Recipes
How to cook grouse
You might be daunted at the idea of cooking grouse but it's a great treat for a small dinner party.
If you haven't cooked it before try this reassuringly simple recipe from chef Stephen Markwick with whom I collaborated on his book A Well-Run Kitchen
Roast grouse ‘traditional style’
Once the first grouse arrive this means my favourite time of year from a cooking point of view is just around the corner. I find it hard to decide whether grouse or mallard (for which there is a recipe in
A Very Honest Cook) is my favourite bird but there is undoubtedly something very special about grouse. We serve it 'traditional style' - on a croute spread with its own cooked liver, bread sauce, crab apple or redcurrant jelly, game chips and a little gravy and it is absolutely delicious.
For the restaurant we buy the grouse ‘long legged’ which means they are plucked but not drawn. This determines the gaminess of the bird as the flavour develops if the guts are left in. You might not want to do this and it is easy to buy the birds oven-ready but do have the liver too!
Serves 4:
Ingredients
4 grouse (1 per person) including their livers
4 sprigs thyme
75g (3oz) butter
6 rashers of streaky bacon (1.5 each)
50ml (2 fl oz) dry sherry
300ml (1/2 pint) well-flavoured meat or game stock
Salt and pepper
For the bread sauce:
425ml (3/4 pint) milk
half an onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves
1 bayleaf
110g (4oz) fresh breadcrumbs
50g (2oz) butter
1 tbsp double cream
salt, pepper and nutmeg
For the game chips:
3-4 good size Maris Piper potatoes
salt
To serve
1 bunch of watercress for garnish
4 slices of white bread for the croutes (remove the crusts and cut the bread into a square or circle)
Crab apple jelly or redcurrant jelly
Method
Like most roasts that come with their own special accompaniments the order you cook things is key. The grouse itself doesn’t take long so you can get ahead by making the bread sauce and game chips in advance (see below) and part-cooking any vegetables. (We like to serve it with red cabbage).
To cook the grouse preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6. Put a roasting tin in the oven to heat, ready to take the grouse. Season the birds well inside and out with salt and pepper and place a sprig of thyme and a knob of butter in the cavity of each bird.
I like to start cooking the grouse in a frying pan on top of the stove: heat the pan, add a tablespoon of oil and a good slice of butter. Brown well on all sides before turning the birds breast side upwards and covering them with the streaky bacon.
Smear some more butter over the bacon, place in the hot roasting tin and put the tin in the pre-heated oven. Cook for approximately 12-15 minutes basting with the butter at least twice during that time. (If you don’t want to brown the bird first you can just put it straight in the oven but allow another 10 minutes cooking time.)
Grouse should be served rare. You can tell whether they are cooked by presssing the breasts with your finger. They should be springy. If they’re too soft, cook for a couple of minutes more.
It is very important to rest the birds in a warm place for 10 minutes before serving as it lets the meat relax and the juices set.
While the grouse are resting deglaze the roasting tin with the sherry and good quality stock and reduce to a rich gravy.
Fry the croutes in the butter you used to roast the birds. The livers can be fried in this too. (In the restaurant I tend to do this in advance, having chopped the liver first, then I mix it with a little chicken liver pat because the flavour of grouse liver can be quite strong.)
To serve: Put the grouse back in the oven for a minute to warm up. Spread your croutes with the liver paste and put one on each plate. Sit the grouse on top. Garnish with lots of watercress and serve the other accompaniments in separate dishes.
Bread sauce
Heat the milk gently with the chopped onion, cloves, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Once it is at simmering point (but not boiling) take off the heat, cover with cling film and leave to stand for half to three quarters of an hour to infuse the flavours. Strain the milk into another pan, place it over a low heat and whisk in the breadcrumbs. Add the butter, check the seasoning and add a little grated nutmeg and a dash of cream.
