Random recipe thread

What temp does the oven need to be to get them golden & crispy?

Jaysus franko, that is certainly some lovingly prepared veg! Looks awesome.

Guill, was it belly pork ribs that you used ?

I made a lovely spagetti dish with crab claws last night. (Tesco were doing a special on AYA frozen cooked crab claws a few months ago and I bought about 20 packets!).

Tin of chopped tomatoes into a plastic jug with some chopped garlic, a spoon of sugar and a dash of red wine....blitz with a handheld blender for a good 3-4 mins...left with a passata. Put this on a low heat for about an hour and it thickens up. Cook the spagetti as per instructions in a large pot of salted, boiling water (;)). Once done, drain and add in the passata and give it a good mix. It should stick to the spagetti rather than being "wet".

For the crab claws (which are already cooked) I just flashfry them in melted butter and some garlic.

Arrange the spagetti in a twirl on the centre of the plate and place the crab claws around.

Serve with a niiice drop of Bourgogne Pinot Noir!

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Summer Pasta

This is an ideal lunch, or accompaniment to a main meal, is easy to prepare. For best results, make it a day before. I made this yesterday for two vegetarian friends and they absolutely loved it, as did I.

Ingredients

250g cooked, cold pasta (penne is ideal, but it doesn't really matter what type)
approx. 75ml Olive Oil
One clove of garlic, finely chopped
a good sprinkle of dried oregano
cherry tomatoes
hallumi cheese (feta can be used, but if it is, add this just before serving as it tends to fall to pieces if left overnight)

Directions

Pour the olive oil into a bowl, add in the garlic and oregano. Stir well and set aside.

Chop the cherry tomatoes into quarters, slice the hallumi cheese into similar size chunks.

Put the pasta into a large mixing bowl and add the olive oil mixture. Mix it well to ensure the pasta is covered completely, ensuring you don't break any of the pasta pieces. Add in the cherry tomatoes and cheese, leave overnight in the fridge, but serve at room temperature.

Enjoy!

I am eating this (^^) right now and it is truly delicious. So so so easy to make and its wonderful.
Loving it:D

Following on from the 2011 Random Recipe I though I'd start one for 2012.

This thread is for poster's that missed the cut for 2012 Cooking Club selection, & also for regulars who would like to share other recipes that they think may be of interest.

As Mr M put it in the 2011 post...

Mr Magnolia wrote:

Feel free to post your recipes here and we'll give as many of them a go as possible. Everyone else can also post up the opinions, pictures etc. same as on the weekly threads. It could be useful as the weekly recipe may not suit/appeal to everyone anyway.

If you do get called to stand-in the recipe can always be reposted as the weekly recipe. It might be worth staggering the submissions as you see fit but we'd like to see as many people involved as possible!

Boeuf Bourguignon
Serves 4



Toss 1kg of chuck or shin of beef, cut into large pieces, in seasoned flour. Let it colour (caramel brown, not grey! Very important) in a little oil and butter in a heavy casserole on high heat, in batches. Remove.
Add 100g of smoked lardons and fry until golden. Set aside together with the beef.
Add 20 pearl onions. Brown them lightly then add 20 button mushrooms. Once golden, remove.
Turn the heat down to medium. Add a large finely diced onion and a stick of finely diced celery. Sautee until they soften. Stir in 1 tbsp of tomato puree.
Pour in a bottle of red wine (burgundy, pinot noir, chianti), together with 6 medium carrots cut at 1 inch length, 3 lightly crushed cloves of garlic, 2 bay leaves, and 1 large sprig of thyme. Turn the heat up and let it boil rapidly for about 3-4 minutes.
Return the beef/lardons to the pot and add 300ml of beef stock.
Season and turn the heat low to a simmer, for a good 2 hours, until the meat is tender.
Add the pearl onions and mushrooms and continue cooking for 30 minutes.
Remove thyme and bay leaves before serving.
Best left overnight to allow the flavours to mellow.
Serve with crusty bread, mash, boiled spuds, petit pois, buttered noodles, whatever you fancy.

