Impromptu shepherd's pie

I had a rather belated clear-out of the freezer the other day and found in it a slab of minced lamb that I bought a month or so ago. Not sure what I had in mind for it, but yesterday, with the rain hitting the window-panes and the summery heat replaced a something distinctly chillier, I decided to plump for shepherd's pie. I had only some of the ingredients that I really wanted, but with no desire for shopping I decided to see whether I could make the best of what I had.

The result was actually rather good - not fantastic, but a perfectly respectable supper. It lacked maybe the texture that some fresh mushrooms would have brought. Will add those next time.

This is not a five minute recipe, but it can be done slowly in stages over the course of a day.

10g dried morel mushrooms (porcini would, I'm sure, be just as good)
50g sun-dried tomatoes (not a huge fan of these, really, but they'd been lying in a cupboard for ages)
1 onion
2 small carrots
1 clove garlic
knob of butter, plus extra for potato topping
1 tbsp of oil
450g minced lamb
1 dessertspoon plain flour
squeeze tomato puree
dash of Marsala
dash of double cream (optional)
1kg potatoes
generous splash of milk
salt and pepper
nutmeg

First put the morels and the tomatoes in two separate bowls and cover with water from a kettle that has recently boiled. (As an aside, I've always read that the water you add to dried mushrooms should be just off the boil - I'm not sure what disaster would befall if it were actually at boiling point. Perhaps some day I shall find out. And I can't swear that it would do any harm to put both the morels and the tomatoes in the same bowl). Leave to soak for a good old time, in my case about 4 hours.

Chop the onion and the carrots very finely and sweat them for about 7-8 minutes in the butter and oil until they seem glistening and fairly soft, then add the garlic and continue cooking for another couple of minutes. Then tip all the vegetables onto a plate.

If the pan seems very dry, add a little more oil before tipping in the minced lamb. Give this a good bashing about with a wooden spoon or fork to break it up, then cook until the pinkness has gone.

In the meantime, take the morels and the tomatoes out of their soaking liquid (but don't throw this away), and chop them quite small. Once the lamb is done, add the onions, carrots, garlic, mushrooms and tomatoes to the pan, along with the the flour, and stir for a minute or two. Now add the reserved soaking liquid, a blob of tomato puree, and some Marsala (or any other booze you fancy). Add salt and pepper, and leave to cook gently with the lid not quite tight for about an hour. Check from time to time to see that it hasn't boiled dry - if it has, add some water from the kettle.

After an hour I found that I had rather badly oversalted the dish, and as a solution I added some double cream, which did the trick. Actually, the cream, although not, I think, traditional, did add a rather nice richness to the end product. Might try it again.

For the potato topping, peel and chop the potatoes into roughly equal sized pieces. Then boil in salted water for about twenty minutes or so until absolutely soft. Drain, then add the milk, about a quarter of a nutmeg, grated (or less or more depending on your taste) and mash the potatoes with a masher, a fork, a ricer or (my favourite) a hand-held mixer.

Put the meat sauce in a 20cm-square oven dish (or similar) and cover with the mashed potatoes. I find it best to start adding the mash at the sides, and filling in the centre at the end. This minimises (but does not eliminate) the risk of your potato topping becoming totally mixed up with the sauce underneath. Dot the top with butter.

The pie can now be left for a little while if you're not quite ready to eat. In any case, it needs to be heated in a 190C oven for maybe 20-30 minutes, depending on how cold it was when it went in.

Serves four people with a separate vegetable. In my case, a pile of green beans.

Chicken with tarragon and mustard

I'm always on the look-out for quick weekday meals that cause few headaches but yet still offer a complexity of flavour. Bit of a winner, this one, adapted from a recipe I found in a magazine.

2 tbsp olive oil
350g boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-size chunks
salt and pepper
170g button mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/2 small onion, chopped very small
100ml white wine
150ml chicken stock
150ml double cream
1 heaped tbsp wholegrain mustard
small bunch chopped tarragon

Colour the chicken in half the oil, then transfer to a plate. Wipe out the pan roughly before adding the rest of the oil. Cook the mushrooms on a high heat until they're nicely coloured, then add the onion and continue for a couple of minutes. Add the wine and let it reduce until it's pretty much all gone. Add the stock, cream and mustard and cook, uncovered, for about 5 minutes until the sauce is thick and about half its original volume. Return the chicken and its juices to the pan and cook for only as long as it takes for the chicken to cook through, perhaps a minute or two. Season with salt and pepper, then add the tarragon. Good with plain boiled rice.

