Mulled Wine

Loosely based on Jamie Oliver's Mulled Wine plan, but I stuck cloves in the oranges and chucked the whole thing in.

Crusted Lamb : Part 1

Ok, so I've got visitors tomorrow, and it's going to be a moroccan stew and couscous in the tagine, but cooked outside of the tagine I wanted to do a crusted rack of lamb as i'd seen one done on a cookery show recently.

Couldn't find a recipe was the kind of thing I was after though, a sort of haphazard sweet and savoury moroccan affair. Also, the recipe's online don't seem to agree on which order to sear, apply crust, and slow cook and if you can at any point refrigerate. So I took advice from Alison and Ian Mayor, it seemed wise.

My crust ingredients are...

Dry things for crustiness:

Almonds, Pine Nuts, Breadcrumbs, Black Pepper, Salt, Turmeric, Paprica, probably some other things that came to hand. I can't remember.

Wet things for sticking the crustiness to the lamb:

Olive Oil, Mustard, Sun Dried Tomato Paste, Harissa.

I've hammered all that together, seared the lamb on both sides, but mostly the fat side then applied a paste made mostly of the wet things. Then poured the remainder of the dry things on top. This is what it looked like:

It's now wrapped in clingfilm and waiting for tomorrow in the fridge. I'll let you know how it goes.

My intention, is to serve it with slices of orange, samphire and balsamic. Not sure if that's odd, but it's what i'm going to do.

Lamb Meatballs, with Chilli, Mint and Coriander.

So, we have some pretty big Chilli's (from the North East Chilli Festival, which Britt wrote about yesterday) and some Mint and Coriander, Red Onion, Cumin and Smoked Paprika from MMM Newcastle. This is much the same set of ingredients as in my Make it Mint post from a while back, but you get pictures this time.

Divide it up over some Lamb mince, quite a lot of it actually, and keep an egg on hand to bind it all together. Roll them into balls, get the herbs and spices as evenly spread through and into the middle of the lamb balls as possible.

Cooked in a frying pan with a little bit of oil, I should mention that they shouldn't really be moved much during cooking. Press down on one side, cook until the bottom is holding together then flip and press down on the other side. I don't know how long they took to cook. Probably just under ten minutes.

 We had them with Pitta bread, sour cream, a bit of salad and feta, and yes, that's going to work just fine right now but as with all such things the flavours develop a lot, so by day two or even three, the meatballs will be very, very good indeed. It's definitely worth making more than you can reasonably eat in one sitting.

Lamb Meatballs : Day 2

I added additional onions, peas and mushrooms to the pan to soak up the juices. We had this with some steamed broccoli, which is neither pictured nor essential, and some Red Wine, which isn't pictured but was essential. On the second day, the mint and coriander were really making their presence felt and really working with the Chilli.

These were some good Lamb Meatballs.

North East Chilli Fest

Today was the first day of the North East Chilli Festival at Seaton Delaval Hall. Paul and I agree that we need to visit Seaton Delaval Hall again in the near future, possibly a destination for cycling.


We operated a very strict policy at the festival to avoid buying everything and being rich in only chilli based items. We did a full tour of all of the taster bowls, upon deciding the highlights over a glass of Pimms we purchased. The photo shows our swag, the best of the best in our opinion. Having said that, there wasn't a bad chilli among them, some were simply too hot for my poor taste buds to handle. I prefer a depth of taste over heat. 

Britt and Paul Recommend...

The Chilli Pepper Company's Chilli Honey - Sweet runny honey with a warmth that grows gradually. I think this will be going on my morning crumpet, I think it would also do well with roasting carrots.

The Cherry Tree's Hot Chilli and Carrot Chutney - I'm eating this right now, with some cheese, on an oatcake. I'm also betting it'll be very nice on some good burgers.

A bit Chilli!'s Serano Smokey Chutney - A lovely smokey chutney, as the name suggests. Probably another that will go well on a burger or with sausages actually, yes sausages. Or bacon.

Holly and the Ivy's Scotch Bonnet Preserve - A little hotter than the rest, not having chunks of veg to spread the flavour, this preserve features some chilli seeds which give you some bursts of heat, still quite sweet though. Yum.

Chillilicious's Red Pepper Chilli Chutney - I know I keep saying this but it will go well on a burger. Also I think this would be great for dipping things into, like carrot sticks and celery. Oh, just dress a full salad with it and stick some lamb beside it, cooked with chillies.

Chillilicious's Chilli & Coriander Oatcakes - Remember that oatcake I was having the chilli and carrot chutney off of with cheese? Well this is that oatcake. That makes it the best oatcake I have ever had. Ever.

Fresh chillies, I forget where we got these from, but I'm sure you'll see them if you go along tomorrow. Also there are some chilli chocolates in there which we picked up from the man who does the fudge... opposite them we also picked up a "Relight My Fire" chocolate bar from a lovely stall selling very quirky chocolates.

That green thing behind all those jars, that's a chilli plant. I don't have a good track record with caring from plants but was reliably informed by Simone of mmm Newcastle that they prefer to be mostly left alone anyway. We put it in the same bag as the fresh red chillies, I like to think that will give it some aspirations, a clue as to what it's meant to be. If we get even small chillies I will be quite pleased.

On our final pass, towards closing time we noticed that Pet Lamb Patisserie had also been there earlier in the day, looks like they sold out pretty quick. I must say that if you ever get a chance to try a Pet Lamb cake you really should, hopefully they'll be there tomorrow.

