Spiced beef

Spiced beef is a cured and salted joint of rump or silverside beef, which is traditionally served at Christmas or the New Year in Ireland, especially County Cork. It is a form of salt beef, cured with spices and saltpetre, and is usually boiled, broiled or semi-steamed in water, Guinness (or a similar stout), and then optionally roasted for a period after.

Varieties of spices used include pimento, cinnamon, ground cloves, ginger and black pepper.

See also

References

Beef

Beef is the culinary name for meat from bovines, especially cattle. Beef can be harvested from bulls, heifers or steers. Its acceptability as a food source varies in different parts of the world.

Beef muscle meat can be cut into roasts, short ribs or steak (filet mignon, sirloin steak, rump steak, rib steak, rib eye steak, hanger steak, etc.). Some cuts are processed (corned beef or beef jerky), and trimmings, usually mixed with meat from older, leaner cattle, are ground, minced or used in sausages. The blood is used in some varieties of blood sausage. Other parts that are eaten include the oxtail, liver, tongue, tripe from the reticulum or rumen, glands (particularly the pancreas and thymus, referred to as sweetbread), the heart, the brain (although forbidden where there is a danger of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE), the kidneys, and the tender testicles of the bull (known in the United States as calf fries, prairie oysters, or Rocky Mountain oysters). Some intestines are cooked and eaten as-is, but are more often cleaned and used as natural sausage casings. The bones are used for making beef stock.

Gordon Ramsay

Gordon James Ramsay, OBE (born 8 November 1966) is a Scottish-born British chef and restaurateur. His restaurants have been awarded 16 Michelin stars in total and currently hold 9. His signature restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, has held 3 Michelin stars since 2001. Ramsay is known for presenting TV programmes about competitive cookery and food, such as the British series Hell's Kitchen, The F Word, and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, along with the American versions of Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, MasterChef, MasterChef Junior and Hotel Hell. In 2015, Forbes listed his earnings at $60 million for the previous 12 months, and ranked him the 21st highest earning celebrity in the world.

Early life

Ramsay was born on 8 November 1966 in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland. From the age of five, he was raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. Ramsay is the second of four children. He has an older sister, Diane; a younger brother, Ronnie, who Ramsay revealed had been behind bars for heroin possession as a juvenile; and a younger sister, Yvonne. Ramsay's father, Gordon James Senior (died 1997), was – at various times – a swimming pool manager, a welder, and a shopkeeper; his sister Yvonne and their mother, Helen (maiden name: Cosgrove), have been nurses.

River Cottage

Coordinates: 50°46′59″N 2°45′04″W / 50.783°N 2.751°W / 50.783; -2.751 River Cottage HQ is based on the Devon / Dorset border near Axminster and is home to an award-winning Cookery School, a state of the art Chefs' School, unique dining experiences, events and weddings. The name is also used as a brand for some of Fearnley-Whittingstall's business ventures, including restaurants and products such as beer and yoghurt. The original River Cottage was a former weekend and holiday home, originally a game-keeper's lodge in the grounds of Slape Manor, Netherbury, Dorset. Both locations have featured in a number of television series presented by television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Television series

From 1998 it was used by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall as a setting for three television series: Escape to River Cottage, Return to River Cottage and River Cottage Forever, in which viewers follow Hugh's adventures as a downsized smallholder. The River Cottage brand left the holiday home to follow Hugh's progress as he set up a new business from old dairy buildings near Broadoak, Bridport, Dorset in the later series Beyond River Cottage. In September 2006, the show would leave those buildings, then known as River Cottage H.Q., to move on to the Park Farm location near to Uplyme in Devon. Here at the new River Cottage H.Q., the team would film the 2006 series The River Cottage Treatment where Hugh would attempt to convert junk food lovers' eating habits. The 2007 series, River Cottage: Gone Fishing, saw Hugh travel to fishing locations throughout the British Isles in order to promote the culinary benefits of sustainable fishing cultures. An additional series, The View from River Cottage, was a combination clip show and retrospective of the previous series.