BCUK Recipes

Not teaching you how to suck eggs or anything, but I have never made my own pesto sauce before yesterday, so thought I'd give it a try. It went very well indeed...

Ingredients:

Small pack of button mushrooms
Large knob of butter
Large handful of fresh basil leaves
handful of pine nuts
1 clove of garlic (crushed) - or less if you don't want it too strong
50g parmesan
3 tbps of extra virgin olive oil (about)
Pasta

How to:

1. Heat the butter on a low heat in a large pan, clean and cut the 'shrooms into quarters and throw in. Start cooking the pasta.

2. In a blender, put in the basil leaves, pine nuts and garlic and puree away. Then add the oil bit by bit until you get the nice typical pesto sauce consistency. Add the parmesan and whizz again.

3. Once the 'shrooms have nicely browned, add the pesto sauce and stir. Then add in the cooked pasta.

4. Serve with an extra sprinkling of parmesan on top.

Words can't describe how good this tasted...

As some of you may know I can't stand vinegar, so have a problem with most salad dressings, although this one is lovely and I got to break the seal my my new latest herb: marjoram.

Shake up all the ingredients to make a lovely dressing!I used my Jamie Oliver shaker, which, incidentally is good to crushing the odd bit of garlic too.

1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tablespoon of white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon of wholegrained mustard
1 teaspoon of honey
1 teaspoon of marjoram

Ingredients:

One large Spanish onion
1 large green pepper
300g Fresh lamb, cubed

For the dopiaza sauce:
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon ginger powder or a 1 inch piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped
2 red chillies, finely chopped (add more or less if you want)
half a teaspoon of paprika
2 tablespoons of fresh coriander leaves
1 tablespoon of ground coriander
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
2 tablespoons of yoghurt

To add at the end: 1 teaspoon of garam masala

How to:

1. Chop the Spanish onion into quarters ONLY and then seperate out the layers. Place in a large pan of heated oil.

2. Chop the large green peppper into large chunks and add that to the pan as well.

3. Cook these both for 5-10 minutes on a low-medium heat.

4. Then add the lamb and bring up the heat a little to brown off the meat, then turn back down again.

5. Meanwhile, add the dopiaza paste ingredients to a blender and pulp.

6. Add this to the pan once the meat has browned off.

7. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the meat is cooked through.

8. Add the garam masala right at the end.Serve with your accompiament of choice - we chose crispy home-made chips.

Updated...

Any suggestions welcome, it is a work in progress - needless to say I will blog all the recipes...I'm particularly looking forward to making the Tiramasu...

L'Apperitif

Hot Spiced Apple Cider

Starter

Home-made tomato and red pepper soup
Hot bread rolls

Main

Roast Turkey
Caramelised Glazed Onions
Crispy & Fluffy Deep-Fried Potatoes
Roasted winter vegetables (carrots, parsnips and leeks)
Cauliflower Cheese
Sprouts
Home-made Chestnut and Sausage Stuffing
Turkey Gravy, Bread Sauce and fresh cranberry sauce

with Champagne and crackers

Dessert

Tiramasu

with Ice Wine

Le Digestif

Scottish Cheese Board and Oatcakes

with Port

Coffee

Freshly ground coffee with After Eight Mints and a slice of Chritsmas Cake
(and a packet of Rennies)

Ingredients:

1/2 tablespoon of olive oil
Half a large Spanish Onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 small time (165g or so) of sweetcorn
1/4 pint of chicken stck
100ml of milk
Half a red chilli, finely chopped
Generous splash of lime juice
Sprinkle of Salt Couple of twists of ground black pepper
Some chopped chorizo (as much as you like)

How to:

1. Heat up the oil in large pan and then add the onion and garlic and cooked for 5 minutes or so on a low-medium heat.

2. Add the sweetcorn and cook for a further five minutes.

3. Then add the stock and milk, the chilli, salt and pepper and bring to the boil.

4. Now cover and simmer it for about 15-20 minutes.

5. Then take about 3/4 of the 'solids' of the soup and liquidise, then add back to the pan.

6. Stir in the chorizo and lime juice and voila. A lovely spicy soup. You could perhaps add a sprinkle of coriander if you like.

I was introduced to achocha as a lost crop of Peru, since when I’ve heard it called “chochie” by a lady from Martinique and “crow beak bean” by a gardener in Norfolk where it was said to originate from Bhutan. Apparently it’s an international ingredient! However the recipe books aren’t full of ideas so I’ve put together a couple of tried and tested ideas.

Achocha may be eaten raw in salads. Best used when young; very small fruit can be eaten whole, but when larger the seeds become quite woody so split, de-seed and slice directly into the bowl. They are a bit like green peppers.

