Deptford Saints Chili con Carne

  4 rashers dry-cured smoked streaky bacon - cut into dice

  2 onions (chopped)

3 cloves garlic (chopped)

  enough olive oil to cover the bottom of your pan

  2 lbs (1 kilo) braising beef

3 teaspoons Encona West Indian pepper sauce

1 level dessert spoon cumin

1 teaspoon pimenton smoked Spanish paprika

2 teaspoons corriander

2 teaspoons oregano

1 tin chopped tomatoes

good squeeze tomato puree

1/2 pint (250 ml) Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon

2 tins red kidney beans, or pinto beans, or one of each.

 

Pour the olive oil into the pan, get it hot, and fry the bacon (diced). Cut the beef into 1/2 inch (2 cm) cubes, and chop the onion and garlic. Once the bacon has released most of its fat, add the onion and fry until translucent. Then add garlic. Cook for another 4-5 minutes, stirring from time to time. Add the beef and fry for a couple of minutes until the beef has coloured a little. Add the Encona, cumin, paprika, corriander and stir thoroughly for 2 minutes, then add chopped tomatoes and stir again. Add the red wine and the tomato puree, and cook, uncovered until the beef is tender and the sauce has reduced. If the sauce is reducing faster than the beef is cooking, add another glass of wine or water (if you've drunk the wine. Thought so). It is vital to leave this dish overnight to allow the flavour to develop - these type of dishes always taste better the day after they were first cooked. Drain the beans, add to the pan, and re-heat.

Accompany with plain boiled Basmati rice, home-made garlic bread (not recommended if you have Estonian guests) and a tomato and spring onion salad.

  Any kind of alcohol is perfect with this dish obviously.

 

Deptford Saints' Beef in Beer

2 lbs (1 kilo) stewing/braising beef (shin is very good)

a little oil for frying

2 large onions

2 large carrots

Plain flour

1/2 pint (250 ml) boiling veal or chicken stock (or stock cube)

1 pint (500 ml) beer (see note below)

teaspoon of French mustard

pinch of nutmeg

teaspoon of dried thyme

2 teaspoons of brown sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Trim the beef of fat, cut it into large cubes and fry in the oil until well browned - do this in small batches in a heavy frypan. Don't crowd the pan, or the beef will steam and never brown. Put the browned beef, batch by batch, into a heavy casserole. Once all the beef is browned, sprinkle it with flour so that all the beef cubes are well coated and any juices bound by the flour. Pop the open casserole (no lid at this stage) into a pre-heated medium oven for around five minutes, or until the flour coating has started to assume a light brown "biscuit" colour. Don't let it burn. Once the flour has coloured, remove from the oven, give all the beef a good stir, turning it well, and put it back into the oven for another 4 -5 minutes - repeat this process twice. The flour should have coloured and the meat turned three times. Don't allow the flour to get darker than mid brown at any stage. Meanwhile thickly slice the onions and fry in a little more oil in the same frypan, scraping up the meat juices as you go, until they are translucent. Once the beef has been turned three times and the onions are ready, add the onions to the casserole, and combine with the beef. Pour in the boiling stock and stir thoroughly until the flour has all dissolved, and then stir in the mustard, nutmeg, thyme and sugar. Boil together for a minute, and then add enough beer to generously cover. Add the thickly sliced carrots. Bring back to the boil, place the lid on the casserole, and put into a medium oven for about and hour. After an hour, check to see if the beef needs a little more beer to keep it just covered. Also check how the beef is cooking - it will probably require more cooking time, depending on the cut and age of the beef and the temperature of the oven. Once the beef is thoroughly cooked, check the sauce - if it's not thick enough, put the casserole on top of the hob without it's lid, and boil the sauce hard to reduce it to the right thickness. If the beef is really well cooked by this time, remove it from the casserole, replacing it when the sauce is reduced.

Accompany with proper chips, or mashed potato and green beans.

Drink beer with this (knew you would)

Note on Beer - This is originally a Flemish dish, and many of the great Flemish beers and ales would be perfect as the cooking medium here. Dark, Abbey-style beers, such as the widely-available Leffe Brun would be good. In the Saints' opinion, the superb, wine-like Rodenbach of Roselare, is the perfect beer for this, but it's not easy to get outside Belgium. In Britain, Newcastle Brown is good, and many German Dunkles beers would work. You need an dark, rich ale - light bitter Pilsners, however good in their own right, don't work for this purpose.

