many aeons ago, there was a thread on here about making bread .... it died, perhaps because man shall not live by bread alone ..... anyway, there seem to be a fair number of people on this site who enjoy cooking, so i thought to start a thread for recipes and associated topics.

i'm assuredly no expert, but i reckon i cook tolerably well, and i know that any recipe i paste here, genuinely works - even for those who can only shop from supermarkets!

a starter recipe follows ......

and a meat one for you ....

depending on how greedy you are, this amount will stretch to 4 given side dishes of carbs and greens.

BEEF CHEEKS – braised very slowly
We’re quite strange in this country about things that are “socially” acceptable to eat – rack of lamb or ribs of beef – yet we are squeamish about other even non-offal offerings – like goat or (heaven forfend!) horse.
Anyway, assuming you enjoy eating braised beef or oxtail, then I heartily comment this delicious winter-warmer. However, I fear you’ll need a “proper” butcher to get this ever-so-cheap and lean cut of meat, as I cannot imagine your local supermarket stocking it (please prove me wrong).

If you look up recipes for beef cheeks (ox cheeks if you will), then you are likely to come across strings of ingredients, and more than likely, a requirement to marinate the beef overnight.
That’s nonsense; all you need is to cook it very slowly for several hours – just as you would oxtail.

The only really important utensil, apart from a decent-sized cast-iron casserole is a sharp knife.

I could rattle on for ages about the importance of having 3 or 4 really good quality (I happen to like Global) knives which are kept sharp – do not use one of those awful free-standing, pull-through, crossed-steel things as it will just wreck your knife. If you can’t sharpen on a butcher’s steel, then buy a good quality electric sharpener (e.g. Knife Wizard KE-198), or use a combination of the two (the better bet)

Never forget, blunt knives are dangerous as in failing to cut properly, they are quite likely to slip and slide and slice you instead!

Ingredients in the order required – Serves 2-4 depending on greed factor!
2 Medium onion – chopped
2 Large carrots – diced
1 Large leek – cut in medium rings; use a little of the “dark green” too
2 tbsp Olive oil – vegetable oil will be fine
400 gm Bacon or smoked streaky bacon – cut into pieces

2 Beef cheeks
500 ml Porter – e.g Mackeson
If you use Guiness, you may need to add a little sugar or treacle at the end
250 ml Water
3 Bay leaves – I happen to use fresh from the bush in the garden
1 Small bunch of fresh thyme
4 slices Fresh ginger root
1 piece Star anise
Seasoning – only add salt after the cooking has finished, as you may not need any
A good glug of Worcestershire Sauce will give the gravy a gentle kick, and also balance out the overall richness

Preparation and cooking
Turn on the oven to 145 degC.
Heat the oil in the casserole and add the vegetables and cover.
Allow them to cook gently while you prepare the beef cheeks (really not difficult or time-consuming at all).
After about 10 minutes, add the bacon pieces and stir them in.

Beef cheeks look a little “odd”, but with a sharp knife you can easily trim away the fatty bits, though you may need to “fillet” them off rather as one does when skinning a piece of fish.
As far as possible, keep the cheeks in a piece as they’ll cook and present much better.

By now, you will probably have used up about 20 minutes, and the vegetables should be well softened.

Tuck all the spices and ginger into the vegetable mix and lay the beef cheeks on top.
Pour over the water and the porter which will cover everything nicely.

Bring to the boil on the hob, then to give a really good seal, cover the casserole with a double layer of foil or greaseproof and then put on the lid.

Pop it into the oven for about 4 hours.
After an hour or so, you may want to turn the meat over and press it down into the juices.
Keep a very occasional eye on progress, just in case it is getting a bit dry – it shouldn’t, but if so, add a bit more water.

