Tag Archives: simon hopkinson

lamb breast baked with onions

Posted by Gary in lamb, onion, parsley and tagged with

lamb breast baked with onions

As previously mentioned, I love Simon Hopkinson’s Good Cook series. And I love lamb breast recipes. So my only reservation is seeing Simon do this brilliant recipe is fretting that the price of lamb breast would go up. Lamb breast is dirt cheap, seriously cheap, so what we don’t need is a primetime BBC programme showing how amazing lamb breast can be.

And amazing it is. Rich, heady, falling-apart lamb with luscious, sharp onions is an absolute dream. Try it now.

Simon Hopkinson’s original recipe can be found here.

Lamb breast baked with onions (serves 4):

1.5kg lamb breast

1.5kg onions, sliced

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 anchovy, finely chopped

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

  1. Preheat the oven to 150°C.
  2. Season the lamb in a hot, lidded casserole pan until browned all over. Remove from the pan and put to one side. Add half the onions to the pan, lay the lamb back on top then cover with the remaining onions and the bay leaf. Top with a circle of greaseproof paper and bake for three hours, until the lamb is tender.
  3. Turn off the oven heat and remove the casserole dish. Discard the bay leaf and put the lamb in a roasting tray. Cover with foil and leave in the oven while you finish the onions.
  4. Put the casserole dish over a low heat and add the anchovy and vinegar. Stir through and season to taste, so it’s sweet, salty and sharp at the same time. When it’s ready turn off the heat and add the parsley. Serve the lamb with a nice pile of juicy onions alongside.

panzanella

Posted by Gary in basil, bread, capers, cucumber, red onion, red wine vinegar, tomato and tagged with

panzanella

I’ve eyed up a panzanella for ages, spotting a particularly nice one in Tony & Giorgio. Yet I’ve not got round to it, until Simon Hopkinson chided me from the couch to give it a go. I have no idea why I’ve left it so long, it’s exactly the sort of food I love and the food I love the Italians for. It’s a Tuscan bread salad with onions, tomato and cucumber, mixed together with vinegar and oil left to marinate.

I’ve added my own tweak by roasting the bread first; I think you get more interesting flavours and the bread doesn’t completely break down. Sharp and fresh, yet rounded and satisfying at the same time. I can’t recommend it enough. Not bad for a peasant dish.

Simon Hopkinson’s original recipe can be found here.

Panzanella (serves 4):

5 slices stale sourdough bread

6 ripe tomatoes, peeled

1 red onion, finely sliced

1 cucumber, cut into chunks

1 tablespoon capers

Extra virgin olive oil

Red wine vinegar

Handful chopped basil

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Cut the bread into large croutons, drizzle with a little oil, toss over some seas salt and pepper and roast on a baking tray for 10 minutes until just starting to colour.
  3. Add the toasted bread to a large bowl with the remaining ingredients. Stir well and add more oil, vinegar, salt and pepper until you’re happy with it. You can eat straight away but it loves to sit around and let the flavours mingle, so eat it the next day if you like.

baked penne with bacon and porcini

Posted by Gary in bacon, cheese, mushroom, pasta, porcini, roux and tagged with

baked penne with bacon and porcini

I’d heard excited whispers on Twitter about a new BBC programme from Simon Hopkinson called The Good Cook. His name was only distantly familiar to me; I wasn’t directly aware of him.

So I sat down to watch it with little expectation. I became an instant convert. Simple, honest food that is achievable, excellent and done with love.

Just about everything featured is worth cooking, in a programme refreshingly devoid of format, gimmick or travelogue. Only the tiniest scraps of production remain: incessant overuse of funky chart hits, just because the BBC can; and occasional 30 second jaunts to far-flung places showing stock footage of people making cheese.

These are minor quibbles against the brilliance of Simon’s own natural easy going charm and obvious skill. His effortless style makes everything look easy and worth trying. So I’ve started with this, a luscious and rich pasta bake with a few small changes down to what I had lurking around waiting to be used up. It’s absolutely tremendous and really easy. It even encourages the all-in-one roux method which works like a dream to produce a silky and slurpable sauce. Please run to your storecupboards and try it now. You must have some of those dried mushrooms in there somewhere, right?

Simon’s original recipe can be found here.

Baked penne with bacon and porcini (serves 2):

500ml milk

20g dried porcini mushrooms

40g butter

25g flour

140g penne

6 rashers streaky bacon, diced

A couple of tablespoons grated parmesan

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Pop the mushrooms and milk in a pan and bring to a simmer, then turn off the heat and leave to infuse for 10 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile make the sauce. Melt the butter in a pan and stir in the flour. Keep it moving about for a minute to cook out the floury taste. Sieve off the milk then add it to the roux in one go whisking all the time. When smooth keep on a gentle heat for 10 minutes, whisking occasionally and allowing to thicken. Check for seasoning towards the end of the cooking time.
  3. Get the pasta on to cook according to the packet instructions. When done, throw the pasta, mushrooms, bacon and a third of the parmesan into the sauce and toss really well to get everything coated. Turn out into a baking dish, add another third of parmesan and bake for 30 mins until bubbling. Top with the remaining parmesan to serve.