Girls’ Night and Greek Fish Soup

Friday nights are the best, not only do they herald the start of the weekend, but they are also the usual nights when we organise dinners with my girl friends over at our place. I usually do feel somewhat stressed though, as it’s also meatless night and I am hard-pressed to keep the menu interesting and yet, easy to do.

After the last few dinners of a variation on Tuna Pasta, I decided on a fish stew instead. Fish was mullet (but I have done this successfully also with Bass), with prawns and squid. Carbs were Anchovy, Raisin and Pine Nut Pasta. Stew came out lovely, and it was honestly very easy to do, only thing I did wrong was to add too much water, turning it into more of a soup instead. Fresh seafood really does speak for itself. Delicious.

Ingredients

• 4 onions, roughly chopped
• 4 carrots, diced
• 4 sticks of celery, diced
• 1 head of garlic, chopped
• 5 medium potatoes, diced
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• approx. 700g fish fillets, cut into chunks
• approx 1kg tiger prawns, feelers cut off
• 2 medium squid, cut into rings
• 1 cup of white wine
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Good handful of parsley, roughly chopped
• small bunch of fresh dill, roughly chopped

1. Heat a good lug of olive oil in a large soup pot on medium heat. Add onions and celery, and a pinch of salt and cook till onions are translucent, approx. 5 mins. Add the garlic and cook for another 5-10mins till soft but not coloured. Stir in the carrots, potatoes and tomatoes and cook on low heat for another 10mins.

2. Deglaze the pan with the white wine, add the bay leaves and simmer on low heat for about 15mins.

3. Add stock, and bring to the boil. Season generously with pepper, lower heat to a slow simmer for at least another 15mins. (At this point, I turn the fire off if company is not yet present continue with the steps below 15 ins before serving.)

4. With the stock on high heat and boiling, add prawns, followed by fish and squid. It is done when fish is cooked through and flakes easily.

5. Add lemon juice and dill and season with salt and pepper to taste. Strew parsley on the top before serving hot immediately.

Enjoy with a generous side serving of hysterical laughter and general silliness.

A Coleslaw to try

Been looking for a good recipe, this one from a sweet spoonful looks promising:

Sam’s Coleslaw: A Rough Recipe

Serves: 6

• 1 head cabbage (green or purple)
• 2-3 green onion, chopped
• 1/2 bunch Italian parsley, chopped
• 1-2 tablespoons chopped chives (fresh or dried)
• 2 stalks celery, finely chopped
• 3  hard-boiled eggs, cooled and chopped
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise, plus more if you like
• salt + pepper, to taste
• 3 tablespoons (or more) poppy seeds

Directions:

Chop the cabbage as fine as you have patience for.

In a large bowl, combine the cabbage, green onion, parsley, celery and eggs. Toss to combine. Add the mustard and mayonnaise and stir together. Taste to see where it stands; add more mustard or mayonnaise if you wish. Season with salt and pepper. Finish with a generous dusting of poppy seeds and mix the whole thing together.

Store covered and refrigerated for up to 3 days.

Oxtail Stew

Per H’s request, adapted from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Oxtail Stew.

Ingredients

• 2kg oxtail (about 2 tails), cut into slices 4–5cm thick
• 2 tablespoons sunflower or groundnut oil
• 3 onions, sliced
• 1 bottle of red wine
• 2–3 cinnamon sticks
• 2 star anise
• 2 bay leaves
• ¼ teaspoon black peppercorns
• Thinly pared zest of 1 orange
• 750ml–1 litre vegetable stock
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

• Season the oxtail with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large, heavybased flameproof casserole and fry the meat over a medium-high heat in batches, so as not to overcrowd the pan, until browned on all sides. Remove the browned oxtail with a slotted spoon and set aside.
• Reduce the heat to low and gently cook the onions in the casserole for 15–20 minutes, until soft and translucent. Return the meat, raise the heat, then pour in the wine and let it bubble until slightly reduced. Add the cinnamon, star anise, bay leaves, peppercorns, orange zest and enough stock just to cover the meat.
• Bring to a slow simmer and cook very gently, partially covered, for about 3 hours (or more!), stirring occasionally and adding more stock as necessary to keep the oxtail moist. When it is ready, the meat should be falling off the bone. (You can also cook it in a low oven at 120°C/Gas Mark ½ with a lid on, if it’s more convenient.)

