Alternative Spag Bol!

Spag Bol is not Spaghetti Bolognaise. Spag Bol is a British institution, a dish done quite wrong what with the sauce not being incorporated into the pasta, but so what? It's Spag Bol and the sauce on top of the pasta is how it's done. Deal with it ...

Spag Bol is: beef mince, onion, garlic, tomatoes, tomato puree, oregano, carrots, mushrooms and stock.

Carrots and mushrooms, neither of which I have in so I went with butternut squash and courgette, both of which I did have in.

It worked out well ...

Same drill, beef mince, onion, garlic, tomatoes, tomato puree, oregano, butternut squash, courgette and stock. Serve over pasta - in my case, a rice noodle which is a bit like tagliatelle. Fresh basil to garnish.

Beef Medallions & Root Cubes

Quick and easy Sunday dinner ...

Cube up a load of root vegetables: carrot, swede, celeriac & potato. Steam.

Slice some mushrooms and place in a skillet. Pour in cream, a good teaspoon of green peppercorns and a touch of white pepper and celery salt. Gently heat through. If the sauce becomes too reduced, just add water.

After about 10 minutes, warm up a large skillet with some butter for the beef.

Cut the medallions into inch thick slices and lay in the large skillet to colour up. Flip over after about 3 minutes, same again on the other side. Reduce the heat and go for 5 minutes each side on the lower heat. The meat should be cooked through, but not "well done".

Serve up, roots down first, laying the (rested) meat over the top and spoon the sauce over.

Steak, Red & Green

... a bit of a use-up meal.

I bagged a couple of decent sized medallion steaks from the discounted section of the supermarket a while ago and they've been sitting in the freezer for the right time to come along.

Tonight was the night ...

What with some rocket which needed eating, some red cabbage which had been sitting around for too long and the dog end of a carton of double cream.

Mmmm! I'm selling it to you aren't I?

Boil the red cabbage, sear the steak all around in a skillet and just cook through to rare, dress a plate with rocket and scatter the red cabbage over.

While the steak is resting, in the skillet, pour in some double cream, add a little sea salt and add some green peppercorns. Pick up the meat flavours into the cream and reduce ever so slightly.

Slice the meat and lay over the red cabbage. Pour the peppercorn sauce over.

Too gorgeous!

Steak Salad

After a long day competition Fencing ... home, I just want a few beers and a good, wholesome dinner.

I have steak, I have some leftover German Potato Salad (made by a bona fide German) leftover from a picnic we had the other day and I've got some samphire.

Super! So, onion, mushroom and samphire, cold German Potato Salad and steak.

That hit the spot!

Quick & Dirty Japanese Curry

Knowing time would be limited this evening, I got myself ahead with some beef chunks, slowly cooked the day before ... nothing special, just a couple of bay leaves, the meat and covered with water, slow cooked at 125C for maybe four or five hours.

Cooled overnight and ready to turn into something this evening I decided upon Japanese Curry, a simple dish of meat, vegetables and a flavour stock cube which is the key to the dish.

Not having such a magical stock cube, I added my own flavours: beef stock, tamarind, black pepper, fish sauce, Worcestershire Sauce & Maggi Chilli Sauce. For vegetables, I added sliced carrots and some frozen peas.

Cook through at 180C for about an hour and we're ready to eat ... just needing a quick thicken with some arrowroot at the end.

Rather than rice, I served with chips ... yes, cooked in goose fat.

Yorkshire Tostada

Hispanic America, basically, a toasted tortilla loaded with great food!

Chilli, Pico de Gallo, Salsa, salad, soured cream, whatever ...

But, what's a Yorkshire Tostada?

I do have a great recipe for Manioc Toritilla, but tonight I made up something quite impromptu, crossed my fingers and blow me down! It worked!

It turned out more like a Yorkshire Pudding, but so what? We have a tradition here in Yorkshire, which has spread nation-wide, if not world-wide, whereupon pretty much anything can be loaded into a "Yorkshire" and enjoyed.

First let's get the Chilli on ...

