Rotolo, a new way with pasta by Jamie Oliver..

Rotolo inspired by Jamie Oliver

When I saw Jamie Oliver making this  in his new series "Save" with Jamie, I drooled so much, that I knew I had to make it.  He did make it look easy and the recipe is described as "moderate" in level of difficulty, but there are one or two pitfalls to be aware of. 

It is basically a form of canneloni or rolled up lasagne with a vegetarian filling of butternut squash and spinach.  It does not contain the amounts of cheese that are normally found in Italian food either, so it comes in at a moderate 430 calories per portion, again surprising for a very filling pasta dish.  

The recipe can be found here.  I have to admit that his looks better than mine, but it was really tasty nonetheless.  

Firstly, you must remember to roast the butternut squash when you have the oven on already for something else.  I roasted mine a couple of days early, scooped it out and mashed it up.  It sat happily covered in the fridge for a few days.  Then the spinach must be cooked until quite dry, mine was a little wet and did not help with the rolling up process.   Jamie does advise you to work quickly or the pasta sheets will dry out, and even though I thought I was as quick as I could be, having everything ready, my pasta sheets did dry out a little and the resulting 'roll' was more of a three sided triangle, especially for the last three (of six).

  

This did not affect the flavour though, and it made a really hearty dinner with just a side salad.  Even though the finished product looked a little dry on the plate, it did not seem dry while eating it.  For the reheating today I have bought a little more passata to pour over it though.  Maybe 5 minutes less in the oven would have been better!

Oat and raisin biscuits

Healthy Oaty Biscuit for man heading up a mountain

My man is heading up a mountain for a sleep out with a group of young adults.  He does this every year and each year the weather seems worse than the last.  He has had wind, thunder, lightening and this year extreme cold to contend with.  He always comes back smiling and says what a great bunch he has been out with.  He needs to carry calorie dense foods with him to get him through the day and night he will be out, so, I being the kind wifey I am decided to bake him some oaty biscuits to pass around the camp fire.  Duty done, then I can toast my feet by the fire at home and consider having a nice glass of red.  More my cup of tea, so to speak.

I adapted a recipe I had to make it into a tray bake.  Then it cuts into easier slabs and does not break up as much.  It is very easy to make, melt the butter in a saucepan, mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.  Lash in two eggs and press into a tin. Bake. Hardly rocket science.  So this is what I did.

Pre heat the oven to 180c/350f/gas 4

6oz/180g melted butter or margarine

9oz/260g soft brown sugar

10oz/270g wholemeal flour

6oz/125g oats, either flaked oats or a mixture of pinhead and flaked

bare level teaspoon bread soda

4oz/125g raisins

2oz/55g chopped cherries

2 eggs, lightly beaten

Line a swill roll tin 13 x 9 or 33cmx23cm with parchment paper.  Melt the butter gently and leave to cool.  Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.  Make a well in the center and add the melted butter and the beaten eggs to form a soft dough.  

Press the mixture into the lined tin and flatten evenly.  Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, until nicely browned.  Allow to cool before marking into slices.  

Shoulder of lamb with cumin and yoghurt

When I go to the butchers shop,  I always hope there is a long queue in front of me, to give me time for a good look round and decide what to cook.  I hate it when confronted with a smiley "What can I get you?" two seconds after I get in the door.  Relax, let me enjoy myself for a few moments, planning the weekend meals.  Shoulder of lamb is a cheaper cut than leg and good for low and slow cooking.  Plan on 3 to 4  hours in the oven, a lazy way to spend a Sunday, as it takes little of no attention, and gives you the perfect excuse to do nothing.

I loved the look of this Paul Flynn recipe as soon as it popped up on my google search.

Paul always adds a few ingredients that make you say "Really?  That's one I would not thought of!"  This time it was feta in the dressing and orange peel on the lamb skin.  But hey ho!  I have given up questioning his recipes and now do as I am told!  So off I started at 3 o clock one Sunday afternoon, hoping to present something like this:

So I started with considerably more than 3lbs of shoulder, but i did the incisions of garlic as he said and rubbed it all over with ground cumin, olive oil, salt and pepper.  Here it is ready for the first 3 hours in the oven, rosemary sprigs on top as described.

It gets 3 hours under foil, before you remove the foil and add the vegetables.  Now, I was going to add potatoes at this stage, cut into pieces the same size as the vegetables but when I saw the amount of veg in the recipe, I knew that there was no room for anything extra in the tray too.  Couscous at the ready!

All organized for the home straight now, honey to glaze the skin, orange peel to grate over it  and a glass of wine for the chef!  So the veg went in around the meat, and I turned the oven up a little from 160 to 175 to cook the veg and crisp and caramelize the skin.    For the yoghurt dressing it was only a matter of whizzing everything up in the food processor or with a hand wand.  I though it tasted a little sweet, because of the addition of the mint jelly, so I sprinkled it with some more ground cumin and added more salt.  

