A ploomin disaster Sunday lunch for friends

Plum harvest 2012, preserved with WD40

A Sunday lunch menu for friends

Moules mariniere with homemade bread

Beef and oxtail casserole

No plum crumble

Here's a post which has been 99% written for about a year and a half - I have no idea why I didn't finish and publish it sooner. Coincidentally I just wrote a beef and Guinness pie post last weekend. 

Last year (2013) I had a complete plum harvest failure, and had to beg, borrow and steal apples to make chutney. 

In 2012 I had a bumper plum harvest. 

I froze a hefty amount (almost 1.4kg) to make plum crumble for when I had friends round for Sunday lunch. 

I even made the crumble topping by combining flour, butter, demerara sugar and hazelnuts in the food processor, and froze that too. I hoped the sugar and hazelnuts would give a lovely crunch to the crumble. They may well do but I've yet to try it - it ended up festering in my freezer for a few months before being chucked out.

Plums, it turns out, do not freeze well. They turn to a pulpy mush that is 95% juice. 

We ended up skipping the crumble and moving straight onto the cheese. And another fail: I forgot to serve this with my plum chutney. D'oh.

Moules mariniere ingredients

• 2 banana shallots 
• A wineglass of dry white wine
• A large knob butter
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 or 4 tablespoons flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
• Splash of double cream  
• Mussels. A lot. I asked my fishmonger for enough museels for 6 as a starter, then asked him to add more. The whole massive lot came to under a tenner. Wow! In a restaurant these would probably cost the same amount per portion. We had so many we couldn't even eat them all. 

How to make moules mariniere

Scrub the mussels clean in plenty of cold running water, discarding any that don't close when tapped sharply with the back of a knife. I guess this means they are still alive, but I'd rather not think too much about that. Remove the beards from any mussels that still have them by pulling them to the corner of the mussel then yanking vigorously.

You will need a very large pan to cook the mussels in - I use a stock pot. 

1. Boil the wine rapidly for about 30 seconds to get rid of any harsh flavour, then remove from the pan. 
2. Chop a couple of banana shallots very finely.
3. Melt the butter in the pan then add the shallots and bay leaves.
4. Stir to coat in the butter then add the wine and bring to the boil.
5. Add the mussels then cover with a lid.
6. Cook for a few minutes, shaking the pan vigorously about every minute, until the mussels open. 
7. Add the cream and parsley and stir.
   Serve in a large bowl in the middle of the table, with another bowl for the discarded shells, and crusty bread.
8. Do not eat any mussels that have not opened. 

Home-made white bread, perfect with mussels

White bread

I can't tell you how I made the bread in case I am asked to remove the recipe. I chose it because it was quick to make, and since it turned out very well its a shame I can't share it with you. 

Beef and oxtail casserole ingredients

• Onions - 4 medium/large
• Carrots - 4 large
• Swede - 1 small
• Celery - 2 sticks
• Guniness - 2 bottles
• Thyme - about 10 sprigs
• Flour - about 3 tablespoons
• Stewing steak - about 1.5kg, cut into chunks
• Oxtail  - 8 pieces
• Parsley, to serve*

*Personaly, I hate parsley. But some recipes, such as this one,  do taste better with a little sprinkling of the chopped herb. And for some recipes, such as moules mariniere (above), it is absolutely integral. Hence I had some to add to the casserole. 

Don't be tempted to put tinned tomatoes or tomato puree in this - I think it distracts from the flavour of the beef, whereas the Guinness enhances it. 

How to make beef and oxtail in Guinness

1. Heat the oven to the Magic Cooking Number, 190 degrees C fan. 
2. Heat a little rapeseed oil in a large casserole pan.
3. Add the onions and fry gently for about 10 minutes, till they become translucent and very soft.  If you don't overdo it, this will give the onions a lovely caramelised taste. If you overdo  it will taste burnt. 
4. Add the carrots, celery and swede.
5. Fry for about 5 minutes, till the vegetables become slightly softened.
6. Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables and stir to coat.
7. Cook for about 3-5 minutes, stirring pretty much constantly.
8. Turn up the heat and add the pieces of steak. 
9. Brown the steak then add the oxtail pieces and brown too.
10. Add the Guinness and bring to the boil.
11. Cover with a lid and put in the oven for 2 hours.

 
I know this is going to cause controversy, but I served Yorkshire puddings with this casserole. Normally, my Yorkies rise well and are huge; for some reason this time they were a little flat. So another fail. 

Beef, Guiness and Stilton pie

My take on Jamie Oliver's no nonsense beef, Guinness and cheese pie. Substituting the cheddar for Stilton turns this pie into real man-food.

