Beefburgers

Burgers are easy to make and are so much nicer home-made than bought. For each burger, use 125g minced beef, season well with salt and pepper. They can be bulked out with fresh breadcrumbs and/ or finely chopped onions and they are nice too. Form the burger shape and grill or BBQ. Serve in a burger bun with lettuce, tomato slices, onion rings, gherkins and ketchup, crisps and coke or lager.

The Basic Beef Casserole (or Beef Stew)

First, the cut. Casseroling, or stewing, renders hard-working muscular meat tender with slow cooking. As the muscles contain marbled fat and connective tissues, the dish will be very flavoursome when cooked. You need to make sure you get the right cut. Braising steak will be too dry. Shin is excellent as it is cheap and with all its connective tissues melted down, the finished meat is very soft, but it needs to be cooked for three hours. Shoulder steak is very good. I think it is called 'chuck steak' in England. I love skirt, which you will only get from a butcher. It's particularly tasty. Don't pay more than £10 a kg. for meat you are going to cook slowly. Less, if poss!

The basic recipe is straightforward and you can adapt it to suit. You need meat, a liquid to cook it in, some vegetables, flavourings and something with which to thicken the gravy.

The liquid can be stock, wine, beer, a can of tomatoes or water. The vegetables can be onions (almost always), carrots and celery for a basic casserole, but mushrooms, bacon, red wine and garlic mimic a Boeuf Bourguignon; peppers, paprika, tomatoes and finished off with creme fraiche and you're heading towards a Goulash. Simmer it in a bottle of beer and some garlic as well as the basic vegetables and you're in Beef Carbonnade territory (see first blog entry in 2007). You can add what you like. If you've got spices or curry powder, they can be added after the initial frying of onions and garlic and then a can of tomatoes added to make a tasty curry. Experiment, but cook it long and slow for best results!

Work on 150g per person.

Serves 4

Ingredients

600g beef ( see note above)

a large onion, chopped

a couple of carrots, sliced

a stick of celery, sliced (optional, but good!)

2 tablespoons flour

salt and black pepper

beef stock, about 300 ml.+

oil

Method

You can bung everything into a casserole dish as it is, missing out the oil, bringing it to the boil, then sticking it in a low oven (150 degrees) to simmer for 2 -3 hours until it's tender (it will taste fine) but to make it more flavoursome and refined, follow the instructions below.

Brown the meat in two lots in hot oil until it is a rich mahogany colour (ie. don't crowd the meat, but let it get a good hot 'fry' to seal the outside). Remove the meat and put on to a plate. Add the onions to the oil and fry until they brown, chuck in the carrots and celery and fry for a minute or two. Put the beef back in with any juices that have accumulated and sprinkle over the flour. Stir it and let the flour soak up all the juices. It doesn't matter if it browns a little, as it will add to the colour of the final dish. Pour stock in to about half-way up the vegetables. The vegetables will release water as they cook, so if you add more stock, the final dish will be too watery. Season with salt and pepper and add any flavourings (ie. some herbs if you have some - thyme is good, and add a bay leaf if you have one). Remember that seasoning added at this stage will not taste 'too much', but will enhance the dish as it cooks with the meat, so don't leave it out. Now allow the dish to come to a good simmer, give it a stir, pop a lid on and stick it into the oven for at least two hours. The oven should be at 140 - 150 degrees.

To stew the meat instead, leave the pan with its lid on, on the hob, turn it to low so that it just plops and check it from time to time, for the same length of time.

Shoulder steak may be done after two hours. I prefer cooking for three. No hardship if you've allowed for this! Don't forget that all casseroles taste more 'rounded' if prepared a day in advance, cooled, then reheated. The flavours really develop. Never reheat more than once. Serve with ............. well, take your pick! Mashed potatoes, brown rice, basmati rice, pasta, naan bread. Remember the mustard (or mango chutney, if it's a curry). Enjoy this with.......friends.

