Tuesday 19 January 2010

Share and share alike

Hello Cookingblogosphere

We were sent this a little while ago and asked to put in on CWM. So we have, finally. Though not vegans ourselves at Cooking With Mother it is interesting reading and viewing, and a singer songwriter is always welcome. Check out Sarah Westbrook and her raw vegan vision at
www.youtube.com/dreamabigdream

Thanks

CWM Fairey

The Annual

Welcome, friends of Cooking With Mother, to the CWM Collection.

Here is a roundup of all the best CWM recipes and podcooks - the ones that made it to the blog because they are so delicious/simple/fun to make.

We thought we'd like to put them all in one place, stand back a bit and go 'wow, look at that. That's quite a lot of great cooking, good friends, music and spending time with mum.' The esteemed founder and High Chief Cooker-With-Mother (commonly known on here as MAD) has done great work here and hopes you will continue to enjoy his recipes and thoughts. There's enough for 6 dinner parties here so get in the kitchen, turn your radio up and get concocting.



Saturday, 12 April 2008
Vindaloo

This dish should not take longer than 45 to 50 mins, I have seen Mum cook it in 20 but we are not mum.

Utensils:

1 large cooking pot with a lid
1 wooden spoon
1 tea spoon
1 bowl
and a sharp knife
rice steamer or pot for rice

Ingredients :

5 loin pork chops quite large ones if possible
Note this dish can be cooked with pork/beef/chicken or diced turkey
potatoes

rice
1 onion
garlic powder
ground ginger
jeera AKA cumin
chili powder
paprika
(Please note all powdered ingredients can be fresh if you prefer)
vindaloo paste
vegetable oil
1 tin of tomato puree
fresh coriander

Side dishes and salad ingredients:

onion (apple salad)
3 granny smith apples (apple salad)
one large pot of natural yogurt (apple salad)

one small white cabbage (side dish)
3 to 4 cloves of garlic (side dish)


now here's part 1 of the podcast.

My battery died just at the end of cooking the curry so here is the final part including an apple salad and Mum's special garlic fried cabbage.

And the whole podcast here.

Enjoy



Thursday, 17 April 2008

Paella
Today's podcook is all about Spain's national dish La Paella - now this meal should take about an hour but it took me two; this was because I have never cut up a whole chicken fo r cooking before or ever cleaned squid.
Mum did suggest a bit late in the podcook that preparing all of your ingredients before the cook can save lots of time - this podcook does not follow that plan and is really ideal for the beginner like me.

Please bear in mind I am making a Spanish dish with ingredients from a Sommerfield supermarket in Horncastle Lincolnshire which was short on prawns and fish stock which Tesco helped me out with.
I brought my paellera up from Acton, London and rustled up this classic recipe in my mates cottage in Asterby.

You don't need a paellera but it is best. So you know one can make do with a large frying pan so long as the base is flat, mum chats a bit about this in the p.c.

Cooking With Mother is a learning curve for me even as a singer songwriter used to recording music - recording my food preparation is very different unlike over dubbing a guitar in the studio this thing is more of a live performance.
I endeavoured to be more descriptive in this podcook than the last as was mama.

This simple paella is a real winner so please download it pop it in your iPod and cook in stereo, it came out a treat.

Please click here for the full paella podcast or each part separately below and buen provecho.
Best

M
AD

Paella
Cooking Time 1hr but it took me 2hrs.

Ingredients:

olive oil
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 chicken
4 squids
frozen peas
frozen beans
saffron or food colouring
fish stock
1 red and 1 green pepper
1 tomato
4 large prawns
A bag of american long grain rice

Utensils:

1 pallera (paella dish) or large frying pan
1 chopping board
a sharp knife

Extras:

A nice green salad lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and onion tossed in salt, olive oil and vinegar is always great on the side.
A nice bottle of rioja or moscatel and a jug of cold iced water.
A bowl of fruit for desert.
Coffee and a brandy or a lovely cold glass of moscatel - port or any dessert wine.

Saturday 17th May 2008


Trout with Bainas la Vasca and parsley sauce



The Rainbow Trout in this Pod Cook was caught by my own fair hand whilst learning to fly fish with my uncles - to be honest I only landed the fish uncle Gene caught it.
My other uncle Clive has some snaps on his mobile phone which I will post once aunty Hilary has figured out how to mail them over. Uncles Gene and Clive also describe gutting and filleting the fish for us in a bonus Pod Cast at the end of this post.

