Scallops and sprouts

As its pretty much Christmas and if you haven't yet, better get the sprouts in before the annual panic buying frenzy strips the shelves. Sprouts aren't just for the turkey, I hope we can all agree on that. This is simply a perfect little canape idea for your Christmas eve...

Scallop and Brussels sprouts with Jalapeño salsa

Serves 4

4 large scallops

Sea salt

20 Brussels sprouts

1 tblsp plus 1 tsp grapeseed oil

2 tsp clarified butter

Beetroot strips for garnish

Jalapeño salsa

1 red onion

A few coriander leaves

½ jalapeño chilli

1 tblsp Jalapeño dressing

Start preparing the jalapeño salsa: finely chop the red onion, coriander, and jalapeño. Place all of these in a bowl.

Salt the scallops. Peel away the individual leaves of the sprouts.

Put a small frying pan over a medium heat and add a little grapeseed oil to it. Sauté the scallop in it until very lightly browned on both sides.

At the same time place another larger frying pan over a medium heat and add some oil to that. Salt the sprout leaves and quickly and lightly sauté them. They should remain slightly crunchy. Finally add the clarified butter to the sprout leaves and quickly heat through.

Place the scallop in the middle of the plate and pile the sprout leaves around the scallop.

Finish the jalapeño salsa by adding the jalapeño dressing to the red onion, coriander and jalapeño, and blend swiftly together. Top the scallop with the jalapeño salsa. Garnish with a little beetroot.

Aim to sauté the scallop so it is lightly browned on the outside, but still medium-rare on the side.

The jalapeño salsa ingredients should be mixed with their dressing just before serving, to best enjoy its flavour and piquancy.

Meatloaf is the new foie

No really, it is...  Have a bash at this now it's freezing cold outside, you really ought to trust me. Quite a lengthy ingredients list, but there's nothing over the top and about half should be store cupboard staples anyway. Bit of mash, braised red cabbage and a splash of gravy and all is good with the world again.




Meatloaf

Serves 4-6

50g butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 celery stalks, finely sliced
1 green pepper, finely chopped
4 spring onions, sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 tblsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tblsp chilli sauce
1 tblsp Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
125ml evaporated milk
125ml tomato ketchup
750g minced beef
250g minced pork or sausage meat
2 free-range eggs, lightly beaten
250g breadcrumbs
Freshly ground salt and pepper 

Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add the onion, celery, pepper, spring onions, garlic, parsley, chilli sauce, Worcestershire sauce and bay leaves. Cook over a gentle heat, stirring occasionally, for about 6 minutes.

Add the evaporated milk and ketchup and continue to cook for a further 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Discard the bay leaves. 

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4.

Place the beef and pork in a large bowl; add the eggs, breadcrumbs and vegetable mixture, and season. Place the mixture in an ungreased roasting dish and bake for 25 minutes. Raise the temperature to 200C/Gas 6 and bake
for a further 35-40 minutes.

Serve from the roasting dish

Wagyu weekend treat

It's the day of rest, and no better time for a deserved weekend treat this evening. Don't hold back on ordering the roast chicken, or pork even, but save any beef urges for later tonight, I certainly will be. This is utterly Cantonese in its inspiration, fun and fresh. Steam a bit of rice, and some greens, then whack this together in your wok. Perfectly comfortable and of course you don't need to go the whole wagyu hog, but it isn't really a treat if you don't.

Pan-fried diced wagyu beef in teriyaki sauce 

Serves 4

600g wagyu beef (cut into dice)

12 stalks of fresh asparagus (peeled and trimmed) cut into 4cm lengths

2 tblsp teriyaki sauce

½ tsp cornstarch, dissolved in a tblsp water

300ml chicken stock

Heat a splash of vegetable oil in a wok and sauté the asparagus for a few seconds, remove with a wire mesh skimmer and drain well

Heat the wok with water, when boiling blanch the asparagus again for a few seconds (remove excess oil) drain well, clean the wok and pour the chicken stock to cook the asparagus for a further 3 minutes. Remove from wok and place on a plate.

Reheat the wok with another splodge of vegetable oil, just enough to coat the surface, place the diced beef in the wok and fry hard until golden brown all over, remove from wok and place on plate.

Pour teriyaki sauce into the wok, add chicken stock and seasoning when boiling, adjust the fire and stir in the dissolved cornstarch to thicken the sauce then spoon over the beef and asparagus and serve.

There's nothing much better than a Mackerel sky

Generally speaking, I'm a massive fan of mackerel on a barbecue in the summer, slathered with a fist of lemon juice and a heavy hand with the seasoning including a smatter of chopped green chilli. Although becoming (already become) quite the fashionable fish, it's still relatively cheap and very available while being very good for you in an oily fish kind of a way. Barbecuing aside, there's a ton of recipes out there for the mackerel, the only thing I'd say is catch it (or buy it) and cook as quick as you can, it does have a tendency not to stay at it's best for too long.

Here's a thing for you, a mackerel sky is one of those views as you look up at a seemingly endless sea of extensive clouds that look like fish scales on a bright day. Clouds that are small and white, and usually line themselves up in groups in a regular pattern are something we might not see again for a while now summer is as good as officially over... 

Back in the kitchen though, autumn flavours are starting, and a most welcome change in tempo indeed. This is a terrific one oven tray dinner, but for a great finish to the mackerel, run a blowtorch over the fish to blacken and blister the skin just before serving. This gives it a certain smokiness, really brings out a new dimension to the flavour and makes a massive difference. 

Mackerel with new potatoes and bay leaves

Serves 3-6

1kg new potatoes, scrubbed, the bigger ones halved
2 red onions, halved and sliced
12 bay leaves
6 garlic cloves, unpeeled but bashed to break the skins
2 lemons, halved and thickly sliced
3-4 tblsp olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
30g butter
6 mackerel fillets
Lemon wedges, to serve

Heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4. Scatter the potatoes in a roasting tin with the onions, bay leaves, garlic, lemon slices and olive oil. Season well; toss everything to combine, then dot the top with the butter.

Roast in the oven until the potatoes are browning and tender, rattling the tin once or twice – about 30-40 minutes.

Carefully take the tin out of the oven. Season the mackerel fillets and lay them skin-side up on top of the potatoes.

Return to the oven and roast for a further six to 10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillets, until the mackerel is just opaque. Serve with some lemon wedges and an interesting salad - the fish can take bold flavours so don't be afraid to throw a few capers, maybe some chilli or some pomegranate into a bit of extra dressing here.

Don't forget me. Love, Sir Loin

Have we fallen out of love with the once grand sirloin of beef then? I truly do hope we haven't. It's still a decent piece of meat I get great enjoyment from, and continue to be able to use it in all manner of preparations - from dicing it for burritos to the perfect steak sandwich meat. I cooked a decent piece for lunch yesterday, in the fashion below, and was really most pleasantly happy with the outcome indeed. This would be great with a lovely creamy purée of parsnips or some braised silver beets or Swiss chard, but yesterday I slow roasted some split unpeeled shallots in the beef juices, garlic and thyme, and plopped it on a cauliflower purée. 

The perfect amount left over for some cold roast beef sandwiches for lunch today. Watercress, English mustard and a scraping of mayonnaise on white bread. Leftovers are King. Sir Loin rocks.

Sirloin pot-roasted with bay, garlic and red wine vinegar

Serves 4-6

1 kg whole sirloin of beef
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tblsp olive oil, for browning
55g butter
10 fresh bay leaves
4 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
375 ml Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar

Trim the fat on the piece of beef to about 2cm thick. Using a sharp knife, cut a criss-cross pattern at 1cm intervals across the fat. Season lightly with salt, but add plenty of pepper.

Heat oil in a large heavy-based flameproof pot., add the beef and brown on all sides, leaving the fatty side until last. Reduce the heat and slowly brown the fat. Remove the beef from the pot and drain off the fat.

Melt the butter in the pot until foaming and then add the beef. Add the bay leaves, garlic and 5 tablespoons of vinegar. Moisten a piece of baking paper large enough to cover the pot.

Push the damp paper into the pot to rest on and cover the beef entirely. Simmer over a low heat until the vinegar reduces by half. Add a little more vinegar and when that reduces, add a little more.

Continue in this way until the beef is cooked to medium, for about 50-70 minutes. The sauce should never completely reduce because you are trying to create an emulsion. Add water, if necessary.

Turn off the heat and rest for 10 minutes. Slice the beef and serve. Spoon the sauce over the beef and garnish with bay leaves and garlic.

Random but pretty, this is what the soup looked like before the soup was added. If you're still with me, more on that soon...

