Bitter Chicken

You need to be in a certain type of mood to eat this. If you're not, add a teaspoon of brown sugar and half a cup of water to the sauce halfway through cooking time.

Bitter Chicken

(Printable Recipe)

Serves 2

3 chicken breasts

3 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup raisins

1/2 cup dried blueberries

500ml dry red wine

Seasoning

Orange-Scented Chilli

Despite my only blogged recipe for chilli con carne, I am a firm believer in sweet potato in chilli. I hinted recently at a vegetarian version with sweet potato, but even the meaty ones should have some. Unfortunately, I didn't have any sweet potato when I decided to recreate this amazing recipe for orange-scented chilli so turned it into a meat-lover's fest. The orange truly does wonderful, wonderful things to it. Also, Tom had the leftovers on toast with a hard-boiled egg (of all things) the next day, and that was pretty spectacular too.

Orange-Scented Chilli

(Printable Recipe)

Serves 2

1 tablespoon oil

1/2 onion

1 clove garlic

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon chilli powder, plus more to taste

250g mince

1/2 cup red wine

2 cups tomato sauce

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 tin kidney beans

Juice and peel of 1 orange

Seasoning

Apple-Stuffed Chicken with Colcannon

St Patrick's Day on Thursday was the perfect excuse to make colcannon - which, I have decided, is one of the best foods in the world. I'd had colcannon once before, in an Irish pub at Stansted airport with my dad, and kind of immediately thought it was gross. In my defence, I was about sixteen and had had very little exposure to cabbage before. Anyway, I didn't even realize that colcannon had bacon in it, so once I saw the recipe on BBC Good Food I was sold. Not that I bothered to read the actual recipe. Just the ingredients.

The food was good - the roast chicken was surprisingly easy for a weekday, given that I generally have little more than an hour to prepare food (that's what happens when you get out of work at 9.30pm). It was, admittedly, a little tasteless, but what can you expect from plain chicken? The apple wedges and the colcannon really played their part, taking up the chicken's slack, and overall we were both very happy with this.

I've included a suggestion within the recipe to make a Guinness gravy, but as I didn't do it myself it won't appear in the ingredients list.

Apple-Stuffed Chicken with Colcannon

(Printable Recipe)

Serves 2

For the chicken:

1 medium-sized roast chicken

1 apple

Oil (about 3 tablespoons)

Herbs

Seasoning

For the colcannon:

6 medium-sized potatoes

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup cream

1 tablespoon butter

1 handful cabbage, or other thick green leaves (eg spinach)

3 bacon rashers

Seasoning

Fidget Pie

I read about this ages ago under 'Bacon and Apple' in Niki Segnit's The Flavour Thesaurus. And eventually, this weekend, I got around to making it, with recipes adapted from here and here. It was good - usually I associate savoury pies with a dark, heavy filling, but this was surprisingly light. I would say definitely one to make again.

Regarding the stock: I went for 100ml homemade chicken stock with 50ml grape and apple juice, leftover from the making of the rustic grape butter. I recommend a similar mix of stock and cider, or wine - whatever you have to hand.

Fidget Pie

(Printable Recipe)

Serves 2-4, depending how hungry you are

For the pastry:

1 cup flour

1/2 cup butter

1/8 teaspoon salt

Up to 3 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon milk

For the filling:

1 tablespoon butter

1 onion

1 apple

3 potatoes

1 tablespoon flour

10 rashers bacon

1 tablespoon mixed herbs

1 teaspoon cinnamon

150ml liquid stock (see note above)

A few small pats of butter

Seasoning

Steamed Chicken and Strawberry Salad

When the weather begins to start hinting at spring, I begin thinking of salad as comfort food. Last night I went for a salad, topped with chicken (oven steamed), bacon, strawberries, a balsamic-rum-strawberry dressing, and blue cheese. It was heavenly. Roll on summer!

Steamed Chicken and Strawberry Salad

(Printable Recipe)

Serves 2

Foil

1 tablespoon oil

2 chicken breasts

1 tablespoon seasoned flour

1/4 onion

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon rum

10 strawberries

2 rashers bacon

1/2 cup crumbled blue or goat's cheese (optional)

2 servings' worth salad leaves

Seasoning

Balsamic Orange Chicken

Wow, this meal was easy to make. No chopping required - it's ready in the amount of time it takes to boil some rice. I made it because my co-teacher gave me seven or eight oranges, and because BBC Good Food suggested this.

