Chinese Style Chicken (or-anything-else-you-fancy) Curry Recipe

So, my last entry was some time ago, but hey, no time like the ending of the year to think about the future.

Getting ready to visit my mother-in-laws after Christmas, I was getting ready to perform my yearly ritual of cooking up leftover Turkey.  Having had a Turkey crown for two, the In Laws, had loads left.  I made two curries, a sweet and sour, the base of which was from a jar, I’m slightly ashamed to say, but I added additional spring onion, red peppers and pineapple chunks, soy, garlic and rice wine and the other – was my own work.  I had previously used a recipe from Jamie Oliver’s forum for the last few years but after searching high and low, it’s disappeared from the internet! On another foodie’s site, I hear that it was DELETED.  Why on earth would it be!?  But it was.  So I had to freestyle and remember what I’ve made in the previous years, and I have now a full proof recipe which I will keep here and will be readily available as and when!  And I hope you like it and can benefit too.

This is very typical of UK Chinese restaurant takeaway curries which normally use chicken as the meat and sometimes a scattering of prawns.

Feeds 4

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp cooking oil (I usually use cold-pressed rapeseed)
• 1 large WHITE onion (milder flavour than brown skinned), peeled & roughly chopped.
• Pinch of crushed, dried chilli (if you like it hotter, of course, add more)
• 1 garlic clove, peeled and finely sliced/crushed
• 2 heaped tsp of medium curry powder
• 1/2 tsp of ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp of ground tumeric
• 1 and a half Star Anise
• Leftover turkey about 1lb, in chunky pieces
• A splash of rice/Shaoxing wine (optional)
• 1 litre of organic chicken stock, hot. (I use a cube)
• 1 tbsp of soy/tamari sauce
• handful of frozen peas
• 2 tbsp of cornflour, mixed with 2 tbsp of water
• 1 x handful of fresh/defrosted prawns (optional)
• Salt to taste.

Method

Fry off the onion, on a medium heat till slightly softened, add garlic and crushed chilli and fry for a further 30 seconds.  Add all the spices, and stir vigorously.  Splash in the rice wine and allow to burn off.  Add cooked turkey and stir.  Cook for at least 2 more minutes over medium heat.  Then add the stock and soy sauce and bring to a consistent simmer. Then add frozen peas.  Then add half of the cornflour mixture until thickened.  If not thick enough add small amount of the remainder of the cornflour until desired thickness reached.  Taste and add salt if necessary or a little more soy sauce.

If you want to add defrosted or fresh prawns, this is the moment to add as will cook in less than 2 minutes.

If not using leftover turkey or other white meat, cook meat (chicken or beef)  first in some oil before adding onion.  If going completely veggie, add root veggies at the same time as the onion and allow to cook through in the stock.  If using less dense veggies like mange tout, broccoli, add at the same time as the stock and test so that they don’t go too soft.

Serve with Rice if desired.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linseed/Flaxseed wraps

Today I have been mainly making linseed/flaxseed (‘you say tomarto, I say tomAto’) wraps.  The first picture above shows the wrap a little on the crispy side but it did for lunch and my first attempt.

 Yay!

 Boo!  Ripped it as I put it into the pan.

 Another go.

 Pile o’wraps.

  Is bendy, si?

So, I’ll give you the recipe which I borrowed from this lovely lady from http://www.colorfulcanary.com and her very informative video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5UtbGQ9c6Y.  And then, I’ll give you my learnings and some may say, (not me, of course, I’m far too modest for that, improvements).

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups of golden flaxseed/linseed, ground (I ground them like my teacher, in a coffee mill which is an attachment to my liquidiser).  As this is an American recipe, I didn’t measure but used approximately 1.5 normal ceramic mugfuls.
• 1 tbsp oil into mixture and 1 tbsp oil for frying
• 0.5 tsp cumin seeds (optional)
• Water

Method

Grind the flaxseeds and put in a bowl.  Then, if you want to flavour with cumin seeds (I didn’t this time for this test as I was trying to get outta the house), fry the whole cumin seeds in cooking oil (I use olive) when fragrant.  Then pour all the hot oil and cumin seeds in the ground flax and stir for a few seconds.  Then add water bit by bit, stirring all the time, until you have a sticky (not waterlogged) messy ball.  Leave for 1 hour……

Get out some baking parchment/silicone mats  (or both as I did) and a rolling pin.  Divide your dough into 4 balls.  I placed a silicone mat on the rolling surface and put a sheet of baking paper on top and starting rolling on top of it until it was thin, lifting the paper periodically to remove the creases. Once finished, I cut off some odds and ends as I wanted it to fit into a frying pan.  Put a dollop of oil in the pan and let it heat up a bit.  Loosen the rough disc shape with a fish slice and, fold the outer edges in and lift it into the pan.  Once in the pan flip out the edges so that it is completely flat.  Frying both sides for about 30-45 seconds on each side.

Voila!

Learnings.  I didn’t add enough water initially, so I re-rolled the remaining balls of dough and added more water and left for about an hour again.  I didn’t use cornflour to dust but maybe I would a little bit next time, as even with the silicone mat, it did catch a little in the middle.

These can be used for wraps for lunches or I’m going use one like a chapati when I have an Indian next.  Yippee.

Rich avocado chocolate dessert

If your first reaction on reading, ‘avocado’ and ‘chocolate’ in the same meal has you turning in to Peter Kay and his “Garlic?!… Bread!?…Garlic bread??! routine, please bear with me as it really does work.  The rich texture of the avocado (they do need to be ripe) and their very mild taste, combined with cocoa is something of a revelation.  You have a lovely, soft gooey pudding thing going on.

I cobbled together this recipe from various sites and books.  However, it is pretty simple as:

Ingredients

• 2 avocados, the riper the better, stones removed.
• 2-3 tbsps 100% cocoa powder
• 3 tbsps coconut oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Using a food processor whizz all ingredients together.  As someone who’s trying to control my sweet tooth, it is at this point that you add your sweetener of choice in the amount you require, as it all depends how much sweetness you need, so I’m not going to give an exact direction but would advise against sugar and artificial sweeteners from a health perspective.

• Natural sweetener (to your taste)  I used approximately 1 tbsp coconut nectar (knocking around the larder) and 1 tsp maple syrup.  It tastes as sweet as 85% chocolate to me.  You could of course, use honey if you wish.

I’m also freezing about the same quantity again, so will report back on taste, texture and picture in due course as I’d love to have an easy chocolate ice cream at my disposal.

To explain the picture, I’ve just come back from Cornwall and visited ‘The Lost Gardens of Heligan’ and bought some seeds.  Here’s hoping next year is a bumper harvest in my tiny garden.

Perfect cold breakfast in the hot, hot summer.

I won’t bore you with the obvious, “hasn’t it been blimmin hot?” chat, but I have regularly indulged during the recent hot spell, in a tall glass (or two) of my ice-cold, Breakfast Oaty Smoothie.

Ingredients:

1 handful of oats
330ml approx milk/almond/coconut/hazelnut (well, I pour up to the 500ml line on the liquidiser measure on the side of the jug)
2 handfuls of frozen berries (I use blueberries and raspberries)
1 banana (the riper the better)
a few drops of vanilla extract
(sometimes I add a 1/2 tsp of cinammon too)

Put the oats and milk in first and then add all ingredients to a liquidiser, so that the oats can get a bit of a soaking initially.  When all in, whizz until reach desired consistency.  If too thick, add water or a little more milk.