Pub Grub Favourites

These Four recipes from Jamie Oliver are great pub grub favourites or simply food for the boys before (or after) a ‘boys night out’.

The pub grub recipes can be made in individual serving dishes or in a large casserole dish. Side dishes can be anything you like, rice chips, mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes and any assortment of vegetables – steamed, boiled or roasted. Mix and mash to your hearts delight.

Good Old Steak and Guinness Pie

This favourite pub grub dish is nice and easy to make as all you have to do is put a puff pastry lid on top of a dish filled with your stewed meat. I never serve anything else with these pies but if you want to, boiled potatoes and steamed greens always hit the spot.

680g/1 1/2lb stewing beef, diced
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 heaped tablespoons flour
olive oil
1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
4 sticks of celery, washed and roughly chopped
2 parsnips, peeled and roughly chopped
1 handful of fresh mixed herbs (rosemary, thyme and bay), leaves picked
565ml/1 pint Guinness
2 x 400g/14oz tins of tomatoes
1 x 500g/1lb 2oz pack of puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

Season your beef generously with salt and pepper, sprinkle with the flour and toss around until coated. Heat 2 or 3 lugs of olive oil in a large casserole-type pan and fry your meat, in 2 batches if need be, until golden brown. Add the onion and fry for 1 more minute, then add the carrot, celery, parsnips and herbs. Fry for a further 4 minutes then pour in your Guinness. Add the tinned tomatoes and bring to the boil. Stir around, then simmer for around 2 hours or until the meat is really tender.

The sauce should be nice and thick with an intensely tasty flavour. Season. At this point you could serve it as a stew with mash, or it will keep really well for a good 5 days in the fridge (while improving in flavour at the same time).

To make the pies, preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5. Put your meat filling into an appropriately-sized baking dish or dishes. I like to make small individual pies — any high-sided round ovenproof bowls are fine. Roll out your pastry, dusting with flour as you go, until O.5cm/1/4 inch thick. Cut out 6 circles about 1cm/1/2 inch bigger than the tops of your bowls. Brush the rims of your bowls with beaten egg, then place the pastry circles on top, squashing the excess pastry down the outside of the bowls to secure. Lightly score the top of the pastry in a criss-cross fashion and brush with more of the beaten egg. Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for 45 minutes until golden and bubbling.

Beef Stew with Newcastle Brown Ale and Dumplings

1kg/2lb 3oz shin of beef (or use flank or neck), chopped into Chunks
3 tablespoons flour
olive oil
3 red onions, peeled, halved and roughly sliced
50g/1 ¾ oz pancetta or smoked streaky bacon, chopped
3 sticks of celery, chopped
1 small handful of rosemary, leaves picked
1.3 litres/2 pints Newcastle Brown ale
2 parsnips, peeled and roughly chopped
2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
4 potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the dumplings

225g/8oz self-raising flour
115g/4oz butter
a good pinch of salt and pepper
2 sprigs of rosemary, chopped

This pub grub dish is very popular in the north east. Season the beef, sprinkle with the flour and toss around until well coated. Heat up a frying pan until it is good and hot, add a little olive oil and fry the beef in 2 batches until nice and brown. Transfer the meat to a big casserole — one which is suitable to go on a hob — mixing in the flour that was left on the plate after coating it. Put the casserole on a medium heat, add the onions and pancetta, and cook until the onions are translucent and the pancetta has a bit of colour. Add your celery and rosemary. Now you can pour in your Newcastle Brown and 285ml/1/2 pint of water, adding your parsnips, carrots and potatoes. (Feel free to add whatever veg you like at this stage.) Bring to the boil, put a lid on, turn down the heat and leave it to simmer while you make the dumplings — which are choice.

Blitz the dumpling ingredients in a blender or rub between your fingers till you have a breadcrumb consistency, then add just enough water to make a dough that isn’t sticky. Divide it into ping-pong-ball-sized dumplings and put these into the stew, dunking them under. Put the lid back on and leave it to cook for 2 hours. Taste it, season it as you like, and then serve the stew with some cavolo nero or other greens and loads of bread to mop up the juices.