I was surprised by how tender the chicken was, despite the comments on the recipe - I often cook chicken like this, by frying it before building a sauce around it and poaching it, but this meal really did make for very tender chicken.

Balsamic Orange Chicken

(Printable Recipe)

Serves 2

2 servings rice

2 chicken breasts

2 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 large oranges

100ml chicken stock

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon butter

Seasoning

Apple and Blue Cheese Soup

When my parents were at university, they made stilton and cider soup. When I was at university, I also made stilton and cider soup. It was rich and decadent and the kind of soup that you could spread on toast. Out here in Korea, after buying Blue Cheese! in Seoul, it was the first thing I wanted to make - with, of course, substitutions. I mentioned earlier how we are in a cider-free country (except for the fact that Sprite is known as 'cider', which I swear was only done to annoy me). So, apple it was.

I made this soup alcohol-free, because I did make it just after getting out of bed this morning, but feel free to use cider yourself, or use white wine to deglaze the pan after the onion has softened. Adding a potato will thicken it, and be careful not to over-salt - just keep tasting it until it's right. The blue cheese will make the back of your throat burn slightly as you eat it, which I like, but will make you wary of eating too much.

Apple and Blue Cheese Soup

(Printable Recipe)

Makes 3-4 servings

1 tablespoon oil

Half an onion

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon flour

200ml milk

250ml apple juice
1 apple

1 teaspoon chicken stock powder

60g blue cheese

Seasoning

Braised Boozy Chicken

Last night's recipe was somewhat similar to the last recipe I posted, I suppose. The taste and technique were very different, but the pictures are going to look same-y, I think. Given that four days elapsed between them, and that we ate a lot of different stuff in Seoul (I'm still happily remembering that pear and gorgonzola pizza with rocket and caramelized onions... sigh), I think I'm the only person who this is bothering. On, then, with the show!

I took this recipe from BBC Good Food's chicken braised with cider and bacon. Unfortunately we are a cider-less country, and hence a cider-less household, so I had to be more inventive than that. And I invite you to be more inventive too. This is a recipe crying out for alcohol - any alcohol. Whatever you've got. Throw it all in. It's delicious. And if there's any sauce left over, heat it up and eat it as soup the next day. Really.

Braised Boozy Chicken

(Printable Recipe)

Serves 2

1 tablespoon oil

3 chicken breasts

Half an onion

6 rashers bacon

1 apple

1 tablespoon flour

1 cup red wine

1 chicken stock powdered cube

(or 1 teaspoon chicken stock powder)

250ml apple juice

1 teaspoon mustard

Seasoning

Strawberry Mustard Chicken with Roasted Cauliflower

I've joined another food-blog website, called Tasty Kitchen and headed by the indomitable Pioneer Woman. Browsing through the recipes, I found a raspberry dijon chicken, which sounded fascinating - but not quite right for me as it is. For one thing, it's not difficult enough. And I don't have a barbeque. And it doesn't have a sauce! What's wrong with the world? I had to fix this.

And so I thought for a day or so, and came up with: strawberry (I don't have raspberry jam) mustard chicken, roasted in the oven with cauliflower, with a red wine gravy made from the juices. The strawberry/mustard glaze risked being far too sweet, particularly as I originally conceived this dish as a summery take on shepherd's pie (which I may still do later in the year), so I needed something slightly bitter to balance everything out. And thank god for that cauliflower in the freezer. I enjoyed cooking this, though my camera battery died when I went to take a picture of the glazed chicken breasts nestled in a bed of blanched cauliflower pre-roasting, so there's no proof of how easy it was. Sorry!

I served ours with rice, and it was delicious. Tom wasn't a huge fan of roasting cauliflower, as he felt that it spoiled the usually-crunchy texture of the vegetable too much. If you dried the florets thoroughly after blanching, and roasted them in a pan on their own with more oil, they might have gone crispy to make up for this huge disappointment - but that's too much work for a 10pm meal. I, on the other hand, thought it was delicious. I love cauliflower even though I find it a hint too bitter sometimes, but the roasting seemed to draw out the flavour rather than the metallic sourness of the vegetable. It still balanced the possibly-too-sugary fruitiness wonderfully, but without making anyone wince.

