My food blog has had an unintended side effect since I started work as a teacher. It wasn’t all that suprising that my year 12s found their way to my blog from the maths pages I wrote for them but, how the year 9s discovered this place so quickly, I’ll never know.

I guess that’s the power of Google for you!

My newly acquired year 13 class have also become aware of the site and on occasion will use it as an excuse for avoiding practising statistics questions. The following conversation happened three quarters of the way into a practice lesson at the end of last term.

“So this food site of yours, what’s that about?”

This comment came from a student I’ll refer to as J. He is a confident lad who, on occasion, has succesfully confused me by switching places with his identical twin brother and who isn’t easily persuaded to get down to work. However, the Highgate maths department handbook had taught me the exact  phrase to use in this situation. Pity it never works.

“I don’t think my blog has anything to do with Binomial Hypothesis Testing.” 

As expected, J ignored my attempt to redirect him back to his work. “Are we ever going to try your cooking?”

“No, the school hasn’t got a kitchen. Otherwise I’d be running ‘Cooking at Univeristy’ courses for you lot.”
“You could bring us a cake?”
” I don’t do cake!”
“Or a casserole?”
“Get on with the worksheet, J!”
“But I can do all these questions, Miss.”
“J, you’re in Set 6*. The only reason you aren’t in Set 7 is beause we don’t have enough staff free to teach seven year 13 groups now. You need all the practice you can get.” At this, J started writing again. Around 30 seconds later, he’d given up.
“What’s your favourite restaurant?”

As I considered reaching for my book of detention slips, another student piped up.

“Is it Claridges?”
“Pah, Claridges!” said J.  ”It’s OK, but I’ve been to better places.”
I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow to this. With my political ideologies quite firmly rooted in the right, I’d never believed in the term ‘overpriveledged’ before. However, as someone whose most distinguished treat as a child was a trip to the local Harvester, some of the boys at school were making me wonder.

“What’s your cooking speciality, Miss?”

This question came from the hard working member of this small group. At this point I conceded that no more work was going to get done that lesson and gave in. But what to answer?

“Well…. I suppose…. game …probably. ”

” Game, what’s that?”

Poor boy. What a thing to ask. When I was 18 in my own maths class, this would have been a perfectly reasonable question. However it seems that at Highgate, if you haven’t eaten game, you haven’t lived. The young lad was subject to a short torrent of abuse and a projectile pen.

Oddy enough though, the other five in the class couldn’t quite define game themselves other than to say “It’s like pheasant and stuff.” I would have said game is any wild animal that is eaten as food, but the definition is slightly wider.

“Game is any animal hunted for food or not normally domesticated (such as venison). Game animals are also hunted for sport.” (Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge)

So, for the young man in question, this is some game.

Here is some game that I’m going to cook.

Here it is after preparation for cooking.

here is what you can make with it….

and here is how you do it. 

Rabbit Braised with Red Wine, Tomatoes and Olives 

Ingrdients 

• 1 wild rabbit, cleaned and jointed
• 400g chopped tomatoes
• half a bottle good quality red wine
• 20 black pitted olives, chopped in half
• 1 large onon, ffinely diced
• a handful of fresh basil leaves, roughly torn
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 level tablespoon fresh chopped oregano
• 2 tablespoons tomato puree
• salt and freshly ground black pepper 

Rough Method

1. Preheat your oven to gas mark 2-3. 
2. Brown the rabbit pieces on all sides. Place in a casserole dish that fits them snugly.
3. Sweat the onions and garlic with the oregano in the olive oil until soft.
4. Add the tomatoes, red wine, puree and olives. Stir well and bring to a gentle boil.
5. One the mixture has reduced to a thick sauce, stir in  half the basil.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste.
7. Pour the sauce over the rabbit pieces and place in the oven.
8. After three hours the rabbit should be tender. Pour the sauce off into a wide saucepan and bring it to a bubble to reduce it. At this stage you can adjust the ingredients to taste as much a you like.
9. Stir in the remaining basil.
10. Taste, adjust seasoning and serve the rabbit with the sauce poured over it with some soft polenta with parmesan or, if you’d run out like me, with some penne tossed in parmesan and parsley.

* We set by ability with 1 being the highest.

