Nigella Lawson’s venison in white wine
Serves 8
For the marinade
dry white wine 1 bottle
olive oil 2 tbsp
bay leaves 2
carrots 2
onion 1 large
celery 2 sticks
garlic 2 cloves, squashed with flat of knife
juniper berries 10, crushed slightly
black peppercorns 10, crushed slightly
For the rest of the stew
venison 1½kg , cut into chunks about 3cm x 6cm
dried porcini 20g
unsalted butter 100g, or goose or duck fat
olive oil a drop
onions 1kg
sugar 1 tbsp
ground cinnamon ½ tsp
ground cloves 1½ tsp
nutmeg ½, grated
sage 3 leaves
flour 3 tbsp
beef or game stock 300ml
mushrooms 300g, preferably brown cap or chestnut mushrooms
parsley chopped
Put the venison into a bowl and cover with the marinade ingredients. Give a good stir and cover with clingfilm and leave overnight somewhere cool. If the weather’s warm or you just want to stow this away for a few days, then put it to marinate in the fridge, but make sure you take it out and get it back to room temperature before you want to cook it.
When you do, preheat the oven to 150C/gas mark 2 and, at the same time, cover the porcini with hot water. Then put 75g of the butter and a drop of oil in a large casserole and when it’s melted add the onions, very finely sliced (I use the processor), and cook for about 10-15 minutes or until the onions are soft and translucent. Strain the dried porcini, reserving the water, and then chop them very small. Add these to the onion and give a good stir. Cook gently for another minute or so, stir again, then sprinkle with the sugar. Turn up the heat and caramelise slightly and then add the spices and sage. Tear a piece of kitchen foil about the same measurements as the casserole and place it just above the onions. Turn the heat to low – you may need to use a heat diffuser – and cook for 30-40 minutes, lifting up the foil every now and again to give a gentle prod and stir. You want a brown, sweet mess under there.
Pour the venison into a colander or sieve placed over a pan. Then pick out the marinade ingredients or meat (whichever is easier). Remove half the cooked onion mixture and cover the half still in the pan with the venison. Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with the flour, and cover with the rest of the onions. Heat up the marinade liquid in its pan, add the stock and reserved, strained mushroom-soaking liquid, and pour over the venison. If the meat isn’t covered you can add some more wine (though heat it up first) or stock (ditto). Put in the preheated oven, and cook for about 2½ hours or until very tender indeed.
You can now let this cool and keep it in the fridge for 2-3 days. Forty minutes at 180C/gas mark 4, or on the hob, should be enough to reheat it, but do remember it should be brought back to room temperature first. About 15 minutes before the stew is hot again, wipe the mushrooms, cut them into quarters, melt the remaining 25g butter in a small frying pan and cook the mushrooms in it, sprinkling with salt and pepper. After about 5 minutes, add them to the stew in the oven. Leave it there to cook for another 10 minutes.
Sprinkle the stew with parsley when you serve it. I always have this with mashed potato and I like sliced green beans with it, too.
I don’t necessarily scale down the quantities if I’m cooking for fewer people since the oniony juices, with or without the leftover meat, make the most fabulous pasta sauce the next day.
From How to Eat by Nigella Lawson (Chatto & Windus, £20). Click here to order a copy from the Guardian Bookshop for £16.40
Mary’s rabbit pie recipe by Stephanie Alexander
Mary was my mother and my mentor. This rabbit pie is a family heirloom, cooked wherever and whenever my family meets. My mother would have used any rabbit caught by my grandpa, and the pie would have had more or less meat accordingly – so a wild rabbit of any size will do here. A farmed rabbit would be an extravagance for this dish.
