Chicken Cacciatore

Hello again!

I'm back with yet another super-easy savoury dish. But don't worry, the lack of sugar on this blog will be seen to soon- we've got a guest-post from my brother coming next weekend (exciting stuff), and then it's going to be back to our line-up of cakes, cakes, cakes. And more cakes. Maybe a tart or two. Let's see how things go.

Today I'm blogging a ridiculously easy but delicious chicken cacciatore. There are a lot of recipes for chicken cacciatore going around, though from my research they all seem to include tomatoes and basil. 'Cacciatore' means 'hunter' in Italian, and as such, this is a rather simple, rustic dish. And I don't believe there is such a thing as a 'proper' recipe for what is traditionally a thrown-together braised dish.

So, this is my version of a chicken cacciatore.

Ingredients:
1 finely chopped onion
2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
A good handful of black olives
2 x 400g tins of good-quality chopped or cherry tomatoes
100g of mascarpone
6 skin-on chicken breasts or thighs (depending on your preference)
Fresh basil leaves
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar

First, preheat your oven to 170 degrees Celsius fan (or 190 degrees Celsius non-fan).

Fry off your onions and garlic in olive oil until softened and translucent. Add in your tomatoes and season with a touch of salt, a little sugar, and a quick glug of balsamic vinegar. I always add a bit of sugar and salt when using tinned tomatoes as I find that they can be a bit too acidic, so you need the sugar and salt to balance that out a bit more.

Let your tomato sauce simmer for about 15 or 20 minutes, until it has thickened and reduced a little. Take the pan off the heat and stir in your mascarpone. Now, grab your basil.

This is our basil plant. ...It didn't exactly look like this after I was done with it. Ooops. 

                                                             Poor guy never saw it coming...

Roughly tear up your basil leaves and stir them into the mixture, along with your olives. For your olives, pit them if necessary then roughly chop them up into chunks before tossing them into your sauce. Bear in mind that since the olives are quite salty, be careful when you're seasoning your sauce as it'll be saltier once you add in your olives.

Now fry your chicken on both sides until a light golden colour. Arrange your chicken in a baking dish and pour the sauce over them.

Bake in the oven for 30-45 minutes, depending on the thickness of your chicken. In the photos, I've used chicken quarters, which took about 45 minutes in my oven. When I've used smaller pieces of chicken, like skin-on breast pieces or keel, it's taken about 25-30 minutes, so just use your judgement. If you're unsure, your chicken is cooked when the juices run clear.

Serve over a helping of pasta, or mashed potatoes, or roast potatoes...whichever way you want them. Since there's lots of sauce, I do like having this with pasta or mash- yummy!

There, wasn't that easy? Enjoy!

Spinach Feta Falafels.

I know, I know... I've been bad again and it's been a while since I blogged. However, I'm making it up to you guys with a rather delicious chickpea falafel. I know, I know...can you believe I'm posting another savoury recipe? I can hardly believe it myself. I'm going to have to warn my dessert-loving readers that the blog might be a little short of sugar for the next couple of posts as I have a few savoury dishes that have been made and need to be blogged. If it helps, when I come back with your next hit of sugar, it'll be accompanied by photos taken by my snazzy new camera (which I love). But before we get to that, I need to finish up with a couple of as yet un-blogged savoury dishes.

Now, back to the falafel...

One of the best thing about these little guys is that they are so easy to make, and they freeze rather well. I managed to whip them up after work and made a huge batch to be split between dinner that night, with most to be kept aside for a vegetarian dinner party we were going to have a few days later. I made a quadruple batch of these, but will give you the quantities for a single batch since I'm assuming that not everyone is going to want to make 40-odd falafel bites in one go or have an extra pair of hands to help form them (I might have kidnapped my little sister for forming duty). They are surprisingly filling and make a rather delicious dinner stuffed into some pitta bread with a yoghurt sauce, if you want to feel a little virtuous.

Ingredients:
400g can of chickpeas
1 chopped garlic clove
1 tsp ground cumin powder
1/2 tsp of dried chilli powder or harissa paste
1 small onion, chopped
3 tbsp plain flour
110g spinach (I used frozen spinach)
65g feta

First, drain your chickpeas and pat them dry. I know that falafel can be made with fava beans, but I really love chickpeas and so decided to use them instead. Make sure that your chickpeas are really dry, as you don't want the end mixture to be too damp or sticky.

