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Potato Curry – well a few types really…

Potatoes are a great ingredient, and I love a good potato and spinach curry. However, I don’t keep all the ingredients in the house for a proper saag aloo, and getting paneer is a four or five hour round trip… So I get a little creative.

Prep: 5 min Cooking : 10 min

Ingredients

150g potatoes cubed, skins on (Charlottes for preference)

75 g leaves (spinach, mustard, land cress or rocket) washed and shredded if needed

Optional – mozzarella cubed

1 garlic clove crushed or chopped

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp tumeric

2 cardamon pods – seeds only

Method

  1. Par boil the potatoes, for 2.5cm cubes – 6 min in either stock or salted water.
  2. Part way through the cooking time wilt the leaves with a tiny bit of veg oil in a wok.
  3. Add the spices and stir, immediately drain the potatoes and add these (keep a little of the water/stock).
  4. Cook for a further 2 min adding water/stock if required
  5. If adding mozzarella, turn off the heat, mix the cheese through and serve immediately.
Potato, Spinach and Mozzarella curry (with Venison Tandoori in Tomatillo sauce)

Saag Aloo normally contains mustard seeds, spinach and stuff like ginger. I don’t keep mustard seeds in the house, but when I use shredded mustard leaves it gets closer to the ‘authentic’ flavour. But this, as a side dish, is more than good enough for my taste buds. The key flavour is the Turmeric, and if this is served with another dish with Turmeric in it they complement incredibly well.

Because I can’t source paneer locally, to mix things up I often add a Mozzarella. The trick is to add it only at the end so it warms but does not melt.

And as for potatoes. Well you can use what you want. I grow Charlottes and sometimes others, but Charlottes are the ideal for me because they are a little waxy and keep their shape well on par boiling. If you use a flourier potato like King Edward, then reduce the par boiling time by 2-3 minutes. And while I like keeping the skins on feel free to peel if you prefer.

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Partridge (or Chicken) Risotto

My take on a classic based on what’s available where I live.

Prep: 7 min Cooking: 25min

Ingredients

2 partridge breasts (or one chicken breast) chopped into small piece

100g (about 1/4) of a Red Kuri squash cubed

100g mushrooms (chestnut for preference) cubed

200g cheap rice (with starch so it goes sticky)

1 onion finely sliced

1 garlic clove crushed or chopped

750ml stock (chicken, pheasant or partridge) or 650ml stock and 100ml white wine

1 tblspn sour cream

parmesan, salt, pepper and tarragon oil

Method

  1. start frying the onions in a pan, when they just start to colour at the edges add the rice and garlic, stir for about 10-15 seconds then add the wine then stock after a minute (or just add the stock if your not adding wine). Stir to separate the rice, turn down to 4/10 and put the lid on. Set the timer for 10 min.
  2. when the timer goes, in a frying pan fry the mushrooms and squash using olive oil, after about 5min the mushrooms will be cooked and the squash taking colour.
  3. Add the meat, mushrooms and squash to the risotto, stir and put the lid back on.
  4. After about another 5min the risotto will have sucked up all the stock it’s going to. So take the lid off and see if you need to reduce it for a few more minutes.
  5. When you’re happy with the consistency grate some parmesan into the risotto and add a good pinch of salt and pepper. Stir this in then add the sour cream and stir.
  6. Dish up, drizzle with tarragon oil and a final grind of pepper.
Basic risotto

If you don’t have tarragon oil don’t worry – tastes good without it, you can add a sprinkle of herbs if you like but I like it plain. It’s comfort food for me and warming after a day outside.

I use cheap rice because I can easily buy it, Arborio does give a better texture, but you use what you’ve got.

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Pasta with Spinach and Pine nuts

Quick and easy pasta tea, with a glass of wine this is perfect for an easy evening.

