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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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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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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You will need;
A green pepper
4 shallots/2 large onions
half a head of cabbage
2 leeks
bunch of celery
2 cloves of garlic
mushrooms
6 carrots
2 cans of chopped tomatoes
red wine vinegar
malt vinegar
Worcestershire sauce
thyme
sage
parsley
- Start with you base by boiling your shallots/onions, peppers, leeks, cabbage, celery, garlic, 1 can of tomatoes, and 2 of your carrots in several pints of beef stock (depending on how thick you want to make it and how much soup you want to make) for 10 minutes on a fast rolling boil and then simmer for the same.
- Separate the veggies from the stock and add to a blender with 3/4 spoonfuls of stock and blend until smooth.
- Add back to the stock with the other can of tomatoes and some more herbs plus some of each vinegar and a good splosh of Worcestershire sauce.
- Poach the carrots for 15 minutes in a good amount of butter (make sure you put a lid on the saucepan so the steam will cook them properly) and then add them to the soup.
- Now fry some mushrooms in butter and Worcestershire sauce and add that to the soup as well.
- Simmer for a further 5 minutes.
You may wish to add some beef gravy granules to make it a bit meatier or of course you could make this into more of a stew by adding some stewing steak and simmering on a low heat for a few hours until meat is tender.
Enjoy!
Dee
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