Cheese & Onion Pasties (if you'd rather not shop at Gregg's...)

Ok, so I'm going to be completely honest. Last Sunday, coming home from my friend's house, I had the most almighty hangover. 
I took the bus back to my local high street where my husband met me. Please bear in mind, before you judge me too harshly, that I was truly suffering! As I alighted from the bus I noticed that there was a greggs opposite.
The ghost of my teenage self spoke to me: "A pasty! That will sort you right out..."

MY TEENAGE SELF LIED. I bought cheese and onion pasties for both of us and eagerly took my first bite... of lukewarm, flavourless, textureless, over-seasoned, floury mush. Yuk. As we walked home I said that I could come up with a better pasty than that! So I did. Here it is, enjoy... with or without the hangover.

Cut three new potatoes into quarters and put on to boil until tender. I had the bleu d'auvergne variety, so that's why they are purple! Preheat the oven to 200°C and line a flat baking tray with oiled greaseproof paper.

Finely chop a large onion and a big stick of celery. Heat up a little oil in a frying pan and, if you like, snip in a slice of bacon (seriously one is more than enough) and cook until opaque before adding the onion and celery. Cook on a low heat to soften without browning.

After the onion and celery has softened add in a big handful of thinly sliced mushrooms and continue to cook on a low heat. On the side, grate a nice big pile of mature cheddar and a slightly smaller pile of parmesan. Then drain the potatoes, wait for the water to evaporate, and chop them into little tiny cubes before adding them to the vegetable mixture in the frying pan.

Once everything is cooked through, remove the pan from the heat and sprinkle over all the cheese then mix it in well, grind in lots of fresh black pepper and season to taste.
Cut a sheet of puff pastry into two rectangles, and place on the prepared baking tray. Divide the filling between the two sections, then fold the pastry over and press the seams together with a little beaten egg. Gently score the tops of the pasties and glaze with the rest of the egg.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until they are crisp and browned, and serve with a little salad and some really good ketchup (I like Mr Organic's version).

Don't be afraid to mess about with the ingredients - use what you have, that's what I did. I have plans to try doing another batch with mashed potato, onion and cheesy bechamel, which would result in a more traditional high street version.    
 

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.

Roast Goose Risotto with Squash, Thyme & Chestnuts

What to do on the third day of using up leftover roast goose (or turkey or chicken)? Make a risotto of course! Easy leftover using-up strategy.

The prep is key here, so start by roasting a peeled and cubed squash until soft along with a handful of chestnuts, and chopping up your goose meat into small peices. 

If you have leftover squash then use that, you could also use half of a vacuum pack of pre-prepared chestnuts if you like. Depends what you've got handy! Keep them hot in the switched-off oven if making the risotto right away, otherwise be prepared to reheat them before adding to the risotto.

As with so many recipes, kick off the risotto by finely dicing an onion, a couple of celery sticks and a fat clove of garlic or two. Warm up a splosh of oil and a big hunk of butter in a deep frying pan and gently saute them until soft.

At the same time, put a pint / 500ml stock in a saucepan on the heat to stay hot.

Add half a bag of risotto rice, about 250g, (to serve 4 people or 2 with leftovers) stir it in and let it sizzle for a few minutes before adding a wine glass of vermouth (or white wine). Stir until all the wine has been absorbed. Then, a ladle at a time, add the stock to the rice, stirring and stirring each time until it's all been absorbed into the rice. One thing I've found is that this goes much faster and works better if you keep the pan pretty hot, the stock should bubble a little when you add it to the pan.

Just as you finish the last ladleful of stock, add the squash, chestnuts, goose and lots of thyme leaves. Stir through to mix and then grate a load of parmesan into the dish, along with a few knobs of butter, some fresh chopped parsley, a squeeze of lemon juice, ground pepper and salt if needed.

Serve with a smile of satisfaction at thriftiness well executed.

 

Christmas How To... Make a Rich Poultry Gravy

Mmm, gravy. You could use granules. You could use a pot or sachet from the supermarket. You could rely on deglazing the pan with stock made from a cube. But this is christmas and the absolute best thing to have on the table is lots and lots of rich, deeply flavoured, piping hot gravy, made from scratch (and from happy birds).

Hopefully, you've got some giblets from your goose / chicken / turkey / other christmas birdie. Take the liver out and put aside, you can eat it separately pan fried on toast but it makes gravy bitter so don't include it (it looks like this). 

Along with the giblets, put a few chicken wings, necks or even just old carcasses, into a large saucepan. Most butchers will sell you wings and necks for gravy, abel and cole also sells them, I also keep a load of bones in the freezer for use in stocks.

To these, add a quartered onion, a couple of bay leaves, some parsley stalks, a couple of broken carrots, a couple of broken celery sticks and about 10 peppercorns. Cover with cold water (a couple of pints / a litre) and pop on the hob. Bring to the boil then turn down and simmer for a good couple of hours. Keep tasting it, and don't take it off the heat until it has reduced down and has a good flavour (remembering that there's no salt in it yet though, so don't expect it to taste "finished").

Strain it into a jug and either skim off the fat or use a fat separator jug - I found one in the kleeneze catalogue and found it really useful. Leave it to cool and pop in the fridge, covered with clingfilm, until ready to make your gravy.

When you get your bird out of the oven and put it aside to rest, pop the roasting tray on the hob and add the stock to it (if it's been in the fridge it will be jellified, that's a good thing!). To this add a slosh of wine (red or white, your choice) and a spoonful of redcurrant jelly. Get it bubbling and burn off the booze, scraping the bottom of the tin to get all the caramelised bird juices into the mix. Result = awesome gravy. 

Serve piping hot in a really twee gravy boat.

Go to the Christmas Dinner (2011) post

Wild Mushroom Risotto

If you can get hold of fresh wild mushrooms from somewhere, like Borough Market, during autumn and early winter then definitely make the most of it. Otherwise, a lot of shops sell them dried in little tubs or packets, which can be reconstituted in water prior to cooking.

All risottos start with the same basic essentials, or at least mine do: a diced onion and a couple of diced celery stalks, sauteed in butter and oil until soft. 

Add 300g of risotto rice and stir it through, letting it get hot. From experience, it is worth forking out for the pricey arborio stuff, it cooks in half the time of the other, cheaper, short grain varieties I tried using. Slosh in a glass (or teacup) full of white wine and stir through the rice mixture until it's all been absorbed.

Keep 750ml of hot vegetable stock in a saucepan on the heat and pour the first ladleful into the rice. Keep the rice on a medium heat, at least enough to keep it at a low sizzle. Stir, stir, stir and stir again. Keep stirring. Even if your arm is about to drop off, keep gently stirring the rice.

Eventually the stock will be absorbed and you'll need to add another ladle of stock and do it all over again. I mean, don't beat it up or anything, but do keep stirring and adding stock and stirring.

After adding all the stock, the rice should be near cooked. At this stage I turn the heat down very low (or even off), put a lid on the pan and get on with the exciting part.

Pick over and clean your mushrooms, in this case we had a good few handfuls each of chanterelles, trompettes, girolles and ceps. Heat up a frying pan with a little oil and butter, with some crushed garlic. Saute the large mushrooms first, adding in the smaller ones after the chunky ones have had a bit of a start.

When the mushrooms are ready mix them into the hot rice mixture with tons of grated parmesan and chopped parsley. 

If you can get hold of one (and I'm soooo lucky, my husband bought me one as a present!), grate in a lovely load of black truffle - also known as winter truffle. 

Finish with some butter and freshly cracked pepper and some truffle shavings.