Slow Oxtail and Shin Stew with Polenta and Braised Red Cabbage

I have every intention of having a more healthy January, cutting out canapés until next year, climbing more mountains (one of my resolutions!) and eating more salads and vegetables. I couldn't face the thought of any more meat last week, and I'm fully engaged in experimenting with Chinese cookery with the help of Fushcia Dunlop, which, handily, is very vegetable focused. But sometimes you're just cold and tired and feeling a little bit frail, you need help, you need the comfort of a slow cooked rich warm stew. There is just no escaping it. This is my current favourite to help me along in times of need...

A lovely slow cooked stew using oxtail and beef shin, cheap cuts of meat that become sticky and melty after hours of cooking, shredded and pulled apart in a rich red wine sauce with buttery polenta and sweet sharp red cabbage. I think people are often nervous of unusual cuts in the butchers, knowing what exactly to ask for, prices per weight instead of per piece, worrying you're going to be handed far too much or far too little. I have started to be more adventurous, with both success and failure. I won't be cooking devilled kidneys again in a hurry, but oxtail and I are friends now and really enjoy hanging out together! 

 

These amounts will serve 2 generously. Chop 2 carrots, 2 sticks of celery and an onion, add to a pot, with some thyme, parsley and a bay leaf. I used a mix of oxtail and shin, you can use both or just one or the other; the ox tail adds a real stickyness to the stew but you don't get a huge amount of meat from it, what you do get is delicious, but I'd go for both. Use about 5 pieces of ox tail, approximately half a whole tail, then about 500g of beef shin. I got mine from the Grainger market and it was lovely looking meat, dark red and rich... Cut it into big chunks.

Add the meat to the pot with the vegetables and herbs along with a big piece of orange rind, then cover the whole lot with cold water and bring it to the boil. Don’t add any seasoning at this point as you reduce the sauce quite a lot later. For the first 5 minutes skim off any foam or brown scum from the surface, then leave to simmer for 3-4 hours, until the meat is melty and soft.

While that is simmering make the braised red cabbage. Shred quarter of a red cabbage finely, then add it to a pan with a diced cooking apple, and half a diced onion, about 250ml of cider, 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and 100g of brown sugar. Some orange zest and a teaspoon of allspice, 15g of butter and some salt and pepper. Then leave to simmer very gently with the lid on for an hour, taste to see if you want it sweeter, or with more vinegar after about 10 minutes when everybody in the pan has got to know each other.

 

When it is ready remove the meat from the pan and leave to cool. Leave a few bits in with the vegetable and you can have this for lunch the next day, it makes a lovely beef broth, with a bit of seasoning and a little bit of meat shredded into the stock. When the meat has cooled enough to touch pull the oxtail off the bone and put apart the large chunks of shin. 

Ladle about 4 ladles of stock into another pan, and add ¼ bottle of red wine, then boil to reduce until you have a thicker sauce, then add the meat back into the sauce. You can add some wild mushrooms at this point also, I've soaked dried ones and stirred them into the sauce on one occasion, delicious. Serve with buttery polenta and braised red cabbage.

The meat is rich and soft in its red wine sauce, with the buttery warm soft polenta and sharp sweet red cabbage it is a match made in heaven.. It'll warm you up a treat over winter and into miserable January...

Roast Red-Legged Partridge with Grapes and Chestnuts

It has been an arty week, a busy North East arty week. Hoult's Yard last Thursday to see their new show, including Amy Dover's work which I love. Lazarides on Friday night to see their latest show by Pete Hawkins which I also loved. And on Monday night the Turner Prize announcement at The Baltic, which I was very over excited to be invited to, but may have got a bit carried away with the free bar... I didn't see the streaker in the pink tutu, but did manage to eat a ridiculous amount of canapés, glean where the after after party was and actually manage to get in... but unfortunately don't really remember making my way home... Although it's not every day the Turner Prize comes to town is it...

In between all of this I managed to cook some partridge for myself and The Little Idiot. It was probably a silly idea as we were late in from the show at Hoult's Yard, and the recipe is pretty complicated including sieving sauces and the like, but I persevered and we sat down to dine at 11pm... It was totally delicious though and very much worth the effort. The recipe is from The Observer Christmas food magazine that came out a few weeks ago. There is a section on Italian Christmas food which all sounds delicious. I had two partridge in the freezer that I had plucked a few weeks ago, so we were all set...

Be warned this is serious cooking, I probably should have read the recipe properly before I began. For all my cooking, I'm terrible at skim reading recipes and not getting the gist of them before I start... For these little partridge you start with the sauce and these amounts will serve 2 people.

