Fajitas

Another student recipe, perfect for eating with a big group of friends. Surprisingly healthy, this is ful of veggies and will make a couple of chicken breasts go a really long way. We also had some sliced chillis on the side so you can make it really spicy if you're into that kind of thing...

Thinly sliced chicken breast, marinated in a punchy mix of paprika, ground cumin and ground coriander. Fry it up with lots of sliced onions and peppers. Load this onto your tortilla, top with some grated cheese, guacamole, a fresh and zesty salsa and a big dollop of soured cream (or yoghut). Then roll it up and stuff it into your mouth - be prepared for a bit of a mess.


Ingredients

Chicken
2 chicken breasts, sliced
1 tsp ground corriander
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp paprika
2 onions, sliced
2 red peppers, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 chilli, finely chopped

Guacamole
1 avocado
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 lime
2tbsp yoghurt

Tomato salsa
200g cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 red onion finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/4 cucumber, finely chopped
1/2 bunch coriander, chopped
1 lime
1tbsp olive oil

To serve:
200g grated cheese
1 small pot soured cream
8 tortillas, warm

• Put the chicken in a freezer bag and sprinkle over the spices.Close the bag, massage the spices into the meat and leave whilst you prepare the rest of the vegetables. Ideally, you'd leave it overnight to marinate in the fridge.
• Heat a large frying pan with a little oil, add the peppers, onions, garlic and chilli and cook over a high heat until softened.
• Remove from the pan and add the chicken, cook for 5 mins or so until browned. Add the onions and peppers back to the pan and cook for another few mins. Season well.
• For the guacamole, scoop the flesh out of the avocado and mash well, add the garlic, juice from the lime and yoghurt and stir well. Season well.
• For the salsa, simply mix the tomato, onion, cucumber, coriander and garlic together, squeeze over the lime juice, drizzle over the olive oil, season with salt and pepper and stir well.

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Beef Goulash

Our vegetable box is delivered on Friday, so my current Saturday morning routine consists of getting up in time for Saturday Kitchen, sitting amidst my various cookbooks and looking for new recipes to try with my muddy bounty. One eye on James Martin, one on the books.

My routine was somewhat upset this week as I awoke not only nursing a hangover, but to the chaos left behind by several of us drinking too much fizzy wine and eating lots of good food (fajitas with bean chilli, cheese and lashings of gaucamole and soured cream; followed by key lime pie).

The upshot of this is that I was somewhat randomnly inspired by a sad looking bowl of leftover soured cream. I decided to try goulash, remembering a delicious looking version Jamie Oliver cooked on Jamie at Home (part of our Sunday night aspirational viewing on More 4 along with River Cottage). A rich stew of slow cooked pork and peppers served with creme fraiche.

In the end, my version was completely different, I looked around for inspiration and came up with a really simple version that doesn't use chopped tomatoes but is flavoured with paprika and smoky roasted peppers. This is best with cheaper cuts of braising beef and left to cook long and slow, the peppers almost melt into the sauce to give a rich stew . Given the opportunity, I would cook this day before and let the flavours develop. Even so, cooked on the night this absolutely delivious, full of flavour and meltingly tender. We eat ours with thick ribbons of pasta, a dollop of sour cream and lots of parsley, but mash would be divine too.

Ingredients

Serves 4

1kg braising beef, cut into chunks
2 tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp sunflower oil
25g butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 jar roasted red peppers (approx 300g), or 4 peppers roasted and skinned
200ml beef or vegetable stock
1 small (140ml) tub soured cream
Chopped flat leaf parsley to serve

• Season the meat and sprinkle over the flour to coat well.
• Heat the sunflower oil in a large frying pan. When hot, fry the beef in batches until sealed and beginning to brown. Remove from the pan and set aside.
• Add the butter to the pan. Once melted, add the onion and fry for a few mins until softened.
• Add the beef back to the pan and sprinkle over the paprika, stir well so that the beef is well coated.
• Slice the roasted peppers into long thin strips and add to the pan as well.
• Pour in the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for at least an hour until the beef is tender and the sauce has thickened.
• Before serving, stir in half the soured cream, reserving the rest to dollop on top with a liberal sprinkling of parsley.
  

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Simple Egg Fried Rice

A simple recipe, perfect for using up leftovers and shoehorning in extra vegetables.This recipe works best with cold rice, so next time you cook rice, cook a bit more for the next day! (Although we use freshly cooked rice as often as not). Top with whatever interesting bits and bobs you have, toasted cashew nuts, coriander, sliced spring onions, extra chilli...

Oh, and a little tip. I normally buy a massive chunk of ginger, grate it all up and freeze in ice cubes to use for stirfrys and curries.


