Saturday 28 March - Sausage and Egg Muffins

I found this recipe in The Takeaway Secret book, and thought it was worth a try to make something different. We couldn't' find any nice muffins so decided to make these as well. This meant being organised and starting last night.

The muffin dough was quite a rich bread dough including an egg and some milk . it was rolled out cut into muffins which were then left to rise before cooking on a griddle.

The sausages were also prepared last night, and left to chill in the fridge - pork mince mixed with sage, seasoning and a bit of brown sugar. Then shaped into flat sausages.

Assembly started this morning.

The muffins were toasted and buttered and covered in a slice of plastic cheese.

The the sausages were fried until browned.

The eggs were cooked in rings, with the yolk burst with a knife, and turned over halfway through to ensure they were cooked thoroughly

The assembled muffins were then wrapped, and warmed through in a low oven for a few minutes before serving.

Strangely delicious!

Friday 6 March - Chettinad Chicken and Coconut Prawn Curry

A hunt for something different for our Friday curry session, and I found a couple of recipes in the Rick Stein India book - Chettinad Chicken, and a coconut prawn curry.
We had to find some curry leaves, something I've never used before - they smelled amazing!

For the chicken dish, we used breast, rather than the thighs specified in the recipe. The recipe started with grinding up a selection of spices to a powder - I keep a separate coffee grinder to do this, as we make a lot of curry!

We were unable to source dagarful, so used some additional cinnamon in the base of the curry as recommended in the recipe. The cinnamon sticks were fried with fennel seeds

 

Then onions and curry leaves were added, before adding the chicken, ground spices, salt, sugar and some water, and cooking until fairly dry.

 The prawn curry started with Indian bay leaves and onions, then a onion,garlic and ginger paste was added along with some chilli and turmeric

At this stage we should have added raw prawns and coconut milk, but I added the coconut, left the sauce to cook, and then popped the prawns in 5 minutes before we wanted to eat.

We served this with garlic rice - I fried slices of garlic in ghee until golden, then popped these into my rice cooker, along with soaked basmati rice, a couple of cardamom pods, cloves and a cinnamon stick, then left to cook in the normal way.

We served along with some raita, and also some frozen parathas which I cook with a little ghee.

Friday 20 February - Scallops Mornay

We were planning on having Chinese Food, but George announced he was out for the evening, so it was an ideal time to try something new that he would probably refuse to eat. I decided on scallops - the selection in Waitrose wasn't great, so I ended up buying a bag of frozen ones.

Googling came up with a variety of different recipes for Scallops Mornay (Saint Jacques), so as usual I mixed them up and did it my own way.

Firstly some mash was made ( I used the potato ricer to make it smooth), and I added a couple of bantam eggs. This was then piped around the dishes. (We could have done with a bigger piping bag....)

Then the sauce was made - I had poached the scallops for two minutes in a mixture of wine and water, and then reduced the cooking liquid.
Mushrooms and shallots were fried until tender.

Then flour was added to make a roux, the poaching liquid was added along with a spoonful of cream to make a thick sauce, and then finally a handful of grated cheddar.

I left this mixture to cool, before adding the scallops and filling the centre of the dishes with it, and topping with grated cheese (I was really worried about over cooking the scallops!). It was then baked until golden, and served with some green salad and crusty bread.

Next time I visit the Fish Sheds, some scallops in the shell will be purchased so we can do this again - it was delicious.

Wednesday 18 February - Stuffed Pancakes

We missed Shrove Tuesday as were driving back from a break in Lincolnshire, so moved our pancakes to Wednesday.
I decided to make stuffed ones for a change - spinach and cheese, and some mushroom ones for George.

Started with a normal pancake batter, which I always leave to rest for an hour or so, despite having no proof that this makes any difference

The pancakes were fried in clarified butter, and stacked up ready to fill.

For the fillings - mushrooms were fried with garlic and shallots, and finished off with a dash of cream.

