Venison sausages

Remember our trip to Finnebrogue in Downpatrick and our selection of sausages?
Well, of course, venison has to feature.  After all, this is how they started.

Their venison sausages are truly wonderful and, like all their sausages they are gluten free.
Venison is a dark, delicious and low fat meat, making it a great addition to your diet. Whilst some cuts of venison can be expensive and/or hard to get hold of, these sausages are an ideal introduction to the joys of bambi meat.

Fine as they are with mash and gravy, I decided on something a little more adventurous and matched their intriguing colour with the deep purple of damsons and beetroot.

This dish was cooked in one of our woks and ready in 20 minutes - the time it took for #1 son to complete his cardio-vascular cycle run.

So, here goes:

1 onion, chopped
6 Finnebrogue venison sausages, sliced into 5 pieces each
120g stoned damsons*
¼ tsp chopped rosemary
8 juniper berries, crushed
2 cooked beetroot
½ head Hispi cabbage
2 tablespoons damson gin -  in fact, I used my homemade elderberry gin**
Salt and pepper to taste

*   Freeze the damsons and then defrost them to make stoning them a doddle!!!!
** You can replace the gin with red wine, port or stock. If using wine or stock, add 2 teaspoons of sugar to counter the sharp flavour of the damsons.

Heat 1 tablespoon of rapeseed oil in a wok.
Add the chopped onion and cook over a medium heat until translucent.
Increase the heat and add the sausage chunks, rosemary and juniper.

Cook until the sausages are browned all over.

Add the cabbage, damsons and beetroot and cook for another 5 minutes.

Pour in the gin, season to taste and cook for 5 minutes more.

Gorgeous with new potatoes.

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2016

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Chicken Kyiv nuggets

What happens when you cross a chicken Kyiv with a chicken nugget?

A mouthful of moreishness, that's what.

This is yet another excuse to use the bountiful harvest of wild garlic that is springing up already.
I figured it would go really well with chicken and having demolished a chicken and bacon sandwich with wild garlic mayonnaise, 

I struck upon the idea of  incorporating it into a chicken nugget, turning a children's favourite into something a little more sophisticated.

In total I used 2 chicken breast fillets, 3 slices of Parma ham with a single leaf of wild garlic for each nugget.
This made 15 nuggets, so adjust the quantities to suit your family/appetite/occasion.

You will need:
Skinned chicken breast
Parma ham
Cream cheese
Wild garlic
Flour
Egg
Fresh breadcrumbs*
Oil

* whenever you have any bread that is starting to go stale, turn it into breadcrumbs and throw in the freezer - they will always come in handy for topping a macaroni cheese, making fish fingers, turning into Queen of Puddings and a myriad other uses #wastenot

Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces.
Spread a little cream cheese onto each wild garlic leaf.  (You can omit this if you don't want the faff)
Wrap a garlic leaf around each nugget and then wrap the Parma ham around that - you only need enough ham to go round the nugget. 

Have 4 plates ready;

Put the flour on one, crack the egg on to the second and beat lightly, the third is for the breadcrumbs and the final one for the assembled nuggets.

Roll each nugget in flour, dip into the egg and then coat with breadcrumbs. Transfer to a clean plate and then refrigerate for an hour.

Heat the oil over a medium heat in a wok or large frying pan - you can deep or shallow fry these. When the oil is hot enough to brown a cube of bread within a minute, add the nuggets in small batches - do not overcrowd the pan.

Turn regularly until golden brown on all sides and for no less than 3 minutes to ensure the chicken is thoroughly cooked.

Drain and serve - particularly delicious with a lemon mayonnaise to dip them in.

 © Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2016

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Eat your greens

This is a very green salad - best served slightly warm and no cooler than room temperature.

200g green or Puy lentils
1" ginger in julienne strips
2 cloves garlic, halved

1 large onion
½ head Hispi cabbage
2 sticks celery
2 tblsp oil
Grated rind of 1 lemon

Vinaigrette

1 pack of feta cheese
Handful of sorrel or mint

Place the lentils, ginger and garlic in a saucepan and generously cover with water.
Bring to the boil and simmer until the lentils are cooked, but are not mushy.

Halve and then finely slice the onion.
Heat the oil in a wok and add the onions.  Cook over a medium heat until just starting to brown.
Add the chopped celery and finely shredded cabbage.  Throw in the lemon rind.
Cook until the cabbage wilts and then remove from the heat and transfer to a serving dish.

Tip the drained, warm lentils on top of the cabbage and dress with a generous glug of simple oil, mustard and vinegar dressing.

Top with cubed feta and sorrel (or mint) 
Serve with bread or new potatoes.


© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

Pinakbet - bet this is a new one for you!

I think this has to take the prize for most distant and unlikely seeming Twitter connection yet and most exotic recipe contribution to date.  
Social media certainly makes the world a smaller place and whilst we hear daily of the trolling and bullying side of it, I have to say,  everyone we have met through Twitter and Facebook has been polite, supportive, entertaining, amusing, enthusiastic, kind and/or just plain bonkers - in a good way! @NethertonNews

Perhaps if more people followed the example of our great followers and treated others as they would want to be treated themselves, the world would be a better place.
Granted that we cannot always financially support every deserving cause, some virtual support via the web to spread the word, help someone feel better about themselves, highlight some injustice or just pass on a compliment or *hug* this can go along way to help people achieve their goals.  The goal might be to save the world or it may be to get out of bed in the morning and save themselves, but love and manners spread across the net cost you nothing and the rewards are immeasurable.

