I love lamb and curry. Curry dishes are a lot of fun. When preparing this dish, use ceramic bowls and avoid metal utensils. The curry can stain other bowls and the metal utensils can leave a metallic taste in your mouth.
Ingredients 2 lamb shanks, 2 lamb shoulders steaks (yielding about 2 lbs of meat without the bone) Marinade the lamb overnight in the marinade recipe below
2 large onions, chopped
3-5 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 Tbsp clarified butter or olive oil with butter
2 Tbsp curry powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 Meyer lemon sliced (with rind)
1 cup of chicken broth
8 small red potatoes, quartered
Marinade:
Grind –
1 Tbsp of coriander seeds
1 Tbsp cumin
1 Tbsp curry powder
1 tsp fresh rosemary leaves
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
and mix with 2 Tbsp of olive oil
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. On stovetop, brown the meat in a little bit of olive oil in an oven-safe pan. Remove meat from pan.
Add butter or olive oil with a little bit of butter to pan, add curry powder, cook gently for a minute or two. Add onions and garlic and cook 5 minutes. Return meat to pan.
Add sliced lemon, chicken broth, salt and pepper. Put pan, covered, in oven and cook for 3 hours. In the last 45 minutes, remove from oven and put in potatoes. Return to oven.
Serve with rice or in a pita with shredded lettuce.
Serves 6
Below is the recipe as it appears in the May issue of Renaissance Magazine.
Oxtail dishes are found across cultures. From Northern Europe, across the British Isles, Ottoman Empire, Mediterranean, Arabic, and Far Eastern cultures have all used oxtail in a variety of dishes. Some dishes were primarily delicacies, but secondarily offered homeopathic cures to various ailments including back and hip pain.
The Chinese added shredded cabbage mushrooms, and carrots, among other vegetables to provide a heart stew. Arabic and Mediterranean cultures added tomatoes and chickpeas, while European cultures, including Italy even added wine or brandy to the dish during the post-Restoration period.
Oxtails were once inexpensive, but with their increased use in many cuisines, the price of oxtails has become expensive. Asian grocery stores offer oxtails at about a third of the cost of main stream grocery stores.
The dish below is hearty and alcohol was not added as I wanted to keep the dish true to its original roots in Britannia. This is a favorite among my male friends as oxtails, when cooked properly, can take on a prime rib flavor and texture.
Oxtail Soup
Oxtail Soup
Ingredients: 3 lbs of oxtails
1 lbs of beef shoulder soup bones.
2 lbs red potatoes, thinly sliced
3 parsnips, peeled and shredded
1 lbs of leeks, cut into rings
3 sprigs of rosemary
1/4 cup of butter or oil
2 lbs carrots, thinly sliced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small can of tomato paste (optional)
Kosher or sea salt
Black pepper
Begin preparing the dish by adding the beef shoulder bones in a large pot with enough water to cover the bones and add 1 tsp of sea or kosher salt. Bring items to a boil for a half an hour. Remove and dispose of the bones and reserve the broth.
Heat oil or melt butter in a different soup pot. Once heated, add the oxtails to brown and slowly add the leeks and garlic; continuing to cook. Once browned, add enough of the new broth to cover the cover the oxtails by an additional 3 inches, water may be added to increase the amount of liquid. At this moment, one may add optional tomato paste. Let cook for 1 hour and stir occasionally. After an hour, remove the soup bones, but leave in the oxtails. Begin adding the potatoes, carrots and rosemary. Cook for an additional 20 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender.
This dish is very rich and if one’s constitution prefers a less rich version, one may choose to put the soup in a cooler and remove the excess fat from the top before reheating. Add additional salt and pepper to taste.
Serves 6-8.
The photograph, prepared by Chris Olsen, was presented this way as it was more appealing than a bowl of soup. Traditionally, this dish is served in a bowl with vegetables, broth, and all.
When I was younger and visited various renaissance festivals and rendezvous, I would always look forward to a few dishes. One of which was cottage or shepherd pies. This dish is great and with some creativity, can be utilized and adjusted for making leftovers a more tasty treat.
