Beef satay skewers with peanut dipping sauce

I know, I know, it's been way too long since I last posted! I'm sorry. After I finished my exams (which I passed, yay!) I just kind of ran out of inspiration. It's not that I haven't been cooking just nothing particularly blog worthy.

A couple of weeks ago I was skimming through the Serious Eats newsletter when I came across a recipe for beef satay. Now I love satay but normally it's made with chicken and the peanut sauce is cooked onto the meat this recipe is different and it instantly grabbed my attention.Unlike the more usual chicken this satay is made with cubes of beef which are marinaded in a mixture of soy and fish sauce with garlic, chili, coriander, onion and a little brown sugar. The marinade alone is unbelievably good, it's salty, sweet and slightly spicy and would make fantastic steaks just simply grilled.
For the satay part of the recipe a peanut sauce is made with peanut butter, chili, garlic, coriander and brown sugar. It makes a wonderful creamy yet spicy sauce to dip the skewers into or pour over the top.Ideally these would be cooked over charcoal for an authentic charred and smoky flavour, when I cooked these it was cold and raining so I just used a very hot griddle which worked well. I served them scattered with chopped coriander leaves and a squeeze of lime juice. Thai Jasmine rice makes a perfect accompaniment.

The recipe can be found here.

Slow-cooked cottage pie

It's been a long time coming but here it is, my cottage pie recipe!

Although there's no sign of it today I have been confidently assured that spring is no far away, with that in mind I've been cooking up some of my favourite winter dishes before the weather turns back to spring and the time for summer recipes returns.

One of mine (and I think everybodies) favourites has to be cottage pie. My cottage pie is a slight twist from the classic recipe as I used braising steak instead of the usual mince, after slow-cooking the steak for several hours it became so tender it just fell apart and left me with a fantastic rich, meaty stew, the perfect filling for my pie.I really love the crispy crusty bits on top of a cottage pie, to achieve maximum crustiness I always fluff up the top before baking and then flash it under the grill before serving.
Recipe:

For the filling: -

• 400g braising/stewing steak cut into large chunks, seasoned and dusted with flour
• Sunflower or other cooking oil
• 2 medium onions roughly chopped
• A stick of celery finely sliced
• 3 carrots roughly chopped
• A pint of beef stock
• A couple of bay leaves
• Salt and pepper

For the topping: -

• 3 large potatoes peeled
• Milk
• Butter
• Salt and pepper

Method: -

• To prepare the filling first put a large casserole dish on the hob at a medium heat
• Add a little oil and cook the meat until it is well browned
• Add the onions celery and carrots and cook for a minute longer
• Tip in the stock, add the bay leaves and bring to a gentle simmer
• Cover the casserole dish and turn the heat right down, leave it to cook for at least an hour, preferably 2 or more.

• To make the mash topping simply boil the potatoes until tender, drain, add hot milk, butter and seasoning then mash!

• To assemble pour the filling into an oven proof dish
• Spoon the potato on top and fluff up well for extra crustiness
  
• Bake at gas 4 for 1-1 1/2 hours until golden
• If the top isn't crusty enough just stick it under the grill for a minute.
• Serve!
  

Home-made beef burgers

There's nothing quite like a good beef burger, fat, juicy and full of flavour. With barbecue season in full swing I thought I would try to convince you just how good burgers can be if you make your own, not only do they taste fantastic but they're a breeze to make too.

All you need to make the most basic of burgers is good quality minced beef, salt and pepper. I like to make mine a little more interesting by adding other flavours to the mix, you could add chilli, herbs, cheese, fried onions etc whatever you like really. For my burgers I used chopped sun-dried tomatoes and basil for an Italian feel then finished them off with some melting mozzarella, trust me, they were good!Once you've chosen your flavours it's just a case of mixing everything well together and using your hands to form them into burgers. I find it helps to leave in the fridge for an hour or so after you've made them as it helps them to firm up and keep their shape, of course if your really desperate you could cook them immediately!

