New Year, still here!

Oh dear, what a lazy pair of 'bots we've been. Except that we haven't – except for when it came to updating this blog. December is always a very busy month for both of us at work, and we simply didn't have time. We did, however, go to see Tom Kerridge give a talk in Bath (proof here in the form of Mr Robot with the man himself), and we cooked a post-Christmas meal for friends.

Tom Kerridge's recipes from Proper Pub Food are among our favourites, being seriously tasty, and substantial too. The treacle-cured beef, date and toffee pudding with caramelised bananas and beef ribs are all big favourites. When he brought out Best Ever Dishes we had to go to his talk. Annoyingly, the talk then got moved from October to December, so we ended up buying the cookbook months after everyone else had it. Still, it was worth waiting for as Tom is a really nice bloke, every bit as affable as he is on the telly. In fact, even after all this time as one of the country's top chefs he seemed a little embarrassed to be standing in front of a group of people, which was quite sweet, and was happy to pose for a photo. I'm not sure when we'll get round to making anything out of the book as Mr Robot does most of the cooking from the Kerridge books, though there are some nice-looking pies and I'm the house pastrymaker so I might try that.

The other reason why we might take a while to cook from the Kerridge book is that we got a few extremely nice ones for Christmas. I've already tried a couple from Meera Sodha's book Made in India. Mr Robot thought that would appeal to me as in addition to sharing a lot of really delicious recipes Meera also talks about her family's journey from India to Britain via Uganda, and how moving between continents and changing circumstances affected their food. I have really enjoyed reading it, especially her rules (feed the dog chapattis!). His mum gave him the Duck and Waffle book; he's yet to make anything from it but he does keep saying he wants to.

“Why do you have all these books you never use?” I hear you ask. Well, we would use them, but we had a traditional Christmas meal with family, and then friends came over on the 28th. We served canapes (Mr Robot's own invention, so I'll leave him to post about those), then spiced potted beef (courtesy of Elizabeth David – and 'Damien Trench' did almost exactly the same recipe in his Christmas radio programme, which made us chuckle), followed by roast goose with many trimmings, then port wine jellies and/or our friend Ian's fab chocolate orange pannetone pudding, and finally a cheeseboard supplied by Matt and Lucy. Frankly after all that neither of us wanted to see anything fancy for a bit! Though when I was poorly last weekend Mr Robot did make me a comforting bowl of ohn-no khao swe, Burmese coconut chicken noodles, from Mi Mi Aye's book Noodle. Every bit as restorative as chicken soup, but even tastier (and the shallots and chili oil garnish will help to stop a virus in its tracks).

Anyway, Happy New Year to you. This year my plan is to keep the kitchen tidier during the week, and to make more things involving dough. It could be pizzas or soda bread, it could be bau or naan. Who knows? If it starts out as a splidgy floury mess, it counts. Watch this space.

Fruitful Mellowness

By: Mr Robot

There's a fair amount of misery involved in the English Autumn: it's cold, it's soggy, it's grey, it's dark... whatever all-too-brief summer we actually had disappears practically overnight and before you know it you're looking at six months of chilly rain before the slightly warmer rain comes round again.

But there are upsides: warm fires, dark beer, cosy pubs on a chilly day, bonfire night, that bite in the air that makes you glad to have a fur-lined nose, misty mornings and leaves turning and, of course, the food.

This is the season to make soups and stews, puddings and pies, and many things rich and dark and gloopy. It's my favourite time for cooking, plus it's game season.

So the other weekend I decided to indulge myself with a long Sunday in the kitchen, a brace of pheasant the butcher had talked me into, and Tom Kerridge's Proper Pub Food to keep me company.

Pheasant, hiding in a hedge of bacon

Actually I started off by knocking up a very fudged Onion Soup that would get me banned from la belle France if I dared call it French - but you know whereof I speak. Yes, it involved an Oxo cube and, yes, the wine was cheap Spanish, but hey, at least it had wine and the cheese was a rather nice Gruyere even if it was on top of toasted Generic White Sliced. We enjoyed it anyway. It was that kind of weather.

My deepest apologies to France

But that was merely a precursor to the pheasant, which I prepared in the Kerridge style with many well-browned carrots along with garlic, orange, stock and I can't remember what else. Everyone's favourite setting of gas bugger-all for, ooh ages, enabled me to knock up the prescribed game chips and bread sauce (Generic White Sliced sauce, to be precise), and turn my mind to pud.

Never mind the presentation, here's the dog's, er, pistols

Now, I've done the pheasant before so know it to be worth treasuring, but I'd never tried these steamed ginger puddings. It was a fair bet though, because Kerridge's book has never let me down and his little date & toffee puds would entice me under a moving bus.

In any case it's enough, I submit, just to note the key ingredients of ginger, syrup, vanilla, puddingness and custard. There's a bit of jazzing around with lemon and ginger wine but really, if that doesn't get you I don't know what will.

Honestly, what more do you want?

Happily the recipe makes six puddings, which works perfectly for the two of us.

Creaking already from the immensely rich & savoury pheasant, and a startlingly good bread sauce (I know - I've avoided it for years on the assumption that, well it's bread... made into a sauce. Idiot), we actually ate only one each.

Serves two, eventually

Remarkable isn't it? We experimented with freezing the others and it's worked pretty well - just reheated by very gently steaming. If anything, freezing brings out the ginger more. But I digress.

We were sated and then some, and insanely happy. This is food that makes you really appreciate the grotty, wet, miserable weather just the other side of the window. To celebrate we finished with a glass of mulled cider, and then a whole load more. Doesn't get much better, to be honest.

All images (c) PP Gettins

We don't give away other folk's recipes. Buy the book instead - you'll never regret it. You can probably get it cheap on Amazon, or better yet pay full whack for a copy signed by the great man himself.