On Thursday evening I was a little bored. I’d spent the day avoiding correcting my thesis and starting, but somehow not finishing, several posts for this blog. For the first time in weeks, I decided to surf around the other blogs and, as usual, my first port of call was Trig Brooks’ site. After a few minutes of reading the posts my eye was caught by the seasonal food item of the week, towards the bottom of the side bar.

Fifteen minutes later I realised I was still staring and drooling.

There is definitely something about rare venison that makes it impossible to resist. it’s more than just the fantastic flavour. I think it’s the association with the cold winter months and the inevitable comfort that game dinners bring. Plus rare venison has such a beautiful colour and the slices of meat topped with a few sprigs of rosemary look delicious.

These thoughts all coincided with the arrival of a message from Goon over the internet saying something along the lines of “PLEASE SAVE ME! I NEED MEAT!”  Goon had gone to visit his parents for Christmas and apparently they don’t eat as much meat as we do*. He was missing the 250g steaks that I regularly cook for him. I had little sympathy as I’d just spent Christmas with my vegetarian and practically teetotal parents (more on that soon) but I thought Goon’s imminent return to London was an even better excuse to go get us a big chunk of deer meat.

Luckily for me, despite it being that awkward time between Christmas and New Year, the Borough Website informed me that the market would be open that Friday. And so I went down there to fetch my venison. I also got a couple of duck breasts, a haggis and a rather nice black pudding. During the walk home from Borough, my mind was boggling with potential ways of cooking my deer. Eventually it settled on this rather neat idea which uses something that can ALWAYS be found in the ‘Living To Eat’ household: good quality gin.

*****

Loin of Venison with a Fruity Gin Sauce, Blackberries and Apple and Celeriac Mash 

Ingredients (for two people who like their meat)

• 500g venison loin
• 2 teaspoons rosemary leaves, very finely chopped
• 8-10 juniper berries, finely ground
• 2 teaspoons coarsley ground black pepper
• 3 medium/large mashing potatoes ( I used Vivaldi), peeled and cut into small cubes
• the same volume of celeriac peeled and cut into small cubes
• 1 large bramley cooking apple, peeled and cut into small cubes
• 1 heaped tablepoon finely chopped parsley
• A splash of single cream ( around 50ml)
• 100ml game stock (chicken stock would do)
• large splash gin (about 75ml)
• splash of cassis (50ml)
• a sprig of rosemary plus extra to garnish
• 1 teapoons raspberry or red wine vinegar
• 10 blackberries, cut in half plus a few whole ones to garnish

Method

1. Preheat your oven to gas mark 6. 
2. Coat the venison sparsely with the ground pepper, juniper and chopped rosemary. Get a frying pan very hot and sear the meat on all sides, reserving any liquid that comes off for the sauce.
3. Transfer the venison to a roasting tin and place in the oven for 10-12 minutes for rare meat.
4. Once the venison is cooked, remove from the oven, wrap in foil and rest for 15 minutes or until ready to serve. Again, any pan juices will enrich the sauce, so keep hold of them.
5. While the venison is in the oven, take the cubes of apple, celeriac and potato and place in a pan. Cover with water and bring to the boil.
6. Once the vegetables are tender (after around 15 minutes) drain thoroughly and then mash with the cream and the chopped parsley, making sure you get the vegetables evenly mixed.
7. In a small saucepan, bring the stock to a bubble, then add the gin, cassis, sprig of rosemary and the blackberries. Pour in the pan juices from the venison and allow the mixture to reduce to a thick syrup. Stir in the vinegar, taste, adjust seasoning, then strain off the solids.
8. To serve, slice the venison on the diagonal and arrange around a mound of mash. Drizzle the sauce over the meat and decorate with blackberries and sprigs of rosemary

*****

I was very impresed by this meal. The flavours were great and the venison was perfectly done. I think some lightly cooked savoy cabbage would have been a better accopaniment than the asparagus that we decided to have, but apparently Goon had been fed more cabbage than he thought was possible over the previous week and really couldn’t bear to have any more.

The only problem with the meal was a few woody bits of celeriac in the mash. Since I have only cooked celeriac once before I’m not sure if this was because I didn’t peel it adequately or because that is how celeriac always turns out. So, if anyone can give me advice on how to improve my mashed celeriac, I’d appreciate it.

*This isn’t saying much. We both eat far too much meat.

