Sharing a love of good food - recipes from my kitchen - eating out - great producers & suppliers
Deep into autumn now, I’m regularly craving rich, meaty stews and braises for dinner. As the evenings get chillier, tasty, tender meat served with the delicious sauce it was cooked in is exactly the type of hearty food I’m after. In this post I share …Read more
Quick Dumpling Soup, based on frozen gyoza and inspired by East and Southeast Asian flavours, can be made in fifteen to twenty minutes. With store cupboard ingredients like soy sauce, rice vinegar, and chilli oil, a handful of aromatics (garlic, ginger, spring onion) plus your …Read more
Corned Beef & Potato Pasties are a British favourite. Simple, budget-friendly but oh so tasty. Crisp shortcrust pastry filled with tinned corned beef mashed with cooked potatoes and onions makes for perfect comfort food served with gravy and veg. Growing up in the …Read more
Beer Braised Beef Cheeks are wonderfully tender with a deep, meaty flavour. Either slow-cooked or pressure cooked, the cheeks absorb the braising liquor of dark beer and beef stock flavoured with vegetables, garlic, and thyme. The result is an easy, comforting dish of spoon-ably soft …Read more
Mince recipes are some of the most useful to have in your repertoire. Whether it’s minced beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, chicken, or turkey, minced or ground meats are so versatile. Often quicker to cook than meals using large cuts of meat, in many mince …Read more
Venison Bourguignon is inspired by the classic French bœuf bourguignon. Delicious and surprisingly easy to make at home, my version replaces the traditional beef with chunks of venison. Slow cooked with bacon, red wine, stock, garlic, and herbs, plus mushrooms and whole baby onions, the result …Read more
Homemade Potted Beef is a traditional British food that’s so simple you won’t believe how delicious it is. All you need to make it are diced beef, butter, salt, pepper, and a little beef stock. The seasoned, diced beef is slowly cooked with butter and …Read more
French Onion & Oxtail Soup is great comfort food. Dig down beneath a toasty, cheesy topping and you’ll find rich onion soup made with tasty beef broth, filled with shreds of meltingly soft oxtail. Although the soup is best made over a couple of days, …Read more
Minced Beef and Onion Pie is classic comfort food. But with everyday ingredients it’s so easy to make too. Onions, a clove of garlic and minced beef are browned in a little olive oil and butter then simmered in beef stock. Topped with a simple …Read more
Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf, made with quality beef mince and smoked bacon, tastes so good there’s no need for any sauces, gravy or toppings. Without fillers such as breadcrumbs, but flavoured with herbs, onion and a little cheese, this easy but tasty loaf is also suitable …Read more
Beef & Bean Stew is simple comfort food for chilly days and nights. And it’s even better with fluffy suet dumplings cooked on top. As well as tender cubes of beef and gravy thickened with veg, there’s beans in this economical stew too. In this …Read more
Roast Beef Salad is undoubtedly a sensible way to use up leftovers from the Sunday roast. But, made with quality beef sirloin, I think it’s so good it’s worth roasting a joint specially to make this satisfying plate. With little salads of roasted carrots, garlicky …Read more
Beef Short Rib Ragu must be one of the best things I’ve made this year. The meaty ribs are cooked with garlic, wine, tomatoes and a few other goodies until meltingly soft. The beef is then shredded and added to the semi-pureed sauce to make …Read more
Brisket of beef is an economical cut of meat that’s full of flavour. But bringing out the best in it usually requires long, slow cooking over many hours. In this post I show you how to reduce that time to just an hour using an …Read more
My contribution to the Columbo Bowl Chili Cook-Along, celebrating the publication of Cooking with Columbo. There’s a word for the effect on my brain of watching Swan Song, episode seven of season three of Columbo: an earworm. An ear worm is a piece of music …Read more
Winter is traditionally the time for slow-cooked stews, and oxtail with its rich flavour and soft, silky texture teased out by long cooking, is understandably a contender for this sort of comfort food. But for me, oxtail evokes thoughts of warmer climates; specifically the southern …Read more
Food – dogs – books – films It’s always satisfying when I come across something that combines at least two of my major passions. And, for the record, my major passions include: food (obviously), dogs (especially English cocker spaniels), books and films. For instance, as Ernest …Read more
In this post, you lucky people are getting two recipes in one. Besides telling you about my ultimate meatballs and sauce for pasta, I’m also going to show you how to turn them into a fabulous pasta bake with a cheesy topping. MEATBALLS? YES …Read more