casserole

North African slow-cooked lamb shanks

October 5, 2009 Food & drink

I’ve had some success in the past with tagines of lamb or mutton, flavoured with the mysterious North African spice blend, ras-el-hanout. The tagine is suited well to this time of year, when long, slow cooking suddenly seems appropriate again. Ras-el-hanout is the garam masala of the North African and Middle Eastern world, a combination [...]

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Keith Floyd’s Beef Bourgignon

September 29, 2009 Food & drink

The passing of Keith Floyd earlier this month caused me to dig out one of his old cookbooks, Floyd on France, a cornerstone of the Floyd canon and packed full of traditional French recipes described and executed with typical flair. Beef Bourgignon, caught my eye. It is, as Floyd puts it ‘a splendid stew (that) [...]

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Yorkshire puddings

March 8, 2009 Food & drink

Yorkshire puddings are a northern classic, famous the world over, but they taste best when made in Yorkshire. Everybody has their own way of making Yorkshire puddings – nobody’s right or wrong. Here’s my version.

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Pollo Alla Cacciatora, or Italian Chicken Stew with Chianti

March 2, 2009 Food & drink

Chicken cacciatora is a simple dish that yields impressive results. The preparation of this dish takes minutes, but the magic happens over hours as the chicken marinates in wine, before bubbling away in a low oven. The end result is tender chicken in a deep and savoury sauce rich with wine and tomato. Authentic, rustic [...]

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A completely unseasonal dinner

August 19, 2008 Food & drink

It’s the middle of August, and it hasn’t stopped raining for weeks. No roofer will come near my leaking skylight. Against this backdrop, a dinner of brisket and root vegetables doesn’t seem too out-of-place, so I threw together a mediocre piece of brisket from the forgotten depths of the freezer with carrots, onions and mushrooms [...]