Experiment - Recipe: Lamb breast / Belly cooked w/ a Cartouche & Topped Caramelised Veg.

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

Originally this was and experiment, which explains why the images don't exactly match the pictures. The recipe is 3 experiments later, and seriously lush!! So simple to make, inexpensive and so tasty!

Makes a great Sunday dinner recipe!! Succulent, juicy

Cartouche? Probably better at preventing spitting than any other use, not sure it brings anything to this party! You’re welcome to post a comment on that if you feel strongly about the benefits of a cartouche!!

ingredients (serves 4-6)

for the lamb breast / belly 

  (roast:  150C/180min)

2 lamb bellies 

4 onions

2 leeks

4 cloves garlic

2 lamb stock cubes

2 pints / 1L water. 

for the sauce

1 pint skimmed milk

1 tbsp flour

200ml water

for the roasties

8 medium / large potatoes

7g thyme (bruised)

7g rosemary (bruised)

4 cloves garlic (peeled and squashed)

150ml olive oil

for the greens

broad beans

radish pods (optional)

for the garnish

a touch of parsley if you fancy it

apparatus / equipment

pyrex dish & lid

method

lamb breast / belly

Put all ingredients into a roasting tray.

Coat the skin of the lamb with oil, and sprinkle with salt (draws water out of the skin makes it crispy).

Roast for at least 3 hours.

If it needs it, top up stock with another pint after 2hours.

After 3 hours, remove lamb and cut off the butcher's string.

Slice the lamb belly rolls into 1 cm pieces, and lay out on a tray.

Drain the vegetables, and put the stock to one side in a tall thin container. This makes it easier to skim off the fat.

Spread the remaining onions leak and bits over the sliced lamb and return to the oven at 180C/60m 

After an hour the top with have for a caramelised crunchy gorgeous surface.

make the sauce

Skim off as much fat as desired - more fat more flavour - but also A LOT more calories (and it's saturated fat from this cut).

Add 1/2 - 1pint of milk - add enough so that the seasoning is balanced.

Mix 1tbsp of plain flour with water until smooth paste, then gradually add more water until you get to a cream liquid consistency.

Add the flour liquid mix to the jus, stirring vigorously to start,  and bring to the boil stirring continuously until the sauce has thickened and the flour is cooked out - about 5-10mins. Season if required.

potatoes

While the lamb is in the oven boil the potatoes in salt water, drain and leave them until they stop steaming.

Add the oil, salt and garlic and mix with a wooden fork until the potatoes have a fluffy coating of mashed potato.

Pour out onto a baking tray and roast 180C/45m - then turn them and return to the oven for another 15m.

Serve the lamb with roast potatoes, and Yorkshire puddings!!! Oh my goood, soooo good!!!

thinking ahead

This is great pre-movie fare. Stick it on while you making lunch for the evening viewing!! It really is as simple as chopping up a few onions and a squirt of anchovy paste, and into the oven with some stock. You can then claim 5 hours of cooking and hand the potatoes over to somebody else!!! : )

what could go wrong? (notes)

Not much, this is a pretty forgiving dish, just make sure it doesn't go dry! That, would be bad! Specially just before the movie!!

conclusion 

A must try lazy Sunday recipe! Don't forget the red wine!

Recipe: Yorkshire Pudding (Giant and Beautiful)

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

Yorkshire pudding is very high ranking in the comfort food arsenal. We are talking big big guns! It's a corker, it goes well with gravy, sausages, roasts and with jam!!

Super versatile and hot and cold!! 

Making a really good yorkie pud has always been a bit of a hit and miss affair for me so you can imagine my delight when I perfected this . . . . 

ingredients (serves 4-6)

for the yorkshire pudding

4 large free range eggs

4 tbsp of flour

200ml milk

salt & pepper

100ml veg oil or duck fat

apparatus / equipment

baking dish 20cm x 25cm should be at least 4cm deep. (made of pyrex or heavy gauge metal)

method

Turn the oven on to 230C - quite often that's max!! Crank it all the way to the top!!!!

I work in centigrade but often I'm trying recipes written in fahrenheit so I've created a table I keep it as a bookmark on my phone for use in the kitchen. I thought it might be handy so I put it up!!!

Quick Ref - conversion form C to F and Gas mark

Put the fat into the baking dish and put it into the oven straight away!

Put the rest of the ingredients into a mixing jug and whisk until you have a smooth batter.

Wait until the oven has reached full temperature. 

Pull out the shelf with the baking tray on it, taking care not to spill the fat, and pour the batter into the centre of the tray.

Shelf at an angle, mix all in one end!!
Could be worse!

