Mom’s on-the-spot chicken

Mom made this on the fly the other day; it’s a sort of a chicken cacciatore. It was so delicious she made it again for dinner the very next night. We ate it with fried polenta and Italian fried peppers and onions and marinara sauce. I think it would be dynamite over angel hair pasta.

Ingredients:
- 3 chicken breasts
- 2 roma tomatoes
- handful of fried peppers and onions
- glass of red wine
- cup of marinara sauce
- salt a pepper

To cook:
- Season the chicken with salt and pepper and gently brown in a glug of olive oil.
- Peel and chop the tomatoes and add to the pan, along with the peppers and onions. (Best to cut the peppers in half.)
- Add wine and cover each breast with marinara sauce.
- Cover the pan and simmer gently for 20-25 minutes.
- Take the lid off, turn the chicken over, and simmer about five minutes to reduce the sauce a little.
- Thickly slice the chicken, simmer a minute more.

Italian fried peppers and onions

Super easy and a wonderful addition to Italian-themed meals, sandwiches, salads, etc.

Ingredients:
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 small yellow onion
- big glug olive oil
- salt and pepper

To cook:
- Thinly slice the pepper and onion.
- Add olive oil to a wide frying pan over a medium heat. Add peppers and onions and cook until tender and smelling very fragrant: about 20 minutes. Stir often.
- Add salt and LOTS of pepper.

Voila!

Mom’s Okra and Tomatoes

This. is. so. yummy! It’s spicy and smoky and goes well with Italian and Southern cuisines.

Ingredients:
- 1 slice of bacon
- 1 yellow onion
- about 1 lb okra
- about 1 lb fresh tomatoes
- hot cock sauce

To cook:
- Finely dice the bacon and toss in a pot over medium heat. While it’s frying up nice and crispy, dice your onion and toss in. Cook until beginning to brown.
- Chop the okra into 1/2″ wide pieces, blanch in boiling water until bright green: about three minutes. Allow to drain over a sink until it’s stopped dripping slimy stuff, then rinse. (Some say it’s blasphemy to blanch okra, but who wants to eat all that mucilage?)
- While the okra is draining, dice your tomatoes and throw ‘em in the pot. Add a heft squeeze of the hot cock sauce, and simmer until reduced quite a bit.
- Add the okra and cook until it’s a dull green, about five minutes.
- Salt and nom.

Herbed Eggs

Posted by request. I like to think of these as sophisticated eggs.

Ingredients:
- 4 eggs
- 2 tablespoon full-fat yogurt (low fat doesn’t really work)
- 1 teaspoon chopped fresh herbs (oregano is my favourite)
- 1/2 yellow onion
- butter

To cook:
- Dice the onion finely. In a frying pan, heat a knob of butter and add the onions. Gently fry on medium heat until clear, then add the herbs and cook for another minute or so.
- While the onions are doing their thing, beat together the eggs and yogurt.
- Turn down the heat under the pan to low. (Cooking the eggs too quickly with make them dry and rubbery.) Add the eggs and gently scrape the bottom of the pan a few times a minute, until the eggs are done to your liking.
- Salt. Nom.

Serves two. Good with Better-than-ice-cream Fried Potatoes.

Cait’s Roasted Red Pepper Tuna Sauce for Pasta

We just ate this last night and it was super tasty! It’s really easy but comes across as very gourmet.

Ingredients:
- big glug olive oil
- 6 cloves of garlic
- half a teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 2 anchovies (or a squeeze of anchovy paste)
- 4 tablespoons capers
- 1 1/2 or 2 cups (about 12 oz) roasted red peppers, chopped into small pieces
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 12 oz can of tuna
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1/4 cup chopped parsley
- 1 pound pasta, fusilli works well

To cook:
- Heat oil, half of the garlic, red pepper flakes and capers in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook until fragrant and sizzling but not browned, about 2 minutes.
- Add anchovies and red peppers and cook until dry, about 1 minute.
- Add wine and bring to a simmer. Cook until the mixture looses any alcohol smell, about 1 minute.
- Add tuna and heat through, stirring frequently.
- Toss in lemon, parsley, lemon zest, and rest of the garlic. Salt to taste.
- Add mixture to cooked pasta, toss well.

