Now Autumn is well and truely upon us I've dusted off the slow cooker we purchased last year and with the encouragement of a great slow cooker feature in November's issue of Delicious magazine my love for the long and lengthy cooking process is renewed.
In my pork experiments I made a slow cooked belly of pork but keen to experiment with other meats yesterday I purchased some Lamb Shanks from the butcher.....
I used the slow cooker to cook the Lamb Shanks (recipe below) which I was hesitant about at first, not being a fan of meat on the bone, but it turned out so tender and meltingly gorgeous that it fell off the bone. it was also so visually impressive whilst being low maintenance that I could be easily persuaded to cook them again perhaps for sunday lunch or a dinner party.
Most importantly it went down well with the boy and earnt me more than a few brownie points.
I'll be trying the Creamy Pot Roast Chicken later in the week and hope that this method of cooking helps me get over my dislike of bones in meat... finger crossed.
If it does work I'll post the recipe here soon....
Lamb Shanks
Serves 4
460 kcals per serving
Takes 10 minutes to prepare and 8 hours in the slow cooker.
2 red onions, finely sliced
1 garlic bulb, cloves separated
2 fresh rosemary sprigs
400g can of chopped tomatoes
20ml good quality balsamic vinegar
125ml red wine
200ml lamb or chicken stock
4 x 350g lamb shanks
1) Place the onion, whole garlic cloes and rosemary in the slow cooker. Add the tomatoes, vinegar, wine and stock. Season well and stir well to mix together.
2)Brown the lamb shanks all over in a large frying pan over a high heat, then add them to the slow cooker, pushing them into the sauce so they are covered.
3) Cover with a lid and cook on the low setting for 8 hours. Skim off any fat that has risen to the surface, then serve with creamy mashed potato.
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
The Fungal Foray
It was an overcast Saturday in October, my friend Charlie drove me up to Thetford to join a group of nature enthusiasts to forage around the forest floor in search of fungus.
We met up with the group and after a few words from our 'guide' we dispanded to forage in our pairs with instructions to meet back in a couple of hours with any fungus that we found.
Although it hadn't been a very wet autumn so far and hadn't created an idea growing habitat for fungus the group as a whole found a massive array of mushrooms. They ranged from the edible to the deadly poisonous and everything in between. The guide talked us through all of our finds and spent a long time telling us about the 'Death Cap' which a member of the group had found. This mushroom is so deadly it can kill you within 36 hours and one hand-sized mushroom contains enough poison to kill about 6 adults.
You can distinguish the Death Cap from the false death cap by the 'sack' it grows out of at the base of it's stem however it's never a god idea to eat a mushroom unless you're 100% sure what it is!
The Death Cap Mushroom
The guide also told us about the 'Fly Agaric' or magic mushroom. It gets it's name from being sliced into milk to keep away flys. But it is better known for it's looks: it is the traditional toadstool from childrens fairy tales; white stem, red cap with white flecks on it.
According to our guide people in Scandinavia feed slices of dried Fly Agaric to their reindeer, wath them stuble around then drink the reindeer urine which contains a filtered version of the psychoactive compounds muscimol and ibotentic acid. You've got to wonder how that was first discovered.....
Apparently the story of Santa Claus, his flying reindeer and his red coat and white beard originate from this mushroom and its powers as a natural high....
Fly Agaric
We had planned to eat whatever mushroomy goodies we turned up. Sadly our haul only contained one edible mushroom: Charlie spotted it growing all alone on a tree trunk. This specimen was apparently very rare and a relation to the oyster mushroom; a small white mushroom with a bend in the stem, it had ribbed gills that stretched all the way from underneath the cap right down the stem.
So, we fried it in a little butter and ate it on top of toasted brioche with a squeeze of lemon. It was good.
We met up with the group and after a few words from our 'guide' we dispanded to forage in our pairs with instructions to meet back in a couple of hours with any fungus that we found.
Although it hadn't been a very wet autumn so far and hadn't created an idea growing habitat for fungus the group as a whole found a massive array of mushrooms. They ranged from the edible to the deadly poisonous and everything in between. The guide talked us through all of our finds and spent a long time telling us about the 'Death Cap' which a member of the group had found. This mushroom is so deadly it can kill you within 36 hours and one hand-sized mushroom contains enough poison to kill about 6 adults.
