Tag: dinner

Recipe

Haggis, neeps and barley risotto – when good ideas go bad

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It all started because Oliver at Salad Days, Offal Nights made a St George risotto using English ingredients (which seemed to contain mostly leeks!?). That’s a good idea I thought so I started thinking about a St Andrews version.

Neeps (swedes) would work quite well with the barley and my first thought was to roast some small joint of lamb or venison to go with the risotto. Then I remembered about the haggis in the freezer. Continue reading “Haggis, neeps and barley risotto – when good ideas go bad” →

Recipe

Roast poussin with chestnut and crouton stuffing

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I shouldn’t be allowed to go into supermarkets on my own. At least not into nice ones like Sainsbury’s. Tescos is probably safe enough if I avoid the world foods aisle – which also contains their specialist cooking ingredients. Or even the little Morrisons in Banchory as it’s got a pretty sparse range of food.

The other day I went to Sainsbury’s to pick up some cat litter and returned home with 2 poussins and a couple of tins of chestnuts. Not to mention the tub of deli olives, cat treats, two cat toys and the aforementioned bags of litter. There would have been more spur of the moment purchases but the beer aisle was closed. Continue reading “Roast poussin with chestnut and crouton stuffing” →

Recipe

Osso Bucco

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As you can see buying a new camera may make it possible for me to take better pictures but I’m still getting the hang of the technique required to get those pictures and I still have a long way to go on the presentation front. Well I’m always learning so one day perhaps I’ll get that happy moment when I can cook a presentable plate of food and take a good photo of it. Until that day comes you’ll just have to put up with what I can get in the meantime.

I’ve not done much cooking recently as the last few weeks have been pretty hectic in our house. It’s starting to calm down again now and I had time on Sunday to dig out the veal shins I bought at the farmer’s market last month and try a recipe for osso bucco I’d been eying up for a while.

I’ve blogged about Stephane Reynaud before and after expressing my love for Ripailles I was given his latest book – 365 Good Reasons To Sit Down And Eat for my birthday last year. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to try many of the dishes because almost all of them involve large amounts of butter, cream or some other fatty substance. However we are gradually becoming free of that limitation and so to celebrate I finally opened this weighty tome (he doesn’t seem to like writing small books) and selected his recipe for osso bucco. Continue reading “Osso Bucco” →

Food and drink

Garlic and rosemary lamb chops

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I know this is very similar to another post I made recently, but I don’t care. This version is massive improvement.

Last time I just threw some rosemary at thyme at the gravy after pan-frying the chops and hoped I’d get a superb meal at the end of it. That tactic almost worked but there was definitely room for improvement. This time I decided I needed more firepower. The small arms fire of rosemary and thyme are all very good but they need some heavy weapons backing them up. I reached for garlic, anchovies and a roasting tin. Continue reading “Garlic and rosemary lamb chops” →

Thoughts

A capital weekend – 3 days in Edinburgh

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We thought it would be a good idea to go to Edinburgh for the Scotland – Wales six nations match. Turns out that was a mistake, but the rest of the weekend was great. I’ll pick up from 75 minutes into the rugby. Probably best as everything before that was a bit disappointing. Anyway, we had enough and decided to steal a march on the rest of Murrayfield so nipped out early. A long walk at a brisk pace brought us to Zizzi before any other rugby fan and we managed to secure a table for two where we sat and watched the baying hordes arrive a couple of minutes later and be turned away. Continue reading “A capital weekend – 3 days in Edinburgh” →