My name's The Ample Cook and I'm a Gravyholic

My addiction to and dependency on, stock based liquids started at a very early age. My Mum was a great plain cook and every roast, pie, stew and casserole had the most wonderful gravy. Every scrap of a chicken was used - roasted, then cold with mash and pickles or bubble and squeak, then the carcass was simmered with carrots, onions and celery to make a wonderful stew, soup or gravy.

Lamb or mutton stew was a favourite, big round chunks of neck of lamb that had more bone than meat, but those bones yielded a huge depth of flavour, with carrots, onion and pearl barley. Always made the day before so that the hard layer of cream fat that formed on the top could easily be removed.

This is my drawer of loveliness. A drawer in my freezer that holds little bags and plastic pots of meat jelly saved from a roast and left over gravy. I never, ever throw any meat stock or jelly away, no matter how small as they can either form the basis of a gravy, or sauce or just enrich a stew or soup. I also keep any meat fats - beef dripping, duck fat, pork fat - all fabulous for roasting potatoes.

This however, I have to admit, is not the full picture. In my larger freezer there are many pots of chicken stock - liquid gold. In our house we are never very far away from a risotto, or onion gravy to go with our sausages and mash or a lovely rich gravy to coat left-over chicken and sauteed leeks for a yummy pie.

I will hold my hand up here and confess to being a complete gravy and stock snob. The stock that is sold in supermarkets I think is of a very poor standard and expensive. Also, why doesn't it 'set'? If it was made from bones - as it obviously should be - it would, so what's that all about?

I suppose all this obsessive behaviour stems from my fear of 'Gravy Granules' That gloopy, salty, tongue coating powder of the devil. These are the ingredients taken from a jar of 'Bisto Best' - pork flavour: Maltodextrin, potato starch, salt, flavourings, flavour enhancers (E621 E635), hydrogenated vegetable oil, colour (E150c), Emulsifier (E322) soya, spice & herb extracts & onion extract. Mmmmmmmmm yummy.

Now, doesn't this deserve good gravy?

Well ripple my raspberries

A visit to my sister on Saturday resulted in me coming home with nearly a pound and half of raspberries, which we picked in her garden. They were gorgeous, really sweet. Now I eat a lot of fruit, especially on my breakfast porridge and granola, but not even I could snaffle down that many raspberries before they went off. So, instead of going for the obvious and turning them into jam I thought some raspberry ripple ice cream would be most welcome, particularly as I had quite a few eggs and a load of cream in the fridge.


First stage of the process was make a custard - 568ml of cream (yikes, low cal then) brought to just below boiling with 300ml of whole milk and a split vanilla pod. This was then poured onto 6 egg yolks which had been whisked with 50g of caster sugar. Then the mixture was returned to the saucepan and stirred until it thickened slightly. When it was cold enough I put it in the fridge and left it alone until the next day.



Then, I fired up the ice cream machine (not the quatro). It's only one of those that you keep in the freezer, but it's quite effective. It just churns the mixture with a plastic paddle and gets colder and thicker as ice crystals form. I would like one of those big ones that are always good to go but I just don't I think I'd use it that often and they're just such a big bit of kit to store.


The base vanilla was then squirreled away to firm up a tad more before being 'rippled' with 300g of pureed and sweetened raspberries. Something to note here - when ice cream freezes it always tastes less sweet than when it was in it's unfrozen state, so you have to add more icing sugar than you think to the soft fruit.

I think this looks like something 'Dexter' would keep in his freezer

I have to say that it was really worth the effort. I've only ever had commercial raspberry ripple and this knocked spots off it. It was creamy (obviously as it was virtually all cream!) and the rippled parts were really raspberryish and tangy and yummy.

Sexy Samphire

I always think Samphire is a good name for one of those steroid enhanced, orange skinned amazonian 'Gladiators' on that ITV programme - there might even be one, who knows? Anyway, I digress. I had a nice surprise when I picked up my meat order from the farm at the weekend. Paul (one of the farmers) presented me with a large bag of marsh samphire. The farm borders on the River Crouch which joins the Thames Estuary, so at low tide Paul had hopped over the sea wall and grabbed a load for me, which was very kind of him.


