Slow Cooker Beef Stew with Herby Dumplings

I was shocked to realise, a few days ago, that it was (very) early Spring and I had yet to make a beef stew with dumplings in the slow cooker!  Just goes to show what a relatively mild (albeit horrendously wet) winter we've had.

Now I absolutely adore beef stew - and a beef stew made in the slow cooker (the right way) is right up there amongst my favourites.

I can hear you all asking what I might consider to be "the right way"?  Well, those of you who have been reading along all these years (well done, if that's you - and thank you!) will recall my saying that I went through a phase of getting lackadaisical with the slow cooker and expecting miracles from it - and not getting them.  You see, to successfully cook in a slow cooker is all about what you put into it - and I'm not just talking the quality of your ingredients (although that does feature, but in a rather smaller way than with other situations).  No, what I'm talking about here is your preparation.  Meat has to be seared, or at the very least browned for additional flavour before being added.  Onions need to be sweated at the least and caramelised at the most, all for additional flavour.  The size of the pieces of meat and/or vegetable that you include, makes a huge difference to the flavour of the end product.

I began to think that you could throw a quartered onion in the slow cooker with a sliced carrot and some chunks of beef and expect a stew at the end of it.  Well, I dare say what I got had definitely been stewed - but was it "a stew?".  No, very definitely not.  No flavour, just hot and wet.  Bleugh.

Whatever you are cooking in the slow cooker - pretty much without exception, savoury wise - needs to have the meat seared or browned.  The difference in flavour for such a simple action, is incredible.  I opted to use beef shin for this stew as I knew the slow cooker would be on for best part of the day (we were visiting my parents so would be out for the day) and such long slow cooking is just perfect for beef shin.  Plus, it is one of the least expensive of all the beef cuts.  We managed to pick up around 500g for £5 - which is perfect.  Yes, shin requires a fair amount of trimming - especially when you've got menfolk who are as sensitive about finding "globby bits" in their stews as mine are - but it is so worth it.  Plus dustbins 1, 2 and 3 (the dogs) are always happy to take care of the trimmings.

Below, I talk about "big" and "small" pieces of vegetables and their role in the creation of the stew.  The same applies to the meat.  Pieces of beef that are relatively lean are kept for the "big" pieces - slightly smaller than 1" square - whereas any pieces that are shot through with impossible to remove sinew and/or fat, are chopped into tiny pieces to dissolve into the gravy.  Nothing gets wasted - it all adds to the glorious flavour.

So having said that, whenever I'm including vegetables, I sort them out into the said "big pieces" and "small pieces" - some of which, like carrot, celery, onion, potato and mushroom, will qualify under both categories.  The "big pieces" go into the slow cooker straight away, without any further preparation than peeling and cutting to size.  However, the "small pieces" vegetables get chopped finely with a view to their disintegrating as they cook (which you definitely don't want the big pieces to do!) and adding their individual gorgeousness to the whole that is the gravy.  Not only that, but the "small pieces" get pan fried - most especially the onions - before being added.  Raw onion added to a stew continues to taste like raw onion.  Even when adding whole shallots, I still pan fry them to get some colour on the outside - which lends flavour to the sauce or gravy and prevents them from tasting too "raw" at the end of it.

In the case of this stew, the "small pieces" I included were onion, garlic, carrot, celery, mushroom and potato.  Everything excepting the potato was there to add to the gravy, the potato was there to add to the thickening.

The "big pieces" included potato, carrot, mushroom, turnip, parsnip and butternut squash.

I also added a whole plethora of other flavours, all of which were there to bump up the gravy from just "gravy" to "WHOA! Awesome gravy!".  I started off with a Knorr Rich Beef Stockpot - just invaluable for dishes like this - then included some horseradish sauce, wholegrain mustard, Bovril, Essential Cuisine's veal stock, tomato ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and to thicken the gravy just before serving, some of Bisto's "Rich and Roasted" Best beef gravy granules.  Oh - and a good pinch or more of freshly ground black pepper.  Now, because of ingredients like the stockpot, the horseradish, mustard, Bovril, Worcestershire sauce and gravy granules, the requirement to be super-careful about using salt is paramount.  In fact, I resisted adding any additional salt - and just left it to all those ingredients to do my salt seasoning for me, which turned out very successfully.

