Who ate all the pies? Steak, ale and cheese pie

Now I love pie. I truly, truly do. Especially pork pie. In fact my old work colleagues knew me for my love of pork pie and would make sure I was provided for whenever birthday buns were brought in. I say birthday buns, our department had birthday buffets rather than just buns and every single one of them would have a pork pie, just for me. Sigh.

I digress... It seems that some of you are seeking a break from the offal as, along with Oxtail, the pie won my recent poll. My Sausage Stew post also won the praise from a friend who was after something a bit homely but free of bizarre ingredients! So, rather than go for something unusual here, I resisted the urge to do a pie of four and twenty blackbirds and went for an old classic – steak and ale.

I like thick, chunky, stodgy pie. I don’t like my meat to be swimming in gravy and I like a think pastry top AND bottom. It’s not much to ask is it? Well, I didn’t think it was but it took a bit of searching to find the right recipe. It was worth it though and I found everything I wanted and MORE as this pie has CHEESE in it. Oh my! Thick, meaty pie, with a top and a bottom and CHEESE. It’s a Jamie Oliver recipe and can be found here.

I made a few adjustments. Firstly I didn’t actually use Guinness (it was £6.50 for 4 cans in Tesco - £6.50!!) and I went for Hobgoblin beer (it was on offer). Secondly I didn’t have any fresh rosemary, so I used fresh thyme. Thirdly I’m not so hot on celery so I used 2 extra carrots instead. Oooo and I used standard button mushroom instead of field mushrooms and white onions instead of red.

So this is how it went.

Ingredients:

Olive oil

3 medium onions, peeled and diced

3 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced

30g butter

4 carrots, peeled, halved length ways and sliced

4 medium button mushrooms (more would be better, say 8)

1kg of stewing steak, chopped into bite size chunks

5-6 sprigs of thyme

salt and pepper

440 mls Hobgoblin (use any beer, or Guinness, not lager)

3 heaped tablespoons plain flour

200g grated Cheddar cheese

500g ready made, all-butter puff pastry

1 egg, beaten

Serves 4-6

Pre-heat oven to 190C

I took a casserole dish, heated some oil on a low heat and then added the onions. I fried these very gently for about 10 minutes – just to soften them – not to colour them. I then turned the heat up, added the garlic, butter, carrots and mushrooms. I mixed everything together and then added the beef, the thyme and some salt and pepper.

I turned up the heat and cooked it to colour the beef, for about 4 minutes or so. Then I poured in the Hobgoblin. That immediately frothed up, but calmed down after a bit of stirring.   

Frothy stew

Next went in 2 tablespoons of the flour. I stirred that in then added enough cold water to cover everything and brought it stew up to a simmer, placed the lid on the dish and put it in the oven. I left it there for about two and a half hours, taking it out for a stir every half hour or so. About half way through, I added the third tablespoon of flour to help with the thickening of the gravy. 

Once the two and a half hours were up, the stew was thick, the meat was tender and all the veg had softened. Jamie says that if the stew isn’t thick enough at this point you can place it on a hob to reduce the sauce further. I then stirred in half of the cheese, seasoned it and left it to cool a while whilst I prepared the pastry.

Suitably thick pie filling.

Buying ready made puff pastry might be considered cheating, but I’m sure I’ve heard many chefs say that they would never make their own puff pastry at home…. And who am I to argue? I dusted a work surface down along with my rolling pin. Taking the block of pastry, I cut about a third off it and rolled each separate block into circular shapes. One had to be large enough to fill the pie dish with some over hang, the other to form a lid. I then greased my pyrex flan/pie dish and laid the larger piece of pastry into it leaving the excess hanging over the sides   I then spooned my stew mixture in, followed by a scattering of the remaining cheese.  

I brushed the edges with egg and laid the smaller piece of pastry on top, tucked it into the sides then folded the overhanging pastry over onto the lid forming a nice tight seal. I brushed the lid with egg and stuck it directly onto the bottom of the oven for 45 minutes.

