Trotter Gear Recipes
We'll feature a recipe which will assist you in your exploration of Unctuous Potential every few months (see the news page for a link to another Trotter Gear recipe from Tom Parker Bowles), but to start you off on your journey here's a simple dish to banish Sunday night blues.
PRUNES, BACON and TROTTER
(supper for two)
1lb piece of bacon chopped into half matchbox sized pieces
2 large onions peeled, cut in half and sliced thinly in to half moons
6 Agen prunes with the stones left in
1 dessert spoon of duck fat
1 glass of white wine
250g bag of Trotter Gear
Salt and pepper to taste
Fry the bacon in the duck fat until it begins to brown and add the sliced onions. Allow these to soften and pour in the glass of white wine; let all this bubble away for a moment.
Now add your bag of Trotter Gear and bring the pan to a gentle simmer and add the prunes, season and transfer to an oven proof dish and if you think you need to, add a drop of water to ensure moisture throughout.
Cover with foil and place in a medium oven for 1 hour to 90 minutes or until the bacon is gently giving up to a skewer.
Serve with mashed potatoes.
This is a great treat for the chef who has prepared a forerib for Sunday lunch. If you take the flap off the rib of beef, it makes an ideal piece of stewing steak.
BEEF & PICKLED WALNUT STEW
(from Beyond Nose to Tail: A Kind of British Cooking Part II)
(to serve two)
1 flap from the forerib
4 red onions peeled and sliced
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and left whole
a bundle of thyme and rosemary
1/2 bottle of red wine
2 x 250g bags of Trotter Gear
8 pickled walnuts
sea salt and black pepper
Place the beef flap fat down in a casserole on not too high a heat - this will render some of the fat, so that you have something to cook your onions in.
Remove the beef, add the onions and cook until tender. It may seem an excessive amount of onion but they give off vital acid which will help break the beef down into a hopefully tender beast.
Return the beef to the pan with the garlic, herbs, salt, pepper, wine and add the Trotter Gear which will nurture the beef, as the onions will tenderise. Now cover with foil and place in a gentle oven.
After 90 minutes, add the pickled walnuts. Cook for a further 2 hours, which gives you time for a bath and a couple of dry Martinis, sniffing the musk of your braised beef.
Cut in to chunky slices and serve with mashed potato.