Welcome to the first in a twelve month series of seasonal, simple and helpful ideas for those in pursuit of good old fashioned epicurean pleasures. You should be able to manage all the recipes with the bare minimum of cheffy skills and posh kitchen gadgetry. We’re not going to be infusing, scenting, foaming, injecting, emulsifying or drawing pretty pictures in five different sauces on large white plates. I suggest that if you have a good sharp knife to hand, a hot stove nearby and a fair idea about what you like to eat, then you’re already in cracking shape for some impressive efforts.
One thing I will say again and again throughout the series is to always buy the best ingredients you can reasonably afford. Good ingredients will more than make up for any lack of culinary talent. How does the popular idiom go? You can't make a silk purse out of a cow's ear? Never a truer word.
With that in mind I will kick around some tasty ideas that use simple and inexpensive ingredients that you can find produced within short distance of where you live.
Feel free to change any ingredients you can't find for something available near you and feel even freer to change any ingredients not to your taste for something you do.
Have fun! Wes :)
Mutton Stew & Lemon Turnips followed by Baked Rhubarb Pudding
Mutton Stew
When it's ready, a huge ladle full of this stew sat on your plate next to your lemon turnips should look like the best thing you’ve seen all day. The best bit is … any leftovers will taste twice as good tomorrow.
Ingredients
1 kg neck end or leg of mutton. (If you can't find mutton, wait until the new lambs are ready. You could also ask the butcher to hang the lamb for a couple of weeks to develop the flavour)
2 large onions – quartered
3 garlic cloves – halved lengthways (take out that little green shoot in the middle – it’s bitter)
3 large carrots chopped big
1 big bay leaf – ripped but whole
1 cinnamon stick
250ml dry white wine
1 tablespoon of green peppercorns – crushed
A handful of pearl barley
Recipe
1.Cut, pull, scrape all the good meat off the bone and chop into fair size chunks.
2.Put the bone in your oven on the hottest setting, get it out when it's brown but not black.
3.In a big pan, gently fry the garlic, onion and carrot for about 10 minutes.
4.Add the meat to brown – turn up the heat but keep stirring so the veggies don't burn.
5.Add the roasted bone to the mix and the wine and cook until the vapour no longer smells strongly of alcohol.
6.Add everything else, just about cover with cold water and turn the heat down to a simmer.
7.Leave the stew simmering away for at least 2 hours. Once the meat is no longer raw and the barley is doing its thickening work you can start adding salt – a bit at a time, a good stir and then taste is the way to do it.
8.It's done when it looks, like you imagined it would – but this may take longer than you think. The temptation is always to take it off the heat early but the longer you wait the better it will taste. The veggies should be soft and falling apart under a fork, the meat should be tender and stringy – not hard or springy. The juice should be a rich dark brown colour and thickened slightly so it holds together on a plate.
9.When you've decided you can't wait any longer, leave it cooking while you spend fifteen minutes getting your turnips ready and your plates warming.
Lemon Turnips
Do you know what I mean by turnips? You’re looking for those little magnolia white ones with purple pink cheeks and long happy leaves. They come in bunches and the smaller the sweeter. The common perception of turnips is of the large, fibrous greenish things that your mother used to boil for days and then try to sneak into the mashed potato thinking you wouldn’t notice. Those are fine for warming mid winter soups and roasted veggies on Sundays but they’re not what we want here. It’s nearly springtime so seek the springtime turnip.
Ingredients
Handful of turnips – think 2 small turnips per person
Leafy greens from the top of the turnips
Knob of butter
Zest of ½ unwaxed lemon – grated or chopped
½ tablespoon of juice from the same lemon
½ teaspoon of caraway seeds – crushed
Recipe
1.Prepare the turnips: pull off the leaves and keep to use like spinach. Trim any stalks and rinse away any soil from the top of the turnip. DO NOT peel the turnips – leave all the purpley goodness intact.
2.Cook the turnips: put into already boiling water for about 5 minutes, or until a cocktail stick goes in easily without the turnip falling apart. Now cool under cold water or in a bowl of iced water.
3.Heat the butter in a pan (if the butter starts to brown then turn the heat down).
4.Add the caraway seeds and fry for a minute taking care not to burn them or they will turn horribly bitter.
5.Toss in the turnips and push them around the pan until they go a nice shiny brown colour.
6.Remove from the heat – add the lemon juice, zest and a good pinch of salt and white pepper.
Baked Rhubarb Pudding
This is a bit of a different approach to rhubarb and custard and perfect towards the end of March when the new season rhubarb is ready for pulling.
Ingredients
Some old white bread – crusts and everything is fine
2 or 3 good sized sticks of rhubarb – peeled (easiest with a small sharp knife)
175g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod split lenghtways
8 egg yolks
½ pint milk
½ pint double cream (must be double cream)
Recipe
1.Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a bowl and,
2.Put milk, cream and vanilla pod into a saucepan and bring to the boil gently.
3.Keep whisking the egg mix whilst slowly pour in the hot milk mix.
4.Leave to cool and then pass through a fine sieve to get out any lumps and the vanilla pod. That’s your custard.
5.Tear the bread into good size chunks and enough to cover a baking dish.
6.Chop the peeled rhubarb and cook in a dry saucepan over a medium heat with a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar until soft. Drain the juice through a sieve.
7.Add the bread and the sugared rhubarb to a baking dish and pour over the custard mixture. The bread should start to float in places and the rhubarb will tend to end up on the bottom. This will stop the rhubarb sitting on top and burning. The liquid should come almost to the top of the dish.
8.Cover the dish with foil
9.Bake in a preheated oven already at 160 until the pudding is set and wobbles. If you push a knife right into the middle it should come out almost clean and not eggy.
10.Remove the foil, sprinkle some brown sugar on the top and grill the whole pudding until toasty brown.
11.Serve in a big bowl with some double cream or vanilla ice cream.
Wesley O'Aldridge is a volunteer for Action for Sustainable Living. If you try your hand at making any of Wesley's recipes please add a comment to our blog to let him know how you got along.
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