Bean and potato hotpot

Northern stereotypes

(at least Micahel Palin is an actual Yorkshireman)

Whippets, cloth caps and coronary heart disease, but we do talk to people on buses and don't wear coats in the depths of winter. We Northerners have had to put up with all sorts of lazy stereotypes. I mean, don't get me wrong, at least we're not Scottish, but, as far as England goes, we get the shitty end of the stick most of the time. Shat upon by the London-centric ruling elite through under-resourced transport and other infrastructure and the arts, we are the former industrial heart of the country given lip service in the modern, service-industry UK. The current government has set up the "Northern Powerhouse" initiative to promote the north of England. It is, of course, a load of hollow-sounding bollocks, in the light of the disparity in funding for transport for London being £708 per capita compared to £289 in the north of England. All that money so people in London can continue to avoid eye-contact with their fellow commuters on better, more frequent trains. Like I say, lip service.

All the same we are fiercely proud of our identity, though. Geordies, Yorkshiremen, Scousers, Mancs, people have a pride of where they are from. A component of this is culinary heritage. Pies are a big thing across the North, especially in the capital of all that is pastry-encased, Wigan. Fish and chips is another, saveloys in the Northeast. Don't even get me started on the regional variation of names for bread rolls. That just boggles the fucking mind. Go into a bakers in any Northern town and ask for a bread bun by the local name and there's no problem. Wander a mile down the road and you ask for a bread roll by the same name and they look at you like you're just regaining the power of speech after suffering a stroke.

One local delicacy that is synonymous with the part of the North is Lancashire hotpot. Basically this is a lamb stew topped with sliced potato, so the potatoes become crispy. It's shepherd's pie for lazy people who can't be arsed to mash their potato.

I don't know why I chose to call this recipe a hotpot as it has fuck all to do with Lancashire hotpot, other than it's got potatoes in it, but the name seems to fit. Like most of my recipes, it's quite spicy hot and made in a pot. It's another meat-free Monday recipe (it's actually vegan, in fact) that I fancied flinging together with beans to give it a bit of extra protein. It's very substantial and tastes great, very much a comfort food type of dish. I've written the recipe for the hob, but I actually made this in a slow cooker, so I've included a timing for doing it by that method.

TIMING
Preparation: 15 minutes
Cooking:  1½ hours on the hob, 6 hours in the slow cooker

INGREDIENTS
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
200g mushrooms, chopped
1 large courgette, topped, tailed and sliced
2-3 small potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm pieces 
4 medium fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tin mixed beans (the one I used said it was 290g)
½ tsp dried mixed herbs
½ tsp smoked paprika
Pinch chilli flakes
Good dash of Tabasco sauce
1 bay leaf
Small stick of cinnamon
1 vegetable stock cube
Black pepper to taste

All chopped up and ready to go

RECIPE
Heat the oil in a pan and fry the onion and garlic until soft.

Add the courgette and mushroom and allow to sweat for 10 minutes or so.

Chuck in the potatoes, tomatoes and beans.

Top up the volume with 500ml water and add the rest of the ingredients.

Stir well, turn down the heat, and allow to stew until the potatoes are soft, may be 45 minutes or so.

 In the pot

Serve it up with some fresh bread to mop up the sauce

Ready to eat

NOTES
The beans I used in this came in a spicy, tomatoey sauce (I think they were sold by the supermarket under the name "taco beans"). The sauce added a little extra oomph to the flavour. You could use plain beans, or even use dried mixed beans, but maybe add some ketchup to pep up the flavour. Mixed beans add a nice variety, but you could use kidney or borlotti beans, or even (God forbid) baked beans at a pinch.

Many of the recipes that are traditionally Northern originate from other parts of the world entirely. Liverpool's signature dish, scouse, a meat stew, is derived from a similar dish made around the Baltic ports of northern Europe. Saveloys are originally a type of sausage from Switzerland (the name derived, apparently, from the Latin "cerebrus", for brain, as they were originally made from pig brains), possibly arriving in the UK with Jewish immigrants. Jewish immigrants/refugees from Spain and Portugal are also purportedly the original creators of that most British of dishes, fish and chips.

The slow cooker I got is fucking amazing. I've been doing shitloads of recipes in it. Chuck the ingredients in and fuck off for a few hours. When you come back, supper's ready. Speaking of which, and if you have a half hour to spare, get a load of this turgid slice of prog rock

Supper's ready!
You could watch this at least twice while the dish is cooking

For the slow cooker version, do the frying of the onions, garlic, etc on the hob then transfer to the slow cooker for the main cooking part.

