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Mediterranean Stuffed Lamb Breast – from Gordon Ramsay

Mediterranean Stuffed Lamb Breast – from Gordon Ramsay

Time to get my personal prejudices on the table – I have never enjoyed watching Gordon Ramsay on the television – but I really do like some of his recipes!  There you are – all out in the open!  This recipe is a perfect example!…

Pork cheeks braised in sherry

Pork cheeks braised in sherry

A recent raid on our freezer turned up a 1Kg pack of pig cheeks that we had completely forgotten about.  Well time to correct this omission immediately!  I really think that pig cheeks are an overlooked resource so often just turned into pork mince.  They…

Pulled Goat Kid with sticky onions & Pomegranate glaze – Coronation Goat!

Pulled Goat Kid with sticky onions & Pomegranate glaze – Coronation Goat!

We took quite a little time to decide what to cook on the day of the Coronation of King Charles III.   Coronation Chicken entered the catering lexicon 70 years previously at the Coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953.  I suspect that our Coronation Goat…

Ragù di Osso di Capretto (Kid Goat Bone Ragù)

Ragù di Osso di Capretto (Kid Goat Bone Ragù)

It We need to start with two small confessions.  Firstly, we have not found an authentic Italian recipe for this dish (yet)! And secondly, we have taken longer to name the dish than it did to cook and eat it!!  Lets start with how we…

Venison and Vegetable Bourguignon

Venison and Vegetable Bourguignon

There are no authentic ‘Venison Bourguignon’ recipes in the same way as there are no authentic  ‘Vegetable Bourguignon’.  In food terms Bourguignon is a classic beef dish.  That has not stopped us playing with ideas for a similar tasting, but vegetarian dish.  We first published…

Coda alla vaccinara – Braised Oxtail Ragù

Coda alla vaccinara – Braised Oxtail Ragù

This quintessential Roman dish is a perfect example of Roman food history.  This particular recipe dates from 1887 and is an iconic dish, but one probably few people know about, and certainly very few outside Italy.  In Rome, until late in the 20th century, prestigious cuts…

Slow Roast Leg of Lamb – from Marcus Wareing

Slow Roast Leg of Lamb – from Marcus Wareing

We have quite a number of successful ways of cooking lamb leg.  Our regular ‘go to’;  Greek lamb and roast potatoes  – is a particular favourite, but this Easter we wanted to try something slightly different.  We had came across a recipe from the delightful…

Beef Shin Ragù with red wine

Beef Shin Ragù with red wine

We are continuing to plan our way through the diversity and breadth of the history of ragù in Italy.  Some time ago we published our first ragù recipe from that master of Italian food;  Theo Randall (you can find that recipe here) – if you…

Braised Lamb Neck and Chickpea Ragù

Braised Lamb Neck and Chickpea Ragù

This dish is based on a dish from Angela Hartnett and Cafe Murano.  The original meal was described as “slowly braised lamb neck served with a light chickpea ragù.  The vegetables from the lamb braising liquor adding to the richness of the base of the…

Vegetable Bourguignon – revisited

Vegetable Bourguignon – revisited

We first published this recipe about 18 months ago – you can find it here.  Since then we have regularly dipped in to this dish.  In so many ways I am always surprised when eating it that there is no meat!!!  It certainly doesn’t feel…

Sicilian lamb and mushroom ragù: with a twist

Sicilian lamb and mushroom ragù: with a twist

The more we look at some of the worlds great foods the more we are finding that so many have been born out of poverty, food shortage and simply the need to survive the perils of winter, looking forward to a new spring.  So we…

Slow cooked crispy crackling belly pork & other friends!

Slow cooked crispy crackling belly pork & other friends!

The first thing we bought from our local butcher after the first batch of pandemic ‘lockdowns’ was a good piece of belly pork.  This is something we have never really managed to find in our supermarket deliveries as they are just too thin and lean!…

Wagyu Ragù:- crazy title – great dish!

Wagyu Ragù:- crazy title – great dish!

We have cooked so much ragù on the Big Green Egg but written very little about it.  This is just because I have been overwhelmed by the diversity and breadth of the history of ragù in Italy.  So where do you start?  Well we are…

Pollo alla Cacciatora, Chicken Cacciatora or Hunter’s chicken

Pollo alla Cacciatora, Chicken Cacciatora or Hunter’s chicken

What is in a name? I often think it funny how we accept both the name of dishes and their presentation as though they are ‘original dishes’. I mean original in the sense of – always made this way.  In reality the dishes we have…

Chilli Mole – A superb plant centric version of a classic chilli

Chilli Mole – A superb plant centric version of a classic chilli

This cook is based on a recipe from Boxxfresh, a UK company supplying really great fresh fruit and vegetables. They described Mole (pronounced ‘mo-lay’) as the ‘quintessential chilli sauce native to Mexico’. It apparently literally means ’everyday sauce’!   As such it is ladled over nachos, tacos, enchiladas, burritos or…

Vegetable Bourguignon – sounds ridiculous but it is great!!

