Slow Cooker Mushroom & Tarragon Chicken

I have discovered that, whilst all these replacements for potato are all very well, I do - and son & heir agrees with me - begin to get a terrible hankering for something potato.  So, as I'd been doing so well with the last seven or eight meals being successful, I thought I'd risk throwing a potato meal into the mix.

Now I didn't chance my arm too far - I mean, had I have dished up a frittata with dauphinoise and chips, it might have been three potatoes too many.  No, I went for a relatively safe bet, which was mash.  Good old, reliable, yummy, comfort food for the soul, mashed potato.

I was, mind you, supposed to have cooked this on the previous day.  However, when my tongue (I know, don't ask me, I haven't a clue) decided to go completely mad (bizarre swellings, weird colours) following a pastrami sandwich and a nectarine, it kind of put me off eating a bit.  So we all fended for ourselves that night (hurrah for tins of soup!) and the chicken got moved on to the following night.

Owing to the fact that we were attending a reading at son & heir's school that afternoon, ("a reading" being where the students were reading from work they had done at that day's Writer's Workshop - which turned out to be really very good indeed), I decided to break out the slow cooker.  Well, it saved me from stressing about getting the chicken cooked in time without paying for it by way of pain and discomfort later.  This is one of the very good reasons why I love my slow cooker.

I put the chicken in to cook at around 12.30pm and fished it back out to eat at around 6pm - and it was perfect.  Still succulent, not dried out at all and as tasty as a tasty thing.  The Marsala wine had contributed lots by way of flavour and aroma, and the mushrooms gave that savoury edge that took the sweetness of the wine down a notch or two.

I used my favourite Essential Cuisine powdered chicken stock in the sauce, so beware if you are using a stock cube and either use a low salt one, or don't include salt at all when you are seasoning the chicken.  Using a combination of seasoning, a salty stock cube and fairly salty gravy granules could be disastrous when all are combined!  Get yourself some Essential Cuisine stock - it's not expensive (£3.95 for enough to make 6 litres) low salt and tastes fabulous, so you never have to worry about salt levels.

Chicken loves Marsala, however the use of Marsala wine is not cast in stone.  A sweet sherry would do just as good a job - or a dessert wine, if you've got one lurking in the fridge.  As long as it's not too dry, it will do the job perfectly.

The mushrooms seem to soak up the sweet wine and become flavour bombs, so make sure not to leave any in the slow cooker when you serve up!  It would be such a shame to lose all that intense flavour.

I used dried tarragon, basically because I find that the small expense of buying a bunch of fresh tarragon just isn't worth it to use a tablespoonful and have the remainder die off in the fridge.  Dried does a perfectly good job - just don't overdo it!  By the time the mix has spent a few hours chuckling in the slow cooker, you won't know the difference between dried and fresh anyway.

A quick word about the use of gravy granules.  Now I don't see any reason to be embarrassed or shady about using them - particularly the really good ones like the Bisto Best ones.  They are a complete boon for thickening gravies and sauces, they can add a bit of oomph to an otherwise fairly uninteresting gravy and you can get so many different flavours of them now, that there is no longer any reason to have to use chicken for pork, or beef for lamb.  However, if you're interested in keeping your meals pure, then by all means go for the use of a little flour when you fry off the chicken, or introduce a cornflour slurry at gravy thickening time.  It all works.

If you have time on your hands, you can always pop the ingredients into a casserole dish and cook it in the oven.  I'd say you'd need a 180degC/350 degF/gas 4 - or moderate - oven, for probably around an hour and a half, or maybe slightly longer depending on the size of your chicken breasts.  You could cut each breast into three pieces, which would speed up the process a little.  However, I must stress that I've not tried this recipe this way - so you'd be trailblazing.

Hubby really enjoyed his meal, commenting that it was "really delicious".  Fine praise indeed!  Son and heir also approved, leaving a clean plate behind him.  I gave the entire meal a big thumb's up for satisfaction, flavour and comfort - the perfect meal for a bit of a tiring day.  So, are you feeling like you need a "meat and two veg with mash" meal?  If so, then this is the one for you.

SLOW COOKER MUSHROOM & TARRAGON CHICKEN    (serves 3)

Ingredients :

3 chicken breasts, skinless and boneless
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
sea salt & ground black pepper
1 onion, chopped fine
2 garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 tsp dried tarragon
6-7 chestnut mushrooms, sliced thinly
100ml sweet Marsala wine
400ml chicken stock
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped finely
1-2 tbsp Bisto Best gravy granules.

