Lauren - Stew

Jamie Oliver

Ministry of Food, Anyone Can Learn To Cook In 24 hours

 

Pork and Cider Stew

So, leaves have fallen from their trees, the clocks have gone back, the central heating has gone on, the extra duvet is out and it's now dark at 4pm. It can only mean one thing, winter has arrived. But what's not to love about winter - it means Christmas, cosy nights in, red wine, mulled wine and real comfort food!

I can no longer remember who's idea stew was for the blog but as Henri and I discussed what we were each going to be cooking it became clear that maybe instead of calling it stew week we should call it meat, alcohol and dumplings, as that was what both our recipes involved.

I'm not sure you really need a recipe for stew - brown meat, add veg, add liquid and let bubble in the oven for as long as you can bear. In both our cases, add the dumplings and dinner is served. Below is the recipe I followed by Jamie, although as I hate celery in anything I omitted it.

Ingredients

3 strips of fresh sage

500g diced stewing pork

500ml medium-dry cider

2 sticks of celery

2 medium onions

2 carrots

Olive oil

1 heaped tbsp plain flour

1 x 400g chopped tomatoes

Sea salt and black pepper

For your dumplings

250g self-raising flour

125g really cold butter

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

If using the oven to cook your stew, pre-heat it to gas mark 6. 

Trim the ends of your celery and roughly chop the sticks. Peel and roughly chop the onions. Peel the carrots, slice lengh ways and roughly chop. Put a casserole pan on a medium heat. Put all the vegetables and your chosen herb into the pan with two lugs of olive oil and fry for 10 minutes. Add your meat and flour. Pour in the booze and tinned tomatoes. Give it a good stir, then season with a teaspoon of sea salt (less if using table salt) and a few grinds of pepper. Bring to the boil, put the lid on and either simmer slowly on your hob or cook in the oven for two and a half hours. Remove the lid for the final half hour of simmering or cooking. When done, your meat should be tender and delicious. Remember to remove any herb stalks before serving, and taste to see if it needs a bit more salt and pepper.

For your dumplings - put your flour into a mixing bowl. Using a coarse grater, grate your cold butter in to the flour. Add a pinch of salt and pepper. Using your fingers, gently rub the butter into the flour until it begins to resemble breadcrumbs. Add a splash of cold water to help you bind it in to a dough. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and gently roll each into a round dumpling. Place the dumplings on top of your fully cooked stew and press down lightly so they're half submerged. Cook in the oven or on the hob over a medium heat with the lid on for 30 minutes.

Henri - Stew

BBC Good Food – Lamb Stew with Rosemary Dumplings 

 

So there has been a turn in the weather, and suddenly it is autumn in London. With all the rain, wind and chilly evenings there is nothing my friends and I fancied more than a hot Irish stew to keep us warm – a definite call for comfort food! Since making curried lamb for the week of ‘Street Food’ I am a huge fan of cooking with neck of lamb (I have my sister to thank for introducing me to this cut of meat which is absolutely fantastic for slow cooking and extraordinarily cheap!!). To compliment the stew I cooked dumplings, since it just wouldn’t be a traditional Irish stew without them. Everything went really smoothly, and I have to say this was super easy to cook and could easily be cooked after work if you needed some comfort food to cheer you up (though the flavours are especially great if the stew has been left to “stew” for a while). Next time I think I will experiment with using ale instead of wine, but since I had some wine left in the fridge this was the perfect opportunity to cook with it.

Ingredients

4 pieces of lamb neck fillet

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tbsp plain flour

1 tbsp olive oil

50g butter

2 onions, diced

3 medium carrots, diced

1 swede, cut into large pieces

50ml white wine

2 sprigs rosemary (I used 3 and this was a mistake – rosemary is really pungent so stick to 2 sprigs)

1 tsp thyme

4 bay leaves

2 pints lamb stock

3 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

For the dumplings

125g plain flour

65g oz suet

½ tsp baking powder

Pinch salt

1 tbsp rosemary, finely chopped

500ml lamb stock

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 120C//Gas mark ½-1.

