Ren Behan - Author Wild Honey and Rye

Food Writer

Wild Mushrooms

Lamb Steaks Wild Mushroom Sauce and Dill Mash

A comforting recipe for Eat Welsh Lamb and Welsh Beef

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Lamb Steaks with Wild Mushroom Sauce and Dill Mash

Prep

Cook

Total

Yield 4 servings

A creamy and comforting recipe using Welsh lamb steaks. 

Instructions

  1. Season the lamb steaks with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, on both sides. Drizzle a little oil onto the steaks and rub the oil into the meat. Set to one side.
  2. Drain the peeled potatoes and put them into a pan of fresh cold water, cover, bring to the boil and cook for 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. Drain into a colander and set to one side to dry.
  3. Place a dry frying pan onto a low heat. Throw in the pine nuts and allow them to toast until they turn golden – this will take around 30 seconds. Tip the pine nuts onto a plate and set to one side.
  4. Add a little oil to the same pan, turn up the heat to medium-high and add the lamb steak to the pan. Fry for 5 minutes on one side then flip them over. Add the mushrooms to the pan and a teaspoon of butter and continue to cook for 3-4 minutes. Remove the lamb steaks (which will be cooked rare-medium rare) and leave them to rest on a plate.
  5. Pour the stock into the pan, swirl the stock around and allow to bubble for a minute. Add the fresh dill and double cream, stir and and bring up to the boil. Then take the pan off the heat.
  6. Mash the cooked potatoes, or put them through a potato ricer. Add one tablespoon butter, double cream and the fresh dill. Season with salt and pepper. Using a wooden spoon, stir the butter, cream and dill into the mashed potatoes, until the potatoes are creamy and smooth.
  7. Divide the potatoes onto 4 plates. Slice each lamb steak in half and place on top of the mash. Spoon over over the creamy mushroom sauce. Sprinkle with the toasted pine nuts and serve straight away.

Courses Main

Cuisine British

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Jamie Oliver’s Mothership Roast Lamb

This is a paid recipe commission for Eat Welsh Lamb and Welsh Beef. Find more Llambassador recipes here.

 

Celebrating Polish Food on Nick Coffer’s Weekend Kitchen

This week I was invited back again as a guest on Nick Coffer’s Weekend Kitchen on BBC Three Counties Radio. I’ve really enjoyed popping into the studio over the last year with my ‘Ren Recommend’s’ slot, where I let people know what seasonal treats to put in their basket for the week, but it’s always extra fun to be invited in as a guest. If you haven’t heard the show, it’s a two-hour dinner party over the radio, where three guests come in each week with food that they’ve cooked, to chat about their foodie interests and backgrounds with host Nick Coffer of My Daddy Cooks, who is a keen cook himself and a cookery book author. Guests are usually local and based in the Three Counties, but anyone can tune in online via iPlayer and the show is available up to the following week too. 

For the last couple of weeks, the food during the show has had a festive feel to it, featuring Italian Christmas food, as well as vegetarian Christmas food by fellow St Albans food blogger Clare Rudd of The Vegetarian Experience. Nick and producer Emma thought it would be interesting to tap into my Polish roots to talk about Polish Christmas food, so off I went to the studio to warm everybody up, armed with a Winter Mushroom Soup, Pierogi (stuffed dumplings) and a Sernik, a Polish Baked Cheesecake with Raisins and a Cranberry Compote.

Great fun was had by all as this week, the usual wine matching element had been replaced by festive cocktails mixed by Islay Kennedy. Islay knocked our socks off with her Christmas Fizz cocktail, well worth making on Christmas Day! We also tried a wonderful cocktail made with Islay’s own Griffith Park Sparkling Wine, with an added dash of elderflower cordial and a slice of cucumber.  All the cocktail recipes are also on the fact sheet.

