Venison steak and pomme fondant (revisited) with bramble and juniper sauce

After my meal at Howie’s in Edinburgh last week involving venison leg steak and very disappointing faux pomme fondant (conglomerate) and bramble and juniper sauce,  the general dissatisfaction made me obliged to cook my own version of the meal at home at the weekend. The hardship!

I was irrationally upset about the denial of the pomme fondant and all week there was a little ‘je ne sais quoi’ missing from my life.  Good to get these things out of your system, so a culinary cure was called for.

I was determined to make this a ‘Uist meal’ as much as I could and to use what I had by the way of stored veg, or growing veg in the raised beds. Over the last month, the raised beds have been left almost  to manage themselves (with the exception of garlic planting and associated rodent management).

Sprout success – exploding buds pending…

This was telling when I saw to my horror that one variety of sprouts (Darkmar 21 – organic seeds), in their apparently exceptional happiness with the growing conditions were at risk of buds exploding forth from their stems.  Dense packing of the buds had kept a lid on the situation, but intervention was urgently needed. It is the first time I’ve grown a mid-season variety so don’t usually check sprouts until at least December. At least I had found one veg for my meal.

So, for stored veg, I recovered some carrots that were layered in sand in the shipping container.  To leave them outside is to risk sustaining the rat population, as I found out to my chagrin last winter.  I pulled up carrot tops, the root removed by stealth using mole-like tunnelling action below ground.  I suppose it could have been a Were-Rabbit. To keep them safe in the ground I would need “Anti-Pesto”, for that coveted Golden Carrot award to be mine….

I grew a mixture of 3 varieties of carrots this year: a standard Nantes orange variety I plant each year (in case other varieties under test fail me), Yellowstone and Purple Dragon (heritage), for colour contrasts. The dry, cold spring meant I had to work very hard to get them to germinate, but I got there in the end with tenacity and successional sowing.

Carrots stored in a fish box found while beach combing, sand left over from a building project. Recycling is part of life in the Hebrides.

I turned to my stored potatoes to select the best variety for the pomme fondant.  I needed a waxy variety that would retain its shape during cooking, so chose Edgecote purple, a heritage variety first listed in 1916. It has  yellow flesh and purple skin.

This was all a great excuse to use my new wooden vegetable trug, a present from my parents, given to me partly in jest.

Comparisons had frequently been drawn between the beautiful portrayal of the whimsical TV world of English gardening and Uist growing.  In dreamland, baskets and trugs feature large on the arms of presentable maidens donning Laura Ashley and Hunter wellies in leafy cottage gardens, heady with mellifluous scents of deep herbaceous borders. My parents decided a trug was what I needed to enhance my Uist gardening experience.  The real image is one of sporting ‘Uist hair’ in a gale, wearing waterproofs and trying to stop the veg flying out of the trug as you shield it from the gusts and run for the house.

Trug – a gardening icon in Uist. Rachel De Thame would be proud.

 

Venison with pomme fondant, sprouts and bramble and juniper sauce

Most of the ingredients are from Uist – North Uist venison and game stock and all veg, and herbs from the garden, brambles foraged locally in September.  Still working on the chicken stock.  Hard to get birds locally. Best start with the potatoes as they take longest. I didn’t measure anything out for this recipe, so quantities are approximations.  Sorry!  All recipes serve 2, so scale up for more people.

Pomme fondant

Not a dish for the health conscious, but a luxurious occasional treat. This can be a wasteful dish as the pieces are cut from the centre of potatoes. The smallest potato will dictate the size of the pieces, if you want them to be of a uniform size. A 4cm cutter will make a portion of 3 fondants per person, for a 6cm, 2 fondants are enough.  I used the leftover potato pieces to add to chicken, potato and leek soup next day. This also stretched the chicken carcass that provided the stock to make another meal.

Pomme fondant with butter, thyme and garlic.

Set the oven to 190oC

Ingredients:

4-6 largish waxy potatoes

60g of butter

250 ml of chicken stock

salt and pepper

sprig of thyme

garlic clove cut in half

Scone cutter (4-6 cm depending on potato size)

Ovenproof frying pan

Method

• Cut out a cylinder of potato about 2.5 cm thick using the scone cutter.  I used 4 cm cutter, as I wanted a uniform size and my potatoes were quite small. Trim the edges to prevent them sticking in the pan – and to make them look neat.

• Put the butter in the ovenproof frying pan on a medium heat with the garlic and thyme, salt and pepper.

• Once it is melted and starts to hiss and bubble gently, add the potatoes. Turn after 3-5 minutes.  They should be golden and the butter will be turning slightly nutty, but take care that it does not burn.

• When both sides are coloured, add the chicken stock.  Add enough to come about 3/4 way up the sides of the potato.

• Bring to a simmer and place in the oven for 15 -20 minutes.  Most of the stock should by then be absorbed into the delectably soft and flavoursome tattie.

• This leaves time to deal with the venison and sprouts.  I start the sauce at the same time with the potatoes as it needs this amount of time to develop depth of flavour.

Venison topside steak

Thick steaks (at least 1.5 cm) are recommended  for this quick cook method to ensure it is rare and remains so while being rested.

Set the oven to 100oC

Ingredients:

venison steaks, 1 per person

knob of butter

salt and pepper

Method

• Heat a griddle pan until almost smoking and add some groundnut or olive oil.

• Season the venison steaks, place in the hot pan and add a dollop of butter.

• Turn after 3 minutes and cook on the other side for the same time. They should be nicely caramelised with lines across each from the griddle pan.

• Remove from the pan (if the hot griddle pan is placed in the oven, the steak will continue to cook and will be overcooked) and place in a warmed roasting tray and into the oven to rest for about 5 minutes.

Bramble and juniper sauce

It can tricky to get the balance right between fruit acidity and infusion of just enough juniper.  Taste the sauce frequently throughout and adjust seasoning accordingly.  The recipe is a variation of a Michel Roux recipe for juniper sauce.

Ingredients:

2 shallots, finely chopped

200 ml red wine

300 ml game stock

60 g brambles/blackberries

30g butter, cold, diced

4 juniper berries, crushed

1 tsp rowan and apple or redcurrant jelly

salt and pepper

Method:

• Put the red wine and shallots in a pan, bring to the boil at a medium heat and simmer until the wine has reduced by 1/3.

• Add the stock, crushed juniper berries and brambles and simmer for 15 minutes.  Add the rowan jelly and let it dissolve.

• Strain the sauce through a chinois into a clean pan and whisk in the butter cubes a few at a time. Season and taste.  A bit more rowan jelly can be dissolved in at this stage, if required.

Brussel sprouts with bacon and juniper

This is a Nigel Slater recipe from Tender Volume 1. I use it a lot as it has converted me to the delights of sprout eating.  I have adjusted the volume by half and tweaked the sprout cooking from boiling to steaming and cut the number of berries. Serves 2.

Ingredients:

200g brussel sprouts

125g pancetta or smoked bacon

8 juniper berries, crushed

pepper

Method:

• Remove outer leaves from sprouts and retain for garnish (see below).

• Pierce the bottom of each sprout with a knife and place in a steamer.  This will speed up cooking of the harder base.  Steam for about 7 minutes, until just tender.

• Fry the pancetta until crisp and golden and remove with a slotted spoon. Drain on kitchen paper.

• Half the sprouts and add to the same pan, add the crushed juniper berries.

• As the sprouts soften and colour after a few minutes,  add the bacon back into the pan and season.  They are ready to serve.

Carrots

Juliene then steam for 3-4 minutes and toss in butter and some orange juice, add salt and pepper.

Garnish

Deep fry shredded outer brussel sprout leaves in ground nut oil.  Minimise on waste and add a flavour and texture contrast.

Venison with pomme fondant, bramble and juniper sauce with sprouts. Sprouts married with bacon and juniper hit the spot.

Beef cheeks: An aromatic casserole of great comfort

Ah yes, the vogue for cheap cuts of meat is still current, with many top and ‘celebrity’ chefs featuring cheaper cuts and offal in dishes. Somewhat ironically, this has increased demand for cheap cuts like ox/beef cheeks and hence prices of such cuts have risen.  In fact, most of the big four supermarkets now regularly stock beef cheeks at the butchery counter.

This is indicative of the power of the media-savvy chefs (of which there are many) to highlight cuts of meat that have been forgotten and largely consigned to history. Some of these chefs may have lost their integrity along the way (mentioning no names, well, OK, maybe one – Marco Pierre White flogging Knorr ‘stock’. Shameful), but if promotion by influential chefs results in exposing a few more diners and cooks to these ingredients and encourages use of cheaper or more unusual cuts, that’s no bad thing. Diversification of diet is good.