Once cooked, the meat will be almost falling apart.
It’s better to let it cool and kept overnight, for it will allow the flavours to mellow and blend.
There’s no need to strain off the juice, as there’ll be almost no fat to skim off, but check the seasoning and adjust as necessary.
Once cold, the gravy may well have turned to jelly, so when reheating, do so gently, perhaps adding a splosh of water to help it.
Check the seasoning while reheating, adjusting as necessary - you may well find that an extra dose of Worcestershire Sauce is required to add a bit more punch


Serving
Plain boiled potatoes or good mash will be fine, but you may want to ring the changes with say mashed swede (with lots of pepper and butter) or celeriac and apple purée.

Savoy cabbage with its metallic overtones would make a good green vegetable, but a rocket and watercress salad would also be good and save on more cooking.

This is a good winter dish that cries out for a chunky red wine.
South African red wines don’t do anything for me, so I would opt for something from south-west France like a Collioure or Madiran or a decent Rhone – talk to your wine merchant (or supermarket manager even!), and try to get away from the usual with perhaps a Gigondas, St Joseph or Cornas.

Well done cynic - interesting thread. I am sure we will exchange recepies.

happy to keep adding ..... i have plenty of fish recipes (about 2 dozen) already done for my fishmonger, so easy to post here as and when you want ..... promise they all work!

additional comment re Hearty Fish Stew .....
while tinned tomatoes can be used in lieu of fresh (i also freeze surplus from the greenhouse), it is not as good and will assuredly need some help from sun-dried tomato paste or similar

Have you any recipies for salmon cynic - I usually just poach mine in either lemon, tarragon or sometimes white wine but would like something totally different.

hmm! .... nothing on immediate record, but i know from many many years ago there was a sort-of elizabethan recipe whereby you sandwiched 2 fillets with currants and some other things ..... i'll scratch the bald pate to see where i might look

From a BBC website -

Thai steamed salmon



A must for all recipe binders - this quick and easy, healthy steamed fish recipe is bursting with fresh flavour.

Ingredients
1 bunch coriander, washed

12 mint leaves

1 tsp chopped fresh ginger

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp salt

1 large red chilli, finely chopped

juice of 2 limes

1 tbsp nam pla (fish sauce)

2 x 175g/6oz salmon fillets

4 bok choi, cut in half lengthways

To serve
basmati rice, washed in cold water until the water runs clear

1 chilli, finely sliced

1 bunch coriander, roughly chopped

pinch salt

1 lime, cut into wedges

Preparation method
1.In a food processor blend together the coriander leaves and stalks, the mint leaves, ginger, garlic, salt, chilli, lime juice and fish sauce and process until smooth.

2.Place the salmon fillets in a shallow dish and pour over half of the sauce. Leave to marinate for 20 minutes.

3.Pour the rice into a pan of boiling water and cook according to the packet instructions.

4.Turn on the steamer and place the bok choi on the bottom layer. Place the marinated salmon fillets in the top half of the steamer and cook for 6- 8 minutes until the fish is just cooked and the bok choi is tender.

5.Drain the rice and stir through the sliced chilli and roughly chopped coriander. Season with salt and divide between serving plates.

6.Remove the salmon and bok choi from the steamer and arrange on top of the rice. Pour the reserved sauce over the salmon and serve immediately with a wedge of lime.

SALMON FILLET EN CROUTE WITH CURRANTS AND GINGER
i couldn't find the recipe from many years back, but herebelow is a version from Rick Stein which is assuredly similar.
For my taste, I reckon it needs more currants and ginger.

Serves 6
Ingredients
2 x 550g skinned salmon fillet
100g unsalted butter, softened
4 pieces stem ginger in syrup, well drained and finely diced
25g currants
½ tsp ground mace
750g chilled puff pastry
1 egg, beaten, to glaze
Salt and freshly ground black pepper


Method
Season the salmon fillet well with salt.
Mix the softened butter with the stem ginger, currants, mace, ½ tsp of salt and black pepper.
Spread the inner face of one salmon fillet evenly with the butter mixture and then lay the second fillet on top.

Cut the pastry in half and roll one piece on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about 4cm bigger than the salmon all the way around - approximately 18 x 33cm.
Roll the second piece out into a rectangle 5cm larger than the first one all the way round.

