to make the Chickaleekaka in a dish that is deep enough to give you a good 1-2cm of chicken & leek, with a nice deep layer of Bechamel on top.  Use too big a dish and it will be spread too sparsely.  Far better to go small - but deep - than too big and shallow.

My tomato/spinach/kidney bean/cress "hot plate" salad.

As for what would you serve alongside the Chickaleekaka, well I went for a "hot plate" salad, i.e. a salad that could be served on a hot plate.  This consists of items that can stand up to heat - so tomato, baby spinach, red kidney beans and cress were my choice on this occasion, but the possibilities are endless.  Just steer clear of things that wilt quickly like iceberg lettuce, if you're going to be serving it on a hot plate!

I know I'm going to be making this again very soon - and I'd really love to hear what you think of it, if you give it a go too.  So do leave me a message, if you try it!

CHICKALEEKAKA    (serves 4) 

Ingredients :

1-2 tbsp olive oil

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, sliced small

500g leeks, sliced small

half a tsp white pepper

a tiny pinch of sea salt

half a tsp of dried thyme

100ml (or thereabouts) dry white wine
20g fresh dill, finely chopped
3 large eggs
250g mature cheddar cheese, grated.

For the Bechamel :

3 tbsp of salted butter

4 tbsp of plain flour

a generous pinch of white pepper

a tiny pinch of sea salt 

350ml of skimmed milk

2 tbsp double cream

half a tsp Dijon mustard

half a tsp of fresh grated nutmeg

20g parmesan cheese, grated

50g mature cheddar cheese, grated.

Method :

1.  Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and once hot, add the chicken.  Spread the chicken across the pan to cook evenly, as it won't take long, being such small pieces.  Toss the chicken a few times to make sure every side is coloured - but don't allow it to turn golden.

2.  Once the chicken is coloured but not cooked through, add the leeks and seasoning.  Continue to fry until the leeks are softened.  You will need to toss and stir regularly to prevent the pan contents from colouring further.

3.  Add the wine and continue to toss and stir until the wine has all but evaporated and the pan is almost dry.

4.  Decant the chicken & leeks into a large pyrex bowl  and set aside to cool for 5 minutes or so.

5.  Once cooled, add the dill, crack the eggs in and add the grated cheese.  Mix and stir until everything is evenly distributed.  Set aside, while you make the Bechamel sauce.

6.  In a medium pan, set the butter to melt and add the flour, salt and pepper.  Allow the flour to cook out gently for 3 or 4 minutes, but don't allow it to brown.

7.  Add a little of the milk and stir it through.  The mix will set up quickly, so take if off the heat and keep adding a little milk, then stirring - you will probably need to swap to a hand whisk - until you have a saucy textured mix which is somewhat wetter than you would require.  Add the cream, mustard and nutmeg and whisk them through, then put the pan back on the heat and keep stirring or whisking as it heats through to simmering point.  If the mix becomes too thick, add a little more milk - but not too much, or it will quickly become too thin.  You're after a consistency reminiscent of thick custard.

8.  Take your baking dish (I used a small roasting dish that I lined with non stick silver foil) and decant the chicken & leek mixture into it, making sure to push it into the corners and level off the top surface.

9.  Pour the Bechamel over the top and again, encourage it to form a smooth layer.

10.  Sprinkle first the parmesan, then the cheddar, over the top so that the surface is entirely coated.  This will form the gorgeous cheesy crust - too little cheese and the crust will be patchy at best.

11.  Place into a pre-heated oven at 180degC/350degF/Gas4 for 30-35 minutes or until the top is a gorgeous golden brown.

12.  Remove from the oven and allow to settle for 5-10 minutes before serving with a side salad.

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Tonight's Dinner : Marsala chicken with leeks, plus Rhubarb and plum sundaes!

It's been a funny old day today.  The weather has been chilly and wet, so not a day to do very much.

