Well today has been a lovely day! First off, training at CFP! We have a great team at the DWF competition in Wales this weekend; really wish I decided to go! But at the same time, I’m quite glad to have spent this lovely day training and cooking for my lovely family

Tim and I have been having busier and busier weeks as time goes by! By the weekend I specifically make no plans other than to spend time with my family and pursuing hobbies. I’m so lucky to be living where I live, doing what I do and knowing the people I know. Almost every other Saturday, when dad’s home from work, our parents come over to our place for a nice, gourmet (well, as gourmet as I can make it) meal. I really love being able to share something that I’ve created, something that’s a product of my time, energy and enthusiasm, with the people I love. I miss them all the time and just want to attempt to give back things I’ve taken from them over my twenty-three years. Although that’s an impossible task, I’ll do what I can to show them how much they mean to me, and that not once, have I ever taken them for granted. As I’ve grown older, I’ve been able to count my blessings more, and relish in the beauty of life. I’ve definitely found myself “high” on life quite regularly these past few of years!

Anyway! This afternoon, we had a lovely three course meal (if I do say so myself!). For starters, we had a colourful salad with mixed leaves, grated carrot, pecans, dried fruit, pomegranate, various seeds, plum, strawberries, tomatoes, olives, raspberries, onion, toasted coconut, Parma ham… you name it! And the best thing, was that these scallops were so simple to rustle up!

Scallops are one of those things you absolutely can’t walk away from. You have to be watching over it constantly. Do not attempt to do what I do, and just take a couple of seconds to do something else, assuring yourself that you will remember to check back in literally one minute’s time… because trust me, you won’t. You’ll forget, and find yourself munching on chewy, over-cooked scallops. What a waste!

Scallops can indeed be eaten raw, but are definitely tasty hot and toasty! However, it is far better to have a slightly undercooked scallop than an overcooked, overly-firm one.

Also, if you’re lucky enough to get them with the pink sack of goodness (the “roe” or “coral”), eat it! I hear it’s packed with omega-3′s and they are so tasty! I believe in America that it’s extremelt difficult to buy them with the coral still attached. But in Europe, they’re rather a delicacy. I omitted them from my plate for taking the photos, but added them back when I sat down at the table to scoff them with my family. A lovely dish I wanted to try and to share my efforts with some of my most treasured and beautiful people on the planet. I hope you enjoy this dish as much as I did!

Seared Scallops with Plum and Dill Sauce
Adapted from: Fou de Food
Serves 4

Ingredients
• 1-2 tablespoons (clarified) butter
• 12 x scallops (with or without the coral/roe)
• 4 x plums
• a couple of strawberries and raspberries
• ½ tablespoon dried dill
• Pinch cayenne pepper
• Splash of lemon juice
• Salad (as a side)
• Lemon zest (to garnish)

Preparation
For the sauce:
Cut plums and strawberries, and pop, along with the raspberries, into a saucepan. Heat on medium until all fruit sweats and becomes tender. Do not crisp or blacken. Add the dried dill, lemon juice and cayenne pepper (only a pinch though!). Leave to cool for a bit and then blend everything.

For the scallop dish:
Firstly, prepare the salad on the plates.

Rinse the scallops under cold water and remove the coral and gut. Keep the coral and cook as well if preferred, it’s really tasty, but they don’t take a long to cook as the scallop itself.

Heat the butter in the large non-stick frying pan until hot and almost smoking. Pop the scallops into the pan and sear for 1 minute and 30-45 seconds on each side, depending on the side. Don’t move the scallops, otherwise you’ll hinder the lovely browning process. But if you need to take a peek at one, hey ho, go ahead.

If you’re not sure whether they’re cooked or not, you can perhaps cut your own scallop open to see whether they’ve turned from translucent to opaque throughout. Ideally, you want them to have a slightly translucent centre.

In the meantime, heat up the sauce!

When the scallops are done, pop them on kitchen towel for a moment to drain any excess butter, if any. Arrange the scallops on the plate, top with a little sauce, spoon some on the side and sprinkle zest over the plate. Serve immediately.

