Chicken Stew and Baked Rice

I've made two more recipes for Potluck Week at I Heart Cooking Clubs, with recipes from two of IHCC's past featured chefs, Jamie Oliver and Mark Bittman.

Jamie Oliver's Chicken Stew is delicious. Taken from his book Jamie's Food Revolution, he has given  the basic stew ingredients with four options to select from, with different meat and booze, to make four different stews. I've made Chicken Stew, using chicken thigh meat and white wine. I've followed everything in the recipe but I have used a fresh sprig of rosemary from the garden pot instead of fresh thyme and added an extra stalk of celery. This stew can either be cooked on the stove or in the oven. I cooked mine on the stove, for about 1 hour 15 minutes. It was easy and very flavourful.

Wanted to serve the stew with rice, I've made Mark Bittman's Simpler-Than-Pilaf Baked Rice, basmati rice cooked with cinnamon stick, cloves and cardamom pods. The spices are sauteed with a little butter and oil, then the rice is stirred in with some salt and pepper. Add the water, let it come to a boil, cover the pot and place it in the preheated oven to bake for 10 minutes. I actually baked the rice for 30 minutes, as I have always cooked my rice in the oven this way. Once the rice is done, leave it for 15 minutes, fluff with a pair of chopsticks. Since I've cooked the rice much earlier, I simply transferred the cooked fluffy rice to the rice cooker, switched on with the "Keep Warm" function. Rice will be kept fluffy and hot until serving time.

Jamie Oliver's Chicken Stew and Mark Bittman's Baked Rice.

We had the Chicken Stew and Baked Rice with Diana Henry's Slow-Cooked Garlic Courgettes for dinner. Delicious!

Chicken Stew
(adapted from Jamie's Food Revolution by Jamie Oliver)
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 pound diced, boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 cups white wine
2 stalks celery
2 medium onions
2 carrots
olive oil 1 heaped tablespoon all-purpose flour
1x14-ounce can of diced tomatoes
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

If using the oven to cook your stew, preheat it to 350F. Trim the ends of your celery and roughly chop the stalks. Peel the carrots, slice lengthways, and roughly chop.

Put a Dutch oven on a medium heat. Put all the vegetables and your chosen herb into the pan with 2 lugs of olive oil and fry for 10 minutes.

Add your meat and flour. Pour in the booze and canned tomatoes. Give it a good stir, then season with a teaspoon of sea salt (less if using table salt) and a few grinds of pepper.

Bring to a a  boil put the lid on, and either simmer slowly on your cooktop or cook in an oven for 1-1/2 hours. Remove the lid for the final half hour of simmering or cooking and add a splash of water if it looks a bit dry. When done, your meat should be tender and delicious. Remove any herb stalks before serving, and taste it to see if it needs a bit more salt and pepper.

Baked Rice
(adapted from How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman)
2 tablespoons butter or 1 tablespoon neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn
One 3-inch cinnamon stick
2 cloves
1 teaspoon cumin seeds or 5 white cardamom pods (optional)
1-1/2 cups long grain rice, preferable basmati
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oven to 350F. Put half the butter or all of the oil in an ovenproof pot with a lid over medium heat. When the butter is melted or the oil is hot, add the spices and cook for about a minute. Add the rice and some salt and pepper and cook, stirring for about a minute.

Add 2-1/2 cups water, bring to a boil, cover, put in the oven, and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the rice from the oven, but do not uncover; let it rest in a warm place for another 10 minutes. Remove the cinnamon and cloves (the cardamom pods are good to eat); taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary, stir in the remaining butter if you are using it, and serve immediately.

I'm linking this post with I Heart Cooking Clubs IHCC), theme for this week

October 2017 Potluck

and

 I'm linking this post with Cookbook Countdown #22 hosted by 

Kitchen Flavours and Emily's Cooking (Makan2) Foray

Hit 'N' Run Traybaked Chicken

It's our monthly featured chef week at I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC), and the featured chef is Jamie Oliver. I have six of his books and out of the hundreds of recipes, there's one chicken dish that I've been wanting to make for a long time. Hit 'N' Run Traybaked Chicken. Such a funny and interesting name for a dish. I like its name and the dish even better!

According to Jamie "Everyone needs a hit 'n' run  recipe like this - it's the kind of fallback meal you can enjoy when prep time isn't on your side. It's simply a case of putting together a combination of ingredients that really love each other, then just tearing, mixing, marinating and baking. It's super quick to prepare, and you're letting the oven do all the work". 

Yup, this is a super easy meal to prepare.  

