Cheesy-chestnutty casserole dish

I recently received a wonderful gift of a huge block of cheddar cheese from a dear friend of mine, so I've been experimenting with recipes involving this delicacy. One of the things I came up with is a chicken, chesnut mushrooms and celery casserole with cheesy sauce, a recipe for which you can find below.

You'll need:
one chicken breast
celery
chestnut mushrooms
thyme
salt & pepper
2-3 spoons of flour
200ml of milk
50g of butter
100g of mature cheddar
chili powder or pepper cayenne
pasta brisée or puff pastry
oil for frying

1. Wash the celery and slice it. Fry on a hot pan. Transfer to a casserole dish.

2. Clean your mushrooms and cut into quarters. Fry on the same pan as the celery, ading some pepper for taste.Transfer to the casserole dish.

3. Cut the chicken into small pieces and fry with thyme and salt & pepper. again transfer to the casserole dish once ready.

4. On a separate pan prepare the cheesy sauce. Melt the butter, add flower and allow it to fry for a few seconds before adding milk. It is just like making a beshamel sauce, except for it needs to be a bit more runny than beshamel. Add the cheddar and stir the sauce on medium heat until the cheese melts. Add some chili powder to spice it up.

5. Transfer the sauce into the casserole and cover it with pastry.

6. Put in the oven preheated to around 175 degrees for 15-20 minutes, or until the pastry is ready, et voila!

Bon appétit!

Garlic and coriander naans

Naan is a type of flatbread, typically associated with Indian cuisine, but actually very widespread in many Asian cuisines. The name itself is of Persian origin. Traditionally prepared in a tandoor, but it can be done very easily and quickly at home in the oven. If you are a fan of curries, like I am, you should really learn how to make these.

You'll need:
300g of flour
1 spoon of baking powder (with soda bicarbonate)
a pinch of sugar
1 tea spoon of salt
1 egg
150ml of milk
1 spoon of sunflower oil
a bit of butter
3 cloves of garlic
fresh coriander leaves

1. Preaheat the oven to 280 degrees (or whatever is the maximum). Put a baking tray inside, so that it's hot as well.
2.  Break the egg and whisk it with milk and oil.
3. Mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar and add the egg and milk mixture. You can mix the whole thing manually or in a mixer if you want to speed things up.
4. Separate the dough into 3 parts and form flat bread.
5. Chop the garlic cloves and the coriander leaves and spread both on top of your flatbreads.
6. Put in the oven for around 3 minutes. Your naans will be ready once they start turning golden brown.
7. Once removed from the oven, spread some butter on top, et voila!
8. Serve warm. For brown spots effect (of the type you get when making naans in the tandoor) put your naans on a hot pan for 30 seconds.

Cravings are a dangerous thing

I'm a creature of cravings, everyone who knows me will confirm. As a result, my eating habits are incomprehensible to normal human beings. For example, I have recently eaten chocolate, brie and tripe soup all within 10 minutes, and (surprisingly) didn't feel sick afterwards. I have learnt long time ago that there is no point in ignoring my cravings. This will only prolong the suffering. Even if I decide to eat sth else I will still feel hungry. So today, despite the fact that I had completely different (and more sophisticated) dinner plans, I had no choice, but to succumb to a completely new craving for....mashed potatoes.

This in itelf doesn't sound very unusual, but the thing is that I'm not really a fan of potatoes (again most of the people who know me will confirm). I'm guessing that my general dislike of potatoes stems from the fact that they are taken for granted too easily, at least where I come from. They are usually treated as a necessary addition to nearly every dish in Poland. This obviously means that they are not getting the attention they need. Good mashed potatoes require care - and this is not limited to the issue of overcooking the potatoes.

Personally, I don't believe in potato purées based on milk. If you're obsessively counting your calories, don't  think about mashed potatoes in the first place!! At this point I must say that Julia Child was right: there can never be too much butter. On the other hand, I believe it that it is actually possible to overmash the potatoes, in the same way as it is possible to undermash them. There can be nothing worse than a potato purée with potato bits disrupting the smoothness of the experience.

Of course, mashed potatoes are not exactly a dinner course in themselves. Today I served mine with chicken drumsticks in reggae reggae sauce. Call me lazy, but sometimes it is actually possible to create very decent dishes out of half products. I recommend this recipe to anyone short of time for cooking. 

You'll need:
4 drumsticks
1/2 jar of reggae reggae sauce (available in nearly every store throughout hte UK)
3 tablespoons of oil
1/2 a glass of water
1/2 bouillon cube

Mix it all in the heatproof container, simply leave it in the oven set for around 200 degrees for more or less 40 minutes, et voilà! 

 Bon appétit!

Chicken puff pie

  

An English style dish with lemon freshness to it!

