Shin of beef

Shin of beef; another cut that fell out of favour because it needs a bit of care in the cooking. Or at least, not so much care as time: it's tough because it's from the leg of the animal, and so has a lot of fibrous connective tissue along with the meat. If it was cooked quickly, it would be distinctly challenging to eat - you'd wear your jaws out gnawing on gristle. But long slow braising breaks down the tough bits and leaves tender meat, rich gelatinous gravy and incredible flavour. Before I'd cooked it I'd heard talk of the great flavour and assumed that might mean 'gruesomely strong flavour' but I was wrong. It is a strong flavour, but a richly beefy and savoury one.

The shin was in one piece. I browned it, put it to rest while I browned some onions and field mushrooms, deglazed with red wine and the last of the gravy from last week's brisket, some rosemary and bay, and the whole thing braised all day in a low oven. It was delicious.

By the way, I do a lot of slow braises. It's a very convenient way to cook - you can get most of the preparation done first thing in the morning, stick it in the oven and forget about it until you want to eat. And it helps you get the best from meat, especially the cheaper cuts. I'm lucky enough to have a (fuel-efficient) Aga-type range cooker. That works very well for the type of cooking I do, but it's by no means essential. You could set a regular oven to around 80-100C (about 175-200F) for a very slow braise, or leave the pot on the hob on a very low flame - or better yet, in terms of fuel economy and convenience, use a slow cooker/crockpot. I'd certainly invest in one if I didn't have a range cooker.

Chocolate prune cake

When I was a child, my aunt used to make a pudding called 'sticky prune cake'. It was always greeted rapturously, not least because we children promptly rechristened it 'stinky poo cake'. A sugar high combined with lavatorial humour; what more could one wish for as a pre-teen?

The combination of chocolate and prunes was a rich and delicious one, scatological references aside. I felt nostalgic and so set about reinventing it; this version is a basic almond sponge (beaten egg whites provide the lift that in a regular sponge is created by baking powder and gluten), melted chocolate instead of butter, and chopped prunes. Moist and brownie-like. And still relatively low carb; less than 10g for a medium slice (and about 15g fat and 6g protein).

Lard

The final installment of the gammon hock: the thick outer layer of fat and skin baked to render the lard, a good three or four ounces of it.








What remains is pork scratchings. Guaranteed to break the ice at parties.

Pea and ham soup

A classic English soup, traditionally made with the stock left over from poaching a ham. Just dried split peas, onion, carrot, bay and pepper. I also add sage and a little mace, and a chunk of butter to serve. Hearty winter fare.

Pulses are not something I eat as a staple, but I do have them occasionally, if properly prepared - ie, soaked 12-24 hours before cooking to minimise anti-nutirents.

Gammon hock

Gammon hock is a favourite of mine. It's the unaesthetic end of a ham, all bone and sinew. But with slow cooking (brought to the boil and poached several hours in a low oven) it's tender and delicious, and phenomenally good value. There's usually enough meat for two or three good portions hot with cabbage and potatoes, and with parsley sauce if so inclined; and then the cooking water and any pickings of meat make a rich pea and ham soup. Plus the skin and fat can be rendered, for lard with a lovely smoky flavour.

Chickza

I was going to call this 'spicy chicken pizza on a plate', but it struck me that 'chickza' was snappier. Leftover chicken with a ton of chilli, corriander and cumin, given the pizza on a plate treatment.

Brisket

Brisket is another of those economical, flavourful cuts perfect for long slow cooking. I got this one from my regular online organic meat supplier, and my only complaint was that most of the surface fat had been trimmed, which was a pity as the fat imparts additional richness and moisture, not to mention some leftover dripping. Traditionally the fat layer was always left on, for that reason, but it's all too common to see fat trimmed from all sorts of meat these days. Fat notwithstanding, it was still pretty good, though.

The joint came rolled and tied. I browned it on all sides, then browned some onions and chopped carrot, deglazed the pan with red wine, and then all day in a covered casserole, very low oven, with a ton of garlic, bay and rosemary. At dinner time I took the joint out to rest, and reduced the juices, mushing in the pot veg, to make a gravy. Had it with horseradish and some roasted roots. It was damn good, and still plenty of leftovers for hash later in the week.

You can't really carve brisket like a regular roast, by the way. The long, slow cooking leaves it so tender it just kind of falls apart under the knife. Thick slices and chunks is the way to go.

Chicken, leek and mushroom soup with bacon

Ways of using leftover roast chicken, no. 23: in a soup with broccoli, carrot, leeks, mushrooms and a handful of white rice to thicken. White wine. Cream. Chopped crisply-fried bacon on the top. Comfort food.

