Tag Archives: quick supper

Sausages, mushrooms, chestnuts… lovely autumnal flavours

19 Nov

I love Nigel Slater.  I don’t think that’s too strong an emotion.  He’s a proper cook, and he writes beautifully.  I love good food and good writing, so what is there not to love about him?

I first came across him many many years ago – in the early 90s, with his series of books: Real Fast Food, The 30-minute Cook, and Real Cooking.  See, Nigel was doing this 30 minute mullarkey long before Jamie got on that band wagon.  Mind you, he never professed to help you make a whole meal in 30 minutes, usually just one fabulously tasty course, although often in less than the 30 minutes allotted, so you’d have time to rustle up a second course if you fancied it.

Anyway, Nigel, oh Nigel.  I try to love you on telly too, but I just don’t.  There’s something about your relationship with food (which we know all about, thanks to your excellent memoir, Toast) which is just ever so slightly creepy.  So, if you don’t mind, I’ll probably stick to reading your books and articles in magazines from now on.

However, had I not seen you on TV the other night, I wouldn’t have discovered this gem of a recipe.  It’s a perfect Autumn supper.  Or a Winter supper too probably, but I’m in denial about Winter yet.  I know the clocks have gone back, but I’m still clinging to Autumn for a few weeks yet.  So, Autumnal suppers it will be.

This is what we’re having again tonight.  Adapted of course, because I doubt I have precisely all the right ingredients to hand, although I know I have mushrooms, sausages and chestnuts, so I’m pretty much sorted.

So, thanks Nigel.  And the BBC.

This is supper for 2 people.  Or starters for 4.

Autumn sausage supper

4 large mushrooms

1oz butter

1 Tbsp olive oil

A couple of good sprigs of thyme, with the leaves picked off them

1-2 Tbsp madeira or sherry, or stock

1 medium onion, or a couple of shallots

4 tasty, herby sausages, Lincolnshire or similar will be good

A sprig of rosemary

4oz fresh breadcrumbs

4oz chestnuts, chopped

Pre-heat oven to 180C / 350F / GM4

  1. Remove the stalks from the mushrooms, and place the mushrooms in a large oven dish.
  2. Place a wee knob of butter in each one and then drizzle them with some olive oil
  3. Sprinkle the thyme leaves into the mushrooms and then glug some madeira all over them
  4. Pop the mushrooms in the oven for 20 minutes.
  5. Meanwhile, the sun is probably over the yard arm by now, so you should pour yourself a glass of wine while you do the rest
  6. Roughly chop the onions and sweat in a frying pan with a little butter until golden
  7. Remove the sausage skin and break the meat into chunks and put in the pan with the onions
  8. Throw in the rosemary (either a whole sprig, or chopped up a bit) and add the breadcrumbs and allow to cook through slightly
  9. Add the chopped chestnuts and mix all together
  10. Now, if this has worked out, your 20 minutes for the mushrooms should be pretty much up, if not, put your feet up for a minute or two and have a glug of that wine. Or prepare some savoy cabbage to have as a side
  11. When the mushrooms have had about 20 mins, take them out and heap generous mounds of sausagey stuffing over the top of each mushroom, and all around, either in yummy heaps, or shape into slightly more cheffy balls
  12. Return the dish to the oven for a further half hour.  The stuffing should become crisp and golden
  13. Serve with savoy cabbage, or brussels sprouts (if you can bear them).  I’m going to try a juniper brussels sprouts recipe tonight, in a bid to make the hateful veg acceptable.  The man loves them.

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Citrussy meaty goodness

10 Nov

I’d got into a bit of a cooking rut.  Or perhaps a meat rut.  I’d buy mince (for meatballs, chilli or bolognese sauce), and chicken (almost infinite possibilities) and beef (stew of some description, more recently in my new slow cooker).

So I realised that if you keep buying the same things, you’ll keep making similar things.  And I bought some pork loin steaks.  Is that even what they are called?  I’m low carbing (love how I’ve turned that into a verb, I low carb, you low carb, we low carb… we all become diet bores!).  And then I had a quick flick through a recent copy of delicious magazine (why do I so that when I already own so many cook books?) for inspiration.  This was utterly delicious and quite unlike anything I would have normally made.

Pork with orange and thyme

The zest and juice of 1 orange

a few sprigs of fresh thyme

2 pork loin steaks

1TBsp muscovado sugar

  1. Splash some oil into a frying pan over a medium heat
  2. Add the orange zest, and the thyme.  You can throw in the whole sprigs if you want, or just the leaves
  3. Fry for about 3 minutes, till the zest is crispy, then take the zest and thyme out of the pan and set aside
  4. Season the pork with salt and pepper and add to the pan.  Cook for 3 minutes each side, or until browned and cooked through
  5. Remove pork from pan and set aside
  6. Deglaze the pan with the orange juice, and add the sugar.  Simmer until well reduced.
  7. Add everything back into the pan again and warm through.
  8. Serve with savoy cabbage.
OK, you could serve it with lots of other things, but I’m still low carbing so it was just perfect with a big mound of bright green savoy cabbage.

It sounds more complicated than it is with all the taking out of the pan and setting aside – just make sure you have a wooden chopping board to rest the meat on (or a warm plate) and you’ll be fine.

 

 

 

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Broccoli and stilton soup

1 Oct

So, when Tesco builds a new store, they do all manner of strange discounts.  We have a new Tesco in the valley and today there were bags and bags of broccoli for only 10p each, all marked ‘TEST’, but all looking like fresh and scrummy broccoli.

They also had enormous whole salmon reduced from £35 to £10. I think they were about 8lb weight. But since G’s sister had already bought a whole salmon earlier in the week and stuffed our freezer full of salmon steaks I resisted that particular temptation.

And grabbed the bags of broccoli.  And a wedge of stilton.  You see where I’m heading don’t you?

Broccoli and stilton soup

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 medium large potato, chopped into small chunks

about 1.5l veg stock

1 large head of broccoli, cut into small-ish chunks

about 100g stilton in chunks

  1. Sweat the onion in a heavy based saucepan with a wee bit of oil or butter.
  2. Add the potato and sweat for a few minutes.
  3. Add the hot stock (or boiling water from the kettle and a stock cube). Cook for about 10 minutes, till the potato is cooked.
  4. Add the broccoli and cook for a further 4 minutes or until the broccoli is cooked.
  5. Add the stilton and smoosh it all up with the electric zizzer.
Perfect for a quick light lunch.  And I’ve heard a rumour that it is good to freeze.
Oh hey… if you have a lovely soup recipe and want some recognition… go here: http://www.newcoventgardensoup.com/competition

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