Courgette and goat's cheese filo tart with lemon and basil

Pin It

Courgettes are probably the vegetable we eat most of at home, and I'm always on the lookout for interesting recipes to make with them.

They're quite delicate in taste, but they stand up to some pretty robust cooking, like roasting them until they're golden, or frying them in batter. But they're equally good simply dressed in salads, a lovely versatile veggie.

I do a shredded courgette salad with crumbled goat's cheese and lots of basil leaves, dressed with lemon juice and good olive oil that tastes so summery and light, and last time I ate it I thought the ingredients would be good cooked in a tart, and it turned out really tasty so here it is.

Tart for two:

3 large courgetted, finely grated

120g soft goat's cheese

6 eggs

250mls single cream

Grated rind of one unwaxed lemon

Juice of one lemon

A couple of handfuls fresh basil leaves

7 sheets of filo pastry

A large tablespoon salted butter, melted gently

Salt and black pepper

For the pea shoot and white balsamic salad to serve:

100g pea shoots

3 spring onions, finely sliced

50mls extra virgin olive oil

150mls white balsamic vinegar

A handful of Parmesan shavings

Sea salt and black pepper

Method:

- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees

- In a bowl combine the cream, eggs, salt and pepper together, along with the lemon rind and lemon juice, whisk them together until combined

-In a baking tray (I used a 30 x 20cm one) carefully lay the filo pastry sheets one at a time, buttering each layer as you go before laying the next one. Make sure they overlap the sides too

- Carefully pour over the egg and cream mixture, and then crumble the soft goat's cheese on top of them

- Season well with black pepper and place in the oven for 45 mintues

- When lightly golden, remove it from the oven and let sit for 5-10 minutes before cutting out your slices

- In a separate bowl place the pea shoots and spring onions

- In a bowl mix together the white balsamic and extra virgin, adding a bit of salt and pepper and mixing together

- Pour oil and vinegar mix over the pea shoots and spring onions and mix through with your hands, then add the Parmesan shavings to the top

- Serve the tart with a generous handful of pea shoot salad on the side

- Top the tart with a handful of basil leaves and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

- Eat and accompany with a glass of sauvignon blanc

Italian summer roast chicken with garlic, anchovy and parsley butter

Pin It

I'm not really into traditional sytle Sunday roast dinners, but sometimes a gloriously golden roast chicken is called for.

Delicious on warm days with simple salad and some bread, and keen to inject yet more summery-ness into the chicken I decided to go a little Italian; anchovies, garlic, butter and parsley are all great friends and they help make a good free range chicken very aromatic and more succulent.

Dinner for 2 with leftovers for the following day:

One medium sized chicken (around 1.4kg)

Two lemons, quartered

2 red onions, peeled and quartered

3 carrots, peeled and halved

Groundnut oil

Sea salt and black pepper

For the butter:

150g butter

Rind of one lemon

100g anchovies, drained from their tin

A medium handful of curly parsley

6 cloves of garlic

Several scrunches of salt

Method:

- Preheat your oven to 250 degrees (or as hot as it will go)

- Blitz the ingredients for the butter together in a food processor until smooth

- Carefully using your fingers, separate the breast skin from the flesh beneath, without tearing the skin

- Using your fingers, gently scoop up and push about a third of the butter under the skin of the breasts, smoothing it down under the skin gently from on top of the skin

- Using a spoon, put the rest of the butter in the cavity, smearing it on the inside of the ribcage

- Stuff the chicken with half the red onions and all the lemon quarters

- Sit the chicken breast side down in a lightly oiled roasting tin and lightly oil the surface of the chicken, season with salt and pepper (be careful in sitting it down as you don't want all the butter to squidge out)

- Place the chicken in the oven for 10 minutes

- Remove the chicken from the tin and place the carrot halves down in the centre of the pan with their flat edges facing down - like this the carrots act as a platform for the chicken to sit sturdily on and for its fat to drip out and into the carrots (tasty and stops it being overly greasy)

- Place the chicken onto the carrots and lightly oil the skin, salt and pepper it and surround the chicken with the rest of the onions

- Bake in the oven for a further 10 minutes then remove the chicken and turn the heat down to 175 degrees

- Add a glass of white wine to the roasting tin and now tent the top of the chicken with tin foil (or if your roasting tin has a lid, put that on) return it to the oven and cook for an hour and twenty minutes

- Use a meat thermomitor to make sure the chicken is cooked, but once it's done, remove it and let it rest for 10 minutes before carvin

- Serve with salad and warm bread

Warm salad of beetroot, feta, puy lentils and rocket

Pin It

I think when assembling salads like this, where each ingredients own flavour really shines through, it pays to make sure you're buying the tastiest and best quality ingredient possible.