I could barely keep my eyes off it as it cooked!   

Apart from anything else, I was scared that the pie would explode, that the juices would seep out and make a terrible mess of my oven. This didn’t happen – thankfully. Instead the pastry puffed up magnificently and it kept the filling nice and safe.

PIE!

I served it with chips and peas (what else?). The filling was thick and rich with tender chunks of meat. The pastry was flaky, yet stodgy at the same time. The pastry on the bottom really benefited from the direct heat of the bottom of the oven as it had a nice colour to it and wasn’t soggy. It was even good cold the next day.

Cold PIE!

Overall it was a damn good pie and I was impressed with the ease of the recipe. I would just make one change as I wouldn’t scatter half of the cheese on top of the stew, below the pastry. Although it smelt delicious whilst cooking, I think the pie would have benefited from all the cheese being stirred into the mix rather than having half of it form stringy clumps on top of the meat.

Definitely one to repeat!

Are you a pie lover?  What’s your favourite?  You gonna give this one a go?

Use your Noodle at Noodle Inn

Many years ago, when Gav and I lived in a flat above a shop on Abbeydale Road, the Vietnamese Noodle Bar came to London Road, Sheffield. Every day, to and from work on the bus, my head would turn to catch a glance of it, tempted by the bright purple façade and the promise of unusual cuisine (remember, this was the first Vietnamese place in Sheffield). 

Needless to say, we visited quite soon after it first opened and we were introduced to a whole new way of eating. We’re talking long tables to be shared with strangers, chopsticks by default, brisk service and a smile if you were lucky. Fine dining this was not and you would think that a lot of people would have been put off. But no, it quickly became a busy establishment, so much so that they extended into the next door premises and ditched the purple façade for gleaming chrome.

Everyone was there for one reason; the food which was amazing. The menu was enormous and although we gave it a good go, I don’t think we even covered a tenth of all the dishes in the time it was there. Favourites were hot and sour soup, Vietnamese pancakes, hot clay pots and the whole fish dishes. Of course, there were noodles too and you could get them with almost anything! Fantastic. For a long time it was our favourite restaurants and we took many of our family members and friends who were as impressed as we were.

Unfortunately the Vietnamese Noodle Bar is no more as it shut down a couple of years ago. I heard the owner went back to Vietnam. I just hope he comes back with new recipes to cook for us all! 

So, we’ve had to find an alternative. Thankfully we didn’t have far to go as the Noodle Inn is about 5 doors away. It’s been around for many years and I had tried to get Gav to try it earlier, but he refused. He can be quite loyal to places and as long as there was the Vietnamese Noodle Bar, he wasn’t prepared to go to Noodle Inn. 

We’ve been a few times now and the last visit was last Sunday. As per usual it was heaving and there weren’t any tables free. So, we were shown to the long central table where we sat opposite each other, with a family to the right of me and another joined to my left halfway through the meal. I love to see kids at these places. I’m a true believer of having kids try different things when they are young and noodles are an easy start.

The atmosphere was very informal. It was pretty loud and staff were flying around the place, all on their own individual missions. Gav was further entertained as a Miss China show was on the TV opposite him (and behind me). He’d even decided on his favourite and was rooting for her to win!

We’d brought a bottle of wine with us, as it is BYOB (another reason to visit!), and a waitress quickly brought us glasses with some tap water. We sipped away at that as we started to peruse the exceptionally long menu. Now, we have visited here many times and ordered takeaway many, many times so we do know the menu quite well, but it still took us at least 15 minutes to decide what to have. Gavin was as decisive as ever, which always delays the process somewhat and we had decided to try some new dishes, which also added to the delay. 

