Pot-roasted lamb shoulder

I took on board Elwyn's comment (below my oxtail stew entry) when I pot-roasted a whole shoulder of lamb for our fireworks party. (Rain washed out the fireworks, so we simply ate and drank). I browned the onions in oil in my casserole dish first, but after that followed the principle behind the oxtail stew, throwing the rest of the ingredients into the pot: lamb, 2 bay leaves, sprig of rosemary, 1 head of garlic separated into cloves, salt. I had only about 50mls of chicken stock, which I poured in along with half a chicken stock cube. You may frown - but I think the cube added richness to the sauce, of which there was plenty for eight people.

You're supposed to cook meat gently. But shoulder of lamb is very forgiving. Because I was using my heaviest pot, I started cooking the dish at gas mark 6/200C, turning it down after an hour and half - and turning over the meat - once it was bubbling. The lamb, like the oxtail, browned inside the pot.

After another 45 minutes, I put the pot on the bottom of the oven, turned up the dial to 6 again, and roasted some potatoes on the top shelf.

At the end of all that, I was able to carve the meat with a spoon and fork. I strained the sauce (squeezing the garlic into it), and returned meat and sauce to the pot, to serve as a kind of stew. It was meltingly tender.

Oxtail stew made simple

I have got lazier since I wrote my previous recipe for oxtail stew. I am less fussy about submerging meet that is stewing entirely in liquid, because I have not observed that the higher temperature of a steam-filled, covered casserole causes it to toughen. However, it does brown - and that has led me to doubt whether it is necessary to brown the meat first. Simply turning it, so that each surface is exposed above the liquid, does the trick. So I rubbed my oxtails in just a little oil, which on the exposed surfaces offers some protection to the meat.

Softening onions in oil before stewing is another procedure that may not make much difference to the finished dish.

I have also grown reluctant to throw away flavoursome ingredients. The onions, having imparted their flavour to the sauce, are expendable; but it is a shame to waste the fat. The home cook has an advantage over the restaurant chef, who, largely for aesthetic reasons, must skim sauces.

Oxtail is particularly fatty. Oxtail stew with mashed potato may be a wintry treat, but, with unskimmed sauce, is too rich. Hence the plain, boiled potatoes above.

4 oxtails
A little sunflower oil
2 onions, chopped
1 garlic clove, unpeeled
1 ladleful beef (or chicken) stock
Sprig of thyme
Bay leaf
1tbsp tomato ketchup
Splash of Worcester sauce
1/2 star anise (since writing the previous recipe, I've decided that a whole star anise is too assertive)
Salt

Anoint the oxtails with a little oil, and arrange them in a casserole. Surround with the onions, garlic, star anise, and herbs; pour the stock around, and add the tomato and Worcester sauces. Add salt to taste.

Cook in a low oven for three to four hours. My Le Creuset casserole will simmer very gently on a gas mark S/130C heat (but may take a good hour to get to simmering point); your oven and dish may behave differently. Turn the oxtails from time to time.

Remove the oxtails, and sieve the sauce into a saucepan. Return the oxtails to the casserole, and cover. Taste the sauce, and reduce it if you like. Serve the oxtails with the sauce poured over.

Rocket, beetroot and goat's cheese salad

This salad for two - you see half of it above - consisted of:

2 large and 4 small beetroot
1 bag rocket
125g soft goat's cheese
2tbsp pine nuts, toasted in a dry saucepan over a very low heat
1dstsp balsamic vinegar
1/2tsp grain mustard
Salt, pepper
2dstsp extra virgin olive oil, plus a little more

I like to cook beetroot (after giving them a quick wash and trim) by putting them in a bath of boiling water in an oven dish, covering them, and baking at gas mark 4/180C. They seem to emerge moister and sweeter than when baked in foil. The smaller bulbs took about an hour to soften, and the larger ones nearly two hours.

Dissolve the mustard, with salt and pepper to taste, in the vinegar. (I used Tiptree Hot East Anglian mustard, which in fact is not particularly hot, and which has a sweetness that's ideal for this dish.) Whisk in the olive oil. The dressing can be quite sharp, because the creaminess of the cheese and the sweetness of the beetroot will offset it. Wash the rocket, and toss with the dressing.

Divide the rocket between two plates. Arrange the beetroot, peeled and sliced, on top; crumble over the goat's cheese, and scatter over the pine nuts. Drizzle a little more oil over everything.

Curried salmon

This curried salmon, which I made just for me, contained:

1 salmon steak
1tbsp sunflower oil
1dstsp butter
1 onion
2 green peppers
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1tsp cumin seeds, 1/2tsp coriander seeds, 5 cardamom pods, 6 black peppercorns, toasted over a low heat in a small saucepan, and ground in a mortar
2/3 tsp turmeric
1/3tsp cayenne pepper
4 red chillis, whizzed in an electric vegetable mill until roughly chopped
Salt 

(It doesn't have to be as hot as this, of course. Ginger would have been a nice addition, as would coriander leaves, scattered over the dish at the end of cooking.) 