Serves four.

The sauce freezes well, so you can always double or triple the recipe.

Mexican flank steak salad

Oh man, this is totally my favourite thing to eat right now. Savory, tangy, a wonderful mixture of textures, and carb free. It’s hearty enough to be a meal on it’s own, but light enough for warm weather.

The steak can be seared in a cast iron pan or grilled on a BBQ.

Ingredients:
- 1 pound flank/skirt steak
- 2 limes
- 3 tablespoons achiote powder or paste
- Romaine lettuce
- red bell pepper
- red onion
- handful of cilantro
- balsamic vinaigrette

To cook:
- In a large bowl, mix the achiote and lime juice, add the steak and smoosh it around. Cover and pop in the fridge. Let marinate for at least an hour, or as long as overnight. Take the steak out of the fridge a good half-hour before cooking to allow it to come up to room temperature.
- Heat your skillet to very hot, take the steak out of the marinade and let the excess liquid drip off, drizzle with oil and sprinkle with salt. Cook approximately five minutes on each side, until you get some nice caramelisation. Don’t move it around or poke at it! The cooking time depends on the thickness of the cut, and how you like your steak, but flank steak is best pink in the middle.
- After it’s done, let it rest for at least ten or fifteen minutes. In the meantime, tear your lettuce, slice your pepper and onion, toss the cilantro on top. Drizzle with the vinaigrette.
- Slice the steak very thinly and against the grain. Serve on top of the salad, maybe with some of the steak juices drizzled on top.

Balsamic vinaigrette

Dynamite on salads, makes a good marinade, super easy.

Ingredients:
- 1 clove garlic
- 4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 4 tablespoons nice virgin olive oil
- salt and fresh ground pepper
- fresh thyme, basil, oregano, rosemary, or whatever you fancy (dried is okay, fresh is lovely)
- sprinkle of cayenne (optional)

To assemble:
- Roughly chop the garlic, crush to a paste with a mortar and pestle. I throw in a sprinkle of sea salt to help with grinding.
- Toss in a tablespoon of fresh herbs, or a teaspoon of dried, and grind in. Salt and pepper to taste, cayenne to add zip.
- Add the vinegar and mix well, let sit for half an hour or so. (The waiting is not strictly necessary, but will allow the vinegar to mellow the garlic a bit, and soften any dried herbs.)
- Whisk in the olive oil thoroughly and drizzle.

This dressing will separate if it sits even a couple minutes, so I like to make up a large batch and keep in a bottle in the fridge to be shaken just before use.

Baked rhubarb compote

This is so unbelievably delicious. It’s so delicate, so elegant, so TASTY! And it looks so beautiful!

Ingredients:
- 1 kilo early pink or “champagne” rhubarb
- 250g caster sugar
- 1 vanilla pod, split lengthways (we just use 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract)
- little bit of butter

To cook:
- Cut the rhubarb into one inch lengths and mix with the sugar and vanilla.
- Leave to macerate for at least an hour or overnight if possible.
- Preheat oven to 325ºF (170ºC).
- Put the rhubarb in a lightly buttered baking dish, cover tightly with foil and bake for twenty minutes.
- Remove from oven and leave until cool before uncovering.

Enchilada Sauce

Until now I always bought my enchilada sauce in jars. But if there is enchilada sauce in Tunbridge Wells, it’s probably a brand called Pace and tastes like cocktail sauce. Yeesh.

So, I did some research and made up this recipe! It’s pretty easy, the only tedious part is straining it. I think next time I’ll make a double batch; it’s just as easy to cook a double recipe, and it freezes well. Note: it will taste bitter when it’s done, and it’s supposed to be. The bitterness will lessen when you cook it again.

