It’s that time of the year (that most wonderful time of the year) where you can completely justify eating comforting food.
YES - I said it again - the weather is rubbish, everything seems to be terrible and it’s totally justified to eat pork, carbs and cheese baked in meaty salty delicious stock.
It’s that time of the year (that most wonderful time of the year) where you can completely justify eating comforting food.
You will need 3 decent quality sausages per person (I used the Italian jobs from the most excellent Block’n’Blottle) A medium onion per person (halved and then quartered) A measure of sherry/masala/glass of wine/beer A bay leaf A tablespoon of plain flour A blob of butter (25g maybe) Half a stock cube Do Pop the sausages and butter in an oven suitable pan on a medium heat Cool under the sausages have some colour and then remove, keep them to one side Pop the oven on 180 Stick the kettle on Add the onions and bay leaf to the pan, reducing the heat Cook the onions until browned but still juicy.
Marinading chicken pieces and baking them in the oven is super simple and delicious. I always seem to have lots of yoghurt marinade left and there’s nothing you can do with it because it’s full of raw chicken.
Perfect Plates in 5 Ingredients by John Whaite is a tremendous read and really quite an inspiring book. This dish was very much inspired by it, with a bit more garlic.
It’s the time of year (the week really) when squashes and pumpkins are super discounted. I’ve generally no idea what to do with them, but I pinched the method that HelloFresh often uses, roasting in the oven and then saucing.
To try and break a bt of a food rut we’ve been in were trying out recipes from Perfect Plates in 5 ingrediants, shopping specifically for the ingrediants for chosen dishes, rather than doing a general shop and making stuff.
I’ve been experimenting with marinading wings chicken in Irn Bru before frying them to see if the Bru flavours come though. They do, but it’s not as strong as I’d hoped.
Cooking pork twice, once to help break down the fat/cartalidge and once to crisp up the outside seems to be a winning formula and the combination of “poor man’s sous vide” and the Airfryer works brilliantly.
I have a bit of a thing for sticky sweet meat dishes, and so this mid-week dinner was a bit of a guilty plesure. The poached bak choi is a good foil to the rich fish.
Even on the hottest day of the year, casserole with dumplings is still my favorite comfort food. The aubergine ended up in there becaue I was having a use up of veg, but the texture was tremendous.
I love hot sauses (see picture below of out fridge drawer) so when I saw a limited edition Encona sauce (already someting of a favourite brand) I couldn’t resist it.
I love meals which can be prepared in advance and with a little prep work come together like magic at the end. This is one where everything benefits from a little marinading time.
A love a good casserole and there were some excellent meatballs in this months meatballs. Casseroles are also an excuse for dumplings too. Thus, an all spherical dinner!
One of the things that takeaways excel at (and that I assume is dreadfully bad for you) are those dishes where chunks of meat are crisp but coated in a spicy sweet unctuous sauce.
I love mackerel pate. It’s super quick to make, deeply savoury and satifying. If the mackrel, lemon and cremefresh are all fridge cold you can serve it straight away.