Eaten: 03.11.2012 with my lovely family

Today was so bright and beautiful I decided I would take some pictures of dinner while the sun was out Since I’ve moved in to my new place (a few months over a year now), I’ve been neglecting food photography. Obviously, time is a factor, but also something that put me off was the lack of light. My flat gets plenty of light, but only from one angle. At my parents’ house, I don’t feel limited as their house is so light-filled and it comes from all angles I’m spoilt for choice! Very recently, I’ve bought myself a little tripod! I can never plan when to take photos because the weather ehre is so unpredictable. So now, even in low light situations, I hope I can try playing around with lighting effects.

This dish is so quick to make and extremely easy. It’s packed full of health and flavour and is perfect for after harsh training!!!!!!!!

Right, I’m going to stop babbling and head to bed… so tired… Zzzz…

Pan-Fried Salmon with Satuéed Savoy Cabbage
Serves 2

Ingredients
For the salmon:
• 2 x salmon fillets
• Coconut oil (for frying)
• Many heirloom, cherry, baby, regular, whatever tomatoes, halved (I like the smaller and colourful ones because they’re cute!)
• Many olives, halved
• A few mushrooms
• 2 cloves of garlic, grated/crushed/finely sliced
• Dried parsley or dill
• Olive oil (for drizzling)
• Toasted coconut (for garnishing)

For the cabbage:
• ~½ head of cabbage (or as much as you’d like!)
• Dried sage
• ~1-2 tablespoons of butter
• ~4 tablespoons water

Preparation
For the salmon:
Melt the coconut oil in a large frying pan on high, then put in the salmon, skin side down to sear it. Leave on high for a couple of minutes. Flip the salmon over and sear on the other side for a couple of minutes, also.

Turn the heat down, add the tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, and garlic, add the parsley, and cook until the salmon is cooked, occasionally turning. You’ll have to judge when to add the tomatoes, mushrooms, olives and garlic, because it depends if you want them slightly cooked, well done, burnt, etc. About 5-7 minutes on medium is enough to make the tomatoes soften, which is what I like. So if you have a thick salmon fillet, you may want to leave those ingredients out until several minutes towards the end of the salmon’s cooking time.

For the cabbage:
Melt the butter in a saucepan on high, then add the cabbage. Fry for a couple of minutes, lower the heat, and add the water. Cover with the lid, and leave for about 10 minutes, tossing the cabbage every couple of minutes.

Serve the salmon on top of a bed of cabbage, and drizzle with olive oil. Garnish with toasted coconut, and add salt and pepper if desired.

Nom nom

Devoured: 27.10.2012 with my bro

For Father’s Day, I asked dad what I could cook for him as a ‘gift.’ He asked for Thai Green Curry and Spotted Dick.

I found this recipe from the internet and it looked quite tasty (I have to admit, it’s always the pictures that draw me to the recipes!), and the ingredients seemed plentiful, but easy to find. I have had this curry in curry houses before, but I made one myself from one of Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks using shop-bought curry paste, and it didn’t come out very well. I think it was because I used long beans and asparagus spears, which were quite hefty to manage without getting curry everywhere! This, on the other hand, was extremely creamy and soft in flavour. It would have been easy to spice it up a little more using more chillies (and including their seeds, perhaps) for the curry paste. But having my grandmother and people who don’t appreciate too much spice, I thought it’d be best to tone it down as one can always add chilli to their dish.

Happy Father’s Day, dad

Chicken & Prawn Thai Green Curry
Adapted from: It Must’ve Been Something I Ate
Serves 6-8

Ingredients
For the green curry paste:
• 3 tbsp walnut/peanut oil
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 x stalk lemon grass
• 1 x tsp ground cumin
• 1 x tsp coriander leaf
• ½ green chilli, deseeded
• 3cm ginger, roughly chopped
• 2 x garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 x spring onions, roughly chopped
• 2 x fist full fresh coriander

For the green curry:
• 2 tbsp walnut/peanut oil
• butter and flour, for greasing
• 812g boneless chicken breast
• 360g cooked prawns
• 3 x spring onions, chopped
• 1 x garlic clove, crushed
• 2 x red and green bell peppers, chopped
• 155g mangetout
• 200g pack of “cabbage medley”
• 1 x 400ml can coconut milk
• green curry paste (as above)
• 3cm carrot, grated
• ½ cup water
• 2 x tbsp cornflour
• fresh coriander leaves for garnish

• enough rice for your guests

Preparation
For the green curry paste:
Put all of the ingredients in a blender and blend until a smooth paste is formed.

