Lamb Shank Recipe

Ingredients

5 Lamb Shanks

2 large onions finely chopped
375ml white wine
2x400g tins chopped tomatoes
Gremolata

For the gremolata

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
¼ tsp course black pepper
¼ tsp nutmeg

Method

Roast off the lamb shanks with some salt in the oven at 180 degrees C until they are brown. While the shanks are in the oven, heat up a little olive oil in a large pan, and add the onions. Cook the onion till they are soft. Add the white wine and scrape the bottom of the pan. Add the tomato and cook a little to let the flavours infuse. Remove the tomato mixture from the heat.

 Once the lamb has turned a nice brown colour, remove them from the oven, and place them into a deep baking tray. Pour over the tomato mix. Cover the tray with foil and return the lamb to the oven. Turn the heat of the oven down to between 150-160 degrees C and cook 2 hours. Take the lamb out the oven and turn each shank over, then recover with foil and cook the lamb for another hour. The shanks are perfectly cooked with the meat is tender and coming off of the bone easily.

When the lamb is cooked, remove it from the oven and add the gremolata, and mix it in with the tomato and onion sauce.

Tips and serving suggestions

If you want to pack the flavour in with this dish, take 2 large carrots. Top and tail them, peel then and cut the carrot into medium sized cubes. Add this to the tomato before putting them into the oven. You can also add some sprigs of thyme and rosemary before you place the lamb into the oven, but just make sure to remove them before you serve.

A warm hearty dish like this is best served with rice, or even a light and fluffy mashed potato.

Bon appétit

Chocolate Parfait Recipe

Ingredients

250g dark chocolate melted in 75ml of cream and ¼ tsp cinnamon powder, allow too cool after it’s melted

250ml cream, whipped till soft peak and then refrigerated
2 egg whites
50g castor sugar

Method

Prepare all the ingredients. Take the sugar and add 25ml water and a few drops of lemon juice. Let the sugar come to the boil and let it reach soft ball stage 114 degrees

When the sugar syrup is nearly ready, beat the egg whites till soft peak stage, and when the sugar has reached the desired temperature, slowly pour the sugar syrup into the egg whites. The eggs whites will bulk up and turn into a fine white mixture. Continue beating for a few seconds after all the sugar syrup has been added to combine properly

Place the melted chocolate mix into a large bowl and fold in the whipped cream by hand using a spatula. Do not whisk. When the chocolate and cream are mixed together half way, add the meringue/egg white mix, and continue folding all the ingredients together. Once you have completely folded together all the ingredients, prepare a bread tin, and pour the mix into it. Place the tin into the freezer and let it set.

To serve this dessert, remove the mix after it has set, from the bread tin. Place a knife into hot water, slice the dessert and place it in the centre of a plate. To lift the dish you can serve it with poached mixed berries.

To serve it with poached berries, make some sugar syrup (for every cup of water, use 1 cup of sugar) and place the berried into the hot sugar syrup. You do not have to boil or even simmer the berries, just as long as the liquid is hot when the berries go into it. Leave the berries in the syrup for a few minutes, and then remove them from the liquid. Place a table spoon of berries on top of the chocolate parfait before you serve it, with sprigs of fresh mint.

Bon Appétit

Smoked Duck Salad Recipe

Ingredients

1 Smoked Duck Breast

1 pear
100g Blue Cheese
100g baby leaf salad mix
50g fresh rocket

Homemade honey and mustard dressing (Dress your salad with as much as you like)

Method

For the poached pear

Peel the pear and remove the stalk and pips. Place the cleaned halves into a little lemon water so that they do not discolour. Make a stock syrup(for every 100ml of water you use, add 100g of sugar) Bring the stock syrup up to a simmer but do not boil is, add the pear halves to the syrup and poach them for about 10 minutes, you want to pear halves to keep their shape. Once they are cooked, remove them from the syrup and cool them.

Slice the smoked duck breast into thin slices, as thinly as you can. Wash the rocket and mixed baby leaves, and mix them together. Place the mixed leaves in the centre of either a large plate or bowl. I prefer a bowl for this dish. Using your fingers, crumble the blue cheese over the leaves, each piece of cheese does not have to be the same size, but also making sure that they are not too large as well.

Place the thin slices of duck around the leaves, almost creating a fan. Take each pear half and cut them into three equal pieces. Place them around the duck. Each bowl gets three pieces/or one pear half.

For the Honey Mustard Dressing

40ml white wine vinegar
100ml Olive Oil
20ml honey
¼ teaspoon Dijon mustard

Method

Place all the ingredients into a blender and blend until they emulsify.

Dress the salad with the dressing and serve

Bon Appétit

Chocolate and Orange Muffin Recipe

Chocolate and Orange Muffin Recipe

The combination of chocolate and orange has long since been a match made in heaven. So naturally combining to two ingredient together in a muffin recipe works. The orange flavour is not too over powering, and adding the zest of the orange also adds a different texture to the cooked muffins. Eating these while they are still warm, in my opinion, is a small piece of heaven. The smell of orange will linger through your house combine with that heavenly baked muffin smell.

Ingredients

 

230g soft Butter

490g caster Sugar
3 whole Eggs
700g strong Flour
2tsp Baking Powder
1 1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
400g Double Cream
6 Juice & Zest of Orange
250g Dark Chocolate Buttons

Method 

Cream the butter and sugar together using the paddle of a kitchen aid, or if doing it by hand, with a wooden spoon. Slowly add the eggs scraping down the mix. Add the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Slowly add the cream followed by the orange juice and zest. Scrape down and mix in the chocolate buttons.

Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 18-20min.

 

Grilled Pepper And Asparagus Salad Recipe

 Grilled Pepper And Asparagus Salad Recipe

 

This is such an easy and super healthy salad to prepare. It's fresh, colourful and packed with flavour.

This recipe will serve two people

Ingredients

1 yellow pepper

1 red pepper

8 Asparagus spears

100g fresh rocket

Rock salt to season

For the dressing

1 bunch of basil

80ml olive oil

Method

Turn the oven on to 180 degrees. When the oven has reached its temperature, place the red and yellow peppers onto a baking tray; rub with olive oil and rock salt. Place them into the oven. After 10 minutes, check to see how the peppers are looking, if the skin is starting to shrivel on the pepper, and the flesh of the pepper is cooked, remove the peppers from the oven. The trick here is, you want the skin to be really cooked, but you want to avoid over cooking the whole pepper.

Once you have removed the peppers from the oven, place them into a plastic bag and tie it shut, so that all the heat from the pepper stays inside the bag. Set this to one side

In the mean time, clean the asparagus spears, removing the woody ends off the bottom of each asparagus. Get a pot that is large enough, so that the whole asparagus fits into it, and fill with water. Bring the water to the boil, and blanch the asparagus.

Once the asparagus has blanch (the green colour has turn really bright, and the asparagus is soft enough to eat, but not over cooked) remove the asparagus from the boiling water and refresh them with iced cold water. Set aside to cool

Take the bag with the peppers. Remove all the outer skin from both peppers as well as all the seeds and any part that is not edible. Tear the peppers into large pieces, roughly 4 pieces per pepper. Heat a griddled pan and when it is really hot, place the pieces of pepper onto the grill. The pepper needs to be on the grill just long enough to get the colour and marks from the grill. This step is not a must; it just adds visual effect to the final dish.

Take the cooled asparagus, and at an angle, cut each one in half. Now place 8 halves of asparagus and 4 quarters of pepper into the centre of the serving plate, layering them to achieve height and assorted colours.

With a blender, blend together the fresh basil and oil, if the dressing is not a runny enough consistency, add a little more oil. Season to taste and dress the salad with it

Bon Appétit

Raclette Recipe

Raclette Recipe

The Raclette dining experience is one in where each person can create their own unique and personalized meal. Let your taste buds guide you on finding a culinary delight. If you have never had a raclette, here are se recipes to get you started.

The Traditional Raclette

Ingredinets

 

8 small/medium potatoes

680g Raclette Cheese
Swiss air dried beef slices
1 jar pickled gherkin
1 jar pickled onions
Freshly ground pepper
Paprika

Method

Cook the potatoes with the skin on until they are soft. While the potatoes are cooking, remove the rind from the cheese, and slice into 1/16" thick slices. Arrange the slices of beef, gherkins, and onions on a platter. Turn on the raclette machine.

Once the potatoes are cooked drain from the water and keep them warm until you are ready for them.

Cut the potatoes, gherkins and onions into bite size pieces. Melt the cheese with the raclette cheese in the raclette machine, and once it has melted, about 2 minutes, scrap it over the ingredients you have pre cut. Season and enjoy

The options of ingredients and the combinations are really up to you and your preferences. Other ingredients that go well with raclette are

-Pork

-Tomatoes

-Mushrooms

-Ham

-Salami

The concept of cooking the raclette is the same, but let your imagination run wild with the ingredients you choose. This dish is a fun dish, in the sense that each person can create whatever they want; it’s also what I would call a social dish

You can get a raclette machine pretty easily, Amazon for instance stocks them http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_5?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=raclette+grill&sprefix=racle%2Caps%2C223  and they also have raclette recipe books.

 

Bon Appétit

Beef Hot Pot Recipe

Beef Hot Pot Recipe

Ingredients

1kg beef flank cut into 8 cm x 4 cm chunks against the grain

Plain flour for dusting

50 ml sesame oil

1small onions, peeled and roughly chopped

1 medium mild chili

100g root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped

2 star anise

4 cloves garlic

1 tsp five-spice powder

50 ml sweet soy sauce

1/2 tsp fennel seeds

750ml beef stock

750ml veal stock

15g corn flour

Salt and pepper

For The Garnish

Spring onions, trimmed and sliced on the angle

Coriander, washed

Chinese greens

 

Method

Lightly flour the pieces of beef flank, coating each piece of beef on all sides with flour. Heat some sesame oil in a thick-bottomed saucepan or casserole dish and quickly colour the pieces of beef on all sides.

Add the onions, chili, ginger, star anise, garlic, five-spice, soya sauce and fennel seeds. If possible, wrap the ginger, star anise, and fennel seeds in some Muslin cloth, which makes removing these ingredients easily before serving the dish.

Add the beef stock and veal stock and bring it to the boil. Cover and reduce the heat to a simmer, and simmer gently for 2½–3 hours until the meat is very tender.  If the liquid is evaporating too quickly, add some more water.

Remove the pieces of beef from the pan, as well as the ingredients wrapped in the cloth. Mix the corn flour with a little water, stir it into the stock and simmer for 15 minutes – the consistency should be gravy-like. Check the seasoning then return the beef pieces back into the sauce and serve.

You can serve this with cumin basmati rice, or if have whole cinnamon sticks, boil the rice with one stick and once the rice is cooked, remove the cinnamon stick. The cinnamon stick adds a natural and not too over powering sweetness to the rice, which can add flavor to the beef hot pot

Bon Appétit