As Strong As Soup

Venison shanks are a flavourful, reasonably-priced (usually) cut of meat. They need lengthy cooking and are ideal for letting a slow cooker do all the hard work. This looks like quite a long recipe but it's actually a pretty straightforward and relaxed way to get beautifully tender meat which tastes a little different to the usual ways of flavouring venison.  I've owned a number of slow cookers over the years and I wish I could say that they all behave in exactly the same way. But I can't. So the cooking time here should be treated as a reasonable, but in no way foolproof, recommendation. I've used a five spice paste to give extra depth and make things easy, but a little five spice powder could be added instead, if that's what you have. I think the gochujang works particularly well with the venison, but you could substitute a different chilli paste (maybe a smoky one) if you prefer. This should be enough for 4 people and, since it delivers some punchy flavour, is pr...

The mention of goat meat will cause many people of my acquaintance to run screaming from the room. I'm not really sure why this is. Goat is a very tasty, lean meat that's well suited to long, gentle cooking, especially in a slow cooker. The first goat dish I bumped into many, many years ago was a Jamaican goat curry and I'm still tempted to make a version of that dish whenever I find good goat meat. But this time I decided to do something a little different after I read that “traditional” rogan josh is often made with goat. This isn't an authentic or traditional rogan josh. My recipe is really a mishmash of the nicest rogan josh dishes that I've eaten in England combined with elements of other slow-cooked curries. The origins of the true, traditional rogan josh seem to be disputed but I favour the idea that the name derives from ratan jot (alkanet root) which was originally used to give the dish a distinct red colour.  Goat meat tends to be very lean but for...

I couldn't bring myself to eat mulligatawny for a long time. In the distant past, long before I became a happily married man, I was eating a bowl of mulligatawny in a London pub garden with my then girlfriend. Suddenly she  jumped up, shouted “I've got to see my bodhrán teacher while I've still got the chance” and, without finishing her drink, ran off – very fast. I've never felt quite the same about mulligatawny since. No two people seem to agree what should be in this soup. This recipe makes a mild soup of contrasting textures which is how I like to think that mulligatawny tasted all those years ago, although, to be honest, it probably didn't. The easiest way to make this soup, I think, is by pre-cooking the lamb in a slow cooker, but you can cook it in a more conventional way if you prefer. This recipe should make 8 portions. For reasons I've already discussed, I wouldn't personally recommend listening to traditional Irish music while eating mull...

I really like slow cookers - in fact I've got two of them (it's a long story). But I’ve found that you can’t simply take a standard casserole recipe, shove it in a slow cooker and expect perfect results. They do need a little tweaking at the very least. But they do work really well for some types of casserole and I think game is one of the best meats for a slow cooker. 500 g cubed venison 1 red onion, quite finely chopped 2 carrots, peeled and cut into fairly small chunks 150 ml chopped tomatoes 1 tbsp tomato purée 1½ tbsp redcurrant or rowan jelly or cranberry sauce A squeeze or two of lemon juice For the marinade: A few pieces of orange peel (from about ⅓ of an orange at most) ½ tsp dried thyme 4 tbsp genièvre (or gin, but I just happen to have some genièvre) 2 tbsp blackberry vinegar Dash of Worcester sauce 200 ml red wine  Put all the marinade ingredients together in a bowl and add the carrots, onion and venison. Mix well, cover and leave in the fridge ove...