Jottage from Lancaster - Blue Monday and Pinto Bean Chilli

It's apparently blue Monday. The day that people are most depressed. And I am. It's only the nitpickers amongst you that would point out a) that it's Sunday and b) blue Monday is at the end of January not the beginning. However, I am blue and so it is with a heavy heart (but strong arms) that I picked up Hugh's weighty River Cottage Veg that Heather gave me for Christmas. But the prose and the lovely pictures soon made me forget (to some extent) my Blue-Monday/Sunday-ness and just reading his section on Comfort Food made me realise that if I picked myself up and did a bit of cooking then I might feel a whole lot better. 


The chosen pick-me-up recipe was Pinto Bean Chilli - which looked warming, comforting, just the thing. I had all the ingredients (well, I didn't have courgettes but that didn't seem important and I'm not that keen on them anyway) and so I have been cutting up veg, opening a couple of tins and mixing, gently frying, and pestling and mortaring myself into calmness. 


I hauled out the last couple of peppers from the fridge and used the second as a substitute for the missing courgettes. It's after Christmas and I couldn't divulge the sell-by date on the packet but let's just say they needed finishing. I am doing some buttery leeks and cabbage with it (River Cottage Everyday), which is one of my favourite recipes. 


Out of the oven it comes...

                                                  ...and after lunch the verdict.


This really is comfort food. I wanted to serve it up in nice rustic bowls but I didn't have anything like that, and maybe a nice chunk of home made bread to mop up the juices - but the cabbage/leek combo was lovely. I am very pleased that I only added about half a little red chili rather than 2-3 green chilies (to taste), as it is very hot. What is striking is that it seems to be a very versatile recipe. Hugh recommends serving it up with a lot of little accompaniments, and I think that would work really well. Or adding a poached egg would be really nice (Hugh says that a poached egg would go well with practically anything), but you could add chorizo or a bit of pork or even chicken and it would be lovely for meat eaters too. 


So the blues are now chased away and I still have enough in the pot to make at least another full meal for 2 of us. From now on I will make sure I have a tin of pinto beans in the cupboard if they strike on the last Monday of January!

Jottage from Lancaster - Shin of Beef with Ginger and Soy (1)

It's one of those days - and they happen all too frequently - when I just can't think of anything to eat tonight. Added to which, I don't feel much like cooking. So I opened the freezer and stared at it for a while wondering whether to throw away that Elderflower Sorbet that must be 2 (or is it 3?) years old now. But I can't bear to throw away food so it will just stay there a bit longer until I can stand it no longer and I will just shut my eyes and drop it into the bin. 
I didn't have much that inspired me to make anything. Maybe that single piece of salmon would make a fishcake, maybe that lamb mince would make up a moussaka (although it would have to be aubergine-less), but what, what could be in those anonymous white plastic bags??? They were definitely something I bought from the butcher but I couldn't for the life of me recall what I had bought and what might be in them. Some frosty poking about made me think that in one was sausages - but there seemed to be too many of them and they would come in next week when the family were all here for Christmas. 
One bag seemed to have something in that I just couldn't identify. In the end I poked a hole in it to have a look and it was a nice bit of braising steak. Goodness knows when I had bought that. Having made a hole I then worried that it might not be a good idea to leave it in the freezer. Then I remembered Hugh's recipe for Shin of Beef with Ginger and Soy. Nice braising steak is hardly shin of beef, but it would do...it would do.
I left my frozen braising steak in the sun in the window, but in the end, I threw it into the frying pan to defrost and brown off all in one seamless process. It was then I realised that I needed 150ml of soy sauce. That was over a bottle full! It sounded a bit too generous, so I cut that down. And I didn't have any apple juice so I just used stock made with powder. I had some garlic and some fresh ginger so at least some of the ingredients were spot on.
Then I threw the lot into the slow cooked along with a carrot which was in the fridge and seemed to need eating - maybe that would make up for the lack of apple juice. I gingerly tasted the juices in the cooker and amazingly enough - it seems to taste totally gorgeous. Give it another couple of hours and we will see....

Jottage from Lancaster - A Fishy Dilemma

Fish as a subject is something I don't think too much about. Whilst being vaguely aware that eating fish is good for you, we don't actually do it much. I always have this resolution in mind to eat it once or twice a week, but I can't say that I have ever kept to it. 


I don't really know much about buying fish or cooking it. But I was very tempted by the Foil Baked Fish with Fennel, Ginger and Chili, even though the picture in River Cottage Everyday looks to me as if the fish is raw but the veggies cooked. I cooked it and it was blissfully easy to make and really succulent. Buoyed up by the triumph I thought I would try another fish recipe from the book. I had in mind Fried Fish Fillets with Herbs and Lemon. However I had forgotten that I had finished off my ancient little bottle of capers for the lamb chops with garlic, thyme and capers (really scrumptious), and so I had to remember to buy some more. But I had totally forgotten and the chances of the local village shop having some were so minimal that it just wasn't worth getting the car out. So I was searching for another recipe and the foil baked fish is probably the best I can do - but I don't have any fennel. So I might substitute tomatoes - or I might just try roast fish fillets with roast potatoes.


