Rick Stein’s lamb and spinach curry

As detailed here but with a couple of differences.  First off I used oil, not ghee, and only around 3tbsp.  Secondly for the chilli paste step, I used one and a half medium hot chillies, and I didn’t add chilli powder.  That was probably hot enough for me because I’m moderately wimpy about very hot food.

It is very good indeed *pats tummy*.  Served with my favourite flatbreads; recipe below.

Wonky Monkey Flatbreads

100g self-raising flour
125g plain live yoghurt
1 tbsp black onion seeds
salt

1.  Squish everything together in a bowl to get a squidgy dough.
2.  Split into four and flatten out to around the thickness of a £1 coin.
3.  Griddle on both sides for a couple of minutes over a high heat, then finish under the grill under medium to high heat.

Food bits

Spanakopita (terrifyingly addictive)

  

Polenta, almond and lemon cake (also addictive)

And Variant number 1,045 on Left Over Pasta, which was really quite tasty.

Carrot cake

 

Doesn’t look the best, perhaps, but it’s fabulous; moist, spicy and succulent!  I confess that I don’t have a sweet tooth and usually don’t like cake much, but I’m very taken with this.

It’s a Paul Rankin recipe, but I tweaked the spice mix to be:

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp apiece cloves and nutmeg

Plus I left out the vanilla flavouring (I didn’t have any), added an extra 50g or so of carrots and used SR rather than plain flour.  The icing was made with cream cheese, sugar and grated orange peel – don’t like the versions with butter in, just too rich for me.

Chicken fajitas

So I meant to get a picture of it all, but I was famished and forgot.  Here are the ingredients anyway; this is a ridiculously easy recipe and good fun to share!

Guacamole

1 avocado
1 small clove of garlic, crushed

A little fresh chilli, finely chopped
1 tomato, very finely chopped
Lime juice, olive oil and salt to taste.

Mash the avocado and mix all the other ingredients.  Leave to stand while you cook everything else.

Chicken strips

3-4 chicken breasts, cut into strips (although I used thighs because I prefer them)

For the marinade:

1-2 tsp Chipotle chill seeds (ordinary chilli seeds will do but Chipotles are great cos they’re quite smoky)
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp cumin seeds (you could use ready-ground cumin but seeds are nicer)
3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp honey
A good squiggle of olive oil

Crush the cumin seeds into a powder and mix with all the other dry ingredients.  Crush the garlic and add with everything else to the dry mix.  Stir well, then mix through the chicken strips and leave to marinate for a couple of hours or overnight.

To cook:  Shove under the grill and cook at a moderately high temperature for 15-20 minutes, turning regularly, until slightly caramelised.

Veg

I used a courgette, half a yellow pepper, half an orange pepper, a red onion and some mushrooms I had lying around.

While the chicken is cooking, cut the veg into chunky strips.  Heat oil in a heavy frying pan and dust over some oregano and freshly ground cumin powder (1tsp each, roughly).  Chuck the veg in and cook on a high heat until done and starting to brown at the edges.

And that’s it. No harder really than the packet kits, and tastier.  Serve everything together with a pile of tortillas, mature grated cheddar and sour cream (I used half fat creme freiche, which I much prefer anyway!).

Not necessarily authentic but who cares!

Sopa de Lima

I’ve seen this mentioned in a couple of places recently, and since I had a nice pot of chicken stock sitting on the stove after a roast on Sunday, it seemed like now was as good a time as any to try it!  I was quite interested in the notion of a citrussy zingier version of chicken soup anyway.

This is it, sorry for rubbish photos, it was quite hard to get a picture without my camera steaming up!

For the broth:
Two chicken legs on the bone
10 black peppercorns
3 bay leaves
Pinch of allspice powder

Soffritto:
One onion
3-4 cloves of garlic, smashed
1 medium hot chilli
Three tomatoes, skin removed
1 large carrot, grated
Zest from two limes and two oranges (although I made it without oranges and instead added a bit of honey to sweeten it a little)
2 tbsp of chopped fresh oregano or a tsp of dried oregano

To finish:
The juice from the limes and oranges
Some veggies – I had some sugar snap peas kicking around so chucked them in, and also some sliced brussel sprouts, just because.  Mangetout and baby sweetcorn would be nice.
Lots of chopped fresh coriander (keep the stalks)
A few shreds of onion
And optionally a little grated cheese

To serve:  With tortillas and a generously lime-coriander-chilli-spiked guacamole.

1.  For the broth, bung everything in a pot with 2 litres of water.  Since I had around a litre of stock already I only used a litre of water.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 mins or so.  Remove from the heat and strain the broth into bowl.  Remove the chicken and bay leaves and set aside.

