Chicken and Fennel Stew

More yummy winter comfort food! I really love the combination of chicken, sausages and fennel in this stew. To accentuate the fennel flavour, you can add a teaspoon of crushed fennel seeds. I have been using this recipe for so long that it exists as a print-out from 2007 in my recipe binder, since tablets and smartphones had not yet come into common usage. While it is a good recipe, I have changed the order and cooking times of things a little to suit my own tastes.

Ingredients

• 1 large or 2 small bulbs fresh fennel, cut into ~16 wedges
• 1 large brown onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 large potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch dice
• 6 chicken thighs
• 3 links sweet Italian sausage (about 1/4 pounds)
• a small wine glass of dry white wine
• 500ml homemade chicken stock
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary
• 1 tsp fennel seeds (optional)
• 1 tbsp good quality balsamic vinegar, more if needed
• freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano, more for sprinkling

If you do not already have chicken stock lying around, use the bones from inside the chicken thighs, some bay leaves, any leftover stalky tough bits of fennel and the roots from the onion in this recipe, and carrot and celery if you have them, to make a chicken stock (set this going first thing). Otherwise, stock powder is OK, although not *quite* as good.

Prepare all of the vegetables. Reserve some outside layers from a couple of the fennel wedges, and all of the feathery green leaves, for garnish. Skin and debone the chicken thighs, and cut the sausages into ~4cm pieces.

Fry the sausage pieces in a little oil in a deep Le Creuset until crisped and browned on the outside. Then, add a little more oil to the pan, and fry the chicken thighs for a minute or so on each side, until golden. Remove the meats from the pan, scraping it a little to remove most of any stuck bits. Add a little more oil and fry the onion and fennel for 4-5 minutes, until the onion has softened, then add the garlic. Pour in the white wine and use a wooden spatula to combine it with the sticky bits on the bottom of the pan. Add the stock, rosemary, fennel seeds (if using) and potatoes and simmer for 10 minutes, until the potatoes are just cooked.

Remove a ladleful or two of the onion, broth and potato (and any bits of fennel that happen to come along too) and set aside, allowing to cool. Meanwhile, return the meat to the pan, and cover, aiming to cook for a further 25 minutes. When the set aside vegetable mixture is cool enough, blend to a paste using a food processor, then scrape back into the pan. Stir the stew occasionally to prevent further sticking. When the chicken is tender, add 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar and taste and adjust the seasoning.

To prepare the garnish, use a very sharp vegetable peeler to shave the reserved layers of fennel into very thin strips. Add the feathery leaves and season with a little salt, pepper and olive oil.

To serve, ladle the stew into individual bowls, top with the garnish, and serve with grated parmesan for people to add.

Sausage and Lentil Stew

A great winter warmer -- the secret ingredient which knits together all the flavours is crushed fennel seeds.

Ingredients

• Six good-quality meaty Italian or French-style sausages
• 10-12 pickling onions or shallots
• 3 rashers bacon
• 1 carrot
• 2 sticks celery
• 4 cloves garlic
• generous glass of red wine
• 150g green lentils
• 2 tsp fennel seeds
• 100g vacuum-packed, canned or rehydrated chestnuts

Method

Chop the sausages into short pieces and top, tail and peel the onions. Trim any tough fat off the bacon and cut into strips. In a large Le Creuset or similar pot, fry the sausages, onions and bacon together for a few minutes, until some of the sausage skin is crisping. Meanwhile, dice the carrots and celery and crush or finely chop the garlic. Add to the sausage. Fry, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes more, then deglaze the pan with the red wine.

Crush the fennel seeds lightly in a mortar and pestle, then add to the stew, along with the lentils. Top up with a little hot water, so that the lentils can cook. Cover and simmer for 1-2 hours, checking and stirring occasionally so it does not stick to the pan. Cook until the onions are soft, sweet and falling apart -- usually slightly longer for shallots than for pickling onions. Stir through the chestnuts and allow to heat through. Serve with mashed potato or potato Colcannon.

Braised Lamb Shank with Shallots and Red Wine

Earlier today I ran 12k. I knew in advance I was going to be pretty much crippled afterwards, and also desperately craving protein. So we picked up a couple of hearty lamb shanks at the butchers' yesterday, ready for a long stew into tenderness. In deference to my sad throbbing legs, we even did the grocery shop in a car, instead of on the bikes as usual! Fun times.

