Hot smoked

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.…

Having been pleased at the outcome of our fried and grilled calves liver recipe, I wanted to go back and try the more conventional approach.  We had reverted to grilling the meat after initial frying as the temperature of our plancha/pan had really not been hot…

When we were in Italy we were very fortunate to be given some Mazze di Tamburo (Parasol mushrooms).  These were found in the local chestnut groves and although we had seen them growing, our knowledge of wild mushrooms is such that unless we are with…

We were in holiday in Tuscany in the late summer and early autumn in 2019.  This is later in the year than we had normally gone and it certainly felt different.  Gone was the searing summer heat and in this agricultural part of Italy everything…

This is a liver dish that you may well enjoy even if you don’t like liver!  Better still it is one of those perfect dishes that comes about when something didn’t go according to plan in the cooking.  Here it was the ‘rescue’ that made…

We have been playing around with a few meat free dishes, such as our slow roasted caramelised fennel dish and our roasted cauliflower with truffle oil and toasted flax seeds.  But although we like vegetarian food our experience is limited.  Finding the book “Charred” by Genevieve…

It is 2 years now since we did the Sea Bream and Sea Bass cook when on holiday in Italy.  I remember it as a delightful evening as we sat out overlooking the local valley with a herby smoky aroma wafting towards us as we…

It was lovely to be able to roast 2 beautiful slow grown chicken breasts – butchered as supremes, with the first part of the wing bone and the skin included.  Even better when roasted on a bed of rosemary with just a hint of wood…

We were very lucky to be able to go back to the restaurant La Scottiglia in Pescina near Seggiano in Tuscany.  Last year, 2018, we wrote about the wonderful dish La Scottiglia that the restaurant has been named after since 1972.  This year we arrived…

In the UK if you refer to smoked salmon, then we are usually talking about ‘cold smoked’ salmon.  This is very much the traditional way of smoking salmon – and is often referred to as the ‘Scottish or Nordic method’ in countries where ‘hot smoking’…

Whilst chicken can be bland it really doesn’t need to be!  This is a really simple recipe and almost a one pan dish too.  We had taken 2 chicken breasts from a large free range organic chicken.  The skin was left on the chicken and…

We are very fortunate in having friends who have access to wild venison but don’t like it!  This means that we are sometimes recipients of generous pieces to cook.  On this occasion it was a

We seem to have had a spate of ridiculously cheap pork on offer at our local supermarket recently.  We buy most of our meat from one of a couple of very fine butchers we have locally.  Nevertheless, even when you are not looking to buy…

Dirty cooking?  Cooking the food you are about to eat directly onto the burning charcoal. It gets a whole series of names too: Dirty, Caveman, Cowboy. I have to say I have always been rather sceptical about the idea of this form of cooking.   Perhaps…

We were given a venison joint by a good friend!  The details of the beast from which it came were a little unclear – the cut was in doubt too (but probably boned leg)!  It was thought to be Roe Deer but we did not…

Slow cooked belly pork is a real joy!  But is has become difficult to find good “fatty’ belly pork to allow the release of that beautiful ‘porky goodness’.  Understandably there has been a trend to produce less fatty pork for health reasons – and the…

For some years now we have visited a delightful restaurant in Tuscany called La Scottiglia in the village of Pescina on the side on Monte Amiata.  We have always been looked after exceedingly well there and it is a place we frequently recommend. They do…

The idea of Greek lamb and roast potatoes takes me back to Athens in 2004 when we were invited to a friend’s wedding there.  Michalis was working on his PhD with me in the UK and very kindly invited Jackie and I to his wedding…

We had very much enjoyed the Osso-Bucco we made on the Big Green Egg last year (see here) so when we came across some Red Deer shin cut in the same way as veal for Osso-Bucco it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.  The…

The simple answer is of course once it is cooked it is then referred to as a “Ham”.  What ever we call them this is a delicious  way of eating pork and in the UK is always associated with the Christmas period – but it…

We had planned to make a very rich casserole using some cubed shoulder of wild venison that we had picked up just before Christmas.  With all the festive excitement it had been popped in the freezer.  Once defrosted I was a little disappointed to see…

Having finally come to the conclusion what we were going to include in the Christmas Terrine it was time to put it all together!!  The one thing we have learned this year making terrines is that

We had fun making terrines on the Big Green Egg over the summer when on holiday in Tuscany.  So now it was time to put some of that experience together as we get ready for Christmas.  

This is really a footnote to the recipe “Slow cooked rabbit with boozy apricots”.   Slow cooked meat dishes with a rich sauce are often served in the same way that the Tuscans serve their rich soups,

Rabbit has been a European staple for certainly the last 3000 years and was introduced into Britain by the Romans in the first century AD under the Emperor Claudius.  Its popularity throughout Europe has remained strong but in the latter half of the last century…

My friend Nicola has been playing with last month’s pumpkin recipe a little but to great success as you can see in the pictures.  She made a couple of small modifications from the one we published a couple of weeks ago and I thought they…

The opportunity for little innovations are part of the pleasure of cooking for me!  This weekend produced a perfect example.  We were doing a slow cooked Pork and Pulled Pork Ragù (more of that later) and we also had a small cured ham to prepare…

The inspiration for this was taken directly from Tom Kerridge’s book on low calorie dining ‘Lose weight for good’ but slightly adapted for the Big Green Egg.  The recipe in Tom’s book describes

Osso bucco is a classic Italian dish which, as long as you don’t translate it into English (bones with holes), has lovely romantic overtones and memories of Italian holidays.  The dish is based on slow braised veal, but the bones, or more importantly the marrow…

I know it shouldn’t, but it always comes as a bit of a surprise to see the wealth of available seafood when travelling around mainland Europe.  I suppose a lot of this surprise is because there is so much seafood caught in the UK and…