Chilli con Carne

Cili con cari and rice is a favourite pub grub dish all around the country. It’s great to buy chuck steak for this recipe because you know exactly what quality of meat you’re buying. Then simply cut it into pieces and pulse in a food processor until it resembles minced beef. I normally make double the amount of chilli needed so that I can divide the extra into sandwich bags, knotted at the top, for freezing. These bags can then be boiled for 15 minutes when needed.

2 medium onions
1 clove of garlic
olive oil
2 level teaspoons chilli powder
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely Chopped
1 heaped teaspoon ground cumin (or crushed cumin seeds)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
455g/1lb chuck steak, minced, or best minced beef
200g/7oz sun-dried tomatoes, in oil
2 x 400g/14oz tins of tomatoes
1/2 a stick of cinnamon
2 x 400g/14oz tins of red kidney beans, drained

To cook this I use a metal pan or casserole with a lid, which you can use on the hob and in the oven. If you are going to use the oven method (see below), then preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/gas 2. Blitz the onions and garlic in a Magimix food processor until finely chopped, then fry in a little olive oil until soft. Add the chilli powder, fresh chilli, cumin and a little seasoning. Then add the minced chuck steak or beef and continue to cook, stirring, until it has browned. Blitz the sun-dried tomatoes in the food processor with enough oil from the jar to loosen into a paste.

Add these to the beef with the tomatoes, cinnamon stick and a wineglass of water. Season a little more if need be. Bring to the boil, cover with greaseproof paper and the lid, then either turn the
heat down to simmer and cook for 1 1/2 hours or transfer the pan to the oven for about 1 1/2 hours. Add the tinned kidney beans 30 minutes before the end of the cooking time — they are already cooked and only need warming up.

This always tastes better if you cook it the day before (to give the flavours time to develop), so it’s really handy if you’ve got friends coming round and don’t want to be stuck in the kitchen. Just take it out of the fridge and warm it up — serve it with lots of fresh crusty bread, a nice tossed salad, and a big blob of natural yoghurt or guacamole.

My Favourite Curry Sauce

You will really like this curry — it’s easy and fun to make. Two little tips are first, to use a Magimix or food processor to chop the onions and tomatoes as it makes less mess, it’s really quick and will stop you crying! Second, get all your ingredients prepared and ready to go, then you can have the sauce finished in 15 minutes.

Keep your eyes peeled for curry leaves — I’m trying to get supermarkets to stock them at the moment, but you can buy them from Indian or Asian delis. Get yourself a big bag of them, let them dry and they’ll last for ages. lf you really can’t get them, do without, but it won‘t be quite the same.

5 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
3 fresh green chillies, deseeded and thinly sliced
1 handful of curry leaves
2 thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely grated
3 onions, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon chilli Powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
6 tomatoes, chopped
1 x 400ml/14fl oz tin coconut milk
Salt

For the fish version

4 x 8oz/225g fresh haddock fillets, skinned and pin-boned
1 knob of tamarind paste or 1 teaspoon tamarind syrup
optional:1 large handful of baby spinach
optional: 1 good handful of fresh coriander, chopped

For the chicken version

4 chicken breasts, sliced into 1cm/1/2 inch strips
1 tablespoon coriander seeds, crushed

For the vegetarian version

800g/1 3/4Ib mixed vegetables, chopped (potatoes, courgettes, peppers, onions, sweet potatoes, spinach, chard, cauliflower, lentils, beans … use your imagination)

Heat the oil in a pan, and when hot add the mustard seeds. Wait for them to pop, then add the fenugreek seeds, fresh green chillies, curry leaves and ginger. Stir and fry for a few minutes. Using a Magimix food processor, chop the onions and add to the same pan. Continue to cook for 5 minutes until the onion is light brown and soft, then add the chilli powder and turmeric. Using the same food processor, pulse the tomatoes and add these to the pan. Cook for a couple of minutes, then add 1 or 2 wineglasses of water and the coconut milk. Simmer for about 5 minutes until it has the consistency of double cream, then season carefully with salt.

Take the sauce as a base. To make the fish curry, add the fish and tamarind to the sauce and simmer for six minutes. Feel free to add some baby spinach and chipped coriander at the end of cooking time.

For the chicken version, stir-fry the chicken strips and coriander seeds until lightly coloured, then add to your sauce and simmer for 10 minutes. For the vegetarian version simply add all your veg to the sauce at the beginning when yo add your onions. Continue to cook as normal and simmer until tender.

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