Texan Chilli 'Bowl of Red'

Diced Beef & Dripping
Worcestershire Sauce
Black Pepper, Ground Coriander & Paprika
Regular Onion & Red Onion
Garlic, Ginger & Chillies
Diced Tomatoes
Beef Stock
Coriander

In a large skillet, brown off the diced beef (you'll want maybe 600g) in beef dripping.

Meanwhile, peel and rough chop a regular onion, a red onion, three or four garlic cloves, some ginger and de-seed a few red chillies. Blend together. I used a hand blender.

As the beef releases its liquid, slosh in some Worcestershire Sauce, add ground black pepper, ground coriander and some paprika. Allow the liquid to reduce, concentrating the flavours into the meat.

Pour in your onion blend and fry off for a few minutes before adding in the chopped tomatoes (200g, or so, will do). Stir together and pour in some beef stock (maybe a pint, more if you like) and settle the skillet on a gentle simmer to cook through.

Ideally, 3-4 will be perfect. If time is pressing, raise the heat to a gentle boil and keep topping up with water as the liquid reduced.

Manioc Yorkshire Pudding

Manioc Flour
Yoghurt
Egg
Baking Powder
Sea Salt
Beef Dripping

Using 1 cup of flour per person (I used Sour Starch, usually used for those Brazilian Cheese Puffs), add in yoghurt and stir with a fork until a thick dough forms. Keep adding yoghurt until you get that consistency.

Crack in an egg per person and whisk together.

While whisking the batter sort of stiffens, but when you stop it relaxes into a pouring batter.

Add a little sea salt and a teaspoon of baking powder per person, mix and leave to sit for a while.

Prepare a couple of baking tins in the oven with some beef dripping, maybe 200C (400F?), retrieve the tins and pour the batter in.

Place in the oven for 20-30 minutes at 180C (350F?) until risen and not sticky, doughy in the middle.

Salad

While the Yorkshire Puddings are cooking, shred up some lettuce, slice some cucumber, tomato, whatever you have to hand. Peel and slice an avocado.

Reduce your Chilli and add in a good amount of chopped coriander just before serving.

Serve

Ready? Place the Yorkshire Pudding in the middle of a round plate, border with sliced cucumber, load with shredded lettuce, some Chilli and crown with avocado, tomato, perhaps a few olives and a good slop of soured cream.

Champion! As we say here in Yorkshire.

Ox Cheek

Ox cheek is a tough muscle! It's a muscle that gets a lot of work, near constant chewing.

How to cook it? Long and slow ...

Oven set to 125C and sitting in an oven-proof dish just covered with water, I let it cook all day - yes, something like 8 hours.

To serve, I made up some Boulangère Potatoes*, shredded the meat and reformed it in a ring, the juices reduced and thickened ...

* Boulangère Potatoes is a simple French dish, made by the bakers to use the remaining heat in their ovens. It's slices of potato, layered with salt, garlic and double cream. Cook 'til soft.

Chilli Con Carne Lasagne

Friday night is Chilli Night!

I always make way too much, which is great since we've loads leftover for lunches with a baked potato, lettuce wraps, that kind of thing ... but recently, I've taken to making up a leftover Lasagne for Saturday night.

To make this you'll need the following: leftover Chilli Con Carne, tortilla and cheese sauce.

For two people, I find about 500g of leftovers is right, perhaps bulked out with some mushroom, aubergine or courgette. Three tortilla, too, so follow the madness in my Manioc Tortilla recipe. Finally, some cheese sauce for which I find about 100g let out with a little cream is just right.

Build your lasagne ...

Spread maybe a third of the cheese sauce into the bottom of an ovenproof dish, lay a tortilla and cover with half of the Chilli. Now, another tortilla, the other half of the Chilli, top with a tortilla and pour the cheese sauce over.

I like to split a chilli down the middle, de-seed and lay that over the top before committing to the oven for 20 minutes at 180C to heat through.

Once ready, serve out with green salad and enjoy.

Vegetable Stew [Leftovers]

Yesterday's leftovers make another meal today ...

St Valentine's Day Dinner

St Valentine's Day

I found a lovely pair of ribeye steaks at our local farm shop, locally grown, organically, and locally slaughtered, not religiously.

Steak is simple. It's a meal in itself, but there are other ingredients which make is quite excellent: red onion, asparagus and shitake mushrooms. Sauce, too, a simple cream and green peppercorn.