Method :

1.  Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add the chicken.  Season the side that is uppermost and fry until golden.  Turn the chicken, season lightly again and fry until golden.  Remove to the slow cooker and turn the cooker on to Low.

2.  Add the onions to the frying pan and gently cook until softened but not coloured.

3.  Add the garlic and tarragon and continue to cook for 1-2 minutes.

4.  Add the mushrooms and increase the heat slightly.  Cook until slightly softened.

5.  Add the Marsala and allow it to bubble and reduce slightly.

6.  Add the chicken stock and stir through, then add the parsley.

7.  Add the vegetables and sauce to the slow cooker, replace the lid and cook for 5-6 hours on Low.

8.  Once your vegetable accompaniments are cooking, remove the slow cooker lid and move the chicken breasts to one side.  Sprinkle the gravy granules evenly into the sauce and stir through until thickened.  Replace the lid until you are ready to serve.

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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.
 

Today's dinner : Medicinal Shepherd's Pie

I've said before - many times, I suspect - that Shepherd's Pie is, to me, more of a medicinal thing than simply a comfort food thing.

I've been hankering after a Shepherd's Pie for a little while but the weather has just been wrong for the making, not to mention the eating, of one.  So when things cooled down a few degrees and I found myself with a pack of lamb mince (because the Pilaff should have been lamb instead of chicken - I took the wrong thing out of the freezer!) and both hubby and I had tender tummies, it was an easy choice.

Not just any old Shepherd's Pie, though.  If I was going to go to all the time and effort of making one, I was going to make my Really Lamby Shepherd's Pie.  Click on the name there and it'll take you to the recipe - for me, it's the ultimate in Shepherd's Pie recipes.

Just look at that beautifully baked top. Mmmmn.

Now I will admit that the whole recipe lives or dies on what stock you use.  Because the big gravy granule producers (Knorr, Bisto etc.) haven't seen fit to produce a lamb version, (or if they have, I haven't found it) the gravy for this production has to be based on a lamb stock.  Now Knorr do make a lamb stock cube, but it is frightfully salty.  A far better idea is to use Essential Cuisine's utterly fabulous Lamb Stock powder.  Nowhere near as salty as standard stock cubes, it has a rich deep lamb flavour and leaves you to add how much or how little salt you want/need.

I served mine with Vegibox's gorgeous carrots, along with some broccoli and peas.  Don't forget to use the broccoli stem - it's just as nice as the fluffy bit!

You know, there's no hope for me.  Because, as I have been tidying up the photographs for this blog post, my mouth has been watering.  I only stopped eating dinner about an hour ago!  I'm not hungry (not at all), it's just that it looks so good!  Mind you, I wasn't feeling so chipper by the time the veggies were in the steamer and I'd spent the previous two hours cooking the Shepherd's Pie.  I looked rather like this .... worn out and ready for a nap!

Salmon Fish Cakes with 805 Foods' Hot Monika Sauce

There's a bit of a long story attached to these 'ere fishcakes.

You see, I love fishcakes.  Son and heir quite likes fishcakes.  Hubby hates fishcakes, unless they're 10% potato, 90% fish.  As a result, any fishcake experiments I may have made in the past, were entirely too much potato for him.  He also prefers his fishcakes to be egged, breadcrumbed and fried, whereas I used to make some tuna fishcakes which were oven baked.

It's true that my fishcakes were more like potato cakes with fish - and it is also true that they were the size of foot stools.  Hubby takes a more refined approach to his fishcakes and makes "dipping" sized cakes.

All of which is why hubby is now the official fishcake maker for the house.

So, when 805 Foods got in touch with me and offered to send me some of their Hot Monika Sauce, after some lengthy consideration, hubby was volunteered to make some Salmon Fishcakes, to eat alongside the (then) relative unknown that was "Hot Monika Sauce".

Somehow or another, I'd completely missed the fact that the Monika Sauce was a hot one.  The "Bell & Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce" had registered as just that - well, it couldn't be anything else, with Scotch Bonnets in it - but the amazing aroma of the Hot Monika Sauce took me by surprise when we prised the lid off.

Now I'll come clean and say that I - much to my regret - have only had the tiniest of tastes of this sauce.  I've been afflicted by a tendency towards dreadful heartburn just lately - and eating hot sauce definitely wasn't on the cards for me.  So you'll have to take hubby's word for it, that the Hot Monika Sauce is just a-mazing.  Since he's been eating his way through the pot, he's dubbed it - variously - "calamity sauce", "murder sauce" and "catastrophe sauce", from which you might gather that it lives up to its name as "hot sauce".  That aside, however, the flavours are just immense and beautiful, all at the same time.