I don’t recall eating beef cheeks before the current vogue but I have now eaten them three times this year.  The first time was at La Garrigue’s Edinburgh New Town restaurant.  I have eaten in La Garrigue a few times (mainly at their original Jeffrey Street place) and I love the rustic Languedoc food they serve. It is hearty and honest. I also return because of the consistent good service.  Beef cheeks were one course served during a ‘Taste of Languedoc’ evening, slow cooked in a Provençal sauce of red wine, tomatoes and olives. Tender and delicious.

The very next night, we visited The Man Named Sous’s sister and by some bizarre coincidence, beefs cheeks were the main course! Spot the foodie. So, I go from never having knowingly eaten beef cheeks to consuming same two days in a row.  I caveat this with ‘never knowingly’ because I have eaten some pretty unidentifiable meat-based meals abroad, the contents of which were lost in translation (although I vividly remember our French-Portuguese neighbour serving up ‘colhões’ – her description, not mine…).

Beef cheeks second time around were however, quite a different flavour experience from the first. The recipe in question was from Richard Cornish and Frank Camorra ‘s Movida Rustica cookbook.  This called for the best part of a bottle of Pedro Ximenez sherry and an equal quantity of red wine – and half a day in an Aga. I must admit, I was impressed with la Garrigue’s take on cheeks, but the second experience was superior (and I don’t think it was anything to do with the quantities of wine consumed in conjunction!).

Of course, obtaining beef cheeks on North Uist is almost impossible. There is no butcher on North Uist or Benbecula and to seek out these cuts would likely involve considerable enquiry and strategic planning akin to The Battle of Britain.  Although it pains me, I admit to taking the easier option and acquired the cheeks from a quality butcher while on a trip to the mainland.

Beef cheeks: two prepared and ready for marinating

Last weekend, the weather was pretty minging and any work outdoors was written off.  What better excuse to spend the day indulging in slow-cooking the beef cheeks? The dish is all about comfort.  I served the beef cheeks with celeriac puree, pastis-braised fennel, carrots with cumin and orange and baby baked potatoes.  I haven’t included the carrot recipe below but it simply oven-roasted carrot slices with a coating of rapeseed oil, a splash of orange juice and a big pinch of roasted cumin seeds, cooked for 25 minutes at 180oC. Potatoes were the wonderful Red King Edward, superb as mini-bakers.

The presentation of this dish is perhaps a bit uncouth, but flavours hit the spot. So, here is my take on beef cheeks et al.

Aromatic beef cheeks with celeriac puree, braised fennel with pastis and seasonal vegetables 

The beef cheeks were cut in half and marinated overnight.  The casserole recipe couldn’t be simpler and requires very little attention during cooking. The beef is so tender after 4 hours that it is hard to lift out of the pot without it falling apart.

Ingredients

Marinade for beef cheeks:

Beef cheeks, about 750 g = 2, feeds 4 people

200 ml red wine

2 tblsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced

1 onion, chopped

1 celery stalk, sliced

1 carrot, sliced

1 spring of thyme

2 bay leaves

1 star anise

zest and juice of an orange

a few grinds of pepper

For the beef cheek casserole:

2 tblsp olive oil

500 ml red wine

1 tblsp tomato puree

750 ml beef stock

salt and pepper

Method – Aromatic beef cheek casserole

Set oven to 170oC

Beef cheeks should be ready for cooking after being marinated overnight. Put the olive oil in an overproof heavy-based casserole dish (Le Creuset are ideal).  Remove the beef cheeks from the marinade, brushing off any veg and pat dry with kitchen towel. On a medium to high heat, sear the cheeks on all sides in the oil until browned.  Remove with a slotted spoon, turn heat to medium.

Strain the veg, herbs and spices from the marinade, reserving the liquid and place marinated veg into the pan, cook until soft but not browned.  Place the beef cheeks back in the pot, add the reserved marinade liquid, the beef stock (I used game stock as I had no beef stock), 500 ml of red wine, tomato puree, salt and pepper.

Bring to a simmer, cover with a lid, stick in the oven and leave for about 4 hours until the beef is almost falling apart.

Do check after about 2 hours to make sure that there is enough liquid in the casserole and add a bit of water if it is drying out.  The beef cheeks should remain immersed throughout cooking. They will happily sit on a low heat in the oven while you prepare the rest of the side dishes.

Celeriac puree

Unfortunately, I haven’t successfully grown this faux root so far.  It needs a long time in the ground and I need more growing space first in order to let it luxuriate in the soil long enough to get bigger than the size of a golf ball. The root description is really a misnomer because it is a bulbous hypocotyl, the area of a plant between its stem and roots. The true roots of celeriac are the surface ‘hairs’ that give it a distinctively untidy appearance. Don’t be put of by its looks, it is one of our most delightful root veg.

Ingredients

1 celeriac’root’

500ml chicken stock

100 ml double cream

salt and pepper

Method

Remove the outer surface of the celeriac and cut remainder into cubes about 1cm. Place in a pan with the stock and simmer until tender (about 20-30 minutes).  The stock will reduce down significantly. Add the double cream and simmer for a further 5 minutes.  If it is very liquidy, strain off the excess.  Whizz with a hand blender or in a liquidiser until very smooth and pass through a sieve to get the puree extra smooth.  Check and adjust seasoning, keep warm.

Braised fennel with pastis

The mild aniseed flavour of the fennel is boosted with a splash of pastis and  complements the subtle background flavour of star anise in the casserole.

Ingredients

1-2 fennel bulbs, sliced

30g butter

200 ml chicken stock

1 tsp sugar

1 tblsp pastis (e.g. Pernod, Ricard)

Zest of half an orange

salt and pepper

Method

Slice the bulbs, ensuring you do so along the root (usually the longer axis) so that the slices hold together.  Slices should be about 5mm thick.

Melt the butter in a frying pan on a medium heat and place the slices in as the butter, sprinkle over the sugar to assist in caramelising the slices.

Cook for a few minutes each side until coloured.  Don’t overcrowd the pan, do this stage in batches if need be. They will need to be in a single layer to colour.

Once all slices are coloured, return all to the pan and add the pastis and orange zest.  Let the alcohol cook off for a minute or two then add the stock and season.

Simmer gently for about 10 minutes until tender and serve.

Plating up

I served each half beef cheek on the celeriac puree with lots of casserole gravy and the veg.  I didn’t bother to strain the gravy before serving as it is after all a rustic casserole.  The gravy was thick, rich and intense thanks to protracted slow cooking and should not require reduction or thickening agents.

Aromatic beef cheek casserole with celeriac puree, braised fennel with pastis and seasonal vegetables. Comfort food for a wintery Sunday.

Edinburgh: A quartet of reviews – breakfast, lunch and dinner x 2

I have just returned from a short work-related trip to Edinburgh, which meant spending Monday and Tuesday evenings in our illustrious capital. With one eye on quality and the other on maximum gain for my gelter, I had a quick location-based web search the night before to seek out some well reviewed city centre eating options around the area I was staying (Waterloo Place).

Of course, it’s not possible to fly direct from Benbecula to Edinburgh, so I had to first fly to Glasgow.  The flight was a tad bumpy on the descent. The small Saab prop creaked as a result of pitching, rolling and yawing in the crosswind. Not even Margaret Atwood could distract me from the buffeting as we passed through squally showers. This was primarily because it was literally impossible to read while being thrown around at the mercy of the turbulent conditions. I was attempting to re-visit the first two books of the Oryx and Crake trilogy in preparation for the third, Maddaddam, to be published in 2013, according to Atwood on Twitter.

Safely planted on the tarmac in a driech Glasgow, by the time I caught the shuttle bus to the city centre and then train to Edinburgh, my stomach had recovered enough to seek out food.

Breakfast – Broughton Delicatessen, Barony Street

I had by choice opted for room only at my hotel.  I am not a fan of cooked breakfasts and the cost for hotel breakfasts is very high if you only want a bowl of muesli. Being in the city centre, it seemed more fun to check out Trip Advisor and go on a local foraging expedition.  Broughton Delicatessen also has the added advantage of being very close to Edinburgh’s best coffee shop, Artisan Roast.

I arrived pretty much bang on the 8am opening time as I had to get across the city centre in time for a meeting and knew I needed time to dodge the tram chaos.  Staff were faced with their first customer of the day, and were ready to go.  The coffee machine was already warmed up.  I ordered Broughton deli granola, served with greek yoghurt and fruit compote and an americano.  Disappointingly, they were out of fruit compote but offered me bananas and blueberries as substitutes.  I don’t like bananas but opted for the blueberries.

