Hello and welcome to another Food Friday, the weekly post where I try to eat, cook and do things housewifery in a harking back to the 1950s manner. Seriously, Food Friday is all about a recipe a week, good food, big portions and no faff. You can also check out my past food Friday recipes.
I woke up this morning and thought spring is on its way. Our cubby-hole of a bedroom was filled with filtered light; I could hear the postie* whistling as he made his way up the road, kids chattering as they passed the window. Despite missing almost a month of this year’s winter and well, it being rather mild (ill jinx the rest of February now), winter in Scotland always feels like a drag, the darkness sucking energy from the air, leaving you gasping for a little light.
Despite the hope in the air and croci popping their heads up alongside The Meadows, I still crave hail and hearty food – I am currently cooking a beef, red wine, mushroom, pancetta and root veg stew for tonight’s tea. Whilst I love a good hotpot I also like stews with a twist – throw in some some spices, add some fruit and simmer for hours, the Moroccan way… This stew is one of my more adventurous outings, as it includes homemade chermoula, a marinade usually more associate with fish, but it also adds a zing to lamb.
Slow cooked lamb tagine with chermoula and apricots
You will need:
- A pack of lamb stewing steak
- Dried apricots
- A large onion
- ½ a pack of baby plum tomatoes
- A green pepper (although this goes rather bitter, substitute with yellow pepper for a milder taste)
- A carrot
- 2 large cloves of garlic
- 2 bay leaves
- Enough chicken stock to cover the ingredients
- Fresh parsley (optional)
To make the chermoula, mix together to form a smooth paste:
- Fresh coriander
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoons paprika
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- juice and rind of 1 lemon
Marinate the lamb in the paste for at least 2 hours, preferably over night.
To make the tagine:
- roughly chop the large onion, carrot and pepper and add to pan or slow cooker
- fry off the marinated lamb and add to pot
- add the bay leaves, baby tomatoes, apricots, and garlic
- top up the pot with chicken stock to cover the ingredients
- slow cook for 7 hours or until the lamb is falling apart in a pan
- once the lamb is cooked, add the fresh parsley, thicken the sauce with a little corner flour and (my favourite bit) pop the plum tomatoes into the sauce.
Serve with couscous and flat bread.
Enjoy! As usual, let me know if you try any of my recipes.
Miss S the chef x
*Luckily I was up by the time the postie delivered my new work cardigan from Coggles. I love Coggles, in particular their very pretty Sunday Supplement. However thee postie does not love my greying housecoat I am often wearing when I open the door.
Hello and welcome to another Food Friday, the weekly post where I try to eat, cook and do things housewifery in a harking back to the 1950s manner. Seriously, Food Friday is all about a recipe a week, good food, big portions and no faff. You can also check out my past food Friday recipes.
There is nothing more British than a Sunday roast. I do a roast most Sunday’s, swinging weekly back and forth from chicken to beef. Add roasties, yorkies and veg and to me it is food heaven.
However, whilst we all love finishing a Sunday over a huge plate of food and too much red wine for a school night, the Sunday roast is renowned for being bland, dry and covered in Bisto gravy. Think of how badly Christmas day goes in your parent’s house.
But kids, that is not the only way.
After starting my working career in a pub kitchen making Sunday roasts, oh 20 years ago now, I have become quite an expert over the years. From beef with dauphinoise potatoes and red wine lentils, to garlic and herb chicken with honey roasted parsnips, we Brits can alleviate our national dish (or is that chicken tikka masala?) into something we’d be happy to serve to a visiting European.
For B and I’s recent engagement gathering I had bought a rather large chunk of pork shoulder to make my spicy slow cooked pork (btw do we all get to an age where we think serving food at parties is a good idea?) but I went a little over board and despite vigorous chopping I still couldn’t all the pork i’d bought to fit in the slow cooker. Instead of throwing it in the freezer for another day I decided to pop it in the oven and roast it instead. Not every one likes pork with their chilli sauce after all.
Now I’d never made crackling before, and after scouring the pork and the internet for ideas, I was still none the wiser about how to get that crunchy texture just right. So I gave up and just winged it, and it turned out perfectly – despite the fact my knives weren’t sharp enough to do proper slices in the fat and I’d already removed the fat from the meat during my hatchet job.
I love pork crackling and this is a perfect treat, despite the cooking time.
Slow roasted pork with crackling (totally made up and done with a prayer)
You will need:
- Rolled shoulder of pork (with the layer of fat on top) bones removed
- Garlic
- Olive oil
- Mixed herbs
- Sea salt
- Shallots
To make:
- Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees
- Remove the pork fat from the joint, wash, dry and score with a sharp knife.
- Rub sea salt into the fat and put aside
- Put the joint of pork into a roasting pan and drizzle with oil, herbs and stuff bits of garlic in where you can
- Add a few shallots, ends chopped and skins on into the pan
- Place the fat back on top of the pork and put in the hot oven for 30 minutes until the pork fat has started to blister and rise. You need a hot oven to do this. Keep the door shut (like when you are making Yorkshires)
- Reduce the oven temperature to 150 degrees and cover with a double layer of tin foil and slow roast for about 5 hours until the pork is really tender.
To finish off the crackling:
- Lift the crackling from the pork
- heat the oven back up to 180/200 and place the pork on a tray on the top shelf for 5/10 minutes until it is really crispy and tasty.
