Game Pie:

Game Pie:

As Pheasant Pie, but:

Also find:

• 1 wild rabbit with its coat off

Method:

• When preparing the pheasant, also simmer the rabbit saddle (that is the back of the rabbit containing the two loins – the main meat content) for an hour or so in the stock.
• Afterwards, take the loins off the backbone, break it up (not slice it) and throw in with the processed pheasant meat. Continue with the pie as above but in a larger pie dish (or even make two).
• The front and back legs of the rabbit can be casseroled separately and scoffed off the bone the next day.
• Or eat it with a mustard sauce.

Pheasant pie:

Pheasant pie:

This serves between 6 and 8 people, with veg, etc.

One thing I like to do is beating for a local shoot.  It takes no great skill, as such, all you need to be able to do is follow instructions and make a noise when told to.  Common sense, really.  In the months before and just after Christmas there are shoots all over the UK needing people to beat for them (See the NOBS website).  You get very little pay for your physical efforts – but the birds are worth the walk.  Some (tight-arsed) shoots will just give you a brace (a pair; one cock bird and one hen) and some will permit you to take more.  One shoot that I have regularly beaten for hands me 3 brace occasionally as well as the meagre pay.  This makes the day well worth the effort.  Of course, the birds do come with their coats on and their innards in place, but a quiet word with another of the beaters may get them to help you ‘process’ the birds quite quickly after being hung to let the meat mature for about 5-8 days. 

Of course, you could learn how to do it and DIY. 

I don’t fart about with plucking; I simply skin ‘em and gut ‘em.  It’s quicker, easier and makes less mess.  Anyway, as I normally harvest the breasts and casserole the rest, the skin is redundant. 

Serving pheasant pie to your guests could be quite prestigious, so will really impress everyone with your abilities to survive and succeed.   Of course, you mustn’t accidentally serve it to any extreme animal-rights/anti-hunt people, ‘cos that’s the way to get your sweetmeats squashed (look it up on the net).

Prep:       50-ish mins, but needs to be done the day before.

Cooking: 60 + 40 mins.

Course:   Main (smallish)

Serves:    6

Rating:    3:  Moderate – it takes a long time to get everything ready,

but each stage is moderately easy.

Find:-

• 1 brace pheasants
• 2 cans Campbell’s Chicken & White Wine condensed soup
• Frozen sweetcorn
• 1 pack puff pastry
• 2 onions
• 2 cloves garlic
• Mushrooms if you have them
• Provencal mixed herbs
• Seasonings
• milk or eggwash for pastry top (see Tricks’n’Tips)
• Covered casserole dish
• Oven dish/pie dish bigger than you think you’ll need

Method:

• Take the two birds – skinned & gutted – and wash them under a running cold tap for a moment. Cut any great amounts of fat off and discard.
• Using heavy duty scissors cut the carcasses at their weak points to allow them to fit into a casserole dish or covered oven dish with lid and put some water/white wine in with them. Pop this into a medium oven (gas 4) for about an hour or so to cook.  You will be taking the meat off the carcass later so it does need to cook through.
• After that time, take the meat out and place onto a plate to cool to a temperature at which you can separate the meat from the bones without burning your fingers (see Tricks’n’Tips for taking meat off a poultry carcass).
• Whatever you do, don’t allow any bones to end up in the meat. The lead shot by which the birds met their fate will normally not be a problem, but the bones and/or the end of bone cartilage will be.
• Pour the cooking liquid into a bowl to cool and then place it in the fridge to let the fat solidify properly on the top. The following day, just take the fat from the top of the stock, putting it into cling film/foil or a yoghurt pot to discard it, putting the jellified stock by for now.  You’ll need it later.
• To assemble the pie, just roughly slice and fry the onions and garlic until translucent and line the bottom of the pie dish with them. Pop a few sliced/quartered mushrooms in as well.
• Scatter the herbs and frozen sweetcorn on the onions and then lay on the pheasant meat in large chunks.
• Heat the contents of the two cans of soup, together with some white wine or water and the stock from below the fat in the bowl and pour over the contents of the pie dish, taking the fluid level to just below the edge of the dish. Season as necessary.
• Roll out the puff pastry (or buy it ready-rolled, like I do) and lay it on top of the dish (see Tricks’n’Tips), crimping the edges against the dish to make a tight seal.
• Pierce a few vent holes in the lid, cut out and lay on some fancy pastry shapes for decoration (if you are artistic) and give it an eggwash or a milkwash ( see Tricks’n’Tips) to make it brown attractively.
• Place it in the oven at about gas 5 for 40 mins, or until the pastry is golden brown and risen a treat.
• Serve with whatever veg you have. This pie goes well with rustic accompaniments, so forget about serving poncy baby sweetcorn or mange tout.  For this we need chunky carrots, sautéed leeks (or roast veg) and jacket potatoes.

