Rabbit casserole with apple and cider

Rabbit was something I ate regularly during my sojourn abroad - it was fairly easy to find on the butchers' slabs in the Parisian markets and surprisingly easy to buy in Amsterdam's supermarkets. Joy of joys, I've just found a butcher in my city that has them every day - a discovery made purely by chance as I'd actually gone to buy fish because my local fishmonger was inexplicably shut (the butcher and fishmonger in town being next door to each other in an indoor market).

A whole rabbit for £4 was too good to turn down. If you've never eaten it, the meat is white and very lean, has a texture like chicken and a similar but slightly gamier flavour. As there's virtually no fat on it and the meat is well-developed muscle, rabbit is best cooked slowly for 2-3 hours. There's not a lot of meat on one - a small rabbit will feed two people, so for a solo cook that's a portion for dinner now and one to freeze.

The classic pairing in the UK is with apples and cider. In France they cook it with prunes and red wine. It goes well with root vegetables in the pot and mustard is a classic seasoning. Some people add bacon for an extra layer of flavour.

What you need:
1 rabbit, whole or jointed
6 round shallots, peeled but left whole
3 tart apples
2 parsnips
1 turnip
1/2 litre of cider or scrumpy
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1tbsp grain mustard
 A little olive oil
A generous knob of butter
A few sprigs of fresh thyme
Seasoning

What to do:
Heat the olive oil and butter in a casserole on the hob and brown the rabbit on all sides. Cut the parsnips and turnips into chunks, peeling first if the skins look wrinkly and tired. Quarter the apples, remove the core and pips then cut the quarters in half. Add the shallots to the rabbit and sauté them until they start to soften slightly. Put all the veg in the pot, pour in the cider and add the mustard, thyme and a little sea salt and black pepper.

Put it in the oven at 180C for an hour then take it out to check it's not drying out and to taste for seasoning. Turn the heat down to 140C and cook it for another hour. At this stage check it again - the meat should be falling off the bones. If not pop it back in for another half-hour (and top up with boiling water if it looks dry).

Dish up.

Cook's tips:
If you buy a whole small rabbit (around 750g), make sure the butcher guts it for you if it hasn't already been done and to cut it up if you prefer joints. You'll get 4 small joints - 2 hind legs, a torso and the saddle, which is the back and the prize meat.

It's getting increasingly hard to find Bramley apples now. My greengrocer told me he'd stopped stocking them as he couldn't sell them when so many people now buy apple pie instead of making it. Granny Smiths are the way to go as they're the sourest eating apple - he assured me chefs use them to cook with now. Peel if you wish - I prefer to leave the skin on for extra flavour and fibre. If you do find Bramleys, 2 will be plenty.

The root vegetables should be plenty to fill you up, but some celeriac mash on the side is a great accompaniment if you feel inclined and it'll soak up some of the sauce, which will have thickened as the apples collapse.

Don't be alarmed by the amount of mustard - the length of cooking takes the heat out of it, leaving a mellow flavour.

Bacon, broad bean and black garlic pasta

I call this 3B pasta and it's really easy to make although it does use three pans. I think it's worth it, though, as the flavours go so well together. It's a store-cupboard dish - I usually have all the ingredients to hand so it's just a case of raiding the fridge and freezer for bacon, broad beans and parmesan, and the larder for pasta and the garlic.

What you need: 
Enough dried pasta spirals for one
A small shallot, chopped very finely
A small pack of lardons or a couple of snipped bacon rashers
A handful of broad beans
A bulb of black garlic
Olive oil
Fresh grated parmesan
A knob of butter

What to do:
Peel the garlic and crush the cloves to a paste in a mortar and pestle. Pour in about 3 tablespoons of olive oil, add a pinch of sea salt and work them together to create a dark flavoured oil. (One of those mini worktop food-processors will do an equally good job of blitzing everything together.)

