Filed under: Eating, Food, Recipes, Yorkshire Dales Food | Tags: chorizo, egg, garlic, idea, lunch, omelette, onion, pepper, quick, tortilla, Yorkshire
Need a quick lunch with ingredients to hand! then try my version of a Spanish omelette or maybe we should call it a Mediterranean or even Yorkshire omelette as this version contains no potato which is normally an essential in a Spanish Tortilla.
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- Spanish Omelette
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- Omelette Ingredients
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- Yorkshire (Spanish) Tortilla
Ingredients on hand, please fee free to add sliced cooked potato, mushrooms, ham, sliced sausage whatever you have in the fridge:-
- 1 red & 1 green pepper
- 1 green chilli
- 1/2 large red onion
- chopped fresh tomato
- 2 crushed garlic cloves
- sliced chorizo
- sea salt & black pepper to taste
- 7 fresh free range eggs
- splash of milk
- oil to cook, I used a glug of rapeseed oil
Method:-
- use a large non stick frying pan
- soften the onions in a little rapeseed oil, add crushed garlic
- then add the sliced peppers and soften a little more
- add the chorizo & tomato
- mix the eggs and a splash of milk with seasoning to taste
- pour egg mixture over the contents of the pan
- omelette will start to set, if necessary transfer to oven or grill to finish
- use a spatula to gently ease around the edges of the omelette then turn over contents onto a serving plate or bread board
- eat immediately with a few hunks of fresh bread
Filed under: Eating, Food, Steak, Yorkshire Dales Food, beer | Tags: best, bitter, brulee, chilli, chocolate, creme, eye, garlic, grassington, grill, hall, inn, landlord, lime, mexican, mixed, old, pudding, rib, ribeye, Steak, taylor's, theakstons, threshfield, timothy
A birthday tea treat with the family, we set off not really knowing where to go, we passed The Angel @ Hetton? The Devonshire @ Cracoe? The Fountaine @ Linton? maybe somewhere different for a change so we headed for The Old Hall Inn at Threshfield just before Grassington. The Old Hall always looks welcoming as I’m driving past but had not tried eating here for years. I had heard good things about the staff, the food & the beer so we parked up and headed in, on a Wednesday night the place was really quite busy and got busier as the night progressed.
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- Mixed Grill
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- Mexican style Rib Eye Steak
The menu is displayed all around the lounge bar and specials on blackboards above the bar and all in addition to the standard menu, a lot to digest! we settled down with a creamy pint of Timothy Taylors Landlord and studied the vast selection, lots of meat & fish choices and I did briefly glimpse some vegetarian stuff!
We ordered a typical mix of steak for the boys and fish for the girls, I don’t know why but that’s the way it was! Rather than my usual and preferred unadulterated steak both big brother and I went for the Mexican Rib Eye Steak with lime, garlic & chilli marinade and sauteed pots served with a ramekin of perfectly cooked veg (7 different vegetables crammed into a small ramekin!) Eldest son must have been feeling peckish and choose well, going for the Mixed Grill and a good example it was, with steak, gammon, sausage, black pudding, pork chop, lamb chop and egg. Youngest son went for a lighter option of the House Pate with a side order of chips and the Lady had the fish dish, apologies didn’t catch the fish dish details but it was duly polished off and looked well!
Puddings to finish were all excellent and included a Chocolate Pudding with Chocolate Sauce, Caramelised Baked Lemon Tart with Creme Fraiche & Creme Brulee.
Total bill £100 for 5 people including drinks, good value for great food, great pub and great staff… as we were leaving the Wednesday quiz was starting and the pub was packed!
Filed under: Eating, Food, New Products | Tags: bath, british, chorizo, free range, garlic, herb, pig, pigs, pork, sausage, spicy, Yorkshire
Matthew at The Bath Pig Company sent me a lovely surprise package today, pre-launch samples of British or more specifically Yorkshire Chorizo! Still in the pack now but will be reviewing over the weekend. I have 2 versions, Garlic & Herb Chorizo and Spicy Chorizo, all made using free range, British pigs. Other products will include Semi cured cooking chorizo, extra spicy chorizo and The Pub Pig, spicy chunks of Chorizo, all should be available to buy in June 2009 and hope to have them on the Paganum website.
