Roast Beef

Ingredients:
A roasting joint of beef (rib roast, topside etc)

• Weigh the joint and calculate the cooking time at the following rate*:

Rare: 20 minutes plus 20 minutes per pound
Medium: 25 minutes plus 25 minutes per pound
Well done: 30 minutes plus 30 minutes per pound

*Apparently prime cuts such as rib of beef and tenderloin need less time. Roasting it in a covered enamel tin will take a bit longer though.

When it's time to start, 

1. Preheat the oven to moderately hot (350ºF). 
2. Place the joint in a roasting tin. Standing it on a rack is supposed to help the bottom part of it to roast and not just boil.
3. Put the joint in the oven and roast it. If there is a lid, remove it at the beginning to brown the meat quickly at the start, and again at the end.
4. Make yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes as required.
5. Take the meat out of the oven five minutes before serving and move it to a warmed carving plate. Pour off the dripping into a dripping pot. Add some boiling water to the pan and stir over heat to get the dark brown beef extract off the pan.
6. Make gravy using the fat from the top of the dripping pot, thickened with flour, and then use the brown water from the roasting pan and the juices from the bottom half of the dripping pot.
7. Carve the joint at the table and serve with horseradish sauce, gravy, yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, and seasonal vegetables. Carrots, greens or peas and beans are recommended.

As you like it Sausage and Bean Stew

Essential ingredients:

4 or 6 tasty sausages
3 small or 2 large leeks
1 or two red onions
at least 3 cloves garlic
2 tins of tomatoes, chopped
One tin of butter, kidney or haricot beans
Herbs, salt and pepper


Optional ingredients:

Half a red pepper
Five to ten mushrooms
A few rashers of bacon
A stick of celery
1 glass white wine
Some like it hot - chilli powder, mustard seed, cumin or other spicy spices

Instructions:
Prick the skins of the sausages and brown them in the bottom of a large pan. While they are sizzling, chop up the leeks, onions, garlic, pepper, mushrooms, celery and bacon. When the sausages are looking brown, take them out, leaving their fat in the pan. Throw the chopped vegetables (and bacon) into the pan and start them cooking in the sausage fat (with the lid on). Cut the sausages into chunks, and throw them back into the pan. When the vegetables are just soft, add the chopped tomatoes and white wine, and season with salt, pepper, herbs and spices. Simmer with the lid on for at least twenty minutes. Then rinse and drain the beans and add them to the stew, and simmer with the lid off for another twenty minutes.

Serve with mashed potato, rice, or a big chunk of crusty bread.

Kota Kapama

To serve 5

One chicken cut into serving pieces or five chicken pieces
Juice of one lemon
Some chicken fat, oil or butter, about 3 tablespoons
a glass of dry white wine (optional)
a can of plum tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste diluted in 4 fl oz of water
1 large stick of cinnamon
3 whole cloves
salt and freshly ground black pepper
fresh parsley or watercress for garnish

1. Rub the chicken pieces with the lemon juice. Allow to stand for a bit.
2. Heat the fat in a heavy braising pot.
3. Sauté the chicken till it's a light chestnut colour, turning with tongs.
4. Warm the wine and pour it into the pan.
5. Stir in the tomatoes and tomato paste.
6. Bury the cinnamon stick and cloves among the chicken pieces.
7. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Simmer over the lowest possible heat for 1 1/2 hours or more (or transfer to a medium slow oven to finish the cooking).

Serve warm with rice or mashed potatoes, garnished with parsley or watercress, and with a side dish of vegetables or salad.

Lasagne

8oz lasagne pasta

1lb mince
1 large or two small onions
2 cloves garlic
olive oil
mushrooms and/or carrots optional
tomato puree
2 tins chopped tomatoes
basil and oregano
salt and pepper
soy sauce/yeast extract/red wine optional

Make the above ingredients into bolognese sauce and simmer for at least 20 mins.

Meanwhile, make cheese sauce using the following:
2oz butter
2oz plain flour
1/2 - 1 pint milk
6oz cheese, grated (include some parmesan)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
salt and pepper

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in flour to make a roux. Fry for 1 min. Gradually mix in milk and bring back to boil.