The chicken thighs are very moist and tender, baked to a lovely golden brown. I've used cherry tomatoes instead of large tomatoes, and have used an additional tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, adding it in when I was basting the chicken during cooking . I tasted the lovely juices during basting, and felt that it needed a little more balsamic vinegar, adjust to taste. This delicious chicken meal is served with some green salad on the side. 

Hit N Run Traybaked Chicken
(adapted from "Save With Jamie", by Jamie Oliver)
serves 4
4 large ripe tomatoes
2 red onions
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
6 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
4 cloves of garlic
1/2 bunch of fresh thyme (15gm)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. Quarter the tomatoes and place them in a large baking dish or roasting tray (roughly 25cm x 30cm). Peel the onions and cut into large wedges, then deseed and roughly chop the peppers. Add all these to the tray along with the chicken thighs.

Squash the unpeeled garlic cloves with the back of your knife and add to the tray, then pick over the thyme leaves and sprinkle over the paprika. Add the oil, balsamic and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Toss everything together really well to coat, then spread across the tray, making sure the chicken isn't covered by the vegetables. Roast for around 1 hour, or until the chicken is golden and cooked through, turning and basting it a couple of times during cooking with the juices from the tray. Serve the traybake with a lovely green salad on the side. You could also buddy it up with a little rice, polenta or a loaf of crusty bread to mop up the juices.

I'm linking this post with I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC), theme for this week

Monthly Featured Chef : Jamie Oliver

Blue Cheese, Hazelnut and Apple Salad

"September 2015 Mystery Box Madness Challenge", this week's theme at I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC). Ten ingredients are given and we are to select at least three to make a dish from any of IHCC's past or present featured chefs.

The ten ingredients are Salmon (fresh, smoked, canned), Green Peas (dried, fresh, frozen or canned), Hazelnuts, Eggplant, Parmesan Cheese, Kale, Apples (any colour/kind), Blue Cheese, Rosemary, Bread Rolls/Buns.

My selected ingredients : Blue Cheese, Apples and Hazelnuts 

Selected IHCC's chef : Jamie Oliver

I've made Jamie Oliver's Blue Cheese, Hazelnut and Apple Salad. 

Simple, easy, quick and refreshing! This is the first time I'm trying Blue Cheese, and find that I like it! It is a little strong in taste, creamy with a distinctive smell. It is a little salty, so I've used  a small amount for a plateful of salad. 

I did not have any spinach but have used lettuce greens which I've sliced to shredded pieces. I've used two apples, red and green, to get a mixture of sweet and sour.  To assemble the salad, place the shredded lettuce on a serving plate, top with apple slices, crumble the blue cheese over, scatter the toasted hazelnuts, squeeze the juice of a lemon over and drizzle with some extra virgin olive oil. 

I like this salad! Sweet and sour from the apples, fresh lettuce greens, salty cheese and crispy toasted hazelnuts, with the lemon juice and olive oil, makes such a lovely combination! 

Blue Cheese, Hazelnut and Apple Salad
(adapted from "Jamie's 15 Minute Meals", Jamie Oliver)
50gm blanched hazelnuts
200gm baby spinach
1 apple
40gm blue cheese
juice of a lemon
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

Toast the almonds in a small frying pan until golden, tossing regularly. Put the spinach in a salad bowl, coarsely grated the apples over or slice to matchstick, then crumble over the blue cheese. Crush the toasted nuts in a pestle and mortar, then scatter over the salad. Drizzle the salad with extra virgin olive oil, and squeeze over the juice of lemon.

I'm linking this post with I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC), theme for this week

September 2015 Mystery Box Madness"

Vindaloo

"March Potluck", time for our monthly potluck week at I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC).  And for this week, I'm cooking with Jamie Oliver, with my selected dish, Vindaloo.

A word of warning from Jamie Oliver on this dish "this is a hot curry and not for the faint-hearted, but you can always remove the chile."  Removing the chili is a no-no for me, vindaloo is supposed to be hot and sour! Just like Jamie says, this is a HOT CURRY, at least for the faint-hearted, not me, not me!  hehe! 

Jamie has given the option of using Patak's Vindaloo paste or make your own by using his Vindaloo paste recipe. I have opted to make my own, which is much cheaper and very easy to make. Whole spices are toasted and process to a powder. They are then processed in a food processor along with the rest of the paste ingredients until the paste is smooth. 

I have cooked about a kilogram of pork meat, and have increased all the spices in the recipes by half. The recipe is meant to cook about 800gm of meat. And go easy on the balsamic vinegar, start with a lesser amount first. I 've used about 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar in total and the sourness is just right. From the recipe, the pork and the vindaloo paste are to be added to the pot at the same time, so I have marinated the pork meat with the vindaloo paste and keep in the refrigerator for about half an hour, then proceed with the instructions in the recipe.