 
As for herbs - can't leave out the herbs! - I used a couple of tablespoonfuls of finely chopped fresh parsley with the stalks included and a couple of bay leaves.

Yes, I threw pretty much everything except the kitchen sink at the stew - and it was fabulous.  The slow cooker went on at 9.30am and we came back late in the afternoon to a house filled with the gorgeous smells of stew cooking and with next to no preparation required other than to mix up the dumplings and warm a few bowls.

So, hopefully, you will see that using a slow cooker - or crockpot - is one of life's Very Good Things, however you can't expect it to do your flavour creation for you.  You get out of it what you put into it.

Now, where the dumplings are concerned, I decided to make them herby as the stew only had two herbs in it.  A chicken stew tends to have more in the way of herbs, so I like a plainer flavoured dumpling in that instance.  With a beef stew, the world is your oyster where flavouring your dumplings is concerned.  Pretty much anything goes - horseradish, cheddar, herbs, chillies - get creative!  I went for oregano, thyme and parsley and they were gorgeous.  The recipe is simple - just 100g of self raising flour, 50g of suet (veggie suet is fine), a pinch of salt and whatever flavours you're using.  Add 4-5 tbsp of water in stages and mix together to form a soft, but not sticky, dough.  Divide into six evenly sized spoonfuls and either roll into balls or simply drop into the gravy with an hour to go, for more freeform shapes.

I haven't written out a stew recipe here, because other than beef, the remainder of the ingredients are entirely up to you.  Just remember the "big pieces/small pieces" rule, the pan frying advice and remember that if you use any tender vegetables like cabbage, peas or cauliflower, to add them half way through the cooking period or they'll just disappear to mush.

Try not to drown your stew in gravy to begin with, as the veggies will give off a lot of liquid.  You can always add more water or stock as you go through the cooking period, which is a lot more satisfactory than winding up with a gallon of gravy!

Now if you've not got a slow cooker, by all means assemble the stew in a large casserole dish and cook it in the bottom of a low oven - but make sure you leave it there for a long old time.  My slow cooker version was cooking for around 9 hours - just to give you an idea of how long we're talking about.  I should think a minimum of 6 hours at 120/140degC would do the trick.  Oh - and don't forget the dumplings.  This stew needs dumplings.

Be aware, you've not got very long until the full loveliness of Spring is upon us - and barring more eccentric weather (please, no!), your window of stew opportunity is shrinking.  So don't delay - your slow cooker (not to mention your belly) needs this beef stew!

When life sends you rhubarb - make Rhubarb & Custard Cake!

Rhubarb and custard cake.  Now there's a duo of loveliness, embodied in a name.  Firstly, rhubarb and custard - who can resist?  Then, cake!  How on earth do you combine rhubarb, custard and cake, without turning it into trifle?  Well, read on, because it is possible, beautifully possible.

I have introduced you to Ruby, our rhubarb plant, on previous occasions.  We now have two of them, as because Ruby was growing so well (and about to take over the garden), we split her into two.  In this way, RubyTwo was born.  In fact, because a bit fell off and got planted into a pot just to see whether it would flourish - which it did - there was  actually a RubyThree as well.  However, RubyThree has now gone to live with the-neighbour-across-the-road-with-the-caravan and is now happily living in their back garden.  Which means, of course, that we now have one less person to donate rhubarb to when Ruby and RubyTwo are in full production mode.

However (I digress), Ruby and RubyTwo only gave themselves a few weeks off over winter and are back with a bang.  All that water seemed to agree with them and here we are at the beginning of March able to harvest rhubarb that hasn't been forced!  Most unusual - and most delicious!

Hiding its light under a bushel of icing sugar!

During the menu planning round at the beginning of the week, I had put a High Tea on the menu for Saturday.  Son and heir loves a High Tea and it is often an excuse to bake in some way, shape or form.  I had planned to make some yummy sausage rolls to go with coleslaw, but these got shot down in flames for various reasons and, in fact, I escaped doing any baking at all.

