Spicy Chicken with caramelised onion and cous cous

This began life in a recipe book far far away, as a fish dish.  But since half the family refuse to eat fish, and make gagging sounds when it's even suggested, I changed it to chicken, because who could resist caramelised onion and cous cous?

700 grams of chicken breast
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon of harissa paste
2 red onions
1 more tablespoon of olive oil
60 ml red wine vinegar
2 tsps of brown sugar
1 1/2 cups cous cous
mint
parsley
1 1/2 cups of chicken stock
cranberries
1 tin of chick peas


mix harissa and olive oil, let it marinate for an hour or so.
Make caramelised onion.  I did it in the thermomix, because onions make me cry.  These onions still made me cry, but I got mopped up while the thermo did the majority of the work, so it's a win for me.  I just can't cope with onions, the fumes kill me.  Every time.  I cut them with my eyes squeezed shut, but it's still not enough to stop the fumes from overwhelming me.  I'm pathetic.  So slice your onions thin, heat oil in the thermo on varoma for a minute, 2 minutes would be even better, but I only did 1.  Add onions and cook on varoma for 15 minutes reverse, speed 1.
Add red wine vinegar, cook for another 2 minutes on varoma same speed etc.  At this point I also added brown sugar, just a touch to sweeten the whole thing up, because what is the point of caramelised onions if they're not sweet?

Fry chicken

Chop up herbs.
Pour boiling stock over cous cous and add 1 tsp of extra harissa.  Cover for 5 minutes.
Separate with a fork, then toss through cranberries, herbs, chickpeas, and caramelised onionsand a splash of olive oil. 

Serve with chicken on top.

Yoghurt and Raspberry Cheesecake

I made this a couple different ways, the first was with dried blueberries, which are like sultanas or currants, but nicer (and heaps more expensive).  Then I made it with raspberries - frozen ones.  The raspberry version is my favourite.

200g malt biscuits
160g butter (I use salted, but unsalted would be fine, whatever your preference is)
300g thick Greek yoghurt
3 eggs
170g brown sugar
300g ricotta
2tbsp plain flour
raspberries, or other berry of your choice

Preheat oven to 160 degrees

Line a lamington tin with baking paper.

Blitz biscuits in the thermomix, 10 seconds at speed 8, then check.  Make them nice and fine.
Melt butter in microwave, then add to biscuits.  Give it a quick whizz, then press into prepared tin.  Refrigerate while you do the rest.

Give thermo a tidy up, you don't want biscuit crumbs in your cheesecake mix.

Combine eggs, yoghurt, ricotta, sugar and flour in thermo bowl.   Give it a quick blast, 5 seconds speed 6, then check, and do it again if it needs it.  It's a surprisingly wet mixture.  Pour over base, then scatter berries over the top.  I just put as many as I felt like on, and I felt like quite a lot.

Bake for 30 - 35 minutes until set and just a little bit golden around the edges.  Cool, then refrigerate.

This is before it was baked, but it gives you an idea of how I feel about raspberries :).

Herb and Lime Marinated Chicken

We had this on the BBQ and ate it with salad and potatoes. 

2 limes
2 tbsp olive oil
1 green chilli, finely chopped
handful of mint an coriander
700g chicken thighs

Grate lime zest into a bowl and add juice.  Add oil, chilli and herbs, then pop the chicken in and let it marinate for 4 hours.  More if you can.

Chargrill over medium high heat.

Serve with salad and baked potatoes.

I'll have to make this again so I can take a photo of it.  I keep forgetting to do that.

Satay Beef Wraps

These were easy, and everyone wanted to know why we hadn't ever had them before. 

600g beef strips
2 tbs ketjap manis
2 garlic cloves
1 red onion finely chopped
1/4 cup sunflower oil
1 long red chilli
1 lemongrass stalk
2/3 cup salted roast peanuts
2 tbsp lime juice
1/2 cup coconut milk
 2 lebanese cucumbers finely chopped
1 cup coriander
1/4 cup shredded coconut (toasted)
8 flat breads

Combine beef, 1 tbsp ketjap manis and half the garlic.  Cover and set aside
To make the satay sauce:
Chop onion in thermomix, 5 seconds, speed 8.  Scrape down, add 1 tbsp oil and cook on varoma for 5 minutes, speed 2.  Add chopped chilli, lemongrass and garlic.  Give it a whiz for 8 seconds on speed 8.  Cook at varoma for 3 minutes, speed 2.