Samphire is obviously salty, but in a good way. Eaten raw it has a lovely crispness to it - it's a bit like a salty green bean really. It's known as Glasswort or sometimes referred to as 'sea asparagus' but apart from looking like very thin asparagus I don't think it really tastes like it. It's in season from late June to August. It's a great accompaniment to most fish and you can simply steam it and coat it in butter - but I decided to lace it with a sauce a la Rick Stein which is made by reducing some fish stock, Noilly Prat and cream by three quarters, then you whisk in a little cold butter. We had it with pan fried salmon and new potatoes.

Smokey Joe's

R2D2 had tried nicotine patches, but had not been too successful.

This is our new home smoker. We tested him out this week and were quite impressed. It only 'hot' smokes, so in effect it smokes and cooks the food as opposed to 'cold' smoking which basically cures the food. We decided on a hot smoker because cold smoking is a longer and more complicated process involving brining and maintaining an accurate temperature control. Apparently we can use this one for cold smoking too, but it invloves making a run off pipe in which to cool the smoke down, but I think we'll get to grips with the hot smoking first.

The smoker is made up of a bottom tray where you place the charcoal briquettes - it has to be briquettes - you can't use charcoal as it burns too quickly. Then on top of that there's a bowl to which you add water, plus any aromatics ie woody herbs such as rosemary or thyme. When you've got the briquettes going, you lay a foil pack of wood chippings of your choice. We used hickory.

For our first attempt we put on a small free range chicken, which we spatchcocked (which went on the level just above the water bowl) and a couple of rashers of pork belly and some sausages.


After the first hour and a half, it really didn't seem to be producing anything other than warm meat, so Mr AC put all of the meat on the top griddle and shifted the water bowl up which allowed more heat to circulate. Aha... success. I know we sound like a couple of numpties but the smoker came without any instructions. We had to phone the company we purchased it from and then rely on the website forum for advice. Yep, I don't know why either.

Anyway, the pork slices were very tasty and moist, if a little tough and the sausages tasted really good, a bit frankfurterish - very smokey. The meat doesn't look overally attractive but don't let that put you off.

As the smoker can double as a straight forward barbecue, we finished the chicken by giving it a bit of colour, directly over the coals. I must stress here that I have a food thermometer and used it to ensure all of the meat reached a safe temperature of at least 70 degrees C.

We used the chicken the next day to make a warm bacon, chicken & mango salad, with some salad leaves, rocket & coriander from the garden. Salmon and mackerel are our next victims.

Comfort eating

We've had a couple of very tough weeks in Ample Cook Towers. I've had a couple of unusually mammoth catering jobs and on top of this we were burgled and have spent so much time making endless frustrating telephone calls arguing the toss with insurance co over values etc* (see below) organising for replacement double glazing etc and quite honestly we've had enough. So, a bit of comfort food was required. No matter how busy I am in the kitchen we always eat properly. Thems the rules. To be fair it's not always down to me, Mr AC isn't a slouch in the kitchen either.

I'm also one of those people who is always planning their next meal whilst still eating the previous one and I look forward to my evening meal probably more than is good for me. Anyway, here are a few photos of some of the food we've been comforting ourselves with. The last of the British asparagus (a couple of weeks ago) covered in butter and parmesan with some reduced balsamic and some great Parma ham. We polished this lot off with some crusty bread and we followed that with.......

A warm salad of scallops wrapped in smoked bacon. I swilled a bit of mustard and white wine vinegar in the bacon fat and that just slightly moistened the salad leaves.

The ultimate comfort food of course - pork belly (we have moved on to another night now. Even we couldn't eat all of this in one night, although Mr AC would bravely give it a try if allowed) We had that with mash and onion gravy.

