Writing and thoughts from NE Scotland
I’m on a Stephane Reynaud roll it seems. While looking for the recipe for yesterday’s post on Osso Bucco I noticed a picture of a chocolate hazelnut fondant. I haven’t done a dessert blog post yet and this seemed quite simple (oops) so I gave it a go.
Now not only do I not make many desserts but I also don’t do much baking. Which probably meant this was a bad idea on two fronts. Still you don’t learn if you don’t try do you? Continue reading “Chocolate hazelnut fondant”
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”
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”
Another quick post while I finish typing up last week’s trip to Edinburgh. Today was farmers market day and I had a good reason to head down to Scott Skinner Square anyway (needed a haircut) so took the opportunity to fill our freezer with meat.
One of my favourite stalls at the market is Mortlach Game, a local company that provides cuts of venison, pheasant, pigeon and rabbit. Today I was shopping for venison and picked up a fantastic little joint of venison loin that was going to make a perfect Saturday night tea. Continue reading “Roast loin of venison”
This is another recipe adapted from the excellent Nick Nairn book, New Scottish Cookery. Not that it’s very new any more. It was one of the first cookbooks I bought. My graduation from the simplicity of my other book called something like “400 recipes with only 4 ingredients”.
One of the first recipes I tried from the book is also the one that I’ve made the most. Garlic stuffed mushrooms on toast. It’s pretty easy to see why this was the recipe I went for first. It’s simple but produces great results and is flexible enough to be a dinner party starter (it made an appearance at Christmas one year), a simple main course or a quick dinner for one. Continue reading “Garlic stuffed mushrooms”
Mince and Skirlie 