For the green curry:
Heat 2 tbsp of walnut oil in a large pot. Add the chicken and prawns, and whiten the chicken all over. Throw in the chopped onions and crushed garlic and sauté for a couple of minutes. Add the chopped peppers and mange tout., and cook for 5 more minutes. Add the coconut milk, green curry pasta, water, cabbage and grated carrot. Bring all to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until ready.

Don’t forget to cook the rice! Serve and enjoy!

ทานให้อร่อยนะ

Enjoyed: 19.06.2011

Mum and I were shopping the other day, and we came across a large pack of ribs on offer. The first thing that came to our minds was to make a sticky BBQ sauce! As soon as we got home I rushed through all of the cupboards to see if we had all of the ingredients, and luckily, we did! The sauce was very simple to make, and I’m surprised that I hadn’t ever made something like this sooner!

The recipe that I originally followed was a little odd in that the liquid measurements were given in ounces rather than millilitres. But I weighed them all out on a set of digital scales (extremely useful!) and the recipe turned out really well! I also substituted Worcestershire sauce for dark soy sauce, corn syrup for honey, and apple cider vinegar with white wine vinegar, as that’s all we had!

Sticky BBQ Pork Ribs
Adapted from: Food Network
Serves 5-6

Ingredients
For the sauce:
• 450g Ketchup (I used Reggae Reggae tomato ketchup)
• 225g (~250ml) water
• 85g brown sugar
• 85g caster sugar
• ½ tsp ground black pepper
• ½ tsp garlic granules
• ½ tsp English mustard
• 300ml white wine vinegar
• 5 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 5 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp honey
• 25g paprika

For the ribs:
• 870g pack of pork ribs
• enough rice for your guests

Preparation
For the sauce:
Throw all of the ingredients into a large saucepan/pot (otherwise it’ll slowly spit all over your cooker). Bring to the boil, then let simmer, uncovered for an hour.

For the ribs:
Wash the ribs and lay them in a baking dish. Pour over the BBQ sauce, using your hands to cover them entirely. Leave to marinate overnight (not necessary).

Pop into a preheated oven at 180◦C for about an hour and a half. In the meantime, cook the rice, and serve the ribs and sauce piping hot over the rice with salad and sweetcorn.

Enjoy

Devoured: 17.06.2011

After seeing Kung Fu Panda 2 on Friday, I really thought I should try and make these bao, especially as I had some in China a few times when I was there in 2008! The things is, the two recipes I referred to made 40 odd dumpling skins from 400g flour, but I only made 15! Perhaps they rolled their dough out a lot thinner (whereas I kept mine thick to make sure that they didn’t split!), and theirs might have been smaller. But in Kung Fu Panda (and other anime, etc.), the dumplings are so large they’re like a tennis ball in the palm’s of people’s hand! And they were of a similar size when I sampled some in China. So I decided to make them large (plus they’re just a lot easier to handle when they’re big!).

Kung Fu Panda 2…well, I thought it was good, although I did prefer the first one. The second one was just a little far fetched, and I don’t think it’s something I would really watch again unless it was with a few friends for fun. But anything with lots of Chinese tradition, kung fu, cool graphics, awesome cinematography, and a great sense of adventure I’ll automatically fall in love with anyway!

When I started making these, I didn’t think they’d turn out well. I think one reason as to why I made my dough a little thicker was because I’d made Japanese gyouza before, and I made those skins so thin that they broke almost immediately when I handled and cooked them.

After the second batch was cooked, I couldn’t wait any longer and had to try one (especially as I was really hungry!), and so I bit into one, thinking it wouldn’t be too hot, but the aspic inside burnt my lip. Totally worth it though!

