Random Recipe - New Year, New Book - 'Spring' pasta without Wild Garlic

January’s  Random Recipe challenge set by the lovely Dom over at Belleau Kitchen tasked us with picking a recipe from a book we’d received for christmas.  I got a fair selection as you can see.  It included the rather wonderful ‘A Curious Cookbook’  - a look at historical recipes from some of the earliest cookery books on record (14^th C) right up to wartime (sparrows on toast anyone?) 

Given my record in past Random Recipe challenges (rabbit leg, stuffed carrots &c) I thought I was sure to get that book but my random number generator (the Chap) thankfully picked one of the other books he got me – the Herbs installment of the River Cottage handbook series.  These books always have the recipe section at the back so I flipped it open at that end and got… Spring Pasta with Wild Garlic and Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

Now, although we managed to get some ramsons (wild garlic) on Jan 27th last year I thought that one week into 2014 would be pushing my luck rather.  That's not spring in the UK by any stretch of the imagination.  However, I duly went for a riverside potter on one of the few non-rainy days we had around the middle of the month and found....shoots.  Teeny tiny shoots, that was all so far.  Not a massive surprise.  I gathered the tiniest ‘handful’ (midget hands you understand) of the shoots to give an edge of the garlicky flavour and resigned myself to using the suggested chives that the book mentions can be substituted if you have no wild garlic.

The recipe also uses purple sprouting broccoli.  I’m afraid I have to admit to completely forgetting about that detail so this got made with regular calabrese, a substitution that is also mentioned in the book itself.

Overall I found this a bit too rich with creamy goats cheese smothering everything and an additional grating of parmesan on top.  I find it hard to believe that I’m actually going to type this but, I think it was a little too cheesy.  [Too cheesy!  I know what you’re thinking – how can something ever be too cheesy huh?]  It was too rich from all the cheese, rather than the flavour, is what I think I’m trying to say.  It certainly needed a good squeeze of lemon juice or something to cut through it and lift the flavour a bit; it was all rather samey.  That said I imagine this would be a very different beast with actual wild garlic in it.

It was a nice quick dinner to knock up though and one that's pretty frugal if you make it with regular calabrese and Aldi's goat cheese. :-)

It warrants remembering for when the ramsons finally do unfurl their leaves out of the overflowing river Exe.

The clever ones amongst you will have noticed that I mention the middle of the month earlier in the post yet the date of writing is the somewhat later 30th.  Yep - I actually made my random recipe in good time this month but still didn't get it up before the cut off.  Please let me join in Dom, please...

Random Recipes - 'Dare to Bare'

Well there went chrimble - I've been so disorganised (and also quite busy) that I totally failed to get a post
up before the day.  Hey ho, hope we all had fun anyway.  :-)
I've also been super slack at getting any blog challenge posts done but thankfully lovely Dom at Belleau Kitchen, instead of the normal Random Recipe gave us the task of 'Daring to Bare' and photographing our larder / pantry / food cupboards.  I'm still a day late with this but I'm sure he's used to it by now!
My 'pantry-in-potentia' has yet to be built into the space under the stairs so at the moment I have two very disorganised and messy cupboards.  Don't say I didn't warn you...

This is the kitchen cupboard, note most of a whole shelf devoted to herbs / spices / vinegars etc!

Two things I always have - soy sauce and mushroom ketchup.  The latter gives the depth you miss when not using meat.  I generally have quite a few oriental options in stock.  Different noodles, pickled turnip (nicer than it sounds), random tins of braised eel - because I loved the packaging.  ;-)

This is the other cupboard.  For overflow / multibuys.

Multiple packs of pasta, stuffing, jars of curry pastes.  The left side is full of cds which is why I haven't pictured it.  Not a lot of free space though as you can see and the best bit of this is - I have an Approved Food order arriving on Tuesday.  Now where am I going to put that lot...

Random Recipe - Koresht-e-Gheimeh Khalal baby!

Or 'Barberry and Almond Casserole'.

Oh yes - once more Dom's Random Recipes at Belleau Kitchen pulled a corker of randomness out of the bag for me!  This month we were tasked with using his all singing all dancing (ok, not really but he's working on it) random number generator to pick our books with.  I then followed his lead and used it to pick the page too and I ended up with the above from the rather sumptuous Veggiestan.  This was a gift from my Ma two birthdays back and I'm ashamed to admit that although I have pored lovingly over it's velvet trimmed exterior (yes, really) and it's beautifully photographed recipes on the inside I had yet to cook from it.