There is some indefinable quality to this sauce that I've not come across in any other hot sauce - certainly not one of this type, with chunks of fresh vegetables in it.  It is very different to the "hot sauces" that you see coming out of the States, for instance.  One thing that is worth mentioning, is that this is a sauce of African origin - so you can expect to find yummy ingredients like okra and plantain featuring highly.

We used the sauce as an accompaniment to the Salmon Fishcakes - and it did the job perfectly.  Son & heir was a tiny bit over-faced by the heat of it, but persevered, taking smaller and smaller amounts until he found a bearable level.  Hubby just simply got lashed into his!

As for the Salmon Fishcakes, well, it was another opportunity to break out the beautiful Essential Cuisine Fish Stock that really should be re-labelled "Seafood Stock", as it tastes far more of shellfish than plain old fish.  Hubby used the stock to poach the fish and lost none of the salmon flavour, being enhanced as it was by the stock, not washed away by poaching water.


If you are considering making these fish cakes, bear in mind that there are a huge number of other ingredients that could be added to the fishcake mixture.  Thai basil, mint, spring onions and parsley spring immediately to mind (though not all together perhaps).  Hubby kept this particular recipe relatively simple as he wanted the flavour of the salmon to be right in the foreground.
 

Little fishy beauty, all ready to be fried

Incidentally, a good tip for the egg & breadcrumb process is to use one hand for the flour and egg, the other for the breadcrumbs.  This helps to keep one hand dry and the mess to a manageable level.

As you may have gathered, I'm not entirely fussy over my fishcakes - but these really were classy little morsels of delectably delicious salmony loveliness.  Yes, I think he's earned the badge of Fishcake Maker - along with his risotto, bread, chilli con carne and ice cream badges!


SALMON FISH CAKES    (makes up to 12 small)

Ingredients :

300g salmon (I used frozen - defrosted - as there wasn't any fresh available)
300g good mashing potatoes (I used Maris Piper)
small bunch of dill
500ml fish stock
zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
1 egg, beaten
3 heaped tablespoons of plain flour
day-old crusty bread, converted into breadcrumbs
a small pinch of paprika
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
sunflower oil.

Method :

For the Breadcrumbs :

Tear the bread into chunks and then whizz into breadcrumbs in a food processor.  Evenly spread the crumbs onto a shallow baking tray and place into a low oven at 90 to 100degC. The crumbs should be dry and crisp after about five minutes, but watch them like a hawk to prevent over-browning.

For the Fishcakes :

1.  Cube the potato and boil in salted water until tender.  Mash the potato thoroughly and then set aside.

2.  Meanwhile, place the defrosted salmon in a pan and cover with fish stock.  Bring the pan to a gentle simmer and poach the fish for five minutes.  Drain and discard the fish stock - or retain for soup - and flake the salmon before adding to the potato.

3.  Finely chop the dill and then add this, along with the grated lemon zest.  Mix thoroughly and season well, taking great care not to add too much salt.  Put the entire mixture into a covered bowl and then place in the fridge to completely cool.

4.  Take two shallow bowls.  Beat the egg into one bowl and then heap three tablespoons of flour into the other.  Season the flour well with milled sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of paprika.  Line the bowls up along your worktop, with the tray of breadcrumbs at one end - flour, egg then breadcrumbs.

5.  Take the fishcake mixture from the fridge and then shape into patties.  The size and thickness of these is entirely up to you.  For a 'dipping' fishcake I like to keep them quite small, something like 2-3cm in diameter.  The quantities given above should make between 15 and 20 small dipping fishcakes.

6.  Now take a patty and toss it gently in the bowl of seasoned flour.  Take care that the entire fishcake has a covering of flour before tapping gently to remove any excess.

7.  Now put the fishcake into the beaten egg, once again ensuring a good coating before dropping onto the tray of breadcrumbs prepared earlier.  Turn the fishcake in the crumbs, ensuring that both sides and all of the edges are well covered before placing onto a flat baking sheet covered with a sheet of greaseproof paper.  Repeat this process until all of the fishcakes are coated.  The cakes can now be put back into the fridge until ready for cooking or carefully packaged for freezing.

8.  To cook the fishcakes, gently shallow fry in sunflower oil, turning frequently until golden on both sides.  Fry the cakes in batches of four or five to avoid crowding the frying pan, keeping the cooked ones warm in the oven until ready to serve.

A bowl of your preferred dipping sauce and a lightly dressed green salad make perfect companions.

