Beef cheek and heart cottage pie

Another seasonal favourite during the cold weather is my take on cottage pie which I call "Shepherds pie". I know the purists (aka my other half) amongst you will complain about naming conventions, but it is what my mother called it, so the name stuck. 
I prefer it with beef and yes it should be called cottage pie, but old habits die hard and I'm sticking with it! 
I like to use lesser known cuts of meat and this recipe is no exception. I've used minced beef cheek and heart which gives the gravy base a meatier flavour. 

Meat base
1 onion chopped
1 medium carrot diced
1 stick celery diced
250g beef cheeks minced
200g beef heart minced
150ml beef stock
100ml red wine
10ml worcestershire sauce
1 heaped teaspoon cornflour mixed with a small amount of water 
Salt and pepper to season
oil for frying

Sauté the onion and carrot on a low heat until soft
Remove the veg from the pan 
On a medium heat cook the mince mix until brown
Place all the sautéed veg back in the pan, add the stock and simmer for 15 mins
Add the worcestershire sauce and stir through
Thicken the sauce with the cornflour, ensure to stir well to avoid lumps
Season to taste
Place in a casserole dish and allow to cool
If cooking on the BBQ then place the ingredients in a cast iron skillet or baking pan

Mash topping
300g boiled potatoes (I put these through a ricer to get a smooth consistency)
100g boiled celariac (put through a ricer, like you did with the potatoes)
50g butter melted
50ml milk warmed
Salt and pepper to season

Mix all the ingredients together until you get a smooth mash, season to taste


To finish the pie
Top the meat sauce with the mash
Place into a hot oven at 180c fan, 190c normal for 30 mins
If cooking on the BBQ then set up for indirect cooking and cook at 180c for 30 minutes

If you like you can top the pie with grated cheese, my preference is a mature cheddar, I use about 100g and then place the pie under a hot grill until the cheese has melted.

Chilli con carne

What better than chilli, guacamole and salsa to liven up a chilly winters evening. I'll happily eat this all year round, but this is a great comfort food of mine and a dish I've been making for years. Now the recipe is not rocket science and stays true to good honest flavours. The secret especially with the chilli is long slow cooking. This recipe is a great dish for sharing with friends.

Serves 6

450g minced beef, preferably brisket or shin
I sometimes use cuts such as beef cheek, brisket and heart minced as well, it makes for a deeper flavour
2 medium onions chopped
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 tablespoon cumin seeds (roasted and ground)
1 tablespoon tomato purée
1 tablespoon chipotles in adobo paste (optional)
1 ancho chilli, toasted,  rehydrated and chopped
3 green chillies chopped
1 tin tomatoes
200ml passata
Oil for frying
Salt and pepper to taste

In a heavy based pot or cast iron pan fry the onions until soft and add the garlic, cumin and  all the chillies and cook out for a couple of minutes.
Remove to one side and then fry off the mince in batches to brown it
Place the onion mix back in the pan and add the tomato purée, cook out for one minute and then add the tomatoes and the passata
Add the chipotles in adobo paste and stir through
I now place this in the oven for 3 hours at 120 Celsius without a lid on, if it starts to reduce too quickly I place the lid on

For those of you wishing to cook this on the BBQ
In a heavy based cast iron pot or dutch oven fry the onions until soft and add the garlic, cumin and chillies and cook out for a couple of minutes
Remove to one side and then fry off the mince in batches to brown it
Place the onion mix back in the pot and add the tomato purée, cook out for one minute and then add the tomatoes and the passata
Add the chipotles in adobo paste and stir through
Set the BBQ up for indirect cooking at 120c and throw some wood chips on the coals, my preference is hickory
Place the dutch oven on the griddle with the lid off and cook for 3-4 hours, stir occasionally to prevent the bottom from burning

I know some people add kidney beans and ordinarily I would too, but a certain fussy other half of mine doesn't like beans so I leave them out. 
Feel free to add some if you so wish, add them in the last hour of cooking

I like to accompany this with salsa and guacamole

 Salsa 
10 tomatoes, pulp removed and chopped
Bunch fresh coriander chopped
2 red onions thinly sliced
Juice of one lime
Rapeseed oil to drizzle
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients bar the salt together and leave to marinade.
Just before serving season with the salt, if you salt it earlier it will draw the moisture out and make the salsa watery.

