Manchego Man Randy Savage

The snow had arrived out of nowhere as the second half of the second day of 2021 became a whiteout. It was an opportunity to cook a few meals to freeze so as to consume them during the working week. It was also a time to cook a new soup recipe. 

On the player was the sterling Rolling Stones compilation "Forty Licks". It shows how much depth and quality there is in the band's catalogue.  Buried within the compilation are four new, at the time, songs that showed the key facets of the styles of song writing Jagger and Richards employed in the early noughties. 

The soup recipe goes like this:

Three large White Potatoes, peeled and cubed.

Three fresh Chives cut thinly. 

One head of Broccoli cut into cubes.

One White Onion, peeled, topped, tailed and diced. 

Pinch of White Pepper.

Half a pint of Chicken Stock

One Hundred Grams of grated Spanish Manchego Cheese made with Sheep's Milk. This cheese was sourced from the excellent Stretton Hall Farm Shop who can be found online at: Stretton Hall Farm Shop | Facebook 

The first step is sweat the Potatoes, Brocolli, Chives, White Onion, Chives and White Pepper in Sunflower Oil in a saucepan on a medium heat for around ten minutes stirring regularly to stop the ingredients sticking to the bottom of the pan.

The second step is to add the Chicken Stock and simmer the ingredients for thirty minutes then blend them before adding the soup back to the saucepan. Thirdly add the Manchego Cheese and warm the soup through, so the Cheese melts into it, before serving it. 

The potatoes give this soup plenty of quality carbs while the cheese gives a richness that makes this a midwinter treat. 

 

Christmas Chick

It was a wet December Day. We had scrambled up to the summit above the old mine-workings and then scrambled down the remains of the old slag heap to find a meal of Al-Fresco Tea Bread and fresh Coffee. Returning home we were soaked and needed to refuel with a strong Sunday Dinner. 

We had acquired some fresh Chicken Fillets and some Cheese made of Chives and Caramelised Onions from the local farm shop and set to work. 

On the player was Jethro Tull's Christmas Album, which makes old sounds appear as if they have just been invented, and then Low's shimmering, wonderful Christmas Album. 

The Recipe is as follows:

For the flavoured Chicken Breasts:

2 Chicken Breasts.

7 fresh Chive Sprigs. 

4 teaspoons of Dried Tarragon.

2 teaspoons of Mustard Seed.

2 diced cloves of Garlic.

1 diced White Onion. 

Olive Oil 

For the Cheese and Leek Sauce:

50 grams of Unsalted Butter.

1 tablespoon of Cornflour.

7 tablespoons of Unskimmed Milk.

4 tablespoons of Grated Plougman's cheese or other soft cheese with Caramelised Onion and Chives. 

1 tablespoon of Pine Nuts.

1 diced Leek freshly steamed. 

For the Rosemary Mashed Potato:

3 medium White Potatoes, mashed after being peeled, diced and steamed.

1 teaspoon of fresh, diced Rosemary. 

2 tablespoons of unsweetened Soya Drink. 

The method goes like this:

1. Put the Chicken Breasts on a baking tray covered in foil and some Olive Oil. 

2. Spread the Onion and Garlic evenly between the Chicken Breasts and on top of the Chicken Breasts. 

3. Spread the Chive Sprigs, Tarragon and Mustard Seeds all over the Chicken Breasts and brush with Olive Oil.

4. Wrap the foil round the Chicken to create a parcel. 

5. Cook in the oven on Gas Mark 5 for 30 minutes. 

6. Steam the diced Potatoes and Leek for 20 minutes until they are soft. 

7. Make the Sauce by melting the Butter in a saucepan. Stir in the Flour and Pine Nuts. Add the Milk into the mixture and stir until there is a thick paste. Melt in the Cheese and once the melted cheese has combined with the sauce add the Steamed Leeks and stir together. 

8. Mash the Potato, stir in the Soya Drink and Rosemary Leaves. 

9. Serve the Potato, then put the Chicken on top of it with Cheese and Leek Sauce. 

Sea My Pie

I've made quite a lot of fish recipes for this blog but never a fish pie. I thought it was time to change all that with a recipe that used two kinds of fish and some prawns. It was early in November and the afternoon sun shone before the fog once again returned. I had been to the shop early to avoid the needless queues and been able to source the following ingredients:

500 grams of Salmon

500 grams of Cod

500 grams of Prawns

25 grams of Fresh Dill

300 ml of White Wine.

1 White Onion carefully diced

200 grams of Garden Peas

Mashed Sweet Potato and White Potato made from 1000 grams of Sweet Potato and White Potato 

White Sauce created from 100 grams of Unsalted Butter, 50 grams of Plain Flour, a tablespoon of fresh Chopped Parsley and 300 ml of Milk.

On the player was the first great Yes Album simply called "The Yes Album" and it can be listened to at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nY-QvLEUh8bovdW1btwUXJHE8I_W5bIbA    

It finds the band mastering in full long-form songs that contain much melody, strong backing tracks, top-notch musicianship and above all accessibility without over- indulgence. 

