Winter Warming Pot Au Feu

Well, we promised you a delicious, hearty winter-warmer, so that’s exactly what you’re getting this week – it’s Pot au Feu! This classic French dish is a staple during the winter months and it’s got everything you might want on a cold January night after work. Literally translated as "pot on the fire", (doesn’t get much cosier than that, eh?!) this dish uses mostly winter vegetables and the best cuts of beef for stewing. It is one of Carine’s favourite classic slow-cooked stews - earthy; meaty and full of vegetables, served in a clear broth which is – and here we quote – “scrumptiously delicious”.

Sounds pretty good, huh? Let’s get started! This recipe serves 6 people, and can be a real showstopper, or you can simply keep it all for yourself and have it several days in a row!

Ingredients

• 1.5kg Beef (choose the best cuts for stewing – we recommend oxtail, cheeks, brisket or additional lean beef)
• Beef bones for deeper flavour (optional)
• 3 large carrots
• 2 sticks of celery
• 2 potatoes
• 2 turnips
• 2 medium leeks
• 1 onion
• 5 cloves
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Bouquet Garni (2 bay leaves, 5 fresh sprigs of thyme, parsley – traditionally tied together with cooking string, but this isn’t strictly necessary!)
• 1 beef or vegetable stock cube (optional)
• 10 black peppercorns
• Coarse sea salt (to taste)

Method

1) Tie your meat with cooking string to help it keep its shape while it cooks. If you can’t find cooking string, cut the meat into big chunks instead.

2) Peel the carrots, wash your leeks and celery, then cut all into large chunks.

3) Peel your onion and stud it with the cloves.

4) Place your meat, stock, and bones if you have them in a large pot and add 5 litres of cold water.

5) Bring to the boil and skim the broth regularly, removing the foam.

6) Once the mixture no longer forms a foam on the top, turn down the heat and add the rest of the ingredients.

7) Bring the mix back to the boil, cover it then let it simmer over a very low heat for a minimum of 4 hours (if you have a slow-cooker, you can use this, turning the setting to “Low”).

8) To serve, remove the meat and vegetables from the broth and place them on a plate, then ladle over a little broth. Carine serves her pot au feu with Dijon mustard or Dijon Mayonnaise, but we’ll leave your condiment choices up to you.

Bon appetite! We hope this warms your cockles. If you do have a go making this at home, get in touch on Twitter and let us know – we’d love to hear how you got on! 

The Story of Marie's Little Jar

“As I develop food and recipes from time to time I come across special a flavour that goes beyond one dish. Marie’s Little Jar is the result of those special flavours.”

When Carine’s not busy running supper clubs or making food for the Supper app, she can be found in her kitchen, coming up with exciting new products for her line Marie’s Little Jar.

How it all started:

Marie’s Little Jar was born from Carine’s deeply-held belief that everyone should aim to cook more at home. At the same time, she understands that not everyone has the time and resources necessary to make delicious meals from scratch every day of the week. Thus was born Marie’s Little Jar, a range of products designed to bring that little extra oomph to your cooking, for minimal effort.

“Marie” is Carine’s first name, and the “Little Jar” indicates that little kitchen secret, that jar of something special you always have in the cupboard. In other words, Carine is opening her kitchen to you, in order to make your life tastier and simpler.

None of the sauces in the MLJ range conform to one specific cuisine, but Carine is continually influenced by the cooking and ingredients of her home country – Cameroon. Cameroonian food makes creative and unexpected use of spices, a theme which carries through all of Carine’s cooking, including the Marie’s Little Jar range and, to this day, many of the spices she uses come straight and only from Cameroon.

What makes MLJ unique:

• The sauces are raw and use only natural preservatives and no additives
• High in flavour
• Minimal processing
• Focuses on “free from”, suitable for vegans
• Besides the Cameroonian spices, all produce is sourced locally
• Increasingly made from foraged produce
• Encourage sustainability.
• Made locally in Carine’s home kitchen

What’s in the range:

Marie’s Little Jar features a range of kitchen goodies - from flavoured sauces, marinades, and jams, to flavoured salts and other tasteful kitchen combinations.”

The Green Sauce – This basil-based sauce is Carine’s secret weapon, developed to add that extra zing to your homemade dishes. It is both a marinade and a condiment - not quite pesto, not quite hot - the exact spices and herbs in this sauce are a closely-guarded secret, but we can promise you, you will love it. Originally created as a marinade for grilled meat, it is ideal for a BBQ.

The Red Sauce – Sun-dried-tomato-based, this warming Mediterranean-inspired sauce is ideal for pasta and fish dishes. The perfect speedy supper without compromising on taste.

The Hot Chilli Pepper Sauce – CAUTION: this sauce is HOT HOT HOT. Made from a highly-confidential mix of spices and chilli peppers, this fiery concoction is packed full of unexpected flavours. Very spicy and utterly delicious, this is a welcome addition to any dish you want to pack a punch.

What’s coming in 2016:

As well as developing her “free from” collection further, Carine has some exciting new additions to the Marie’s Little Jar roster.

The Foraged Range:

• Wild Garlic Pesto
• Wild Apple & Rosehip Chutney
• Blackberry
• Elderberry-Caper

The Flavoured Salt Range, made with real sea-salt from France:

• Cacao, Rosemary & Vanilla-flavoured Salt - Perfect for slow roast (Lamb)
• Penja Pepper-flavoured Salt - Highly-flavoured white pepper from Cameroon, perfect for grilled meat and fish
• Pork Rub-flavoured Salt -Ideal on Pork
• Red Wine-flavoured Salt - Perfect for stew
• Pink Grapefruit & Thyme-flavoured and Lemon & Lime-flavoured salt -The perfect finish for your salads

It looks like 2016 is going to be a delicious year! If you want to try any of the products mentioned here – head to the Facebook page and keep an eye on her Twitter to find out where she will be selling next!

