I got the hairy bikers book of pies in my stocking, wanna swap.

Try their chicken & mushroom pie recipe - quite excellent.

I already have that one - sorry.



It's not bad at all either. Loved the meat and potato pie.

Well, that was a disaster. So I'll just try something else tonight.

Made a pizza last night and I've now come to the conclusion that it just ain't worth using decent buffalo milk mozarella. There's simply far too much liquid to be of any use as a pizza topping, even after leaving it to drain for about 30 minutes. It's great in salads but after making the base, heating up a pizza stone and ending up with something that is anything but thin & crispy, I'll be sticking to the cheap stuff in future.

A completely correct discovery, when it comes to pizza and mozarella, the cheaper the better.

For anyone contemplating a diet in 2012, why not give the [url=http://1940sexperiment.wordpress.com/100-wartime-recipes/wartime diet[/url a try?

Dieting, new year resolutions etc – the new puritanism. Bah, humbug and all that.

In the meantime, I have a few more bits to put together for tomorrow's dessert – and then it's easy street for the rest of the day. I picked up a pheasant yesterday – already stuffed with plum and ginger, and covered in streaky bacon, so that'll be a doddle. Just going to do some puréed parsnip and some sprouts, à la Robuchon. Might make something for afters.

And the cocktail shaker – which was bought years ago, used for one festive season and has been gathering dust – has been fished out and given a very thorough wash, ready for tonight.

Some good old recipies in there.


Mock Crab is something i make from time to time, childhood memories are starnge things, its very nice but not quite what i remember.

How strange is starnge?

I found that site when I was searching out a recipe for "school dinners salad cream"

For a couple of years we have been getting our meat from the local butchers. Having seen their offer for their Christmas Special Hamper it seemed too good to turn down:

5lb Boneless Turkey.
2lb Topside Joint (Beef).
2lb Pork Joint.
2lb Gammon Joint.
2lb Pork Steak.
2lb Sausage.
24 Pigs in Blankets.
2lb Bacon.
1lb Sausage Meat.

£59

Tremendous value, and top quality meat too. (had the topside beef today and not an ounce of fat on it). Would never venture back to a supermarket for meat these days, stick with the butchers from now on!

That is not a good thing, you need fat for flavour and succulence.

That being the case, then Asda must have the most flavoursome and succulant meat in the country.

For beef, the fat should be marbled through the joint, not a great big lump on one side.
Once the joint is cooked, the fat will not be noticeable (to the eye) but the flavour will (to the tongue).

Maybe your beef joint was marbled?

A bit on the top ain't bad either.

Is there anything sweeter than air-light, crispy lamb fat?

But one could add chicken to the same equation. People appear to obsess about buying breast only when they buy portions – it's by and large flavourless (although less so on a really good bird), so it's no wonder that it simply demands being swamped in some sort of sauce.

[iAnd[/i it's more expensive than thighs. And what's the difference? Bone and a bit of fat.

Mind, apparently farmers have been breeding pigs to have less fat. So in other words, to have less flavour. Because people are terrified of natural fats.

Yeah, but beef (and it was beef I was talking about) can be very dry, the marbling helps to keep it juicy.



Nope.
I love it.
I even love the non-crispy type too, like in shoulder of lamb.
Mmmm I'm hungry now.


Yup.
I actually prefer thigh for flavour.


Yes, but the backlash has been ongoing for some time too, and more people are demanding fat again.

But yes, in general, it's strange ... "we" eat too much meat anyway but are terrified of fat.
It's barmy.

Oh absolutely.









Me too.



Yup. Bonkers. I do think it's particularly natural fats though – lard has been demonised over the years, for instance, but people apparently lap up artificial fats such as marg. They happen to cost more, of course, and there are still issues hanging over the processes by which naturally liquid fats are turned into solid ones (to start with), but these are, generally speaking, considered as healthier than lard and dripping and butter. Which also forgets that those are brilliant for cooking with – the first two not least because they do not burn.

If you like lamb fat, quick roast a couple of lamb breasts (the cheapest of cuts).

Don't bother faffing around with boning and rolling them. Just trim off the excess fat, season and stuff 'em in the oven, laid flat. Then cut them up as you would with any other rib joints.

As for topside of beef, I'd probably choose to brine it and cook salt-beef

I'd disagree with that actually, I find turkey to be flavourless but not so chicken although there is a vast difference between the chicken breasts that you buy in a frozen pack in the likes of Iceland and a fresh chicken breast even when bought in a supermarket - by far the best and most tasty were the chicken sandwiches that the butcher local to my old office used to produce every lunchtime and they were just taken from the breast meat (he sold the other bits separately).

I actually enjoy chicken above all other meats now, had a gorgeous chicken, leek, mushroom and potato creamy sauce pie (Hairy Bikers recipe) yesterday - could eat it all over again tonight

you may be interested to look through this site, it is all about fat. I can certainly recommend the lardo.

[urlhttp://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2009/11/food-lardo-real-thing.html[/url

Nice one – thank you.

To all – have you seen [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fat-Appreciation-Misunderstood-Ingredient-Recipes/dp/190641727X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325610703&sr=1-1[iFat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient with Recipes[/i by Jennifer McLagan[/url?

She's a chef – but she also goes into some history, some chemistry and some biology. Even setting aside some very nice recipes (salted butter caramel tart, anyone?) it's a very strong argument and, I think, a quite important book.

The most expensive sandwich I ever ate was a salt-beef sandwich at Selfridges' Oxford Street branch, in the 1990's.
Very expensive but by 'eck it were tasty.

Still in London but going back even further, to the early 1970's, around what is now called Fitzrovia, especially along Goodge Street, you could get decent salt-beef on what seemed like every street corner and even up to the mid-90's you could still call at Bloom's on Whitechapel High Street and get a lavverly salt-beef sandwich, even though Brick Lane had already become BanglaTown ... as I recall from my days as an East End boy.
Blooms still exists, but in Golders Green (what a cliche !), in fact I think they had that shop before they shut down the Whitechapel shop.


But you don't see salt-beef much now, a real shame because it's delicious.

EDIT - Just remembered, you can get a very nice salt-beef bagel at the Brick lane Bagel Shop, or at least you could when last I was in the area, and it's open all night too ... or at least (usual disclaimer etc) ..

Oh god - don't get me started on Blooms! What an experience - and ta was well before my foodie days!

It's all flooding back now "a la recherche de temps perdu" and all that.
For madeleine, read salt-beef.

Walking along Goodge St, away from Tottenham Court Rd (on the corner of which was a Golden Egg cafe, remember them?), about four shops further along on the opposite side was a sandwich shop where I bought my first ever kebab in my first ever pitta.
They called it a "kebab sandwich" which, of course, it was.
I thought it was amazing you could get something so exotic for 30p.

They sold salt-beef as well.

1971 that was.
Blimey.

McF should be able to tell us whether you can still get salt-beef in Moortown, Leeds?
You could when I lived in Roundhay in the mid-70's.

OK, apologies ...nostalgia trip now ends.