Christmas Chicken, with Sausage Meat Stuffing, and Chestnuts

Christmas lunch is often a complex piece of cooking. This one was no exception. The main components were: roast Maris Piper potatoes, carrots, brussels sprouts, sliced chicken breast, sausage meat and sage and onion stuffing, oven roasted sausages dressed in bacon (pigs in blankets), and a chestnut, onion and mushroom gravy.

The main trick is to get all of the components hot at the same time, and delivered to the plate within two minutes. Everything except the sausages was prepared the previous day. I used three rings on the hob to reheat the sprouts and carrot (in one pot), the chestnut gravy, and the chicken slices in some chicken stock. The roast potatoes were reheated in the microwave. The slices of sage and onion stuffing were toasted under the grill. The pigs in blankets were cooked from scratch in a fan-assisted oven. You have to watch these carefully, since they can be ready several minutes before you expect them to be.

I started with the vegetables, the chestnut sauce, and the chicken, which took three pots. Heated under glass at a low heat.

Ingredients: Brussels sprouts, chopped carrot, sliced chicken breast cooked in some chicken stock. The chicken breasts (four altogether) were cooked the previous day in the oven, in roasting trays and wrapped in aluminium foil. They can be cooked in ten to fifteen minutes at 200 deg C. These pieces had been frozen, and so I left them in the oven for forty minutes altogether, with the heat turned down for the last fifteen minutes, to ensure that they were heated all through.Wrapped in foil this is not a hazardous process, since the chicken is cooking in its own juices, and does not dry out. The chicken slices were very tender when served. 

The Chestnut sauce was made with Merchant Gourmet brand cooked chestnuts, sliced, half a white onion, and diced chestnut mushrooms. Additional ingredients were: a splash of dark soy sauce, a pinch of paprika, two bay leaves, and some oregano. Plus a splash of a dry sherry. 

The second item was the pigs in blankets.These were cooked from scratch at 180 deg C, for a notional 25 minutes. Ovens are so variable, even with an internal thermostat, that they were essentially ready in 15 minutes. I turned off the heat and put them back in the oven to make sure that they were thoroughly heated, and took them out after 20 minutes.

The first list of items were removed from heat after simmering for ten minutes or so.

The third item was the sage and onion stuffing. Because it contained pork sausage meat it was important to make sure it was thoroughly heated. Cooked under the grill, and the slices were turned once using a fish slice (about seven minutes each side - judged by eye). Made from scratch with:

Outdoor bred sausage meat from Sainsbury's, one diced apple, one diced onion, three medium handfuls of porage oats, one beaten egg, 40 g of salted butter,
a teaspoonful and a half of dried sage. Cooked in the oven on the previous day at around 180 deg C, for forty minutes (watched carefully). I used a silicon bread tin, so the stuffing was cooked much like a meatloaf. Sliced when cold, and stored in the fridge. 

I've made stuffing before, but not as good as this one!

The roast potatoes take just five minutes to reheat, so they were the fourth item to be started. I've blogged about roasting potatoes before, so search on roast potato for the details. In this case I used olive oil rather than goose fat, which is a popular choice at Christmas, but isn't strictly necessary to get excellent roast potatoes.

All components of the meal were thoroughly heated and cooked and still hot before serving. All components were on the plate within two minutes, starting with the sausages and the stuffing, followed by the chicken, the roast potatoes, the vegetables and the chestnut and onion sauce. Serve with Cranberry Sauce.

Does this seem like a military operation? Yes it does. It needs to be thought through first, with every part properly sequenced in your head before you start. After that, it is no problem. Especially if the major cooking is done on the previous day.

Bacon with Penne Pasta

Cooking bacon cut into chunks and stir-fried until browned. Add chopped onion, green pepper, carrot and celery. Cook for ten minutes at a medium heat, stirring frequently

Add boiling water and tomato puree, and stir. Cook for fifteen minutes under glass, and add the basil and half a spoonful of smoked paprika.

I used wheat-free pasta, which cooks in the same sort of time as the regular variety (9 to 10 minutes).

Serve the bacon and the salsa on top of the pasta in a pasta bowl. Dress in some black pepper.

Carrot and Spinach Soup

       

I had a large box of carrots in the fridge, and I found a bargain bag of spinach in the local store. An ideal combination of ingredients! A simple winter soup made with carrot, cumin, spinach, rosemary, celery, and onion.

Boil half a litre of water. Add four whole carrots, topped and tailed. Add one diced onion, one sixth of a celery plant, finely chopped, and a hundred grammes of spinach leaves, also finely chopped.

Cook for twenty five minutes, until the carrots are soft. Mash for two minutes. Add half a teaspoonful of powdered cumin (or alternatively cumin seeds), and a generous pinch of rosemary. Add the vegetable stock (chicken stock can also be added, or added instead).

Simmer under glass for another forty-five minutes before serving.

