Birthday Beef- Forerib roast

It was mine and my dads birthday last week, which means a big family get together over the weekend. I moved down to london a few weeks ago ( part of the reason i have posted nothing recently!) before I start my course at Leiths school of food and wine at the end of the month.

I treated myself to a 7.5kg(!) Forerib joint which I got on a very early morning visit to Smithfield market on the friday. It was well worth getting up so early as it saved me somewhere in the region of £80! What a beautiful piece of British beef it is!

Now, for such a beautiful piece of meat I think it should be given the respect it deserves and I only season it before saluting it and putting it into the oven to roast.

Rib can be a difficult joint to cook as because of its sheer mass and the bone different parts cook at different rates, although to be honest when cooking for a big party there will always be people who fall between rare to well done so this makes that easy!

Here is how I cook mine

Get the beef joint out at least half an hour before cooking , it needs to be room temp before cooking, and with a joint this big it will take a while. Season liberally with salt and pepper ( smoked salt if you have it) and give it a good rub down as this will help get a good crust.
Preheat your oven to as hot as it will go ( probably somewhere in the region of 250c)
Pop the beef in on a roasting tray for 20 minutes, you will see that fat start to bubble and render, at this point turn the oven down to 180c and roast for a further 25 minutes a kg. This should give you a nice rare/medium rare middle and some more medium/done bits towards the outside of the joint.

When the beef comes out of the oven it needs at least 30-40 minutes to rest, and then enjoy!! YUM

Bastille Day

Leek tart tatin with goats cheese and thyme

It was Bastille day yesterday here in france, and it has been a very slow start for everyone in the village here today after fireworks and parties that went way into today….

Before that all kicked off we all got together for a shared dinner, I made among other things, a leek and shallot tarte tartin with homemade puff pastry ( which is fun to make in 30c+ heat….)

For the pastry I used the Leith standard butter puff pastry recipe

250g Plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
200g cold butter
90-120ml of chilled water

Now the method for making puff pastry is long and involved so I wont type up the whole thing , but this link gives you a good method. http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/how_to_make_puff_pastry_65905

For the tarte

6 leeks- cut into 3cm pieces
2 Banana shallots,halved
60g of butter
2 tablespoons of castor sugar
Fresh thyme/ tarragon
100g Soft goats cheese

Heat the oven to 180c, melt 40g of the butter with 2 table spoons of water in an oven proof frying pan (22cm size) and pack the cut leeks into the pan standing upright,with the shallots arranged in the middle. Let this cook for around 5 minutes, do not turn the leeks. Meanwhile, melt the remaining butter with the sugar in a separate pan, one nicely melted together add carefully to the leeks.

Roll out your pastry and cut a circle out about 1.5 times the size of the pan ( i like quite a large crust as you can see in the picture). Drape the pastry over the  pan and tuck down the sides, pushing the leeks as tightly together as you can. put the pan in the oven for 15-20 minutes untill the pastry is risen and golden.

WHen you take it out you will need to put you brave kitchen face on for the turning out. Give the pan a light shake to make sure it’s not stuck anywhere, then place a large plate or board over the pan. Quickly in one fluid motion turn the board and pan over( remember we are being brave) . sometimes the pastry around the edges needs a bit more cooking, if so place the tarte on a baking tray (leek side up) for about 5 minutes.

Once you have finished cooking crumble half the goats cheese over the tart and scatter liberally with the herbs, a few twists of salt and pepper and you are ready to go!

Enjoy!

Natural flavoured Madeleines

        When in france, make madeleines

I have something of a love affair with madeleines, which was exacerbated by my stagiere at st johns where they are almost a religion. I wanted to have a bit of a play around with flavourings of madeleines, whilst the plain will always be the best it still fun to see what else you can do.

Plain madeleines- makes about 36
150g unsalted butter ( get the highest quality you can it makes all the difference to the flavour at the end)
3 eggs
150g light brown sugar
15g honey
150g plain flour- sifted
1.5 tsp baking powder

Melt the butter and cook to a beurre noisette ( the butter will take on a bit of a brown colour and a nutty flavour). Add the honey and stir til the are happily incorporated.

