It’s my aim for 2024 to focus in on basic cooking skills.

Whilst I’d say I’m competent making Indian based dishes I need to improve or take my home cooking to another level.

Last night I put this dish together off the top of my head due to ingredients we had left over from Christmas.

Three simple stages, a stage for each process which resulted in a really good meal.

Gammon –

As simple as placing the game in a little orange juice. Heating the oven to 180c. The gammon going in the oven for 2 1/2 hours lightly covered in tin foil.

After 2 1/2 hours I mixed 2 tbsp of golden syrup with 1 large heaped tbsp of wholegrain mustard. Scored the top of the meat then applied the flavour mix to the top. Recovered with tin foil and back in the oven for another 30 minutes.

Wedges –

As the gammon went into the oven for the second time with the marinade as did the wedges.

The wedges were made from left over potatoes. Cut into nice size portions, parboiled for 5 minutes to make them soft but do not over cook them. Drained and allowed to cool slightly. They were added to a baking tray which had a good amount of olive oil on. Tossed around in the oil. A good sprinkling of Cajun spice mix added then placed in the oven. About tho thirds of the way through they were shaken up and placed back In the oven.

Parsley sauce –

This is the main process I need to improve on. Just basic cooking skills. Whilst I did have a recipe with measurements I chance my arm and made it from sight.

The recipe was – 40g of butter, 40g of plain flour, 500ml of milk, good handful of chopped flat leaf parsley and 1 tsp of English mustard.

I like I mentioned cooked this from sight.

Added the butter to a small saucepan. The butter was melted down.

The flour was added and whisked together.

The milk and butter will become your rue.

Add a little of the milk at a time. It’s important to keep whisking. The first bit of milk will instantly cause the mixture to thicken but don’t worry about this. Continue to add the milk and whisk.

This process takes less the 3 minutes so why buy any packet mixes ??

Add your chopped parsley once the lumps of rye have been whisked out. Follow this with the English mustard. I did add a little black cracked pepper at the end but that’s personal choice.

You’re left with a beautiful sauce.

The finished dish.

Thank you for reading my ramblings.