So - a casserole with barberrys in (what are they?) and almonds and - oh yes - dried limes.  'Cos I always have a bag of those handy eh??!  Luckily our local Indian (plus rest of the world) food shop Heera came up trumps and I was soon kitted out with the necessary items.

I had never heard of Barberrys before but a quick google told me they're an incredibly good for you

superfood which used to be cultivated here and in Europe but fell out of favour as they carried a wheat virus.  They're a traditional Persian / Iranian ingredient but you must treat them correctly.  (Articles I saw on line neglected to mention this bit.)  Veggiestan told me that they contain barbs (as per the name) so soak them in water for 15 mins first and the barbs and any grit will sink out.  Squeeze the berries out then use.  It also advised against eating them raw.

This was an easy recipe to make although I did wonder at the instruction to serve it with brown rice as it already included a fair amount of potato.  Once I'd tasted it half way through cooking though I realised it had the sort of intense flavour hit that needs soaking up with something like that.  I served ours with fairly authentic bulgar wheat instead as it was too late to do brown rice at that point.  Otherwise I stuck faithfully to the recipe and served with plain yogurt and fresh herbs (coriander) on top and some fairly inauthentic asparagus and tenderstem calabrese.  :-)

Verdict - both the Chap and I liked this although I wouldn't say we're straining at the bit to make it again immediately.  (From a food miles point of view it is not a good one - barberrys from Iran, dried limes from Egypt...)  It was fairly sharp - the potatoes soaked up the lime flavour a lot and the barberrys aren't overly sweet though they definitely added a fruitier edge to the flavour; more noticeable if you had some in the sauce without any spud.  I liked it with a fair bit of yogurt stirred through as I found that took the edge off the sharpness a little and I enjoyed it more like that.  So - a random win overall and certainly something I'm extremely unlikely to have tried had it not been for good old RR throwing it out at me.  I live in dread look forward to seeing what next month brings...  ;-)

Random Recipes - Wartime Stuffed Carrots

This months Random Recipe theme from Belleau Kitchen was a DIY based idea - you could pick the book yourself to choose your recipe from.  I immediately got my selection of slightly more 'historical' books out.  I find these fascinating not just for the recipes (and the veg cooking times - my god the horror!) but also as a social commentary of the time. 
One of these is a little more tongue in cheek - 'Mrs Cook's book of recipes' professes to be dishes that an 18th century sailor may have been familiar with but I'm not entirely sure some of it isn't a bit less than genuine.  Anyway, having already discarded the 1940 Be-Ro book that I inherited from my gran's kitchen (a famously poor cook according to my mother) I opened 'Mrs Cook's' at random.  Otter Meat.  Seriously. 
Perhaps my 1939 copy of 'Cooking with Elizabeth Craig' could be of more help?  I ruffled the pages past and... Roast Capercailzie.  Eh?  Besides a very vague knowledge that this is a bird of some kind I was a bit lost.  Was there a more helpful recipe on the facing page?  It's... Roast Blackcock.  Er no, not really more helpful then. 
Perhaps this idea of mine to use these old books wasn't so hot as it seemed like I wasn't going to be able to get the ingredients?
I hadn't even opened my 1968 version of the classic 1932 'Good Things in England' yet - a fantastic book where Florence White, on becoming concerned that many regional specialities were being lost set up the English Folk Cookery Association and collected them into this book.  It's available as a reprint now and fab.  However I'm well aware it includes things like 'Rook Pie' and recipes for Elvers (Baby Eels) and I'm thinking I'm doomed!

