Very Chocolately Broken Biscuit Cake

My wonderful Great-Aunt (I had to look up her official relationship to me… she’s just Auntie Eileen to me) passed on this recipe to my mum a fair few years ago. It’s just a base recipe really – brilliant on its own, but feel free to change as you see fit. I hear it’s exceptionally good if you use hob-nobs… (and I used dark chocolate digestives for the picture you see below). It’s also really, really simple & quick – should take 10 minutes top.

Ingredients:
125g Butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup
250g digestive biscuits
1 dessertspoon drinking chocolate
1 tablespoon raisins
125g melted chocolate
1 dessertspoon golden caster sugar
1 Tablespoon Raisins

Method:

1) Get a pyrex bowl. Put in it the butter, syrup, raisins, sugar and drinking chocolate. Melt mixture over a pan of boiling water (or do what I do, which is stick it in the microwave for a minute or so – until you’re sure it’s all melted together).

2) Get a sandwich bag (I used clingfilm – they stop the crumbs going everywhere), crush the biscuits, add the crumbs to the melted mixture. Stir until they’re covered in chocolately goodness.

3) spread in a dish or tray – I use a 22cm cake tin.

4) Melt chocolate in microwave – approx 30-40 seconds on high. Stir to make sure it’s smooth.

5) spread chocolate on top of mixture. Allow to set

before

eating. (I usually fail, but it’s worth waiting. I speed up the process by sticking it in the fridge for 20 mins.

6. Scoff, pretend you’ve never heard of the word ‘calories’. Enjoy.

Biscuit cake!

Slow cooked beef brisket with leek, horseradish and cannellini bean mash

Ingredients (serves 3/4):
1 beef brisket joint. Mine was just under a kilo.
2 onions
1 bottle Guinness (350ml)
2 stems thyme, leaves only

For the mash:
4 leeks
2 cloves garlic
1 400g tin cannellini beans
3 tbsp creme fraiche
knob of butter
2 stems parsley
2 stems thyme, leaves only
Hot horseradish sauce.

Method:

Take the joint out of the fridge at least half an hour before you want to start cooking it. That lets the meat return to room temperature naturally – and should therefore be even more tender when you come to eat it.

Then heat the slow cooker up with a small amount of hot water in the bottom, and stick it on high for 10 mins. After this, chuck the water out so the pot is empty, and turn the slow cooker down to low.
Chop the onions finely, and put them on the bottom of the pot. Put the joint on top in the middle. Season with salt and black pepper. Pour over the Guinness, and replace the lid. Leave for 6 hours.

6 hours later, rub in the thyme leaves into the meat, and give it another turn of the pepper mill. It’s worth turning the onions in the gravy too. Leave until it’s had 8-10 hours in full.

For the mash, chop the main part of the leek leaves off – so they look like swords. Don’t use them as swords. Now chop them into small rings – 1cm across, say. Put the knob of butter in the frying pan and gently fry the leeks for 20 minutes, or until they’re softened. Stir in the garlic and thyme leaves.

Now grab your food processor. Or masher, grinder or…um.. chopper. Blend the beans into the leek mixture. Add parsley and creme fraiche. Add pepper to season. Also, for a bit of a kick – I’d suggest 2 heaped teaspoons of hot horseradish sauce.

When it’s been puree’d, return it to the frying pan to reheat.

Take the joint out, carve into three or four large doorsteps. Scoop the mash into a serving dish.
Serve. Enjoy, with another bottle of Guinness for effect.