Make up lasagne in large flat dish, layering bolognese sauce and lasagne pasta. No need to pre-cook the pasta even if the packet claims you should. Add cheese and seasoning to the sauce and pour over the top layer of pasta. Sprinkle any remaining cheese on top. Bake at Gas 6/200C for 30-35 mins until browned and bubbling on top. Serve immediately.

Roast Chicken

1. Weigh the chicken, after removing any bag of giblets from the cavity.
2. Calculate the cooking time on the basis of 20 minutes per lb plus 20 minutes. Allow extra time if it is to be stuffed.
   
3. Pre-heat the oven to 375º F, 190º C, Gas mark 5, or Fan oven 170º C
4. Wash out the inside of the chicken under running water. Stuff it if desired, or rub it with garlic, and sprinkle it with thyme and lemon juice.
5. Place in an enamel roasting pan, and cover with the lid. Roast in the oven for the specified time.
6. Towards the end of the cooking drain off some or all of the liquid from the pan and separate the fat from the meat juices to make gravy ad lib.
7. Serve with roast or boiled potatoes and some colourful vegetables, such as carrots, peas or swede.
   

Roast lamb

Ingredients

A joint of lamb (shoulder or leg)
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
sprigs of rosemary
mint sauce

1. Weigh the joint and calculate the cooking time
   
2. Cut little slits in the skin of the lamb and slide the slices of garlic in just under the skin; do the same with some rosemary leaves.
   
3. Put the joint in an enamel roasting tin
4. Scatter the remaining rosemary in at the sides; put on the lid.
   
5. Roast in the oven as follows:

Oven temperature: 190ºC, 375ºF, Gas 5, Fan oven 170
Time: for medium rare 20 minutes per lb plus 20 minutes; for well done 25 minutes per lb plus 25 minutes.

Roast potatoes can be added 45 minutes before the end, and should be turned at least once.

Serve with gravy and mint sauce.

Boiled chicken and vegetables for church lunches

Two large chickens, about 4lbs each
a bunch of carrots
four onions
two cloves of garlic
bay leaf and other fresh herbs
about six pints of water
salt and pepper

7 lbs courgettes

22 baking potatoes, and butter to serve.

Use the largest stock pot available.
Wash the carrots and cut into pieces if they are large (otherwise leave them whole).
Peel and slice the onions.
Put the onions, garlic, carrots, water, salt, pepper and herbs and seasoning into the stock pot and turn up the heat to maximum. Add the two chickens. Bring to the boil before the service starts.

Turn down the heat and simmer for two hours.

Put the baking potatoes on trays in the oven and turn on the oven (190-200ºC) about an hour and a half before serving.

About fifteen minutes before serving add the sliced courgettes to the top of the stew. Test the seasoning, and add more salt if necessary.

To serve, remove the potatoes from the oven and serve on trays, with the butter served separately. Lift out the courgettes and serve in a serving dish. Lift out the chickens onto a large plate and dismember them, removing the bones. While one person is doing this, another should take two pints of the stock or so, and thicken it with three tablespoons of plain flour, and heat to boiling in a saucepan on the stove.

Keep the rest of the broth for soup on a later day (or if a three course meal is required, keep the chicken warm while serving a soup made with the broth).

Serves not more than 22 people.

Stuffed Courgettes, greek style (à la Annie)

Round Courgettes x (number of people x2)

Minced beef
Tomatoes (plum, chopped)
Onions
(Garlic)
Spices: cumin, cinnamon.
salt, pepper
grated cheese

Cut the tops off the courgettes and dig out the middles. Par-boil them in salted water. Keep the middles aside. In a frying pan gently fry onions, then add beef until cooked through. Add garlic (if desired), tomatoes, courgette middles (chopped up) and spices. Reduce liquid.
Take courgettes out of water and fill middles with tomatoey mixture. Cover tops with grated cheese and bake in oven for 20-25 minutes at around 180-200ºC.

Yum.

Haggis

Haggis always bursts, in my experience. So here's my solution to the problem:

Ingredients:

1 haggis
A large saucepan of water.

1. Place the haggis in a pudding basin. Put on the lid, or tie on a paper cover.
2. Put the basin in the pan of water.
3. Bring to the boil and boil gently for an hour or more.
4. Lift out the basin, remove the haggis and serve on a plate (the contents will burst out when you cut off the end, if the end hasn't already burst loose).

Serve with bashed neeps (that is mashed swedes with butter and black pepper) and potatoes, boiled or mashed.