Mackerel for tea with a sweet treat for afters.

For me, hangovers usually bring out one of two approaches to food; I either want to gorge on rubbish and stodge all day, or I want to eat incredibly healthy food to undo the badness of the night before.

Today is a mixture of both. I decided to make brownies to distract myself from the pain, and because I’ve got to work on Bank Holiday Monday, so I thought they would brighten up a quiet newsroom.

Chocolate Brownies:

I don’t have a massively sweet tooth, and I’m not great at baking, but I can just about stretch to some cookies or brownies. I think the trick is to get the best possible chocolate with lots of cocoa in it; cooking chocolate just doesn’t cut it.

Melt about 200 grammes of dark chocolate with about two thirds of a bar of butter. (The recipe I used suggested 165g of butter; my scales aren’t that precise). 

When it’s melted and cooled a little beat in about 200g of brown sugar, preferably muscovado but I only had Demerara. Add a pinch of salt, and some vanilla extract.

Beat in three eggs one by one, then some plain flour. (Again, the recipe I used for amounts said 85g, but my scales are not that good.) Put in a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. 

Bake at 160 degrees for about 40 minutes. Allow to cool on a wire rack.Then slice.

And now for the healthy (ish) supper…

Mackerel fillets with chorizo, leeks and peas.

I’m going through quite a chorizo/paprika phase at the moment. 

First slice a leek and fry in a little butter and vegetable oil, with a pinch of salt. Put some potatoes on to boil.

Take the papery skin off a good chunk of chorizo, and cut it up into chunks. Technically you should use cooking chorizo for this, but it’s not that easy to get hold of, so I used some ordinary chorizo. When the leeks are starting to collapse a bit, add the chorizo to the pan along with a good pinch of paprika. You want the edges of the chorizo to go a little crispy. 

 Add the nearly cooked potatoes to the pan to allow them to crisp a little, before adding a small amount of vegetable stock and some frozen peas. If you want, you can add a few spoonfuls of cream to the sauce, but it doesn’t necessarily need it. Add a good squidge of lemon juice, and turn the heat right down.

Season the mackerel fillets. Heat a little vegetable oil in a pan until it’s fairly hot, then put the fish in, skin side down.  If you want to be really healthy you could just grill the mackerel.

It doesn’t take long – just three or four minutes, then turn the heat off and flip the fish to finish cooking in the residual heat.

Serve the fillets on top of a big mound of chorizo leek-y loveliness. If you can hack it, have with a nice chilled glass of white wine.

I’m off for a lie down.

Feeding the post holiday blues

It’s a while since my last post, but that’s because we’ve just come back from an amazing holiday in Istanbul. I’d highly recommend it! There was so much to see, we ran out of time even though we had a full week.  We also spent our time eating bread with sheeps cheese, kebaps, baklava, fresh fish and drinking loads of tea (and not particularly good Turkish red wine).  

Basically a week of over-indulgence. It was brilliant.  And now we’re home wading through about four loads of washing and facing slightly unhealthy bank balances, my plan to tackle this is to cook, cook and cook some more.  So here we go, three recipes in one blog:

1.  The slightly luxurious, drink it with wine, pretend you’re still on holiday meal:  Asparagus Risotto.

Anyone who has lived with me will know I make a lot of risottos.  I love risottos, and they’re pretty easy, just keep it constantly on a lowish heat.

Fry finely chopped onion, celery and garlic in a little butter and oil so it goes slightly translucent but doesn’t colour. 

Add the risotto rice, and cook for about thirty seconds so all the grains are coated in buttery goodness. Add a decent glassful of white wine, give it a stir and let all the wine cook down.

Snap the woody ends bits of your asparagus and chop the rest into chunks about a couple of centimetres long. Add these, and a ladleful of stock, and keep stirring. 

Gradually keep adding stock about a ladleful at a time and regularly stirring for about fifteen minutes, until the rice is cooked. It should still have a little bit of bite.

Stir in a good handful of grated parmesan, a knob of butter and a squeeze of lemon juice. Have with salad and cold white wine…

  

2.  The store cupboard, cheap and cheerful, batch cooked meal: Chorizo and bean stew.

I split my life between Hull and Leeds, and struggle sometimes to keep eating healthy tasty meals while away.  To rectify this, I made a VERY easy stew to last me a couple of nights.

Fry some chopped chorizo in a little oil, until the oil starts to turn red. 

Add a chopped onion, some chopped celery and some garlic and chilli. Everything should keep a bit of an orange tinge. Then add some extra paprika and chilli flakes, stir in, before adding loads of veg. For me, this was peppers, courgettes and mushrooms.  