I distinctly remember my first taste of rabbit. It had been cooked lovingly by my own hand, back in the first year of my PhD. The flavour was distinctive, it was earthy and grassy and I’d call it an acquired taste to say the least. Despite what people had previously told me, it didn’t taste anything like chicken. Once I developed a taste for rabbit, I wondered what was wrong with the people who compared such a flavoursome meat to your bog-standard broiler hen. Last week I finally understood.

In the past I’d never been one to purchase farmed bunnies. For a start they are over twice the price of your average wild rabbit and it seems like a waste of resources to farm something which is so common over the English countyside that it is considered vermin. However, last weekend I went to Borough with the intention of picking up a rabbit for a dish I’d been intending to make for a while: braised rabbit with lemon and green olives. Due to a rather heavy night after work I didn’t manage to drag myself down to London Bridge until 3pm, by which time a lot of stuff had sold out in the market. I was stuck with either no rabbit or farmed rabbit.

As regular readers will know, I’m not one to let go of an idea easily, so one exceptionally large farmed rabbit was carted home with me that day and, when I say large, I mean LARGE. it was roughly the same size as the hare I’d bought 18 months previously. While Goon and I will normally eat a rabbit between us, the monster i bought on Saturday was split in two. I took a back and front leg for each of us and the remainder went in the freezer. The legs were then braised slowly in a , lemony mixture for about two hours.

Rabbit Braised with Lemon and Green Olives

 Serves 2

• 2 front and two back legs of a large farmed rabbit
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• Olive oil, salt and pepper 
• handful pitted green olives
• zest of two lemons
• juice of half a lemon
• 250ml dry white wine
• 8-12 basil leaves, torn
• handful oregano, roughly chopped
• 200ml chicken or vegetable stock
• chopped flatleaf parsley and some lemon wedges to serve

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 3
2. Dust the rabbit pieces in flour and brown on all sides over a high heat. Place the rabbit in a casserole dish.
3. Gently fry the onion in the olive oil for a couple of minutes. when it is beginning to soften, add the garlic, lemon zest and oregano.
4. When the onion and garlic are cooked, pour the mixture over the rabbit pieces.
5. Scatter the olives over the rabbit, squeeze over the lemon juice and then cover the meat with the stock and wine.
6. Place the casserole dish in the over for 1.5-2 hours, turning the rabbit pieces occasionally.
7. Remove the casserole from the oven. Pour the liquid into a saucepan and cover the meat with kitchen foil.
8. Place the saucepan over a medium/high heat  and allow the sauce to reduce and thicken. A minute or two before serving, add the torn basil. 
9. Place the rabbit portions on warmed serving plates and pour the sauce over them. Squeeze a wedge of lemon over each portion, scatter some parsley over the meat and serve, perhaps with some boiled new potatoes tossed in butter and parsley and some steamed green beans.

*** 

The sauce for this was fabulous and the texture of the rabbit after the slow braise was perfect. The meat was tender, juicy and came off the bone easily. The only problem was that, if I hadn’t been there to see it jointed, I wouldn’t have believed I was eating a rabbit but a particularly meaty broiler chicken. The meat had picked up the flavour of the sauce but had no character of its own. It literally tasted just like poor quality chicken which, after having several delicious wild rabbits, was very disappointing.

So in short, I recommend the recipe but it would be worth looking for wild rabbits to use. It’s true they take longer to cook. I would probably leave a wild rabbit braising for at least three hours. Even then, the meat wouldn’t quite have the melt in your mouth texture of the farmed rabbit but it would still be tender and the extra flavour would more than make up for it.

The problem I’ve found with being a foodie is that, the more you cook, the more sensitive you become about your cooking and the more particular you become about what you eat. At least this is true of me. I’ve discovered that there’s a part of me that can be quite a ridiculous snob. My ‘inner chef,’ as it were, seems to have developed the temperament of a certain sitcom character from the early 90s. *  

Last Saturday, flatmate Mike and his girlfriend, Christina, arrived at home while Goon and I were tucking into our dinner.

“What’s that you’re having?” he asked, “Steak and chips?”**

A perfectly reasonable question given what he saw, I’m sure you’ll agree. But for some reason the small voice of my inner chef in the back of my mind greatly objected to this description of our food.

“Steak and chips! STEAK AND CHIPS?! This is a venison fillet au poivre with a damson wine reduction and HOME MADE maris piper chips!” it screamed silently at me.