Relatively lazy but vaguely impressive man’s slow cooked lasagne…

Here’s the ingredients you need (makes 2 and a fair bit):

minced steak beef (450g)
passata (700g)
pancetta (a small tub)
worcester sauce (a dash)
red wine (a hefty splash)
basil (leaves only,4 stalks worth)
parsley (a couple of stems)
pepper (3 turns of the mill)
salt (a pinch)
onion (1 chopped)
garlic (3 cloves)
lasagne sheets, no need to pre-cook (x4…ish)
Mozzarella (1 ball, cut into pieces)
Cheddar (100g)
Tomato puree (a long squeeze)
Mushrooms (optional)

FOR THE WHITE SAUCE
Milk (300ml)
Butter (25g)
Plain Flour (25g)
Grated Cheddar (50g)
Creme Fraiche (a large dollop)

Method:

It’s pretty simple this, but takes a bit of transferring from pot to pot. I wanted to eat at about 7/7.30pm, but you could serve this an hour earlier without changing the recipe…

About 11.30am, stick your mince in the bottom of the slow cooker. Over the top, place the chopped onion & garlic. Then, making sure your hands are clean, use them to mash the onions and mince together – to break up the mince from its rectangular shape. Once that’s done, wash your hands, give the pepper mill a couple of turns over the top and leave on high for 20 minutes.

By midday, add the passata, the tomato puree and the worcester sauce. You could probably chuck half the herbs in here too – and mushrooms, if you want. My friend doesn’t like them, which I find bizarre – but a few chopped field mushrooms would probably go marvellously with this. Also open the bottle of wine, give the mixture a generous cupful of red and then mix it all together, put the lid on and put the heat on low. Wash yourself down and reward yourself with the rest of the bottle for some bloody hard work.

Do nothing for about 6 hours. Well, you could probably spend it doing something useful. I went to the gym, ate a cookie, listened to some tunes and did some ironing, but you get the idea.

Come 5.30pm-ish, take a look at your slow cooker. Is it on fire? No? Good. Give everything a stir, and make yourself a cuppa cos the next bit’s when the real work starts…

Get your pancetta, and stick it in a small frying pan. Give it a couple of minutes on high, making sure it doesn’t stick to the pan – and don’t add any oil. When your two minutes are up, stick the pancetta in the slow cooker mixture – making sure to leave as much grease from the pancetta out of the mixture as possible. At this stage, add the rest of the herbs, and mix all together. Leave it bubbling for another half hour – making sure it tastes ok first. By now it should be tasting rather magnificent, as the steak mince has had time to release its flavour.

Now for the white sauce. Get a blender, it’s much easier. Stick the milk in first, then add the butter, flour & cheddar. For an extra dose of creamyness, a dollop of creme fraiche is never a bad idea. Spin into oblivion (or when it’s smooth). Leave in the blender for a few minutes. This is quite a good time to wash up… or get yourself a cuppa.

Now stick your oven on – you’ll need to pre-heat it to 180F – which the interwebs tells me is Gas Mark 4.

Grab yourself a LARGE casserole dish. The one you’ve got that you think will fit? Not big enough. Get the big one.

After the pancetta’s had about half an hour in the mixture, test it to see if you need to add any more pepper/salt. I tend not to use any salt in cooking, really, but you might like it, so now’s a good time to ‘season to taste’.

Making sure it’s all mixed together, transfer the mixture into your casserole dish layer by layer. That means – a layer of mixture, followed by enough of the white sauce to cover it, followed by the lasagne sheets, broken and laid mosaic-style. Don’t worry about it covering the whole thing – if it’s 75% covering the sauce, you’re about right.
Repeat unti you’re about 1cm from the top of the dish.
Then, having chopped the mozzarella, lay it across the top of the dish (i prefer the last layer to be the sheets, but it’s personal preference) and place the rest of the chopped or grated cheddar around it.

Once that’s done, stick it in the oven for about 25-30 minutes. It’s a good idea to put it on a larger baking tray if possible, as then that will catch any of the cheese that comes over the side.

The Lazy Man's ace lasagne

Organise whatever else you want for the meal (breads, salads etc) and then once it’s browned on top – but not burnt – check to see the lasagne sheets are cooked by sticking a knife in it.

If so, serve up, having already welcomed a pretty lady round to yours with another bottle of opened red. Indulge in witty conversation and banter while becoming ever more sozzled.

Afterwards, wash up while listening to top tunes. I suggest Stevie Wonder’s Superstition and Prince’s Raspberry Beret. It makes it much easier.