Hi Mrs fox, loved the beef, but could not find pearl onions anywhere, where did you get yours,?
many thanks,

I tried Susie_Q's recipe tonight and it was amazing! And it works out cheap enough to make. Had it with bacon, onion, lettuce, tomato, mayo and ketchup.
Forgot to take a photo but will defiantly be making it again so I'll try next time

Thought it might be a good idea to post this recipe here.



Cauliflower Pizza Base
23 cm round pizza tin (with a slightly raised edge), lined with baking parchment - per person - 360 calories.
Preheat oven to 230° C



Ingredients

• 120 grs grated/riced cauliflower - 24 cal
• 60 grs grated cheese - mine was gouda and gave me 246 cal - You can use a lower fat cheese, but you need some fat for 'melt factor'
• 1 large egg - 90 cal
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried basil (yes, dried works best for this)
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• pinch cayenne pepper
• freshly crushed black pepper and sea salt to taste

You can obviously vary the quantities of your herbs to your own taste.

Preparation

• Grate/rice the raw cauliflower in a food processor, it is fast and efficient.
• Blanch the cauliflower for 2 minutes in salted boiling water.
• Drain in a colander. Shake well to get more water out.
• Return to the pan on a low heat to evaporate any excess moisture. Alternatively, you could press the water out with a clean tea towel.
• Leave to cool.
• Beat loose the egg.
• Mix all the ingredients together and pour into your lined pizza tray.
• Smooth it out evenly.
• Cook in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes.
• Leave to set slightly or cool completely to be topped at a later time. I made more than was required so I could store some in the freezer.
• Choose your favourite pizza toppings and put under the grill/broiler for 5 minutes. Keep an eye on it as it may burn quickly.
• Leave to rest for 5 minutes till everything has set before slicing and serving

I wasn't a calorie counter myself until recently. Health reasons, am happy enough with my weight. Needs must and all that.

But I enjoy food and even when I am 'dieting' I don't feel the need to punish myself with flavour lacking, uninteresting foods. If you know what I mean.
And who knows people who need low carb or low calorie meal ideas can get some kind of inspiration.

A while back, I treated myself to a subscription to America's Test Kitchen (which is basicly an internet magazine that tests pots, pans, mixers, knives, and all sorts of kitchen toolage, but they give you a side order of recipes from a sister site as well). One of the recipes they had was for a braised turkey dish, where you broke down the turkey, roasted it at a high temp for a while to brown the skin, then braised it to finish. Tried it, and it sortof worked - the turkey was like sponge instead of dry shoe leather. I knew I was cooking xmas dinner this year and I had an earlier recipe in mind as well, so I bought a few turkey breasts over a month or two and tested some ideas, and here's the end result, which I used for this xmas's dinner to some success.

Warning: There's no turkey skin. I don't care - I think people who eat skin are wierd. So no complaints. Besides, there's an easy solution. Buy a second turkey and roast that for the skin



To start with, my family rarely get to the legs during xmas dinner, and I really hate picking over carcasses for dark meat the next day, so I figured why waste it and I just ordered a turkey crown this year. Hell, herself and myself together can't finish one turkey breast, so why not, especially when it wasn't the only meat dish (there was beef wellington for xmas dinner as well). BTW, this recipe works well with just a turkey breast too, so for smaller roast-type-dinners, this is pretty good too.

My order didn't quite go as cleanly as planned - to me, turkey crown means two breasts still attached to the keelbone, but with the rest of the carcass removed. To my butcher it means a turkey without the legs but everything else still attached. So I had to start with some basic butchery, and I just peeled the two breasts off the carcass. Normally I'd make stock with the carcass, but I'd saved a few litres of the stuff from the practice runs to make the jus without fuss today, so I just discarded it (it's xmas, all my pots including the stock pot are in use - I don't recommend this as a regular thing though, just chuck it in the stock pot and don't waste it).