Fegato alla Veneziana (Venetian-Style Liver)

Liver and onions is elevated to a more exotic concoction when given its Italian title, Fegato alla Veneziana, one of the best loved dishes of the Veneto. Simple to prepare, the onions are cooked long and slow for sweetness. In Roman times, liver was cooked with figs, from which the word 'fegato' comes. The sweetness of the onions counteracts any slight bitterness from the liver. The liver should be cooked quickly to brown the outside but retain a slight pinkness in the middle. Served with North Italy's polenta or with pasta or mashed potatoes, this is a very economical and nutritious meal. Ask for the liver to be sliced thinly and then remove any membrane before cooking.

Ingredients (serves 2)
250 grams calf's liver (traditionally calf's liver, the most tender, but lamb's liver can be used)
250 grams onions
15 grams butter
2 tablespoons oil
salt
pepper
chopped parsley (optional)
lemon slices (optional)

Preparation

In butter and oil, slowly cook thinly sliced onion until limp but not browned. This may take up to 40 minutes. Add salt and pepper. Seasoning during cooking ensures you do not get a raw salt taste. A few minutes before serving add liver cut in thin strips, and cook over a high heat. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve immediately.

Minced Beef Stroganoff

You can substitute the sour cream and lemon juice for a cup of full-fat plain yogurt (room temperature). Do not allow to boil.
Ingredients
· Butter
· 500g minced beef
· Salt and pepper
· 1 onion, chopped
· 225g sliced button mushrooms
· 4 tablespoons of dry sherry, dry white wine, or water
· 3 tablespoons chopped parsley, loosely packed
· 250 ml cups sour cream (room temperature) – or yoghurt – see note
· 1 teaspoon lemon juice (not necessary with yoghurt)
· 1/4 teaspoon paprika or more to taste
· 250g pasta (it would also be good with rice)
Method
1 Put a large pot of salted water on to heat, for the pasta.
2 Heat a large sauté pan on medium high heat. Melt 1 teaspoon butter in the pan and swirl it around. Sprinkle the bottom of the pan generously with salt. Working in batches as not to crowd the meat (crowding it will make it hard to brown), break up the minced beef and add it to the pan. Sprinkle the meat with salt. Do not stir the meat, as stirring will prevent browning. Once the meat is well browned on one side (a couple minutes, depending on how hot the pan), use tongs or a fork or a metal spatula to flip to the other side. Once that side is browned as well, use a slotted spoon to remove from the pan and set aside. Continue to brown the meat in batches, adding a teaspoon of butter to the pan with each batch if needed, and salting the pan and the meat, until it is all browned. Remove meat from pan. Drain excess fat from pan.
3 Lower the heat to medium. Add the onions to the pan. If you are working with very lean meat, you may not have any residual fat in the pan. If this is the case, you'll want to add in a tablespoon of olive oil or butter to the pan. Cook the onions, scraping up the meat drippings, until soft, about 5 minutes. Remove onions from the pan (add to the meat).
4 Depending on the cooking times of your particular brand of pasta, this is likely a good time to add the pasta to the (should be now) boiling, salted water.
5 While the pasta is cooking, add a tablespoon of butter to the pan, increase the heat to medium high. Add the sliced mushrooms. Sauté until nicely browned (about 4 minutes). Add the sherry (or dry white wine or water) to the pan to deglaze the pan, scraping up any browned bits. Let the sherry reduce by at least a half, then lower the heat to low.
6 Remove the pan from the heat. Mix in the sour cream and paprika until smooth. Return the pan to very low heat, and not let the sour cream boil (or it may curdle). You may add a few tablespoons of water to the mixture to thin it out a bit at any time. Stir in the lemon juice, and about 1/4-1/2 teaspoon of salt (taste). Stir in the meat and onions. Stir in the chopped parsley. Add more salt, pepper, and/or paprika to taste.
7 Keep the stroganoff on warm heat until the noodles are done cooking. When the pasta is ready (al dente), drain.
Serve the stroganoff on top of pasta.
Serves 4.

