Knock your socks off Bacon & Herb Stuffing

Why - on earth - haven't I made my own stuffing before now?

I reckon it's a combination of stuffing being one of those things that just floats around as an "also", an "add on" to a roast dinner and also my own bad experience with it as a youngster.  You see, my Mum would often stuff (good old Paxo, the stuffing of choice for the millions) our Sunday chicken, which I remember vividly because I would be vaguely revolted by the colour of the stuffing that had sat in the (apologies) blood while the chicken was roasting.  As a consequence, when the recommendation came out that you didn't stuff your chicken any longer owing to E-coli scares - and my Mum stopped - I wasn't unhappy about it.

So we got out of the habit of eating stuffing.  It became something that we had at Christmas with the turkey - and only in the shape of stuffing balls that were baked in the oven.

When it came to making my own roast dinners, to include stuffing on the menu was just one step too many for a long time.  Well, making a roast dinner is quite an undertaking one way and another.  There's the timings, the vegetables, the roast potatoes, the gravy - everything has to be ready on time and it's a whole lot more complicated than making a spaghetti bolognese!

In fact, I didn't really bother with stuffing (the associations between sage & onion stuffing and hideous discoloured soggy breadcrumbs being too much to bear) until hubby came along and professed an undying love for the dish.  By then, I'd managed to get a small grip on the mechanics of making a roast dinner - particularly a roast chicken - and it wasn't too difficult to mix up a packet of stuffing and bung it in the oven to cook alongside the rest.  I didn't waste any love or attention on it though - and didn't particularly enjoy it on my dinner, either.  Well - sage and onion again, you see.

It wasn't until I joined a couple of Facebook groups and saw other people were making home made stuffings, that I began to foster an interest in doing it myself.

This was a slow burning interest though, I have to admit.  I'm fairly sure that those early days of sage and onion were still colouring the picture of "stuffing" that I had in my memory.  I still hadn't put the idea that I could venture away from sage & onion, together with the concept of "stuffing".  Now everyone knows that home made is very often better than shop bought packet mixes, but I was particularly slow on the uptake where this was concerned.

However, once it had dawned on me - and I noticed that I had half a packet of bacon sitting doing nothing one Sunday morning - the old grey matter got to work.

It was the perfect moment - I had a gorgeously huge, fat chicken to be roasted.  I had my lovely oven dish to use.  I had bacon.  I had a good quantity of Polish Bakery bread to use for breadcrumbs and I had a profusion of both fresh and dried herbs in the house.  Never had a moment been so propitious!

I didn't use a recipe - after all, people have been stuffing things for years by using whatever they had to hand.  Yes, dear reader, I winged it.  In a BIG way - and (pretty much) got away with it.

Even having put the stuffing together and knowing a) what was in it, plus b) how they went together, I still wasn't particularly keen on the idea.  Oh I was interested in how it would come out and concerned that everyone would like it, but I wasn't anticipating liking it much myself.  Oh, how wrong I was.  I not only liked it, I loved it.  I could have eaten the stuffing and dropped the chicken from my dinner - which is truly remarkable.

However, the stuffing came into its own the following day when I put together a cold roast chicken, stuffing and sweetcorn relish sandwich.  Oh .. my .. word.  Shoot me now, I'm all over happy.

I have one cook's tip for you with regard to this stuffing, which is not to use salt unless you are absolutely convinced that the bacon does not carry any of its own.  Because the bacon becomes considerably reduced by the double cooking process, the saltiness of it is intensified.  Additional salt just isn't necessary - particularly if you are using smoked bacon.

So, on the reckoning that where I came from others might follow and if you're one of those who was put off stuffing by - well, let's not go into it again, eh? - then find some lost bacon and give this a go with your next roast chicken.  Then tell me you don't like stuffing.  *grin*

KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF BACON & HERB STUFFING   (serves 5-6)

Ingredients :

1-2 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
freshly ground black pepper
4-5 rashers of lean back smoked bacon, finely diced
3 slices crusty bread, slightly stale, chopped into chunky breadcrumbs
2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh chives, finely chopped
1 tsp dried oregano
half a tsp dried thyme
half a tsp dried rosemary
1 large egg.

Method :

1.  Heat the oil in a frying pan and cook the bacon and onion together until the onion is softened and beginning to turn golden.  Add a pinch of black pepper, stir to combine then leave to cool slightly.

2.  Once cooled, stir the breadcrumbs into the bacon & onion pan making sure to absorb the bacon fat.

3.  Decant the contents of the bacon pan into a large bowl and add the remainder of the ingredients, including the egg.

4.  Stir well to combine - until the egg cannot be traced.

5.  Decant into an oven proof dish, level the surface and place into a pre-heated 180degC/350degF/Gas 4 oven for 25-30 minutes or until the surface is baked crispy.