Prep: 5 min Cooking: 12 min

Ingredients

200g pasta (twists)

30g pine nuts

4 rashers smoked streak bacon chopped finely

75g spinach, well washed

100g sliced mushrooms (chestnut for preference)

1 garlic clove crushed/finely chopped

1 dstspn sour cream

parmesan, salt papper

optional – small know blue cheese

Method

  1. Put the pasta into boiling salted water, stir once to stop it sticking together.
  2. In a dry frying pan add the pine nuts and toast lightly. keep a close eye on them as they brown suddenly. reserve in a small dish.
  3. Return the pan to the heat, add olive oil and bacon and mushrooms, cooking until it starts to colour. If you’re using field mushrooms (the white ones) wait a minute before adding them as they give up water and stop the bacon frying.
  4. Next add the garlic, spinach and a pinch of salt. The spinach will give up liquid after a few seconds stopping the garlic cooking too fiercely – but this also stops the bacon browning any more. Depending on your tastes and the bacon it might not need salt – up to you.
  5. When the spinach has wilted turn the heat right down, and when the mix has cooled add the sour cream. If you’re adding the blue cheese do this now and stir through.
  6. Drain the pasta and add this and the pine nuts along with a grinding of black pepper -stirring it all through. You may want to add an extra drizzle of olive oil, both for the taste and to help the sauce and pasta come together
  7. Serve in big pasta bowls and grate parmesan and a bit more pepper on top.
  8. Pour some wine and enjoy!
Simple heart pasta

Like I say a quick and easy pasta, you can substitute other greens for the spinach, using land cress or rocket you just cook it the same., depends what’s available in the garden.

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Rosemary Salt

Whenever I make roasties – whether pumpkin or beetroot or potato, then this is the sprinkles…

Prep: 2 min

Ingredients

small bunch of rosemary finely chopped

generous tsp of sea salt

1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

Method

Place the ingredients in a pestle and give them a good grind, crushing the chopped rosemary lets all the flavours our and the small amount of moisture in the leaves, along with the aromatic oil this releases makes the salt and pepper a tiny bit sticky so it will sit nicely on the roast veg.

Rosemary salt ready to go…

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Mango or Plum spicy dip

A super simple dip I make to go with Poppadoms. When I have it I use my home made plum conserve for this because it’s lower sugar and I can make it with good chunky pieces of plum. But for part of the year I rely on mango chutney as the base.

Prep: 1 min Marinade: 20+ minutes

Ingredients

3 Dstspn on Mango Chutney or Plum jam

1/2 Cayenne chilli chopped

1/2 Tsp salt

Method

Mix the ingredients in a bowl, cover and leave for a couple of hours for the flavours to develop.

That’s it – a wee bowl of dip!

This dip is super easy, and really tasty. Using plums you get a hot/salt plum taste which I think is divine. I grow Victoria plums and when I make a conserve I cut them into 6 or 8 and use 20% by volume soft brown sugar. This isn’t enough to properly preserve it, so proper sterilisation is key, and keeping it in small jars and using it quickly when open. But the easier option is either to use more sugar or just use mango chutney. Both work really well, I just don’t have a sweet tooth.

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Tandoori Chicken / Pheasant / Partridge

This is my take on tandoori, like I say in my ‘about’ page – this is about the ingredients I have to hand, so not trying to be authentic – just after something that tastes good to me.

I love this, prepare the marinade after breakfast, leave the bird in it all day and cook in the evening.

Prep: 5 min Marinade: 2+ hours Prep: 5 min Cooking: 24 min

Ingredients

  • 2 Chicken or two Pheasant breasts cut into 6 pieces each. Or 4 partridge breasts cut in 3 pieces each (skinless)
  • 1 green pepper cut into large squares
  • 1 onion cut into large squares
  • 2 tomatoes halved

For the marinade

  • 1/2 tub sour cream (about 125ml)
  • 1 tsp coriander
  • 1 cayenne chilli finely chopped or 1 tsp chilli powder
  • 1.5 tsp cumin
  • 1 dstspn garam masala
  • 2 garlic cloves crushed or chopped
  • 1.5 tsp paprika
  • 1 piece stem ginger chopped or crushed
  • juice of 1/2 a lime
  • salt and pepper

Method

  1. Mix all the marinade ingredients in a bowl then add the pieces of meat and stir to give them a good coating. Cover and put in the fridge for as long as you like (6 hours is good). When your ready start on step 2.
  2. Preheat the oven to 225oc (fan).
  3. Make up skewers of onion, pepper and the marinaded meat. place these over a baking tray and pour on any remaining marinade. Drizzle with a little vegetable oil.
  4. Add 50ml water and the tomato halves directly to the baking tray – this is to steam the meat as it cooks and with the marinade drips makes the sauce.
  5. Place in the oven to cook for 24min, baste every 6 minutes and turn at least once during the cooking time.
  6. Take out of the oven and empty the skewers onto the plate, put the baking tray on the hob on a high heat (8/10 on my induction) and stir briefly to mix the remaining water, sauce and roasted tomato halves. Remove the skins and drizzle on top of the tandoori.

