Grim up North Heath

Category: Recipes

Lasagne
Mrs S asked for this for Mother’s Day. How could I refuse? (I could have said ‘no’, I suppose)

Timings: Prep: 50 min. Cooking: 35 min Rest: 15 min Eat: 10 min

Ingredients

500 g beef mince (5% fat)

One onion, diced

4 gloves garlic, chopped

Tin chopped tomatoes

Herbs – using dried herbs, basil, oregano, thyme and parsley. A teaspoon of each.

Chili flakes because we like them

veg stock and tomato puree

2 tablespoons oil (peanut, vegetable or whatever is to hand)

500 ml full fat milk

75g cheese (mix of cheddar and parmesan because that was what was in the fridge), grated.

2 tablespoons sauce flour

Lasagne sheets – at least 6, maybe 9, but buy a box of them.

Sorry, no photos because I was listening to Iron Maiden while I was cooking and forgot.

Oven to 180 C (fan).

Meat sauce

Brown the mince until it goes uniform brown and no red bits.

Meanwhile, fry the chopped onions in the oil until they go translucent, then add chopped garlic and fry for another minute¹. Add the dried herbs and stir these in to release the aroma.

Add the tin of tomatoes and a squeeze of tomato puree. Add the browned mince, veg stock and stir well. Turn off the heat.

Cheese sauce

Pour the milk into a pan and add the sauce flour². Heat the milk and stir constantly, chanting the mantra “this won’t work. It never does” until all the flour disappears and the sauce is thick. Add most of the cheese and stir to melt in.

Assemble the lasagne

Pour a thin layer of the cheese sauce into a suitable ovenproof dish. Smear the dish with butter if you like, it may reduce sticking.

Add lasagne sheets over the cheese sauce and then one third of the meat sauce and a bit of the cheese sauce – don’t use too much for the layers. Continue to layer up until you run out of meat sauce.

Add a final layer of lasagne, pour over the rest of the cheese sauce (about half should be left) and completely cover the top layer of pasta. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.

Shove it in the oven for 35 minutes. Check that the pasta is cooked by prodding it with a fork.

Take out and leave to rest for 15 minutes while the garlic bread is cooking.

OK, I lied, there is a picture. This is what was left when we’d had enough. Normally the whole thing goes, but oldest is at Uni so they weren’t around to eat it. More fool them.
1. We got this tip about adding garlic well after the onion from the TV show ‘Pie in the Sky’ about a food-obsessed police detective (Richard Griffiths) and his crisp-mad wife (Maggie Steed (who also played Dr Hildegard Lanstrom in Red Dwarf)) ↩︎
2. We have used sauce flour for many years and it is the best thing for thickening sauces. You can make a roux, by all means, but it’s a pain in the arse and risks burning. ↩︎
30/03/2025
Chicken & pea risottata

You can make risotto with pasta, orzo they say.

Timings:

Prep: 5 min. Cook: 30 min. Eat: 10 min.

Ingredients

250 g orzo pasta

600 ml chicken stock

2 large chicken breasts

knob of butter

half an onion, diced

frozen peas/ petit pois

garlic, oregano and thyme

a good pile of grated parmesan

Dice the chicken breasts, brown off in a frying pan. Put to one side.

Diced chicken on a chopping board.

In a large saucepan (the whole thing is made in this pan), add the butter and fry the onion over a low heat for 5 minutes until they’re clear. Add garlic (crushed or chopped) and give that 30 seconds frying. Add herbs and stir them in, too.

Orzo pasta. I must have been feeling flush to buy DeCecco pasta.

Add the orzo and toast until lightly brown. This is critical to the texture of the finished dish.

Add the chicken pieces and half the stock. Turn up the heat and stir well to avoid anything sticking to the pan.

Once the pasta has absorbed the liquid, add half the remainder. Keep stirring (though Nigella says not to bother. But what does she know?)

Add the peas and the rest of the stock. Cook until the pasta has the texture you like; ideally a bit of bite should remain. You can cook until it’s all soft if you prefer.

Chicken risottata, almost ready fo rdisingup.

Stir in the grated parmesan and serve. Garlic bread would be a good addition. Maybe use smaller pieces, or add chorizo to give more variation in the texture.

16/03/2025
Leek and potato soup

Frost in March? Time for shoop!

Makes enough for four people

Timings: Prep = 10 min. Cooking = 30 min. Eating = 5 min

Ingredients

500 – 600 g potatoes (Baking potatoes or big, floury ones)

500 -600 g leeks (about the same amount of leeks and potatoes)

Veggie stock (Knorr stock pot, if possible)

2 garlic cloves

I add chilli flakes and cumin (half a teaspoon) to pep it up a bit, oregano and thyme (teaspoon or more) to help make it interesting.

Additions

Bacon lardons

Parmesan

Method

You’ll need a big saucepan and a blender.

Chop the leeks, roughly – only use the white and pale green parts.

Peel then dice the potatoes and put into water.