Heat a pan to a high heat and add 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil, when the oil is hot add about 200g of cooked chicken chopped into pieces. It's a good use for leftovers, and the sauce can be frozen for use another time. You can use any meat also, partridge, lamb, pork, veal, beef, duck, venison or pigeon. Leave the meat to roast on a high heat for 2-3 minutes without touching it until they start to turn golden, then turn them and continue until they are caramelised all over, about 5-10 minutes. Then add one diced carrot, a crushed clove of garlic, a sprig of rosemary and a bay leaf. Roast for another 2-3 minutes, then add a diced shallot and roast for another couple of minutes.

Turn the heat down a little at this stage and add 20g of butter, letting it melt and foam, but careful not to burn it. Then add 125ml of white wine and let it reduce a little so some of the alcohol burns off. Add a teaspoon of flour and a tablespoon of tomato paste and turn the heat up again, cook for a minute and then add 750ml of chicken stock. I had to use stock cubes as my freezer was bare of home-made stock, which would have been much nicer. Stir and scrap up anything sticking to the bottom of the pan and bring the sauce to the boil, then simmer for about half an hour. After half an hour put everything through a sieve and then reduce to a saucy consistency...

I kept the chicken and carroty mush from the sieve and made little patties with a bit of leftover mash and cabbage the next day... It seemed too tasty to throw away.

Next for the partridge. Place a clove of garlic and a sprig of rosemary inside each of them, use one bird per person, wrap them in pancetta and tie them up with string so the legs are tied together. Heat a pan big enough to hold them both, add some oil and then brown them 4 minutes on one leg side, 4 minutes on the other leg side and then 4 minutes on their breast. Finally stand them up on end for one minute and then turn the heat off and leave them to sit on their backs for 5 minutes.

The recipe I followed roasted their own chestnuts, but the vacuum packed ones are just too easy so I used half a packet of them and heated them through in a pan with a splash of water and a knob of butter. They also used swiss chard, but as I couldn't get any I just blanched some shredded cabbage.

Put the partridges in a medium oven for 4 minutes while you heat up the sauce. Add a handful of halved white grapes to the sauce. Pile the chard or cabbage on your plate, sprinkle the chestnuts around, place the partridge on top, free of it's string and then spoon over the sauce.

It is a lot of effort in truth, but really delicious. I've decided partridge is my favourite of the game birds after this, and the flavour of it goes perfectly with the rich meaty, tomatoy sauce. The fresh, clean addition of grapes and a buttery chestnut made this a pretty tasty late night dining experience...

Roast Duck with Chestnut, Chorizo and Cabbage

Autumn food.... Duck, chestnuts, pumpkins, squashes, mushrooms, apples, venison... Everything... its all so very tasty and warming, leaps and bounds better than any other season... I just love it, and aim to do as much cooking as possible while it lasts. There is a lot to try out... Pickling, terrines, confit, stews, sauces, pies... I'm laughing a bit at the thought of it all!

The shooting season has started so it is relatively easy to get hold of wild feathered game; these mallards were the first of the season for me, followed closely by four little partridge which are currently hanging in the porch, their fate yet to be decided... Mr. Hedworth is a good shot and generous too...

Thus a lovely way to spend a Friday night last week was with some roast duck, some lovely fresh new potatoes from my aunts garden, some soft sticky chestnuts and chorizo, a little bit of red wine and the fire on. Did I say that I loved Autumn... You need a really hot oven, about 230°C, so put it on before you begin anything else. Pop a tablespoon of herby butter and half and onion inside each duck. I made my herby butter with some salted butter, chopped sage and thyme, a few crushed juniper berries and some salt and pepper, all mashed together. Settle the ducks in a roasting tin and smear their skin with some more butter, ready to go in the oven.

Begin the chestnut, chorizo and cabbage with a chopped onion, soften it on a low heat with a pinch of salt, for about 10 minutes. Next add a diced carrot, a diced stick of celery, 2 bay leaves and some sprigs of thyme and continue to soften for another ten minutes. After about 5 minutes add a finely chopped clove of garlic. The mix should start to become soft and sticky and caramelly.

At this point you can put the duck in the oven, it needs to roast for 20 minutes, this will give you a  rare bird, depending on its size. You shouldn't cook anything for more than about 30 minutes however or it will just be dry. Keep an eye on it and after about 5 minutes add the juice of half an orange and the same amount of red wine. Continue to baste the bird with the buttery juices every so often as it cooks.