Peppery and dark green wild rocket, fresh beetroots just plucked from the soil with their earthy, sweet taste, extra virgin olive oil that's from an early press of the olive, and gently salty and intense milky feta cheese...

...With great quality ingredients like this you really can't go far wrong!

Now, at the risk of sounding like a Sainsburys brandette, the best feta and extra virgin I've had in the UK both come from their Taste the Difference range. In case you're interested in trying them for yourself, I've listed them below, but feel free to ignore and use your own favourite ingredients of course :-).

The olive oil is a Sicilian D.O.P (D.O.P being a classified and protected origin status) extra virgin, that is light greeny gold in colour, and tastes of the freshest cut grass and summer days - not a hint of bitterness that you often get with olive oils - it really is a premium tasting oil and there have been a few nights where we've fed it to people on spoons to try (olive oil pusher that I am).

The feta is a barrel aged feta which comes in a box, not a vac pack. Mathew first brought this into our house, I laughed at him for succumbing to the most expensive feta in the shop (its about 50p a pack more than their standard I think) but I really did eat my words after trying it. It's salty and sweet and creamy and crumbly all at once, not acrid or overly salty or with a plasticky texture, just divine.

Warm salad for two:

Enough puy lentils for two, made up as per the pack instructions (not sure of the weight that I cooked I'm afraid, but think of the quantity as you would for rice, it swells in a similar way)

4 small beetroot, topped and tailed and individually wrapped in foil

A block of feta, broken into smallish chunks

100g rocket

1 fennel, shaved as fine as it will go on a mandolin

1 clove of garlic, really finely sliced

100mls (ish) of extra virgin olive oil

2 spring onions, cut into rings

Juice of one lemon

Sea salt and black pepper

Method:

- Preheat your oven to 160 degrees and cook the beetroot for 1.5 hours, once cool enough to handle, peel them gently with your fingers (might want to wear gloves to avoid finger staining) and cut into fine segments (cut the same way as the segments of an oranges)

- Heat half the olive oil in a pan and add the garlic, cook gently on a low heat for a few minutes until you can smell the garlic and it is still white (don't let it darken) add the lentils to the pan and stir until they're all covered in oil and warmed through (will take around 5 minute

- In a large salad bowl add the shaved fennel, spring onion and a good few scrunches of sea salt and some black pepper, half the lemon juice and the other half of the extra virgin. Mix thoroughly with your hands

- Add the warmed lentils and garlic oil to the bowl, with the feta, beetroot and rocket

- Combine all the ingredients gently and eat - nice on its own as a light lunch or dinner, or as a side dish to lamb or bbq dishes, yum yum

Pork, ginger and spring onion gyoza with fragrant dipping sauce

Pin It

No surprise these have made an appearance, I've waxed lyrical about my dim-sum-and-all-things-like-it-addiction (Plum Valley being something of an obsession of mine) so it was only a matter of time before I made the traditional Japanese gyoza and popped them on the blog.

There's loads of fun to be had with the fillings for these, some that I've tried before that work really well include:

- Minced prawns with ginger and toasted sesame oil

- Chopped sauteed leeks and shitake mushrooms with chopped water chestnuts

- Minced rump steak with chilli oil, corriander, garlic and ginger

Think I'll be rediscovering them soon, writing about them is making me want to eat them all now!

Gyoza for me are a really good little snack, perfect for a starter if you're cooking for people, or good as the main focus of a quick evening meal - I like popping them into soups instead of meat because they make a great main ingredient.

For ease, I like to make them in batches and then freeze some for using mid week (like in the soup, no one wants to spend time making them when they get home from work eh).

For around 30-36 gyoza:

600g minced pork - don't be scared of it being fatty, the fat carries flavour

2 big pieces of ginger, peeled

4 spring onions, topped and tailed

2 cloves garlic, peeled

A few good scrunches of sea salt
Two tablespoons shaoshing rice wine / dry sherry

2 tablespoons light soy sauce

2 tablespoons chilli oil

1 medium sized bunch corriander

Oil for frying

For the dipping sauce:

Half light soy sauce to half rice vinegar

Several stems fresh corrander, coarsley chopped

Quarter of a teaspoon chilli flakes

A little finger sized piece of ginger, peeled and grated

Method:

- For the dipping sauce, simply combine all the ingredients together in a bowl or ramekin and leave for an hour for the flavours to mingle

- Take the gyoza wrappers out of the freezer about an hour before you need them, leave them unopened

- Combine all the ingredients apart from the pork in a food processor and blitz until finley minced

