Friday 30 May - Chicken In A Cashew Nut Sauce

We have made a tradition of having curry every Friday, and getting a bit bored with the same ones every week. So I invested in a couple of Reza Mahamad books from Amazon. So far three recipes have been attempted, and all of them have gone down really well.

Tonights choice was Chicken in a Cashew Nut Sauce, and once I'd started cooking it I wondered what I was letting myself in for...

First stage was cashew nuts soaked for a couple of hours, and then blended to a paste

 

We also had to obtain the food of my nightmares -  a fresh coconut, which was grated

 

The next stage was to dry fry various spices, along with garlic, ginger and onions, and then add the grated coconut and fry for about 10 minutes.

 

The spice mix was blended to a paste with water, and then fried for 10 minutes before adding the cashew nut paste, and some fresh green chillies

 

 Finally, in went some diced chicken -  I used boneless breast here. The whole lot was simmered with some water added, and garnished with toasted cashews and fried onions.

I served with some dhal, and some greens cooked with fennel and cumin as recommended by Reza, and also some parathas - I buy these uncooked and frozen and we cook in a dry frying pan.

 

Wednesday 30 April - Pasta Puttanesca

I can't believe that I've never blogged this before, as it's one of our standby meals for when we can't think of anything else.

If I have fresh chillies and basil to hand I use those, if not dried ones work just as well.

Although I'm no fan of anchovies, they are vital in this as they add a salty and rich flavour to the sauce. I don't follow quantities here, I fry some garlic, chilli and basil, and then a big spoonful of anchovies are melted into these.

Then in with lots and lots of chopped olives and capers, and a pack of chopped tomatoes. If I'm not in a hurry I'll add a cup of water and a squeeze of tomato puree here too, and leave it to bubble away until thick.

Served stirred into hot spaghetti (dried is best here), and topped with a big handful of freshly grated parmesan. We served it with homemade garlic bread as we are greedy.

Saturday 5 April - Fish and Chips

In a bid to try and eat more fish, we thought we'd have a go at proper fish and chips. We based this meal on a recipe from Tom Kerridge, but didn't make pea puree - nothing but proper mushy peas will do for us.

These were soaked  for the afternoon, and then cooked gently with a big sprig of mint.

 

Tartare sauce was made from scratch, the addition of grated boiled eggs was something I've not done before, and it worked really well.

Next the fish - the batter was made using Bass No1 and a couple of eggwhites whisked into self raising flour.

Tail pieces of cod were dipped into this and then deep fried.

And finally the chips - these were parboiled and then fried twice - I'm not convinced that the chips taste any better for the first boiling, but it saves having to dry the potatoes.

Everything got eaten, but we all thought the batter was a bit thick and could have been crisper.  The fish was delicious though.

Friday 28 March - Pad Thai

I've not made Pad Thai for years, but found a lovely looking recipe in one of Rick Steins books, We now also have the advantage of a local Thai grocery store so all the ingredients were easy to get hold of - even the correct type of noodles. The only ingredient that took three shops to find was the bean sprouts.

Here are all the ingredients laid out before, and after preparation.

Once prepared it was simply a case of adding them to the wok in the correct order.

Starting with the garlic, chilli and raw prawns

Next the eggs

and finally all the noodles, vegetables and flavourings

Served with a squeeze of lime juice. The flavour was lovely, although we felt a bit more colour would have been nice.

For afters my new favourite thing - tapioca, but for an Eastern twist, cooked in coconut milk.

I cooked it very slowly over a heat diffuser, with a spoonful of sugar and some added whole milk.

Once cooked it was cooled and some cream was stirred in. I then layered it with another of my current favourite things - ready pureed Mango that I buy in the Indian Grocery store. This also makes brilliant sorbet with no other ingredients required!

Possibly one of the nicest things I've cooked in a long time - and plenty left over for the next couple of days too.

Saturday 8 March - Tonka Bean Icecream

Another recipe from my new egg book - I'd never heard of Tonka Beans before, and a bit of online shopping was required to get my hands on some.
They arrived this week, and despite a long day out in the garden putting up my new greenhouse, I decided to make this to use up some cream we had in the fridge.

