Haggis, Neaps & Tatties

Sunday dinner ...

Traditional Scots serving: Haggis with neaps and tatties, or mashed parsnip and potato. Greenage is tenderstem broccoli, peas and some baby kale which can be eaten like salad leaves.

Yes, Haggis is not Primal, but it is primal ... I mean, just how much more primal can you get: take all the offals left over and stuff it into the stomach then boil it. Granted, there is some barley in there, I think, perhaps oatmeal. The ingredients are pretty sparse, so I think I got a good one.

Bloody tasty, nevertheless ...

Winter Chicken Salad

Cruising around the supermarket, I happened upon some baby kale. Baby kale? Like kale, but the young leaves which can be eaten as salad or just lightly cooked through in a little butter. Massive in vitamin K, vitamins A & C, calcium and manganese if you want the nutritional benefits.

Anyway ...

It's the middle of winter and I'm holding a bag of salad leaves, but inspiration came to me with one seasonal ray of sunshine that I look forward to every Christmas: Clementines.

So, baby kale, clementines ... and there are some chicken thighs in the reduced section. See? When you eat primal, nature (or rather the supermarket) makes your plate for you! It really is, just put real food together. Even if it is salad, in the middle of winter!

Chicken thighs are so simple to cook: just cover with water and commit to the oven for a few hours, the timing is largely irrelevant since a couple will do, four or five will not be too long. Low and slow, so 150C (300F) and just turn it down if you're not ready to eat.

Let's have some baby potatoes, too, sliced, par-boiled and sautéed in a little butter, some red onion and what's left of a couple of bell peppers. Icelandic ash salt and black pepper.

Crowning glory is the clementines. Slice through and dot around the salad.

Dinner is served!

Chilli Con Carne Sweet Potato

Quick and dead easy ... it's leftovers!

Commit a sweet potato cut in half to the oven, set to 180C for about 30 minutes.

Take some leftover Chilli Con Carne and warm it through in a pan.

Dress a plate with some salad leaves and maybe some chilli sauce*.

Prepare the rest: grated local sheep cheese, matchstick cucumber and tomato, horse ear spring onions and some soured cream.

Great! The potato is ready ...

Pop it on the plate, good slab of butter, Chilli Con Carne, cheese, soured cream and the salad ingredients. Sea salt and black pepper.

Dinner is served!

Great! Feeling replete but not overly full and ready for an evening of fencing ...

*The sauce I slathered over is my own chilli sauce: red chillies, powdered ginger, powdered garlic, sea salt, white pepper, cider vinegar & lemon juice. Purée well and pass through a sieve. Thicken with a little arrowroot if necessary.

Cauliflower Stalk & Potato Soup with Crab Beignet

Crab Beignet? Not the traditional French type from choux pastry, but a quick and easy with three ingredients: canned crab, cottage cheese and tapioca flour.

The soup is simply cauliflower stalks (I never throw away trimmings) and cubes of potato with onion, garlic and some bouillon. Cook through, soup done.

Back to these Beignets ...

Take a can of crab meat, drain and squeeze out thoroughly. Combine with equal portions of cottage cheese and then start to add in tapioca flour until the mixture turns dry enough to roll out into long sausages without it sticking to hands or the rolling board.

Cut into inch long sections and roll each piece in a large bowl with more tapioca flour.

Shallow fry in coconut oil, say in a milk pan. Good and hot, or they'll simply stick together.

Ready? Serve out ...

Soup in a bowl with a good mount of beignets in the middle.

Swordfish with Asparagus and Roasted Beetroot, Squash & Garlic

Simple preparation for a mid-week dinner ...

Oven on ... 200C ...

Peel and segment some beetroots, peel and cube up some squash, take a whole garlic and pick off the bulbs. Add the lot to an oven-proof dish with some fat, goose fat for me, and commit to the oven for 40 minutes.

Meanwhile steam some asparagus and set aside.

Cube up some feta.

Settle a couple of swordfishes onto an oven-proof plate.

After 20 minutes of cooking, pop the swordfish into the oven.

After a further 10 minutes, turn the swordfish over and scatter the asparagus into the roasting vegetables.

Another 10 minutes and we're done ...

Serve out, swordfish down, roasted vegetables down and feta cheese scattered over. Ladle some chilli sauce* over the fish.