We have now tried both flavours and these are really delicious and taste exactly as described “on the tin” the garlic & herb has a nice herb flavour and makes a very British style Chorizo whilst the spicy version is much more traditional and quite fiery. There is likely to be a classic Chorizo and this one the extra spicy version. Whilst at the Leyburn Food Festival we tried out both varieties on the unsuspecting Yorkshire public and feedback was excellent for both. Hope to have them for sale for inclusion with your meat box or individually on the Paganum website very soon.
Filed under: Recipes, Yorkshire Dales Food | Tags: aga, Beef, braise, brisket, carrot, cooked, Food, frugal, garlic, gravy, root, salad, slow, sour, sweet, veg, Yorkshire
Fiercely traditonal and very tasty, Beef Brisket and Carrots is an old favourite and an old school “Frugal Food”. Simply braise or roast in a casserole for melt in your mouth rich beef flavours.
I used the Aga casserole with beer & root veg. Easily feeds four (4) with meat leftover for tomorrow cold.
Ingredients:-
- 2kg Beef Brisket joint, your butcher will string it to keep it all together during cooking
- can of bitter/ale
- root vegetables, carrot, parsnip, swede, turnip, a selection of whatever you have
- bulb of garlic split into whole cloves
- water
Method:-
- place brisket joint into your casserole
- pour over a full can of beer, bitter or ale
- roughly chop carrots and any other root veg and throw into the pot
- roughly chop 2 onions into quarters will be fine
- split a bulb of garlic and throw the cloves in
- add a little more water, salt & pepper to taste
- put the lid on the casserole and slow roast for 2 to 4 hours, I put in the bottom of the Aga for approx 4 hours
- carefully remove the meat and let rest
- carefully remove the veg and keep warm to serve with the meat
- thicken the remaining beef stock for gravy
Dish up and enjoy, should be more than enough for four hungry mouth’s and you can keep the leftover meat for a cold beef brisket sandwich or salad tomorrow… I remember Grandma serving cold brisket with a Yorkshire Salad aka sweet & sour salad, Lettuce, onion & tomato in vinegar, must try that again as well.
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- Brisket of Beef
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- Beef Brisket & carrots
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- Beef Brisket
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- beef, carrots & mash
Filed under: Recipes | Tags: chilli, fish, garlic, ginger, pepper, salmon, soup, spicy
Had a couple of poached Salmon fillet’s left over so made it into a spicy fish soup.
Ingredients:-
- 2 small salmon fillet’s lightly poached (6 mins)
- fish stock from poaching
- vegetable stock (maggi granules or stock cube will do)
- small red pepper (nearly our last homegrown pepper)
- green chillies, I used 2 small fresh hot green chillies
- approx 6 sliced mushrooms
- 2 cloves of crushed garlic
- square inch cube of fresh ginger, chopped finely
- teaspoon hot chilli powder
- light soy sauce (to season instead of salt)
- large tomato
- splash of Nam Pla Thai fish sauce
- olive oil or rape seed oil
Method:-
- gently fry/saute the pepper, chilli, garlic, tomato and ginger until soft
- add stock and other ingredients and simmer for 10 mins
- flake poach salmon into pan simmer for a couple more minutes and serve
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- Spicy Fish Soup
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- saute ingredients for spicy salmon soup
Filed under: Food, Recipes | Tags: bay, chicken, garlic, liver, melba, onion, pate, recipe, thyme, toast
Really simple Chicken Liver Pate, very quick and cheap to make.
Ingredients:-
- 1lb chicken livers (you can buy frozen from butchers or supermarket)
- 1 medium onion thinly sliced
- 1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/4 teaspoon thyme
- 1 tea cup of water
- 2 teaspoons of salt
- 6 oz butter, soft and another 3 or 4 oz melted to seal the ramekins
- freshly ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoons brandy or whisky
Method:-
- place the chicken livers, onions, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, water and 1 teaspoon of salt into a saucepan and bring to the boil and simmer for approx 7 minutes.
- remove from heat and let mixture sit for 5 minutes
- take out the solids and place in a liquidiser
- start liquidising and add the soft butter bit by bit until combined
- add second teaspoon of salt and black pepper then the brandy or whisky
- process for 2 more minutes until the mixture is really smooth and creamy
- spoon into ramekin dishes and smooth off top leaving some space for the butter
- Melt remaining butter and add some white pepper and pour over to just cover the pate
- leave in fridge for at least 4 or 5 hours to set, longer if possible
Method for Melba Toast:-
- toast bread
- cut off crusts
- then slide a knife between the slice to split the slice in half, knife should slip through the middle soft part of the bread easily
- cut into triangles, they look better than my rectangles in the photo!
