Bettys Hotpot from Coronation Street

http://http//www.bbc.co.uk/i/p00chgvg/http://

I was asked to make Bettys Hotpot for the Coronation St 5oth anniversary for Radio Cumbria. Here is a link to the website and the recording. For the folks outside the UK Coronation St is a famous TV soap set in Lancashire and the folks visiting the Rovers Return pub always had this hot pot.

The receipe came from

http:answers.yahoo.com/question/index

1lb of lamb- I used shoulder cubed

1 onion sliced

1 tablespoon flour

1lb potatoes sliced in rounds thinly

3/4 pint stock and 2 lamb stock cubes

dripping to fry the meat about 1oz

1 tablsp Worcester sauce

1 bay leaf.

Method

Fry the sliced onions in the dripping Move to the hot pot dish for the oven. Fry the sliced onions

until soft but not brown then add the flour. Stir well to blend in the flour. Add the stock and stir to make sure there are no lumps. Add the worcester souce and stock cubes.Put this on top of the meat with the bay leaf. Wash the sliced potato's and pat them dry. Layer them on top of the meat with salt and pepper in between the layers. Bake about gas 3/4 or 150c for about 2 hours.

I put a little water in the potato layers to make sure they did not dry out too much. It needs a bit more liquid in the pot to start off as it will boil down in the oven. I turned up the oven high for another 30mins to make sure the meat was really soft and the potato's really crunchy on top and not too liquid on the plate.

The recipe says serve with chips - I wouldn't. Pickled Red cabbage or beetroot.

The folks at Radio Cumbria said the recipe did not need any adjustments and it tasted very good. The lunchtime sandwiches took a back seat.

Cooking with Grannie: Google Blogs

Cooking with Grannie: Google Blogs

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Google Blogs

These are the folks to speak to about online marketing
Denise in particular.

New Website

Coming soon new website. I have discovered that with a google blog I dont own the name or the site contents. and it can be taken away if Google want the name back. I have a new website in hand and will post with details when it is ready.

Radio Cumbria 27/9/10

Cooking with Grannie took to the airwaves today. I was featured on Radio Cumbria with Fern on the wireless and my Vegetarian Chilli which he ate all up. Describing how to cut up an onion without visuals took a bit of thinking about but made it. Peeling like a banana came from that and I have included it in the post about onions. There is not a lot of room in a studio to put a chopping board.

Carrot and Coriander soup

Dry fry the coriander seeds until they just turn brown.

The second photo is before it is liquised.

Some friends of mine have been waiting a long time for this recipe so here it is. You need

3 fairly large carrots

1 onion

1 teaspoon of coriander seeds

2 vegetable stock cubes

2 tablespoons of cooking oil

water

Method

Cut up the onion in to smallish pieces and peel and chop the carrots into smallish chunks. Large chunks just take longer to cook. Cook the onion in the oil until transparent. Make sure the heat is not too hot as you do not want the onions to go brown for this dish. Add the stock cubes and the carrots. While you are waiting for the onions to cook, dry fry the coriander seeds. Heat your frying pan and then put the seeds into it. Dry fry them for only a few minutes and they have changed colour slightly. Don't let them get really brown otherwise the soup will be bitter.

Add the seeds and water enought to just cover the vegetables. Cook with a lid on until the carrots are soft. About 20 mins. Either liquidise with a liquidiser or use a stick blender to smooth the soup. Dont use the soup while its hot in a liquidiser it will splash out of the top of it. Leave it to cool a bit or add cold water to it to liquidise. It will need more water to finish it anyway as this is too concentrated. This batch of soup measured 2 pints before it was liquidised and I added 1 more pint of cold water. Just keep tasting until you get the right amount of water.

Re-heat and serve with either some chopped chives or creme fraiche.

Peaches with almonds and vanilla

Peaches this time of year in the UK are delicious. Soft and juicy and the fragrance fills your nose when eating them. They are summer on a plate.

This dish is maximum nutrition and flavour for minimum effort which is what this blog is about.

Method

Cut a peach in two and then slice it. Put the cut side down on the cutting board do not try and cut it towards you into your hand.

Put the slices on a plate. The photo on the left is half a peach. Drizzle over the top vanilla extract. Its brown and sticky and has the seeds in it. Vanilla essence is a substitute but is not quite the same. Top with ground almonds and serve with creme fraiche.

Coming soon.....a dish that can be a summer salad or main course