Caramelised Apple

A tasty crêpe topping!

Ingredients:

1 granny smith apple

1 big tbsp demarara sugar

1 tsp butter

Method: 

My pans don’t often burn so I hardly use butter or oil when frying, but in this case it may help the process.

Cut the apple in half, core and finely slice – about 5mm thick if possible. Lay these in your pan, covering the bottom with one layer. This should use up all the apple. Add in the sugar and butter on top and let it melt and soak through.

When they’re brown and slightly sticky, you can remove them from the heat and arrange on a crêpe with some stiffly beaten cream, fold traditionally.

Yum.

How to make crêpes.

Raspberry Clafoutis

Traditionally a clafoutis is made with whole cherries, if made with other fruit it is called a flaugnarde. It comes from an area near east of Bordeaux called Limousin (yes, it vaguely has something to do with the word limousine). I ate a raspberry clafoutis in Carcassonne and decided to try my own one this week!

Ingredients:

1/4 cup full cream milk

3 tbsp melted (but not hot!) butter

1/2 cup cake wheat flour

3 large, free range eggs

1/4 cup brown sugar

250g fresh raspberries

Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated

Icing sugar for dusting 

Method:

Beat all the ingredients together, except for the berries (always remember that if you are adding melted butter to egg, there is the danger of the egg cooking if your butter is too hot - gross!). Once your batter is smooth, pour it into a 10cm diametered baking dish. I found that a 20cm dish made the clafoutis too thin and difficult to serve properly. 

Carefully spread your raspberries out into the batter – they will sink down while cooking.

Cook at 180’C for 30 minutes and rotate it in the oven half way through, if necessary.

Dust with the icing sugar immediately before serving otherwise it will disappear. I think it can be eaten warm or cold, but we liked it cold and with vanilla ice-cream!

For this culinary adventure, I Googled my way to this link. 

Mexican Salad

A matching side dish for the Mexican Roast Chicken. The salad contains beans, so it can also count as a starch. Although, if you are not convinced, use it as an excuse to get some Nachos and a can of Rhodes Mexican-style chopped tomatoes with green pepper and chillies as a salsa.

Ingredients:

20 olives (without pips)

A golden habanero chilli

20 baby tomatoes

3/4 tin of red kidney beans

A handful of fresh coriander

Half a cup of corn

An avocado peeled and cubed

Cottage cheese

Dressing:

2 tbsp. of lime juice

5 drops of tabasco sauce

2 tbsp. canola oil

Salt

Pepper

Method:

Chop the olives, tomatoes and coriander roughly.

If your avocado is ripe, the pieces can be quite big (3 x 3cm), but the habanero you should chop as finely as you can, taking care to wash your hands afterwards and not touch your face at all.

The beans and corn can be added whole after rinsing , if from a can.

Pour over the dressing and toss the salad.

Serve with a dollop of cottage cheese on top and a sprig of coriander for garnishing.

Variation: Squash was also a popular Aztec food, so cooked, chopped and cooled, it would make a good addition and bulk up the salad.

Mexican Roast Chicken

A fantastic twist to a Sunday roast lunch. Hmmmmm!

Ingredients:

1 chicken to roast (ours was 1,8kg)

3 green chillies

2 onions, peeled and halved

2 tbsp oil

A few cloves of garlic

Spice rub:

4 dry red chillies

2 tsp whole coriander

4 tsp whole cumin

1 tsp salt

Method:

Put your spices for the rub in a coffee bean grinder and grind up. You could use a pestle and mortar, but if you want finely milled spices use a spice mill or a coffee bean grinder (which is what we use and it works really well! But we only use it for spices, not coffee). The chillies won’t really flake with a pestle and mortar so you could use cayenne pepper instead if you don’t have a spice mill.

Baste your chicken with the oil all over  and sprinkle the ground powder over it. Position the garlic and onions around the chicken and the chillies on top. 

Put this into you oven heated to 180’C and cook for 2 hours.

When the juices run clear, the meat is cooked to the bone and the meat is flaky and almost falling apart, then you know that the chicken is cooked. Cut down the breast bone, pull of the drumsticks and serve.

Lamb Pilaf

For my husband's birthday I got him Anjum's New Kitchen. It was a great gift as since then we have made many delicious Indian recipes from there, dipping into our 'exotic' supply of spices from the Spice Emporium and introducing our taste-buds to new and fantastic flavours.


Yesterday I came home to a absolutely delicious Lamb Pilaf or Lucknowi Biryani.


What's unique about this dish is that the rice is cooked with the meat rather than separately, the latter I would assume is usually the case with rice-accompanying dishes.

Ingredients:
350g jasmine rice 
650g lamb neck
6 cloves of garlic
12g fresh, crushed ginger
1 tsp salt
1 big onion, chopped
10 cardamon pods (green)
1 tbsp black pepper
4 bay leaves 
4 pieces of cinnamon sticks
4 whole cloves
4 tsp canola oil
2 tsp cumin seeds
4 green thai chillies


Method:
Rinse the rice and soak it for 30 min.


Make a stock by putting the following ingredients into a large sauce-pan: 500ml water, the lamb, half the onion, garlic, ginger, salt, cardamom, black pepper, bay leaves, cinnamon and cloves. Simmer for 40 minutes or until the lamb is tender.


Take out the meat and place it in a separate bowl so that you can strain out the spices from the stock with a sieve. The stock shouldn't have any solids in now. Measure it and add enough water for it to reach 700ml.


Heat the oil in your saucepan and add the cumin. When the seeds start to make a sizzling sound, add the chillies and other half of the onion and cook until the onion is translucent. Add the lamb neck in again to brown (about 5 minutes). Your stock can now be added along with the drained rice that has been soaking.


Simmer with the lid on for 15 minutes. Turn the heat off and leave it to steam for a further 5 minutes.


Note: This version is slightly different to the one published in the book, just describes how we cooked it.