Shepherd’s Pie
This a low fat take on a classic English dish. Shepherd’s Pie was traditionally made with leftover meat–usually lamb or beef. This is a recipe that can be made ahead and frozen for later use. I have modified it slightly to use metric measurements and make it gluten-free.
It came from Fiona Haynes of About.com.
My version used the following ingredients.
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 2 large carrots, chopped
- 500 grams extra-lean minced beef
- 2 tbsp gluten-free Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tbsp Waitrose organic tomato paste
- 2 tsp dried mixed herbs
- 250 ml, beef stock
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 1 kilo of King Edward or similar potatoes
- Milk and fat to mash the potatoes with
The method was as follows.
- In a large pot, heat olive oil on medium-low heat. Saute onions and carrots until softened. Turn up heat to medium-high and add beef; cook until no longer pink. Add Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, herbs and broth. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes. Add peas, then simmer 5 minutes more.
Tip: If sauce seems a bit thin for your liking, add some cornflour or gluten-free flour and stir into beef mixture. - While sauce is simmering, bring a large pot of water to boil. Add potatoes, reduce heat to a simmer and cook until tender, about 15-20 minutes. Drain water. Add milk and butter. Mash with a potato masher until smooth. Season if you like.
- Pour sauce into an 11-inch by 7-inch baking dish and allow to cool slightly. Top with potato.
- Bake in the bottom of the top over of the AGA.
I actually cooked two, with one going in the freezer and the other shared with my son.
White Horse, Brancaster Staithe
My late wife and I ate several times at this pub on the North Norfolk Coast.
Today, I had to visit a friend in the area and we had lunch in the restaurant. For a bad day in October, that was cold and looked to be turning wet, the restaurant was full. Perhaps it was more a day for eating and drinking rather than walking.
I said that I was a coeliac and I was told that everything on the menu was either naturally gluten-free or could be modified.
So I had salmon and potato fishcakes. I can’t remember the last time I had any decent fishcakes.
With a pint of Aspall‘s cyder as well.
Heaven!
Note that the group also have a similar and equally good pub called the Fox at Willian. This is useful as it is close to junction 9 of the A1(M). It’s so much better than the Service Area a few kilomtres to the north.
How to Run a Pub
My late wife and I used to eat regularly in the Beehive at Horringer, near to Bury St. Edmunds. I always remember Gary being one of the first landlords who took down his cigarette machine and banned smoking, a few years before it became mandatory. But it was also a pub that had a good food offering, excellent wine and if you drank it, the beer was as it should be.
But over the last few years, I have had one problem with the pub. As it was a tied Greene King pub, the cider offering was undrinkable.
But they have now decided to remedy that!
They are moving to the White Horse at Whepstead. And the cyder will be Aspalls. No-one should be allowed to die without having a pint of that first!
Now the Kingshotts must have done more than a lot right, as they have run the Beehive for more years than I have been in this part of Suffolk, but it never amazes me how some people think they know better.
I’ve just heard of a story in another part of the country, where someone with little experience of the licenced trade has taken over the village pub. The first thing they have done is annoy all of the locals, some of whom have drunk in the hostelry for many years. That attitude will see the For Sale or To Let sign up again in the coming months.
But I shall be trying out the Kingshott’s new pub in Whepstead.
Baked Haddock
I needed a new recipe for some haddock and a friend messaged me this one.
My version used the following ingredients.
- Two haddock filets. These were line caught from Waitrose.
- The juice of two limes.
- One chopped medium-sized onion.
- Four quartered tomatoes.
- Some fresh parsley from my herb garden.
The method couldn’t have been simpler.
- Place the fish in a shallow dish.
- Combine the lime juice, onion, tomatoes and parsley and pour over the fish.
- Bake in the bottom of the top oven in the AGA for 20 minutes.
The dish looked like this before I cooked it.
Baked Haddock Before Cooking
After cooking, the tomatoes had created a sauce.
Baked Haddock After Cooking
It worked and the fish was very tender. I did get a bit too much sauce and next time I cook it, I think I’ll used a second onion and also add a crushed clove of garlic.
But it was very quick and simple. And no saucepan to wash up.
Norman Borlaug
I’d never heard of Norman Baulaug until yesterday. But as his obituary in the Times today stated.
Norman Borlaug has, in the opinion of many experts, saved more human lives than any other individual in history. He was the grandfather of the “Green Revolution” in which, between 1961 and 1980, wheat crop yields doubled, tripled and sometimes quadrupled around the world. His experiments with hybrid wheat strains and nitrogenous fertiliser created strains of the staple food impervious to pests, bad weather and poor soil, enabling the world to support a far greater human population than many thought possible after the Second World War. Yet his methods and message fell out of favour, to the detriment of millions — especially in Africa.
Read the full obituary and you get a flavour of someone who was not only a great scientist, but someone who was a deep thinker. He warned against population growth and felt that his advanced crops would only give a breathing space.
But it still did not prevent others from rubbishing his achievements.