I was contemplating the menu plan for next week with hubby which inevitably involves taking a mental roundup of what vegetables we have left in the fridge.  I mentioned that I had quite a few plums that needed using up in some way and before I knew it, I was in the kitchen making a plum and rhubarb (which two sticks of rhubarb from the garden) compote for dessert!

That then progressed to slicing the kernels from one of the ears of corn in the fridge, to put into my small saucepan with just enough water for an Ainsley Harriott Cup a Soup - Wild Mushroom, in this case.  Once the kernels were cooked, just stir in the cupasoup mix, decant into a bowl and off you go for lunch.

Over lunch I got to thinking about this evening's dinner which was supposed to be a braised chicken dish.  However, it sounded fairly unremarkable upon second thoughts and I began pondering on how I could make it less "brown" and more interesting.

Inevitably, whenever I'm thinking about what to add to a meat dish to create flavour, my mind travels to the wine rack.  In this case, it settled upon the bottle of Marsala wine which I hadn't used in quite a while.  Marsala goes so well with chicken - and I'd used it in the past with my Velvety Marsala Chicken, with great success.  I didn't have any cream, so it would need to be a non-creamy version.  However, I did have a leek - and chicken and leek is just one of those classic combinations.  So, chicken, leek, Marsala wine ... add a few mushrooms for depth of flavour and we're sorted.  Lovely!

Lovely was indeed what it turned out to be.  I browned (or should that be "goldened"?) the chicken in the frying pan, then cooked the shallots, garlic, mushrooms and leek in the leftover butter/groundnut oil.  Then I deglazed the pan with the Marsala, added some chicken stock, parsley, freshly ground black pepper and a couple of teaspoonful of Bisto's Best Chicken gravy granules to thicken and add flavour.  Decant the whole lot into a casserole dish and cook, uncovered, in the Beastie combi oven at 200degC for 50 minutes with a pause half way through to give it all a stir.

Served with buttery mashed potato, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, swede and Brussels sprouts, it was a perfect Sunday dinner.

Hubby then disappeared into the kitchen to create his new masterpiece, the rhubarb & plum sundae.  Take a sundae dish and spoon in some home made (and cooled) rhubarb & plum compote.  Crumble in some broken (well, I knew they'd come in handy for something) meringue nests, add a large dollop of Cornish ice cream, more compote, broken chocolate digestive biscuit, more compote and a swirl of whipped cream - and the crowning glory of a cherry on the top.

As a spur of the moment, made up on the spot, Sundae (Sunday!) dessert, it was a triumph.  Not one ingredient was bought in specifically for it, they were all either growing in the garden or surplus to requirements in the fridge or cupboard.  Now THAT is the kind of thing that makes me proud.
 

Soy Braised Chicken with leeks - gentle sweet flavours

This lovely, gently flavoured dish was inspired by a photograph of a similar dish that I spotted in the BBC Good Food magazine this month.

As I recall, the original recipe had spring onions in it and as I don't do very well with spring onions - my tummy sometimes rejects them - and had a leek waiting for me to find it a job to do, it seemed a fairly obvious swap.

I'm still getting back into the swing of cooking following on from a nasty bout of the flu.  Hence, I didn't really want to get involved in a long cooking procedure - so this recipe turned out to be perfect.  If you do the entire process all in one go, you could probably be in the kitchen for some three hours or more - but I split it into various instalments.  Well, it gave me a chance to have a bit of "downtime" inbetween the action.

We had bought an organic chicken earlier in the week, to have at the weekend.  However, neither of us were in any fit state to be making roast chicken, so it had gone into the freezer.  So as to make the most of the price of the chicken, I decided to joint it and make a stock for soup with the carcass.  I reckoned that I could get at least three meals from the one chicken, that way.  In fact, we've had two main meals and two lunches - with a leg still left to be used!

Once we'd taken son & heir to school, I got on with jointing the chicken (which I'm getting a lot better at!).  It's not often that I get the opportunity to use organic chicken (although it would always be my first choice, if I could afford it) and this one was a beauty.  The knife went through the breast meat like a hot knife through butter, which bode well for the tenderness of the cooked chicken.  It wasn't a corn fed chicken, but the fat was a lovely deep yellow colour.  I was surprised at how bruised the breast meat appeared to be in places - but I figure that milling around outside with its pals, I guess a chicken is bound to get bumps and scrapes.