But those dilemmas are nothing compared to actually buying a bit of fish. Ever keen to expand my culinary knowledge, yesterday I got round to reading the Fish Forever preamble to the fish recipe section of River Cottage Everyday. And here I first encountered what I should have known before; Hugh has a real thing about fish. I know he goes fishing as I have seen him do it on the telly - and I now know he is deeply concerned about all sorts of fishing-related issues. So it was with some hesitation that I stood in front of the fish display at Marks and Spencer (I know I should have gone to a proper fishmonger but yesterday just wasn't the time or the place). There seemed to be a bewildering amount of choice and I was desperately trying to remember Hugh's list of fish to avoid/fish to eat more of. All I could remember was that cod-bad and mackerel-good.

Packet of sole, lemon

In the end I came back with a pack of lemon sole and with some trepidation turned to page 138 to see if it was on the black list. In fact it didn't mention sole of any kind - good, bad or indifferent (although Megrim and Witch, members of the sole family, are, suprisingly, good). So I turned to the website www.fishonline.org which Hugh assures us (on page 139) is 'very easy to use'. I found myself well out of my comfort zone here as I typed in 'lemon sole'. I was very confused to find that there were no results found. Perhaps this was some kind of fish that didn't really exist - a kind of chicken kiev of fish - a ready-meal I didn't need to prepare in any way. But no, this 'very easy' website wants to to put in 'sole, lemon' (note the all-important comma which is a vital part of this creature's name otherwise 'no results found'). Hmmm - not such an easy site then. But then it got more complex as there are 3 sole, lemons. 2 of them were probably OK and one was rated as a no-no; 'based on available information these species should probably not be considered sustainable at this time'. Ah.

Forever Fish (albeit fuzzy)

All I knew from the packet was that it was caught in the North Atlantic but it was labelled 'Fish Forever' which is some new kind of M and S initiative to keep up fish stocks (so they say). But on the M and S website it says 'Lemon sole has not been certified by MSC'. So what does that mean? Does MSC mean the Marine Conservation Society with a bit of a typo? In which case it may be that it doesn't quite meet up to the standards of someone like Hugh? I have no idea what it means, but it seems to me that if you are buying fish, because the situation with fish stocks and fishing methods changes all the time, you are better befriending a good fishmonger and keeping away from supermarkets. 

Fish Forever

Meanwhile I haven't considered buying the River Cottage Fish yet - but even now I am thinking that maybe one day....

Jottage from Cambridge/Lancaster - Baked Chicken Curry

The thing about cookery books which puts me off the most is the long
list of ingredients required to make the meal, usually tantalisingly
illustrated opposite the very detailed, and occasionally wordy,
method. Who has fenugreek, turmeric or chilis on hand? Well,
strangely, and given that I now have a baby to feed who probably
shouldn’t be fed custard creams – note that there has never a custard
cream shortage in our household – I do have all of the above in our
larder. (Note that Tristan doesn’t need a teaspoon of fenugreek on his
banana porridge in the morning to make it go down, but I generally
spend much more time in the kitchen now, and I’m out and about more so
I have built up an impressive selection of herbs and spices.)


So, picking up a recipe book now doesn’t seem quite so daunting, and
when I turned to page 223 of the Everyday book the Chicken Curry
seemed like quite a straightforward dish. Of course I didn’t quite
have everything, but I thought that I probably wouldn’t be able to
taste the fennel seeds so why add them?, and a wilted red chilli which
had been in the fridge for a number of weeks would work in place of
the green chili specified in the recipe. And that I think is what
cooking is all about – knowing when to leave things out, and making
substitutions wherever possible. For a kick off this means that every
time I make the chicken curry it will taste slightly different, and
also I’ll hopefully end up throwing away less food from the fridge.
But cookery writers are loathe to admit that their recipe will still
work without that all important spoonful of cornflour, or that two
garlic cloves will work just as well as three. However Hugh (my mother
and I now refer to him by his first name as we feel that he is already
part of the family) does start off the method with the line … ‘If
you’ve got the time, toast the cumin etc.’ which does seem to imply
that if you want to knock up a chicken curry between the end of
Neighbours and getting the baby prepared for his bath then it’ll
probably taste just as nice. However, if your way of winding down is
by spending time in the kitchen then why not? – you might just end up
tasting that moment of extra trouble.


Well, how did it taste? It was just delicious – the chicken swimming
in a rich turmeric stained liquid and, like Hugh, we served it with a
neat pile of white rice. In fact my chicken curry looked exactly like
the picture in the book! I blended up a few of the leftovers and gave
it to Tristan the next day. He had no complaints either, though I
think he thought I should have added an extra teaspoonful of fenugreek
which I’ll make sure to do next time I turn to page 223.


I am adding a postscript here as I made the Chicken Curry after Heather tried it. We both made enough for two nights and she didn't think it was as good the second night - but we loved it just the same. As Heather says - it comes out exactly like the picture in the book...


Heather's Chicken Curry

My Chicken Curry...

The picture in the book...

 Amazing!!!!