One Fat Man

A Michaelmas Feast - 29th September: Accompaniments

One of the difficult things about a large meal with a large bird can be timings. Vegetables that can be prepared in advance are good, particularly where it’s a two part cooking process. You can par-cook the green vegetables, cool them quickly and then reheat (with a quantity of double cream as in the case of the petit pois a la Francaise recipe). Red cabbage can also be made in advance.

Space in the oven can be difficult too. The only way to get around it – if you have a small oven – is to cook some things ahead of time. Chipolatas wrapped in bacon can easily be cooked in advance and reheated whilst the bird rests. The same is true of baked apples.

Baked Apples

Baked apples are a traditional thing to serve with a Michaelmas Goose, being perfectly in season.

They are simple to make.

Apples – 1 per person

Prunes – 2 per apple

Nutmeg – a little

Gin – a jigger

Earl Grey tea

Butter 4oz, melted

Soak the prunes in the tea and gin, together with the nutmeg. Meanwhile core the apples. Pop two prunes into each apple. Pour over melted butter and bake for 45 minutes.

The baked apples were not the hit of the meal, but I rather liked them.

 

Seasonal Vegetables a la Francaise

See my earlier recipe here. This time I used peas, runner beans, kale and leeks.

Red Cabbage

(feeds about 20 – worth doing lots as it freezes well)

Two red cabbages

An onion

A couple of large cooking apples

Nutmeg

Cinnamon

A couple of ounces of sugar

¼ pint of port

A little water - perhaps

A little red wine vinegar

Butter

Shred the cabbage, and finely chop the onion and apples. Melt butter in a very large pan. Fry cabbage, onions and apples a little. Add spices and sugar, and then the liquid. Bubble it about a bit. There shouldn’t be too much water.

Put in a lowish over (150 ish) for three hours, checking every forty minutes, stirring, and maybe adding more water if necessary.

Roast Potatoes

Par-boil these and then give them about 45 minutes in a hot oven. Put a tin of goose fat in the oven for 15 minutes before you need to put the potatoes in. They can go in 15 minutes before the goose is ready and then finish off whilst it rests.

Sauces

Bread sauce and apple sauce are both very easy, and I can’t be bothered to write about them... except to say that I love bread sauce. Giblet gravy is made by simmering the giblets with carrot onion and herbs the night before the feast, and making a stock. Then use the stock, together with pan juices, to make a gravy.

Gin and Italian for St Joseph

Today is the feast of St Joseph. I don't have time to make anything particularly special... although there are some lovely Sicilian traditions surrounding St Joseph that I plan to do next year. 

But St Joseph - being a patron of mine by virtue of middle name, and my father's middle name - cannot go uncelebrated. So for today, we'll have to fall back on my usual cure-all means of celebration. The Gin and It (short for 'Gin and Italian'). It is made with Gin and red vermouth (the red vermouth, of course, being the 'Italian').

1 and a half jiggers of Gin (quality doesn't really matter given the  vermouth)

Just under one jigger of red vermouth

Two maraschino cherries

First put your cocktail glass in the freezer. Half fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour on the gin and vermouth. Stir vigorously 8 times in one direction and 8 in the other. Or for as long as it takes to say a Hail Mary and a Glory-be.  Strain into the glass, and add the two cherries. Simple.

Drink, and contemplate life. Today, contemplate St Joseph, and reflect on how lovely it is that today the feast of St Joseph - the model of fatherhood - falls immediately after Mothering Sunday.

Raindrops on Roses: Cocktails for St Scholastica 10th Feb

We love St Scholastica. Why? I hear you ask. Well, we love her because she was St Benedict’s twin sister. We also love her because she was a tough old bird, and not afraid to stand her ground. Whilst St Benedict happily set up his monastery and wrote his rule for monks at Monte Cassino, St Scholastica set up her convent down the hill. They are the mother and father of monastic life, and I love them.

One of the best known stories about St S. is that one day St Benedict and a few monks had popped down the hill to visit St Scholastica and her nuns. St Benedict got a bit bored of the deep and meaningful chat and wanted to go home. St Scholastica, like all sisters, didn’t want her brother to leave… but Benedict insisted that he had to go home, as he wouldn’t spend the night outside his monastery. St Scholastica then put in a call to the man upstairs, who summoned a massive thunderstorm, which stopped St Benedict from going home. Brother and sister argued for a bit (B was a bit peeved that S had got God to send a storm) but ultimately had a good night talking about all sorts of holy stuff, and it was mutually beneficial.

