Beef Stroganoff

This is just my version of the recipe but I like it, so you might too. Apart from having to be a little more careful about cooking the meat, this works exactly the same with pork. I like stroganoff with a mixture of wild and long grain rice, but you can also serve it with pasta or potatoes. If you've got a bottle of brandy or whisky then chuck a shot in, then either cook off the alcohol, or burn it off if you're badass and want to feel like a brilliant chef. Seves 4

Ingredients

500g thin frying steak, cut into strips
1 knob butter
2 medium onions, sliced
pack chestnut mushrooms, quartered
1 shot whisky or brandy (optional)
2 cloves crushed garlic
2tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
3-4tbsp sour cream

Fry the steak on a high heat till browned, then wrap in foil and set aside

Add the butter to the pan, turn down the heat and cook the mushrooms and onions for 15 mins

Add your whisky or brandy if you're using it. Burn or boil off the alcohol before adding the steak along with the garlic herbs and spices

Heat through or 1 or 2 mins, stir in the mustard and sour cream, adjust seasoning to taste and serve

Bolognese Sauce

This is probably something everyone can cook, but I thought I'd share the version I just made because I think it was pretty damn good. This is a fairly extravagant version, so feel free to chop and change. Also, some people will probably prefer more tomato in a bolognese, as there's not much in this version. I don't care if you use this recipe or not, but don't buy bolognese sauce in a jar, you're paying through the nose for a tin of tomatoes and a teaspoon of mixed herbs.

Ingredients
100g cubed pancetta
3 small diced onions (I did them in a food processor)
2 large grated carrots
500g lean beef mince
3 bay leaves
3tsp dried oregano
3 cloves crushed garlic
1 tbsp sundried tomato puree
2tbsp regular tomato puree
1 can tomatoes, blended
1 can full red wine
1 can full beef stock
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 pack mushrooms, thinly sliced

Fry off the pancetta in a large dry pan.

Once it starts to brown, add the onions and carrots and soften over a low heat for 10 mins

Add your mince and brown off with the veg

Chuck in the garlic and herbs when the meat's brown and cook for a further 2 mins or so.

Add your liquids and mushrooms and simmer for as long as you can bear. Top up the liquid if it starts drying out.

Once the mince is tender and the carrots are starting to disintegrate, remove the bay leaves, season well, and serve with pasta and a little parmesan if you have some knocking around.

Broccoli and Stilton Soup

This is one of my favourite soups, and I think I do an OK version of it. My version is thickened with potato rather than cream, which I prefer. I don’t really ‘do’ cream in soup. The amount of cheese you put in is kind of down to personal taste. Best served with crusty bread.

Ingredients

1 sliced onion
1 sliced leek
2 sliced carrots
1 diced baking potato
1 bay leaf
1 large head broccoli, cut into florets (cut the tough outer part of the stalk off and dice the rest)
2 chicken or vegetable stock cubes
100-150g Stilton

Soften the carrots, onion and leek in a little oil on a low heat for 15 mins.

Add the potato, bay leaf and stock cubes and cover with boiling water.

Simmer for 10-15mins, then add the broccoli (top up the water if needs be.

Cook fur a further 10 or so mins until the broccoli’s cooked, and then crumble in the Stilton

Retrieve the bay leaf, blend with a hand blender and adjust thickness and seasoning to taste (easy on the salt, it’ll already be quite salty from the cheese and stock cubes).

Roasted Cauliflower and Mature Cheddar Soup

I made this the other day, and I was really pleasantly surprised with the results. I'm always suspicious of cheese in soups bar broccoli and stilton (recipe forthcoming). You may have noticed I've started using Henderson's relish in soups. This is basically because it's less pungent than Worcestershire sauce, and it's suitable for vegetarians, so works better in vegetable soups. As you're blending the soup, there's no need to grate the cheese.

Ingredients

2 small heads of cauliflower or one v. large one, cut into florets
2 onions, sliced
2 or 3 veg stock cubes (to taste)
2 crushed cloves garlic
2 tsp dried parsley
2 bay leaves
1 heaped tsp wholegrain mustard
2tbsp Henderson's relish
100-150g mature cheddar cheese, sliced
200ml whole milk.

Roast the cauliflower in a medium oven with some oil, salt and pepper for about 20 minutes until it's golden

Meanwhile, soften the onions in your soup pot. Once the cauliflower's done, add the herbs and garlic to your onions, cook for a futher 1 or 2 minutes before adding the cauliflower and just covering in water.

Chuck in the stock cubes, Henderson's relish, and mustard and simmer until everything's tender.