Beef Chilli with Peppers and Herbed Chips

Made with ground beef, carrot, green pepper, green chilli, onion, mushroom, and served with herbed oven roasted chips (dressed with coriander, basil, oregano, tomato ketchup, tomato puree, olive oil, bay leaf, and paprika.

Stir-fry chunks of carrot, diced mushroom and onion in olive oil in a large saute pan, until tender (about fifteen or twenty minutes). Move the vegetables to one side of the pan, and add 450g of ground beef. After the beef has begun to brown, stir the beef and the vegetables together, and cook for another twenty to twenty-five minutes at a moderately high heat, stirring every minute or so.

Add the bay leaves (I added two), the beef stock, and the paprika. Add black pepper, a diced half of a green pepper, and four green chillis, with the stems removed. Stir together. Cook for another hour, stirring every five minutes, before serving.

The chips were made from two semi-peeled potatoes, sliced into ovals, and then subdivided into chips. The chips were decanted into a bowl, and stirred through a herby salsa, made with tomato ketchup, paprika, olive oil, oregano, coriander and basil.

Cook the chips in a large glass roasting tray (greased). The oven was preheated to 200 deg C. and the tray was placed in the middle. Cooked for twenty-five to thirty  minutes, and turned once.

Served with freshly ground black pepper.

Bacon, Tomato, Celery and Mushroom Stew

Prepared with about 150g of chunky cooking bacon, cut into gougons, and fried until golden brown. Add finely chopped celery, mushrooms and onion to the stir-fry, and cook until the onions also begin to brown.

Add boiling water (around a cupful) and add a 400g tin of plum tomatoes. Crush the plum tomatoes with a spatula. Stir together and allow to simmer under glass for half an hour to forty-five minutes.

Add the vegetable stock, and the herbs, Sage, Basil and Herbes de Provence. Add a pinch or two of paprika and stir together. Simmer for another ten to fifteen minutes. Serve on a bed of basmati or American long grain rice.

Salted American Pancakes with Brown Pickle

Add two medium eggs to a glass bowl, a heaped dessert spoonful of cornflour, and three desert spoonfuls of whole milk. Add a teaspoonful of salt. A pinch of oregano is optional. Stir the mix together, until the cornflour is blended together with the other ingredients, then beat the mixture with a whisk for a few minutes. Repeat the process two more times.

Preheat a flat non-stick pan containing a brushing of sunflower oil, until a couple of drips of the pancake mixture begins to bubble and brown. Add a ladle full of the mix for each pancake. Cook for two and a half minutes each side. Turn down the heat until the pancakes are ready (if you are using an electric hob). Turn up to a high heat for each of the subsequent pancakes, and reduce the heat during the cooking process.

Serve with a dessert spoonful of brown pickle. Delicious!

Sweet Chilli Houmous Dip with Carrot and Celery

Houmous dip from the Co-op, served with carrot and celery batons.

Houmous is made from chickpea flour, cooked with the addition of an emulsifier such as olive oil, and in this case also with some cornflour in the mix. Also with a little vinegar, sugar, crushed garlic, and chilli sauce.

Batoning vegetables is fairly straightforward if you are using a very sharp vegetable knife, and hazardous with one which isn't. Cut both the carrot and the celery into strips, and then divide into three or four.

Coconut, King Prawns, with Sweet Potato noodles

Coconut, lime Leaves, lime juice, and King Prawns.Thai style king prawns from Vietnam.

A  prawn dish which was intended to be consumed as part of an Asian salad with Asian pickles. I chose to make them the focus of a stir-fry.

The prawns were heated in a steamer for about ten minutes.

The noodles were made with sweet potato and onion. The noodles were spiralised sweet potato, and onion, and stir-fried in a pan at medium heat, along with two small carrots, grated and sliced red pepper. The noodles, carrot and sliced red pepper were decanted onto a plate with a spiral of dark soy sauce.

Ready in fifteen minutes at a medium heat. Stirred frequently to prevent burning. Delicious!

Egg and Mayo with a Lettuce, Cucumber, and Red Pepper Salad

Sometimes it is good to have a salad in the winter. Two boiled eggs, cooled and sliced, mixed with two dessert spoonfuls of mayonnaise.

The vegetable part of the salad consists of cucumber, chopped iceberg lettuce, three spring onions, chopped salad tomato, and chopped marinaded red pepper. Normally I would add some grated carrot to the mix, but did not in this case. Mix in a bowl, and dress with a drizzle of  olive oil, coriander leaf, and serve with black pepper.

Sweet Potato and Red Pepper Soup

After experimenting with spiralizing sweet potato and onion, I used the leftovers as the basis for a soup. I chopped both the remains of the sweet potato and the onion into small cubes, and did the same for a third of a fresh red pepper.

I added all three ingredients to a small pan containing boiling water. (just big enough to make soup for two).  After a couple of minutes, I added about 100g of tomato passata. Then some herbs - oregano, and basil. I also added about a third of a teaspoonful of smoked paprika, and three shakes of sea salt.