Method is easy ...

Heat up a cast iron griddle, drop the steaks on and turn after a few minutes. Let rest for a couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, put all your vegetables into a frying pan with a little of your favourite paleo fat and cook through. You want the crunch, so keep the heat down a little and keep an eye on it.

Sauce is simply double cream and green peppercorns. Reduce a little, pouring over the steak once served.

Dessert was strawberries and whipped cream.

Mid-Week Bolognese

Just to prove you don't need four hours of simmering and all the other guff that Italianistas seem to advocate in order to elevate what is essentially ordinary to the level that it is ...

You'll need minced beef, onion, garlic, Worcestershire Sauce, chopped tomatoes, tomato purée, dried oregano, mushrooms, carrots, beef stock, sea salt and black pepper, and pasta.

Your pasta can be any veg spiralized or julienne grated, perhaps something gluten-free which is what I'm doing tonight with Mama brand Instant Rice Noodles.

Take a large skillet and brown off your minced beef - no fat needed, just enjoy the fat that is already minced into the meat. If you bought extra-lean, well, shame on you; drop in a good blob of dripping to get it moving. Give it a damn good splash of Worcestershire Sauce.

While the meat is browning, chop up an onion, peel and slice some garlic, quarter some mushrooms and dice up a carrot. Bolognese seems to enjoy a lot of garlic, so for a pound of meat (for two), give it four or five cloves.

One the meat is browned, soak up all the lovely juices with the mushrooms, add the chopped onion and sliced garlic, stir through, add the carrots and cook on for another couple of minutes. If the spirit takes you, add a generous glass of red wine.

Pour in a carton of chopped tomatoes, a good squirt of tomato purée, some sea salt, black pepper and pour in a good pint of beef stock. Sprinkle the dried herbs over - I don't measure, just sprinkle over.

On a medium to high heat, cook on, topping up with water as necessary. Cook it for at least half an hour, or until your minced beef is not chewy. A good hint here is to cook through well at the beginning.

Once the Bolognese is reduced, cook your noodles. Mine just need 60 seconds with boiling water poured over.

Serve out, noodles down, Bolognese over; none of that proper Italian stirring the pasta into the pan, this is the British method. We don't do it wrong, we just do it our way. Fresh herbs, if you like; parsley, in my case.

So, reasonably quick mid-week meal.

If you added wine to the Bolognese, enjoy a glass with your meal. If you're just opening a bottle to enjoy with the meal, shame on you for not opening it earlier and pouring a good slug into the dish.

However you do it, remember, it's simple, quick, rules are there to be broken, but do enjoy it afterwards, slurping it down hungrily, noisily and with a huge smile on your face!

Hash Cakes

Nah! Not that kind of hash ...

Leftover Corned Beef Hash from Monday.

Corned Beef Hash

Corned Beef (Can), Onion, Garlic, Chillies, Squash, Beetroot, Chopped Tomatoes, Tomato Purée, Chicken Stock, Black Pepper & Fresh Coriander.

Dice, cook, eat, enjoy and put leftovers in the fridge.

Corned Beef Hash Cakes

Place the leftover Corned Beef Hash in a large bowl and crush all the lumps with a fork. Crush, you don't want a sloppy purée. Sprinkle in some grated cheese and some tapioca starch to bind.

Form into cakes, or patties if that is more your parlance, and fry off in a large skillet with your favourite paleo fat. All together now, "goose fat, for me". Three to five minutes each side will do admirably.

Fun with a little salad for a light meal, but if you want something more, cook something more ...

Sea Bass

I went with a Sea Bass fillet.

Thin, from the tail end, cheap and takes no time to cook, just put a few slashes in the skin side so it doesn't curl up when cooked.

Melt some butter in a skillet and place the fish fillets in skin side down for maybe three minutes. Switch the heat off and flip the fellows over, allowing the soft flesh to gently cook in the residual heat.

You've been plating up while this has been cooking, right?

Salsa

It looked a bit lacking, somehow ...

So, I quickly chopped up some Sharon Fruit, chillies and fresh coriander. Squeeze of lime and voilà! Perfect little salsa for the fish.

