Chilli Chicken One-Pot

This recipe was chosen after a need to use up some left over chorizo and what a great choice it was 🙂

As a big fan of one-pot dishes, they come into their element when having guests over for dinner, as you can spend time with them, instead of slaving away in the kitchen, while the aroma fills the house.

Definitely make sure you have some zingy chorizo to go with this, as the flavours really seep into the chicken. A warming hearty dish to try and make the rain and floods of the British winter go away!

Ingredients:
2 large onions, halved and sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
265g chorizo ring, peeled and thickly sliced
4 red peppers, deseeded and cut into large chunks
2 x 400g/14oz can chopped tomato
2 chicken stock cubes
½-1 tsp dried chilli flakes
2 tsp dried oregano
16 boneless skinless chicken thighs
3 x 410g/14oz cans red kidney beans, drained

To serve:
15g pack coriander, chopped
2-3 avocado, skinned and sliced
good squeeze lime juice


1. Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Fry the onions in the oil for 5 mins until they become soft and start to colour. Add the chorizo and fry for a few mins more. Stir in the peppers, then pour in the tomatoes, followed by a can of water, the stock cubes, chilli and oregano.

2. Arrange the chicken thighs on top of the sauce, pushing them under the liquid. Bring to a simmer, cover, then cook in the oven for 40 mins. Add the beans, stir, then cook for 20 mins more. You can make this up to 2 days ahead and keep chilled.

3. To serve, reheat on the top of the stove or in the oven at 190C/fan 170C/gas 5 for 1 hr 10 mins until piping hot. Stir in most of the coriander, toss the rest with the avocado, lime and a little salt, then pile this on top. Serve with Garlic & oregano bread (below) and a bag of green salad tossed with olives, cherry tomatoes and finely sliced red onion.

Recipe from Good Food magazine, May 2008

Enjoy!

Pollo alla Cacciatora

I hadn’t bought a cook book for a very long time and it was only because I was feeling sorry for Jamie, seeing his cook books on the shelf of a shop in town, going for a very low price, that I didn’t want to see him falling on hard times 😉

It was then a case of what am I going to cook first from it? It was cold and wet and I didn’t exactly want to go out for hours shopping just cook something for supper. So after returning from a local butcher and off licence with the chicken and wine, I was able to get back home in the warm to start preparing. Setting up the chicken to marinade in the wine etc. was good but I think I would have preferred to leave it in the fridge overnight to really infuse the flavours.

When it came to cooking this finally, the kitchen looked like a bomb site, with the amount of bowls and pans used to prepare and cook this recipe but it was well worth it 🙂 I made enough to last the following day and it was well worth letting it reheat again slowly, as I reckon it tasted even better second time round!

According to Jamie Oliver in his Italian book,

Chicken cacciatora seems to be reasonably well known in Britain because it’s the classic pre-packed dish you find in Italian food ranges in supermarkets (which, to be honest, never taste of much). When you get the real deal cooked at home with love and passion it’s a totally different experience. It’s a simple combination of flavours that just works really well. Cacciatore means ‘hunter’, so this is obviously the type of food that a hunter’s wife cooks for her fella when he gets home from a hard morning spent in the countryside. This is also a great dish for big parties, as it looks after itself in the oven.

Ingredients:
2 kg higher-welfare chicken, jointed, or use the equivalent amount of chicken pieces
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
8 bay leaves
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
3 cloves garlic, peeled (1 crushed, 2 sliced)
½ bottle Chianti
flour, for dusting (gluten free or plain)
extra virgin olive oil
6 anchovy fillets
1 handful green or black olives, stoned
2 x 400 g good-quality tinned plum tomatoes


1. Season the chicken pieces with salt and freshly ground black pepper and put them into a bowl. Add the bay leaves and rosemary sprigs and the crushed clove of garlic and cover with the wine. Leave to marinate for at least an hour, but preferably overnight in the fridge.

2. Preheat your oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. Drain the chicken, reserving the marinade, and pat dry with kitchen paper. Dust the chicken pieces with flour and shake off any excess. Heat an ovenproof pan, add a splash of olive oil, fry the chicken pieces until browned lightly all over and put to one side.

3. Place the pan back on the heat and add the sliced garlic. Fry gently until golden brown, then add the anchovies, olives, tomatoes (broken up with a wooden spoon) and the chicken pieces with their reserved marinade. Bring to the boil, cover with a lid or a double thickness layer of foil and bake in the preheated oven for 1½ hours.