Things to think about…

I use Vietnamese coriander paste because I grow it, and I use stem ginger, lime and sour cream rather than root, lemon and yogurt because I keep these in my fridge all the time. But use what you’ve got.

I normally serve it with a little rice (often flavoured with a cardamon pod in the water), a potato or pumpkin curry and poppadum’s or naan, along with dips – basically I love to have a taps style curry rather than a one dish meal.

Oh and skewers – get ones that are wide and flat so you can turn them and they stay – the bog-standard ones are two narrow and annoy me.

This recipe also works on the BBQ and with smoked paprika if you fancy mixing it up, although that’s best reserved for pheasant as it goes better with the taste of the bird.

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Roses

To my mind there are three types of rose in cooking: for the colour; the aroma and of course; the taste.

Depending on which of these I’m majoring on in a recipe I’ll use a different rose, or rose substitute.

So lets start with taste.

The best way to do this is to taste you own rose petals. Take a few from each rose you have (wild or cultivated), wash them and do a side by side taste test. Whats important is the taste and flavour of the petal – because a lot of the scent is from the centre of the flower, and when the petals are separate and stored the flavour is different to when you can smell the bloom.

Tasty!

A rule of thumb I read, and agree with after tasting, is that pink roses tend to taste the best. Darker roses from my garden tend to be a little more bitter, and the whites less flavoursome. Maybe its the pigments – but I don’t really know…

So pink roses – I harvest them at their peak or perhaps one day after and take the perfect petals as I dead-head. For these petals I blitz with a tiny bit of veg oil (one with no taste of its own like sunflower oil) then freeze as cubes. I’ll use the petals direct into couscous and as part of my rose harissa. Basically anything with spices and not desserts.

Next for aroma

This is where I cheat. For aroma I use Pelargonium ‘attar of roses’. It’s a geranium, tender, but thrives and survives in my unheated greenhouse. Takes cuttings well and also acts as a good companion plant (attracts pollinators and deters pests).

For Pelargoniums use the leaves – not the flowers. The flavour and aroma of rose is intense – it’s the taste of Turkish delight. And bluntly not the taste of Roses but the taste of the smell of Roses.

I use this in tea – makes a beautiful rose tea or addition to an infusion. In cakes and desserts this is king. You can crystallise the leaves to keep the best flavour for months, and I use a mix of pink Rose and Pelargoniums to make rose water.

Finally for colour

This is where you can play. My favourite for adding colour is ‘Hot Chocolate’ a beautiful rose, dark red – like claret mixed with dark, dark chocolate. I use the petals roughly chopped to mix though basmati rise (often alongside calendula petals and nasturtium), or in bread dough (Moroccan and focaccia). Sometimes a sprinkle though a muffin or finely chopped through a sponge (especially if I’ve flavoured it with Pelargonium).

So there you have it – Roses – I use them for cooking more than I cut them for the table, but mostly I just admire them in the garden.

A rose in November

So when you pick Roses for the garden think about all of their uses. Repeat flowing is awesome, I prefer singles or semi doubles, because I want bee-friendly, size colour, habit, and massively important is disease resistance.

Luckily there are many, many types to choose from, and one for every space, soil and situation. Underplanted with geranium or viola they are a source of delight for me all year round and, even with some frosts, I often have blooms right up until mid December.

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Scrambled Eggs

simple and tasty

Scrambled eggs are a simple hearty breakfast – the recipes isn’t difficult but it’s worth writing down…

Cooking: 3 min

Ingredients

  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp butter
  • 1 tsp Philadelphia soft cheese (optional)
  • 3 chives chopped

Method

The key to great scrambled eggs is to cook them slowly. So

  1. Beat the eggs, add a pinch of salt and a grind of fresh black pepper
  2. heat a good non-stick frying pan with the butter in it, slowly melting the butter (5/10 on my induction hob)
  3. When the butter is melted add the soft cheese and let it soften, swirl it though the butter then add the eggs.
  4. Leave it alone for a minute then stir, then leave it alone for 30 sec and stir. You’re waiting until the egg starts to cook. Keep gently stirring every 15 seconds or so until the egg is cooking quickly, then break it up with the spatula and just before it’s cooked enough – turn it off.
  5. You can then use the residual heat to get the perfect consistency, serve and sprinkle with fresh chives.

