Articles Tagged with “British”
10/02/2008: Mince & Dumplings
Ingredients
Mince
- 450g minced beef
- 250g beef stock or water
- 1 large onion, finely chopped
- 1 large carrot, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp tomato puree
- 4 strands thyme
- small bunch parsley
- 1 tbsp Worcester sauce
- 1 tbsp sunflower oil
Dumplings
- 150g plain flour
- 75g suet
- salt
- pepper
Method
Heat the sunflower oil in a pan and fry the onion and beef until brown. Add the carrot, tomato puree, Worcester sauce, herbs and stock. Leave to simmer while you prepare the dumplings.
Preheat an over to 200°C.
Mix the suet, flour and seasoning in a large bowl. Add a little water and work into a heavy dough. The dough shouldn’t be particularly sticky — add a little flour if it is.
Divide the dough up into eight pieces and roll them into balls.
Transfer the beef mix to a casserole dish. Place the dough balls on top of the beef mixture. They shouldn’t sink in too far. Bake for about 35 minutes, uncovered.
21/11/2007: It’ll be in the Last Place You Look
Oops! The HMG (trading as Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs) has misplaced the personal data of about 40% of the UK’s population, including 15 million children. There is “no evidence that it has fallen into the wrong hands”, but there is no evidence that it has not.
This is the same government that plans for us to entrust them with fifty different pieces of personal data as part of their flawed National ID Card scheme.
This is one of many reasons why I support NO2ID.
Links:
20/11/2007: The Queen & Prince Phillip
Today, HRH Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary.
Little known fact about Prince Phillip:
The Yaohnanen believe Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is a divine being, the pale-skinned son of a mountain spirit and brother of John Frum… When the cult formed is unclear, but sometime in the 1950s or 1960s. Their beliefs were strengthened by the royal couple’s official visit to Vanuatu in 1974 when a few villagers had the opportunity to observe the prince from afar.
Source: Wikipedia
All the best to HRH and the Duke! I know they read this blog.
26/06/2007: The End of an Era
Tony Blair is to step down as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, and it looks like he’ll soon be taking a job as Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds. He’ll also apparently moonlight as a Middle East peace envoy — in other news, outgoing Deputy PM John Prescott will be taking up a position as head of Weight Watchers.
Here are a few Blair links…
22/06/2007: Political Map of the UK
(Requires Javascript.)
The Axes
A two-dimensional graph requires two axes — that is, two sets of scales on which the data points must be assessed. In politics there are many candidate axes, some listed below, of which we can only choose two:
- Traditional Left–Right division. Left– and Right-wing ideologies encompass a whole variety of different policy areas and are the standard method of classifying a political party.
- Libertarian–Authoritarian. This is a method of classifying parties according to how “free” they aim for citizens to be.
- Environmentalism. You could assess a party by how friendly its policies are to the environment.
- Euroskepticism. You could assess a party on whether it is pro– or anti-EU.
- Atlanticism. You could assess a party on whether it is pro– or anti-US.
I’ve chosen the first two from that list, as I felt they were likely to provide the most interesting picture of politics in the UK…
31/08/2003: Toad in the Hole
Toad in the Hole is a classic British meal which thankfully contains neither frogs nor potholes.
Ingredients
- 6 pork sausages
- 2 eggs
- 100g flour
- 50g butter/margerine, melted
- 100 mL water
- 50 mL milk
- a pinch of salt
- 1 onion
- ¾ teaspoon of sage
- a little oil
Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
There are too many complicated recipes for batter out there. Try mine – it’s easy! Pop the eggs, flour, butter, water, milk and salt into a blender. Blend. Set aside. You now have batter.
Fry the onion in the oil until transparent. Add sage and fry for a couple more minutes.
Arrange the sausages in a casserole dish and pour the batter over them. Pour the onion mixture on top.
Bake until the mixture has set (usually at least 40 minutes!). Serve plain, or with a rich gravy.
Variation
Wrap each sausage in a rasher of smoked bacon first!
31/08/2003: Shepherd’s Pie
For some reason, there seem to be a bunch of recipes out there for Shepherd’s pie that use beef. Obviously, a real shepherd’s pie must use lamb or, at a push, mutton! Recipes involving beef, while delicious, are properly called “Cottage Pie”.
Serves 4.
Ingredients
- 650g minced lamb (fresh or forzen — doesn’t matter!)
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 handful of peas
- 1 carrot, chopped
- mixed herbs (see below)
- 2 tablespoons of Vegemite/Marmite or 1 tablespoon of Worchestershire Sauce
- 2 tablespoons of tomato pureé (optional)
- 2–3 servings mashed potato, made a little runnier than normal with milk and butter
- gravy powder or cornflour
- 1 stick of celery, chopped (optional)
- 100g grated cheddar (optional)
Which Herbs?
I tend to use either a lot rosemary, balenced out with a little parsley, sage and thyme; or plenty of mint with a bit of parsley. I’ve heard good things about lavender though!
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Fry the onion, celery and carrot until…
31/08/2003: Roast Leg of Lamb with all the Trimmings
This should serve 4 or even 5! You may want to also serve it with some autumnal vegetables (such as swede, parsnip, carrot, cauliflower, brocolli or spinach) although I haven’t included details of how to cook them here.
Ingredients
Lamb
- half a leg of lamb
- 1 large glass red wine
- loads of rosemary, preferably fresh
- 3–4 cloves of garlic
- salt and pepper
- vegetable oil
Roast Potato
- 4–6 large potatos
- chopped rosemary, preferably fresh (optional)
- flour
- salt and pepper
- goose fat or another fat or oil
Sausages
- 12 chipolatas or thin sausages
- 12 rashers streaky bacon
Yorkshire Puddings
- 2 eggs
- 100g flour
- 50g butter/margerine, melted
- 100mL water
- 50mL milk
- a pinch of salt
- goose fat or another fat or oil
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Place the lamb leg onto a baking tray. Poke about 12 holes into the lamb with a sharp knife. Insert garlic and rosemary (a sliver — about ¼ — of a clove of garlic and 3–4 leaves of rosemary) into…