Rick Stein Potato and Pea Curry

I have made this recipe too many times to mention ( a quick look at the recipe page with all its stains tells a story ), it never fails and has the most amazing flavours , with the exception of a little more turmeric in the fried potatoes, I've pretty much stuck to the original recipe.

Ingredients

For the fried potatoes

• 1kg/2lb 4oz potatoes, peeled and cut into 3cm/1¼oz chunks
• 4 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric

For the sauce

• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 Indian bay leaves ( I used ordinary bay leaves ) 
• ¼ tsp asafoetida
• 1 medium onion, very finely chopped
• 6 garlic cloves, finely crushed
• 5cm/2in fresh root ginger, finely grated
• 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• ½ tsp amchur (dried mango powder)
• ½ tsp ground turmeric
• ½ tsp salt
• 200g/7oz tomato passata
• 2 green chillies, sliced lengthways into thin strips, with or without seeds according to preference
• 150g/5½oz frozen peas
• 1 tsp garam masala
• handful chopped coriander leaves, to finish

Boil the potatoes in a pan of salted water for eight minutes until just tender, then drain well. Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan or frying pan over a medium-high heat, add the potatoes and fry over a high heat for 5 minutes, or until just starting to colour.

 Add the turmeric and fry for 30 seconds. Remove from the heat.

For the sauce, heat the oil in another pan over a medium-high heat. Add the bay leaves and fry for one minute, then add the asafoetida and stir. Add the onion and fry for five minutes; then add the garlic and ginger and fry for five minutes, or until softened and lightly golden-brown.
Add the chilli powder, cumin, coriander, amchur, turmeric and salt and fry for one minute, then add the tomato passata, green chillies and 100ml/3½fl oz water and stir together. Add the fried potatoes, reduce the heat to medium, cover the pan and cook for 10 minutes, adding a splash of water if anything catches on the bottom of the pan.
Add the peas and garam masala and cook uncovered for 3-4 minutes, or until the peas are cooked. Garnish with fresh coriander and serve.

You'll see if you compare this picture to Rick's that mine is considerably saucier, that is because I like this recipe to have a nice saucy consistency, nothing wrong with the original but I just like it this way. I serve this with homemade dal - recipe to follow

Banana Chocolate and Walnut Bread

 We eat an awful lot of fruit here in chilly ( mostly wet ) Wales so we nearly always have at least two rather sad looking bananas left lurking in the fruit bowl.... too cotton wooly to eat but too good to throw away. Now I know someone close by who has a slight addiction to banana bread so I think that subliminally I buy too many bananas in the knowledge that there will be a request forthcoming.

I've tried a few recipes along the way but this one ticks all the boxes, the walnuts give it a nice textural crunch and the chocolate gives it a lovely luxurious feel - it's just delicious.

This recipe calls for chocolate chips but I always use a nice dark chocolate bar and chop it roughly,  it doesn't need to be chopped too fine either as I quite like the hit of a nice piece of chocolate

Ingredients

2 Large free range eggs whisked together in a bowl 

1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

125g Softened butter

50g Caster sugar

50g Dark brown sugar

2 large ripe bananas mashed into a bowl

140g Self raising flour

1 Teaspoon baking powder

1 Teaspoon ground cinnamon

100g Chocolate chips ( I used a bar of dark chocolate chopped ) 

50g Walnuts roughly chopped

Preheat oven to Gas mark 4 

Butter a 2lb loaf tin ( I used a square tin ) 

Whisk the eggs together with the vanilla and set aside, mash the bananas and set aside.

Combine eggs and bananas and put to one side.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until pale and fluffy, add egg and banana mixture slowly and continue to beat - it's worth mentioning at this stage that I have never managed to combine all these ingredients without my mixture splitting. I doesn't matter, this cake always comes out well - every time - don't sweat the splitting!!

Sift in the flour , cinnamon and baking powder, stir in the walnuts and chocolate and pour into your pre buttered tin, place in the middle of your oven and walk away for around 45 minutes or until a skewer poked into the middle of the cake comes out clean. 

This is surprisingly light given the nature of the ingredients, it's a foolproof recipe which I've returned to many times. 