It was a pretty huge bowl with a high yoghurt to granola ratio.  The yoghurt was very good quality, thick, rich and acidic.  The granola had plenty honey flavour but I just didn’t feel there was enough of it to balance against the volume of yoghurt.  The blueberries were fine, but no substitute for a fruit compote which would have added moisture, sweetness and made the bowl complete. Had there not been a compote deficit, the £3.95 price tag would have been fine.  This would not deter me from returning.  The ingredients in the chiller looked appealingly fresh and high quality as did the advertised selection of rolls and salads. I need to return to revisit the compote if nothing else.

An added benefit was walking across the road for a cappuccino courtesy of the wonderful Artisan Roast.  I tried a take away this time and was not disappointed, as it was presented and tasted as per a sit-in cup and kept me going as I dodged my way along the tram mess and chaos of Queen’s Street toward the west end.

Good news for Artisan Roast is that today they have received a much deserved accolade as best cafe in the UK, so well done to the knowledgeable and passionate staff therein.

Lunch – The Edinburgh Larder, Blackfriar’s Street

This unassuming deli, with a reputation for fresh seasonal Scottish produce sits at the top of Blackfriar’s Street, a stones throw from The Royal Mile.   Once you have made it past all the kilted, bagpiping haggisy whisky-ness and tartan tat that accost you on approach from The Royal Mile, the atmosphere within is honest and relaxed.

Amazingly, and perhaps fortuitously, despite its proximity to The Royal Mile, this deli does not appear to particularly attract tourists. Tourists seem to exhibit the legionary behaviour of army ants, raiding en masse, focussing their column raid along the Royal Mile with all the urgency of a legion that has just scented its next meal of haggis and neeps.

The place wasn’t too busy, so I sat myself at a table, had a look at a couple of specials marked on the blackboard and tried to catch the eye of the staff, however, I did eventually have to get up and ask for a menu at the counter.  The male behind it was engrossed in texting on his mobile and hadn’t noticed me come in.

I asked for a menu and about the availability of the specials.  I got a very blank look and then a ‘sorry, err, um, pardon?’ I instantly recognised that this well-heeled Hugh Laurie pre-House chap was not coping with my perfectly polite but local (well, central Scotland) accent.  This has happened to me once or twice in London, but it is rare. Ironically, I never had trouble being understood while working and living abroad, in fact many of my Portuguese friends developed my accent while speaking English!  I would have liked to have seen him exposed to the Glesgae banter….

Having repeated my questions (painfully) slowly,  ‘Can-I-have-a-menu-please?’ and ‘Are-the specials-still-available?’ We seemed to be getting somewhere and I retreated to my table to await the menu.  I’m not sure if Hugh was then trying to avoid me, but another employee was sent over with the menu.  He approached with all the stealth of a ninja.  Steely and silent.  Perhaps more alarmingly, it was a very ‘Smell of Reeves and Mortimer’ Lloyd Grossman Masterchef style approach (minus the cutlery for fingers). Without uttering a sound, he laid a menu in front of me on the table and retreated to the safety of his counter.

Although the menu was a bit grubby, dog-eared and faded, the contents were appealing.  Phew!  Although, having glanced at the menu online in advance, the prices were somewhat out of synch with those online i.e. it was on average about a quarter more expensive than the website suggested. This is a small but important point because it has been hailed in the past as a reasonably cheap, good value place to eat, but at current prices, I would describe it as being reasonable value, not cheap.

I ordered a leek, potato and black pudding soup from the daily specials board and a half sandwich billed on the menu as ‘homemade smoked fish pate of the day’.  I had to again go to the counter to order, and qualified the fish in question was salmon.

Service was quick.  The soup was piping hot, rich, creamy and well seasoned with some nice chunky pieces of leek at the bottom and with a thin puck of black pudding  floating on top.  The sandwich consisted of very fresh malted granary bread with a perfect crust.  The filling however, was not pate as described but rather large chunks of smoked salmon on a spread of mayonnaise, a selection of fresh peppery leaves and some fresh dill. OK, clearly not pate, but it was very tasty so I happily ate it without raising the issue with the staff.  They should, however, have advised me it wasn’t pate today. At £6.50,  I think this light lunch was reasonable value.

Before leaving, I wanted to find out where they sourced their smoked salmon.  After repeating my question ‘Where-do-you-source-the smoked salmon-in-your-sandwiches?’ very slowly to Hugh, turns out he didn’t know, but The Ninja did.  Creelers (of Edinburgh, I assume).  I later found out online that Creelers in turn source their salmon from the Loch Duart salmon farming company, which coincidentally has operations around the Uists.   When it comes to Scottish farmed salmon, it’s a small world…

Dinner 1 – Howie’s, Waterloo Place

I chose Howie’s for 3 reasons. I had eaten in the Victoria Street restaurant on several occasions and enjoyed it (although admittedly this was probably over 10 years ago now). The menu was appealing and the early evening menu looked very good value.  Finally, it was convenient being right next to my hotel.

The place was quiet when I arrived, with only one or two tables occupied.  I was in time to eat and leave by 7.30pm, a requirement of the early dining menu which was my choice.  Two courses were offered for £14.95.  Service was efficient and staff attentive.  I was advised that there would be a supplement for the rib-eye steak as a main and also that there was a special of roast pheasant (also with a supplement). I was offered tap water which came in a jug with ice, which was good. It was really quite dark inside, with most light being emitted from the tealights on the tables.  After squinting at the menu I ordered cullen skink as a starter and it arrived very promptly.

It was a good-sized portion and came with what was described as artisan bread.  The bread was OK, perhaps a bit nondescript. The skink was only just hot enough to eat, a fraction of a degree colder and I would have had to send it back.  The texture was good with each piece of smoked fish (species undescribed in the menu) chunky and identifiable, likewise potatoes and leeks. The broth was thick enough but it did lack a bit of seasoning and the general depth of flavour and smokiness I would normally associate with cullen skink – the element that makes the dish so comforting and appealing.

On to my main course billed as ‘venison leg steak with fondant potato, seasonal greens, juniper and bramble sauce.’  Choosing venison in a restaurant has been the subject of much discussion between myself and The Man Named Sous. As our most consumed red meat at home, we have become adept at cooking it and more importantly, serving it just the way we prefer it. As a result, I have been advised many times over ‘Just don’t be tempted to order it, you will be disappointed’.  Yet knowing this while staring at the menu didn’t stop me from doing so.  It wasn’t sheer devilment that made my choice.  There was a lure I couldn’t resist – the offer of fondant potato.  I’m not a huge lover of potato, but a good pomme fondant is a wickedly decadent triumph.

A very high plate of food was presented with a substantial sea of surrounding gravy.  In the gloom, I was trying to figure out what was going on the plate because I couldn’t see the pomme fondant, which made my heart skip a beat.  I deconstructed the tower.  It was topped with curly carrot shavings, which I assume had been deep-fried, but they were a bit soft.  Underneath a substantial layer of several slices of venison leg meat sprawled.  Lying somewhere between the venison and carrots was some kale, a pleasant surprise.  Finally, pushing the veg and meat off the tower, I revealed the pomme fondant.  It was gargantuan and I very quickly became  suspicious that this was an imposter masquerading as my dream tattie dish.

Venison tower deconstructed in the dark with pomme conglomerate

A quick prod with my fork revealed the stark reality.  I tried not to visibly recoil.  This was not as described but a conglomerate of several potatoes set into a ring or formed into a cake.  Crushed potato cake would be a better and more accurate description.  I am not a fan of crushed potatoes and I felt robbed. Pomme fondant should be made of one single piece of sculpted potato. That aside, some pieces were cold and a bit hard and the whole potato component was underseasoned.

Moving onto better things, I tried the venison. The portion was very generous and it was nicely cooked overall being rare and tender. The flavour was good and although the species was not identified on the menu, I assumed it was red deer (confirmed later by my server who checked with the kitchen as she did not know). Unfortunately, there was a bit of sinew around the edges of a couple of slices, which was a pity. It was a little insipid around the edges too and would have benefitted from a bit more browning and seasoning.

Unfortunately, the juniper and bramble sauce was disappointing. Texturally, it appeared to have had a thickening agent added late in the sauce-making process as it was gloopy and may account for the lack of depth of flavour and seasoning.  I regularly use both juniper and/or bramble in game sauces and I know it can be difficult to get the right balance as both can overpower.  In this case, neither did.  There was no hint of juniper infusion and only the slightest tang of fruit acidity that I presume came from bramble. It was a mere pale spectre of the powerful winey hedgerow berry flavour I anticipated.

I felt quite sorry for Howie’s, and myself as I didn’t expect disappointment and it would be unfair to assume my experience is representative, given the generally favourable reviews on Trip Advisor.  If you want value for money, good service and you are not fussed on attention to detail, Howie’s may be an acceptable choice.  Sadly the let down of the faux pomme fondant and my familiarity with venison meant high expectations were unfulfilled. It was always going to be an uphill struggle for this dish to deliver in these circumstances.  Next time I will heed the advice and chose something else.