Rich venison casserole:

Rich venison casserole:

Prep:           20 mins.

Cooking:      2 hours or more.

Course:        Main

Serves:         4

Rating:         3:  Moderate.

Venison is beautiful when cooked long and low.  It’s like a rich beef.

For 4 people, find:

• 1 kg of boneless stewing venison.
• Root veg – carrots, turnips
• Button onions – the cheap ones from the supermarket
• 1 cloves of garlic
• Olive oil
• Butter
• Half a bottle of red wine
• Two mugs of stock (see Tricks’n’Tips)
• Some fresh thyme – if not, use dried
• Fresh chopped parsley if you can get hold of it – a handful
• Two tablespoons plain flour
• A large saucepan that will also go into the oven or a large oven dish and a saucepan.

Method:

• If the meat is not already cubed, cut to 1” cubes. If it’s already cubed, just trim off any really large lumps of fat.  Don’t be over-fussy with the trimming because the long, slow cooking will melt away most of the now-grotty-looking bits – that’s one of the beauties of this dish, it makes beautiful food from relatively low-cost cuts of venison – which itself is not cheap (Quite deer actually!).
• Put some olive oil and butter into the saucepan, allow it to melt and mingle and then introduce the cubes of venison.
• Turn the heat up to high. There needs to be space in the pan for the meat to brown.  If the meat is too crowded in the pan, it will start to sweat, lose moisture and refuse to brown.  We want the surface to brown, to enhance the flavours of the venison – give it space.
• You may have to do this in several batches, adding further oil/butter as necessary, to get it all browned properly.
• Put all the venison back into the saucepan when browned, and introduce the flour.
• Stir it all in with the oil, butter, juices, etc so that they are all absorbed. Put the wine into saucepan and stir all the sticky bits into the wine.
• Add the stock.  Boil up and ensure that all the bits have been loosened from the pan.  Add the root veg, onions and garlic.
• If the saucepan is suitable for the oven, put on the lid and pop into the oven at gas mk 4 for an hour, then turn it down to Mk 3. Check after a further hour, or two to ensure it is not drying out.  Add more stock if necessary.  Ensure that all accompaniments are done.
• If the pan is NOT suitable for use in the oven, tip all the contents into an oven dish and cover with foil and follow as above.
• Serve with Dauphinoise potatoes, French beans, Chantenay carrots and a great big smile on your smug l’il face.

Yes, it is very similar to the Navarine of Lamb recipe; except where it’s different, of course.

Pot Roast Beef:

Pot Roast Beef:

Prep:           10 mins.

Cooking:      2 ½ hrs.

Course:        Main

Serves:        4-6

Rating:         3:  Moderate

 Ah well now.  Ok.  You will automatically think of a conventional roast as ‘bung it in the oven, almost dry’. 

Pot roast is a bit different.  You ‘bung it in the oven, in a lidded pot, with a bit of oil and water in it as well’.    You are not trying to get the same effect as oven roasting the meat, because pot-roasting is actually a completely different animal.  Pot-roasting is cooking the meat in a confined environment, with a combination of steam and oil.  It retains the moisture within the meat and it stays really succulent and tasty.

What do you do?  Well, it’s actually quite simple.    And can be beautifully cheap too.

Find:

• Piece of beef brisket or similar meat that requires cooking slowly – see Tricks’n’Tips for suggestions – perhaps 1 kg or so
• Oil
• Water
• Mixed herbs – dried
• Covered cooking pot of some sort – Pyrex with lid, or similar

Method:

• Take an oven dish with a lid. It might be a posh enamelled Le Creuset pot from France, it might just be a Pyrex (or similar) glass oven thingy that you found very cheaply at a car boot sale.  It simply doesn’t matter.  Just so long as the container is ok for the oven and has a lid (and the lid could just be foil if you want – but not cling film), it’ll be ok.  Ok, so you now have your thingy-pot.
• Put a few tablespoons of water and a glug of oil (not ‘engine’, please….) into the thingy-pot and pop your bit of brisket, silverside…. (or whatever you have discovered in the reduced cabinet) in as well – but take the ‘added basting fat’ off first, and bin it

