Beef in beer with mushrooms and onions

Serves 3

2 short ribs of beef
300g piece of a stewing cut of beef (I used a very well marbled bit of flank)
3 firm medium onions
1 450g btl of 'best' type bitter ale
Vegetable oil
Butter
2 tsp Worcester sauce
1 bay leaf
100g mushrooms
Salt, pepper, 1 clove head

Heat two frying pans.  Add oil and butter to each.  Slice onions finely and evenly across the grain and brown them in the larger of the pans, without seasoning, over a high heat, until crisply darkened.  Stir regularly so they don't burn.

In the smaller pan (add less butter) brown the meat well.  Once the meat is browned, add both meat and onions to a small casserole dish and pour the ale into the beef frying pan.  Scrape the residues of caramelisation into the liquid as it bubbles over the heat, then pour into the casserole.  Don't season.  Top up with water if required to almost cover the meat.

Bring up to a simmer.  Skim off any scum that arises.  Place a circle of greaseproof paper or tin foil over the contents of the casserole, place on the lid and simmer very gently for at least 3 hours.

Slice and saute the mushrooms over a high heat until liquid is released and almost evaporated.  Add to the casserole.  Season well including crushing the clove head.  Skim off excess fat with a spoon.  Remove the bay leaf.  Remove the bones, slice the beef, Simmer uncovered for a further 20mins to reduce the sauce.

Sausage, pepper and mushroom casserole

I know you are going to be put off by the long ingredients list so I will try to keep the description as short as possible!

Sausage, pepper and mushroom casserole
serves ~6

1 large onion, finely chopped
2 sticks celery, peeled and finely chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and finely chopped

Sweat the above in butter and vegetable oil in a large casserole, adding each five minutes after the last, in that order.

6 large herby sausages, perhaps a mixture of lamb, pork and other meats, skins removed and cut into 1inch lengths
2 large packets mushrooms (any variety), wiped clean and roughly chopped into pieces of similar size to the sausage bits
2 or 3 peppers, de-seeded and chopped into rough large pieces also

Heat a film of oil in a large frying pan.  Fry the above in batches until some colour is added to each.  Remove to a plate if the vegetables in the casserole are still sweating, otherwise add straight to the casserole.  Don't stir frequently when browning as it will destroy the heat and slow things down.  Adding some salt to the mushrooms will help bring out the moisture.

1 large glass red wine
2 tins chopped tomatoes
Several sprigs of thyme
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 bay leaves
1 tin chickpeas

Pour the wine in the frying pan over the heat once everything is fried.  Scrape the base to remove the nice browning residues (which are hopefully not burnt) then pour into the casserole along with all the other ingredients.  Add water so everything is just covered.  Bring up to a simmer, remove and discard any scum that forms, and cook for 25 minutes.  Easy!

PS I am working on a quick way to remove shells from tinned chickpeas... at present it involves draining and washing them, rubbing them all together in a tea towel, emptying into a deep bowl, filling the bowl with water then scooping and pouring off the top half of the water, hopefully along with most of the shells, and picking out the chickpeas from the bowl.  It doesn't get them all off, and it's not essential, but it's not that hard either.

Chicken, mushrooms persillade and potato puree

Nice main course to follow a salad of some kind.

Serves 2

For the chicken:

2 skin-on chicken breast fillets
Vegetable oil
Salt
Pepper
Squeeze of lemon juice

Pre-heat the oven to 175C.  Marinate the chicken briefly in the other ingredients as it comes to room temperature.  Place a small roasting tin over a flame until hot.  Pour in a tablespoon of oil then lay in the breasts skin side down.  Leave for a good 7 minutes for the skin to crisp.  Turn over, season, and place in the oven for 7 minutes.  Remove to a board to rest for a further 4 minutes (timings all approximate).  Cut each fillet into slices on the board.  Doing this skin side down is easier.

Spoon all but around 1tbsp of fat from the tray.  Add a splash of water, some salt and pepper and another squeeze of lemon juice then after plating up everything else simmer hard over a hob to reduce to a small amount of sauce.

For the mushrooms:

1 tbsp. olive oil
10g butter
1 clove garlic
2 tbsp. finely chopped flat leaf parsley
Squeeze of lemon
Oyster mushrooms (or wild mushrooms of any kind)
Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in the olive oil in a frying pan.  Wash and dry the mushrooms.  Place in the pan and sauté over a medium heat with a pinch of salt until their liquid is reabsorbed and they are just tender but not firm.

To make the persillade, wash and shake dry the parsley and pick the leaves off the stem.  Chop finely.  Cut the stem end off the garlic clove.  Crush lightly for a first time so the skin can be removed.  Half the clove lengthways and remove any green sprout inside - there may be none.  Then crush again fully, which will make it easier to chop.  Finally chop both parsley and garlic together.

Again, when everything is ready toss the mushrooms in the persillade over the heat for less than a minute, add a squeeze of lemon juice and some black pepper, and serve.

Potato puree:

Think I've given this before but here it is again!

Wash, peel and dice potatoes into 2cm cubes.  Boil thoroughly in salted water for 15 minutes.  Drain, return to the heat to drive away moisture, then mash when dry like this.

In a small pan place some full fat milk, butter, a skin-on fully crushed garlic clove and seasoning to taste including heavy amounts of (preferably) white pepper.  Warm this through to melt the butter and infuse with the garlic flavour.

Having removed the garlic from the liquid, add the liquid to the mash in stages until the right consistency is reached, mashing further after each stage and finally beating with a wooden spoon for 2 minutes.  Taste for salt as this will make a big difference.