Fortunately my conscious mind recognised how utterly daft this statement was and  managed to keep my inner chef under control. Not many people have encountered this side of me. This is probably for the best. It’s outbursts have been reserved for Goon, (when he gets the shopping list wrong), my parents (whenever I go into their kitchen) and the manager of a particularly rubbish and expensive gastropub.

If my inner chef starts escaping on a regular basis, I might need to seek psychiatric help.

The venison fillet au poivre came about after I learnt about the origins of Steak Diane. Apparently the dish was originally made with venison and was named after the Greek goddess of hunting. I’d only ever seen the dish made with beef so I wondered if I could adapt the modern recipe to suit the rich flavours of deer. 

But, when I got home, I remembered that I’d finished the last of our cognac (the key ingredient in the Steak Diane sauce) on the day we moved flats***, so I needed a new plan.  I had a flash of inspiration and decided to make a reduction of the damson wine I had bought the previous morning on my trip to Borough Market. When the wine reduced, it turned out to be sweeter and more fruity than most red wine reductions but not quite as rich and syrupy as port. It was a perfect balance for the venison! The only problem was I needed to reduce about half a bottle to get enough sauce for the steaks. 

Apart from the chips, this meal was very easy to make. First I took about a tablespoon of back peppercorns and cracked them using a pestle and mortar. Then I crushed a clove of garlic and mix it with about two tablespoons of olive oil. I used the oil to coat the steaks and pressed the cracked peppercorns into the steak so the steak was lightly coated with the peppercorns.  The steaks were left covered for about an hour.

In the mean time I made the chips. I think maris piper potatoes are great for this. They have the best texture.  

I peeled six medium sized maris piper potatoes (which made a few too many chips, but we still ate them) and cut them into inch thick chips. I brought a pot of salted water to the boil and placed the chips in it. Once the water came back to the boil, I let it bubble for five minutes then drained the chips well. Since I don’t have a deep fat fryer, I had to cook my chips on the hob. I got a saucepan of sunflower oil hot then deep fried the chips until they were golden brown in batches of 8 at a time. It only took a minute or two for each batch to cook.  

As each batch finished cooking, I drained them on kitchen towel. Then, when they were all done, I seasoned them with salt, pepper and garlic granules.

Of course, we had our venison rare. The steaks went into a hot frying pan for just over a minute per side (basically just long enough for the outside to be properly cooked) and then were wrapped in foil and left to stand for about 8 minutes. As the steaks were standing, I literally just let half a bottle of the damson wine bubble until it was concentrated and slightly syrupy. I did’t feel the need to use any herbs with it, the flavour of the reduced wine was perfect on its own. 

It would have been totally successful if Goon hadn’t objected to the steak being peppered. Personally, I liked the combination of pungent peppercorns, rich meat and sweet wine sauce. The flavours were fantastic together.

We had our steak and chips venison fillet au poivre and home made maris piper chips with a rocket salad, coated in a simple dressing made from olive oil, rasperry vinegar and a touch of balsamic. I’d say it was a notch above your average steak and chips, but probably not enough to merit the daft fancy name my inner chef gave it!

* Or perhaps a certain currently successful real celebrity chef. 

** Please note that when you imagine Mike talking, it must be with a very strong Coventry accent. It’s not the same otherwise. 

*** Well, it have been a nuisance to carry it all the way to my flat, right?

I’m afraid that, when it comes to cookery books, I can be a bit of a cheap student. Most of my (now rather large) collection was found in the ‘reduced’ section at Borders. The exceptions are Ramsay’s secrets and a couple of Nigel Slater books.

The most inspirational of my bargain finds is a book called ‘On the Grill’ by Matthew Drennan. Whilst this book is dominated by barbeque recipes,  and hence not appropriate for my measly selection of kitchen equipment, some of the ideas for flavours are great. One recipe particularly caught my eye for rabbit that is marinated in red wine,  then barbequed and served with a dried fig and prune chutney.

I couldn’t (and possibly wouldn’t) follow the recipe exactly, but I wanted to try an adapted version. Drennan’s recipe involved a farmed rabbit, as a wild one would be very tough when barbequed. Since wild rabbits are much easier to come across around here, I got one of those. I thought I’d marinate my bunny in red wine as he suggested but then braise it gently in the marinade instead of grilling.

A thought struck me as I constructed my marinade. The chutney Drennan involved prunes. Now what did I have lying around that tasted more than a little bit prune-like…..?