This also meant saying goodbye to my favourites, which include fried aubergine harbour style (aubergine slices rolled around a prawn stuffing, battered, fried and served with lots of chillies) and deep fried pumpkin with salted eggs (strips of pumpkin, presumably coated in a salty eggy mixture and fried). Instead we went for sesame prawn toast to share as a starter (predictable but sometimes necessary), a ‘Big Plate Rice’ with mixed veg curry and egg fried rice, Three Roasties and Fish Fillets in Hot Chilli Oil. The waitress warned that the fish was very hot, which only encouraged Gav further. It did raise a bit of concern with me; I have witnessed Gav struggling through various hot and spicy dishes. Bless, he can’t actually cope with chilli as well as he would like to. 

Sesame prawn toast was fine. Nothing offensive, but nothing exceptional either. It is what it is; sesame prawn toast, which is why there are no photos. In fact, I'm sorry as there are no photos at all. I did take some but my memory card isn't working properly.... sorry!

Next up was the mixed veg curry rice dish. The dish was huge and there was more than enough rice for the both of us. The veg was fresh and there was the usual variety; peppers, mushrooms, bean sprouts, mange tout and baby corn etc. It was all well cooked and still had a bite to it. The curry sauce was very typical Chinese curry sauce, no heat, but flavoursome.  

Three Roasties was a plate of 3 meats. One line of duck, one of pork and the other of chicken. Each were cooked differently. The pork had a crispy outing, more than just crackling and the chicken must have been cooked in some bright orange substance as the skin was stained.

Fish in Chilli Oil was a huge dish of fish swimming in chilli oil and pak choi, amongst other things. It wasn’t actually that hot given the warning. Having said that we did have to work around the heaping mounds of dried chilli and it did still leave a slight tingling. There was plenty of moist fish in there and it was a lighter alternative to the meats. Good choice.

But man alive! The portions are humongous. So much so the waitresses ask if you want doggy bags before taking the plates away. We said yes to that and also to the offer of free ice cream.

Next up was the other great thing about this place; the bill.  It was £29. Marvellous. 

If you haven’t been to Noodle Inn yet then you should try it.  Their takeaway is almost as good as their restaurant food, but be warned, they get busy so grab that table or make that order fast!

What’s your favourite Noodle place?  Do you have a favourite dish?  

Are you a Bunny Boiler? Rabbit and Garlic

Wow. Of all the food stuffs I have cooked, rabbit is the one that has sparked the biggest response. No one battered an eye-lid at the veal, but as soon as I posted that I had a bun(ny) in the oven on Facebook, there was uproar! Presumably it's because many of us have, or have had, pet rabbits, and yes, eating a pet rabbit is an uneasy thought. 

However I was fed rabbit as a kid. My fondest memory of eating rabbit was on a family holiday. My Uncle and Granddad had gone out into the fields to shoot rabbits.  Once back at the house my Granddad skinned them and we barbecued them for tea. Well I hate to say it, but they were delicious!

Since then I’ve only ever eaten rabbit when eating out and I’ve never even thought about cooking it at home…. Until I saw them for sale at the market. Knowing that it was readily available, I consulted my copy of Fergus Henderson’s Nose to Tail Eating and the Rabbit and Garlic recipe took my fancy. In this recipe Fergus takes inspiration from a dish he ate in Barcelona. He admits that he hasn’t quite mastered the Spanish dish, but considers his version a good alternative. Having loved food in Barcelona myself, a Spanish inspired dish sounded good to me!

Now this recipe calls for the use of tame rabbits, which I assume means bred rather than wild. I asked the butcher whether his rabbits were tame or wild and got the answer ‘Well they went wild when they shot ‘em’. Hmmm. Funny guy, but he didn’t really answer my question! I went for one anyway and picked the largest one available which set me back about £6.50. 

Once home, I took the rabbit out of its bag to check out what I had. I had 6 portions; two front leg and two back leg and thigh portions and two portions from the middle. I was surprised how clean and glistening the meat was. It was very light in colour and looked a bit like chicken with very little fat. I think mine was tame after all. There wasn’t any shot or bruising. 

Here we go….