Chicken tikka masala

This takeaway favourite is freezer-friendly and quick to reheat, giving you the chance to get ahead and save money.

Ingredients
4 tbsp vegetable oil
25g butter
4 onions , roughly chopped
6 tbsp chicken tikka masala paste
2 red peppers , deseeded and cut into chunks
8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts , cut into 2.5cm cubes
2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
4 tbsp tomato purée
2-3 tbsp mango chutney
150ml double cream
150ml natural yogurt
chopped coriander leaves, to serve


Prep 15 mins
Cook 50 mins

(Serves 10)
Method
Heat the oil and butter in a large, lidded casserole on the hob, then add the onions and a pinch of salt. Cook for 15-20 mins until soft and golden. Add the paste and peppers, then cook for 5 mins more to cook out the rawness of the spices.
Add the chicken and stir well to coat in the paste. Cook for 2 mins, then tip in the tomatoes, purée and 200ml water. Cover with a lid and gently simmer for 15 mins, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through.
Remove the lid, stir through the mango chutney, cream and yogurt, then gently warm through. Season, then set aside whatever you want to freeze (see tips, below). Scatter the rest with coriander leaves and serve with basmati rice and naan bread.

Pot Noodles

Ingredients
1 rasher smoked back bacon , trimmed and chopped
2 spring onions , white and green separated and finely sliced
50g frozen peas
quarter tsp paprika
2 tsp cornflour
200ml vegetable stock
150g block straight-to-wok wheat noodles , or equivalent of dried, cooked
splash Worcestershire sauce

In a small non-stick pan, fry the bacon for a few mins, add the white parts of the spring onions, peas and paprika, then cook for 1 min more. Mix the cornflour with a little of the stock to get a paste, then stir this into the pan with the rest of the stock, noodles and a good splash of Worcestershire sauce. Simmer for a couple of mins until thick and saucy, then scatter with the green parts of spring onion.

Greek Potato

This makes a nice lunch!

Ingredients
1 medium-large potato
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper
1 tbsp torn basil leaves (or other herb)
3 cm, 1 1/2 inches cucumber, chopped into cubes
30g, 1 oz. feta cheese

Preheat oven to 190ºC

Bake potato until soft. Halve and scoop centre into a bowl, reserving the skin. Mash or beat the potato with the olive oil and seasoning. Add herbs, then cucumber.

Pile the mixture back into the reserved skins and cube or crumble the feta cheese over the filling. Grill until the cheese begins to melt and scorch.

Lamb Hotpot

Look out for neck fillets of lamb. They each weigh about 250g so are perfect for serving two (or for one over two meals). They are lean and tender and easy to cut up. They are also inexpensive and each one should not cost more than £2.50, much less if bought at a market. Here's how to make a very simple hotpot using one.

Ingredients
1 neck fillet of lamb, cut into slices or cubes
1 onion, sliced finely
1 large carrot, sliced
1 stick celery sliced
2 tablespoons flour, seasoned with salt and black pepper
2 medium-large potatoes, sliced
1/2 tsp. mixed herbs
1 Oxo cube
250 mls. water, boiled

Heat oven to 150ºC

Method
Dredge the slices of lamb in the seasoned flour.Using a casserole dish, layer the onion, carrot and celery with the meat. Sprinkle over the herbs and any remaining flour. Make stock with the Oxo cube and water. Pour over the meat and vegetables. It should not come more than 1/2 way up the vegetables, as they will create more juices. Arrange the slices of potato over the top neatly. You can brush a little oil on the potatoes if you like. Cover the dish with a lid or tinfoil and place in the middle of the oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Take off the lid or remove the foil for the last 1/2 hour to allow the potatoes to crisp up. Serve with a green vegetable. (Serves 2)

Using up courgettes

I feel a bit sad tonight because my daughter's gone off to Chile for 5 weeks. I'm really happy that she's had this chance of adventure and I'm sure it will be wonderful for her, but I know I'll miss her and I do miss her already - that's why I feel a little sad. I just love talking to her and during holiday times, as now, there's so much more time to chat about things.