*The sauce I slathered over is my own chilli sauce: red chillies, powdered ginger, powdered garlic, sea salt, white pepper, cider vinegar & lemon juice. Purée well and pass through a sieve. Thicken with a little arrowroot if necessary.

Herring? What a jerk!

It's Sunday morning, I've got a herring and a hankering for something spicy ...

Clean, scale and gut your fish, washing out the cavity, slash the skin, rubbing in jerk seasoning and fill the cavity with lemons.

Place into an ovenproof dish, scatter over some onion rings, courgette, mushrooms, perhaps capers and commit to the oven for about 15 minutes before flipping over for another 10 to finish off. 200C (400F?) will do nicely.

The jerk seasoning? Take a few scallions, top tail and shred, a handful of fresh thyme, a couple of Scotch Bonnet peppers and some salt. Mash the lot together. That's your seasoning.

Retrieve, plate up and enjoy ...

Oily, fatty protein. What a way to start the day!

Have a great Sunday!

Basa Soup

I have some Basa fillets and fancied a spicy soup ...

Take a whole bunch of interesting flavours and shred them, matchstick them, mince them and set them aside.

I went with ...

Basa Soup

Spring Onion
Garlic
Ginger
Scotch Bonnet Pepper
Carrot
Cabbage
Basa Fillets
Poppy Seeds

Into a large open pan, tip in some bone broth and drop in the vegetables to warm through.

Once warmed, add the fish and any final flavours like fresh herbs, seeds or whatever.

Your soup is ready!

Totally fusion, I know but I made a little pistou to stir in ...

Hazelnut Pistou

Hazelnuts
Parsley
Olive Oil
Sea Salt

Blend the lot together and you're done. Simply stir a spoonful into the soup.

Brown Chicken Stew

Following on from my lunchtime Jerk Chicken, I rather fancied some more. So, about five o'clock, I put more chicken pieces together with some jerk seasoning and set it aside to marinate ...

Well, when it came to seven o'clock it looked a bit meagre so I set about something else ...

I'm sure this is actually called Fricassee, or something French, but given the spicing it's Brown Chicken.

Ingredients

Jerked Chicken
Palm Oil
Large Onion
Garlic
Ginger
Sea Salt
Black Pepper
Allspice
Tomato Purée
Green Pepper
Tomato
Dried Thyme
Palm Sugar*

Method

In a large skillet, melt some red palm oil and soften a shredded onion. Once starting to caramelise, add in the garlic and ginger, the allspice and the chicken.

Fry off until the chicken has taken on a little colour, add a good squirt of tomato purée and top up with water.

Bring to the boil and add in a chopped green pepper, sliced tomato, a sprinkle of palm sugar and a good sprinkle of dried thyme.

Set to reduce over a medium flame and when it's reduced, it's ready.

Yeah, you could serve with coconut rice, or something, but it's best just to have a huge bowl of the stuff as is ...

*You spotted it. Sugar.

Well, palm sugar is the sweet sap of the palm tree, crystallised. It is largely sucrose based, so low in fructose and scores relatively lowly on the GI index. Used in strict moderation, it's one of those "primal" sweeteners, like honey ... and in this dish brought a real roundness, which allowed the full flavour of the chillies to be tasted without overly burning.

Check out Mark Sissons' article on sugar.

Jerk Chicken

I'm all for simplicity ...

I'm all for authenticity ...

I'm of the belief that all these "authentic" recipes are actually simple rustic, low-brow food cooked simply, over simple flame by regular people for regular people.

Recipe lists as long as you arm, methods which read like a Haynes manual, nah ... not for me.

I stumbled over a simple preparation which happens to be quite simply, Jerk Chicken ...

I have a glut of chicken wings, so chopped into mini-drumstick, wing and tip, I simply marinated it in my jerk seasoning for a couple of hours.

Jerk Seasoning

Scotch Bonnet Peppers
Scallions/Spring Onions
Fresh Thyme
Sea Salt
Black Pepper
Allspice

Amounts, I'm unsure, but blend a bunch of spring onions with a couple of Scotch Bonnet peppers, a handful of fresh thyme, then add in the salt, pepper and Allspice.

Done.

Yes, done.

... as in that's all, folks.