So here are my top tips for making fantastic burgers:

• Use good quality mince/ground beef, you need some fat but not too much so don't buy the really cheap stuff.
• Add plenty of salt and pepper, they really need it.
• Don't add anything to chunky or too wet to the mixture this will cause the beef to break up during cooking and you'll be eating it from a bowl not a bun!
• Get the pan, grill or barbecue searingly hot before you put the burgers on, this will create a caramelised crust on the outside.
• Let the burgers rest in the fridge for an hour or so after you've made them so they can firm up.
  

I hope you'll try making your own, once you do you'll never go back!

100% Pure

It was a few months ago now since I first saw Willie Harcourt-Cooze on TV espousing the virtues of real chocolate. Willie is an eccentric entrepreneur from Devon whose aim is to produce the worlds finest chocolate, by hand, from bean to bar.

At the age of just 27 Willie went to Venezuela and bought a 1000 acre farm -as you do- and planted it with 50,000 Criollo Cacao trees, widely regarded as being the best and highest quality strain of cocoa.

A bar of Venezuelan black 100% cacao

Back in the UK Willie set up his factory and began to produce his first bars under the name Venezualan Black. This is chocolate but not as you know it, the bars are made from 100% pure Cacao, they are not at all sweet and are not meant for eating raw. This chocolate is meant to be used as an ingredient, just like you would use garlic or salt and pepper. In fact Willie puts his cacao into just about everything from pasta and chilli to cakes and desserts.

I finally got hold of some of his cacao a few days ago, the bar I bought was described as having "tingly notes of nut and spice" which makes it sound almost like a bottle of wine.

I plumped for a pot of chilli as my first dish to get the cacao treatment, chocolate is a common ingredient in chilli -i'm sure you knew that- so it seemed like a good place to start. I just used my normal chilli recipe but just before serving I added a handful of grated cacao. The effect was quite astounding, the chilli became deeper, darker and richer and gave a complex and interesting flavour.

Chocolate chilli tacos with sour cream and cheese

I'm definitely a cacao convert just a small amount can make a massive improvement to a dish like chilli. The downside is that at £6 a bar this stuff is not cheap for now it will have to remain an ingredient for special occasions.

Willies official website can be found here: http://www.williescacao.com/

Slow cooked bolognese sauce

I make bolognese relatively often, it's a great standby recipe that I like to think I've got down to a fine art. I've tried all manner of recipes and techniques, from different herbs to different vegetables or meat, you name it I've tried it! If there was one thing that every recipe has in common aside from the essentials like tomatoes and herbs, it would be that they all use minced meat.

When I have an idea I just can't let it go, weeks may pass, months even but I just have to try it in the end, and I had a great idea for improving my bolognese. I was going to replace the minced beef that I would normally use with whole pieces of braising steak then cook it long and slow. It did take months but I finally got around to trying it last week.

Other than swapping the mince for steak I followed my normal recipe. It took a lot longer to cook, around 4 hours, but needed no attention so I could go and do other things while it simmered gently on the stove.The finished sauce was rich and meaty, the flavour just seems to get better and better the longer it cooks. Tossed through some papardelle pasta with shavings of pamesan this made for an extremely tasty bolognese indeed.

A few tips for a great bolognese sauce:

• Always brown your meat first, it improves the flavour no end.
• Bacon can improve anything, add some chooped bacon to your sauce for a delicious flavour.
• Don't add too many different herbs and flavourings, keep it simple.

Obama's chili

Not only is Barack Obama the President and a great politician, but it seems as if he can cook too, At least he can if his chili recipe is anything to go by.

I found this recipe over at Hopies Kitchen and was intrigued to find out just how good Obama's cooking is. The chili contains a couple of unexpected ingredients, turmeric, basil and red wine vinegar, I've never seen these in a chili recipe before but they didn't seem out of place in the finished dish, in fact they were a nice addition that I will use again.
I followed the recipe pretty closely the only changes being that I doubled the spices and herbs to add more flavour and I used an extra pepper. I also used black beans instead of kidney beans simply because that's what I had.