When I made the first few dumplings, the aspic was so running it made it difficult to pleat them as the dough wouldn’t stick. That’s when I decided to sieve the chicken of the liquid. There was still plenty of aspic left, and it still made a lovely soup stock when the dumpling was steamed, which I burnt my lip on! Even mum said “hmm, what’s this liquid?” They were very pleasant, and were beautiful with a little soy sauce!

Will definitely be making these again at some point! I think I’ll always have pains au chocolat and these baozi in my freezer to pop on for myself or visitors at any time!

Oh, and one final note, once they’ve been cooked, keep them off of the paper towels, otherwise they’ll stick like nobody’s business!

A good video on how to pleat these dumplings can be found here.

My first bao :’3

小笼包 (Xiǎo Lóng Bāo)
Adapted from: Steamy Kitchen and The Cooking of Joy
Makes 14-16 large bao

Ingredients
For the aspic:
• 1 x vegetable/chicken stock cube
• 2 cups/500ml water
• 1 x sachet gelatine

For the filling:
• 245g chicken, diced
• 2 x spring onions
• 1 tsp sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• ½ tsp freshly grated ginger
• 1 tsp white wine vinegar
• ¼ tsp toasted sesame oil

For the dough:
• 335g plain flour
• ¾ cups hot water
• ¼ cup cold water
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Preparation
For the aspic:
The stock was dissolved in 2 cups of hot water, and the gelatine was mixed in. The liquid was left to cool, then placed in the fridge to set overnight.

For the filling:
Mix all ingredients together. Run a form through the aspic to break it all up into pieces, and add about 1 ½ cups worth of aspic. Sieve the mixture to remove the liquid. Refrigerate until ready to use.

To assemble:
Break up your chocolate into little pieces, and spread across the top of a rectangle. Roll the pastry down to engulf the chocolate. Break up more chocolate pieces, and spread it across the rectangle immediately below the first roll of chocolate. Then use the rest of the pastry to roll up the second chocolate line. Continue to do this with the rest of the pastry rectangles.

For the dough:
Put about 90% of the flour in a large bowl, and put about a third of the hot water in with the flour. Use a tablespoon to mix vigorously as the hot water partially cooks the dough and forms gluten. Keep on adding the hot water and mixing until the dough starts to form. Add the cold water and oil, and mix until you can’t mix it anymore (i.e. it’s one large lump of dough).

Use the remaining flour to dusk the worktop. Turn the dough onto the counter and knead for 8 minutes, using the remaining flour as necessary, until it becomes soft and elastic. Cover with cling film, and let sit for 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces. Take one (wrap the other three up), and roll into a thick log about 1” in diameter (doesn’t really matter). Chop into 4 equal pieces (using a pastry cutter). Roll each piece to form a ball and flatten out into your hand. Use a rolling pin to make a a circular disk (mine were about 6“ in diameter for large dumplings, 3” for smaller).

Hold the disc in the palm of one of your hands, and spoon a little filling into the middle. Use your finger and the thumb and finger of your other hand to pleat the dough. Twist to finish it off and create a nice pleated dumpling look.

Pop onto a piece of wet kitchen roll until all of the dumplings have been prepared. Once they have been prepared, they can be frozen, and steamed at a later date (but for a couple of minutes longer straight from frozen).

Line a steamer with a wet piece of kitchen roll, and place dumplings onto it, ensuring that there’s at least 1 ½“ of space between them. Steam on high for about 12 minutes.

This may have to be done in batches. I keep any that I don’t eat (but plan to eat soon!) in the fridge wrapped in plastic wrap. To reheat, they can be steamed again for 5-8 minutes, or they can be popped on a plate wrapped in wet kitchen roll and microwaved for about 30 seconds.

Enjoy with lots of soy sauce.

好好享用！

Steamed 13.06.2011

Here is yet another recipe post for something quick and simple, but tasty and filling! The chicken once baked in the oven tasted even better than KFC (and much healthier, too!).

Chicken Parmigiana With Penne Pasta
Adapted from: Sea Salt with Food
Serves 6

Ingredients
• 600-700g diced chicken
• 1 x egg
• ¼ cup/45g flour
• 1 x slice of bread
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 500g penne pasta
• 1 x 400g jar of tomato based sauce
• dried thyme
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 250g mozzarella
• 100g parmesan

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 205◦C.

