Wild goose with bulgar wheat

This is so tasty. The goose needs to be chopped pretty small though. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 100ml olive oil
  • 4 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced finely
  • 1 medium onion, sliced finely
  • 2 medium carrots, sliced finely
  • 700ml stock
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1 wild goose breast, sliced thinly and then cut into small squares
  • 250g coarse bulgar wheat (I bought mine online from Turkishop)

METHOD:

  • Preheat the oven to 200C
  • Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, and fry the potato slices. As the potato starts to brown on one side, flip the slices over. Keep stirring and flipping. Once the potato is done, put it into a large casserole dish.
  • Next, fry the onion slices and carrots together in the remaining oil in the frying pan, for at least 5 minutes over a medium to high heat. 
  • Meanwhile, slice the goose and put it in a layer over the potato.
  • Once the onion is done, layer that over the goose. 
  • Put the stock into the frying pan and bring to the boil, and season with salt and pepper. 
  • Put the bulgar wheat over the top of the carrot and onion layer in the middle, making a mound. 
  • Pour in the boiling stock, cover and bake in the oven for around 20 minutes. 
  • Let the dish stand for around 5 minutes before serving. 

Italian Sausage Casserole

In the freezer I had a large Italian pork sausage, flavoured with fennel. I made this stew, which could be made with any good quality coarse pork sausage, for example a Cumberland sausage. The stew is very easy to make, and we served it with creamed potato and celeriac mash, and sea kale florets. 

INGREDIENTS;

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • Coarse Italian pork sausages, or similar – around 500g of sausages or a little more
  • 1 large onion, finely sliced
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder, or other chilli powder
  • 1 tsp date syrup, or treacle or dark brown sugar
  • 1 can chopped tomatoes
  • 300ml stock
  • 2 tbsp tomato puree
  • 1 tsp mixed herbs (I used the mystery herbs from Italy)
  • salt and pepper

METHOD:

  • Fry the sausages in the oil in a large frying pan for around 8 minutes, until they are browned. Transfer to a casserole dish. 
  • Fry the onions in the same pan over a medium heat, for around 5 minutes, until they are beginning to brown.
  • Add the crushed garlic and chilli, and cook, stirring for another couple of minutes
  • Add the stock, tomatoes, puree and herbs, and bring to a simmer. For children who don’t like finding bits of onion in their food, you can puree the sauce at this stage. 
  • Pour over the sausages in the casserole dish, and simmer gently for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. 

This tastes better if it is not boiling hot, let it sit for a few minutes whilst preparing the mash and vegetables. 

Chocolate brownies

This recipe uses up the egg-whites left over from making hollandaise sauce. It is really chocolatey. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 170g butter
  • 170g 70% dark chocolate
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 30ml cold coffee
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 75g caster sugar
  • 100g soft brown sugar
  • 30g unsweetened cocoa powder (not drinking chocolate)
  • 4 egg whites
  • 125g plain flour

METHOD:

  • Preheat the oven to 190C. Prepare a 20cm square cake tin – grease with butter and line with greaseproof paper.
  • Put a bowl over a pan of boiling water, and put in the chocolate and butter. Heat until all the butter and chocolate have melted together. 
  • Add the vanilla, coffee and salt, stir and set aside for 15 minutes to cool. 
  • In a large bowl, mix the caster sugar, soft brown sugar and cocoa powder. Add the egg whites, and use a beater to whisk the mixture together. The volume should increase by more than double and the mixture should go pale. 
  • Stir in the cooled chocolate mixture and the flour. 
  • Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and put it in the oven. Turn the heat down to 175C and bake for 30 minutes. 
  • Set the cooked brownies to cool in their tin. Once the are cold, lift them out and cut into squares. 

 

Roast Celeriac, Turkish style.

The last celeriac from the garden, I sewed some more seed for next winter/spring. I roasted it with orange juice and carrots. It was really good. The seeds are tiny, for such a robust vegetable. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 medium celeriac, peeled and cut into chunks about 1 by 1 by 2 centimetres
  • 2 medium carrots, peeled, split lengthways and cut into chunks about 2 centimetres long
  • 1 medium onion, cut into thin wedges
  • 10 cloves of garlic
  • Grated rind and juice of one large orange
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 1/4 tsp grated black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • Fresh dill to garnish. 

METHOD:

  • Set the oven to 180C
  • In a large roasting dish, put all the ingredients except the dill, and stir to mix
  • Roast the vegetables for 40 minutes, stirring a couple of times during the cooking.
  • Mix in the chopped dill before serving. 

 

Potato Scones

Continuing the theme of using things up so we don’t have to go to the shops. We had 125g of left-over mashed potato in the fridge, so this morning I made potato scones. The ratio of flour to mashed potato is around 1:5 so I added 25g flour. I mashed the flour into the potatoes until it was all well mixed, and then drew the mixture together with my hands. I rolled it out into a circle, and then cut that into six wedges. I fried the scones in lard until browned on both sides, and served with a couple of fried eggs and some Stornoway black pudding. 