So a very generous splash was added to the red wine along with rosemary and thyme and, after roughly 12 hours of marinating, the rabbit was cooked at 140C for three hours. 

Although Drennan’s recipe called for dried figs, I much prefer fresh ones and I could easily get my hands on some from the small Iranian grocery store near High Street Kensington. The chutney style thing I turned them into was somewhat improvised. It involved lightly caramelised  diced onion, chopped figs, honey, cinnamon and another splash of the ‘prune gin.’

The rabbit, which had turned an rich burgundy colour was served up with creamy mash and green beans. The deep red wine and ‘prune’ flavours had permeated the meat really well and went nicely with the fig accompaniment.  Admittedly something like saffron rice  probably would have suited this better than mash but, hey, we had potatoes to use up and Goon fancied mash.

There are plenty of other great ideas to try in the book. The next one to appear here will probably be saffron and orange chicken.

 One thing you may have picked up from reading this blog is that, in spite of the fact I like to design things in pink, I am NOT what you’d describe as a girly-girl.

As you know, I’ll eat pretty much anything. Liver, kidneys, hearts and cute fluffy animals all appear on my table on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes said  animals haven’t been properly jointed or gutted, and I’ll happily reach in and pull out whatever needs removing. This has caused a small problem when I’ve been cooking for Goon at his flat.

Goon has a flatmate who is the girliest girly-girl you’d ever hope to avoid. I can’t count the number of times I’ve popped out of the kitchen for a second there and have come running back as a particularly high pitched voice squeals, “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Oh my days! What is THAT?!”

(Oh my days? Where the hell did that expression come from anyway?)

I try to be straightforward about these things, so I say. “It’s a woodpigeon,” and the response will be “EEEEEEEE! Oh my days! That’s HORRIBLE!”

Goon tries a bit harder to keep her happy. A recent scenario went as follows. The girl walks in as Goon had finished jointing a rabbit and was putting it in the freezer.

GIRL: EEEEEEEEEEEEE! Oh my days! Tell me that’s not BLOOD!”
GOON It’s not blood.
GIRL You’re  lying aren’t you?
GOON: Yes
GIRL Oh my days! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I’m afraid that, when this young lady is around,  I have to fight very hard to keep the opinionated sod inside of me quiet. I mean, come on. Animals have blood! She eats animals! I don’t really appreciate someone who eats intensively reared pork and poultry on an almost daily basis telling me that it’s disgusting to eat game (I don’t have a problem with people eating intensively reared meat - just this girl’s inconsistency). Then again, she’s the kind of person who probably thinks the breadcrumbed chicken breaststeaks she eats were grown in a petri dish somewhere free of any skin, bones or bodily fluids.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go off on one. The whole point of that little rant was so that I could tell you how the special name for this lovely stew came into being.

I was looking for something to make for the new blogging event, ‘Waiter, waiter, there’s something in my……. .  This was dreamt up by Jeane at Cook Sister!, Johanna at The Passionate Cook and Andrew at Spitoon and Spitton Extra. The first event is all about stew and Andrew is hosting it.

I decided I wanted to make a venison, or similar rich game stew since its nearly the end of the season and I had a couple of  ‘affordable’ bottles of port lying around after Christmas. I found a pack of mixed game from Manor Farm Game, which seemed to be mostly venison with some rabbit and pigeon. I thought it would be great stewed up with a rich port sauce and lots of wintery spice.

So, my stew was simmering away in Goon’s kitchen when  Miss Squeamish arrived back. She commented on the smell in kitchen (it did smell fantastic )  and asked me what I was  making. I wasn’t particularly in the mood to deal with a squealing idiot so I half mumble something about game stew, hoping to God she’d bugger off. She didn’t quite hear me and enquired again.

By now, a vague memory had crept into my mind of something James and Kirsten’s dad said to wind up his daughter many years ago. I knew I  shouldn’t say it. But I couldn’t help myself.

“Well, you see that dark bit there? That’s Bambi. And this light bit? That’s Thumper!” 

I had just enough time to exit the kitchen before she procesed what I’d just said and a 150 decibel scream EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! filled the entire building.

So that’s how my dinner for that night was christened Bambi and Thumper stew. Waiter, waiter there’s something in my stew! It appears to be a couple of cute and loveable Disney characters.