Remove the bay leaves, add the milk and cheese, and blend.

Season to taste (you won't need much if any salt, but lots of black pepper is advised) and serve.

Pulled Pork Cheek in a Cider Cream Sauce

This was a triumph for the slow cooker. Pork cheeks are incredibly tender when cooked in this way, and the result is a pulled pork-style sauce that's fantastic served over pasta, on a jacket potato, or with rice. Please don't be perturbed by the cut of meat. If you eat meat, you should eat every part of the animal, and pork cheeks are one of the most flavourful parts of the animal.

Ingredients

8 pork cheeks
2 red onions, thinly sliced
2tsp sugar
1 pack chestnut mushrooms, sliced
1tsp dried thyme
1 bay leaf
2 Garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp whole grain mustard
Half a can/bottle dry cider
1 vegetable stock cube
Splash double cream

Caramelise the onions with the sugar in a little oil over a low heat for 15-20 mins. Add the herbs and garlic and cook for a further couple of minutes.

Add the onions to a slow cooker and fry off the mushrooms. Transfer to the slow cooker.

Brown the cheeks on a high heat and transfer to the slow cooker.

Add the cider, mustard and stock cube and top up with boiling water. Cook on LOW for 12-16 hours.
The cheeks will have mostly disintegrated, but you can help this along a little with a fork.

Finish the sauce with cream, and season to taste.

Veggie Burgers

Last night I had an urge to make burgers, and because I live with a vegetarian, I made veggie burgers too. As is often the case, I read a few recipes for veggie burgers, failed to memorise them and then made my own version. They worked pretty well, so I thought I'd put my recipe up here. This makes about 4 burgers. I served them with some rocket, a slice of mild cheese, a seeded bun and ketchup mixed with chipotle paste.

Ingredients

2 tins red kidney beans
2 small red onions
2 slices stale bread
1tsp cumin
1tsp coriander
1tsp smoked paprika
splash Henderson's Relish
splash Tabasco or other hot sauce

Place the bread in a blender and blend into crumbs

Add the onions, spices and sauces, and a little salt and pepper and blend again

Add the beans and give it a couple of bursts till they're broken up but not completely blended

Form into patties and fry in a little oil on a medium to low heat until golden brown and cooked through

Pie and Mash

This isn't a soup recipe but it's by far the best thing I've ever cooked. It's not particularly quick, simple, cheap or healthy, but it's well worth it. You could make regular mashed potatoes to go with this, but the flavours in this version go really well with the pie. If someone tells you that you should always make pastry from scratch, they're wrong and they're awful. Shop-bought pastry is fine. Everyone knows this. I served this pie with honey and thyme roasted baby carrots and steamed savoy cabbage. This recipe serves 4

Pie Ingredients

5-600g shin beef or stewing steak cut into 1 inch cubes
350ml Badger beer 'Poacher's Choice' (or another dark beer)
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
3 sprigs fresh thyme
2tsp black peppercorns
2 tsp garlic puree

(Marinate these ingredients together overnight in a non-metal bowl. Tie the herbs together with a piece of string.)

2 tbsp seasoned flour
4 rashers streaky bacon, cut into lardons
knob of butter
12-15 small round shallots, peeled
1 pack button mushrooms
1 litre decent beef stock
2 tbsp tomato puree
2tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2tsp dried mixed herbs
2 bay leaves
1 pack puff pastry
1 beaten egg

Fry off the bacon in a big frying pan until crisp, then transfer it into a large stew pot.

Strain off the beef, retaining the beer and the herbs. Coat the beef in the flour and brown it off in the bacon fat over a high heat. you may need to do this in a couple of batches. Transfer the browned meat into your stew pot.

Add a knob of butter to the frying pan and brown the shallots and mushrooms. Sprinkle over any remaining flour. Transfer the veg into the pot.

De-glaze the frying pan with the beer and then add it to your pot with the meat and veg. Add the herbs from the marinade, as well as all the other ingredients, bar the beef stock. Top up the stew with stock as and when it is needed.

Either simmer the stew on a low heat on the stove, or put it in the oven at gas mark 3 for about 2 and a half hours, till the beef is tender. When it is done, you should have a thick stew. Season to taste.

Using a slotted spoon, add the meat and veg to a pie dish, and pour over some of the liquid from the pot, making sure to remove the bay leaves, rosemary and thyme. You should have a fair bit of the liquid left over. Retain this.

Roll out your puff pastry, cover the pie dish, and glaze with the beaten egg.