Beat the egg in a large bowl, and put the flour and breadcrumbs in a separate large bowl. Pop the chicken into the egg, and then straight into the breadcrumb and flour mixture. Use your hands to press the mixture onto the chicken to ensure cohesion.

Line a baking sheet with tin foil, drizzle with olive oil and add spread the chicken across. Drizzle with a little more oil. Bake for 15 minutes, turn the chicken over, and bake for another 10 minutes.

While the chicken is baking, cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling hot water (according to the instructions on the packed). Drain the pasta, and mix in the thyme, pasta sauce, salt and black pepper.

Mix in the chicken pieces with the pasta, and put it all into a large baking dish. Top it off with slices of mozzarella, parmesan cheese and dried thyme. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or so until everything is heated through and the top has browned.

Buon appetito!

Baked 02.06.2011

This dish wasn’t as hard to make as I thought it would be! Mum and I saw a duck on offer in the supermarket and I thought I’d do a quick search to see what I could make!

When it was mum’s graduation, we went to this restaurant in Paignton (which was quite pricey), and I had duck in a deep morello cherry sauce. It was beautiful (and a massive portion!), so I thought I’d see if I can try something similar.

I think it would have been a little nicer if this sauce was a little thicket (and orange in colour for effect!), but there were subtle nuances of orange flavour: not too weak, but not overpowering, either. I think this would also go quite nicely with dauphinoise potatoes, or something like that.

Canard à l’Orange
Adapted from: Raspberri Cupcakes
Sauce serves 4

Ingredients
For the duck:
• 1.8kg Gressingham duck
• dried coriander leaf
• 1 x satsuma/orange
• salt
• coarse ground black pepper
• vegetables for your guests (I had boiled potatoes with steam peas, carrots and broccoli)

For the sauce:
• 100g sugar
• 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
• ¾ cup (180ml) chicken stock
• 2 tbsp corn flour
• 3 x satsumas/oranges
• ¼ cup (60ml) port
• 1 tbsp cointreau

Preparation
For the duck:
Preheat the oven to 220◦C.

Wash the duck, remove the giblets, and place the duck in a roasting tin (breast-side up). Smother the inside and out with the satsuma peel and juice (leaving it inside of the duck). Do the same with the coriander leaf, salt and pepper. Use a skewer to pierce holes in the top of the duck, as this ensures the flavours penetrate the duck a little more.

Tress the duck if desired – I didn’t because 1) our duck looked tasty as it was, and 2) I don’t know hot to do it! It’s not necessary, especially if a small duck is used. People use it to keep the duck as tight and compact as possible, and also because it can enhance the presentation if it’s served whole to a large table of guests.

Roast the duck for 20 minutes to brown the outside, then lower the temperature to 180◦C and let the duck cook for an hour.

For the sauce:
While the duck is cooking, prepare your vegetables (wash and peel your veg, etc.), but don’t put them on until 30 minutes after the duck has been cooking at 180◦C.

About 20 minutes before the duck is ready, boil the sugar and red wine vinegar in a saucepan over high heat until thick and syrup-like. Reduce the heat to a simmer and add the chicken stock, mixing well. Grate/peel the satsumas and add the rind to the mixture. Then peel the segments, mush them up and add them, too. Wash the giblets and throw them in.

Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer for about 5-10 minutes. The take the duck out of the oven, and tip all of its juices into the saucepan, and put the duck back in the oven.

Strain the gravy into a large bowl (to remove the lumps), and then return to the saucepan.

Add the cornflour bit by bit, and mix until the sauce has thickened slightly.

Remove the duck from the oven, carve and serve with the vegetables.

Add the port and cointreau to the gravy, and pour over the duck.

Serve, piping hot.

Bon appétit!!

Devoured 07.06.2011

I made these meatballs to help give my mum a break from cooking, especially as Friday is the day when all the sheets from the beds are changed. It was such a hot day, dad was mowing the lawn, and so my input was to cook the dinner! I also made a lovely cherry clafoutis to go with it. We all enjoyed the evening sun down at Buckfast Abbey. I do like that place. It was really interesting to look around the plant gardens, where they have quite a lot of lavender and other herbs. They even had some Monkshood, which is a poisonous plant! And I didn’t realise there were so many varieties of mint! Unfortunately, a few of the other signs were turned at awkward angles and so we couldn’t tell which plant was which. I should have taken some pictures, though, but I didn’t have my camera.