Fridge Soup

 I really hate throwing away good food that can be saved and after a look deep into the fridge and finding a few left over veg from other recipes I decided to make some lovely soup. 

I guess you can actually make left over soup from pretty much anything, I used to make 8 veg soup when my children were little and that was exactly what it says - any 8 veg ! 

It's cold here in Wales at the moment so soup is always welcome. Served with some lovely sourdough bread, a crumble of feta cheese and a little glug of olive oil, this made a lovely winters lunch.

Ingredients.

1 Red pepper roughly chopped

1 Yellow pepper roughly chopped

3 Large carrots roughly chopped

2 Onions roughly chopped

3 Cloves Garlic roughly chopped

3 Sticks celery roughly chopped

1 Vegetable or chicken stock cube ( pot )

Salt and pepper

Enough water to cover

Olive oil

Feta Cheese ( optional ) 

In a large ovenproof pot fry onions and garlic gently until soft, add celery peppers and carrots, fry gently for 5 minutes, add everything else, bring to the boil, turn heat down to a gentle simmer and cook with a lid for 30 minutes or until all the veg are nice and soft. 

Blitz with a stick blender and serve with feta, bread and a drizzle of olive oil.

Rick Stein Bullfighter Stew with Macaronade

 Taken from the book ' French Odyssey ' , I was watching ' Secret France ' and got my books mixed up, I trawled through this book and found this recipe from southern France ( wondering why I hadn't seen it mentioned on the TV ) and decided to give it a go anyway....soo many recipes that never get made ! 

I was going to just chuck all the ingredients into the slow cooker and see how it turned out but at the last minute I relented and took a bit of care.

Ingredients

1.5kg Lean beef ( I used lean diced beef but shin would be nice )

2 Medium onions chopped

6 Garlic gloves finely minced

3 Large peeled carrots sliced on the diagonal

1 Bottle red wine

2 Large sprigs thyme

2 Large sprigs rosemary

2 Bay leaves

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

2 cinnamon sticks

6 Cloves

3 Tablespoons olive oil

100 g smoked lardons ( or streaky bacon )

50g Black olives

1 Tablespoon Beurre Manie  ( Recipe Below ) 

Salt and pepper

For the Macaronade

500g Macaroni

250ml liquid from the stew

75g Parmesan cheese finely grated

Beurre Manie

1 Tablespoon good butter

1 Tablespoon plain flour 

Mix to a smooth paste ready to add at the end of the cooking time of the stew.

In a large bowl combine the beef, onions, garlic, carrots, red wine, herbs, cloves and cinnamon. Cover and place into the fridge overnight.

The next day, drain and fry meat in olive oil in little batches and place into a flameproof casserole ( or in my case a slow cooker ).  Fry vegetables and add to the pot, fry lardons or bacon , add olives and the marinade to the pot and cook for approx 3 hours or until the beef is tender ( all afternoon in my slow cooker ).

Now, it's worth mentioning at this point that I didn't realise that this needed to be marinaded overnight so I just went about it without setting it aside, I fried my veg, then my bacon, then my meat in olive oil and poured everything into the slow cooker and cooked all afternoon. Just before ready to serve. stir in the beurre manis to thicken.

After many hours just simmering away in the slow cooker it was time to make the macoronade, this was dead simple, simply cook the macaroni to the instructions on the packet ( about 8 minutes ) drain and mix in the stew gravy, top with cheese and grill for a few minutes.

Serve straight away with the stew  - lovely! 

I liked this - it had a faintly Greek flavour but I probably wouldn't make the pasta again - it was uninteresting, I'd probably mix up my continents and serve this lovely stew with some Greek potatoes.

Apple And Plum Crumble

I bought a rather large punnet of dark plums from the supermarket last week and honestly they refused to ripen nicely and they didn't taste of anything. Now I know that we really shouldn't buy fruit or veg out of season but that can be very limiting in the UK in the winter, my own fault as I just liked the look of them. Anyway - a way to use up useless fruit - I bought myself a couple of nice big bramley apples and headed into the kitchen to make a nice buttery crumble.