Dinner II – Mother India’s Cafe, Infirmary Street

I have been meaning to visit the Edinburgh cafe for a while.  How fortuitous it was and delighted was I when a colleague suggested our team go for a meal there after work. The Man Named Sous was less impressed with my plans as he had wanted to eat here last time we were in Edinburgh and I suggested somewhere else.  I have therefore committed to going to the Glasgow cafe with him in December. I promise.  What a hardship!

The restaurant offers tapas style Indian food and has a longer established sister cafe in Glasgow which has a formidable reputation for great food.

I arrived with an advanced party of 4, the rest of our group of twelve arriving in dribs and drabs.  This did not phase staff and our table was ready.  Staff were attentive and gave us the options of drinks, poppadums or starting to order while we waited.  Eventually, with everyone present, we ordered and despite the bombardment of information, staff coped impeccably with our orders. Service was swift without feeling rushed.

A long list of dishes are available with plenty veggie options and a daily special on the menu.  It is suggested that 4-6 dishes are shared between 2 people. With over 40 dishes on the menu, it was difficult to choose. Two of us opted to share and ordered 4 dishes between us as well as a portion of rice and a nan, which was the perfect amount for us.  The food arrived promptly and was piping hot.

Our order consisted of spiced haddock baked with punjabi spices, lamb saag (i.e. with spinach – hot!), chilli king prawns and the Tuesday special, vegetable thali.  Each dish was full of great contrasts of aromatic and pungent spices, plenty chilli and fresh herbs.

I had forgotten just how good Indian food can be and it was also incredibly good value at £16 each, including poppadums and chutneys and a drink each. Having always headed for the nearby excellent vegetarian Indian restaurant Kalpna previously, I have now doubled my Indian options in Edinburgh. I can’t wait to use the excuse of a promise to The Man Named Sous to visit the Glasgow Mother India’s cafe soon.

Homeward bound, eventually

After a quick pre- and post-work whizz around Edinburgh, time to return home.  Never anything but eventful, problems with planes meant my flight was delayed at Glasgow to accommodate some stranded passengers bound for Islay. Good old Loganair.  Can you imagine a budget airline re-routing a plane because passengers would have to wait another 4 hours for the next one?  Not on your life. So it was, our Benbecula-bound plane stopped off at Islay on the way.  A novel experience indeed.  Not least when we landed in Islay for the crew to discover one of the Benbecula passengers was missing and was thought to have got off the plane at Islay.

After much sniggering from the remaining Benbecula-bound passengers and a security check and baggage search taking 45 minutes, it turned out the passenger had not actually got on the plane at Glasgow. Stringent security?! The big bonus was that it was a beautiful cloudless morning over the Inner Hebrides and we had wonderful views of the Paps of Jura as well as Coll and Tiree, so the extra hour and a half on the journey provided much more than just the novelty of sitting on the tarmac at Islay.

Garlic: A year in the life

Allium sativum – pleased to pleat you…Planting finished, the remaining bulbs were pleated.

I don’t remember a time in my life when garlic was not part of my diet. One of the best cooking aromas must be the pungent scent of garlic gently frying in good quality olive oil. I am very fortunate that my mum cooked with olive oil when I was a child, a time when most mums were still only sticking it in their children’s ears. Similarly, garlic was a culinary delight in our everyday meals and I didn’t give it a second thought until I noticed the lack of it when I had tea (as we called it then) at friend’s houses.

Garlic is my number one favourite ingredient and is one of the big four, one or more of which I invariably use every day (chilli, olive oil, lemons being the other three). From the outset, I have been determined to grow garlic successfully here on North Uist. If you fling it in the ground and hope for the best, you will get results of sorts, but random gardening, as I have found out to my cost with many veggies is a bit foolhardy if you live here. In fact, typical Uist climatic conditions (wind, rain – and persistence of both) mean the weather can be merciless even if you do your green-fingered best.

So, I have been on a strategic programme of growing trials to optimise my garlic growing success. It has taken 4 years of experimenting, but I tentatively consider that I may at last be on the cusp of success. I have tried soft neck versus hardneck, autumn versus spring planting, numerous varieties: Albigensian Wight, Bella Italiano, Solent Wight, Early Purple Wight to name but a few. Comparisons were made in yield and bulb size as well as storage time. I concluded that softneck garlic produces higher yields, produce bigger bulbs and more bulbs that are subject to lower losses in the ground than hardneck varieties. Importantly, the softnecks store for significantly longer, in my experience.

Autumn planting is the only way. I have tried 2 early spring plantings (same varieties and harvest year as the autumn planting). One was a dismal failure, the other less so, but still with a yield well below autumn plantings, regardless of variety. I suspect that our relatively mild winters mean that by the time it gets to planting in early spring, the bulbs do not get the period of cold they require to flourish. The star variety is without a doubt Provence Wight, for size and storage. This is now the only variety I grow. Garlic may not grow as large here as it does further south in the UK, but the cloves are intensely flavoured, which is all that really matters if you are a garlic lover.

Class of 2011 – Garlic crop harvested on 17 July last year

All butchery out of the way (for now) at last (1 deer, 2 geese, then 2 rabbits), I am hoping to get my culinary life back. Hope springs eternal that weather windows will occasionally fall at weekends so I can get on with some outdoor stuff in the garden too. And so it was with fair weather I spent the best part of Sunday getting my favourite Allium into the ground.

If you like to eat garlic, but do not want to read about the minutiae of growing it, skip to my Roast garlic soup with home made pitta bread recipe.

Preparing the bed

I practice a fairly standard organic rotation.  I do not grow entirely organically, but pretty near it.  I have given up using 100% organic seed.  I am not intending to go for Soil Association accreditation and I was finding it restrictive in terms of varieties (and especially ones that work here), and a bit costly. The soil was depleted after a beetroot crop over the summer (pimple-sized beetroots, embarrassingly small).  Hence, the first job was to call one of my neighbours, a local crofter who keeps pigs among other things, to arrange to collect some well-rotted pig manure. Half an hour or so of shovelling and our trailer was full enough to replenish 2-3 raised beds.

After digging a trench in sections along the garlic bed, the manure was dumped at a depth of about 15 cm and the soil raked back over so the garlic can happily dangle their roots into the nutrients as they grow.  This was an easy job in these raised beds.

Adding well-rotted pig manure to add nutrients and texture before planting

I have worked hard to get a fine tilth, sieving and removing stones, essential if root veg, especially carrots are part of your rotation (although I would not manure a bed that carrots are going into).  The soil is very light and free draining and I incorporate a lot of my own compost too for soil conditioning. I also top dress with seaweed over the winter to minimise erosion and  to add more nutrients and minerals.  Some machair soil was also added to lighten the structure and bring the soil to a neutral pH.  Finally, I weed regularly and never stand on the soil surface to avoid compressing it.

Preparing and planting garlic

The 2011 crop was grown from 7 bulbs bought from a commercial grower.  I was a bit disappointed by the number of cloves per bulb, which fell short of that promised in the catalogue (20-25 cloves per bulb.  I got 15 on average).  Some were also very small and this seems to be correlated with small clove development/size.  Nonetheless, with no signs of disease, I got 75 healthy bulbs from the crop, about three-quarters were larger than those you can buy in the supermarkets.

This year, I am using part of the crop from last summer’s harvest – my next trial, I suppose. I prepared them by selecting the biggest bulbs from my stored garlic, then selecting the biggest and healthiest cloves from these bulbs.  Any that were slightly soft or damaged were kept for cooking, but there were very few.  By this time, the light was fading, so being up against it and in trying to be ‘efficient’ I managed to somehow slash the side of my hand with the scalpel while separating the cloves. There was an interlude to deal with the ensuing minor bloodbath and melodrama.  More haste less speed, as the saying goes!

Preparing for the soil

I wanted to fill the entire bed with the crop and it took me 14 bulbs to do this, a total of 144 cloves.  I always compress the soil slightly with a plank of wood which also acts as a planting guide. Some compression helps the garlic stay put in the wind while the roots get established, since they are planted with the tops just under the surface. Each was spaced about 10 cm apart along the row, each row about 20 cm apart.

Garlic cloves in situ in neat rows of compressed soil.

Despite the race against the light on a short winter day, I got the planting finished, although admittedly it was quite dark and I had to finish the job with the help of the workshop lights.