Be gentle – that’s the key, don’t over stir, and let the butter keep a glossy edge to the eggs – they should taste like velvet, but not like mush.

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Making Stock Blocks

A block of chilli and one of tomatillo paste straight from the freezer

I’ve got a small chest freezer for storage. I use it because growing your own leads to gluts, particularly in the summer, and in the when you buy a whole deer in the Autumn to butcher you need to make sure you’ve somewhere to put it!

So, for lots of things I make up 500ml blocks. It’s so I have a know portion size and (more importantly), they stack well in the freezer. I could buy lots of Tupperware, but I’d rather reuse, or upcycle stuff I already have in abundance.

I use margarine tubs and I use them for lots of stuff. It’s November and right now I have

  • Venison chilli
  • Tomato (passata)
  • Tomatillo paste
  • Courgette soup
  • Rosehip syrup
  • Home made Haggis

Some things I freeze as smaller portions, like the tomatillos for dips, and some things I freeze in ice cube trays (basil paste, Vietnamese coriander, rose petals, french tarragon). And I cycle through whats there as the seasons change. Oh and don’t use your regular ice cube trays – buy some specially if you want to use them for herbs and get ones that are flexible because they don’t pop out quite as easily as ice cubes…

Rule of thumb – clear out the veg (and herbs) from last year before you add this years.

So how to do it:

  1. Save up some large margarine tubs and keep the lids. Open out a plastic freezer bag and place it in the tub (remember to label it first),
  2. Pour in the stock/sauce/whatever until it’s almost full, fold over the bag to cover the top then pop the lid on. Leave until it’s cool before stacking in the freezer.
  3. Leave it for at least a day to freeze then pop it out of the tub, still in the bag and tie the bag – hey presto a 500ml cube…

Remember not to tie the bag before you freeze it as the liquid will expand – and for the same reason always leave a little room in the tub for expansion – if you over fill the tub will crack.

And to defrost – top tip – pop the block (in its bag) back into a tub and leave it overnight in the fridge. Keeps it nice and clean and contained.

Basic tip, but for getting the most out of a freezer and stopping stuff freezing together in a big icy food icicle it’s the business.

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Venison and Mushroom pie

A simple, tasty, comfort food for a cold evening.

Prep: 10 min Cooking: 30 min

Ingredients

200g venison, either blade steak or leg, cubed

1 onion, chopped

175g mushrooms, ideally chestnut, cubed

175g puff pastry

2 dessert spoons plain flour

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

For the gravy

250ml venison stock

50ml red wine

1 dstspn gravy browning

1 dstspn Worcester sauce

Method

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 225 degrees (fan)
  2. Place the onions and mushroom in a frying pan, add a little olive oil and start gently frying – soften and cooking, but not browning.
  3. Mix the flour and cayenne together and season with salt and pepper. Use this to coat the Venison.
  4. When the onions are translucent and the mushrooms just cooked through and squidgy add the Venison, spreading it evenly across the pan – do not stir.
  5. Wait one minute then turn the venison (stir in other words) and leave for another minute. This seals and browns the venison, also cooks the flour to help thicken the gravy.
  6. Mix all the gravy ingredients in a jug and add to the pan. stir to form a smooth gravy and lift any flour from the base of the pan. If you want to be ‘chefy’ about it add the wine to the pan first to lift the flour, then everything else… Cook this on a low heat until the gravy is thick and unctuous.
  7. Put the mix in a pie dish (I use a 25cm square dish) and gently move the dish back and forth to even out the mixture.
  8. Roll out the puff pastry and lay it on top making sure it is just slightly larger than the dish, cut a few sprue holes in the top and put it in the oven for 18min. If you like you can glaze the pastry with egg yolk but I generally don’t bother. Similarly, you can crimp the pie edges but I don’t tend to do that either. If the gravy is the right texture then the pastry rests on the mix and cooks just fine.

I normally serve this with mash, but if you want a one dish dinner you can bulk up the pie with pumpkin or carrot – just cut this into fine cubes and add it when you add the mushrooms – just up the gravy mix by adding extra (about 75ml stock per 150g veg).

On the ingredients side – you can substitute beef for the venison, a beef stock cube for the venison stock (but add less salt tot season) and you can make or buy the pastry.