Therein lies the rub. Some of his methods of using lots of fertiliser may well be challenged, but we all should agree with his policy of growing crops on the productive land. Surely, this should leave more land for other more idealistic uses. He even signed an agreement with one of founders of Greenpeace on this.
But one paragraph in the obituary is this.
Others followed his example, and India’s wheat crop increased from 12 million tonnes in 1965 to 17 million in 1967. That year Pakistan, a country dependent on wheat imports, imported 42,000 tonnes of seeds. It was self-sufficient in seed stocks 12 months later.
It just shows how if you are more efficient, things can a lot better.
If I have a gripe with him personally, it is that the greater part of his work was with wheat! I can’t eat it or wheat products because I’m a coeliac.
But as I repeat many times. It will not be politicians who get us out of the mess that they have created, but the scientists and engineers. We need a lot more like Norman Borlaug.
Cornflour
My mother was a traditional English cook, so when she made a sauce, she didn’t use flour. She used cornflour. Often it was Brown and Polson. As it was gluten-free, this was actually good for me and probably helps to prove the theory I have that good proper cooking is actually better for you. Flour is a cheap way of putting bulk into ready made and processed food.
There has been a discussion on the UK-Coeliac group about cornflour and corn in general.
This illustrates the differences between English all over the world.
Farmers in the UK and probably a lot of other places, use corn as a general term for any cereal, including wheat and barley. They call maize, maize. Whereas in the US, maize is corn.
All confusing. Truly we’re all dvided by a common language.
To make matters worse, according Wikipedia, cornflour in Australia is made from wheat. The article also talks about cornstarch, the name used for cornflour in the US.
It all makes me, want to do more cooking from scratch.
Kentish Lamb
This is a tale that probably should have been handled better.
If we are going to eat meat, then we should educate children about where it comes from.
Perhaps not go as far as my youngest who spent several summers in the Hunt Kennels, cutting up animals for the hounds. What everybody does forget though is that the Hunt has traditionally been the receptor of all the dead animals of the countryside. You have a horse that needs to be put down and it’s more humane to do the deed in a field on a sunny day and then give the carcase to the Hunt, rather than submit the animal to all the stress of going to the slaughterhouse.
Life is hard and we all have to die someday. But when that day comes, death should be as painless and without stress as possible.
I’m afraid that the laws on abbatoirs brought in by the EU, don’t make that process any better for animals, as they often have to travel miles before death, because so many have closed. And when it comes to transporting animals, such as sheep, miles to slaughter in Southern Italy or Greece, I’m totally against it. It’s actually cheaper to transport them as carcases, because you get three times as many animals on the truck. So you need to refrigerate, but you only need a third of the drivers.
The best beef I ever tasted was illegal.
Twenty years ago, a local farmer used to kill his own cattle and then butcher them in his kitchen. He just took the bullock into the field, gave him some grass and then shot him. No stress and the meat was superb.
But then he was a real countryman, who has forgotten several times more about life in Suffolk, than I know now.
Hospital Food Worse Than Prison Food
A report today from Professor John Edwards at Bournemouth University has said that hospital food is worse than prison food.
Here’s the e-mail I sent to the BBC.
Luckily, I’ve not been into hospital overnight, but the Professor’s research bears out the experiences of my relatives and friends.
I also moderate a list on the Internet for coeliacs, who need a gluten-free diet. Some of the experiences are not good at all, with it seems kitchens unable to provide the correct diet.
The last bit worries me.
Coggeshall
Essex has a bad reputation as a place inhabited by loose women in pelmets and white stilettos and men with large beer-fed guts in shell suits. This may be the image, which is also fuelled by lots of Essex girl jokes. But are the people of Essex feeding this image to keep us foreigners out and save the best bits for themselves?
Last night I went for dinner at Baumanns Brasserie in Coggeshall. Note that it doesn’t have an apostrophe!
Coggeshall
This view shows one of the streets that used to be the main road from Braintree to Colchester until it was by-passed in the 1980s. How the town managed before that I dread to think?
Opposite the restaurant is a sweet shop. Not your normal one, but one with real jars in the window.
Normans Sweet Shop, Coggeshall
What surprised me was that the jars in the window were for Fox’s Glacier Mints, Murray Mints and other common sweets. They looked to be new jars too, so they must be still available.
Now to return to Baumanns.
My late wife and I used to go a couple of times a year, when we lived over the other side of Suffolk at Debach. It was just too far to go and come back after a meal. But last night, I had other reasons, so it was very convenient to visit an old favourite place. In fact, I think it was the first time, I’d been there since I was diagnosed with coeliac disease.
I was not disappointed.
And the place had hardly changed in all those years.
Is that good or bad? It depends if what was there all those years ago was worth keeping. In Baumanns case it certainly was.
I had sardines followed by ostrich. These were two dishes I’d probably never cook for myself. They were both delicious.
I shall visit Baumanns next time, that I’m in the area.
The Anonymous Widower 