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Mains
Sausage & Butter Bean Supper – with thanks to The Kernow Sausage Company
Ingredients
1 glass of white wine
1 chorizo sausage, chopped roughly.
Olive oil
1 large onion
Chicken stock, fresh, cube or concentrate, made up to 200ml
1 garlic clove, finely sliced
A small bunch of parsley, roughly chopped
5-6 sausages (try The Kernow Sausage Company’s Trelawney Traditional flavour)
2 x 400g tins of butter beans, drained and rinsed
Method
Brown the sausages in a frying pan over a low to medium heat and then remove from the pan and slice into chunks.
Brown the Chorizo chunks and soften the chopped onion in the same pan then add the garlic and cook gently taking care not to burn the garlic.
Add back the sausages, the wine, chicken stock and the butter beans. Simmer for 10-15 minutes until the sausages are cooked through.
Season with salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle with parsley to serve.
Autumn Cabbage Stir-fry with bacon, apples and cider – with thanks to www.cornishfoodmarket.co.uk
Ingredients
1 lb (450 g) cabbage, shredded
4½ oz (125g) chopped bacon
1 Granny Smith or other tart apple - peeled, cored and chopped
2 tablespoons dry cider
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon thyme
Salt and black pepper
Method
Makes 4 generous servings. Try with pork and apple sausages and mash.
1. In a large skillet or wok, dry-fry the bacon until crispy and golden, then remove it to a plate.
2. Add the oil to the pan and fry the onions over a medium heat until golden brown at the edges.
3. Now turn the heat up and add the cabbage, stirring continuously for about 3 minutes, until tender.
4. Return the bacon to the pan and add the apple, garlic, bay leaf and thyme, and season well with salt and black pepper. Toss the mixture around for a few seconds, then add the cider and cider vinegar and continue to cook, with the heat still high, for 1-2 minutes.
5. Remove the bay leaf, taste and season and serve.
The Tresanton hotel's Beer batter recipe.
You will need:
400gr flour
50g fresh yeast
450ml Beer
The Process:
1. Gently warm the yeast with a little of the beer to activate it
2. Mix in the rest of the beer
3. Mix into the flour whisking all the time until fully combined
4. Leave to stand for one hour before use.
To taste this delight before making it yourself, why not pop into the Tresanton and have a £16 fish and chip lunch including a glass of wine? Click here for detials.
Roasted Hake with Tomato and Basil Sauce
This is a dish from Simon Stallard, Head Chef and Customer Relations at Wing.
You will need: 
1 Fillet (2 portions) Hake
Olive Oil
Sea Salt & Pepper
Onions
Celery
Ripe vine tomatoes
Red peppers
Garlic
A good spoon of tomato puree
Fish stock cube
Fresh basil
 Cooking Tips
Cut your Hake in to portions, drizzle in olive oil and add pinch of sea salt, dust of white pepper. Roast in a hot oven for 7-10 minutes depending on size.
Remove from the oven, top with your delicious roasted tomato and basil sauce (below).
This fish is ideal served with hand cut chips, sautéed potatoes or crushed garlic potatoes. Steamed Savoy cabbage, greens beans, char grilled courgettes are ideal partners with Hake.
Roasted tomato and basil sauce:
Roughly cut some onions, celery, ripe vine tomatoes, red peppers, garlic, add a good spoon of tomato puree.
Place all ingredients into a hot oven and roast for around 20 minutes until tender.
Take all the roasted vegetables and blitz/blend/liquidize.
To thin the sauce down in the blender, add some fish stock (or hot water mix with a fish stock cube).
Strain through a fine sieve and into a sauce pan and chop or rip some fresh basil and add just before serving.
Christmas Brazil Nut Roast
This is an excellent Xmas dinner, cold sliced at parties, or when the Brazilian president drops by for supper!