Imagine my consternation when I got up the next morning to admire my work in daylight to find the night crawlers had been in.  There were cat paw prints across the bed, which I can cope with, but there were also about 35 very neat little holes which garlic cloves no longer occupied.  I don’t think it was the cat, but I should have perhaps asked my neighbour to check her cat’s breath…  I had my suspicions about the culprit, especially since most cloves were missing at the end near the dry stone wall.

I have known blackbirds to inquisitively pull at the papery tops of the cloves after the first day of planting but I usually see their tracks and the cloves are rejected and left nearby on the surface. No cloves to be seen, or dead blackbirds lying about having choked on the chunky cloves. Being rather trusting, and indeed sticking my head in the sand, I decided to leave it another night to see if the novelty would wear off for the critter (or it might have a garlic overdose).  Hardly.  Next morning, same again, 15 cloves missing.

I couldn’t sustain losses at this rate and after re-planting 50 cloves – another 4 bulbs, and having a suspicion this was the work of a rodent,  I went for belt and braces, covering the crop with environmesh and setting up a tunnel along the wall with 2 rat traps in it.  Both measures would protect any birds/cats from the traps and would attract rodents to my bait in the tunnel – prime chorizo – 100% irresistable in my experience.  And so it was, my garlic survived intact last night and I found a mouse in one of the traps. These traps are only supposed to spring with the weight of a rat but this was one big mouse (I wonder why?), so it got chorizo, but then its luck ran out.  It is always disappointing to have to take this action, but I want to eat my veg, not supplement the diet of an already burgeoning local rodent population.

Roasted Garlic Soup

Before pleating the remaining intact garlic bulbs, I thought it would be a good idea to use up all the small bulbs and loose cloves in one of my favourite soups, roast garlic.  Roasting the garlic and adding it to the soup makes it wonderfully sweet.  Topping it with dry fried chorizo or cheesy croutons complements the dish with saltiness to balance the sweetness of the roasted garlic. Don’t be put off by the amount of garlic used.  It is quite a different animal when roasted in the oven.

Ingredients

2 large garlic bulbs, left whole

bay leaf

olive oil

onion, chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

3 large potatoes, diced

sprig of rosemary

1 litre chicken stock or vegetable boullion

500 ml milk

salt and pepper

chorizo, enough for garnish, sliced and dry-fried

parsley

Set the oven to 180oC

Method

Cut the tops off the 2 garlic bulbs to reveal a bit of white flesh in each clove. This will make the soft garlic easy to squeeze out after roasting.  Place them in a foil parcel with a bay leaf and a drizzle of olive oil and bake in the oven for 45 minutes.  Leave aside to cool.

Peel and chop the onion, carrots and potatoes and sweat in a pan on a low heat with a small amount of olive oil for 10-15 minutes.  Add the garlic by taking the cooled bulbs and squeezing each at the base.  The garlic will be soft and should squeeze out like toothpaste.  The aroma is wonderful.

Add the stock and rosemary, season and simmer for about 1 hour.  Let it cool slightly, add the milk, remove the rosemary then blitz in a blender or puree using a hand-held blender. If it too thick (although I like it thick, as in the photo), add a spot more milk or water.  Pass through a sieve or chinois and heat through.

Garnish with parsley and chorizo or cheesy croutons. Serves four.

Home made pitta breads

I served this soup with pitta breads on this occasion. This simple bread regularly features in this house because it is so versatile and easy to make – especially if you have a bread maker. There’s nothing wrong with using a bread maker for dough like pitta or foccacia.  It can be a huge time saver. If you have not made them before, give them a try.  They are astonishingly straightforward to make and are incomparable with the rubbery, slightly stale, vinegary tasting pitta breads you buy in supermarkets.

I am not sure where I got this recipe, I have been using it for so long.

Ingredients

500g strong white flour

2 tsp yeast (easyblend)

25g butter,

1 1/2 tsp salt

310 ml water

Set the oven to 220oC

Method

If you have a breadmaker, fling everything in and set to dough only program. This takes 45 minutes on my Panasonic SD-255 machine – the only breadmaker I would recommend, having had many others that sat on the shelf due to poor performance. I usually let the dough rest for another half hour once the program stops to ensure light and puffy pittas.

Alternatively, you can mix by hand, incorporating all the ingredients then kneading on an oiled surface for 10 minutes.  Allow it to prove for about an hour, covered with cling film in a warm place.

Place the dough on a heavily floured surface and break off golf ball sized pieces of dough with floured hands and roll them into tongue-shaped pittas with a floured rolling pin, to about 3mm thick.  It doesn’t matter if they are a bit misshapen – that’s called rustic, or more current still, artisan. Flour a couple of baking sheets and put the bread in the oven for 8-10 minutes.  I usually turn them half way.  Most will puff up, some won’t but keep an eye on them in case they get too thin and crispy as they puff.

This recipe usually makes 12. I do them in 2 batches of 6, 3 on each baking sheet.  I keep the first batch warm under a tea towel however, we usually start eating them straight away if there is some moutabal or hummous to hand and they are best eaten fresh and still warm from the oven.

They will keep overnight wrapped in a tea towel but need to be re-warmed and get a bit chewy if they are allowed to cool.

Venison Volume I: In the Flesh, my deer

Warning:  This post contains content about the reality of eating animals (again) and describes butchery and contains images of same.

I am pleased to say that at last, the deer hind we took delivery of last week is finally completely prepped and in the freezers. I am even more delighted that we managed to use almost every piece of the animal, just as it should be, with only one small carrier bag of no more than a couple of kilos of waste.

We are no butchery experts, but are self-taught. We butchered our first whole deer carcass 3 years ago with the help of a couple of useful books, web searches and You Tube. It’s surprising how much we remember, given we only do this once a year and this year we were patting each other on the back for not reaching for any references. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, but the animal is prepared with care and respect to provide the cuts that we want. I hope this post will help or encourage others to try the same.

For me, venison is the finest of all red meat, and red deer the finest of all Cervidae. Better still, it is wild meat hence has much fewer welfare issues that are associated with domesticated stock such as cattle and sheep. Although, it is true that good wild deer welfare is dependent on good deer management practices. Wild deer populations require careful management for the benefit of the landscape and importantly, the fitness of the animals themselves.

There are a lot of deer on North Uist and culls at an appropriate level can take the  pressure off a fragile landscape, not to mention crofters crops and gardens like mine (we have just this minute scared some red deer our of our garden). The deer population also benefits from this management.  Maintaining the population at the correct level i.e. below the carrying capacity for any given habitat improves fitness by reducing the risk of starvation in lean times and helps the animals maintain good condition over the winter, improving reproductive success.

Food provenance is also not particularly a consideration with our Uist deer. When you pick up your animal from the local abattoir on the island on which is was shot a few days before, there are no ambiguities about its provenance.  It is also a lean red meat, is relatively healthy and extremely versatile. It is also reasonably rich and dense, so a little goes a long way. So, I see benefits all round.  This is meat that is good for your conscience as much as your health and palate.

I am always rather disappointed by beef these days.  To my palate, even the leanest cuts taste fatty compared with venison (because they are).  Some would argue fat brings flavour but a well hung piece of venison cooked to perfection will beat beef hands down – provided you understand how to cook it. Less is more. If you cook it to the Jesus sandal stage of leathery cremation, it is truly abhorrent.

Did I mention that I like venison?

If you want to avoid or have no interest in the following butchery section please see the recipe for Blackened venison chops with pak choi

Managing your own deer

The hind weighed 86 lb when we took delivery of it.  This is the dressed weight meaning it is skinned and with the head, feet and internal organs removed, about 55% of the live weight.  It is ready to butcher.  It had been shot 2 days before.  Ideally, we like the venison to hang for about a week to age and enhance the depth of flavour. We hung it up in our shipping container for a few more days. You should only do this if the temperature is low enough and you can guarantee the environment is fly free, otherwise, get on with butchery.

Suggestion: Before you start select some appropriate music.  You are going to need motivation for the duration.  Since it was a team effort for us, we came to a consensus that perhaps Bach or Sibelius would not serve us with the motivation required.  We selected the Planet Rock radio station.  A plethora of rock classics got us through to the forequarter.  Memorable chestnuts we had not heard for a long time spurred us on: Speed King by Deep Purple (The Hairy Scream at his best), early ZZ Top – La Grange and some distinctively cheesy 90’s power rock – Thunder’s ‘Love Walked In’.