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Really Lamby Shepherd's Pie

I really enjoy writing my blog here - I'll say that straight away.  However, sometimes I find that I'm looking for excuses to not get on with it - which is what has just happened.  "I'll just check my Facebook pages", or "wonder if I've any new email" or the favourite, "I'll just show my face on Twitter (and so waste another hour)".  I kick myself every time I do it, as I just lose writing time - but getting started seems to be so difficult to do!

I've got into the habit now, of typing out the ingredients and method to a new recipe on the evening that I've made it.  Simply because the old grey matter ain't what it was and I have trouble remembering what I did, otherwise.  I thought that might break the "stark white empty page" thing that goes on when I sit down to write (or type, that should be), but no.  It's still the same - prevarication R us.

So, having said that, here I am in full blogging mode and perfectly happy about it.  Bizarre.  Please submit answers to my condition, on a postcard.

Now then.  When I made my Rich Beef Cottage Pie the other week, it went down so well with the assembled throng - that's you, that is - that I resolved to make my Really Lamby Shepherd's Pie so as to complete the pairing and to drive home the differences between the two.  You see, not everyone who reads this blog originates from the U.K. and so there has been some confusion expressed over what is a Shepherd's Pie and what is a Cottage Pie.

So, for those who are still scratching their heads - it's easy.  Shepherd's Pie (think shepherds tending their sheep) is made with lamb mince - and Cottage Pie (think cottages and cows) is made with beef mince.  You can put just about anything in your pie after that, without changing it from either the Shepherd's or the Cottage variety.

Now, when I began thinking about how to make my Shepherd's Pie really, really lamby, it dawned on me that there aren't that many (and in our local Asda, that'll be none) lamb gravy products out there.  I had the benefit of the Knorr Stock Pots for the Cottage Pie, but didn't have any lamb versions as they don't yet exist!  Even on the Knorr website's collection of recipes, Marco Pierre White appears to use chicken stock for lamb - which is something of a missed opportunity, I'd have thought.

I did have the benefit of some Essential Cuisine Lamb Stock Powder though - and cannot stress in strong enough terms, how much of a boon this stock powder is, when you're cooking lamb.  Yes, you can get lamb stock cubes - but I've yet to be able to find low salt versions in lamb.  The Esssential Cuisine one isn't a low salt version - it's just naturally low in salt.  So there's no having to be cautious about the seasoning - and finding out when it's too late, that you've overdone the salt because of the stock cube, or even worse (which has happened to me) find that the stock cube alone has made the dish too salty.  As I've said before, being a powder, it is an easy matter to just add a teaspoonful more if you find your gravy needs a bit of a flavour boost.  I am very definitely going to be ordering some more of these stocks, when I need to - and it's rare for me to take on a new product like this.  In fact, I think the only other time it's happened was with the Mic's Chilli El Loco BBQ sauce - which we're now completely wedded to.

Minced lamb at the start of the process

So right from the word go, when making this Shepherd's Pie, you need to be thinking about how to achieve the most flavour from the ingredients you have.  It is no good getting right to the end of the process, tasting and thinking "oh dear, that's a bit pale pink, what can I do now?" because by then it's far too late.  Right from when you're cooking the onion, think about what would increase the flavour layers throughout the dish.  In fact, if you take the onion as a good example - you can fry the onion until it's transparent and it will be acceptable in the dish.  However, if you have patience (or time) enough to be able to fry it right through to being golden brown and beginning to caramelise, then you already have a rich, well-developed flavour right there.

Minced lamb, demonstrating the level of caramelisation

It is the same with the minced lamb.  When the recipe calls for the mince to be "browned", don't just take the mince to the point where it has changed colour and has lots of water and fat bubbling around it - and don't drain off that water and fat at that stage.  Yes, the meat has browned and yes, I can understand your wanting to reduce the fat content by removing the grease - but hang on for a bit longer.  If you wait until all the water has evaporated and the mince starts to really fry in its own fat, then begins to caramelise (you need to have the heat really quite high for this and to be there alternately turning and leaving it to fry - no dashing off to the loo, or you'll come back to a disaster involving charcoal), you'll wind up with so much more flavour originating from the star of the show - the lamb mince.  Equally, don't be tempted to take the mince too far into caramelisation, or it is unable to soften once the gravy is added.

Before.  Pallid, but delightfully ridged.

This is why my Shepherd's Pie (and indeed the Cottage Pie) takes around an hour to cook and assemble, then three quarters of an hour minimum in a moderate oven.  It is not a "quick" dish.

After.  Just hand me a fork and leave me to it.