Fellow guest Lee Moynes, also a food blogger at  Grub “n” Grog had cooked some fantastically tasty food which would make a great alternative to Christmas dinner, or even a festive dinner party. Lee made Parma Ham Wrapped Turkey Escalope with a Spiced Butternut Squash Stuffing and a Tomato and Mushroom Sauce, as well as Apple and Cinnamon Puffs with Vanilla Cream for pudding. Both courses were delicious, the plates were polished clean!

The fact sheet containing all the recipes is available here – it really is worth downloading the fact sheet every week as you usually get at least five free recipes that the guests have brought into talk about. 

It was quite a challenge bringing in Polish Christmas food, not least because the Poles begin their Christmas celebrations with a twelve (!) course meal on Christmas Eve, called Wigilia, or the Vigil meal. Obviously, we didn’t have time for twelve courses of food, but I was able to talk about some of the symbolic elements of the meal, for example, how the twelve courses represent the twelve apostles. Also, when setting the table, we set an extra place for the unknown guest and traditionally we would lay hay or straw under the tablecloth to remember the manger.  The meal begins when the first star appears in the sky and we start the meal by sharing oplatki, Christmas wafers, which would have been blessed by the priest. We then go on to enjoy a warming bowl of barszcz, a beetroot broth with uszka, mushroom filled ravioli. In some houses, there might be an alternative, such as the wild mushroom soup that I took in. Although the meal on Christmas Eve is meatless, fish features heavily, usually pickled or creamed herrings and fried carp. The meal also includes pierogi, which are Polish filled dumplings, a little bit like Italian ravioli or an Asian dim-sum, though boiled rather than steamed. On Christmas Eve Poles would traditionally have pierogi with cabbage (sauerkraut) and mushroom, although I took in my favourite kind that my Mama had made with cream cheese and potato, as we’ve always enjoyed them the most on Wigilia. 

As you can imagine, there usually isn’t a lot of room for dessert, but traditionally a poppy seed cake called Makowiec would be served along with a fruit compote. I decided to put my own twist on things and take in a Sernik, which is a baked cheesecake, as it is one of my favourite Polish desserts and one which I have always wanted to try making myself having eaten it in many Polish households over the years.  

My advice to Nick was to try making the pierogi himself in the New Year, or to befriend a Polish person to make them for him. Luckily, he has just moved into a new house with a Polish neighbour next door so I’m sure he’ll be in for more Polish treats soon!

If you’d like to listen to the whole show, it is available on iplayer for 7 days, the fact sheet should stay up for longer.

In the meantime, here’s the recipe for Pierogi with Cream Cheese and Potato

Pierogi with Cream Cheese and Potato

My Mother’s Recipe

Ingredients:

For the dough:

500g plain flour

¼ teaspoon salt

1 egg + 1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon olive oil (optional)

250 ml warm water (possibly a little more)

For the cheese and potato filling:

1 kg potatoes

150g curd cheese or use cream cheese

1 white onion, finely chopped and lightly fried in butter

1 egg yolk

For the topping

1 large white onion, finely chopped

100g butter

  1. To make the cheese and potato filling – peel and boil the potatoes in a large pan of salted water until soft. Drain and mash them.
  2. Mix the cheese into the mashed potato, add salt and pepper to season. Add in the cooked onion and egg yolk and mix well. Make sure the filling is completely cool when you use it to fill the dough. The filling can be made up to a day before you need it. 
  3. To make the dough, pour the flour onto a large wooden board or clean work surface. Mix the olive oil, egg and egg yolk together. Add it to the flour and start mixing and add a little warm water at a time to the dough. You can use your fingers or a fork to bring the dough together. Mix in the warm water, a little at a time, until you have a soft dough. Once the dough comes together, kneed it on a floured surface for a couple of minutes just until it comes together. The dough should be quite elastic. If it is too wet, add a little more flour. Put the dough in a bowl and cover with a tea towel so that it doesn’t dry out while you prepare the filling.
  4. When you are ready to use the dough, roll half of it out until it is around 3mm in thickness. Use an inverted glass tumbler to cut out circles and lay them on a floured surface, again covering with a tea towel until you are ready to fill.   Roll out the rest of the dough and do the same.
  5. Take your circles of dough and fill each one with a teaspoon of the filling. Fold each circle in half to enclose the filling into a semi-circle and crimp the dough together with your fingers so they are sealed. You can also use the back of a fork and press down around the edges to make sure they are sealed.
  6. To cook the Pierogi, drop them into a big pan of boiling, salted water. Don’t overload the pan. They are cooked when they float back up to the top, usually a couple of minutes.  Take them out carefully with a slotted spoon.
  7. To make the topping, in a separate pan, melt the butter and cook the onion in the butter very slowly until soft. Pour a little butter over the Pierogi or serve with soured cream.