Now for the important bit: the recipe for Bambi and Thumper Stew. It’s a dish I have made a few times but the recipe is always part improvised. Here’s how I did it this time. This feeds one Goon and one of me, or three people with normal appetites.

The day before you want to eat the stew, take 450g of diced Bambi, Thumper and/or other assorted game and marinate it in a mixture of ruby port, red wine, half a small, finely diced onion and 1 sprig of rosemary. I used about a 50-50 mixure of port and wine.

About two and a half hours before you want to eat, slice the other half of the onion into thin half-rings and sautee it gently in butter with 3 tsp allspice, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, seven or eight crushed juniper berries, the leaves of one sprig of rosemary and  a couple of sprigs of thyme leaves. When the onion is nearly soft add a couple fo handfuls of sliced chestnut mushrooms.  When the veg is cooked, turn up the heat and brown the meat in the pan, then strain in the liquid from the marinade. Stir in a tablespoon of redcurrant jelly, a few squares of 80% cocoa chocolate, add a stick of cinnamon and a couple of bay leaves and top up with beef or lamb stock.

Bring this to a very gentle simmer (as gentle as you can get it) , cover it and let it stew for about one and a half hours, until the meat is juicy and tender.

Take off the lid, add a tablespoon of cornflour paste and let the stew reduce and thicken for 20 minutes or so.

See, easy! And very very tasty in a  port-soaked kind of way! The meat was beautifully tender with extra richness from the port and warmth from the cinnamon and allspice.I served it with lots of creamy mashed potato and a full bodied fruity red wine.

The girly-girl better watch out this week. I’ve been to Borough and I have a whole octopus!

When I’m supposed to be marking, I faff around making things like this instead.

\o/ Pear flower!

This is a really delighful dish of venison, named after the region it originally came from: Baden-Baden in  Germany. The recipe was very kindly translated for me by ‘BlackForestJules’ on the BBC food boards who happens to live in that area of the world.

I had bought a venison haunch steak that I was looking to find a new recipe for. As usual the internet was yielding very little and I was feeling a bit uninspired but I remembered that dish had been mentioned on the message boards so I went looking for it and then Jules translated a version for me.

 Ingredients:
(4 Persons)
1 kg saddle of venison
100 g smoked Black Forest Ham, sliced thinly
3/8 l sour cream
3 Williams pears
125 g redcurrant jelly (the jam, not the dessert)
salt
freshly ground pepper
cinnamon
lemon juice
10 juniper berries, crushed

Method:

Skin the saddle of venison. Rub the meat with salt, pepper and the juniper berries. Cover with the smoked ham. Preheat the oven to 180 C° (top and bottom heat). Put the venison into a casserole and put into the oven for 30 mins. Add the sour cream and put back into the oven for 15-20 mins. In the meantime, peel, half and core the pears. Rub the cut side with lemon juice and cinnamon. Stew the halved pears until they are soft, but take care so they don't fall apart. Take the venison out of the oven and put it on a serving platter. Check if the sauce needs seasoning and pour it over the meat. Arrange the pears around it, cut side up, and fill a dollop of redcurrant jelly into the hollows.
Serve with Spätzle (broad, fresh egg pasta is nice with it, too, though), Brussels sprouts or other seasonal veg.

I altered this slightly to suit my haunch steak. Instead of roasting the meat, I griddled it until rare. I fried up some bacon to put in with the cabbage that I used to accompany the dish and added the pan juices from both these meats to some sour cream for the sauce. I ended up using some beef stock in the sauce too. The pears were done in the same way as the recipe suggests but, as you can see I messed around with the presentation a little.

I wanted to try making spaetzle but it was a Sunday evening and the small stores that were open didn’t have any eggs, so that was out of the question. It had to be fresh tagliatelle tossed with lots of butter and parsley instead.

Like I said, I spent lots of time faffing with the presentation, which was a bit annoying because as soon as Goon got his plate, he just dumpled a load of tagliatelle over it and started munching. His looked prettier than mine too!   

Anyway, this is a great way to serve venison - I really recommend it. Tenderloin or saddle would be even better to use if I could afford it, but for now I’ll just have to stick to whatever I can buy!

And I mean FULL of mushrooms.

At some point last week I was planning on making a quick meal from a venison haunch steak I’d bought at Notting Hill’s farmer’s market.  I’d been discussing what to make with Goon over MSN and decided that a red wine sauce would be nice but I was also craving pasta. So I thought that a pasta side with porcini mushrooms, pine nuts and other things thrown in would do.