Now if there's ever a flavour match that's made in heaven for lamb - it's mint.  Unless you're repulsed by the flavour of mint, please don't be tempted to leave out the teaspoonful of mint sauce (that's the vinegar-based version, not the sweet mint jelly).  The difference that this hint of mint adds to the Shepherd's Pie is just incredible.  Again, you see, it adds another layer to the flavours.  It's another layer that your taste buds pick up at a different moment to the others, which helps the overall flavour of the Shepherd's Pie to travel for longer across your palate.

Who'd have thought anyone could wax this lyrical about the humble Shepherd's Pie, eh?

Om, nom, nom - mashed potato

Oh, and one last word about a very fundamental part of the pie - the mashed potato.  I heartily recommend the lovely Maris Piper potatoes for this as they're wonderfully floury and with the addition of a little milk or cream, a hunk of butter and liberal salt & pepper, they make a beautiful mash.  Don't be tempted to stint on the butter for the mash, as you aren't using cheese (as you would for a Cottage Pie) and it's the butter that will cause the mash to brown in the oven.  Nobody wants a pallid Shepherd's Pie, now do they?

So there you are - my tips for an amazingly Really Lamby Shepherd's Pie. Yum.  I wonder if I could get away with making another one this coming Sunday? 

REALLY LAMBY SHEPHERD'S PIE    (serves 4)

Ingredients :

500g lamb mince
1 onion, chopped
10 cherry tomatoes, quartered
2 sticks of celery, trimmed and diced finely
1 medium carrot, peeled and diced finely
4 chestnut mushrooms, chopped finely
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 large tsp mint sauce (the vinegary kind)
3 large tsp lamb stock powder or 2 lamb stock cubes (in which case, don't use any additional salt)
600ml hot water
2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped finely
sea salt & black pepper
2 tsp cornflour.

For the mashed potato :

4-5 large floury potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks
a large knob of butter
2-3 tbsp single cream (or milk will do)
sea salt & black pepper.

Method :

1.  Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and add the chunks of potato.  Replace the lid and simmer until the potato chunks fall easily from the point of a knife.  Drain them well and replace into the warm pan.

2.  Whilst the potatoes are still hot, add the butter, cream (or milk) and a good pinch of sea salt and ground black pepper.  Mash until the potatoes are smooth and creamy.  Set aside (trying not to eat too many of them!).

3.  In a deep frying pan, add the minced lamb and dry fry on a high heat until all the water has evaporated, the fat has rendered down and the meat is beginning to caramelise (around 10-15 minutes).  Remove the meat to a bowl and set aside.  Drain off all but 1-2 tbsp of the fat.

4.  Reduce the heat to medium and add the onion to the lamb fat in the pan.  Fry gently, until the onions have turned transparent, then have begun to gain colour, then have turned golden brown and are beginning to caramelise, all of which should take 10-15 minutes.

5.  Add the cherry tomatoes and continue cooking for another 3-4 minutes or until the tomatoes are softened and beginning to fall apart.

6.  Add the celery, carrot and mushroom and increase the heat slightly.  Cook until the vegetables have softened slightly and are beginning to take on a little colour.

7.  Reduce the heat back to medium and re-introduce the meat to the pan.  Stir to combine.

8.   Add the tomato ketchup, mint sauce, lamb stock powder and water.   Stir gently to combine and bring to a simmer.  Allow to simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the flavours are well combined.

9.  Add the parsley and some pepper and stir to combine.  Taste and adjust the seasoning if needs be.

10.  Place the cornflour into a small bowl and add the minimum amount of water to get it moving as a paste.

11.  Remove the pan from the heat and add half the cornflour mixture, stirring furiously to prevent it coagulating into a solid mass.  If you stir successfully, the mixture should begin to thicken.  Add as much of the remainder of the cornflour as is necessary to achieve your preferred texture.  I like my mixture to be quite thick.

12.  Taking a deep casserole dish, decant the meat mixture into the dish and smooth the top.

13.   Add small blobs of mashed potato across the top of the meat mixture, taking care not to press the potato down into the meat.  When in the oven, the meat mixture will expand and marry up properly with the potato, so if you press it down now, you may well find your potato disappears in the oven!  As a final flourish, run a fork lightly over the top of the potato, creating a rough texture that will brown easily in the heat.

14.  The pie can now wait until you are ready to put it in the oven.  Alternatively, place into a pre-heated oven (turn it on just before stage 3 above - 180degC/350degF/Gas 4) for a minimum of 45 minutes or until the gravy is bubbling up around the edges and the potato has browned.