Jerk Chicken

So, we have chicken and we have the seasoning, so slop a load of the seasoning into a bowl with the chicken pieces and massage together.

Leave it a couple of hours, then pop into an oven spread out on a tray at, say, 180C and let it go for 30-40 minutes.

Here's fun ...

Leave the tips in for another hour!

The tips will dry out and you can eat them whole, bones and all ... it'll just crunch away. Easy. The rest, of course, you eat after 30-40 minutes.

Yum! I wolfed it down without any thought for you guys, so sorry ... no picture.

Cabbage & Chorizo

Nothing simpler than a plate of pork and cabbage, here, Chorizo; smoked paprika, pork and fat, in a sausage ...

Steam some white cabbage and leek, shredded.

In a skillet, warm through some chorizo. Keep the heat medium so as not to fry it too harshly.

Once the cabbage has steamed a little, toss it in the skillet with the chorizo, adding poppy seeds for a little interest.

Serve out, eat and enjoy.

Walnut & Mushroom Curry

After yesterday's lovely breakfast curry, I rather fancied another today ...

So, what do I have in? No meat, no fish. That'll be another vegetable curry, then. I have some mushrooms, some fresh peas in pods, an onion, some spices and a store cupboard can of coconut milk. I have a lovely large plum tomato.

That'll do ...

Walnut & Mushroom Curry

If you were after a formal set of ingredients, here's the best I can do:

Ingredients

For two people

For the curry ...

Small Onion
Ghee/Coconut Oil
1 tsp Turmeric Powder
1 tsp Coriander Powder
Half tsp Fenugreek
Half tsp Asafoetida
8-10 Chestnut Mushrooms
Handful Peas
Large Plum Tomato
6 Medium Green Chillies
Bunch Flat Leaf Parsley
1 tsp Poppy Seeds
Sea Salt
Black Pepper

For the sauce ...

Handful Walnuts
Half Can Coconut Milk
Couple Cloves of Garlic
Piece of Ginger

... and garnish:

Boiled Egg
Parsley

Madness

... I mean, Method.

I say Madness, since that was pretty much what it was. I often begin cooking with no real idea how it will turn out. Seeing what happens to the ingredients as I go, feeling my way with where it will go and just going with flashes of insanity when they happen ... that's ancestral cooking.

Take a large skillet and melt your fat - ghee, for me. If one of your vegan friends was round, you could make this vegan with coconut oil and omit the egg at the end. Scatter in the chopped onion and lower the heat so the onion can cook through slowly and caramelise.

I like to pour my spice mix in at this point, so, in with the turmeric, ground coriander, fenugreek and asafoetida.

Now, make up the sauce ...

When I opened the cupboard to get a can of coconut milk, I noticed the half bag of walnuts which really wanted finishing. Mushrooms and walnuts go together. What could go wrong?

So, into a receptacle, put a handful of walnuts, a couple of cloves of garlic and a bit of ginger. Pour in half a can of coconut milk and blend it up - I use a stick blender and found half a can was about right for a thick, but pourable stodge which form the sauce for the curry.

Walnut & Coconut Sauce

Back to the curry ...

Drop in the mushrooms, sliced; and a handful of peas, stir through, add some black pepper and some sea salt.

Pour in the sauce, wetting up with a little water.

Scatter in some poppy seeds and a good bunch of parsley, rough chopped. Parsley works better than coriander. Besides, I used my coriander yesterday and I have parsley today. Trust me, parsley works better.

Top and tail the tomato, cutting into a large dice. Add to the curry.

Raise the heat a touch and reduce.

Take your chillies, slit down the side and toss them in whole while the curry reduces. This will release some heat into the dish and cook through for those who like to eat whole chillies. Yum!

Meanwhile, boil an egg and prepare some rice, if that's the way you swing. I do, so I'm happy to do so. Steam off some cauliflower and crush - it makes a presentable and fast Cauliflower Rice.

Ready to eat?

Serve out a mound of rice or Cauliflower Rice, spooning the reduced curry alongside.

Garnish with a sprig of fresh parsley and your boiled egg, cut into segments.

Did it work? Damn straight, it did! What a wonderful curry! Walnuts are good for you, mushrooms are good for you, eggs are good for you, coconut milk is good for you, spice is good for you ... what a great meal!