- Add the pork and pulse until all the ingredients are combined - I like there to still be a good texture in the meat instead of it being totally pureed

- Open the gyoza wrappers and put them on a plate, cover them with a damp towel so they don't dry out

- Put a little water in a bowl to wet the wrappers when you need

- Take a single wrapper in your hand and place a teaspoon of the mixture in the centre

- Wet a finger in the bowl and then run it all around the outside of the wrapper

- Gently roll the wrapper between your thumb and forefingers (the action is a little bit like rolling a cigarette!) until the gyoza is effectively folded in half and the meat is like a sausage inside

- Now press the wet edges together, sealing the gyoza and being careful to not trap any air in there, it should now look like a half moon

- Wet your fingers gently now and crimp the edges all the way around, I like to do one crimp in the centre, and two either side of that - you'll see in the pic how the crimp should look but if how you do it isnt clear there are videos of people doing it (much better than me!) on Youtube

- Heat around 2 inches oil in a frying pan and bring to a medium hot temperature on a medium high heat for around 8 minutes

- Pop the gyoza in the hot oil carefully (don't crowd the pan or they'll steam not fry), they should sizzle and fry but not go too brown too fast, they need to cook for around 6 minutes to be piping hot inside

- Remove, drain, devour

Mini pork and parmesan meatballs

Pin It

These little bite size meatballs are very cute, tasty and affordable.

They're nice and simple but flavoursome too, pork and parmesan are a really good mix, they go perfectly with all shapes of pasta and light tomato sauces.

As with my other meatball recipe, the trick here is to make the mixture and then test it by frying off a small patty to make sure your seasoning is right, before making all of the meatballs.

Meatballs for two:

250g minced pork

Two red onions, finely chopped

Two garlic cloves, finely chopped

Several scrunches of black pepper

Several scrunches of salt

A small pinch of chilli flakes

50g finely grated parmesan

One tablespoon worcestershire sauce

Oil for frying (vegetable or groundnut)

For the sauce:

Half a jar of pasatta

One glass of red wine

A pinch of chilli flakes

Several scrunches black pepper

A few scrunches of salt

Method:

- Cook off the onions in some oil for around 20 minutes on a low heat until they're a light golden brown and totally soft

- Add the garlic and cook through with the onion mixture for a couple of minutes (I add the garlic later on so it doesn't get burnt, which can happen all too easily)

- Take the onion mix off the heat and put into a large mixing bowl, wait until it cools

- Add the parmesan, chillies, pepper, salt and worcestershire sauce and mix thoroughly

- Now for the messy bit, using your hands mix in the pork mince, combining all the mixture together well

- Form a small patty with some of the mixture and fry it off for a few minutes each side on a low-medium heat, if you need to adjust the seasoning then do this to taste

- Now it's time to make the meatballs, using clean wet hands take around a teaspoon of the mixture and roll it into a small ball, pop it onto a plate and repeat until you've used all of the mixture

- The sauce is very easy to make; add your pasatta, wine, some more salt and pepper to a pan and heat gently until simmering - that's literally it until you want to add the meatballs - it's the perfect simple sauce for them too, letting the flavours of the meatballs really speak for themselves

- Heat some more oil in a frying pan on a medium to high heat until it starts to shimmer gently, then add half of your meatballs to the pan (don't add them all, they'll stew in an overcrowded pan and you're looking for them to turn golden)

- Fry all of the meatballs for around 8 minutes, shaking the pan every minute or so, then when they're golden, remove them with a ladle and put them in the tomato sauce pan to cook through, this will only take a few minutes more

- Serve with pasta, I like rigatoni because it really traps the sauce, and a light grating of parmesan cheese

- In the pic you'll see I served them with peppers stuffed with tomatoes, this worked really well because the juice of the peppers mixed nicely with the tomato and red wine sauce, but they really weren't essential

London dim sum - straight out of Chinatown!

Pin It

Whenever I get chance to go to London I always try to sneak a trip to Plum Valley in.

Plum Valley is a cute and super stylish dim sum bar on the main drag in Chinatown, it's different to the usual restaurants at that end of town, but its deluxe dim sum don't come with a silly price tag, and for these reasons I can't get enough!

I thought I'd put a few pics of some of the things we devoured on Saturday when we visited, not that I'm going to try to recreate them (I might at some point, need to get hold of that gorgeous translucent pastry first though!) more that I just fancy sharing my love for all things dim sum!

Highlights for Mathew and I included...

- The black cod dumpling with ginger puree and two types of roe (so succulent and tender and possibly the best dumpling I have ever eaten!)