Dice about 100g of chorizo, and about 100g of chestnuts, from a tin or vacuum packed, and add these to the carrot and onion mix and leave to cook for another 5 minutes. Finally add about a quarter of a savoy cabbage finely shredded, turn it into the mixture and continue to cook on a low heat, with a lid on, until the duck is ready. Check it after 5 minutes as it may need a splash of water to loosen it up a bit, I used a few tablespoons from the new potatoes...

When your duck is ready take it out and rest it covered in foil for a good 5 minutes. Finally carve and serve with some new potatoes and a big spoonful of chestnut, chorizo and cabbage.

Wild duck is far less fatty than those you buy in the supermarket and has a deep rich gamey flavour, this one was quite rare and was beautifully soft and pink. It is perfect with the chestnut, chorizo and cabbage, which is sweet, sticky and delicious...

As I cooked two birds we did continue to eat duck for about four days, mixed through some red wine lentils it was delicious, in a little sandwich with bread sauce and leaves it was pretty good too... I even managed to boil up the carcasses to make some duck stock, which I imagine will make a pretty good base for some sort of game pie...

Chou Farci or Stuffed Cabbage

Inspired by TLI's little jaunt to Paris last week we began to flick through Elizabeth David at the weekend. He has been making me jealous with tales of dauphinoise potatoes, veal, red wine in the Marais, little lunchtime back street restaurants where they only serve a few dishes but everything is delicious... One such dish was a Chou Farci, a French stuffed cabbage dish. Be warned it isn't that pretty... Before we cooked it it looked like an alien's brain, or a weird dishevelled cabbage chicken... But once sliced up it was a bit more rustic looking and incredibly tasty. I imagine a bowl of it in the countryside with some crusty bread to mop up the delicious juice and a glass of good red wine. Rustic is definitely the word for it. Next time I will try and make smaller individual parcels per person that may look prettier than a large cabbage brain.

So we set off for the Grainger Market and returned with spring peas and baby turnips and lots of bits of pig. Mince, chops and a trotter to be precise, and some chicken livers just to up the meat quota a bit more...

This recipe is loosely based around Elizabeth's Chou Farci a la Mode de Grasse, a speciality of the town of Grasse in south east France, she actually has a whole chapter of stuffed cabbage recipes, this borrows a little from the others as well. These amounts could easily serve 6, we will be eating it all week... The concept is to separate the cabbage leaves out and then layer them back up with the meat mixture between each to reform a cabbage shape, tie it up and cook...

Firstly I set about shelling the huge bag of peas, you will need about 225g. At the same time blanch a white cabbage in a pan of boiling water for 5 minutes to loosen its leaves, drain and leave to cool when the time is up. When it is cool enough to handle peel away the leaves individually and leave to dry. I only got about half way into the cabbage before it was no longer blanched enough to continue, it was not a problem as there was too much food as it was... Put the peas in a large bowl, add a finely chopped leek, the finely chopped heart of a lettuce and 30g of uncooked white rice.

Now for the meat. Add the meat of 4 pork sausages, 4 slices of bacon finely chopped, one pork chop finely chopped and 3 or 4 chicken livers also chopped. Mix all of the meat with the pea mixture, add an egg yolk, and season with salt, pepper, mace, nutmeg, a crushed clove of garlic and some chopped rosemary and thyme. Then spread a layer onto each of the cabbage leaves.

Now you need to layer up the leaves one on top of the other, until they are all used up, finally rolling them round to reform a cabbage shaped ball... I freaked out a bit at this stage and am not at all sure I did it correctly. I will definitely make smaller individual parcels next time, I think it will be much easier, less stressful and prettier. Then you need to tie the whole thing up with string. Voila...

Line the bottom of a large casserole dish with squares of bacon and add 3 or 4 chopped baby turnips and 3 chopped carrots, the pigs trotter and a herb bundle of thyme, parsley, rosemary and a bay leaf. Put the cabbage into the centre of the pan and pour over a tumbler of chicken stock and a glass of white wine. Cook in a low oven, about 160°C for 2 to 3 hours.

It may be an ugly little rustic dish but it is definitely full of flavour. Serve in a bowl, with a big ladle of the gravy and the turnips and carrots. I will definitely be continuing my exploration of the Chou Farci, especially into autumn as I have already book marked a version with chestnuts, smoked sausage and partridge...

Salmis of pheasant with truffle

I think my neighbours and postman might think I'm slightly strange over autumn when the porch is often decorated with hanging duck, pheasant, partridge and on one occasion a brace of woodcock. I am lucky enough to be given occasional game over the shooting season. It needs to hang for a week or so depending on the temperature, and also needs plucking, which I am getting better at. It is time consuming and messy, but it is lovely to have interesting, local food that you definitely couldn’t pick up in the supermarket.

