Carol’s redcurrant and horseradish relish recipe
If we are busy during the week we often have baked potatoes with salad and wafer thin slices of rare beef left over from the Sunday joint. We always buy a decent sized joint of beef as it is easier to cook and the leftovers are delicious. It also freezes well. Cold meat and salad demand a tasty chutney or a really good relish to raise them from the average traffic warden fodder to the sort of dish that would tempt a petulant Roy Keane back onto the field. My friend Carol is an energy machine and brilliant cook. She adapts and experiments with...
read moreCheesy dauphinoise potatoes á la Cottage Smallholder
I’ve been fond of Dauphinoise potatoes since I worked in a Le Routier restaurant and the chef, Robert, made fabulous Dauphinoise. I decided to make them tonight to accompany our Spanish Lamb. I had chopped and arranged the potatoes before I discovered that we had run out of cream. This has happened before and in desperation, I created this dish. I’d forgotten how good it is and it worked brilliantly with the lamb. The crunchy, cheesy top covers a wonderfully succulent bed of soft potato – real comfort food. Cheesy...
read moreFiona’s potato cake recipe
Whenever I make mashed potatoes I make a double amount so as to have enough left over to make potato cakes. Usually, my potato loving partner sniffs out the remains, however carefully I have hidden them. It’s my fault entirely. I tend not to announce future culinary plots and plans. But this week I did. “I’ll cook tomorrow and make you potato cakes, if there is any mash left.” The uplifted arm dropped and the saucepan lid was replaced immediately. Potato cakes are easy to make and are real comfort food and somehow a bit...
read moreMelt in the mouth partridge recipe
French partridge are such pretty birds. I see quite a few when I’m driving around the villages. These are busy, sociable birds that move about in small groups. They rush to hide in the hedgerows with quick neat steps and beaks held high as Jalopy thunders past. Some friends of mine reckon that they mate for life. A solo male partridge moped around their garden for days until I clomped into a dark barn wearing my hob nailed boots and by mistake, trod on him. There was a soft sighing cry. I rushed up to the house to fetch a...
read moreSpecial Boxing Day Breakfast (scrambled eggs with smoked salmon recipe)
Just before I met Danny, I went to Ireland for the first time to attend a bread making course at the Ballymaloe Cookery School. For the duration of the course my sister and I stayed at the Shanagarry Guest House which was walking distance from the school, although I think we drove the 200 yards every day. Partly laziness but mainly on account of the breakfast, which was excellent and forced one to linger until the last possible moment. The couple who owned the guest house were charming. The husband was a rugby coach for the Irish team and...
read morePot roast pheasant (gypsy style) recipe for Christmas Eve
A Cottage Smallholder Christmas tradition is pot roast pheasant on Christmas Eve. Partly because it’s in season and is a treat but mainly because it’s bunged in the oven for a good hour an a half whilst I get on with another task such as helping Father Christmas with packing the stockings for the household. F.C. usually stops for a sherry early evening to swap recipes, although it’s awkward manoeuvring the sleigh in the back since we fenced the kitchen garden and shortened the runway (Heathrow take note). Cooking game can be...
read moreEasy marzipan recipe and a few icing tips
I love marzipan. The homemade kind is the most delicious and it’s a cinch to make. My mum used to announce that she’d made it with such a sonorous trumpeting that, for years, I imagined it was a complex procedure. I made it in a matter of minutes and rang her just in case I’d got something wrong. She was a bit crouchy that her secret was finally revealed. Her marzipan recipe is below. Some people prefer cooked marzipan. This is a much more complex process and is covered here on the Delia online...
read moreSunday Roast: Best roast chicken (or turkey) with piquant automatic gravy recipe
One happy day, Danny opened the small box that holds the Tobasco bottle and pulled out a slip of paper. It was a recipe suggestion for roast chicken baste or a marinade for barbecued chicken. There was just a list of ingredients (no amounts or method). The list intrigued him, it lay beside his place for a couple of days and was studied as he sipped his coffee and tucked into supper. Finally he announced: “I’m going to try this. Can you get a free range chicken from Fred’s for next Sunday, please.” Fred Fitzpatrick,...
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