ramtops

This was by way of an experiment, and I didn’t photograph it. It was as cheap as, well, chips. and really nice. I made it to accompany some roast venison, a piece of which I found lurking in the bottom of the freezer. It did two days – one with red cabbage, and one with green.

Put a slug of olive oil in the bottom of the slow cooker – I did this to stop it sticking.

Thinly slice potatoes and onions, and layer them up in the slow cooker – I think I did three and a half layers, starting and ending with potato. Season each potato layer as you go with salt and black pepper. I hurled some chopped garlic in part way through as well. Pour in some gravy (i used about half a mugful of Bisto granules*, which was about right for a small slow cooker).

Switch it on, walk away. It had about five hours, I think. Next time I’ll add carrot, I think, and possibly swede. Lovely with roasted meat, or sausages.

*Lets not pretend we don’t always use them from time to time, eh?

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

Photo from Paul Townsend

This one is a real blast from the past. I used to make it quite often back in the 70s and 80s, but I’m not sure when I last made it. Years and years, for sure. I had a bowl of cooked potatoes in the fridge, and thought “why not?”.

So: cut an onion in half, and slice it thinly. Set it to soften in some olive oil, and when it has, add the contents of a tin of corned beef, cubed. The corned beef will make a sort of mush with the onion, and you could add some frozen mixed veg or something if you liked.

Make some cheese sauce – a packet would do, I guess. Put the corned beef in the bottom of an ovenproof dish*, pour the sauce over. Mash the potatoes with a little milk and butter, and put them on the top. Serve with frozen peas.

It’s surprisingly nice. Trust me.

*I used my little Remoska, but hardly anyone has one of those, as Lakeland stopped selling that size.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

I’ve been a bit “meh” about cooking of late; trying to lose weight leaves me uninspired.

On Sunday, we had planned nothing foodwise. Pete had gone for a nap after garden-related exertions, and I went for a rummage in the fridge, to find:

one very tired field mushroom
half a lemon
a cauliflower that definitely needed eating
some cooked potatoes

So … cut up the cauliflower and put it on to simmer for about 8 minutes.

Put a piece of cinnamon stick and some cumin seeds in hot oliver oil, stirred them about a bit, then added the mushroom, chopped into smallish chunks, and a finely chopped shallot. Left that on a low heat till the mushroom was cooked, then added 80g of basmati rice (we don’t eat much rice – see above – wah), mixed it in, then 160g of cold water and half a teaspoon of salt. Brought to the boil, lid on, very low simmer for 13 minutes, then about 13 minutes standing (or 20 or 25 – it won’t hurt).

Very finely chopped quite a lot of garlic and ginger, and put it in a wide flat pan with some hot groundnut oil. Added crushed cumin and coriander seeds, then hurled in the cooked potato, cut into smallish dice. Cooked that off until the spuds started to crisp, then added the cauliflower.

Stood and looked at it for a bit, then opened a carton of passata, and added about half of it, with a splash of water. Simmered over a very low heat until the rice was ready.

Very nice, but it could have done with a little salt (I try not to salt food as a matter of course).

It did, of course, leave me with half a carton of passata …

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

I bought a pack of baby aubergines at the weekend – I’m not normally seduced by such things, but they were so pretty … We had about a third of them in the roast veg on Sunday, and I was left with not enough for moussaka, but some. There were also some cold cooked new potatoes lurking in the fridge. So:

Heated some groundnut oil in a shallow pan, and put in some black mustard seeds. Added a chopped red onion, and cooked till translucent. Lobbed in some standard Indian spices, ground (tumeric, cumin, coriander) and a fresh red chilli, sliced. Stirred it all round.

Added the aubergine and potatoes, cut into largish dice. Stirred round some more. Added about 1/2 mug of water, put lid on, left for 15 minutes. Stirred in a load of fresh coriander at the end.

It was utterly lovely – we shall be eating *that* again!

We used up the last of the button mushrooms in a poor man’s mushroom pilau – shallot, cinnamon, mushrooms, rice.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

This is a classic Irish recipe – we used to eat them a lot, but sort of forgot about them; I made some for breakfast this morning, and thought I’d share. It’s an ideal way to use up leftover boiled potato, too!

In a food processor, blitz 6oz cold cooked potato, 4oz flour (I always use plain, but self raising would do), and 2oz of butter or marg. Once you have a dough, remove it from the processor and knead a little on a floured work surface.

Now, you can be diligent, roll it out with a rolling pin, and cut the dough into rounds – or you can do what I do, which is to divide the dough into 8, and pat it into rough roundish shapes.

Also, the recipe recommends frying in a little butter on a griddle, but I’m afraid I stick them on a greased baking tray at gas 6 for 15 minutes. And I don’t peel the spuds either :)

These are just utterly delicious straight out of the oven, spread with butter, and also work really well as part of a great British fry up.

If you don’t have a food process, mash the potatoes as is (no milk or butter), rub the fat into the flour and add the spud, then continue with the rolling (or not).