You can distinguish the Death Cap from the false death cap by the 'sack' it grows out of at the base of it's stem however it's never a god idea to eat a mushroom unless you're 100% sure what it is!
The Death Cap MushroomThe guide also told us about the 'Fly Agaric' or magic mushroom. It gets it's name from being sliced into milk to keep away flys. But it is better known for it's looks: it is the traditional toadstool from childrens fairy tales; white stem, red cap with white flecks on it.
According to our guide people in Scandinavia feed slices of dried Fly Agaric to their reindeer, wath them stuble around then drink the reindeer urine which contains a filtered version of the psychoactive compounds muscimol and ibotentic acid. You've got to wonder how that was first discovered.....
Apparently the story of Santa Claus, his flying reindeer and his red coat and white beard originate from this mushroom and its powers as a natural high....
Fly AgaricWe had planned to eat whatever mushroomy goodies we turned up. Sadly our haul only contained one edible mushroom: Charlie spotted it growing all alone on a tree trunk. This specimen was apparently very rare and a relation to the oyster mushroom; a small white mushroom with a bend in the stem, it had ribbed gills that stretched all the way from underneath the cap right down the stem.
So, we fried it in a little butter and ate it on top of toasted brioche with a squeeze of lemon. It was good.
Wahaca - Chandos Place, London
On Saturday whilst visiting friends in London I took the boy to Thomasina Miers's Mexican market style restaurant Wahaca for late lunch.
http://www.wahaca.co.uk/
It was much busier than I had (naively) presumed having just won the Observer Food Monthly award for best cheap eats and the Zagat Best Mexican Restaurant award so we had a short wait at the bar.
Whilst we waited I had a generous (in size and ancohol content) 'Wahaca mule' cocktail and himself had a Corona, we perused the menu and watched the food being delivered to other people - a good way to gauge portion size and popular dishes!
By the time we were seated we were more or less ready to choose our food:
We opted for the 'Street Food' which is small, tapas like sharing plates which are brought to you as and when they are ready. We had:
Pork Pibil Tacos: "Soft corn tortillas with slow cooked pork in our special Yucatecan marinade"
Tender, Marinated Chicken Taquitos: Corn Tortillas wrapped around chicken with lettuce, cheese and tomato salsa then deep fried and served with crema"
Beef Saipicion Tostadas: "Crisp tortillas piled high with cold shredded aromatic beef with spicy habanero and red onion salsa"
Chorizo and potato Quesadillas: "Toasted flour tortillas oozing with melted cheese and homemade mexican chorizo and potato"
Frijoles with crumbled cheese and crema: "Rich creamy black beans cooked twice for flavour".
All the food was delicious, fresh and really flavoursome, our favourite was the Pork Pibil Tacos. The quesidillas were a bit too hot and greasy compared to the rest of the food, I wish I hadn't ordered them and gone for the Churros and hot chocolate for pudding but I'll save them for next time!
The service was swift and friendly and the prices certainly reasonable: our meal plus a beer and an gorgeous, cooling long drink of Almond and rice milk with cinnamon came to less than £24.
We will definitely be going back and recommending it to friends... and planning a holiday to Mexico...
Oh, if you do go, and you should; on the way out make sure you pick up one of their "match books" which are infact chilli seeds to plant at home - I had some last year and they grew great chillis!
Sunday, 11 October 2009
Adventures With Pork.
Having been a vegetarian for the first 5 years of my adult life and eating very little meat whilst at university due to lack of funds there are certain types of meat I'm well versed at cooking yet others remain a bit of a mystery.
Pork is one of the meats that I've not had much experience in cooking. I'm a dab hand at cooking with bacon, mince and sausages but Fillets, Loins and Belly are completely unfamiliar territory. Partly due to the cost, partly the fear of the unknown and most importantly down to the fact that it's not really my favourite thing to eat.
The other half of my household however loves pork so, in an attempt to widen my culinary repatoire and please my fellow diner I've tried several pork recipes in the last week.