This was the last pheasant in the freezer and so it deserved a fitting end I felt. The Little Idiot gave me a book called 'The French Menu' for Christmas. It was written in 1970 by Richard Olney from his little house in the hills of Provence. It is divided into menus according to the seasons, menus that have eight courses in some instances, and are really interesting. This is from the section called 'Two Formal Autumn Dinners'. It is not Autumn nor a formal dinner, but never mind that there was still a pheasant to eat...

It is a pretty serious recipe, serious cooking... but I like a challenge and so decided to give it a go. A Salmis, by definition, is a French dish most often game, roasted, sliced then reheated in sauce. For interest if I had cooked the whole menu that Olney advises we would have been having Sorrel Soup, followed by Fritto Misto, then the Salmis of Pheasant, a Wild Mushroom a la Bordelaise, a Rocket Salad with Nasturtium Flowers, Cheeses and finally Orange Jelly. I honestly think that would take about three days of solid cooking, but it sounds amazing...

Start with the veloute, a traditional French sauce. Melt 1 tbsp of salted butter in a heavy saucepan. Be warned at this stage you will use every pan in the house for this, and more... Add 1 tbsp of plain flour to the melted butter and cook it gently, stirring regularly. Take it off the heat and start to add 480ml of stock very slowly. I used the stock I'd poached the chicken in for the Chicken, bacon and caper pie, which is quite organised for me, it was even labelled in the freezer...

Stir the whole time as you slowly add the stock, to stop it from lumping. Then simmer it over a low heat for about half an hour. Skim the top of it now and again if it starts to form an oily top. At the same time boil 240ml of dry white wine with a tablespoon of chopped shallots and five crushed white peppercorns. Boil it down on a high heat until there are only a few spoonfuls of liquid left.

At this point you need a truffle. They are generally expensive and difficult to get in your average supermarket. I had brought one home for TLI as a present from a holiday in Mallorca. It didn't cost a lot and I got it in the airport. I should have perhaps put two and two together at that point... We have been looking forward to it since then but hadn’t had a recipe worthy of it until now.

Open the truffle and add its preserving juice to the veloute. It was at this point that I realised that our truffle tasted of absolutely nothing... I'm not sure if it was left for too long or if it never tasted of anything in the first place, or if it indeed was actually a truffle? Nothing to do but carry on however. I improvised by slicing up the non truffle and dousing it in truffle oil until it was needed...

Sprinkle the pheasant with salt inside and out, wrap it in streaky bacon and tie it up with string to keep it all together. Roast it in a very hot oven for 25 minutes in a pan that is a snug fit. When you take it out keep all the juices in the pan for the next stage. Cut away the bacon and discard, you will see that it has kept the pheasant nice and juicy inside.

Next you need to joint the pheasant into pieces. Cut off each of the legs with a sharp knife, remove any skin and keep it separately, also keep any scraps of meat or bone. Cut the body of the pheasant into two pieces down the middle of the breast bone. Take the breast bone out, and cut each half into two length ways, remove all skin. Tidy up all of the pheasant pieces and put them into a serving dish that can go into a low oven to keep warm. Before you put them in slice the truffle over the top and grind some black pepper over. Also sprinkle over a tablespoon of cognac that you have set on fire to get rid of the alcohol. Cover this all with foil and put it into the warm oven.

Next you need to finish the sauce. Pour the fat off the top of the juices from the roasted pheasant dish. Put what is left on a high heat and add a couple of tablespoons of white white, stir it and scrape up all the bits from the pan. Chop up all the skin and scraps from the jointed pheasant and pound any bits of bone in a pestle and mortar. Add this and the roasting juices to the veloute and boil everything for 8 to 10 minutes. Pass it all through a sieve, pressing the meat and bone firmly to get all the juices through. Bring the sieved sauce back to a boil and simmer for another ten minutes with the heat on one side of the saucepan, it needs to reduce by about one third. This is much more serious cooking than I usually take on, I found the sauce quite daunting.

Finally pass through a fine sieve again, reheat, check for seasoning and swirl in 2 tbsp of unsalted butter cut into small pieces. Pour the sauce over the warm pheasant and serve straight away.

I served it with some black pudding, made by Stewart and co. in Jesmond, that was cooked in a frying pan for 5 minutes, removed and some spring cabbage wilted in the same pan. Add the black pudding back in and pour over a whisked dressing of Dijon mustard, white wine vinegar, olive oil, crème fraiche and parsley...

It is quite time consuming and a bit exhausting but extremely tasty. I'd love to try it with a real truffle one day but will probably have to wait until next autumn and when I win the lottery...