Serve with your favourite roasted meats and vegetables, or cold the following day in a sandwich.

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Sicilian Salmon - getting our fish in!

Well, it's a new week but the alternative carbohydrate experiments continue.  It was the turn of couscous today, however, the first consideration was what type of protein to have.

We had the other half of our bag of individually frozen salmon fillets to use as I don't like to leave fish in the freezer for very long.  It tends towards getting freezer burn so quickly, to make the best of its best, I wanted to use it fairly rapidly.

So, salmon.  We've not been the greatest eaters of fish in the past - although we would have been, given the chance!  Fresh fish is so flipping expensive that it often renders itself out of the equation for my dinner considerations.  However, Asda have recently been selling a greatly improved range of frozen fish - and for an affordable price.  This salmon has been our first foray into sampling some of it and we've been really pleasantly surprised.  Naturally, it's nothing like the quality of fresh salmon - it really doesn't have a chance of being - but it isn't half bad, for frozen.

We have had two meals from the bag and there are two fillets left - which I imagine will go into a fish pie.  It cost around £8 and at £4 for a meal didn't seem too expensive.  That was, until we realised there were 11 (albeit small) fillets in the bag which meant two meals plus a bit!  Even better.

So, what to do with this salmon?  I'd grilled it in a marinade previously, so didn't want to repeat that.  I hadn't really come to any conclusions, other than I knew that I wanted to keep the fish in its fillets and not break it up into pieces.  Historically, we've had "broken into pieces" fish because that's all we could afford, so to have a fillet on your plate was quite a treat.

I was browsing through this month's BBC Good Food magazine and saw a recipe for Sicilian Cod, i.e. cod fillet with a thick tomato and herb sauce drizzled over.  Now that had promise - as the acidity of the tomato sauce would work very well with the oily salmon.

What to serve the fish and sauce with, then?  Potatoes immediately came to mind (I have to get out of that habit!) and got abandoned.  I wanted something a bit more creative and something a bit more exciting.

In this rehash of our diet, I've tried - with every new recipe - to create a meal that has balance across all the food groups without creating huge portions.  There's no doubt we've been eating too much (portion-wise) just lately and I was keen to bring the size back down again.  Portion size is another of my problems, you see.  I can't help it, I seem to channel some Jewish mother somewhere, who just wants to feed the family until their eyeballs pop.  Hence, this portion control was in the back of my mind too.

I'm really not sure what made me think of the Ottolenghi Green Couscous, but I'm jolly glad I did.  We really like this form of couscous - hubby says it's because you can't taste the couscous for all the herbs, onions, chilli and other loveliness that is in there.  I love the interaction between the herbs, fried onion and sea salt that just teases the tongue.

I've made the Ottolenghi Green Couscous a couple of times in the past, but it has been a while since I made it last.  The recipe is on Rhubarb & Ginger, just click on the link on the name above.

I reckoned the fish would go with the couscous with no real problem and the big flavour of the tomato sauce would complement the freshness and richness of the couscous.  Decision made, Sicilian Salmon with Green Couscous was officially on the menu list.

None of the three components are difficult to make, the couscous is really just a matter of preparing the onions and herbs to mix into the couscous, the sauce is simplicity itself to make and the fish couldn't be easier, as I simply grilled the fillets.

It would have taken a bit longer if it wasn't for hubby who jumped into the role of sous chef and fried up the first batch of onions for me.  Well, he had sidetracked me earlier when we were having fun translating various Polish phrases - most of which involved the word "doughnut" - from English to Polish and back again.  I will have to tell you more of the Polish Delicatessen we visited today - but that's another story!

As I suspected, the three component parts - fish, sauce, couscous - went together really well and the flavours were really interesting.  Even son & heir enjoyed his meal, saying that the tomato sauce went really really well with the couscous - and went back to the kitchen to get more!  Now that really IS a vote of confidence.  Hubby was very happy to have another meal that was not only a little bit different, but completely devoid of potatoes.  *chuckle*  It's not going to last - but if I can include a potato every now and then, just to soothe son & heir's and my own potato lust, that'll do.

A little "cooks note" that is worth mentioning, is that both the tomato sauce and the Green Couscous can be made well in advance.  So if you're going to be tight for time one evening - it makes a very good choice!

February 2016 : This time, I paired the salmon up with some spinach fettucine and a side salad, which worked really well.  I also made the following changes to the recipe :

-  swapped a sweet white onion for the red one, which looked better;
-  added 2 rashers of finely chopped bacon to the onions & garlic, all of which I cooked together instead of separately;
-  added 3 sliced chestnut mushrooms and a chopped tomato to the pan once the onions etc were softened
-  added 1 heaped teaspoonful of tomato puree;
-  swapped out the oregano for 1 big teaspoonful of chopped dill;
-  swapped the sugar for 1 teaspoonful of runny honey.