Add peanuts to thermo, whiz them for 10 seconds, speed 8.  Add coconut milk and sugar, and cook for 10 minutes 100 degrees, speed 3.  It should reduce and thicken.  I actually finished this off on the stove, because the onion still tasted quite raw.  So  I put a longer cooking time in for the onion on this recipe.  If it still looks a bit watery, and tastes raw, the stove will fix this don't leave it too long though, or it will catch.

Cook beef in remaining oil in batches in a frypan.

Add 1 tbsp of satay sauce to the beef and cook a couple minutes.

Serve beef in wraps with cucumber, coriander, satay sauce and coconut.

We had it with corn, because that was what I had.

Yum.

Moroccan Tomato and Lentil soup

It's been raining for days on end, and even the offer of going out to lunch didn't appeal today.  I just wanted to stay inside and eat soup.  There was no tomato soup in the cupboard, so I had to make something, which wasn't my preferred option after a morning of baking.

This recipe is based on one in the Every Day Cookbook.

Ingredients

2 tins chopped tomatoes
100g red lentils
1 onion
 small knob of ginger
1 1/2 tablespoons of Moroccan spice
cup of water
1 tin of coconut milk
1 tsp of chicken stock powder


Chop onion and ginger for 3 seconds on speed 7.  Cook for 3 minutes on varoma at speed 2.  Add Moroccan spice and cook for 1 minute.
Add tomatoes, lentils, water, chicken stock, coconut milk and cook for 15 minutes at 90 degrees, speed 3.

I gave it a brief blitz at the end, not enough to make it smooth, I just wanted to break down the tomato chunks.  I served it with a spoon of sour cream, and the recipe says to add fresh coriander, which would be nice, but I didn't have any.

This was perfect for a rainy day lunch, serves 4.  I forgot to take a picture until I was half way through eating it, so forgive the smeary bowl.

Portuguese Tarts

I make these a lot, I make them in mini tart size, and man size.  We all love them, and it's a great way of using left over bits of eggs that I have from other things.  This morning I made raspberry friands, which used 4 egg whites.  So this time, I used the 4 left over yolks to make the custard.  They are pretty forgiving when it comes to messing around with quantities.  I wouldn't be using all egg whites and no yolks, but sometimes I will use 2 whole eggs, instead of 3 egg yolks.  I did put a wee bit more milk in this morning (about 20 grams).

Ingredients
For the custard -
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons of corn flour
1 tsp vanilla
400 mls of milk (you can also use a combination of milk and cream, but my cream was whiffy this morning, so it went in the bin instead of in the custard.
80 g of sugar (regular or caster, either is fine).

For the pastry - I used three sheets of puff pastry, and then did some cheese tarts with the left over bits.

Put all the custard ingredients into the thermomix, cook at 90 degrees for 8 minutes on speed 3.  It is absolutely fine to cook this on the stove, it's just that it's so super easy in the thermomix, I never bother anymore.  I like cooking, but I'm not really all about being hands on with processes like this.  I'm perfectly content for the thermo to be working on the custard while I move on to the next task.  And sometimes that task is to sit down and play Crossy Road for 8 minutes.

In the meantime, cut circles out of your pastry and push them into a medium sized muffin tin.  I use the pie top cutter from my pie maker.

When the pastry is done, apparently you should let it cool completely before spooning it into the pastry shells you've made.  I don't do this, it cools for maybe 5 minutes while I wash up, then into the pastry and into the oven.  This disregard for proper process usually works out fine for me.

Cook tarts for 20 - 25 minutes at 180 degrees.

Cool on a wire rack.  They come out of the oven all puffed up, then the pastry gently sinks back into the shell. 

