I may have mentioned over the weekend that I had some Spanish ham to use up. Having sliced most of what I could from the ham I went at it with a stumpier knife and ended up with two piles not counting the bones. The first pile was of yellowing fat and the second was chunks of ruby red meat.

I used some it up last night.

I started by cutting pieces of the fat into small cubes half the size of my thumb. These went into a heavy pan with some hot olive oil and were left to sizzle whilst I cut up some of the chunks of  of meat into similar sized cubes. These were then added to the pan with the sizzling fat and were given a stir.

A large onion was then finely sliced and added to with the fat and the meat along with some garlic and chilli, a bay leaf and plenty of salt and pepper.

Once the onion had soften a tin of chopped tomatoes was stirred in and allowed to bubble for a few minutes. Finally a couple of tins of white cannellini beans were drained and stirred in. They all cooked through whilst I fried off some boiled potatoes to eat with them.

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We could have been sat in a Spanish taverna as we ate it taking in the smell of ham fat and burnt potato.

Last Sunday’s Observer had a free food supplement (although nothing is really free) giving us what they thought are the 20 Best British Recipes. It was cobbled together from the writings of various well regarded food writers in staunch favourites such as Simon Hopkinson, Jane Grigson, Elizabeth David and Fergus Henderson.

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But what caught my eye was a picture of a full traditional rib of beef standing proud with a pile of Yorkshire puddings to the side. I made a mental note that I should be picking a small one next time I was down at The Farmer’s Market.

It turned out I needn’t have bothered with the mental note. We were out for a late lunch on the Sunday celebrating a 25th Wedding Anniversary. As we walked into the house our noses took in the smell of a finely cooked roast.

An hour later we were at it around the table and I was given a sharp knife to have a go at the carving. I suspect there wasn’t a great deal of finesse about it but that didn’t effect the taste and it looked better than the picture from the paper.

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Almost as good was Bakewell Tart that finished off the meal.

An excellant way to ease into autumn.

So after a month the ham stand is free of its ham. The bones are in the fridge downstairs and there are two Tupperware containers – one filled with the cutaway fat and the other with chunks of ham too tough to cut into slices.

I am now working on recipes to use up left over ham.

There are some potatoes in the basement that need eating up and I got given a book on cooking with onions for my birthday last month so it seemed a good idea to combine the two for supper this evening. The book was spotted in the window of 69A on Renshaw Street and strangely enough is called Onions Without Tears by Lyndsey Bareham and goes with the books she has written devoted to just the potato and the tomato.

I put the potatoes through the match stick setting on the mouli and spread half them across the bottom of a large buttered dish. Finely sliced onions were added along with a couple of bay leaves and some anchovies and plenty of salt and pepper. The rest of the potatoes went on top. A punnet of cream was poured over and the top was dotted with more butter and salt and pepper before going into a hot oven.

After half an hour or so I laid some thick fillets of smoked haddock on top. It has gone back in the oven for another half hour. Bad timing with the start of the rugby but it should be very good.