Barbecued Chicken Kebabs
Given the success of Friday’s barbecued lamb kebabs, we tried a similar thing today with chicken. We still have loads of oregano, so used that again, with a little oil, garlic, lemon juice and salt and pepper. The weather taunted us a little, changing from bright sunshine to cloudy and back and by the time we started the barbecue it was looking a little gloomy. It was still warm enough to sit outside though, so that’s where we ate our dinner.
We were quite hungry and it turned out rather well, both of which meant that we ate pretty quickly. Which was good because we started feeling a few rain drops just as we were finishing but they didn’t bother us too much. A good way to end a lovely long weekend.
Asparagus and Proscuitto Pizza
We’ve been talking about cooking pizza on the barbecue this for what seems like forever and yesterday we finally got around to it. We don’t have the space for a pizza oven in our garden and, after some lengthy research, it would appear that barbecuing pizza is the next best thing. The charcoal can be heated to a much higher temperature than a domestic oven and is therefore ideal for the short and hot cooking times needed for perfect pizza.
We opted for asparagus and proscuitto as our toppings, along with some olives and some buffalo mozarella. During my research I noted that San Marzano tomatoes are widely believed to be the best variety of canned tomatoes and luckily, I was able to find some at Whole Foods. We usually just cook down some cherry tomatoes to use as a tomato sauce for topping pizza but the canned tomatoes worked well, they were probably better in fact: fry off some garlic, add the tomatoes and some herbs (we used oregano) and cook down for 5 minutes. Five minutes may seem short but the sauce was fresh and didn’t have that stewed flavour that cooked tomatoes can have. The lightness of the sauce was a good thing as the other flavours were strong and needed something to balance them.
We were pleased with the result, the pizza was light and crispy and the flavours were well integrated; much better than the pizza we’ve made in the oven before. We left the coals for too long before adding the stone though which meant the temperature dropped and the pizza cooked for longer than is ideal. I’m hoping that if we get the pizza onto the barbecue sooner then it will cook through in just a few minutes and create blistered, crackled edges.
The Sportsman, Seasalter
The Sportsman has been on our list of restaurants to visit for a long time, years probably. We both love Whitstable and try to spend as much time as we can there in Summer, the Sportsman is just up the road in Seasalter but we never seem to stray much further than the local cafes and restaurants. This time, we booked well in advance so nothing was left to chance and we were lucky to find that Saturday was warm and sunny.
Stephen recently completed the second part of his wine diploma so, to celebrate, we started with some sparkling wine. As he’s currently studying sparkling wine for the next part of his diploma this seemed a fitting option.
I started with some rock oysters with chorizo. Whitstable is famous for it’s oysters so this was a must-have, and they didn’t disappoint. Incredibly fresh and tasting like the sea, they went perfectly with the hot chorizo.
Stephen opted for the pork terrine, well, he didn’t have a lot of choice actually as I really wanted it but had already decided on the oysters. He didn’t take much persuading though and I’m pretty sure he was happy with his ‘choice’. The terrine contained lovely, large pieces of well-seasoned pork and was served with some toasted sourdough, mustard, pickles and some incredible pork scratchings which the Sprotsman is known for.
One of our friends ordered the asparagus, bacon and poached egg salad which, although I didn’t taste it, was said to be very good. The chunky, cured bacon was the star of the dish.
Next up was seared thornback ray, brown butter, cockles with a sherry vinegar dressing. I’d not had this kind of fish before and I really enjoyed it. It was meaty and worked well with the slightly acidic dressing. It was a huge serving, made even bigger by the cockles on top. They were good but a little over-shadowed by the ray.
Stephen ordered the seared turbot with a crab sauce which was both meaty in texture and full of flavour. The delicate crab flavour stood up well to the turbot and the buttery sauce. I think there’s some asparagus hiding under here too.
Lastly was the lamb option which we all wanted but overlooked as we were by the sea and keen to taste the local fish. This was local lamb from Monkshill Farm just down the road in Canterbury, served with dauphinoise potatoes and a side order of shepherd’s pie.
Not pictured are the elederflower ice-lollies given to the children (which we were all disappointed not to have had for ourselves) and the tiny mouthfuls of sticky, dense chocolate brownies served with coffee. We left after two hours to walk on the beach but could have happily stayed all afternoon.