The soup was cooked under glass at a low heat for an hour. Simple to make, and delicious.

Bacon and Tomato Pasta

Penne pasta with a tomato and parmigiano regiano sauce salsa, with bacon chunks, garlic and herbs.

I cooked the bacon first at a medium heat, together with the garlic, which takes around fifteen to twenty minutes, until the bacon pieces are slightly browned. Then I added boiling water and pieces of the cheese (about 75g). Cooked for twenty minutes to half an hour until the cheese has melted, stirring frequently.

Then I added about 150g of tomato passata, plus the herbs basil, oregano, and a pinch of paprika. Added a dash of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce. Stirred together thoroughly. This is essentially a neopolitan style salsa, which is the basis of many excellent Italian meals.

I left it  to cook at a low heat under glass for another twenty minutes to half an hour. During which time I prepared the wheat-free, gluten free pasta from Sainsbury's. I boiled water, and added about a third cupful of the dried pasta. I also added a quarter teaspoonful of turmeric, for both flavour and colour. The pasta was stirred frequently to prevent sticking.

The pasta was ready to serve in ten minutes. I spooned the salsa into a pasta bowl and used a slatted spoon to capture all of the bacon chunks. The pasta was drained, and decanted into the bowl. The dish was served with black pepper. Delicious!

Unsmoked Gammon with Winter Vegetables

Boiled potato, steamed carrots and Brussels Sprouts. The main ingredient was unsmoked slices of gammon (carved from a roasted joint the previous day), served with a gravy made with chopped green peppers and onion. The gravy could be blended if you prefer.

Boil the potatoes for twenty minutes and steam the carrots for the same amount of time. The sprouts take less time - ten minutes should be enough.

The peppers and onion were cooked in a vegetable stock and some onion gravy granules (Bisto brand). Add the slices of gammon after about fifteen or twenty minutes. Cook under glass for another fifteen or twenty minutes. A small dash of sweet chilli sauce was added in the last five minutes. Not necessary, but I like the edge of heat it gives.

Basa Fish with Pan-Fried Mushrooms

Baked Basa Fish with pan-fried mushrooms, served with freshly ground black pepper.

Basa fish (river cobbler, catfish) from Morrisons. Preheat the oven to 200 deg C. The fish fillets were placed in a greased non-stick roasting pan, and cooked for twelve minutes. Basa fish often is filleted to contain no bones, as was the case with these fillets. A delicate flavour - the kitchen does not smell of fish for a couple of days. Often sourced from fish farms in the Mekong Delta.

The mushrooms were pan-fried with sunflower oil at a medium heat for about seven minutes, but could have been cooked with a knob of butter instead (expensive these days in the UK!). Serve with black pepper.

Can be served with roast potatoes, or oven-roasted chips in a spicy salsa.

Beef Chow Mein with Rice Noodles

The remains of some bargain topside beef went into this dish. Finely chopped, and added to chopped spring onion and chestnut mushrooms, all the ingredients were cooked in a small lidded pot with the juice from marinaded red peppers (Polish style, mainly vinegar), and a sachet of chow mein flavoured sauce from Aldi.

Cooked slowly for about twenty minutes, while the rice noodles were cooking. The noodles were dropped into boiling water, and then the heat was turned down. Cooked at a low heat under glass.

The noodles were decanted into a metal sieve, and sifted with a fork to ensure separation. Added to the serving plate, and dusted with some Sumak powder, which imparts a lemony flavour. The beef chow mein was added to the centre, and then the dish was served. Delicious!

Aberdeen Angus Beef Burgers, with Chilli Sauce

Aberdeen Angus beef burgers, with a yellow pepper, spring onion, and a red chilli sauce. Bought cheap, because they were priced too expensively to sell quickly at the local co-op. A few years ago they would have shifted fairly quickly, but not any more.

Aberdeen Angus beef is one of the best brands of beef in the world. So if you use it to make beef burgers, what you are going to get is a superior product to what you will normally find in a burger restaurant, unless the manufacturer messes up. They didn't mess up with these. They were pan-fried for twenty five minutes, starting at a high heat and reducing to a low heat. No added oil. There was sufficient fat in the burgers to do the job, but the least amount I've ever seen in a burger. Not much shrinkage either. Excellent!

The burgers were turned three times, and they spent the last ten minutes at a low heat under glass.

I diced three quarters of a yellow pepper and two spring onions, and cooked them in a small lidded pan with some of the juices from a jar of marinaded red peppers (essentially vinegar), and some water. I added two and a half dessert spoonfuls of red chilli sauce, and stirred them together. Cook for 30 minutes under glass at a low heat, stirring occasionally. I added a pinch of paprika and a pinch of oregano also.

Serve with freshly ground black pepper. The sauce is a delicious compliment to the beef!