Serves 2.

Lemon curd

There's something very nostalgic for me about lemon curd - a childhood memory of something I didn't particularly like as a child. Now it pleases me much more, and it's easier to make than I had thought.

juice of 2 lemons
zest of 1 lemon
2 eggs
170g caster sugar
110g unsalted butter
1 tsp cornflour

Break the eggs into the heaviest small saucepan you can find, and beat them lightly. Then add all the other ingredients and put on a medium heat, stirring the whole time. I was a bit timid as to how high I could put the heat - the idea of lemon scrambled eggs never being far from my mind. But the mixture proved robuster than I thought. After a good 7-8 minutes, the mixture will start to thicken, after which let it simmer very gently for a minute or so.

In the meantime, in a very low oven (about 120C) have a suitable jar (I have old-fashioned spring topped ones) sterilising for around 5 minutes. Then put the hot curd in the jar and seal immediately. Leave to cool, then store in the fridge.

Tasty, fresh and just great on toast. I tried the same recipe replacing limes for lemons. Somehow not quite as good. Lemons certainly have the edge.

Cashew nut loaf

Like many of my generation, I imagine, I went through a bit of a vegetarian phase in my teens. I have few fond culinary memories of those days - the food always seemed to be missing something (like dead animal flesh). But a few recipes have stuck with me, and last night I pieced together one of them - a good old-fashioned nut loaf. This one is rich and moist - the addition of parsnips gives it a very satisfying sweetnesss. Nut loaf always has a tendency to taste like stuffing, but I am rather fond of stuffing.

1 onion
a little butter and oil
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
4-5 parsnips
250g cashew nuts
80g breadcrumbs
dried herbs - about a teaspoon in total
1 large egg
250g mushrooms, sliced quite thinly
salt and pepper

First, peel the parsnips and chop them into large chunks. Boil until completely soft. This took me around 25 minutes. Mash them. Then chop up the onion very finely, and sweat in butter and oil for five minutes, after which add the garlic and continue for another two or three minutes.

In a food processor, grind the chasew nutes until they're almost flour-like, then put them in a large bowl with the breadcrumbs. Add the herbs, the onion and garlic and the mashed parsnip. Mix well and add salt and pepper. Then mix in the egg.

In the meantime, cook the mushrooms in some butter for a few minutes until they're nice and soft. Then put half the cashew mixture in a large greased loaf tin, cover with the mushrooms, then the rest of the cashew mixture. Bake at 180C for an hour.

This is quite rich - so I found that the mashed pototoes, sprouts and onion sauce that I made to go with it were a bit much. Next time, just some salad, and maybe a light tomato sauce.

Banana cake

Arriving back from DC, I found a pile of bananas on the point of turning totally inedible. Drastic action was needed, and I scoured my recipe books for some way of using them up. One option was banana muffins, but the problem with muffins is that they go stale so quickly. Delia Smith offered me a loaf with bananas, but I lacked all the ingredients. I modified it, and it turned up trumps. This is a lovely treat. It keeps for a long time and is very little bother.

4 ripe bananas
150g pecans
pinch of salt
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
225g plain flour
zests of 1 orange and 1 lemon
110g butter
120g prunes and dates, chopped
175g light brown sugar
2 large eggs

As always, everything needs to be at room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 180C, then roast the pecans for 7-8 minutes until nice and toasted, then chop them up quite small. I actually chopped them before roasting, and nothing bad happened (although I imagine they would be more prone to burning like this).

Mash three of the bananas, and chop the other one very finely - you could probably just mash them all. Sift the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon into a bowl and add everything else apart from the fruits and nuts. Whisk just until the flour all disappears, no longer. Then fold in the fruits and nuts. You might need more milk (I didn't) if the mixture doesn't fall off a spoon reasonably easily.

Butter a large loaf tin, and pile in the mixture. Sprinkle with sugar if you want. Then cook for a good hour, probably a bit more, enjoying the wonderful smells that will emanate from the oven. The cake will be bouncy on top.

This cake keeps for a good long time, and is wonderful with virtually anything, from cheese to ice cream.

