Next Level Beef Stroganoff Perfect Winter Supper

Learn the secret to tender beef in our next-level beef stroganoff. We’ve given the flavour a boost with porcini powder to give the dish the wow factor.  BCGOODFOOD.COM

Ingredients

• 1 and 1/4 cups beef stock
• 1 cup soured cream
• 1 pound thick sirloin steak, with as much fat as possible trimmed off the steak
• 1/4 pound butter
• 2 banana shallots, halved and finely sliced
• 8 oz chestnut mushrooms, quartered
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 2 tsp smoked paprika, plus extra to serve
• pinch of porcini powder, plus extra to serve (optional)
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• ½ small bunch of parsley, chopped
• 1 tsp English mustard

Instructions

1. Whisk the stock and all but 2 tbsp of the soured cream together. Set aside.

2. Generously season the steaks. Heat half the butter in a frying pan until sizzling, then cook the steaks for 8 mins, turning them every minute or so, until golden brown on each side. Remove and set aside. 

3. Heat the rest of the butter in the steak pan, tip in the shallots and cook for about 5 mins or until starting to caramelise. Add the mushrooms and cook for a further 5 mins or until golden. Stir in the garlic and paprika along with a pinch of porcini powder and continue to cook for 1 min.

4. Add the vinegar and leave to simmer for 1 min. Turn the heat down to its lowest setting and pour in the creamy stock, stirring everything together until hot but not simmering, then taste for seasoning and add most of the parsley and the mustard.

5. Pour in any juices from the steak, before carving it into thick slices and adding to the pan. To serve, top with the remaining soured cream, then scatter with the remaining parsley, a pinch of paprika and porcini powder, if using.

Brine Your Turkey for Best Thanksgiving Ever

Also, always start cooking the bird, breast-side down! (see below)

Editor's Note: I tried this a couple of years ago and it resulted in the most amazing turkey ever. Even the leftovers had far more flavor. It's a little time consuming, but not very difficult. Cooking the turkey breast-side down for most of the time is important, so do not overlook this instruction.

Ingredients 

For the turkey:

• 10 pints 11 fluid ounces (6 liters) water
• 4 1/4-ounces (125 grams) table salt
• 3 tablespoons black peppercorns
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tablespoon caraway seeds
• 4 cloves
• 2 tablespoons allspice berries
• 4 star anise
• 2 tablespoons white mustard seeds
• 7 ounces (200 grams) caster sugar
• 2 onions, quartered
• 1 (3-inch) piece ginger, cut into 6 slices
• 4 tablespoons maple syrup
• 4 tablespoons clear honey
• Handful fresh parsley leaves, optional (only if you've got some parsley hanging around)
• 1 orange, quartered
• 1 (9 to 11 1/4-pound) (4 to 5-kg) turkey

For the basting glaze:

• 2 3/4 ounces (75 grams) butter
• 3 tablespoons maple syrup

For the turkey:

Directions

Place the water into your largest cooking pot or bucket/plastic bin and add all the turkey ingredients, stirring to dissolve the salt, sugar, syrup and honey. (Squeeze the juice of the orange quarters into the brine before you chuck in the pieces.)

Untie and remove any string or trussing attached to the turkey, shake it free and add it to the liquid. Add more water if the turkey is not completely submerged. Keep the mixture in a cold place, at or below 40 degrees, even outside overnight or for up 1 or 2 days before you cook it, remembering to take it out of its liquid (and wiping it dry with kitchen-towel) a good 40 or 50 minutes before it has to go into the oven. Turkeys - indeed this is the case for all meat - should be at room temperature before being put in the preheated oven. If you're at all concerned - the cold water in the brine will really chill this bird - then just cook the turkey for longer than its actual weight requires.

For the basting glaze:

Place the butter and syrup into a saucepan and cook over a low heat, while stirring, until the ingredients have melted and combined. 

Brush the turkey with the glaze before roasting, and baste periodically throughout the roasting time.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Put the turkey, breast-side down, in the pan.

Cook the turkey for 30 minutes at this relatively high temperature, then turn the oven down to 350 degrees F and continue cooking, turning the turkey breast-side up and the oven back up to 425 degrees F for the final 15 minutes or so if you want to give a browning boost to the skin. For a 9 to 11-pound turkey, allow 2 1/2 to 3-hours in total. But remember that ovens vary enormously, so just check by piercing the flesh between leg and body with a small sharp knife: when the juices run clear, the turkey is cooked.

Just as it's crucial to let the turkey come to room temperature before it goes in to the oven, so it's important to let it stand out of the oven for a good 20 minutes before you actually carve it.

Creamy Potato Gratin Perfect Fall Dish

INTRODUCTION

A not entirely orthodox way of turning out this otherwise classic dish of cream-softened potatoes has a lot going for it.

