Paglesham Pie

Some Paglesham pie, earlier

Little is known of the history of this flavourful variant on the humble English pork and egg pie, which shares its name with, and perhaps originated in the picturesque Essex village of the same name.  This local dish seems to be all but forgotten; indeed it's conspicuous by its absence from the menu of Paglesham's local, the Plough and Sail.  Perhaps it's just one of those things that have been lost to time, which is a shame because this melt-in-the-mouth pie really ought to be on the menu of every pub in the county! 

With the possible exception of our local cockles and oysters, South East Essex seems to be lacking in local delicacies to champion, but that could all be about to change.  This recipe - one, I believe, of many - is adapted from a variant posted on essexgourmet.co.uk and, put in layman's terms, it's practically a complete English breakfast in pie form.  The ideal way to start, or, indeed round off a rigorous day's ploughing.

• 227g shortcrust pastry, chilled
• One pack of sausage meat
• One onion, chopped finely
• 2tsp mustard
• A few thin slices of streaky smoked bacon
• A few eggs
• Black pepper
• Milk to glaze

Note: the traditional recipe also calls for a pinch each of nutmeg and mace, neither of which are in my otherwise well-stocked spice rack.  I could only lay my hands on a couple of leaves of finely chopped fresh sage and hoped for the best.. but I think I got it!

Serves 4-6

Pre-heat an oven to 200 degrees, gas 6.

Fry the chopped onion slowly in a little olive oil until softened.  Meanwhile, roll out the pastry and line a loaf tin with it (you could of course use any kind of dish.)  Cut away the pastry which overhangs the loaf tin and re-roll it, keeping one eye all the time on the onions so that they don't burn.  Remove the onions from the heat once cooked and set aside.

Mix together the sausage meat with the herbs and spices and season to taste, with plenty of black pepper.  Add the cooled onion and mix well.  Spoon this mixture into the pie, taking care to fill it not much more than two-thirds of the way.

Place a few slices of bacon over the top of the sausage meat, then break a few eggs directly over the bacon, taking care to leave the yolks whole.  Cover the whole thing with a pastry lid and brush lightly with milk before baking for twenty minutes.  Reduce the heat to 180 degrees or gas 4 for a further half hour. 

Try to resist the temptation to eat the pie straight from the oven; delicious though it is, it will slice better cold, straight from the fridge.  Nice with a few pickles and a pint of foaming nut-brown ale.

Belgian beef and beer (Vlaamse Stoverij)

A delicious, warming stew served with chips and salad

I adore Belgium; I just can't get enough of the place. Is it the beautiful-sounding guttural Flemish language which, frustratingly, I can understand in its written form but speak so comically badly? Perhaps. Is it those picturesque cloudy landscapes, the windswept sand dunes and Gothic architecture? Maybe. The cultured, polite and well-mannered people? Probably.  Is it anything to do with chocolate and beer? Well...

This delicious beef stew is at its best when made a couple of days beforehand, since it improves greatly with age.  Shin of beef needs to be cooked long and slowly, and it will melt in the mouth cooked in this thick, unctuous and plentiful sauce made from dark beer. But best of all, the Belgians like to eat it with chips and salad, rather than serving it with boiled cabbage and mashed potato like we would in Britain. Vive la difference, I say. Those Belgians are way ahead.

Ingredients – serves four

• 2 bottle dark Belgian beer – Leffe is ideal but actually I prefer Brugse Zot, a rich brew from Brugge
• Three large onions, sliced thinly
• 1.5kg stewing beef – shin or chuck steak are ideal – sliced into cubes
• 50g butter
• A couple of tablespoons of plain flour
• A teaspoon of mustard
• A splash of cider vinegar
• 4 teaspoons of sugar
• Fresh thyme and a couple of bay leaves
• Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a large cooking pot and add the onions. Cook over a low heat, stirring regularly until the onions turn a deep golden colour before adding the beef. Season well with salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Stir continuously to brown the beef evenly.

When the beef has browned to your satisfaction, add the flour and continue cooking for a few minutes, stirring all the time to avoid lumps. Add the beer, followed by the sugar, vinegar, mustard and herbs and stir well to loosen up any lumps of flour or beef which may have stuck to the base of the pan.

Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, as gently as you can for four hours, stirring occasionally.

After four hours, remove from the heat and leave to rest for a minimum of twelve hours, but an extra day or two will allow the flavour to develop.

When ready to serve, reheat until piping hot and serve with dressed salad and plenty of chips.

Hot cross bun bread pudding

Some bread pudding, yesterday

If you bought too many hot cross buns at Easter, don’t throw them away – freeze them and save your stale bread to make a tasty bread pudding, crusty on top and soft and moist in the middle. Makes bleeding tons.