- Vietnamese spring rolls, I'm not sure what their pastry is made of but it's quite bubbly and delicious, and it contained big chunks of prawn and crunchy cabbage

- Grilled pork peking dumpling with rice vinegar dip, succulent filling and lovely crispy pastry, just as they should be

- The roasted red chilli sauce / oil, it's a deep red colour and I think it has roasted garlic and chillies in it, I ate the little dish they brought us BEFORE any of the dim sum had even arrived, it's so good I just couldn't resist!
- Vermicielli rice noodles with fried shallots, red chilli, black sesame seeds and prawns, really delicate, simple and tasty, definately one I'll be trying to recreate at home shortly

- The flowering Jasmine tea, as you can see in the pic it's served in a wine glass so you really get to see the tea flower unfold, pretty and delicious, what a combination!

Tis now my bedtime, I think tonight is yet another night I'll be dreaming in food. Tomorrow I must get to the gym to counteract my indulgences!

Whole poached chicken Asian style, plus 3 dish ideas to make with it

Pin It

It seems this poached Asian chicken recipe is the most frequently viewed entry on the blog, getting several hundred hits a month from food fans from all over the world (such a great feeling!)

Because of its popularity, and of course because I love oriental food, I decided to recreate it and to redo the photography, as well as deciding to show a number of different things that can be cooked from it. Hopefully this will please the thrifty, greedy and chili addled among you (and I don't know about you, but I fall in to all three categories).

Poaching a chicken like this is a fantastic way to cook it, not just because of the flavours you can pack in to the flesh, but letting the chicken cool slowly in the pan means you're left with the most juicy and tender meat possible - a real delight to eat.

Three dishes from one bird...
- Ginger, chicken and Szechuan peppercorn broth with rice noodles
- Rice paper rolls with chicken satay, aromatic herbs and crispy fried shallot
- Oriental crispy fried chicken with chillies and five spice

For the whole poached chicken:
1 whole medium free range chicken
4 carrots, cut roughly
2 medium golden onions, peeled and quartered
2 celery stalks, cut into batons
6 spring onions, top and tailed and cut in half
A very large piece of ginger, roughly cut up
A big piece of galangal, roughly cut up
10 star anise
10 cloves
1 tablespoon Szechuan peppercorns
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
2 large green or red chilies, cut down the middle
1 shot of rice wine vinegar
Shaosing rice wine or cooking sherry - 2 shots
Enough cold water to cover the chicken by half and inch in the pan

Method:
- Combine all the ingredients in a very large saucepan and bring to the boil on a rapid heat
- Boil rapidly for 20 minutes, skimming any impurities that rise to the surface
- After 20 minutes turn the heat off, put the lid on the pan and leave to cook for 3-4 hours
- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees
- Remove the chicken from the pan leaving the liquor in the saucepan (the chicken will still be warm and perhaps a little hot in the centre) and remove all it skin and discard, then take the chicken apart with your hands removing the meat from the legs, wings and carcass, and separate the breasts from the carcass with a knife (so you remove them both in one piece)
- Put the meat to one side and place the bones and carcass into a roasting tin, roast for 25 minutes turning over once, you're looking for the bones to be turning golden
- While the chicken is roasting, strain the poaching liquor through a fine sieve into another saucepan
- Once the chicken bones are ready, remove them from the oven and add to the liquor, bring to the boil and then simmer for an hour
- Strain once more through a fine sieve, the liquor is now ready to use in a broth, or reduce down further to an even richer stock and then freeze or keep in the fridge

By poaching the chicken and then roasting and simmering its carcass in the liquor once more you'll create an excellent stock packed with aromatic chicken flavours

Dish number one...

Cleansing ginger, chicken and Szechuan peppercorn broth with rice noodles.

Now you know I love noodle soup (I think it should be a food group in itself) so no surprise there's one making an appearance here.

Szechuan peppercorns are very potent and clean tasting, almost mentholated, so they work really well with a big kick of ginger and green chilli, helping the chicken pack a punch in it's fragrant liquor.

So whether you feel like you've overindulged, are a seasoned noodle soup fan, or just want something clean, zingy and packed with flavour, this broth is just the ticket. We like to serve it in a big pot at the table and then help ourselves.