Beef and Potato Salad Wrap

The potato salad was made with chunks of boiled potato from the day before, plus chopped marinaded red pepper (Polish style), plus the sliced onion in the marinade, chopped spring onion, and shredded tomato. Add three dessert spoonfuls of fresh mayonnaise and some freshly ground black pepper.

The herby mediterranian style wrap was the last of eight in the packet in the fridge, so I freshened it up by soaking it in warm water and leaving it to flatten for ten minutes. Cooked very briefly under glass at a low heat in a flat pan under glass (don't overdry it!)

The topside beef came from the local co-op. 25 days matured, rubbed in salt, oven roasted, and thinly cut. I added two slices of the beef (altogether 50g), and spooned the potato salad across the width of the wrap. Carefully roll up the wrap, and cut diagonally to serve.

Endless variations can be wrung on this simple filling dish. It would be good with chicken pieces, or with roast pork. Good too with something like Wiltshire ham, Brunswick ham, or something similar. Also can be made with sliced pickled gherkins or salted cabbage mixed with the mayonnaise.

American Pancakes with Banana and Maple Syrup

I made this dish because some banana needed to be used, along with some single cream.

Add three medium eggs to a glass bowl, a heaped dessert spoonful of cornflour, and three desert spoonfuls of single cream. Add a pinch of salt, and a teaspoonful of maple syrup. Stir the mix together, until the cornflour is blended together with the other ingredients, then beat the mixture with a whisk for a few minutes. Repeat the process two more times.

Preheat a flat non-stick pan containing a brushing of sunflower oil, until a couple of drips of the pancake mixture begins to bubble and brown. Add a ladle full of the mix for each pancake. Cook for two and a half minutes each side. Turn down the heat until the pancakes are ready (if you are using an electric hob). Turn up to a high heat for each of the subsequent pancakes, and reduce the heat during the cooking process.

Serve with a drizzle of maple syrup (about two dessert spoonfuls). Delicious!

Black Pudding with Carrot and Cinnamon Mash

A simple dish of black (blood) pudding, served with boiled and mashed carrot, suffused with some ground cinnamon.

Scottish black pudding is sometimes flavoured with a little cinnamon, though these pudding slices were not.

Black pudding doesn't take long to cook. Generally I start them off at a high heat in order to sear the surface, and then turn the heat down low, and cook them for seven minutes on each side. The last seven minutes under glass, which stops them drying out.

Cook the carrots for at least twenty minutes in boiling water, and then drain. Add a quarter teaspoonful of cinnamoon to the bowl of carrots, along with a pinch of sea salt. Mash and serve with freshly ground black pepper..

Chilli con Carne with Potato

Ground beef, browned in a saute pan for twenty minutes to half an hour. Add sliced onion, diced carrot, and cook until the onions are softened and beginning to brown.

 Add some boiling water, plus six chillies with the stems removed, three chopped cloves of garlic, a tin of kidney beans in juice (add the juice), and six sliced mushroooms. Add three squirts of tomato puree, and four finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes, a pinch of paprika, beef stock, and some chopped basil leaves.

Turn down the heat and simmer the beef for two hours under glass, until tender. Stir occasionally. Remove the chillies before serving if you do not want to eat them. They provide lots of heat just by being in the dish while it is cooked.

Serve with boiled potatoes. Delicious!

Breaded Chicken with Spicy French Fries

The breaded chicken breast came from Sainsbury's supermarket. It had been in the freezer, but was thoroughly thawed before cooking.

The French fries/chips were made from two semi-peeled potatoes, sliced into ovals, and then subdivided into chips.

The chips were decanted into a bowl, and stirred through a spicy salsa, made with tomato ketchup, worcestershire sauce, paprika, oil from a jar of grilled red peppers (sunflower oil), oregano, coriander and rosemary.

Both the chips and the breaded chicken pieces were cooked in a large glass roasting tray. The oven was preheated to 200 deg C. and the tray was placed in the middle. Cooked for twenty-five to thirty  minutes.  Served with freshly ground black pepper and a squeeze of tomato ketchup.

Cumberland Sausage with Green Beans

Cumberland sausage (pricked) fried in a glass-lidded pan for twenty minutes, along with sliced onion, in a little sunflower oil. Cooked for the first fifteen minutes without the lid.

The potatoes were boiled in a separate pan for twenty minutes, along with the green beans.

Mix up the gravy browning with half a pint of water, and add to the sausages in the glass-lidded pan. Cook under glass until the gravy reduces and thickens (about thirty to forty minutes). Cumberland sausage contains herbs, and if the sausages are pricked, the flavour bleeds into the gravy.

Finally, add a pinch of paprika and stir it in to the gravy.

Serve with freshly ground black pepper.

A favourite dish!

Blueberry, Grape and Mango Fruit Salad

Mango and melon chunks, with seedless red  or green grapes, plus two handfuls of blueberries. Add to the dish.