ROAST:
450 g frozen flaky pastry
1 egg, beaten
2 large onions, chopped
50 g butter
500 g Brazil nuts, very finely chopped in a processor
250 g wholemeal bread cut very small
Half tsp thyme
3 dssp lemon
¼ tsp of nutmeg
¼ tsp of cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
FILLING:
250 gr. white bread, cut as above
25 g. finely chopped parsley
Finely grated peel of one lemon
1 dssp lemon juice
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp finely grated onion
75 g butter
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 200°C and open pack of frozen pastry. 
Fry the chopped onionin 50 g of butter till translucent, but not brown.
Take from heat and add the remaining roast ingredients.
Add about 2 tsp salt and knead together so youhave a dough-like mass.
Mix together the filling ingredients in the same way, adding salt to taste.
On a floured surface, put the pastry bits together by pressing firmly along edges.
Really make sure they 'lock' into each other. Otherwise it'll all come apartlater...You want to make a rectangle of about 30 x 35 cm. (Pic 1)
Form a 25 cm long sausage out of the filling and place it in middle of pastry. (Pic 2)
Cover this with the roast mixture and wrap all this in the pastry (Pic 3)
Make sure edges are firmly locked and then turn the whole Nut Roast over so the joins in the pastry are on the bottom. (Pic 4)
Cut diagonal slits into top of pastry soit won't burst when baking. (Pic 5)
If desired decorate it with bits ofleftover pastry (some lovely leaves and berries, perhaps?) and then 'paint' everything with a thin layer of egg so it’ll brownnicely when baking.
Put loaf onto a wet baking tray and sick in oven for half an hour, middle shelf.
This should be served with gravy and cranberry sauce (optional)  and the usual Christmasvegetables... enjoy!
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Chilli Sin Carne (or Con, if you like!) - From Susanne Hatwood - The Blue Carrot Cutting Garden
This recipe emanates from my favourite Vegan cookbook “Vegan With A Vengeance”, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, which I used a lot during my year as a Vegan and which I have been adapted slightly. It tastes even better the next day, but do leave to rest for around 20 mins before serving for best results on the day. The ingredients may sound scary, but trust me on this one... it’s delicious!
For 4 greedy people, you will need:
5 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
1 Lrg Onion
1 Small Jalapeno chilli (or any, depending on required heat), finely chopped.
1 Small red pepper, chopped
3 Cloves garlic, smashed
1 Pack Quorn mince (normal mince if a carnivore!)
2 Tbsp Chilli powder
1 Tsp Ground cinnamon
½ Tsp Ground cumin
2 400g Tins plum tomatoes
3 Tbsp Cocoa powder
3 Tbsp Molasses (important not to substitute this with any other sugar as it has a very distinctive taste – available at most health food stores).
2 400g tins pinto beans, drained and well rinsed
600ml Vegetable Stock
Preheat a large pot over medium heat then add olive oil.
Add onions and peppers and sauté for 2 mins.
Add the garlic (and mince if doing Con Carne) and cook for 8 minutes until onions are soft.
Add chilli, cinnamon and cumin, stirring constantly for a minute or so.
Now add the tomatoes, cocoa powder and molasses.
Stir and break in the tomatoes with a spoon and then add the beans, Quorn mince (if Sin Carne) and vegetable stock.
Cover and bring to the boil.
Then lower the heat and simmer for about 30 mins.
Switch off hotplate and allow to sit for 20 mins before serving.
It’s perfect on its own with some chunky sourdough bread as it’s quite soupy, or have it with rice if you prefer!
Vegetable Curry a’ la Plume
(From the Plume of Feathers in Portscatho chefs)
An easy, relatively lazy curry requiring little technical ability to make.
First off, decide what veg you want to curry. We normally go for aubergines, courgettes, cauliflowers, butternut squash, mushrooms, potatoes, and peppers. Then of course you need the holy trinity of curry- making; white onions, fresh ginger-root and fresh garlic.
So let's say for a 4 person curry you'll probably want:
1 white onion
1 medium squash
2 peppers, any colour
1 medium aubergine
2 courgettes
half a cauli if you're a fan
7 or 8 mushrooms
Enough fresh ginger for a couple of teaspoons full
2 cloves of garlic
Several large glugs of veg oil
A big, sturdy pot
Curry powder, cumin powder, chilli powder etc.