Break the eggs into a large bowl and whisk together until pale,thick and leave “ribbons” when you shake the whisk. Getting a lot of volume into the eggs makes all the difference with you final madeleines. Unless you have the forearms of Hercules I would recommend using an electric whisk…

Beat the flour and baking powder into the butter mix and cook out for a minute. Then add to the egg mix and fold together as gently as you can. At this point if you want to keep the mix plain, wrap in thin-film and fridge to firm up for one hour.

Now then…. flavouring… I had a go with these measurements, but they still need some adjustment as some of the flavours weren’t as strong as they could be. I have some flavoured mix still in the fridge and am hoping the flavour will have developed over night.

Separate equally into three bowls.

1- Lemon zest with lemon thyme The lemons I had were pretty small but in the ended 2 tbsp of very fine lemon zest and 1.5 tbsp of very very finely chopped thyme ( leaves only no stalks)

2- Orange zest and rosemary 2 tbsp of fine orange zest, 1 tbsp of orange juice, 2tbsp of very very finely chopped rosemary.

3- Vanilla and ginger The seeds of one fresh vanilla pod, 1 tbsp of stem ginger syrup

Heat the oven to 200c, butter and dust with flour the madeleine tin, knock off the excess flour. Add one teaspoon of the mixture in each mould. Bake for 8-10 minutes ( keep an eye on them) untill risen and pale gold. You are looking to get a good rise in the middle of the madeleines. If you are feeling polite they need to be peaked but to be honest they are often refered to as a nipple…

Knock out of the tin, arrange on a plate and eat as soon as you can! YUM!

Salt and chilli crispy squid with a simple rocket salad

A simple but delicious lunch

Serves 2

500g cleaned and prepared squid
1tsp smoked paprika
Smoked salt
pepper
1 chilli Finely chopped, reserve some to dress the salad
1 clove of garlic
15g cornflour
1 bag of wild rocket
sesame oil to dress

Cut the squid into small rectangles and score, pat them dry
Mix the cornflour with the paprika, salt and pepper and toss the squid in it.

Heat a non stick frying pan and add 1tbs of olive oil, add the garlic and Chilli and lightly saute it to release the flavour into the oil. Add the Squid to the pan and turn up the heat, fry untill just starting to curl and then turn them over and briefly cook again. Remove from the pan onto kitchen paper to mop up extra oil.

Lightly dress the rocket in the sesame oil, place the squid on top, scatter the chilli and garlic from the pan with a little of the oil over the top. If you want an extra hit of chilli then sprinkle some of the reserved chilli over the top.

Simple.Quick.Tasty.Enjoy!

Huge Uruguayan BBQ in rural France

So then, a village in rural Burgundy, Scientist colleagues of my neighbour, a swimming pool and 10kg of Uruguayan meat grilled by two Uruguayan scientists……. makes sense?!

Chicken,swiss chard and puy lentils; because a heat wave is no excuse

So im back in france for a few weeks, and it is crazy hot even for burgundy in the summer, yesterday we hit 38 in the shade which was pretty impressive!

Anyway life goes on, a friend of mine has just bought a house in the village and is dragging it kicking and screaming from some pretty horrific decor ( fake stone wallpaper in a house that has beautiful stone walls….) so we have all been pitching in a bit over there but I cant deny I have spent a large amount of time in the shaded part of my neighbours unheated pool!

Somehow this brings me to dinner?! I was in the market the other day and they had some beautiful rainbow chard, I had some chicken legs and puy lentils at home, can you see where this is going?

Chicken legs with mustard puy lentils and rainbow chard serves 2

Now, this may not look particularly exciting but trust me its delicious, just try it!

Season and oil the chicken legs and then fry over a high heat until the skin is crispy and set aside.
Fry two finely diced banana shallots,the stalks of the rainbow chard ( keep the leaves for later) ,half a red chili and 2-3 cloves of garlic in the same pan.
Once these are cooked add 125gof puy lentils, stir around so soak up the pan juices, add 300ml of chicken stock and a few bay leaves and stir together. Bring this to a gentle simmer and then pop the chicken on top, cover and leave to simmer away for a bout half an hour. Check occasionally to make sure they are all getting on ok.

Once the lentils have soaked up most of the liquid and are cooked, remove the chicken and add Dijon mustard and cider vinegar to taste. I like mine pretty mustardy but start with a tbs of each and take it from there.cut the leaves of the rainbow chard into thin ribbons and add to the lentils, they wont take long to cook as you want a bit of bite to them. Stir like a risotto and you should start to get a bit of a creamy sauce thing going on with the mustard and the lentil water. Check that your chicken is cooked through( by this point it should be steamed to perfection).