Add eight dessert spoonfuls of double cream to the serving bowl (whipped or unwhipped according to preference), and a dessert spoonful of authentic maple syrup.

Simple, and completely delicious!

An alternative to the maple syrup is pomegranate molasses, if you have that to hand in your cupboard. A quite different flavour, but equally delicious with fruit and cream!

King Prawns and Egg Noodles

 The ingredients are: 250g of cooked king prawns, egg noodles, green beans, spring onions, red pepper, yellow pepper, diced chestnut mushrooms, two cloves of garlic, a dessert spoonful of red chilli sauce, and some toasted sesame seed oil.

The egg noodles were prepared first, in a pan of boiling water. Leave to soften for fifteen minutes, with some salt.

The prawns were steamed first of all, for twelve minutes. The vegetables were stir-fried in the sesame oil at a medium heat for fifteen minutes. Then the drained noodles were added to the pan, followed immediately by

the king prawns.

Stir-Fry the noodles, prawns and vegetables for two minutes, and add a dessert spoonful of red chilli sauce.  Stir together. Then decant to a plate. Dress with a spiral of dark soy sauce.

Peppered Pastrami and Haricot Bean Casoulet

Some left over diced peppered pastrami combined with haricot beans, onion, shredded tomato, mushroom, tomato puree, boiled potato, plus two pinches of basil, one pinch of oregano, and two dashes of worcestershire sauce.

The pastrami was stir-fried in some sunflower oil for about ten minutes, until thoroughly cooked. Chopped onion, shredded tomato and mushroom was added and stir-fried at a low heat for a further ten minutes.

After that the haricot beans were added (in this case I had half a tin of baked beans in the fridge, and I used those), along with boiling water and tomato puree. Simmered for a further fifteen minutes.

Add pre-boiled potato pieces, plus the basil, oregano, and the worcestershire sauce. Stir thoroughly, and serve piping hot!

Pastrami Cheese with Penne Pasta

The ingredients are: peppered pastrami trimmings, red pepper, mushrooms, onion, garlic, cornflour, 50g of a soft cheese (in this case camembert), and two pinches of marjoram. Plus 30g of penne pasta (wheat free if preferred).

Cook the pastrami in a little sunflower oil until cooked through (start with a high heat, then turn it down to a low heat). Add half a chopped red pepper, and the onion (diced). Add two crushed and chopped cloves of garlic, and finely sliced mushroom (3 small). Stir frequently until the vegetables are cooked.

Make up a quarter-cup mixture of a teaspoonful of cornflour and water. Add the mixture to the pan containing the pastrami and vegetables. Stir frequently and turn up the heat. Once the sauce begins to thicken, turn down the heat to a simmer, and continue to stir. Cut the cheese into thin strips and add slowly to the sauce. Stir until the cheese has dissolved. Add the marjoram to the sauce.

Boil the pasta in slightly salted water for 8-9 minutes, and drain. Add to a pasta bowl, and then add the pastrami and camembert sauce. Delicious!

Scrambled Egg with Pastrami

Made with peppered pastrami trimmings, two medium sized eggs, shredded tomato, flat parsley, butter, and milk (or single cream).

The pastrami was chopped into small pieces and fried in a skillet with 25g of butter, until cooked through. Then a quarter cup of milk was added to the pan, along with the two eggs. Stir thoroughly until the yokes are broken. Add a pinch of parsley, and continue to stir occasionally until the egg separates from the liquid, which begins to run clear.

Served on unbuttered wheat free bread. 

Shred half of a salad tomato as a garnish.

Basa Fish with Green Beans

Basa fish, from Morrison's,  farmed in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, with Kenyan green beans, plus some boiled potato, grown (probably) somewhere close to my house. An excellent Sunday lunch.

I've cooked Basa fish before, and it is otherwise known as 'river cobbler' or catfish. The fish is delicious, and it can be cut (as here) so that generally the fillet is bone free.

The potatoes were cooked earlier in the day. I used a flat bottomed pan to cook the fish in a little sunflower oil. The pan was on a high heat when I put in the fish, then I turned the heat down to the lowest level. The fillet was turned at seven minutes (under glass), and cooked for another seven minutes, with the lid at an angle to allow steam to escape.

The potatoes were added to the pan just before the fish: their sizzling told me the pan was at the right heat.

The green beans were simmered in a separate pan for fifteen minutes at a low heat under glass.

Dust the plate with some white pepper before serving.

Peppered Salami with Carrot and Coriander Salad

A simple salad made with grated carrot (two small carrots), diced fresh coriander leaves, Spring onion, orange zest, a large salad tomato cut into two lotus shapes, one sliced pickled beetroot, Mayonnaise, and slices of German peppered salami.

Instructions are probably unnecessary for this one, except for cutting the tomato. The trick is to cut a crenelation pattern along the equator of the tomato with a sharp knife. Once you get the hang of it, it is easy to do. the whole dish can be prepared in ten minutes.