Homemade Meatballs
Adapted from: BBC Good Food
Yielded 26 large-ish meatballs.
Spaghetti serves 4.

Ingredients
For the meatballs:
• 600-700g minced beef
• 1 x onion, grated
• 3 tbsp dried parsley
• 40g parmesan, grated
• 3 x slices of bread, whizzed in a food processor (or 132g breadcrumbs)
• 1 x egg, beaten
• 4 tbsp olive oil

For the spaghetti:
• ~400g spaghetti
• 1 x 350-400g jar of tomato based sauce

Preparation
Wash the meat, and place it in a large bowl with the egg, onion, breadcrumbs parmesan and parsley. Now here’s where you stick your hands in and homogenise it. Then, form balls of the mixture, ensuring that they’re compact and firm. Put them aside.

Boil the pasta in salted water. While that’s boiling, heat 2-4 tbsp olive oil in a large pan. Add the meatballs (being sure not to overcrowd the pan; this may have to be done in batches) and brown them on all sides. Then, add all of the meatballs back in, along with the tomato sauce. Half fill the jar in came in with water, and add that to the pan, too. Boil the sauce, and then reduce to a simmer and cover for half an hour.

Drain and pasta when it’s ready, and then incorporate into the meatball and sauce mixture. Serve piping hot with salad and grated parmesan.

Buon appetito!

Baked 03.06.2011

I’m so glad that exams are finally over! My final exam was on Friday, and on Saturday I thought I’d be feeling really good, but in actual fact, I didn’t. I’ve done really well with my coursework, and was desperately hoping to get a first, which I have! However, my exams have really brought my marks down. Even though I studied hard, it got to a point where even if you know everything on the lecture slides and the stuff we covered throughout the year, none of us could answer the questions on the papers because we just didn’t cover them! Quite infuriating! Anyway, Ed came and stayed the night on Saturday, and we played badminton. The on Sunday, we went to our tennis club’s open day, where it was the busiest I’ve ever seen it! It’s quite rainy today, but luckily yesterday the weather held out and it turned out to be a pleasant day.

For my family today, I made the kefta tagine. In Morocco, Tim and I had kefta, but not in a tagine with eggs quite like this. When I looked the at the recipe, the photos looked really nice, but I thought it as just gonna be a sort of bolognaise sauce and didn’t really think it’d be too nice with rice. But it turned out ok actually! Would probably go just as well with pasta!

Below you can see some pictures of some of the food we had with the Moroccan flat bread. I never took a picture of the bread, but fortunately it managed to sneak its way into some of our pictures. I also didn’t take a photo of the kofta we ate that one time… The top left picture is one of the only times we ate pasta, and the top right was in Tangier, the day we left for Madrid airport.

I also made some Moroccan flat bread, which they have everywhere in Morocco, and it turned out to be just like it (which I was surprised about, because the last time I made bread it was a hard rock of something completely inedible)! I was pretty pleased, and I love fresh bread from the oven, when it’s warm and smells of yeast.

Moroccan Flatbread
Adapted from: About Moroccan Food
Makes 2 loaves

Ingredients
• 4 x cups plain white flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 x sachet dried yeast (7g)
• 1 ¼ cups warm water
• 4 x tbsp olive oil
• extra flour

Preparation
Prepare a baking sheet with grease-proof paper, and 2 tbsps olive oil. Sieve the flour in a large bowl, and add the salt and sugar. Make a well in the centre, and add the yeast, 2 tbsps olive oil and water into the centre. Mix together, and knead on a floured surface for 10 minutes. Make sure that the dough is soft yet firm, but not sticky to the touch.
Split the dough into two, and form into balls. Place on the baking tray and cover with wet kitchen roll for 10 minutes.
Then, use your hand to flatten the dough out into about ½” thick discs, and score two lines through the dough in a cross formation. Cover with the wet kitchen roll for an hour.
The pop them into an oven preheated to 180◦C for 30-35 minutes.