You'll need:

part of a chicken breast (around 100g maybe less)

6-7 medium size mashrooms (champignons de Paris)

10 black olives

sour cream

one lemon

puff pastry dough

oregano

salt & pepper

(these should be enough to make two mini pies like the ones above)

1. Pour hot water over the lemon and zest it.

2. Cut the chicken into small cubes and transfer into a pan. Squezze out juice from half a lemon onto it (remember to massage the lemon first, so that it gives out more juice ;)). Add some oil, salt and pepper and a generous dose of oregano. Fry and then transfer into the ramekins.

3. Peel the mashrooms and cut into small pieces. Fry with salt and oregano. Once they turn beautifully gold, transfer them into the ramekins.

4. Cut the olives into slices and add on top.

5. Pour some more lemon juice over the mixture.

6. Pour cream over it all. Add lemon zest on top.

7. Roll out some puff pastry and cut circles which have a radius about 1cm bigger than the radius of the ramekins. Cover the ramekins and cut holes in the pastry.

8. Spread some cream over th pastry if you want it to become golden after baking.
9. Put in the oven set for 200 degrees for 15-20 minutes. I recommend to put them on a tray as unfortunately, they sometimes leak, and it's always better to clean a tray rather than the whole oven.

e voila!

Bon appétit!

My ultimate comfort food

This simple dish proved to be my favourite dinner time food during uni. It was perfect whenever I felt down or thought I deserved a treat. I preferred (and I still do) it to any sophisticated food. Maybe it's just that I'm a person of simple tastes. As every proper comfort food it has loads of cheese in it.

You'll need:
1 chicken breast
loads of edam cheese
1 onion
fresh coriander leaves
tarragon (also known as 'dragon herb'. what a cool name for one of my favourite spices :))
Salt & pepper

It's best to prepare all of the ingredients first, as it has to be done very quickly once the pan is hot. So:

1. Chop the onions (advice on how best to deal with onions and garlic is forthcoming)
2. Chop the coriander
3. Grate the cheese. (I never use ready grated cheese as it dries up and looses taste even if well packed. It's really worth the effort to grate the cheese yourself)
4. Cut the chicken breast into thin slices.
5.  Sprinkle the chicken with tarragon and salt & pepper and fry using a generous dose of oil.

6. The moment it turns white on the edges, turn it to the other side.
7. right after you do it, add the onion and coriander on top of it.
8. Then, swiftly, add cheese and cover the pan.
9. When cheese melts, it's ready!

I usually use garlic sauce from Heinz to go with it and serve it with a basic salad:

Refreshing marinaded chicken

I came up with this new idea for chicken because I had some limes lying around in my kitchen (left over from Mohito making ;)). The outcome surpassed my expectations.

You'll need:
1 chicken breast
3 limes
fresh coriander
1 chili pepper
oil
salt and pepper

Cut the chicken breast into smaller pieces. Put them in a bowl. Finely chop the coriander and chili, add to the bowl. Splash one lime with boiled water, before zesting. Add the zest to the bowl. Squeeze 2 1/2 limes into the bowl.

TRICK: before cutting the limes into halves, 'massage' them by rolling them on the table. This way more juice will come out.

Add some oil and mix everything in the bowl. Leave it in the fridge for 24h (a few hours should be enough, but the longer you leave it to marinate the richer the taste will be).

Add some salt and pepper and transer the contents into a hot frying pan. Fry for 3-4 minutes. Cut the remaining lime half into slices and grill fry. Grill fried limes (or lemons) are surprisingly good. Serve with rice.

You should enough 'sauce' from the marinade to go with rice, but if not you can prepare some extra sauce:

You'll need:
juice from 1 lime,
4 spoons of olive oil
chili powder
finely chopped coriander

Mix it all together, et voilà!

Bon appétit!

Potato and squash chicken curry

 

This is not my original recipe. I found it on BBC website and made only small changes to it. I liked it so much that I made it three times in a row. You will need a deep frying pan or a non-stick, thick den pot for this one.

You'll need:

small butternut or coquina squash (I used the latter), cut into cubes

potatoes (amount more or less equal to squash), cut into cubes

chicken (original made with turkey), cut into small cubes

one onion, chopped

2 spoonfulls of sour cream

3 spoonfulls of natural yoghurt

lemon

buillion (I used a cube) (around 0,5l)

fresh coriander

ground coriander

garam masala

chilli powder

dried crushed chilli

one red chilli (optional, if you want to make it extra hot)

pepper cayenne

turmeric

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

3cm of ginger, finely chopped

salt and pepper

 

1. This time it might be advisable to prepare the ingredients first, there won't be enough time during cooking to do so.

2. First, start by frying the chicken on hot olive oil with pepper cayenne in it. Also add a pinch of salt and pepper.

3. Remove the chicken from the frying pan and start frying the onion. After around 2 minutes, add ginger, garlic, garam masala, chilli (in all forms), turmeric and ground coriander and fry for another minute being extra careful not to burn the spices as they will become bitter if you do.