Ingredients:

Olive oil

1 tame rabbit (have your butcher chop it into portions for you)

Salt and pepper

150g streaky smoked bacon, with the rind attached

12 shallots, peeled, but kept whole

30-40 cloves of garlic, unpeeled

150mls dry sherry

300mls white wine

500mls chicken stock

1 bay leaf

Bundle of fresh thyme and parsley tied together

The above serves 4/5

I heated the oven to about 180C and then heated some olive oil in a large lidded casserole dish. I seasoned the rabbit and then browned it in the dish (in two batches). Once happy with the colouring, I removed the rabbit and set it aside. 

Next in was the bacon. Now Fergus says to chop the bacon into ‘spirited chunks’. What ‘spirited chunks’ are, I had and have no idea. Google was no help either. So I just chopped it into random sizes chunks, hoping that at least a third of them would be ‘spirited’. 

So with the ‘spirited’ bacon in the dish, I added the shallots and cooked them for about 10 minutes, stirring to ensure that nothing was starting to burn. I then returned the rabbit to the dish and added the garlic, sherry, wine, stock and the thyme and parsley bundle. I was also meant to add the bay leaf at this stage but forgot. Oooops!  

I then checked the seasoning, brought it to the boil, put the lid on and stuck it in the oven. One and a half hours later and the meat was almost falling off the bone. Time to serve.

I served mine with mashed potato, red cabbage and broccoli. I also had some crusty bread on the table for mopping up the juices and I think that this has been my most successful dish so far! The rabbit was tender and juicy. The flavour wasn’t so gamey (which again suggests that it was tame rather than wild) and it took on the salty flavours of the bacon and the garlic nicely. The sauce was beautiful; make sure there is plenty of bread for mopping it up if you make this dish. It was garlicky and salty, but not overly so. There is a LOT of garlic in this dish, but as the cloves are unpeeled, the flavour wasn’t overpowering and sucking the flesh from the cloves was a delight! 

Everyone praised the dish and had seconds. One diner, known for restraining herself a little more than the rest of us when eating, went for thirds!

If you’re a little squeamish about cooking up Bugs Bunny, maybe you could use skinned chicken portions. I’d use free range though; as you’ll want it as lean as possible.

This is the second Fergus Henderson recipe I have tried, the lambs’ heart was the first, and I’m impressed so far. Some say that his recipes are a bit difficult to follow for the novice cook. It’s true that you do have to use a bit of common sense, but that’s ok. Some cook books spell everything out to the point that they become patronising. 

So, have you had rabbit?  Is it a step too far for you? Or is it just another piece of game to enjoy?

A Tail of Two Dinners – Coda alla Vaccinara – Roman Oxtail Stew - Part 2

Just a very, very quick one to let you all know that part two of the Coda alla Vaccinara was delicious. I picked all the meat from the bones, chopped up half of the celery (we ate the rest as a snack!) and mixed everything back into the sauce to be re-heated. Once it was bubbling away, I put the pasta on. 

I had some left over Pecorino Romano in the fridge and finely grated it. Some went into the sauce as it was heating and some was to be served with the dish. Pasta nicely al dente I mixed everything together and served in bowls, with the cheese as an optional sprinkle.

Now this was definitely worth the hours of cooking. Delicious!

A Tail of Two Dinners – Coda alla Vaccinara – Roman Oxtail Stew

Oxtail was one of the winners of my recent poll and I was determined to get it done this week. There must be many British oxtail dishes (soup for one) but I had my heart set on another cuisine. If you read my Nonna’s review, you’ll know that the husband had coda di bue - which I now gather means oxtail of beef (i.e. not of pig?!). Anyway, it was good and reminded me that I had a Roman recipe for oxtail in my trusted David Downie ‘Cooking the Roman Way’ cook book.

Coda alla Vaccinara is a traditional Roman dish, so called because old and retired working oxen would be slaughtered and butchered by vaccinari who would be paid in kind with skins, unwanted offal and oxtails. The recipe is taken from Carla Bertini, who, according to Mr Downie, makes the best coda alla vaccinara he has ever tasted. Hmm. This guy knows his Roman food so it should be pretty good! 