Basic beef stew

Lots to catch up on. I've been in Washington for a few days, enjoying the autumn sunshine, the astonishing colours, and some protein-heavy restaurant food. Still, some cooking has still gone on back in New York, mostly trying to make the most of tired vegetables hanging around.

Jamie Oliver has a recipe for a beef stew that does not require the beef to be browned in advance. Since browning is a real pain, especially if you're in a hurry, avoiding the process is a particular boon. So I tried out his idea, and it works. Definitely a good, hearty meal.

olive oil
butter
1 onion
herbs
750g beef for stewing, chopped into big chunks
salt and pepper
flour
pile of root vegetables - a kilo or so in total
2 tbs tomato puree
375ml red wine
300ml stock

Chop up all the vegetables coarsely. Soften the onion in the oil and butter for a little while with some herbs. In a bowl, toss the meat in seasoned flour. I put in a good handful of flour, which turned out to be too much. So I had to shake off a lot of the flour in the end. Perhaps a tablespoon or two would be enough.

Then put everything into the pot with the onion, bring to the boil, and transfer to a 150C oven, lid on. I left it in for a good four hours.

Lovely, substantial, unsubtle stuff.

Celery soup with blue cheese

Just a quick supper last night - out to a concert at Carnegie Hall. No shopping involved, just using up some tired dregs lurking in the fridge.

500g celery, chopped
6 shallots, chopped
1 large baking potato, chopped
butter
garlic oil
150g blue cheese
600ml shop-bought vegetable stock
120ml cream
salt and pepper

The vegetables do not need to be chopped in any particularly tidy fashion. Just sweat them off in a little butter and oil (no need for the garlic oil really, I'd just run out of olive oil) for about 10 minutes. Then add the stock, bring to the boil, and simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes until everything is very soft. Off the heat add the cream and the cheese and liquidise with one of those hand-held liquidisers. It takes quite a lot to get rid of all the chunks of vegetables, but it does get there eventually. Add salt and pepper (it needs more than you might think - despite the cheese).

This soup is not going to change your life, but it's a decent way of using up some cheese that was on the brink of walking out. I think next time I will try it with better stock - as the shop-bought variety tends, if anything, to have too much taste.

Lamb shanks in red wine with mashed potatoes

After a Sunday spent entirely out of the kitchen, it's back to the stove on Monday. The fridge was full of odds and sods after Saturday's marathon, so I tried to use up what I could to make a proper meal. I bought a couple of lamb shanks from the butcher's to provide the protein. I thought they looked a bit big as a single portion, so I put one in the freezer. One lamb shank at around 600g provided just about enough meat for two people.

1 lamb shank
handful of small onions (the squashed ones that look like flattened shallots)
3 sticks celery
3 cloves garlic, crushed
250ml chicken stock
250ml red wine
handful of mushrooms
sprinkling of dried rosemary
1 tbs wholegrain mustard
salt and pepper

The inspiration for this recipe comes from Nigel Slater's very evocative Kitchen Diaries, although I have modified it to take account of the ingredients I had.

I cooked the meal in our large copper pan, which comes with a lid. It's one of the best things in the world to cook in. I love it. I covered the meat in a generous dose of salt and pepper, then browned it on all sides in a little bit of very hot oil, then I put the meat on a plate. I chopped the onions and celery into chunks and browned those for a few minutes in the pan. Then I added the garlic for a minute or two

I added the rosemary, the wine, the stock and a bit more salt and pepper, put back the lamb, and brought the whole thing to a rolling boil. In the oven with the lid on at 160C for 35 minutes, after which I stirred in the mustard and turned the lamb over before giving it another 40 minutes or so.

The end result was very pleasing. The lamb was nice and tender (could have done with another 20 minutes or so, I think, without coming to much harm) and the sauce full of interesting flavours. I strained the sauce, returning the mushroom and some of the onions to it afterwards, then reduced it quite a bit on the stove top.

Notes for next time: the dried rosemary really needs to be removed at the end as it's a bit inedible. So maybe fresh rosemary or ground rosemary or even rosemary wrapped in cheesecloth for easy removal. And a spot of creme fraiche to make it a bit richer?

Mashed potatoes were ideal with it, because there's lots of sauce to be soaked up. Two large baking potatoes, peeled and chopped into chunks, were just right for two. The best way to mash them is, in my experience, to add butter and lots of soured cream, and then have at them with an electric mixer.