Then another night we had slow roasted shoulder of lamb. I think cuts of meat that lend themselves to being slow roasted or pot roasted are ideal for times when you're busy because you just bung them in and forget about them.Whilst the lamb was resting, I halved some charlotte potatoes (which were off my sister's allotment) and added them to the pan. They soaked up the lamby juices and went a little bit crisp. They were very yummy. Spring pointed cabbage, roasted pumpkin (again, courtesy of my sister's allotment) and carrots completed the meal.

*Just a bit of advice my fellow bloggers. Do check your house insurance policies. We hadn't realised that when replacing my stolen items of jewellery, our insurance co will be issuing 'vouchers' to be spent a very small collection of specific jewellers (crap ones in my opinion). If we want the cash and to have the freedom of spending it in jewellers of our choice we will have to take a cut of around 35%. What a con.

Fancy a tongue sandwich?

Preparing, cooking and pressing an ox tongue is probably a bit of an old fashioned thing to do these days, but quite honestly it's well worth the effort. The meat is fabulous. It's like beefy offal. It's very silky and quite rich. If you've ever had the cooked supermarket stuff and didn't like it, then trust me, you'd like this, it has so much more flavour.

Tongues used to be readily available quite a few years back brined in plastic pouches in the supermarket. Our local Salisbury's definitely used to sell them. I just don't think they're terribly popular today though. To be fair they're a bit gruesome looking and of course they've been in someone else's mouth haven't they?

To cook an ox tongue, firstly, give it a good wash and then poach it in water with the usual suspects: onion, carrots and celery for between 3 and 4 hours, depending on the size of your tongue.

When it's cooked, drain and cool slightly but don't let it go cold. Remove the grisly stuff underneath the tongue and peel the top. I find this bit bizarrely satisfying - like peeling little bits of sun burnt skin eeeeuw.


When the wee beasty is skinned and you've removed the nasties underneath, coil it round and put it in a container - I use a basin - where it fits really snugly, then pop a saucer and something very heavy on the top and refrigerate overnight.


The jelly will ooze and set the meat. It's lovely just with crusty bread and sharp pickles or obviously in a sandwich where mustard is vital. You've just got to have mustard in your sandwich or the tongue police will come round and take it away.

Temporarily out of order

Well, this post should have been the second part of my trip to Wales, however we were burgled last Thursday and my laptop and camera were two of the items taken along with some very precious stuff. To say I'm upset is a bit of an understatement. We have spent a very stressful few days with police, insurance assessors, double glazing repair men etc and I'm just a bit fed up.

Will be back soon though.

Wide awake in Wales

Mr Ample Cook and I have just come back from a very well deserved week's holiday in Wales, on the Pembrokeshire coast. I say well deserved because in the 7 days prior to the holiday I had catered for 200 people in three separate jobs - 115 of them on the day before we left, so I was pretty much dead on my feet and really needing a break.


We set off on the Saturday morning, bright and early, well early at least. The journey took 5 and a half hours. We were really lucky as the M25 was a breeze (unheard of) We broke the journey up by having some lunch - The Good Pub Guide is brilliant for giving suggestions of places near to motorways, then you don't have to rely on the nasty plastic over-priced food at the service stations.

We arrived about 3pm, and settled in to our lovely little cottage which was on a working dairy farm. The sun was shining and it was really warm, so, as we'd been sitting in the car all day we decided to go for a walk - off we went with a trumpety trump, trump, trump, trump.

In the evening, having bathed and talcumed we headed off down into the village to one of the many hostelries for food, beer and wine. It was an excellent meal: Smoked duck salad, fishcakes, salmon fillet and local rib-eye steak perfectly cooked. We then wobbled off back to the cottage for some much needed sleep. We both went out out like a light (we had brushed and flossed first).