4. Skim off any oil that’s collected on top of the sauce, then stir, taste and add a little salt and pepper if necessary. Remove the bay leaves and rosemary sprigs, and serve with a salad and plenty of Chianti.

Enjoy!

Spicy Seafood Stew With Tomatoes And Lime

The majority of my blog posts are usually recording the family recipes being passed down to me, or sharing new recipes I find and like the look of, to try out at home. Rarely do I get the chance to cook for friends, trying out a recipe that is new and untested, all at the same time.

I’m glad I got the opportunity to try this out on a new audience as I had had this recipe bookmarked for a while and hadn’t managed to cook it yet. Having never been a huge fan of stews or Mexican food, I thought I could try and conquer two hurdles at the same time. 🙂

While this recipe may be Mexican in origin and while it technically should be called a stew, I would not call it one, in comparison to those I am used to, from the hazy days of school dinners with dodgy dumplings. This was seriously a world far away better!

After taking over my friend’s kitchen, I set about diligently following the recipe, until I had all the pieces of the dish ready to cook together. The smell of the sauce was incredible and tasting the sauce as I was cooking it, just seemed to get hotter (chilli wise) as time went on.

Serving it up at the table, it was like a feast had been created from a simple recipe, especially with all the accompaniments and tortillas it was served with.

It tasted amazing and within seconds of it being tried, I was rewarded with comments such as “You can make this again!”

I asked for a quote from my friends, to add to the post and this is what I was sent… 😉

“A sensational dish jam-packed with all the variety vibrancy and va va voom of a Fiesta”

Based on a recipe by John Torode

Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 dried chillies
1.0 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion , chopped
4 garlic cloves , chopped
1.0 tsp chipotle paste
1.0 tsp ground cumin
700.0ml chicken stock
250.0g chopped tomatoes , from a can
200.0g large peeled raw prawns
300.0g halibut or other firm white fish fillets, cut into 2.5cm pieces
300.0g mussels or clams
500.0g small new potatoes , halved and boiled
juice 2 limes


1. Toast the chillies in a hot dry frying pan for a few moments (they will puff up a bit), then remove. Deseed and stem chillies, and soak in boiling water for 15 mins.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, season and cook for about 5 mins or until softened. Add the chipotle paste, reconstituted chillies, cumin, stock and tomatoes. Sauté for 5 mins, then purée until very fine in a blender.

3. Pour back into the pan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 mins. When close to eating, add the prawns, fish fillets, mussels and potatoes. Place a lid on top and cook for 5 mins over a medium-high heat. Add the lime juice and serve with avocado, coriander and red onion.

Additionally serve with soured cream, if you want it a little cooler.

Enjoy!

Salmon Tray Bake

Having tried the recipe off the front cover of a previous edition of delicious magazine for my last blog post (The One-Pan Roast), I thought I would also do the same thing again from this month’s edition, titled “One-Pan Winner”. Writing my blog is not only about learning and sharing old family favourites and secrets but also about sharing recipes that I want to try and would try for an evening’s supper, regardless of writing my blog or not!

The idea of these simple ‘one pan recipes’, that use fresh ingredients and that are easy to put together after a long day in the office, is great. Another bonus, is that it is something new to try, rather than reconstituting the same quick meals (with minor variations) that we normally throw together after working long days! If I see anymore of these style dishes on the cover in coming months, then I shall have to review and cook them as well, making a feature about them on the blog!

Being big fish fans and always being able to find Salmon in the fridge, we thought this would be perfect, based partly on the fact that the last one (One-tray roast chicken with white wine, zesty potatoes and asparagus) worked so well. The whole recipe was very aptly named as we thoroughly enjoyed it, not just from the taste but that it was very healthy too, which is never a bad thing.

What I like about these ‘one pan recipes’, is that ‘in theory’ you can try just about anything you want, that your imagination lets you come up with. If anyone has any other ‘one pan recipe’ favourites they love cooking, then please Comment on this post and let me know (including a quick recipe guide) – for the ones that grab my attention the most, I will do a cookup and review in a future post.