Then the Chap pipes up - "where's that war one?  By that woman?"  By this I know he means the 'Health For All Wartime Recipes' book.  This is written by one Margaret Y. Brady who was a 'diet reformer' ie vegetarian back then.  She comes across as somewhat crusading, didactic and a leetle bit of a scary lady.  The Chap as a confirmed carnivore finds her hilarious and quickly plucks the book from me to open and laugh at what he finds within.  'Stuffed carrots' he chortles to himself, unwittingly having just picked my random recipe.  So - stuffed carrots it is!
Scrape out the insides of your carrots - I carefully picked some monsters to use for this.  Mix breadcrumbs, finely chopped onion, fresh herbs, a little grated cheese and one egg - 'made up' the recipe states. 
Thankfully I can use fresh.  I also added some salt and pepper then dotted with butter and baked for the requisite 45 minutes. 
Well - it is what it is.  Eggy bready filling baked in a carrot.  There was a lack of flavour in the stuffing despite me 'accidentally' doubling the cheese included.  The herbs came through but I think as a concept dropping the bread and using some mushrooms in a wine and red onion reduction or something along those lines would be better.  Also depending how soft you like your veg I'd be inclined to drop at least 15 minutes off the cooking time.  It's a cheap recipe to make but actually TBH I'd be inclined to just not make it again really.  Oh - and carving the insides of your carrots out is a right old faff.  If you should wish to try something like this use a knife you (or in fact the Chap) has broken the tip off of as this helps as a digging out tool.  Or possibly a chisel.  :-)

So - this random recipe was edible but not really massively appealing.  It has renewed my interest in trying out some of these old recipes though.  Possibly not the otter meat one however...

Someone else's kitchen Random Recipe - Sicilian Style Tuna with Salsa Verde plus a giveaway!

This month's Random Recipe theme from Dom over at Belleau Kitchen was to use a book picked from another's collection.  I asked my Ma and she dutifully counted all the books and booklets in the house and gave me a total of 37.  I used an on-line random number generator and we came up with 25 which was 'Fillipo Berio Winter Recipes' which flipped open to Sicilian Style Tuna with Salsa Verde.  *I've got a couple of the Fillipo Berio booklets myself but not the winter recipes one.  The recipe sounded packed full of flavour and fairly simple to do.  You can see it online here though they seem to have left out the instruction as to what to do with the second half of the lemon juice - I made the fairly safe assumption that it went into the salsa.
So - here we go - for precise measures see their recipe.  I'm sure it's copyright so I'm not giving them here. :-)  (I will say though that 1 lemon and 1 growing plant of parsley cover the requirements.)
Mix EVOO, half the lemon juice and chopped fresh parsley, season and marinate the tuna in it for an hour, turning periodically and stashing in the fridge in the intervening periods.

Meanwhile into a small blender (I'm soooo chuffed we got a little 'mill' blender attachment with the new blender the Chap's bro got us for chrimble - this was it's inaugural outing) put the rinsed capers, the rest of the EVOO, lemon zest (and remaining juice), garlic, parsley and anchovies and whiz it up.

Once the tuna has had it's allotted hour marinating cook it under the grill or in a cast-iron-ridged pan for 3-4 mins per side and serve with the salsa perched atop.  I sort of scooped up the marinade with the tuna and cooked it all in the pan together.
That's it - easy eh?
We made a meal of it by serving on spaghetti with some wilted spinach and the juices from the tuna pan stirred through, and plenty of black pepper.

This was lovely - really zingy and fresh and lemony.  We'd been slightly concerned it could turn out too salty with both capers and anchovies in but not at all.  We liked the salsa so much that I'd easily knock this up to stir through pasta for a quick and easy supper and if you buy your fresh parsley plant, lemon and tin of anchovies from Aldi it works out pretty cheap.  I also had the idea that this would work with the addition of a good handful of wild garlic which is even cheaper at nuppence!  Win win as the yanks might say.  :-)
I've decided to also enter this recipe to the Herbs on a Saturday blog challenge by Karen of Lavender and Lovage which is being hosted this month over at Bangers & Mash.  It seems appropriate with the use of a whole plant of fresh parsley.  This is my first ever submission to them so I hope they're as nice to me as the Random Recipe tribe were on my first time!