Tomato paste or 6 fresh tomatoes
A tin of coconut milk, or some mango chutney. Some fresh coriander leaves (I recommend washing and chopping the veg before you start cooking. Try for nice inch sized dice, but don't worry too much. A good curry doesn't need symmetry to be beautiful)
The simplicity of this curry is it makes its own sauce, with no blending or fannying about. The (admittedly unhealthy) secret to the sauce is to start your curry with lashings of vegetable oil. The pan needs to have about an inch-deep pool of oil at the bottom. The plan is, this oil will combine with your powdered spices and create a lovely thick, spicy, oily dripping sauce that turns everything it touches yellow, soaks up into your naan bread and dribbles down your chin. Mmmmmmm! If an inch deep pool of veg oil sounds excessive, it is, but no one ever said the Plume does health food. Have some nuts from the bar instead if you've got a problem with this.
Your next move is to chop up your onions and add them to the oil while it is cold, then gradually turn up the heat (thus ensuring a nice even cooking, and no unpredictable and sudden heartbreaking scorching of your lovingly prepared onions) and gently cook them, without colour, for about five minutes. Don't burn them.
Next, keeping the temperature low, toss in the garlic, which you have chopped and mashed and puréed, or just sliced and hacked if you are lazy. Again, the key here is to cook low and slow, and not to scorch the stuff; no one likes burnt garlic. It will make your house smell rancid for weeks; and you, too, if you eat it. At this stage, if you are using it, add the ginger. We grate it in a cheese grater, because we make curry for 40 portions at a time, and use about 300g of ginger a pop. You could probably just dice a little bit with your knife. Or mash it up with a rock, or whatever.
Allow the holy trinity to become acquainted and relax in the pool of hot oil, cooking gently and going soft and glossy and shiny.
If you are well prepared, you will have diced all your veg in advance, and will now be ready to start cooking it by adding it to the oil. I suggest you add the hardest, denser vegetables first, as they will require more time to cook. In all honesty though, if you have neither the time nor inclination to start squeezing and prodding your sliced veg, you could throw everything in together at this stage and give it a good stir.
Turn up the heat a little.
If you are using it, you may notice the aubergine has a rather sponge-like tendency to drink all the oil; don't worry. Just bung a bit more oil in. It'll release most of it later, anyway. Don't be afraid.
The veg now needs to cook. Depending on how good your stove top is, and your pan, and how much you're making, this could be anything from ten minutes to half an hour, I would imagine. Try and judge it by the sheen and structure of the veg; if it looks like it's cooking, good stuff. It's not complicated. If you really can't tell if a vegetable is cooked or not, the Plume of Feathers, Portscatho, does a full range of very reasonably priced, labour saving meals, just for people like you.
Now it is time to add your spices. We use a medium-strength pre mixed commercial curry powder, organic cumin powder, and very hot chilli powder. Some folks like to blend their own spice mixture, and add all manner of varieties. I usually add cardamom pods if I make this at home, and fenugreek powder.
I can't tell you what ratios to use; the curry powder will probably be the dominant flavour, the chilli will determine how hot it is, and the cumin will give it that authentic-take-away background tang that no-one can ever put their finger on. You'll have to work out what works best for you. We go for equal amounts of curry powder to cumin, and one third the amount of chilli powder. For the average 4-person curry, 3 tablespoons of curry powder, 3 of the cumin, and one level spoonful of the chilli will be plenty.
It is important to cook out the spices if you are using powder. Failure to do so will result in an unpleasant chalky texture, and the spices will taste bitter. They should mix nicely with the oil to form a sauce which will thicken as it cooks down. Leave it to cook gently on a low heat for at least ten to fifteen minutes, stirring every now and then to make sure it is not burning...
...nearly there...