The method to make this Seafood Pie is:

1. Stew the Fish, White Onion, White Wine and Prawns in some Sunflower Oil on a low heat in a Le Cresceut or very deep frying pan for ten minutes. Add the Dill and Garden Peas and stew for another five minutes then leave to cool on one side. 

2. Steam the Potatoes for around thirty minutes until soft. Drain and mash. 

3. While the Potatoes are steaming make the White Sauce by melting the Butter in a saucepan and then mixing it with the Flour and Parsley. Then add the milk and stir on a medium heat until all the ingredients are combined into a thin, runny White Sauce 

4. Put the fish mixture in a greased pie dish. Add the White Sauce. Add the mashed potatoes and spread evenly over the top of the dish.

5. Cook in the oven on Gas Mark Six for thirty-five minutes before serving. 

Richness without it being overpowering is the key to this meal, which contains lots of protein from the Seafood and freshness from the Parsley and Dill while the White Wine creates a strong flavoursome taste. 

Shut it, you Tartlet

The mixture of rain in the valley coupled with the sun bursting through a crack in the clouds produced a kind of liquid mercury hue as I gazed down into it from the hill I occupied with the Dogg on our early morning walk. 

Later that day I tried my hand at a spot of baking. On the player was the Who's seminal 1970 live album "Live at Leeds" an album I bought first during the seminal second is year of my A-Levels. A link to the full gig this live album was culled from can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD2Z2HKHDDj2RHp7wjMY54HiJF1z4akc0 

Having looked back for the last time during the October Holiday I was taking, by listening to this music from the past to inspire me in my new future, I focused on the making of some Butter Tartlets. This dish of pastry cases filled with sweet mixture and topped with icing and a glace cherry apparently comes from Canada. 

The ingredients are as follows:

For the shortcrust pastry:

Eight Ounces of Self-Raising Flour. 

Four Ounces of Unsalted Butter. 

Two tablespoons of water if required to soften the pastry to allow it to be rolled.

For the filling

Four Ounces of Mixed Peel

Four Ounces of Demerara Sugar.

One Ounce of Unsalted Butter. melted.

One Egg Beaten. 

For the Topping

A sheet of ready to roll Fondant Icing.

Some Glace Cherries. 

The method goes like this:

1. Rub in the Butter and Flour to make the Pastry. Roll it out then spread it between twelve greased patty-cake tins. 

2. Mix the Mixed Peel,  Demerara Sugar, Egg and Melted Unsalted Butter together in a bowl. Add evenly to the patty-cake tins. 

3. Bake in the oven for twenty minutes at Gas Mark Six. 

4. Turn out the Tartlets and leave on a wire rack to cool. 

5. Once cool top with the Icing and the Glace Cherries. 

Hummus be joking

 In my quest to limit the salt in my diet I recently tried my hand at making Hummus from scratch after the supermarket produced Hummus purchased had felt salty and stale recently. I was inspired by a prominent influencer in my roster to watch a video showing a leading chef make his own Hummus from scratch and his description of how smooth and fresh it is. 

With Chris Rea's mellow, refined and Jazzy 2004 effort the Blue Jukebox on heavy rotation, a sample of which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL66877F885A21CC23 , I set about preparation of this simple but effective meal.

The ingredients are as follows: 

720 grams of Chick Peas

2 tablespoons of water. 

The juice of 1 Lemon.

2 Garlic Cloves, topped, tailed, peeled and cut finely.

1 tablespoon of Ground Cumin.

1 Green Chilli, the top and seeds removed and cut finely. 

1 teaspoon of Sesame Seeds. 

The method in this recipe is very simple. First put the Lemon Juice into the blender, then add the Cumin and Sesame Seeds. Add the Garlic Cloves next with the Chilli. Finally add the Chick Peas and water then blend everything to a puree. 

The difference between this recipe and supermarket Hummus is telling. Whereas supermarket Hummus sticks to the spoon like the noxious glue we used at Primary School, this homemade Hummus rolls smoothly off the spoon and is smooth and silky rather than claggy and dry. The taste meanwhile is fresh and immediate thanks to the fresh chilli and the Garlic. After this I don't think I'll every buy anything but homemade Hummus. 

Pump My Pie

So far on this blog the Pumpkin Recipes I've shared have all been for savoury dishes. However I had long been aware of the American Thanksgiving night dish Pumpkin Pie, which is a sweet dish. 

I have only ever been to a thanksgiving meal once. It was nearly twenty years ago, when I was a university student living in dilapidated halls of residence in a city with connections to Ancient Rome. An American exchange student was over in our halls for the semester and to make her feel at home we decided one evening to make her a thanksgiving meal using our primitive ovens and low-budget ingredients. Pumpkin Pie was on the menu as well as the traditional turkey. It was a night darker than a glass of porter and the radiators were colder than slabs in a morgue, we tucked into that meal as overawed teenagers fresh away from home for the first time. It was a cold night but there was communal warmth between us all.  Basic living conditions they may have been but at least we were students with freedom. 