Broth and noodles for two:
The shredded meat of one of the chicken legs
1.5 pints of the poaching liquor (making sure you've skimmed the fat from the surface first)
A large piece of ginger, peeled and cut into slender matchsticks
2 large spring onions, finely shredded lengthways
A small handful of fresh mint and coriander leaves, finely shredded
Half a teaspoon Szechuan peppercorns
1 green chili finely cut
Enough skinny rice noodles for two (however many you like really) made up as per their instructions and then sat waiting in cold water

Method:
- Place the broth, ginger, peppercorns into a saucepan and bring to the simmer for 10 minutes so the ginger and peppercorns can infuse into the broth
- Strain through a fine sieve into another saucepan and put back on the heat (you don't want to chew down on one of those peppercorns!) pick the ginger out of the sieve and put it into the saucepan with the liquor
- Bring to the simmer again then add the chicken, spring onions and noodles - cook for around 5-7 minutes to heat everything through and then add the chilli, spring onion and fresh herbs
- Either ladle into bowls ready to eat or transfer to a soup dish for the table

Dish number two...

Rice paper rolls with chicken, crispy fried shallot and aromatic herbs.

I love these rice paper rolls, you can wrap up loads of tasty things in them like a spring roll - but these don't come with any guilt.

I've eaten them a few times in Vietnamese restaurants and have always really liked them, though the best time I tried them was in Thailand, not from a street vendor or somewhere only the locals go, but in Bangkok airport between flights.

You could put loads of different things in them, I decided to go for satay in these as it gives them a real richness and is a classic combination with the chicken. Homemade satay is infinitely nicer than shop bought, and as it's really easy to do there's no reason not to give it a go.

We like to make them then cut them in half, stand them on their ends and then drizzle a tiny bit of light soy sauce into them before eating.

For four rolls:
4 sheets of rice paper - you'll get this from an Asian supermarket
200g peanuts (plain)
2 tablespoons light muscavado sugar
3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice vinegar
Juice of 1 lime
One garlic clove, peeled
100mls coconut milk
2 spring onions, cut into 3" length shreds (this is so they can fit easily into the rolls)
Quarter of a cucumber, core removed, cut into the same slender shreds (like you see with hoisin duck pancakes)
A handful of fresh coriander (leaves and stalks)
A handful of fresh mint, leaves torn
One red chilli, finely sliced
5 shallots, peeled and finely sliced
Groundnut oil for frying
Soy sauce to serve

Method:
- In a food processor place the garlic, peanuts, sugar, lime juice, rice vinegar, coconut milk and dark soy sauce and blitz until smooth, this is your satay done - easy see
- Fill a large bowl with the hottest water your hands can stand to dip in to, then take one of the rice paper sheets (which are very brittle so be careful) and put it into the water for just 30 seconds, then remove
- You need to be careful when you take them out to try to keep them from sticking to each other, it has a funny sticky texture so a light touch is needed
- Lay the sheet flat onto a plate, then start to place your herbs, cucumber, onion, chillies, chicken and satay sauce lengthways at the side closest to you - don't be scared to mix it up with your fingers instead of having them there in layers
- Now as when making a spring roll, bring in the sides of the roll and then the end closest to you up over the top of the ingredients, the bottom piece of the rice paper will stick to the sides that you pulled up first making it really easy to finish the roll
- Tuck the ingredients into the pocket you've created then turn it over to seal the roll. Place to one side and then repeat with the other three rolls until you've used all the ingredients
- Once this is done these can sit and wait, they're eaten cold after all. Heat the groundnut oil (about an inch deep) in a pan until its very hot and then add the shallots to the oil to deep fry them. Cook in the hot oil for a few minutes until the shallots turn golden, then remove them and drain on kitchen paper
- Dress the top of the rolls with the crispy shallots then eat

Dish number three...

Oriental crispy fried chicken with chillies and five spice

After those semi-virtuous dishes this one is chance to be a bit naughty, KFC oriental style - delicious!

Crispy chicken for two as a snack or starter to share:
One of the chicken breasts, torn by hand with the grain of the chicken into several large-ish pieces
One egg, beaten
2 teaspoons five spice powder
A generous scrunch sea salt
A few pinches dried chili flakes
A few handfuls panko breadcrumbs
A few tablespoons plain flour
Groundnut oil for frying
Shredded spring onion and a little fresh coriander
Sweet chilli sauce to serve

Method:
- Mix the panko with the five spice, salt and chillies in a bowl
- Place the flour into another bowl, and the beaten egg in another - line them up with the egg in the middle
- Take each piece of chicken in turn and lightly coat in the flour, then the egg and finally the panko, sit them waiting on a plate
- Heat some groundnut oil in a deep pan (you need the oil a couple of inches deep really) and when its very hot carefully put the chicken in, cook until golden and turn if you need so they are golden all over
- Remove from the pan carefully when they're ready (this should take around 6 minutes) and drain on kitchen paper
- Place into a serving dish along side the sweet chilli sauce and a napkin (tis finger food after all) then eat