When I got to Goon’s I got a bit of a suprise. I hadn’t asked him to do any shopping but he thought he’d be nice and go anyway. He’d gone to get mushrooms for me but, on arriving at the shop, had forgotten what mushrooms I wanted. So he bought them ALL.

On the table there were chestnut mushrooms, organic chestnut mushrooms, organic baby button mushrooms, large button mushrooms, closed cup mushrooms, some non-descript general mushrooms and large portobello mushrooms.

Seven packs of mushrooms at 300g each.  No porcini mushrooms. Goon (probably fortunately) didn’t know mushrooms sometimes are dried. So I went back to the shop and got some.

So to get rid of my mushrooms since then I’ve made spaghetti bolognese with extra mushrooms,

beef stroganoff with added mushrooms and a mushroom and leek medley to accompany some nice rare roast beef. 

Today and tomorrow I’m having mushroom and roast beef sandwiches. Then I’ll be making some chicken and mushroom pies.  

At the end of this week I’ll never want to see another mushroom again!

The roast beef probably deserves its own post but I can’t be bothered today so I’ll just leave you with the pictures. It was very nice and perfect for sunday night. I crusted it with wholegrain mustard and served it with a port gravy with roast potatoes and the mushroom-leek concoction.  

The problem with living in a student flat is that you have to share a fridge. The fridges are, more often than not, FAR TOO BlOODY SMALL. Even if they aren’t too small, in the interests of saving money, students will bulk-buy rubbish until either the door won’t shut or the fridge refuses to chill anything anymore.

This is the situation in Goon’s flat, where the majority of my ‘exciting’ cooking is done. It’s reached that nasty stage when everything in the fridge is either at the front and warm or at the back and frozen. Unfortunately my leftover pheasant fell into category 1 and reeked more than a little on the day when I’d decided to make a mixed game pie.

So I thought, “Ok, just venison and rabbit in the pie then.” Thenl I remembered that the unfortunate disability of our last rabbit meant we had none left over. So that left just venison and not all that much of it.  

Digging frantically through the fridge, I found a dubious substitute for the pheasant. The left-over roasted guinea-fowl we’d had with pomegranate dressing a couple of days earlier . The pie needed bulking out, so in that went.

And eventually, out came this.

Admittedly, pheasant would have given the pie a little extra richness but the guinea fowl was ok. The slow braised venison was lovely. I’d had it marinating in red wine, port, beef stock, with garlic, cloves, halved chestnut mushrooms and rosemary for about 12 hours, then put it in the oven at Gas Mark 2 for 3 hours.

After taking it out of the oven, I decided it needed a little something extra so I added a square of dark chocolate and some cranberry sauce before stirring in and heating through the guinea fowl. Then I made a shortcrust pastry base, put in the filling and topped it all with a puff pastry lid. Finally I glazed the pie and  baked it until the pastry was cooked. 

In my opinion, a nice ruby port makes a big difference to a venison pie. The two flavours go together so well! This pie ended up being very good value for money too. It used about 500g of venison (for £5) and about a quarter of the £2 guinea fowl and made four fairly big portions.

I can see this being repeated many times this winter

Only an emergency because there turned out to be considerably less rabbit than there should have been.

I bought the rabbit from Furness Fish and Game at Borough. This was a mistake in itself as the next day I found a Manor Farm stall at Notting Hill market and they sell them for nearly a  pound less! Usually Furness are fine but this time it was a bit different. I got the rabbit to make something similar to this for myself and Goon.

I had told Goon to put the rabbit in to slow braise while I was still in the office. Then I met up with him and his friends briefly at the pub before heading over to cook. He was still out when I got back. I pulled the casserole dish out of the oven. At first I wondered how Goon had managed to fit the rabbit into such a small container. Then I realised. This rabbit must have been a very sad rabbit as it only had two legs.

So quick improvisation was needed. I decided to stick with the idea of a creamy sauce with mustard and mushrooms but added some left-over turkey to make up for the lost rabbit. The result was actually very tasty.

The sauce was made with cream, mustard a bit of white wine, rosemary and thyme. Sliced mushrooms, cooked bacon, turkey and rabbit were added and then the sauce was tossed with tagliatelle.

The meal was good… but just wait until I get back to Borough… someone will get an earfull.