Put the pasta on to cook and the broad beans. While they are boiling, sauté the the shallot in a knob of butter until it turns translucent, then add the lardons and fry until the fat starts to run off. Don't let them caramelise. Keep warm. Drain the beans (about 5 minutes) and pop them out of their skins then add them to the lardons. Drain the pasta when it's al dente (about 10 minutes) and add to the beans and lardons. Mix well, add a tablespoon of the black garlic oil, toss through and put in a bowl. Finish off with some grated parmesan.

Cook's tips: 
Black garlic is ordinary garlic that has been fermented - it has a deep, sweet flavour a little like licorice and is very soft. As a flavouring, it's not obviously garlicky at all but it will deliver a huge hit of umami to whatever you add it too. It's quite easy to find it online and a single bulb usually costs £1-1.50. Peel the cloves carefully with your fingers as they will be sticky and squishy.

The leftover oil will keep in a jar for weeks - try adding some to a mushroom risotto, dress a lamb chop with it before grilling or rub it over a chicken prior to roasting. On their own the cloves can be used to flavour dips, add to tapenade, or use in Asian stir-fries.

Much as I love broad beans, I find the skins can be tough sometimes. I won't skin the beans if they are very small but the bigger ones definitely benefit from losing their outer coat. If the beans have been boiled for 4-5 minutes, the skins will slip off very easily. If you're not a fan, use peas instead.

Blind dining

No recipe today, but some food for thought.

Yesterday evening, I took part in an event called Dining in the Dark here in Manchester. Along with another 7 or 8 food bloggers, we were there to taste the new menus at the local branch of the Living Room chain. The twist was that we did it blindfolded.

I was confident that I'd be able to identify lots of flavours and ingredients. In fact it was harder than expected. Much harder. Between tastings we could remove our blindfolds and write down what we thought we were eating or drinking (for there were cocktails too). At the end we passed our sheets to our neighbour for marking. I scored a paltry 8.5 out of 40. Even the winner, a very deserving one, managed only 14. (We did have some disagreements with the Living Room about the difference between flavours and ingredients!)

So much of how we eat is visual - we see what's on the plate and we know what to expect. Our tastebuds ready themselves. Even before the food arrives, we've chosen from the menu or, at home, have decided what to cook. There is anticipation.

And then there is smell - our noses also help us to recognise what we are eating, even alerting us when food has gone off. Experts say 90% of what we taste is in fact smell. With the blindfold on, though, I felt like I'd lost not one sense but two - my ability to smell also seemed impaired. And without those, my tastebuds became confused. A coconut and passion fruit crème brulée tasted of the vanilla and sugar I expected with a hint of brandy. How wrong I was.

I did best with the Glamorgan vegetarian sausages above and also the Thai curry.

It was a lot of fun and a stark reminder that eating isn't just about taste. It's about much more - touch and sound also can play a role.

Thanks to the Living Room for their hospitality - I'm more of an "old-fashioned boozer" type of drinker but if you stop by for their food, the new menu is not bad at all.

Quick winter minestrone

Soups are currently top of my menu as the weather gets chillier and I crave something substantial, warming and comforting. Soup generally ticks all those boxes for me and this minestrone is especially hearty as well as very simple to make.

Best of all, you can get it into a bowl inside 30 minutes. The other huge bonus is that you probably have most of the ingredients in the larder already.

As usual, prep everything first. This makes two generous bowlfuls and I reckon it tastes as good if not better for reheating next day.

What you need: 
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, finely diced
1 small packet of lardons (optional)
1 litre of vegetable or chicken stock
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 small (half-size tin) haricot beans
A handful of small pasta (baby macaroni or orzo)
A generous handful of greens, finely shredded
Pinch of mixed dried herbs

What to do:
Heat a glug of olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium hob and sauté the onion until it starts to soften. Add the lardons if using and fry until the fat starts to run off. Don't brown them or let the onions start to caramelise. Add the carrot, stir through for half a minute then pour in the stock, the tomatoes, the beans and the pasta. Season to taste and add the herbs.

Bring the pan to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the greens and simmer for another 5 minutes until the pasta is cooked to al dente. Dish up!