Regarding substitutions: obviously I've not tried any myself, having only cooked the original dish about fourteen hours ago, but I can imagine that different meats would react differently to the glaze. Chicken breasts just soak up flavour rather than adding any of their own, so it was a good one to start out with. Chicken thigh might not be as forgiving. Beef would be superb with this, at least in my mind - you wouldn't have to add the cauliflower because of the beef's own bitterness, and the red wine gravy would do wonders for it as well. Also, I can imagine a stupendous vegetarian version, or simply glazing the cauliflower and calling it a side dish. Let me know if you try anything different!

Funnily enough, this meal is really quite easy. And it sounds impressive! Cook it now - with or without chicken.

Strawberry Mustard Chicken with Roasted Cauliflower
(Printable Recipe)

Serves 2

Half a head of cauliflower

3 chicken breasts

1 tablespoon jam (mine was strawberry)

1 tablespoon mustard

(basically you want 1 teaspoon of each per breast)

1/2 tablespoon oil

1 tablespoon gravy powder

1 cup red wine

1 pinch each chilli powder and cinnamon

1 teaspoon parsley

Seasoning

Break the cauliflower into small florets and put in a pan of boiling water on a high heat for five minutes. In the meantime, mix jam, mustard and oil in a bowl and add seasoning. Cover each chicken breast in the glaze, place in an oven-proof tray large enough to hold the chicken and cauliflower, and drizzle any left over on top.

Drain the cauliflower and nestle around the chicken. Cover liberally with oil, salt and pepper, and roast at 180 degrees (360 Fahrenheit) for thirty minutes. In the meantime, prepare your side dish (I just put rice on to boil and went back to the very important business of sitting around doing nothing.)

When the chicken, cauliflower and rice are cooked, serve and keep warm. Put the roasting tray on the hob on a low heat and stir to loosen all the sticky bits. Sprinkle one tablespoon of gravy powder into the pan and stir, followed by a cup of red wine. Add small pinches of chilli and cinnamon, one tablespoon of parsley, and stir until slightly thickened and hot. There isn't too much of the sauce but it is very flavoursome - you don't need much. Pour over the chicken and some of the rice, and eat.

Apple Mustard Risotto

Risotto has been one of my favourite lunches for a long time - it was one of the first meals I posted, not that I strictly wrote recipes back then. It's the sign of someone who doesn't have to go to work until after 2pm. If I ever have a real job, I'll miss lunch risottos.

So yesterday I made an apple and mustard risotto, after trawling through a bunch of links and somehow finding my way to Cookie & Kate's apple cheddar quesadilla. Oh, I miss cheese. Anyway, more things happened and I ended up using apple in a risotto. (I also used apple in a peanut sauce for dinner, which was also delicious, but there are no pictures of that meal - partly because Tom burnt his contribution - so it's like it never existed!)

 Apple Mustard Risotto

(Printable Recipe)
Serves 1

1/2 an onion

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 an apple

1/2 a glass white wine
1 cup rice

400ml stock (roughly)

1 tablespoon mustard

Seasoning

Chop your onion and apple, and fry in butter until softened. Add the rice to the pan and stir to coat the rice in the butter - it should go translucent. Pour the white wine in and allow the mixture to simmer for a few moments.

A very liquidy pan.

Add stock to the pan little by little, waiting until the rice has absorbed the liquid before adding the next 100ml or so. Stir as regularly as possible. Usually I just dump all the stock in in one go because I have better things to do with my life, but you do run the risk of oversaturating the rice that way.

The rice has absorbed more of the stock.

Towards the end of the cooking time, add the mustard - it should need about five minutes in the pan to heat through and allow the rice to absorb some of the flavour without being totally overwhelmed by it.

Season the risotto, and taste - after twenty-five minutes it should be nicely edible. Serve.

Throw some extra apple chunks on to garnish.

Honey Plum Chicken with Quick Roast Potatoes

This dinner is quick and easy: the 'roast' potatoes come from Nigella's rapid roastini recipe which I saw on Nigella Kitchen. As we had homemade gnocchi left over from earlier in the week, I thought I would throw it together with some chicken.

The meal was good, but the sweet potato gnocchi had a very intense flavour. That was fine when covered in the sauce, but there was nowhere near enough sauce. Make more sauce! That's my advice.