Lamb Kebabs
This was another meal inspired by the herbs growing outside. The oregano, like the sage, is threatening to burst out of it’s pot at any moment so we used some up with these lamb kebabs. The diced leg was marinated for a couple of hours in the oregano, along with some garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper and olive oil before being barbecued with the lid on. We don’t usually put the lid on while cooking unless we’re doing a large piece of meat, like a leg of lamb, but this worked really well and the lamb had a great smoky flavour.
We served the lamb with some salad, pitta bread and hummus which we made according to Gourmet Chick’s recipe. It’s a version of a Jamie Oliver recipe which was much better than our previous attempts at homemade hummus but still not quite as fresh as we had hoped.
Tortilla
We make this fairly often but rarely eat it for dinner as Stephen normally takes it for lunch, it’s a great way of using up leftover potatoes but is a bit of a faff to make. My top tip (although not at all authentic) is to remove the onions from the pan once they’ve browned and then add the potatoes. This stops the onions from browning too much and sticking to the bottom of the pan. Having said that, I forgot to do that today and it still turned out well so perhaps it’s not really necessary.
The other faffy part is ensuring the potatoes are browned evenly as they tend to stick together a lot. Thinking about it, it might be a good idea to lay the potatoes out flat after you’ve sliced them so they dry out a little; more faffiness though.
Once you’ve covered all of this it’s actually a straightforwad dish to make; it’s important not to rush any of the stages though so it does take some time.
1 medium onion, chopped
275g thinly sliced potatoes (if you’ve got a mandolin then it’s much easier)
4 eggs, lightly whisked (just until the yolk and white have combined
Salt and pepper
Chopped parsley
Start by sauteeing the onions on a very gentle heat until they just begin to caramelise. Turn up the heat a little and add the thinly sliced potatoes and some salt and pepper. You need to make sure you keep moving the potatoes around in the pan so they brown evenly and don’t stick. Be gentle because the potatoes have a tendency to break up as they cook through.
Once the potatoes are brown, remove them from the pan into a large bowl. Add the lightly beaten eggs, a little extra salt and pepper and the parsley. Mix gently.
Heat some more oil in the frying pan and once it’s hot, add the potato and egg mixture. Cook for about 15 minutes and then flip the tortilla using a plate and a spatula. Cook for a further five minutes.
We served this at room temperature with a mixed salad which worked well. Some chorizo, squid, jamon and machego would have been really good though 🙂
Lentil Ragu
Another quick, easy and familiar offering this evening. Our teeny store-cupboard is about to burst so we’re trying to use up as many things as possible, as quickly as possible. It’s not often we base a meal around what we already have in the cupboards but it’s a great way to make room for new and interesting things, it’s cheap too.
I’ve posted this recipe before but since I’ve altered it slightly this time, I’ll post it again. I usually add bacon to this but left it out and, even though I’m a firm believer in the phrase “bacon makes everything better”, this dish really is good enough without it.
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 stick celery, chopped
2 small carrots, chopped
250g mushrooms, chopped
Large handful herbs, finely chopped (I used fresh oregano, sage, thyme and rosemary)
250g puy lentils
Salt and pepper
Nutmeg
Glass red wine
300ml vegetable stock
Worcester sauce
1.5 tins tomatoes
3 sundried tomatoes, soaked and finely chopped
Tablespoon tomato puree
Soften onion and garlic in a little olive oil. Add carrot, celery and mushrooms and soften these too. Add the herbs and cook briefly before stirring in the lentils. Once these are incorporated, season and grate in the nutmeg. Deglaze the pan with the red wine and allow the alcohol to cook out. Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to the boil and then simmer for around 40 minutes.
Each time I make this, I make a note to add more tomatoes but forget. I think two tins are required to create more of a sauce.
We ate this with some crusty bread but it’s equally good with pasta.
Lumaconi Bolognaise
We’re going back to basics this week. After the excitement of Eating Eurovision last week and the WOM challenge yesterday, our creative juices have stopped flowing and we’re both in need of something familiar that requires little thought. This is one of the first things I learnt to cook and have been making it fairly regularly ever since, it changes each time depending on what’s at hand when I come to cook it but the basic recipe generally remains the same.
This time, I used sage, oregano, thyme and rosemary from the window-box and some sundried tomatoes that I wanted to use up; I didn’t have any red wine so used white instead.