Moroccan Kefta Mkaouara
Adapted from: Almost Bourdain
Serves 4-5

Ingredients
• 2 tbsps oil
• 500g minced beef (or lamb)
• 1 tsp paprika
• 2 tbsp dried parsley
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 x onion, diced
• 2 x garlic cloves, diced/minced
• 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
• A small handful of fresh corianders leaves and finely chopped stalks
• 4 x eggs

Preparation
Pop the minced beef (or lamb), parsley and ½ tsp paprika into the bowl, and a good shake of salt and pepper. Use your (dampened) hands to mix it all together, and form tight little balls; I got 26.

Heat 2 tbsp oil in an oven-proof dish over the stove, and brown the meatballs all over. Remove them with a slotted spoon and put them on a plate.
Add the diced onion and garlic into the remaining oil and fry until they start to turn brown. Add ½ tsp paprika, the coriander stalks and a few leaves and the tinned tomatoes (with another shake of salt and pepper). Simmer for 10 minutes before adding the meatballs
Bring to the boil, and cover, leaving to simmer for 15-20 minutes.Preheat oven to 200◦C.
Crack four eggs onto the top of the dish, and pop, covered, into the oven for abotu 10 minutes (or until the eggs have just cooked).
Serve with salad, the remaining coriander leaves, soft, fluffy rice, and khobz!

Bon Appétit!!

Yesterday, a family friend came for dinner! And what’s better than to celebrate Easter with….Chili!? He also bought us some nice Easter gifts, including flowers and eggs! And mum also wanted me to take pictures of her graduation cards.

I was a little tight on time, with revision and all that, so I tohught I’d make something simple but hearty. I found this chilli website and thought it might not have been too flavourful, as it was quite simple, yet it had really good reviews. And it was very flavourful: it had a mild kick, a nice taste, and I’m wishing I did a little more with it than just piling it on some rice with salad. Although mum does make a killer salad! It’s not just lettuce and tomatoes, but there’s cucumber, sweetcorn, olives, boiled eggs, peppers, grapes and strawberries! It’s full of colour, flavour and health!

Next time, I’d love to use this chilli to make burritos with, and then have nachos, salsa, sour cream and guacamole!

There was enough for 6 portions I’d say; of which a large bowl of chilli was saved for dad for when he came home from London.

Chili con Carne
Adapted from: BBC Good Food
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
• 2 tbsps butter/oil
• 1 x large onion
• 1 x large red pepper/capsicum
• 2 x garlic cloves, diced/minced
• 1 heaped tsp hot dried chillies
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp ground cumin or parsley
• ½ tsp dried marjoram
• 500g lean minced beef
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 1 tsp sugar/dark chocolate
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 410g can red kidney beans (in water)
• salt and pepper, to taste
• long grain rice, sour cream, guacamole, etc., to serve

Preparation
Dice the onion and the pepper. Heat the butter/oil in a large pot over a medium heat, and then sauté the onions until soft and translucent. Add the garlic, red pepper, chillies, paprika, cumin/parsley and marjoram, and cook for another few minutes.
Brown the mince all over. Turn the heat up a bit, add the meat to the pan and break it up with your spoon or spatula.
Add the tinned tomatoes and crumble the stock cube into the pan. Add 300ml/½ pint of hot water. Add the sugar (or chocolate) a good pinch of salt and pepper. Then squirt in about 2 tbsp of tomato purée and stir the sauce well.
Simmer it gently. Bring the whole thing to the boil, give it a good stir and put a lid on the pan.
Drain and rinse the kidney beans, then add them to the chilli.
Turn the heat off and leave it for 10 minutes to allow the flavours to mingle (an important step!)
Then, bring the chilli back to the boil, and simmer gently for 20-30 minutes. Check the pan occasionally to stir it and make sure the sauce isn’t drying out. The sauce should be thick and aromatic.
Serve on a bed of plain, boiled rice, with a spoonful of soured cream on top. Pile it on tortilla chips and sprinkle it with grated cheddar. Wrap it up in a tortilla with shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes and guacamole for a great burrito!

¡¡Buen Provecho!!