Ingredients:
2 Red Onions, cut into wedges
2 Red Peppers, sliced into strips
1 Yellow Pepper, sliced into strips
1 Courgette, halved lengthways and thinly sliced
1 Garlic Bulb, halved across the middle
2 Medium Tomatoes, halved
3 tbsp Olive Oil, plus extra to drizzle
270g Cherry Tomatoes on the vine
2-4 Salmon fillets (depending on how many you are cooking for)
Squeeze of Lemon Juice
Handful of fresh Basil leaves


1. Preheat the oven to 200C/Fan 180C/Gas 6. Tumble the onions, peppers, courgette, garlic and medium tomatoes into a roasting tray. Pour over 3tbsp olive oil, season with sea salt and ground black pepper, then gently toss to coat. Roast for 20 minutes.

2. Add the vine tomatoes to the tray and lay the salmon fillets on top. Season, then drizzle with a little more oil and a squeeze of lemon juice. Return to the oven for 10-12 minutes until the salmon is cooked through and the vegetables are tender.

Scatter with fresh basil leaves to serve.

Enjoy!

Green & Red Tomato Chutney

It’s halfway through October and with a lack of sunshine I still had approx. 30 green tomatoes on my plant outside. Now with the first frosts at the tail end of the year about to happen, I didnt want them to go to waste so decided to have a go at another chutney after making my Spicy Green Tomato Chutney last month.

I found another great recipe that looked delicious as well perfect for my needs, as I wanted something less spicy this time.

I only had 8ozs of green tomatoes from my plant, so added 8ozs of red tomatoes to make up the pound in weight.

As with my last chutney, this didnt require any finesse to make, but was great fun and the smells around the kitchen were amazing. While it was cooling, we were already tucking into it with some cheese as it looked so good. The best bit is that it tastes as good as it looks.

This is definately one recipe I will be making again if I am left with a glut of green tomatoes next year!

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:
1 lb Tomatoes - green, red - or a mix of either
1 lb Cooking Apples - peeled and cored
1 lb Demerara Sugar
1/2 lb Onions - peeled
1/2 lb Sultanas
1 pt Malt Vinegar
1 level tbsp Salt
2 tbsp Flour
1/2 tbsp Ground Ginger
1 tsp Mustard Powder

1 Roughly dice and chop the tomatoes, apples and onions and put them all in a good heavy based pan, mixing it well.

2 Add 3/4 pint of vinegar, the sultanas and the salt, bring to the boil and simmer until it turns into a pulp, stirring frequently – Approx 20-30 mins.

3 Add the demerara sugar, stirring in to dissolve, then bring it all gently back to the boil and then continue simmering gently for a few minutes.

4 Then mix the flour, mustard and ground ginger with the rest of the vinegar together in a small bowl.

5 Add in the above mixture, stirring it well to stop it from sticking to the pan.

6 Bring it all gently to the boil again, and stir until it starts to thicken (for about 5-10 mins).

7 Spoon into sterilised jars and enjoy either after standing for a while to let the flavours develop or immediately if you are impatient like me.

Enjoy with anything savoury!

Spicy Green Tomato Chutney

Now, having nearly given up with my small tomato plant ever ending up bearing me red fruit before the first frosts of the year (which will be upon us soon), I decided to pick about half of the large green tomatoes (1lb worth) to make a recipe that was suggested to me on the UK Food Bloggers site – Green Tomato Chutney.

I found so many that were so overly complicated and some that required soaking things in vinegar for days at a time. Being too impatient, I wanted to find a recipe that would allow me to prepare it all from my cupboard in next to no time and allow me to get cooking straight away!

The following recipe was perfect – it didnt require the finesse of a Michelin Starred Chef to make and the addition of the spices sounded great.

An hour later after starting to cook and I was already trying some on a cracker with some cheese while it was cooling and it tasted great.

I’m glad I didnt let my tomatoes go to ruin and now know I can make this excellent chutney any year again when we dont have a sunny summer!!

See also: Green & Red Tomato Chutney

1 lb Green Tomatoes
1 lb Red Onions
1/2 lb Sultanas
1/2 lb Brown Sugar
2 tbsp Salt
1 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1 tsp Ground Green Cardamom
500ml Malt Vinegar

1 Chop everything up – there is no need for a perfection, and put it in a good heavy based pan, mixing it well.

2 Bring it to the boil and then turn down the heat , simmer for about an hour until it is all reduced to a thick pulp.

3 Spoon into sterilised jars and enjoy either after standing for a while to let the flavours develop or immediately if you are impatient like me.

Enjoy with anything savoury!

If you make this recipe, please come back and let me know!