Skirt of beef recipe stir fried with baby vegetables and red wine
Skirt of beef (also known as Flank Steak, Fajita Meat, Skirt Steak and Philadelphia Steak) is not well known in the UK. It has an excellent texture and flavour somewhere between sirloin and fillet steak. It can be used as a fried steak or here in a stir fry as well as in stews.
read moreStore cupboard recipes: spaghetti and veal meatballs in a light tomato sauce
I had a yearning for spaghetti and meatballs yesterday. I have no idea why as I don’t think that I’ve ever eaten this dish in my life but somehow the combination appealed. I spent a morning in the kitchen creating the sauce. My challenge was to use as many dehydrated ingredients as possible and some of our home bottled/canned tomatoes from the autumn. Incidentally these are delicious and I will be making much more this year. The meat wasn’t dehydrated – I haven’t tried doing meat yet – but I had found and defrosted some...
read moreSlow cooker chef: Steak, venison and duck au vin recipe
Our fridge freezer has been a bit of a trial for quite a few years now. It has problems coping with external high and low temperatures and generally performs best in the spring or autumn. So it was a bit of a surprise when we found the larder floor covered in dark water. We both assumed that the other had kicked the bacon curing pot. The next day I investigated further and noticed red liquid dripping out of the freezer door. This is no super duper frost free machine. It has to be manually defrosted. If we forget to do this, the ice...
read moreCalves liver with a delicate Puy lentil sauce recipe
Years ago Danny and I had an unforgettable meal in a Soho restaurant. As far as I remember we were the only customers that evening but the restaurant was designed so that we sat in our own little section – the atmosphere was intimate and the food delicious. The star dish of the evening was calves liver with a sauce of puy lentils. The combination was astonishingly good. Melt in the mouth liver combined with the texture of the lentils was a perfect partnership. I’ve tried to recreate the lentil sauce many times since that memorable meal...
read moreBeef stir fry with water chestnuts and black bean sauce recipe
It’s rare for us to eat out these days as it’s so expensive. But I try and cook something a bit special for Saturday night. When I visited The Carter Street Butcher I picked up a 600g piece of organic skirt of beef for four quid – far cheaper than the non organic butchers in Newmarket. I had a longing for water chestnuts and black bean sauce so I added them to my weekly shopping list and glided down to Newmarket in Danny’s car. A lot of people had clearly spent the day decorating the outside of their houses with fairy lights and...
read moreStir fry with skirt of beef, green pepper and spring onion recipe
Sometimes we need a hefty meat fix. For years it was steak every Friday night, then it was an occasional steak when we found them on sale. Now it will be skirt of beef. Not only is it economical at about £3.50 for 500g it’s tastier than steak and has a wonderful texture. In the UK skirt is generally a largely undiscovered cut of beef. So thank you Jo and more recently Paula for pointing me in the direction of the broad range of ways to cook this superb cut. Having already made a skirt of beef casserole in the slow cooker I thought that...
read moreThe slow cooker chef: Warming winter stew with skirt of beef and baby carrots recipe
Last year my friend Jo mentioned skirt of beef. I’d never even heard of the cut before let alone spotted it in the butchers. “If you slice it very fine, it’s wonderful in a stir fry. And even better it’s so cheap.” I’ve since discovered that it’s the traditional meat used in Cornish Pasties. Although my Cornish pal Tessa uses chuck steak. Last week I went to the market to buy some vegetables – they are always knocked down in price at the end of the day. I bought two large bunches of baby carrots for a pound – these would...
read moreThe slow cooker chef: Venison and shin of beef casserole recipe
This is a really easy recipe that I made last week. I forgot to take a picture of the dish so have put up this photograph as it includes a brass deer that belonged to my mother as a child. I love eating venison but it’s so expensive here in the UK. We buy it when it’s marked down in price and stash it in the freezer for game pies and casseroles. Shin of beef is delicious too – slowly simmered for 8-10 hours the gristly meat transforms into a melt in the mouth treat. Combine the two for a casserole that is deeply satisfying on a...
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