Recipe (Original from ABC News)

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• Several cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pound ground turkey or beef
• 1/4 teaspoon (each) of ground cumin, ground oregano, ground turmeric, and ground basil
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• Several tomatoes, depending on size, chopped
• 1 can red kidney beans

Method:

• Sauté onions, green pepper and garlic in olive oil until soft.
• Add ground meat and brown.
• Combine spices together into a mixture, then add to ground meat.
• Add red wine vinegar.
• Add tomatoes and let simmer, until tomatoes cook down.
• Add kidney beans and cook for a few more minutes.
• Serve over white or brown rice. Garnish with grated cheddar cheese, onions and sour cream.

I thought the finished dish was really tasty and well flavoured and well balanced, I'll certainly be making it again although next time I will add more vegetables.

Steak pie

I am a huge fan of pies of every type, from shepherds pie to apple pie and everything in between, you name it I love it! There is nothing like the smell of a pie baking, or the satisfaction that comes from breaking through the crust to reveal the delicious filling.

I don't tend to eat pies during the summer, but when the weather turns cooler pies are exactly the kind of food I crave, warming, comforting and tasty!

I am always disappointed with ready made pies, normally the filling consists of masses of gravy and hardly any meat. What meat there is is in tiny pathetic little pieces, I like big chunks of meat in mine, the only way to get that is to do it myself.

So I made my all-time favourite pie, steak and kidney. At least it was going to be steak and kidney except, it turned out that the kidneys that I had in the freezer weren't in the freezer. after a long search empying the freezer, my hands going blue I gave up! I think someone must have stolen them!

So here it is kidney-less steak and kidney pie AKA "Cow Pie"This pie is made in two stages, the first stage is basically a casserole, braising steak is perfect for this but it needs long slow cooking. I prepared it in the morning and left it to simmer for hours on a very low light. the next stage is when it becomes a pie, the meat gets a pastry lid and is baked until golden delicious.

Beef and Guinness casserole

When I set out yesterday morning there was a distinct chill in the air, although I hate to admit it I have to accept that winter is coming.
Now I'm not a big fan of winter, there's something about the freezing cold the sun setting at 4:00 and the terrible weather that just doesn't appeal to me. The only consolation is that when conditions outside are so bad it is the perfect time to cook food this good.
Casseroles and stews are amongst my foods of choice during the winter, perfect for warming up again after I've been out in the freezing cold! They also provide a great way to use all the winter roots that are abundant at this time of year.Last night I cooked Beef and Guinness casserole, although it was a simple affair containing few ingredients it packed in plenty of flavour, thanks largely to the Guinness. This beer (stout to be accurate) has an intense flavour that is a perfect match for beef. After long slow cooking the flavour mellows quite significantly to leave a beautifully rich meaty gravy which is why I served mine with good crusty bread to mop up every last bit.

Recipe

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 2 pounds (900g) Stewing beef, diced.
• 6 onions roughly chopped.
• 4-5 carrots roughly chopped.
• 2-3 sticks of celery roughly chopped.
• 2 cloves of garlic crushed and chopped.
• Herbs, I used thyme sage and bay.
• 2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard.
  
• 1 can of Guinness (you could use another beer, choose something with plenty of flavour)
• 1 Beef stock cube.
• Salt and pepper
  

Method

• Preheat oven on a low heat, around gas mark 2.
  
• Heat some oil in a large oven-proof pan on the hob and brown the meat on all sides.
• Add all the vegetables to the pan and cook for a couple of minutes.
• Add everything else to the pan and season well with salt and pepper.
• Make sure everything is well mixed, put a lid on the pan and put in the oven for at least 2 hours, preferably longer.
• Serve with good bread.