Curry

Large achocha - about 2-3" long can be split de-seeded and used to make a vegetable curry.
The quantity is up to you but about 14 will make enough for 2 if you are having a daal, rice and/or other curry.
1 onion - peel, chop and gently fry in oil or ghee. Add cumin seeds if you like about ½ teaspoon.
1lb potatoes peel, chop and add to onion.
1tsp chilli powder, coriander, turmeric.
(Better still use your own home grown peppers)
Add achocha. Stir to mix all vegetables together. Add 8oz of chopped tomatoes (Tinned is fine) or enough tomato puree and water to just cover. Simmer gently till potatoes are cooked through.
Serve with some chopped fresh coriander.

Achocha Pickle
Prepare as above. Chop small. Place equal quantities of diced achocha, onions, swede in a large pot. Cover with vinegar. Stir in turmeric, coriander, and mustard seeds. Add sugar - about the same weight as the swede.
Bring to boil and cook slowly till the swede is soft. You can add caramel or use brown sugar to enrich the colour or a few drops of gravy browning if you want a really rich colour.
Ladle in to clean jars - use a slotted spoon if your pickle is too runny. Cover, label (that’s the bit I always forget and we have surprise jam at breakfast!) and store for 2 weeks or so to let the flavours develop before using. Once open use up quickly and always store in the fridge.

Goes well with any Indian, but i like it with a bit of Beef Panang! Adjust quantities of the obvious to suit the number of diners, although they will be popular. This should be enough for 4.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons of oil
1 teaspoon of black mustard seeds
10 curry leaves
1/4 teaspoon of turmeric
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
2 green chillies, finely chopped
2 onions. finely chopped
500g of potatoes cut into 2 cm cubes.
1 tablespoon of tamarind puree/paste

How to:

1. Heat the oil in a heavy large pan, then add the mustard seeds and cover until they pop. Then add the curry leaves, turmeric, ginger, chilli and onion and then cook uncovered until the oniomns are nice and soft.

2. Add the potatoes and at least a cup of water and bring to the boil.

3. Make sure the potatioes are cooked, adding more water if necessary, then add the tarmarind and season well with salt and pepper.

This one is delicious, but also requires you to have a spice rack like Madhur Jaffrey, although nothing you can't normally find in a supermarket these days.

Ingredients:

For the Panag Paste:

3 bird-eye chillies (I used dry ones I crush in a mortar and pestle, but fresh is always the best)
6 finely chopped shallots (my recipe stated Asian shallots, but get what you can)
6 crushed garlic cloves
1 teaspoon of ground coriander
1 tablespoon of ground cumin
1 teaspoon of white pepper
2 stems of lemongrass (I just used the dry stuff)
1 tablespoon of chopped galagal (again, I used the dry stuff)
a tablespoon of chopped fresh coriander leaves
2 teaspoon sof shrimp paste
2 tablespoons of crushed roasted peanuts

For the rest of the Panang:

1 tablespopon of peanut oil (I couldn't get this, so used groundnut instead)
400 ml can of cocnut milk
1 kg of chopped beef
4 kaffir lime leaves (these smell devine)
90g of crunchy peanut butter (optional - I didn't put this in)
3 tablespoons of lime juice
2 1/2 tablespoons of fish sauce
3-4 tablespoons of grated palm sugar or soft brown sugar
1 tablespoon of chopped roasted peanuts (to garnish)

How To:

1. First make the paste. Put all of the ingredients for the paste into a blender and mix until you get a nice paste. Mine looked like this:

2. Now for the main dish - Place the oil and half the coconut milk in a saucepan and cook for around 10 minutes on a medium heat.

3. Add 6 - 8 tablespoons of the paste and cook again, stirring, for about 5 minutes.And I must apologise, but all my battery power died on me after this point, so no more photos I'm afraid!

4. Then add the beef and the rest of the coconut milk, peanut butter, lime leaves.

5. Simmer for about an hour on a lowish heat and then stir in the lime juice, fish sauce and sugar. Serve with Masala Potatoes, which I will blog soon.

I made this on Saturday night (minus the chestnuts - couldn't find any!)

Ingredients

1 tbsp of plain flour
500g or so of cubed beef
2 tablespoons of olive oil
4 rashers of streaky bacon
1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
half a 400g tin of chopped tomtoes
100 ml beef stock
large glass of red wine
100g chesnuts

How to:

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees (GM 3). Then put the flour in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Toss the beef cubes in the flour then shake off the excess.

2. Seal the beef by frying them on a low-mod heat in a large frying pan in the the olive oil and put in the casserole dish.

3. In the frying pan, chop up the bacon and fry until crispy. Add to the casserole dish.

4. Then fry the onion and garlic for 5 minutes or so then add the remaining flour, tinned tomatoes, stock and wine and bring to the boil.

5. Transfer to the casserole dish and cook the casserole lidded for a couple of hours.However, 45 minutes before finishing, add the chestnuts to the casserole.

6. Serve with mashed potato and peas.

I have a plum tree outside gorged with red juicy plums. But what to do with them! Any ideas?