Serves 4

Ingredients

3tbsp sunflower oil
1 red chilli, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 thumb sized piece of ginger, grated

Optional: approx 300g cooked and shredded chicken or ham

Approx 500g vegetables, cut into similar sized pieces, e.g.
*carrots, sliced or cut into batons
*peppers or courgettes, sliced into strips
*mushrooms, sliced
*peas
*sweetcorn
*beansprouts

350g cooked rice
4-6 eggs, whisked and seasoned
2tbsp soy sauce

To serve:
100g cashew nuts or peanuts, toasted and chopped
1 small bunch coriander or spring onions, chopped
sweet chilli sauce

• You need a really large wok to cook this all at once, if you don't have one, try making it in 2 batches.
• Make sure all your vegetables are prepared before you start cooking.
• Heat a wok until its as smoking and as hot as possible. If you're using nuts, you can toast them in the pan whilst it warms up, but make sure they don't burn!
• Add the sunflower oil, allow to heat up for a few minutes then throw in the garlic, chilli and ginger, stirring furiously, you don't want them to burn.
• Now add the vegetables and cook for 3-5mins until beginning to brown.
• Throw in the meat in using a stir for a few more minutes.
• Now tip in your rice and continue to fry for another minute or so.
• Make a well in the centre and tip in the eggs, keep stirring and frying until the eggs are completely cooked.
• Finish with a splash of soy sauce.
  

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Party Time

A birthday is always a good excuse for a party, couple that with just having moved into a flat and you're onto a winner. I resisted the temptation to spend days creating elaborate canapes as although I knew people would expect food (it is my party) they'd be more interested in the wine...

We're into baking bread at the moment, so I thought several loaves of homemade bread, some dips - hummus, tapenade, roasted red pepper pesto, maybe a baked camembert or two, and some posh crisps ought to do it. the idea was to have lots of finger food that didn't require plates (less washing up or wasteful paper plates).

My one concession to canapes were fabulous little caramelised onion and feta pastries. Deliciously sweet onions are well known partners to sharp, salty feta and these were little mouthfuls of joy. Seen as though everyone liked them so much, here's the recipe below.

Caramelised Red Onion and Feta Pastries

Ingredients

Makes about 50

250g shortcurst pastry
8 medium red onions, sliced into half moons
50g butter
4tbsp balsamic vinegar
4tbsp sugar
200g feta, crumbled
1 small bunch parsley, chopped or a small bunch thyme (just the leaves)

• Heat the butter in a large frying pan and tip in the onions, stir to coat in the butter and leave to cook on a low heat for about 15mins, stirring occasionally until completely soft.
• Season well, add the sugar and blasamic vinegar, and leave to simmer until the onions are sticky, brown and caramelised.
• Transfer to a bowl and leave to cool.
• Preheat the oven to 180C
• Roll the pastry out until a few mms thick and cut into rounds (I used a small glass to do this, bear in mind that you want the pastry in mouth sized circles).
• Place onto a baking tray lined with greasproof paper and bake in the oven for about 10mins until golden and cooked through. (the pastry will rise a little and bubble in places, after a few mins baking, whilst the pastry is still soft, you can push the bubles down gently).
• Once all the pastry is cooked, leave to cool.
• To assemble, you probably need someone to help, to get an assembly line going. One person to spoon the onions onto the pastry and someone else to sprinkle on the cumbled feta and a little parsley or thyme. Just try not to eat too many whilst you're making them!

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Roasted Red Pepper Pesto

Mmmmm, I can't begin to describe how good this pesto is, I just had some leftovers for my lunch and its even better than yesterday.

For some reason we ended up with 4 red peppers in the fridge, I decided to roast them as I'm a bit fussy about raw peppers, in that I'm not really a fan and like them diced really small. Anyway, I cut the peppers in half, deseeded them, and lay them skin side up on a baking tray, I drizzled with a little oil and left them under a hot grill until they were really black and blistered, I then turned them over and grilled the underside a bit too, just because I like my roasted peppers to be really soft. Then its into a sealed tupperware to steam of the skin until cool.

Once cooled, I peeled the peppers and blitzed them with about a small bunch of basil, stems and all. We've got a basil plant in one of our window boxes that has just gone crazy, so I was pretty happy about being able to cull it a bit, also, check out our wormery in the background! I also added a small handful of toasted pine nuts and the same of cheese and a splash of balsamic vinegar. I didn't add any oil as the peppers are moist enough to lubricate the pesto. I must admit that in the absence of parmesan, I cheated and added mature cheddar too (you can't taste the difference).


Red pepper and almonds go particularly well and I have a feeling toasted almonds would be delightful in this pesto, but I have loads of pine nuts (always a nice position to be in) so pine nuts in was.

Either way, you end up with a slightly sweet and smoky pesto from the chargilled peppers. We had it on homemade gnocchi, it would be great on pasta, or with fish or chicken. I'm thinking now that chilli and perhaps coriander instead of basil would be good. Either way, make this and make it soon! Read more...