Pop it in the oven at gas mark 5 for about half an hour, or till the pastry is golden brown.

When you're ready to serve, heat up the remaining liquid with a bit more beef stock for a gravy.


Mash Ingredients

4 baking potatoes
4-6 finely chopped spring onions
knob butter
2 heaped tsp wholegrain mustard
Splash single cream
handful chopped chives

Boil and mash the potatoes as you normally would.
Soften the spring onions in the butter a little, then stir them into the mash along with the other ingredients, and plenty of seasoning.

Mushroom-strone

This recipe came from not having a good mushroom soup recipe or a decent vegetarian minestrone recipe. I personally think blended mushroom soup is kind of hard to pull off, and if you want an easy mushroom soup, this is a pretty good place to start. Buying bags of 'soup mix' from supermarkets is a good way to save time and money. They're just a collection of dried veg and pulses, usually either with or without pasta. Feel free to use whatever mushrooms you like, or a mixture, but if you only have button or chestnut, that's fine too.

Ingredients

2 medium red onions, chopped,
3 celery sticks, chopped
3 large handfuls mushrooms, quartered
1 large red chilli, chopped into rings
3 crushed cloves garlic
1tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp sundried tomato puree (or regular tomato puree)
2 1/2 vegetable stock cubes
couple of handfuls of soup mix with pasta.

Soften the onions, celery, mushrooms and half the chilli in a little oil for 10-15 mins

When the onions are translucent, add the garlic and herbs and cook for a further couple of minutes

Add the rest of the ingredients along with enough water to give the consistency you're after. Simmer on a medium/low heat with a lid on your pot.

When the pulses are cooked through, add the rest of the chilli, and some more water if you need to, season to taste (I recommend a LOT of black pepper), and serve.

Chicken and Beans

This is a really simple and versatile stew that's a regular in my cooking habits. It's really hard to get wrong, and it's perfect for a winter evening. You can use whatever beans you like really, but I do recommend using more than one different kind. Last time I made it I used my two favourites, black beans and butter beans, but you can use anything you can get your hands on. If you've got the end of a bottle of white wine, chuck it in, but you can still make an amazing stew without it, I promise. I think this is best served with crusty bread.

Ingredients:

6 whole chicken thighs, skinless and boneless
1tbsp seasoned flour
2 white onions, finely chopped.
2 crushed cloves garlic
about 1 litre chicken stock
splash white wine (optional)
1 large tsp dried thyme
2 bay leaves
2 tins of beans
large handful of green beans, or a mug of frozen peas

Soften the onions in a little oil for a few minutes, before adding the chicken.

Brown off the chicken, before adding the garlic, herbs and seasoned flour and cook for a further 1 or 2 mins on low.

Pour in the stock, and wine if you're using it.

Simmer on a low heat for about 25 minutes, allowing the stock to thicken and reduce.

Once the chicken is cooked through, add the green beans if you're using them and cook for 3 or 4 mins.

Add the peas (if you're using them) and tinned beans and simmer until they're cooked through.

Season to taste.

Slow Cooker Chicken Stock and Leftover Chicken Soup

This is really 2 recipes. I’m a firm believer that you should always make stock out of a roast chicken carcass, and it’s really easy if you have a slow cooker. The soup recipe that accompanies this is intended to be pretty customisable to fit whatever you have in the house. This verson has a minestrone sort of feel to it. Serve topped with grated parmesan with ciabatta or French bread drizzled with some olive oil

Chicken Stock Ingredients

Carcass of 1 roast chicken
2 onions, peeled and halved
2 carrots, peeled and halved
2 celery sticks (optional)
2 bay leaves
2 tsp black peppercorns

Strip all remaining meat from the bones (you can use these little bits in your soup.)

Using a big knife or meat cleaver, break as many of the bones as you can. This can get a bit grisly.

Transfer the bones, vegetables and other flavourings into the slow cooker. Fill the slow cooker with boiling water and cook on LOW for 12-16 hours.

Strain the resultant mixture through the finest sieve you have (cloth is even better), and skim off any fat that rises to the surface.

That’s your stock good to go!

Leftover Chicken Soup Ingredients

1 diced onion
1 small diced leek
Half tsp dried thyme
Half tsp dried oregano
2 small diced carrots
2 crushed garlic cloves
1 red chilli, sliced into fine rings
Your chicken stock and the chicken you stripped off the carcass
2tsp tomato puree
60g small pasta like macaroni or bits of broken spaghetti
1 tin butter beans (or any beans)
handful shredded cabbage

Soften the onion, leek, herbs, chilli and carrots in a little oil for 10-15 minutes

Add the garlic, cook for a further couple of minutes before adding your stock and tomato puree.