Serve with steamed vegetables.

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Rich Beef Cottage Pie - food of the gods!

Now I'm sure that if you've been following my blog for longer than the last ten minutes, you will know that my very favourite thing is a Cottage Pie or a Shepherd's Pie.  Doesn't matter which - both are as good as one another.

When I was in my early twenties, living away from home but close enough to visit every Friday and have dinner at my parents' house, my Mum would often make a Cottage Pie for me to take home.  So there I'd be, in the very early days, riding home on my motorbike with a casserole dish full of deliciousness in my topbox.  In later years, I'd be driving home in the car, with two lurcher dogs guarding the casserole dish.

Convert this into a view made with mash & peas ...

Even earlier than that, I can remember eating Cottage Pie at the dining table, "en famille", and probably driving my parents crazy as I made landscapes out of my dinner.  The crispy topped mashed potato would be ploughed fields, the mince would be muddy fallow fields, the peas would be grass with occasional dots of white cauliflower for sheep and orange carrot tractors.  Very creative.

So began my love affair with mashed potato topped pies.  I'll never lose my love for them, as no matter how many disappear down my throat, there's always room for one more.

Now circumstances have dictated that hubby has become the Cottage Pie chef in our house - largely because of my penchant for using it as medicine.  So, whenever I'm under the weather, he'll make a Cottage or Shepherd's Pie and it seems to have the effect of injecting some life back into me.  However, I had a yearning to make a Cottage Pie in the style of those I used to make when son & heir was just a wee lad (instead of the hulking great lump of boy he is now) and hubby was a big-shot I.T. man (which he still is, except not so many people notice, these days).  A Cottage Pie with rich, deep, dark beefy flavours.  One with *sharp intake of breath* baked beans in the mix.  Oh don't look like that - it's just not a Cottage Pie without baked beans in there somewhere!

Just look at the colour of that gravy - rich!

There are about as many recipes for Cottage Pie as there are fleas on a hedgehog - in fact, I'd wager that there are probably more recipes than fleas - and that's saying something.  I think everyone has their own special way of concocting the mince mixture, but the mash is probably very similar everywhere (unless you're one of these adventurous types who put mashed parsnip, or sweet potato on top).  This recipe isn't the definitive recipe - this is just "my" recipe.

Liberally sprinkled with cheese and full of delicious promise!

I think what makes my recipe different from all the rest are the small touches - not all of which will be agreed with by the purists amongst us.  Do I care?  *pshaw!*  Do I heck as like (which means "no", for those who don't speak Jenny).

For me, to begin with, it is important to get that touch of caramelisation on the mince, as this is what helps the flavour along.  Drain the fat from the mince (or the mince from the fat, whichever works for you!) and reserve the meat.  The fat can either go in your dog's dinner (for which he will be forever grateful), into a container for roast potatoes at a later date (mmmmn!) or if your conscience demands - in the bin.  It's that touch of caramelisation that makes the difference between a flavourless steak and a steak with gorgeous rich beefy flavours.  It's the same with mince - just in smaller bits.

Oh and yes, I know it's bad form to be using cop-out gravy granules (this is where the purists begin to raise their eyebrows and mutter about reducing stock) but the Bisto Best Rich Roasted granules are so tasty that it is an easy way to get a little more flavour in, whilst thickening your gravy.  So shoot me.  If you're passionately opposed to them, use flour, or gravy browning - whatever you want by way of thickening.  You are looking for a quite thick, dry, consistency - one that won't allow lots of gravy to flood across the mash topping as it cooks - and gravy granules does that whilst adding another oodle of flavour.  We're not cooking for The Ivy here, people - this is for the family - and yes, I appreciate that gravy granules are processed and all things processed are baaaad.  *sigh*  But it's just one dessertspoonful!

These photographs are making my mouth water ..

All the finely chopped vegetables have their role to play in flavour development, too.  As the mixture cooks and the individual veggies melt into the gravy, so the flavour deepens.  The leftovers (which are mine, all mine - get your hands off!) are just fantastic the next day.  One day I'll be brave enough to make the pie a day before it will be required - but I'm too scared I might eat it in secret, sitting on the kitchen floor, in the dark, at 2 a.m., to have tried that approach yet!

My last recommendation is to use one of the Knorr "Rich Beef" Stock Pots.  (There go the purists again!).  They do two types of beef stock pot - so make sure you get the "Rich Beef" one, as it makes all the difference to the flavour.  I used to swear blind that nothing had beef flavour like Oxo cubes - until I tried one of these Rich Beef Stock Pots.  They have just swung my preference, for two reasons - they aren't so salty as Oxo cubes and also have a great richly roasted flavour.  So there you are, of course it won't matter if you use home made beef stock, or Mulligatawny soup (although that might be a bit odd) - if it works for you, I'm not going to complain!  