Let's see more #mutualsupport out there, please.

Anyway - enough of the lecture and more about the food.............

Following a rambling conversation about a salted caramel ice cream recipe, which took 7 tweets to explain, I asked Dan Zapanta , also known as @FoodieZap for all you Tweeters, to reciprocate with a local recipe from his native Philippines.

A true gentleman, Dan e-mailed this over immediately, complete with photo.

Hello, this is one of the local dishes here in the Philippines, it’s called Pinakbet. it’s a medley of veggies (usually locally sourced) and pork belly strips stewed in fermented fish sauce. Perfect with steaming rice. Hope you like it! 

Pinakbet (mixed vegetable stewed in fish sauce)

3 tbsp cooking oil

3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

1 medium red onions, sliced

3 small tomatoes , sliced

100 ml fermented fish sauce (locally known as "bagoong")

1/2 kg pork strips (you can use pork belly)

2 medium eggplants (aubergines), sliced diagonally

2 medium bitter gourd, sliced diagonally

200 grams squash cut into squares

200 grams winged beans, cut into 2” strips....I looked these up, they are known as asparagus peas here and you can grow them yourself!

200 grams okra (ladies’ fingers), cut into 2”

500 ml water

salt and pepper to taste

1. In a medium heat, put oil in wok/pan, then sauté garlic and onions, until they’re transparent/soft
2. Saute tomatoes and crush them using the back of big wooden spoon, let it simmer of 1 minute
3. Put in pork strips, then mix well until they are well incorporated.
4. When the pork is slightly cooked, put in fish sauce, mix well. Allow to simmer for 5 minutes. cover.
5. Pour water onto wok/pan, bring to a boil then simmer for another 10-12 minutes or until pork is tender. cover.
6. Time to add in the veggies. First is put the squash.
7. When the squash is half cooked, put in winged beans, bitter gourd.
8. Lastly, put eggplants and okra.
9. Cook for another 5 minutes until veggies are soft and cooked.
10. Adjust the taste with salt, (be careful with it since the fish sauce is salty, this is for the slight adjustment of taste only.)
11. Transfer in a bowl, serve with hot steaming rice.

Looks delicious and I love the tablecloth too..........

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2014
www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Broomfield bhajis, what to do with yet another carrot

I arrived home with a massive haul of super fresh, super cheap carrots for my local farm shop, Broomfields - so after the soup, the cake and the salad, a little inspiration was called for.
This is what I came up with;  a variation on one of my son's favourite foods - onion bhajis from our local takeaway.

Carrot bhajis with spiced tomato sauce

First make the tomato sauce

1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1" ginger, peeled and roughly shopped
2 tblsp water
2 tsp kalonji
1 tsp turmeric
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar


Blend the onion, garlic, ginger and water to a smooth paste.
Heat 1 tblsp of oil over a medium heat.  Add the onion paste and fry for 2 minutes.
Add the kalonji and turmeric and cook for a further minute.
Add the tomatoes, salt and sugar.
Simmer for 20 minutes.
Remove from the heat while you cook the bhajis - serve the sauce warm, not piping hot.


250g gram flour
3 tsp cumin seeds
Chilli to taste
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 bunch fresh coriander, chopped
4 large carrots, coarsely grated

Mix the dry ingredients with enough water to make a thick batter.
Stir in the coriander and the carrots

I use our 13" wok to cook these
Drop dessertspoonfuls of the mixture into hot oil a few at a time and fry until golden brown.
Lift out of the oil, drain on kitchen paper and keep warm while you prepare the rest.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2013 ©
www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Wok fried chicken with plum sauce

Our woks are incredibly popular and I use mine several times a week.  Nothing can beat a stir fry for a tasty meal in a hurry - and with busy lives, weekday dinners are more often a hurry than not!

This dish was inspired partly by Jan's last recipe for pork chops and plum sauce and partly as a variation on the classic duck and plum sauce so beloved in Chinese restaurants

300g chicken breast, diced
1 leek, sliced
¼ white cabbage , shredded
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 star anise
300 ml chicken stock
1 tblp plum jam
1 tblsp soy sauce
2 tsp cornflour
2 tblsp oil

Heat the oil in the wok oil over a high heat.
Throw in the garlic and fry for 10 seconds, then add the chicken and star anise.  Fry until the chicken is golden brown on all sides.
Add the leeks, cabbage and star anise and fry for 2 minutes.
Add the jam, soy sauce and stock and cook for 20 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.
Mix the cornflour to a paste with water and then stir into the dish and stir until the sauce is thickened.

Serve with steamed rice or noodles.

PS I also use my wok for frying chips!! But not quite so often as the stir fries!

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2013 ©
www.netherton-foundry.co.uk