So with all of these chilli products now in the house I feel inspired, I'm going to attempt to make some chilli cupcakes, or possibly chilli muffins, depending on ingredients. Paul is going to make some lamb burgers. We're off to get some lamb mince to have with all of this chilli.

If you get the chance do get yourself down to the festival tomorrow, it's on from 10am until 4pm and has wonderful Wylam Beer to keep you refreshed, a haystack for the kids to jump about on and more chilli than you can shake a stick at.

Herman - A Friendship Cake

It seems likely that if you're into food and baking you'll already have encountered the Herman, or at least the concept of a chain cake. Certainly a number of my friends have independently taken on a batch of this beige gloop into their possession and nursed it to full cakedom.

Herman is likely to come into your posession at a particularly humble point in his life cycle: a small quantity of goo, roughly enough to fill half a small tupperwear box, which you put in a bowl and are compelled to stir.

The pale brown mixture is best described as claggy: it will not come off anything it sticks too. I strongly suspect that this is part of Herman's many survival adaptations to aid his proliferation during his weakest phase.

I am told that Herman is a sourdough: a species I intend to investigate further.

The Herman Lifecycle

His full life cycle lasts approximately ten days during which he is kept in a bowl covered by a tea towel.

• Stirred for two days, during which time he bubbles and smells funny.
• Fed on the fourth (a cup of flour, a cup of milk, and a cup of caster sugar)
• Stirred for four days, during which time he bubbles from deep beneath his surface, grows considerably, and continues to smell funny.
• On the ninth day he is fed again  (a cup of flour, a cup of milk, and a cup of caster sugar), and you are compelled to split herman into five equal parts. Four of which need to find their way to your friends along with some version of the instructions.

I'm told that these offspring can be frozen to be awoken from their dormant state later. Again, a very useful adaptation for any life form seeking to cling to its home world long enough to evolve a means of escape.

Instructions can be found on here: http://www.hermanthegermanfriendshipcake.com/

But What Of The Fifth Which Remains?

The Fifth Part awaits day ten when it is fed once more and takes on its 'mature' form.

I suspect that this final feed can vary when you know what you what you're doing, but for me it was as follows:

• 2 cups of flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 apples cut into as fine a chunks as you can manage
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence
• a teaspoon of cinnamon
• a teaspoon of baking powder
• half a teaspoon of salt.

This was all mixed up and piled into a cake tin, then I sprinkled a little melted butter and brown sugar on top and put it in the oven at about 180 degrees for half an hour or so. Once the top looked cooked I covered him with tin foil and left in the oven for another half our or so. Probably a little more as I was worried the interior wouldn't cook.

Anyway, the result looked like this and was very good indeed - in my opinion was even better on day two having dried slightly. I suspect that this, being a fruit cake, could make friends with a nice piece of cheese at some point.

"A sausage runs through it"

This is not going to be pretty

OK, on my previous posts, I've received some suggestion that possibly I should have put photographs with it. By way of revenge, this post is going to be entirely photographs, and the only explanation I shall give is that it had been a long week at work and the idea of making something like a baguette with a seam of sausages running through it seemed like a good idea.

I started with two kinds of sausage - a dense lamb/beef moroccan type affair, and a more traditional pork sausage, though still quite a dense one.

As you will see, the dough rose considerably more than expected: I expected maybe an inch or two of bread all the way around the sausages, but it became massive!

I'm off to make a bacon sandwich.

Lamb with Butternut Squash, Garlic and things.

Veg Box!

Ok, so the veg box arrived from River Ford this afternoon - excellent as ever, amongst other things it contained wet garlic and butternut squash.

One thing lead to another and since it's a reasonably hot spring evening and barbeques were very much in evidence, quick as you like we nipped up to Morrisons (beggers can't be choosers) to get the biggest available lamb steaks on offer and some other things.

So, the butternut squash gets cut into chips and covered in smoked paprica from mmm newcastle which I do recommend. The carrots get covered in cumin. These get in the baking tray with a little oil (there may also have been ras al hanout, there usually is) and stuck in an oven at 220 degrees turned down to 170 straight away to soften and cook for an hour or so while I get the lamb sorted. Most of what I do with lamb comes one way or another from Nigel Slater's very excellent book: Appetite.

Marinade!

• Slice up the wet garlic. Wet garlic looks like a big spring onion, and is the foody find of the day.
• Chop up two or three anchovies. 
• Finely slice two or three twigs of rosemary.
• Sea salt and some smashed up pepper corns. Probably not too much salt as the anchovies will do that.

Smash all of that together in a pestle and mortar as best you can, then pour on some olive oil and squeeze quite a bit of lemon in there too.

Smear this all over your lamb steaks and leave them for as long as you can. In my case this was about ten minutes, but you know, this should really be measured in hours.

Lamb!

Get a griddle pan good and hot. A barbeque would be the ideal, but I don't have a garden. Once it's proper hot, chuck the lamb steaks on there with any marinade that's stuck to them. Any marinade that's left can be poured onto the butternut squash. The anchovies will more or less dissolve and add a saltyness to everything: this is good, but go canny on any additional salt.

Start warming up some plates. If you have steak knives they should be deployed now.

Three minutes on one side, pressed down, then a minute or so held with any fat against the pan, then onto its other side: squeeze any remaining lemon and pour any remaining marinade over it then three or four minutes on that side.

Put it on the Plate!

The lamb could use a couple of minutes to rest after its ordeal, so when you slice it it's pink but not bleeding. Sort out the butternut squash and carrots while the lamb is resting: get it all on a plate, and do not for one moment consider taking a photograph for a blog post. Do not worry about mixing tense or third/first person. Eat. Yes.