Sharon Osborne...Good role model???

[Gluestick]

Well, since last night's repast was Shepherd's Pie.....................

Low fat ground beef, gently broiled with crunchy new season's onion and gently crushed garlic, assembled with creamed Maris Piper potatoes, redolent of moisture, served piping hot with a crunchy seared topping of creamed potatoe, presented on a bed of new season spring greens, lightly steamed sans salt with copious quantities of naturally thickened jus de boeufe and accompanied by a robust Rioja..........................................

Tonight is soup and toasted homemade wholemeal brown toast made by hand with Dove's Farm organic, stone ground wholemeal flour.

Seriously, Mrs G's  beef Shepherd's Pie is to die for.

 

[cooperlola]

Ah, well, Gluey.  To my mind, Shepherd's pie is made with lamb (well, mutton - if you're a real traditionalist) mince and also contains carrots.  Although I'm sure that Mrs Stick's creation tastes fab.

EDIT: I type this whilst the smell of Mr Lola's cooking wafts from the kitchen (it is his turn.)

JE

[Gemonimo]

[quote user="cooperlola"]

Ah, well, Gluey.  To my mind, Shepherd's pie is made with lamb (well, mutton - if you're a real traditionalist) mince and also contains carrots.  Although I'm sure that Mrs Stick's creation tastes fab.

EDIT: I type this whilst the smell of Mr Lola's cooking wafts from the kitchen (it is his turn.)

JE

[/quote]

Don't keep us un suspense Mrs Lola - what's he cooking for you?

I'm having a bowl of cereal watching series three of Desperate Housewives on a loop.  C'est la classe chez moi![:D]

[cooperlola]

Steak, garlic mushrooms, and spinache and goat's cheese lasagne. Smells good!

[Clair]

Endives braisées with smoked tofu, with a glass (or two) of Californian Zinfandel...

[cooperlola]

Sounds far too veggie for me, Clair.  We must be careful though, we will make Gemonimo hungry!  Although I admit to the occasional DH fix myself.

Must go - dinner beckons![:P]

[Clair]

I'm taking advantage of Mr Clair working in the evenings to have a change of menu... He tends to go for traditional and I like a bit of something diferent!

He doesn't go for my favourite creamy or cheesy dishes, so I cook things for my pleasure when he's at work [:D]

[Gemonimo]

[quote user="cooperlola"]

Sounds far too veggie for me, Clair.  We must be careful though, we will make Gemonimo hungry!  Although I admit to the occasional DH fix myself.

Must go - dinner beckons![:P]

[/quote]

You did all make me very hungry and I have promised myself a real dinner tomorrow night now that I'm DH'd out.  And I LOVE braised endives.  Not too sure about the tofu, though.  Sounds much too healthy for me. I did think of opening a bottle to go with the cereal but couldn't decided between red or rosé so had neither.  Some decisions are just too hard to make.[;-)]

[jon]

Yes you can get fresh fish at hastings....wholesale arrangements seem to be different.He has 8 restaurants and wants to supply good fresh fish dishes at a sensable price...doing this by using Billingsgate is not easy.

In our early days running a restaurant I fondly remember going to Billingsgate at two in the morning and coming back with huge poly boxes on the first train back to London [with live crabs in the box].The first person to explore a box was an early morning cleaner...she appeared a little amazed.

In our youth we were prepared to go to all lengths to produce the perfect dishes.With the crab...[which has to be cooked from live with plenty of sea salt etc]we  made a very plump and light raviolli with the white meat...or a mille -fiulle of crab with a buerre blanc flavoured with leek...or a crab salad with oriental cress and quails eggs.Crab soup from the brown meat using a chicken or duck stock.But the crab had to be sweet and fresh ...none of thois frozen stuff...or these stick imposters which you can see in the supermarkets

In those days there was...probably still is a lady in kent...Apoldore who grows all sorts of goodies for a small group of restaurants ....and she would come to London once a week with her seasonal delights.Elderflowers, Albino wild strawberries, lovely little tomatoes and well many things to look fooward to.

Sherpherds pie......Has to be Maris Piper  for the mash.[or maybe edwards at a push....ofr French equivalant...is there one]We usedto pass the mash rhrough a sieve to get rid of any lumps......a little cream and butter...dangerous.....yes.Some ordinary sauteed mushrooms adds to the flavour of the mince.

[Will]

Hmm - close up of various oozy steamy food items over Santana playing in the background...

Plummy female voice over "...this is not just shepherd's pie, this is M&S shepherd's pie"

How I cringe at those adverts.

So come on then, let's re-open an old controversy. How would you make gratin dauphinoise?

 

[Gluestick]

The Shepherd's Pie did in fact have carrots, of course.

Agree that it ought to be Lamb or ideally Mutton mince: gone off Lamb other than a nice roast shoulder or leg as it tends to be far too greasy.

Seems almost impossible to source decent Mutton, now. As Prince Chas stated a couple of years ago.

Don't know about you guys, but we have reached that time of life where a biggish meal one night is followed by a light snacky meal the next day: can't eat a regular meal two days running anymore. Gone are the days when we'd repair to our splendid local Italian family restaurant and tuck into ante-pasta: pasta (fresh made by Papa) an entré, washed down with copious slurps of a decent Barolo and then a pud!

The other one we are quite into, recently, is sausages served with a pile of creamy mash and lashings of dark onion gravy! Since Mrs Gluey still works in the big bad City we have to produce decent food quickly, 'cos it tends to be late when we've both finished.

Luckily, my oldest mate (since we were nine) is a master butcher and a demon banger maker!

http://www.themeatemporium.com/index.html

At one point, every time we came over to France the car seemed to be full of cold boxes stuffed with umpteen varieties of bangers for English chums!