Then, at 4am the martians landed. The bedroom lit up like a Christmas tree and there was a loud whirring engine noise. I whispered "Oh my God, what is that?" Mr AC tiptoed to the window and peaked out. Fortunately we hadn't been invaded by an alien force, it was the farmer on his tractor, rounding up the cows for milking. Phew, that was a relief as I wasn't wearing a nice enough nightie to be beamed up in. Anyway, eventually got back to sleep.

Then, at 4.55am we were woken up by tap dancing, shrieking magpies grrrrrrrr. You have to bear in mind that the bedroom was in the roof and we had the window open. They were literally running up and down the roof. It sounded like the little b******s were in the room. If you have ever heard magpies shriek you will know what I'm talking about. It frightened the bejesus out of us.

Not a good start, but it did get better. See part 2 shortly.

Utterly Butterly

I adore asparagus. Unfortunately it has such a short season (about 8 weeks - for British that is) Because of this small window of opportunity we tend to gorge on it until it is no longer available. Whether it's just simply steamed, then dipped into melted butter and eaten with your hands - the butter dribbling down your chin (can you hear Je t'aime playing in the background?) or as an accompaniment to a main course it is truly the king of veg. Actually, strictly speaking it's classified as a member of the lilly family.


There is one drawback - sorry there's no delicate way of stating this - it makes your wee smelly. It's very strange and very pungent and apparently it doesn't happen to everyone .

Last night we had coq au vin blanc, a Nigel Slater recipe - it's basically browned chicken thighs, lardons of smokey bacon, onion, garlic, thyme and chestnut mushrooms - I forgot to buy the mushrooms, silly woman - white wine and cream. It's a really unctuous dish. We had it with some Jersey Royals, carrots and of course the noble spears.

The asparagus makes a great 'dipper' for leftover sauce !

Le cuisinier ample en France

For many years now we've bought virtually all of our wine and a lot of foodstuffs in France. We don't go just for the cheap booze – honest. As we live approximately 90 miles from Folkestone it's quite an easy trip. We used to just buy at the hypermarkets in Calais and Boulogne which really only stocked French wine - fair enough. But as Mr Ample Cook and myself are partial to wine from outside of Europe it's been really helpful that both Tesco and Sainsburys have opened up drinks stores in Calais. We have bought some fantastic bargains over the years, however now with the Euro almost neck and neck with the pound it's becoming uneconomical to do it. Shame. We probably bought a third of what we would normally buy. I'd normally stock up on olive oil, assorted vinegars, anchovies, mustard, butter, cheese etc etc not only for our use but for my catering use too. This time unfortunately it was just too expensive.

Since the tunnel has been open we have always used it to cross the channel. The ferries take longer and you've got the loading and unloading from the car decks and if the weather's bad they can cancel some crossings (also, lots of people vomit). However going by Eurotunnel means you just drive on, and 35 minutes later you just drive straight off. We never pay for a crossing as we just convert our Tesco clubcard vouchers. A one or two day return is £54.

We usually do the trip in a day but last week we had an overnight stay in Wimereux which is just along the coast between Calais and boulogne. The North French coast is stunning with really wide sandy beaches. We were lucky as it was a beautiful day so we were able to enjoy a long walk along the prom.

Before we got to Wimereux we stopped off in Boulogne and had a stroll around the harbour where there are a few fish stalls. The fish was so fresh - mainly plaice, turbot and a lot of squid and scallops. It really was great quality fish.

Our meal in the evening was a bit disappointing. We'd had lunch there last year and we were really impressed, but it just didn't float our boat this time round. I had some really good scallops but they'd added a curried sauce to the plate (our French translation skills let us down unfortunately) Mike had veal kidneys which were good, but both main courses arrived with soggy unseasoned veg. I'm afraid every time I have a disappointing meal out, I can't help feeling that it's a meal wasted. Ho hum. Anyway, we retreated to a bar afterwards and had a couple more drinks and then tottered off to the hotel.

We were up bright and early and ready to shop. We managed to find a few bargains in Sainsburys, but not in Tesco. Everywhere was incredibly quiet. The young girl on the till at Sainsburys told us that they would probably be closing down as trade was so bad.