RICH BEEF COTTAGE PIE     (feeds 3-4)

Ingredients :


500g minced beef
1 onion, chopped finely
1 stick celery, de-stringed and chopped finely
1 carrot, diced finely
1 small garlic clove, crushed
2-3 chestnut mushrooms, chopped finely
200g tin of Heinz Baked Beans
a "Rich Beef" Knorr Stock Pot
200ml hot water
a tsp of Bovril
a dessertspoonful of tomato puree
a dessertspoonful of tomato ketchup
2 tsp of Worcestershire sauce
a dessertspoonful of Bisto Best Beef gravy granules (optional)
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
4-5 medium Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and each cut into 4 or 6 chunks
100ml warm milk
a heavy-handed knob of butter (as large as your conscience will allow)
a generous handful of grated mature cheddar cheese.

Method :

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas4.

2.  Heat a deep frying pan on a high heat and add the mince.  Fry until all the water has evaporated, the fat is rendering out and the meat is beginning to caramelise.  This can take up to 10 minutes - so be patient!  Drain the the fat away and reserve the meat.

3.  Leaving a little of the fat in the pan, reduce the heat and add the onions, celery and carrots.  Fry until the onion is softened and a light golden colour and the vegetables have softened.  Add the mushrooms and garlic and continue to fry for 2 minutes or so.

4.  Add the meat back into the pan and mix well.

5.  Add in the baked beans, the contents of the stock pot, water, Bovril, tomato puree, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and stir well.  On a medium heat, allow the contents of the pan time in which to heat through and simmer for another 15 minutes or so, to enable all the flavours to amalgamate.

6.  Now this next bit is optional - but if your gravy is looking a little bit thin at this stage, I use a small amount of Bisto's Best Beef Gravy Granules to thicken it. 

7.  Taste for seasoning and add some sea salt & freshly ground black pepper, as required.

8.  Leave the meat mixture to simmer slowly on a low heat and boil a pan of salted water for your potatoes.

9.  Once the potatoes are tender (and fall off a knife easily), drain them and return them to the pan.  Add the warm milk, butter and seasoning and mash like crazy until you are sure all the lumps have disappeared.

10.  Decant the meat mixture into a deep casserole dish and add blobs of mashed potato on top.  Lightly, with a fork, blend the edges of each blob until you have a seamless mashed potato topping with a fluffed up surface.

11.  Scatter the grated cheese on top and place into the oven to bake for 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and crunchy looking.

Serve.

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Smoked Haddock Fishcakes (by Captain Pointybeard)

For the duration of this recipe, I'd like you to think of hubby not as "hubby", but rather as "Captain Pointybeard", for such was the moniker he assumed throughout the production of these very tasty fishcakes.

However, before I start to talk about these fishcakes, I have to set the fishcake scene for you all.

You see, fishcakes have ever been a source of discontent between Captain Pointybeard and I.  The Captain has a well known dislike - nay, quite probably closer to a hatred - of all thinks involving potato (well, unless it's a chip, or a crisp) and that, of course, includes fishcakes.

I, dear reader, am the complete opposite.  I love potatoes.  In fact, the dear Captain thinks that I must have Irish in my bloodline somewhere, such is my liking for the no-legged-spawn-of-satan, as he refers to the humble spud.  As a consequence, the more potato a fishcake contains, the happier I am.

Formed up and ready for an eggy bath

Now, in the past and during a period when we were down on our luck and particularly skint, I would make fishcakes involving mashed potato (as you do) and a tin of tuna.  If we were lucky, I might include some spring onion.  If not, it would be dried parsley.  However, in those days I was pathologically frightened of frying - which is a bit of a problem when you're making fishcakes.  Except, I discovered a recipe for "healthy fishcakes" which were oven baked.

Well they were certainly healthy for hubby - sorry, Captain Pointybeard - because having sampled a forkful of his, he would bail out and claim a marmite sandwich later.  However, this wasn't really the point, as I was supposed to be feeding the family, as opposed to feeding just son & heir and myself.  (Although, thinking on, the same thing does happen with dreadful regularity these days too - except not necessarily involving potato!).

All coated and ready for the frying pan

Son & heir (who was about 4 or 5 years old then) and myself thought they were lush.  Yes, I'm afraid son & heir has followed in his mother's footsteps (for once) and is a complete mashed potato hound - even going to the point of eating cold mashed potato sandwiches for lunch.  What?  They're nice - honest!


