Hello and welcome to another Food Friday, the weekly post where I try to eat, cook and do things housewifery in a harking back to the 1950s manner. Seriously, Food Friday is all about a recipe a week, good food, big portions and no faff. You can also check out my past food Friday recipes.
I woke up this morning and thought spring is on its way. Our cubby-hole of a bedroom was filled with filtered light; I could hear the postie* whistling as he made his way up the road, kids chattering as they passed the window. Despite missing almost a month of this year’s winter and well, it being rather mild (ill jinx the rest of February now), winter in Scotland always feels like a drag, the darkness sucking energy from the air, leaving you gasping for a little light.
Despite the hope in the air and croci popping their heads up alongside The Meadows, I still crave hail and hearty food – I am currently cooking a beef, red wine, mushroom, pancetta and root veg stew for tonight’s tea. Whilst I love a good hotpot I also like stews with a twist – throw in some some spices, add some fruit and simmer for hours, the Moroccan way… This stew is one of my more adventurous outings, as it includes homemade chermoula, a marinade usually more associate with fish, but it also adds a zing to lamb.
Slow cooked lamb tagine with chermoula and apricots
You will need:
- A pack of lamb stewing steak
- Dried apricots
- A large onion
- ½ a pack of baby plum tomatoes
- A green pepper (although this goes rather bitter, substitute with yellow pepper for a milder taste)
- A carrot
- 2 large cloves of garlic
- 2 bay leaves
- Enough chicken stock to cover the ingredients
- Fresh parsley (optional)
To make the chermoula, mix together to form a smooth paste:
- Fresh coriander
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoons paprika
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- juice and rind of 1 lemon
Marinate the lamb in the paste for at least 2 hours, preferably over night.
To make the tagine:
- roughly chop the large onion, carrot and pepper and add to pan or slow cooker
- fry off the marinated lamb and add to pot
- add the bay leaves, baby tomatoes, apricots, and garlic
- top up the pot with chicken stock to cover the ingredients
- slow cook for 7 hours or until the lamb is falling apart in a pan
- once the lamb is cooked, add the fresh parsley, thicken the sauce with a little corner flour and (my favourite bit) pop the plum tomatoes into the sauce.
Serve with couscous and flat bread.
Enjoy! As usual, let me know if you try any of my recipes.
Miss S the chef x
*Luckily I was up by the time the postie delivered my new work cardigan from Coggles. I love Coggles, in particular their very pretty Sunday Supplement. However thee postie does not love my greying housecoat I am often wearing when I open the door.
Hello and welcome to another Food Friday, the weekly post where I try to eat, cook and do things housewifery in a harking back to the 1950s manner. Seriously, Food Friday is all about a recipe a week, good food, big portions and no faff. You can also check out my past food Friday recipes.
There is nothing more British than a Sunday roast. I do a roast most Sunday’s, swinging weekly back and forth from chicken to beef. Add roasties, yorkies and veg and to me it is food heaven.
However, whilst we all love finishing a Sunday over a huge plate of food and too much red wine for a school night, the Sunday roast is renowned for being bland, dry and covered in Bisto gravy. Think of how badly Christmas day goes in your parent’s house.
But kids, that is not the only way.
After starting my working career in a pub kitchen making Sunday roasts, oh 20 years ago now, I have become quite an expert over the years. From beef with dauphinoise potatoes and red wine lentils, to garlic and herb chicken with honey roasted parsnips, we Brits can alleviate our national dish (or is that chicken tikka masala?) into something we’d be happy to serve to a visiting European.
For B and I’s recent engagement gathering I had bought a rather large chunk of pork shoulder to make my spicy slow cooked pork (btw do we all get to an age where we think serving food at parties is a good idea?) but I went a little over board and despite vigorous chopping I still couldn’t all the pork i’d bought to fit in the slow cooker. Instead of throwing it in the freezer for another day I decided to pop it in the oven and roast it instead. Not every one likes pork with their chilli sauce after all.
Now I’d never made crackling before, and after scouring the pork and the internet for ideas, I was still none the wiser about how to get that crunchy texture just right. So I gave up and just winged it, and it turned out perfectly – despite the fact my knives weren’t sharp enough to do proper slices in the fat and I’d already removed the fat from the meat during my hatchet job.
I love pork crackling and this is a perfect treat, despite the cooking time.
Slow roasted pork with crackling (totally made up and done with a prayer)
You will need:
- Rolled shoulder of pork (with the layer of fat on top) bones removed
- Garlic
- Olive oil
- Mixed herbs
- Sea salt
- Shallots
To make:
- Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees
- Remove the pork fat from the joint, wash, dry and score with a sharp knife.
- Rub sea salt into the fat and put aside
- Put the joint of pork into a roasting pan and drizzle with oil, herbs and stuff bits of garlic in where you can
- Add a few shallots, ends chopped and skins on into the pan
- Place the fat back on top of the pork and put in the hot oven for 30 minutes until the pork fat has started to blister and rise. You need a hot oven to do this. Keep the door shut (like when you are making Yorkshires)
- Reduce the oven temperature to 150 degrees and cover with a double layer of tin foil and slow roast for about 5 hours until the pork is really tender.
