Welsh Rarebit

Welsh Rarebit is NOT cheese on toast!

I repeat ... Welsh Rarebit is NOT cheese on toast!

You can read all about Welsh Rarebit on Wiki, the history, the variants, but in a nutshell, it's cheese, let out with milk or ale, thickened and poured over bread.

Bread? As ancestral eaters, we don't eat bread ... we can enjoy something far superior in terms of flavour and nutrition: the mushroom.

Ingredients

Portobello mushroom.

Cheese, beer and cream.

Mushroom

Mushrooms contain a lot of water and as such can leave an unappealing spill on the plate.

Two solutions: first, enjoy the mushroom uncooked; second, griddle the mushroom underside uppermost until the liquid comes up, flip and press down to cook off the water but absorb all of the flavour back into the mushroom.

Rarebit

Cheese, beer and cream.

First, the cheese - you can use cheddar, something crumbly like Caerphilly, Cheshire or Lancashire, even stilton.

I used Blacksticks Blue, a gorgeous coloured stilton from here in northern England, which will work perfectly with a little splash of the beer I'm enjoying while cooking. Guinness Foreign Extra.

Just a splash, maybe a tablespoon per serving - the purpose is just to let out the cheese just a little. Likewise, cream; just a splash.

Warm up gently and stir constantly while reducing to a thickened, but not thick sauce.

Serve

Serve as a starter, as part of a light lunch with some salad leaves alongside or as a side attraction to a main meal.

Mushroom down, pour the source over. Simples.

Indonesian Gulai Kancah

Indonesian Gulai Kancah, or an approximation of it made by a totally inexperienced Westerner who thoroughly enjoyed it in the face of adversity!

Don't you just love it when things go wrong?

No, really! Some things work out so well when they're rescued from disaster!

What happened?

Well, I wanted to make up a beef stew. I had some beef and I had some lamb kidneys. I had a squash.

Consulting the google oracle, I found many ideas ranging from the plain to the less plain to the more plain ... and then found Gulai Kancah!

Indonesian Beef and Liver!

Fusion alert! Fusion takes the best of one culture and marries it with the best of another culture.

Indonesians make hot, sweet and sour curries while we Western Europeans make bland beef stews which can occasionally be interesting when beer is included, like our Beligian friends would.

To work ...

I browned off about a pound of beef cubes in coconut oil and then added in the lamb kidneys, halved and the white gristle centre removed.

Kidney? Yes! It's what I had in; no liver.

Meanwhile, I made up a paste of onion, garlic, ginger and chilli. I used a Scotch Bonnet pepper for a real lively kick, rather than several Bird's Eye chillies - again, it's what I had in.

Blended and poured over the now browned meat, I added water, tamarind paste and some ground black pepper.

Tamarind? Is that even paleo?

Well, I don't quite know - it is a member of the Fabaceae family, and so technically a legume, although we're just using the seed from inside. Seed? Yes, the seed. So, um ... paleo? Well, I don't know ...

Either way, tamarind has a unique sour flavour which is the absolute key to this dish. In the spirit of paleo, I did my hunter/gatherer thing and collected a tub of pure tamarind extract from the local supermarket and tasted it. It didn't kill me and had a curious flavour. Being the largest and strongest in my tribe, I took the challenge! I'll eat some and see if it's okay ... it was!

Great! So, a teaspoon of pungent sour tamarind paste went in along with a crushed lemongrass stalk and a couple of keffir lime leaves.

Water ... set to a rolling simmer in a sauté pan to get the meat tender.

Meanwhile, I go for my evening walk ...

Disaster?

I left my dear wife in charge with the instruction to keep it topped up with water. Upon my return, I was greeted with, "the tea is all burned!". That's dinner, which we call "tea" up north, northern England.

She had just rescued it before it really stuck and luckily, it was the sauce which had stuck not the meat. So, scraped out and the meat meticulously picked from the charred remains of our dinner, I set about repeating the task.

"Our dinner was in your hands, Dude!" :)

This time, I used a softened aubergine as the sauce base. I'd made up some blended aubergine to use as a base for some eggs and scallops as a starter. We'd have to skip that as time was pressing, so the aubergine made the base of a new sauce.

How? Just skin and slice some aubergine, soften in butter and then purée. Move on.

I added another onion, more garlic, so 4 good cloves, more ginger, so about an inch square and another Scotch Bonnet pepper.

Blended and added into the now clean sauté pan wherein the rescued meat was now coming up to the boil in more water, I added in another generous teaspoon of tamarind paste, more keffir lime leaves and another lemongrass stalk.

I had cubed a squash to drop in upon my return from my walk, so this went in at this point.

This was going well ...

Fusion time! It needed salt, which I added some Maldon salt, and some sweetness. Hmmm ... beer! Belgian beer! Grabbing a bottle of brown Leffe, I added a good glass of beer with some arrowroot to thicken the stock. I added a good splash more to colour up.