Hind halves hanging to age the venison and enhance the flavour

Playlist in place, first thing to do before you even start is make sure you are equipped with VERY sharp knives, appropriate for the job.  A boning and a paring knife are essential, as is a butchers saw (or hacksaw). Fortunately, The Man Named Sous is an expert at sharpening knives.  Just as well because our knives, Chroma 301, made of Japanese steel, require to be sharpened on a wet stone.  It is tricky to get the sharpening angle correct and depends whether you are right or left-handed.  Fortunately we are both right handed. The room should be cool as the meat is easier to work with in cool conditions.  Finally, make sure surfaces and clean, disinfected with something like dilute Milton fluid. Once you get your deer ready to butcher, have a look over it, remove any hairs sticking to the carcass.  Look and see where it has been shot and the implications for how you butcher it.  This hind had a body shot which damaged part of the loin on one side, so we needed to take that into account.  In the past, we have had deer shot through the shoulder.

This results in quite significant damage to the shoulder joint and a lot of meat can be lost as a result.

The Fillet

This is the first cut to be removed and it sits alongside the loin and continues back and into the pelvis.  This prime cut is very fragile, so you need to know where it is and what it looks like before you start, or you will invariably cut straight through the club-shaped end at the rear of the beast. Working from the anterior end, drop the fillet away from the body. It starts to taper thinly at the end just as you reach the clubbed end, which is embedded in another group of muscles associated with the pelvis.

Dropping the fillet, reaching the tricky point at the haunch.

 

  

Fillet removed, showing the double piece of muscle at the rump end.

Once you have worked out where the end sits, carefully remove it intact.  There is a thin muscle lying along the length of the fillet.  This can be trimmed off and I usually use it for stir fry.

The Loin

For this half, the loin was cut off using the saw just at the end of the ribs. The loin runs right along the top of the back from the shoulder to the rump.  We decided to cut here to remove the damaged section where the hind had been shot and also as we prep the loin in association with the ribs at the front.

Loin just before boning out showing the location of this prime cut

Boning out the loin is straightforward.  Care must be taken to remove all sinew and connective tissue around it to prevent distortion during cooking.  This applies to all cuts intended for quick cooking.  It can be time-consuming, but there is nothing worse than a nice medallion that is misshapen and chewy round the edge because sinew has been left on it.

Loin removed from the bone, still with fat and sinew attached

All fat and sinews removed, the loin can be sliced to form medallions (also called loin/sirloin steaks). In this case, we left it intact as we are planning to use it in a Venison Wellington.  Together with the fillet, loin is the best cut.

The loin fully prepared and ready to be used in a Venison Wellington.

To bring out the best in the loin, it should not be cooked more than medium rare. It contains very little fat and overcooking will dry it out. I prefer it either very rare (almost bleu) or rare. Undercooking, searing the outside to get a caramelised exterior and resting are the best treatment to guarantee succulence and a soft, almost melt-in-the-mouth texture. Resting is also very important to relax the meat and draws the juices back to the more cooked meat around the outside.   You know your medallion is well rested when all juices remain within the meat when it is served.

The Haunch

The back leg and rump. It is a big piece of meat.  In the past, we have kept the muscles together and boned out the joint but it weighed kilos and we simply didn’t want to hold a banquet to use it.  We now take the 4 muscle groups (rump, topside, silverside and thick flank) apart and cut them into sensible sized pieces.

The main haunch muscle groups minus the rump. Clockwise from the top: Hand is on the silverside, below is a small muscle, the salmon cut, topside at the bottom and the rounded thick flank on the left.

Silverside and salmon cut are good for steaks and roasts. Again, all sinew including the silver connective tissue that gives the cut its name should be removed.

Removing the silverside and salmon cut from the other muscles

Silverside and salmon cut. Silverside showing the silver tissue that identifies it. This was removed and it was cut into steaks. The salmon cut was left whole.

The thick flank is a rounded muscle group made up of 5 muscles.  It usually makes a good rolled roast, but if from an older animal, may be best as stew. The topside is great for steaks, the largest from the animal. It is also good for making bresaola, which I have done in the past. Although traditionally an Italian recipe for beef, it works well for venison. It is salt-cured with herbs and spices then air-dried for at least a month during which time it goes deep red, almost purple. Sliced thinly, it makes wonderfully distinctive antipasti.  I would recommend giving it a go.

Fully prepared thick flank (left) and topside (right).

Below these cuts is the shank, a piece of meat that requires very slow cooking, either on the bone, or sliced and including the marrowbone, called ossobuco, an ingredient  in many classic recipes.

Musical interlude

By this point, the process was getting pretty intense and we needed another musical boost.  Planet rock was wearing thin with an increasing amount of ‘Cradle Rock’ such as Foo Fighters (stick to Them Crooked Vultures,  Grohl) and the final nail in the coffin was Bon Jovi’s ‘Bad Medicine’ an appalling track.  Bad Medicine, no Jon, just bad songwriting. This is not rock! Hang the DJ, as the great Mozza said…

Time for our own musical back catalogue and a motivational smack between the eyes – Lamb of God’s Sacrament  followed by Machine Head’s The Blackening.  Whoaaah!! Having then had enough Mofos for one day, time for something epic and loud, that’s right, it’s Epicloud, Devin Townsend’s captivating new album. The only Canadian more prolific and consistently brilliant as Neil Young. However, typical of Hevy Devy, this album is so complex I was unable to concentrate on both the butchery and the music. Time to try Porcupine Tree’s The Incident…..

The Forequarter

The front end of the hind including the neck, shoulder, ribs/loin and flank. We prefer to bone out the shoulder and dice it to use as stew.  Parts of it are also used for mince and sausages, as is the flank.  Boning out the shoulder is time-consuming, but there is a lot of meat and it is worth removing as much sinew as possible, even if though it will be used in stew/sausages. The shoulder can also be rolled.

Removing the shoulder in preparation for boning out.

The bottom of the ribs were retained for stock. We kept the tops attached to the loin and sliced these into chops. Immense on the barbeque (on the few days a year we can have one here).

Venison chops

The neck contains good meat for stew and the bone is excellent for stock making.  All bones from this hind were retained to make stock (recipe to be featured in Venison Volume II).

So, give it a try!

Although, as will have been deduced from this butchery description, it is a protracted process but it is worth remembering how satisfying it is to butcher your own deer to produce the cuts you want.  Also worth giving it a go, even if you are a beginner.  We were too.  Mistakes will happen, but it’s not the end of the world. Stick to separating muscle groups and you can’t go far wrong.  Think about where the meat sits on the deer, how these muscles will have been used and how this affects how you will use them. It is a steep learning curve the first time but ultimately rewarding to know you have treated the deer with respect and you will be proud to honour it in your recipes over the months to follow.

After all that butchery, a simple dinner is required.  For the simplest possible dish, why not try venison chops?  I found this recipe in Nichola Fletcher’s book ‘Ultimate Venison Cookery’, a mandatory purchase and reference for the venison lover. It is derived from the recipe ‘Blackened rack of venison with a gratin of fennel’.  I just use the marinade and mix and match with whatever fresh veg I have to hand from the garden. In this case, it was my super-abundant and bolting pak choi crop at the end of August.

Blackened venison chops

Ingredients:

1 tblsp balsamic vinegar

2 tblsp soy sauce (I used dark)

2 tblsp clear honey (also have made with cloudy, doesn’t make much difference)

Method:

That’s it! Mix, rub into the chops  (or steaks, whatever quick cook cut you choose) with a bit of pepper. Marinade for a few hours, grill or stick on the barbie.

Stir fried pak choi with chilli and spring onions

Served with the chops last time I made them.  Very simple and tasty.

Ingredients:

A few handfuls of pak choi

sesame oil, a small glug

a handful of spring onions

1 fresh red or green chilli

sesame seeds

Method;

Heat a small amount of sesame oil in a wok, on a high heat.  Add the chilli and stir fry for a couple of minutes.  Fling in the sesame seeds and stir until golden and popping, about 1 minute.  Throw in the pak choi and stir fry until the leaves wilt down a little.  Add the spring onions, turn them through the pak choi and then serve.

Blackened venison chops with pak choi

In celebration of the short and sweet – Ottolenghi style

I am looking forward to the new series starting next week on Channel 4, Yotam Ottolenghi’s Mediterranean Feasts. I follow Ottolenghi’s regular column in The Guardian for recipe inspirations and only recently acquired my first Ottolenghi cookbook, his eponymously titled first book. I have hardly had my nose out of it over the last month. What a truly inventive chef, who has almost single-handedly revolutionised the UK perspective on cooking food inspired by North Africa and the Med.

Yes, when I find books by an inspirational chef it is always tempting to get onto the web and order everything they have published. Having done that, I know the resulting recipe saturation means I don’t really explore each book in depth and they become coffee table objects, gathering dust but no food splatters – the real mark of love on a cookbook.