Add a tin of beans, I used borlotti, and a tin of tomatoes.  Add some tomato puree, Worcestershire sauce and top up with water. Let it bubble down for quite a while (probably about half an hour) and continually check for seasoning, it’ll take quite a lot of salt and pepper.

If it tastes too spicy or too sharp, add a little sugar to take the edge off it. Stir in some spinach at the end.

Done! I’ll be eating this with some cous cous. 

3.  The post-holiday diet starts today, healthy vegetable-tastic soup: Sort of Thai vegetable and noodle soup.

Blitz up a decent amount of garlic, chilli and ginger, and fry it in some oil with some sliced onion.  Add a spoonful of Thai curry paste. And fry a little.

Then add a load of veggies, for me this was sliced pak choi, thinly sliced carrots, mushrooms, and green beans, and a few halved cherry tomatoes. 

Add some stock, and allow it to bubble away but not for too long (best if the veggies retain a little bit of bite) Add some lime juice, and plenty of Thai fish sauce (to taste) at the end, as well as some chopped fresh coriander.

Meanwhile, cook some noodles separately.  I was looking for rice noodles, but they were sadly lacking from my supermarket so I ended up with udon noodles. When they’re cooked rinse them with cold water to keep them separate.

Because I was taking this to work for lunches, I let it cool in separate containers, then added the noodles to each one.

I made this with home made chicken stock, but if you were going to be making a veggie version just use vegetable stock and soy sauce instead of Thai fish sauce.

Three curry feast

We were supposed to go out for a curry on Friday night to Arti’s, our local cheap, cheerful (and very tasty) curry house. Unfortunately, I’d been working overnight at the election on Thursday night, had very little sleep, and hit a wall. I ate a massive Chinese takeaway instead, then fell asleep.

We still wanted a curry though, so tonight was a home made curry night.  With this I work on the same basic principles as with a roast: you can make the meaty bit go a lot further if you have a couple of really good veggie dishes.

Joe’s input was needed for this one too. He got the Madhur Jaffrey Curry Easy book for Christmas, and has cooked two meals from it, both of which were absolutely amazing.  I’m not going to retype someone else’s recipe, but Joe’s side dish was South Indian Potato Curry, and it looked like this: (yum)

I made a lentil dahl.  First I toasted some cumin and coriander seeds and the insides of cardamom pods. Then crushed these in the pestle and mortar.  As I’m making two curries I did a couple of teaspoons of each.

I then fried some onion and plenty of garlic, and added half the spices back in, along with some turmeric. It'll go very yellow!

 Add some lentils and some water and let bubble till the lentils are nearly cooked. Then add a couple of tomatoes (from a tin is fine) and some green beans (I keep these in the freezer)

The lentil dahl takes about half an hour to cook, be careful it doesn’t dry out. Add some finely chopped fresh coriander at the end.

I also made chicken and spinach curry. First, brown off some chicken pieces. I prefer to use chicken on the bone, such as thighs and drumsticks, as they’re much tastier. Then put them to one side, and fry sliced onions with blitzed up garlic, ginger and chilli. Then add the remainder of the spices from earlier, and a good pinch of curry powder (bit of a cheat), some turmeric and some garam masala. 

(It is the easiest way to deal with chilli and garlic etc.)

Put the chicken back in, and give it a good stir around. Add the remainder of the tinned tomatoes that you used for the dahl.  I would normally at this point add coconut milk, but I got in a strop with my local supermarket yesterday for only having branded, organic coconut milk which cost more than £1.80 a tin.  Ridiculous, I know, but the non-branded stuff is less than a pound, and I needed a few of them! Instead I bought coconut cream, which is much cheaper.

Add some water (to cover) and let it bubble away. That’s just about done. Five minutes before serving, add at least half a bag of spinach, it’ll wilt quickly, then stir it in.

Just about done. Whilst that’s bubbling away get some rice on, and make some raita. This would normally be made with mint, but I’ve been growing fresh coriander and have a lot of it. Mix natural yoghurt with chopped coriander, chopped cucumber and salt and pepper. 

All done! This is going to last us a couple of nights. Presentation might leave a little to be desired... but it was ace.

I’ve made quite a few changes to the blog: let me know what you think of the redesign. I think everyone should be able to comment on the posts regardless of whether you’re signed up to google or not.

This weeks soup: Mushroom, made with the stock from last week’s chicken. I made some rosemary bread the other day when I was bored too, so going to have some tasty lunches at work this week!

Four meals, one chicken

Is there anything more satisfying than a Sunday roast? I love cooking a chicken, and then having chicken based meals for the rest of the week. I would urge you to always buy the biggest and best quality bit of meat you can afford, and you’ll taste the difference (and get lots out of it). And the chicken won’t have had a miserable existence before cooking.