H liked it!I freaked out a little as I made this the day before and stored it in the fridge, when I took it out to reheat, the layer of congealed oil was unbelievable…so I spent a good amount of time scraping the oil off…that being said, it was real tasty and the spices gave it a nice edge, as did the orange peel, it made the stew much lighter on the palate!

Nice dish to tuck into during rainy season…

 

Beef Stew

It’s been raining everyday and the weather’s been quite cold. H must have felt it since he requested for a beef stew (not a stew kinda guy normally). This is adapted from Jamie Oliver’s recipe for beef stew, few tweaks to the ingredients since I just added/omitted what I had ready on-hand.

Ingredients

• olive oil
• a knob of butter
• 2 onions, peeled and chopped fine
• 800g/1¾lb stewing steak, cut into 5cm/2 inch pieces ( i added 2 rounds of oxtails)

• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

• flour, to dust
• 2 parsnips, peeled and quartered
• 4 carrots, peeled and halved
• 500g/1lb 2oz small potatoes
• 2 tablespoons tomato purée
• ½ a bottle of red wine
• 285ml vegetable stock

To dress:
• zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
• a handful of rosemary, leaves picked
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 160ºC/300ºF/gas 2.

2. Put a little oil and your knob of butter into an appropriately sized pot or casserole pan. Add your onion and bay leaves and fry for 3 or 4 minutes.

3. Toss the meat in a little seasoned flour, then add it to the pan with all the vegetables, the tomato purée, wine and stock, and gently stir together. Season generously with freshly ground black pepper and just a little salt.

4. Bring to the boil, place a lid on top, then cook in the preheated oven until the meat is tender. Sometimes this takes 3 hours, sometimes 4 – it depends on what cut of meat you’re using and how fresh it is. The only way to test is to mash up a piece of meat and if it falls apart easily it’s ready. Once it’s cooked, you can turn the oven down to about 110°C/225°F/gas ¼ and just hold it there until you’re ready to eat.

The best way to serve this is by ladling big spoonfuls into bowls, accompanied by a glass of French red wine and some really fresh, warmed bread. Mix the lemon zest, chopped rosemary and garlic together and sprinkle over the stew before eating.

I should have added more stock halfway through, the stew pretty much dried up. But it was very flavourful and H has requested for oxtail stew next!

Variation on a (Roast Chicken) Theme

Both H and I love Indian food. I prefer the Northern Indian style while H eats pretty much anything spicy. For a change, I decided to tweak our usual roast chicken dinner to give it a Indian twist. We ended up with tandoori roast chicken with spiced yogurt and onion dip, Biryani rice and Baingan Bharta which is a fabulous eggplant dish. It all turned out pretty well for a first time effort and I’m really encouraged by the results. Recipes adapted from BBC goodfood, I have made tweaks wherecertain ingredients were not available.

Tandoori Roast Chicken

Ingredients

1 Medium Chicken

For the Marinade:

• 200ml pot greek/natural yogurt
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• juice 1 lemon
  
• 1 tsp each hot chilli powder, turmeric, ground coriander, ground cumin, garam masala and ground cinnamon
• 6 garlic cloves, pounded to a paste with the ginger
• ½ finger-length piece ginger, pounded to a paste with the garlic

For Roasting the Chicken

• 2 large Red Onions, cut into thick rings
• 2 medium lemons

1. Combine ingredients for marinade well. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Celsius.

2. Make cuts on thighs and wings of chicken, rub marinade well all over the chicken and in the cavity as well as under the skin. Reserve any leftover marinade to make the sauce.

3. Place onions in a layer on a roasting tin. Place chicken on top of onions and into the oven, lower centre rack.

4. Once chicken is starting to brown (approximately 10mins), lower temperature to 200 degrees Celsius and turn the chicken over to start cooking the other side.  Cook for another 1hour and 15 minutes or so, depending on the size of the bird. Pop the lemon halves into the pan halfway through roasting.

5. Check that chicken is cooked and remove from the pan. Squeeze the juice of the cooked lemons over the roasted onions and tip into a blender together with the leftover marinade. Blend till fine and serve alongside.