Back in the present I continued to follow Chris Rea's eleven disc adventure through the history of the blues as cooking commenced on this unique sweet treat.

The ingredients for this recipe are as follows:

300 grams of Sweet Shortcrust Pastry made using Unsalted Butter, Self-Raising Flour, Demerara Sugar and All Spice.

800 grams of Pumpkin Flesh cut into cubes.

• 75 grams of Demerara Sugar.
• A teaspoon of Nutmeg.

A teaspoon of Cinnamon

• 2 beaten Eggs.
• 25 grams of melted Unsalted Butter. 
• 9 tablespoons of Almond Milk. 
• A hint of Vanilla Essence

This recipe is made like this:

1. Boil the Pumpkin Flesh for around twenty minutes. Drain it through a sieve and then purify it in a blender. 

2. Mix the Sugar, Eggs, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Unsalted Butter, Almond Milk and Vanilla Essence in a bowl.

3. Roll out the Pastry and use it to line a greased pie tin around twenty-five centimetres wide and five centimetres deep. 

4. Cook the Pastry in an oven on Gas Mark Four for around fifteen minutes. This method is called "baking it blind".

5, Take the Pastry out of the oven and add all the remaining ingredients from the mixing bowl to the pie tin containing the blind baked pastry. 

6. Cook the pie on Gas Mark Four for around fifty minutes. Leave to cool once cooked prior to serving. 

This meal was something else. While my initial instincts told me a savoury vegetable in a sweet dish could not be right I was proven wrong by the spicy yet sweet flavours of this uniquely wonderful American Dish. Perhaps cooking this meal will now become my family's own thanksgiving night tradition.

Carrot Camaraderie

 I should have known it was coming. A 5am get up had followed the day before of an evening workout and the rush of emotions that naturally follow after one finishes employment at a job that had been a part of my life for six years. It shouldn't have come as a surprise that a powerful headache briefly knocked me for six after all this activity. It was my body, and the Gilbert's Syndrome I was diagnosed with seven years ago, telling me to slow down and rest. I took my body's advice and drank a glass of water prior to rolling into bed for an early night.

Luckily my syndrome only means a few extra quid on the travel insurance if I go abroad and it doesn't stop me doing anything else. It is something that's now a part of me and I learn to manage and live with in the same manner a prolific test cricket batsman might refine their technique to avoid playing certain shots due to a longstanding injury. 

Some longstanding followers of this blog may have noticed that I use very little salt in my cooking. That's because with having Gilbert's Syndrome if I get too de-hydrated it triggers the headaches and slight confusion. Salt of course is a natural de-hydrating agent which is why I avoid it in my recipes and keep up my fluid intake. 

I also think that salt makes a lot of recipes taste artificial, dry and stale. That's why I like to go for recipes that contain lots of fresh ingredients. To assist in recovering I woke up fairly early the next morning and walked through a partial rain storm with the Dogg to a local farm shop that contains all kinds of innovative products I aim to feature in blog posts over the next few months. Why not check them out at https://www.facebook.com/strettonhallfarmshop/ 

After weathering the slight storm and seeing some stunning rainbows, the sun bathed the Dogg and I as we picked our way through the fields home and talked to a neighbour about his exciting new summer house. For dinner I fancied something largely fresh that lacked too much salt and settled on an old favourite; Carrot and Coriander Soup.

On the player was one of the Chris Rea Albums I'd acquired with some of my leaving money from the job. The album was 1996's "La Passione". If you fancy a listen you can do worse than check out this compilation of the best bits of the album and more at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfp1EzKOEX0dZrs4ITtGyMr7VmaFMN4fT 

The album was the soundtrack to a film and it was pilloried subsequently by Rea because he believed the record company had made some changes to it that ruined the record. His judgment is a little harsh on this eclectic album that features more soaring strings than one might find on a Chris Rea Record, a left-field duet with Shirley Bassey and in the song "Girl in Sports Car" a track that swings and sways to move quickly through various moods in a fragmented yet driving manner. 

So to the recipe which comprises of the following:

Six large Carrots, topped, tailed, peeled and cut into slices widthways. 

Three Shallots, topped, tailed, peeled and diced. 

One Chilli Pepper, the top cut off and de-seed then sliced thinly. 

A bunch of Fresh Coriander. 

Quarter of a pint of Chicken Stock.

This one can be made by the following method:

1. Sweat the Carrots, Shallots, Chilli Pepper and Coriander in a Le Cresceut with a small amount of Sunflower Oil for ten minutes. 

2. Add the Stock and simmer for a further ten minutes.

3. Blend and serve.

This soup is a recipe that's seen everywhere from supermarkets to restaurants. It is however a hard recipe to get right as too many takes on it use too much stock, cream and dried coriander. The trick is to use Fresh Coriander, in this case I used some I had grown myself, and only use enough stock to cover the other ingredients before simmering and blending. If this approach is followed a flavoursome soup that packs a fiery punch can be made.