Bring to a simmer and cook for another 5 or 10 minutes.

Add the pasta, and simmer for 5 minutes

Add your cabbage, beans and chicken and cook until the cabbage is cooked how you like it and everything else is heated through. Season to taste.

Mexican Black Bean Soup

I made this tonight and it worked, which is especially nice as I pretty much made this up as I went along. It's a great soup for winter. You could serve this with tortilla chips, guacamole or sour cream and some lime wedges.

Ingredients
2 red peppers or 1 red and 1 green if you prefer
2 red onions, cut into wedges
1tsp ground cumin
1 handful coriander stalks
2 cloves garlic
2 chipotle chillies or 2 tsp chipotle paste
1tbsp tomato puree
2 veg stock cubes
4 cans black beans

Put the peppers on a tray in the oven on a fairly high heat until the skins are loose. Peel them and remove the seeds.

Put the peppers and everything else bar the stock cubes and the beans into a food processor with a splash of oil and blend into a paste.

Cook the paste through in your soup pot over a low heat for 5 minutes or so.

Add your beans, the stock cubes and cover with water.

Simmer until the beans start to disintegrate. Help them along a bit with a potato masher or a few whizzes from a hand blender.

Adjust thickness and seasoning to taste.

Roasted Parsnip and Ginger Soup

I’ve made parsnip and ginger soup in the past, and it’s been dreadful if I’m honest, especially one that used boiled parsnip and powdered ginger. I worked this recipe out through trial and error and I’m pretty proud of it. Make sure you don’t get too much colour on the veg when you roast them, you’ll get hard bits that won’t blend.

Ingredients

4-6 biggish parsnips
1 smallish white turnip
2 carrots
1 or 2 tbsp honey
2 medium white or brown onions
thumb-sized piece root ginger, grated
1 baking potato, thinly sliced
2 vegetable stock cubes

Peel and chop the parsnips, carrots and turnips into large dice. Put them on a baking tray, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with the honey and a little oil. Roast on gas mark 3 for 45 minutes.

Slice the onions roughly and soften with the ginger and a little oil for 10mins. Add your roasted veg and raw potato to the soup and cover with boiling water. Chuck in the stock cubes too.

Simmer until everything’s soft (15-20 minutes), and blend with a hand blender. Adjust thickness and seasoning to taste (I like it laced with huge amounts of black pepper.)

Leek and Potato

I think my recipe for this soup is pretty standard. It’s one of my favourites though and it’s super super easy so I’ll post it anyway in case you’ve never made it. Serve with crusty bread rolls and mature cheddar.

Ingredients

2 sliced onions
2 diced carrots
2 crushed garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
4-500g sliced leeks
4-500g diced potato

Soften the leeks, onions, carrots and bay leaves in a little oil for 15 mins.

Add the potato, stock cubes and about 1.5l boiling water (you may need to add some more later).

Simmer until everything’s soft (15-25mins depending on how small everything’s cut)

Retrieve the bay leaf and blend with a hand blender. Adjust thickness and seasoning to taste.

Chicken Noodle Soup

I love this one. It works well with the little bits of meat salvaged from a chicken carcass and homemade stock (coming soon!). This soup is a great hangover cure, starter, or light lunch. You can make a vegetarian version by substituting the chicken stock for veg stock and the chicken for tofu, or another vegetable.

Ingredients

1.3l chicken stock
 3 slightly crushed garlic cloves
3cm piece sliced root ginger
2 ‘slabs’ egg noodles
large handful thinly sliced mushrooms
handful shredded cooked chicken
2 pak choi, leaves separated, or 2 large handfuls spinach
4 spring onions, cut into rings
1 large red chilli, cut into rings
dark soy sauce
sesame oil (optional)

Simmer the garlic and ginger in the stock for 15 minutes. Strain the stock and return to the pan.

Add the mushrooms, chicken and noodles, and simmer until they’re cooked. Steam the pak choi or spinach in a sieve over the broth.

Dish out the noodles, chicken, mushrooms and pak choi/spinach into 4 bowls, along with a sliced spring onion and a few slices of chilli.

Add soy sauce to the broth to taste, then ladle it over the bowls. Top with a few drops of sesame oil if you like.