The beans looks a bit like dried rabbit droppings, and as soon as we opened the jar we were hit by the aroma - a bit like a cross between cinnamon and vanilla.

One and a half beans were grated into a mix of milk and cream and this was heated up. The recipe said to infuse for a couple of house, but as I didn't have time to do this, I made the custard with the grated beans in the liquid and we sieved it once the custard had cooled.

 

I made the custard using whole eggs and a spoonful of cornflour as I feel it's a bit of a waste using just egg yolks - this is despite having 6 or 7 eggs a day at the moment!

Once the custard was strained we churned it in the ice cream machine.

The resulting ice cream was a huge hit with visiting teenagers - not unlike vanilla but something a bit different - definitely a flavour to try other things with.

Tuesday 4 March - Indian Pancakes For Pancake Day

Despite my promise not to buy anymore recipe books, I spotted a book about eggs in The Works this weekend - A Good Egg by Genevieve Taylor - Recipes from an Urban Hen Keeper. As we are currently getting 6-7 eggs a day from our chickens I thought this one was justified!

The first page I opened had a recipe for pancakes filled with potato curry that looked amazing - so a version of this was perfect for Pancake Day.

I did change the filling as the recipe in the book used curry paste, and I don't like the harsh flavour, so I replaced this with my favourite potato and mustard seeds from a Madhur Jaffrey Book.

The pancake batter was a basic wheatflour one, but with the addition of mustard seeds and turmeric - it came out a lovely colour!

The filling was made up - fried mustard and cumin seeds, then in with the onions when the seeds start popping.

To this spices were added - cumin, coriander, turmeric and some chilli powder, along with cooked cubed potatoes and some fresh chillies. I also added peas to this to pad it all out a bit. A splash of water and a bit more cooking and finished off with chopped fresh coriander.

 

A chutney to serve alongside was made from chopped tomatoes, chilli, coriander along with some garlic, sugar and lime juice.

The pancakes were fried, I tried to make them as thin as possible.

Then to serve, the pancakes were spread with a bit of mango chutney and the potato and pea filling, and then rolled up. Served with the coriander chutney

Saturday 15 February - Sunshine Food

Challenge on the food group this week was 'Sunshine Food' and as I happen to have a Sophie Grigson book by that very name I hunted through that to find some recipe. Not all of this meal went down too well with us, but having taken the photos I thought it was worth blogging.

Course one was something that reminds me of our family holidays in France in the 1970s  - plain artichoke with some thick, mustardy dressing. I love these, the others ate theirs but weren't really fussed about it.

For the main course, the bit that none of us were really that keen on was the chicken - this was spatchcocked and stuffed with a puree of black olives, garlic, and parsley under the skin, before roasting .

The dish of Provencal Tomatoes that went with it, however, were a huge success.

I did a tomato sniff test when buying them to get the ones that actually smelled of something. These were then halved and fried cut side down until brown, then placed in the serving dish. cut side up.

They were then seasoned andsprinkled with breadcrumbs mixed with chopped garlic, parsley and tarragon, drizzled with olive oil and baked for about half an hour.

These were served with the chicken and some new potatoes.

For Dessert, a 'Trio' of things that all of us like.

Lemon Panacotta - I added a splash of limoncello to this along with the gelatine to give it a bit more of a lemony flavour.

An orange compote made with sliced oranges and tangerines, in a caramel syrup with a touch of cinnamon, and a dash of Grand Marnier.

To go with these, a bit of a treat - some homemade Baklava - this is surprisingly easy to make.

Layers of butter brushed filo, topped with plain chopped nuts - I used pistachios and almonds and pulsed them in the food processor. Then another 4 or 5 layers of filo on the top.

The pasty was scored and then baked until crisp. While still warm a syrup of sugar and water was made - I added some rose water and a good squeeze of honey to this, although it wasn't in the recipe.

The syrups was then poured over the still warm pastry.

Once all three components were cold they were served - and went down a lot better than the main course!