I had asked hubby - who is evolving as the Senior Cake Baker of the family - whether he would be able to bake us a cake to go with High Tea, so he set to pondering on what type.  In the meantime, the new BBC Good Food magazine dropped through the letterbox.  Hiding in amongst its plump, luscious pages, was a little booklet of bakes where he spotted the Rhubarb & Custard cake.  The recipe is on their website, at http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10500/rhubarb-and-custard-cake if you should fancy giving it a go yourself.

Ruby during the height of February's storms - completely unbothered.

Now I had given the recipe a once-over look in the past and registered that it was quite an involved process (by my standards), so hadn't ventured to make it.  Hence, when hubby announced an interest in it, I posed the question whether he was prepared for all the stages involved with it and happy that it wasn't too much "fiddling around".  We both hate recipes that have you doing one process here, then getting out a whole other set of equipment for another process there, then back to the first lot for another process - so dull!  However, he'd read it through and was happy with it - so off we went.

I have to admit, I was still in bed dreaming of fairies and unicorns (a.k.a. snoring my head off) when he ventured forth into the garden and gave Ruby her first haircut of the year.  As I was when he baked his first batch of rhubarb for a bit too long and converted it to rhubarb compote.  He was only following the recipe!  Indeed, I had moved on to dreaming of bacon sandwiches for breakfast (a.k.a. snoring even louder) when he gave Ruby her second haircut of the year and successfully roasted his rhubarb pieces by roasting covered for just 5 minutes, then uncovered for another 5-6 minutes - a change to the original recipe that I have reflected in my version below.

I came to at about the time he was ready to put the cake into the oven, mainly because he brought me one of the whisks to taste the custard infused cake batter.  Mmmmn - it was good!

The process, you see, is to dry out the rhubarb by baking it in the oven, then cooling.  Meanwhile, you make up the cake batter - which has the custard mixed in.  Oooh, interesting!  Then, you layer rhubarb and cake batter into the tin, finally finishing with blobs of custard and pieces of rhubarb on top.

It smelled spectacular as it was baking, but took an awful lot longer than the recipe stated.  Either they got the recipe wrong, or nobody tested it before publishing.  In all, I would say that it took about 30 minutes longer than the recipe states - so be prepared if you decide to make it.

Just baked and smelling sooooo good!

All in all, with the false start, it probably took hubby around 3 hours or so to make the cake.  However, is it worth it?  Oh my goodness yes!

The texture is a very different to that of a sponge-like cake.  Throw those ideas out of the window, as although it has significant substance, its texture is robust rather than heavy.  The custard has given the cakey part that lovely vanilla custard flavour that can't help but go so well with the rhubarb that is shot through the cake like little pink stained glass windows.

This cake is the perfect crossover between a tea time cake and a dessert style cake.  It would be as at home with a cup of tea as it is with a drizzle of additional custard and a spoon, so made an absolutely perfect addition to a High Tea.  However, when you add a spoonful or two of the rhubarb compote to the plate, it transforms into a full-on rhubarb lover's treat.

Cooling ..... is it ready, yet?

Yes, you'll need time in which to make this cake - but if you need rhubarb, you know who to ask!

RHUBARB & CUSTARD CAKE    (serves 10-12)

Ingredients :

400g rhubarb
50g caster sugar
250g butter, softened plus extra for greasing
150g ready made custard (Ambrosia, not home-made)
250g self raising flour
half a tsp baking powder
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g golden caster sugar
icing sugar, for dusting.

Method :

1.  Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6.

2.  Rinse the rhubarb and shake off excess water. Trim the ends, then cut into little-finger-size pieces.

3. Put onto a baking tray, tip over 50g caster sugar, toss together, then shuffle rhubarb so it’s in a single layer. Cover with foil, then roast for 5 mins. Remove foil. Give everything a little shake, roast for 5 mins more or until tender and the juices are syrupy.

4.  Carefully drain off the juices before you let the fruit cool.

5.  Butter and line a 23cm loose-bottomed or springform cake tin and pre-heat your oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4.

6.  Reserve 3 tbsp of the custard in a bowl.

7.  To a large bowl, add the butter, flour, baking powder, eggs, vanilla, sugar and remaining custard.  Beat together until creamy and smooth.

8.  Spoon one-third of the mix into the tin, add some of the rhubarb, then dot with one-third more cake mix and spread it out as well as you can - there's no need to be too clinical about this though!