Game chips
You might just prefer to buy good quality crisps but in the restaurant I make my own! You need a good chipping potato like Maris Piper. Peel them, slice thinly on a mandolin and rinse well in cold water. Dry with a tea towel before cooking in batches in hot oil (160°C-170°C). Move the crisps around constantly while you fry them. They should take 3-4 minutes. Once they’re golden lift them out with a slotted spoon, drain them on kitchen paper and sprinkle lightly with salt.
What to drink: Red burgundy is the traditional match for grouse but there are of course other options. See my latest thoughts here
Oktoberfest Chicken
This recipe which I edited slightly from the version in the Oktoberfest Insider Guide by Sabine Kafer, comes from my beer and food book An Appetite for Ale. The secret is the lavish last minute slathering with butter.
Serves 2
1 small chicken (about 1.2kg or 2lb 10 oz. Geitl stresses the importance of this being dry-plucked)
Salt and pepper
A good handful of fresh parsley with the stalks
50g (2 oz) unsalted butter
An hour before roasting season the chicken generously with pepper and salt “so that even the preparation makes your mouth water” Wash the parsley, shake dry, chop roughly and stuff inside the chicken. If you have a rotisserie attachment in your oven preheat the oven to 220°C/425° F/Gas 7, skewer the chicken on the spit and roast for about an hour.
Alternatively preheat the oven to 200° C, and put the bird breast side downwards in a roasting tin. (Geitl recommends not using a fan oven or fan oven setting for this as it will dry the meat out. Not sure I agree about that.). Roast for about 30 minutes then turn the bird breast upwards and finish cooking (allow 25 minutes per pound in total - just over an hour for a bird of this size.)
Either way - and this is crucial - 15 minutes before the end of the cooking time the bird should be coated with fresh, soft but not runny butter. Repeat this process 4-5 times. To check if the chicken is ready stick a skewer or the point of a sharp knife into the thickest part of the leg. The juices should run clear. Cut the chicken in half down the breastbone and serve half a portion each.
Best beer matches: At the Oktoberfest it would be served with a light Helles beer but I prefer it with a classic Oktoberfest Märzen or a golden lager like Budweiser Budvar.
Do also make this delicious Oktoberfest potato salad
Photograph © Miredi at fotolia.com
Menestra
I first had this wonderful vegetable stew - a northern Spanish equivalent of a spring vegetable minestrone - in a restaurant in Pamplona and dreamed about it for several years before managing to recreate it.
This version comes from winemaker Maria Martinez of Bodegas Montecillo in Rioja who I was interviewing for a feature in Decanter. We bought the ingredients together from the market in Logrono.
Like cassoulet and bouillabaisse, menestra is one of those dishes about which huge arguments rage. Basically it can be made from any seasonal green vegetables, “from two up to twenty” as Maria puts it, but the ideal time of year to prepare it is in the spring when artichokes and spring vegetables such as peas and beans are in season.
There are apparently certain ground rules though. You mustn’t use dried beans or other pulses or peppers (too slimey). Jars of vegetables are permissible but should not be mixed with fresh ones. Spinach is fine if added at the end. Opinions differ as to whether you should use onions, garlic and herbs, whether the vegetables should be cooked separately or together and whether or not hard boiled egg should be added. The consistency should be more that of a stew than a soup though some cooks like to make it more liquid.
Serves 6-8
10-12 baby artichokes
2 heads of borraja* (borage)
1/2 a large head of chard
250g asparagus, trimmed
250g green beans
3-4 potatoes cut into small dice
125g thickly cut panceta (streaky bacon), diced
A thick slice of dry cured Spanish ham (about 100g)
About 75g chorizo, diced
4-5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Olive or corn oil
Salt and pepper
Trim the artichoke bottoms and strip off the outer leaves until you are down to the yellow leaves at the heart. (Handling artichokes can stain your hands black so you may want to use plastic or rubber gloves for this). Trim off the very top of the remaining leaves and cut the artichoke hearts in half and drop them into a pan of acidulated water. (Water with lemon juice added to stop them discolouring).