                                                                    What's not to love?

If using frozen spinach, just put it in a pan to defrost. Don't add any extra cooking liquid to it, just pop it in a pan over a medium-low heat and cover it until it begins to defrost. Give it a little stir every so often just to make sure that it doesn't start to stick to the pan, but it can pretty much sit there fairly unattended. Once defrosted, pop it into a colander and drain it well, getting as much of the excess moisture out of it as you can.

Next, grab your trusty food processor and give it a big ole hug. Pop your chickpeas, onion, garlic, spices, spinach and feta into the food processor and give it a blitz for a couple of seconds until combined. You don't want to blend it too smooth (which I'll shamefully admit I might have done as I was slightly careless in making this huge batch) as you still want a bit of bite and texture to it. If you're worried about taking it too far, it might be a good idea to separate some of the chickpeas and then add them, slightly crushed, back into your final mixture and just stir them in.

 

                         I'm aware that this is not the most attractive photo to ever grace the pages
                                of this blog, but take note of the texture. You're aiming for something like this. 

Taste the mixture for seasoning and if it needs it, add a pinch of salt. I found that even with the salt from the feta, it needed just the tiniest pinch to round out the flavours.

Next, get rolling. This can be a little bit of a messy process, but make sure you start with very dry hands and a plate of flour. Just liberally flour your palms and scoop the mixture into your hands to quickly shape them. These can be made into little balls if you're wanting a canape-sized bite or into little, flat patties. I did both, with the patties going into my pitta for dinner and the little balls being set aside for the dinner party.

                                         

At this point, you can lay them out on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and freeze them. Once frozen, they can be removed from the baking tray and put into a container that will take up less space in your freezer.

When ready to eat, you can choose several ways of cooking them (depending on how healthy you want to be or how long you have). I wanted a bit of crunch to them, so deep fried them in sunflower oil for approximately 7 minutes, until they were a golden colour. Alternatively, if shaped into patties, you can shallow-fry them in a pan with a couple of tablespoons of oil, for about 4 minutes on each side. And if you're not in any hurry and don't mind the lack of crunch, they can be cooked in the oven. Just add a bit of oil into a baking tray and just brush a little over the falafel patties too. Place into your oven at a high heat, about 200 degrees Celsius. Cook for about 30 minutes, turning them over halfway through the cooking time.

Serve in a warmed pitta bread and liberally dressed with some yoghurt sauce or salsa. I had them with a lemon, coriander and spring onion yoghurt dressing, made by the fair hands of my little sister. Yum.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms.

Apologies for the slight neglect of the blog of late. Work things pretty much took over my life for the past few weeks, and whenever I did get a free moment I was just feeling too lazy to sit down and write (I know, I know- poor excuses).

I come bearing a really simple little recipe for stuffed Portobello mushrooms. I know- I'm actually blogging something savoury... Who would have thought the day would come? Anyway, I served these as a side at a dinner party recently and they went down a treat with my guests. I think I probably should have made more, actually!



12 Portobello or large flat Field mushrooms (suitable for stuffing)
2 slices of wholemeal bread
1 clove of garlic
Flat-leaf parsley
Basil pesto
Grated cheese (I used parmesan, but mozzarella or cheddar would be good for a melty top)
Butter and oil for frying

Preheat your oven to 175 degrees Celsius (fan oven).

Pop your two slices of bread into the toaster. You need them to be dried out and with just a little colour on them.

Once your bread is toasted, chop or tear them up roughly into smaller pieces, then pop them into a food processor and give them a quick pulse. You want slightly chunky breadcrumbs, not a fine, powdery crumb.

Clean off your mushrooms and remove the stalks. Dice the stalks and put aside. Place your mushrooms flat on a lightly greased oven tray.

Cook off your garlic in a little butter and oil, until soft and cooked through, then add your mushroom stalks. Toss in your breadcrumbs and fry until they have become golden brown. Pop the breadcrumb and garlic mix into a bowl, then add your diced mushroom stalks and some pesto to taste. You need just enough for the mix to bind together. Season to taste then finely chop a little parsley and add that to the mixture.

Spoon the breadcrumb mixture onto your mushrooms and top with grated cheese. Place in the oven for about 25 minutes, until the mushrooms are cooked through and the cheese has turned golden.