It was really good, rich and meaty with a heady top-note from the fresh herbs. The sundried tomatoes didn’t add much in the way of flavour but they freed up some much-needed cupboard space so I’m glad I used them. The meat was particularly good and was tender and melty right from the beginning, I normally cook this down for about four hours but only needed two this time. I got it from the butcher but can’t remember where it comes from unfortunately. We enjoyed the pasta too, a variety we haven’t had before which apparantly translates as “giant snail shell”. Mmm, snails.
WOM Challenge – Two Courses for Five Pounds – Courgette Soup and Crab Spaghetti
There has been a lot of discussion over at the Guardian Word of Mouth (aka WOM) blog because some people wrote pretty scathing responses to the “Dinner for under a fiver” feature that they ran in their G2 supplement.
A lot of the criticism was based around two points: 1) the recipes were boring and 2) they didn’t account for random teaspoons or sprinkles of seasoning when calculating the cost – it might only be a teaspoon or sprinkle, but many people don’t ensure that they have some paprika on hand at all times in order to sprinkle it here or there for “no cost”.
So they set people a challenge of cooking two interesting courses for under five Pounds, so we tried it. We have taken all ingredients into account other than salt and pepper, and we have taken the whole package into account even if we only used half of it. Some of it is pretty bargain basement stuff where we couldn’t buy in smaller packages, but where possible we have bought individual items…
From Sainsburys:
tinned crab £1.99
1/2 pack spaghetti – 39p for economy pack
2 courgettes – 82p
1 white roll – 19p for a marked-down 2-pack
economy butter – 84p
From shops along the local market:
1 onion – 13p
1 bulb garlic – 25p
1 lemon – 20p
1 chilli – 10p
From our window box:
1 bunch parsely – free (this much would have cost 7p in our local deli)
Total cost: £4.98, so just snuck in there; we would have left out the bread if we hadn’t managed it. And of course we could use fractional amounts for the butter, spaghetti, garlic and rolls and left out the parsley but wanted to cost all ingredients completely.
So, armed with these we got to work. The first course was courgette soup and the second was spaghetti with crab, chilli and garlic. We’ve cooked both of these to varying degrees of success before, but usually with slightly more financial freedom than this, so we had to cut a few corners. The lemon and parsley find their way into both dishes in different ways.
Courgette soup
We usually make this in a richer style, using vegetable or chicken stock instead of water and adding cream at the end. This is a lighter, more summery version which was cheaper and also seemed more appropriate at the moment. It still contains a fair amount of butter though… better use vegetable oil or olive oil if your doctor is watching.
2 courgettes
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 lemon, zest and juice
parsely stalks from bunch
1 white roll or slice of bread, preferably a bit stale
butter
salt and pepper
Slice or dice the onion and slice both cloves of garlic, but keep them separate. Reserve half of one courgette and cut the rest into pieces. Melt some butter in a saucepan and when it is hot, add the onion on a low to medium heat. After a few minutes, add one clove of garlic and stir, still on a lowish heat – you want the onions and garlic to soften but not take on much colour. When they are soft, add the chopped courgettes and stir around. You want to get a little colour on the onions and the white parts of the courgettes here, just a light golden-brown sheen – you might need to turn up the heat a bit but don’t let anything burn. When the courgettes have coloured a little, add the parsley stalks and then add just enough water to cover all of the ingredients and let it simmer until the courgettes are soft.
While that is happening, cut the reserved half of courgette into julienne sticks. By the way, if this bit sounds like too much hassle, just chop up this half of courgette with everything else in the beginning and put it into the pot! Then melt some butter in a frying pan and fry the courgette sticks until golden brown.
Cut the roll or slice of bread into little centimetre (half-inch) cubes. Either in the same frying pan after the courgette stocks are done, or in a different pan, heat up some more butter on a low to medium heat and then add the other sliced garlic clove. Stir this around for a bit and then when the garlic is starting to colour, remove it. This will leave the butter nice and garlicky. Turn the heat up a little and then add the bread cubes, turning them after a short while to colour as many sides as you can without letting anything burn.
Now blend the courgettes, onions and parsely to make soup. You don’t want all of the liquid that’s in the saucepan, so if you are doing it in a standing blender, just add the solid ingredients and a dash of water and blitz them, add a little more of the cooking water if it is too thick. If you are using a stick blender in the saucepan, pour some of the liquid out into a separate bowl first and then add it back in if needed. Add the lemon zest and lemon juice and blend some more, then check for seasoning and add salt and pepper – we tend to add quite a lot here!