The result of these events, apart from her being pretty important for nuns, is that St Scholastica is invoked particularly against storms and rain. This got me to thinking about the Sound of Music. We all know the wonderful scene in which Maria (still techinally a Benedictine novice/postulant at this point) comforts the children during a thunderstorm. I’m sure that the real life Maria vT, and even the stage one, must have invoked St Scholastica in this situation. So I thought about the song Maria sings at this point. In the stage show it’s ‘Lonely Goatherd’. Now, unfortunately goat isn’t in ready supply in Surrey, so goat recipes are out… this led me to think of the film. In the film Maria sings ‘Favourite Things’ at this moment. ‘Favourite Things’ presents two possible recipes – crisp apple strudel, and schnitzel with noodles. Whilst both of these would be lovely I’ve been under an awful lot of stress at the moment, so neither are an option right now. But I simply had to do something for St S, my being so fond of Benedictines… and being so very fond of Benedictines I know there’s nothing they love more than a bit of a tipple.

So, I decided to think outside the box, and this led me to gin. I had the idea of creating a cocktail for St Scholastica with gin and my very favourite ingredient, rose water. I have called this cocktail [wait for it]… raindrops on roses, as per the lyric in the song. You may find it useful for Valentine’s day as well as for St S.

Raindrops on Roses

1 martini glass, chilled in the deep freeze

1 shot of gin

¼ shot of rosewater

¼ shot of Waldhimbeer Edelgeist [this is a raspberry liqueur made in the Carpathians. It is very strong, but quite delicious, and in terms of flavour and intensity little compares, it also sounds a bit like ‘Edelweiss’]

A spoonful of simple syrup

Three or four drops of bitters

A rose petal for prettiness

Mix all the ingredients well in a cocktail shaker over ice. Stir, do not shake. Strain into the chilled glass. Garnish with the rose petal. It should taste a little bit like a very cold and slightly less sweet piece of good Turkish delight. Finally, in keeping with the Sound of Music theme, here is a link to a video of me trilling out 'Climb Ev'ry Mountain'.

Pigeons for the Purification of the BVM – 2nd Feb.

Last week it was the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the Presentation as it’s now known… or Candelmas as it was traditionally known in England, even though that tends to have an Anglican sort of ring to it now.

The reason it’s called Candlemas is because the priest blesses candles and they get distributed to everyone, and the choir merrily sings the Nunc Dimittis – which obviously includes the following; ‘Lumen ad revelationem gentium et gloriam plebis tuæ Israel’. Along with Simeon we celebrate the arrival of the Light of the World. It is also, sadly, the end of Christmas. Or it traditionally was, and is the day we put the crib scene away.

The reason I decided to do some dainty little pigeons is because in Luke ch 2 we hear about the two young doves or pigeons brought by Mary and Joseph to the Temple as a sacrifice for their first born son.

I feel a bit bad having taken so long to get the recipe up here. But it’s been a hectic sort of time of late.

Pigeons with Honey-Roast Beetroot and Cumberland Sauce

3 pigeons (I was cooking for three people)

6 rashers smoked streaky bacon

Butter

1 onion

4 sticks of celery

2 shots of gin

A handful of Juniper berries

Some good chicken or game stock

4 good-sized beetroots (raw)

Honey

Olive Oil

For the Cumberland Sauce -I’m sorry dear reader, I just followed St Delia for this. Make this the day before, or earlier in the day, you can reheat it a little before serving – the microwave (sorry) works best for this. This is a classic sauce to have with game. It's also good cold.

Method

Chop the bacon, onion, and celery and fry in a large casserole. When they have just started to get some colour remove from the pan, and melt about a tablespoon of butter. Now add the little pigeons. Brown them on all sides, don’t be afraid to give them some good colour. Now return the onion, bacon, and celery to the pan, move the pigeons to the top, and allow to heat through. Pour on the gin and let it evaporate. Then add the juniper berries and the stock, leaving the liquid level about half an inch below the top of the pigeons. Turn the pigeons over so that they are breast-side down. Cover, and pop in the oven at about 160C for about 25 minutes. Meanwhile wash the beetroot well, you may need to peel it a bit, but not all of it. Whatever you do be careful – beetroot stains! Chop the betroot into thick slices of just under half an inch thick. Lay them in a roasting tin or pyrex tray. Drizzle liberally with olive oil and honey.

When the twenty-five minutes are up take the pigeons out of the oven, remove the lid and turn the pigeons over. Brush the breasts with butter. Put back in the over uncovered, together with the beetroot. Turn the oven up to 200 and time for 15 minutes. When this time is up turn the beetroot slices over and return to the oven for another 15 minutes. If after this time the beetroot seems a little hard then give it a bit longer, reserving the pigeons out of the oven with the lid on.

Serve the pigeons on a bed of the bacon, onion and celery mixture, together with Dauphinoise potatoes, and sprouting brocolli, and put the Cumberland Sauce on the table so people can help themselves.

Leftover Cumberland sauce will go deliciously with ham.