2.  For the soffritto, finely chop the onion and fry gently in olive oil until softened.  Add the chilli and garlic and cook for around five minutes.  Finely chop the tomatoes and add them to the onions along with all the other soffritto ingredients.  Simmer for around 10 minutes.

3.  While that’s bubbling away, get the meat off the chicken legs and shred it.

4.  Add the chicken broth to the soffritto, along with the citrus juices and finely chopped coriander stalks.  Bring to the boil and simmer for around 15 minutes, then add the veg and chicken.  Cook until the veg is done and the chicken heated through (around 3-4 mins).

5.  Remove from the heat and check the seasoning.  I added a splodge of honey but that’s optional. Either stir through the coriander or scatter it over the top along with a few slivers of onion when you serve.  I also topped with a bit of strong cheddar because (as the boy so eloquently put it, “it tastes a bit skinny!”).

At first taste, I wasn’t that impressed (the flavours are actually not as strong and punchy as I was expecting), but it grew on me.  It’s interestingly fresh-flavoured, with plenty of crunch and citrussy zing, and I suspect it’ll improve with keeping.  We shall see about that, since it’s coming to work with me tomorrow for lunch with the addition of some black-eyed beans and a few cubes of strong cheddar.

Yesterday’s dinner and today’s lunch

This was inspired by my boyfriend’s fabulous paella recipe.  The ingredient list looks intimidating but it’s really very simple.  Quantities (and indeed ingredients) are quite flexible; the crucial things are the paprika, garlic, onions, chilli and chorizo for the heat and smokiness (although you do need the wine and stock cube as well for depth).  Other than that, you can really do what you want.  For instance, it would work very well with leftover chicken, and you could obviously use completely different vegetables as well.

Paella-without-the-rice

1 fillet salmon
1 fillet smoked haddock
Pack of prawns
Around an inch or so of chorizo
3 tomatoes
1 large carrot, sliced
Half a cougette, sliced
Half each of a red and yellow pepper, sliced
A good handful of spinach, roughly chopped
One onion, chopped
3 fat garlic cloves, sliced
Half a medium hot chilli
1 teaspoon hot smoked paprika
1 tsp oregano
Half a beef stock cube, crumbled
Good slug of dry white wine
Couple of tbsp of low-fat creme freiche
Black pepper, to taste

1.  Fry the onion, garlic and chillies in a big heavy-bottomed frying pan until the onion is softened and transluscent.  Chop the chorizo and add to the pan.  Cook for a few more minutes.
2.  Add the vegetables, paprika and oregano and stir through.
3.  Add the wine and crumble over the stock cube.  I added around a glass of water at this point (you may need to add more as it evaporates, depending on the size of your pan.
4.  Bring to the boil then simmer until the veg is almost done (10-15 mins).  Stir through the spinach and cook for another few minutes or until wilted through.
5.  Add the chopped fish and prawns, cook for a further couple of minutes then add the creme freiche.  Cook until the fish is done (takes a few minutes only) and remove from the heat.  Season to taste.

I served it with couscous.

More food

As part of my vague resolution to Post More and Especially Pictures, here is some food from the last day or two.

A variant on the pasta with walnuts thing I mentioned a little while ago…

And something that I have named Leftover Omelette. 

It was very good, if I do say so myself.  Meanwhile, Mr Chicken is roasting in the oven, covered in slices of Miss Pig.  Plus there is a fresh batch of bread baked.  Always makes me feel pleasingly smug.

Beef dopiaza

Made this for a mini curry feast last night and it was good enough to share.

Spice Mix

1-2 tsp each of whole cumin, coriander and fennel seeds

You could use ready-ground spices instead, but you’ll lose a lot of flavour.

Curry mix
A packet of stewing steak or beef shin (didn’t measure mine but probably around 500-800g or so), cut into chunks
Around 500g of onions, cut into half-moon slices
3 tomatoes
3 fat cloves of garlic, smashed
1 medium chilli (this is very much to taste…make as hot as you like!)
Around a tablespoon of ginger, grated
1 tsp of fenugreek
1 tbsp of tumeric
Around 300ml of reduced-fat coconut milk
A couple of generous tablespoons of greek yoghurt (best to use the full-fat variety to reduce the risk of separating).  You could use half-fat creme freiche instead if you wish.
Lots of fresh coriander, chopped

1.  Pop the seeds in a frying pan and dry-roast until they start to smell gorgeous and look toasted (around 1-2 minutes on a medium heat).
2.  Tip into a pestle and mortar and crush into a power.  If you use ready-ground spices you can miss out this step.
3.  Heat some sunflower oil in a big casserole and brown the meat.  Remove from the pan and set aside.
4.  While the meat is cooking, slice the onions.  Add to the casserole (with an extra splash of oil if you think it needs it) and cook over a medium to low heat until the onions are softened and browned.
5.  Add the crushed garlic and chopped chilli, cook for a few more minutes.
6.  Re-add the meat to the casserole and stir around.  Then add the crushed spices, the fenugreek and tumeric, the ginger and tomatoes.  Stir it all aboot.
7.  Add the coconut milk and simmer for around two hours.
8.  Stir through the creme freiche or yoghurt, and season to taste.  Cook for a further 5 minutes or so, then remove from the heat and stir through plenty of chopped fresh coriander.

