This is one that swilled around my head for a while until coming together. It’s a hybrid of ideas from a recent appearance of Theo Randall on Saturday Kitchen and a Jamie Oliver 30 minute meal.
The most satisfying part of this is using the part of the broccoli you usually throw away, the stalk. Whizzed up and fried it’s as tasty as it’s flowery florets. Mixed with sausage and cream it’s almost rich. Whouda thunk it, broccoli being rich?! Make sure you’re generous with the chilli to balance it all out.
While I ate it I thought pine nuts would be great with this – must try it next time.
Sausage & broccoli penne (serves 2):
2 rashers bacon, sliced
1 head of broccoli
4 sausages, skinned
1 anchovy
Big pinch of chilli flakes
2 cloves garlic
200g penne
50ml double cream
Handful of parmesan
Heat a little oil in a pan and add the bacon. Get a large pot of water on to boil.
In a food processor blitz the broccoli to crumbs with the anchovy. Drop in the sausages and add a trickle of olive oil to make a paste.
Add the paste to the bacon in the pan and stir fry for a few minutes. Crush in the garlic and get the pasta on to boil.
After the pasta has cooked for about 5 minutes, add the broccoli florets and cook for 5 minutes more.
Turn the heat down low and add the cream and parmesan, stirring well to combine. Add the drained pasta and broccoli and if necessary let it down with a little of the pasta water. When mixed nicely and all slick and creamy, check seasoning and serve with more parmesan.
Sunday lunch is when you want to just go for it. I grew up in one of those lucky houses where my Mum cooked a Sunday roast every week without fail, and recently it’s been nagging at me to do this much more regularly for my own family. But my Mum didn’t have Twitter to distract her. Or Facebook. Or Dave Gorman’s Absolute radio show. But I’m trying.
This is a fairly typical roast for me, and when you do more involved roasts with a few side-dishes, I think you should forgive yourself a few shortcuts. Why not use packet stuffing, or frozen yorkies? We all know you can make them, but the extra timing, oven space and graft is more worthwhile concentrating on getting the big stuff right. So I took a few liberties.
And I know what some of you are thinking. “Yorkies? With chicken?” Yes. They were made to float on gravy of any description. Try and stop me.
The chicken here was excellent, from those fine chaps at Farmers Choice. It gave brittle, savoury skin with plump and flavour-packed meat. A real treat.
If the thought of making a Sunday roast scares you, and just seeing that list of things is too daunting, don’t panic. I bet you could cook all those things on the list individually. So it comes down purely to timing. If it helps, write a list. Start with the thing that takes longest to cook, and count things in from then – see below for a guide. Don’t forget to allow the roast time to rest. But be bold, and always remember that the gravy will heat everything back up again 🙂
Sunday roast chicken with roast potatoes, carrots and brussels sprouts (serves 4 – 6, + leftovers):
1.6kg chicken
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 onion, quartered
20g butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon parsley, finely chopped
500g white potatoes, peeled and diced into golf ball-sized chunks
1 tablespoon fine polenta
25g butter
2 bay leaves
Dash of red wine vinegar
3 carrots, peeled and sliced
250g brussels sprouts
100g cooked chestnuts
4 rashers back bacon, rind removed and reserved and sliced
1 tablespoon maple syrup
A few hours before, sprinkle the marjoram over the bird. Spread it all over generously with salt and black pepper, then place on a rack over a roasting dish and pop in the the fridge for about 3 hours. This step draws flavours down into the chicken, while at the same time drying out the skin to make it super-crispy.
Pre-heat the oven to 220°C. This temperature will really blast the skin and make it golden.
Get the chicken out of the fridge and add a few more flavourings: put 2 quarters of the onion inside the carcass and the other two on the base of the roasting dish you’re going to use. Mix the butter, parsley and garlic together. Work your fingers under the skin of the chicken to release it from the meat, then slowly push the butter into this little pocket you’ve created. Put into the oven and leave there for 15 minutes, before turning the heat down to 180°C.
Meanwhile, get the potatoes on. Get a large pan of boiling water on and salt generously. Par-boil for 10 or so minutes, until a knife can slide in and out easily (I usually jab a knife into a wedge then suspend it above the water – when it can fall off within a few seconds they’re ready). Drain well and leave to sit in the warm pan without a lid for a few minutes to steam dry. Put the butter with a splash of rapeseed oil into another baking dish and place in the oven to heat up. Toss the potatoes in the polenta and then tip out into the now hot fat. These are going to need about 45 minutes, which will cross over with removing the meat from the oven. When you remove the meat, turn the heat back up to 200°C for the potatoes’ sake.
When the chicken is cooked (look for juices running clear when probed), remove to a wooden board and cover loosely with foil. Pop the roasting dish on a high hob and add a tablespoon of flour, stirring well. After a minute add about 300ml boiling water to cover the bottom of the tray and get scraping to get all that good stuff. Sieve into a jug for serving, and give it a short blast in the microwave to keep the heat up right at the end.
If you’re using packet stuffing like me, you’ll probably need to do the boiling-water-and-stick-in-the-oven thing here. Let the instructions on the box guide you.
When the potatoes have had about 20 minutes, add sea salt, a little white pepper, the bay leaves, red wine vinegar and the bacon rind. Return to the oven.
Get the carrots and sprouts on to cook. When you are cooking multiple veg I recommend a multiple-tier electric steamer. It gets everything going at once and frees up a space on the hob. The carrots will need around 15 minutes.
While the sprouts cook, get a frying pan on medium hot and add a little oil. Throw in the bacon and wait til it colours on one side before adding the part-cooked sprouts and chestnuts. Stir fry well for five minutes.
The potatoes might need a final blast of seasoning, otherwise they’re good to serve. Take the chicken to the table, pouring any spare juice into the gravy jug, and get someone else to carve. You’ve done enough.
If you’re using frozen yorkshire puddings, they’ll need their 2 minutes in the oven now.
When the sprouts are tender, take them off the heat and add the maple syrup. Toss well to coat and serve, and don’t forget the carrots!
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?
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.
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.
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.
I’m a get-your-shopping-delivered kind-of-guy. In a family where both parents work someone carrying the shopping to your door just makes sense. It has it blips, when some things aren’t available, or maybe you can’t quite figure out what 350g of leeks look like so you over-order on purpose, but generally speaking there’s palpable relief when you shut the door on full cupboards without having left the house.
At the moment Sainsbury’s are running a “5 meals for £20” in a planner format. No ready meals, all recipe-led stuff. Naturally it’s not incredible gourmet food but homely, economic grub. I’ve been trying them out this week including turkey & bean pasta.
I substituted the chilli for paprika just for the hell of it. This should be as plain as you like but against expectation it’s jolly filling and jolly tasty. I froze some for another day, and will be looking forward to it.
Turkey and bean pasta (serves 4):
200g bacon lardons
500g turkey thigh mince
1 tin red kidney beans, drained
4 carrots, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon tomato puree
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 cloves garlic
300ml vegetable stock
1 tin tomatoes
350g pasta (e.g. fusilli)
Get a frying pan on a high heat and add a splash of olive oil. Add the bacon and fry for a minute or two, until the bacon is coloured all over.
Add the turkey and carrots and continue to stir fry for a couple more minutes until the turkey is browned. Add the puree, paprika and cumin and continue to fry for another minute, mixing well.
Add the garlic, stock and tinned tomatoes. When it comes to the boil reduce to a simmer for ten minutes.
Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to the pack instructions. When it’s done take a splash of the pasta water into the turkey stew then toss together with the drained pasta. Serve with garlic bread.