Season the lamb with pepper and salt, dusting with the flour. 

Heat the olive oil and butter in a casserole dish until hot and then add the lamb. Fry the lamb on each side until golden-brown. Remove, cut into 1 inch pieces and leave to the side.

Reduce the heat and add the onions, carrots and swede and fry until softened.

Add the wine and simmer until the liquid has reduced by half.

Add the lamb and the lamb stock. Bring the stew to a simmer then add the bay leaves, thyme and rosemary.

Cover and transfer to the oven. Cook for 2 hours until the stew has thickened and lamb is tender.

The dumplings are particularly easy to make: mix the flour, suet, baking powder and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Add the rosemary to the flour mixture.

Little by little add small amounts of cold water, approximately 5 tablespoons, to form a sticky dough.

Flour your hands and then roll the dough into little balls. Place on a plate, cover and leave to chill in the fridge.

Approximately 20 minutes before you are ready to serve, place the dumplings in the stew – this will allow them to absorb all of the flavours of the stew.

To serve, garnish the stew with the chopped parsley. 

Lauren - Pastry

Annie Bell's - Baking Bible

Chocolate éclairs

 

So, after avoiding doing this recipe and doing the last week's curry recipe instead (naughty Lauren) and a very awful week with moving stress, I decided I needed to get busy in the kitchen. Nothing de-stresses me like baking and cleaning!

I have to say I am glad I watched choux pastry being made on a cooking show as I may have given up on the addition of the eggs - word of advice, just keep beating. Other than that this recipe was a pleasure to make, plus it made so much custard I obviously had to have some as a cheeky chef's perk. Also, I may have overcome my choux pastry fear but not my piping fear as the recipe below is for "rustic éclairs".

Don't be put off by the lengh of the recipe - it's really just a few steps involving making the chocolate cutard, making the choux pastry, cooking the pastry, cooling the eclairs and then appling the glaze. YUMMY!

Ingredients

For the custard

5 medium egg yolks

80g icing sugar, sifted

30g plain flour, sifted

20g cocoa powder, sifted

425ml whole milk

For the éclairs

50g unsalted butter

Pinch each of sea salt and caster sugar

75g plain flour, sifted

3 medium eggs

For the chocolate glaze

50g dark chocolate

2 tbsp vegetable oil

125g icing sugar, sifted

Method

To make the custard, whisk the egg yolks and icing sugar together in a medium sized non-stick saucepan until smooth. Next whisk in the flour and the cocoa, until you have a thick creamy paste. Bring the milk to the boil in a saucpan and whisk it into the egg mixture, a little at a time to begin with, until it is all incorporated.

Place over a low heat and cook for a few minutes until the custard thickens, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon to rid of any lumps that form - if necessary, you can give it a quick whisk. The custard shouldn't actually boil, but the odd bubble will ensure it's hot enough to thicken properly. Cook it for a few minutes longer, again stirring constantly. Pour the custard into a bowl, cover the surface with clingfilm and leave to cool.

Meanwhile, make the éclairs. Preheat the oven to 200'c. 

Butter and flour one or two non-stick baking trays. Place the butter, salt and sugar in a small non-stick saucepan with 200ml water and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the flour. Beat the dough with a wooden spoon until it is smooth. Return the dough to a medium high heat and cook for a couple of minutes stirring constantly.

Allow it to cool for 5 minutes, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Spoon heaped tablespoons of the mixture onto the baking trays, shaping them into sausage shapes, 11-12cm long, and spacing them 5cm apart.

Bake for 10 minutes and then turn the oven down to 160'c and bake for a further 20 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and immediately slice off the tops of the éclairs to prevent them from becoming soggy.

