About

New Site

This site has the same intent as my original one of offering you some interesting recipes in a form that are easy to replicate however it is now in a mobile friendly format so that you can view it using your phone/tablet.

If you have been to my old site you will see that there are some new recipes here and that some of the old ones have been adjusted a little.

Most of the recipes from the original site are here although I have deleted a few that no longer seemed relevant. If you want to see them then go here

History of Food

I am fascinated by the history of food and the way that dishes move from region to region and become modified on the way. You will find a recipe for Brazilian Pork Stew [Feijoada] here and this clearly has a connection to to Red Beans with Rice from Louisiana and Moors and Christians from Spain.

Quite often I find a recipe which uses an unusual combination of ingredients and I wonder from where this originated. I then need to find the original source. Once one has found the region where the dish probably originated one then finds a plethora of recipes for the dish, not quite one per household but very close sometimes. I then try to produce from all the alternatives a version which satisfies me and that becomes my definitive version and appears here

Influences

I have been influenced by food from many countries and spent a long time cooking curries and spicy dishes from the East. I then homed in on the Iberian Peninsula with a particular emphasis on Portugal. From there I followed the influence of Portuguese cookery through their overseas colonies and am fascinated to see the same dish appearing but using the locally available ingredients.

After that Louisiana cooking appealed with it's mixture of European and African influences. I used to cook Paella a lot but nowadays it's spicier cousin Jambalaya is what appears most.

More recently I have been interested in African and South American food and you will find some recipes here. 

Ingredients

You will find a significant use of Mediterranean ingredients; tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, garlic, onions, and yet more garlic. Along with these Mediterranean standbys you will need lots of stock and white wine so keep a good supply available. Nowadays it is so easy to obtain fresh stocks and sauces that you need never make your own. However it is frankly very satisfying to make your own and they freeze superbly. I have a large stockpot in which I make about 8 litres at a time and then freeze in ice cube trays to make it easy to have the required quantity available when I need it. I have most of a large freezer dedicated to stock either in the form of shells and bones awaiting use or in bags of stock cubes.

The Recipes

This is largely a collection of entrees or even complete meals since when I cook for Sara and myself we generally just have the one course. Anyway it appeals to my view of getting back to the rustic country ideal. However many of the recipes can clearly be used in smaller quantities for this purpose.

I resisted cooking deserts for a long time mainly because I don't have a sweet tooth and when in a restaurant always pick a savoury if available. However other people seem to crave sweet things so a couple of those seem to have slunk in.

I note that there are a number of classic English dishes included. I have seen too many examples over the years of celebrity chefs producing appalling non-traditional versions of dishes such as Shepherd's Pie that I wanted to set some of the record straight. Yorkshire Pudding is cooked under the roast not separately in little containers!

Equipment

I like to use the latest equipment since I don't believe in making life hard for myself. So you will find references to food processors and other items in the recipes. Unless the result is different or worse then lets not be pretentious about our cooking. There are enough chefs around doing that already. Horror of horrors I even use a microwave oven. Admittedly mainly for defrosting but also for other things.

On the subject of kitchen equipment I have mention my favourite item, namely the induction hob. It is faster than gas, cheaper than normal electric hobs, almost infinitely variable and does not heat the kitchen but just the food. Whenever I have to cook without one I realise all over again how wonderful it is. I bought my first one when we built our house in Cornwall in 1993. At that time they were rare and rather expensive. Nowadays that are pretty much the norm.