9.  Top with some more rhubarb, then spoon over the remaining cake mix, leaving it in rough mounds and dips rather than being too neat about it. Scatter the rest of the rhubarb over the batter, then dot the remaining custard over.

10. Bake for 50 mins until risen and golden, then cover with foil and bake for 30-40 mins more. It’s ready when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in the tin, then dredge with icing sugar when cool.

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Slow Cooker Mushroom & Tarragon Chicken

I have discovered that, whilst all these replacements for potato are all very well, I do - and son & heir agrees with me - begin to get a terrible hankering for something potato.  So, as I'd been doing so well with the last seven or eight meals being successful, I thought I'd risk throwing a potato meal into the mix.

Now I didn't chance my arm too far - I mean, had I have dished up a frittata with dauphinoise and chips, it might have been three potatoes too many.  No, I went for a relatively safe bet, which was mash.  Good old, reliable, yummy, comfort food for the soul, mashed potato.

I was, mind you, supposed to have cooked this on the previous day.  However, when my tongue (I know, don't ask me, I haven't a clue) decided to go completely mad (bizarre swellings, weird colours) following a pastrami sandwich and a nectarine, it kind of put me off eating a bit.  So we all fended for ourselves that night (hurrah for tins of soup!) and the chicken got moved on to the following night.

Owing to the fact that we were attending a reading at son & heir's school that afternoon, ("a reading" being where the students were reading from work they had done at that day's Writer's Workshop - which turned out to be really very good indeed), I decided to break out the slow cooker.  Well, it saved me from stressing about getting the chicken cooked in time without paying for it by way of pain and discomfort later.  This is one of the very good reasons why I love my slow cooker.

I put the chicken in to cook at around 12.30pm and fished it back out to eat at around 6pm - and it was perfect.  Still succulent, not dried out at all and as tasty as a tasty thing.  The Marsala wine had contributed lots by way of flavour and aroma, and the mushrooms gave that savoury edge that took the sweetness of the wine down a notch or two.

I used my favourite Essential Cuisine powdered chicken stock in the sauce, so beware if you are using a stock cube and either use a low salt one, or don't include salt at all when you are seasoning the chicken.  Using a combination of seasoning, a salty stock cube and fairly salty gravy granules could be disastrous when all are combined!  Get yourself some Essential Cuisine stock - it's not expensive (£3.95 for enough to make 6 litres) low salt and tastes fabulous, so you never have to worry about salt levels.

Chicken loves Marsala, however the use of Marsala wine is not cast in stone.  A sweet sherry would do just as good a job - or a dessert wine, if you've got one lurking in the fridge.  As long as it's not too dry, it will do the job perfectly.

The mushrooms seem to soak up the sweet wine and become flavour bombs, so make sure not to leave any in the slow cooker when you serve up!  It would be such a shame to lose all that intense flavour.

I used dried tarragon, basically because I find that the small expense of buying a bunch of fresh tarragon just isn't worth it to use a tablespoonful and have the remainder die off in the fridge.  Dried does a perfectly good job - just don't overdo it!  By the time the mix has spent a few hours chuckling in the slow cooker, you won't know the difference between dried and fresh anyway.

A quick word about the use of gravy granules.  Now I don't see any reason to be embarrassed or shady about using them - particularly the really good ones like the Bisto Best ones.  They are a complete boon for thickening gravies and sauces, they can add a bit of oomph to an otherwise fairly uninteresting gravy and you can get so many different flavours of them now, that there is no longer any reason to have to use chicken for pork, or beef for lamb.  However, if you're interested in keeping your meals pure, then by all means go for the use of a little flour when you fry off the chicken, or introduce a cornflour slurry at gravy thickening time.  It all works.

If you have time on your hands, you can always pop the ingredients into a casserole dish and cook it in the oven.  I'd say you'd need a 180degC/350 degF/gas 4 - or moderate - oven, for probably around an hour and a half, or maybe slightly longer depending on the size of your chicken breasts.  You could cut each breast into three pieces, which would speed up the process a little.  However, I must stress that I've not tried this recipe this way - so you'd be trailblazing.

