Simple Savoury Pies

One of my fondest childhood culinary memories is of a great aunt who every time we went to stay with the family would produce what used to be called a plate pie - a shallow pie-dish filled with something savoury, like (her version) mince, onions, and tiny diced carrots, sometimes with small pieces of spud to bulk it out. This was covered in decidedly thick shortcrust pastry, so it was a filler-upper. And a very cheap supper.

Cow Pie

I felt a bit ashamed the other day using bought puff pastry (but it was Sainsbury's own, far cheaper than the big brand one and no damn different) to make something along those lines. I had three chicken thigh fillets to use, some scraps of cooking bacon (I say again, what is the other stuff for if not for cooking?) one of our big thick leeks sliced finely, and a few mushrooms. Each element was cooked separately in oil and butter, one after the next - a question of capacity and washing up - then mixed in the oval dish and the lot cooked in the fan-oven at 180C for about 25 minutes (not the 10 claimed on the packet). Served with beans and stovies it was a one course meal that warmed, filled and satisfied. At a rough guess the pie cost £3.50, and for something that substantial bought in packets I reckon we'd have paid £6 in the shops.

With the upsurge in interest in baking chi-chi cakes and muffins recently it is time we had a revival of the great British pie on TV (producers, please employ me to work on this). The cow pie pictured above, enjoyed at a Keswick pub-restaurant, shows the way forward.

Star Star Anise

Home-made Chinese food too often focuses on stir fries to the exclusion of many more interesting methods and recipes. In my past life I got to travel in China, Taiwan and various Asian countries where the Chinese tended to dominate business (as they soon will around the world). A frequent favourite dish on those travels was variations on beef soup flavoured with star anise, the best being made with oxtail.

I have since found that a passable imitation can be made with leftover beef gravy (real gravy, not the stuff made with powder) or the juices from a beef stew. On Saturday we had one such, started as ever with a gently fried chopped onion, to which a finely chopped red chilli was added before the sieved juices of a stew from two days earlier were poured in and two whole star anise and a couple of big chunks of ginger were plopped in to simmer nicely for the best part of an hour (the few scraps of meat added at the last minute to avoid them going stringy along with a ready softened nest of noodles).

Not haute cuisine, but a good element of a Chinese meal that had the twin virtues of tasting great and costing next to nothing. Made with leftovers but there were no leftovers afterwards this time.

On Perfect Kitchens and True Wealth

Since watching an edition of Grand Designs the other day I have been thinking about perfect kitchens and what they show. This has not involved considering what is the perfect kitchen, but what the pristine, beautifully designed, faultlessly curved versions seen on such programmes say about the owners and their attitude to food.

First I must say something about that programme and its presenter. The idea of new projects, innovation in building methods, and pushing the boundaries generally is great. Most of the buildings are excellent. But Kevin McCloud may well be the least critical critic on TV. He comes across as a nice chap, and at times hints at dislikes, but never have I seen him come out and say in terms something is horrid or stupid, which several have been. The programme that made me think about kitchens was one such: the house shouted at its surroundings, was far too close to neighbours, and the design looked like a child had made it from cereal boxes glued together.

But to the kitchen. It was white, totally white. Nothing to be seen on any surface. No life to it. This was an ornament not a place to make food. As far as I could see the couple building the house had no children, though perhaps they had flown the German-tiled antiseptic nest. Having kids is not of course a mark of happiness, but having a life where food you make yourself for yourself and others is, at least for me.

I would find it hard to imagine any good food coming out of such an operating theatre environment. Where is the fruit ripening? The bag of just-bought (-picked) vegetables? A bottle of wine getting to room temperature? The innumerable utensils a real cook employs and wants to hand, not hidden behind silently sliding doors?

We have friends who are not without money, somewhat minted in fact, but a good part of their wealth is beyond money, it is (to be sententious) in the warmth of home life, family, friends, activity, spontaneity. Two families in particular have kitchens buzzing with activity, slightly chaotic, alive. Food is to be seen and smelled. Every time I see the - depending on fashion - stainless steel everywhere, perfectly white, or stained wood - kitchens on Grand Designs and other windows on the modish wealthy, I think how sad the people concerned are: trying to make the kitchen a thing of clean-lined art, rather than just (if just is the word) making good food in the kitchen.  

On Cooking and the Future

All my recent posts seem to have been recipe-based, so it's time for a little philosophy. Or at least something not based on a recipe.

I find myself thinking ahead these days in two specific ways. The first is wondering about death - still way off I hope, but at 53 not as far away as when I was 33. The second is about what we will be eating tomorrow. And that latter part in itself splits into two sections: the evening meal, which is our big family moment of the day - nobody is at their best for breakfast - and into which I try to pack as much nutritious pleasure as possible; and the future of food.

That future of food thing was given a jolt this morning with news items on Today about poor harvests worldwide, the need to accept knobbly fruit and veg (for goodness' sake it's the taste that matters), and the growing pressures of the global population boom. One speaker who may even have been a Tory politician heaven forefend spoke some sense, predicting further shocks to come - Asian prosperity means that middle class Asians are demanding more meat, and that in the end means higher prices for grain all round.

Henry Rowntree, from whom we buy Aberdeen Angus beef every now and then told me of a visit by Brazilian farmers. They wanted to improve their stock with help from his bulls, but said they were no threat as within four or five years Brazil will be a net importer of beef, prosperity again driving demand.