Recipe development in action!  I think the changes and additions make for a more rounded, deeper flavour in the sauce and I'll be making it this way in future.  I have reflected the changes in the recipe below.

31 March 2017 and this time I think I'm getting the hang of cooking salmon!  Served on mushroom couscous, this was by far and away the best incarnation of this dish so far.  :)

SICILIAN SALMON   (serves 3)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
2 rashers smoked back bacon, chopped small (optional)
a small red onion (or white sweet onion), chopped finely
a clove of garlic, chopped finely
3 sliced chestnut mushrooms (optional)
1 chopped tomato (optional)
400g tin of chopped tomatoes - the best you can get
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 heaped tsp tomato puree (optional)
1 tsp dried oregano (or dried dill)
a pinch of sea salt
half a tsp of freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp sugar (or honey)
100ml water
3 salmon fillets, skinless and boneless.

Method :

1.  Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the bacon, onion and garlic.  Fry until the onion is softened but not coloured in any way and the bacon is cooked through.

2.  Add the mushrooms and tomato and continue to fry until the mushrooms are beginning to soften.

3.  Add the rest of the ingredients (except for the salmon) and stir to combine.  Simmer over a low to medium heat, stirring regularly, until thickened.

4.  Place the fish fillets - upside down - onto a flat roasting tray, season and drizzle with olive oil.  Place under a pre-heated grill for 2-3 minutes.  Turn the fish carefully and replace under the grill for as long as it takes for the fish to change from translucent to opaque.

5. Taste the sauce for seasoning and adjust if necessary.

6.  Serve the fish over couscous or fettucine pasta, with the sauce drizzled over.

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Chicken Paprikash - easier than I thought!

I have made various paprika chicken dishes over the years, with - it has to be said - a mixture of success and failure.  As a result, I've become a bit nervous of the types of recipe that involve tomatoes (particularly tinned), chicken and paprika.

However, just lately I've seen a few recipes for Chicken Paprikash float past my consciousness and had found myself being drawn in to the idea once again.  After all, my paprika pork recipes seem to be successful, so there really was no reason why a chicken version wouldn't work.

Particularly now I've the right paprika.

Now, because nobody tells you - I shall pass on the wisdom of my years of getting it wrong.  

It seems as though buying paprika is one of those things that is fraught with misadventure.  In the past, I've had your usual supermarket-gleaned small pots of paprika, graduating to a small pot of smoked paprika.  They were okay - but I seemed to be missing out on the rich roasty toasty flavours that I see reported in food magazines and spoken of on food t.v.  So I began to consider (we're going back a number of years here) whether my little pots of paprika were really quite up to the job - and maybe there was a more "authentic" type of paprika that offered the flavours I was missing.

We kept our eyes open for different types and began to see recipes requesting the use of "sweet" and "hot" paprika.  Aha!  So there was different types available!  Why does nobody tell you that?  Why did it take me a number of years to establish that there are as many types of paprika in the world as there are recipes?  Well, that's the way it seems - I suspect there may be a few more recipes than types of paprika, in reality.  Only a few, mind.

So our first score was with a tin of smoked paprika.  This was before I realised that there was such an animal as a "sweet smoked" paprika.  I also didn't notice that there was a heat rating on the tin.  Ours was the hottest, at 3 chillies.  So that explained why, when I used three teaspoonfuls of paprika in a recipe once, it tasted appalling.  You see?  Nobody tells you these things.

After a period of some months spent looking, we eventually sourced some of the sweet smoked paprika - and tranquillity was once more restored in our recipes.

Now, note please that I said "tin".  If your paprika doesn't come in a tin, unless you've bought it on the continent somewhere, I suspect that you're being short changed in your paprika use.  So, if you too have some little jars of paprika quaking nervously in your spice cupboard, I suggest you give them a ceremonial heave-ho into the bin and source some La Chinata Paprika - but watch out for the chilli rating, to establish which one you've got!

So anyway, I've digressed.

I had been looking at the various recipes that floated past my consciousness and picking out the bits that I liked, rejecting the bits that we wouldn't like and pondering over the gaps.

It seems as though Chicken Paprikash is a particularly American recipe - although I may be wrong in that.  (NOTE!  See comment at the end of this posting, regarding the origins of Paprikash!).  I gather that there are two ways of eating it - one where the sour cream is included in the recipe and the other where you eat it with sour cream alongside.  I decided to go with the "sour cream alongside" version, although I will admit to hedging my bets with regard to that until it was almost ready to serve.  I reckoned that if the paprika or tomato was too strong, I'd just use the cream to calm it all down a bit.

As it was, the recipe - my version of the recipe - came together remarkably easily and didn't need calming down at all.  It's wonderful when you've got the right ingredients to begin with - god bless those little tins of paprika.

