Category: Featured

Rustic Pork Rillettes

This is a recent Rachel Allen discovery with is great for lunch with some fresh bread but could also be a good starter for an informal rustic dinner party menu and the added bonus it it is really cheap to make but is delicious and impressive. Perfect for the credit cruch dinner party! You need to plan ahead as it needs to cook for 5 hours and cool but it should keep for a few weeks. Don’t be shy about making a full batch – initially I made a half batch and the whole lot went over one weekend.

Don’t worry about how fatty the meat looks as this will all melt away in the cooking leaving a course pate texture. In fact, the fattier the better and you need the belly pork boneless with the rind (ask your butcher to cut it off and pop it in the bag for you). Fresh nutmeg is a must – you could invest in a fab nutmeg grinder as a treat but there are many on the market.

February 5, 2013
Thai Pork Meatballs with Dipping Sauce

This is a great Nigel Slater dish that you can prepare the meatballs in advance (and the dipping sauce) and just fry them 15 minutes before you are ready to eat. We have these with noodles – fry up some spring onions, garlic, ginger, chilli and some pak choi (chicken or prawns if you have some) and stir through some cooked noodles.

February 4, 2013
Spicy Piri Piri Chicken

This is part of one of Jamie’s recipes in 30 Minute Meals but done slightly differently as I would rather it slow cooked in the oven than quickly cooked (which is required if you need it in under 30 minutes). I love Jamie’s recipes and this one doen’t disappoint. He uses one chicken thigh per person but I think two is better as they are not the meatiest cut but certainly one of the tastiest. You want skin on bone in for this.

Serve with tasty feta boiled potatoes.

January 22, 2013
Chicken, Leek and White Wine Pie

This is real comfort food when it is cold and outside. You can adapt this based on what ingredients you have. Use ham instead of bacon, use onion instead of leek, use chicken breasts instead of thighs…

As for the pastry – I buy ready rolled Jus Rol Puff Pastry as it is the perfect size for my Le Creuset pie dish but if you buy the Jus Rol Block you just won’t need it all.

January 18, 2013
Tasty Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

This is a really tasty quick lunchtime treat if you have half an hour spare. Equally it works well as a dinner party starter served on a slice of toasted ciabatta with some fresh rocket. Don’t feel you need to adhere religiously to the recipe – I tend to use whatever we have in the fridge (although our fridge seems to be pretty well stocked most of the time!) Feel free to use ham instead of bacon, cheddar instead of gruyere etc and if you don’t have the chorizo it will still be tasty. If you can’t get Portobello mushrooms ordinary field mushrooms are a good substitute.

January 17, 2013