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Slow Cooking Slow cooking is a hallmark of traditional
English cuisine, much in the way that fast cooking is a hallmark of Chinese.
The aim of slow cooking is to produce really tender and succulent meat and so
the style is particularly good for tougher, cheaper cuts. There are a number
of styles of slow cooking and whilst they do have differences between them,
there is a great deal of overlap. Stews tend to involve smaller cuts of meat,
are cooked over the hob and traditionally have a thin stock rather than a gravy. Casseroles are cooked in the oven, can involve a
larger cut of meat and typically have a thicker
gravy or more ‘exotic’ sauce. Then there are a number of dishes which don’t
really fit either category. Stews Stews are amongst the oldest forms of English
cuisine as the Anglo Saxons favoured ‘one pot’ cooking. There is no absolute
recipe for most stews, although they do tend to contain a mix of meat and
mainly root vegetables in a light stock or gravy. Whilst it is common these
days to add herbs as well as beer and wine to the stew, the traditional
version is fairly plain and often the better for it. Beef Stew For this, I tend to use onion/leek, carrots,
swede, celery and braising or stewing steak which are then stewed in a beef
stock. You can add some gravy granules to get a darker, richer stew. Beef
stew is traditionally accompanied by dumplings which are added into the sauce
towards the end of cooking. However, as this dish is most often cooked in an
oven, it is technically a casserole! In any event, serve with mashed potatoes
and maybe some extra greens or peas if you wish. You can also use a slice of
fresh bread to mop up the gravy as you finish it!
Lamb Stew An English Lamb Stew can be similar to an Irish
Stew (lamb, potatoes and onion) or it can have more vegetables, especially
celery, swede, turnip and carrots. You can accompany it with dumplings,
either dunked in the stew or baked separately. A variation on lamb stew is to add Pearl Barley
(picture on the right). Again serve with mashed potatoes.
Scouse This dish is similar to traditional lamb or
beef stews, but was originally thickened with Ship’s biscuit. It is also
either cooked with or served with pickled red cabbage or beetroot. Whilst
popular in seaports, it has become the regional dish of Liverpool and has
given that City their nickname. I find this interesting, as coming from a
seaport on the other side of England, I had never heard of this stew!
Rabbit Stew Ever wondered why rabbits are often called
‘Stewart’! Similar to the filling for Rabbit Pie, this
stew consists of rabbit, a little bacon, carrot, stock and a little
seasoning. Less is more with this dish!
Casserole Casseroles are slow cooked in the oven and tend
to have richer a richer gravy or sauce than stews. For this reason, they are
more often embellished and influenced by foreign cuisine. Even relatively traditional
casseroles can be made with beer, stout, red wine, cider, paprika, cream and
so on in a way that would leave a ‘stew’ no longer a ‘stew’. Beef Casserole
Braised Beef Braising steak can be tough if fried or roasted
normally because it has quite a lot of sinews in it. But slow cook it and the
sinews turn to jelly to produce one of the best ways of eating beef. Rolled
brisket is another popular cut for braising.
Braised Beef with Pepper Sauce Add mushrooms, a little cream, black pepper and
mustard powder to the juices from the braising meat to create a nice
alternative to a gravy sauce.
Beef Curry Did the English invent curry – no. Is there such a thing as an English (or British) curry
– yes. This is a fusion dish and so can vary. It is
also rarely eaten these days having been discarded for the more ‘Indian’
Anglo-Indian curries and for more authentic Indian food. It is often looked
down on by curry lovers as a pale English imitation of what a good curry
should be. It is certainly true that it is more English
than Indian. In fact, it is little more than a casserole with added madras
curry powder (itself Anglo-Indian), sultanas and a little mango chutney,
eaten on a round ring of rice and with mango chutney and grated coconut on
the side. Simplistic – but very nice! A similar curry can be made with
chicken or mince.
Lamb Casserole Similar to a lamb stew, but with a bit more
body.
Lancashire Hotpot Lancashire Hot Pot is similar to a Lamb Stew,
but has slices of potato on top rather than within it.
Braised Lamb Probably the best known form of braised lamb is
lamb shanks which are taken from the lower leg and absolutely wonderful when
slow cooked. However, just about any cut could be used with shoulder and
‘scrag end’ (probably the cheapest cut) being common options. As with the
normal roast, they would be accompanied by red jelly and mint sauce.
Pork with apple and cider This is a lovely combination. A little cream
and maybe sage dumplings can also be added. The cider and apple sauce also
goes well with chicken, rabbit and pork chops.
Pork With Red Cabbage Slow cooked pork on a bed of red cabbage is a
fantastic combination. I put a little red wine vinegar and brown sugar into
the red cabbage, but tend not to include apple as I’d have this as an
accompaniment. Probably advisable to cook the cabbage in a pan for a while
first as it can be tough even when cooked for several hours.
Turkey Casserole What to do with left over
turkey from Christmas dinner? Well, this is one of my family favourites.
Strip the Turkey and place both white and dark meat into a casserole dish –
I’d say about two-thirds dark meat. Include the ‘gunk’. Gunk is an English
word meaning ‘mess’. By this I mean the jelly,
bacon, sausage meat and stuffing that tends to lie
at the bottom of a roast turkey that has rested. Not too much – but it adds
flavour. Also add a little cranberry jelly to sweeten and gravy granules to
thicken. Add water and bring to the boil on the hob, then into the oven for
an hour or so of slow cooking. We tend to eat with a baked potato and veg.
This truly is one of my favourite meals of the year, though we tend to cut
the meat into larger chunks and have more gravy than shown on the picture.
Pheasant Casserole A deliciously rich casserole that can be made
with any other game bird. It is typically accompanied by braised red cabbage.
Chicken or Turkey in a Cream Sauce There are many, many variations on this dish
and many names it goes by. It could be a supreme, a fricassee, which was
certainly eaten in Medieval England, or an ‘a la King’, the precise origins
of which are disputed. It could be just ‘in a white sauce’ or a white wine
sauce’. In England, these dishes are usually eaten on a bed of plain rice.
Jugged Hare This is a style of cooking in which a whole
hare, cut into pieces, together with vegetables, is placed inside a sealed
dish (or jug) and immersed into water and gently simmered. It is probably a
direct descent of cooking in a cauldron! Hare’s are bigger than rabbits and
have a stronger flavour. The dish tends therefore to be richer with the use
of juniper berries, red wine and even port wine.
Liver and onion Despite the attempts of trendy chef’s to
breathe new life into offal, most of these dishes remain unpopular. One
exception is liver, although even this is less popular these days than it
used to be. As a child I ate this dish fairly regularly, usually braised with
onion and bacon. Lamb’s liver is the best in my view. Liver is also nice
simply grilled.
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