- serve and enjoy n.b. make extra, because it gets eaten very quickly!!
Homemade Chicken Liver Pate & Melba Toast
Filed under: Food, Recipes | Tags: chappatis, chicken, chilli, coriander, cumin, curry, garam, garlic, ghee, ginger, karachi, masala, naan, onion, poppadoms, recipe, rick, spinach, stein, turmeric
This is one of my all time favourite curry recipes adapted from Mumrez Khan’s Lamb and Spinach Karahi curry recipe from Rick Stein’s “Food Heroes” series, Mumrez is from the Karachi Restaurant in Neal Street, Bradford, West Yorkshire and this is potentially the ONLY curry recipe you will ever need.
Ingredients:-
- 250g/9oz ghee/clarified butter (you can just melt & skim some unsalted butter for this)
- 65g/2 1/2oz garlic
- 1 tablespoon red chilli powder
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 1 tablespoon paprika
- 550g/1 1/4lb chopped onions
- 50g/2oz fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
- 900g/2lb chicken breast (1 1/2 inch cubes)
- 120ml/4fl oz water
- 3 tablespoons fresh coriander
- 1 tablespoon ground turmeric
- 350g/12oz fresh washed spinach, any large stalks removed
- 2 medium size green chillies
- 1/2 tablespoon garam masala
- 1 x 400g/14oz can chopped tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon ground coriander
- a pinch of ground cumin & freshly ground black pepper to serve
Method:-
1. Heat the ghee in a large, heavy based pan. Add the onions and cook over a medium heat, stirring now and then, for 20 minutes until they are soft and a light brown
2. Put the tomatoes, water, ginger and garlic into a liquidiser and blend until smooth. Remove the fried onions with a slotted spoon, add them to the paste and blend briefly until smooth.
3. Lightly brown the chicken pieces in the ghee and then return the puree to the ghee left in the pan and add the salt. Simmer for 30 minutes, by which time sauce will be well reduced. Stir in the turmeric, chilli powder, cumin, paprika and ground coriander and continue to cook for 30-45 minutes for shoulder or 45-1 hour for leg, until the lamb is tender, adding a little water now and then if the sauce starts to stick.
4. Meanwhile, put 175g (6oz) of the spinach leaves into a large pan and cook until it has wilted down into the bottom of the pan. Cook for 1 minute, then transfer to the rinsed out liquidiser and blend to a smooth puree. Set aside. Rinse out the liquidiser again and add the green chillies and 2-3 tablespoons of water and blend until smooth. Set aside.
5. When the lamb is cooked, there should be a layer of ghee floating on the top of the curry. You can either skim it off or leave it there, whichever you prefer (LEAVE IT). Then stir in the spinach puree and the remaining spinach leaves and cook for 2 minutes.
6. Now taste the curry and add as much green chilli puree as you wish, according to how hot you like your curries (ALL OF IT). Simmer for 2 minutes more.
7. Stir in the fresh coriander and Garam Masala. Transfer the curry to a serving dish and sprinkle with a little more ground cumin and some freshly ground black pepper just before you take it to the table.
Serve with your choice of rice, Naan breads, poppadoms, chapattis
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- The Finished Dish, Chicken & Spinach Karachi Curry
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- garma masala, liquidised chilli liquor, fresh spinach & fresh corriander
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- Adding the spices to Karachi Chicken & Spinach Curry
Filed under: Eating, Food, Yorkshire Dales Food | Tags: antipastto, bread, cheese, garlic, ham, olive, olives, parma, pasta, pizza, room, salami, settle
Olive Room Antipastto
New little Italian Restaurant just opened in Settle under the shambles in the market square. The Olive room is tiny, approx 18 covers in the old stone arches of the cellar under the shambles, a beautifully atmospheric room and a tiny kitchen to match, but great food and service. The first thing that we noticed when passing was the fantastic smell, (we hadn’t planned to even try it today) it turned out to be meat balls browning on the tiny hob. Everything is homemade from pizza dough to dressings and ice cream, menu includes a good selection of inexpensive pizzas and pasta dishes, panini, soups and salads.
As we wern’t really planning to eat we just tried a coffee and the antipastto plate to share, including cheese, garlic bread, olives, onion balsamic relish, parma ham, salami and melon, yummy….