Also, I am a terrible, terrible food blogger because I can't even remember when I made this for dinner, let alone what specific quantities I used of everything. Oh dear.

Honey Plum Chicken with Quick Roast Potatoes
Serves 2

2 chicken breasts
1/2 cup honey
2 cups red wine
1/2 cup plum sauce
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic
Seasoning

24 homemade sweet potato gnocchi
Oil

Use a small amount of honey, plum sauce and balsamic to marinade the chicken for ten minutes. Tip the chicken with marinade into a pan and fry until the chicken is slightly browned on each side. Mince the garlic clove and add it to the pan. Continue cooking the chicken, adding seasoning and the remaining honey, plum sauce, red wine and balsamic vinegar, as necessary, until the chicken is cooked and you have enough sauce.

Fry the gnocchi in hot oil for four minutes on each side. Serve together.

Vegetable Stew/Soup

This morning, after making the stock and filling both of our little ice cube trays, there was probably about 100ml of chicken stock left over. I decided to make a massive vegetable stew for dinner, so I could purée the rest into soup. After having soup a couple of times recently, I've been wanting it more and more, so cooking a meal specifically for the purpose of having leftovers soup doesn't seem too crazy. Does it?

Vegetable Stew
Makes 2 servings with leftovers for 2 or 3 soup meals

1 pumpkin
2 onions
4 garlic cloves
1 large carrot
3 potatoes
2 leeks
100ml concentrated chicken stock
1/2 bottle white wine (I used Korean plum wine)
Herbs and spices: 3 bay leaves, oregano, rosemary, thyme, basil, parsley, cinnamon, and freshly grated ginger
Handful dried cranberries
1/2 head broccoli
Seasoning

Cut the pumpkin in half, drizzle a little oil on top, and put in the oven at 125 degrees C (face up) for about twenty minutes.

In the meantime, cut the onions into eighths, mince the garlic, dice the carrot and put into an oiled pan over a low heat. Peel and chop the carrot and add to the pan. Peel and chop the potatoes into thirds (mine were small anyway), and add to the pan. At this point it's a good idea to boil a kettleful of water.

Chop the leeks into discs and add to the pan. By now the pumpkin should be ready - the point is to enhance some of the flavours and make it easier to chop, rather than actually cooking it. Remove the skin, chop into bite-sized portions, and add to the pan. Stir everything together and add the chicken stock, along with enough boiling water to generously cover all the vegetables. Boil everything for ten minutes before adding the herbs and spices. Allow to simmer for another ten minutes before adding the chopped broccoli and dried cranberries.

Scoop out a couple of cups of the cooked vegetables in the broth and blend. Return to the pan, making the sauce thicker. Cook for a further five minutes and serve with rice, bread, or anything else.

Chicken Stuffing in Pumpkin Bowl

I haven't actually cooked anything properly since Tuesday. Wednesday was the lazy carbonara, Thursday was Tuesday's leftovers; on Friday we spent hours going "no, come on, what shall we make?" and then had frozen dumplings at about midnight; yesterday I made the tortilla pie, which somehow ended up far spicier than anticipated. Oh well.

I blame Christmas. Normally, when my students are writing and I'm waiting for them to finish, I jot down notes and ideas for dinner. This week, I was cutting out snowflakes instead.

So when today came around I was still at a loss for recipe ideas. I had pulled chicken out of the freezer to defrost, and knew there were two pumpkins in the pantry, possibly resenting me for not using them sooner. Suddenly it clicked. I've not really used any recipes for this, except for the pumpkin roasting tips I read before making the pumpkin pie filling, and the stuffing recipe I used at Thanksgiving - which has since been requested twice, and used at least once. I'm very proud. Anyway, both were remembered very roughly, and hence adapted.

This was really good but could have been nicer with more cream cheese, or something similar to give the pumpkin flesh a nicer texture. The chicken could be skipped for a just-as-wonderful meal.

Chicken Stuffing in Pumpkin Bowl
Serves 2

1 pumpkin
1 onion
1 garlic clove
1/2 head of broccoli
2 chicken breasts
2 slices bread
1/2 apple
2 tablespoons cream cheese
1 teaspoon mustard
1 teaspoon each of various herbs: I used basil, parsley, thyme, oregano and rosemary
Seasoning

Cut the pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds (I discarded mine but they could be saved for other purposes), and lay cut-side down in a tray. Add half a cup of water and bake in an oven at 180 degrees C (360 Fahrenheit) for twenty minutes.

