Steak on a Board with Ratatouille

Have you ever craved a meal for so long that you finally caved and just made it?  Well, this is what kind of happened with me.  I had dreaming about a good ratatouille for ages and kept meaning to make one.  Ideally the same one that features in the film (I later found a recipe for that version and, quite honestly, for a simple quick rat, that seemed far too complicated!)

In our house as well, one cannot simply subsist on vegetables alone.  I am fairly sure that was incorporated into our marriage vows, so I needed to provide a suitable red meat accompaniment to the pile of courgette and tomato I was preparing to serve.

That's where the steak comes in. I must confess, steak and ratatouille is not an original concept- Jamie got there long before I did and I have no doubt that thousands more got there before him, but my rat is not the same one as his, although the steak part most definitely is. 

It is however quite quick (relatively speaking - you can't get the complex flavours of a good rat with only 30 minutes of cooking, no matter how many tricks and cheats you use) and easy. I cooked it as a mid-week supper for after work and it feels positively virtuous before the onslaught of Christmas decadence.  You can also cook the ratatouille a few days in advance and just warm it up when you want dinner - this actually makes it even better as the flavours have time to develop and it will save you even more time when you are stressed after a long day at work.

Now, the purists out there are going to argue with me and tell me that this is not a traditional rat as it does not involve cooking all the individual elements separately before bringing them together and I am not pan-frying the main veg element first.  I'm sure that creates an outstanding version that any French grandmother would be proud of, but frankly, when it is 5.30pm and I need dinner served by 7.30pm, who has the time?!

I took a tip from Felicity Cloake and made mine with a piperade on the bottom and balsamic vinegar to add a richness and depth of flavour which it could otherwise lack, especially if you are using vegetables out of season and this more than compensates for the cheats method of layering your veg without pre-cooking. 

So lets start with the ratatouille

3 courgettes, thinly sliced
8 plum tomato's, 4 peeled and diced, 4 thinly sliced
2 red peppers
1 aubergine , thinly sliced
1 medium onion, diced
3 tbsp garlic infused olive oil
3-4 fresh basil leaves
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp good balsamic vinegar
Pinch of sugar
Salt
Pepper

Heat the oven to 140C,

Place the peppers over the open hob flame, or scorch them with a cook's torch, or halve them and place them cut side down on a lightly oiled baking tray and bake for 20 minutes.  You are looking to blister the skin so that you can remove it, so do this anyway that works for you.  Heck you could even put them on a slab of marble in your wood fire if you want!

Whilst your peppers are blistering, heat 2 tablespoons of the garlic infused olive oil over a low heat in a pan then cook the onions gently and slowly until translucent and soft (8 minutes or so should do it depending on how finely you chopped your onions).  Stir in the diced tomatoes and tablespoon of thyme and simmer gently for about 5 minutes.

Remove the skin from the blistered peppers and cut them into small dice, then add them to the tomato's and cook for another few minutes.  Add the balsamic vinegar and some salt and pepper and a pinch of sugar. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.

Spread this tomato and pepper sauce (the piperade) over the bottom of a baking dish then arrange your sliced vegetables (tomato, courgette and aubergine) in alternating layers on top. Mix the remaining garlic olive oil with a teaspoon more thyme and drizzle over the top, then sprinkle the basil leaves.

Cover with foil or a lid and bake for 1.5 hours. Uncover for the last 30 minutes of cooking to crisp up the top layer of vegetables a bit.  Garnish with a few more fresh basil leaves and serve with the steak.

While the ratatouille is cooking uncovered for the last 30 minutes, you can get on with the steak.

2 x 250 g quality sirloin steaks, fat removed

1 teaspoon paprika 

1 tablespoon good (but not extra virgin) olive oil

½ bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 heaped teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Juice of ½ lemon

Start by dressing your board.  Mix the mustard with the extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and some salt and pepper and drizzle over the board.  Scatter the parsley over the top.

Get a griddle pan nice and hot and rub the steaks with the olive oil and paprika and some salt and pepper.  Always oil your steak, not the pan!

Sear the steak on one side and then turn until cooked to your liking.

Allow to rest for the same amount of time as you cooked it for (at least), then carve it into strips and place it on the board.

Serve the board with the ratatouille and allow people to dig in, wiping up the mustard dressing as they do.

There are no carbs in this meal, and to be honest it is filling enough that you don't need them.  If you feel an overwhelming desire for starch though, try with some fresh baked crusty bread - perfect for mopping up the the ratatouille and steak juices.

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Tiny Tarts and Christmas Mish-Mash

Every year, without fail, I hit the kitchen at Christmas to get baking.  These cranberry tarts, mince pies and Christmas mish-mash are tried and tested favourites which fill the house with the scent of ginger, cinnamon and fruit and always manage to help with our Christmas spirit.  They are also perfect to make with children and ideal for putting out for Santa's treat!

They are also really simple - like every other person around this time of year, I am always a bit flustered in the build up to Christmas day and so I cheat as much as possible.  I don't bother making my own pastry and I certainly don't make my own mincemeat, but if you feel the inclination (and have more time on your hands than I do), please go ahead!

I first made the cranberry tarts about 6 years ago.  I was making my own cranberry sauce ready for the turkey sandwiches and could only get hold of a big punnet rather than my usual sized one.  I decided to use the leftover sauce to fill some little tarts, and Steve has requested them every year ever since!  They are not sweet at all; the sugar just reduced the sourness of the cranberries to a more palatable tartness!

You need:

1 sheet ready rolled shortcrust pastry (fully defrosted)
300g fresh cranberries
100g granulated sugar
Splash water

Pre heat the oven to 180C and grease a 12 hole shallow muffin tray

Put the cranberries, sugar and water into a saucepan and cook on a medium heat for about 10 minutes or until the cranberries have broken down and you have a tart sauce.

Cut out pastry disks slightly larger than each muffin tray hole and smaller ones for the lids - I used stars and gingerbread men - and press the larger ones into the holes in the tray.  Fill up each case with the cranberry sauce and then pop a top on each tart. 

Bake for about 15 minutes until golden, remove and leave to cool for 10 minutes, then remove to a cooling tray.

Dust with icing sugar; they will keep for about 3 days in an airtight container.

I also made a batch of mince pies the exact same way, but filled the pastry cases with pre-bought shop mincemeat rather than the cranberry sauce.  They look quite similar once cooked, so I always make sure I put different shaped lids on the tarts to tell them apart!

My Christmas mish-mash is an utterly made up recipe and so called because it is a mish-mash of all the Christmassy flavours I have lying around the house whenever I make it.  Most of the technique involves mashing ingredients as well, so it was the obvious name.  As it is reliant upon using up whatever I have buried in the kitchen cupboards it is never the same twice.  I first made it at Christmas in 2008.  Lauren was over for a chat (at the time she still lived up the road from me in Canterbury and hadn't disappeared to the big smoke yet) and we were mucking around in the kitchen.  We ended up with the first version of these after raiding my cupboards, and I have made it pretty much every year since.  I started off calling them cookies, but that name is really misleading.  They are more of a cross between a cake and a brownie!

So, if you want to make some mish-mash's for Santa, here is how!

200g plain flour
100g caster sugar
100g dark brown or muscovado sugar
200g unsalted butter at room temperature
200g mixed fruit and nuts - whatever you fancy or have lying around (pecans, raisins, sultanas, cranberries, chocolate chips, dates, figs, glace cherries etc)
100g oatmeal
Juice and zest of 1 orange
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cassia bark (or 2 tsp cinnamon)
4 ground cloves
1 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp all spice
2 tsp nutmeg
2 eggs
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Mash the granulated and brown sugar with the butter until you have a smooth paste.  Add the orange juice and eggs and mix to fully incorporate

Mix all the other ingredients together then add to the sugar, egg and butter mixture and mix fully

Bake at 180C for 20-30 minutes

Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out and leave to cool completely before cutting up.

Happy Christmas!  I'm not sure Santa should get these after all....

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Canterbury Food and Drink Festival

A couple of weeks ago an email pinged into my inbox.  It was Charlotte from the Canterbury Food and Drink Festival, asking if I'd be willing to do a bit of photography and reporting on this year's festivities.  Well, I ummed and ahhed and made it sound like it was a really tough decision when in reality the Festival has been in my diary since the beginning of the summer! 

This year the Festival was huge - bigger and better than I have ever seen it.  Over 120 independent traders were plying their wares and the result was a barrage on the senses.  It took place over three days and the sheer scale and variety of fare on offer just blew previous offerings out of the water.

We rocked up with our entourage of Charne and Peter, Richard and Claire and John and Ellie and after a frantic dash around Canterbury's limited cash points (most of which were drained), we entered a pure feast for the senses in the Dane John Gardens.  This is a good tip if you are going to the Food Fayre in the future; a lot of stands will take debit or credit card payments but not all of them, and the signal can be very patchy.  If you bring cash with you, you won't find yourself needing to leave the Fayre half way through to try and find a cash point, which are thin on the ground in Canterbury!

The first thing that hits you is the smell - a thousand burgers and sausages, marshmallow and curry, paella and strawberries all wafting through the breeze.  Then you see the colour - a vibrant mix of hues from the stands and people alike.  Finally there is the noise - thousands of people laughing and talking, stall owners shouting instructions and over the top of it all, music drifting in from the band stand and buskers stage.

We stood and drank it all in for a few minutes before starting our explore.  The original plan, as always, was to complete a full lap of the Faye before deciding what to buy.  We made it 10 feet before John spotted the duck fat chips at Simply Duck.  I turned my back for 30 seconds and when I turned around everyone had their hands in a portion.  These chips were beautiful - crispy, fluffy and the most amazing flavour lightly dusted with sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper. 

I had a different tactic this year - instead of going all out on one main item, I decided to try small items from loads of different stands, to get the fullest flavour experience.   Next on the list was a chorizo and paprika scotch egg that Steve had picked up.  This was nice - not the best scotch egg I have ever had, but the chorizo added a nice counterpoint to the sausage meat.

We moved onto The Great British Cheese Co. where I sampled their Whiskey Mac whiskey and ginger cheese - RV may have returned for some of this later on as we both loved the warm sweetness that the ginger gave the cheese.  I wandered around the Fayre for a good 30 seconds looking for Steve so he could try the bit I was holding in my hand before giving in and eating it myself.  I did try - 30 seconds was a good effort I thought!

There were plenty of places to grab and dunk bread and crackers in dips and chutneys and chilli sauces.  This spicy mango dressing from The Cherry Tree was sweet and delicious, while, after working my way through all the offerings on the 'hot' end of Hot Face Sauces and having a fab chat with the guys on the stand about each of their offerings, I walked away with a bottle of the Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce (the Caribbean in a bottle) for the bargain price of £3.50.  It was a toss up between this, the Killer Ketchup (with naga chillis-  I already have naga based sauces in my cupboard) and the Scorpion Scorcher (with Trinidad Moruga Scorpion chilli's). 

By now I was getting thirsty, so stopped off for a half pint of the Canterbury Pale Ale from the Canterbury Brewers.  Charne tried some of mine and pulled a horrible face, so went in search of something a little more ladylike from the Bland's stand in the form of the sparkling strawberry cider, John and Ellie were on the Biddenden's sparking wine whilst Steve had managed to track down a horrific concoction of raspberry and cream soda which had me pulling the disgusted face.  Just goes to show there really is something for everyone at the Food and Drink fayre!

The queue for The Devil's Pantry was huge and the smells coming off it were divine - but I was after something a little different that I had spotted earlier.

I headed back towards the entrance to Raastawala, an Indian street food stand that was doing Khati sliders.  These looked (and smelt) amazing, so despite the size of the queue, I dutifully joined and awaited my turn.  Oh my it was worth the wait.  I was given a soft, fluffy side of Naan bread that had been fried off in egg, topped with spiced lamb meat and crowned with red onion, coriander, cucumber, mint yogurt, lime juice and tamarind.  I'm drooling just thinking about it, it was that good!

Ellie and Charne had both made a beeline for Pork and Co's Porky Mac (after staring open mouthed at the vats of mac and cheese at the Pork and Co stand!).  The 14 hour slow cooked pulled pork pork was moist and smokey and the mac and cheese was exactly how you want a good mac and cheese to be - rich, viscid and the epitome of comfort food.

Hunger sated for the moment, we set off in search of goodies to take home with us.  First stop was Nip from the Hip.  Most of us had drained the last remnants of our bottles from the previous year and we needed to restock.  We sampled the Gooseberry Gin and the Rhubarb Vodka and left laden with our supplies for the winter months.

We strolled around the rest of the Fayre, listening to music from the bandstand, bopping along to fusion reggae, chatting to friends we bumped into and munching on as many free samples as we could lay our grubby little mitts on.  I tried out the pina colada and the lemon meringue marshmallows from Marshmallow Heaven, whilst Steve stocked up on fresh coffee from Red Bean Machine, coming home with four huge packets filled with vanilla, costa rican, spanish and caramel fudge flavoured coffee.

Claire and I also discovered a new local Gin company, Anno Distillers.  Based in Marden, this young company are the first Gin distillery to be based in Kent since the Maidstone distillery was active in the late 1700's.  The gin is unique due to the blend of Kentish hops, Kentish lavender, Kentish samphire, Kentish elderflower, Kentish...you get the idea.  The result is a smooth, floral, sophisticated and highly unique tasting gin that is going straight onto my Christmas list!

For pudding we searched out the last of the summer strawberries from Simply Strawberries in the form of tarts, strawberries and cream pots and strawberries and chocolate pots.  I'm always a bit wary of strawberries at this time of year, but these were sweet, plump, juicy and just perfect.  I also love the old English vibe from their stand, just point me at the Pimms and tennis!

Steve meanwhile was waiting for the churros lady to start serving her plates of churros with liquid chocolate dip.

The rest of the Fayre was spent in a stupor of sights and smells as we wandered the corridors.  I bumped into Jess from Briar Rose Beauty who was taking her family to the Kids Zone for a bit of a play.  Poor thing has been laid up seriously ill recently so it was great to see her on her feet and out and about.

Post food fayre, Ellie, John and I headed back up the street to the Marlowe Theatre, where we had tickets for Matthew Bourne's Lord of The Flies, leaving the others to finish their shopping, ready for the house warming drinks RV and Claire were hosting that evening at their new pad.

One of the things that is so amazing about the Fayre is the fact that so many of the stands are small, family run businesses that rely upon events such as the Food and Drink fayre to promote and reach out to the local communities.  The produce is local, the food is lovingly made with real passion and often recipes have been handed down through generations.  The food and drink here is pure Kent, and that makes the Canterbury Food and Drink Festival pretty special in my book.

 If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my Facebook group or Twitter or Instagram!