Anyway, back to the recipe. It's a Nigel special but seriously, I think people have been cooking meat like this since the Middle Ages. Or whenever it was that wine was invented. We also found out that in stews, you can happily use pickling onions ($6/kg) instead of shallots ($12/kg): after an hour they taste identical. I'm going to go fall over now.

Ingredients:

• two lamb shanks (or one, or four, depending on how much meat you feel like!)
• 250 ml red wine (doesn't have to be good enough to drink, but shouldn't be vinegar either)
• 250 ml vegetable or meat stock
• 3 sprigs of rosemary
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 8-10 shallots, or pickling onions
• 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard

In a casserole pot, fry the lamb shanks, turning once or twice so that they sear and get nice caramelised edges. Meanwhile, tail and peel the shallots, and split or cut any large ones in half. Slosh the wine onto the meat and add the shallots/onions, vegetable stock, rosemary, and crush in the garlic. Stir once, cover and simmer for an hour and a half, until the meat is falling off the bone. (Or you can pop it into a 160C oven; either way.) Stir in the mustard, and serve with fluffy mashed potatoes and some wilted spinach, with black pepper grated and lemon juice squeezed over.

Beef and Ale Stew

This week I have a plan, and it involves stretching a kilo of cheap beef across three very tasty meals. The trick with cheap cuts of beef is to simmer them for a long time, until the gristly fatty connective tissue breaks down and becomes a thickener for the sauce. By this point the meat itself is tender and falling apart. Wonderful!

First off is the world's simplest stew, something I can always throw together if I have just a few minutes to do the preparation before I go do an hour's work -- or telecon as is usually the case on Tuesdays. Tomorrow I want to use the remaining stew in Cornish pasties, but tonight it's just as-is, with delicious fresh bread spread thickly with margarine to dip in. This recipe serves six if you were to eat it all straight away.

Ingredients:

• 1kg diced beef
• two large brown onions
• a couple of bay leaves
• 500-600ml dark ale (so a pint or a demi depending on your country of origin)
• 15 shallots (optional)
• two large carrots
• four potatoes
• two large tomatoes
• 300g frozen peas (optional)

Chuck the beef in a large heavy-lidded casserole pot (e.g. a Le Creuset) and fry for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, finely dice the onions. Once the meat is a little browned on the outside, add the onions and bay leaves and fry for a further 3-4 minutes, until the onion has lost its raw smell. Pour in the ale and bring up to a simmer; allow to cook uncovered until it stops frothing. If you're using the shallots, cut off the root and peel them, and drop them whole into the stew. Cover and simmer for an hour, checking halfway through to stir and make sure it is not looking dry.

After an hour, check a piece of meat - it should slice easily with a knife, and any fat should be transparent and wobbly. If the meat is still tough or the fat is white and stringy, simmer for a further half hour and check again. Meanwhile, scrub and cube the carrots and potatoes; finely dice the tomatoes. Add to the pan, cover and simmer for a further twenty minutes, until the carrots and potatoes are soft. If using the peas, pour directly into the stew, stir to cover, and simmer for 2-3 minutes until sweet. Chcek the stew for seasoning; it may need 1-2 tsp of salt and a good grinding of pepper. Serve with hot fresh bread.

Lamb and Fennel Stew with Oranges and Mash

A simple stew to make over a lazy hour watching a fan-edited version of the Phantom Menace. The editors did their best but the film is still a train wreck. Luckily we had a delicious stew to cheer us up at the end!

Ingredients

Tastier than it looks ;)

• a large, ripe orange
• 350g stewing lamb
• 300ml of lamb, beef, or vegetable stock
• two bay leaves
• Worcestershire sauce
• half a head of garlic, loosest papery parts removed
• two medium leeks
• the tough parts of a large bulb of fennel (use the fronds and tender parts in a salad)
• salt and pepper

Using a sharp knife or peeler, peel several long strips of orange rind from the orange. In a cast-iron stewing pot, fry the lamb at a moderate heat until seared and caramelised. Pour in the stock, orange rind strips, bay leaves, slosh in a little Worcestershire sauce, and drop in the garlic, whole and unpeeled. Cover and simmer for forty-five minutes, checking occasionally to make sure nothing is sticking.