Add a splash of oil to a large saucepan – the soup is made in this pan, so it needs to be big. I use peanut oil, because I’m like that, but vegetable or olive will be fine. Don’t use extra virgin olive oil. though. Fry the leeks over a medium heat until they start to soften and before they go brown. If they go a little brown, don’t worry.

Add crushed garlic, spices and herbs if using them – fry for about 30 seconds. Add water and stockpot to cover the ingredients. Add the potatoes and more water to cover the spuds.

Simmer for at least 20 minutes, until the potatoes are softened.

Use the blender (I bought a stick blender from Wilco years ago and use this. Well worth the £12 it cost.) to mash up the ingredients. You may need to add more water to get the viscosity right – this is a matter of preference.

Warm the soup through on a low heat. This helps thicken up the soup as starch is released from the potato particles. Meanwhile, fry the bacon lardons until they’re crispy. Grate a good pile of parmesan.

Serve soup with a sprinkle of bacon and cheese. Serve with bread; Mrs S makes excellent bread that is great with this. But we had none, so I had Warburton’s white instead.

14/03/2025
Chicken Basmati rice pilaf

Based on a recipe I can’t find for an Iranian dish. It falls under the general category of ‘pilaf’, where rice is cooked with other stuff. Chicken is spatchcocked to (a) reduce cooking time and (b) fit in the roasting tin.

Timings: Prep: 20 minutes. Cooking: 1 hr to 1 hr 15. Eating: about 10 minutes.

Ingredients

Medium roasting chicken (1.8 kg ish)

250 g basmati rice

500 ml chicken or veg stock (I used Knorr stock pots)

One onion

6 cherry tomatoes or a couple of normal tomatoes

One carrot (diced) and a handful of raisins

A teaspoon each of chilli flakes, cumin, oregano, and black pepper (to be more authentically Iranian, sumac should be used. But I didn’t have any. Sue me).

Method

Set oven to 180 C (fan). Will need at least one hour, up to 1 hr 15 min.

Chop the onion into thick slices and scatter on the bottom of a lined roasting dish. Cut the tomatoes and add to the onions.

Spatchcock the chicken (pictures below). I marinated the chicken overnight – rub the skin with olive oil and salt, put into a big plastic bag and put in the fridge. I try and do this when I do a roast, it tenderises the meat.

Add the chicken to the roasting tin.

Chicken ready for the rice and stock.

Add the rice, diced carrots and raisins. Pour over the stock.

Cover with baking parchment, then foil to seal in the steam as it cooks.

Bye, bye birdie.

I used a thermometer to check that the chicken was cooked. After an hour it was nearly done (not yet at 74 C) , but the rice looked a bit dry on top so I added 100 ml water. I gave it another 10 minutes and it was done.

Dinner’s ready!

There was a nice contrast in textures between the rice at the top and the rice at the bottom, so there was crunch and softness.

I’d go heavier on the spices next time. Maybe buy sumac, or look into the traditional Turkish method.

Also some recipes call for grilling the dish before serving to brown the chicken and give extra burned rice. Maybe next time.

Spatchcocking a chicken

This is removing the spine of the bird and pressing it flat so it cooks quicker.

Another Taskmaster reference. Hugh Dennis spatchcocked a camel, which I won’t be doing.

I bought bone scissors some time ago because doing this without the proper tools hurts and can ruin a normal pair of scissors.

“You Tansung?” “You asking?” “I’m asking.” “Then I’m Tansung”. A reference for the youth, there.

I use these to cut the legs off roasted chicken, so they are used at least once a month. And they come apart and are dishwasher safe.

I chopped off the parson’s nose then cut down one side of the spine. The skin is more difficult to cut properly with these scissors. I removed the spine fully.

The world’s most cowardly animal – a spineless chicken!

I wiped the inside with kitchen towel to get rid of rogue bits from inside. Turn it over and press down to flatten. The wishbone needs to be broken so the bird will lie flat.

Spatchcocking reduces cooking time by about half.

12/03/2025
Buckwheat pancakes

A favourite when we go to France. And it’s pancake day!

Ingredients (pancakes)

80g buckwheat flour

1 egg

250 ml milk

pinch of salt

Mix flour, egg and salt in a bowl. Once mixed, leave to stand for at least 30 minutes. Overnight in a fridge is supposed to be better.

When it’s time, put a blob of butter in a frying pan. Once it’s bubbling add enough batter to cover the pan and fry until the top is almost solid. Then flip and continue to fry until the bottom is solid.

We had buckwheat flour left over from youngest daughter’s Food Tech last month. And an egg! Currently a luxury in the USA.

Quite a thick batter (not that you can tell). If I was working I’d do some rheology and a design of experiments on this and determine the ideal ratio of flour, egg and milk. But I’m not working, which is why I’m doing this nonsense.

In the end, they were OK. We had them with baked salmon (from frozen – salt, chili flakes and frozen onions, bake 30 minutes at 180 C) and corn on the cob (butter and salt, wrap in foil, bake with the salmon).

12/03/2025