Here are the 4 ways I had with Pork:
Quick Mushroom and Pork Stroganoff was a bit chewy and tough even though I tried really hard to avoid this by cooking the pork it for a very short time. It also lacked a little oomph due to not having any cooking sherry, something that I've now remedied. Recipe taken from the October 2009 issue of Olive Magazine, page 45.
The Peanut Pork Skewers made with strips of loin were nice but if I made them again I'd make the peanut marinade as a dipping sauce as it kept slipping off the pork. This was the Boy's favourite. Recipe taken from British Meat publication "The Recipe For Love" C7/596.
The slow cooker Pork Belly with puy lentils provided a very comforting wintery sunday dinner and although finishing the crackling under the grill was explosive (!) the rest of the cooking process was so easy. This was quite a fatty way to cook the pork so I doubt I'll make it again, although it is potentially a good recipe for a dinner party. Recipe taken from the November 2009 issue of Delicious magazine, page 58.
The favourite by far was the sticky Pork Fillet was gorgeous, easy to cook, flavoursome and made a wonderful low calorie dinner with the rice and pak choy. Recipe below, taken from the September 2007 issue of Good Food magazine, page 50.
Sticky pork
Serves 4
>The pork can be tossed in the marinade just before coking or marinated over night.
Ingredients
500g piece of pork fillet
For the marinade:
4 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp clear honey
finely grated zest and juice of one orange
large knob of root ginger, finely grated.
Method
1) Tip all the marinade ingredients into a shallow dish and stir to combine. Coat the pork in the marinade and, if you have time, leave for 1 hour or even overnight. Heat the oven to 200 degrees c or 180 fan.
2) Heat an ovenproof pan and take the pork out of the marinade. Brown on all sides, then baste over the rest of the marinade and roast the pork for 20 minutes until cooked all the way through, basting with its juices every 5 minutes or so.
Serve the pork sliced, with rice and steamed greens.
165 Kcal per serving
Pork is one of the meats that I've not had much experience in cooking. I'm a dab hand at cooking with bacon, mince and sausages but Fillets, Loins and Belly are completely unfamiliar territory. Partly due to the cost, partly the fear of the unknown and most importantly down to the fact that it's not really my favourite thing to eat.
The other half of my household however loves pork so, in an attempt to widen my culinary repatoire and please my fellow diner I've tried several pork recipes in the last week.
Here are the 4 ways I had with Pork:
Quick Mushroom and Pork Stroganoff was a bit chewy and tough even though I tried really hard to avoid this by cooking the pork it for a very short time. It also lacked a little oomph due to not having any cooking sherry, something that I've now remedied. Recipe taken from the October 2009 issue of Olive Magazine, page 45.
The Peanut Pork Skewers made with strips of loin were nice but if I made them again I'd make the peanut marinade as a dipping sauce as it kept slipping off the pork. This was the Boy's favourite. Recipe taken from British Meat publication "The Recipe For Love" C7/596.
The slow cooker Pork Belly with puy lentils provided a very comforting wintery sunday dinner and although finishing the crackling under the grill was explosive (!) the rest of the cooking process was so easy. This was quite a fatty way to cook the pork so I doubt I'll make it again, although it is potentially a good recipe for a dinner party. Recipe taken from the November 2009 issue of Delicious magazine, page 58.
The favourite by far was the sticky Pork Fillet was gorgeous, easy to cook, flavoursome and made a wonderful low calorie dinner with the rice and pak choy. Recipe below, taken from the September 2007 issue of Good Food magazine, page 50.
Sticky pork
Serves 4
>The pork can be tossed in the marinade just before coking or marinated over night.
Ingredients
500g piece of pork fillet
For the marinade:
4 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp clear honey
finely grated zest and juice of one orange
large knob of root ginger, finely grated.
Method
1) Tip all the marinade ingredients into a shallow dish and stir to combine. Coat the pork in the marinade and, if you have time, leave for 1 hour or even overnight. Heat the oven to 200 degrees c or 180 fan.
2) Heat an ovenproof pan and take the pork out of the marinade. Brown on all sides, then baste over the rest of the marinade and roast the pork for 20 minutes until cooked all the way through, basting with its juices every 5 minutes or so.
Serve the pork sliced, with rice and steamed greens.
165 Kcal per serving
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