April 2007 Archives

Stats
Serves: 2
Prep Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 1hr 30mins

Ingredients
6 sausages
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
5 shallots, coarsely chopped
2 green peppers, sliced
50g Pearl Barley
Knob of butter
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 pint chicken stock
200g Anya potatoes, chopped into 2cm(ish!) chunks, skin on
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tin lentils

Method
1. Start cooking Pearl Barley as per instructions (usually bring to boil in cold water, discard, rinse and start simmering with fresh cold water)
2. Brown off the sausages with the butter on the hob in a casserole dish
3. Add the garlic, onion and shallots and cook on a low heat until softened (You may need to remove the sausages if they get too brown!)
4. Add the potatoes and chopped peppers and make sure they're coated with the butter and sausage fat
5. Add the chopped tomatoes, lentils, chicken stock and return the sausages if removed earlier
6. Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer for five minutes
7. Add the pearl barley (once drained)
8. Cook in oven at 180 degrees C for an hour without the lid on

Notes
Most people say that you should get really good sausages for this, but any will do really. The one exception to that is to NOT use "value" sausages. So, hit the middle ground, not really cheap sausages, but also don't worry about using "[Supermarket] Finest / Taste the Difference" level.

Stats
Serves: n/a
Prep Time: 5 mins
Cooking Time: 1.5 hours

Ingredients
1 Chicken carcass, with wings, giblets not required
1 carrot, chopped in half
1 onion, quartered
2 tablespoons of black peppercorns, roughly crushed

Method
1. Cut the chicken carcass into four or more pieces and place in a stock pot, add any bits of the chicken not being retained for eating such as the skin from the breasts
2. Add all other ingredients and cover with water to an inch over
3. Bring to the boil, then simmer for the duration
4. Strain, cool and use

It really is that simple and tastes a thousand times better than stock cubes