Serve with a little bit of finely chopped parsley sprinkled over the top. Enjoy!

Photo courtesy of Jason Kang.

Caramel Apple Cinnamon Rolls

There are certain food combinations that will always, always remain a favourite of mine. Apples and cinnamon are just made to go together. I love cinnamon rolls and so, inspired by The Pioneer Woman, I decided to make a batch of caramel-apple cinnamon rolls. I used her cinnamon roll recipe, which you can find here, however I'll write up the ingredients list and method for those too lazy to go to another link. And I know there are some of you out there.

Just a word of warning to those of you thinking of attempting this... It's actually a very simple recipe. However, it does take a lot of time, so maybe save this for one of those days when you don't feel like going out or don't have much to do because this does require quite a lot of waiting around. So do what I did- save it for a day when there's a DVD/film you want to watch, so that you have something to entertain yourself with in between stages.

                                                These guys are made to go in cinnamon rolls.

Cinnamon roll ingredients (dough):
4 cups Whole Milk
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 cup Sugar
2 packages Active Dry Yeast, 0.25 Ounce Packets
8 cups (Plus 1 Cup Extra, Separated) All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon (heaping) Baking Powder
1 teaspoon (scant) Baking Soda
1 Tablespoon (heaping) Salt
Plenty Of Melted Butter
2 cups Sugar
Generous Sprinkling Of Cinnamon

Caramel Apple topping:
1 stick (about 200g) of unsalted butter
1 1/2 cup of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of cream
2 crisp apples (whatever your preference- I used Pink Ladies as they were what I had at hand)


 First, mix your milk, vegetable oil and 1 cup of sugar in a large pan and 'scald' it. Scalding means bringing it up until just before boiling. Once the mixture has reached scalding point, turn off the heat and leave it on the stove to cool- this should take about an hour. When your mixture has cooled down until it is lukewarm or warm (but not hot), sprinkle in your yeast and let it sit for a minute.

Then enlist a willing helper to sift in your 8 cups of flour so that you can take photos (see above), and stir the mixture. Cover the mix and let it rise for at least an hour.

While waiting for your dough to rise, start on your caramel topping. Melt your butter in a pan then add your brown sugar. Stir over a low heat until combined and sticky. Add your cream and let it boil for a minute, then take it off the heat. Peel and core your apples, then dice them up (as fine or chunky as you like).

After an hour, you should see that the dough has risen to almost double it's original size and has lots of lovely little air bubbles in it. Yum.

Then add in another cup of flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir it all together and carefully turn it out onto a well floured surface. Take half the dough and shape it into a rough rectangle. Roll the dough out thin, trying to maintain the rectangle shape as much as you can.

Drizzle about 1/2 cup to 1 cup of melted butter over your rectangle of dough, followed by about a cup of sugar and a generous sprinkle of cinnamon.

 

This is wonderfully non-diet friendly. Which makes it better.

Starting at the end opposite you, carefully roll the dough towards you. Try to keep the roll fairly tight, then pinch the seam of the dough to seal it. 

  

Grease a round foil tin or cake pan with melted butter, then pour in some of your caramel sauce (enough to coat the bottom). Sprinkle on some of your diced apples. Begin cutting the rolls so that they are about an inch thick, then start laying them in your prepared pans. Repeat the process with the remaining half of your dough. Let your rolls rise for about 20-30 minutes and preheat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Once you've let your rolls rise in the pan, bake them in your oven for 15-18 minutes, until they have cooked and are coloured/golden brown.

Let them sit in the pan for a little bit, before turning them out onto a plate. Try not to drool upon seeing the delicious layer of caramel and apple topping the rolls...

                                                         So bad, they're good for you. Yum.

Now, go feed some grateful relatives/neighbours/friends... The rolls are lovely warm, but if they need to be kept they are really easily warmed up in the oven. Just cover them with foil and pop them in a low oven for a few minutes until they feel warm and the caramel topping has loosened up again- just remember to keep them in the cake tins until you want to eat them. 

Enjoy!

Cranberry Oat Cookies

I'm usually a very organised person. In my group of friends I'm always the one in charge of making Christmas dinner, responsible for organising outings, acting as travel agent for our group holidays, and generally making sure that things happen. However, I've managed to forget to take photos of the baked cookies. This is obviously not because I was too busy stuffing my face with them as soon as they came out of the oven, because I definitely saved all of the triple batch that I made to take into the office the next day. Obviously. Ahem. Anyway, this post is somewhat lacking a picture of the 'final product', so you're just going to have to take my word that they were golden brown and delicious. So there.

