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Date: 22/11/06

Recipe Corner

I'm not going to make a habit of this: I hardly ever cook 'from scratch', as it were. I simply don't have the time or the patience nowadays.

Still and all, you might find this recipe useful. I make it most Sundays during the winter months. As there's just me to eat it, one big panful can be split between my main meal on Sunday and when I get home from work on a Monday. This means I don't have to wait long to eat: I just re-heat what's left from the day before. It's filling and warming on a winter's evening.

Disclaimer! The Judge accepts no responsibility for any debility or destruction caused by this recipe!

OK. Here we go...

Lobscouse Au Juge

(Serves one person twice, serves two persons once, and serves anyone else right)

Ingredients:

2 medium-sized potatoes
1 large carrot
¼ a large onion
2 vegetable stock cubes
1 medium-sized tin of corned beef
Mixed herbs
Worcestershire sauce
Gravy browning
Suet dumplings (optional)

Method:

Peel the potatoes, and cut them into medium sized chunks (about 4 cms is a good size).

Slice the carrot, trying as much as possible to make the slices at the narrow end a bit thicker than the ones at the broad end (this will equalise the cooking time a bit).

Slice or dice the quarter onion according to preference.

Carefully (because you don't want unnamed meat in this dish) extract the corned beef from the tin, and cut into cubes. Don't make the cubes too small, as the corned beef will tend to 'disintegrate' during cooking anyway, and if you cut it too small you'll make this worse. About 1½ - 2 cms is a good size.

(You can use other meat if you wish, cut similarly into smallish cubes. If you're vegetarian, you can leave the meat out altogether. The result, however, is then called 'blind scouse', and I deny all responsibility for it)

Put all of the above into a large saucepan. Put the lid on, hold it firmly in place, and shake the saucepan vigorously. This will make sure that all the ingredients are well mixed together.

Take the lid off. This is important for what comes next...

Dissolve two vegetable stock cubes in ½ a pint of boiling water. Pour this over the contents of the pan. If necessary, top the liquid level up with cold water until the level reaches about 2 cms from the top of the other ingredients.

(You can use meat stock if you wish - but I find that beef stock is too strong in taste and colour. If you do decide to use it, you can probably leave out the gravy browning)

Sprinkle the mixed herbs over the top.

Pour about one tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce into this. This is to pep it up a little.

(I have used soy sauce in the past, just because I had it in the cupboard and didn't know what the hell else to do with it. You could use chilli or tabasco sauce if you're really daring, but on your own head be it)

Add about 1 teaspoonful of gravy browning. Don't add too much! This is only there to deepen the colour. Too much = too dark, and it also means that you can taste the stuff, which isn't the point of its being there.

Stir all of this with a large spoon to distribute the colour evenly.

Cook over a very low light. The idea is for it to cook slowly so that the vegetables can soften up, and the flavours can mingle into the stock properly. Depending on the amount you have in there, this can take between 50 and 75 minutes to cook. Give it a little stir every 15 minutes or so during this time.

If you're adding suet dumplings to the recipe, put these into the pan after about 35-40 minutes.

You'll be able to tell when it's ready by seeing if you can cut one of the potato chunks with the edge of a soup spoon. If you can, it's ready. The fact that the thing is bubbling like a jacuzzi is a clue, too.

Serve in bowls.

Bon appetit!