Author: Gary @ BigSpud

A bit of a geek who loves food.

Categories
bread food

french baguette

Another week, another adventure in breadery. This week, the humble french stick.

Made with the usual bread ingredients, but there was a careful folding process: after rising it was rolled flat then folded back in itself and left to rise a little longer. I repeated this three times and it seems the net result is a softer bread, a lighter texture and a gentler crust. Perfect with pâté!
Categories
food pork

roast pork

Delicious, savoury roast pork. The porky prince of Sundays. Except I had this on Saturday. Er…..

I watched Jamie’s programme on British pork, and immediately raced out for some Freedom Food British shoulder of pork from Sainsbury’s. Can’t recall ever having roast with shoulder before, usually loin or leg. So it was an experiment.
Following Jamie’s recipe, I scored the fat for crackling and smeared it with coarse salt. It went in the oven on a very high heat, then after half an hour turned it down to a normal-ish 180C. At this point the skin was all puffed up. After another hour I piled the baking tray with celery, carrots, red onions, sage and bay and plonked the pork back on top. After about another hour and a half the pork was as above, golden-dark and dripping with flavour. Crucially it was also possible to pull the meat apart with fingers – therefore done. I put the meat to one side and covered with foil to rest. (I didn’t actually eat it for perhaps another hour and a half).
Meanwhile the tray went on the hob and I put a splash of Marsala in with the veg, scraping away to get all the yummy black bits off the bottom. Once reduced I added veg stock and stirred until I was left with a thick, rich dark gravy. After pushing through a sieve I had a gloriously savoury meat juice.
Served with cabbage, carrots and – what else? – roast potatoes, it was great. Nice one Jamie – support British pigs!
Categories
chorizo food pasta peas

chorizo hot pot

One of those “Feed Your Family For A Fiver” things from Sainsbury’s. I can’t help but embellish though.

Two onions (two onions? Insanity!) and my old friend, sliced chorizo are fried together til crispy. Then tinned tomatoes, veg stock and some conchiglie are added. This is where I chuck in oregano and paprika, cos it just sounds too bland. Twenty minutes later there’s frozen peas in there, and once they’re done, we’re done.
To my surprise it didn’t need any seasoning at all. Nice one J Sains.
Categories
chicken chickpeas coriander food

chicken and chickpea casserole

I saw this recipe on a low GI recipe website, but it was a little under-developed and felt sure it wasn’t going to quite come together. So I embedded a few ideas: a sofritto base of onion and carrots, but that wasn’t quite enough. I remember doing an Italian pasta sauce starting with basil stalks, infusing the whole thing with a deep flavour. For this I felt coriander would be  good fit. Whaddya know, tastier than expected: red onion, carrots, and coriander stalks sweated off, then diced chicken, chickpeas, button mushrooms, tin tomatoes, tabasco and chicken stock are added. After 45 mins simmering some lemon juice, soy sauce, salt and pepper and coriander leaves are added for seasoning.

Served with greek yoghurt mixed with lemon juice and more coriander, this was quite satisfying and pretty simple.

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