Berkshire Take on Oxfordshire Sausages

Berkshire Take on Oxfordshire Sausages

These sausages are made without skins, so just mix your mince together and pan-fry.


For the mince:
Beef - 125g
Lamb - 225g
Parsley - 2 handfuls, chopped
Nutmeg - 1 tsp
Garlic cloves - 3, chopped finely
Breadcrumbs - 2 tbsp
Egg - 1
Salt&Pepper - to taste
Rosemary - 1 tbsp, chopped


Fry in duck fat.


On this photo: served with portobello mushrooms baked with cheddar and parsley, and some garlic bread.

Pugliese Focaccia

1) Peel and roughly chop 1 medium potato, and boil it in water, reserving the water for later.Crush potato with a fork or put it through a ricer.

2) Mix 500 gr flour with teaspoon salt and 7 gr sachet of dry yeast, add your potato. 

3) Top up potato water with plain water to 500 ml keeping it tepid. Add this to the flour mix, mixing it with your hands until the consistency of wet porridge. Add more tepid water if necessary. You will need to keep mixing it in the bowl using fingers of your one hand and securing the bowl with another hand, pulling the dough up and strectching it, until air bubbles start rising to the surface when you leave it be for a minute.

4) Pour into well oiled tin, sprinkle olive oil on top and leave to double in size. 

5) Arrange topping of your choice - olives, oregano, cherry tomatoes etc. Bake at 200C for about half hour, or until browned and sounding hollow when tapped.

Mushroom Noodle Soup

125g chestnut mushrooms
125g shiitake mushroom
1ltr good flavoured vegetable stock
1stalk lemon grass, finely chopped
2cm ginger, peeled and chopped
juice of 1/2 lime

2 kaffir lime leaves
1tbsp dark soy sauce
clove garlic, crushed

oil for srying chestnut mushrooms
125g instant noodles

1) Cut stalks off shiitake mushrooms and reserve. Slice all mushrooms, keeping shiitake and chestnut mushrooms separate. Set aside.

2) Put stock into a saucepan together with the shiitake mushroom stalks, lemon grass, ginger, lime juice, lime leaves and soy sauce. Bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain, reserving liquid and discarding vegetables. Return liquid to saucepan and reheat

3) Add sliced shiitake mushrooms to the pan and simmer for 10 minutes. 

Meanwhile saute the garlic and chestnut mushrooms in about 2 tablespoons of oil, stirring all the time, until the mushrooms are softened. 

4) Add noodles to the saucepan and cook for about 3 minutes or until noodles are done. Add mushrooms and garlic to the saucepan.

Ready to serve!

Poussin butterfly with gorgonzola and sundried tomatoes salad

According to wikipedia, "..Spatchcock is the traditional word for the French term "poussin", a juvenile chicken".

Bearing this in mind, I guess it would be a tautology to describe the picture above as a spatchcocked poussin. Although, it is exactly that: a poussin that has been spatchcocked, or butterflied.

Once you have done that (and there are myriads of videos on the web of how to butterfly a chicken), prepare your weights that go on top of the bird while it's cooking. Where I come from, they use a clean brick, as simple as that. Another solution (and I have just tested it positive) is to take off the knob of your pan's lid so the surface is flat, and read further..

Next step:

Put the pan on medium heat, butter well, and put the bird in when it's hot. Put your prepared lid on top of the bird, former knob side down.

Now put a saucepan full of water on top of that and press down. This is your weights.

Cook for ..hmm, you know what, I didn't time it, but if I had to guess, about 10 minutes. Disassemble saucepan-lid setup, flip the bird over, and re-assemble again. Cook the other side for the same duration.

For the salad, toss together salad leaves of your choice (original recipe says rocket), crumbled gorgonzola and sundried tomatoes. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and a tablespoonful of sesame seeds.

Voila!

"Pesto Apart" Linguine

Named Pesto Apart for a reason,- while putting this dish together, I suddenly realised that ingredients I decided to put in are actual ingredients of green pesto:

handful freshly basil

handful toasted pine nuts

two cloves garlic

30g grana padano (instead of parmesan)

dash of lemon juice

olive oil

Plus, can of broad beans, and cooked linguine for two. Serve with warm garlic bread and a glass of rustic red wine!

Moroccan Lamb with Giant Couscous

Quick moroccan dinner. The only not quick thing about it is if you decide to marinate lamb chops for a day or overnight which is not crucial to this recipe.

 

lamb chops, for 4 pieces use:

1 teaspoon paprika, half teaspoon cinnamon, half teaspoon cumin, 1 tablespoon olive oil

1 red onion, roughly chopped

handful dried apricots, roughly chopped

handful fresh mint leaves, chopped

1 tablespoon ras-el-hanout

giant couscous, half a cup per person

1) Pour giant couscous into a saucepan, cover with plenty of boiling water (about 1:1) and set to boil over medium heat for 10 minutes or until done.

2) Rub mixture of cumin, paprika and cinnamon with little olive oil all over lamb chops. You can leave it for few hours, or use straight away. Slap onto hot grill pan and fry over midium-to-high heat about 3-4 minutes each side. Put inside preheated to 150C oven while couscous is cooking.

3) Using fat from the chops, fry onion until soft, add mint and apricots, and ras-el-hanout. Toss around for a couple of minutes. Drain couscous well, add to the pan with onions and mix well. Add salt to taste.

Serve!

Beef Potato Salad

Really quick dish, adapted from Morrisons magazine.

  

500g baby new potatoes, halves or quartered

oil for frying

400g beef frying steak (thinnest, cut into strips)

3 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce, tobasco, chilli flakes

200g cherry tomatoes, halved

mixed salad leaves, handful per plate (recipe makes about three-four servings)

1) Cover potatoes with boiling water, salt it lightly, and cook for about 10 minutes. Drain.

2) Fry beef strips, stirring almost frequently, until water starts to reduce, 5 minutes or so. Add chilli sauce, tobasco, chilli flakes, to the hot degree of your liking. Toss around, then add tomatoes and potatoes and cook some more stirring, until all the water evaporates, and the ingredients are sizzling in your pan.

3) Divide salad leaves between plates. Pile beef and potato salad on top, and serve hot.

Salad leaves soak in chilli beef dressing nicely!