Month: February 2025

Goose and paprika

The flavour of green sweet peppers and goose just go so well together. This is a rich stew with a Hungarian twist, rich with paprika, peppers and tomatoes. After I made this, I found lots of recipes from Hungary using goose, but this is not a classic. I think there is a similar dish using chicken but it has a lot of sour cream in it, unlike this rich stew. 

I think it should probably be served with Hungarian nokedli, a sort of pasta. I had mine with linguine. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 2 tbsp lard (or olive oil)
  • 3 wild goose breasts,
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  • 1 red bell pepper, chopped
  • 1 green bell pepper, chopped
  • 4 heaped tsp sweet paprika
  • 2 tsp caraway seeds
  • 1 tsp cumin seeds
  • 1 tsp coriander seeds
  • 1 tbsp tomato paste
  • Chicken stock
  • 1 can chopped tomatoes
  • salt and pepper
  • chopped parsley to serve

METHOD:

  • Heat the oil or lard in a casserole dish, and fry the chopped peppers and onions. Once they begin to soften, add the garlic and spices, and continue to cook over a medium heat. 
  • Add the tomato paste, paprika and tinned tomatoes and bring to a simmer. Cook until the sauce is nice and thick. Season to taste. If the sauce looks a bit thick, add chicken stock and then cook it down. 
  • Version a: I fried off the goose meat, cubed, added to the stew and cooked it in a slow oven, around 120C for 4 hours. The goose was very tasty, but it took a while to get tender. 
  • Version b: I cut the goose meat into goujons, fried them quicky and put them onto the pasta and sauce on the plate. Version b was quicker and the goose was tender, but the flavour was not as good. 

Served with noodles and garnished with chopped parsley. 

 

 

Smoked haddock and parsnip fishcakes

I managed to get a bag of parsnips at a reduced rate from our local supermarket, as they weren’t beautiful. It was a good bargain, I got about 500g of parsnips. I made this recipe from Ottolenghi’s book, Simple. I halved the quantities, and substituted dried dill, on account of not being able to get fresh dill. I had enough for six large fishcakes. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 300g peeled parsnips
  • Olive oil
  • 250g smoked haddock fillets, skinned
  • 2 tsp dried dill
  • 10g chopped chives
  • 1 clove of garlic, crushed
  • zest of one lemon, cut the lemon into wedges for serving. 
  • a large egg, beaten
  • salt and pepper 
  • butter

METHOD:

  • Preheat the oven to 190C fan
  • Chop the peeled parsnips into chunks, toss with 3 tbsp olive oil and a pinch of salt. Roast in the oven for 30 to 45 minutes, until soft and browned. Sit to cool slightly. 
  • Put the cooked and cooled parsnips into a food processor and blitz to a coarse mash. I had some extra parsnip, so I put this into a container for the freezer for use later. Put the parsnip in a large bowl
  • Put the fish into the same processor, and blitz again intil roughly chopped.
  • Add the fish to the parsnip mash along with the egg, garlic, chopped herbs, 1/2 tsp salt, ground black pepper, and the lemon zest. Mix well, and shape the mixture into fishcakes. Mine were about the size of a crumpet or small burger. You can also put the mixture in the fridge for use the next day. 
  • Put a bit of butter in a frying pan along with a bit of olive oil, and heat to medium, with the butter melting and foaming. Add the fishcakes and fry them, around 4 minutes on each side. Two fishcakes is plenty for one person. Serve with a wedge of lemon. 

Iced Gingerbread

This was made by special request. My grandson wanted help making it for his mother’s birthday, so that is what we did. We started from Nigella’s book, ‘Domestic Goddess‘. If you’ve ever made any of her recipes, they are well written and with latitude to adapt, and the final result is excellent. There’s a very similar recipe in ‘The Farmhouse Kitchen Book’, which has several recipes for gingerbread from around the UK. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 150g butter
  • 125g dark muscovado sugar
  • 200g golden syrup
  • 200g treacle
  • 2 tsp ground ginger, or fresh grated ginger
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 250ml milk
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 300g plain flour
  • A tin measuring 30x20x5 cm (a medium roasting tin) greased and lined with greaseproof paper
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 175g icing sugar
  • 1 tbsp warm water