Serve on fresh rolls with apple sauce and roasted shallots or go the whole hog (ha) and make roasted veg. Food coma ahead!
What is your favourite Sunday roast?
Miss S x
Hello and welcome to another Food Friday, the weekly post where I try to eat, cook and do things housewifery in a harking back to the 1950s manner. Seriously, Food Friday is all about a recipe a week, good food, big portions and no faff. You can also check out my past food friday recipes.
What is your take away of choice? Indian, Mexican, Chinese? Sadly, because of an allergy (intolerance?) to msg I have to, in the main, avoid Chinese food. Which I love – the msg is what makes sauces salty and sticky and oh so yummy.
However, having made the discovery that if you step beyond the realms of sushi and sashimi I’ve found Japanese food makes a great Friday night substitute and I have never looked back. We even treated the whole family to a Japanese buffet in Australia on Christmas Eve. It was fabulous and I am glad my sister loves Japanese food as much as me.
My favourite Japanese main course has to be tonkatsu – deep fried pork cutlets with an omelette on top, or ashamedly, I also the Wagamama version of katsu curry, but teriyaki chicken comes a close third.
This was the first sticky Japanese sauce and I must admit I was a bit nervous and almost cheated with this one at the last minute, but I preserved and it turned out pretty well. Although I’d recommend munching this all at the same time, as unfortunately the sauce turned a bit jelly like the next day – although that could have been me being a bit heavy handed with the cornflower!
Teriyaki chicken with stir fried vegetables
You will need:
- Boneless chicken thighs (if you are using a slow cooker, breast if not) I used a pack of 5/6
- Sugar
- Soy sauce
- Ground ginger
- Black pepper
- Garlic, powder or crushed
- Cornflour
- noodles
- vergetables to stir fry
To make the sauce: mix together
Sugar – half a cup
soy sauce – half a cup
cider vinegar – 3 tablespoons
ground ginger – a teaspoon
Garlic – a teaspoon or powder or squished
Lots of ground pepper
- Top up the mixture with water so that it covers the chicken, I used a couple of cups.
- Cook on a low heat in a slow cooker for 7/8 hours or in a pan until the chicken is cooked through.
To finish:
- Remove the sauce from the chicken and thicken with cornflower
- Serve with stir fried vegetable and noodles of your choice.
Easy peasy and really tasty. Enjoy!
Miss S x
Hello and welcome to another Food Friday, the weekly post where I try to eat, cook and do things housewifery in a harking back to the 1950s manner. Seriously, Food Friday is all about a recipe a week, good food, big portions and no faff. Past Food Friday recipes can be found via the recipe links at the top or here.
Butter Chicken is a curry house staple and B described this as better than any he’d had! The plate was practically licked clean it’s that good. However, to get that goodness I must be honest and let you know that this recipe does involve some work and some faff as you need to marinate the chicken over night and roast and grind some spices, but to be honest the hard work is worth it.
The ingredients list also looks long, but all these spices are used pretty regularly so if you have to buy from scratch you will use them again. Or go to your local Indian food store and buy them in small amounts like I do.
Butter Chicken (adapted from one of my many slow cooker recipe books)
You will need:
- Chicken breast fillets, chopped into medium sized pieces.
To make the marinade you will need:
- Cashew nuts (about 50g)
- Fennel seeds (tablespoon)
- Ground cinnamon (2 teaspoons)
- Ground coriander (tablespoon)
- Cardamom seeds (teaspoon) buy pods and shell them, as it is cheaper than buying both
- Black peppercorns (teaspoon)
- Ground cloves (1/2 teaspoon)
- Garlic (4 cloves)
- Ginger (tablespoon – fresh or ground)
- White wine vinegar (2 tablespoons)
- Tomato puree (100g or half a tube)
- Natural yoghurt (150g, small pot)
To make the sauce you will need:
- 50g butter (it is called butter chicken after all)
- A large onion, chopped roughly
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 4 cardamom pods
- Chilli powder (mild)
- Chopped tomatoes
- 100ml chicken stock
- Small tub of single cream
- Sugar
- Salt and pepper
- Coriander to taste
To make the marinade:
- Add the cashew nuts, fennel seeds, cinnamon, coriander, cardamom seeds, peppercorns and cloves to a dry non stick pan and roast for about 5 minutes until the cashews are toasty.
- Let the spices rest for a minute and then using a blender grind up the spices until they are a smooth powder. I used a Philips hand blender which I would highly recommend for all chefs.
- Add to the blender pot, or a bowl the tomato puree, white wine vinegar and yoghurt and blend together.
- Spread the marinade over the chicken and refrigerate over night or for at least 3 hours.
To finish:
- Melt the butter in a frying pan and add the chopped onion, cinnamon stick and cardamom pods and fry off until the onion is starting to brown a little.
- Add the chicken mixture and cook for a further 10 minutes until the chicken is sealed (i.e the edges are cooked white)
- Add the chicken / onion mixture to a slow cooker or large pot
- Add the chicken stock, chopped tomatoes and chilli powder
- Cook on high for 7 hours if using a slow cooker, about 2 in a pan
- Once the mixture has cooked add the single cream, sugar (about a tablespoon) and coriander and take the lid off the pan or slow cooker and heat through for a further half an hour.
Serve with all the usual curry accompaniments.
Enjoy!
(sorry for the state of the photo, I was too busy eating to take a good one!)
Miss S x