(That tied-on layer of fat is only necessary if it’s open-roasted – it just is not wanted for this method.  It’s put on there to let fat dribble down the meat, keep it moist and give it extra flavour.  Oh yes, and it’s also a way of getting you to pay for extra fat at the same price as the beef.  The trouble is you can’t take it off before you pay for it.  Dammit.   However, as you got it out of the reduced chiller……..   Sorry, once again I digress…..  )

• Ok, carry on. Don’t season it, just put the lid on and stuff it into an oven on about gas mk 4/180C.  Leave it for an hour then turn it down to gas mk 3/160C.
• After a further hour, take your pot-roast out of the oven. It will have made more fluid – leave it in there as it’s doing a great job.
• Baste the meat (spoon the fluid over the top of the meat) for a while. It’ll benefit from this as it takes back in some of the moisture it has lost in the cooking.  Whilst you are there, just cut a tiny bit of the meat off a corner and taste it….. oooooh, lovely  AND YOUV’E COOKED IT LIKE THIS  ON YOUR OWN. 

Are you not a clever Rookie Cookie then?              Of course you are  ……IN’T IT EXCITIN’.

• Ok then, calm down, drink a slug’o’wine/beer, put the lid back on and pop it back in the oven (that’s the meat, not the wine/beer), still on gas mk 3/160C.
• Prepare your veg. Put on your selected veg…..  (at this point it’s too late to do roast veg – if you wanted roast veg with it, you should have put it in much earlier – there’s always another time; c’est la vie).

And don’t forget the sauce or gravy…. (See Sauce or Gravy…..)

• When your veg is done, so will your meat be.

With a traditional open oven tin ‘roast’ your meat would benefit from being given ten minutes out of the oven under a foil blanket to ‘rest’ or ‘relax’ away from the searing heat.  Some people think it’s worth it, others don’t bother.  Your choice.  Try it both ways and see what you find. 

• This is a pot roast, though. It’s fine to take the pot out for ten minutes – even half an hour out of the oven with the lid on whilst the oven is used for something else like a pud or giving roast veg the last blast, should it be needed

Presentation?  Well, ideally carve the meat across the grain into slices, or if that’s not possible, cut it into chunks.  If the meat is done really well it may just fall apart.  It may not look brilliant just falling apart but it’ll taste gorgeous. 

• Have it with mash (see Variations in Tricks’n’Tips) or jacket spuds, boiled/steamed carrots… anything. Don’t worry too much about presentation.

Remember – Lessons you learn one day will  be the experience from which you benefit the next.

• Plate it up and eat. Enjoy it, and be proud that YOU did it.

Beef in wine:

Beef in wine:

Prep:           30 mins.

Cooking:      As above.

Course:        Main

Serves:        As many as….

Rating:         3:  Moderate

Method:

• Do basically the same as in Carbonade of Beef but use half a bottle of red wine instead of the beer as you have it left over from last night. This is a very good way of using up any leftover wine that has gone beyond the ideal condition for drinking.  It’s called ‘recycling’, and you know that we’re all encouraged to recycle. 
• Then you can open a fresh bottle (or three).

 

Carbonade de Bœuf: (Beef in Beer)

Carbonade de Bœuf:   (Beef in Beer)

Beef in beer can be wonderful.  Twice cooked (once on one day, allowed to cool overnight, then cooked again the following day) it tenderises beautifully.   You just need to be a bit organised, that’s all.

Prep:           30 mins.

Cooking:      1^st session: about 2 hours in a slow oven.                                                                                                  2^nd session: 1 hour on the top of the cooker.

Course:        Good, solid, quality main course. Ideal to serve to guests who you want to impress (for whatever reason).

Serves:        4 to 6

Rating:         3:  Moderate, but just follow the method and all will be well.

This is a long and low oven-based casserole, twice cooked. 

You just need to be a little organised, then it’s quite easy.