Raspberry and Coconut Friands

I do like a friand, sweet, delicious cakies they are, so moist and nutty (by the way, knowing that people don't appreciate moist as a word, I ran it through the thesaurus, and my alternatives include dampish, muggy, steamy and sweaty, none of which works for a friand, so moist it is).  But I don't make them very often, because I forget how much I really do like them, but today, in my chocolate free house, I wanted to bake, so I had to stretch myself a bit, and I wanted to use the ground almonds I bought last week.  I found the following, but then changed it up a bit, because I can't help myself.

Ingredients

40 g almond meal
120g butter
80g sugar
75g SR flour
40g coconut, dessicated
4 egg whites
frozen raspberries, I didn't measure these, I just shoved a heap into the top of each friand before I baked it, probably 6 or 7 in each.

Melt butter (I did this in the thermo, 2 minutes at 90 degrees speed 2).

Add almonds, sugar, flour, coconut and egg whites, Combine for 30 seconds on the interval setting.  Or fold in gently if you're doing it by hand

Spoon mixture into 6 hole friand tin.  Mine almost filled the holes, and then rose just a little bit, no dramatic spills.

Press raspberries into the top of each one.  I love raspberries, so I did load them up pretty well.

Bake at 200 degrees for 25 minutes.  This might be just my oven though, I started checking them after 15 minutes, but they were a bit runny still.

Enjoy with a cup of coffee.  I am teaching kindergarten tomorrow, so I will save one for tomorrows recess, I may need it then.

Tagliatelle with pork, mushrooms and truffle oil

I went looking for this recipe yesterday, frantically searching through back copies of my cooking magazines, scanning the indexes, then reading them carefully with my finger trailing down the page, then finally reading each entry out loud, because I couldn't find it.  I'd cooked it fairly recently, I made it for our friends who had twins, because it freezes quite well, and because it isn't full of exotic and spicy ingredients, a good choice for people who have new twins and need the comfort of home cooking without the effort of making it themselves.    I thought I must be going slightly mad, because it had just vanished.  I finally located it by looking through the pages of the magazines, for some reason, it isn't in the recipe index, which is complete madness.  I figure if I put it in the blog, then at least I should be able to locate it again when I decide I need to make it again.

This is a recipe that is quick and delicious, two of my favourite things

Ingredients

20 g dried mushrooms - I used shitake, but porcini would be even better probably.
1/3 cup olive oil
1 onion
1 carrot
1 stick celery
40 g serrano ham
1 garlic clove
500g pork mince
1/2 cup red wine
400g tin chopped tomatos
70g tin tomato paste
1/2 cup basil leaves
truffle oil
parmesan

Soak the mushrooms in 1/2 cup of hot water, then chop finely.

Put carrot, celery, onion and garlic in thermo, chop at speed 5 for 5 seconds.  Scrape down, add 20 mls of olive oil, and cook on 100 degrees for 5 minutes, speed 1, reverse.

Add mince and cook for 8 minutes, speed 1 reverse at 100 degrees

Add red wine, tin tomatoes, tomato paste and basil leaves, cook for 8 minutes, speed 1 reverse, 100 degrees.

Serve over pasta of your choice.  Last night I used tagliatelle, but I have used bows or spirals.

Drizzle with truffle oil and top with parmesan

Chicken Pad Kee Mao

I'm rediscovering some old favourites at the moment, after quite a long time of not being particularly creative.  This was pretty yummy.

700g chicken breast fillets
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
2 tablespoons of peanut oil
3 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon of grated ginger
2 long red chillies, finely chopped
4 shallots finely chopped
a small head of broccoli, cut into pieces
125 grams baby corns, sliced lengthways
500g thick rice noodles
2 tbsp each soy sauce, oyster sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp brown sugar

Combine chicken and sesame oil, season with salt and pepper

Cook chicken in a wok in a tablespoon of peanut oil, until golden and then set aside

Add  garlic, ginger, chilli and shallots to pan and cook for 30 seconds, add broccoli and corn, and stir fry for a few minutes.

Cook rice noodles, then add to pan with chicken and vegetables.

Add the soy, oyster and fish sauces and sugar, 60 ml water and stir for a minute or so.

Serve topped with extra onion and chilli.