*I in fact have 3 of their booklets, 2 of which are the same one, so with such abundance on hand I will give one of them away.  :-)  Just leave a comment mentioning you'd like it and I'll pull a winner out on Sunday.  I'm not going to specify that you have to follow me as I want my followers to be because they find my witterings vaguely interesting and perhaps even informative.  Having originally started this blog kind of by accident to record stuff for myself it's somewhat odd / gratifying / worrying that there's folks out there reading this drivel!!  Thank you, even if you do it only through sympathy.  :-)

Random Recipe - Meat Cooking for the Faint Hearted #5 - Roasted Leg of Rabbit with Bacon and a Mustard Sauce Gravy

This month's Random Recipe challenge as set by Dom over at Belleau Kitchen was to use our birth date number to count books from one end of your cook book shelf to pick a book, then to pick a recipe at random from said book.  My birthday is on the 22nd so we were going to end up midways into the shelf somewhere.  Apparently it didn't matter which end you counted from; as Dom had gone right to left I did the same and ended up with.... Oh - one of only 2 books (at the time, he's had a birthday since) on the shelf that belong to the Chap not me.  Huh - oh well.  An extra layer of randomness.  (Out of interest at this point we both counted from the other end too and we ended up with the second of his 2 books.  Huh again.)  Anyway the book was (drum roll please) - Simon Hopkinson's 'Roast Chicken and Other Stories'.  This was in fact a gift to him from my big sis last chrimble and I'm not sure we've made anything from it yet.  It proudly boasts  it's 'the most useful cookbook of all time' as voted by 'Waitrose Food Illustrated' on the front cover.  Reeeeaaaalllly.....

So - I gave the Chap the task of opening it at random to find me a recipe.  Then I could blame him of course.  Not stupid me.  ;-)  The page is... ah - small hiccup.  It's the page describing (wittering on about) garlic.  No recipe here on either side.  Try again good chap, try again, we cry.  As the pages stop fluttering past I get a little jump of excitement - it says crab - one of my favourite things!!  Woop!!  Oh - it's just another 2 pages wittering with no recipes.  Huh.  So- third time lucky and.... well, presumably you've read the title and that is indeed what he managed to pick for me the swine.  Page 174 gives you 'Roasted leg of Rabbit with Bacon and a Mustard Sauce'.  Hmmm.  Now I know I've eaten rabbit at some point as a nipper but I sure as hell have never ever cooked it myself.  Oh well - that's why we trust the recipe right - they'll lead us gently by the hand right?
First things first.  Reading the recipe immediately apprises you of Mr Hopkinson's somewhat didactic style.  You should use French Farmed rabbit he decries.  "A wild rabbit will not do" he sweepingly states.  Well tough boyo cos that's what I can get I'm afraid.  This book was first published back in 1994 so perhaps you could nip into your 'enterprising' butchers (his phrase) back then and buy a) just legs and b) specify that they are not only French but farmed none the less.  I'm not entirely convinced you could unless it was just at the 'enterprising' (read 'hideously brow-beaten') butcher that had the misfortune to ply his wares nearest Hopkinson's casă but no matter - I'm getting my rabbit - legs plus rest of body attached - from a local butchers here in Exeter.  They do rabbits at £2.99 each or 2 for £5.  For some reason I bought 2 - I can't help it when it's better value.  All those HFW programmes telling me it's a great frugal meat with the best free range existence (true for my wild examples) were obviously shouting strong in my subconcious when I was discharging my rabbit purchasing duties.  Not sure it was a good idea but hey ho.  Anyway - I digress.
So - having failed entirely to buy just legs I now needed to detach the desired appendages before I could start on the damn recipe itself.  (Are you picking up that this experience was no picnic??)  Google to the rescue - gave me this page from the Guardian.  Looking at the picture it appears I'll learn how to detach the wings from my skinned little bunny angel.  I would point out the pic is 'upside down' (to our head uppermost conventions of thinking) in that those 'wings' are in fact the back legs - the bits I wanted.  I also however needed to do most of the rest of the instructions so the rest of flopsy could be put to good use feeding Chap and, worst come to the worst, Zeke.  So, not just meat cooking for the faint hearted but a crash course in bunny butchery.  Thanks Chap, your veggie/pescatarian girlfriend thanks you.  No really...
At this point I will let you know that's there're bunny butchery pics coming up.  If you, dear reader, eat meat and flinch at confronting these I shall be most disappointed.  That was me hacking bits off it so if I can manage that....  [High horse gives up and throws Ruth off in disgust.  'Don't woo the readers by lecturing them' he neighs.  Maybe.  Or maybe I just need more sleep.  Whatever.]  And yes - I will get to the recipe at some point.  Honest.
Lay bunny out.  Flopsy has innards still intact.  Blimmin brilliant.  Extract innards.  Marvel at the ickle kidneys.  Be secretly disappointed when Chap refuses your kind offer of devilled ickly bunny kidneys and insists on 'gifting' them to Zeke instead.  Huh.
Remove legs as per Guardian instructions.  (The rib cage bit was a nightmare but I'll spare you.) 
We can now finally join the recipe I'm supposed to be cooking and writing up.  Longwinded - moi??! 
You can find the recipe online here, albeit in an americanised version.  I'm reluctant to copy the entire thing out as it's not mine to do so with, so I'll give you the edited highlights.
Preheat oven to 220c / gas 7. 
Mr Hopkinson's next instruction is to remove the thigh bone from the leg and is, I guess, calculated to reassure; stating as he does "This is only slightly tricky." 
Totally correct. 
What he omits to mention is the essential and much more fiendishly awkward next step of detaching said thigh bone from the lower leg bone in order to remove it from the thigh totally. 
The joint is very tight and I eventually had to stick the point of my knife in the very small centre section and force the joint apart at the same time as getting through the tendons.  This Flopsy has spent his life jumping and racing around outside therefore the tendons joining indiviual rear legs bones together are strong.  However, perserverence gets us there albeit with a renewed and lower opinion of Mr Hopkinson.
At this point I will fess up to having 'adapted' (messed up on) some of the ingredients for this dish.  The recipe calls for fresh tarragon which I hadn't got so I had already resigned myself to using dried. 
I was however smugly secure that we had a whacking great bunch of fresh thyme available to use; the other fresh herb the recipe calls for.  Err - where was that then?  Says Parsley here?  Got any of that have you?  At 5pm on a Sunday?  We'll use the dried Parsley as well then yes?  Oops.
After which the fact that I had back bacon instead of streaky seemed a minor point.  I know the purpose of the streaky is to ensure the naturally very lean meat of the rabbit stays moist by utilising the pork fat but the Chap hates fat on meat and trims it off back bacon so would not touch anything wrapped in streaky.  He was the one eating it after all so I let him have that one.
Mix butter, garlic, [dried] parsley and tarragon and the zest of a lemon (or half - I halved the entire recipe) together with S+P and stuff the leg cavities with it.
Grease a baking tray.
Wrap the legs with bacon ensuring the rasher ends are on the underside, thus keeping them secure in the cooking process.
Roast for 10 minutes then remove and rest for another 10.