Ingredients:
- 7 or 8 ancho chilies (dried poblano peppers)
- 1 small yellow onion
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
- 3 or 4 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon oregano (fresh if you’ve got it)
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 1 litre chicken stock
- 1 teaspoon brown sugar

To cook:
- De-stem and de-seed the chilies. (You may want to wear rubber gloves for this, as they are a bit sticky and you don’t want to rub your eyes with chilli essence, even if anchos are mostly mild.) Put in a dry pan and toast over medium heat, turning frequently to avoid burning them. This should take between five and ten minutes; you want them warm and fragrant but not burnt and crispy.
- Chop the onion and put in a medium sized sauce pan with a small amount of olive oil. Sweat over medium heat until clear, then add chopped garlic, cumin, oregano and cayenne and cook for one minute. Add the flour and cook another two or three minutes.
- Add your stock, sugar, and toasted chilies. Bring to a gentle boil, cover, and reduce heat. Stirring periodically, simmer gently for 45 minutes. By this time it will smell heavenly.
- Carefully pour into a blender, blitz well, then strain through a fine sieve. (It’s important to sieve the sauce as the pepper skins are bitter and tough.) Smooshing it with the back of a large spoon is the way to go.
- Return to the heat, add salt if needed, and simmer very gently for five minutes. Stir regularly as it is prone to scorch.

This rich, dark, velvety smooth sauce is ideal for enchiladas, on fried eggs, nachos, anything that needs a smoky and complex kick.

Olive and Pumpkin Seed Bread

Francis made this and we ate it this morning for brunch. Deeee-licious! He kindly typed this up for me.

From Andrew Whitley’s “Bread Matters”, this recipe makes two small loaves.

Ingredients:

For the sponge:
- 3g fresh yeast
- 150g water (at 20°C)
- 75g strong white flour
- 75g stoneground wholemeal flour

For the dough:
- the sponge (as prepared below)
- 150g strong white flour
- 75g stoneground wholemeal flour
- 4g salt
- 15g olive oil
- 105g water

And:
- 30g pumpkin seeds
- 20g olive oil
- 100g black olive paste (if you can’t find any, get some black olives and blitz them with a blender, which is what I did) [Adrian here: bet kalamata olives would be sublime!]
- 12 pitted black or green olives

To cook:

The sponge:
- Dissolve the yeast in the water, add the flours and mix. Cover with a lid or plastic bag and leave for between 16–48 hours. The sponge will rise and fall back in that time. (note: I have no idea what 20°C feels like, I used tepid water).

The dough:
- If the sponge has been in a cool place, you will need to use fairly warm water to bring the dough to a reasonable temperature of 27°C (note: again, I’ve got no idea what my temperature was, but it worked out okay). Mix all the ingredients together and knead until the dough is stretchy and silky. Cover and allow to rise for an hour or so.

Mix the pumpkin seeds and olive oil into the dough, then divide into two equal pieces. Scrape your cooking surface clean and sprinkle with a little flour. Roll or stretch each piece of dough into a rectangle about 20cm x 15cm. Spread the black olive paste over almost all of the surface of each dough piece. Roll up quite tightly like a Swiss roll. The dough piece will end up longer that it started, so tuck both ends under the middle of the loaf so they meet underneath. This should reduce the length by half and create a roughly rectangular shape. Push six olives firmly into each loaf — even spacing doesn’t matter but the olives should be pushed in hard enough to break the surface and most of olive disappears into the dough.

Place the loaves onto a baking tray and brush them with olive oil. Cover and leave to prove. Bake in a moderate oven (about 190°c) for about 30-35 minutes. Any olive paste that has been accidentally smeared onto the exposed surface of the loaf will tend to burn more quickly than the plain crust so be prepared to do something like cover the loaves with baking parchment if your oven runs hot.

Leave to cool, then NOM.