After a visit to Nick Nairn’s Braeval restaurant in Aberfoyle back in 1996, my first real experience of Michelin star level fine dining (it was a genuine revelation), I indulged in almost every recipe from that first Wild Harvest book, which is now extremely dog-eared (and food splattered). I don’t use it so much now, but still leaf through the pages and revisit nostalgic memories of the flavours generated from within. I do use it to remind myself of his marvellous creme brulee recipe – the finest, easiest and most reliable I know.

So far Ottolenghi has inspired me to try 20 or so recipes over the last month, a mixture of savoury and sweet. Most I have enjoyed and would recommend and all without exception are unfussy and simple to prepare, part of the Ottolenghi philosophy. I plan more Ottolenghi cookbook forays over the next week. To celebrate the beginning of the long overdue TV series next week, here are a couple of the tasty sweet recipes I have tried and loved.

Pistachio shortbread

Much as pistachio is my favourite nut (well, vieing for the title with hazelnuts), the draw of this recipe is the aromatic inclusion of the ground cardamom, reminiscent of the decadent sweetness of baklava. Apparently Persian baklava typically has the essence of this sweet pastry that I favour – infused with pistachio, rosewater and cardamom.  I do not have a sweet tooth, but enjoy a modicum of this divine filo delight, preferably served with an authentic cardamom-infused Turkish coffee.

But cardamom with shortbread?  Oh yes, this turns my experience of this Scottish stalwart on its head.  I must admit, I veer away from some traditional recipes and I have never made shortbread. I remember helping my mum make it,  pressing the playdough-like sweet buttery mix into a wooden mould depicting a thistle, but I was never excited by its buttery decadence.  I was deterred further by the fact that traditionally, some recipes call for the inexplicable inclusion of fine semolina which is supposed to add a grainy, crumbly texture and is, in my opinion, a spoiler.

So, much as the pistachio and cardamom encouraged this shortbread virgin to give it a try, so did the inclusion of ground rice, to my mind much more refined and a superior choice than semolina.

The recipe suggests crushing the contents of 8 cardamom pods.  I wanted to know how much ground cardamom this equated to, as I also have ground cardamom in the store cupboard.  You can buy it online from the Ottolenghi store, but I also found it in our local North Uist independent shop at Bayhead.  They keep a surprisingly extensive range of herbs and spices. The cardamom I ground from the whole pods was, unsurprisingly, much more intense than the ground I had in store and amounted to about half a teaspoon, although I would add more if using pre-ground.

While making this recipe using the Kenwood Chef I inherited from my grandmother (a 1960’s model, I think), I was surprised to find how much icing sugar appeared to be puffing up out of the bowl.  Then came a whiff of electrical burning and I realised the motor on the old Chef had expired.  I thought of all the clootie dumplings my grandmother had made with it and I had killed it with my first batch of unconventional shortbread.  I can imagine what she would have said.  She was a bit scary.

Oh well, looks like I will need that new KitchenAid after all, but it will have to get in the queue behind the new washing machine, which broke the same day as I broke the Chef, helpfully spewing it’s soapy contents over my feet as I absent-mindedly opened the door.

I know shortbread is decadent with butter quantities that could reduce the European butter mountain, but a nice treat once in a while…enough of the pre-amble, although, one final warning.  Most of Yotam’s recipes appear to use every bowl in the kitchen, except this shortbread (see next recipe as an illustration). Here is the recipe:

Pre-heat the oven to 150oC

Ingredients

8 cardamom pods, split and contents ground in a pestle and mortar

200g unsalted butter

25g ground rice

240g plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

35g icing sugar

60g shelled pistachio nuts

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 tblsp sugar, vanilla flavoured, if available

Method

Crush the cardamom in a pestle and mortar.

Use an electric mixer (if you have one)  to turn the butter, ground rice, flour, salt cardamom and icing sugar to a paste. It’s a bit of a battle without the mixer, but achievable using a wooden spoon or scraper.

Take the dough, dust with a bit of flour and roll into a log 3-4 cm in diameter.  Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for an hour or so.

Chop the nuts reasonably finely, brush the log with beaten egg and roll in the chopped pistachios.  The dough is quite forgiving, so don’t be afraid to apply a bit of pressure to get a good coating.

Wrap and put the log back in the fridge for at least 30 minutes ( I forgot about it, but a couple of hours did it no harm).

Unwrap and cut the log into slices about 5 mm thick.  I experimented with the thickness, but found 5mm to be just right, 1cm too thick.

Put on a baking sheet lined with parchment, each about 2cm apart, sprinkle with sugar and bake.

Recipe suggests 20 minutes, mine needed about 28, but you have to know your oven and watch them as they shouldn’t be more than pale golden.

The dough can be stored in the freezer if you want to make smaller batches.  I got 23 biscuits out of the full recipe.

Pistachio shortbread – Does what it says on the tin – wonderfully short and aromatic.

Pear and Amaretto Crumble

Oven temperature: 170oC

150g apple (peeled weight) cut into 1.5 cm dice

150g pear (peeled weight) cut in the same way

30g toasted walnuts, roughly chopped

grated zest of a lemon

2 tblsp Amaretto

210g plain flour

3/4 tblsp baking powder

3/4 tblsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

45g ground almonds

3 eggs

180ml sunflower oil

230g caster sugar

1/3 tsp salt

120g crumble mix (see recipe below)

Method

Grease you loaf tin/s with butter and line with parchment.

Mix apple and pear with walnuts, lemon zest, and Amaretto. In another bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves. Add the ground almonds.

Separate 2 of the eggs, keep the whites separate while mixing the yolks with the third egg.  Beat together the oil and sugar in yet another bowl for one minute.

Slowly add the yolk and egg mix, then add the sifted dry ingredients followed by the fruit.  Mix until just incorporated.

Whisk the egg whites with the salt to form stiff peaks (using yet another bowl – that’s 4 so far!) and fold gently into the cake mix. Put the mix in the cake tin and sprinkle liberally with the crumble.

Bake for 45 mins to an hour, or until a skewer comes out clean when pushed into the middle of the cake.  If it gets a bit brown on top, stick some foil over it until it is ready.

Crumble recipe

300g plain flour

100g caster sugar

200g cold unsalted butter cut into small cubes

Method

Thankfully, no need for another bowl. Fling the mix into a food processor and pulse until it forms a breadcrumb consistency, or mix using your hands. If you use a processor, make sure it just turns to breadcrumbs and no more, or you will have cookie dough.

Put the excess in the freezer to use another time.

Pear and Amaretto crumble cake courtesy of Ottolenghi. Light and decadent.

Dog days long gone

This weekend, as the rain pelted against the windows and the garden looked decidedly water-logged, there was no doubt that the typical Uist winter weather had arrived and my memories of the unseasonably long and dry summer are fading. The Romans associated Sirius, the Dog Star, brightest star of the Canis Major constellation with hot weather of summer (Dog Days). Whether we ever really have Dog Days in Uist is, however, a moot point. Hot and balmy? I don’t think so.

So, back to the present, any hope of our plan to dig in deer fence strainers was dashed by the weather. It can be hard to tackle outdoor jobs once the clocks change as work is restricted to weekends, with good weather. Slim pickings. Perhaps just as well it was pouring since we had just taken delivery of a red deer hind to butcher, an annual job which usually takes the best part of a weekend.

On dreich weekend days, no matter how occupied you are, cabin fever has the potential to set in. With the dogs going stir crazy, I had to abandon my attempt to hear GQT on Radio 4. Exasperated by the crazy dog shannanegans, it was time for a break from butchery and some fresh air. Even in foul weather dogs need their walks. People too.

It was an unexpectedly marvellous moorland walk – dry, still and with a rainbow over Eaval. It is one of the special qualities of these islands that you can experience the most sublime weather windows on any day of the year. The quality of light in the winter gloaming appears to me to be unique to this archipelago.

Darwin looking for Eaval’s pot of gold. Everyday is a Dog Day…

In the stillness I could hear the resonating roars and bellows of a red deer stag. Ahead, on the crest of another hill, Ben na Coile, I could see the silhouette of the stag and those of his surrounding harem on the horizon. I assume it is the same magnificent beast I have seen corralling a large group of +15 hinds on the west-facing slopes of the hill over the last few days. How much more spectacular these beasts looked in the natural moorland setting than my garden!

The racket he was making was not bluster. Combined with the large size of his harem, his stature and sheer bulk all indicated that he wouldn’t be a likely candidate to get as far as the parallel walk with another stag. I doubt if there would be many stags prepared to have a square go with him. If I was a mature stag round there, I would find a big boulder and hide behind it until he passed.

The hind in our kitchen was also by this time looking very good and will taste even better. The intensity of the venison butchery over the weekend meant I had no inclination for intricate food preparation. Comfort food being the order of the day, we were rewarded with a simple bake of sweet potatoes, smoked mackerel and spinach  for our hard work. With the venison mission almost accomplished (all but stock and sausages), time to put the feet up with a well deserved glass of elderflower gin.