Back to culinary chat - this evening I made something I hadn't made for years. Trying to use up some of the many courgettes I had in the fridge, I made a savoury flan. I cut two rashers of smoked bacon into strips and fried them in their own fat then added them in a bowl to about 350g. thinly sliced courgettes. I made a Yorkshire Pudding batter out of 2 large eggs, 60g. flour, 150 ml. water/milk, 1 tsp. dried mixed herbs, seasoning and stirred that mixture into the courgettes and bacon. I greased a small roasting tin with olive oil, poured the mixture into the tin, drizzled some olive oil over the top and baked it in a hot oven for 30 minutes. On serving, I topped the flan with grated Parmesan cheese. This was about right for three of us with a salad. It was really nice!

Teenage boys for dinner

My son had three other fifteen year old boys come for supper on Friday and I wanted to make something that would appeal particularly to them as well as being pleasant for the rest of us to eat. He suggested a barbeque but the weather has been atrocious and it just wasn't feasible. I don't really know who it is that thinks a BBQ is the easy option anyway. I find it a palaver, but am prepared to have them if the weather is fabby and it becomes just part of the day spent outside. My husband and I were just back from Belgium and had brought beer and chocolate with us. I ended up making a Carbonnades Flamandes and a Belgian Chocolate Cake.

I had the butcher give me the beef in one piece as we had had this dish in Belgium and the pieces of meat had been large and surrounded by a smooth, very dark sauce. I wanted to recreate this. I trimmed all fat off the meat before cutting it into 4 - 5 cm cubes. For 7 of us, I'd bought 3 lbs. shoulder steak. This was well-seasoned, then coated in flour then sealed in very hot butter in a frying pan, a few pieces at a time, so that it went very dark brown. As they were browned, I put the pieces in a casserole dish. In the frying pan I added a small onion that had been sliced very thinly and allowed to turn dark brown without burning. The pan was then deglazed using dark 'brune' Leffe beer and altogether 700 mls. was added to the casserole dish. This was brought to the boil, a tablespoon or so of redcurrant jelly, three sprigs of thyme from the garden and a dried bay leaf were added. Once on the boil, the dish was put in a very low oven (the bottom oven of my 2-oven Aga) for four hours. As the dish was removed and tasted, it needed something and I added about 25 g. of dark chocolate! I think that did the trick! I removed the pieces of meat and the bay leaf and whizzed the sauce in a liquidiser to make it as smooth as possible. It wasn't quite thick enough and I added about a tablespoon of cornflour, mixed with a little cold water. The texture then was just right. It was served with very white creamed potatoes, peas - for the boys - and organic broccoli, with its dark leaves still on. Lovely. Accompanying, as per the Belgian-way, was a dish of apple compote, made from a mix of Bramley and Cox apples, sweetened with some sugar and a clove added while cooking.

The chocolate cake was made using a super recipe I found once on the Internet - under Anna's Aga Recipes - my favourite chocolate recipe. It was sandwiched with a Vienna buttercream and then a ganache was poured over the top, bits of it dripping down the side. The ganache was made from 150g. dark Belgian chocolate, 150 ml. double cream, a teaspoonful of unsalted butter and a teaspoonful of vanilla essence. I had some fresh cherries in a dish to go with the cake. I made a sugar syrup first then added the cherries while it was hot and just set them to one side. The cherries softened a little and the stones were easy to remove. My daughter thinks the cake was fabulous as it was and everybody seemed to love it, but I think if I were to do the same thing again, I'd fill the cake with whipped cream mixed with the chopped fresh cherries. I thought the buttercream was a little too sweet.

There were Belgian chocolates for after and I have to say the meal was great fun, lots of funny stories were told and everybody enjoyed the food.