Thank you very much to Nick and Emma for inviting me back and to Emma for taking the photographs.

Wesołych Świąt!

British Baby Leek and Mushroom Three Grain Risotto

Having survived National Cupcake Week, my scales are pleased that we are now into British Food Fortnight. Whilst I could continue to bake cakes, I am moving instead, into savoury, autumnal cooking-mode.

I know, I know, I could have chosen a British dish to cook, but I was mainly inspired by the lovely British baby leeks that are in season at the moment and by some British mushrooms (not foraged, this time) and by coming across a ‘three grain’ risotto in the back of my cupboard.
 
I’ve been buying locally produced organic spelt flour for some time now (made at Redbournbury Mill) and often enjoy spelt bread, but I have never actually cooked with or eaten spelt as a whole grain. So, I was quite keen to try it. The three grains I used included long grain rice, pearl barley and pearl spelt and I cooked them in the same way that I would cook a normal risotto. 
 
The baby leeks and wild mushrooms give this risotto a lovely flavour and if you top it with some vegetarian cheese, it will also tick the Meat Free Monday box. Aren’t we all being so good? 
 
 
 
You shouldn’t have any trouble at all finding British produce to cook with if you are in the UK, particularly during British Food Fortnight, but I am finding that generally, shops are very keen to push British produce and the double-bonus is that fresh British produce will most likely be in season too.
 
As a random aside, if you are interested in hearing more about spelt, catch up with this week’s Nick Coffer’s Weekend Kitchen on iplayer. Nick’s guest was Edd Kimber, the winner of last year’s Great British Bake Off and about half an hour into the show you’ll also hear me talking about spelt flour in my ‘Ren Recommend’s’ slot! If you are into baking, you’ll find a factsheet on the same page with lots of free recipes on it too, including Edd’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies and his Orange and Passion Fruit cake.
 
 
Over the next fortnight up until 2nd October, look out for ‘meet the producer’ style events, special promotions in the shops and in restaurants, healthy eating activities for kids (or, if like me, you overdosed on cupcakes, then for yourself) and generally for the “Buy British” message that the campaign is trying to push.
 
If you are a tweeter, you can follow @theBritFFGirls and add the hashtag #BritFF to your posts/tweets too.
 
You can also follow the campaign by ‘liking’ the Love British Food Facebook page.
 

 

British Baby Leek & Mushroom 3 Grain Risotto

Serves 4
 
Ingredients:
300g Three Grain Risotto (I used the Riso Gallo brand)
1 Tablespoon British Rapeseed Oil
1 Small Onion, finely chopped
220g British Baby Leeks, cleaned and finely chopped
150g British Oyster Mushrooms, chopped
50g British Chestnut Mushrooms, sliced
1 Litre Vegetable Stock
 
For the topping
110g British Baby Leeks, washed and finely chopped
15g Butter
A twist of pepper
A handful of freshly grated vegetarian-style Parmesan cheese
 
Method:
 
1. Boil the kettle and make up the vegetable stock to one litre in a separate sauce pan. Leave the pan on a low heat so that your stock is constantly simmering as you add it to your grains/rice.
 
2. Add the oil to a large heavy-based pan and gently fry the onions and leeks for around five minutes. Add the rice, stir it well until it is coated in the oil and mixed with the onions and leeks.
 