Hubby really enjoyed his meal, commenting that it was "really delicious".  Fine praise indeed!  Son and heir also approved, leaving a clean plate behind him.  I gave the entire meal a big thumb's up for satisfaction, flavour and comfort - the perfect meal for a bit of a tiring day.  So, are you feeling like you need a "meat and two veg with mash" meal?  If so, then this is the one for you.

SLOW COOKER MUSHROOM & TARRAGON CHICKEN    (serves 3)

Ingredients :

3 chicken breasts, skinless and boneless
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
sea salt & ground black pepper
1 onion, chopped fine
2 garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 tsp dried tarragon
6-7 chestnut mushrooms, sliced thinly
100ml sweet Marsala wine
400ml chicken stock
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped finely
1-2 tbsp Bisto Best gravy granules.

Method :

1.  Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add the chicken.  Season the side that is uppermost and fry until golden.  Turn the chicken, season lightly again and fry until golden.  Remove to the slow cooker and turn the cooker on to Low.

2.  Add the onions to the frying pan and gently cook until softened but not coloured.

3.  Add the garlic and tarragon and continue to cook for 1-2 minutes.

4.  Add the mushrooms and increase the heat slightly.  Cook until slightly softened.

5.  Add the Marsala and allow it to bubble and reduce slightly.

6.  Add the chicken stock and stir through, then add the parsley.

7.  Add the vegetables and sauce to the slow cooker, replace the lid and cook for 5-6 hours on Low.

8.  Once your vegetable accompaniments are cooking, remove the slow cooker lid and move the chicken breasts to one side.  Sprinkle the gravy granules evenly into the sauce and stir through until thickened.  Replace the lid until you are ready to serve.

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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.

Printable version

Singapore style Chicken Fried Rice (or "using up roast chicken")

We had the most amazing chicken for dinner on Sunday.  My chicken brick (which I have yet to tell you about, but is the best thing that has ever happened to my roast chickens) did its job and produced a succulent, soft and beautifully roasted bird that was just so intensely chickeny.

Having eaten our fill from the chicken for Sunday dinner, we were left with the other half of it for Monday's meal.  Now, once again, I was avoiding involving potatoes (half as a personal challenge to make a succession of meals that didn't involve potatoes and half because hubby has REALLY had enough of them) so all the "with potato" casseroles or "chicken in a wrap with potato wedges" options were out.

We hadn't had a rice dish all week - I know, how remarkable was that! - so I began thinking down ricey routes.  As I was strolling through various recipe sites on t'internet, I saw one for a Singapore style rice dish, which used both Thai curry paste and Indian curry powder.  Now that got me thinking, as I knew I had both in the fridge from previous curries.  I knew how to make a very (also known as VERY) acceptable, nay yumalicious, fried rice dish in my gorgeous Nasi Goreng, so perhaps some adaptation of that recipe might produce something along the Singapore lines, but I had to make sure it didn't just wind up like Nasi Goreng minus the prawns.

My chicken brick, with roasted chicken.

I know a little bit about Singapore (I was born in Malaysia, remember?) and know that it is a real melting pot of nationalities.  Hence, I wasn't bothered about mixing genres of ingredients for this dish.  Ultimately, I wound up with English roast chicken, Thai curry paste and fish sauce, Indian curry paste and rice, Japanese rice wine, Chinese soy sauce and bean sprouts - and some fresh coriander, which just about every country seems to have available, these days!

I can tell you what, it only worked!  In fact, it worked really well and was almost verging upon the epic.  I now have a new recipe to add to the stable of Nasi Goreng and Kedgeree.  In fact, I could quite see my cycling through the three without ever getting fed up with any of them!

Now if you've ever made my Nasi Goreng, you'll know that it really isn't tricky to make - it's simply a matter of chopping stuff, then tipping it into a wok and cooking it in the correct order for the correct time at the correct heat.  This, dear reader, is even quicker than that.  Because there are no prawns or mushrooms to worry about and the chicken is already cooked, plus the beansprouts and peas cook themselves as you go, it all came together with 15 minutes to go before I was due to ring the dinner bell.  Mind you, not that anyone was complaining - the lovely smells had raised them from their various occupations rather like Bisto kids, following their noses!

Everyone liked it, everyone enjoyed it, everyone would have eaten more if we could have fitted it in.  Son and heir was seriously considering having seconds, but decided it was an "eyes bigger than belly" situation.  Hubby has every intention of having more for breakfast and I have every intention of having more for lunch tomorrow.  I can see I'll have to separate out the leftovers into separate bowls!