(PS just thought to give this a little more flavour, put all the cooking liquid in with the courgettes, etc, when blending and then put back into the saucepan and reduce it down a bit)
Serve into bowls, and garnish with first the courgette sticks and then the croutons. If you are not trying to do this for under five Pounds, add some cream or use stock instead of water, or cook some prawns and add them whole to the soup.
Spaghetti with Crab, Chilli and Garlic
A couple of years ago, we used to eat this quite often. There aren’t that many on Dinner Diary though; we must have gone through that phase before we started blogging. This dish needs nice extra virgin olive oil on it, but of course we couldn’t afford that in this version. We have also tried it with fresh crab, but the delicate flavour tends to get lost if the chilli is too strong and it’s a waste. This is a really quick dish; waiting for the spaghetti to cook is the longest part of it.
1 tin crab, drained
250g spaghetti
1 red chilli
1/2 lemon
2 cloves garlic
1 bunch parsely, leaves only
butter (or olive oil)
ground black pepper
Put on plenty of water to boil in a large saucepan and when it is boiling hard, add a little salt and put in the spaghetti. Finely chop the chili and garlic. In a frying pan, melt some butter (or heat oil) and fry the chilli and garlic in it, reserving a small amount of chilli. Coarsely chop the parsley leaves.
When the spaghetti is cooked, drain it and then return it to its saucepan. Add the garlic and chilli, along with the butter or oil in which it was cooked and most of the parsely. Stir this well. Add the crab to this and stir more gently so as not to break up the crab too much. Season with pepper and a squeeze of lemon. Serve topped with the reserved chilli and garlic.
So we made it. The courgette soup initially didn’t seem as interesting as it should do (lack of stock and cream), but adding the lemon lifted it and saved it. The crab spaghetti was okay, but is better with loads of good olive oil all over it. If we remove from the total cost the left-overs of the ingredients that we didn’t completely use up, we get back over a Pound (mostly from the butter) and I’m sure that could buy us a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to put onto our spaghetti. Maybe even a dusting of Parmesan. Or some nicer spaghetti.
We really enjoyed doing this. Probably went a bit overboard trying to make the courgette soup interesting with croutons, etc, within budget, but it was fun.
Sagey Roast Chicken
We’re growing some herbs in our little garden and the sage plant is threatening to strangle the poor parsley and thyme bush so we decided we ought to use some up. After the excesses of last week (particularly eating the cuisine of two different countries in one day), we were both in the mood for something simple and fairly plain. It’s Sunday and it’s raining (again) which really only left us with one option: roast chicken. We’ve not had this for a while so were both excited, particularly as we decided to try a new chicken, a Duchy Original organic chicken since we’ve been rather disappointed with the Sainsbury’s “Taste the Difference” offerings lately.
The chicken turned out well; liberally seasoned with sea-salt and pepper, loosely stuffed with garlic, lemon and sage with more sagey butter stuffed under the skin. The aromatics leant a herby note without taking over the flavour of the chicken itself.
What didn’t turn out so well was the accompanying roast potatoes, I’m not sure if this was our fault for choosing the wrong variety or whether potatoes just aren’t any good at the moment (we’ve had a lot of disappointing ones recently) but they were incredibly sweet and didn’t crisp up at all. The sagey breadcrumb stuffing wasn’t a bad replacement though and the leeks and curly kale helped to soak up the delicious gravy (this chicken came with the giblets inside which we roasted in the chicken dish with some carrots, celery and onion to give us a tasty base for the gravy).
Squid Ink Pasta with Mussels
A few days ago, my sister kindly gave us some squid ink pasta. We thought that this definitely needed to be paired with something else related to the sea. Initially we planned to have it with actual squid, but were defeated at the last hurdle in our search and ended up with mussels instead.
We followed a moules mariniere approach for the mussels and then mixed them into the pasta and served with a dollop of sour cream. The pasta was fresh tagliatelle and cooked very quickly, giving a lovely texture that was at once both firm and yielding. Every time we have fresh pasta, we love it but don’t have it very often; clearly we need to practice making it ourselves.
The squid ink gives a lovely deep, (ironically) earthy flavour to the dish. I was trying to think of a wine that would pair with this and thought that a Cava with a lot of Xarel-lo in it would be good; light and fresh tasting but with an earthy body. Unfortunately we didn’t have any and made do with a light, South African sparkling wine which turned out to be a reasonable substitute.