This is, of course, entirely optional - if you don't drink alcohol as part of your paleo lifestyle or are concerned about beer being from grain, you don't need to add it. Just don't.

I also dropped in some mussels. Adding cheap seafood to beef stews is a good old British thing - think, oysters in Lancashire Hotpot, mussels in London Beef Stew. These practically disappeared into the sauce giving a subtle background.

Liquid reduced, concentrated and thickened to an almost sticking sauce, I served out into small bowls and garnished with shredded spring onions and some coriander.

So, an hour and a half overdue ... we're hungry ... really hungry!

Wow! Oh, wow! This is seriously flavoursome!

Hot, physically and blisteringly fierce with chilli, sour, sweet, all sorts going on in my mouth!

Why have I not eaten Indonesian before?

Lucky me, I have a half-filled bowl of sauce left over for a work lunch. I'm thinking some chicken, maybe pork and some boiled white rice to accompany? Ideas? Let me know in the comments, please - I have my lunch for tomorrow, so need ideas for tomorrow evening when I'll prepare my lunch for Thursday.

Beef Mulligatawny Soup

Conventional paleo people should look away now! Beef Mulligatawny Soup contains rice!

Rice? What on earth?

You will have noticed that I frequently use dairy in my cooking - cheese, cream, soured cream, creme fraiche and yoghurt, and you might well have seen the very occasional use of white potatoes ... but rice?

This is not a paleo dish, as far as most conventional definitions of paleo go. This is a Perfect Health Diet dish.

So, having read what the Perfect Health Diet is all about are you now interested?

If it's not for you, it's not for you ... if it is, read on ...

Translated from Tamil, Mulligatawny literally means "pepper water". There are many recipes, consistent to all is that the soup is a hot, spicy liquid with some meat and bulked, if not thickened, with rice.

This recipe emulates the classic Heinz can of soup.

I'm afraid that there are no shortcuts to this. I suppose you could use a beef gravy, but it's not the same as ...

Slow-cook a large piece of beef brisket in water or a Belgian beer with lambs kidneys, mushrooms, onion and garlic for several hours. I use Leffe Blonde.

Retrieve the beef, set aside to rest in tin foil.

Retrieve the kidneys. Blend the remainder together to make a thick gravy, thickened fully with a little arrowroot in water. Return the kidneys to the gravy and pour over slices of beef brisket, served with vegetables. Enjoy!

Now you see what's going on ... this is leftovers dish!

Cool the leftover beef brisket in the fridge, along with the gravy in another dish.

Warm the gravy up with a gastrique - a splash of cider vinegar and a touch of honey, a good squirt of tomato purée, perhaps some ginger and several generous splashes of classic red Tabasco. Add a little water to thin out to a soup if necessary.

Meanwhile boil some rice - I used risotto rice, since my wife does not like basmati, but basmati would be the more authentic choice. The rice in the Heinz can is more puffed than just boiled basmati, so the risotto rice made it more akin to the canned version.

I guess this could be made in a more conventionally paleo way with cauliflower rice. If the cauliflower rice was lightly fried in a dusting of spices, that would be excellent! Turmeric, cumin and coriander would be just right.

Shred some of the leftover beef brisket and warm through in the soup.

Drain the rice and tip into the soup.

Serve out into a wide brim bowl and enjoy this warming, comforting soup.

Beef Brisket with Lamb Kidneys and Mushrooms

Beef brisket is a great cut of meat - cheap, full of flavour and when slow cooked, a real paleo treat packed with protein and energy. The trick is slow cooking. I will warn you now - this recipe uses beer. You could try to find a heavy flavoured gluten-free beer or simply use water.

Let's cook some brisket ...

Prepare the brisket by sealing it in a frying pan and a small amount of fat.

Dice up some lamb kidneys and some mushrooms - I like chestnut mushrooms for the stronger flavour. Gently fry these in the remaining oil. Finally, add some chopped onions and whole garlic cloves to the pan and saute for a few minutes.

Transfer the kidney, mushroom, onion and garlic to a slow cooking vessel - I use a tagine; a crock pot or slow cooker would happily suffice.

Place the brisket on top and pour over beer to about half way up the brisket.

Put the lid on the vessel and slow cook for a few hours, turning the brisket every hour.

When you are ready to eat, prepare some vegetables - I like a celeric and daikon mash, tenderstem broccoli and cabbage. Carrots, stringless green beans and peas are also a good accompaniment, the latter being primally acceptable.

Meanwhile, rest the brisket wrapped in tin foil.

Retrieve the kidney and mushroom pieces and wash them clean of any onion matter.

Pour the juices to a suitable container and blend to a thick gravy. Transfer to a pan and bring to the boil, returning the kidney and mushroom to warm through. Add a little arrowroot at the end to thicken.

Plate up - vegetables first, slices of brisket on top and pour over the thick gravy allowing chunks of kidney and mushroom to fall over the dish.