Pulled gammon and coleslaw (Movie night - Gangs of New York)

Movie night - Gangs of New York - well, there's drinking involved, and "Bill the Butcher".  The biggest lump of meat we had was a big gammon joint, so I tried pulled gammon.  It was tasty, but if I did it again I might boil it a couple of times in water to reduce the saltiness.  I made it with a tin of peaches to add a fruity note to the BBQ sauce - which worked, to a certain extent.

• Big lump of gammon (or pork)
• Tin of peaches
• BBQ spice
• Cider
• Wholegrain mustard
• Tomato Ketchup
• Sugar
• Chilli sauce

• Red onion
• Carrots
• Cabbage
• Radish
• White wine vinegar
• Olive oil
• Mayonnaise

• Chips and bread rolls to serve

1.  Make the marinade by zizzing up peaches into a puree and mixing in BBQ spice, cider, wholegrain mustard and enough water to sit two thirds of the way up the joint of meat.

2.  Remove fat and rind from the gammon joint, turn over in marinade, put in a medium oven for 4-8 hours.  Checking every now and then, turning the meat and add more liquid if necessary.

3.  Make the coleslaw by chopping the veg - sprinkle with a little salt, stir in a splash of olive oil and white wine vinegar, let it set for 30 minutes to start to soften a little, then stir in mayonnaise and chill in the fridge.

4.  Remove joint from marinade - "pull" with 2 forks.  Moisten with a ladle of the cooking liquor.  Keep warm.

5.  Make additional BBQ sauce by straining the cooking liquor, and then stirring in ketchup, sugar and chilli sauce to taste.  Heat through briefly to help the flavours meld.

6.  Serve, scoff .... we were SOOOOOO full!

 

Just another Todmorden tapas

This time it was a sort of american-spanish take ...

Spicy mini potato roasties
Chorizo
Cauliflower with pine nuts and raisins
Pepper filled with stockfish
Coleslaw
Corn on the cob
Grilled chilli and garlic prawns

Not bad for a Wednesday night!

Start with the potatoes, and work steadily for about an hour, and it will all get done.

Ingredients.....

From The Mediterranean Pantry:  Olive oil, cajun spices, chorizo, pine nuts, raisins, garlic, chilli flakes, stuffed peppers
From Garry:  Potatoes, onions, cauliflower, sweetcorn, lemon, carrots, cabbage
From Paul:  Prawns

also ... sherry

1.  Chop potatoes into bite sized pieces, put into a roasting tray with a dusting of cajun seasoning.  Roast in a medium-hot oven (about 180).
2.  Finely slice 2 onions - one for the cauliflower, and one for the coleslaw - actually it's about 1 and a quarter for the cauliflower, and 3/4 for the coleslaw.
3.  Gently sautee the onion for the cauliflower in olive oil, then add cauliflower florets, and a drop of water, put the lid on and "steam" the cauliflower until done.
4.  Finish making the coleslaw by adding julienned carrots and shredded cabbage.  Season, add the juice of half a lemon and a splash of olive oil.
5.  Prep the sweetcorn, and put into a pan of water, ready to boil at 20 minutes to serving.
6.  Take the peppers with fish out of tin, into an oven dish and put into the oven with the potatoes to heat through.
7.  Marinate the prawns in chilli falkes, crushed garlic, lemon juice and a splash of olive oil.
8.  Chop chorizo into bite sized pieces.
9.  Check on the potatoes, I think you should be about 5 minutes from all done.
10.  Splash some sherry into the cauliflower and add a small handful of pinenuts and raisins, cook the alcohol off.
11. Fry the chorizo and the prawns in 2 separate pans - turn the prawns after a couple of minutes, keep the chorizo moving until it's done.
12.  Serve, scoff - some people will mix in mayonnaise to make their coleslaw creamy.

Baked BBQ ribs - potato wedges and coleslaw

Caribbean food week:  day 4

BBQ ribs which are actually baked in the oven - absolutely gorgeous.  Not really ideal for a mid-week dinner as they take 2 1/2 hours.

It was so worth it though, and the veg dodger had seconds of coleslaw.

Spices are available from The Mediterranean Pantry, and the ribs from Mellings butchers - superb.



Rack of ribs - pork for us
1/2 tsp each of:-

all spice
ginger
nutmeg
paprika
salt
black pepper
dried thyme

desert spoon of brown sugar

BBQ sauce

potatoes

carrots
cabbage
onion
salt
olive oil
mayonnaise

1.  Heat the oven to 180.
2.  Mix all the dry ingerdients and rub well into the rack of ribs - massage it is as much as you can.
3.  Wrap in foil.  Make sure that it is well sealed to keep in all the juiciness.
4.  Bake for 2 hours - literally - just chuck it in there and do something else, ignore it for 2 full hours - make sure you get the wedges in after about an hour, though, so that it's ready at the same time.
5.  Potatoes, olive oil, oven .... for the wedges.
6.  Make the coleslaw by finely shredding cabbage, carrot and onion.  Add salt and leave to stand for 10 minutes, then add a glug of olive oil and a blob of mayonnaise - stir, chill until everything else is ready.
7.  After 2 hours, unwrap the pork ... keep it on the foil, as it gets stickier and stickier from now, and foil goes in the bin - sticky trays take ages to clean.  Pop it back in the oven for 5 minutes to dry off the top a little.
8.  Smother the top of the ribs in BBQ sauce, and pop back in the oven for 5 minutes ... to get that gooey glossy coating.  Do this twice for a deepish layer of sticky deliciousness.
9.  Serve, scoff ... remember to have lots of kitchen roll to hand!