• 1 kilo chuck steak, skirt, shin…. (you can use rump, but if so, use the cheaper end)
• 4 onions (red if poss, but…)
• 2 or more cloves garlic…. Yes, more.
• Half litre of light ale, stout or Guinness, depending on how ‘dark’ you wish it to be. I’d use Guinness if I was you.  NEVER EVER use lager.
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar (use one of those long packets that you get when you go for coffee!)
• Dried thyme leaves
• Bay leaves – up to 4
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• Butter
• Oil
• Seasonings
• Large oven/hob casserole (Le Creuset or similar)

Method:

• Put the oven onto about 130 Centigrade, ready for when you want to use it.
• Cut the chuck steak into cubes, about an inch (2.5cm) each way. Good lunky chumps.
• Peel and quarter the onions, separating the layers.
• Use a broad-bladed knife to squash & peel the garlic, then chop it coarsely. Retain these, ready for use in a while.
• Put some oil and a knob of butter into a large Le Creuset casserole or similar (You can use a frying pan for this but you’ll have to change pans after the first bit). Put it on the heat and whack it up to full.
• As soon as the butter is melted, drop a few cubes of beef into the pan and make sure that they are frying off well. You are ‘browning the meat’ by doing this.  The finished casserole will benefit so much from this very important process.  They should not be touching each other as they will stew rather than fry, spoiling the flavours.
• Browning will need to be done in batches, so when one batch is browned, put them onto a plate and put the next batch in.
• When all meat is browned, put the onions into the fat & meat juices and fry them off for a few mins as well. Put in the sugar.  Mix well and fry off.  Take out the onions and put them with the meat, for now.
• Sprinkle the 2 tablespoons of plain flour into the resulting fats & juices in the pan, then the garlic and mix it all in. It’ll go all stiff and horrible-like.  Don’t worry; that’s normal.  Take it off the heat for a mo.
• Open the beer. You do have a bottle opener, yes?  You’re stuffed if you haven’t! Pour the beer into the pot, gradually.  Mix in the beer and it will start to loosen.  Mix more in and it will start to froth, and go creamy.
• Mix it well. Put back onto the heat and bring it to the boil.  It will thicken somewhat.  Don’t worry if it looks too thick.  Season with salt & pepper and then put the onions and the meat back in.
• Chuck in the bay leaves (you did get some, didn’t you?….well, if you didn’t, it’s too late now, so ne’mind!) and a couple of big pinches of dried thyme. Mix well.    All the ingredienty-type bits are in there.
• Put the lid on and put it in the middle of the oven. Close the door.
• Go away for a couple of hours. Or more.
• After a couple of hours or so, just turn it off and leave it there overnight.
• On the morrow (another way of saying ‘next day’….I must make an appointment with my ‘therapissed’), about an hour or so before you want to eat it, put it on top of the cooker, remove the lid, peel off and discard any solidified fat layer from the top of the mixture. Don’t take the good stuff though!
• SLOWLY bring it back to a simmer, occasionally stirring very gently; you need to avoid breaking up the meaty chunks. Check for correct seasoning and adjust as nec.
• Put it onto the lowest heat that you can manage on the cooker top, plonk on the lid, just cracked open slightly, and leave for an hour or so, stirring occasionally (see note about being careful, above) with your large wooden spoon so that the mixture does not catch on the bottom of the pan.
• Serve with roast veg?
• Serve with baked spuds & steamed veg?
• Serve with pride!

Trickie-Dickie’s Stickie Piggie Ribbies:

Trickie-Dickie’s Stickie Piggie Ribbies:

Prep:           10 minies, then leave overnighties to marinaties

Cooking:      2 or 3 hours or so. Or more.

Course:        Very messy main

Serves:        6-10

Rating:         3:  Moderate

Find:

• 3 or four full racks of pork spare ribs at around a kilogram each
• 4 cloves garlic …. Or more
• A good shake of Tabasco sauce
• 2” long piece fresh root ginger, peeled and finely chopped/grated
• A small/normal jar of clear honey (just not a bucket)
• Three good big dollops of whole grain mustard….or more
• Several good shakes of Worcestershire sauce
• Optional – A couple of splashes/sploshes of Balsamic Glaze, available at most large supermarkets.
• Optional – Half a glass of whisky; Scotch/Irish/American/Canadian

             Method:

• In a bowl, mix all the glaze ingredients – it’ll look like shit.
• Have lots of foil ready to put the ribs in.
• Spread all of the marinade over the ribs, both sides.
• Rub it in really well. Cover them with foil and put in the fridge and away from any preying animals overnight – like the family pet poodle; it’s still a dog.
• Preheat the oven to gas Mk 6, pour a little water into the oven dishes and transfer the ribs and all the marinade into them.
• Cover the dishes with the same foil and put them in for about half an hour just to get the heat going into the ribs.
• If you have two dishes, alternate them between the upper and lower shelves at about 15 minutes.
• After the 30 minutes, turn the oven down to gas mk 1, or low, or whatever your oven has as a slow temperature and give them another two or three hours, or more, to soften and sticky-ise.
• Baste the ribs every so often, turning them over as you do so. When a couple of hours has passed, just see how they are see and if they need further cooking/higher temperature.
• When cooked, take them out and cut the racks into single ribs and keep them warm until needed.
• Yes, it’s all high-action cookery with Trickie-Dickie’s Stickie Piggie Ribbies.