First cooking step - brine the turkey. My brine consists of:

• 4 litres of water
• 1 cup of salt
• 1/2 cup of golden castor sugar (any brown sugar would do)
• 10 black peppercorns
• a few sprigs of thyme
• 10-12 juniper berries
• 4-6 allspice berries
• 4 bay leaves
• a sprig or two of sage
• a large orange, cut into quarters
• 4 vegetable stock cubes (or stock pots - the "herb infusion" ones worked nicely here)

Bring all this up to a boil, stirring to ensure everything dissolves (that will dissolve, that is, you'd be a while waiting for a sprig of thyme to dissolve), and then turn off the heat and let it cool. Meanwhile add a 2kg bag of ice to a suitable container (I use a plastic box, I've used a bucket and a stock pot in the past, but basicly something clean and waterproof). When the brine liquid has cooled fully (fully please, there's no mess like a brine melting out of the container), add it to the ice and mix well; then add the turkey to the liquid. Close the container and stash it somewhere cool overnight (if you stash it outside - and I have - be sure the cat can't get at it by weighting down the lid).

The next day, take a deep roasting tin. I had to go search for mine, its a good 8.5cm deep. Your average roasting tin won't cut it for turkey breasts (they're usually fine for chicken though, and this should work for chicken too). Break down two large white onions, four or five ribs of celery and three or four carrots - exact amount depends on the size of the ribs/carrots, but you're trying to end up with roughly equal amounts of all three (that's not a standard mirepoix, but it works for this recipe). Mix these in the roasting tin (note that the tin here is cold; this isn't a case of heating it in the oven and then chucking in ingredients, like with roast spuds). Now add in four or five cloves of garlic (cut in half and the bitter green spout removed, but not smashed or diced).

Now remove the turkey from the brine, and rinse it with cold water. Careful not to splash too much, it's still poultry and you still have to watch the hygiene, even if it's not the dreaded chicken. Place the breasts, skin side up, on the mirepoix. I said there wasn't any skin in this recipe, I didn't mean we remove it before cooking

Liberally season the turkey and the mirepoix with salt and pepper, and add a few sprigs of thyme and sage over the turkey. Quarter another large orange and put the quarters at each corner of the tin; quarter a lemon and put each quarter at each side of the tin, so the turkey is covered in herbs and surrounded by citrus. Add a bay leaf too if you like that taste.

I don't time roasts or meats when cooking; instead I do the right thing and use a probe thermometer So at this point, I stuck the probe into the deepest part of the larger breast.

BTW:


Best €30 I ever spent in my kitchen. Just saying.

Now, make up some stock. I've used chicken stock from stock pots or cubes; and I've used vegetable as well; this time though, I had a few litres of turkey stock saved up from the last practice run, so I used most of that instead (I saved about a half-litre, I'll explain why later). I added all the stock to the roasting tin, and then topped it up with water until the liquid just covered the turkey (this is why you need the deep tin). Then I covered the tin with a double thickness of tinfoil and crimped it to the tin as solidly as I could, making sure the thermometer lead was feeding out okay.

Now, into the oven, set your thermometer alarm for 160F (72C) and turn the oven on (from cold) to 100C (212F) (you can use any temperature down to about 80C but modern ovens and low temperatures don't mix so well and 100C is about as far as I can push mine).

Yes, that's low. Don't worry - when the meat hits 160F internal, it's done and perfectly safe and white, all will be well.

Now, close oven door, and go away for, oh, around three hours. That's why the thermometer has an audible alarm - you no longer have anything to do here. No turning, no basting, no worries at all. Just leave the thing, it's fine.

After the three or so hours, when the meat hits 160F internal, take it out of the oven (btw, if it goes up higher because you were busy, it's more or less okay to about 170F - beyond that, you're back into tough chewy leather territory, and all this effort has been wasted). Set it aside on a trivot/silicone heat mat/cork mat/table you don't mind destroying with heat from the roasting tin. And just leave it. At any point for the next hour or two, that turkey will remain at a nice hot temperature and be ready to serve, but if you have roast spuds or anything like that to do, just go do them now and leave the turkey sit there. It'll stay hot and not dry out, it'll be fine.

When you're ready, remove the turkey from the braising liquid, remove the skin and discard (it'll be pallid and unpleasant looking anyway, so just chuck it - it's not waste anyway, because its collagen is in the braising liquid, more on that in a moment). Now carve into thick, 1-cm-at-least, slices and serve. It'll be juicy, tender and you won't ever roast another turkey again (unless you're one of those skin-loving freaks )



Now, about that braising liquid. Take it, strain it, squeezing those veggies to get everything out. Chuck the strained-out solids, they're now useless. Now, you have two options with the liquid (And you can mix and match them).