3. Add the mushrooms and risotto rice/grains, mix well until all the grains are coated. Over a medium heat, add a ladleful of stock to the rice and vegetables and simmer. As the stock bubbles in the pan and is absorbed, add another ladleful and again stir. If your rice/grains are in any way sticking to the pan, your heat is too high. Add more as necessary, until all the stock has been used up and the grains are cooked. The grains should take no more than 25 minutes to cook and should still have some bite to them, but should not be hard.
 
4. Using your (now empty) stock pan, add the butter and the extra baby leeks and gently fry for three minutes or so. Serve your risotto in bowls and top with the extra baby leeks, a twist of pepper and plenty of grated cheese.
 
 
 
I will be linking this recipe up with Simple and in Season – running up until 15th October.
 
Don’t forget to leave me comments too if you are writing about or eating British food over the next two weeks.
 
Thank you for all your help, comments and feedback about my blog name! I am sticking with Fabulicious Food! and the move is happening as I type.

Homemade Polish ‘poured’ noodles

It’s Monday again, and I’ve been experimenting once more in the kitchen with a meat-free recipe for Polish noodles or Kluski.

In Poland, (along with many other Eastern European nations) dumplings are a traditional dish and they can take many forms. Pierogi are the most popular in Poland.  They are hand made, little pockets of dough filled with either cream cheese and potato, cabbage, wild mushrooms, meat or even fruit.

There are also smaller gnocchi-type dumplings known as Leniwe which means “lazy” (because they are not filled) and then there are Kluski (a more generic term) which are simple and plain also unfilled noodles.

Whichever form they take, the dumplings are usually made with flour, egg and water and are dropped into a pan of boiling hot water until they float up to the top.

Polish dumplings are much lighter than a traditional British dumpling which are usually made with suet and cooked in a stew.  I would probably compare the Pierogi or filled dumplings to dim sum or gyoza. They are wonderful with a little melted butter or, once cooked, they can be pan-fried to crisp them up a little.

Speaking to my mum on the phone, she told me (albeit very quietly since she’s lost her voice!) the noodles or dumplings that I attempted were called “kluski lane.”  Literally translated, this means “poured noodles” since the batter is quite runny and you pour it through a sieve (or according to Mama a funnel works too) to achieve short pasta-type bits. Anyway, they were good and they tasted just as I remember them tasting at home.

My first batch were pan-fried with some lightly sweated onion and garlic, mushrooms and parsley.  The second lot went into some clear stock soup, which the children loved! Don’t forget to add some salt to your boiling water!!

A great Meat Free Monday recipe!

Here’s how you make them:

Polish ‘Kluski Lane’ or Poured Noodles

Ingredients:
2 eggs
200 ml water
1 teaspoon salt plus 1 teaspoon for the water
400g plain flour (or use spelt flour or wheat free flour)
Melted butter, to serve

Method:

Beat the eggs with the water and salt. Add a small amount of flour to thicken it up slightly and then add the rest of the flour.

Beat the mixture with a wooden spoon or whisk until the dough is smooth. (It will be quite runny.)

Place a large pan of water on to boil and add your teaspoon of salt. Once it is bubbling place a sieve or a colander (not too fine) over the pan of water and slowly pour a small amount of the batter through the sieve into the water.

Alternatively, take a teaspoon, dip it in the hot water, scoop a small amount of batter and drop them into the water.  This will take a bit longer to do but you will have bigger shaped pieces (see photo below)

Either way, leave them to boil gently and wait until they rise to the top of the water. This means they are ready.

You will probably have enough batter to make quite a few batches.

Take out the first batch with a slotted spoon or drain them into a colander.

Once they are cooked, you can then pan-fry them gently with butter, or add mushrooms, garlic and herbs or drop them into a stock-based soup, either vegetable (for Meat Free Monday) chicken or pork.
A clear stock soup with teaspoon dropped Kluski