To finish off the crackling:
- Lift the crackling from the pork
- heat the oven back up to 180/200 and place the pork on a tray on the top shelf for 5/10 minutes until it is really crispy and tasty.
Serve on fresh rolls with apple sauce and roasted shallots or go the whole hog (ha) and make roasted veg. Food coma ahead!
What is your favourite Sunday roast?
Miss S x
I woke up this morning to another beautiful winter’s day in Edinburgh. I woke slowly: my warm bed, purring cats, the sun streaming through the slats in my blinds, and delicious Greek food last night had led to me dreaming of sitting with a glass of wine in a white-washed vine covered taverna. I was perched high above a rocky beach, sunglasses propped up on my head, book in hand, looking out over a blue ocean. No wonder I didn’t want to wake up.
As I left the restaurant last night I had wracked my brain trying to remember how to say goodnight. I had remembered yassa, as I raised my glass and said yassu in reply. Sadly I only remembered kali nichta as I put my hood up against the rain. I used to speak conversational Greek, honed from years of family holidays spent on a scooter bombing along back roads of island after island. From Corfu, to Zante, from Aegina to Poros, Paros, Antiparos, Andros, Tinos, Thassos… The fear of flying off was balanced by the fear of running out of petrol yet again, miles from anywhere.
…or maybe it was years of honing my chat up line on the beach with the cute Greek boys.
S’agapo. M’agapas? (I love you, do you love me?)
I still prefer kalamata olives, I cook with Greek olive oil, and I even grew to like sharp spiky retsina and mythos beer. I love dolmades, beef stifado with cinnamon, spanakopita, and bread to dip in taramosalata and tzatziki. Greek food, along with that of its neighbour Turkey, will always taste like holiday to me.
My last holiday to Greece was a disaster. A month after the LTEx had walked out I was to spend a week en-famille in a villa on Corfu. Greece was still the same, the vines, the cats, the sleepy old men outside the post office, the bobbing boats, the cheesy waiters, but I was depressed, sad, ashamed. I don’t remember the sunshine, just bleak, lonely days.
Now 5 years later I am going back, this time to the home of Corelli and Pelagia, to a villa in Pessada on the Island ofKefalonia. We will hire a scooter, bomb around the island again and sit in taverna after tavern under those vines…and then lay by the pool. Heaven. Time to wipe away those lingering traces of the past, bring on the sun.
…does any country make you feel the same way as Greece does to me?
Miss S x
P.s If you want to visit Greece without leaving Edinburgh I’d highly recommend Edinburgh’s only Greek restaurant My Big Fat Greek Kitchen. Excellent yummy food, great atmosphere and friendly staff and they do takeaway too. This post is nothing to do with them, I just wanted to say how good it was.
Hello and welcome to another Food Friday, the weekly post where I try to eat, cook and do things housewifery in a harking back to the 1950s manner. Seriously, Food Friday is all about a recipe a week, good food, big portions and no faff. You can also check out my past food friday recipes.
What is your take away of choice? Indian, Mexican, Chinese? Sadly, because of an allergy (intolerance?) to msg I have to, in the main, avoid Chinese food. Which I love – the msg is what makes sauces salty and sticky and oh so yummy.
However, having made the discovery that if you step beyond the realms of sushi and sashimi I’ve found Japanese food makes a great Friday night substitute and I have never looked back. We even treated the whole family to a Japanese buffet in Australia on Christmas Eve. It was fabulous and I am glad my sister loves Japanese food as much as me.
My favourite Japanese main course has to be tonkatsu – deep fried pork cutlets with an omelette on top, or ashamedly, I also the Wagamama version of katsu curry, but teriyaki chicken comes a close third.
This was the first sticky Japanese sauce and I must admit I was a bit nervous and almost cheated with this one at the last minute, but I preserved and it turned out pretty well. Although I’d recommend munching this all at the same time, as unfortunately the sauce turned a bit jelly like the next day – although that could have been me being a bit heavy handed with the cornflower!
Teriyaki chicken with stir fried vegetables
You will need:
- Boneless chicken thighs (if you are using a slow cooker, breast if not) I used a pack of 5/6
- Sugar
- Soy sauce
- Ground ginger
- Black pepper
- Garlic, powder or crushed
- Cornflour
- noodles
- vergetables to stir fry
To make the sauce: mix together
Sugar – half a cup
soy sauce – half a cup
cider vinegar – 3 tablespoons
ground ginger – a teaspoon
Garlic – a teaspoon or powder or squished
Lots of ground pepper
- Top up the mixture with water so that it covers the chicken, I used a couple of cups.
- Cook on a low heat in a slow cooker for 7/8 hours or in a pan until the chicken is cooked through.
To finish:
- Remove the sauce from the chicken and thicken with cornflower
- Serve with stir fried vegetable and noodles of your choice.
Easy peasy and really tasty. Enjoy!
Miss S x