• Take a small saucepan, add a few tablespoons of butter, melt it over medium heat, then add in flour a teaspoon at a time, stirring all the while until this basic roux comes together; when it does, add a cup of the liquid and whisk to form a jus. Add more liquid until you get the desired consistency. Serve over the turkey.
• Take the liquid and pour it into a large container and put that in your freezer until it freezes into a solid block. Take this solid block, wrap it in muslin or cheesecloth, and set it in a collander over a bowl until it melts completely, giving you a muslin full of turkey schmaltz (which you could use for cooking if you're not squeamish - chicken schmaltz is a big part of some classic ethnic jewish dishes), and a bowl full of crystal-clear turkey stock, which you can re-freeze in smaller containers for future use. (I used this for cooking the xmas turkey and making the jus so that I could make the jus while the turkey was still sitting in the roasting tin unopened).

There you go - really moist turkey and jus and turkey stock to play with afterwards. Enjoy!

Chinese Fried Rice


This served four people, plus 2 grazing tots.

2 tbsp sunflower/groundnut oil
2 eggs
2 bowls cold cooked rice
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp light soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 spring onions, chopped
1 carrot, finely diced
a small cup of sweetcorn kernels
a small cup of frozen peas
salt and pepper

Method:
Break the eggs in a bowl and whisk. Heat a tablespoon of oil in wok on high, add in the eggs and scramble until cooked. Remove.
Add the rest of the sunflower oil into the wok and throw in the garlic, followed immediately by the rest of the veg. Return the scrambled eggs in and add the sesame oil and soy sauce and stir around briskly.
Tip over the cold rice and stir around like there’s no tomorrow, until every single grain is coated with the sauce mixture, and the rice cooked through. Season to taste.
If serving as an accompaniment, I’d leave the salt out as there’s enough seasoning from the soy sauce.
Make it as a main course and add chicken or bacon/ham -- finely chop them and add in after the garlic, and let it cook through before adding the veg and sauce.

I was asked to make a fish pie recently. When I got to the fridge there was some cod, some salmon and some prawns, but no smoked fish. I do think a fish pie needs some smoked fish or similar.

So after a bit of thinking, this was the final recipe. It served three greedy people, but would probably have fed four in most circumstances. There were no leftovers!

500 grams of fish - cod, salmon and prawns, as above.
100 grams chorizo
800 grams floury potatoes, steamed and mashed
3 eggs, hard-boiled and halved (optional - not everyone likes eggs in a fish pie.)
milk and cream
white wine
1.5 tbspoons flour

1) Trim fish, and make a fish stock with skin, bones etc. Some white wine goes well in this stock. If there's no trimmings, about 200 ml of water and white wine is a substitute.
2) Slice chorizo and fry gently.
3) Cut fish into cubes and put fish and sliced chorizo into pie dish (I stopped pre-cooking fish in fish pies a long time ago. It's going to get 45 to 50 minutes in an oven.)
4) Add flour to the fat from the chorizo, and cook gently. You might need a little butter if the chorizo didn't produce much fat.
5) Add the fish stock to the roux made at 4). Add a little cream or milk. You want about 300 mls of a sauce that a spoon will stand up in. The sauce will become looser when the fish cooks in it.
6) Mix the sauce with the fish and chorizo in the dish.
7) Put the half-eggs on top of the fish and sauce
8) Top with the mashed potato and bake in an oven at 160 degrees for about 45 minutes.

I served this with halved red peppers, stuffed with a mushroom duxelle, and cooked in the same oven as the pie.

That sounds gorgeous Mrs Fox! Can I ask about the Tamarind? Its hard to get them whole here, but I use blocks of it to make paste/juice, how much should I substitute for the slice?

Mrs Fox wrote: »

This was adapted from A Year at Avoca Cookbook for the Braised Venison with Red Wine and Chocolate recipe I cooked a few days before. I loved the rich sauce so much that I used it for the lamb shanks. The original recipe calls for 1.5kg of diced venison cooked at 180C for 75 min. I swapped for four decent size shanks, reduced the oven temperature at 150C and increased the cooking time. I also added carrot and celery.

I must say, this looks absolutely mouth-watering! Thanks for that and it's now in my bucket-list :cool: