Cottage Pie, Microwave Curd, Lemon Underwear(?)

 Well, I submitted my Sandwich recipe the other day.  Hopefully I'll at least place.  But with $25,000 riding on the contest, it'll be hard going, I'm sure.  Still, you can't win if you don't play the game.  If I don't win, place or show, there will be other contests to enter my sandwich in.

Cottage Pie

We invited our friends Neville Shevloff and Doris Herdman over for luncheon yesterday. Sally's Mum begged off at the last minute as she wasn't feeling well.

Neville is English, and Doris doesn't do seafood. So I decided to make a classic Cottage Pie.

• It's Cottage Pie if it has beef and vegetables in a gravy, topped with mashed potatoes
• It's Shepherd's Pie only if it has lamb and vegetables in a gravy.
• It's Fish Pie with any combination of fish and seafood and vegetables with cheeses or white gravy.
• Pork Pies, in England, are more or less hand-held pies like a pasty, not a topped casserole.  The French make a great pork pie called Tourtiere.

Sally wanted a side vegetable. So I made my Ginger-Orange Carrot Ribbons.

We wanted lots of leftovers so Sally and I would have meals for the week. So I got out the 3" deep-dish 9x13 pan, and went shopping.

3 lbs 80/20 Ground Beef

5 lbs White Potatoes

1 bag frozen Mixed Vegetables, 15 oz.

12 oz box sliced Mushrooms

1 large White Onion, diced large

3 sticks Celery, diced

1 Red Bell Pepper, diced

Worchershire Sauce to taste (at least 1 Tbsp)

Bistotm Gravy mix

Butter/sour cream /yogurt for the mashed potatoes

White Pepper, to taste -- for the mashed potatoes

Paprika for dusting the crust

Brown the beef. When it's time to break it up, leave it rather 'chunky', don't break it down into small crumbs like you would for marinara sauce. Half way through the browning, add the onions and mushrooms. Then add the celery and bell pepper and partially thawed mixed veg. Stir to combine each addition. Season with the Worchestershire sauce, and sprinkle with 3 - 4 Tbsp of Bisto. When cooked through, set aside.

In another pot, add the cut up potatoes, peeled or not, and water to cover.  I used maybe 4 lbs to cover than much surface an inch deep.  Bring to a boil and cook until fork tender and mashable, perhaps 20 minutes. Drain, mash, and doctor with white pepper and other seasonings if you like.  Make them a little 'thin' so they'll spread easily.

Preheat the over to 400F.

Spoon the filling into the casserole dish and smooth it down. Top with the mashed potatoes, using a spatula or knife to spread them all the way to the edges. You want about an inch of mashed potato "crust". Dust the top with paprika, and bake for 30-45 minutes until the potatoes have developed a bit of crust. Rest for 10-15 minutes, then serve.

 Here you can see the layer of mashed potatoes I'm adding to the filling.

 

Cottage Pie and Ginger-Orange Carrots ready to serve.

For dessert I used vol au vent pastry cups filled with vanilla ice cream and topped with my recent Starfruit Jam failure -- jam that didn't set up properly still makes a tasty sweet sauce. 

Note to self:  Starfruit Jam takes at least twice as much pectin as any other fruit jam.   

Microwave Orange Curd!

After making the Kaffir Lime Curd, I got interested in other curds. Almost any citrus will make good curd. It's the mild acid combined with the eggs, butter and sugar that makes it all work. So I decided to try Orange Curd.

I discovered that you don't need 'fresh squeezed' lemon, lime or orange juice. Reconstituted from frozen, and bottled juices work just as well. Of course a bit zest from the fruit of choice would never go amiss, but it's not required.

Then I discovered this microwave technique -- which takes away the continuous stirring over a double boiler that makes ordinary curd-making a pain in the wrist.

The recipe works well with any citrus - lemon, lime, grapefruit. Normally you use 1 cup of fresh squeezed citrus juice with no added water. Using the OJ or another frozen concentrate thinned only 50% gives more intense flavor!

1/2 cup Frozen OJ Concentrate, thawed (or 1 cup bottled or squeezed citrus juice and no water)

1/2 cup water

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 large eggs, well-beaten


Combine the ingredients in a large microwave-safe bowl and whisk very well to combine. If you don't have the eggs really well beaten before you combine things, you may get little lumps of 'scrambled' egg floating in the curd later. Best to strain the eggs through a wire strainer to remove any possible offending eggy bits. Then beat the heck out of the mix with a whisk!

Microwave in 1-minute increments, stirring a few strokes to combine after each minute.

Between 4 and 10 minutes, the curd will start to thicken (almost doubling in volume), and coat the back of a spoon as you stir. When the curd's temperature is at least 185°F (use your clean meat thermometer to check), around the 8-10 minute mark,  it is done.

Spoon into a storage container, cool, then refrigerate until firm. Keep refrigerated for up to 3 weeks; freeze for longer storage. 

Yield: a scant 2 cups of curd. 

Really yummy on toast, an English muffin or scone, rather than jam.  Perfect for filling an 8-9" graham cracker or chocolate cookie crumb tart shell, or topping for a batch of lemon or lime bars.
 





Lemon Underwear
On Saturday, we went, for the second time, to a seafood market/restaurant on the outskirts of Naples called Fish Crazy. Nice place; interesting atmosphere.  Indoor Bocce court!  Really good, fresh seafood. 

Sally had a repeat of the Mango, Shrimp, Avocado Salad she had the first time we were there. I had the Fish & Chips. Both were excellent. The fish and chips is a mixture of cod and grouper 'fingers'.  A great thing to make with the trimmings when you break down large whole fish into nice fillets.


What I had never seen was the half lemon in a mesh cover which they placed on my plate. Great idea to keep the seeds out of your food as you squeeze the juice over things, but it looks just a little strange. I called them Lemon Bras.  The waitress said her husband called them Lemon Panties...