Chipotle Bonfire Soup

This isn’t for the faint hearted, as it’s pretty fiery (hence the name). Chipotles are basically smoked chillies, and they add a really deep smoky flavour. You’ll notice a lot of the soups I post at the moment are quite similar, and that’s because when it’s cold outside I crave nothing more than a bowl of something orange and spicy. I really like this recipe as you can put everything in the oven, and forget about it while your house starts to smell amazing, then just simmer and blend it all at the end. It’s a lot easier to get the skin off the peppers if you have a blowtorch, but you can use the hob.

Ingredients

2 small sweet potatoes
1 butternut squash
4 red peppers
2 medium red onions
1 bulb (not clove!) garlic
2 jalapeno peppers
2 whole chipotle chillies
2 bay leaves
1 tsp cumin
1tsp paprika
2 vegetable stock cubes

Slice the butternut squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Place on a large baking tray and spread the cumin and paprika over the flesh. Place one jalapeno, one bay leaf, and one chipotle in the hollowed out section of each squash half.

Add the onions, garlic bulb, sweet potatoes and the red peppers to the baking tray and drizzle everything with oil. Roast the ingredients for an hour at gas mark 3.

When everything’s gone soft, remove the skins from the onions, peppers, sweet potatoes and squash and transfer the flesh to your soup pot. Squeeze the innards out of the jalapenos and garlic bulb, and add to the pot.

Chuck the stock cubes, bay leaves and chipotle chillies in the pot and cover everything with boiling water. Simmer on a low heat with a lid for 15-20mins until everything’s starting to fall apart.

Fish out the bay leaves and chipotles and blend everything with a hand blender. Adjust thickness and seasoning to taste.

Slow Cooker Beef and Brown Ale Soup

I made a really good thing today with pork and cider which, while not technicaly soup, I will probably post when I can be bothered to write it up. But until then, here's another classic meat and booze combo that's a great soup for winter, making a cheap cut go a long way. I use Newcastle Brown for this soup. You could easily cook this on a hob, just cook it for 1 and a half to 2 hours on a low heat.

Ingredients

300g stewing steak, cut into little pieces
2 diced onions
1 tbsp seasoned flour
About half a pint of brown ale or stout
1 and a half beef stock cubes
2-3 tbsp pearl barley
100g thinly sliced mushrooms
1 large diced baking potato or swede if you prefer
2 diced carrots
2 tsp mixed herbs
2 crushed garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
1tsp wholegrain mustard

Coat the steak in the flour and brown in a hot pan with the onions and some oil.

Transfer to the slow cooker with everything else.

Cover with boiling water and cook on LOW for 12-14 hours

Adjust seasoning to taste, remove the bay leaves and serve with crusty bread, your favourite cheese and more beer.

A new direction - Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

I am going to stop trying to write a blog and stick to what I know. I am going to post soup recipes. As and when I make them but probably once a week. I'd explain more, but we all know what's going on here.

Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup

A creation combining my own recipe for curry powder and my love of sweet potatoes and squash in soup. It takes a little while and might seem complex but it's surprisingly straightforward and therapeutic. To avoid the fiddly process of taking the cardamom and cloves out of your soup, try putting them in an emptied and resealed tea bag. It proved a nice winter soup which I'd serve with warm naan bread.

Ingredients:
2 small sweet potatoes
1 butternut squash
2 medium red onions
2 carrots
4 long thin green chillies
2 crushed garlic cloves
1tbsp grated root ginger
1 tsp of cumin seeds, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, cinnamon, paprika, turmeric and black pepper
3 cloves
5 cardamom pods
1tbsp tomato puree
1 tin coconut milk
2 vegetable stock cubes
juice of a lemon

Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Place on a tray with the sweet potatoes and roast in a little oil at gas mark 3 for half an hour

Keeping the tubers in the oven, peel and roughly chop the onions, chillies and carrots. Place them in your soup pot with a little oil, and the cardamom and cloves and soften over a low heat for about 15 minutes.

Toast the coriander, cumin and mustard seeds in a dry pan for a minute before grinding them into a powder (you can use pre-powdered spices)

Add the spices, garlic and  ginger and cook for a minute or so before adding the tomato puree and coconut milk. Simmer for around 15-20mins on a very low heat.

While this is happening, remove the root veg from the oven (after they've had about an hour), and remove the skins. If needed, chop the flesh up a little.

Fish the cardamom and cloves out of your soup pot. Add the sweet potato and butternut squash to your curry mixture, and cover with boiling water (you may need to add more later). Throw in the stock cubes.

Simmer (covered) for around 20mins on a low heat until everything's soft. Blend using a hand blender, and adjust thickness and seasoning to taste. Stir in the lemon juice just before serving.