Beef, Guinness and Stilton pie ingredients

• 800g stewing beef, cut into chunks
• 500ml Guinness
• 3 small onions
• 3 cloves garlic
• 4 sprigs rosemary
• 2 medium carrots
• 3 sticks celery
• About 75g Stilton
• 1 tablespoon plain flour
• 4 portabello mushrooms
• Homemade spelt rough puff pastry
• A little egg

How to make beef, Guinness and Stilton pie

1. Heat a tablespoon  of rapeseed oil in your largest Le Creuset casserole dish. If you don't have a selection of Le Creuset dishes, buy a large one to start with then ask for varying sized ones for birthdays and Christmas. The initial outlay may be expensive, but the rest of this recipe is pretty economical. 
2. Heat the oven to the Magic Cooking Number 190 degrees C.
3. Chop the onions roughly and fry gently for about 10 minutes.
4. Chop the garlic finely.
5. Roughly cut the celery and 1 of the carrots into large pieces. Grate the other carrot. 
6. Pull the needles off the rosemary and chop finely. 
7. If you're lucky enough to get your beef from an over-priced butcher with its own branded waxed paper, spread the beef out on the paper and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon plain flour then season generously with salt and black pepper. Pull up the 4 corners of the paper and give the whole lot a good shake to coat the beef with the seasoned flour. 
8. If your beef comes from a normal butcher or (heaven forbid!) a supermarket, just put the meat, four, salt and pepper in a large bowl and toss together. 
9. Add the garlic, carrots and celery then turn up the heat and add the floured beef and the rosemary.
10. Fry for about 5 minutes till most of the meat is browned.
11. Add the Guinness - if this doesn't completely cover the contents of the pan add some water so it does.
12. Cover with the lid and bring to the boil.
13. Put in the pre-heated oven for an hour and a half.
    
    My mum marinades the beef overnight in the Guinness when she makes this pie, but Jamie doesn't. As a compromise I got to this stage on Saturday evening and then switched the oven off, leaving the cooked beef in the Guinness overnight.          
14. The next day I cooked the beef for a further hour with the lid off to thicken the sauce, again at 190C.
    
    This actually reduced a little too much, but luckily I had a small pot of beef stock in the freezer which I added, ending up with the right amount of liquid.
15. Remove from the oven and leave to cool while you make the pastry. You can of course use bough puff pastry if you prefer.
16. Tip the beef into a pie dish and crumble the cheese into it.
17. Roll out enough pastry to cover the top.
    
    I normally only cover the top of the pie with pastry, much to the disgust of Ollie, who says this is not a real pie. Today, because I'd made double quantity pastry, I did a top and bottom pastry pie, or, essentially, a giant pasty. However, I was right in my assumption that this would result in a soggy bottom - next time it will be top only.
18. Drape the pastry over the pie dish and press down firmly around the lip of the dish. 
19. Score the pastry with a knife in a criss-cross pattern. 
20. Brush the pastry with a little beaten egg.
21. Cook at 190C for about 45 minutes. 

Steak for pie

For some reason I forgot to take a picture of the actual pie, although I took one of the steak, raw and cooked:

Steak and Stilton before the pie bit was added

I do, however, appear to have a collection of photos of pies, so here's what it could have looked like: 

 

A pie (slightly blurred)

Pasta with mushrooms

This was a really tasty pasta dish. Since I'd already made the mushroom ragu it was ready in the time it took the pasta to cook (just under 10 minutes). 

Pasta with mushrooms and walnuts

Pasta with mushrooms ingredients

• 2 rashers streaky bacon, chopped
• 1 portion leftover mushroom ragu (which contains Stilton)
• A v small handful walnuts
• Sploosh red wine
• a slice feta, crumbled
• About 50ml cream, or as much as you have left over from something else
• 4 cherry tomatoes
• 50 ml milk if needed
• Enough pasta for 2 people (I used conchiglie)

How to make pasta with mushrooms

1. Boil the kettle then fill a large pan with boiling water.
2. Add a large pinch of salt to the water, then add the pasta. 
3. Heat a large frying pan on a high heat
4. Add the chopped streaky bacon and fry until the fat begins to render and the bacon is crisp.
5. Add the walnuts and fry for about a minute.
6. Add the red wine and cook till most of the liquid has evaporated.
7. Reduce the heat and add the mushroom ragu and tomatoes.
8. Cook till the ragu has warmed through, the tomatoes have burst and the pasta is ready.
9. Drain the pasta, reserving a small amount of the water, and blanch with freshly boiled water. 
10. Add the cream and the reserved cooking water to the sauce. If it is still a little too tick, add the milk.
11. Tip the pasta back into the pan and pour in the sauce.
12. Add the crumbled feta and toss to coat the pasta with the sauce.
13. Serve in warm bowls.