meat

Spicy Spanish Style Chicken

October 22, 2014 — Leave a comment

DSC_0730RECIPE_INFO1_0007Pure warming, hearty, comfort food – perfect for this time of year as the nights begin to draw in. Frying the chicken before roasting it helps to give it a nice crispy skin, and then cooking it in the sauce adds loads of lovely spicy, punchy flavour to the meat. I like to eat this with some simply cooked white rice and lots of crusty bread to mop up the delicious sauce. Easy to cook, nutritious, healthy, easy on the wallet and amazingly tasty – whats not to like!

Music I Cooked to:

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Ingredients

  • 2 red onions
  • 2 medium sized carrots
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • 3 Chicken thighs (bone in)
  • 3 Chicken legs
  • Tin butter beans
  • 200g smoked ham (cubed or chopped) – ideally for authenticity use Panceta Adobado (Spanish pancetta). You could use normal pancetta… if you do, it would be good to marinade it in red wine vinegar, smoked paprika and garlic for a couple of hours beforehand. Link to Spanish Panceta HERE. Waitrose do an easy version HERE.
  • 2 tbsp tomato puree
  • 1 tbsp Sun Dried Tomato paste
  • 2 tbsp chilli powder
  • 2 tbsp smoked paprika
  • Handful chopped parsley
  • Handful peas (fresh or frozen)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 100ml Chicken stock
  • 100ml Balsamic vinegar
  • 250ml red wine (spanish for extra authenticity)
  • Splash of red wine vinegar
  • 1 tsp sugar or honey

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Preparation Method:

  1. Finely dice and chop the onions, chilli, and garlic.
  2. Very finely slice the carrots
  3. Heat a frying pan with a tbsp of vegetable oil. At the same time pre-heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan.
  4. Fry the chicken pieces until they are nicely browned all over.
  5. Season the chicken with salt and pepper – cover with foil and set aside
  6. In the same pan fry the onion over a medium-high heat until they begin to brown.
  7. Add the carrots and fry for another 8 mins until the carrot begins to soften. Add a splash of red wine vinegar.
  8. Add the garlic and chilli and continue to fry for a further 5 mins.
  9. Add the red wine, balsamic vinegar and chicken stock. Turn down to a medium heat and cook for 5 mins
  10. Add the tomato puree, sun dried tomato paste, smoked paprika, chilli powder and stir in. Continue to reduce. You should end up with a thick sauce like consistency.
  11. Drain the butter beans and add to the sauce
  12. Add the chicken pieces to the sauce.
  13. Add the sugar. Simmer the whole mixture for a further 5 mins.
  14. Take the base mixture off the hob, cover with foil and place in the oven for around 30mins.
  15. After 25mins quickly fry the smoked ham in some oil for around 2mins
  16. After 30mins remove from the oven, take off the foil. Baste the chicken with the sauce, add the smoked ham to the pan and place back in the oven for another 10-15 mins until the chicken skin is nicely browned and crispy.
  17. For the last few minutes of cooking time place the peas into the pan
  18. Remove from the oven and sprinkle over the parsley
  19. To serve prepare some white rice, spoon the rice into a bowl and then place a piece of chicken meat with a generous helping of the rich, delicious sauce on top.

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The ULTI-BURGER!!!

September 16, 2014 — 2 Comments

DSC_0294RECIPE_INFO1Put together after many hours of painstaking minced meat based research, and packed full of mega flavour… this is the ultimate mother-frickin beef burger. That is all.

Music I Cooked to:

DSC_0261 Ingredients

  • 3 onions
  • 3 garlic cloves
  • 2lb good quality minced beef
  • 100g dried natural breadcrumbs
  • 2 tbsp mustard
  • 2 tbsp tomato puree
  • 1 tbsp Sun Dried Tomato paste
  • 2 free-range egg
  • 100g Brussels pate
  • 2 sprigs Thyme – chopped
  • handful fresh Chives
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 chopped chilli
  • 2 tbsp smoked paprika
  • 100ml beef stock
  • 250ml red wine
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • a few shakes Worcestershire sauce
  • a few shakes soy sauce
  • Cheddar cheese, pickled Jalapeño, fresh Tomato slices and Rocket leaves for garnish.

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Preparation Method:

  1. Finely dice and chop the onions, chilli, and garlic.
  2. Heat a frying pan with a tbsp of vegetable oil.
  3. Fry the onion over a medium-high heat until they begin to brown.
  4. Add the garlic and chilli and continue to fry for a further 5 mins.
  5. Add the red wine and beef stock. Turn down to a medium heat and reduce the mixture for around 15mins.
  6. Add the tomato puree, sun dried tomato paste, smoked paprika, mustard and stir in. You should end up with a thick sauce like consistency.
  7. Add the soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, sugar and finely chopped thyme and chives. Simmer the whole mixture for a further 5 mins.
  8. Take the base mixture off the heat and allow to completely cool for around 30-40 mins.
  9. Place the base mixture in a large mixing bowl and add the beef mince. Stir well with a wooden spoon before getting stuck in with your hands and giving it a good mix up.
  10. Add the eggs, bread crumbs and pate, mixing each ingredient in to the beef mince thoroughly.
  11. Season well with salt and pepper.
  12. Form the mix into 8 tightly packed patties.
  13. Heat a griddle pan on a high heat with a small amount of oil. At the same time pre-heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan.
  14. Fry each burger patty for 1 min each side until well browned with griddle lines.
  15. Place the patties onto a foil lined baking tray and place into the oven for 22 mins.
  16. For the last minute of cooking time place a slice of cheddar cheese onto each patty until melted.
  17. Remove from the oven. Set aside for 5 mins.
  18. To serve slice a good quality burger bun in half, place a patty in each and top with a slice of tomato, some rocket leaves and a few pickled Jalapeños.

