Saturday, March 22, 2008

Garlic Chicken - How to eat by Nigella Lawson

Now here's the problem...what on earth do I choose to blog about from a book that I utterly love and treasure? I can honestly say that How to eat is possibly by favourite cookery book, mainly as it was the catalyst that sparked my love of food and gave me the confidence to cook. So it was very difficult to decide what recipe would make the blog, I decided to give the book the justice it deserves and give an example that sums of Nigella's book perfectly...so so easy, utterly delicious and if you were a first timer cook or under confident...you would be very very pleased with yourself.
The recipe calls for using chicken wings, but I often substitute chicken drumsticks mostly becuse they are often very economical cuts of meat, and therefore I can afford organic, and as with most of Nigella's chicken recipe's you have to alter the times to suit your own oven..it does not really matter that you are using a 'chunkier' cut. These were served with a big salad, and some new potatoes...just enough for two, but I cannot stress how easy these are if cooking for a crowd. A top tip that I must pass on is to line your baking tray/dish with tin foil as the sticky mess the follows these delights is enough to make a girl weep into her marigolds! Nigella's recipe also calls for the meat to marinate for 36 hours, but in all honesty I have never been organised enough to achieve this! I have happily cooked these after 1-2 hours in the fridge, but obviously the longer the better.

Recipe

2 heads of garlic, cloves seperated but unpeeled
400mls oilve oil
Juice of 2 lemons
16 chicken wings

Method

Put the garlic gloves in cold water, bring to the boil and boil for 10 minutes. Then drain, push the cloves out of their skins into the processor and blitz. Then, with the motor running, pour the oil down the funnel till you have a milky-white gloop. Add the lemon juice and pour over the chicken wings, and leave covered in the fridge for 36 hours.
Take out of the fridge a good hour before cooking, and empty out into a roasting tin. Preheat the oven to 210oc/gas mark 7 then cook, basting occasionally, for 45 minutes (I also give an hour though) until the wings are very well done, crisp and burnished brown. Arrange on a serving plate and sprinkle generously with course sea salt.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Korean beef with avocado rice - Rachel's food for living by Rachel Allen

Firstly, please accept my apologies for not blogging for almost a month..I have found settling into my job quite exhausting and we have recently been house hunting, so pretty busy times here. Anyway, hopefully I can really make some progress over the next few weeks now that I am starting to get into a bit of a routine with my very early starts and long commute!
I watched Rachel Allen recently make this dish on her programme, I really like her style of cooking and she is very 'watchable' too..(her kitchen looks amazing by the way). So, having ensured all the ingredients were available in the kitchen, this meal took me about 20 minutes to prepare and cook. Rachel does suggest you marinade the beef for 1 to 2 hours if possible, but unless I was willing to get to grips with some sirloin at 06.00am, I just had to do without it! Well, a very easy dish to prepare, I decided to keep the quantities for 4 for just the two of us, and I am very glad I did, as I would have been very disappointed with just half the portion of this dish. The result was excellent, tangy, tender beef with a slightly char-grilled exterior and the addition of the avocado within the rice worked really well. The only change I made was omitting the olive oilt o the rice as Rachel suggests. In fact, I have left out her cooking method for rice as I just use my own tried and tested method. I will definitely keep this as a mid week dinner, nice a quick and given the ease of the dish, pretty good results.

Recipe

400g beef sirloin cut into 2cm dice
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp sesame seed oil
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp soft brown sugar
1 tbsp fish sauce
10 spring onions
Salt
200g long grain rice
2 avocados
Juice of 1/2 lime

method

Prepare the beef by mixing it with the crushed garlic, soy sauce, fish sauce, sesame seed oil, rice wine vinegar, and brown sugar. Place in a plastic bag or bowl and add the beef. Stir to mix, cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for 1-2 hours, if possible.

Cut the spring onions into 2cm lengths. Remove the beef from the marinade, but reserve the marinade for later. Thread the beef and spring onion pieces alternately onto damp wooden satay/kebab sticks.

Cook rice as personal preference. I rinse mine with cold water, and then cover with approx. 2cm water and bring to the boil. I then cover with a lid and remove from the heat without stiring. Leave the rice to steam for 10 minutes.

Whilst the rice is cooking heat up a grill pan until very hot. Add the beef and spring onion sticks, placed in a single layer on the very hot pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes each side. During the last minute, pour the reserved marinade in the pan and allow it to bubble and boil.

Peel avocados and chop the flesh into 1 cm chunks, squeeze over the lime juice and season with salt. When ready to serve, mix the avocado with the cooked rice and serve alongside the beef with wedges of lime on the side.