Tartiflette:

Tartiflette:

PICTURE 26

Tartiflette is like Carcassonne – it’s not quite what it seems. 

Carcassonne in southern France has become regarded as one of the best maintained medieval walled fortress towns of France, whereas the truth of the matter is that it was substantially rebuilt during our Victorian age to encourage what we, these days, call tourism, and thus improve the economy of the town and the region. 

Picture of carcassonne

Have you seen it?  It’s really worth a look.  But what has that got to do with….    Well, Tartiflette has become regarded as an ancient peasant dish from the Savoie region.  True, it comes from the Savoie region, but it was actually invented as recently as the 1980’s by the Syndicat de Reblochon to sell more Reblochon cheese and keep the workers in employment.  Clever ploy, eh?!

Whatever its origin or history, I don’t care – cos it’s gorgeous.

There is no really definitive recipe for Tartiflette, despite its short existence.  However, this is the one that I prefer, the one that we have developed/experienced in the south of France near to Narbonne, though I’m sure if you visit the Savoie region it will be a little different.     And they’ll probably deny everything I’ve said about its origin! (But they’ll have their fingers crossed behind their backs!)

Prep:           20-ish minutes.

Cooking:      35-ish mins.

Course:        Main

Serves:        4-6

Rating:         2:  Easy

Find:

• 1 kg nice waxy new potatoes; boiled, peeled and thickly sliced
• Whole Reblochon cheese
• 200 g cheap rindless smoked bacon or prepared lardons (for a veggie version, omit the bacon and substitute smoked tofu or one of these veggie bacon rasher type things. You’ll need more than this recipe says for the same amount of spuds.)
• 1 large red onion (I sometimes put a shredded leek in there as well)
• 2 cloves garlic (more if you wish to give it more ‘wellie’!)
• Glass of white wine
• Small tub Crème Fraiche
• 50 g butter
• Frying pan – large
• Ceramic oven dish – also large
• Pepper, salt to taste (but be careful with the salt as you have bacon and cheese)

Method:

 

• Wash the potatoes (don’t peel them) and steam them or cook them à l’anglais – in boiling water. Let them cool a little before starting to handle them.
• Slice the bacon into small strips (lardons will be ready for use) and fry in a little grapeseed, rapeseed, groundnut or sunflower oil and butter until the edges just start to brown. Remove, drain and put aside.
• Peel and finely chop the onion. Fry them in the same pan, in the bacon fat until soft.
• Add the wine, moving it about the pan to get all the sticky, gooey bits off the surface of the pan, and then reduce it down a bit to intensify the flavours.
• Peel and thickly slice the now cooled potatoes, frying them with the onions and wine. Finely chop the garlic and put that in as well – don’t allow the garlic to start to brown or it might impart a bitter taste.
• Chuck in the bacon mixture. Ensure that the bacon fat and wine mixture becomes evenly distributed over the entire pan contents. Preheat the oven to 200°C (mk6).
• Pour the crème fraiche over the mixture, mix gently and then pour the whole lot into an oven dish.   Do not remove the natural crust from the Reblochon cheese (though if it has a label or a plastic coating of any sort, remove all of that, of course) and cut into slices ensuring that the harder ‘crust’ or edges are cut quite small and buried deeply so that it softens easily.
• Stir the cheese into the mixture a little, then put some of the thinner slices on top of the potatoes and pop it in the oven for approximately 20 minutes. Check that the top does not over-brown (another way of saying ‘don’t let the bugger burn’.)
• Remove the dish from the oven and let it stand for a few minutes before delving into its steaming contents. Don’t burn your mouth!
• Savour with a glass or four of nice, crisp, white wine – or whatever wine you like.

You’ve just made a dish full of history – recent history, perhaps, but history all the same.

Goat’s cheese stuffed Chicken breast:

Goat’s cheese stuffed Chicken breast:

PICTURE 16

Chicken breast stuffed with anything at all uses the same method, so if you wanted chicken breast stuffed with Politician, you’d use the same process…. Oh, hang on, no.  Politician would be far too bitter – well, they always leave a sour taste in my mouth…. Let’s try again.