Cook's tips: 
Although minestrone is a chunky soup, the greens do need to be finely shredded - I aim to cut them as thin as Chinese "seaweed", which is actually made from cabbage, because they need to cook quickly. Most greens work well - spring greens, kale, cavolo nero and savoy cabbage all suit minestrone.

You can throw pretty much any veg into a minestrone as it's a seasonal soup that makes the most of what's available. If you don't have carrots to hand, use a parsnip, turnip or some celeriac. Use whatever beans you have to hand in the store cupboard - borlotti, cannelini and pinto, for example.

The basis of minestrone is vegetarian - any meat (or meat stock) is entirely optional. Bacon definitely suits this best if you want meat because of the depth of flavour it brings - use snipped-up rashers if you don't have lardons, or some chopped leftover ham or gammon.

You can finish the soup in the bowl with a teaspoon of pesto swirled through if you like (not my personal preference as I find it too overpowering) or a little grated parmesan or pecorino.

Chicken and vegetable pie

Own up - who doesn't love pie? I do. I was invited to a pie-tasting event the other week. I hadn't eaten pie of any sort for some time and as I tucked in to a truly delicious peppered steak pasty I realised I hadn't made pie at home since, ooh I don't know when.

Homemade pie is definitely a bit of work and for one person, even more so. But once in a while it's worth making the effort, because it will feed you several times over and if you have leftovers it's a good way to use them up. Have one portion hot and enjoy the rest for packed lunches (although it reheats well too).

As it happens, I'd just been given a very large (2kg) organic chicken. I roasted it for a weekend supper then spent the next day pulling the rest of the meat off the carcass, which I turned into stock the bones. I also had a leek that was on the verge of going slightly limp. Pie sprang to mind - chicken and leek are made for each other.

What you need:
Half a leftover roast chicken - 1 breast, 1 leg
A small leek, diced
1 carrot, diced
Handful of frozen peas
Seasoning
250g shortcrust pastry
Bechamel sauce
1 egg

What to do:
Make the pastry first. Rub 110g butter into 225g of plain flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add a tablespoon of cold water and, using one hand, work it in to a dough. Add more cold water bit by bit if you need it. The pastry should be stiff, not sticky. Wrap it in cling film and put in the fridge to rest for at least half an hour.

Make the filling. Sweat the leek in some butter until it starts to soften. Add the carrot and continue to cook gently. Throw in the peas. Cut the cooked chicken into bite-sized chunks and add to the veg. Stir well and season lightly. Set aside to cool.

Make the bechamel. Melt 50g butter in a pan on a low heat and add a tablespoon of plain flour. Stir with a wooden spoon to get rid of any lumps. Add 300ml milk a tablespoonful at a time, beating furiously each time to prevent lumps. Turn up the heat and keep stirring as it thickens.Turn the heat down again when it starts to bubble and cook it for a few minutes more (this is to cook the flour as it's not nice raw). Pour into the chicken and veg and mix well.

Heat the oven to 200C and grease a 20cm pie dish.

Take the pastry out of the fridge and cut it in half. Sprinkle a little flour over the worktop and roll out half the pastry into a circle until it's about 1mm thick and about 1.5cm bigger than the pie tin. Line the pie tin across the base and up the sides, making sure you have an overhang. Tip in the filling, spreading it evenly across the dish. Roll out the rest of the pastry to make the lid. Make an eggwash by beating a small egg in a mug. With a pastry brush, smear a little eggwash round the edge of the pie, roll the lid on top and crimp the edges together. Brush the rest of the eggwash across the pie lid and then cut 2-3 slits in it. Bake for 40-45 minutes until the top is golden and crispy.

Cook's tips: 
Pastry: the trick to good pastry is keeping everything cold. Use butter straight from the fridge (rubbing in is easier if you cut it into cubes) and keep your hands cold. I wash mine under the cold tap at this stage and also when rolling out. Chilling the pastry before rolling is essential - it stops it shrinking from the sides of the dish as it bakes. No rolling pin? Improvise - last night's wine bottle (a trick I learned in my student days) will be fine. Of course, if you're feeling lazy, there's nothing wrong with using bought shortcrust pastry. You can even buy it in ready-rolled sheets now.