At this point myself and the recipe parted ways; with I the adventurer in the uncharted random waters of attempting to make a mustard sauce intended to be composed from cream and Dijon out of; erm, no cream (gone off after defrosting - see last post) and (I'm ashamed to admit this so will do so in a small voice in the hope that you won't notice it flashing past and won't therefore laugh too uproariously at me) a single sachet of Heinz French mustard.  Oops doesn't really cover that one eh?* 
I tried using a little spoon of yogurt and a dash of milk instead of cream but after tasting it both the Chap and I unanimously voted it 'minging' and it was ditched.  Given the Chap's fat phobia he wasn't too happy about the idea of the cream sauce anyway so I made him a nice gravy by boiling flopsy's rib cage with a bay leaf, garlic, onion, carrot trimmings, etc instead; added some veggie granules and  mashed a couple of roasted garlic cloves in.  Job done.  I served it vaguely à la Hopkinson; cutting the prescribed 3 slices from the bulbous end of the leg and standing the bony end next to it but really went for the massive fail by not serving it with the 'suggested' (an unaccustomed laxing of the preceding levels of didactic pedantry) dish of plain boiled potatoes and green salad but instead providing Chap with a full on roast.  Which isn't in this photo as that would just be far too messy and detract from my fantastic (sarcasm) presentation; natch.

So - a random recipe that had me hands deep in dead bunny, attempting butchery for the first time ever and (sorry Waitrose Food Illustrated) starting to really not rate Mr Hopkinson's usefulness at all.  It was - an experience.  However - Chap did declare the legs delicious to eat so I guess the recipe's not all bad.  Though if he thinks I'm making it again in a hurry he can damn well find me one of these 'enterprising' butchers I've heard so much about that'll sell me just the legs of flopsy...
*In my defence I would like to point out that we usually have Dijon, Whole Grain and English mustard in but I have a Chap that will happily slather half a jar of mustard on his beef joint before roasting it then eat it with the other half of the jar.  Means we sometimes unexpectedly run out of mustard mmkay?

