This is another great winter dinner, although it does take a bit of effort to make. It can be expensive or cheap, depending on which cut of beef you use.
Skirt steak (bavette) was awesome when I tried it on Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's advice (in the River Cottage Meat book), so if you can get it maybe try that, otherwise any stewing cut will do - long slow braising before the main bake is the key.
You also need some kidneys, lamb or calves is fine, but be very aware of the source as some calves liver will come from inhumanely treated veal calves, imported to the UK. There's a little bit more info about this in my earlier liver, onion & colcannon post.
I was feeding four fairly greedy people (including myself!) and used two 360g packs of beef skirt and six lamb's kidneys. This was enough to allow for two people coming back for seconds! Use scissors to snip them into bitesized chunks before rolling them in well seasoned flour and pan-frying in batches.
When all the meat has been browned, tip everything into a large pan, then fry up a large, thickly sliced onion in the juices, deglaze with red wine (a good, large glassful) and put this mixture into the casserole pan as well. Finally, add a couple of bay leaves, a dollop of English mustard, a dash of worcester sauce, a tablespoon of ketchup and a pint of really good beef stock.
You can now partially cover the pan and leave to simmer slowly for a good hour and a half. Add in a punnet of halved or whole mushrooms (chestnut are my favourite) for the last 15 minutes.Take the mixture off the heat and season it to taste.
Line your pie dish with puff pastry and pile the filling in. Cover with more puff pastry and any design you like on top, then brush all over with beaten egg. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and bake the pie for another hour.
Serve with mashed potatoes and green veg, such as kale.
I've seen a lot of these saboro recipes but this is the first time I've ever attempted to make one, again this is from the "Just Bento" cookbook. It tasted really good, I think the only thing that could have made it better is if I had one of those rice machines on a timer, so that the rice was fresh that morning instead of having sat in the fridge overnight.
There are four toppings to this one - the flavoured carrot batons are used as separators between the other three, which are basically vegetable, egg and meat.
First, cook up your rice so that it has time to cool before you come to pack the bento. All of the items below are enough for two portions.
Carrot Soboro
Cut two fresh carrots into little batons and simmer until cooked in 8 tbsp of dashi (or ordinary fish stock), 2 teaspoons of mirin, 2 teaspoons of shoyu (Japanese soy sauce), plus a sprinkle of sugar and a pinch of salt to taste. Put to one side to cool down.
Green Vegetable Soboro
I had peas, the book suggests green beans, I suspect pretty much any green veg would work. I simmered them in the same liquid mixture as for the carrots.
Egg Soboro
Beat two eggs with a teaspoon of sugar, 2 teaspoons of sake and salt to taste. Cook just like scrambled egg, except make sure that it is completely cooked through and dry - you don't want any under cooked egg going in tomorrow's lunchbox.
Chicken Soboro
I took the meat off a chicken leg to make this, which was sufficient for two people. You just need to poach the little peices of chicken with a tablespoon of chopped ginger in a liquid mix of: 2 tbsp sake, 2 tbsp mirin, 4 tbsp dashi (or fish stock), 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sugar and salt to taste.
When everything is cooked through, put each dish to one side and leave until cold. Then you can layer each bento box first with a quarter of the rice, then a quarter each of the peas, chicken and egg, separated with the carrot batons. Repeat for a second layer.
In order to make sure that the pretty layers didn't get all mixed up on the way to work, I used old egg boxes laid on top of greaseproof paper to keep everything in place.
This is a good one for using up staples that happen to be in the fridge; I usually find myself with a pepper and some potatoes lying around, plus I rarely run out of onions and eggs. This is Spanish-ish because I also added mushrooms, I think the traditional is just peppers, potatoes and egg.
It's a pretty easy brunch to make too, good for a lazy Saturday morning when you can't be bothered to do anything fancy.
Firstly, put the potatoes on to boil; you don't want them fully cooked though, they need to stay a bit firm if possible. Then chop up an onion and a pepper, and in my case mushrooms too, beat some eggs in a bowl with salt, pepper and a little oregano and get a frying pan on to heat up with a little oil.
Fry the onions until they're soft, add in the peppers and mushrooms and cook until they're almost how you like them - still a bit al dente. Take the potatoes off the heat and slice them, then add them to the pan as well.
Finally, pour the egg over and make sure it goes in between all the spaces of the vegetables, then cook until you're pretty sure the base and sides are firm. Then stick the whole thing under the grill until cooked through. Turn upside down onto a place, slice, and serve with a tomato salad. Easy!
My husband was out last night: fleeing to a friend's house to watch the apprentice as I absolutely hate it! He was also going to get an Aroma, which is possibly the best kebab in the world, without me. Damn.
Again the thought of an easy takeaway floated through my mind, before I remembered that we're going for a Chinese dinner with his parents on Sunday. So, a quick scrabble about in the fridge and I came up with this comforting dinner.
The concept is inspired by something I saw Nigella cook once, she used cream, egg and white truffle oil for a pasta sauce. Genius.
I haven't used particularly fancy pasta: I like the tricolore because it's so pretty, but homemade this is not. Get it on to boil first, as the sauce doesn't take long to make.
Heat up a pan and add some thick cut bacon or pancetta. Once mostly cooked, add a diced stick of celery, a sliced purple onion and some thinly sliced mushrooms.
In a separate bowl, beat a raw egg with cream, white truffle oil, lots of pepper and salt, and some grated pecorino (or parmesan, or hard cheese of any kind really).
Once the pasta is cooked and drained, dump it in the pan with the vegetables, turn off the heat, and stir in the sauce. It's lovely. It's quick. And it's a little bit naughty.
This is the perfect breakfast to scoff while watching Saturday Kitchen on the sofa with a cup of coffee.
The BLT you already know: bacon, lettuce and tomato - usually served with mayonnaise and ketchup. The EM is egg and mushroom, which elevates this breakfast into a brunch that will keep you going until dinnertime.
I prefer unsmoked bacon for this, because the smoked stuff would completely overpower all the rest of it. Smoked is great for cooking with lentils or in casseroles. My bacon originally comes from Ensors, who work with a co-operative of organic farmers in Herefordshire.
First of all, get the frying pan so hot that the oil is pretty much smoking, then lay the bacon down with the mushrooms tucked around it. Try not to move it about, it takes on that lovely sticky coating if you just leave it be until fully cooked on one side. Repeat for the other and then put on some kitchen roll to absorb the grease.
Put the eggs in the pan to cook alongside the mushrooms and get your bread on to toast.
Once the toast is done, lay the slices side by side and top one with butter or ketchup, and the other with mayonnaise. Add the lettuce and sliced tomato to the butter/ketchup half and the bacon to the mayo side.
When the egg and mushrooms are ready, pop the egg on top of the bacon and the mushrooms on top of the salad. Mmm, wonderful. Demolish in the messiest way possible (see below).