Meanwhile, chop the onion, garlic and broccoli and fry on a low heat in oil. Slice the chicken (I cut each breast into about eight chunks) and add to the pot. Using a blender, pulse the bread into crumbs and add to the pan, turning the heat off at this point. Pulse the apple through the blender too and add to the pot. Stir through, turn the heat back on, and add the cream cheese, mustard and herbs. This should stay on a low heat for about five minutes.

When the pumpkin is done, turn cut-side up and scoop half of the chicken stuffing mixture into each hole. Bake at 180 degrees (360 Fahrenheit) for thirty minutes, sprinkling grated cheese on top in the last ten minutes if wished. Serve and eat however you like.

Thanksgiving: The Rest (part 3)

This is the final Thanksgiving post today, and will detail the sauces, chutney, and dessert I made. All of which were really quite good, if I do say so myself.

Persimmon Chutney
From this recipe

4 persimmons
2 tablespoons ginger tea
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder

I peeled and diced the persimmons before putting in a pan on a high heat with the ginger tea, honey and cinnamon. Once the mixture started bubbling slightly, I lowered the heat and stirred the chilli powder through. After about fifteen minutes the chutney was solid and sticky, and good to taste. Unfortunately I can't tell you much else about it as I completely forgot to serve the chutney and it is still sitting forlornly on top of the microwave.

Gravy
Makes about 600ml

150ml duck and chicken fat
100ml red wine
200ml beef stock
1 onion from the chicken cavity
Seasoning

We had a lot of fat reserved from roasting both birds, which had been added to a jug (and cooled) over the course of the day, so simply put it in a pan. It heated for a few minutes before the red wine was added, and a few minutes later so was the beef stock. The gravy was tasted and seasoned accordingly. It was still too thin at this stage, so we put it on a higher heat to reduce, and added one of the onions which had been roasted inside the chicken. There was way too much gravy but it was absolutely delicious.

Black Raspberry and Cranberry Sauce
From this recipe

2 cups black raspberries
1 handful dried cranberries
3 bay leaves
Rosemary
Thyme
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon chopped onion
100ml red wine
1 teaspoon spiced rum
Salt

I mixed the raspberries, cranberries, bay leaves, rosemary, thyme and sugar in a bowl and left to marinade for half an hour. Fried the onion in oil, added the wine and rum to the pan, and then set the alcohol on fire with a lighter - which was bloody scary. I shrieked. And panicked when I realized that I was using a wooden spoon. Surely it would catch on fire! Luckily it didn't, so I tipped the raspberry mixture into the pan with a little bit of salt (I added too much and had to remedy it with a bit more sugar), allowing it to heat through and reduce slightly. The original recipe suggests blending the sauce but I preferred it to remain thicker, so I settled for stirring roughly and bashing up the fruit a bit in the process. I removed the bay leaves before serving. This sauce was delicious but probably superfluous, as I was the only one who really had any of it.


Pumpkin Pie
From this recipe
8 servings

9 chocolate biscuits
1/2 cup butter
1 tablespoon milk
Pumpkin puree (made earlier this week)

I'd started this recipe on Wednesday morning by making the pumpkin puree; I continued it on Friday night, which I was actually quite proud of. I did something in advance! Anyway, I crushed the biscuits, mixed them with melted butter and milk, and used the mixture to line a pie dish. This went in the fridge overnight. I hate dough and pastry so a cheesecake base seemed to be the best way to go. On Saturday morning I poured the puree on to the crust and baked it for thirty minutes at 180 degrees C (360 Fahrenheit).

Rum Cream


2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons rum
150ml cream
1 teaspoon sugar

Imagine how stupid I felt after yesterday's post, when I realized that the Pioneer Woman's Hard Sauce is actually just brandy butter.

I had had a little bit of wine by the time it came to making the cream for dessert, so unfortunately the two tablespoons of rum became quite a bit more, and the cream became fairly potent. I had left the butter to soften out of the fridge for a while, and then blended it with the rum, cream and sugar before serving with the pumpkin pie. Absolutely delicious.

Thanksgiving: The Sides (part 2)

There were a lot of side dishes yesterday. Along with corn and eggplant from our guests, we served roasted white and purple potatoes, baked sweet potato mash, homemade stuffing, homemade biscuits, broccoli, chard with garlic chips, and maybe even something else that I've forgotten since.

