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.