The second filling was wilted spinach mixed with ricotta, gorgonzola and parmesan, and lots of grated nutmeg.

The pancakes were then rolled around the fillings, and topped with a white sauce flavoured with bay leaves, and finally topped with mozzarella and some parmesan

It was all then baked until bubbly and golden.

Served with a green salad, and some bread to mop up all the sauce.

Friday 30 Jan - Thai Chicken Massaman Curry

This weeks purchase from Lidl was a rice cooker - I know that rice is easy to cook anyway, but we eat loads of it, and this cuts out the boiling over or forgetting about it risk.

As it was Friday, there was little doubt that it would be a curry night so we would get to use our new toy, but I rather fancied a change from the usual.
After Christmas I had treated myself to the Hairy Bikers Asian Adventure book, and I found a recipe in that for this Chicken Massaman Curry.

To start off with, some spices were roasted and ground

Then the other paste ingredients were added - these ingredients had caused a lunchtime visit to three shops to find galangal, lemon grass, lime leaves and Thai basil. The unusual ingredient for me in this paste was the peanuts.

Once the paste was made the curry could be cooked - onions and chicken were fried before adding the paste mix.

And then in went tomatoes, stock, coconut milk,cubed potatoes, and some more flavourings - this was all simmered until tender.

Once cooked, the dish was finished with thai basil and roasted peanuts, and served with the rice.

Sunday 25 January - Vegetarian Burns Night

I love haggis, but it was just me and George for the evening, and there is no way he is going to eat anything made out of lungs and other offal and cooked in a sheeps stomach. (As it turned out he didn't eat the veggie version either and I ended up heating up a pizza for him.)

I have seen veggie versions on sale, and had a hunt round for a recipe so I could have a go myself. I found one on the River Cottage Forum that looked perfect (this means I had all the ingredients already)

Started off with sauteeing onions, carrot and chopped mushrooms.

Then in went lentils, and pearl barley with some vegetable stock

To this a tin of beans (I used black beans as that's what was in the cupboard, and these were mashed with some flavourings  - nutmeg, mixed spice, thyme, rosemary and then the liquids - soy, lemon juice, whisky and a spoonful of marmite.

This was added to the pan along with some oatmeal, and it was all simmered until thick and then poured into a loaf tin for baking.

Served, of course, with mashed neeps and tatties, and also a peppercorn and whisky cream sauce.
I thought it was a really good alternative to the proper thing.

Friday 23 January - Tofu

We set off in search of tofu a couple of weeks ago, and found it to be much cheaper in the Chinese Supermarket, as that's a bit of a journey for us, I bought several types and froze them for later use.
I got a medium one out to use, but felt it needed pressing, so we used our lovely cheese press to do this.
This tofu was to be used stir fried with shitake mushrooms and fermented black beans.

I also decided to make red braised beef with dried bamboo tofu, so the tofu sticks were put into soak.

The beef dish commenced by bringing cubes of beef to the boil in plain water - this was then drained off.

Some chilli beef paste was fried, and then in went the flavourings.

Followed by the beef cubes, and stock ingredients - chinese wine, a bit of ketjap manis (as I didn't have thesweet fermented sauce that the recipe called for), and it was all left to braise for a couple of hours.

To prepare the other dish, mushrooms and beans were soaked for a while, to remove some of the salt from the beans, and to rehydrate the mushrooms.

Once prepared the mushrooms were destalked and chopped and the beans were drained.

Some chopped flavourings were stirfried - chilli, spring onions, garlic and ginger.

And then the mushrooms and beans were added, followed by some soy sauce and rice wine to make a sauce.

Finally, the cubed tofu was added, and it was gently heated through to take on the flavours.

 

Now the tofu was ready, the bamboo tofu sticks were added to the braised beef , just for a few minutes - again to take on the rich flavours.

This was served with boiled rice, and some tea braised eggs - as our chickens have started to lay again following their lengthy winter break.