Random Recipe - Store Cupboard Stuffing Bake

With all this time on my hands recently I've been blog surfing a lot more than I normally do and have stumbled across many new to me fab blogs.  Several of which have been inspiring me in different ways and one of those is the lovely Belleau Kitchen blog and the monthly challenge 'Random Recipes'.  
Now normally this involves picking a recipe at random from a cookbook; similarly picked at random, and having to make it. (Assuming I've understood that correctly, I have a feeling that there may be themes involved sometimes too.)  This month however is slightly different in that it's a store cupboard ingredient that must be picked, then you make something with that.  Now although I had more random items available than the stuffing mix I used, everything else needed me to visit the shops for additional ingredients which as I'm off my feet as much as poss at the mo didn't seem like the best of ideas ever.  It's not quite an 'essential' trip like the doctors is you know?
So - I decided to use up a couple of the 5 packs of stuffing mix I had in the upstairs store cupboard from a past Approved Foods order.
Right - next step - find a recipe - from your cookbooks. Hmmm - now surprisingly enough none of my cookbooks have any recipes listing 'packet mix stuffing' in the ingredients list, not even quasi healthy 'mixed seed wholemeal' stuffing.  I know - I'm as shocked as you right?

So I thought (in an admittedly slightly tortuous justification after the fact sort of way) that I could treat my blog as a recipe book too - as a load of the stuff on here I scribble down very roughly as I make it then transcribe to here which is then it's lasting format.  And enough people seem to search my slow cooker carrot and coriander soup for me to feel the reference aspect could at least be argued for, if not fully justified.  So - I'll go ahead and we'll see if I'm allowed in the challenge.  This is all quite apart from the fact that today is the deadline.  By which I'm not sure if it means submissions should be in by today or up to and including today.  Yes - I'm a pedant when it comes to language and that's just waaaay too open to interpretation for this virgo!  :-D
So - witteringly long intro / justification / obfuscation in the hope the host will give up and just allow my submission through out of pure boredom aside - here's my frugal, quick and simple 'store cupboard stuffing mix bake'.  As 'inspired' (ahem) by this one I previously made, with the added advantage of also using up some of my stocks of cheese, or 'dairy crack' as we now prefer to call it in our household, the need for which was highlighted in my last post.

Vaguely Italian themed Stuffing Mix Bake:
2 packets stuffing mix - or you can make this with one if you don't have a massive overstock of stuffing in your cupboard like me
0.5 tbsp dried basil
0.5 tbsp dried oregano
Boiling water - amount as per packet instructions
2 tbsp tomato puree
Black pepper
Cheese - I used about half to 2/3 of a 300g tub of soft cheese.  You could totally use a harder cheese grated here, whatever you need to use up really.  Some parmesan over the top would work too.
Little butter for greasing dish

 Put oven on to heat as per instructions on the pack of stuffing.  Put kettle on to boil.
Put stuffing, herbs and a few grinds of black pepper (to taste) in a large bowl and give them a quick mix.
Add water as per the stuffing packet instructions.
Add the tomato puree and stir really well.

Grease your ovenproof dish; I use a ceramic one, and spread half the mixture evenly over the base of the dish.

Evenly spread your cheese over - a little easier said than done using this soft cheese as it wanted to move the existing layer of stuffing about.  I found leaving it resting on top of the hot stuffing for a few seconds softened it a little and made it easier to spread out; as did placing it on in smaller amounts than the big dolloping spoonfuls I started out with!

Spread the second half of the stuffing over and place in the oven for the time specified on the stuffing packet.

Ta daa!!  Bit messy to serve and please bear in mind I'm not a professional food photographer but served with a little refreshing salad this was a nice wee snack.
Very cheap to make with items you're likely to have in the house already and taking little time this ticks both the £'s and time frugality boxes.  You can jazz it up as pleased - I'd perhaps add more tom puree next time.  Oh - and if you want to photograph it letting it cool and firm up for a few minutes would be a good idea.  Not one I had until after my messy photo efforts mind you...