Tail and slice the leeks lengthwise, discarding any tough or discoloured leaves. Wash, removing all dirt and grit, then roughly chop. Add to the pot and cook for a further twenty minutes, turning every so often. Top up with more water if needed.

Finely slice the tough parts of the fennel, treating it like a smaller version of celery. Add to the pot and simmer for another fifteen minutes. Top up with more water if needed.

In a separate pot, put on some scrubbed potatoes and/or sweet potatoes to boil. Mash with a little salt, butter and mustard and set aside covered, to keep warm.

Test the lamb for doneness- it should be tender and falling apart. Turn off the heat and uncover the pot; slice the orange into segments, dropping them into the pot as you go, in the same way one would for a salad. Squeeze the excess juice into the stew. Fish the garlic head up to the surface and pop the squishy cooked garlic cloves out of their sheaths using a spoon, discarding the papery head when it's empty. Stir through, taste and season - mine needed about half a teaspoon of salt and a good grating of pepper. Serve with the mash.

Gumbo

Ah, gumbo. The taste of Louisiana, so I'm told. This is a rich stew, perfect for cold evenings and a glass (or two) of full-bodied red wine. I like to use chicken, sweet chipolatas from the local butcher, and a very few fresh, raw tiger prawns from the fishmonger. But you could vary this depending on what you have to hand: pork fillet, turkey, even steak would be perfectly acceptable instead of chicken, and some fine smoked fish or scallops would be delicious instead of prawns.

I usually serve this with plain brown rice, but crusty bread or roasted sweet potatoes would also work. This is a good meal to cook for friends as it is fine reheated- just don't add the tiger prawns until you're about to serve. I tend to make it on a Sunday for just the two of us, then keep another two portions for later in the week.

Ingredients:

• 4 (or more if your budget stretches) raw, shell-on, tiger prawns
• 2 large or 4 small chicken thighs
• 6 long, high-quality chipolatas
• 1 red onion
• 1 white onion
• 1-2 green peppers
• 4 fat cloves of garlic
• 1 sweet red chilli (or 2-3 if you like it HOT)
• 3 stems celery
• 4 tbsp plain flour
• half a small glass of red wine
• 2 tins good-quality chopped tomatoes
• 250g okra
• 2 tsp cumin seeds, lightly pounded in a mortar and pestle
• 2 tbsp paprika
• 2 bay leaves

Shell the tiger prawns, and make a quick stock out of their heads and shells, the onion heads and tails, one of the stems of celery and 100ml of water. You can leave this bubbling while cooking the rest of the ingredients.

Add a tbsp of vegetable oil to the bottom of a deep cast-iron pot (Le Creuset is perfect here!), set it over a low heat and finely chop the red and white onions. Gently fry these for ten minutes until translucent. Meanwhile, chop the green pepper and celery into small pieces, and very finely chop the red chilli. Add these and crush the garlic into the onions. Stir and cook for three minutes, until the chilli and garlic have softened. Remove the vegetables from the pan.

Cut the chipolatas into thirds. If there is no oil left in the pan, add a mere drop, and then add in the chicken thighs and the chipolata pieces. Sear them on each side for a few minutes, until the skins are sealed and golden. Add the flour to the oil that will have accumulated from the sausage fat - if there is not at least 1 tbsp in the pan, add a little more. Cook the flour until it has changed to the colour of peanut butter: this is the roux, and it will thicken the stew and add a smoky flavour. Meanwhile, slice the okra diagonally, to make pretty parallelogram pieces.

Splash in the red wine to deglaze (one for you, one for the pan), then return the vegetables and add the two tins of tomatoes, okra, cumin, paprika and bay leaves. Strain your prawn shell stock into the pan. Combine gently, then cook covered for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally so that the mixture does not stick to the bottom. Taste and season, then add the raw tiger prawns to the surface, pushing them just under the liquid. Cover and cook for four more minutes: the prawns should curl up and go pink. Serve with brown rice, or sweet potatoes, or just a dollop of creme fraiche. Top with fresh chives or coriander if desired. Must be eaten with the rest of the red wine, or an ice-cold (lager) beer.