Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

Wow it’s hot, I loves it.

This dinner happened one night where I had beef and asparagus lying around and I didn’t know what to do so I figured I would just wing it. You may or may not have noticed I have been doing a lot of asparagus recently, I gotta say, I’m almost over it now. But next time, I’m at the shops and find some nice looking fresh asparagus, I probably won’t be able to help myself again.

Mashed Potato with Burnt Sage Butter

This is for 2:

1. 4-5 medium potatoes
2. 10 fresh sage leaves
3. 1 big pinch of salt
4. 80 g of butter
5. a few twists of black pepper
6. some milk

Peel and cut potatoes into quarters. Cover with cold water, add salt and bring to boil. Meanwhile, add butter to a heated saucepan until the butter foams. Add sage leaves and turn the heat down low. Keep an eye on the butter until it turns brown and the sage leaves crisp. Set aside. Read the rest of this entry »

I love Yorkshire pudding. It’s just one of those things I grew up eating (British boarding school, y’know) and no matter how terrible they used to make them (and believe me, they did), yorkshire pudding are absolute must-haves in my kitchen when roast beef is to be made.

(searing the beef before roasting)

Josh felt like a bit of roast (‘a man has to have his roast!’ – yes it’s funny but only if you know him) and I made a mistake of letting him buy the beef. He came back with a 1/2 kilo piece of topside that was absolutely void of any visible fat at all. Seriously, how are you supposed to make great Yorkies without any beef drippings? Read the rest of this entry »

This is really basic but since I’ve been on about Thai food I might as well throw this in. As you may be aware (or not) that I am currently in love with my local fish monger (it’s an accent thing) and I have been buying some really good crustaceans and shellfish from them over the past weeks.

Josh is unfortunately not into crabs (and crustaceans in general. Lobsters had been wasted on him) the way I am. He’s just generally not mad about seafood like I am. So on a Saturday night when I was home alone, I cooked myself a seafood feast for one. Read the rest of this entry »

Right. So I have so far done roast chicken, roast lamb #1, roast lamb #2, so now we’re onto roast pork. I suspect one of these days I’m going to make roast beef and yorkshire pudding to complete the set.

So as usual, we start with our roasting base which are off cuts of vegetables that we use the rest the meat on and use it for gravy a bit later. Leave the skin on these if they are clean, otherwise peel them. The quantity is enough for about 4-6 people.

Roasting Base

1. 2 onions, sliced
2. 1 bulb of garlic, each clove lightly crushed
3. 1 large carrot, thickly sliced
4. 1 stick of celery, thickly sliced
5. 2 fresh bay leaves (or dried)
6. 2 large sprigs of rosemary
7. olive oil

Scatter all the chopped vegetables on the roasting tray and drizzle with some olive oil and season with a bit of salt and pepper.

Roasting the Pork

1. 1 kg. of boned roasting pork
2. olive oil
3. salt and pepper

Read the rest of this entry »

I completely forgot about this. This is what I served with the country style rabbit casserole and I forgot to write about it.

This is for four side serves:

1. 500 g. pumpkin, peeled and sliced
2. 1/2 sweet potato, peeled and sliced
3. 1/2 cup of cream
4. 1 tsp of ground nutmeg
5. a pinch of salt

The reason that the pumpkin and sweet potato should be sliced thinly is so that they cook faster. Start by steaming the pumpkin and potato pieces for 10-15 minutes until they fall apart when you put a knife through. Drain. Reserve some cooking water, you might need it to thin down the puree.

Heat the cream on low heat and add nutmeg. Toss through the sweet potato and pumpkin and using a fork or potato masher or you can use a stick blender (I don’t bother). Add a bit of the reserved cooking water if needed. Keep mixing until you get the desired consistency. Salt to taste. The purée should not be salted the way, say, mashed potato should be salted sparingly to round off the sweet taste of the pumpkin and sweet potato. Sometimes I use vegetable stock powder instead.