After that you need to make some Guacamole, now traditionally this has coriander, tomato and line etc.. but I make mine this way and it tastes nice.

3 avocados - stone and skin removed
1 large clove garlic  - grated
Juice of one lemon
Tobasco - 10 dashes or more if you like
Salt and pepper to taste

Mash the avocados with a fork, but not so much that it becomes mush, you need some texture
Add the garlic, lemon, pepper and tobasco and mix well. 
I add the salt just before serving

Roast bone marrow with shallot, garlic and herb jam

You cannot get any simpler than roast bone marrow. It's often the dishes that are simplest that pack the biggest punch flavour wise. This makes a great starter or snack dish to be shared with friends and served with toasted bread. This dish is inspired by a food hero of mine, Fergus Henderson, he of St John restaurant in London fame. 

His bone marrow and parsley salad dish can be found on the menu of all the St John restaurants. It's one I used to enjoy when I dined on a regular basis at St John bread and wine in East London. His books on nose to tail eating are a celebration of the whole animal and advocate a no waste policy. Everything should be used, it is one way of respecting what you eat, rather than throwing away perfectly tasty morsels.

For those you you wanting to try this dish you will need to order the marrowbone specially from your butcher. I like to ask mine to cut the bone lengthways as it makes it easier to scoop out the bone marrow when eating.

200g bone with marrow
1g maldon sea salt

BBQ
Set your BBQ for indirect heat, at 190c
I also like to add some pecan chips to the coals for added flavour
Cook for 20 minutes until the marrow is soft to the touch
Season with the salt

Oven cooking
Place in the oven at 180c fan, 190c normal for 20 minutes, the marrow should be soft to the touch
Season with the salt

Shallot jam
3 shallots sliced
2 cloves garlic thinly sliced
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves chopped
2 teaspoons fresh parsely leaves chopped
10ml olive oil for frying
Salt and pepper to taste

On a low heat, fry the shallots and garlic in the oil until soft and the garlic is starting to brown
Take off the heat and stir through the herbs
Season to taste

I like to serve this with toasted bread. 
Simply spread the marrow on the bread and top with the jam. 
Enjoy!

Beef faggots with red wine and onion gravy

Many people don't have a lot of experience of offal. I remember that my family ate a lot of it when I was younger. I think this was a hangover from the days when my grandfather was a butcher. The family would eat all the cheaper cuts and offal that wouldn't sell in the shop. So naturally my mother followed on with this even though we didn't have the butchers shop any more. I always loved kidney and heart, but not so much liver as it always ended up being over cooked. 

In my later years in London I discovered Fergus Henderson's St John restaurants and their motto of nose to tail eating. I also noticed that offal was on the decline in restaurants (other than St John) as well as butchers and shops. In recent years this has changed thanks to Mr Henderson's 2004 Nose to Tail and Complete Nose to Tail books (yes, I have both!). Sadly the popularity of these lesser meats has yet to catch on here in the Netherlands, but luckily I can order some from my butchers and direct from the farmers. 

Despite eating various cuts of offal over the years, I never got round to trying faggots until about 12 or so years ago. I was in a pub in Caernarvon in Wales and I remember them being served with a fantastic onion gravy and scrappy chips, they were fantastic.  

Faggots originated in the West midlands in the UK and then spread to Wales. They are a mix of pigs heart, lungs and liver minced and wrapped in caul and then roasted. For this recipe I opted for beef, Texas Longhorn to be precise, using heart, liver and brisket.