Serves 4
For the pastry
unsalted butter 180g
plain flour 240g
salt a pinch
water 60ml
For the filling
wild rabbit 1
chicken stock or water 2 litres
celery 1 stick, chopped
carrot ½, sliced
onion 1, chopped
lemon zest 1 piece
parsley 1 stalk
bay leaf 1
thyme 1 sprig
black peppercorns 1 tsp
smoked streaky bacon 100g, minced
button mushrooms 200g, sliced
flaked almonds 100g, toasted
parsley 1 cup, freshly chopped
salt
freshly ground black pepper
shortcrust pastry 1 quantity (see above)
breadcrumbs 110g
For the sauce
butter 150g
plain flour 150g
reserved cooking liquid 1.25 litres
cream 200ml
lemon juice of 2
salt
freshly ground pepper
To make the pastry, remove the butter from the refrigerator 30 minutes before making the pastry. Sift the flour and salt onto a marble pastry slab or workbench. Chop the butter into smallish pieces and toss lightly in the flour. Lightly rub to combine partly. Make a well in the centre and pour in the water. Using a pastry scraper, work the water into the flour until you have a very rough heap of buttery lumps of dough (I am the daughter of a builder, and this action always reminds me of my dad working a much larger well of water into a ring of powdered cement). Using the heel of your hand, quickly smear pastry away from you across the workbench. It will combine lightly. Gather together, then press quickly into a flat cake and dust with a little flour. Wrap the pastry in plastic film and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes. When required roll out the pastry, dusting generously with flour as necessary.
Remove the kidneys and liver from the rabbit and reserve. Simmer the rabbit in the stock with the celery, carrot, onion, zest, herbs and peppercorns until the back legs test tender, 1-2 hours. Allow the rabbit to cool completely in the stock. Remove the rabbit and set the strained cooking liquid aside. Strip all the meat from the carcass and cut into small pieces. Discard the bones.
Lightly sauté the bacon and mushrooms and quickly sear the reserved kidneys and liver. Chop the kidneys and liver and mix with the rabbit meat, bacon, mushrooms and almonds in a bowl. Mix in the chopped parsley and season well. Cover with plastic film.
To make the sauce, cook the butter and flour over a gentle heat to make a roux. Gradually stir in the reserved rabbit stock and bring to simmering point. Add the cream and lemon juice and simmer for 10 minutes, using a simmer mat to prevent the sauce sticking. Check for seasoning, then add enough of the sauce to the meat to make a creamy, not sloppy, filling. Allow to cool completely.
Preheat oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Line a 28cm x 18cm x 5cm lamington tin with the pastry (reserve some pastry to make a latticed top) and bake blind for 20 minutes. Remove the pastry case from oven and allow to cool. Reduce the oven temperature to 180C/gas mark 4. Spoon the filling into the pastry case (it will be easier to cut squares or wedges if the filling is a maximum of 4cm deep). Scatter the top with breadcrumbs and criss-cross strips of pastry over the filling. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry is well browned.
Serve warm or cold with mustard, chutney or pickled fruit.
From The Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexander (Penguin, £85). Click here to order a copy from the Guardian Bookshop
Fergus Henderson’s beans and bacon
To feed four, but can easily expand and is a good dish for many hearty eaters on a cold day, so go as big as your pot allows you (on a cold day).
“Landlord, bring us beans and bacon and a bottle of your finest burgundy.”
Serves 4
dried white haricot beans 1kg, soaked overnight
pig’s trotter 1 (2 litres chicken stock will be splendid if no trotter is available)
carrots 2, peeled
onions 2, peeled, left whole
celery 2 sticks
garlic 3 heads
thyme, rosemary and parsley a bundle
good green streaky bacon 1kg piece, skin on
duck fat or extra virgin olive oil
onions 3, peeled and chopped
leeks 2, peeled and chopped
plum tomatoes 1 tin
sea salt and black pepper
Put the beans into a pan with clean water, bring to the boil, skim and reduce to a simmer until thoroughly giving. This will take approximately 1½ hours. As soon as they meet the salty bacon they will stop getting any softer; in fact, they seem to firm up (many recipes suggest soaking and blanching for 10 minutes is enough, but in my experience, once they meet salt – however long you cook them for – they never give in). Once cooked, remove from the heat, but keep them in their liquor.