Ingredients

• 8 stale hot cross buns. For every bun you haven’t got, substitute two slices of stale bread. You could, of course, just use 16 slices of bread and make a plain old bread pudding.
• 400 ml milk
• Fresh satsuma or tangerine peel, cut into small diced pieces
• Grated lemon peel
• 100g currants
• 2 Earl Grey tea bags
• Fresh or candied ginger, finely chopped
• Powdered cloves
• Powdered cinnamon
• Powdered or fresh nutmeg
• 100g brown sugar
• 1 egg

Method

Into a bowl, tear the buns/bread up into small pieces.  Pour over three-quarters of the milk and knead the mixture with your hands, while trying to soak up as much milk into the bread as you can. Add the rest of the milk as required until the bread is thoroughly soaked with milk and leave for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, put the kettle on and brew up a big cup of Earl Grey with both bags, but don’t add any milk. Instead pour the currants into the tea. Yes, I’m serious - the currants will swell up and take on the delicate floral aroma of the Earl Grey.

Once the bread has finished soaking, take handfuls and squeeze with your fingers to remove any surplus milk. Add as much ginger as you like (less if using fresh) with both the orange and lemon peel. If you can’t get tangerines or satsumas, grate the rind from the outside of an orange but take care not to add any of the bitter pith underneath.  Add two teaspoons each of the cloves and cinnamon and half a spoonful of nutmeg (or less if using fresh.) Pour in the sugar and egg and mix all the ingredients well.  Finally, remove the teabags from the cup and drain off the raisins well before mixing into the pudding mixture.

Pre-heat an oven to 190C and leave the mixture to stand for 15 minutes before pouring it into small loaf tins. Using small tins means you can easily freeze portions of uneaten bread pudding. Sprinkle the tops with sugar before baking in the oven for an hour. Check the puddings regularly by plunging a clean knife into one and removing it immediately. If any wet pudding mixture clings to the knife then you may wish to bake it for a further fifteen minutes before testing again.

Turn the puddings out onto a cooling rack and dust the crusty tops with more sugar. 

Tip: If you store your bread pudding in a paper bag rather than a plastic one, it will last longer – bread pudding stored in a plastic bag tends to ‘sweat’ after a few days.

Serve hot with custard, or cold with a cup of strong tea and a roaring fire.

Roast chicken with 40 cloves of garlic

This recipe, earlier this afternoon

Based loosely around an apocryphal story I once heard about someone roasting a chicken with several bulbs of garlic inside, and an actual traditional French recipe - quite literally called poulet rôti avec 40 gousses d'ail.  A lot smoother and milder than it sounds, the sauce created by slowly cooking the garlic in white wine is truly astonishing.  The chicken won’t be at all dry, and slow-cooking the garlic in this way also means you can enjoy all the rich flavour of roast garlic without getting garlic breath!

Serves 4.

Ingredients

• One large chicken
• Roughly 40 cloves of garlic – that’s around two large bulbs
• Half a lemon
• A couple of sticks of celery
• A spoonful each of dried thyme and rosemary
• Optional: fresh parsley
• Olive oil
• 250ml white wine – I used an Argentinian Pinot Grigio but I guess the recipe works best with proper French wine!
• Dijon mustard

Pre-heat an oven to around 200C. 

In a small bowl, mix together a teaspoonful each of thyme and rosemary. Add a dash of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. 

Prick the chicken vigorously all over with a fork and massage the olive oil mixture well into the chicken’s skin.  

Take the first bulb of garlic, whole. Turn it onto its side and slice it in half in one clean motion. Pick the cloves apart; there’s no need to peel the garlic meticulously, but you should remove the biggest bits of the papery skin as these could burn inside the chicken.  

Now stuff the chicken, first with the half lemon and then with all the garlic halves. Break the celery sticks in half and push them into the chicken cavity before placing the chicken into a lidded cooking pot.  Always wash your hands well after handling raw chicken.

Peel all of the remaining garlic and scatter the cloves, whole, around the chicken before adding the wine.  Cook for an hour with the lid on, then another half hour with the lid off in order to brown.  The chicken is cooked when the juices run clear; if any of the meat still looks pink you can always give it another ten minutes, but put the lid back on to prevent the bird from drying out.

Your house will shortly smell of garlic.

When cooked, remove the chicken from the pot and wrap it in foil, leaving behind the rich jus, which should have approximately 20 peeled cloves of garlic bobbing about in it! Add a teaspoonful of Dijon mustard and blend the jus with a hand blender to make a rich and velvety sauce. Taste and add further salt, pepper and some finely chopped parsley if desired.

Serve portions of the chicken with seasonal vegetables and generous helpings of the garlic sauce.  If you can recover any of the halved pieces of the garlic from inside the chicken, squeeze them gently to remove the skin and serve alongside.

Your house will still smell of garlic. Your breath, miraculously, won't!