METHOD:

    • Preheat the oven to 170C
    • In a saucepan, melt the butter, sugar, treacle, golden syrup, ginger and cinnamon. Once everything has combined, set aside to cool
    • In a bowl, beat the eggs, and add the milk. Mix bicarbonate of soda with a little warm water, about 2 tbsp and add to the eggs and milk. 
    • Measure out the flour into a large bowl.
    • Pour the egg mixture into the sugar mixture, stir together to combine and then tip the whole lot into the flour. Use a hand whisk to mix everything together, making a runny batter
    • Pour the batter into the tin, put it into the oven and bake for around 50 minutes. 
    • Let the cake cool in the tin for at least 10 minutes before attempting to lift it out onto a wire rack. 
    • Once the cake is cool, you can ice it. Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl, and mix in 1 tbsp water and 1 tbsp lemon juice, plus any food colouring that you wish. We used yellow, on account of that being a favourite colour and the lemon being yellow. Pour the icing into the middle of the cake and spread out a little, using a flat knife. It will tend to flow out so you don’t need to be too precise. 

Once the icing has set, you can cut the gingerbread into fingers or squares. We cut ours up into 24 squares, but then we all ate at least two squares, served with Earl Grey tea, 

Stewed broad beans with tomatoes and bacon

I am testing broad bean recipes, many of them involve bacon, or herbs, or both. This is a robust stew from Umbria, for when you have a lot of broad beans. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1kg shelled broad beans
  • 1 large carrot, peeled and diced
  • 1 onion, peeled and chopped
  • 2 stalks of celery, diced
  • 200g smoked pancetta, chopped
  • 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • Dried pepperoncini flakes (or any chilli flakes)
  • 2 cans of chopped tomatoes
  • Fresh parsley

METHOD:

  • Heat some oil in a large casserole dish or heavy saucepan, and slowly fry the pancetta, carrots, onions and celery for around 10 minutes, when the pancetta should be starting to brown. 
  • Add the garlic and chilli flakes and cook for another couple of minutes, before adding the beans and tomatoes. Season with salt, pepper and parsley. 
  • Simmer for around 20 to 30 minutes, when the beans should be tender. Take off the heat, and garnish with a swirl of good olive oil and some chopped parsley. 

I had this with bread and pecorino cheese. There are variations as well, you can add some chopped chard, or cooked peas, or artichoke hearts, or use fewer tomatoes. You can substitute basil or mint for the parsley. You could stick a poached duck egg on the top. 

Sausage, black pudding and parsnips

This is a recipe from Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries. This is a splendid book of cooking day by day through the year. The dishes are generally quick, easy, delicious, and easy to adapt. The book is also well-indexed so finding a recipe for an ingredient is simple. 

For this recipe, the first time I tried it, I was a bit frustrated. My roasting tray did not heat evenly on the gas hob, and turned out to be too small for all the ingredients. I singed the onions, and ended up with too much stock at the end. I have adapted the recipe to suit my kitchen. In the original recipe, everything is fried off in a roasting tray and then stock added, before putting in the oven. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • Four thick sausages, cut into thirds
  • A small black pudding, around 250g to 300g, in thick slices
  • 2 medium or one very large onion
  • Vegetable oil
  • Parsnips, around 4 (400g-500g) – peeled and cut into large chunks
  • A pinch of dried thyme
  • 250ml chicken stock

METHOD:

  • Set the oven to 190C
  • Peel the onions and cut into slim wedges, around 8 pieces for a medium onionc. 
  • Heat some oil in a large casserole dish over a medium flame, and add the onions, and let them soften. 
  • After about five minutes, add the parsnips and cook them until they start to colour. 
  • In a separate pan, fry off the sausages and then add them to the casserole dish. Do the same with the sliced black pudding. Make sure the sausage and the black pudding are a good colour on the outside before adding to the casserole dish. 
  • Stir in the chicken stock and thyme, and bring to a simmer. 
  • Put the dish into the oven without a lid for thirty to forty minutes. The parsnips should be really tender, and the stock should have cooked down to a sticky glaze. 

We served this with sprouts, because I love them. However, with the parsnips and all the flavour, you don’t need anything else. To help it stretch to feed more, serve with mashed potato.