First of all I had to buy the oxtail. In the past I have seen this for sale all nicely chopped up and ready to go... so I did have a little bit of a shock when, after asking for 3 pounds of oxtail, my butcher reached up above his head to unhook a whole tail hanging over the counter. Shiiiiit! It really did look like a tail! Then the next shock – the price. It was about £6.50, for just under 3 pounds. I have heard people moan about the price of oxtail increasing but still didn't expect it to be that much – especially as most of it is bone!

Anyway. Back at home I started the prep, and there is quite a bit of prep. But first of all, just for you guys, I laid the oxtail pieces out from end to end so that I could take a picture of the whole tail…

Oh it’s a good job I’m not squeamish! On to the recipe...

Ingredients:

1 oxtail (about 2½ to 3 pounds)

12 celery stalks

1 clove garlic

1 carrot

1 medium onion

110 g pancetta

2 heaping tablespoons of finely chopped flat leaf parsley

olive oil

salt and pepper

250 mls red wine

2 cans of tomatoes

1 tablespoon of tomato puree

boiling water

5 cloves

1 bay leaf

To Serve 6

First of all I prepared the oxtail. Mr Downie told me I just needed to hold the pieces under warm running water and use my fingers and a knife to ‘eliminate any fat or gristle’.  This is much harder than you think and to ‘eliminate’ all the fat and gristle I would really have to put some hours in. So I eliminated as much as I could. I then peeled the celery to remove the stringy bits and chopped all but one stalk into finger sized sticks. 

Using a food processor I minced up the one whole celery stalk with the garlic, carrot, onion, pancetta and 1 tablespoon of the parsley. I then took a large pan, heated it up, added a splash of olive oil and cooked the veg and pancetta mix for 4-5 minutes on a medium heat. I then added the oxtail with some salt and pepper and cooked it, whilst stirring, for about 15 minutes. Next in was the wine, which I boiled for about 2 minutes to evaporate.  Then I tipped in the tinned tomatoes and squirted in the puree. That just needed a good stir, to make sure the tomatoes were crushed and I then poured in enough boiling water to just about cover the bones. 

Mr Downie then says to make a purse out of gauze to hold the cloves in, with the view that it is then easy to remove before serving. I don’t have any gauze so my cloves were free to swim around the pan. The bay leaf went in too. I then left the stew to simmer for just over 2 hours, partially covered.

I had already planned to make this to be eaten the next day, as I knew that oxtail gives off a lot of fat which can be skimmed off when the dish is cold. Also Carla Bertini says that this stew is ‘best of all when reheated’. 

When I came to warming the dish up again the next day, there was a reasonable layer of fat, which I skimmed off. I then reheated it to simmering point and added the sticks of celery. Then I simmered the stew for 40 minutes, with the lid on. Once done, I stirred in the remaining parsley and served.

This can be served in soup bowls with bread, but we had it with mash and red cabbage. The question for me was whether it was worth the two nights of cooking. I think it was. There was no gruesome butchery involved (as had been the case with the pork cheeks) and it was an easy dish to make. More importantly the meat was tender and tasty and the sauce was nicely rich. So yes, it was good and worth the effort, but it wasn’t exactly easy to eat! You really do need to work the meat from the bones! The recipe for the sauce is a good one to know and should be pretty adaptable. I think I’ll try it with stewing lamb or beef.

Why the Tail of Two Dinners then? Well, Mr Downie suggests that the leftover meat and sauce should be used to dress pasta and that is exactly what I shall be doing tomorrow. Although this time I’ll skip the celery. I don’t care much for celery.

So will you give it a go? Are you already partial to a bit of oxtail, even if it is only in the tinned soup form?