I warmed the oil and butter in the pan, and threw in all the ingredients except the salmon. I covered the pan and cooked everything gently, and then uncovered the pan to evaporate most of the liquid.

This process took about 30 minutes. I put in the salmon steak, and cooked it in the covered pan (again over a very low heat) for about 15 minutes. As you can see, towards the end I chopped it into three pieces to speed the cooking.

Chicken, couscous and lentils

You could of course use left-over, cooked chicken in this dish. If you did, and if you cooked the lentils in water (draining them when soft) and soaked the couscous in water, you would get a much grainier result than I did - my concoction was sludgy, because of the syrupiness of stock when reduced. Serves 4.

6 chicken thighs
3 garlic cloves - 2 whole, 1 chopped
Chicken stock
150g green lentils
150g couscous
Handful of pine kernels, toasted in a small saucepan
6 spring onions, sliced (cover them in boiling water and soak them for 30 minutes if you think they may be too assertive)
1 aubergine, cubed, tossed in olive oil, seasoned, baked for 30 minutes until tender
Handful parsley, chopped
1 lime, juiced
Olive oil
Tin of tomatoes
1tsp harissa

Put the thighs in a pan large enough to hold them in a single layer. Pour in stock (or water) to come up to a level with the tops of them. Throw in the whole garlic cloves, with a bay leaf and a few peppercorns. Bring to a simmer and cook on a low heat, covered, until very tender - about 60 to 90 minutes. Remove the thighs to a bowl, and shred.

Use the liquid in which you've cooked the chicken to boil the lentils. Wash the lentils, drain them, and cover with stock with about 2cms to spare. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook until tender - about 30 minutes. Top up the liquid if and when necessary. When the lentils are nearly tender, uncover the pan and allow the liquid to evaporate.

Put the couscous into a measuring jug, check the level, then return it to the bowl in which you weighed it. Pour stock (you should have some left) or water into the jug to come to the same level. Bring it to a boil in a saucepan, tip in the couscous, make sure it is all soaked, and cover for five minutes.

Warm the chopped garlic in a tbsp olive oil in a saucepan. Tip in the tomatoes, with a little salt and the harissa. Add any stock you have left. (You can break up the tomatoes with a potato masher.) Simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes.

In a large bowl mix the chicken, lentils, pine kernels, spring onions, aubergines, parsley, lime, and a tbsp or two of olive oil. Serve the tomato sauce on the side.

Damson oat crumble

Hurry, while the damsons last. Their intense, tart flavour is unique. We're working our way through a compote - damsons simmered in sugared water until very soft, pushed through a sieve, and frozen in a Tupperware container. We warm up chunks of it, and eat it with a little cream or ice cream.

The following recipe comes, as do many of the pudding dishes on this blog, from Margaret Costa's Four Seasons Cookery Book (Grub Street). I quickly gave up the idea of stoning the damsons: most of the flesh adheres to the stones. So we had to pick out the stones as we ate.

It is difficult to rub butter efficiently into a mix of flour, oats and sugar. I ended up with a mixture that looked a bit like roughly ground hazelnuts. No matter.

This quantity served six at the end of a largish meal. It would be about right for four hungrier people.

675g damsons
115g brown sugar
55g porridge oats
25g plain flour
Pinch ground cinnamon
55g butter

Put the damsons in a buttered oven dish, sprinkle over half the sugar, and scatter over about 60ml of water.

In a bowl, mix the rest of the sugar, the oats, flour, and cinnamon. Rub in the butter. Do not worry about the lumpy texture.

Sprinkle the crumble mixture on top of the damsons, and bake in a mark 5/190C oven for about 30 minutes, or until the fruit is bubbling and the crumble is crunchy.

Fried cheese sandwiches

The ingredients for these three sandwiches were:

80g Gruyere, grated
2 egg yolks, beaten
1tsp mustard
Few splashes Worcester sauce
Cayenne and/or black pepper, if you like

Packeted, sliced bread works particularly well, I am afraid. Cut off the crusts. Mash the ingredients, and spread them on half of the slices, in the centre. Lay the other slices on top. You may find with this kind of bread that you can squidge the edges together.

Melt a knob of butter and a little olive oil in a frying pan, over a low to medium heat. (Use no more fat than you want to eat, because the bread will absorb it all.) Slip in the sandwiches, and fry until brown beneath - 2 to 3 minutes.

Remove the sandwiches, and add a little more butter and oil. The butter may sizzle rapidly, so to keep it from burning you may need to remove the pan from the heat. Fry the other sides of the sandwiches.