The grated carrot, the diced fresh coriander, and the spring onion were mixed in a glass bowl with some orange zest (a small squeeze of juice will do as an alternative, as will some lemon juice). Serve the dish with freshly ground black pepper.

Cauliflower in a Cheddar Cheese Sauce

Half a head of a medium sized Cauliflower, steamed for twenty to twenty five minutes until tender.

The cheese sauce was made with cornflour and water, with 150g of finely sliced pieces of mature cheddar cheese. Bring the cornflour and water mixture to the boil until it begins to thicken. Turn down the heat. Add the cheddar pieces and stir in thoroughly. Stir more or less continuously to prevent sticking or burning, until most of the cheddar cheese has dissolved. Add some turmeric. Add coriander leaf to the sauce. Ready in around fifteen to twenty minutes.

Serve with a dressing of freshly ground black pepper. Simple, nutritious and delicious!

Beef and Potato Chilli

Made with 400g of ground beef, around 12 per cent fat content. Other ingredients are - boiled chunks of potato, chopped carrot, three small white onions, half a chopped yellow pepper, four deseeded chillies, beef and vegetable stock, one tin of chopped tomatoes, diced white mushrooms, and three crushed and diced cloves of garlic.

Served with white basmati rice.

Brown the ground beef in a little sunflower oil for around fifteen minutes, stirring frequently to prevent burning. Add the vegetables, the chilli and the garlic, and stir fry together until the vegetables begin to soften. Add boiling water (about half a pint), and the chopped tomatoes (I used a tin), and stir together. Bring to the boil again, and turn the heat down to a simmer. Cook under glass for an hour to an hour and a half.

Delicious as is, and needs no herbs added. But you could add a little basil and coriander to the dish.

Beetroot and Red Pepper Salad

Made with four small beets, pickled in vinegar and sliced, boiled potato (cold from the fridge), diced red pepper, five sliced button mushrooms, a large spring onion, chopped, and a dessert spoonful of mayonnaise.

Before serving, dust with fine ground white pepper, two pinches of paprika, and a generous pinch of chervil. Ten minutes to prepare, and ready to eat. Delicious!

Fresh cooked beets can be used instead.

Cauliflower and Cumin Soup with Cream

I made a delicious cauliflower cheese with one half, and decided to make a soup with the other.

The cauliflower was steamed, which means it is more likely to keep its integrity during cooking. This soup was always going to be blended however, so boiling in water is fine.

The other ingredients are: one carrot, a medium onion, green lentils (one handful), vegetable and chicken stock, one deseeded green chilli, coriander leaf, a teaspoonful of cumin powder, and a pinch of cumin seeds, plus a quarter teaspoonful of turmeric, and a dash of white pepper.

boil the vegetables for half an hour, and then mash. Add the stock. Cook for another half an hour, and then blitz the contents of the pot with a hand blender for two minutes. Serve the soup with two dessert spoonfuls of single cream in a swirl. Delicious!

Chicken Medallions in a Kicap Manis Dressing

Made with chicken breast, chicken stock, carrot, onion, peas, mushrooms, red and green pepper, chopped and deseeded red chilli, and Malaysian Kicap Manis sauce.

A chicken breast from the fridge was chopped laterally into medallions, and the pieces were stir-fried in sunflower oil at a medium heat until properly cooked. Partly under glass, this will take around twelve minutes, during which the pieces should be moved around the pan and turned.

Add the chopped vegetables, and stir-fry for a further ten minutes at a medium heat, Add boiling water, and the chicken stock. Turn the heat down to a low heat, and simmer under glass for a further fifteen to twenty minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serve hot, and drizzle the Kicap Manis over the top of the dish.

Pasta Chicken

Chopped roast chicken breast in a tomato sauce with chicken stock,  garlic, chilli pepper, onion, red pepper, basil and coriander. Served with wheat-free pasta and black pepper, and without cheese.

First, fry chopped onion in sunflower oil with chopped red pepper, until the onion begins to turn golden brown. Deseed the chilli, chop and add to the pan. Add crushed and chopped garlic.

Prepare the tomato sauce. Chopped tinned tomatoes will do, or otherwise a tomato passata. Add some boiling water to the pan, and add the tomato sauce. Add the chopped chicken and stir together thoroughly.  Simmer under glass for at least twenty minutes. During which time you can prepare the wheat-free pasta (8-10 minutes in boiling salted water).

You can serve the pasta first if you prefer, but on this occasion I served the chicken salsa first, then added the pasta tubes.

Pork and Potato Curry

Pork strips from a leg joint, cooked with onion, spring onion, diced mushroom, and peas. With chilli (deseeded) two garlic cloves, and the spices garam masala, cumin, coriander powder, coriander leaf, sliced root ginger, and some ground black pepper.