4. Add squash and potatoes. Fry until potatoes become sticky.

5. Add buillion (around 0,5l) and boil until tender. You may start by adding just a glass and add more later if necessary. The important thing is not to add too much, you don't want to end up with a soup at the end (though the mixture will reduce itself quite a bit).

6. Once ready, add the chicken. Then proceed to add cream and yoghurt. You can regulate the level of spice by adding more cream/yoghurt. Don't forget to add fresh coriander leaves.

7. Once on a plate, add some freshly squeezed lemon juice. I know it seems counterintuitive to add lemon to a cream sauce, but it fits well here and really adds to the richness of the flavour.

Bon appétit!

Spinach ravioli with spicy oyster mushroom tomato sauce

A taste of Italy with a spicy twist. I still need to work on my ravioli-making skills, but even though they don't look so nice they tasted really good. Next time, I'll 'invest' in a proper ravioli cutter ;). I'm especially satisfied with the sauce, which I'm sure could be used for other pasta dishes as well.

Fun fact: a raviolo (singular form of ravioli) is possibly a Tuscan invention. First known mention of the dish comes from writings of a 14th century merchant living in Prato.

You'll need:
for ravioli dough:
     300g of flour
     2 eggs
     5 spoons of warm water
for ravioli filling:
     100g fresh spinach
     100g of ricotta
     freshly grated black pepper
the sauce:
     125ml of tomato passata
     125g of mascarpone
     100g of oyster mushrooms
     10 drops of tobasco sauce
     1 spoon of butter
     oregano
some parmigiano to serve on top

Pleurotus ostreatus (oyster mushrooms)

1. Start by mixing dough ingredients. Adding warm water is a trick used to make the dough softer. The major difference between ravioli and Polish pierogi is the addition of eggs. Eggs tend to make the dough harder, so ravioli need to be cooked longer than pierogi to achieve the same level of softness.

2. Remember to cover the dough with a cloth while preparing the filling and the sauce. It's actually a good idea to leave the dough to rest for a while - it's another technique used to make it softer.

3. Wash the spinach and cook on a dry pan under cover. Once it becomes soft, transfer onto a cutting board and chop. 

4. Put the spinach in a bowl and add ricotta and pepper. Your filling is ready.

5. Roll out the dough. You'll need two very thin layers of pasta dough. Use a tea spoon to add the filling on top of the first layer of pasta, leaving 2-3cm space in between. Cover with the second layer of pasta and stick the two layers together. Cut out squares with the filling in the middle.

6. Cook in boiling salted water for around 5 minutes.

7. Start preparing the sauce by frying the mushrooms (cut into small pieces) on melted butter. Then add the tomato passata, a few drops of tobasco and mascarpone. Allow the ingredients to mix over a medium heat. Add oregano.

8. Serve your ravioli warm together with the sauce and some parmigiano on top.

Bon appétit!

Goat cheese and pear quiche

Continuing on the theme of tarts and quiche, this time I propose a vegetarian goat cheese and pear quiche served on a bed of valeriana with a sour-sweet dressing which I think perfectly complements the delicate flavour of the quiche. A nice little starter to feed your appetite.

You'll need (for 8 mini quiche):

a packet of pasta brisée

3 eggs

100ml of cream

1 pear

50g of goat cheese

rosemary

pepper

valeriana

balsamic vinegar

orange flower honey

1. Roll out the dough and cut out circles of about 8cm diameter to fit a ramekin. Cover the ramekins with wax paper (or butter them) before fitting in the dough circles. Put another layer of waxed paper on top and cover it with beans or rice to prevent the dough from growing in the oven. Put in the oven set to 150 degrees for 10 minutes.

2. Peel the pear and cut into fine pieces. Fry with a minimum amount of oil until soft.

3. Similarly, cut the goat cheese into smaller pieces.

4. Mix the eggs with cream. Add rosemary and pepper for taste.

5. Remove the ramekins from the oven, remove the paper from the top. Add pear pieces and pour the eggs and cream mixture over them. Be careful not to over-pour the mixture above the edges of the pasty. Add pieces of cheese on top and put back in the oven for about 15 minutes.

6. Prepare the salad dressing by mixing balsamic vinegar and honey in a 1:1 proportion. Warm both ingredients in a pot until they combine. Cool down before serving.

7. Once the quiche are ready, carefully remove them from the ramekins and put on a bed of valeriana with the dressing, et voila!

Bon appétit!