Lamb and Lentil Ragu

A delicious stew of lamb, lentils, and root vegetables cooked with tomatoes, red wine and herbs.

This goes well over pasta or polenta, and cooks fast enough in the pressure cooker to be doable on a week-night evening after work. 

If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can just dump all the ingredients in a slow cooker and let it cook for 8 hours.

Since this recipe makes enough for about 4-6 servings, I generally serve one third on the day, and divide the rest between tubs to freeze and eat later.

Quick Chicken Liver Pate

Every fortnight I receive a pack of organic chicken carcasses with my vegbox order. These are what is left over after a chicken has had breasts, thighs, drumsticks and wings cut off - namely the main body, neck and giblets (internal organs). The pack generally contains the remains of two butchered chickens.

I separate out the livers from the giblets, and throw everything else into a roasting tin, cover with foil and pop in the oven to roast, and then into the pressure cooker to make Chicken Stock.

The livers, I make into pate.

An attempt at something vaguely resembling Pho

This morning's experiment turned out as a good light lunch for a hot sunny day.

In the meat box delivery this week were a pair of chicken legs and a pair of gammon steaks, so I decided to make a chicken and ham pie. Having roasted the chicken legs, and cut up and cooked the gammon ready for the pie, I had sufficient chicken bones, skin, cartilege and gammon rinds to make a small batch of stock.

I threw it all in the pressure cooker along with a quartered onion, a sliced carrot, a couple of bay leaves, 4 peppercorns and a tsp or two of celery seed in the usual way. Pouring over a litre and a half of water, I brought it to high pressure and let it cook for an hour or so whilst wandering off to decide on what sort of soup to make for lunch.

I ended up looking at some Vietnamese Pho recipes. This is normally made with beef stock, but hey, chicken and gammon stock is what was in the pot.

The packet of Thai rice noodles in the cupboard looked close enough. Plenty of fresh herbs in the garden for the garnish. Just needed some spices to have gone in with the stock...

So, a quick cooldown of the pressure cooker under the cold tap later, I added:

• 6 cloves
• 4 green cardamon, crushed to split the pods open
• 2 black cardamon, crushed to split the pods open
• 3 star anise
• a couple of inches of cassia bark
• a tablespoon of coriander seeds
• a tsp of fennel seeds
• an inch or so of fresh root ginger, sliced

Got it back up to high pressure and gave it another half hour whilst I rounded up and prepped everything else.

• The rice noodles simply went in a bowl, pour over boiling water to cover and leave for 4 minutes before draining and dividing between the serving bowls.

• A bundle of coriander leaves and chives and a sprig of fennel leaves, all roughly chopped together and divided between the serving bowls.

• A small onion, peeled and thinly sliced, and divided between the serving bowls.

By this point, the pressure cooking time was up, so back under the cold tap with it for another quick cooldown.
I strained the soup through a plastic sieve into a large bowl, then added to taste:

• a couple of tablespoons of fish sauce
• a dash or two of light soy sauce
• a dash or two of bottled lime juice

Pouring the soup over the noodles and herbs in the bowls, and it was ready to serve.

Not having actually ever eaten the real thing, I have no idea how close I got to the right flavour, but my daughter said she had had pho at a Vietnamese restaurant with her Dad once, and it tasted pretty close.

She then drowned it in sriracha sauce.


Categories: Vietnamese  Soup

Chiles en Vinaigre a.k.a Mexican Carrot Pickle

Mum used to make this one regularly when I was growing up. Unlike many of the other pickles and chutneys, this one was a big hit with us kids and a batch never lasted long.

The actual name of the recipe in the recipe book is Chiles en Vinaigre, but Mum went lighter on the chillies and bulked it out with the other vegetables, so we called it Mexican Carrot Pickle.

These days, I put in the original proportion of chillies - mild to medium big juicy ones like jalapenos, not scotch bonnets though!

This is the recipe for a single batch, but you could double up if you have a glut of peppers or carrots to use up.

Bolognese Sauce in the Pressure Cooker

A weekday night mainstay. Pasta with Bolognese sauce.

Cooked in the pressure cooker, it is easy to quickly put together a big batch of the sauce, which can then be portioned out into tubs and frozen.

Minced beef is the traditional meat used, but minced pork also makes a good sauce.

Tomato, Garlic and Herb Bread

To go with the soup made from yesterday's stock, some savoury herbed bread.

Several years ago I bought my parents a bread machine for Xmas, and it was my Dad who took up the making of bread. The idea of adding fresh garlic to the dough is his.

Fish Provencal

Another quick evening meal from frozen white fish fillets.

This time we're aiming for the flavours of Provence - tomatoes, olives, courgettes, aubergines, peppers, garlic and herbs.

Slow-cooked Turkey Drumsticks

Here they are. A pair of shrinkwrapped turkey drumsticks. Yet another cheap cut for which the supermarkets insist on giving inappropriate roasting instructions on the label.

Guess what - this is another slow-cooking joint! This time you will need a large oval slow-cooker.

When choosing which model of oval slow cooker to buy, I went to my local huge Tesco's and took a shrinkwrapped turkey drumstick from the meat section over to the homewares section and tried it for size in the bowls of the models they had on display. Turns out some of the models of oval slow cooker on sale are too small for turkey drumsticks.

Slow-cooked Beef

Doesn't look very appetising, does it? One of those cheap, value beef roasts, the kind with reformed extruded fat on top. They are far cheaper than a decent piece of beef, but if you've ever tried roasting one, it turns out tough and flavourless. That's because it isn't a roasting cut of beef!

This is a slow-cooking cut of beef. After 8 hours in an electric slow-cooker with a few condiments, it will be soft, moist and flavourful. Trust me on this.