Serve in shallow bowls with bread to mop up any tasty bits that escape your fork!

Bone Marrow burgers and other BBQ fun

It was my older brothers birthday recently and to celebrate his partner arranged a surprise family bbq at my dads house in Essex. The Bennett bbq machine went into full throttle mode. I was in charge of the meat, my aunt did the fish and the rest of the family went all out on sides and puddings. Jst to cut to the chase there was ALOT of food.

Now, my older brother is a hard-core meat lover, one of his favourite restaurants is St Johns which I think sums it up pretty well, he is a bit of  BBQ purist but your average burgers and bangers were not going to cut it at this BBQ. Here enters enormous Chuck steak bone marrow burgers!

Now they may not look all that but check out my recipe, it takes time but its worth it!

For 4 (large) burgers

500g of course minced chuck steak ( a good butcher should do this for you)
50g of bone marrow ( wrap the ends of the bone in tin foil and roast at 200c for 15 mins and then scrape out marrow, set aside to cool completely)
2 large banana shallots finely diced, sweat down untill completely soft then leave to cool
2 tbsp butter milk
handful of fresh rosemary and thyme finely chopped
Black pepper
Smoked sea salt

I also had some bacon fat from breakfast so added that in for good measure!

Once all ingredients are ready and completely cooled mix together gently by hand, Season to taste, but they will take a surprising amount of salt. I then shaped them in the largest deepest ring in could find, lay out on trays, wrap closely in clingfilm and put in fridge overnight to firm up.

I cooked these straight on the bbq and gave them a few minutes on each side before flipping them so make sure they stuck together, topped them with cheese and more bacon to finish.

These where then served in a (kind of) Brioche buns

This recipe is obviously not a full on brioche but it gives you a role tough enough to stand up to a juicy burger without falling apart and still gives you some buttery goodness. ( This is a BBC goodfood recipe)

250ml warm water
2 tsp dried yeast (not fast-action)
3 tbsp warm milk
2 tbsp golden caster sugar
450g strong flour, plus extra for dusting
4 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs, plus 1 beaten egg, for glazing

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/brioche-buns

Now they are not kidding this is a very wet dough that is fun (not fun) to knead and shape so if you have an enthusiastic younger brother that wanted to help now is a great time to get him in to do the work

I also made two spatchcocked chickens that i had marinated overnight in a paste made of paprika,cumin,smoked salt, black pepper and olive oil.

Now the fish! my aunt got some enormous tiger prawns from Billingsgate marinated in a chilli,soy, sesame oil, lime dressing and cooked them on the bbq. To follow-up came some tiny rouge ( tiny red snapper) also done straight on the bbq. Yummy Yummy yummy

All in all a crazy tasty bbq and a very happy birthday boy!

Elderflower Foraging

I had a beautiful day on sunday with a friend of mine, im trying to make the most of Norfolk before i move down to london at the end of summer. One of the things I love about Norfolk is the produce. The quality the variety and the ability to forage for all sorts of tasty things so close to the city.

Sunday was a drive out on the broads to a little village with a pub on the river bank. Had a lovely pint in the sunshine watching the boats come and go and then it was off in search of elderflower! The reason for all this is because my friend is getting married in the summer and im doing some of the food for it ( eeek!) and there will be homemade elderflower champagne! some is being made by her mother in france and she is making some extra ( we are a thirsty lot!). Anyway, off we went, down country lanes, across the edges of fields and along a footpath next to a steam train railway. Pretty idyllic no?

Work BBQ with a view

Back in the city for another work gig, and summer has definitely kicked off for our clients and me now. It was our first bbq gig of the season and this one came with a view! The lawyers we cater for have their own lovely roof terrace complete with BBQ, table tennis table and a great view of the Shard.

On the menu for this one was Moroccan spiced chicken thighs, marinated for 24 hours or Similarly spiced falafel served with all the likely suspects of the take away kebab but home-made and healthy tasty good. Along with this was the obligatory british bbq staple of the humble sausage but served with lovingly  caramelised  ( lovingly because I prepped nearly 10kg of onions the day before and i was very emotional!)

BBQ season is officially open, bring on the summer grilling!