Roast Potatoes
Serves 5 with leftovers

10 large potatoes
Seasoning
Duck fat

I peeled and chopped each potato into three good-sized chunks before boiling them in salted water. Once soft (this took longer than necessary as I purposely kept the stove on a low heat), they were drained and Tom 'fluffed' the potatoes by putting them back into the dry cooking pan and shaking them roughly. It's a Delia trick, apparently, and one he swears by. At this point the duck had been removed from its cooking tray, and the potatoes were put into this. The duck fat was spooned over the potatoes and they were roasted for roughly two hours at 160 degrees (320 Fahrenheit).

Baked Sweet Potato Mash
Serves 5 with plenty of leftovers

A huge sack of sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons cream
1 tablespoon milk
2 tablespoons butter
Seasoning

First of all, regarding the amount of potatoes used: I have no idea. It took me about half an hour to peel all of them. They were of varying size and came in a big heavy bag from the school's bus driver, which I mentioned a few days ago. Sorry.

I peeled the potatoes, boiled them, and mashed them with cream, milk and butter. The mash was spooned into a large baking dish and baked for twenty minutes at 180 degrees (360 Fahrenheit). The best mash I've ever tasted.

Stuffing
From this recipe
Serves 5 - I don't think there were any leftovers of this

4 slices white bread
4 rashers bacon
1 onion
3 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 egg
1 handful dried cranberries
Seasoning (every herb in the kitchen)

I tore the bread into chunks and blitzed these chunks in our mini-blender. Meanwhile, I diced the onion and garlic, and tore the bacon into small bits over a hot oiled pan. After a few moments of frying, I added the onion and garlic, turning the heat off a minute later. I left the bacon mixture in the pan to cool for about twenty minutes before adding it, along with the fat, to the breadcrumbs. I added the lemon juice, a ton of seasoning - as mentioned, every herb we own was used liberally, plus salt and pepper - and an egg to solidify everything a bit more. A handful of dried cranberries was later stirred through. The stuffing was left on the side for probably three hours, perhaps longer, before being baked for twenty minutes at 180 degrees (360 Fahrenheit).

Biscuits
From this recipe
Makes 9 biscuits

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon active dried yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1 cup milk with 1 teaspoon lemon vinegar

I mixed the flour, baking powder, yeast, sugar and salt in a bowl. Melted the butter in the microwave before adding the milk and vinegar to the butter bowl (this makes buttermilk). Stirred the wet ingredients into the dry and left to sit for, again, about three hours before baking for 15 minutes at 180 degrees (360 Fahrenheit). Drop biscuits like this are brilliant, because all you do is take a spoonful of the dough and drop it straight on to the tray (hence the name). No rolling out dough or anything. They were, however, slightly too salty.

Vegetables: plain broccoli and garlic-chip-chard
Serves 5

2 heads broccoli
2 large handfuls of chard leaves
8 garlic cloves
Seasoning

I chopped up the broccoli, reserving the lower woody part of the stem for another time, and boiled it in salted water. Once cooked, I drained it and kept it warm before serving.
I sliced the garlic cloves into 'chips' and put them in a cold pan with oil. They slowly cooked on a low heat until slightly golden. The chard leaves were then stirred into the pan to sauté. Once wilted, the heat was turned off. This was possibly the least successful part of the meal, but at least it was only a small part. The chard was still slightly wet from having defrosted, and should have been cut into smaller pieces - each leaf is really big!

Thanksgiving: The Birds (part 1)

That was an intense day. Wow.

We got up at 10 and started the cooking at about 11ish - Tom chopped the more unsavoury parts off the duck while I went to the butcher's to buy a second (which turned out to be a chicken. Thankfully that was definitely a mistake we could pass off as 'on purpose'). I peeled potatoes, tore up bread for stuffing, put the second bird in the oven, made the stuffing, made biscuit dough, defrosted the vegetables, boiled potatoes, peeled more potatoes for sweet potato mash, made persimmon chutney, boiled the sweet potatoes, sliced garlic, boiled and sautéd vegetables, baked everything that needed to be baked, and made both gravy and a savoury black raspberry and cranberry sauce. Oh, and a pumpkin pie with rum cream.