Easy to prepare. Place all of the ingredients in a pan containing boiling water and cook for half an hour under glass at a medium heat, then reduce to a low heat for another half an hour. Stir occasionally, and check the consistency of the curry. 

During which preparation time you can peel some potatoes, cut them into wedges, and cook them in a steamer for thirty minutes or so at a low heat (put the potatoes into the steamer when the water has come to the boil).

Decant the potatoes on to the serving plate, and add the pork curry. May be served with garlic nan bread.

Leek and Chorizo Soup

A pretty simple soup, made with one large leek, three carrots, 100g of spelt grain, 50g of green lentils, and around 150g of chorizo sausage.

The vegetables were cooked for 45 minutes in water until all were soft. Then they were mashed for two minutes.

Diced chorizo was added, and the soup was cooked for another hour at a low heat under glass.

Add two pinches of rosemary, and a teaspoonful of Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce, ten minutes before the cooking is complete.

Serve with buttered bread (wheat free or otherwise).

Chicken in a Ras El Hanout (Moroccan) Sauce

A small chicken crown found in the freezer was steamed for 75 minutes to thaw completely and cook (add extra water halfway through the process). It was then skinned, deboned, and halved.

Semi-peeled potatoes were steamed for forty minutes in a different compartment.

The sauce was made with green pepper, red and yellow grilled peppers, two small onions, one deseeded large red chilli, and one large chestnut mushroom. Stir-fried at a medium heat for fifteen minutes in some of the oil that surrounded the grilled peppers.

I made up a teaspoonful of cornflour in cold water, stirred it thoroughly until mixed, and added it to the pot of vegetables. I added three spoonfuls of Greek style yoghurt, and stirred the mixture thoroughly. Also added was chicken stock, coriander leaf, and a teaspoonful of Ras El Hanout spice mixture. Cook until the sauce has thickened. Serve hot!

Can also be served with rice or couscous.

Chicken in Five Spice Sauce, with Mushroom and Cabbage Stir Fry

 Made with a bag of prepared vegetables from the local Co-op, which included, bean sprouts, chopped mushroom, chopped red onion, two different types of cabbage. Stir-fried in oil from a jar of grilled peppers. The five spice sauce was made with red pepper, yellow pepper, onion, tomato puree or passata, a teaspoonful of coriander, half a teaspoonful of  coriander leaf, a dash of rice wine, some more of the oil from the jar of grilled peppers, powdered chilli, three cloves of garlic, and a teaspoonful of five spice powder. Add water and simmer for at least fifteen minutes. Turn down the heat.

 The raw chicken was cut into strips and stir-fried in hot sunflower oil until the pieces begin to turn golden brown. Once the strips are ready, add the five spice sauce, and stir in thoroughly. Simmer for another twenty minutes or so.

Cook the stir-fry last of all, at a high heat initially, and then turn down the heat. Stir frequently for about seven minutes before serving with a spiral of dark soy sauce, and dusting of either black or Szechuan pepper. Hot and delicious!

Beef Burger with Barbecue Sauce

I bought a pack of burgers from Sainsbury's at a good price. I don't do burger buns with cheese, etc., so I decided to make a barbecue sauce for them with some healthy vegetables.

The ingredients of the sauce are: two small white onions, two thirds of a red and green pepper, three cloves of garlic, two small chopped finger chillies, a teaspoonful of powdered coriander, 150g of tomato passata, and half a teaspoonful of smoked paprika.

The onion was sliced and cooked at a medium heat until it began to go golden brown. Then I added the chopped peppers and the other vegetables. Cooked for ten minutes at a low heat, then I added boiling water. Then the passata, the powdered coriander, and the smoked paprika. Cooked for twenty minutes. No cornflour thickening required.

The burger had already been pan-fried the day before, so much of the fat in it had gone. I put it in an omelette pan with a drizzle of sunflower oil from a jar of grilled peppers (imparts great flavour!), and covered it with a glass lid. Cooked thoroughly for fifteen minutes at a low heat, and turned once or twice before serving.

Served with a chopped fresh spring onion, a dusting of black pepper and shredded coriander leaf. Delicious and simple! Cajun seasoning for the barbecue sauce is an alternative option.

Pork and Pepper Stir-Fry

A pork stir fry with two different kinds of cabbage, bean sprouts, red and
yellow peppers, chestnut mushrooms, red onion, carrot, bamboo shoots, finger chillies, garlic, root ginger.

The whole dish was cooked in the same wok, so I started with the pork. I cut into strips two raw pork loin steaks, after removing the surrounding fat. The strips were put into the wok when the sunflower oil was hot, and stir fried for ten minutes, with the heat turned right down to the lowest. After that I turned up the heat again, and added chopped peppers, 3 chopped finger chillies, bamboo shoots, chopped mushroom, garlic, and root ginger strips. Cooked for three minutes stirring almost constantly.