The two breast fillets, a drumstick and a thigh went into a cling film covered bowl with the marinade and into the fridge for later.

The remainder of the carcass went into the slow cooker with a couple of carrots, some celery, an onion and a garlic clove, plus some herbs and a good quantity of water and some seasoning.  There it stayed for the day, chuckling away and making some beautiful stock.  I eventually stripped the chicken of all the tiny little bits of meat and made a Jewish-style chicken soup with the stock, which I'll blog soon.
 
It was a late pickup from school that day, so I needed to put the casserole together before we left to collect son & heir.

The chicken smelled wonderful as I browned the pieces in the frying pan and my hopes for a great dinner rose a little bit further.

It really wasn't a difficult procedure to get the casserole together and I finished with 10 minutes to go.  We turned the oven on as we left to pick up son & heir.  Once we got home, it was an easy matter of cooking some rice and broccoli - and serving it all up.

I had debated thickening the sauce, but looking at it, it seemed to me as though it would entirely change the character of the dish to have the sauce thick.  It was supposed to be light and fluid - and there was broccoli and rice to soak it up with, so I took a chance and left it.  Hubby would have preferred it thicker - I was anticipating that - but I was very pleased with it.

I very much liked the gentle flavours provided by the soy, mirrin and honey - which added to the flavour of the leek and broad beans, made it a balanced dish.  Or so I thought, anyway.  Hubby doesn't like broad beans much and would have preferred the sweetness of peas, rather than that slight bitterness that an un-shucked broad bean brings.  Yes, perhaps I should have shucked the broad beans, but can I refer you back to the flu comment?  Just the thought of sitting there shucking broad beans was enough to almost send me back to bed.

Son & heir appeared to enjoy the flavours, although he did agree with his Dad about the bitterness from the broad beans.  I couldn't register said bitterness at all - all I could predominantly taste was the sweetness from the mirrin and honey, with the saltiness of the soy sauce!

So, I would advise caution when making this recipe.  If your family is very anti thin sauces or bitter flavours, perhaps you should consider thickening the sauce with a little cornflour and using peas instead of broad beans.  Alternatively, you could make something completely different!

I would be very happy to have this recipe again - although sadly I doubt I'll be making it in quite the same way.  Bye bye broad beans and hello cornflour!  *wink* 

SOY BRAISED CHICKEN WITH LEEKS   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

2 tbsp light soy sauce
3 tbsp mirrin
1 tbsp runny honey
a pinch of sea salt
2 boneless chicken breasts plus 1 thigh and 1 drumstick, skin on
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 leek, washed, halved lengthways and chopped
1 tsp grated ginger
100ml chicken stock
a good handful of frozen broad beans or peas.

Method :

1.  Put the soy sauce, mirrin, honey and sea salt into a bowl and stir to combine.

2.  Add the chicken pieces and stir to make sure they are all liberally covered with the marinade - then cover with cling film and leave for a minimum of half an hour.

3.  Heat the oil in a frying pan and brown the chicken pieces on a high heat.  Keep an eye on the chicken, as it will colour very quickly because of the sugars in the marinade.

4.  Once browned, place the chicken into a casserole dish.

5.  Add the onion to the frying pan and cook on a medium heat for 3-5 minutes, until softened.  Add the leek and ginger and stir to combine.

6.  Add the chicken stock and broad beans or peas.  Allow them to heat through and taste the sauce for seasoning.  If you think it is a little light on flavour or salt, add the remainder of the marinade and stir through.

7.  Decant the sauce and vegetables into the casserole dish, cover and put into a moderate oven (180degC/350degF/Gas 4) for 45 minutes to an hour.