The upshot of it all is, if you have the other half of a roast chicken available and don't know what to do with it, plus, if you fancy a really quick, tasty meal, then this fried rice is for you.

Would I do anything differently?  Well, I might be tempted to add some sliced water chestnuts, but that's about it.

SINGAPORE STYLE CHICKEN FRIED RICE   (serves 4-5)

Ingredients :

2-300g Basmati rice
2 eggs, lightly whipped
salt & pepper
2 individual knobs of butter
1 tbsp groundnut oil
a bunch (6 or 7) of spring onions , cleaned and chopped diagonally
3 fat cloves of garlic, chopped finely
2 heaped tsp of red Thai curry paste
2 heaped tsp of mild Indian curry paste
a couple of handfuls of frozen peas (still frozen)
a pinch of dried red chilli flakes, to taste
3 big handfuls of fresh bean sprouts
3 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp mirrin (Japanese Rice Wine)
a quantity of cold roasted chicken, shredded (half a chicken works for me!)
a large handful of fresh coriander, chopped.

Method :

1.  Cook the basmati rice according to the instructions on the packet, but stop the cooking a fraction before it is done, leaving a slight bite in the rice.  Drain it well and run under the cold tap to cool.  Leave in the colander or sieve to drain well, but place it back into the saucepan and put the lid on top to prevent the rice from drying out.

2.  Using a deep frying pan or wok, melt one of the knobs of butter and add half the seasoned egg mixture.  Roll the pan to spread the egg out thinly and cook to form a thin omelette, flip over to cook the other side.  Do the same again with the remainder of the egg mixture, then roll the two together to form a tube and cut into shreds.   Reserve to keep warm.

3.  Add the oil to the remains of the butter and heat until really quite hot and add the spring onions.  Stir and fry until slightly softened, just a minute or so. 

4.  Add the garlic and continue to stir and fry for another 30 seconds, taking care not to let it stick to the bottom of the pan or colour.

5.  Add the two curry pastes and stir well.  Cook for some 2-3 mins.

6.  Add the frozen peas, chilli flakes and bean sprouts and toss them to combine them with the mix.

7.  Add the soy sauce, fish sauce and mirrin and reduce the heat to prevent it burning.  Continue to cook (1-2 minutes) until a sticky and thick consistency has been achieved.

8.  Add the chicken and stir through to coat it in the sauce, quickly followed by the chopped coriander and the rice.  At this stage, you're just heating the chicken and rice through, not cooking anything, so keep the heat high enough to do the job - but not blazing!

9.  Stir or toss the rice to combine it and prevent it from sticking to the pan. 

10.  Add the omelette strips, stir through lightly and serve. 

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Ham and cheese cornbread - oh my word!

I was looking for some sort of carbohydrate to go with the BBQ Meat Loaf (see previous blog post), that didn't involve potato when I hit upon this little beauty.

I knew that all the family like cornbread, so there was no problem there.  We all love cheese and ham - and the spring onions that were used in it would be well cooked, so no problem there either.  All that was left to do was to include it on the menu plan on a day when I could split the cooking, as trying to do cornbread and a meatloaf at the same time would not only pickle my brains, but pretty much leave me good for nothing thereafter.

So - Saturday it was!  A perfect day, being between the healthy fish dish and our roast chicken that's planned for tomorrow.  Lots of time to split the cooking, too.

Now I have a cornbread recipe on the blog already, however, I just had a little scan around the interwebs for alternatives more as a control to make sure my recipe was as good as it could get.  What did I find?  Well, this recipe here - Iron Skillet Ham & Cheddar Cornbread.  Do click on the link, as the Melissa's Southern Style Kitchen blog it came from, is filled with luscious things that are well worth investigating further!

Needless to say, I don't have an iron skillet.  However, a cornbread recipe is a cornbread recipe and I reckoned it wouldn't hurt it to be cooked in the usual tin that I cook my cornbread in, in the oven.  I also skipped on things like onion powder and garlic powder, neither of which I particularly like - and decided not to include the sweetcorn.  Everything else, I went with (I think!).