Cut the top and bottom off each stalk of borraja then peel away the fibrous strips (rather as you would the edge of a runner bean). Remove the green part of the chard leaves saving them for another recipe and chop the white stalks. Trim and chop the asparagus and roughly slice the beans.
Tip all the vegetables into a large pan of boiling, lightly salted water and cook until tender - about 30-40 minutes (Some cooks cook each vegetable separately) Meanwhile fry the cubed potato and cook until tender, then add the panceta. Once the fat starts to run add the diced ham and chorizo and finely chopped garlic. Drain the vegetables and tip the fried potatoes and ham into the pan. Mix well, adjust the seasoning and serve.
What to drink:
Breaking one of the cardinal rules of food and wine matching that red wine and artichokes simply don't go, we drank a 1975 magnum of Montecillo Gran Reserva Especial throughout this meal, including the menestra. As you’d expect for a wine of that age it was quite delicate but still full of seductive damson fruit which we were surprised to find worked perfectly well with the soup. Whether that was due to the long cooking time, the smokey notes provided by the chorizo or the age of the wine we weren't sure but the experiment would be hard to repeat successfully. A more conventional pairing would have been a white Rioja or Rioja rosado.
Orlando Murrin's seed cake
If you're thinking of baking something for teatime today try this traditional English caraway seed cake from cookery writer Orlando Murrin.
Interestingly Orlando's version differs from the original which according to the site Gode Cookery was made with yeast and ale*. His is more like a madeira cake or pound cake, flavoured with citrus and much more to contemporary tastes. It would be perfect with a cup of oolong tea or a glass of Rainwater madeira
Orlando Murrin's Seed Cake
160g/6oz softened butter, if using unsalted add a pinch of salt
190g/7oz golden caster sugar, plus 1tbsp extra to glaze
1/2tsp vanilla extract
a little lemon and orange zest finely grated
3 large eggs, separated
225g/8oz self raising flour
1 tbsp caraway seeds
150g carton of natural yogurt
21cm (7inch) cake tin, loose bottomed, lined with baking paper (e.g Bake-o-Glide)
Heat oven to 170°C/150°C fan.
Cream butter with sugar, vanilla and citrus zest. Beat in egg yolks. Mix in half the flour and half the yogurt, then the remaining half of each and the caraway seeds, until combined. Beat egg whites to soft peaks and fold in – be patient as the cake mixture is stiff. Turn into the tin and smooth top. Sprinkle evenly with the remaining caster sugar, which will form a thin sugar crust.
Bake for about an hour, until a skewer comes out clean, checking after 45 minutes and covering with foil if necessary to prevent it from becoming too brown. It is a characteristic of this cake to rise to a peak and crack.
*There's also some interesting speculation on its origins on the blog Baking for Britain.
Pork loin with rhubarb and balsamic vinegar
An elegant, quick roast from Fran Warde's New Bistro that makes the best of in-season rhubarb. You could even serve it on Valentine's night.
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking: 40–45 minutes
Serves: 4
1 tbsp olive oil
25g (1oz) butter
600g (1lb 5oz) pork loin
200g (7oz) rhubarb
100ml (3.5 fl oz) chicken stock
50g (2oz) sugar
1 tsp mustard
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas 5. Heat the oil and butter in an ovenproof pan and, when foaming, add the pork and brown on all sides. Place in the oven and roast for 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, trim the ends of the rhubarb and cut the stems on a diagonal into 4cm (1.5-inch) lengths.
Remove the pork from the oven and lift out of the pan. Add the remaining ingredients to the pan, stir, then place the pork on top and return to the oven for a further 15–20 minutes, or until cooked through.
To serve, slice the pork and serve with the rhubarb sauce.
Wine suggestion: Sweet and sour flavours always cause a bit of a problem for wine but I quite like the idea of partnering this dish with a fruity rosé. A dry Alsace Riesling or Pinot Gris might also work but could be a little more hit and miss.
From New Bistro by Fran Warde, published by Mitchell Beazley. Photograph © Jason Lowe
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