Essential Cuisine - the professional choice for stock

As someone who cooks rather a lot, stock is an essential in the store cupboard. When I have the time I make my own and freeze it, but I don't always have the time, that's were a stash of quality stock powder comes in very useful.

I have always been unhappy with the quality of the majority of stock cubes and powders available in supermarket, they are often overly salty and of variable quality. So a couple of years ago I was delighted to be sent a sample of professional quality stock powders from Essential Cuisine, since then this stock range has become a regular feature of my larder.

The stocks are of high quality, light and fresh tasting and a great addition to any dish giving a professional finish, the powders dissolve easily in water or milk or when added straight to the pan. The black pots stack easily and come in vegetable, fish, lamb, beef, chicken and veal varieties and each pot making a minimum of 6 litres of stock so they are also great value.

I can't recommend them highly enough, they can be purchased via a selected range of stockists, mail order via their easy to website or at various food shows across the country.

                                         

Smoked haddock, leek and pea fishermans pie

I love fish pie, nursery comfort food at its best. This week I decided to make a variation on the classic and it proved a popular dish, definately something I would make again. Pretty economical too as I was able to utilise mostly ingredients from the freezer or store cupboard, the tasty dish is gluten free and utilsed some of the stock powder I had kindly been sent by Essential Cuisine.

I really like Essential cuisines range of stocks as they are not over salted and very tasty, they are very like homemade stock, light in colour and allergy friendly. The smoked haddock I used in this recipe was from a frozen pack but I prefer if possible to use undyed smoked haddock if you can get it, any other white smoked would work too. The peas were frozen petit pois but you could easily use ordinary peas if that is all you have. I had the leeks and creme fraiche in the fridge and potatoes in the cupboard.

What you need

• 2 smoked haddock fillets, skinned and de boned - cut into bite size pieces
• 2 leeks, topped tailed and cleaned. Cut in to fine circles
• Essential cuisine fish stock powder - make to about 150ml stock
• Creme fraiche
• Dill 
• Cornflour
• Frozen petit pois / peas - ramekin full
• Salt and pepper
• Potatoes ( 1 used 2 large poatatoes for 2 people)
• Butter or vegetable oil

What you do

• Gently heat a little butter or oil in a large frying pan, add the leeks and cook for a few minutes until they are starting to soften
• Add the fish pieces and cook very gently until just coloured, now add the peas to the pan and the creme fraiche (I used about 2 tbsp), the fish stock and dill.
• Simmer gently until you have a sauce of your desired thickness, if necessary thicken with slaked cornflour. (Slaked is when the cornflour is mixed into a paste with little water or milk or stock). Taste and season
• Place the pie filling in your chosen dish and allow to cool
• Meanwhile cook your potatoes for your mash, once ready then mash with a little butter and season to taste
• Place the mashed potatoes on top of your pie
• Pre heat the ove to 180c and bake for approx 25 minutes until golden on top and the sauce is bubbling
• Serve immediately

Smoked haddock, leek and pea risotto , using DelishFish

I recently placed my first order with DelishFish on the recommendation of a number of other food bloggers, its a delightfully easy website to find your way around and gives good information about the different types of fish available,  So I chose a variety of fish, all which arrived really quickly at the peak of freshness right to my door,the courier even called first to check I would be in to receive my delivery and John the owner tweeted me to check everything had arrived Ok.

The quality of the fish was second to none, lovely large fillets, all individually packed and labelled so its easy for the cook, the packaging was great too, so everything arrived lovely and cool and intact. The fish was very good value for the quality of fish so I will be ordering again from John at Delish Fish.

I love smoked haddock and John's is reputed to be the best in the country ( as per River Cottage website) so I wanted a recipe that would really show off this ingredient to its full, I make smoked haddock chowder a lot but wanted a more evening meal dish so I thought risotto, peas for a sweet hit to contrast with the smoky fish and a soft oniony backnote coming from the leeks. 

