Ragu (Italian Meat Sauce for Pasta)

Ragu is a hearty, happy dish with bags of flavour and is a lot less work than might be expected. I do feel that it needs a fresh egg pasta to do it justice, but that might just be me and my penchant for rich food! Tagliatelle is certainly a fabulous type of pasta for this sauce either way.

This is my made-up version of ragu, it isn't nearly as good as my Mum's but hers has a list of ingredients that fills a an A4 page and takes hours to cook... this one is a speedy little number which still manages a beautiful flavour and a great texture. The amount below serves two hungry people, with just enough left over for one of you to have lunch the next day.

So, dice an onion, a stick of celery and a couple of garlic cloves and set them to gently fry in a pan. When they're softened, add in half a pack of mince (about 250g) and give it a good stir. Once that's going brown, add in a tub's worth of chopped chicken livers and keep stirring to brown those as well.

Throw in a diced carrot and a couple of bay leaves, and a glass of red wine. Let that bubble for a bit before topping up with a tin of tomatoes, a squeeze of tomato puree and a large pinch of dried oregano. Add a little water to help form a sauce and leave to simmer for as long as you can manage - a good half hour at least.

Finally, season with salt and pepper before serving with hot pasta.

Christmas Dinner: The Biggest Feast of the Year

I'd be lying if I said I didn't get disproportionately excited about christmas and christmas food. I've been hosting xmas at my house for 3 years and cooking the food for several years prior to that, having inherited the duty due to my enthusiasm for the task. I haven't had any disasters but I don't think anyone would disagree if I said that each year I'm getting a bit better at it. 

The ideal is to get the entire meal to the table, hot, before 3pm and without a single frustrated outburst or stress-induced teary argument. Difficult, but not impossible.

This post is to tie together all the other ones, each relating to an element of xmas dinner or xmas in general. You might think there are a few things missing, each family has their own traditional accompaniments, but partly that's because we had a small scale xmas this year so I didn't bother with stuffing or redcurrant sauce. I bought the pigs-in-blankets ready made too.

Spicy Glazed Ham 
Roast Goose
Rich Gravy
Perfect Roast Potatoes
Bread Sauce
Vegetables
Trifle
Bubble and Squeak

I've got my inspiration from various cookbooks, from my family, friends and just from doing it year on year. Below is a list of the books I've turned to time and again in recent Christmasses:

Nigella Christmas ~ Nigella Lawson
The Good Housekeeping Cookbook (1998)
Sunday Lunch ~ Gordon Ramsay

Christmas How To... Cook the Accompanying Veg

Christmas dinner isn't complete without a full array of delicious, seasonal vegetables. These are really easy, hardly a recipe at all, but I know I'm often interested in what other families cook for their dinner so I thought I would include them. 

I also know there is interest from people new to the UK, who would like to create a British style christmas dinner for the first time but aren't entirely sure what it involves - so I thought I'd be comprehensive in my xmas posts!

Seasonally speaking, root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, beetroot and swede, plus brassicas like brussel sprouts, as well as broccoli are all at their lovely best right now. I'm particularly fond of parsnips myself, my Mum loves beetroot, my Dad loves carrots and my husband is a broccoli fiend, so each and every one has to make it onto the christmas table.

Unlike a lot of other families, I haven't messed around with our veg too much. Partly this is because my Mum absolutely hates sweet flavours in savoury food, so the traditional honey or maple glazes are right out, and she's frankly not fond of nuts like almonds, pine nuts or chestnuts either, so souped up brussels wouldn't be popular.

I also don't want the veg to outshine the goose or the gravy, they are supporting actors and showering them in gifts of honey / cumin / sesame seeds / balsamic vinegar or any of the other common props won't help the stars of the show to shine!

I think the most important bit is the cutting - trying to make the parsnips and carrots fairly uniform in thickness before roasting them, to avoid burned tips or undercooked tops.

The beetroot needs to be pre-boiled in a large saucepan of water for a good hour until tender, before skinning and slicing into wedges. 

Roast the beetroot in a separate tin if you can, to avoid the colour bleeding into the parsnips and carrots, which can go in together. Season with salt and pepper and coat in olive oil, mixing with your hands to ensure good coverage. 
These root veg all take about 45 minutes to an hour until they're ready, but keep an eye on the beetroot; remove it and cover in foil if it looks like it's going to burn.