You shouldn't have any leftover pastry from this quantity and a 20cm dish, but if you do use it to make jam tarts. Or a mini pasty if you have leftover filling too.

Bechamel: Yes, you can buy it in a jar but homemade doesn't take very long and it has only 3 ingredients, which is a lot fewer than the readymade version. Quite a few well-known chefs advocate putting the butter, milk and flour together in the pan at the very start and whisking everything furiously as it comes to the boil. Done properly, it should be lump-free.

The filling: Most cooked leftover meat will lend itself well to pie filling. Add some chopped bacon if you don't have quite enough meat. For the veg, mushrooms also have an affinity with chicken but you could use anything - sweetcorn, chopped onion, diced peppers, broad beans... If you have some fresh herbs, a little thyme, tarragon or parsley will lift the filling.

Preparing leeks: the quickest, easiest way to dice a leek is a complete no-brainer when you know how - it's just not immediately obvious to non-chefs. I spent years slicing leeks into rounds then cutting those into quarters before a chef taught me differently. Pull off the outer leaves and trim off the top. Leave the root intact. Put the leek on a chopping board and slice it vertically from root to tip, turning it to make a fresh cut every 1/2cm. Then slice it horizontally and it will fall into dice. Wash well in a colander to get rid of any grit.

South-east Asia in a bag

The #foodiepenpals “club” never ceases to thrill, surprise and amaze me – although I cook for one day to day, food for me is also about sharing and that’s where #foodiepenpals just keeps delivering. I love putting a parcel together every month for the recipient I’ve been matched with and there’s also the anticipation of getting one in return from yet someone else.

There was extra excitement in store this month, as my parcel not only arrived hand-delivered but was also entirely homemade. Lex, aka LadyNom1, was passing through my neighbourhood so she dropped by for tea and a natter, while handing over this exotic-looking bag.

Lex writes the LadyNom blog and runs a supper club called Nomsensical in Altrincham, just south of Manchester. There are several supper clubs in my city although I’ve yet to attend one. We had a chat about these and she encouraged me to sign up for her next one. I then told Lex about Manchester’s legendary GastroClub, which she’d never tried yet. It’s currently on hold but hopefully she’ll book when it gets going again.

After she left, I dived into Lex’s bag of goodies, which contained four jars of handmade fresh dips and pastes from south-east Asia. She certainly knows her stuff, having travelled extensively in the region and cooked professionally there so these were all as authentic as can be. She’d very thoughtfully made up each jar in one-person portions for me – Cambodian amok curry paste, a Laotian spice paste for fish and noodles, a Vietnamese dipping sauce and a Thai curry paste.

She’d also included six (six!) pages of info about her travels and the food, plus a recipe for each item, also thoughtfully in one-person portions. Most of my repertoire is pan-European so I was delighted to receive such a fabulous parcel and couldn’t wait to get cracking in the kitchen.

I chose to cook the Cambodian amok first – you’ll have to ask Lex for the recipe, but it’s a mix of chicken and spinach or beet leaves steamed in coconut milk and her spice paste, which is based on coriander. For true authenticity, you’re supposed to wrap it in a banana leaf but I used her suggested method of steaming it in a bowl over a pan of boiling water instead. It was fragrant and warming, the perfect supper for a chilly, drizzle evening.

Chicken and banana curry

I have a very lazy relationship with curry. I either go out to eat it, or I order in a takeaway - both on the basis that it'll be far superior to my own efforts. I have a jar of balti paste in the cupboard for when I do decide to rustle up a curry of my own, particularly if I have ripe tomatoes that need eating. And once in a while I make this.

Years ago my parents used to make a chicken and banana curry from a recipe book, but it wasn't particularly tasty as it used a standard curry powder blend. Despite my laziness, I did learn a bit about curry spices some years back and I'm confident that this is an upmarket recreation of that dish from my teens. If you can be bothered it's well worth experimenting - whole spices vastly improve a curry, but South Asians already know that!