Settling Vegetable Curry

While I was out being wined and dined at the very excellent Prashad, Mrs made herself some pancakes ... with regular flour. Nice, I'm sure, but this morning she was paying for it after a bad night and continued stomach pain ...

Time for a healing Curry!

Having enjoyed Britain's absolute finest vegetarian curry myself the previous night, I was very happy to continue. Mrs does not like "Curry" so I presented it jokingly as an Ayurvedic Breakfast ...

Nothing planned, just a case of selecting a few vegetables. Spur of the moment.

I began softening a large onion in ghee, added in some turmeric, sliced garlic, black pepper and a little smoked sea salt. Softened, I continued with some shredded fennel, chillies (shredded) and ginger (minced), finally some sliced courgette.

Splash of water and cook on for a few minutes before adding in chopped tomatoes.

Cook on for a few more minutes, adding in poppy seeds and fresh chopped coriander.

Meanwhile, I made up a little green salad of rocket, avocado oil and cider vinegar, crunched up with some pine nuts.

Served out, the curry alongside the salad and complimented with a couple of avocado segments.

Breakfast served, tummies healed, the day ready to be got on with ...

Champion!

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!

Chicken Thighs with a Creamy Mushroom Sauce

... a meal of good healthy fats, more good healthy fats and yet more good healthy natural fats.

Fire up your oven to 200C (400F) and get it up to temperature.

Peel and slice some squash pieces into good, larke chunks and settle into a roasting tray. No fat!

Place a wire cooling rack over the tray and place your chicken thighs on - a couple per person. Dust the skin with sea salt, black pepper and a little chilli powder - this will help the skin crisp up.

Settled the tray into the oven for about 45 minutes. As the chicken cooks, the juices and fat will drip down over the squash, so after about 15 minutes, just jiggle the squash pieces to ensure that they've not stuck.

After 45 minutes, remove the chicken from the oven, peel the skin off and set aside. Leave the chicken pieces to rest for a couple of minutes while you prepare the rest of the meal.

In a skillet place some sliced mushrooms and pour over double cream (heavy cream will do if you're States-side). Reduce.

Peel and cut an avocado each into segments.

Now, with the chicken cooled, remove the pieces from the bones, shredding a little.

Line the shredded meat down the middle of a plate, placing the squash pieces one side and avocado slices the other. Pour over the cream and mushroom sauce and crown with the skin, shredded, and some fresh herbs - coriander or parsley.

Protein, carbohydrate and fat ... perfect proportions.

Seafood Supper [Scraping the Barrel]

Supplies are dwindling ...

Not by any mean twist of fate but simply because I've not been shopping. I keep in a number of "store cupboard" ingredients, but in the main we eat fresh and local, which means if we've not been hunting and gathering we don't have a lot of food available.

Still, with limited options, a little imagination and a creative flair, it is entirely possible to come up with a good, nutritional and attractive dinner.

The thing is, ancestral eating is simple ...

No recipes, no weighing, no measuring, just a case of putting good food together with minimal cooking and you're done! Great meals make themselves if you keep local, keep seasonal and keep organic.

Make the dish look appealing to you. Make the dish flavoursome and full of the things that you enjoy. Brave a combination that you've not tried before. Take snaps and show everyone what you enjoy eating, encouraging them to perhaps try something new.

When supplies dwindle, be imaginative, be creative and spark your inner caveman who met this regularly.

I do need to go shopping, though ...

Starter

Not quite having enough to call a full meal for the main course, I made up a little starter of boiled egg, some leftover brown crab meat, a tiny amount of leftover mashed potato, tomato, cucumber and various pickles, finishing off the fresh basil and the last of the salad ingredients.

Main Course

Oven cooked pollock, defrosted, emptying the freezer and finishing off the last of the fresh herbs; steamed carrots, leeks and tenderstem broccoli, emptying the vegetable drawer. Vegetables tossed in olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar to finish the dish.

Nothing left now other than a cupboard of spices, some cheese, a couple of jars of pickled, half a bag of rice noodles, a can of pilchards and two jars of caviar! I must go shopping ...

Nah! I can make another meal out of that lot!

No, I'll go shopping ...