Ingredients

• 1 large fillet Smoked haddock - undyed DelishFish's preferably
• 1 Leek - cleaned and cut into fine rings
• Risotto rice - 
• Frozen petit pois - handful
• Fish stock - I used Essential cuisine
• Parsley or dill to garnish
• Olive oil

If feeling especially decadent you could top with a poached egg 

Method

• In a large frying pan warm a little olive oil, gently softened the leeks without colouring
• Next add your risotto rice and stir gently to coat the grains in the olive oil and cooking juices from the leek
• Next add a small quantity of your fish stock, stir and gently simmer until absorded
• Keep adding stock in small quantities and stirring until the rice is tender
• Microwave your fish on a plate covered with cling film and a couple of drops of water - a couple of minutes should do the trick.
• Once the rice is pretty much cooked add the frozen peas and little more stock , simmer for a few more minutes then stir in the flaked cooked fish and any juices on the plate
• Sprinkle with parsley and serve

This is lovely dish creamy in texture but with no added diary and light but satisfying, great if you are watching your figure too.

Season of Soups, Stews and Casseroles Round Up

                                         

Firstly apologies for the delay in the round up for the blog competition, what with Christmas, a short spell in hospital for me and a change of judge things have got a little delayed. Anyway on with the round up, the blog competition saw some great entries from food bloggers across the country who gladly shared treasured recipes for the chance of winning our great prize from Essential Cuisine.

                                                          

I am also very grateful to Stosi Madi the talented chef from the multi award winning Parkers Arms in Newton in Bowland who stepped in to judge  the competition. The Parkers Arms is a gorgeously situated country inn  in the stunning Trough of Bowland in Lancashire, Stosi is passionate about the use of local produce in her fine establishment and I can whole heartily recommend a visit, I am not alone in singing her praises either as the establishment features in many of the restaurant guides and many a  food critic have sampled her culinary delights too.

A warm welcome at the Parkers Arms

On with the entries , we had 6 diverse dishes to consider, our first entry was from Karen Booths Burns over at the fantastic food blog  Lavender and Lovage, a comforting chicken and corn chowder, Karen got extra marks for using Essential Cuisine Stock in her chowder too !

                               

Karen's second entry was a delicious sounding Highland stew which despite being rib stickly warming is actually a diet food !

                               

Now we are off over to Janice at Farmersgirl Kitchen who's entry was another warming comforting recipe  of Chicken broth featuring that lovely grain barley. 

                               

Our next entry was a German pork, beef and sauerkraut goulash from Claire at Foodie Quine blogging in Aberdeenshire, who came up with this recipe to get her in the mood for her festive trip to the Munich Christmas markets. 

                               

Over to Recipe Junkie now for a man sized chicken pie made with her own stock, just what you need on a cold winters day.

                               

Last but no means least our final entry is from Claire over at  Ooo Bi Doo, who's entry is a sausage and bean casserole, sorry no picture, this is Ooo Bi Doo's first blog post and hopefully not her last.

OUR WINNER IS JANICE AT FARMERSGIRL KITCHEN, CONGRATULATIONS YOU PRIZE IS ON ITS WAY ! Stosi was very impressed by the standard of entries and loved the look of this dish.

Season of Soups and Stews

The Season of Soups, stews and casseroles is well and truly with us, warming delicious recipes which provide comfort against the weather outside. Lancashire Food is proud to be hosting a great blog link up with Essential Cuisine, the fabulous stock company, to share some of the best soup, stews and casseroles recipes in the world, the only rule being they need to include stock of some type, so if you have a favourite recipe why not share. We have a fabulous prize very kindly donated by Essential cuisine of a mixed selection of their lovely stocks so you can go on creating great comfort food long after you have entered the competition.

Essential cuisine have some great recipes on the website and the definition of whats a stew and whats a casserole just in case you want to know, in fact its packed with loads of great tips and suggested uses. All the stocks are gluten free and are free from nasties and the vegetable stock is even suitable for vegans.

Rules

• Your recipe must contain some form of stock to qualify for entry
• Ensure that you include in your blog post the lovely badge
• You must link back to this blog post
• If you are on twitter please tweet about your entry using the #Soups_&_Stews
• Please be respectful of copyright and give credit to the original source if you have been inspired by another recipe, you can link up old posts but you must embed the link and use the badge
• The blog link up will run until the 10th December 2012
• The winner will be chosen by a representative from Essential Cuisine

To get your creative juices flowing why not have a look at  some of my recipes for soups, stews and casseroles.