What is special about this Pod Cook is Gene and Clive have been fly fishing near my village for 30 years or more and have historically always delivered Salmon and Trout to Mum throughout my childhood and now I am going to prepare this fish dish with one I got myself - kinda!
The cooking time for this dish is roughl
y 1 and a 1/4 hrs.

My advice would be to listen to the podcoo k at the bottom of this post - load it onto your iPod and just cook, Mum is amazing and you get a tune to get you into it - I really hope you enjoy this instalment of "Cooking With Mother" because I have.

Big Love from Hants.

Ingredients for Trout with Bainas a la Vasca and Parsley Sauce:

Fish - We used Rainbow Trout you can use any other fish you like
Salt and Pepper

A bag of the largest new potatoes you can find as they will need peeling
1 head of Garlic
A bunch of Parsley
2 Lemons
Olive Oil
Butter
Whole milk you may use semi skimmed if you prefer
Plain flour


Utensils:


1 Baking tray

Silver foil
1 pan
1 Frying pan
Tongs or serving spoon and fork

Utensils for Parsley Sauce:

A big bunch of Parsley
1 small milk pan
A whisk How to cook:
Get your fish and squeeze half a lemon nicely as Mum says over the fillets.
Place them on a baking tray covered with silver foil season with salt and pepper.
Chop 2 cloves of garlic into thin slice
s.
Place the garlic evenly over the fish.
Take 6 or 7 good sprigs of parsley.
Wash and chop it up finely.
Then cover the fillets evenly with the p
arsl ey.Now drizzle generously with olive oil.
Cover with more silver foil, put the fish to one side and pre-heat your oven to 175 degrees C or 350 degrees F in old money.
Peel your large new potatoes.12 spuds serves 4 comfortably I was cooking for 3 so 10 of these Majorcan New Potatoes were more than enough.
Take your 3 bags of green beans.Wash them thoroughly and chop the tips off.Then place the potatoes in the pan with all your beans on top.
Pour 3/4 of a pint over the potatoes and the green beans.Break up a whole chicken stock cube over the beans and potatoes put a lid on and boil.
Now put your fillets of fish into your pre-heated oven and let it cook while the veg boils - it's now time to make the Parsley Sauce. Parsley Sauce:
Get a small pan - I used a milk pan.Now Mum said cut a man width of a finger from a block of butter.
Slice the butter.
Place the butter in your pan and drizzle a little olive oil on the butter to stop it burning.
Gather together your flour and milk, and put your butter and oil on a lowish heat to melt.
Wash and finely chop another 7 or 8 good sprigs of Parsley.
When the butter and oil look melted this is the time to introduce your flour.
Sprinkle 2 level table spoons of flour into the oil.
Season according to taste.It is important that you never stop mixing with your whisk throughout the sauce preparation - make sure there are no lumps.Add milk whilst still stirring try to reach the consistency of a nice medium thick sauce, keep mixing adding more milk if required until it boils - do not over boi l and keep mixing on a low heat. I cannot tell you how much Mum went on about the mixing in the Pod Cook.
I ended up using 1/2 a pint.
Introduce the freshly washed and chopped parsley to the sauce whilst continually mixing adding milk more milk if it looks like it is thickening too much.
After 3 minutes on the boil remove the pan from the heat.At this point take your fish out of the oven.
Remove the top layer of silver foil and put it back in the oven so it can go golden being careful not to over cook it.
Bring both your beans and potatoes to the boil - o nce boiling put some olive oil in a frying pan and be generous.
Chop 4 to 5 cloves of garlic in into medium slices.
Fry until golden - NB. Do not burn your garlic as it will make it taste bitter, once golden add the oil with garlic to the beans and potatoes and return to your fish which should be a pale pinky colour when ready.

Plating up:
With tongs or your serving spoon and fork pl ace the beans in the centre of the plate leaving the water behind.
Place the fillet of fish on top of the beans put the potatoes around the side of the plate then slice the remaining half a lemon for decoration on the other side.
Pour your sauce over your fish and pour some more in the other corner of your plate.

All that is left is for you to enjoy your meal.