Sweet potato, smoked mackerel and spinach bake

Admittedly, I am not the biggest fan of sweet ingredients as the base for savoury dishes. I suspect it comes from years of vegetarianism which resulted in over indulgence in butternut squash and sweet potatoes. However, the use of the salty, smoky fish cuts through the sweetness of the potatoes and tones them down enough to balance the dish.

Set oven for 180oC

Ingredients

2 medium sweet potatoes
Fresh or frozen spinach, enough for 2 layers in the bake
2 smoked mackerel fillets
Sprig of rosemary, stripped and leaves chopped
Bay leaf
Onion, a half
150ml double cream
150ml milk
1tblsp homemade vegetable boullion or 1 tsp veg boullion powder
Parmesan or other cheese of your choice to grate on top
Salt and pepper

Method

Infuse the bay leaf, rosemary, milk, double cream, half onion and boullion together in a pan until almost boiling, take off the heat and sit to one side.

Cook the spinach for a few minutes until wilted (or defrosted if frozen). Let it cool a bit and then squeeze to remove excess water out of it.

Spread layer of sweet potato slices on the bottom of a buttered gratin dish. Sprinkle over a layer of spinach. Break up the mackerel fillets roughly with your hands and place them in a layer over the top of the spinach. Season with salt and pepper and repeat, starting with another sweet potato layer.

Finish with a layer of potatoes on the top and pour over the infused liquid, minus the bay leaf and onion.

Sprinkle liberally with parmesan or the cheese of your choice and bake for about 1 hour.

Plucking hell, it’s an ‘een of evisceration

The greylag geese have been hanging in the container for a few days and are now ready to be dealt with.  Unfortunately, this coincided with the clocks changing at the weekend, meaning it was dark by the time we could get round to dealing with them.  Coupled with the wind and rain, the imperative to pluck the geese outside was not an option. So let the mess begin…..

Confining ourselves to a small room in the house, we don our waterproof clothing to stop feathers sticking to us (what a state). We began plucking the geese over black bags in the vain hope of containing the feathers and down.

There’s a lot of fuss if you do a web search on prepping geese. Suggestions include pluck them while they are still warm, dip them in  x, y and z to loosen the feathers, but really, if you are only doing a few whole geese a year, the job isn’t that onerous – it’s just fantastically messy. Proceed something like:

Start plucking the breast of the goose, pulling out the feathers and underlying down against the direction of growth. Take only a few feathers at a time or you risk tearing the skin.  This is particularly important where there are puncture wounds caused by shot as skin will tear away around the edge of the wound.

Continue plucking, removing all feathers on the body and up to the first wing joint.

Before completing the job, it will help to remove the wings.  Feel for the first joint along the wing and cut using shears.  It may help to expose the ball joint and cut the tendons and ligaments if your shears are not up to the job.

Blowtorch the body to singe off any remaining feather pins and down.

At this stage we had to have an interlude, not to prepare for what was to come but to watch the must-see for Halloween – Horror Europa with Mark Gatiss (the purveyor of horror documentaries of late) on BBC4. As one of our very favourite film genres, European Horror cinema at last gets the documentary treatment it deserves.

From early German expressionist origins, including the iconic Nosferatu to modern masterpieces such as Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone, the documentary  served to explain the evolution of the genre across time and place and included interviews with many of the most influential directors of the genre.  What a treat and no better preparation of real life evisceration that was to follow!

So, back to the geese.  I have opted to leave this section without photographs as it’s not pretty.

Cut the head/neck off a few cm above the body.

Make an incision around the duct, as small as possible, just enough to get your hand inside the body cavity. Remove all of the contents.  The intestines come away first (evisceration on Halloween – perfect), then the organs and you need to reach in as far as you can to get out the heart, lungs, trachea, oesophagus and crop.  Wash the insides of the geese thoroughly.  If geese have been shot and not reared and bled, there is a lot of congealed blood that requires considerable rinsing with cold water.

Also worth mentioning for any game birds shot that have been hanging for a while, the intestines almost putrefy, so best hope you have a cold, a strong breeze or disposition, preferably all three.

It may be a bit rank, but it’s worth it in the end.

Two geese bagged and in the freezer, just after the witching hour on All Hallows’ Eve. Done.

Recipe: Greylag Goose, apple and thyme sausages

Yes, it is tantalising, I go to all the effort of detailing goose prep and stick the birds in the freezer.  Hence, I will share my greylag goose sausage recipe.  The geese prepared above were this year’s birds.  Older birds can be tougher and roasting them whole may not bring out the best in them.  Also, because the open season can yield a lot of geese at once here (there are too many greylags eating crops and they need controlled!), occasionally we may be faced with a pile of old birds.  In this case,  rather than be wasteful, the breasts can be excised and will contribute to wonderful sausages.

Not everyone in the Hebrides agrees that greylags are palatable, but to me that is sacrilegious.  They are wonderful, edible beasts. I hope this sausage recipe will convert even the most dyed-in-the-wool goose critic. Greylag goose sausages are amoung the finest I have tasted.

Ingredients

1 kg greylag goose breast

200g pork fat

100g breadcrumbs or rusk

150ml water

2 apples, peeled, cored and grated

5g salt

5g pepper

handful of thyme sprigs, stripped

Method

Mince the breasts and fat.

Mix the dry ingredients together with the grated apple then add the water

Mix everything together in a big bowl with your hands until well combined.

Stuff into casings using a sausage attachment on a mincer (as I do) or attachment available for the job on a KitchenAid.

I only use natural sausage casings.  They are more delicate, but have a superior texture to collagen casings.  I prefer sheep to hog as they are smaller and not too overwhelming, particularly for game sausages, which I mostly make. I purchase these from the wonderful Weschenfelder website – a dangerous place to visit if sausage and salami making gets you excited! They also sell rusk and breadcrumbs if you do not make your own.

The sausages take a day or two to mature and can then be frozen. Enjoy!

Review: Artisan Roast – coffee paradise island in a sea of caffeine mediocrity

Artisan Roast, Broughton Street, Edinburgh 

One of the most challenging issues we face when leaving home for a trip is the wrench away from our beloved Izzo Alex Duetto II espresso machine. Discovering Artisan Roast has been delightful and is a great coffee comfort blanket for the wilderness days of enforced separation from our Izzo. Also with a cafe in Glasgow, we are secure in the knowledge that Artisan Roast will provide us with great coffee both east and west in central Scotland.

I need never endure the mass marketed non-taxpaying high street caffeine juggernauts with their multi-litre-buckets of insipid latte et al.  All this courtesy of the American model.  The words of Bill Hicks still resonate today; ‘Would you like 32 ounce or large?!’ I want to drink coffee, not drown in it.

The Artisan Roast cappuccino – archetypal coffee perfection

In both the Glasgow and Edinburgh Broughton Street shops, staff are eager to engage in discussions about coffee and genuinely care about the quality of each cup produced. Discussions have included helpful hints and tips from staff about pour to get the elusive foam emulsion that gives each cappuccino its distinctive mouthfeel. Artisan Roast master this in every cup and we have been fortunate to enhance our cappuccinos at home too, thanks to their advice.

There is usually a choice of single origin beans and a blend on offer, depending on what is currently in the grinder hoppers.  First I tried the blend, usually on offer for anyone coming in that asks for ‘a coffee’ – Janszoon espresso blend.  This contains Sumatran Mandeheling and Brazil Cooxupe. It offers a balanced, rich flavour, almost chocolatey.  The fruity element brought by the Brazilian beans only truly reveals itself in an espresso, as we found out when we took a pack of the beans home to try. This coffee is versatile and will stand up well whatever you cup of choice is, be it flat white or Americano.

I then had the Terrazu la Trinidad Costa Rican single origin bean in an espresso. This was described at breakfast in a cup, and it certainly lived up to the description, having a strong citrus tang and sweet edge.  This coffee, in my opinion, would not accommodate milk well but was a surprising, refreshing and distinctive espresso.

Chatting to the enthusiastic staff, we also discovered that Artisan Roast are developing their business and have employed baristas to push the quality of their roasts and blends to new levels.  A new website is being developed and this will include an online store.  An exciting prospect for me since I buy beans online.

Finally, we were offered an AeroPress coffee to try. One of the staff happened to be experimenting with the product. The AeroPress uses manual pressure to push finely ground coffee through a micro-filter, which is supposed to produce a smooth tasting coffee.  The coffee produced (on this occasion at least) had a delicate flavour and almost a tea-like quality.  This product may suit the home user who wants a quick and cheap solution to produce a quality cup of coffee.

AeroPress, picture courtesy of the AeroPress website