Just look at that - all beautiful and fluffy!

The measurements are in cups as they often are with American recipes, which gave me the opportunity of using my ceramic measuring cups that my parents had given to me for Christmas.  They're a lovely shape and have a great handle that is easy to hold - very useful when your gripping function isn't as great as it could be and you're carrying a cup full of flour!

As with all cornbread recipes, it's a simple matter of combining the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another bowl, then adding one to the other and including your flavourings.

I found that I didn't have quite enough buttermilk, so included a couple of tablespoonfuls of Greek Yoghurt.  They're pretty interchangeable for a recipe like this and it certainly didn't appear to do any damage!

I also reduced the sugar from 3 tablespoonfuls (yikes!) to 2 when I was copying out the recipe.  However, by the time it came to putting the sugar into the mix, I decided to decrease it even further by a half a tablespoonful - and I reckon I could have just gone with the one!  I'll be doing that in future and have reflected it in the recipe below.  By all means add more if you like your cornbread sweeter.

Served with BBQ meat loaf and baked beans

I spent a moment or two dithering as to whether to use sunflower oil or rapeseed oil in the mix.  The rapeseed won, entirely due to its increased health benefits of being low in saturated fats (50% less than olive oil!) and high in Omega 3, 6 and 9.  Although as I reflected when pouring it into the mix, it tastes better too!

Do remember to invest a little time in buttering your tin (I covered mine with silver foil to help with the washing up later on) as it makes the cornbread so much easier to get out of the tin - and makes the crust taste amazing!

Again, do be careful of the amount of salt you include - cornbread can take a good deal of salt as the corn meal needs a decent amount to help the corny flavour along.  Do remember, however, that you're including mature cheddar cheese which can be inherently salty, along with the ham which also has a degree of saltiness.  However, having said that, it didn't stop me from sprinkling just a teensy bit of sea salt on the surface for that lovely salty hit every so often.

Just 25-30 minutes in the oven and your tastebuds are tingling from both the look and the smell of this gorgeous cornbread.  Too bad we all had to wait until dinner time to get lashed into it!

HAM AND CHEESE CORNBREAD   (makes 16 pieces approx)

Ingredients :

3-4 slices dry cured ham, diced
100g mature cheddar cheese, grated
4-5 spring onions, chopped
1 cup plain flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt (plus a tiny pinch to sprinkle on top)
one and three quarters cups of buttermilk (or plain yoghurt)
a quarter of a cup of rapeseed oil
2 large eggs, beaten
a knob of softened butter.

Method :

1.  Use the knob of butter to grease a medium sized oblong roasting tin.

2.  Combine all the dry ingredients into a large bowl.

3.  Combine all the wet ingredients into a smaller bowl.

4.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir quickly until almost combined.

5.  Add the cheese, ham and onions and stir through quickly.

6.  Pour the batter into the roasting tin and level the surface.  Dot with a little extra butter if you're feeling naughty.

7.  Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200degC/400degF/Gas 6 for 25-30 minutes or until a cocktail stick inserted into the middle, comes out clean.

8.  Remove from the tin onto a baking tray and leave somewhere away from overkeen family members, to cool.

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BBQ meatloaf - man pleasing food!

This meal was born from a desire to create a "man pleasing dinner".  The notion was that having had a healthy, vegetable inclusive fish dinner the night before - and another vegetable inclusive meal to come on Sunday (tomorrow) - the menfolk might like a man pleasing dinner to keep them interested.

In fact, this meal contained the subject of this blog entry - the meatloaf - together with a fantastic cornbread (which is dealt with in the next blog post) and baked beans.

Now I don't know about your menfolk, but my menfolk like meat.  No, in fact, they like MEAT.  *chuckle*  I can understand this, as I'm a bit of a carnivore myself and do sometimes get a terrible hankering for a big lump of roast beef in which to sink my gnashers.

Quite a long way up on their "man pleasing foodstuffs" list, but below meat, is a good barbecue sauce.   We've discovered Kraft's Bulls Eye BBQ sauce, which is currently doing a pretty good job in that connection.  If anything, I find it a tiny bit sweet - but the menfolk love it and that's the main thing.

