Potato cakes are the last word in frugality. Any dish that takes leftover mash and transforms it into a different meal entirely – with the help of only a handful of extra ingredients – deserves a great deal of praise indeed. Of course, you may wish to serve your Gluten Free Potato Cakes with a little something else – smoked mackerel is a particular favourite – but they are just as satisfying with a side salad or slaw.
Chilli is one of the best dishes with which to experiment – if an ingredient is dark, rich and flavourful, it can probably be put to good use in this classic American dish. Indeed, Stout Chilli was on our menu not so long ago and the intense, rich notes of the Bristol Beer Factory’s ‘Milk Stout’ resonated wonderfully with the meat. Vegetables, however, seem to work better with something lighter than stout, so it seemed only natural to develop a recipe for Golden Ale Vegetarian Chilli.
As many of you will know, the base ingredients usually found in risotto are white wine, butter and – most importantly – parmesan. However, the status quo deserves to be upset once in a while and goats cheese does a great job of mixing things up. Not only is it delicious and robust, it adequately performs the duty of the usual dairy products. My Red Pepper and Goats Cheese Risotto recipe may be a break from tradition, but it’s as rich and indulgent a risotto as you’d hope to find.
Though delicious, pineapple has found itself part of some rather unsavoury culinary combinations over the years. First, came the somewhat strange pineapple and cheese cocktail stick affair. Hardly the high point of the party buffet. Then, as if to add insult to tropical injury, the Hawaiian pizza crept up when no one was looking. My recipe for pineapple chutney, however, belongs to the brighter side of this unfortunate fruit’s repertoire.
For those of you who aren’t sure, greengages are a variety of dessert plum with a taste somewhere between bitter and sweet. Green in colour and small in size, greengages are the quintessential cooking plum – though they are also enjoyable in their unadulterated form. Simply roast or reduce them with a sprinkling of sugar and they’ll work equally well in chutney, cake, puddings or a greengage tart.