A grain farmer interviewed on Today spoke about why the lousy summer has slashed his yield, but with uncharacteristic optimism said it will all be ok in the end, these things go in cycles etc. Having observed the vile summers we have had for the last four years I wonder. Has the climate in Britain, in Northern Britain in particular, changed to include a wet season in place of a summer?

All of which prompts various thoughts, in no particular order: enjoy things while we can; grow more of our own, prices ain't going to fall anytime soon; avoid waste; invest in umbrella futures; and pass me a glass of decent red wine.

Swiss Bliss

Swiss chard is something you hardly ever see in supermarkets - it tends to fade quite quickly, the bright green leaves look tired after a day and where the stem is cut turns an unappealing purply-black. So best to grow it yourself. More positive reasons to love the stuff are that once established it survives frosts and stands over the entire winter even in the wilds of Preston; you get two veg for the price of one - the leaves cooked like spinach, stems treated entirely differently; and the stems in particular have a pleasing sweet earthiness about them. Inevitably some cookbooks equate them to asparagus (along with a dozen other veg that taste nothing like the magic green sticks), but they have a fine flavour of their own.

Sunday's roast was followed by a gratin of the stems, cut into 2cm pieces and parboiled for five minutes. The  bechamel was flavoured with grated Parmesan which suited the sweetness of the chard, and in the post-roast oven browned nicely. It was almost a pudding -  if I'd used ground almonds in place of flour as a thickener it would have been even more like some medieval sweet-savoury offering.

It's always a good sign that nothing is left in the dish, but sadly this year we have grown very little chard - not for want of trying, the wet weather took its toll - so at most we can look forward to two more repeat servings now.

Pate on the Hoof

Yesterday thinking it was stewing beef I defrosted what turned out to be liver, part of a box of meat that I had delivered by the excellent Henry Rowntree (pictured with one of his prize bulls), whose Aberdeen Angus farm I visited some time ago for Meat Trades Journal and Lancashire Life. We buy a 10kg box from him every few months: his meat is great, and at £120 delivered it is far cheaper than we would pay for similar quality (were it available) in the supermarket. Booth's and maybe Waitrose are the only ones I'd expect to have meat approaching his in quality.

My error, and as my son won't eat liver as is I had to use it to make pate, which he does like. Guess it must be the texture of liver that puts him off. So with a 99p pack of Sainsbury's basic bacon lardons (plenty of the fat needed for the dish), an onion, four small cloves of garlic and a glass of  leftover red wine, plus celery salt, sage and thyme from the garden, and lots of pepper, I set about it. No egg because I zapped the meats fine enough for them not to be too crumbly, and because I forgot to use one.

Using what was doubtless calf's liver made me wonder how it would turn out, pig's being the norm, but reasoning that chicken liver is softer still but makes great pate (I wish I could find how to do the accents) I went ahead.

The result is a very winey-herby-garlicky pate that will be a starter tonight (as ever with pates will have grown in flavour overnight) when we have a friend over taking potluck, and tomorrow when some more are here for what will be a sort of mezze. Or meze.

Making pate always brings home the savings that can be had by doing the cooking yourself instead of buying ready-made. I reckon the amount now garlicking out our fridge would have set us back about £7, maybe more. With a food processor it is ridiculously easy, zap, mix, season, put in a shallow ovenproof dish and cover with foil, put that in a roasting dish with boiling water 1/3 the way up, and cook for about 90 minutes in  an oven at 150C, removing the foil lid 15 minutes from the end to let the top brown. You can tell it's done by the smell, the fact that it comes away from the sides of the dish, and being doubly careful by pricking it with a knife - the juices should be clear, and the knife clean when removed.

Bread-stick Bonus

Baking rolls yesterday to go with homemade burgers I had some dough left over. Waste not etc, so I decided to give bread-sticks a go.

The dough btw was made (in my bread-maker) with 3/4 strong white bread flour and 1/4 cornmeal, largely because I have some cornmeal that needs using soon, but also because it gives a nice hint of gold to the end product. As I've had problems with bread rising of late I used a whole sachet of dried yeast, part of which was revived in some warm milk. It seemed to work well.

Forming the sticks was a challenge, but fun. It took me back to infant school days playing with plasticine, rolling a small ball into a sausage into a snake. As with those rather earlier efforts the final shape was less than even, but that (I hope) added a certain rustic charm to the snack.

The uncooked sticks were placed on a steel tray and left to rise for an hour or so, then put into the top of an oven just set to 220C (that is, they were put in a cool oven as it heated to 220C). I do that instead of putting bread in a pre-heated oven to give it a bit more rising. They took longer to bake than I had expected, almost as long as the sizeable bread rolls, so approaching 20 minutes, though I took the very thinnest out sooner, judging by their colour that they were done.


Sternest critic - my son - tried one and said less than flatteringly that he didn't believe I had made them. Crunchy, with a nice yeasty bread flavour, they were a winner, and I'll do more in future. On my austerity hobby-horse they were almost free, made from a scrap of dough that might have been binned otherwise (though I would probably have made a small roll for later use).



The picture shows the fatter models as the thin ones went almost instantly.

If anyone in the big-wide world can given me ideas about how to make them more even, and evenly thin to boot, I'd be grateful. I'm wondering if I could get some Parmesan to cling to the surface to add another dimension, but they were very good as they were.