Biryani Rice (Serves 8)

Ingredients

• 75g butter
• 3 large red onions, halved and sliced
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 6 cloves
  
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 500g basmati rice
• 900ml vegetable stock
• oil , for deep frying

1. Melt the butter in a large, wide pan and cook half the onions and all the garlic until soft and golden. Add the spices and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the basmati and stir until coated. Pour in the stock. Turn the heat down to a simmer then cover and cook for 10-15 minutes, or until all the stock has been absorbed and the rice is tender.
2. Meanwhile, heat a 2cm-layer of oil in a pan and deep-fry the remaining onions until crisp.

Baingan Bharta

Ingredients

• 3 medium-sized eggplants (roughly 500gms/ 1 pound)
• 2 tbsps vegetable/ sunflower/ canola cooking oil
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 medium-sized onions chopped fine
• 1 tbsp garlic paste or garlic chopped very fine
• 1″ piece of ginger grated fine
• 1 large red chilli
• 2 large tomatoes chopped fine
• 1/2 tsp coriander powder
• 1/2 tsp cumin powder
• 1/2 tsp garam masala

1. Roast eggplant in your oven till all the skin on the eggplant is charred and the inner flesh looks really soft.

2. Once the eggplant is roasted, allow to cool fully and then peel off and discard the charred skin. Once cool, coarsely mash and keep aside for later use.

3. Now set up a pan on medium heat and add the cooking oil. When hot, add the cumin seeds and cook till the spluttering stops.

4. Add the onions and fry till soft and translucent.

5. Add the garlic and the ginger and fry for 1 minute.

6. Add the tomato and all the powdered spices, including the garam masala. Stir well and cook for 3-5 minutes, stirring often to prevent the spice mix from sticking to the pan. Sprinkle a little water if needed.

7. Now add the eggplant and mix well. Cook another minute and turn off the heat.

Success! The chicken came out really well, very moist and tasty and the sauce on the side was really tasty with the rice.

Roast Chicken

Been a long time since I posted!

It’s been a wonderful 2 months with our sweet Sophie, quite a roller coaster but more ups than downs. Which is great. I think I’m coping alot better but of course this is helped alot by the fact that H has been spending quite a bit more time at home these 2 weeks and has been wonderfully supportive.

My country is seriously backward, paternity leave should be mandatory in any country that deems itself 1st world. It makes a world of difference to a new mother to have the help of someone loving and supportive and who better to share the joy of a new baby than the father?!

Anyhow. We’ve been bringing her out everyday and haunting the malls…she seems to get a better rest while on the move, but the idea was to have her home before 7pm so that we can bathe her and have her settled. Which is why it is becoming increasingly important that we have dinner at home, makes it much easier and less stressful all around.

So today we revisited a family favourite – Roast Chicken. I have done so many variants of this and I always get confused when asked what went into it. My method consists mostly of haphazardly dumping onions, garlic, lemons into the roasting pan and with a lightly seasoned chicken stuffed with whatever I have on hand – most often a couple of bay leaves and half a lemon.

The chicken today came out particularly well so I thought I’d log in the ingredients and method before I completely forgot again. So here goes:

Roast Chicken with Citrus Gravy

Ingredients:

• Medium Chicken
• 4pcs Russet Potatoes, scrubbed and pierced
• 1 Onion, halved
• 1 orange, halved
• 2 small lemons, halved
• 2 Bay leaves
• handful of pearl onions
• 4 stalks of celery
• olive oil and sea salt to season
• 1tbsp Peri Rub

Set oven to 250 degrees Celsius, centre rack.

Season chicken lightly with sea salt, pepper and peri rub and let stand for half hour. Stuff with Bay leaves and half a lemon.

Combine rest of ingredients in the roasting tin. Place roasting grill above the ingredients and place tin in oven.

Roast for 20 minutes till skin is crisp and turn the chicken over. Lower heat to 200 degrees Celsius and roast for another hour till juices run clear.

Remove chicken and roasted veg to a plate and let it stand for about 5 mins.

For the Gravy:

Place the roasting tin on a small flame and squeeze the juices from the baked lemon and oranges into the drippings. Add a good splash of brandy to deglaze the tin. Scrape stubborn bits and mash into the gravy. Season to taste and pour separately into a bowl to serve.

Yummy. I liked having the roasted onions sit in the gravy, and then scooped out and mashed into a bit of chicken. Citrusy goodness.