Cottage Pies
Ingredients:
1 tb extra virgin olive oil
1 cup carrots, julienned
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped
1 tb garlic, minced
1 lb sirloin steak, chopped into small pieces (left over turkey or venison can be used instead)
3 cups of beef demi glace (3 cups of hot water blended with concentrated store bought demi glace)
2 tsp fresh rosemary, snipped
2 tsp fresh thyme, snipped
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp crushed peppercorns or fresh ground pepper
1 tb flour
1 lb of mashed potatoes
1 tb fresh Italian parsley, snipped
1 tb unsalted butter, melted
In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat; stir in the carrots, onion, celery, and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are softened (about 5 minutes). Add the sirloin and increase the heat to medium and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until beef is browned (about 5 minutes).
Add the beef demi glace, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper; reduce heat to low. Demi glace can be purchased at higher-end and specialty grocery stores. Simmer the pot with the beef, demi glace, and vegetables until the beef if cooked through (10 – 15 minutes); whisk in the flour until thickened.
With the mashed potatoes, stir in the parsley and blend. Pre-prepared boxed mashed potatoes do work for this recipe, but with anything that you cook, food made from scratch tastes significantly better. Divide the beef and vegetable mixture into 4 portions in 1 cup ramekins. Spread the mashed potatoes over the top and brush with the melted butter. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven until the potatoes are lightly browned (approx 20-25 minutes).
Just like many cooks, I enjoy experimenting with different recipes, techniques, and flavors. Some things have worked and other have been disastrous. Several years ago, an experiments Nicholas and I tried worked out wonderfully. We created cedar smoked pork and it was heavenly. The recipe is simple, but not easily done in the safety of one’s own kitchen.
You will need a cast iron dutch oven, a holed cast iron plate (this can be picked up at a sporting store that carries cast iron cookery), dried cedar chips (other wood chips are fine if untreated). Some may prefer oak or wood from fruit bearing trees.
In a ceramic bowl, soak the wood chips in water for 4 hours. The dried wood chips will soak up the moisture and you will be ready to use them after the 4 hours. At the four hours, start your fire pit or barbecue so that it is nice and hot.
Cooking in 2008 (MRF)
Remove the excess water from the bowl and add the re hydrated wood chips to the bottom of the cast iron pot. This should be no higher than an inch and a half from the bottom. Place the cast iron plate on top of the chips. It’s best that you brush the top of the cast iron plate with oil to keep the meat from sticking. Add the pork (I prefer pork shoulder as it is well marbled) and sprinkle fine sea salt and fresh ground pepper and add the lid. Place the cast iron pot on the grill or fire pit to begin the cooking process.
Visit the pot every 15 minutes. The heat will quickly boil off the water and cause the wood to smoke. You do not want the wood to burn or catch fire so when you notice that the wood is beginning to emit a lot of smoke, add a cup of water to the wood. Make sure you keep the lid on the pot to keep the smoke in the pot and the heat in. After 45 minutes to an hour check the temperature of the meat; it should read about 170 degree.
The smoking of the meat will keep it moist and flavorful. Friends have enjoyed the pork with barbecue sauce, but I like it just the way it is.
* This recipe can be done with fish, chicken, and turkey as well as wild bird game.
Wild rice and wheatberry salads and side dishes best complement this dish.
Many cooks will take shortcuts to make the cooking process easier. Below was a surprisingly easy dish that is vegetarian. You can make it vegan very easily. In the recipe, I utilize a soup (courtesy of Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods) and a premade pie crust (Marie Callendars makes a nice vegeraian one, but if no worries Pillsbury makes a pie crust that uses animal shortening).
The pie makes a nice side item or a main dish and is served traditionally as a thanksgiving or harvest festival feast dish. I do have a roasted carrot soup recipe in my second cookbook. If you are interested in my cookbooks, you can visit my recommended pages section and click on MacGregor Historical Games site, they sell my cookbook online.
Ingredients
4 large carrots, julliened
4 cloved of garlic, minced
1 large sweet potato, peeled and julliened
2 leeks, diced
8 medium red potatoes, julliened
3 eggs, scrambled (or for vegans use 3 TB of corn starch or arrowroot)
1 can of garbanzo beans/chickpeas, drained and rinsed
4 TB oil
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger (optional)
Begin sauteing the vegetables (carrots, garlic, leeks, sweet potatoes, and potatoes in oil). When leeks are transparent, add chickpeas and soup and continue to simmer. When carrots are tender, add the eggs to thicken pie filling. If eggs are not desired, gradually add the corn starch to thicken.
Follow the directions on box to pre-bake the pie crust. When pre-baked, pull out and and let cool. Add pie mixture to crust and contiue to bake until pie crust is golden brown.
