Jo’s braised Winter Celery recipe
Celery had never been a great love until I discovered Winter Celery. I thought that it was just celery cleverly rebranded. When I tasted it, I was stunned by the flavour and texture. Intense and crunchy in a way that makes ordinary celery seem very flat. So I made our oven baked celery soup and took some round to a vegetarian friend. She was smiley and polite. A few hours later she telephoned. “Where exactly did you get the celery? The soup was sublime.” Like me, she hadn’t heard of Winter Celery. Since then, the flags have gone up...
read moreSunday roast: Roast duck with piquant plum and apple sauce recipe
We were both working at the weekend so a trip to the new butcher in Fordham wasn’t an option. But we did wake on Sunday to home cured bacon slowly cold smoked for 36 hours over apple wood in our inglenook chimney. Our sitting room is unheated at the moment so long, cold smoking is viable, Sometimes cutting back on the heating reaps real dividends! But we had no joint for the Sunday roast. “I’m happy to eat Spaghetti Bolognaise. We don’t need to roast a joint every Sunday.” Danny cut a forkful of bacon and topped it with a grilled...
read moreDanny’s simple and succulent herb infused lamb chops recipe
D generally cooks on a Friday. It used to be steak. Now it’s something a bit more economical. On Thursday I found a chunky pack of lamb loin chops in the fridge reserved for his chef spot. They’re cheaper than steak but still a big Friday night treat. When I pushed open the cottage front door he was busy with string and chops. “Don’t look. It’s a surprise dish.” My antenna has 20/20 surround vision. He was tying the chops together with string. The effect resembled an eccentric rack of lamb with chunkier chops. The result was...
read moreBiltong
When we visited The Carter Street butchers in Fordham last weekend there were long slim peppered beef sausages hanging in the window. Beyond these was a rack where some dark dried meat was hanging. “There are fifty Southern Africans living in the village. Eventually I had to try my hand at making Biltong,” the butcher confided as he cut us a bit of peppered beef sausage to sample. The beef sausage was very good and we bought one. “Shall we buy some Biltong too?” “Not today.” Danny was firm. By the time I returned to collect a pork...
read moreIs it better to soak dried beans overnight or use the ‘quick soak’ method?
I found some half price braising steak and parsnips on offer at the weekend. Both were tossed into my trolley along with a chunky bag of carrots and a can of Guinness. It’s the perfect weather for a beef in Guinness stew. As I was chopping the vegetables Danny piped up. “Do you know what would be really great with this dish. Some butter beans and the flageolets that were in the Pheasant and Venison Casserole à La Beastley. They were so tasty and packed with flavour.” A year ago Danny would never have dreamt that beans could be good in...
read moreDanny’s Belly of Pork slow roasted on a bed of Bramley apples recipe
Danny was upbeat as he swung his car into the space front of the butcher’s shop. “Let’s stop mourning Fred’s old shop closing and enjoy the search for a new butcher. It could be fun.” The Chicken Lady had reminded me that there was a good butcher in Fordham, a fifteen minute drive from Cheveley. This shop specialises in free range local meat. Some of their cattle graze on the stud farms that surround our village. We stepped over the threshold past a long fringe of spiced beef and hunks of biltong. This was an unusual sight in a...
read moreEasy creamed potatoes
One of our first culinary clashes was over mashed potatoes. “To be good, they need to be hugely unhealthy with lashings of cream and butter,” Danny announced as he searched the fridge shelves for double cream. “I like them made with a dash of milk and a large knob of butter.” “Milk?” His eyes rolled. We did agree on one point. White pepper is essential. I had always used black pepper but Danny introduced me to the subtleties of white on eggs, swede and potatoes. So we have a small oak peppermill filled with white peppercorns that...
read moreBest quick sandwich recipe
One of the great things about winter is that Jalopy becomes a sort of mobile fridge. Most of the door seals have deteriorated to slivers. This is great for keeping sandwiches chilled. Yesterday’s unfinished sandwich can fill a ‘no time for breakfast’ gap if I am running late the next morning. If you drive a ‘normal’ car, you need a letter from your parents to try this trick as the interior of most modern cars are well insulated against the cold. If you drive a Jalopy, this post may be of interest to you. I’d bought a...
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