8.  If, at the end of this time, you feel the sauce is either too liquid or not tasty enough, remove the chicken to a warmed bowl and cover with foil.  Either decant the sauce into a saucepan, or place the casserole dish (presuming it can cope with being on a direct heat) onto a gentle heat and reduce the sauce until it has reached a satisfactory consistency or the flavour has intensified sufficiently.

Serve with plain white rice and some steamed broccoli.

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Bacon & Leek Pasta - our very favourite fall-back recipe

I used macaroni because it needed using up - but Spirali or Fusilli are good!

Let's not shilly-shally about - this recipe occurred on this day purely because of Bacon Connoisseur's Week.  However, I was so pleased I booked it in for the beginning of the week instead of the end (it's a great Monday dinner, as it doesn't need many fresh vegetables keeping for it!).  After all last week's activities, I could do with an easy peasy meal to make.

I couldn't eat this meal too regularly, but as a fall-back position for tired days or when you want a quick meal before going out - you just can't beat it.

The entire ingredient list is 8 items - 9 if you include Parmesan for sprinkling, which isn't essential, but is nice - and so long as you choose a good well flavoured back bacon, you just can't go wrong.

Diced bacon cooking out its moisture and rendering the fat

The recipe can bear some adaptation, too - as I've used sliced mushrooms with the leeks in the past and they haven't done it any harm at all.  So it's a useful repository for a few unused mushrooms!  Peas would go nicely, too.

See what I mean about pressing each little round to see if it's soft enough to separate?

However, I wouldn't recommend using low fat creme fraiche, as in my experience it has a tendency to split - and as it forms the majority of the sauce, that would just be horrible.  However, you're only using 200ml of it - and divided amongst three people, it's only 66.6ml per person which isn't too terrible!

The gorgeous sauce, all ready to be added to the pasta

This recipe has the undoubted accolade of being the first recipe to be cooked in our new flat in Dorset when we first moved here.  We had just a borrowed two-ring Belling hotplate as the cooker hadn't been installed at that stage and sitting down to a yummy comforting plate of Bacon & Leek Pasta in our new place, really helped to make it feel like home.

There's just something very harmonious about the creaminess, the sharpness of the salty, smoky bacon against the gentle savouriness of the leek, then the soft chewiness of the pasta - all closely followed by a comforting warmth from the cayenne that says "eat me and relax".


Don't mind if I do.  :)

BACON & LEEK PASTA   (serves 3)

300g back bacon, diced
a knob of butter
2-3 leeks, trimmed up, washed and sliced
1 tsp mushroom ketchup or Worcestershire sauce
300g pasta (spirali or fusilli are good)
200ml creme fraiche D'Isigny (or any good full fat creme fraiche)
half a tsp of cayenne pepper
50ml semi-skimmed milk
some grated parmesan cheese, for sprinkling.


Method :


1.  Heat a dry frying pan and then cook the bacon until the fat has rendered and the bacon is becoming crispy.  Remove and set aside to keep warm.

2.  Place a large pan of salted water on to a heat, for the pasta.

3.  Add the knob of butter to the bacon juices and on a gentle heat, add the leeks - trying to get them all to lay down in contact with the pan as much as possible.  Cook them gently in this way, until each little "round" separates with a press from your spoon or spatula.  Separate out all the layers in this way and add the mushroom ketchup or Worcestershire sauce.

4.  When the pasta water boils, add the pasta and cook according to the packet instructions (usually 9-10 minutes or until al dente).  Drain well, once cooked, and return to the pan to keep warm.

5.  Add the creme fraiche to the frying pan, along with a little milk to help it dissolve into a sauce.  Add the cayenne pepper and taste to check the seasoning - add a little salt or pepper (both are highly unlikely) if required.


6.  Cook gently until either the creme fraiche has warmed through or the sauce has achieved the consistency you prefer, then add it to the pasta and stir through gently.


7.  Serve at once, onto warmed plates.  Add a sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese, to taste.

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Cream of Celery Soup, using Fenland Celery

I have just finished the most delicious bowl of warming, but light, cream of celery soup.