Filed under: Food, Recipes, Yorkshire Dales Food | Tags: coriander, garlic, ginger, oil, pepper, pietrain, pigs, pork, Rapeseed, turmeric, Yorkshire
Another simple and quick meal, using what I had on hand. Friend dropped some fresh coriander in and I found a bag of home fed pork chops in the bottom of the freezer that needed eating!
Ingredients:-
- Home fed locally reared pork, this was some pork steaks and a couple of chops from brother Nigel’s Pietrain Porkers.
- 1 Red Pepper, 1 green pepper (home grown)
- Fresh Coriander good handfull, roughly chopped, any big stalks removed
- 1 clove chopped garlic
- 1 inch cube fresh ginger chopped
- Medium Onion (or use Spring/Salad onions cut on slant) using the last few of our own home grown onions
- Salt & pepper
- Chicken Stock Cube with 200ml boiling water to dissolve (you dont need too much fluid just the flavour)
- 2 tins chopped tomatoes
- Tablespoon Wharfe Valley Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil (I’m using this instead of Olive Oil for frying now)
- Rice & teaspoon of Turmeric (Turmeric gives a fantastic colour to the rice without too much flavour and its much cheaper than saffron)
Method:-
- Trim any fat from Pork (can be chops, steaks, filet whatever you have and cut into strips)
- Chop, Onon, Red & Green Peppers into strips
- Finely chop, 1 clove of garlic & 1 inch cube of fresh ginger
- Fry pork strips, salt & pepper in the rapeseed oil until the pork is just starting to turn golden brown, remove from pan with slotted spoon and reserve for later
- Fry onions, peppers, garlic and ginger until onions are soft in remaining oil then return Pork to pan and add tinned toms, coriander & stock.
- Bang it all in the oven for 30 mins and serve with long grain rice (I added a teaspoon of Turmeric to the rice to give it colour)
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- Peppers, Ginger, Garlic, Onion & Coriander
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- Home fed Pork strips
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- Pork Peppers & Coriander
Filed under: Eating, Food | Tags: ale, bacon, Beer Blogs, ben, breakfast, butter, cobbler, crab, eggs, fort, garlic, hops, langoustine, lorne, nevis, pie, salami, sausage, scallops, scotland, scottish, seafood, Steak, tagliatelli, venison, william
Spent a couple of days in Fort William in the Highlands of Scotland last week, tried a few restaurants and cafes before scaling Ben Nevis, variety and quality of food varied but included some great local produce, fresh seafood, crab & langoustines (Scotland has some of the best Seafood but most is exported!) Scottish beef and venison and of course the odd Scottish Breakfast here are a few photos of the better ones. Food at the Glenelg Inn, Kyle of Lochalsh was particularly good let down only by the tomatoes!
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- Scottish Breakfast 1 with lorne sausage
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- Scottish Breakfast 2
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- Fresh Scottish Langoustines in garlic butter
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- Fresh dressed Scottish Crab starter
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- Venison Salami
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- Beef and mushroom cobbler, roasted veg and mash
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- Tagliatelle with fresh Scottish Scallops in a fish reduction
Also tried a few local ales which is essential carbo loading the night before a big walk! Some of the beers I can remember include the following selection.
Latitude 3.6% abv.
Latitude Pale Ale is a straw-coloured session ale with a pronounced fruitiness and hoppiness. Brewed with best Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt and a little of our own Atlas Lager Malt, this beer exhibits a brilliant, crystal-clear pale straw colour
Fraoch – Heather Ale 4.1% abv
A light amber ale with floral peaty aroma, full malt character, a spicy herbal flavour and dry wine like finish.
Kelpie 4.4% abv
Rich chocolate ale with an aroma of sea breeze, a distinctive roast flavour and a crisp salty finish. Perfect with seafood and breads. (This was really not to my taste not sure seeweed is suited to brewing!)
Deuchars IPA 4.4% abv
An extremely tasty and refreshing, amber coloured session beer. Hops and fruit are very evident and are balanced by malt throughout. (an old favourite of mine)
Red Cuillin 4.2% abv
Smooth, malty and slightly nutty; lightly fuggles-hopped for aroma. Named after the famous hills of the Isle of Skye, Red Cuillin is a premium ale, which has won many awards. Like the hills, it is rounded and pleasing.
Caledonian 80/’ 4.1% abv
A predominantly malty, copper coloured beer, well balanced by hop and fruit; a complex Scottish heavy with the hop characteristics of best bitter.