Let's cut back to now and you'll find that Captain Pointybeard's fishcakes are serious fishcakes.  None of this "mash some spuds, mix in the fish & bits, play pat-a-cake, bung 'em in the oven" for him.  Oooh no.


You see, apparently - and I have this on good authority (I believe my informer had a pointy beard) - at the very minimum, a fishcake is not a fishcake if it hasn't been pannéd and fried, in the style of a fish & chip shop fishcake.

Chuckling in the pan

Not only that, but a fishcake truly is not a fishcake, unless it contains a lot - and I mean A LOT - of discernible fish in the mix.  None of this "so mashed up you can't see it" fish that you get in the fish & chip shop fishcakes - nope, you have to be able to pick the pieces of fish from the potato, in order for it to register on the Captain Pointybeard Fishcake Scale.


So you'll understand why he's the one making them, and not me.


In truth, I think he did admirably well.  Especially considering that he'd never pannéd (also known as "dipped in egg and breadcrumbs") a thing in his life.  The time he spent over reducing half a french bread stick to dust in the food processor was worth every minute - and the frying was spot on.  Personally, I wasn't sure about the lemon zest with smoked fish and if you feel the way I do feel free to leave that out - but the flavour of the fish was all there and the potato had very much taken a part in the chorus as opposed to centre stage.

Aye, aye, Cap'n!

As for the quantity -v- the size of the fishcakes, it was perfect.  We each had two good sized fishcakes with one left over which took care of lunch the next day.  Captain Pointybeard served them with a few oven chips and some salad, which made for an extremely acceptable dinner.


So, that's bread, cakes, alcoholic cocktails, risotto, roast dinners and fishcakes he's got on his list.  It's reminiscent of when my brother was going for his various Scout badges - I wonder what will be next?

SMOKED HADDOCK FISHCAKES    (makes 6-7)

Ingredients :

200g smoked haddock (in fact, any fish of your choice would be fine)
200g unsmoked haddock

1 tsp olive oil
400g floury mashing potatoes such as Maris Piper
200g lightly toasted breadcrumbs
2 eggs, beaten
50g finely chopped parsley
zest of half a lemon
a pinch of cayenne pepper
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
sunflower oil, for frying.

Method :

1.  Line a shallow baking tray with foil and then place the fish fillets on it.  Rub the fish with a little olive oil and then place under a hot grill for five minutes or until just cooked.  Remove any skin and bones from the fish before placing in a bowl and covering with clingfilm.  Set the fish aside to cool.

2.  Meanwhile, peel and roughly dice the potatoes and then cook in salted boiling water until a knife passes through them easily.  Drain the potatoes and then return to the still warm pan.  Leave to dry a little before mashing with a little sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.  Place the mashed potato in a covered bowl and leave to cool.

3.  Once the potato has cooled to room temperature, combine it with the lemon zest, parsley and cayenne pepper in a large bowl.  Check the seasoning (but be careful with salt, as it is worth remembering that the fish will be quite salty), lightly fork the fish through the mix and put the whole lot in the fridge to chill for at least one hour.

4.  Now for the fun part.  Place the beaten egg into a shallow bowl and the breadcrumbs onto a shallow baking tray.  Place a sheet of greaseproof paper onto your work surface and dust well with plain flour.

5.  Take the fishcake mixture from the fridge and form into one mass - flouring your hands beforehand helps keep things clean.  Place the mixture onto the floured paper and roll to 1.5cm thick with a floured rolling pin.  Cut out rounds from the mixture using a large scone or cookie cutter.

6.  Make sure that the rounds are coated with flour on the top, bottom and around the edge and set aside until all of the mixture has been formed.   You will need to re-form the fishcake mixture and re-roll as needed.

7.  Once all of the mixture has been formed into cakes, take them one by one, dipping first into the egg and then rolling in the breadcrumbs until all surfaces and edges are covered.  A good way to keep things clean as you panné is to use one hand for the egg dipping and the other hand for the breadcrumbing.  Place the coated fishcakes onto a baking sheet covered with another sheet of greaseproof.  The fishcakes can be made well ahead of cooking and then left in the fridge until needed.

8.  Cook the fishcakes in sunflower oil in large frying pan for about five minutes on each side.  Think shallow frying - the oil should be around half a centimetre deep.  Take care not to crowd the pan by frying the cakes in batches of two or three at a time.  Serve with your choice of salad or chips or both!
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