I was determined to make the soup for lunch today and woke up full of good intentions which, for once, didn't get swallowed up by other things happening, or running out of time.

I was contacted recently and asked whether I would be interested in receiving a bunch of Fenland Celery to "play with" in the kitchen.  Of course, I said "yes please!", celery being one of my favourite veggies (oh yes, I know, they're all my favourites - I'm a bit like Bruce Forsyth where that's concerned).

I gather that Fenland Celery is one of the older types of celery, which has a relatively short season in that producers begin harvesting it in November and it is available in the shops through to December/January, depending on the harvest.  Apparently it is making something of a comeback in that you can find it in Waitrose this year.

 

I also gather, from the Love Celery website, that Celery is a good source of potassium that helps to control blood pressure and counteract the negative effects of too much salt on the diet. It also contains ‘3-n-butyl phthalide’ which helps to reduce blood pressure by relaxing blood vessels and is one of the components that gives celery its characteristic smell and taste.  Who knew?

Sweating the celery, leek & potato - smelling gorgeous!

Something else that I absolutely love about Celery is that it takes more calories to eat a stick of celery than it contained to begin with.  Now there's not many veggies you can say that about!

I'd had sneaky taster of the raw product when it arrived.  Now ordinary old celery is a bit unpredictable where the finer points of its flavour are concerned.  They can be a bit hot and peppery, or sweet and juicy, there's no real way of telling which you've got.  Now this 'ere Fenland Celery is predictably (or so I'm told) sweet, delicately nutty and fresh flavoured.  My bunch certainly was!

Coincidentally, I'd been looking for celery soup in the shops for a while.  Why can't it be found any more?  It's completely bonkers!  What happened to Heinz Cream of Celery soup?  It's one of the flavours of my childhood and I can't believe it's not available any more.  Not only Heinz, but Campbells - they used to make a Condensed Cream of Celery soup that made a fabulous casserole base, much in the way we use Cream of Mushroom.  Can't find it now, though.  I just don't understand - although thinking on, it's taken me donkey's years to notice that it's not available any more, so I suppose I'm as responsible as anyone else for it's demise.

Couldn't you just tuck right in?

However, now I've worked out how to make a fabulous (and quick!) Cream of Celery Soup at home, I'm not so bothered about not being able to find it in the shops.  This one is going to appear on our lunch menu very often, I'm sure of that.


CREAM OF CELERY SOUP  (serves 3 as a lunch, or 4 as a starter)


Ingredients :


350g celery stalks, trimmed, de-stringed, sliced finely and leaves reserved
25g butter
110g potato, peeled and cut into small dice
2 medium leeks, trimmed & washed, sliced finely
570ml hot vegetable stock (I used Marigold Swiss vegetable bouillon)
150ml double cream
150ml whole milk
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper (or white, if you've got it!).


Method :


1.  In a large saucepan, melt the butter over a low heat.  Add the celery, potatoes and leeks to the pan and stir well, ensuring the butter coats the vegetables.


2.  Cover the pan and cook gently - ensuring none of the vegetables brown - for 10-15 minutes or until the potatoes begin to break up.

3.  Add the stock, some pepper and a tiny pinch of salt.  Bring to a simmer, cover and cook for some 20-25 minutes or until the vegetables are really tender to the point of a knife.

4.  Blend the soup (I used a hand blender), then add the cream and milk and stir through.

5.  Re-heat the soup, but do not let it boil, and taste to check the seasoning.  It's probably best that you are accompanied at this point, so that your companion can stop you from eating the entire panful of soup.

6.  Serve, adding the celery leaves and a little pepper as garnish.  Delicious!

Inflammation Factor (approx) : +62 (21 per person)

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Slow Cooked Pork with Celeriac and Orange

I seem, purely by chance, to have come up with a selection of dishes that have either divided the audience or just plain old repelled them.  Well, all except for me, that is.  I've liked and enjoyed the majority!

One such is the Slow Cooked Pork with Celeriac and Orange, which I found on the BBC's Good Food website and is by Barney Desmazery.