Lay the smaller rectangle of pastry on a well-floured baking sheet and place the salmon in the centre.
Brush a wide band of beaten egg around the salmon and lay the second piece of pastry on top, taking care not to stretch it.
Press the pastry tightly around the outside of the salmon, trying to ensure that you have not trapped in too much air, and then press the edges together well.
Trim the edges of the pastry neatly to leave a 2.5cm band all the way around.

Brush this once more with egg.
Mark the edge with a fork and decorate the top with a fish scale effect by pressing an upturned teaspoon gently into the pastry, working in rows down the length of the parcel.

Chill for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 200C and put a large baking sheet in it to heat up.

Remove the salmon en croute from the fridge and brush it all over with beaten egg. Take the hot baking sheet out of the oven and carefully slide the salmon parcel onto it.
Return it to the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes.
Leave it to rest for 5 minutes.

Transfer the salmon to a warmed serving plate and take it to the table whole.
Cut it across into slices to serve.

Cooking lessons in school
it is one of those occasions when one would like to turn the clock back to when there were no ready-made meals and food was cooked at home and eaten round the table.

however, we now have a society where both parents are likely to work (leave unemployment out of the equation for now) and the whole ethos of family life is centred around ease and speed and convenience.

for all that, it is still very easy to eat well and cheaply, though assuredly made no simpler by supermarkets who do not stock cheaper cuts of meat (they'll say with some justification that they wouldn't sell).

but at the core, society is overwhelmed by parents/children who have been brought up to become "fussy eaters" on steaks, chops and roasts, with very limited if any cookery skills, and no understanding of how to stretch limited budgets.

A comment was made the other day by a politician who questioned why we eat ready meals instead of continuing to buy a sunday joint and making it stretch through the week, but of course people want convenience now rather than time preparing food.
I had a french MA student staying with me last year & she couldn't cook at all, so it's not just the english who lack cullinary skills!

there's certainly no o'night remedy, and indeed it has to take a least a generation to change ingrained attitudes and ignorance .....

however, it should not be forgotten that all supermarkets now stock tinned and very acceptable pulses and even "instant" rice and "fresh" pasta that takes only 3-5 minutes to cook ..... 20/40 years ago, pulses had to be soaked o'night and rice was considered "difficult" to cook well

thus, a number of important, basic building blocks are already in place ..... i wonder how difficult it would be for schools to teach children how to use these to make very simple but nourishing meals, rather than just concentrating on baking cakes and other "treats" with relatively little nutritional value

It used to take me ages to make a decent stock from the bones of whatever I had cooked. I hardly ever bother now except for the Christmas turkey; the stock in those little plastic pots is acceptable, though I wish they would let the consumers put their own salt in!

personally, i find turkey stock far too strong, but if you have a local butcher, i'm sure he'ld give you plenty of chicken bones (and wing tips etc) for free .... to make a batch of good strong chicken stock is easy-peasy, and it's something i always have in my tiddly freezer above the fridge

interesting that you'll happily buy supermarket stock at say £1.50 a small tub, whereas making your own, costs nothing apart from some gas ..... rather makes the point of earlier

It's called being lazy cynic!!

the days of learning to cook in school are long gone, health & S, won't allow children to use the ovens, not enough time to prepare and cook plus boy's aren't invited to do it at my local secondary school.,.

kim - that was self-apparent :-) but where families are tight for cash, they'll still be unnecessarily profligate, albeit through ignorance

bb - WsM - oh alright, north bristol - obviously doesn't get the news about cookery courses becoming mandatory once more in secondary schools

I'd ban BOGOF deals if I could!

Why not just make the product on offer cheaper? Drives me mad!

it's a ploy to encourage people to buy more than they need and thus keep hungry dustbins from begging!

supermarkets need BOGOF as they can force buying prices lower through bulk buying.

they would only buy more if they feel they can con the customer into buying more (unnecessarily)