Vegetable Bourguignon – sounds ridiculous but it is great!!

Our youngest daughter has been a French citizen for more than 20 years and when I said I was going to cook a vegetable Bourguignon her reply showed the initial contempt one might expect from a French woman!  The term for the brilliant

Piperade – a Basque dish that has so many uses!!

Piperade – a Basque dish that has so many uses!!

We have probably done a greater variety of cooking this year as we have largely been confined to home during the Covid pandemic in 2020.   I have intended to use the time to do more writing for the site – but in the end…

Aubergine Parmigiana revisited – our definitive version!

Aubergine Parmigiana revisited – our definitive version!

We have written before about the glorious ‘Melanzane alla parmigiana’ We first came across it in Italy in the summer of 2017 when travelling through the Dolomites in Northern Italy.  Taste wise it was a plant based dish that absolutely took my breath away ………..…

Haggis stuffed Red Deer Haunch

Haggis stuffed Red Deer Haunch

This is a very simple reinterpretation of our earlier recipe for haunch of venison – available here. The haunch is the top of the hind leg running into the rump.  We were fortunate to be given the meat by friends who don’t enjoy venison!!  The…

It is more economical to buy the whole chicken – Chicken Shawarma

It is more economical to buy the whole chicken – Chicken Shawarma

In this current health crisis we have been trying to make better use of our food and make fewer calls on our food suppliers.  One area that this has worked well with is chicken.  So often an ‘also ran’ meat – but from well reared…

Smoked Mackerel Dauphinois reinvented!

Smoked Mackerel Dauphinois reinvented!

Just after we thought we had perfected the smoked mackerel dauphinois dish we decided to try yet another different potato!  Classically, dauphinois potatoes is made using a floury potato – but we had found the waxy potato Linda 1974 made a great tasting dish –…

Smoked Mackerel Dauphinoise Potatoes

Smoked Mackerel Dauphinoise Potatoes

The 2020 health crisis has given us time to think as well as having frightening implications on our lives.  In that thinking time we have been reconsidering amongst other things what we eat and how we prepare it.  We are trying to reduce our food…

Roast Chicken Breast and Stuffed Drumsticks

Roast Chicken Breast and Stuffed Drumsticks

We This is a short followup on the recipe for Roast Chicken Breast and Mushroom Stuffed Wings (here).  We had divided a large chicken as there are just 2 of us and we are trying to make our food go a little further to reduce the…

Smoked sea trout and seafood pâté

Smoked sea trout and seafood pâté

This recipe is based on an idea for a seafood pâté that we first saw on Jamie Oliver Christmas Cooking programme in 2019. It is a very simple recipe. It can be made from ingredients normally easily available in your local supermarket but we had…

Lamb Shawarma

Lamb Shawarma

This was a dish we cooked before the Covid-19 crisis hit Europe – and it is a reminder of those ‘heady days’ when we could just go out to buy meat, herbs or spices rather than having to think of the social consequences of doing…

Eating Well and Eating Seasonally – #EatWellEatSeasonally

Eating Well and Eating Seasonally – #EatWellEatSeasonally

We have been working with the idea of cooking with seasonal products as much as we can over the last year.  This is hardly a new concept, and indeed historically it was the only way to eat. This habit has changed with better forms of…

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

We had called into Charlotte’s Butchery to pick up some minced pork for some autumn sausage making.  One of the real joys of Charlotte’s is that in addition to fabulously consistent meat, the meat display often has something unusual to tempt you away from your…

Venison, Chestnut and Porcini Casserole

Venison, Chestnut and Porcini Casserole

Venison is such a lovely meat to casserole on the Big Green Egg.  The EGG seems to overcome that one problem you can have with venison – its tendency to dry out.  To be able to combine this with a seasonal ‘bounty crop’ was just…

Sautéed Potatoes with Onion, Garlic Rosemary and Peas

Sautéed Potatoes with Onion, Garlic Rosemary and Peas

Sometimes it is the simplest of dishes that give the most satisfaction.  This is very much one of those dishes!  It is hard to better simple roast potatoes – but this is a dish that does that!.  Indeed it would be a lovely simple supper…

Slow roasted caramelised fennel – latest reflections

Slow roasted caramelised fennel – latest reflections

We have returned to this dish so often – in so many ways it has been the ‘go to’ dish of the summer!  It has also been popular with friends who have adopted the dish and have added it to their own regular cooking repertoire.…



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