Sausages (again)

This was a late weekend breakfast. Sausage, bacon, egg, and some leftover veggies. The sausages were Toulouse, a variety more typically used for casserole cooking - but lord, they were good fried. Could be the best sausages I've ever tasted, even.

Celeriac, parsnip and leek soup with tarragon

Lunch, if I'm home, is usually a soup of some kind. Today it was celeriac, parsnip and leek. I chose the ingredients purely because that was what I had in the fridge, but it turned out very good.

When putting leeks in a soup, I usually keep back a little of the tender inside leaf to finely slice and scatter on the top. The heat of the soup starts to cook it but it still has bite and pungency.

Pizza on a plate

I used to love a good pizza. I used to make pretty decent pizza, too, with sourdough crust and baked on a stone.

When I got into eating low carb, gluten free, I thought there would be no more pizza. Then I thought of a solution - pizza on a plate! You just treat a plate (oven proof, of course) as if it were a pizza base. Pile on the sauce and toppings, cover with cheese, bake, and tuck in. Of course you can't pick it up and eat it with your hands, but I can live with that.

It could also be pizza in a pan. Or pizza in a cup - that's a smaller, deep dish version in a ramekin.

This time it was actually a kind of meatza, the bottom layer being the remains of last night's bolognese, with mushrooms, onions, broccoli and dried tomatoes. It was very, very, good. I still haven't got around to trying proper meatza, but I will; that's where you take raw seasoned minced beef, flatten it out and pre-bake into a 'crust'. I can't claim any credit for that idea; that truly was a stroke of genius.

Ragu bolognese

In the old days I used to make pasta to go with this. I used to love pasta - good, homemade pasta, with ragu, with tomato, with mushrooms, sage and butter - but I don't really miss it, surprisingly.

Now I just have the ragu without the pasta - with veg, or occasionally a little rice. This time I took a step towards authenticity I'd never taken before; that is, I added chicken liver. It was good; very rich, though whether that was from the liver or from the gammon stock I also added (I didn't have any pancetta to hand) I don't know.

Steak, again

Valentine's night. Bigger than last time.

Beetroot, caraway and dill soup

I made this to go with some smoked salmon, another souvenir from Iceland. The secret ingredient in the soup is cumin; I find it brings out the earthiness of beetroot. Plus a wedge of lemon, squeezed and then left in the soup as it cooks, and some horseradish.

The salmon was really excellent. Soup was pretty good too.

Pork stir fry

Leftover roast pork, cubed and marinaded in a mix of apple sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, chilli and star anise. Stir fry until browned, remove from pan, briefly stir fry veggies, reassemble.

The apple sauce helps the meat to caramelise, and adds a good sweet and sour note.

This only took a few minutes, and I actually enjoyed it more than I did the plain roast pork the first time around, good as that was. Just as well, given there's a fair bit of pork left over.

Hand of pork

Hand of pork is one of those traditionally-cheaper cuts. I say traditionally cheaper, because these days, as soon as a cut becomes known as unglamorous it promptly becomes re-glamorised: celebrity chefs fall over each other to sing its praises, demonstrating their own earthy savvy and thriftiness, and the price rises accordingly. Thus a lot of cuts of meat supposedly cheap are in fact not so spectacularly cheap as you might expect.


Nevertheless, as pork roasts go, the hand joint is still not much more than two thirds the price of a shoulder joint, so it's pretty good value. I ordered this one from the place I get my veg box; it arrived boned, which I wasn't expecting, but never mind. I put juniper berries, peppercorns, bay leaves and cider in the roasting dish, gave it half an hour in a hot oven, then about five hours in a cool-ish oven. The pics show it raw, finished and 'carved'. Had it with braised fennel, parsnip and celeriac, and some swiss chard.

Skyr

Skyr is a dairy product, somewhere between a soft cheese and yogurt, native to Iceland. It has a mild flavour, closer to yogurt than cheese, and a rich creamy texture, which is surprising given that it's very low fat. And given, again, that it's very low fat and high protein, it's surprising that it hasn't been marketed outside of Iceland. Well, maybe it has, but I've never seen it.


Anyway, low fat is definitely not on my list of priorities, but traditionally Skyr is served with cream, apparently, which solves that, and that's what I did.

Iceland itself was breathtakingly beautiful, and despite having been told the climate wasn't that dissimilar to the UK, there was thick snow everywhere.

And it was very, very, cold.

Steak

I had a small piece of ribeye left after I'd cut two bigger steaks from it - about five ounces, probably. Put it in the freezer thinking it
would do for steak and eggs some morning,
but I needed cheering up tonight and this fit the bill.

It was bigger than this when I started. I just took the picture to illustrate what I'd call well done. Not overdone, well done: soft, tender, and with just a hint of pink in the centre at the thickest points. There is a common misconception that well done means incinerated or vulcanised. Wrong.