Scoop out and discard the uncooked insides and leave the
éclairs to cool on a wire rack. They are quite delicate so don't be perturbed should a couple of them break.

Fill the éclairs with the custard, mounding it, and replace the lids. Arrange them on a serving plate. 

To make the glaze, gently melt the dark chocolate with the oil in a medium sized bowl set over a small pan with a little simmering water in it. Whisk the icing sugar and 2 tablespoons of water into the melted chocolate and spoon a couple of teaspoons along the top of each éclair, letting it trickle down the sides.

Henri - Pastry

Plum Pie

 

Lauren has been dying to cook éclairs for weeks now so, although I’m not a baker at heart, I chose pastry so that she had an excuse to bake them. I was at home the weekend of choosing pastry, and my mum was saying how many plums we had growing out in the garden – the perfect opportunity to bake with fresh fruit. As a family we always have Sunday roast, and nothing follows a roast better than a home-baked pie. Decision made. We were having plum pie!

As an avid watcher of the Great British Bake Off, I of course chose to follow a recipe by Mary Berry – using her double-crust apple pie recipe, I simply adapted it by swapping the apples for plums, and adding in nutmeg. 

Everything seemed to be going pretty well but yet I knew something would go wrong. It's the same scenario to that of my quiche...all looked great before the baking in the oven began and then it all went downhill. I was so worried about a soggy bottom...and of course my pie had one! It also had soggy crusts, god knows how! I baked it further but really there was no saving it, and to top it off the tin had a lining to which the base had stuck. Absolutely gutted, I called on mum and the only answer was to remove the pie bottom completely. To summarise, my pie was an epic fail. However, I blame myself entirely, and believe anyone else would probably make an excellent pie following this recipe!!

Ingredients

350g (12oz) plain flour, plus extra for dusting

175g (6oz) chilled margarine

Approximately 6 tbsp cold water

1kg plums, halved and cored – these can be replaced for a fruit of your choice such as apples, which you could then substitute the nutmeg for cinnamon

85g caster sugar

A good grating of nutmeg

Milk, to glaze

Method

Place 350g flour in a large bowl. Cut the margarine into chunks and add to the flour.

Using your fingertips, rub the fat into the flour until you have incorporated the mixture together – it should resemble fine breadcrumbs when finished.

Add approximately 6 tbsp of water, a spoonful at a time. Using a knife, mix together between spoonfuls. Once enough water has been added the mixture should combine together forming a soft mass.

Gently gather into a ball and wrap in cling film. Leave to chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Whilst the pastry is chilling you have time to prepare the fruit. Core and half the plums – quite a tedious job but worth it at the end. In a non-stick saucepan add the plums with 85g sugar and a little bit of water to prevent the sugar from burning. Bring to the boil and allow to simmer – this will extract some of the extra juices from the fruit which could make the pastry soggy. Remove from the heat before the plums have lost their shape completely and leave to the side.  

Pre-heat the oven to 200°c/gas mark 7.

Flour your work surface and a rolling pin. Flatten the pastry and then, beginning from the centre, roll your pastry out into a circle – approximately 35cm in diameter.

With floured hands fold the pastry in half and half again, to create a fan shape. Place in the tin with the point in the centre.  Unfold and ease into the tin, avoiding pulling or stretching.  Any excess which hangs over the edge can be trimmed at the end.

Add the fruit to the tin, heaping in the centre. Brush the rim of the pastry with milk.

Unwrap the remaining pastry, and repeat the same process of creating a fan. Cover the pie and press down the edges. Trim any excess using a sharp knife and then crimp the edges using your fingertips.

Brush the top with milk and poke a 1cm hole in the centre to allow the steam to escape.

Using the remaining pastry decorate the top of the pie with different shapes, leaving the steam hole clear. Brush the shapes with milk, and sprinkle with caster sugar. 

Place the pie on a baking sheet and bake for approximately 45 minutes until the pastry is golden brown in colour and crispy.