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Hearty, Zesty, Rich Beef Ragù

July 14, 2014 — Leave a comment

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RECIPE_INFO_001So here it is by popular demand… well I say popular – two people asked for it, in fact probably just one person really, and I’m totally imagining the other. But anyway – here it is… my recipe for a frickin tasty, meat-tastic beef ragù. Be warned – it has to be slow cooked for at least a couple of hours minimum – so if your idea of effort in the kitchen is reaching for the HP sauce from the highest shelf in cupboard this may not be the recipe for you. Having said that its not a complicated recipe, and anyone with enough common sense to be around hot/pointy kitchen implements and utensils, without supervision, should have no problem getting brilliant results. Once its in the oven, it just needs checking every so often – leaving you free to find something suitably random to stick on Netflix for 3 hours – ‘Gangsters vs Zombies’ looks interesting. Anyway… back on track – a ragù is just a meat based sauce for pasta – thats it… nothing complicated, just a italian sounding meat stew really. This one, like many has a tomato and meat stock base, enhanced with a rich good quality red wine. Recipes do not come much easier than this and the BIG, deep, sumptuous, opulent flavours that come from the rich sauce and meltingly tender, slow cooked meat are just awesome – as with many recipes like this the effort to results ratio is pretty generous. The flavours come in amazing waves of complexity too – sweet, savoury, tangy, meaty… they just keep on coming. My girlfriend and I have been enjoying many bowls of this sitting on the sun on our little balcony recently – as this is the kind of dish thats perfect for cooking up a big batch and sticking in the fridge to heat up throughout the week. And just like all dishes of this kind – beef bourguignon, english stew or a meat paella – a couple of days in the fridge soaking up flavour just improves it. Its also perfect for cooking up in big batches if you have a load of mouths to feed as its so easy to do, and basically is classic one big pot cooking – I recently had to do this myself, cooking up two big patches for my girlfriend to take on a girls weekend away she was doing with some friends in a beach cabin – though I have to admit it probably didn’t taste as good as concentrating on cooking up one, amazing, fantastically layered and slow cooked batch of ragù on a lazy Saturday or Sunday and enjoying it in the evening sun with a good glass of wine.

Music I Cooked to:

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For the ragú

  • Light olive oil, for frying
  • 1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
  • 4 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
  • 3 sticks celery, finely diced
  • 6 Tomatos de-seeded and chopped
  • 1 chopped red chilli
  • 3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 750g beef cut suitable for slow cooking, chopped into 3cm/1in cubes e.g shoulder steaks
  • 200g pancetta
  • Jar of anchovies
  • Zest of an orange – grated
  • Zest and juice of 1 lemon – grated
  • 500ml Italian red wine
  • 600ml beef stock
  • 2 tbsp tomato purée
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar
  • 4 sprigs Lemon Thyme, leaves picked and roughly chopped
  • 4 sprigs Tarragon, leaves picked and roughly chopped

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Preparation method

  1. Preheat the oven to 160C/300F/Gas 2.
  2. Prep your veg – rough chop the carrots and celery, dice the onions and de-seed/chop the tomatoes.
  3. Add some oil to an ovenproof, heavy-based pan set over a high heat and add the beef pieces. Fry until the meat is golden-brown on all over – this may have to be done in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan.
  4. Remove the meat from the pan and set a side. Reduce to a medium heat and add the onion, carrot, celery.
  5. When the vegetables have softened, add the pancetta, chilli and garlic to the pan. Cook for about five minutes until much of the pancetta fat has melted and the vegetables have browned a little around the edges.
  6. Add the browned beef to the vegetables. Pour the red wine into the frying pan. Cook over a medium heat, scraping the bottom of the pan to deglaze it.
  7. Add the tomato purée and chopped tomatoes to the ragú and stir through. Cook for a couple of minutes stirring regularly to avoid burning
  8. Add the beef stock and bring to a simmer
  9. Add the grated citrus zest and stir through. If you like your ragù with a bit of a zesty kick like I do you can use the zest of 2 oranges instead of one
  10. Squeeze the juice from the lemon into the ragù
  11. Take 4-5 anchovies and finely chop. Add, then stir well.
  12. Add the chopped lemon thyme and stir through. Sprinkle in a tbsp of brown sugar
  13. Put the lid on the pan and place in the preheated oven for 2½ – 3 hours, or until the meat is meltingly tender and the liquid reduced to a lovely thick sauce like consistency. Check JUST once or twice in this time and stir to prevent the meat on the surface drying out. Top up with a very little extra beef stock and wine if you think its needed.
  14. To serve, place some fresh tagliatelle or pappardelle in a bowl and spoon over the ragù. Sprinkle over some chopped fresh tarragon.

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