Separately cover your trotter with water, add the carrots, whole onions, celery, 1 head of garlic and the herbs, and bring to the boil. Skim, reduce to a simmer, and cook for 2½ hours.
While all this is happening, remove the skin from the piece of bacon, if possible in one piece, and slice the bacon into 8mm thick slices.
Get a deep pan hot and add a healthy dollop of duck fat (or oil). Firstly fry the piece of bacon skin, fat down, so it releases some of its fat into the pan, and remove; then colour your bacon slices and remove; then fry your chopped onions and leeks until softened, and add the tin of tomatoes, crushing the tomatoes in your hands as you do so.
Let this cook down for 20 minutes to sweeten the tomatoes, stirring to remove all the good bits of bacon that might adhere to the pan, season, remembering the bacon is salty, add two ladles of the trotter stock, and let cook for another 10 minutes. Drain the beans but keep their liquor, add to the pan, and mix with the tomato base.
From The Complete Nose to Tail by Fergus Henderson and Justin Gellatly (Bloomsbury, £30). Click here to order a copy from the Guardian Bookshop for £24.60
Bruno Loubet’s onion soup (soupe a l’oignon)
Serves 6
brown onions 12 medium, peeled
butter or duck fat 80g
garlic 3 cloves, chopped
picked thyme ½ tsp
fresh bay leaf 1
dry cider 330ml
plain flour 15g
chicken stock or beef consomme 1.5 litre
soy sauce 4 tbsp
salt and pepper
For the garnish
baguette 18 thin slices
gruyere cheese or emmental 90g
Cut the onions in quarters then slice them finely. Put the butter or duck fat in a large pot on medium heat. When melted, add the onions, stir from time to time to get a uniform cooking and colour. The idea is to get it hot enough to soften the onions and caramelise them at the same time. It will take about 15 minutes, then add the garlic, thyme, bay leaf and the flour. Stir well with a spoon for a minute then add the cider and reduce by half. Add the chicken stock or beef consomme and season lightly. Add the soy sauce and simmer for 30 minutes. Discard the bay leaf. Pour the soup in a large oven dish or 6 individual ovenproof bowls and lay the baguette slices gently on the top of the soup. Sprinkle with a generous layer of gruyere cheese then gratinate under the grill of your oven. Keep the dish low in the oven so that it does not gratinate too fast. Serve immediately.
Claudia Roden’s Moroccan tagine with quince
Serves 6
stewing lamb 1 kg, fat or lean, cubed
onions 2, finely chopped
salt and pepper (black, cayenne and paprika), use in moderation, to taste
fresh coriander or parsley 1 bunch, finely chopped
powdered saffron ¼ tsp (optional)
ground ginger ½ tsp
quinces 250-750g, cut in half and cored but not peeled (you may prefer to use less fruit the first time you try this dish. Some people prefer to soften the taste of quince with a little sugar)
butter 60g (optional)
Put the cubed meat and 1 chopped onion in a large saucepan. Cover with water and season to taste with salt and pepper. (Moroccans use a variety of peppers, including paprika and cayenne, adding them with a light hand.) Add fresh coriander or parsley, saffron if used and ginger, bring to the boil and simmer gently, covered, until the meat is tender and the onion has practically disintegrated in the sauce. This takes about 1 hour.
Now add the other chopped onion and cook until soft. Half an hour before serving, add the quinces and cook until only just tender. The quinces may have been sauteed in butter first for a richer flavour.
Pears or apples (peeled and cored), dates and raisins or prunes (soaked overnight) may be used instead of the quinces, sometimes in combinations. They all make rather luxurious dishes.
Chicken is also delicious cooked in this way.
From A New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden (Penguin, £25). Click here to order a copy from the Guardian Bookshop for £20.50