This is a simple dish, to be eaten with crusty bread.  The problem with it - from the chaps' point of view, was two-fold.

Firstly (and I agree with them, but it didn't affect my enjoyment of it) was that it had too much orange.  The zest from an entire orange goes in (and I'm glad I didn't zest the entire orange - I left out its top and tail) plus orange juice.  If I were to do this one again (which I won't, because of the chaps' reactions), I'd just put two or three strips of orange zest into the mix.  I've reflected that in the recipe - but if you like orange, then go ahead and put more.

Secondly (and this was just hubby's preference), if a dish has a gravy or sauce or broth that's thinner than double cream consistency, then he doesn't want to know.  As this dish's broth is very much just that - a broth - he didn't like it.  In fact, I believe it was dubbed "pond water".  *sigh*  I liked it - but then I'm quite happy with broth-like gravies and sauces, so long as they're full of flavour.  Which this one was - but it was largely orange!

I loved the texture of the leek, the sweetness of the carrots and the flavour of the celeriac.  The pork had a tendency to be a tiny bit dry though, which I put down to my conversion from an oven-baked dish to a slow cooker dish, in that I just plain old cooked it a bit too long.  I've reflected that aspect in the recipe, too - so you shouldn't have any problem with that now.

As I'm watching my intake of carbohydrates, I didn't indulge in the accompanying bread and have to say that I didn't miss it.  If you felt that the dish was a little light on vegetables, you could easily add mushroom, parsnip, peas or shredded cabbage (at the last minute, with the peas and cabbage!) without compromising the flavours at all.

SLOW COOKED PORK WITH CELERIAC & ORANGE  (serves 3)
 
Ingredients :

2-3 leeks (depending on size) washed & trimmed, each cut into 5 pieces
a handful of Chantenay carrots top & tailed, or 2 carrots peeled and cut to match the size of the leeks
2 tbsp olive oil
600g boneless pork (I used pork loin steaks) cut into decent sized pieces
1 small celeriac, peeled and diced into large chunks
1 garlic clove, chopped
150ml dry white wine
150ml chicken stock
juice of 1 orange
3 strips of orange zest, cut with a peeler
2 tsp soy sauce
a large sprig of rosemary.

Method :

1.  In a large frying pan, heat the oil and once it's hot add the pork and leave it to brown.

2.  Once the pork has browned, using a slotted spoon, decant it into the slow cooker and turn it on to low.

3.  Add the leeks, carrots and celeriac to the frying pan (you may need to do this in batches, in which case add a little more oil) and cook until they start to show browning.  Add each batch to the slow cooker.

4.  Add the garlic to the last batch of vegetables and cook for a minute or so, then add it to the slow cooker.

5.  Into the frying pan, to deglaze it and make the most of the lovely flavours, add the wine, stock, orange juice, orange zest, and soy sauce.  Bring to the boil and cook for 2-3 minutes.

6.  Then season with salt & pepper, add the rosemary sprig and decant into the slow cooker.

7.  Give the contents of the slow cooker a stir to settle everything in together, then replace the lid and cook on high for 3 hours.

Serve with crusty bread, for mopping up the lovely juices.

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Spicy chicken & bacon pasties .. or tarts, in this case.

Why "tarts", you may ask?

Well, it's because the art of pleating a pasty completely deserted me.  Four times over.

Exhibit A

Normally, I'm pretty good at pleating a pasty - although I usually do sideways pleats, as opposed to "straight across the top" pleats.  I think, next time I make these pasties - and there will be a next time - I'll stick to what I know and go for sideways pleating.  Oh, and I might very well remember to cut my fingernails next time too.  How anyone with long fingernails ever gets pastry to stay together without their fingernails cutting half moon shapes into the pastry, is beyond me.  I certainly can't!

As a consequence, my pasties burst asunder in the oven and turned themselves into boat-shaped tarts.  See Exhibit A, alongside.  Fortunately, it didn't matter overly much (perhaps a little dry in places) as the contents began life fairly moist and the risen edges of the pasties obviously protected the contents from over cooking.