If no spare meat broth, we use a wonderful bouillon powder we discovered in our local Aldi, in France: all natural real meat, chicken or fish and costs about €1.40 per tub.

Introduced our French friends to English mustard made with proper powder! He loved it: she collapsed with streaming eyes into a red-faced heaving pile!

[jon]

Mr Gluestick are you an Essex boy?

Gratin dauphinoise.....just a few noyes on the best ones tasted.At the restaurant Poudette...about 12 km from us...the very best...perfect...johns Tapas restaurant[he serves tapas from all around the world]

You need Maris piper..peeled, washed, dried in paper towel, sliced with a mandelin.

Mixture of cream, milk half and half...finely chopped garlic.[green shoots taken out] greuyre[grated]salt, pepper to taste...a touch of grated nutmeg

allow potato slices to rest in the mix [all the igredients listed...quanterties will obviously vary on number of consumers and estimated appretites.

Use a greased earthen ware dish[greased with butter...olive oil will not really save you at this stage in the events]

Warm the oven number 5 ish

put thne mix in a non stick pan[lots of startch in pots...esp pipers]

After about 7 mins places pots neatly in dish[not one by one but form rough layers]

Cover will foil to allow the steam to cook the pots....[.probaly for any hour[depends on quantity of depth]...when tender to the knife prod they are ready.

This is just a rough receipe...I do many things by instict except pastry/cakes etc...must be precise.John...however is an excating man...and for books etc I have to recreate his reciepes if they are new dishes.

Is this like your Gratins.

[Will]

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/867986/ShowPost.aspx

There was an earlier one too, with a quite heated discussion about whether or not the dish should contain cheese and, I think, more on whether or not the potatoes should be dried.

Interesting how many of those in the discusion above are no longer with us for one reason or another.

[cooperlola]

It's all a matter of taste.  Whether or not cheese should or should not be in it doesn't matter a great deal to me - as I'm adicted to the stuff.  But I admit that I'm not a gruyere fan and use cheddar if I can get it!  Philistine, maybe, but it's for me so I make it the way I like it.  Just as the gluesticks make shepherd's pie with beef (as I'd like to bet most folk do now). But maybe it should be called something else?

Funny how one gets hot under the collar about such things.  I have a Kiwi friend who got very upset at a dinner party once when one of the guests appeared with the pudding - a "Pavolva".  The kiwi lady got very hot under the collar and said the pudding was NOT a Pavlova but a meringue with fruit and cream, and that the two things were completely different - Pavlova being a dish invented in New Zealand.  She went on and on about this for around an hour or more. The pudding - whatever it was called - was delicious, but all that seemed to bother this lady was what it was being called.  Who cares really, so long as it tastes good?

[Cat]

Funny that, I'm in the process of making a pavlova right now (or meringue if you prefer).  I always cook the meringue bit slowly the night before I need it, and then turn off the oven and let the meringue cool in the oven overnight.  Then, the next morning, I turn the meringues over so that the slightly gooey bit is on the top rather than underneath before adding the whipped cream and fruit.

It may not be the authentic Kiwi way, but the recipe is Australian [:)]

[Gluestick]

Surely Pavlova was created to represent Anna Pavlova in her white tutu, in Western Autralia when she was performing there?

And later refined by the master, Georges Escoffier.

Humph Kiwis and Ozzies: but then, (thinks******) Black Jack: McClaren: Denny Hulme: Brian "Yogi" Muir:

Nope! They're OK!

Anyway, I don't like it 'cos if someone rings the front door bell it's liable to bite you!

[:D]

[Gluestick]

[quote user="jon"]

Mr Gluestick are you an Essex boy?[/quote]

Sort of temporarily: actually born in Hertfordshire: near to Lotus Cars second factory.

 

[cooperlola]

Yeah, but if I'd ever suggested to my friend that it is in fact an Ozzie dish, I would surely have been shot!

[Will]

I've always thought shepherd's pie was made with lamb. If it is made with beef, it's cottage pie.

But maybe that's a Sussex thing, or perhaps 'cottage' isn't allowed any more in view of the well-publicised antics of the George Michaels of this world.

[Russethouse]

Thank goodness you said that Will, Shepherds pie = Lamb, Cottage Pie= beef

Cat, I think James Martin talked about your method of meringue making on Saturday Kitchen this week, and that was his recommendation - he added something, I think it was  teaspoonful of cornflour, to make it guey.

[Cat]

For 4 egg yolks and 250 g sugar I add 2 teaspoons cornflour and 1 teaspoon vinegar, works every time.

 

[Gemonimo]

[quote user="Cat"]

For 4 egg yolks and 250 g sugar I add 2 teaspoons cornflour and 1 teaspoon vinegar, works every time.

 

[/quote]

Egg YOLKS!!!!!!![:-))]

[Cat]

You think I'd give away my best recipes for free? [;-)]

Whites, that's what I was trying to say, whites.

[Gemonimo]

[quote user="Cat"]

You think I'd give away my best recipes for free? [;-)]

Whites, that's what I was trying to say, whites.

[/quote]

I thought (only briefly) that my mereingues had always been a disaster because I'd only used whites[Www] To be honest, ALL my puds are a disaster, especially the charlotte au chocolate at christmas - it bounced!

[jon]

Nothing wrong with Essex...still have several friends living in that area...handy for Stanstead airport to Bergerac...when they come to see me...and visa versa.

Pavlova....touch of cornflour and pasperry vinegar makes it chewy and crunchy...passion fruit, bananas and respberries.