I can't claim to have invented this form of meatloaf, as like with a lot of things, I spotted a photograph on the internet that piqued my interest.  That of a meatloaf with a coating of barbecue sauce - and it looked good.

Now I have written previously about my attempts to make a firm meatloaf that doesn't require a spoon with which to serve it.  Hubby has a term for these soggy meat loaves - that of "meat porridge".  It describes the texture quite succinctly.

Fortunately for us, I discussed the problem of meat porridge with my pal Melanie (a Brit who has been in Canada for the last mumblymumble years) and who claimed to have solved the conundrum.  She decreed her meat loaves to be firm and positively perky.  Hence, I have paid attention to Mel's tutelage and gone down my own road with the flavourings - but followed the basic recipe quite closely.

Lo and behold - what do we have here?  Only a firm, sliceable, serve with a spatula and no spoon in sight, delicious meat loaf!  Thanks, Mel!

If you also have problems with meat porridge, it is well worthwhile having a read of her treatise on the subject at her blog, Rutabaga Dreams.

I had been pondering on what to use as flavourings and couldn't really come to any firm conclusions.  I knew I had to be aware of how much salt was being included - as additional sauces can often bring quite a slug of salt with them.  So salt wasn't a problem unless I overdid it.  The basic meats were two thirds beef, one third pork and a lone rasher of bacon (that had no other home to go to).  Now onion was a given - but in fact, I used two shallots for their sweetness.  The breadcrumbs were made from a combination of white and brown Polish Bakery bread - which can only be surpassed by home made bread, in my view.  I also added a little tomato ketchup, some Worcestershire sauce, some Mic's Chilli Inferno hot sauce, a teaspoonful or so of freshly ground black pepper, some dried parsley and something that you may not have at home - a teaspoonful of Essential Cuisine's mushroom stock powder.  Add an egg, mush it all together and into a loaf tin it goes!

Baking the meat loaf (at 180degC) is a simple matter of making sure it is inside another roasting tin, to catch any drips that may escape the loaf tin, then fishing it back out after 30 minutes.  Very carefully, tip the liquid away then coat the top of the meat loaf generously with your favourite barbecue sauce.  Back into the oven it goes for another 30 minutes and you're done.

The flavourings really are up to you.  You can go Italian with sun dried tomatoes, oregano and garlic, or Mexican with chillies and beans, Indian with curry spices - really, so long as you follow the "no ingredients that will leach liquid" (like tomatoes, mushrooms, courgette etc.) and include the breadcrumbs and an egg, I see no reason why your meat loaf shouldn't be as sliceable as mine turned out to be!

The menfolk both gave the meat loaf - in fact, the whole dinner - a big thumbs up, so I'd say that's job done!

BBQ MEAT LOAF   (serves 3-4)

Ingredients :

3-4 slices of dry bread, blitzed into crumbs
pinch of sea salt
half a tsp of freshly ground black pepper
half a tsp of dried parsley
500g minced lean beef
250g minced lean pork
1-2 rashers of bacon, chopped fine
1 dessertspoonful of tomato ketchup
1 tsp of hot sauce (to taste - use more if you like more)
2 tsp of Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp of stock powder of your choice (most, but not all, of a stock cube will do)
1 egg
3-4 tbsp BBQ sauce.

Method :

1.  Place all the ingredients barring the BBQ sauce into a large bowl.  Using your hand, scrunch and mix the ingredients until they are all evenly spread throughout the mix.

2.  Take a one pound loaf tin and line it with silver foil (non-stick silver foil, if you can get it, is wonderful for this!).

3.  Pack the meat mixture into the loaf tin, pressing it down firmly.

4.  Place the loaf tin inside a bigger roasting tin and into a pre-heated 180degC/350degF/Gas 4 oven for 30 minutes.

5.  At the end of the time, remove the meat loaf from the oven and carefully drain the liquid away.  (Be very careful not to let your meat loaf fall into the sink, as happened to me on one stellar occasion).

6.  Coat the surface of the meat loaf in BBQ sauce and replace into the oven for another 30 minutes.

7.  When the time is up, remove from the oven and from the loaf tin.  Carefully peel the silver foil back all around the meat loaf, but be careful of the hot liquid that will be contained therein.  Let the loaf rest for a couple of minutes - no longer than 3-4 - then slice and serve.

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