As it spreads out, the dish, and oil, should be hot enough so the batter starts to bubble straight away.

Pour in enough batter so that it's at least 1/2cm thick at the bottom.

Slide the shelf back in and close the door. 

DON'T open the door for at least 20min. 25-30mins really! 

Or until it's bulging out of the top of the oven!

Serve immediately!!

thinking ahead

If you making a roast the perfect time to rest your meat is while the yorkshire pudding is on!

Plate up the roast and serve the yorkshire pudding as soon as it's out!!

what could go wrong?

Hmmm, a few things: 

FAIL! Got stuck to the top of the oven!
Make sure you are at least on shelf from the top!

FAIL! Way too much batter, and tray not hot enough.
Make sure the batter starts to bubble when it hits the oil.

FAIL! Right amount of batter still not hot enough!
Make sure the sausages are heating up in the oven with the dish!

FAIL! Right amount of batter, not hot enough heat, and not enough thermal momentum in the tray . . .
place silicone on solid metal tray.

FAIL! result being a thick plank-cake! Sticky, not so bad if you like sticky!

variations

This a core ingredient for all sorts of things: Serving with a ribeye joint of beef, Mini Toads - Picnic Toad in the Hole, Yorkshire pudding sausage hats! (giant yorkies filled with Sunday dinner!! Hmmmm!)

RESULT! Mini yorkshires!

RESULT! Hot dog toad in the hole!

RESULT! Roast vegetable bake.

RESULT! Roast vegetable bake and beef and mushroom stew . . brilliant winter fare.

RESULT! Yorkies & Roast Beef with Horseradish 

RESULT! Brunch w/ Egg Yolk Yorkie

RESULT! Yorkies w/ Sausage and Gravy and . . . . oooh shivers of delight Roasties

ROAR!!!! 1ft Yorkie Bliss - Extreme Yorkie!

Recipe: Mac 'n' Cheese (Macaroni Cheese - Rigatoni Actually)

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

Mac 'n' cheese is an uber classic! It was one of the first things I tried to perfect when I left home! It's a super comfort food, and so versatile. As far as the basics go all you need to be able to make are a béchamel sauce and to make that a simple roux. the rest is cheese, your favourite pasta and all manner of variations depending on your mood! It's great for incorporating leftovers and stands on the plate without need for accompaniment. In fact I suggested an accompaniment for this one and got a reet (I think that's a northern term I might be wrong) good re-educating from my Italian flatmate . . . . . You do not serve a salad with a mac 'n' cheese, that's a different course!!

The cheeses I used for this particular mac 'n' cheese - which make's it the mac daddy were these:

murgu - swiss from belp - raw cows milk

vintage gouda 3yr - dutch from het groene hart - pasturised cows milk

schneeflockli - swiss from rougemont - raw cows milk

munster - french from alsace-lorraine - cows milk

They were leftovers form a rather nice cheese board I put on just recently! (sacrilegious I know . . . but soooo goood!)

My flatmate liked the mac 'n' cheese, I chucked the salad out of the window while no-one was looking!! ; )  

ingredients (serves 6-8)

for the mac 'n' cheese

500g rigatoni / macaroni

300g cheese (grated) (your favourite - better to pick a relatively strong one)

4 tomatoes (diced)

2 onions (fine dice)

4 cloves garlic (fine dice)

2 tbsp dijon mustard

1 tsp cumin seed

50ml olive oil

1L water

100g butter

100g flour

Cheese: a nice mix that wont hurt the bank too much - Red Leicester, Parmesan or Gran Padano and Mozzarella.

for the topping 

200g mature cheddar (grated)

apparatus / equipment

stick blender (optional)

Hard to tell but this mac 'n' cheese is over a foot wide!!! 

method - the basic steps are as follows:

* Cook the rigatoni / macaroni

* Make stock for the sauce

* Thicken the sauce with a roux

* Add the cheese to the sauce

* Mix sauce and pasta

* Sprinkle with cheese and bake for 20mins @ 180C

here's how in more detail:

stock

Put 1L of water, the onions, cumin, tomatoes and olive oil in a pan and bring to the boil, then set to simmer for 20mins.

Once the stock is ready use a stick blender to make it smooth and pass the stock through a sieve. If you don't have a stick blender skip this step and go for an artisan style sauce personally I quite like it with a little texture!! Smooth is good too!

pasta

In a separate pan add 1.5L water and 1tbsp of table salt and bring to the boil. Once boiling add the rigatoni and boil for 7mins.