One of hubby's favourite vegetables is the sweet pepper (capsicum pepper) and so he was very happy to have both red and green versions in evidence.  The tomato cooked down beautifully and didn't become so acidic that it made the whole thing uncomfortable to eat and even the chilli flakes blended very happily into the whole, leaving their warmth and tangy spiciness as evidence of their presence.

I was really very pleased with the way this one turned out - it could so easily have degenerated into a disaster, but instead was a resounding success.

23 January 2018

I've just been contacted by my Hungarian friend Kate, who tells me the following :

"Chicken paprikash is a Hungarian dish. And there is no other "paprikash" dish we have (aka pork, etc). And what makes it "paprikash" is the authentic proper Hungarian paprika you use. Not smoked. Never smoked. (This is not a criticism! It is just a misconception peeps have that in Hungary we have smoked paprika. We don't. That is a Spanish thing. Hungarian paprika is not smoked. Ever.)

Anyway, I digress... :-) the other thing that really caught my eyes was chicken breast as meat. No. Nope. No how, not ever, nuh-huh!!! 😁😁😁 Chicken paprikash is traditionally made with either a combo of thighs and drums, or legs, or just thighs. Dark meat is where it's at!!"

❤"  
So there we are then!  The wrong end of the stick has been duly grasped and waved around, then corrected.  LOL  Hence, what we have here is very much "my version" of a true Paprikash.

CHICKEN PAPRIKASH   (feeds 3)

Ingredients :

2 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 onions, peeled and finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts cut into large chunks

1½ tsp dried oregano

1½ tsp sweet smoked paprika

½ tsp hot smoked paprika

½ tsp finely ground black pepper

pinch of sea salt

400ml can of chopped tomatoes

2 heaped tsp of tomato puree

a pinch of red chilli flakes

1 tsp sugar

1 yellow capsicum pepper, cored, de-seeded and chopped into large chunks

1 green capsicum pepper, cored, de-seeded and chopped into large chunks

100ml soured cream.

Method :

1.  In a large bowl, place the chicken chunks, the oregano, both types of paprika, black pepper and sea salt, plus half the garlic.  Stir to coat the chicken in the spices and leave to one side.

2.  To a deep wok or frying pan, add the rapeseed oil and the onions.  Fry on a moderate heat for 5 minutes or so, until the onion is transparent, softened and turning golden.

3.  Add the garlic and fry for another minute or so, stirring.

4.  Remove the onions and garlic onto a plate with a slotted spoon.

5.  Increase the heat under the frying pan and add a little more rapeseed oil, if necessary.

6.  Once the pan is very hot, add the chicken chunks and fry until caramelised on two sides.

7.  Reduce the heat to moderate, and add the tinned tomatoes, the tomato puree, chilli flakes, sugar and capsicum pieces, along with the onion/garlic mixture.  Mix well to amalgamate and cover with a lid (or a baking tray, in my case!).  Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

8.  Once the capsicum is tender and the chicken is cooked through, remove from the heat and add two thirds of the soured cream.  Stir through.

9.  Serve with white rice and a dollop of soured cream on the side.

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Home made Pizza

The final articles

In days gone by, when we still lived in Kent, I would make pizza from scratch on a regular basis.  However, with the advent of frozen pizza becoming £3.00 for 3 in Asda, I just couldn't compete with that kind of price and home made pizza became too expensive to produce.

Recently though, the frozen pizzas have become sickly and more than a little bit yuk, which has put us off from buying them and leaving us pizza-less.  With a 12 year old boy in the house, this is something of a critical situation to be in.

So, hubby decided to have another go at making them from scratch.

Three pizza bases, ready for action
They look alright to me!

I won't go into the pizza bread base, as I know that hubby wasn't terribly pleased with it, although both son and myself had no problem with it and declared the whole thing just gorgeous.  However, I know there's no point in giving you the recipe until he's completely happy with it.

Ooooh, you saucy things!

He made the tomato sauce himself, comprising a tin of tomatoes to which he added a teensy bit, like a quarter of a teaspoon, of dried mixed herbs, dried oregano, salt & pepper to season, a teaspoon of tomato ketchup and a couple of drops of Worcestershire Sauce.  He then simmered it until it had reduced to the consistency of a thick passata and allowed it to cool.

Of course, everyone had different ideas about what they wanted on their pizzas.  Son was the easy one, as he just wanted pepperoni, plus mozzarella and cheddar cheeses.  However to make it a bit more meaty, we'd bought a Pepperami which hubby had sliced up for adding to the pizzas.

Mine (left) and hubby's (right)
all ready for the oven.

Hubby had pepperoni, pepperami, green pepper, mushroom, green olive, mozzarella and cheddar.  I had all that, plus a leetle bit of black pudding, sprinkled here and there.

Gosh, but they were good.  :)

I don't mind having Pizza more often, if they're going to wind up being THIS good.