Edible Christmas Gifts - Hot Chocolate Sticks

With just a week and a bit to go until Christmas, it is highly likely that, for some of you, present-based panic has set in. If you read our blog a few weeks ago, you may have got some lovely vanilla extract ready, but if you fancy something a little more traditional, we’ve got the perfect edible gift for you – Hot Chocolate sticks.

These delightful little sweet treats are perfect for the Christmas season – not only are they a delicious and thoughtful gift, they are also a wonderful warming treat to enjoy during a long cold January, post-Christmas.

This recipe can be done in one of two ways – one which can be made with normal bars of chocolate, which you can get from your local supermarket, but is best done with a blender, and one for which you don’t need a blender which is made with cacao butter and raw cocoa powder.

Recipe 1

Ingredients

• 50g Cocoa butter - 1kg is about £15
• 100g Raw cacao powder - 1kg is about £13 BUT you can make it with normal cocoa powder
• 1 can (normally 397g) Condensed milk
• Double cream
• Icing sugar, to sweeten, to taste

Method

• Weigh out all your ingredients
• Put your cocoa butter in a bain marie (a heatproof bowl over a pan of boiling water)
• Add the cocoa powder.
• Mix until smooth.
• Add the cream and continue to mix.
• Add the condensed milk and keep mixing.
• Taste, and add icing sugar if you want it to be sweeter.
• Coat the inside of your moulds with coconut oil or some other mild-tasting oil.
• Pour the mix into moulds and allow to cool in the fridge for 1 hour
• Then add the sticks.
• Allow to cool entirely in the fridge overnight.
• Remove from moulds, wrap in cellophane.

Top Tip – add some fun extras like spices - how about powdered cinnamon to make it Christmassy?! – or little marshmallows, like we've done below.

Recipe 2

Ingredients

• 600g of bar chocolate (dark, milk, or white) – you could do a mix
• 375g condensed milk
• 125ml Double Cream

Method

• Pour condensed milk and double cream into a pan, mix a bit then heat it GENTLY on medium heat until it starts to simmer
• Make sure it doesn’t stick – keep stirring it.
• Blitz up your chocolate in a blender or – if you don’t have a blender – just chop/bash it up as small as possible. You are aiming for a powder-like consistency if you can so it will melt as quickly as possible.
• Turn the temperature right down on your cream and condensed milk mixture.
• Pour your blitzed up chocolate into a heat-proof bowl and add in your cream and condensed milk mixture.
• Mix thoroughly, making sure there are no lumps.
• Pour into moulds – or into a normal deep baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper, to be cut into squares later.
• Pop your moulds or tray in the fridge for 3-4 hours.
• After 4 hours, pop in your sticks, then put back in the fridge overnight.

Top Tip – Use three different kinds of chocolate, split your cream and condensed mixture into three, and make different coloured layers, like we've done below – or you could make swirly patterns in it. It’s up to you!

To use either of these lovely chocolate sticks, all you need to do is heat up a cup of milk and swirl the stick through it for the perfect wintry hot chocolate. (Or, don’t bother with the sticks at all, and just enjoy it as a delicious, rich pudding!) Have fun!

Edible Christmas Gifts - Vanilla Essence

I don’t want to alarm anyone but… there is exactly one month to go until Christmas. 4 short weeks which may not leave you enough time to get the perfect Christmas gifts for the special people in your life. So Carine is here to help! Instead of frantically hitting the shops last minute, plan ahead and make some of your presents this year. And what could be better than a home-made gift? 

A home-made gift you can eat!

This week we are going to show you how to make Vanilla Extract. It is incredibly simple, looks lovely, and will end up being a genuinely useful thing for all your family and friends who like to bake or cook.

Below are some examples of the vanilla extract you can get in the supermarket. Even the cheapest is over a pound and you only get a measly 35ml – we are going to show you how you can make more than 5 times that for a fraction of the price. We suggest you make this for multiple friends and family members to keep the cost down even more.

What you need

1) Glass bottle – You can go for any size. We have chosen to go for 200ml, as it looks a little more expensive and generous- but you can always make multiple little bottles or whatever you feel like. A 200ml bottle can cost you as little as 73p, like the one we found here, or as much as £2.90 and higher, if you go for a decorative or novelty bottle like this adorable Christmas tree one. 

2) Cheap vodka – And we do mean cheap, the cheapest you can find – we’re going for alcohol here rather than flavour, the flavour will all be from the vanilla.

3) Vanilla Beans – These don’t have to be expensive, but they can be when you buy them in the supermarket. Instead, buy them online where you can find deals like this – 20 beans for less than a tenner (that’s around 50p per bean!) And with these you can make 10-20 bottles.

Method

1. Pour your cheap vodka into your bottle until it is three-quarters full.
2. Slice your pod in half and scrape out the seeds.
3. Add the seeds to the bottle.
4. Add the pod itself.
5. Do this with 2 pods, if you’re feeling super-generous.
6. Fill up to the top with the rest of the vodka.
7. Close the bottle and leave for 4-6 weeks – the longer the better really – shaking the bottle gently every day.

Carine's Vanilla Essence after 2 weeks.

And that’s it really! Add a bow and pop it in a cellophane bag or nice box and there you go – a quirky, thoughtful, useful Christmas gift. So put down the cheap perfume/cufflinks and get on with it!

And to watch Carine do it herself, head to our YouTube channel!