 

Three Beer Chicken

3 x 2lb (1 kilo) chickens

6 cloves garlic  

seasoning of choice (ie paprika, jerk, Chef Paul Poultry Magic - any dry seasoning that you like).

You need a good barbeque for this, with one of those electric chicken rotisseries above it - you know like revolving spit above the coals and the grilling rack. Mash up the garlic and combine with the seasoning to make a paste - you can add a drop of olive oil to get the right consistency. Smear the paste under the skin of the chickens wherever you can get it. Any surplus you may have can be smeared inside the chickens' cavities, but not on the outside of the skin as it will burn and become bitter. Truss the chickens and put them on the spit - the barbeque must be nice and hot - and get them going. Open a beer. Drink the beer. Repeat, then repeat again. Once you've drunk three beers (3 x half litre), the chicken should be ready. Test with a skewer to see that the juices run clear - the tip of the skewer should be pushed into the thickest part of the thigh, and left for 30 seconds. If the juices run clear and the tip if the skewer, when tested on the back of the hand, is red hot, the chicken is done. Worst case scenario, drink another beer.

Serve with chips, french bread, any kind of salad, and a little squeeze of lemon juice.

Drink beer with this, of course.

 

 

 

 

Deptford Saints' Fishcakes

I'll admit that this is less of a recipe, and more of a method statement, but the Saints have strong views on fishcakes. First one being, that although regarded as a somewhat unglamourous meal, it's hard to beat proper fishcakes. "Proper" here meaning home made, of course.

You need 60% fish to 40% plain dry mashed potato - that's the ratio. So 600 gm of fish to 400 gm of potato will give you a kilo of fishcake, which will make 10 good size fishcakes. Keep to more or less this balance of your basic ingredients, and the consistency and flavour will be as they should be.

OK - fish. Using all white fish such as cod will give you a pristine-looking white interior to your fishcakes, but not the fullest flavour. The best option is a mixture of white fish, salmon (for colour) and smoked fish such as smoked mackerel or haddock. Although smoked fish can give the inside of your fishcakes a bit of a grey colour, this will be offset by the pink of the salmon and the green flecks of parsley, and is worth it for the flavour.

Next - potato. Use floury potatoes, such as Reds or King Edwards, as opposed to waxy, salad types like Cyprus or Jerseys. Old crop potatoes will work better than new. Boil them in salted water until really soft, and then mash them thoroughly into a large bowl. Allow them to completely cool, and then add plenty of chopped flat leaf parsley.

Method - Chop the fish down into small chunks with a large knife, having removed any skin and bones. Tip the fish into the bowl with the fish/parsley mixture. Add the yoke of one large fresh egg, and a litle of   any or all of   - white pepper, Worcester sauce (steady with this - don't add so much that you make the mixture wet and sloppy), good quality medium curry powder, such as Sharwood's violet Rogan Josh, and creamed horseradish, depending on how spicy you like your fishcakes to be. Seasoning the fishcakes is not something that can be specified - it's a matter of taste and experiment. The creamed horseradish is particularly good if you have put quite a high proportion of smoked fish into the mixture.Mix really well, preferably with your hands, and turn the whole mixture out onto a large, well-floured board. Drizzle more flour onto the top of the mixture, and, with a spatula, divide it into however many fishcakes you want to make - about three inches diameter, by one inch thick is a good, manageable size. There is no alternative to forming these patties with your hands, using plenty of flour (plain flour - you knew that).

Frying - A heavy, good quality, non-stick frying pan is best - fishcakes can stick. Use about 1/4" of sunflower or vegetable   oil, and get it hot, but not smoking, before you carefully introduce the fishcakes. The whole secret is to get the middle cooked right through, and the outside golden and crispy without burning. This does require a little practice - don't be scared, however, and have the oil temperature too low, as the fishcakes will absorb too much oil and may even disintegrate. You need to keep your eye on them and regulate the heat if neccessary. Don't over crowd the pan - you need to be able to turn them without breaking them. Do two batches, and rest the first batch in a low oven while you do the second. One thing to watch - if you have used a high proprtion of very oily fish such as mackerel, be aware that a lot of oil will seep out of the fish. If you want to use a high proportion of, say, mackerel, you might try dry-frying the fishcakes on a really non-stick pan - frying them in their own oil, in effect.

Serve with - buttery salad potatoes, or proper chips, any kind of salad or green beans, a tomato salsa or home made mayonnaise. Pilsner-type beer, or a white wine from the Loire would be perfect with this. If you've used smoked fish, a Pouilly Fume will pick up that smoky flavour.