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.

Another siren call from T L Norman’s chill cabinet, this small piece of brisket (maybe 1.25kg or so – I didn’t weigh it) went straight into the freezer when I bought it. I fetched it out on Saturday, and slow cookered it thus on Sunday:

I seared the brisket (all in one piece) in a little olive oil, then set it aside. In this house, this means putting it in one of the ovens, for fear one, or many, of The Tribe will minister to it. Then into the oil went a large onion, diced, and a few carrots, cut into batons. I added black peppercorns, juniper berries, fresh thyme, a good slosh of red wine, a smaller one of balsamic vinegar, and a good sprinkling of gravy granules. Oh, and a few cloves of garlic, crushed. And salt.

Everything went into the slow cooker for about eight hours. Sadly, I came down with some dreaded lurgy during the afternoon, and couldn’t face food, but Pete manfully tackled it, with a slice or two of sourdough bread. Which meant that there was plenty left for Monday. It stayed in the slow cooker and was cooked again for about four hours, and this time we had it with broccoli and Yorkshire puds.

Today, I have once again fished out the remaining brisket. Sliced three spuds thinly, and fried them gently in the fat left over from the lunchtime bacon butties (it’s cold, OK?). Set them in the slow cooker, added the rather splendid gravy and remaining veg, and they can sit and mull to themselves till suppertime, and which point they will accompany some cold brisket.

And there looks to be plenty to eat for lunch tomorrow as well.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

Potato scones are a doddle. 3-2-1 potato, flour, butter or marg. I usually do 150g of spud, but there was 225g leftover from last night and really, what am I going to do with 3oz of mash? To hell with it, it’s Friday, I used it all.

So – rub flour and marg/butter together to make breadcrumbs. Squish in the mashed potato* to make a dough. You’ll need some milk at this point – somewhere between a dribble and a splash, I guess – just to make the dough more pliable. If you make it too sloppy, don’t worry – just add more flour!

Roll it out into (an approximation) of a circle – the thickness doesn’t matter, really, it only affects the cooking time – and divide into six. You can bake these in a hot oven for 10-12 minutes, but I tend to do them on the gas hob on a cast iron griddle (any heavy bottomed frying pan would do). It uses less energy. Turn them after 5 minutes or so, or when they’re browning and cook the other side. I actually had time to wash up and wipe down the worktops while they were cooking.

Traditionally, these are served with bacon in Ireland, but we just scoff them as is, with lashings^H^H a tiny bit of butter.

*If I have cold potato, unmashed, I tend to bung it all in the food processor, but I did it by hand today.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

Leftover haricot?ish beans, and some cheesy mash, both from last night’s shepherds’ pie.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

We’ve had a weekend of “using up bits”. Saturday brunch was bacon, black pudding and the last of the flat mushrooms, and supper was Indian mushrooms with spinach (except we forgot to add the spinach so that’s still in the fridge – spinach frittata during the week, I think). That was to use up half the pack of button mushrooms that was left.

Sunday morning was potato scones, made with some cold mashed spuds that was in the fridge, and a pack of baby sossidges, to which we are addicted.

Today we ate the last of the M&S party food individual pies, which really are surprisingly nice. Just parmesan and basil twists to go there! I have cracked today and been to the greengrocer, as one leek, half a pepper and a wizened swede is not an inspiring collection of veg.

For Sunday supper, I made a goose pudding, thus:

Diced carrot, onion, garlic and celery, and sauted off. Did about three times as much as needed, and dumped the balance into the soup pot, which was a tad lacklustre. Discovered that Pete had, in fact, used all the mushrooms on Saturday night, so despatched him up to Jacksons for some more. Sliced them (not him) and added to the pot. Dumped in a 1/2 glass of red wine, and some vegetable stock, and the very, very last of Johnny Goose. Added some thyme. and a little cornflour mixed in cold water to thicken the mix, and left it for about 20 minutes, while I made a suet pastry.

Combined filling and pastry in a bowl, covered with foil secured with an elastic band, and dumped in the slow cooker on “high” for about seven hours. It was lovely, and we ate it with green beans and mashed potato. The rest will do for supper tonight, with a few roasties (more cold spud in the fridge), and some cabbage.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

We haven’t had this for ages, and it’s a really tasty, easy meal if you have the bits ready cooked. Which we had.

Chop an onion and fry it off in, ideally, some dripping, but oil would do. I suppose. Add chopped cooked potatoes, and something green in the way of vegetables – cooked cabbage, sprouts, spring greens – we had sprouts left from last night. Cook gently until it’s all starting to break down, then add a can of corned beef, cut into dice, and continue to cook gently until that breaks down too.

In a perfect world, you’d be using a non-stick sort of pan so you could bring up the heat and brown it off, but in my current kitchen-free world, I was using a cast iron sauté pan, and didn’t dare do that, because I couldn’t face the certain sticking.

That’s it, really – very nice with HP Sauce, for those of us with taste, or Lea and Perrins Worcester sauce, for those who don’t. One pot cooking.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

I referred to these in my last post, about our New Year’s Eve dinner. Here’s the recipe – highly recommended! It comes from one of the Jamie Oliver books.

serves 6

1.5kg medium-size waxy potatoes, quartered lengthways (I don’t generally bother with peeling potatoes, but feel free)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
200g butter, cubed
fresh rosemary, leaves picked and chopped
1 whole bulb of garlic, quartered or smashed
5 medium red onions, peeled and quartered
350ml cheap balsamic vinegar

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Parboil the potatoes for about eight minutes, then drain, return to the pan, and rough them up a bit by shaking (this works really well for roasting potatoes too, by the way).

Pour a glug of olive oil into a roasting tray, add the butter, rosemary and garlic, and heat it on the hob – you want to be able to fit the potatoes in one layer. Add the potatoes and toss them in all the flavours. Add the onions and all the balsamic vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Cook for five minutes on the hob to reduce the balsamic vinegar a little. Place the tray on the top shelf and cook for about 50 minutes, until the potatoes and onions are dark, sticky and crispy – removing the tray to toss the onions and potatoes halfway through.