Preheat oven to 350f / 180 c / gas mark 4

Ingredients for filling

2 large bramley apples peeled and thinly sliced

10 or so plums, de stoned and sliced

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

3 tablespoons plain flour

3 tablespoons soft brown sugar

Juice of one lemon

Mix all ingredients together and place in a buttered ovenproof dish.

Ingredients for crumble

175g plain flour

75g rolled oats

75g soft brown sugar

125g butter

Make crumble as pastry, mix dry ingredients into a large bowl, rub in butter  with your fingertips until a nice crumbly texture - it doesn't have to be fine here as a nice crunchy texture is good for a crumble.

Spoon the crumble mix onto your filling mix and sprinkle a little brown sugar on top, bake in the oven for approx 40 minutes or until golden on top and fruit is all bubbly.

Serve with cream or custard or ice cream - proper cold winter pudding

Chinese Chicken Curry

 I really love to make authentic Indian style curries and they're always my go to for when I need something really full of flavour but ...every now and again I yearn for the flavour of a Chinese takeaway curry. I know you can buy the ready made sauce ( and I do have a packet lurking in the cupboard ) but I like to cook and this way I know exactly what is in my food! I found this recipe a good few years ago when dieting ....again !! .... I don't do that anymore for so many reasons but some of the recipes are still  absolutely worth sticking to, this is one of them.

There is a great site called SLIMMINGEATS, I think that it is based in Canada and this recipe comes from there, when you first look at the recipe you really can't imagine how this comes together but it really does and it's worth going back to time and time again.

Ingredients for sauce

100g (3.5oz) of onion, chopped
150g (5.5oz) of courgette chopped
200g (7oz) of butternut squash, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon of grated fresh ginger 
1.5 tablespoon of curry powder ( hot or medium, depending on how hot you like it)
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
1 tablespoon of soy sauce (not dark)
1/2 teaspoon of Chinese five spice
3 cups (720ml) of chicken stock
spray oil 

Now, I don't actually use curry powder as I have all the spices, but this is a good fix if you don't want to invest in all the necessary spices for this dish.

Ingredients for curry

450g ( 1lb chicken breast ...I used thighs )

1 large green pepper chopped into chunks

1 large onion chopped roughly into chunks

1/2 cup frozen peas

Spray a frying pan over a medium high heat with spray oil
Add the onion, courgette and butternut squash and fry for 2-3 mins to soften.
Add the garlic and ginger and fry for 1 more minute.
Add the curry powder, Chinese five spice, tomato paste and soy sauce and stir to coat.
Pour in the chicken stock, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 20 mins.
Add sauce to a blender and blend until smooth. Set aside.
Spray frying pan with spray oil, add chicken and fry for approx 5 mins until lightly browned. Remove and set aside.
Spray frying pan again with spray oil, add the onion and green pepper and fry for 2 mins.
Add back in chicken,  pour in the sauce, stir to coat, add peas, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for about 5 mins, till chicken is cooked through.

As I say, I have changed some of the quantities to better suit my taste, I certainly always want more garlic and ginger than the recipes call for but this is pretty close to the original recipe, it tastes amazing, we have it served with plain boiled rice.

Breadmaker Fruit Cake

 I've had my breadmaker for a good while now and honestly never thought to make anything in it other than bread ! Feeling a little bored the other day I had a go at making a cake in it - so far so ok....I considered ginger cake as its a favourite but I just couldn't find any ground ginger - can't quite believe it as I make curry a lot so - fruit cake it was. I followed the recipe to the letter ( unlike me too ) which meant combining all the ingredients outside of the machine and then pouring them into the machine to cook. 

It's a long cook ( 3.10 minutes ) and it seemed that for the first 2 hours the mixture just sat around bored. It just seemed to sit there, I was unconvinced at this point that anything was happening in there at all!! But - with about an hour to go it started to smell quite cakey in my kitchen.... after 3 hours I was pretty excited as it was definitely a cake taking shape.

Amazing - it turned out really very good indeed, not the lightest of cakes but delicious and fruity and very well received .

Now every machine is going to be different so I'm just going to post a picture of my mixture from the leaflet but I'll definitely give this a go again - so easy - I'm just sorry that I didn't have a go earlier -

Off to try a lemon drizzle cake I think .......