I want to thank Mama for a great Pod Cook which appears below, Uncles Gene and Clive for the fish and th e gutting and filleting lesson, young Sam Barr my photographer and first mate for all of his help and photography, I want to thank Doug Woodrow for his technical advice and last but not least my lovely Chloe for her support and who loves the fact that I have discovered my kitchen.

Pod Cook:

Rainbow Trout Pod Cook


Wednesday, 4 June 2008

Tortilla de Patata


Hola

Here we are again how quick the weeks go by, I am already planning next weeks Pod Cook here on CWM.
Since I have become a member of Hampshire Fare I have to get my food order in a week in advance better for the environment less food miles, fresher, supporting the local producers and frankly it tastes better.
I would like to thank David my landlord at the pub for his kind advice.

Now "La Tortilla" is one of those dishes that has been with me all my life lunches, picnics, Bar B Q, tapas, or just a cold slither for breaky.
Tortilla is so versatile and great for your v egetarian friends and delicious hot or cold.
The best part is it should only take you half an hour to 40 minutes to cook - it took me an hour on the Podcook and I tried to keep the pace up while doing a microwave gig.

We have a new swizzy slide show for you to accompany the Podcook you can hit pause and sync with the audio, but if I were you I would just sling the mp3 in your iPod and cook with mother.

I hope you enjoy La Tortilla as much as we did and please do send in your photos and comments if you cook it would b e great to hear from you.

Ingredients for Tortilla de Patata:
3 medium sized potatoes (Small jacket potato size)
1 large spanish onion
4 eggs
Salt
Olive oil

Utensils:
1 Bowl
1 Large microwave friendly dish
1 small frying pan
A fork or a whisk
1 knife for peeling, cutting and chopping


How to cook:
The complete Tortilla Podcook


Saturday 21 June 2008

Cooking with Mother 'Concoctio n/Fridge Scrape' a.k.a. Biryani Surprise!

The dish on this Pod Cook is a smasher, it was supposed to be a Biryani but ended up being a Pasta because we forgot that Biryani needed lashings of Coriander - this dish was complicated it even required a pre-boiled chicken!

Tonight's effort is otherwise known to me and Mum as a "Concoction" or "Fridge Scrape" a salvaged dish from lovely available ingredients which took only an Hour and a Quarter to prepare.

This is what makes it a creation.

We hope you enjoy :-)

Ingredients for Biryani Surprise:

Half a Chicken
4 medium sized onions
2 Cloves of Garlic
Salt
Pepper
9 Tomatoes
Rape Seed Oil or other
Dried Chilli
Chilli Jam "The Happy Medium" or other eg. "Encona"
A splash of Rose Wine
Cheese (I used Cheddar it's all there was in the fridge)

Utensils:

One small frying pan
A deep non-stick frying pan
A pan with enough space for boiling Spaghetti and half a Chicken
Garlic crusher
A sharp knife
A Colander
One chopping board
A bowl
And a plate

Pod Cook:
Complete Biryani Surprise Podcook.

Sunday, 29 June 2008

'Killer Prawns' - Gambas al Ajillo


Here we are again with another Cracker on Cooki ng With Mother. What a treat for you today - Mum's "Killer Prawns" AKA Gambas Al Ajillo, fitting also to be posting this Classic Spanish dish on the very night Spain win Euro 2008, Ole! This dish should only take 20 or so minutes to prepare, I took around half an hour, but then I did have a Kilo of quite big prawns to fry. This is a first for CWM as we are now on Google Video as well as podcasting. I want to thank Andy and Chloe for all the ir help in the making of our first Video Cook - no animals were injured in the making of this film but Andy did get a bit drunk (light weight) and Chloe sliced her finger washing up; both of them though behaved selflessly in the production of this Vcook and for this I salute them both. Buen Provecho
Ingredients for Killer Prawns - Gambas al Aji llo:
1 Kilo of Prawns (Shrimps)
Parsley (Local farm)
1 Head of Garlic (Isle Of White)
Rape Seed Oil (Mum uses Olive Oil)

White Wine Vinegar

Malden Sea Salt or any other
Utensils: 1 large frying pan or Wok
Colander
A wooden spoon, tongs or large fork - use something that will not break the prawns when turning them.

A dish for serving

Serving suggestion:
A lovely chilled bottle of Chablis, a fresh green salad and a crusty loaf or baguette to mop up the lovely sauce.
Pod Cook: The complete "Killer Prawns" Podcook.