Keema & Pea Curry [Midweek Mutter]

Mutter? Mattar? Matar?

Depending upon the region of the Indian sub-continent, but we know them as peas, garden peas or petit pois.

Keema? That's minced meat - lamb, usually.

Curry is not difficult!

I cannot stress that enough. So many people see curry as exotic, difficult to replicate that restaurant taste, too complicated through use of a bewildering array of spices or simply through a lack of understanding of language.

Again, curry is not difficult and this Kashmiri favourite is one I have enjoyed practically my whole life after first enjoying a bowl from The Kashmir, Bradford's oldest and longest established Curry House, at the age of 5?

Let's get currying ...

The quantities listed will do for two people, or one hungry Yorkshireman!

Ingredients

1lb Minced Lamb
Ghee or Butter
Large Onion
Garlic, Ginger & Chillies
Spice Mix
Tomato
Frozen Peas
Water
Sea Salt

Method

This is a mid-week curry. It should be quick to make and so many of the corners are cut for one of those million and one ingredient with implausibly long method kind of curries you might enjoy making at the weekend.

Slice the onion and in a large skillet with some butter or ghee, warm the onions for about 20 minutes over a low heat until they begin to caramelise. If you've got the time, give them longer but 20 minutes is good. Remove from the skillet and place into a receptacle for blending later on.

Into the skillet, brown off the minced lamb. No fat needed, since lamb will release its own - just keep the heat down to medium and this will take around five minutes to brown and soften. Lamb mince softens quicker than beef in my experience.

Meanwhile, add garlic, ginger and chillies to the onion and blend. As a guideline, a couple of cloves of garlic, maybe a teaspoon of shredded ginger and a couple of chillies is good. More if you like more of any of those. Blend and add to the minced lamb in the skillet. Fry off for a few minutes.

Sprinkle over your spice mix. I tend to go with equal parts of turmeric, ground coriander, ground cumin, then a sprinkle of fenugreek and asafoetida. Stir in a fry on for a minute, or so.

Pour in water to cover, raise the heat to a gentle boil and reduce.

Pour in water to cover a second time, add in a good handful (or more) of frozen peas, quarter up a tomato, raise the heat to a gentle boil and reduce.

Garnish with fresh coriander leaf, freshly chopped green chilli and salt to taste.

Serve

On its own is fine, with some rice, perhaps some cauliflower rice, maybe just some steamed vegetables alongside. As you can see, I went with some tenderstem broccoli and a boiled egg.

Needless to say, you can add in pretty much any vegetable during the second boil: spinach, potatoes, mushrooms, whatever. Now you have a basic curry and a means of varying.

Enjoy your mid-week curry!

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!

Pulled Pork

I made full use of the oven while yesterday's duck legs were cooking ...

Again, slathered in Discovery Chipotle Sauce, some paprika, black pepper, cayenne pepper and garlic powder, the first couple of hours at 180C really cooked this pork shoulder joint through.

Dropping the heat to 125C for another three hours, the pork literally fell apart with little more than the press of a spoon.

Shredded and settled into the fridge overnight, re-heated with a little water in a frying pan and some fresh herbs, we've got tonight's dinner already made.

Just a simple coleslaw of white cabbage, grated carrot, grated cheese, shredded spring onion, Hellmann's Mayonnaise, Coleman's English Mustard and some black pepper and we're ready to eat!

Pulled pork, coleslaw on a base of red pepper:

Tilapia over Griddled Watermelon

Very much a spur of the moment, put-together kind of dinner ...

I had the following:

• Tilapia Fillets
• Leftover Pico de Gallo
• Red Onion
• Watermelon
• Soured Cream & Coriander
• Icelandic Ash Salt & Black Pepper

... and so, large steaks of watermelon were dropped onto the griddle pan while I mused over the remainder.

I bulked out my Pico de Gallo from Friday with some chopped red onion - otherwise, it's tomato, cucumber, sweetcorn, olives and pickled onions.

The sauce was just soured cream let out with lime juice and some chopped coriander stirred in.

Tilapia needs little more than a couple of minutes each side in a frying pan with some lovely butter.

Served out, the Pico de Gallo went down first, scattered around, watermelon steaks next with the fish on top. Sauce over, touch of Icelandic black salt and some black pepper.

Lovely!

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.