Stuffat Tal-Fenek, Maltese rabbit stew

See, only a very vague resemblance

First of all, I've decided that all this cooking malarkey is a difficult job to do on my own so I could do with a hand. Please allow me to introduce  my new assistant, Potato Gregg. He's a potato who happens to bear a fleeting resemblance to Cockney reformed football hooligan-cum-modern day greengrocer Gregg Wallace. Potato Gregg will be assisting in my preparation and chipping in to this blog with snippets of wisdom and culinary tips.

"Mr Potato Head doesn't get tougher than this! Cor blimey! Apples 'n' fackin' pears!"

Indeed he doesn't, Potato Gregg. Let's get on with the recipe, shall we?

Despite them being a widespread pest because they breed, well, like rabbits, we don't do much with rabbit in this country. No, because we're a nation of "animal lovers" and the little bunnies are just so cute. I mean, so are lambs, calves and piglets but they don't usually live in your garden (well, unless you're a farmer or small-holder) or indeed your living room (well, unless you get off on that sort of thing) before you eat them. And let's not forget the place of the rabbit in our culture: Peter Rabbit, Bugs Bunny, Brer Rabbit, Watership Down. Then again there's also Frank from Donnie Darko.

"Rabbits don't come any scarier than that Frank. I had nightmares about him. Myxomatosis is too good for that bastard"

Actually, Potato Gregg, I beg to differ. You forget the Rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (see clip below) which was far scarier. That rabbit actually brutally murdered people while Frank was merely ominous and looked a bit iffy. Besides, he was clearly a man in a rabbit suit, looking more like Harvey after he left his head too close to the radiator overnight.

Sharp pointy teeth...

All this preamble aside, the point is that rabbit is a fantastic meat: lean, tasty and cheap. It takes a bit of cooking to ensure it's not to tough. It tastes a lot like chicken although this is the description that applies to pretty much any meat when trying to tell other people what it's like. You do wonder what the first person to eat chicken said it tasted like when telling other people how great this new bird that they'd just barbecued was.

TIMING

Preparation: 30 minutes plus marination (overnight if possible)

Cooking: 3-plus hours on the hob (you could put it in the oven for the same time at 160°C or even do this in a slow cooker)

INGREDIENTS

1 gutted rabbit, cut into 6 or 8 portions

400 ml red wine

4 or 5 bay leaves

1/2 tsp black pepper

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 carrot, sliced

1 large onion, chopped

1 stick of celery, finely chopped

1 tin of tomatoes

1 tbsp tomato puree

3-400g potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-sized chunks

RECIPE

Mix the wine, garlic, bay leaves and black pepper in a dish. Mix well and add the rabbit. Cover, stick it in the fridge and marinate for a good few hours, ideally overnight or as long as possible otherwise.

Marinating

Heat the oil in a heavy pan and brown the rabbit pieces on all sides, reserving the marinade.

Remove the rabbit with a slotted spoon and put on a plate

Throw the onion and celery into the pan and saute until the onion is cooked. Add the carrot, tomatoes, tomato puree and the reserved marinade.

Heat to a simmer for about10 minutes or so to break down the tomatoes a little

Put in the potatoes and mix well then return the rabbit pieces to the pot

Cover and turn down the heat to a gentle simmer for 3 hours or more.

Ready to serve

Serve with bread to mop up the rich sauce. The meat should be falling off the bone

NOTES

This recipe is the national dish of Malta. I've never been to this archipelago in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea (not yet, anyway, but it's on my list). I find it surprising that the national dish isn't some sort of seafood, given that it's a collection of small islands where you are never more than a few miles from the sea. Mind you, as a former British colony, maybe, along with the red post boxes, there's an element of British influence in the non-use of easily-obtained fish, as is the case with Brits (and as mentioned, nay ranted on, in a previous blog entry)

I'd expect the rabbit would be prepared by your butcher, but in principle you could make this with something you caught yourself or even roadkill if you're that way inclined. The rabbit I used was cleaned and portioned, but did have its various other organs like liver, kidneys, etc which I kept to enrich the sauce. It was bloody cheap as well at £4 to make a meal sufficient for 4 or more people. Parochial reference again, but I bought it at my favourite butcher, Allums of Wakefield.

If you are bothered about eating something so cute there are two things to think about making them less cute. 1: they are coprophagic and 2: they are, for all intents and purposes, just long-eared, grass-fed rats. Actually, these points may not make actually rabbits more appetising to eat, but at least you can look at them as less cuddly

This dish is called stuffat tal fenek and I've not made one double entendre out of that first word. I'm clearly losing my touch.

Like most stews, the recipe needs to cook long and slow, or else the rabbit would be stringy and chewy.

"Meat don't get any tougher than that!"

Oh, do give it a fucking rest with the catchphrase, Potato Gregg, you tuber-faced twat.