Worth pointing out here that this is undercooked. If the rigatoni was for meatballs for example, or another sauce to be served immediately 7mins wouldn't be enough!!  9mins would be al dente and 11mins would be soft. We want it undercooked because it's going to be in the oven for 20mins in sauce cooking more!! : )

But you can cook it longer if you want to have a softer mac n cheese. 

roux

Next make a roux to thicken the stock. A roux is a mix of flour and fat. This recipe is vegetarian so I'm going to use butter, but you can use most fats, veg oil, bacon fat, duck fat etc for different flavours.

Melt butter and add the flour, mix well, and stir continuously over the heat to cook out the flour.

Add a fifth of the stock and bring to the boil and mix it in to create a smooth paste.

Repeat: adding the rest of the stock to the mix a third at a time, stirring until you have a smooth and even sauce.

add cheese

Next add the cheese to the sauce, stirring until it's melted and completely dissolved in the sauce. Season it with salt and pepper. Then add the pasta and mix well.

sprinkle

Put the mix into an oven proof dish, sprinkle with grated cheese and bake for 20minutes @ 180C until it's golden brown!!

thinking ahead

This is a great dish because, it will last over night in the fridge and be easily reheated in the oven (or microwave if you insist!) and you can also freeze it with very little side effects. 

variations

Are you kidding the list is endless, it's a great way to use up odds and ends: Use a tomato based sauce and just top with cheese for a healthier version. Add aubergine caviar, or ham and oregano. A chicken based variation is also pretty good!! : )

As you can see I tried an avocado topping as an experiment, and although it didn't detract from the dish it was a bit like adding double cream to single cream - pointless!

Aubergine caviar mac 'n' cheese

Classic cheddar and chicken mac 'n' cheese

Retro Recipe: Mini Toads - Picnic Toad in the Hole / Yorkshire Pudding

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab

I was having a look though and ancient directory on one of my backup drives, and I came across a bunch of old recipes from when I used to live in Barcelona, I always used to write down the ones that worked out! A well fed girlfriend is a happy girl friend I find. Well, it's one check box anyway!

We would often go up into the mountains for walks or to the beach (my favourite), usually a little further up the coast. Away far from heavy touristy bits of city. Pop a small kite up so we're easy to find on the beach when the others arrive and get down to the arduous business of sunbathing! 

After a good swim in the sea and a bit more of a sunbathe, grab a couple of beers from the nearest chiringito and crack open the picnic box. I don't think we ever came back with any of them left!! Soooo morish! Balance with a nice goats cheese and tomato salad. You know that, well, rather screw faced reaction you get when offering your friends kids (little feckers) food? Well you wont get one of those!!! 

They take 10mins to make. In it's simplest form the recipe goes: 1. whisk batter, 2.cut sausages, 3.bake. And it's a classic crowd pleaser, for BBQ buffet or for a picnic hamper, and they freeze too!

The batter is quite loose and it makes for a gloriously sticky mini toad in the hole, for less stickiness add more a touch more flour.

ingredients (makes 12)

for the mini toads

3 medium eggs

3 heaped tbsp flour

1/4 pint (~140g) milk 

2 tbsp olive oil

4 large good quality sausages

  (or 9 herbed mini bratvurst)

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

Mix batter : )

salt to taste

apparatus / equipment

12 mould muffin tray.

method

Pre heat the oven to full blast ~230C

Make the batter: Mix the eggs, flour, sugar salt oil and milk until smooth.

Leave it to warm to room temp.

Evenly distribute the cut up sausage into the baking tray, 4 sausages into 12 pieces, 9 small sausages in 36 pieces.

Sizzling hot - the bater should start to cook on contact!

Add a small squirt of oil and put into the

oven until they are sizzling.

Once they're sizzling pour over the batter half filling each mould.

Bake 15mins - don't open the door before this!!!

Depending on your oven they'll take 15-25 minutes.

thinking ahead

You can make them when ever you want, and then freeze them.

When you wan to use them defrost them and pop then into the oven at 180C for 5mins

what could go wrong? 

You're impatient and you open the door early, and they sink leaving you with hockey puck with a sausage in the middle.

Solution, don't open the door before 15min.

to serve

Serve with a little ketchup or aioli or both, and a light salad. Or ahem, cough, thick onion gravy, buttery mash and cabbage or peas

variations

Why not try making a giant yorkshire pudding!! The trick hear is to get the quantity of mix to tin size right! 

No deeper than 1cm!!

A high sided tin will also guide and contain your yorkshire pudding. Which means it will contain your onion gravy!!

But not your excitement!! : )

Recipe - Leftover Challenge: Chicken Croquettes

by Simon Fernandez of ferdiesfoodlab  
Croquettes are something very dear to my heart. As a kid we'd get them once a year! They were like absolute gold dust, which is sort of ironic because they were made from leftovers! Turkey, to be precise! And bloody good they were too. 

