You will need,
Red wine/Port,
Thyme,
Sage,
Beef Gravy (Use your favourite brand),
Honey,
Salt and Pepper,
- Put the gravy granules into a jug.
- Add a 3 shots of red wine/port (add both if you want a really rich gravy)
- Add the thyme, sage, salt and pepper
- Add a spoonful/squirt of honey
- Add boiling water. Make up as much gravy as you need at the thickness you want. Remember to stir vigorously to avoid lumps.
This gravy will best suit the beef if you cook the joint in red wine/port. Season with the same herbs and add the red wine/port to the meat before cooking and then baste half way through. Once the meat is cooked, add the juices from the joint to the gravy. The real meat flavours make the gravy that much nicer.
Enjoy!
Dee
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Just put a new page in here;
http://deelicious.co.uk/?page_id=37
Due to popular demand, I have put in a new tab at the top of my blog. This is a place to comment and tell me the food that you can’t live without.
Have a good rant about it, I’m looking forward to hearing all your different loves.
Dee
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Have a look at my new page – The Sin Bin. It’s on the top tab or you can follow the link – http://deelicious.co.uk/?page_id=35. This is a place where you can put the food you hate. Have fun. Should be interesting to see what things people really despise!
Happy Disposing!
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Rosemary Roasties
You will need,
Potatoes (King Edwards)
Rosemary,
Thyme,
Paprika,
Olive Oil,
Garlic,
Shallots,
Salt and Pepper,
Stock Cube of Your Choice,
- Boil the potatoes until soft but don’t over boil until the fall apart or the end result will not be so presentable.
- Place the cooked potatoes onto a baking tray.
- Drizzle with a little olive oil and then sprinkle over the stock cubes (I like to use Lamb but any will do) the paprika, the rosemary, thyme and crushed garlic.
- After frying the shallots a little, add those too.
- Drizzle with a little more olive oil, season to taste and then place in the center of a hot oven (220C/425F) and cook for 30 minutes, checking regularly and turning once at least. Be gentle with the potatoes or they will break up.
Perfect with Deelicious Chicken Sauce, also great to serve at BBQs.
Enjoy!
Dee
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Deelicious Chicken Sauce
You will need,
Chicken Breasts
Rosemary
Red Wine
White Wine Vinegar
Sherry
Thyme
Garlic
Salt and Pepper
Vegetable Stock Cube
Chicken Stock Cube
Butter
Worcestershire Sauce
Sour Cream
6 Mushrooms
Tomatoes (Tinned/fresh)
Milk
- Start with marinading your chicken. Begin by putting a large knob of butter in a bowl along with a vegetable stock cube, a chicken stock cube and some crushed garlic.
- Place them in the microwave for 20 seconds or until the butter has fully melted.
- Then stir vigorously until the cubes have integrated.
- Add the raw chicken breasts, roughly cubed, to the bowl.
- Leave them for an hour in the fridge, covered with cling film. (If you don’t have time to do this then it’s fine to just roll them around for a bit until the chicken is fully coated in the butter)
- Heat up a deep frying pan and once hot, add the chicken along with any remaining butter in the bowl and add some rosemary and thyme.
- Fry the chicken on a medium heat until the colour of the meat is white.
- Add some roughly chopped mushrooms (closed cup/button) along with a splosh of Worcestershire Sauce.
- Fry until the mushrooms are just cooked.
- Now add a 70ml of sherry, same of red wine (Brandy can be used instead, but if you are using brandy, you wont need to add any sherry, red wine or vinegar)
- Now add a splash of white wine vinegar
- Leave to simmer for 5 minutes.
- Now add half a can of chopped tomatoes or 4 fresh tomatoes
- Immediately add a couple of gluggs of milk with the tomatoes so the mixture is cool enough to add the sour cream without curdling.
- Add the sour cream a spoonful at a time, and stir in each time. If you add it too fast it may curdle. You should only need half a pot or so.
- Add seasoning to taste. Both rosemary and thyme are fairly strong flavours and it’s a question of personal taste when it comes to seasoning. Sometimes it can be a case of less is more but the rosemary and thyme give it a lovely kick.
- Simmer for 10 minutes.
This can be served with pasta or my personal favourite, Rosemary Roasties. Depending on what you serve the chicken with, it can be made into a summer dish or a winter dish.
Enjoy!
Dee
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Update on My Progress
This week has been an interesting one. Had my first meeting with the manager of Keats. Spoke with him about doing a full report and perhaps a review on some of their new food. Keats have recently set up a new side to the business, Events. They do Weddings, Anniversaries, Functions and many more. This will be another angle of the restaurant I shall be covering. The new look menu and modern idea of doing outside events has given them a wider market but the feel of the place has not changed, it is still the lovely and homely environment that I have come to expect of Keats over the years. The report and review should happen within the next month and I hope it goes smoothly.