Once you're happy with the mix, add a table spoon of tomato paste or two, and stir it all in. (Or go mad and use fresh chopped ones.) At this point, you can finish the curry with either a few tablespoons of coconut milk, which will have the added advantage of taking some of the heat out if you've gone a bit mental with the chilli, or mango chutney for a sweeter finish.
Or neither, if you like what you've made. Add some salt now, at the end, to your liking. Serve with rice, sprinkle a handful of chopped coriander leaves over the top... and open a beer!
Pizza a la Marcello!
On the day of the German launch of my film, Marcello Marcello, I thought I'd share my favourite recipe for home-made Pizza with you. This is one I've perfected over many years and I hope you'll give it a try... it only takes a little more time and effort that heating a supermarket one (or using naff supermarket pre-prepared bases) and tastes a MILLION times better!
If you have a pizza tray, then all the better, but they're not essential. I would get one without holes. You can get one HERE for just £1.66 each + £2.00 p+p... well worth it!
Ingredients (per Pizza):
For the base:
A small cup of flour (around 150g per pizza)
About half a cup of tepid water (125ml)
Half a teaspoon of dried yeast
NO SALT! (Salt kills yeast and will impair the rising process)
For the topping:
Well, whatever you want, but just remember; the better the ingredients, th e better the pizza! Personally, I use:
A couple of dessert spoons of tinned chopped tomatoes per pizza (Naplina Chopped Tomatoes are great)
125g Mozarella (Buffalo if you can stretch to it... it's deeeelish!)
A handfull of mushrooms
Half a clove of garlic
A splash of olive oil (Virgin is best)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Fresh Basil for post-cooking
The process:
First up, if you don't have a warm place for your dough, put the oven on its lowest heat. This will get it ready for rising the dough.
 Now, warm the water a tad and add the half teaspoon of yeast to it. As that ferments for a moment, pour the flour into a bowl and then add the water-yeast mix to it. Now knead for a few minutes. (You may need to add a tad more water if it's too dry, or a little more flour if it's too wet). It should be somewhere between the consistency of putty and blu-tac... not too wet, not too dry!
OK, now put a layer of cling film over the bowl and stick it in the oven (or warm place) until it's double the size. This should take about 30 mins, but may be quicker. 
While that's rising, slice your mushrooms, garlic and break the mozarella into small chunks ready for throwing on... mmmm!
Now dust a work surface with a little extra flour, and oil the pizza tray with a dribble of olive oil. Just as you take the dough from the oven, now's the time to whack the oven on full (bottom element only if you have one - see TOP TIP, below).
Put the dough onto the floured surface. Squash the ball slightly, making it roundish, then take a roller and roll the dough out to the size of the pizza tray (around 11 inches). Don't worry too much if it isn't exact or is too big in places, it's not an exact science; once it's on the tray, simply cut off the overhangs with a knife.
Right, the fun bit...! With a dessert spoon, circle the chopped tomatoes onto the base  so it is relatively evenly covered. Then add the garlic, the sliced mushrooms and finally the mozarella chunks. Again, this is all slapdash, so don't worry too much if it isn't exact. Now, splash with some olive oil, add some salt and pepper and you're done!
The oven should be hot enough by now. The best place to cook it (as mentioned in TOP TIP, below) is right on the bottom of the oven. If you don't have a lower element, use the middle of the oven. Let it cook for five minutes, checking it from time to time - especially if it's on the bottom of the oven as it'll burn if not watched. It should take about 5-10 minutes on the bottom of the oven and slightly longer if it's in the middle. A good clue is when the mozarella starts to melt and just as it starts to bubble. Don't worry if it's a tad burnt in places on the bottom... that's pizza for you!
OK, pull him out, add the few leaves of fresh basil and slice as needed.
Believe me, there's nothing like fresh pizza; and once you've done it, you'll be hooked... enjoy!
TOP TIP: If you have one, put only the bottom oven heater on. This way you can cook the pizza on the bottom of the oven, directly on the source of the heat. This will act like a stone oven, heating the pizza from the underside up... crunch-arama! |