 








I have no idea how my mum used to make them! The other day I was faced with some leftovers, and it had been so. so long since I'd had one, that I thought - why the hell not?!! In fairness, they took about 2hrs to make, which is probably why we only got them once a year!! But I made enough to keep me in frozen croquette for a while . . . . reeee..sult!!

Here's how . . .

ingredients (makes 16-18)
for the croquettes
150g left over roast chicken 
     (about 1/4 - 1/3 of a roast chicken)
150g mushrooms
250ml pint chicken stock
1 tbsp gelatine powder
     or 2 sheets gelatine (optional)
80g flour
80g butter
50ml milk
4 egg yolks
1 egg (whisked with a touch - 10ml - of milk)
old/toasted bread / bread crumbs(for coating)
oil for frying (veg/sunflower)

for the coleslaw
1/3 cabbage (finely sliced)
12 black olives (stoned, quartered)
50g pea shoots or other green leaf
8 cherry tomatoes (quartered)
1 tbsp mayonaise
500ml 5% brine (boiling)

croquettes
Clean the mushrooms, then add them to the chicken stock and leave to simmer.
Debone the chicken and dice it: medium small dice. If you like your croquettes super smooth, you can blend it! Personally, I like a bit of texture in my creamy croquettes. Also nice to be able to identify what you're eating, neigh-ce pas? (Boom boom!)
Make a roux by melting the butter in a pan, then adding the flour and mixing until a smooth paste is formed. Remove from heat.
Remove the mushrooms from the liquor with a slotted spoon and place them onto a cutting board to cool down.
 
Mix the gelatine powder into the hot liquor until completely dissolved. If you're using sheets soak them in cold water for 5 mins first, squeeze any excess water from them and add them to the liquor, mixing in until dissolved.
Add about 3 tbsp of the liquor to the chicken and mix until well coated and glossy.

Add the milk to the roux and loosen it. (Mix in until smooth)
Add the remaining liquor to the roux and mix until smooth, put it on a gentle heat until the flour is cooked out. (10-15m) A little more stock and this would be a velouté. Take off the heat.




Chop the mushrooms to a similar size as the chicken.
Add the chicken and mushroom to the creamy mix, then add the egg yolks and mix in with a wooden spoon, stir until the mix is thick and silky, season if required.
At this point the classic route would be to pour the mix into a tray and let it cool for 2hrs until it's set, then coat in bread crumbs.

But I was absolutely starving at this stage so I took matters into my own hands:
Run the cold tap until you have an inch (2.5cm) of water in the sink, then place the pan in and keep stirring, this will quickly lower the temperature of the mix. Once it's cold the mix will be thick enough to quenelle.

Quenelle the mix with table spoons onto a tray of flour, roll to coat in flour.
Coat in egg wash, (the whisked egg) then bread crumbs, and place onto a tray lined with bread crumbs.

Once you have enough to fill your frying pan, heat your oil to a medium temp (160C for deep fat fryers - 4mins) and place the croquettes into the oil with a pair of tongs, fry them until golden brown turning occasionally so they are evenly cooked.

Once they're ready, remove them and place in a sieve (green option) or onto kitchen towel to drain.


At this point it's important not to let the little blighters get the better of you by having a sneaky taste, you will burn your mouth!
Let then drain for a moment, then place on a hot serving tray and serve immediately!

coleslaw
Prep the ingredients as listed.
To make the brine weigh out 25g of salt and add 500ml of boiling water, stir and dissolve the salt.
Add the sliced cabbage to the brine and leave for 30mins, then rinse under cold water and drain. This will have 2 effects: it seasons the cabbage and parboils it, softening it slightly for the coleslaw.
Once the cabbage is completely drained, mix the ingredients together and put aside until required.

thinking ahead
Croquettes freeze very well so you can make a big batch - 'cos let's face it, they take a while! - and bust 'em out of the freezer when the mood takes you!

what could go wrong?
When dicing the chicken and mushrooms, if you dice them too big it will be difficult to roll them into croquettes. 4mm chunks max!

to serve
Place a healthy portion of coleslaw onto a warm plate, add the croquettes and dress with a sprig of parsley if you're feeling like the '70s. Alternatively, you can load a serving dish with croquettes and large bowl with the coleslaw, place them on the table, and let folks help themselves!
 
variations
The list is endless, but here are a few: Ham, lamb, potato, beef, cheese, rice, salted cod and mussels. They can also be of the sweet variety, for example, made from rice pudding thickened with egg yolk then coated and fried!!