Our final bit of shopping was at Carrefour, a very large supermarket in Cite Europe which is a large shopping complex about 3 miles from the Euro tunnel terminal. The only things I bought were Dijon mustard and chocolate. I use pounds of chocolate for my brownies and cakes and at .55 of a euro for a 200g bar of 60% cocoa solids it's still worth buying, but not much else was I'm sad to say.

Hell's Kitchen

The farm shop where I sell some of my goodies is open on a Friday and Saturday, every other weekend. I have a freezer out there which I fill up with lasagne, chilli, different kinds of pies like steak & kidney, chicken & leek, also casseroles and curries. I also make various chutneys, relishes, jams and marmalade as each fruit comes in to season.

Then there's the fresh things - sausages rolls, raised pies, quiche, brawn and cakes. These obviously have to be made as near to the Friday as possible so my feet don't touch the ground from the Wednesday morning to the Thursday night.

All of the meat I use is free range and is either raised on the farm or bought locally. I vary the cakes each time but the definite favourites is anything chocolaty. Any children who come in always make a beeline for the cakes. It's a good job they're under cake domes as they have a tendency to try and grab stuff. Each week, without fail, there's always one child with a cold who leaves a glistening trail of snot and saliva along the front of my refrigerated display cabinet. Nice.

By Saturday night I'm usually fairly shattered and in need of copious amounts of white wine administered intravenously.

Bakewell slice

Gloucester Old spot sausage rolls


Herdsmans Pasty Pie

(Cornish pasty really, but I'm not in Cornwall am I?)

White chocolate chip Brownies

Cinnamon, raisin & walnut loaf and Barbie pink cup cakes

Flour Power

I made some pasta a couple of weeks ago. I hadn't made any for ages and ages. I got my pasta machine down and dusted off my custom-made pasta drier - which is quite unique and rather stylish being made from two types of wood and having a swivel mechanism for folding it away. My late father-in-law made this for me and I treasure it. Anyway, back to the pasta. It was good, but not as good as I remembered it being the last time I made it - it was quite thick and heavy. The mistake I made and it was a BIG mistake, was I had used flour which purported to be 'suitable for for bread and pasta making' Oh not it's not - not suitable for pasta anyway - thank you Waitrose. (My thanks at this point to The Graphic Foodie for diagnosing the problem - it's best to use 'double zero' flour which is very finely milled) In fairness to myself I had tried to buy 00 flour but couldn't find any where I was shopping and didn't have time to go elsewhere.

My second attempt this weekend with the right flour was sooo much better - in fact I'd go as far as saying it was bloody marvellous. I now know why I used to make it on a more regular basis. I made a smoked bacon, garlic and courgette tomato sauce to go with it.

Potatotastic

I think sometimes potatoes can get a bit boring, so here are a few different ways to spice up your spuds.

First up - couldn't be more simple, I chunked up some cold jacket potatoes - they were just slightly undercooked (I really prefer waxy - estima or desiree as they hold their shape better) then fried them in a little oil and butter. Because they've been oven cooked before hand they go really nutty and sweet. They're fantastic with thick sliced home cooked ham and eggs. (They're really good as part of a fried breakfast too)

The next one is a bit of a summer dish really (well we are in Spring) I boiled up some new potatoes, when they were cool enough to handle I peeled off their little jackets then I poured over a dressing made from olive oil, lemon juice, Dijon mustard and Greek yoghurt - you need to do this straight away as the potatoes soak up the dressing nicely. Then I added some chopped dill, mint a few sliced Kalamata olives, spring onions and some cubes of feta.

For the third one, I fried a big onion in some oil and butter until caramelised, I then layered it with thinly sliced waxy potatoes and lots of seasoning. I Brushed the top with butter and baked it for about 45 mins to 1 hour at 180/gas 4.

We ate this with slow roasted shoulder of pork

Can I just point out that these meals were not all consumed in the same week - even so I think it's time for a cholesterol check.