I like the combination of chicken and banana as I'm not keen on very hot curries - this produces something milder, slightly sweet and more aromatic. It's not quick - you need about an hour from start to finish, but for soothing, warming comfort food it's hard to beat. Makes 2 portions, on the grounds that curry often tastes better the day after.

What you need: 
Vegetable oil
2 skinless chicken thighs
An inch of cinnamon stick
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
6 cardamon pods, lightly crushed
6 crushed black peppercorns
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
an inch of fresh ginger, grated
1 small onion, diced
1/2 pint chicken stock
1 small green pepper, sliced
2 medium ripe bananas, thickly sliced
A handful of roughly chopped fresh coriander

What to do: 
Prep all the spices first and chop the vegetables. Heat a splash of vegetable oil in a sauteuse on a medium hob and brown the chicken thighs. Set aside, add a little more oil if the pan looks dry then fry the whole spices until they release their aromas.

Add the ginger, garlic and onion and fry until the onion starts to soften - about 5 minutes. Pour the chicken stock in, then add the chicken thighs, banana and green pepper. Stir well and turn up the heat until it starts to bubble gently. Then turn the heat back down, put a lid on, and leave to simmer gently for about 45 minutes.

Plate up - sprinkle the chopped coriander over the curry and add a portion of basmati rice on the side.

Cook's tips:
This works just as well with chicken fillet - if you're in a hurry, it'll cook in about 30 minutes.

Don't use bananas that are very ripe else they will break down completely and you want to have some texture from the fruit even while it's melted into the sauce. And don't swap the green pepper for red or yellow - it will make the curry too sweet. If you prefer more heat, substitute a fresh green chilli, finely chopped, for the mustard seeds.

You can turn this into a korma by using half stock and half coconut milk, plus a tablespoon of ground almonds and a few sultanas.

Orzo risotto with porcini

Orzo is a kind of pasta that looks like tiny grains of rice - it's often used to bulk out soups (it works well in minestrone, for example) or make the base of a salad. It's rare to see it in supermarkets, but if you find a bag somewhere grab it as it's a versatile store-cupboard staple and a 500g pack will last for ages. I found my most recent bag in a discount supermarket some months ago and paid about £1.20.

Because orzo looks like rice, it's a good substitute for it in some dishes and it makes a great "risotto". It takes about half the time to cook, so you don't want the pasta in the pan for more than about 10 minutes.

What you need:
Orzo, about half a mug full
Small handful of dried porcini
4-5 sundried tomatoes
1/2 litre of stock
1 small onion, finely chopped
Olive oil
Seasoning
Parmesan cheese

What to do: 
Using separate bowls, soak the porcini and tomatoes by covering with boiling water and leaving for 15-20 minutes (or according to packet instructions). Drain, reserving the liquid. Make up the liquid to the right amount by topping up with boiling water and adding in a little stock powder if you wish. Chop the sundried tomatoes into small pieces.

Sauté the onion in the olive oil until it's soft and translucent, using a heavy-based sauteuse over a medium heat. Toss in the orzo, stir through until it's coated in oil (as you would for a rice risotto), then pour in about half the liquid. Bring the pan almost to the boil then turn the heat right down so everything's on a gentle simmer.

Stir the risotto and add the tomatoes and porcini after 5 minutes. Stir again and add more liquid if it starts to dry out. The orzo should cook within 10 minutes but check it - it needs to be al dente, not mushy. Stir in some grated parmesan, season to taste and dish up.

Cook's tips:
Be really careful with the cooking time. Risotto rice needs 20-25 minutes, orzo much less, so get all your ingredients ready before you switch the hob on. Orzo also needs a lot less liquid than rice as it is much less absorbent, so you need to watch how much you add and only top up it little by little.

Pulled beef

Pulled meat is surprisingly easy to make - all you need is time to shove a roasting joint in the oven and leave it cook really slowly on a low heat for anywhere between 3 and 5 hours, until it literally falls apart when you jab a fork into it. The "pulled" refers to the strands of meat that are produced when the muscle breaks down completely.

