Cooking

Tesco Finest – Serve Up The Best

November 29, 2013 by Erica Hughes 7 Comments

Tesco Finest suggested to be that I try out some of their 28 day matured steaks for their Serve Up The Best challenge. For great tasting food, it’s important to use good quality ingredients and Tesco Finest has quite a range. The recipe idea was Seared Beef Steak, served with pan-fried wild mushrooms and game chips.

I used the Tesco Finest Rump Steaks which have been dry aged for 28 days and are produced from Aberdeen Angus beef. The steaks were teamed up with the Tesco Finest Elfe Potatoes and some Finest Wild Mushrooms.

A bit in advance get the steaks out and let them come up to room temperature. Then brush each side with oil and season. Thinly slice the Elfe potatoes, wash in cold water to remove start and slowly fry until lightly brown and crisp. I think I sliced mine a bit too thickly. My excuse is that I had it in mind that game chips was a posh name for what we used to call ‘scallops’, which were basically round chips. I think though that game chips are actually supposed to come out more crispy.

I fried up the mushrooms with some butter to accompany my steak and chips. The steak was nice and juicy and there were no tough bits. I don’t usually cook beef at home because my husband complains about tough bits, but he enjoyed this piece of beef. The mushrooms were the perfect accompaniment to the beef and my ‘scallops’ went down very well too, even if they weren’t quite refined enough to be game chips.

OXO Good Grips Challenge: Grandma’s Apple Pie

September 26, 2013 by Erica Hughes 1 Comment

Recently OXO challenged me to make some seasonal food using their OXO Good Grips range of quality, culinary tools. I chose the OXO Good Grips Flour Sifter as I had plans to make some pastry.

I made my grandma’s apple pie recipe. The ingredients you will need are:

8oz sifted self raising flour
4oz margarine
5/6 medium cooking apples
2 tablespoons of caster sugar
very cold water

Core and chop the cooking apples into small pieces, add the caster sugar and stew for a few minutes on a strong heat (don’t add any water, but do stir regularly). Meanwhile rub the sifted, self raising flour into the margarine (it helps to have this at room temperature, but that isn’t essential). Then add a little very cold water at a time until you have a nice pastry dough. Roll out on a floured board and line a large pie dish with the pastry (I used a little over half the dough for this). Put in the apples and place a pastry lid on top. Seal the edges with a fork, slit the middle with a knife and few time and decorate with scraps of pastry, if you like. Cook at gas mark 5/190 degrees for about quarter of an hour.

My Grandma’s apple pie is a quick and easy recipe to follow and it’s very forgiving. It’s a very seasonal September recipe too and a great way of using up some windfall apples.

The OXO Good Grips Flour Sifter was easy to use: you just take off the top and put your flour inside. Replace the top and remove the bottom. You only need to shake gently for the flour to come out. It can be used to dust your rolling surface with flour too.

Mama’s Family Cookbook Review

September 20, 2013 by Erica Hughes 1 Comment

I’m going to let you into a little secret: this is my first cookbook review. I’ve reviewed other books, but never a cookbook. Now some cookbooks make good reading and others are all about the recipes. Mama’s Family Cookbook has an introduction which tells you about the author: an Italian great grandmother from Apulia who cooks for her large, extended family on a regular basis. Aside from that introduction, Mama’s Family Cookbook is all about the food and the recipes.

The dish that really caught my eye was Penne al Pollo or Creamy Chicken Penne. I thought I’ll try that one, have a good read through the book and write my review. I tried the recipe and I was disappointed. It didn’t taste bad, but it did taste bland. Mama does suggest adding dried chillis and canned tomatoes to add depth to the sauce in a tip alongside the recipe, but this seemed to be a creating a different dish to the main recipe.

So I’m starting to feel a bit out of my depth. I’m a rookie cookbook reviewer that has tried one recipe that wasn’t much good. Do I slate the book? That seemed a bit harsh on the strength of one recipe. So I decided to try another. This time I went for Pollo alla Parmigiana or Chicken Parmesan. This was much more successful. The recipe was easy to follow and the dish had the gutsy flavours that I associate with Italian cooking, in fact it was very rich. I’d recommend serving it with a side salad, bread or lots of plainly served vegetables to mope up that deep, rich sauce.

So then I thought what does that tell the reader of my review: one dish was good and one was bland. It’s difficult to decide whether you like it or you don’t. So I decided to try another: Rigatoni ai Zucchini or Roast Courgette Rigatoni. I followed the recipe for the most part, but I added an extra clove of garlic and a bit more onion. It seemed to benefit from the slightly stronger flavour. This was a hearty, flavoursome dish that didn’t require a great deal of work.

So what did I think of Mama’s Family Cookbook overall? There were more wins than fails and I think I learnt to add more flavouring to recipes as I went along. That said, not everyone has the confidence to do this and you do expect a recipe to have been thoroughly tested before publication. I’d say it’s a good collection of Italian cookery, but feel free to experiment and make changes to suit your tastes.

I was given a copy of Mama’s Family Cookbook for the purpose of carrying out this review.