Chicken Goujons
A quick dinner this evening of chicken goujons and chips (last minute decision) and salad. We simply cut two chicken breasts into strips, coated them in flour and then in egg (that had mustard mixed into it) and then coated in seasoned bread crumbs. We fried them in a little olive oil, but left them a little too long on one side which came out darker than the others, but they turned out quite well for an impromptu dinner. Not sure why I piled them up like that – they look like some sort of deranged fish fingers.
Pasta with Pancetta and Broad Beans
Early dinner this evening so that we can take advantage of the last of the sun in the park. We saw these tennis racquet pasta shapes in our local deli recently and thought they would be fun to eat during Wimbledon fortnight. The dish itself was a little claggy from the cream and would have perhaps been better with oil instead.
Fry off the pancetta until the fat has rendered, add some chopped sage and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Add a generous splash of white wine and let it cook down until almost reduced right down. Add some cream, stirring to pick up the flavours in the pan and then add cooked broad beans before finishing with lemon juice and a good grind of black pepper.
We’re taking the Pimms and the exceptionally tasty strawberries that the lovely people of Good Natured sent to us yesterday to the park now. We put some of the strawberries into the Pimms, but that did seem a bit of a crime as they were so good on their own – soft and juicy and tasted just like strawberries should, rather than the hard and tasteless ones that supermarkets often sell for “half price”.
Wimbledon, Pimms and strawberries and cream; I think this means summer is finally here!
Lentil and Smoked Mackerel Salad
When I arrived home from work this evening, Kerri was busy flaking up the smoked mackerel to put into the salad, which was all that remained to be done before it was ready to eat.
We have tried something like this before, but we didn’t put in the wild rice this time, which made it easier to eat – the wild rice was very chewy. It just contained some cooked green lentils, some flaked smoked mackerel and then various fresh vegetables chopped up small. It all went together quite well, especially with the dressing which contained honey, lemon, English mustard and olive oil. There was just enough of the dressing for the flavours to come through without it being overpowering.
We ate it with some left over French bread. Tasty and healthy.
Pork Pie
There’s nothing more perfect for a picnic than a pork pie. This one was sent to us for review from Abel and Cole which we took along to eat while Stephen played cricket yesterday. Well, I mostly ate it while Stephen was busy but, as it was so large, there was plenty left over when he finished.
We also had one of the smaller, picnic sized pies as a comparison which I preferred. The larger one was lacking somewhat in jelly and was very densely packed full of meat. While I like a meaty pie, I think there also needs to be a little fat to balance the meat and keep it moist. Very good crumbly pastry though and well-seasoned.
Indian Barbecued Chicken and Lamb Biryani
We decided to plan ahead for Saturday and do something a little more elaborate than a mid-week meal. And while we were keen to involve the barbecue, we didn’t want that to be the sole focus of it in case it rained.
So first up was barbecued chicken legs, which at a push we could haave grilled in our oven if it started raining heavily. We followed a general chicken tikka style recipe, except we used whole pieces of chicken rather than pieces on a skewer. Having planned ahead a lot more than we usually do, we had the chicken and marinade ready the night before and let the chicken sit in it overnight. We skinned the chicken and cut a few slashes into each piece to allow the marinade to penetrate more deeply. The marinade contained the following, which we simply mixed together and it made about the right amount for two drumsticks and two thighs.
1/4 cup yoghurt
juice of 1 lemon
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ginger, minced
1/2 tsp ground cumin
3 cardamom pods, ground
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp turmeric
salt
When it came to cooking the chicken, we cooked it on the barbecue with the lid on, for 20 to 30 minutes, turning it a couple of times during cooking. This was really delicious. The chicken had taken on the flavours of the marinade very well – there is a lot to be said for planning ahead and marinating it overnight! The outside of the chicken tasted slightly sweet, almost fruity, it must have been the work of the yoghurt and lemon juice. Having the barbecue char-grilled flavour added a lot to it, giving it a tandoori-like taste – a lot better than doing it under an electric grill – thank you rain for staying away!
We tried cooking naan bread on the barbecue too, but it didn’t turn out very well. We suspected it wouldn’t be great because the dough hadn’t risen much. We ended up with what were essentially two large naan crisps. Tasty, but not quite what we were after obviously. We followed Anjum Anand’s recipe, which is supposedly easy but suspiciously contained neither yeast nor yoghurt, which would cast doubts on its authenticity if nothing else.
We followed this with a Hyderabadi lamb biryani. Having gone on about how well prepared we were, we actually did miss out the fact that we should have marinated the lamb pieces for about two hours before cooking them, so they only got half an hour. The basic method is to parboil some basmati rice and marinade the lamb in yoghurt and spices, then layer the rice and lamb into a pot with deep fried onions (yum!) and flaked almonds (not sure how authentic these are but we had them lying around so put them in), pour on some saffron-infused milk and some melted butter (or ghee) and a little of the rice cooking water, then cover with a tight-fitting lid and bake in the oven for 45 minutes. The aroma when lifting the lid after cooking is wonderful.
We were a bit disappointed in the flavour of this dish after the brilliance of the chicken. However, I think we were being a bit hasty in our initial judgment – it had a milder flavour than the chicken had but it did have its own complexity to it. It didn’t help that I’d been a bit heavy handed with both the cardamom and the saffron, which gave it something of a mouth-drying quality. Somehow I can never get saffron right – it looks like so little when it goes in, but it’s really easy to overdo it. Or at least I find it really easy to overdo it. Maybe others don’t. Maybe I should concentrate on learning from my mistakes rather than moaning about it.
