For the Love of British Food

By now the most anyone should have left over from Christmas is perhaps the last of your fruitcake if you made one or a part-used jar of mincemeat.

It’s a good time of year for checking your freezer and making a list of items you could use to make a meal if the weather keeps you indoors or money is tight. Remember to put any best before or expiry dates on your list and use your favourite fridge magnet to stick your list on the door.

When I did this recently I found some chicken thighs and a pack of sausagemeat-based stuffing I bought as a standby for the festive season.  The stuffing had onion, herbs and apricot in it. I made half of this into little meatballs, fried with the chicken and added wine, more herbs and mushrooms. This cooked up into a delicious casserole which went into an energy-friendly low oven for a couple of hours.  The rest of the stuffing was formed into a roll, wrapped in foil and put in to the oven with the casserole and will make my lunchtime sandwiches for a day or two with some good chutney.

I had some cooking apples to use up, these went into a crumble pudding with some mincemeat left from Christmas mince pies. I greased the baking dish with the last of the brandy butter.  When the casserole came out, the heat went up to 180C and cooked the crumble for 25 mins.  I had already added either brandy or calvados to the mincemeat when I opened the jar, so it tasted great!

I am going to try to clear my freezer a bit so I can give it a good clean.  When it is clear enough I will unload the remaining items - mostly frozen veg staples like peas, sweetcorn, oven chips (French fries) and the like, into a couple of cold boxes with some icepacks. If it is cold enough outside the boxes can go out there while I clean. Some nights it has been colder than inside my freezer, even down here on the South Coast, but we’re back to mild and windy for a few days.

The freezer is a frost-free model so cleaning will be quick and a final wipe with a cloth dipped in a bicarb. of soda solution will help it keep fresh.

This is what else I found and some suggestions what to do with it.
More chicken thighs - another casserole perhaps with leeks and herb dumplings or Thai green curry
Minced Lamb - I could get out my Claudia Roden Middle East cookbook for exotic inspiration, but I could also make Shepherds Pie topped with creamy mash
Whole Pheasant - bought when I thought I was going to have a friend to dinner, but he got the flu - perhaps he’ll come for Sunday lunch if I promise not to cook parsnips or sprouts both of which he hates.  I could make a rich pot roast with red wine.
Sausages - with mash of course, or take the meat out of the skins, break up and add to pasta sauce.
Fish in breadcrumbs/fish cakes/plain fish portions - Friday treats with some parsley sauce and chips or mash and peas - maybe mushy peas if I have a tin in the cupboard
Bacon - BLT for weekend breakfasts of course, but need to round up all the little packs that I make of 6 or 8 rashers from supermarket bulk packs
Cranberries - the other half of the pack that didn’t go into sauce for the festive bird - will be briefly stewed with a bare tablespoon of water, then cooled and will go into muffins with a good pinch of mixed spice and orange zest
Other frozen berries - can go mushy when thawed - use in a smoothie for breakfast, a coulis to pour over vanilla icecream or with apples in a pie or crumble, no need to thaw for this

Here are some things to buy for your storecupboard rather than the freezer to bulk out other items and to make sure you aren’t caught short if snowed in.

Suet (or veg alternative) for dumplings and pastry. Pulses - dried and tinned - soups, casseroles and curries.
Tinned tomatoes - without herb or garlic  flavourings, I like the crushed ones which are less watery than whole ones in juice. Tomato paste.
Spices -try the Seasoned Pioneers website for mail order and ideas
Creamed or kernel sweetcorn - you’ll want to make that soup recipe from a previous post
Bread mixes - or plenty of flour and dried yeast.
Sultanas and raisins.
Long-life milk.
Instant mashed potato - handy for topping fish or shepherds pie or as an emergency veg side dish

Make your list, then if you have run out of ideas what to do with what you find, come back and comment and I’ll try to give you some suggestions and recipes

Whichever method you choose for your cake, the ingredients are the same.  You want 3 large very fresh eggs for a cake made in 8 inch tins. For 9 inch tins, use 4 eggs. 

My weight measurement conversions are approximate but they are for fillings so small differences are not significant. The weight of eggs vs other ingredients in the cake mix is what counts.

How do you know an egg is fresh? Break it onto a plate. If the yolk stays domed and stands away from the white, the egg is fresh.  If it collapses into a flat disc, the egg is stale. Really bad eggs go green and smell.

Use it in scrambled egg, put it in a foo yong stir fry, or throw it away, but don’t make cakes with it. The yolk colour is not significant to this test, and will depend on what the hen was fed on and to some extent on the breed. It can also be seasonal, summer eggs are usually darker.

The yolk of free range chickens that have pecked round a field or yard to forage for themselves a bit as well as getting good quality grain feed will be dark gold, almost orange,  battery eggs are much paler yellow as a rule.  Brown eggs are not necessarily better and again depend on the breed of hen. End of eggy lessons.

Now, weigh your eggs. This is absolutely vital.  You need exactly the same weight of fat, flour and fine caster sugar as your eggs.  What fat to use. Only one thing will do and that is good quality UNSALTED butter.  Please don’t use the spreadable butter for baking as many have a small proportion of vegetable oil. Save it for your toast.

I go to France several times a year, popping across the Channel is easy from where I live in Southern England, either underneath on the Eurotunnel service where you sit in your car, on a train for a 35 minute journey, or by one of the many ferry routes. Point here, is that even now, with the decline of the pound sterling vs. the Euro, French unsalted butter – even the organic (biologique) type - is cheaper and you can buy plenty and freeze it for all your home baking

For these recipes, you want the butter soft, but not melting. If it is the right consistency it will blend easily with the other ingredients with no unmixed lumps or curdling. (more…)