Sharon Fruit

You might know then as Persimmon. Also called 'Sharon Fruit' after the Sharon Plain in Israel, these fruits can be eaten when firm, or ripened through to soft. While firm, they're a bit like tomatoes to deal with and a texture like mango when cubed up.

Nutritionally, persimmons have good amounts of dietary fibre, sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron and manganese, and reasonable amounts of copper and zinc. Moreover, persimmon contain an interesting complex of phytochemicals and acids, including betulinic acid, which are know to be anti-inflammatory, anti-viral and anti-cancer agents.

... they taste good, too.

Fillet Steak

We don't eat meat often, but when we do ...

Fillet steak served rare, very rare, griddled on cast iron.

Sauce is simply green peppercorns and mushrooms in cream ... with a splash of whisky.

Superfluous greenage? Yeah, why not ... rocket.

Carne Asada

Nothing magical or exotic, Carne Asada is a Mexican preparation of simple marinated and grilled meat.

Carne Asada can be put into tacos or burritos, or simply as is, as I'll be doing ...

The meat is rump steak, about two thirds of an inch thick.

The marinade is simply lime juice, sea salt and black pepper and the meat wants little more than, say, quarter of an hour to bathe in these flavours. Worcestershire Sauce might be a good addition, but don't think about Tabasco or chilli powder - once on the grill, your steak will turn into a chemical weapon!

Alongside, I'm going to have a simple salad of shredded crisp lettuce with radicchio. Red and green, crunchy and bitter. I'm also going to have a Pico de Gallo of tomato, cucumber and olives.

So, ready to eat?

Pre-heat your griddle pan until smoking hot, drop the meat on, turn when ready and set aside to rest for a couple of minutes before slicing through.

Serve on a large plate, meat in the middle, salads alongside, sliced avocado over, perhaps a splash of Tabasco over the meat ... and dig in!

Salud!

Bullet Steak Supreme

Browsing through the meats at my local farm shop, I happened upon a cut called a 'Bullet Steak'. I asked about it and got the Butchers' answer - for real people, it's a traditional cut which Butchers are bringing back into popularity. It's from the flank, a thin-ish steak and works best as black and blue.

But first, our starter ...

I have egg whites surplus to requirement from something I'll be doing as part of our main, so I based a fun entrée around gently fried egg whites covered with pickled herring, pickled beetroot, tomato, leaves, cottage cheese and Yorkshire mayonnaise, a yellow mayo from rapeseed, white wine vinegar, egg yolk and mustard; so, more egg white.

... and the main:

Bullet steak, cooked black and blue, oyster mushrooms, asparagus, peas, samphire, potato and beetroot over mushroom velouté with leaves, crowned with a poached egg yolk.

Putting this together is simply a case of having everything reading up front and assembling onto warm plates while the steak flashes in a pan.

Velouté

Velouté is simply a sauce made from stock and thickened with a roux. As ancestral eaters, we don't eat wheat flour and sadly, starch flours can become unappealing when heavily thickened. I'm going to use a double cream reduction to thicken my stock sauce.

Dice up some mushrooms, oyster in my case, shredded leek, a dash of white pepper and cook through in butter in a skillet.

Add some beef stock, blend well, passing through a sieve back into the skillet to reduce. Stir in some cream, or soured cream as I did, and reduce further.

Set aside just to warm through at the end.

Veggies

Boil your beetroots and cut up. Set aside.

Soften the oyster mushrooms in butter, in a skillet. We'll be adding the other veggies in at the end to warm through, so pick a skillet of sufficient size.

Boil your potatoes. Drain and set aside.

Par boil the asparagus and peas, immersing the samphire in at the very end. Drain and add to the skillet with your oyster mushrooms. Add the potatoes in.

Set the skillet aside.

Leaves

Have your leaves ready to scatter over.

I also shredded some radicchio to provide a bitter base over the creamy velouté.

Egg Yolk

We'll be crowning this dish with a poached egg yolk, so have a yolk per person ready and waiting in a ramekin and pan of boiled water just simmering.

Steak

When you're ready to eat, pre-heat a skillet while you just warm through the veggies and sauce, flash fry the steak while you assemble the dish ...

