Autumn Recipes by Tom McNeeney

Tom McNeeney from The Lancashire Hospitality Co shares a few of his favourite autumn recipes...

When it comes to autumn those short days and cold nights hit real hard in Rochdale, it’s my favourite season for the crisp mornings and the golden afternoons but also because autumn brings with it the best food too, slow cooked wonders that hold up to the cold and windy evenings. Light the fire, draw the curtains and knock up one of these little beauties, it’s almost enough to make you excited for winter. Almost.

French Onion Soup

When those dark nights are incoming there really isn’t anything better than a french onion soup complete with it’s cheesy hat for fighting off the winter chills.

Ingredients: 3 garlic cloves - sliced / 4 white onions - sliced / Pinch of brown sugar / 175ml white wine / Unhealthy amount of black pepper / 1 heaped teaspoon Branston Pickle / 1 tablespoon brown sauce / 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar / 2 bay leaf / 1 litre beef stock / 10 slices of french stick / 120g grated Gruyere

The thing that separates a good French Onion soup from a bad one is nerve. It’s going against your instinct and getting those onions good and coloured before you do anything else to them.

Start by putting a lug of olive oil into a big saucepan on a medium heat, pour in your onions, garlic and a pinch of brown sugar.

Now this is the difficult bit, keep cooking those onions until they really start to caramelise, they’ll go translucent, then begin to brown, then finally start to go darker and stickier.

Move them very occasionally but let the heat and that sugar do all the work.

Once your onions are good and brown pour in your wine and scrape, scrape, scrape. All that cooked on flavour on the bottom of the pan will come loose and you’ll be rewarded with a clean pan and the best tasting fried onions in the world. Turn the heat down after a few minutes and lob in the Branston, brown sauce, balsamic and give it a good twenty twists of a pepper grinder, I’d say even more but it’s probably a bit excessive.

Cook it down for five more minutes until it’s dark brown and almost sticky. Then pour in your beef stock, lash in a bay leaf and turn down the heat. Cook down for an hour or so at least.

Turn on the grill while you ladle your soup into bowls, top each bowl with slices of French stick and a generous helping of grated gruyere then grill till it’s a gooey, bubbling bowl of perfection.

Corned Beef Cobbler

You know what’s better than corned beef hash? Corned beef hash topped with blue cheese dumplings and even more cheese.

Ingredients: 1 large white onion / diced 4 carrots (leave the skin on) chopped / 1/2 a swede, diced / 4 potatoes, skin on, peeled & diced / 1 tin of corned beef / A good few dashes of Worcestershire sauce / A tablespoon of brown sauce / White pepper / 500ml Bovril / 200g self raising flour / 100g suet / 100g Stilton / Bunch of chives (finely chopped) / 80g grated mature cheddar

Right, I’m guessing you don’t need to know how to make corned beef hash but lets recap; Sweat off your onions, add in your carrot and swede, then season.

Cook down the veg for five, give it a good few splashes of Worcestershire sauce and some white pepper, add in your potatoes and Bovril.

Whack a lid on and give it 15 minutes, uncover, stir in a chopped tin of corned beef and a spoonful of brown sauce, cook it for 10 more minutes. Get it? Got it? Good.

Now in a mixing bowl combine the suet, flour and stilton using your fingertips until you have a breadcrumby consistency.

Then add in about 75ml of warm water and bring together into a dough, roll into balls smaller than a golf ball and place on top of your corned beef hash in an oven safe bowl or pan.

Sprinkle over the cheddar and put the lot in an oven on 180ºc for about 25 minutes. CAREFULLY get it out the oven and admire.

My Best Ever Sausage & Mash

This is always going to be my favourite, my go to, my hangover remedy, birthday tea, cheer up tea, death row dinner… in short, the one.

Ingredients: 6 decent sausages / 3 red onions - sliced / 2 slices smoked back bacon - finely diced / 2 garlic cloves - sliced / 75ml red wine / Rosemary, thyme or bay leaf / 500ml beef stock / 1 heaped tsp tomato puree / Few dashes of Worcestershire sauce / A sprinkle of smoked paprika / About 400g mashed potato / Bunch of spring onions, finely chopped / 160g grated cheddar / 1 heaped teaspoon of wholegrain mustard

First things first you’re going to want to seal off your sausages in a deep frying pan over a medium heat, take them out and use the fat from them to fry your red onions, smoked bacon and garlic. After all, where there’s fat, there’s flavour.

Once everything’s well on it’s way pour in a small glass of red wine and scrape the bottom of the pan to deglaze. Give it five minutes to cook off the alcohol then stir in your tomato puree, season liberally with black pepper and add in a little Worcestershire sauce and a pinch of smoked paprika. Pour in your beef stock, reintroduce your sausages to the party and add some herbs - anything rough and ready like rosemary, thyme or bay is perfect - don’t worry about chopping them just Jamie Oliver it, chuck 'em in. Cover for 20 minutes to cook then uncover for ten minutes until the gravy has began to thicken up nicely.

For your mash: I’m not going to tell you how to make mash and I’m not going to judge you if you just buy mash. But get your mash pipping hot and fold though a decent pile of grated cheddar to melt though it, a whole pile of spring onions for some texture and some wholegrain mustard for bite. Divide your mash between two bowls, crown with sausages and pour over that dark, rich gravy. There’s nothing not to like here.

Tom McNeeney