Pork is typically used for pulling - this recipe for pulled pork is fairly standard in the ingredients it uses. I prefer to make a massive bed of sliced onions to put the meat on and I don't add extra liquid as the onions generate enough. What is important is a low oven of about 140C and ensuring the roasting tin is sealed with a tin foil cover to keep the juices in.

However, you can pull beef too. The best joint to use is brisket - it's traditionally pot-roasted as it needs a lot of cooking. And I do mean a lot - even after 3 hours, brisket will still be tough. On the plus side, it's ridiculously cheap. A slab of about 750g will rarely cost more than a fiver and it will produce 4 decent portions.

What you need: 
750g joint of brisket
Cooking liquid
Shallots
Seasoning

What to do: 
Heat the oven to 140C. Put the brisket in a roasting tin with a handful of unpeeled baby shallots. Season the meat and pour in about an inch of liquid. Cover with tin foil, making sure it's sealed tight round the edges of the tin. Pop it in the oven.

Check it after 3 hours - the meat won't be nearly ready but you may need to top up the cooking liquid. And don't be alarmed by the meat shrinking.

Put the meat back in the oven for at least another hour - I find 4.5 to 5 hours is about right. It's ready when you can shred it with a pair of forks.

Lift it out carefully on to a plate to shred it, then enjoy a portion with the vegetable and carbs of your choice. You can eat the shallots too if you prise the flesh out of the skins.

Cook's tips:
Choose a piece of brisket that has plenty of fat round the edge and also marbled through the meat - it helps to keep the meat moist and tender as it cooks.

If you use stock for the cooking liquid go for something not too salty. I usually make up some Marigold vegetable bouillon, but there's no reason not to use beef stock. Or you could throw in some cooking wine. If you use plain water, then toss in a couple of bay leaves and a bouquet garni, plus a few sprigs of fresh thyme if you have some.

What to do with the leftovers? From a 750g joint, you should have enough for 3 more meals. Pulled brisket is great in a sandwich for lunch with some horseradish sauce. It's also excellent in a fajita and as the meat in a small cottage pie (make enough mash for leftovers if you're having it with the brisket straight out of the oven). Cheap eats for half a week...

Brisket will dry out quickly after cooking - cover the plate of leftover shreds with some tin foil to keep the juices in as it cools. Then split it into portions and pack it into containers - the meat will keep 3 days in the fridge and it also freezes well. I usually add a little of the cooking liquid to each portion for extra moisture at this stage.

Tricolore with halloumi

Tricolore is Italian for 3 colours, and in Italian cooking that usually means the red, white and green of the national flag. It's also the name for a salad that is a jumped-up version of the classic caprese.

The caprese salad is really simple - just tomatoes, mozzarella and fresh basil leaves, dressed with a little olive oil and seasoned. The tricolore throws avocado into the mix. I often have an avocado lurking in my fruit bowl but I also often forget to eat them before they get overripe. I don't always have mozzarella in the fridge but I do usually have a pack of halloumi. This can be knocked up in a couple of minutes - it's healthy and quite filling and utterly delicious.

What you need: 
1/3rd of a block of halloumi
1 ripe avocado
A large handful of cherry tomatoes
Capers
1 lemon
Olive oil
Black pepper

What to do:
Slice the halloumi and arrange on a plate. Zest the lemon and scatter it over the cheese. Halve the avocado, take the stone out, then halve again so it's in quarters. Cut the flesh into slices and put them between the cheese, piling any extra into the middle.

Halve the cherry tomatoes and scatter over the plate, along with a heaped teaspoon of capers. Grind some black pepper over everything then drizzle with a little olive oil and the juice of half the lemon.

Cook's tips: 
I usually skip the salt as halloumi is quite salty, enough for this salad. Don't skip the lemon zest though - it helps to cut through the saltiness while lifting the vegetables.

If you don't like capers, use some halved green or black olives instead.