I know cooking a chicken is hardly rocket science; I reckon it's the other bits that make it!

This blog will focus on the initial roast… but I’ll list the probable other meals at the end with brief instructions! The trick to eking it out is loads of veg; and good veg, not some over boiled carrots and broccoli. Get some nice stuff in season (I’m quite excited it’s asparagus season again) and put a little bit of effort in, and you won’t eat quite as much meat! You could always makeYorkshire puddings if you really want to stretch it further. If you add lots and lots of cheaper bits to your roast, you won't feel short changed.

Of course the real key is gravy… always gravy.

For the chicken:

I get all my timings for roasts from Delia. It’s about 20 minutes for every 450g and then another 20 minutes on top of that. It’ll need about half an hours resting time too (covered with tin foil or something), but that’s your gravy making time.

Cover it with butter, and stuff some on the breast under the skin. Shove a halved lemon inside the cavity, and season the whole thing with salt and pepper. Cook as Delia tells you: (I tend not to bother with the bacon she mentions)

http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/meat/roasting-times.html

 

 While that’s doing its thing you can make a start on your exciting veg. We’ve got some Jersey new potatoes, which I parboiled, then squashed slightly, before tossing them with chopped rosemary, garlic and olive oil, seasoned and shoving them in the oven for half an hour.

 For asparagus, break any woody end bits off, and then steam for a few minutes. It doesn’t need much more, but if you’re so inclined you can then chuck them in a hot pan with some butter and lemon juice. In an attempt not to make every vegetable incredibly unhealthy, I opted not to do that with this one! Steamed. Touch of lemon juice. That’s it.

My carrots, however, are another story. I made glazed carrots, which I have described in a previous post, but will copy and paste in anyway: Chop up the carrots in big slices, put a little drop of water in, a knob of butter and a teaspoonful of sugar. Boil until the water all but disappears and you’re left with a lovely glaze.

 How do you know the chickens done? Again I use Delia’s hints for this one: stick a skewer in and see if the juices run clear. Tip it backwards, and see if the juices that run out of the cavity are clear. Pull the legs away from the chicken a bit, of they give quite easily it’s good to go. Put it on a plate to rest, get your potatoes in the oven.  

Gravy:

Pour away most of the fat from the pan, and then put it on the hob over a medium heat. Add a spoonful of cornflour or flour and stir it in to the remaining fat and juices. Then whack up the heat and pour in a glass of white wine, mixing all the time. Make sure to scrape up any sticky bits of the bottom of the pan.  Add half a pint of stock or water (depending on your preference) and keep stirring, then let it reduce down. Taste and season. If you had thyme it would be nice to add some, I put in a little dried parsley (as my parsley hasn’t really grown yet…)

 While it’s reducing get your carrots on, and right at the last minute the asparagus.

And serve!A leg each with all the extras did us.

Once you’ve had your roast and it’s cooled, take every last little scrap of meat off the bones. All of it, you’ll be amazed how much there is. The bones will make a brilliant stock to make the best risotto or soup you’ve ever had. I’m not making that today, so will shove them in the freezer until I get round to it. (Maybe tomorrow, might write about it then)

Other meals (our menu for much of the week):

- Thai chicken and vegetable curry.

I have made my own curry paste before, but not for ages.  I like to add a bit more oomph to a shop bought paste by frying some garlic, chilli and ginger first. (Blitz it up in a little hand-held food processor: one of the best cookery inventions ever) Add to the wok a LOAD of veg; carrots, mushrooms, peppers, green beans and broccoli will be going into ours. Add two tablespoons of curry paste, let that fry off with the veg, then add a tin of coconut milk. Add some chopped up chicken, two dessert spoonfuls of Thai fish sauce (or to taste) and the juice of half a lime. Loads of fresh coriander. Happy days…

- Midweek mini-roast

Awesome. As long as you’ve got enough gravy to last two nights this feels like a proper treat on a dull Wednesday.  Just heat up a bit of chicken in the gravy to keep it moist. We’ll be having it with sweet potato mash for a change, and some probably slightly less exciting veggies, but it is midweek.

- Stir fry

Chilli, garlic and ginger, blitzed up.  Fried with some cumin, ground coriander and paprika (or whatever you’ve got in) and then loads of veg. Add a bit of chicken, lots of soy sauce and then mix in some cooked egg noodles. Add a bit of sesame oil after it’s cooked and you're done. Add more soy to taste.

I’d say that’s not bad going for a seven quid bird! Happy bank holiday one and all, I'm off to the pub.