For the faggots

300g brisket (ensure there is some fat on the meat)

200g liver

300g heart

15g fresh thyme chopped

10g fresh rosemary chopped

salt and pepper to season

500g caul fat/crepinette (you will need to ask your butcher for this, or if you can't get hold of it then use thinly sliced bacon or pancetta instead)

For the gravy

150ml red wine

150ml beef stock

1 medium carrot roughly chopped

2 onions roughly chopped

1 bay leaf

1 garlic clove, lightly crushed to release the oils

Sprigs of thyme and rosemary

Using the fine blade on your mincer, mince the brisket, liver and heart or ask your butcher to do this for you

Place the meat into a bowl, add the herbs and season with salt and pepper, mix well to combine

Fry off a small piece of the mixture to check the seasoning and add more to the mix if needed

Form the mix into round balls (about 100g each), wrap each ball with caul or bacon if using to hold them together, this should make roughly 10 faggots

Place in the fridge for 2-3 hours to firm up

Preheat the oven to 150c (fan) 160c (normal), 
If cooking on the BBQ then set the BBQ up for indirect cooking at 160c and use a deep cast iron baking dish or pan

In a baking dish (oven method) or cast iron (bbq method) place gravy ingredients (veg, herbs, stock and wine) and place the faggots in the dish

Roast in the oven or BBQ for 40 minutes

Take the faggots out of the dish and place to one side and cover with tin foil to keep warm

Strain the gravy into a pan and reduce until it thickens, then serve with the faggots

I also like to serve this with a creamy mash

Pigs head terrine

I’ve been wanting to make this for quite some time. I’ve had pigs head a couple of times now, the first was at that famous Nose to Tail eatery St John in London where I had a suckling pig feast with friends when I was leaving London and the second was at BROR in Copenhagen.   

Many recipes will refer to it as brawn or head cheese, which are essentially just another name for pigs head. Now this is not a recipe for the faint of heart. You will end up carving up a pigs head and rooting around in skull cavities for meat once its cooked. I’m not going to sugar coat it, I thought it best to put it on the table up front before you embark on this recipe. The recipe itself is simple enough, what it does take is time, so best to give yourself a day and a half to make this.

You’re also thinking where on earth am I going to get a pigs head? Any good butcher will be able to supply one, you will however need to ask them specially. I am lucky in the fact that Paul van den Hooven at Wild Vleesch gives me notice when he’s about to slaughter some pigs so I can put my meat order in. What I like about his butchery is that he cares about his produce. He knows the farmers and knows that they look after their animals and ensures that the animals are slaughtered in a humane manner.

When considering this recipe, I would advise 2 things. One, only buy half a head unless you’re catering for a very large number, and two, make sure you have a very large pot. You’ll need at least a 10 litre pot if you’re considering half a head and 20 litre if you go for a whole one. Even with the half head you will still need to carve the head into pieces to fit it in the pan.

Serves 8 people as a starter

Half a pigs head            
3 onions quartered
4 cloves garlic
1 stick celery roughly chopped
2 carrots roughly chopped
10g salt
10 pepper corns
2 sprigs rosemary
5 sprigs thyme
3 bay leaves
1 sage leaf

Place all ingredients in a large pan and top up with water to cover the head
Simmer on a low heat for 4 hours
Allow to cool slightly before removing the head
You will them need to pick out all the meat ensuring you separate the fat from the meat, place to one side in a bowl until you’ve prepared the shallots and garlic for the terrine mix
It is better if you have small pieces of meat, the meat should fall apart quite easily when you are removing it

For the terrine mix
1 clove garlic finely chopped
2 shallots finely chopped
3 sprigs thyme, leaves removed and chopped
oil for frying
Salt and pepper to season
Head meat

Fry the shallots and garlic in the oil on a low heat until soft, allow to cool
Add them to the head meat along with the thyme and season with salt and pepper and stir through
Line a terrine dish with cling film and fill the dish with the meat mix, ensuring it is well compacted together
Place in the fridge for 8 hours or overnight to allow it to set

I like to serve this with my fig and plum chutney on some toasted bread