I’ve made like, really a lot.
But it should freeze OK. One batch is a chestnut stuffing from a Good Housekeeping book (sausagemeat, onion, celery, chestnut mushrooms, breadcrumbs, herbs, chestnuts, egg and brandy), which I’ve made before and is nice. The other is my own invention – sausagemeat with onion, dried apricots, dried sour cherries, egg, brandy and a little mixed spice. On Christmas Day I’ll let you know how it turned out.
Wine then beer makes you feel queer;
beer then wine makes you feel fine.
What do we learn from this? Well, by the immutable laws of rhyme, it’s obviously OK to drink anything you want all evening – tequila, cherry brandy, raki, Bailey’s – as long as you finish it up with a glass of wine.
It’s probably also OK to finish on sherry. Aquavit might be a mistake.
Sorry for the exaggeration marks.
But it is pretty cool. It seems to be this guy‘s idea, but this is the recipe I’m most tempted to try:
You need to click on either the link or the photo above to see why it’s such a fab idea. I’m almost tempted to try doing one of these myself.
I’m not even going to try to give quantities, since I just sloshed things into a bowl, so if you’ve never cooked ribs this might not be the recipe to start with. On the other hand, it is the kind of forgiving food where sloshing things into a bowl works quite well.
Like all of these rib recipes, the base of the marinade is soy and honey – quite a lot of each. I used Japanese (light) soy sauce, honey, lots of finely chopped/coarsely grated ginger, a few cloves of crushed garlic, a generous squirt of tomato puree, some dark rum, West Indian pepper sauce and smoked paprika.
I think this is nicer with smaller ribs rather than the huge meaty kind. Marinade them for a few hours, then cook in a roasting pan with the marinade for about 1h 40m at 160C. After 45 mins, turn the ribs over. With 10m to go, pour off and reserve the marinade and juices to use as a sauce for those who want it. Stir the ribs around so they’re all piled up and can brown all over.
Eat. It’s good to gnaw the meat off a bone from time to time.
I bought some Salad Blue potatoes at Borough Market the other day, and just ate them (roasted). I was surprised by how disconcerting I found the violet-coloured flesh. After a few mouthfuls, you get used to it, but at first, they look really unappetising. They just tasted like potatoes, though. If anything, they were on the bland side. Next time I buy heritage potatoes, I’ll pick them on the basis of flavour rather than novelty colour-scheme.
‘kalybapita’ is my attempt to translate ‘cottage pie’ into Greek with the help of this English-Greek dictionary. It’s probably wrong. A recipe:
Chop and sweat down a couple of onions, a leek, three sticks of celery, a bulb of fennel and three cloves of garlic. Brown two pounds of minced beef and add to the pan of vegetables. Deglaze with red wine and add that to the pan as well, along with half a pint of fresh beef stock. Add salt, pepper, lots of fresh thyme and rosemary, a squirt of tomato puree, some Worcestershire sauce, and a little West Indian chilli sauce; simmer for an hour or so.
At the same time, thinly slice a couple of aubergines, sprinkle with salt and leave for half an hour. Dry the slices and fry or grill them. Also, make enough mashed potato to cover the top of the whole thing, with lots of cheese and butter in the mash.
Layer up, in a big dish, some meat sauce, then the aubergines, then more meat, then the potato. Put in a 220C oven until bubbling and brown. It’s a kind of moussaka/cottage pie compromise, but none the worse for that.