One particularly good thing about the biryani was how well it went with the Alsace gewurtztramminer that we were drinking. We tried some with Thai curry recently but that curry was too hot to match with wine. As a standalone wine, this one didn’t seem as interesting an example as the previous one (this one was Sainsbury’s “Taste the Difference” label), but it did have typical rose petal and fruity lychee aromas, round texture and a dash of residual sweetness which were a perfect match for the mild spices and butteriness of the biryani.
Burgers on the Barbecue
This was our third attempt at perfecting our hamburger recipe and by jove, I think we have it. What was important to us was a burger that retained its meaty flavour but had just the right amount of other flavours to complement it. Once the basics are there then we can play around with the toppings which tonight were lettuce, pickles, cheese, fried onions and a selection of mustards. The meaty burgers stood up to this myriad of toppings very well which confirmed that we’ve cracked it.
500g minced chuck steak
Salt and pepper
1/2tsp Dijon mustard
1/2tsp English mustard
1/2tsp wholegrain mustard
several dashes Tabasco sauce
1tbsp parsley
1/2 medium onion, grated
Mix all ingredients together well, form into two patties (yes they will be large!) and then chill until needed. Grill over direct (but not too hot) heat for four minutes per side, with the lid on. This will produce medium-rare burgers.
Now we just have to work on a hamburger bun that is big enough and firm enough to carry a burger as fine as this.
Red Thai Chicken Curry
We have been on a draconian clear-the-freezer mission lately, and as it turned out we had both chicken legs and red curry paste in there. Which meant that we needed to make red curry with chicken of course. It was shop paste rather than home made, we must admit; hence we had loads of it and ended up freezing what we didn’t use the first time round.
We didn’t use a recipe this time, just followed our instincts and followed a similar approach to what we use for our green curry. It was full of rich chilli and coconutty loveliness with a bit of a kick but not too much. Along with the chicken, we added baby corn, pea aubergines, lime leaves and holy basil.
We drank an Alsace gewurtztramminer with it and the flavour matched the flavours in the curry very well, with the full body also standing up to the creaminess. There was a little too much heat in the curry for it to be a perfect match and it brought out the alcohol in the wine a bit, but that is generally to be expected with curry!
Lentil Crumble
On Sunday, I finally got round to working my way through the huge stack of food magazines that have been threatening to take over the lounge. I thought I’d stopped buying food magazines for this very reason but I must go into some kind of trance when I’m in a newsagent because I always seem to have masses of them hanging around. Anyway, after ploughing through at least fifteen of them, I was left with a small pile of things that interested me – and a rather heavy recycling bag. One of the recipes was a lentil bake from Delicious magazine which I thought I’d make for this evening’s dinner, when it came to it however I wasn’t particularly excited by it. I decided to take the basic elements (cooked lentils baked with a crunchy topping), drop the original feta and olives and replace with some herbs, tomatoes and stilton.
Perhaps I should have stuck to the original plan or perhaps I was destined to failure all along but I was disappointed with how this turned out; there was very little flavour despite plenty of garlic, herbs and seasoning. We’re using up the green lentils that we bought in error and I’m wondering if they behave differently to the puy lentils which I’m more used to. I think this has potential so I’m adding the ‘recipe’ below in case I stop being cross about it and decide to try again.
15og green lentils
1 red pepper, sliced
1 red onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Bunch oregano and thyme, chopped
Tin tomatoes
Tablespoon tomato puree
Salt and pepper
Cheese (we used some leftover stilton)
Breadcrumbs (seasoned and with parmesan added)
Start by boiling the lentils in cold water until cooked, about 25 minutes. You could also whizz up some bread to make crumbs at this point if you were so inclined, season and grate some parmesan into them for added flavour.
In a separate pan, sautee onions, pepper and garlic with some salt until soft. Add herbs and cook for a minute or so. Season, add tomatoes and tomato puree. Bring to the boil and then simmer until the tomatoes have reduced – about 20 minutes.
When the lentils are cooked, drain and rinse in cold water. Add the lentils to the tomatoes and mix together. Ladle into a dish, top with some cheese and then add breadcrumbs. Coat with oil and bake for 25 minutes, or until brown.
Serve with salad and, in this case, quite a lot of extra seasoning.
Pancetta, Sage and Broad Bean Risotto
As I think we’ve mentioned before, our sage plant is going crazy so we’ve been trying to think of ways to use it up. That, coupled with a risotto craving led us to this evening’s meal. We had some really good stock in the freezer that was made with two chicken carcasses which leant a really deep, earthy flavour to the dish. The broad beans lifted things slightly but they were a little lost really.
No real recipe, we just fried off the onions, celery, garlic and pancetta before adding the rice and cooking for a few minutes. Deglaze with some vermouth, add the sage and then keep ladling in the chicken stock until the rice is cooked through.
Barbecued Pork Chops
After the excitement of yesterday’s fermented fish, we opted for a quick dinner of barbecued pork chops, baked potatoes and salad tonight. The chops marinated overnight in lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, oregano, garlic and salt and pepper. We cooked them for five minutes each side with the lod on which was possibly slightly too long but luckily they remained juicy and tasty.