Beetroot and carrot burgers with roasties and red cabbage slaw

What do you do with loads of beetroot and red cabbage?  Well, we did this ... and it was delicious.

Burgers

1 onion
garlic
2 large beetroot
4 carrots
porridge oats
cumin seeds
salt & pepper
1 egg
Blue cheese
tomatoes

Potatoes
olive oil
salt

Red cabbage slaw

1/2 red cabbage
2 carrots
1 onion
mustard seeds
lemon juice
balsamic vinegar
olive oil

This is a job for the food processor!

Start the potatoes

1. Chop and par-boil
2.  Tip into oven tray with hot oil - toss, sprinkle with salt, and roast for 1 hour (ish) at 180.

Other stuff

1.  Start with the slicing blade and shred red cabbage wedges.
2.  Swap the blade for the grater blade, grate the all the onion and carrot - split into 2 batches - 1/2 with the salw, 1/2 for the burger mix.
3.  Take furry bits from beetroot, scrub well and grate them too - add to the burger mix.
4.  To the burger mix add cumin seeds, oats and 1 egg to make a sticky batter.
5.  To the slaw add lemon juice, onion seeds, vinegar, seasoning and olive oil - mix well, and stick in the fridge until ready to eat.
6.  Heat olive oil in pan - add spoonfuls of beetroot mix - squash down into patties - you might want to shape a bit with wooden spoons, but it's not important really.  Fry for about 4 minutes, turn over and fry on the other side.
7.  Keep warm in the oven until everything is nearly ready - the add cheese on top (if you fancy) and (again, if you fancy) sliced tomatoes.

Scoff

Excellent use of veg box goodies.

Could have been vegan if there was no cheese and omitted the egg from the mix - it works, the patties just don't hold together as well (I made some without egg, so I know it works).

Bring on summer - spicy hake with 3 salads

There was some sun today - hurray! So, I thought I would try to prolong the good sunshiny vibes with a salad dinner.  I had spicy hake, but also chucked a burger in for the victim ... just as well, as spicy fish was properly poo-pooed (silly! was delish).  OK - in order of cooking - beetroot, borlotti bean and mozzarella, coleslaw, waldorf (kind, sorta, ..ish) salads... spicy fish "goujons", green salad.

recipes - such as they are - beetroot, borlotti bean and mozarella salad.  I had beetroot and borlotti beans in the veg box this week, so made it from scratch - vacuum packed beetroot, and tinned beans would be proper tasty, and much less time consuming.  So, starting from the raw state... roast washed (but not peeled) beetroot in a tray with garlic, slosh of olive oil and splash of balsamic until beetroot is soft - I cover tray in foil and test after about an hour, knife should go in with very little resistance.  Meanwhile, pod and then boil borlotti beans - takes about 12 mins from boiling - but depends on beans.  Cool beetroot, cool and drain beans.  Skin beetroot (I always use gloves) and cut into bite sized pieces.  Mix together beetroot pieces, beans, chopped radish, mozarella - torn into bite sized bits, basil leaves, seasoning, olive oil - taste...yum yum - add splash of lemon juice/vinegar if needs a little sharpness.  Sorta waldorf ... well, as kids we hated walnuts, so Mum invented this with almonds... it may have morphed over the years, but it's proper simple, so morph it yourself.. Chop a fair bit of celery into small, but still chunky, chunks, add some chopped onion... chop apple - add - squirt with lemon/lime juice - mix up until all apple has touched acid juice, at this point I added chopped orange and red pepper.  Chuck in handful of almonds, small spoon of mayonnaise, good teaspoon of horseradish and about 2 tbsp of natural yogurt - season - taste, adjust... should be crunchy, savoury and refreshing.  Coleslaw... everyone has their own recipe - but finely shredded red onion, about 3 times as much red cabbage and white cabbage, grated carrot - lemon/lime juice or cider vinegar, and good pinch of rock salt... let sit for 30mins, cabbage will start to soften slightly.  Stir in splodge of mayonnaise and some natural yogurt (adjust proportions depending on whether you are trying to reduce fat (0% mayo lowest fat... all mayo if you are a skinny imp wanting to chunk up).

Spicy fish - was hake (could've been most white fish, tuna or salmon) - cut into strips and tossed in flour and fish curry spices - fried - hot and quick...

Delish.

Lettuce... OK - for completeness - I tossed it in lime juice and a whisper of olive oil.