Thank you for reading.

And here's where it (mostly) all happened.

But...what's that on the horizon? Could it be a brand new project? Some kind of FUSION between two crazy creative minds? With something to do with MUSIC? I wonder.....

STAY TUNED and continue to follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/podcooks

Tuesday 5 January 2010

Winter Warmer

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Thank you to the Kitchen Fairey for all of her updates.



The truth is you known I started blogging Mums recipes for me to remember them.

Next thing you know someone wants to make a Daytime TV show out your blog.

So you go along with it and make a pilot, with a TV celeb and her Mother in another part of the country while cooking Bread and Butter Pudding over Skype.

I had a Production Company, Directors and interested parties all attempting to create some kinda golden format with golden spoons
.
I then realised to my horror that my little cooking music journal of Mums cooking and my music had ceased to exist.
As did the Daytime TV version.
The Flamenco had gone! What was I doing standing on a Helipad saying to camera "Hello and Welcome to Cooking With Mother?"
Now that is Soreal - Please visit http://www.sorealism.com for a definition of Sorealism if you do not know already know.

An interesting chapter in the early history of an honest blog and a musicians career.

Hey you never know what can happen do you?
My many thanks to everybody involved in the making of the CWM TV Pilot it was an extraordinary way to start last year and I really did enjoy myself making it and I met some really lovely people too.

Since then it has been 100% Music which is why the Fairey has been filling in.

Now last night I had to cook some comfort food for my wife, it was a freezing night out there and I knew she wanted warming after an extra late night at work so I managed to put my guitar down, pick up the phone get in the kitchen and cook with mother.


I dialed Mama but did not record on purpose - (Sorry no Podcook) - instead I thought I'd just write down the instructions and tools needed for:


Chipolata with Caramel Sherry and Onion Gravy on a bed of Creamy Mash Potato.

(Cooking time 45mins)

Ingredients:

Half an Onion
11 Chipolata sausages
Salt
Black Pepper
Olive Oil
Gravy Granules
13 small to medium sized potatoes
1 Large/double wine glass of Sherry
Mixed Italian Herbs

Utensils:

1 milk pan
1 Baking Tray
1 Frying Pan
A sharp knife
1 Roasting Tin
A chopping board
A Pan
2 Oven friendly dishes

So Mum said:

Put the 11 large chipolata sausages in a Baking Tray and place in the oven at 180 degrees.

She then said chop half an onion and slice it thinly and then heat enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a frying pan and fry the onion slices separating them out.

While frying I peeled the potatoes as instructed making sure I kept an eye on the onions.

When the spuds were peeled I chopped and popped them in a pan with water and a nice splash of Salt and set them to boil.

The onions turned black but did not burn.
I then added one and three quarter mugs of water, and brought it to the boil throwing in 3 heaped Tea spoons of Gravy Granules, a nice big pinch Italian mixed herbs adding seasoning to taste.

Granules stirred in with a wooden spoon it was time to check on the sausages and spuds, the spuds needed longer as did the sausages but do check, you do not want burnt sausages, yours may cook quicker.

Next I took the gravy off the heat and in a milk pan heated up the sherry until it evaporated off all its alcohol and got it to look like caramel, I then poured that into the baking dish holding the sausages, extracting the sausages first. (Be warned the sausages may be stuck to the bottom so remove them carefully.)

Using the wooden spoon and the sherry I cleaned the pan of all of its juices and bits and poured that into the onion gravy mmm, It looked like someone else had cooked it.

I then placed the sausages in an oven dish and dolloped all of the sherry onion gravy on top of them.
I then put a lid on and left it in the oven at just under a 100 degrees to keep warm.

Potato ready I poured out the water and tossed in a desert spoon and bit of unsalted butter and a dribble of milk and began to mash it with the masher.
(This is the first time I had ever managed to make creamy mashed potato.)
Season if you wish but beware do not use too much milk and remember I added salt to the water the spuds were boiled in, which means if you are following these instructions, you did too.

Now place that mash in another oven friendly dish, decorate the mash it with a fork if you fancy then put it in the oven with the sausages ready for serving when ever Doris got in.

It is a real winter warmer sweet and comforting.

Thanks Mum for the natter and thank you for reading.

Buenas Noches

M
AD


(This blog was written whilst listening to WTNR RADIO)