Finally I added the cabbage, bean sprouts, red onion, and some carrot pieces, and stir-fried for a further 3 minutes at a medium heat.

Served on a spiral of dark soy sauce.

Pork and Mushroom Stew, with Grilled Peppers and Greek Basil

A delicious stew made with sliced roast pork (from a boneless pork leg), chestnut mushrooms, two large tomatoes, chives, peas, onion, smoked paprika, Oregano, grilled peppers (yellow and red), and Greek basil.

The pork joint was sliced with an electric knife. The peppers came in oil in a jar, so I used some of that in the saute pan. Full of the flavour of the peppers. I chopped up the peppers, onion, mushrooms, tomatoes and the chives. The pork and the vegetables were added to the pan when the oil was reasonably hot, and stir-fried for about ten minutes, after which boiling water was added, along with the peas, some smoked paprika (one teaspoonful) and the oregano.

Simmered under glass for an hour or so at a low heat. Before serving, shred some greek basil, and stir through the contents of the pan for one or two minutes. Serve with boiled potatoes, freshly ground black pepper. A dash of Tabasco can be added for a little extra spice. 

I've had 108 visits from France over the past week. They know about food in France, so that number of visitors is gratifying! Thanks for your interest.

Mustard Ham Omelette

A simple omelette cooked as an accompaniment to mustard-breaded ham. Served with sliced salad tomatoes.

The omelette was cooked in a small pan with chopped chives. About three minutes each side, in sunflower oil. Dress with freshly ground black pepper.

Mango and Apricot Salad with Red and Black Wild Rice

The black and red wild rice was cooked for thirty minutes on the hob, in unsalted water.

While the rice was being prepared, I chopped up the mango and the apricots (careful with the stones!), and the orange pieces. They can be soused in a little white wine and allowed to stand for half an hour, but the dish is delicious without this. I like a slight alcoholic undercurrent to a fruit salad, which is a personal taste.

When the rice is ready, cool it in a sieve under cold running water. Add the fruit and the rice to the serving bowl, and pour the single cream over the the top. Voila. Delicious!

Breaded Haddock with Mayonnaise and Garden Peas

Breaded haddock fillets from the local Co-op at a good price. Served with roasted potatoes, cooked for fifteen minutes at 200 deg C in a roasting tray by themselves. They were dusted with some Rosemary. and brushed with sunflower oil (as was the roasting tray).

Then I added the two haddock fillets to the roasting tray, and cooked them for 18 minutes along with the potatoes.

I heated some garden peas, and added a dessert spoonful of mayonnaise. Not much preparation needed! Dusted with freshly ground black pepper.

Sweet and Sour Roast Pork Stir-fry

A bag of stir-fry vegetables from the Co-op, including two kinds of cabbage (one of them being cavolo cabbage), bean sprouts, carrot, red onion, red pepper, yellow pepper, and water chestnuts, to which I added garlic and four green finger chillies, cooked in sunflower oil. You could add bamboo shoots and mushrooms if you have them to hand.

Cooked for five minutes in a wok, from a high heat, which was gradually reduced, to avoid burning the vegetables.

The roast pork was cooked the day before, and was cut into strips. Added to a small lidded pan with a sweet and sour sauce (bought from Aldi. I've described how to make this sauce elsewhere on the blog). Cooked slowly for fifteen minutes to ensure thorough heating of the pork.

Added together on the plate, along with some dark soy sauce drizzled over the top, and freshly ground black pepper.

Pork Stew with Chives, Onion and Mushroom

Joints are going out of style for many people because they are seen as too complicated to prepare and cook. So the bargains are there to be had. They are worth seeking out since they are better value for money, even if it is true they involve much more effort and forethought.

This one came from Morrisons - a 1.1kg boneless pork leg joint.

Cooked on the middle shelf of the oven for two hours at 190-200 deg C. along with two large chopped potatoes and a peeled and halved onion.

The joint was wrapped in aluminium foil, in such a way that the juices would remain with the joint. The package was placed on top of the potato and onion spread around the roasting tray. I added half an inch of water to prevent the vegetables from dehydrating too quickly.

The tray was removed from the oven after the first hour, and the vegetables were decanted into a bowl. The joint then laid directly onto the tray, and replaced in the oven.

Once cooked, the juices were decanted into a pot, along with a cornflour and water mixture, containing chopped chives. Once thickened, the juices were decanted into a glass jar, and were later put into the fridge. The joint itself was allowed to cool overnight on a plate under an upturned glass bowl.

The next day the joint was cut into slices using an electric knife, and put into a flat pan. The pork fat was removed from the now jellied juices with a teaspoon, and the jelly was added to the pan. Add a cupful of boiling water.  Chopped mushrooms were added, along with the onion which cooked with the joint, now chopped. Simmer under glass for half an hour, stirring occasionally.

Serve with the potatoes which were cooked along with the joint, after fifteen minutes in the steamer. Delicious! Well worth the effort.