INGREDIENTS

Serves: 6-8

• 4½ pounds potatoes 
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 onion (peeled)
• 2 cloves garlic (minced)
• 1 tablespoon soft sea salt flakes
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 450ºF.
2. Peel the potatoes and cut them into slices, neither especially thin nor especially thick (approx. 1cm / ¼ inch) and put them into a large saucepan with the milk, cream, onion, minced garlic and salt. Bring to the boil and cook at a robust simmer or gentle boil (however you like to think of it) until verging on tender, but not dissolving into mush. The pan might be hell to clean afterwards, but any excuse for long, lazy soaking rather than brisk pre- or post-prandial scrubbing always appeals to me. And, for what it's worth, I find that when pans are really dauntingly, stuck with cooked-on gunge, it's more effective to soak them in hot water and detergent (ie, the stuff you put in the washing machine, though I haven't tried, and don't think I would, with tablets) rather than washing-up liquid.
3. Use some of the butter to grease a large roasting tin (15 x 12 inches) and then, after removing the onion, pour the almost sludgy milk and potato mixture into it. Dot with remaining butter and cook in the oven for 15 minutes or until the potato is bubbly and browned on top. Remove, let stand for 10-20 minutes and then serve.
4. This is not the most labour-saving way of cooking potatoes, to be sure, but one of the most seductive. And it reheats well as an accompaniment to cold roast pork, or indeed anything, in the days that follow.

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies Can be Tricky

It seems strange that I’ve managed to write seven books without one plain chocolate chip cookie (by which I mean a plain cookie with chocolate chips in it). It’s true that the Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie made an appearance once, and it’s only buoyed up by its success that I’ve felt confident enough to create this one.

For here’s the thing: you’d think a plain cookie with a few chocolate chips folded into the mixture would be a simple matter. It’s not. It’s never difficult to make, just difficult to get right. I may be picky, but to my mind, or my mouth, a cookie that’s too crisp feels dry and disappointing and a cookie that’s too chewy tastes like dough. I want a bit of tender, fudgy chewiness but an edge of crisp bite, too.

INGREDIENTS

Makes: approx. 14 Cooklies

• 1¼ sticks soft unsalted butter
• ⅔ cup soft light brown sugar
• ½ cup superfine sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 egg (fridge-cold)
• 1 egg yolk (fridge-cold)
• 2 cups flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 11½ ounces packet milk chocolate morsels or chips

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
2. Melt the butter and let it cool a bit. Put the brown and white sugars into a bowl, pour the slightly cooled, melted butter over them and beat together.
3. Beat in the vanilla, the cold egg and cold egg yolk until your mixture is light and creamy.
4. Slowly mix in the flour and bicarb until just blended, then fold in the chocolate chips.
5. Scoop the cookie dough into an American quarter-cup measure or a quarter cup round ice cream scoop and drop onto the prepared baking sheet, plopping the cookies down about 8cm/3 inches apart. You will need to make these in 2 batches, keeping the bowl of cookie dough in the fridge between batches.
6. Bake for 15–17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks.

Nothing Beats a Good Chocolate Pudding for Dessert

INTRODUCTION

We're talking pure, all-encompassing bliss. When you eat this cooled, it is like chocolate satin cream and almost shocking in its pleasurable intensity. But I love it straight out of the pan, too, when it is like the best hot chocolate you've ever had, in spoonable form.

INGREDIENTS

Serves: 8

• 2 cup whole milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup superfine sugar
• 2 tablespoon cornstarch
• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 4 tablespoons boiling water (from recently boiled kettle)
• 4 large egg yolks
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate (finely chopped)

METHOD

1. Put the kettle on, and warm the milk and cream together in a saucepan or in a bowl in the microwave.
2. Put the sugar and cornstarch into another saucepan and sieve in the unsweetened cocoa. Add the 2 tablespoons of boiling water and whisk to a paste.
3. Whisk in the egg yolks, one at a time, followed by the warmed milk and cream, then the vanilla extract.
4. Scrape down the sides of the pan and put it on a lowish heat, cooking and whisking for about 3-4 minutes until the mixture thickens to a mayonnaise-like consistency.
5. Take off the heat and whisk in the finely chopped chocolate, before pouring into 4 small cups or glasses, each with a capacity of about 150ml / two-thirds of a cup.
6. Cover the tops of the cups or glasses with clingfilm, letting the clingfilm rest on the chocolate surface, to stop a skin forming, and refrigerate once they are cooler. Make sure they are not still fridge-cold when you serve them. You can add a blob of cream on top if you like.

Recipe Courtesy of Nigella Lawson,

from the book Nigella Express

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