Chicken breast stuffed with anything at all uses the same method, so if you wanted chicken breast stuffed with salami, goat’s cheese, preserved lemons…… well, it’s the same method.   So, please consider this to be an object lesson on getting stuffed. 

(Especially for politicians, solicitors and estate agents.)

Prep:           15 mins.

Cooking:      40 mins.

Course:        Main

Serves:         2

Rating:         2:  Easy

Actually…. There are three methods; but let’s not fall out over it.

Find:

• 2 chicken breasts – I’ll let you agonise over whether you use free-range, light barn, deep litter or whatever animal welfare, freedom food or similar scheme you prefer or choose. I applaud what the TV chefs are doing; it’s just a pity that everything that they go for seems to push prices up.
• Goat’s cheese
• Seasonings
• Mick’s Terbs
• Oven dish
• For method two: Cling film
• For method two: Rolling pin or meat mallet (or, at a push, an empty lemonade/beer bottle with the label removed and thoroughly washed and dried)
• For method 3: Rashers of bacon or pancetta

Method 1:

• Using a sharp cook’s knife (that is a cook’s sharp knife, rather than the knife of a sharp cook) slice the chicken breast almost right through horizontally, to open up like a book.
• Season lightly and then spread the goat’s cheese across one ‘page’.
• Drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil onto the cheese, sprinkle a few crystals of sea salt over the top, some dried (or even FRESH) thyme and close.
• Rub a little olive oil into the surfaces of the chicken and place in a greased oven dish.
• Splash a little water into the dish, then sprinkle more dried thyme and either cover with foil, or not (it’s your choice as to whether you cover it; covering will make them more succulent, but leaving it uncovered will brown them) and put into a pre-heated oven at gas mk 4 for 30 minutes.

Method 2:

• Instead of slicing the chicken breast, put it between two pieces of cling film and gently beat it flat. The lack of connective tissue in chicken meat means that you don’t need to beat it within an inch of its life (actually, our dear chucky is already deceased), only to gently clout it flat.
• Take it from its cling film home and lay the cheese, etc, on top, rolling it up into a…… a roll, or parcelling it up from the corners to the centre.
• Cook as method 1.

Method 3:

• As method 1 or 2, but wrap the chicken breast in bacon or pancetta just before going into the oven.

All methods:

• Serve with veg, spuds, rice…… whatever sails your boat.

Luxurious Turkey Steaks in a Creamed White Wine & Brandy Sauce:

Luxurious Turkey Steaks in a Creamed White Wine & Brandy Sauce:

Prep:           10 mins.

Cooking:      25 mins.

Course:        Main

Serves:         4

Rating:         3:  Moderate

Find:-

• 4 good-sized turkey breast steaks
• Onion
• 150g Button mushrooms
• A quarter of a green pepper
• 2 cloves garlic
• Dollop of Crème Fraiche
• 1-2 cups white wine
• Half a mug of chicken stock
• Dried herbs – I’d prefer thyme
• Flour or cornflour – about a tablespoon or so
• 2 good teaspoons of any brandy (optional – it will certainly be nice without, but it’ll be great with)
• Butter
• Oil
• Fresh flat leaved parsley, chopped
• Seasoning – lots of lovely ground black pepper
• Delia’s lovely white rice, or a saffron rice(see Tricks’n’Tips)

Method:

• Cut the onion, garlic and quarter of the green pepper into large, rustic pieces and soften in a frying pan over a medium heat with the oil and butter.
• Add the turkey steaks. Try not to colour them whilst cooking – it will colour the sauce.
• Turn the heat down to minimum, add a splash of water to the pan and cook with the lid on for five minutes – the turkey will retain much more of its moisture that way.
• Add the brandy and allow the alcohol to evaporate (flame it if you wish to), then add the stock, wine, seasonings, dried herbs (Provencal mixed herbs would be fine) and stir all around.
• Add the small button mushrooms, whole. Stir again.  Put the flour/cornflour into a small bowl or a round bottomed cup/mug and add a good knob of soft butter.
• Mix well with a fork to get a sticky lump and melt it into the sauce.
• Stir well. The butter & flour will thicken the sauce and add a gloss to it.
• Add the Crème Fraiche and stir in thoroughly. Bring back to temperature but avoid boiling the mixture.
• Lift out the steaks onto the pre-warmed plates. Give the sauce a final seasoning check, throw in the chopped parsley, stir and pour over the steaks, being generous with the button mushrooms.
• Serve with Delia’s white rice (or a saffron rice would be nice) and vegetables that have good strong colours – green and red.

Yummy!