I do love it when a recipe sort of makes itself up as you go along, and you end up with something much more creative than you originally planned. I wanted to use the beef fillet from my Farmison meat box to make a carpaccio salad. I was originally going to use an Italian leaf salad as a base, but ended up spontaneously turning it into tempura and making quite interesting carpaccio rolls. Continue reading
This next recipe is for a modified pork tonkatsu – the Japanese deep fried pork cutlet served with a curry (or kare) sauce. The Japanese have marvellous ways of appropriating cuisines – I remember reading about how the best full English breakfasts in the world can be found in Japanese five star hotels, where they prepare and execute the dish with such precision that it has become a Japanese specialty in itself. Therefore I was not surprised upon researching katsu curry to find that curry was introduced to Japan via the British during the latter 19th century, during which time of course the Brits were in occupation in India. The Japanese adopted curry, twice removed from its source, and for a long time it was considered a ‘Western’ cuisine. For this reason, katsu curry tastes very different to the curry you might taste in India. Continue reading
I’m going to wrap up my Riverford Organic month with the final item from the meat box, and it’s a goody. A beautiful haunch of venison, boned and rolled at a petite 650g. I had previously cooked another venison dish from the same box – see venison goulash – but this joint seemed to come from an altogether different breed. It felt so velvety smooth and did the weird thing when you press it and it doesn’t spring back (I guess that’s like edema.. which is gross). Continue reading