 

Goan prawn curry with coconut

We made this with some really great quality local prawns. Looks like a tradition is starting. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 kilo medium or large prawns, shelled
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1/2 onion, finely chopped
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 2 tsp hot paprika
  • 250ml coconut milk (or 50g creamed coconut dissolved in 250ml boiling water)
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric
  • juice of 1/2 lemon (or 1 tsp tamarind paste)
  • 2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
  • 1cm cubed fresh ginger, finely diced

METHOD:

  • Heat the oil in a wok, or large frying pan
  • Add the onion, and fry at quite a high temperature. 
  • Add the ginger and garlic when the onion is translucent. 
  • When the onion starts to brown, turn off the heat and stir in the pepper, cayenne, paprika and turmeric. Stir to mix. 
  • Return the pan to the heat and add the coconut milk. When it starts to bubble and cook, add the prawns and lemon juice, stir and cook until the prawns are hot.

Serve with rice. 

Venison and Guinness …

You could make this into a pie, a stew, or a steamed pudding. I added dumplings, rather than going out to buy potatoes. The venison came from Storas Uibhist. You can get this locally by visiting Eat Drink Hebrides. 

INGREDIENTS:

For the stew:

  • 500g venison, cubed 
  • 1 large onion
  • 1 small celeriac
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp dried marjoram
  • 1 bayleaf
  • 1 tbsp cornflour
  • 150ml guiness
  • 100ml stock
  • salt and pepper

For the dumplings:

  • 125g self-raising flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 50g shredded suet
  • 1/2 tsp mixed herbs
  • 3-4 tbsp cold water

METHOD:

  • Chop the onion finely, peel and dice the celeriac. Heat the oil in a heavy casserole pan and fry the vegetables until they are just beginning to brown. 
  • Add the herbs and the meat, and fry until the meat is browned.
  • Sprinkle in the cornflour, stir, and then slowly add the Guinness and stock. Bring to a simmer, and then season with salt and pepper, to taste. 
  • Put the lid on the casserole dish and put it in the oven at 140C for an hour and a half – then add the dumplings.
  • Make the dumplings so that you can add them to the stew for the final cooking time.
  • Mix the flour, salt, herbs and suet in a bowl and then add the water to make a soft dough. Turn out onto a floured surface, and cut into 8 bits. Roll each dumpling into a ball, coating with a little flour.
  • Drop the dumplings into the stew, and return to the oven at 200C for a further 20 minutes.  

If you are going to make the stew into a pudding, make a suet pastry using 110g self-raising flour, 110g fresh white breadcrumbs, 110g suet, a pinch of salt and approx 140ml cold water. Line a greased pudding bowl with 3/4 of the pastry, fill with the stew, cap with the rest of the pastry, and steam for 2 hours. 

Hollandaise sauce

This is an important sauce at this time of year, when asparagus is in the shops, the sun is shining, and a light supper is called for. Hollandaise sauce is the perfect method to help butter and lemon juice to stick to food, just thickened with egg yolk. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 150 g unsalted butter 
  • 2 large egg yolks 
  • 2 teaspoons of white wine vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons of lemon juice
  • Salt and pepper 

METHOD:

  • Put the butter in a small pan over low heat, and as soon as it has melted, take it off the heat. 
  • In another pan, half fill with boiling water, and put a small trivet in the bottom. Put over a low flame so the water stays hot. 
  • In a heat-proof bowl, beat the egg yolks with the vinegar, and sit them over the boiling water. 
  • Straight away, start pouring in the molten butter in a slow stream, beating the eggs all the time. A small balloon whisk is ideal. 
  • The sauce will be quite thick; add the lemon juice and keep beating, and season with salt and pepper. 

You can vary the lemon juice, salt and pepper to your taste. 

 

Broccoli and mushroom stir-fry with black bean sauce

This is a good basic stir-fry recipe, and you can use just about any vegetables. Finely sliced courgette, mange-tout peas, slivers of red and green pepper, all work well. At the moment the co-op in Creagorry seems to have lots of fresh egg noodles in the reduced section for vegetables, so we used those. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 450g egg noodles
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 250g broccoli
  • 250g mushrooms
  • 1-2 carrots
  • 2 tsp cornflour
  • 200ml vegetable stock (I used marigold stock)
  • 2 tbsp black bean sauce 
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 3 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 2cm cube of fresh ginger (approx)
  • 1 tbsp dry sherry such as Tio pepe, or Shaohsing wine. 

METHOD:

Prepare the ingredients:

  • Cook the noodles in boiling water according to the instructions (some noodles are sold ready-cooked) – rinse in cold water.
  • Chop the carrots into thin slices, cut on a slant. Cut the broccoli into small florets, and the stems into strips 5cm long. Wipe the mushrooms clean, and slice with the stems still on. 
  • Finely chop the ginger and garlic
  • In a small bowl, put in the cornflour, then slowly add the stock, and mix to a paste. Add the black bean sauce, sesame oil, and sugar. If it has gone lumpy, you can remedy this with a soup blender. 

Start the cooking

  • Heat the vegetable oil in a large wok over a medium flame. When it is hot add the garlic and ginger, and stir a couple of times. 
  • Add the mushrooms, broccoli and carrots, and 3/4 tsp salt, and stir and fry until the vegetables are all hot, it doesn’t take long. 
  • Pour in the sherry, cover and turn the heat to low. Cook for a minute, so the vegetables are very lightly steamed in hot sherry. 
  • Uncover, and add the cornflour/black bean mixture. Turn the heat up a little and add the noodles. Keep stirring and mixing so that the noodles are hot and the sauce is thickened. 

An alternative is to fry the noodles separately, treating them like a large pancake in the bottom of a frying pan. Fry without stirring for 3-4 minutes, and then when the noodles are crispy on the bottom, flip over and fry the other side. When serving, put the noodle pancake on a plate and pour the vegetables and sauce over the top.