I find now that as the hospitality industry goes hand in hand with socialising, even a quiet drink in a small pub can end up in a lead. You may or may not know it was my birthday recently and some friends took me out for a birthday treat. This was booked a long time ago without my knowledge, before I even started Deelicous Journalism and I still had no idea what the surprise was when I arrived at the place in question. They had taken me to The Hairy Bikers Tour at The Guild Hall, The Hairy Bikers Big Night Out. I of course enjoyed the whole thing immensely, however, I found myself working the whole way through. Ideas floated through my head and only the consistent rude jokes gave me a break. The pair were just as confident and charismatic as usual but due to the opportunity of a live audience, the comedy was rude, cringe worthy and wonderful. A fantastic show and anyone who has the opportunity to see them live should do so without hesitation. My heroes did not disappoint and they are still paragons in my eyes. After the show I was delighted find my friends and I were the last there and had the fantastic fortune to meet them personally and speak to them. My business card was promptly thrust upon them and they were very kind to give me their publicists number They instructed me to talk to her if I wanted an opportunity to do any work about/with them. I am of course planning to do this. I hope it will be as exciting and wonderful as I anticipate.
I am going to be finishing my article on the opening of the new healthy chip shop in Thornhill – Pye and Chips, tonight. Hope to be getting it to some one’s desk soon, as the opening is imminent.
Things do not appear to be slowing down and I am finding it hard to shut my brain down from Deelicous Journalism. It fills my thoughts like a bubbling Steak and Kidney Pie, seeping out of the crust and causing the filling to spill over the edge. It’s over running my life and I couldn’t be happier about it.
That’s all for now, another slice of the pie soon,
Dee
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I have awarded Keats Restaurant The Best Restaurant in The South title. The beautiful restaurant is set in a lovely location just outside Romsey, in Ampfield. The place is famous for the wonderful service and friendly staff. The food is glorious and the atmosphere is just as wonderful.
If you get a chance to go to Keats, please do. It’s a real treat and the manager, Daverio, will make you feel like a VIP, who ever you are.
I shall be doing a full report and review on the place in the next week so look out for it on the website.
Here is the link to the restaurant’s website. Take a look and scan the menus, if they don’t make your taste buds tingle, I don’t know what will.
http://www.keatsrestaurant.co.uk
Dee
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I have just finished writing my newest article. It’s the first in a series of articles called The Ultimate Guide to Budget Cookery and explores how to limit food waste, how to use left overs to your advantage, how to make food last longer, how to cut down on spending and all sorts of other useful tips. I’m hoping that this series will be the one that gets published in the Thornhill Newsletter. It seems that these articles would be the ones that Thornhill may find the most useful. The series contains four articles, Left Overs and What They Can Do For You, The Four Day Chicken – How to Make The Most Of Your Carcass, Cooking On a Shoestring and Why Fresh is Most Definitely Best.
If you don’t live in the area, look out for the articles on here once they have been published.
Next slice of the pie soon,
Dee
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Over the coming weeks you will want to keep an eye out for my writings in and around the city of Southampton, mainly Thornhill. I will be doing plenty of reviews on places to eat around the area and will also be doing an article on the Best Restaurant in The South. Many of my articles will not be published on the website until they have been released so look out for them in your local newspaper or newsletters.
There will be a few new places to eat opening in The City which I will be reporting on and then reviewing, news of these will be coming soon so watch this space.
I will be doing a lot over the coming months to get my publicity up and running and you can help with this by word of mouth. Keep your visits to the site coming, keep reading the blog and look out for new stuff by me coming soon – this is just the beginning!
That’s all for now, next slice of the pie soon,
Dee
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You will need;
Risotto rice (Amount depending on how many people you are feeding)
Cooked meat of some sort (Chicken/ham)
Onions
Worcestershire Sauce
Tomato Puree
Garlic Puree
Butter
Parsley
Stock cubes
Garlic
Olive oil
Tomato Sauce
- Fry your onions off in a little olive oil and some crushed garlic in a large sauce pan
- Once soft then add your rice, a large knob of butter and a good squeeze of garlic puree
- Let the butter melt with the rice on a low heat (if you have it on too high the butter will burn and the rice will stick
- Whilst that is happening, make your stock. Make a pint at a time, depending on how much rice you have and how soft you like the rice.
- After you have finished adding each pint, check the texture of the rice, if it is to your liking then it is ready – you may even need up to 4 pints of stock.
- So boil a kettle of water and to a jug add your a stock cube, some Worcestershire Sauce, parsley, tomato puree, tomato sauce (if desired) and some salt and pepper
- Add the first of your stock, a little at a time to the rice. The key is not to add too much at once or the rice with become stodgy on the outside and will remain hard on the inside.
- Once the stock you have added has been absorbed, add the next lot.
- Do this until you have run out of stock and repeat the process until your risotto is the texture you desire
- Add your cooked meat, whatever it is to your risotto
- Then add 1/4 of a pint of stock and another knob of butter before you serve, just to make it that little extra bit creamy.
Risotto is an extremely versatile dish and can be made with almost any meat or veg to make it a different meal each time. I often add mushrooms to mine. To make it even more tomatoey, you could add some fresh tomatoes (make sure they are peeled or you will get bits of skin in it) or a can of chopped tomatoes. You could also make a broccoli and cheese risotto using the same recipe and using smoked ham. There aren’t really many things you can’t add to a risotto so have fun experimenting!
Enjoy!
Dee
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