The original recipe (which you can see here) called for a ready cooked chicken breast, but I didn't have one of those.  I did, however, have a raw chicken breast so I pan-fried it and left it to cool before doing anything else.  Personally, I think that this approach saved the chicken component from being over dry, as I stopped cooking the chicken just slightly before I would ordinarily have done.  This left the meat still slightly pink, which was obviously cooked out by the baking that the pastry received.  Ingenious, eh?

Well they didn't look too bad ...

In addition, I also tinkered about with the original recipe in that instead of using three spring onions, I used half a sliced leek and one small shallot.  I suspect that doing this gave a lot more moistness to the mixture (from the leek) and boosted the gentle onion flavour (care of the shallot).  Sometimes I find spring onions to be a bit harsh.

I also put way more bacon in than the recipe said.  After all, two rashers of streaky bacon rather depends on how big your rashers are, doesn't it.  Mine were teensy wee little things (supermarket bacon, in this instance), so I wound up using half a pack.

As a consequence, I suspect I had rather more "middle" to my pasties than was originally intended.  However, I reckon that the next time I make them, I can easily make five out of the same ingredients, so that's the way to go.

I served ours, as you can see, with a salad.  I'm not entirely convinced that a salad was the right thing for them, as they seemed to need something more robust.  I might try them, next time, with baked beans and something like Nigella's Rapid Roastini's or maybe hash browns or sweet potato wedges.  They do need something juicy (which the baked beans would provide), but because of the complex nature of their contents, need something fairly bland beside that.

So that's a work in progress - and if you try this recipe, perhaps you could report back on what you served them with and how well you feel they went together.  I'd be interested to know, as this is definitely one of those recipes that doesn't suit what immediately comes to mind!

As for the flavours, well they're very acceptable indeed.  Hubby wasn't too keen on his to begin with, but the flavour develops as you eat your way through the pasty and, by the end, he was ready to demolish the leftover one.  Now, if I tell you that he didn't get to eat it all on his own, but son & heir had the other half, that will indicate just how nice these are.  I suspect they'd be perfect picnic food and will behave in exactly the same way that a Cornish Pasty does - except with more chilli!

SPICY CHICKEN & BACON PASTIES  (serves 4, with one each)

Ingredients :

1 skinless & boneless chicken breast

1 tbsp olive oil

125g streaky bacon, chopped

1 large potato (about 250g total weight), peeled and sliced on the mandolin

1 small red chilli, deseeded if necessary and finely chopped

a small, or half a, leek - sliced

a small shallot, sliced

sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

375g pack ready-rolled puff pastry

2 tbsp milk or 1 beaten egg.

Method :

1.  Heat oven to 200deg C (fan).

2.  Place the chicken breast in between two pieces of cling film and bash it with something heavy (a rolling pin, for ease!) until it is thin and flat.

3.  Take a large frying pan, add the olive oil and fry the chicken breast, seasoning each side as you go.  Remove from the pan when there is still a little pinkness left in the middle of the meat.  Set aside to cool.

4.  Fry the bacon over a medium heat until it starts to release its fat.

3.  Add the potato, turn up the heat and fry, stirring occasionally, until the bacon is crisp and the potato just underdone.

4.  Add the chilli, leeks and shallot and cook and stir until the leeks are softened and the shallot transparent.

5.  Season with pepper and add a pinch of salt, then set aside to cool.

6.  Take the chicken and shred it into long thin strips.  Once the bacon mixture is cool, add to the chicken and stir to combine.

7.  Roll out the pastry until you can cut 5 tea plate size rounds from it.

8.  Lift circles onto a baking tray.

9.  Spoon the filling into the middle of each circle.  Brush the edges of the pastry with the milk or egg, then bring the sides up to the middle (or one side to the other, if you prefer your pasties laid on their sides), pinching the pastry together to make a pasty.

10.  Brush with a little more milk or egg and bake for 15 minutes until golden.

Serve.

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