I made the couscous without the lemon syrup, by adding equal amounts of couscous and boiling water together and allowing it to soak while covered.  When all the water was absorbed, I added olive oil, lemon juice, lemon rind and a healthy dose of chopped mixed herbs (mint, parsley and chives ) with some salt and pepper.  

TAA DAH!  

Mine looked like this

    

Ok, a bit generous on the yoghurt, but not unlike the first picture methinks!  It was delicious, the combinations of all the flavours, sweet lamb, sticky skin, herby couscous and refreshing yoghurt, too good to be true!  AND piles of leftovers to stuff into Lebanese flatbreads for dinner tonight - result!

PS I am a little bit in love with Paul Flynn xx

Cooking the Christmas Turkey

Cooking the Christmas Turkey

My darling daughter is afraid that I will somehow leave her without clear instruction on how to cook the Christmas turkey.  She will then be faced with the massive disappointment of trying to fill her mother's shoes and letting everyone down!  She does not realise that she has at least 20 more years of constant instructions, nagging, eye rolling, and general help before I even consider handing over the reigns.  

I use the "tenting" method of cooking turkey ie, I cook the bird in a tent of foil to keep the moisture in and protect the bird and only remove the foil and increase the temperature for the last 40 minutes or so.  This means that the moisture I put in at the start, braises the bird during its long cooking and leaves me with lots of tasty stock with which to make gravy.  I heard of this about 25 years ago and have always cooked the turkey this way and it leaves you with juicy breast meat, and not overcooked drumsticks.  No dry turkey meat in this house!

To start, you need to buy the best turkey you can afford, free range full of flavour.  I spent €55 on a 15lb turkey this year, not bad value as it would produce about 15 portions of meat, and then stock for soup.  And it is Christmas after all.  Make your stuffing the night before as it will then be cold going into the turkey.  If your stuffing is hot and you fill the bird and leave it sitting around for a while, well, you are asking for trouble.  It is better to be safe than have a house full of ill guests.  Also, while I do agree with putting stuffing into the turkey, do not pack it jam full of stuffing.  Insert just enough for the Christmas day dinner and cook the extras on the side.  That way you are not overfilling the cavity and blocking up the airflow through the turkey which helps it cook more evenly.  So I make lots of stuffing, but only put some of it inside.  The extra is for the turkey/stuffing/cranberry sandwiches on the following days.

Turkey roasting times are pretty hazy  But here is a chart.  It says my 15 pounder should roast for between 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 hours.  That was a bit too much leeway, I though, but I erred on the lower side, at least that was my intention until someone opened Champagne.  So we ended up at the higher end of the scale, but that's fine too.  Its Christmas, not a Cookery Competition!  My own mother need to do her share of eye rolling as well.

So start by putting an apron over your dressing gown, because 5 hours of cooking, plus a half hour of preparation, plus an hour of resting from when you want to eat equals some godawfull time of the morning when your eyes are hardly open.  Now you know why I said to have the stuffing prepared. 

Preheat the oven to 190C / 380F.  Turn it down after the first 45 minutes of cooking to 150C / 300F 

Get out your biggest tin and check it will go in the oven.  No use having it all ready for the oven, if the tin won't fit.  Been there, done that!  Peel and slice a white onion thickly for the turkey to rest upon.

Then place your turkey in this tin and half fill it with stuffing

Close up the cavity with some cocktail sticks, but I don't like to truss it up to tightly as it cooks better like that.  Put the rest of the stuffing in an oiled dish.  

Cover and leave aside until later.  It can go into the oven when the turkey comes out.  Rub lots of salt, pepper and olive oil onto the turkey breast.  I have been known to layer smoked streaky rashers of bacon over the breast and this is good too.  

Wash your hands well. Add a good glass of white wine (not a glass of good wine!) to the tray and about half that amount again of water.   Then cover the whole dish with a double layer of tinfoil, first going lengthways and then going sideways, until you have a well fitting lid keeping all the cooking juices in. I like to put a little pleat in it to leave room for the steam, and so it does not rest directly on the breast.  That way, the skin of the breast does not get removed by accident when you are taking off the foil.  Place the turkey in the oven at the higher temperature of 190C / 380F, and turn down after 45 minutes to 150C / 300F.  

About 45 minutes to an hour before the end of the cooking time, take the turkey out of the oven and remove the foil.  Increase the temperature of the oven, and drain off all the liquid from the roasting tray.  

Put the turkey back in the oven until the breasts are golden and the turkey is done.  The legs will move freely from the body and the wings should pull off easily as a cook's treat!  

Rest the turkey for at least an hour under foil and two teatowels, for at least an hour.  Am I repeating myself?  Resting is a very important step.  It also frees up the oven to cook the roast potatoes, the rest of the stuffing and anything else you might need it for.  

And there you have it!  My perfect roast turkey.