                        If you squint a little and tilt your head to the left, these will look like baked cookies. Honest.

Remember, because these biscuits are very oaty and have 'fruit' in them, you can pretty much pretend that they are healthy. Kinda. I did receive a minor complaint from a colleague who found them a little too healthy-tasting, as he'd been hoping for chocolate chip. Oh well...

Cranberry Oat Cookies
175g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
100g porridge oats
150g caster sugar (or golden caster sugar if you can get it)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
140g butter, chopped
100g dried cranberries (unsweetened, if possible)
1 egg, beaten


Sift together your flour and baking powder, then add your oats, sugar and cinnamon to the bowl. Mix well using your hands. 

Add in your butter and rub it into the mixture using your fingertips, until it has been completely incorporated into the mixture. It should be the texture of crumble-topping.

Stir in your cranberries and your egg, then mix well using a wooden spoon until it all comes together into a ball of dough. Lightly flour your work surface then turn the dough out and roll into a sausage-shape, about an inch wide (depending on how large you want your cookies to be).

Once you've rolled the dough into a log, wrap it in cling-film and chill it in the fridge until solid. At this point, you could also freeze your cookie dough for later; it should keep for about a month.

When you want to bake the cookies, pre-heat your oven to 160 degrees Celsius (on a fan oven). Unwrap the cookie-log and slice into inch-thick discs. Arrange them on a lined baking tray.

Bake for about 15 minutes (add on a few more minutes if baking from frozen), until the cookies are golden. Leave them on the tray to harden for a minute or so before moving them onto a wire rack to cool.

The recipe is really easy to double/triple, so you could easily make a bigger batch and then pop a log in the freezer, ready for any 'emergency' situations where you might need cookies. Enjoy!

Easiest Dessert Ever.

This dessert is so incredibly easy that I feel as though I'm cheating by making it/blogging it. Of course, now that I'm writing about how easy it is to make, I won't actually be able to impress people with it anymore. Gone are the days of exclamations of amazement while I stand there blushing modestly and graciously saying, "Oh, it was nothing really", while actually thinking it was nothing. I have nothing to gain from this, so it seems. Remind me why I'm doing this? See the sacrifices I make for this blog?

Anyway, this is basically my take on a Roux brothers' tart from their book, 'The Roux Brothers on Patisserie', which is my pastry/dessert bible and I love to pieces. The fact that the pages are covered in scuff and butter grease-marks just shows that it is well loved. Really. In their book, my pastry idols call their dessert 'Tarte Chaude aux Deux Fruits' and serve it with a delicate sabayon. I call mine 'Crispy Apple Tart' and served it with (good quality) shop-bought vanilla ice-cream. Why, yes, I am sophistication incarnate. Hells yeah.

But seriously, this is a ridiculously easy dessert that can be whipped up in no time at all and does genuinely look rather pretty and tastes scrummy. It's a nice, light finish to a dinner party (which is needed after my last post, since that tart is quite the opposite) and seems to go down well. I actually served it at the same dinner party mentioned in my last post, and my dinner guests did enjoy it. This also meant that I was able to rope the lovely Jason into taking photos of the final product, so once again photos are thanks to him.

Crispy Apple Tart
200g of puff pastry. (You could make your own, use trimmings, or use good-quality frozen butter puff pastry. Whatever floats your boat. Roux brothers suggest you could even use pate brisee if you like)
500g of dessert apples, Cox if you can get your hands on them.
70g of unsalted butter
60g of caster sugar
The juice of 1 small lemon, or half a lemon if you don't want it to be too zesty
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 240 degree Celsius. If you're using frozen puff pastry, then use the instructions on the pack. Place your pastry on a baking sheet and prick the surface lightly with a fork.

Peel, halve and core your apples, then cut each half into thin, even slices. You don't want them to be paper thin or they'll be mushy once you sautee them, but you do want them to be thin.

Place your apple slices in a pan and saute them with the butter, lemon juice, cinnamon and sugar for about 2 minutes, until they havejust softened a bit. Remove the apples from the pan and keep them aside to cool. Keep reducing the remaining liquid until it has thickened just a bit to a light syrupy consistency. At this point, you could also flambe the syrup with Calvados (as the Roux brother suggest), or just leave it be.