Assemblage

Take a plate and make a slide of velouté down the centre over which shredded radicchio is scattered.

Arrange a few potatoes and beetroots to form the structure of the dish.

Retrieve the steaks, rest very briefly and cut through into a number of pieces showing off the rare centre. Mingle in and amongst the roots.

Immerse the egg yolks into the pan of water - you want 60 seconds. No more ... no less.

Arrange the asparagus, samphire and peas in and amongst the meat and roots.

Retrieve the egg, gently, and rest on some kitchen paper to dry off.

Scatter some leaves over, black pepper and a little interesting salt - I used Icelandic Ash Salt.

Crown with the egg yolk.

Voilà! Presenting ... Bullet Steak Supreme.

Yes, this episode of 'Living in the Ice Age' was inspired by watching Master Chef at dinner time. Who needs a Michelin Star, eh?

Corned Beef & Plantain Hash

On Sunday, we had a simple Beef Shin stew; the beef stewed for several hours before root veggies were added, cooked through and served with cabbage and kale.

Leftovers ...

Left over was a gelatinous gravy with just a few pieces of potato, squash and carrot, and some meat pieces. I retrieved the meat pieces, shredded them up and blended the remaining gravy and veggies which formed the stock for my Corned Beef Hash.

Corned Beef in the UK is hallowed. We love the stuff. I think folks the other side of the pond might know it as Bully Beef, but it's essentially the same thing.

So, into the stock went some chopped plantains, beef stock, tomato purée, paprika, chillies, onion, garlic, radishes and the leftover meat, shredded.

Simmered on until the plantains were softened and the stock reduced, then cubed corned beef and tomatoes cut into eighths, a few more minutes and we're done.

Fold through and serve ...

It's a comfort meal.

To be absolutely frank the plantains didn't quite work out. The brought a dry, almost powdery sensation to the dish. I rather wish I had pre-fried them in a lot of butter and added at the end. No drama, it was a good meal, filling and satiating; nice and quick for a Monday night.

Corned Beef Hash [Comfort Food Monday]

... you can figure it out.

Chilli Cheese Chips [Junk Food Friday]

Friday ... at last!

Time to kick back, relax and set yourself up for a great weekend. I jest a little, but if you've not spent your 80/20 allowance, now is the time to do it ...

Prior to ancestral eating, one of our favourite Friday night junk food dinners was a big bag of Doritos, over which I'd dump chilli and a whole heap of grated cheese ... under the grill for a few minutes ... garnish with pickled chillies, tomato, cucumber and the like ... and eat.

Taking a play on the word chips, which is US for crisps, UK for chips ... UK chips are not chips, they're chips, as in chipped potatoes, your fries; your chips are our crisps ... because they're crisp. Got it?

I'm using chips (UK chips, that is). Yes, I could find some gluten-free tortilla crisps (chips) but I am not a fan of "gluten-free" per se, more, I'd rather find a real food alternative and if that is a potato, so be it.

"But our ancestors didn't eat potato ..." ... SHUT IT! It's my Chilli Cheese Chips and I'm going to do it my way.

I'm also using oxtail. Googling around, I find this already to be a Nevada classic. Bachi Burger restaurant in Las Vegas, apparently. They call it Chili Cheese Fries and go the extra mile, dumping a fried egg on top. Good call, but not necessary for tonight.

You know what? I absolutely love Guy Fieri's 'Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives' ... on a road trip across America, I would never go hungry.

It amazes me that (as an outsider) we view American eating habits as about as bad as you can get and consider it the yardstick against which neolithic diseases are measured, but stand back and look at the wonder of your country, all those little Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives that you have which produce such a plethora of good, honest food.

So, it's not ideal, not paleo, not even by a long stretch, but it's good, honest food ... and you could do a whole lot worse.

This is an ode (yeah, "an ode", I'm British ... we do "odes" ...What? You don't have odes in your country? You should ... they're pretty cool) ... an ode to these wonderful DDD establishments that I see on my telly and will frequent if I ever troop over to that side of the pond.

So, ingredients ...