Serve with flatbreads.

Foooooooood

Hope everyone had a Happy Christmas!  Mine was mostly marked by the sniffles; given how hard I’ve been working for the past month it was probably inevitable that I’d end up getting ill as soon as I stopped work, but hey, it didn’t stop me stuffing myself!

Anyways, I haven’t done a food post for a while, so thought I’d post a few recipes, most especially the one for Christmas dinner!

Walnut and broccoli pasta
Head of broccoli, broken into small florets
1 red pepper, chopped
1 yellow pepper, chopped
Scant handful of walnuts, smashed
2 cloves of garlic
 Around 50g of mature cheddar
Around 150g (uncooked weight) of linguine or spaghetti

1.  Finely chop the garlic and fry gently in olive oil, taking care not to burn.
2.  Put the pasta on and cook according to packet instructions.  While doing that, add the veg to the pan with the garlic and turn the heat up a bit.  Cook for a further 3-4 mins and then add the walnuts.
3.  Remove from the heat and stir through the chopped cheese.
4.  To serve, twizzle the linguine into nests on the plate and top with the veg mix.

Bacon and prawns with pasta

2-3 rashers of bacon, fat removed
Packet of cooked prawns
1 onion
Clove of garlic
Chilli to taste (I use around half a medium one, which gives the sauce a nice kick)
Either a tin of chopped tomatoes or 4-5 ordinary tomatoes, chopped
1 red pepper or half a courgette, chopped
Generous handful of spinach, roughly chopped
A little oregano
Around 150g of penne or some other robust pasta

1.  Fry the chopped onion, chilli and crushed garlic in a little oil until softened.  Chop the bacon into small bits (using scissors is a lot easier) and add.
2.  Add the tomatoes and oregano, plus a slug of red wine if you like, and cook for a further five minutes or so.  Add the pepper or courgette.
3.  Cook until the veg is softened (around 5-10 mins) and add the prawns and spinach.  Heat through thoroughly.  Optionally, if you like, you can stir through a tablespoon or two of low-fat creme freiche and then remove from the heat.
4.  Drain the pasta and stir through the tomato mix.

Christmas Pig

Boneless joint of gammon (smoked or otherwise – mine was an unsmoked one from Waitrose) 
For the stock:
Couple of sticks of celery, onion, carrot, swede, bay leaves, parsley, or whatever other aromatics you like

For the glaze:
Around 100g of dark muscavado sugar
3 tablespoons of mustard powder
Generous tablespoon of honey
Enough hot water to make a paste

1.  Put the gammon and stock ingredients in a large pan and bring to the boil.  Simmer for around 2 hours.
2.  Drain off the stock and reserve (leave in a bowl in the fridge overnight and the fat will congeal out on the surface; skim off).
3.  Slash the fat on the joint into diamonds and put onto a foil-covered tray.  Pour the glaze over and work into the meat thoroughly.
4.  Put into a hot oven (around 230 C+) and roast for half an hour to forty minutes, turning and basting frequently.
5.  Leave to stand a little while before carving.


Stuff to go with the pig:



Braised red cabbage


Around 1/4 of a red cabbage, sliced
Half an onion
Blob of butter
Slug of red wine
Around a teaspoon or so of allspice
Genersou tablespoon or two of marmalade

1.  Fry the onion in the butter until softened, add the cabbage.  Cook for a further five minutes or so.
2.  Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a gentle bubble.  Simmer for an hour or two.

This is great with cheese, bread or oatcakes as well.

Lemony carrots

2 large carrots
Teaspoon of honey
Squeeze of lemon juice
Slug of olive oil

1.  Slice the carrots into chunky fingers and parboil for around five minutes.  Mix the honey, oil and lemon.
2.  Drain the carrots and put in a baking tray.  Pour over the dressing and grill until tender.

Roast potatoes

Around 4-5 roasting potatoes
Plenty of olive oil
Polenta
Salt

1.  Cut the potatoes into halves or quarters if they’re big, and boil for around five minutes.  Drain, and shake around vigorously in the collander to rough them up a bit.  Leave to stand and steam for a few minutes.
2.  Put plenty of olive oil into a baking tray; you can either heat it or add the potatoes cold, both seem to work OK.
3.  Put the potatoes in a mixing bowl and dust well with polenta and salt.  Add to the baking tray and cook for around 30 minutes or more at a high temperature (230C+), shaking every so often.