Tom was wonderful and did all the things that a busy woman who is scared of getting her hands burnt couldn't do.

I wore my new apron all day and was very happy.

So, the duck and chicken. I used an amalgamation of probably four recipes, focusing mainly on Nigella's brine and Sophie Grigson's slow-roasted duck method. Personally I think that two and a half hours at 180 degrees does not a 'slow' roast make, but whatever, we were busy.

Roasted Duck and Chicken
Serves 5 with plenty of leftovers

1 duck (2.5kg)
1 chicken (2kg)
Salt
Pepper
Cinnamon
Parsley
Thyme
3 bay leaves
Lots of water (I used roughly 2.5l)
2 tangerines
2 onions

I started the duck the day before cooking, having decided ten minutes before I had to leave for work that I wanted to brine it, despite having read at least seven articles online about how brining does nothing for duck meat. I quickly scrubbed a bin that was being used for tin recycling, shoved the duck in, poured in the water, and added several tablespoons each of salt, pepper, cinnamon, parsley, thyme and bay leaves, that being what was on hand. I stirred the water briefly, covered the whole thing with a plate and left it for six and a half hours. The duck wasn't quite submerged, so I then turned it upside down and left it for a further four hours. I drained the water and let the duck dry in its bucket overnight.

The next morning, both the duck and chicken were prepared as follows: the neck was sawn off and put to one side for future use in stock. Each was stuffed with one tangerine and one peeled onion. The skin was lightly pricked and covered in salt and pepper. The birds were put in the oven at 200 degrees (390 Fahrenheit) for twenty minutes, then at 160 (320 Fahrenheit) for a further two hours. Tom basted the birds regularly. They were removed from the oven, wrapped in foil, and left on top of the ovens to keep warm. Ten minutes before carving, they were placed back in the oven in their foil coats to reheat through.

Both were delicious, although the chicken had dried out somewhat. It hardly mattered as there was an abundance of sauces and other dishes to cover that up, and the dryness contributed to a sense that we were actually eating turkey!

Pork with Chilli-Apple Sauce Disaster

Oh, this dinner could have been so nice. I fried apple chunks, chopped chilli and pork in a pan to go with the stovetop roast potatoes. The first time we served it up, the potatoes were somehow uncooked in the middle. Everything went back in the pan, and the second time it was served up, the sweet potatoes were burnt and the pork had gone rubbery. Sigh. Oh well, when you make it, you'll know better.

The chilli barely added any spice at all, even with extra chilli powder - there was just a hint of warmth. I would add one or two more next time. Also, alcohol (of course) would make this apple sauce better. By the way, this is one of the easiest sauces I've ever made, given that apple sauce pretty much makes itself.

This is just the recipe for the main dish - the recipe for the side can be found above. I did five small potatoes and three larger sweet potatoes, and my mistake was in boiling them for under 10 minutes before draining them to be fried. We also put the normal potatoes in the frying pan about five minutes before the sweet potatoes, as sweet potatoes seem to cook faster.

Pork with Chilli-Apple Sauce
Serves 2 (generously - probably serves 3 really)

200g pork
Handful of chopped onion
1 kwari pepper (a small, green, curled chilli)
1 and a half apples
Chilli powder
Cinnamon
Seasoning

I chopped the pork and pepper, and peeled and chopped the apples. The onion and apple were put into a hot oiled pan and fried for five minutes. The chilli and pork were added, along with spices and seasoning. The pot was left for ten minutes, though I stirred occasionally. The apple releases its juices and creates a lovely brown sauce which the pork braises in.

Wrestle Curry

I didn't strictly make this: I supervised and guided my little brother as he made the meal. It was actually quite nice, and I was very impressed with the level of cool he maintained while cooking his first meal for the family - and it was for 10! The name of the dish is a reference to the person he got the recipe from - a wrestler, obviously.

Chopped 13 chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces and mixed in a bowl with 4 big tablespoons of mustard, till coated. Drizzle of olive oil heated on the stove, chicken pieces put in on a high heat.
2 apples, 3 figs and a handful of large cherry tomatoes were chopped and added to the chicken once it had browned lightly all over. 1 litre of natural yoghurt was added along with curry and chilli powders. Heat was reduced from high to medium.
Enough rice for 10 was put on the stove with boiling water and salt.