Arrange your cooled apple slices on your prepared pastry in an overlapped pattern, depending on the shape of your pastry. If you've rolled your own pastry, roll it into a circle and arrange the apples in a rosette. I used frozen pastry, which came in a square, and so just arranged the apples in overlapping rows, which still looked nice.

Using a pastry brush, brush the reserved cooking syrup over the apples before placing into the oven. If you want a slightly crisper top, you could sprinkle a little caster sugar over the top but if you're planning to do so, you should probably reduce the amount of sugar that you cook the apples in.

Place the tart in your preheated oven and allow to cook for 10 minutes. Remove from the tart from the oven after 10 minutes and brush a little more of the syrupy glaze over the apples before returning the tart to the oven for a further 5 minutes. The tart is ready once your pastry has puffed and is crispy.

The tart is fine to be served straight from the oven with a good scoop of ice-cream on the side, or lukewarm. Ice-cream is a must, though.

Enjoy! And please, if you do make this, don't be a fool like me and tell people how easy it is- just let them think you've spent hours slaving away in the kitchen. Ah, sweet regret...

Bitter Chocolate Truffle Torte.

Two weekends ago I made dinner for some work friends for a belated birthday celebration. I'm always using said friends as (fairly willing) guinea pigs for whatever new recipes that might have caught my eye, but since it was meant to be a nice dinner party and I wanted to make sure I didn't accidentally poison them or serve them slop, I turned to a trusted source that has always helped me deliver drool-worthy desserts to the dinner table; Not So Humble Pie. Everything of Ms Humble's that I've tried to make has always turned out pretty perfectly, so I figured I couldn't go wrong with one of her recipes.

I've been eyeing up her Fresh Mint Truffle Tart for a while now, but decided against following the recipe to a tee as I know that some people (crazy people) are not too keen on the mint-chocolate combination. Personally, I think these people are nuts, but I decided to omit the mint flavour from my torte and just make a really bitter, chocolatey version instead. The recipe I'll post here is very much Ms Humble's recipe, but with the few minor edits that I made.

I was lucky enough to have a good friend take these gorgeous photographs for me at dinner (how I regret not insisting that he was there to document the baking process!). Thank you, Jason! 

Crust:
60g icing sugar
130g plain flour
25g good quality cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
113g cold unsalted butter

Filling:
300g dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids), chopped
177g semi-sweet chocolate (minimum 56% cocoa solids), chopped
290g double cream
2 tablespoons of unsalted butter

First, preheat your oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Grease an 11" tart tin with a removable base, then place it into the freezer. This isn't always necessary, but it makes a difference when you're making proper pastry (especially delicate ones like shortcrust pastry), or if you live in a hot, humid country (like I do).

Next, whip out your trusty old food processor. I have to admit, one of the things that really made this recipe appeal to me was just how easy to make the crust sounded. How easy, you ask? Well, this easy...

Pop all the dry ingredients for your crust into your food processor and give them a good pulse. Cut your cold butter into small pieces and add them to the food processor. Blend the mixture until it forms a fine crumb that just holds together when pinched between your fingers.

Pour the crumbs into the tart tin you prepared earlier, and press them down until they are firmly packed into the tin. Bake the crust for 15 minutes, then leave to cool completely.

Start on your filling while waiting for the crust to cool.

Put your cream in a saucepan and bring it up to a simmer. Take it off the heat and let it cool down just a little bit; while waiting, start chopping your chocolate. Once chopped, add the chocolate, warm cream and the butter to a heatproof bowl or small saucepan, which should then be placed over another saucepan of simmering water (a makeshift double-boiler, basically). Make sure your bowl is over the water and not in, as you don't want it to get too hot.

Stir the mixture until the chocolate has melted and the mixture has emulsified into a smooth, glossy ganache. Pour the ganache into your cooled crust, then place the whole tin into the refrigerator to set (which should take a few hours).

I decorated it with a sprinkling of cocoa over the top and served it at room temperature with a good dollop of vanilla ice-cream. It went down a treat with my guests and was a rather decadent end to dinner. 

Thanks to the lovely Ms Humble for allowing me to blog the recipe. Hopefully I'll have an excuse to try it again...but with mint next time.