The humble crumble

It always amazes just how simple things need to be in order to inspire a bit of positive thinking. Last night was yet another odd one. A collection of some very intelligent people coming together and brainstorming ideas of how to raise much needed cash in today's climate to make better lives for those who need the help more than others. Meanwhile those very people in need were being simply guided to prepare and serve the nourishment required to fuel those thought processes. 


The star of the show last night? Other than one of the young lads who has had a life more dreadful than we can comprehend but somehow manages to exude the willingness of a fresh and innocent kitchen recruit? Easy, it was the simple crumble.  Everyone loved it, we loved cooking it, the boys and girls loved being it. Don't change this recipe one single bit, apart from if you're doing this for the kids, replace the liqueur with some orange blossom water if you'd like to.

Fig and orange crumble

Serves 6

Butter for greasing

2 oranges

About 12 ripe figs

2 tblsp soft brown sugar

2 tblsp Grand Marnier

Vanilla ice cream to serve

For the crumble

175g plain flour

Pinch of fine sea salt

100g cold unsalted butter, diced

75g demerara sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

50g porridge oats

50g nibbed almonds or crushed hazelnuts

Preheat oven to 190C/Gas 5. Lightly grease a deep baking dish and set aside. Cut the top and base off the oranges. Stand the cut side of an orange on a board and cut away all the peel and pith, then cut out the orange segments from their membranes. Do this over a bowl so you keep the juice. Drop the segments into the bowl, then repeat with the other orange.

Cut the figs into quarters. Place them in the bowl with the oranges and gently toss with the sugar and Grand Marnier. Spread the fruit evenly over the prepared baking dish and set aside.

To make the crumble, put the flour, salt and butter into a food processor and blend until the mixture forms fine crumbs. Alternatively, rub the flour, salt and butter in a bowl between your fingertips. Pour the mixture into a bowl and stir in the sugar, ginger, oats and nuts. Sprinkle the crumble evenly over the figs and oranges.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until the crumble is golden brown and the fruit soft. Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 10 minutes before serving with vanilla ice-cream or maybe a ginger lemongrass infused custard if you really want to show off your smarty pants.

Pasties in the graveyard and tomatoes in your salad

Please tell me, when ever indeed did the Cornish pasty become the fashionable snack of our railway station concourses? Or have I been under a rock for so long of late it isn't even funny anymore? Maybe one leg up is that the tiddy oggy has recently been awarded Protected Geographical Indication, something that not only specifies the recipe and method by which they can be made, this now gives them location specific status that the likes of Stilton and Parma ham can lay claim to - moving in the circles of special company indeed. Anyway, enjoying a properly made one, crimped down the side and eaten from end to end after visiting a long lost friend is extra special too, whatever your thoughts on the pasty, dining with the dead, or a combination of the two. 

That was lunch, loved loved it. At home, dinner was tomatoes from the Isle of Wight, and an English style feta from Belton farm in Cheshire, watercress from Hampshire and some chocolate mint from the garden. A couple of olives, a few slices of cornichons and a glug of olive oil all tumbled on top of home made granary bread. Delicious in silence.

Cornish pasties

Makes 6 pasties

12oz (350g) plain flour
3oz (90g) margarine
3oz (90g) Trex vegetable fat
12oz (350g) beef skirt
3-4 medium sized potatoes
2 onions
1 egg beaten
Salt and lots and lots of black pepper
A few knobs of butter

Fan oven 180°C/non fan ovens 200°C

First of all make your shortcrust pastry. Whizz the flour, margarine and Trex in a food processor until you have a breadcrumb consistency. Tip it into a bowl and as you cut with a knife, add enough drops of water to make a soft dough which leaves the edges of the bowl.

Wrap the dough in clingfilm and place it in the fridge for half an hour to rest. This prevents the pastry shrinking when you cook the pasties.

Cut the skirt into small pieces. Dice the onion and peel the potatoes. Divide the pastry into six. With a rolling pin, roll it our into six round pieces, less than a quarter of an inch thick. Chip the potato into very small pieces and divide between each pasty. Season.

Add an equal amount of beef to each one, and season again. Then you add a small amount of diced onion. Season.

And then add a small amount of potato on top of that and two small knobs of butter to give it a bit of juice. Final seasoning.

Pull edges of the pasty together, dust your hands with flour and crimp the edges together.

Brush with beaten egg and cook for 35 minutes. Ten minutes before the end, brush again with some more egg to make ensure the pastry is very crispy. Cool on a wire rack