Swede needs to be peeled and chopped into inch square cubes, then boiled until soft and mashed with plenty of butter, salt and pepper.

Sprouts and broccoli only need the lightest of steaming or boiling with a small amount of water, keep the crunch - it's lovely.

Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post

Baked Ling with Cauliflower Puree & Fennel Salad

This photo does not do justice to the
yumminess of this dinner, trust me!

When I first started this blog, I said it was going to be a warts-and-all sharing of my experiences, as I try to eat both interestingly and ethically. Today, I present a large "wart". On the positive side, I learned something I didn't know today and writing about it might spread the word, certainly it highlights the easy pitfalls a hedonethicist can fall into.

It really starts with an old, and rather silly, assumption: if you haven't heard of a fish, or don't often see it for sale at a supermarket, it's more likely to be sustainable than one that is really common. This idea could have worked in the past for some things: king prawns, cod, haddock, salmon, tuna and sea bass have all made their appearances on the endangered charts, whereas pollack, dab, cockles, coley and the like hadn't. Nowadays, it's a bit more complicated than that.

Ling, a fish I'd never cooked before, is listed by the MCS has having a sustainability rating of 4 or 5, depending on various factors. This is bad. I won't be buying it again unless it makes it up to 3. 
I emailed my supplier (the nice people at The Fish Society) for advice. It turns out this was their first shipment of ling and they were as surprised as me to see how badly it scored on the sustainability charts, as it isn't a fish in high commercial demand. They get theirs from Denmark, which should mean the fishermen abide by EU regulations; however, for the ethically concerned consumer, a different fish would be a better choice. The good news is that they are about to start selling pouting which they recommend as a "mega sustainable" alternative - can't argue with that!

The meal I made with the ling was yummy though, so I'm still going to post it. Another white fish could (and should) be easily substituted.

First things first, the cauliflower puree. Sounds all cheffy, but it isn't. Break up a cauli head into small peices and pop into a pan with a couple of bay leaves and some mace. Almost cover with milk and bring up to a simmer, leave it to cook until the cauli is tender (about 10-15 mins or so, prod it with a fork to check).

While that's cooking, finely slice a fennel bulb and cut a couple of carrots into thin batons. Pop into a bowl and in another bowl whisk up a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Pour over the dressing and mix really well. Put the salad into the fridge to marinate.

Lay your fish fillets onto a peice of foil (recycled!) and put a knob of butter on each one. Squeeze over some lemon juice, a sprinkle of salt and grinding of black pepper, plus a scattering of parsley, oregano and chives. Pop in the oven at 180 degrees until cooked - the timing is going to vary depending on how thick your fillets are, ours took about half an hour because they were still ever so slightly frozen.

When the cauli is done, whizz it up in a food processor with salt, pepper, some butter and as much of the milk as is required to give it a creamy, pureed texture.

The creamy puree, herby fish and crunchy fennel salad work wonderfully together; this is a really lovely mid-week meal.

Links
Marine Conservation Society - Good Fish Guide

Baked Lentil Stuffed Peppers (serve with wine)

I had some really gorgeous looking romano peppers in the fridge and, as I also had an overwhelming craving for lentils plus a veggie coming for dinner, I thought I'd try putting peppers and lentils together. There is precedent! I found inspiration on The Vegan Foodie's blog, and although, as always, I need to work with what I have rather than to someone elses recipe, I think this turned out pretty well.

I fried up some garlic, celery and onions, with cumin, ground coriander, dried chilli, sliced spring greens, cubed carrot and courgette until sort of half cooked. Then I added a load of green lentils (about 2 cups), a tin of tomatoes, a few bay leaves and about a pint of vegetable stock. Brought it up to a bubble and eft it be with a lid on for about 20 minutes. Reduced it down a bit towards the end and added salt and pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice.

After cutting the peppers in half lengthways and scooping out the seeds, I laid them on an oiled baking tray and spooned the lentil mix in, topping it with a mixture of bread crumbs, parsley and grated pecorino and drizzled a bit of olive oil over the top.

Popped it in the oven for about half an hour at 180 degrees. Served with green beans and a nice bottle of wine (or three).