Poached chicken with mushrooms

Serves 4

For the poaching:

1 excellent free range chicken
1 head garlic, sliced through horizontally in half
1 onion, washed, unpeeled, quartered (the skin will give the stock a nice golden colour)
1 carrot, washed, peeled and sliced
1/2 tbsp sea salt
1 tsp peppercorns
Large bunch of parsley stalks, tied together with cooking string if you like
Cold water to just cover

For the sauce:

Large quantity of mushrooms of your choice.  Morels would be superb, and if dried would need to be reconstituted in water for 20mins.  Dried or fresh they are pretty hard to find.
1 glass white wine
30g butter
175ml double cream or creme fraiche


Instructions:

Assemble the poaching ingredients in a snug pot and bring to a simmer.  Do not boil it hard.  Skim off the grey or white scum that appears on the surface with a spoon into a bowl to pour down the sink.

Poach very gently, with a few bubbles rising to the surface every second, for 45 minutes or until the legs feel loose in their sockets.

Lift out the chicken with two large forks onto a plate and leave in a warm place.  Using a slotted spoon or other draining implement, lift out all the vegetables etc from the liquid in the pan and throw away.

Boil the stock hard to reduce to half its original volume, or taste until concentrated.

While the chicken is poaching, sweat the sliced mushrooms (don't slice morels if you are using them) in the butter until they have re-absorbed most of the liquid they give off.  Then to finish the sauce, add the glass of wine to the mushrooms and reduce until syrupy.  Add several ladels of the reduced chicken stock and the cream then reduce until nicely thickened.  Taste the sauce when reduced and adjust the seasoning or with lemon juice.

Skin the chicken and cut the ends off the legs using poultry shears.  Remove the tendon attached to the drumstick with scissors.

Joint the chicken into 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs and 2 breast portions.  Cut each breast in half so each of 4 people can be served 1 piece of breast and then either a drumstick or a thigh.

Serve with some sauce poured over and let people serve themselves to rice and vegetables.

You will have lots of lovely stock left over.

Fillet of brill and two wines to match

Escoffier's books are full of recipes like this.

Fillet of brill with cream and mushrooms

1 brill

Fish stock ingredients (see Dec 2011 fish gratin recipe)

Finely chopped shallot

1 glass white wine

Double cream

Lemon juice and a lemon

Ordinary mushrooms

Salt and white pepper

Have the fishmonger fillet and skin the brill, or do it yourself.  There will be plenty of instructional videos on YouTube.  Each fish will produce four fillets - two from the top, two from underneath.

Brill bones make a lovely gelatinous stock, so see the December 2011 gratin recipe for fish stock cooking instructions as well as ingredients.  Do make the effort to cut out the gills with some firm scissors and the eyes with a small knife before making the stock.  Details like this really add up.

To make the sauce, reduce the fish stock by three quarters then add a generous amount of double cream.  Reduce again.  Add the chopped mushrooms having been lightly sauteed until their liquid is re-absorbed and reduce further. The sauce can be kept warm with buttered greaseproof paper placed over it to prevent a skin forming.

Place each fillet in turn between two sheets of tin foil and flatten with a rolling pin.  Season each one on both sides and fold to produce a nice square portion.  Butter a spacious baking tray generously, scatter with some finely chopped shallot (or onion), and arrange the fillets on top.  Pour in the glass of dry white wine and place a lemon slice on top of each fillet.  Cover the whole tray well with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes at 200C.  Allow to rest for 5 minutes outside of the oven before removing the foil.

Discard the lemon slices and serve up each fillet, sitting on a pile of wilted spinach perhaps, and pour the tray juices into the sauce, which will then need to be reduced further and tasted for acidity and adjusted with lemon juice.  You may not want to add too much lemon juice for the sake of contrast with your chosen wine.  Gently pour the sauce and mushrooms over each serving using a large spoon and serve rice separately.

In one sense this is quite a simple dish, so would be a good accompaniment for some serious wine.  Here are two wine recommendations courtesy of the Planet of the Grapes Online Sommelier Service:

"White Burgundy would be a classic choice, but I would also add the following:

Wien 2 2010 from Austria which is a blend of Grunr Veltliner, Pinot Blanc and Rielsing - crisp acidity and minerality with richness form the pinot blanc £14

or perhaps:

Blanc de Fume from Redde 2006, Loire, which is an oak aged sauvignon with really honeyed, nutty characters and complexity yet clean acidity on the finish £26."

Chicken sauté with mushrooms and cream

This is the sort of thing everyone should know how to cook.  I have left the quantities to you, but be generous with the mushrooms and cream, and smell the garlic you have to see how strong it is.

jointed chicken pieces (your preference as to which)

mushrooms

garlic

lemon juice

white wine

double cream

freshly chopped parsley

Season the chicken pieces.  If you are using breast as well as leg and thigh, you will need to remove the breast from the pan once it is cooked through, adding it back at the end, so it stays juicy.

In a heavy based sauté pan, melt some butter and vegetable oil until the butter stops foaming, then sauté the chicken pieces over a moderate to high heat, so they are well browned on all sides.  Do it batches and you should only need to turn the pieces once or twice.

In a separate very large pan or casserole, salt and sauté the sliced mushrooms over a moderate heat, driving off the moisture and giving them a little colour.

Remove the excess fat from the chicken pan, then add the mushrooms to that pan on the heat.  Add your finely chopped garlic and stir around.  Before the garlic burns, pour in a glass of dry white and scrape the pan while it bubbles.  Add the lemon juice and cream, and some water if you need more liquid.  Cover and simmer for 45 minutes (remove the breast after 5, adding back at the end, if using).

Finish with the parsley and black pepper, taste and adjust for salt, lemon and pepper.  Serve with steamed basmati rice and greens.