Meat - Oxtail, bay leaves and black pepper

Sauce - Onion, garlic, chopped tomatoes, mushrooms, ground coriander, paprika, black pepper, celery salt and chillies

Chips - Potato and your favourite paleo fat

Cheese - Smoked cheddar

Salsa - Cucumber, tomato and olives

Oxtail

Bleary-eyed and working up the enthusiasm to go to work, grab an ovenproof dish, place the oxtails in over a few bay leaves and a little black pepper, top up with hot water and settle into the oven at 125C for the day.

Home in the evening, retrieve and remove the meat from the bones, shredding and sifting some of the larger pieces of fat off.

Keep the cooking liquid!

Sauce

Make up a simple spicy tomato and mushroom sauce in a heavy based skillet with chopped onion, garlic, chopped tomatoes, celery salt, black pepper, ground coriander and paprika, into which goes chopped onions and the shredded oxtail. Add in chillies to taste.

Now, over about an hour, keep just covering with the cooking liquor and refresh as it reduces. Using the cooking liquor will deepen the flavours and get the whole sauce really well cooked.

Oxtail Chilli!

Meanwhile

Dice up tomato cucumber and olives. Add some pickled chillies if you like.

Grate some cheese - I went with smoked cheddar.

Slice up potatoes into chips, fries or whatever you call them.

Chips

Par boil for a couple of minutes, retrieve, drain, pat dry and shallow fry in your favourite paleo fat - goose fat, for me. Beauty!

Serve

Chips down. Yeah, the chips are always down, eh?

Chips down, Oxtail Chilli over, cheese on top and sprinkle the salsa over.

Grab a beer and dig in, enjoying thoroughly!

Beef Shin

We've been eating this almost routinely on a Sunday evening since I got about half a damn tonne of the stuff at a price I could not refuse.

Beef Shin. Thick meat, gelatinous connective tissue, beautiful fat.

Preparation is simply to trim off the excess skin and fat - we don't want our meat swimming in the stuff. Cut into meal sized pieces, wrap and freeze. Each chunk will take a good day to defrost and most of the day to cook, so don't forget that Saturday morning is the start of preparation for this meal!

With the meat defrosted, bleary-eyed on Sunday morning, I simply lay the chunk of meat in a lidded ovenproof Pyrex dish over chopped onion, three bay leaves, four or five garlic cloves, some black pepper and then a pint of beef stock, topped up with water.

... no sealing, no faffing, just get the meat into the oven and get on with your day.

Lid on and into the oven at 125C for the day ...

... yes, the day. The longer and slower this is cooked, the better. The more adventurous amongst us will select a good Belgian brew and have the meat cuddled in beer for the day.

Ready to eat?

Retrieve the meat from the dish, gently as you go, wrapping in kitchen foil and putting back in the oven (now switched off) to keep warm.

Get some veggies steaming through - I went with mashed potato and some Romanesco broccoli.

Strain off the cooking juices, sieve some cassava flour in, whisking as you go and finally, whisk in some butter for a nice sheen.

Serve out and enjoy with a good glass of red wine alongside; Côtes du Rhône, for us.

Romaneso

Hallowe'en Compost Heap!

Muhahahhahaaaaa! It's Hallowe'en and what better than a fun themed meal?

We're having a Compost Heap! No, really ...

We need to build out compost heap: old food, soil, dead organic matter, fungi and worms.

Constituents

Soil - Minced beef, cubed potato, onion garlic and black pepper

Fungi - Oyster mushrooms

Dead, organic matter - calendula petals, an edible flower

Worms - Hot Dog sausages!

Hot Dogs? I know ... THE HORROR!!! It is Hallowe'en ...

Soil

In a skillet, brown off the minced meat, add in puréed onion and garlic. Black pepper, top up with water and let it energetically simmer for maybe an hour.

Fungi, Organic Matter & Worms

Meanwhile, cut a few oyster mushrooms in half, remove the petals from a calendula flower and warm the Hot Dogs through.

Calendula is an edible flower with a slightly bitter and very floral taste.

Once the Hot Dogs are just warm, remove from the heat and quarter lengthways.

When you are ready to eat, fold the mushrooms through the mince beef and serve ...

Serve

Serve the minced meat out into large bowls, threading the worms through and scatter the petals over.

Presenting my Hallowe'en themed Compost Heap!