Soothing Sausage Stew

Firstly I’d like to say thank you for voting in my poll. Oxtail and pie came in joint winners and I’m hoping to do both this week. For the veggies amongst us, I’ll be doing a veggie pie too. Calf’s liver came next with one vote and not one of you voted for Ox heart. Wimps!

Anyway. Back to the post. Soothing Sausage Stew.

I have always called this my sausage casserole, but apparently a casserole is cooked in the oven, not on the hob. This has always been cooked on the hob so it is, technically, a stew. Not a Casserole. Whatever it is, it’s soothing, warming and packed full of flavour and goodness. 

Everyone knows that chicken soup is good for colds and so is my sausage stew. Given the number of colds and flus everyone is suffering from at the moment, I feel I have a duty to share this recipe! It’s a pretty simple one, and you can swap and choose the ingredients according to what’s in your fridge. This is what I did….

Ingredients:

2 onions

2 peppers (whatever colour you have)

1 and a half large courgettes

2 medium aubergines

250g mushrooms

4 cloves of garlic

3 standard size tins tomatoes

2 standard size tins kidney beans (or whatever beans you have to hand)

12 sausages (you could skip these and use more beans/vege or use veggie sausages)

100g streaky bacon (if you have any lurking in the fridge)

300mls beef stock (or veggie stock if you prefer)

2 tbsp tomato puree

2 bay leaves

2 sprigs of fresh thyme (or dried mixed herbs)

Splash of Worcestershire sauce (or Henderson’s relish)

2 tsp hot paprika (or standard paprika with a splash of Tabasco sauce)

olive oil

Parmesan rind (whenever you finish off a triangle of Parmesan freeze the rind, it’s perfect for adding richness to these kind of dishes)

This made 6 servings of sausage stew and one serving of bean stew. 

Dice the onions and fry in some olive oil a very large pan. Once very soft, but not coloured add the garlic (sliced finely) peppers (diced), courgettes (halved lengthways and sliced) and aubergines (chopped roughly). Fry on a low to medium heat for about 15 minutes, until soft. Add more olive oil as and when needed. Add the mushrooms (sliced) and fry for a further 5 minutes. 

Make up the beef stock and add to the pan along with the tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, herbs and bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce, paprika and Parmesan rind. If you have some spare, add some red wine at this point. Having not been brought up in Sheffield, Henderson’s isn’t the be all and end all for me and I do prefer Worcestershire sauce. I hope you don’t hold it against me; I just prefer the richness of Worcestershire sauce.

Let everything cook away on a low heat, with the lid on, for a good hour or so. Just before the hour is up fry the sausages on a medium to high heat. You want to colour them, not cook them through. Add to the stew. Keep the lid off now, to help thicken the stew up.

I used tomato sausages from my favourite Castle Market butcher - W Bunting & Son. They weren’t incredibly cheap at almost a fiver for 12, but they were enormous, freshly made, free of gristle and good. Well worth the price. I used tomato flavour, but you can use plain or whatever flavour you fancy. If you’re also using bacon, chop it and fry quickly now. Once it’s starting to crisp, add it to the stew.

Allow everything to cook for about 20 minutes until the sausages are cooked. Drain the beans and add to the stew. Give everything 10 minutes or so and it’ll be ready to serve.  

Done.

If you have guests for dinner, and they’re running late (as mine often are), this is fine to sit on the lowest heat on the hob for up to an hour or so. Just make sure you remove the Parmesan rind before serving!

Serve with jacket potatoes or mash. Recently I served it with mashed swede and carrot. Cool and freeze any leftovers; like many tomato based foods, this is better second time round.

And, it’s gorgeous! Truly full of goodness, but very tasty too. The recipe is so versatile and can be adapted to anyone’s taste. Make it veggie, by just using beans. Or skip the beans and use more veg. Use chicken pieces instead of the sausages and chorizo instead of the bacon. Try some firm fish, or some squid. Whatever you fancy really.

This is my favourite recipe, one that’s been with me since my student days. It’s never let me down. What’s your favourite fail-safe recipe?