The dish was amazingly simple, delicious and fruity. I was surprised by how watery the sauce was given that it was mostly made of yoghurt. It had a bit of a kick to it, balanced out by the apple & fig. I was very proud of my brother and would be happy making this dish myself.

The next time I cook will be in Korea!

Squash Mince Bake

I bought some squash today, after reading this recipe for a summer squash gratin. Then I did some more recipe research and found this squash and pasta recipe, and this squash and mince recipe. A quick poll of some family members showed that the mince recipe was preferred by most, so that is what I ended up cooking.

Cooked for 8 although I should have been cooking for 6 - forgot that a couple of people were out or away. Oh well, leftovers! Oh, and I realized belatedly that this was my last time cooking for the family. We fly out to Korea on Tuesday or Wednesday and my little brother, he of the gap-year, is volunteering to take my culinary place.

Everything on the stove was done on a medium-high to high heat (4 to 6 out of 6, depending).

Peeled and chopped a huuuuge butternut squash (in bite-sized chunks it filled two large roasting trays) with lots of help from my wonderful boyfriend. Mixed with nutmeg, salt+pepper, and sesame oil (we're out of olive) and put in the oven on 180 degrees C. I think they were probably in there for about half an hour, maybe a bit longer, before they started going brown and I took them out to rest.
Defrosted 3 500g packs of mince and chopped 2.5 onions and 3 garlic cloves. Fried in butter. Added the mince to the pan, along with salt+pepper and a dash of balsamic vinegar for flavour. Cooked for 10 minutes. Added small bacon bits and cooked for a further 5. Added a hefty dose of tikka curry powder, a big squeeze of tomato puree, and a dash of garlic pepper. Added two tubs of passata, 250ml of cream, splash of HP sauce and some lime juice (we are out of mango chutney, and I had no jam as a viable alternative); also another dash of balsamic vinegar. Simmered for five minutes and added one tin of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed. Added hot chilli powder along with salt+pepper upon tasting.
Simmered the whole thing for twenty minutes before scooping in the cooling roasted squash pieces. Gently folded the squash through before (with lots of help!) pouring the mixture into a deep baking dish and covering thickly with grated cheese. In the oven at 180 degrees C for twenty minutes.

Oh my god, this was amazing. We served it with some mango chutney, which was bought during the cooking process and only arrived home afterwards. Everyone loved it, and the leftovers were good too (if a little dry).

I'm always on the lookout for fresh mince recipes, because my mince repertoire is sadly lacking: shepherd's pie, spaghetti bolognese and enchiladas is about it. I can see this becoming my fourth!

Fig & Cheese Tart

Based quite roughly on this recipe; cooked for 8.

I didn't bother with measuring because I am lazy and also because I was worried I wouldn't have enough of certain things. I find it easier to work by eye than to follow the recipe exactly and be stressed. I realize this is a tendency I'll have to curb if I want to get serious about cooking, though!

Chopped a bag of almonds in the food processor. Put to one side and tipped in white flour, wholemeal flour, some salt and butter. Pulsed till all lumps were gone. Added 3 egg yolks, mixed with a dribble of cold water, and more butter as the dough looked too dry. Eventually I rolled it out and pressed the mixture quite thickly into the bottom of two pans. It was less like dough than crumble. Chilled in the fridge for about three hours.
Chopped 2 onions and fried lightly in butter for about ten minutes. Mixed 4 eggs with 3 pots of cream cheese, 200g of Pecorino Romano, some grated Emmentaaler, salt and pepper. Added thyme to the onions, fried for a couple minutes more, and added the onion mix to the cheese mix. Poured equal amounts on to each pastry base. Sliced five figs in half and placed them, cut side up, on the tarts. Put in the oven for an hour and ten minutes at 180 degrees C.
Sliced five onions and caramelized them (butter melted, onions fried till soft, balsamic vinegar and sugar added). For serving, the tart was divided into large pieces, each with a fig on top; spoonful of caramelized onions on the side and lettuce available.

Next time I would add more cheese (blue or goat's if possible) to the mix, as it was slightly plain to taste, possibly along with some ham. My mum appreciated the fact that it was vegetarian, however. The crust at the bottom was too thick for me. It was still very nice though! I do very much love fruit in dinner: I'd love to do it again, but I worry that the nicer alterations would be impractical given that my boyfriend doesn't eat many kinds of cheese.