I've used the amount of water stated in the recipe, which is 1-2/3 cups and there's no need for additional water at all during the braising, keep checking and stirring often to prevent the vindaloo from sticking to the pot. By the time the dish is done, the vindaloo has a fair amount of lovely thick gravy. 

We ate this with jasmine rice. How does the family rate? This is too spicy for hubby, he was sweating while eating the Pork Vindaloo with rice! And my son, he loves it, even though it is too hot for him too. He insists on eating this dish, with a big glass of water next to his plate. The daughter, tried a piece, as she was recovering from a cough. As for me, well, it is quite delicious, and since I'm a person who can take a fair amount of heat, this dish is not all that spicy, but moderately so. The spiciness comes mostly from the black pepper and the chillies, though I can feel that mostly the heat is from the black pepper. For a milder taste, reduce the amount for these two ingredients. There was some leftovers, and the next day, in spite of the spiciness, both son and hubby ask for it again! And it tastes much better the next day, as with most curries.

Update on our current weather, it rained heavily two days ago, and again yesterday! Which was a relief to everyone! The haze has significantly reduced and the weather is a little cooler. I got soaked when fetching my daughter yesterday, from the heavy downpour, but I don't mind! Let it rain! Much as we welcome the rain, most importantly, hopefully it rained at the water catchment areas and over at the dams, as the water level has reached a critical stage, and we are experiencing water rationing at the moment. Like today, in my area, we have dry taps which will last until tomorrow. No cooking or baking! :o(

Vindaloo
(adapted from "Jamie's Food Revolution", Jamie Oliver)
Serves 4-6
2 medium onions
4 cloves of garlic
1-2 fresh red or green chillies, to your taste
a thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger
a small bunch of fresh cilantro
4 ripe tomatoes
peanut or vegetable oil
a pat of butter
1-3/4 pounds diced pork shoulder, preferably free-range or organic
1/2 cup vindaloo or hot curry paste, such as Patak's or my vindaloo paste (refer below*)
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar (I used 1/4 cup)
1 tablespoon honey
1 cup natural yoghurt (for serving)
1 lemon (for serving)

To prepare your curry

Peel, halve, and finely slice your onions. Peel and finely slice the garlic. Finely slice the chile. Peel and finely slice the ginger. Pick the cilantro leaves and finely chop the stalks. Cut the tomatoes into quarters

To cook your curry

Get a large casserole-type pan on a medium to high heat and add a couple of lugs of peanut oil and the butter. Add the onions, garlic, chile, ginger, and cilantro stalks and cook for 10 minutes, until softened and golden. Add the pork and the curry paste. Stir well to coat everything with the paste and season with salt and pepper. Add the tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, honey and about 1-2/3 cups of water; enough to cover everything, and stir again. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 45 minutes with the lid on. Check the curry regularly to make sure it's not sticking to the pan, and add extra water if necessary. Only when the meat is tender and cooked, taste and season with salt and pepper - please season carefully. (Already spicy, there's no need to season with more pepper!)

To serve your curry

Serve with fluffy rice and with a few spoonfuls of natural yoghurt dolloped on top. Sprinkle over the cilantro leaves and serve with lemon wedges for squeezing over.

Vindaloo Paste
(adapted from "Jamie's Food Revolution", Jamie Oliver)
2 cloves garlic
a thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger
4 dried red chillies
1 tablespoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
3 tablespoons peanut oil
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 fresh red or green chillies
a small bunch of fresh cilantro

Spices for roasting :
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
4 whole cloves
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds

To make the vindaloo paste :

First peel the garlic and ginger. Put a frying pan on a medium to high heat and add the spices for toasting to the dry pan. Lightly toast them for a few minutes until golden brown and smelling delicious, then remove the pan from the heat. Add the toasted spices to a pestle and mortar and grind until fine, or put them into a food processor and whiz to a powder. Either way, when you've ground them, whiz the toasted spices in a food processor with the rest of the ingredients until you have a smooth paste.

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To view the potluck dishes that everyone has made, do visit I Heart Cooking Clubs (IHCC).

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I'm linking this post to Cook Like A Star, All-Stars Anniversary Party, hosted by Zoe of Bake For Happy Kids, Mich of Piece of Cake and Joyce of Kitchen Flavours.

(click on any of the hostess blog for further info and to link your posts)

All-Stars Anniversary Party featured chefs :  Ina Garten, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Curtis Stone, Ree Drummond, Bill Granger, Masterchefs, Martha Stewart, Delia Smith, Donna Hay

See you at the Party!

From 1st March to 30th April!

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Cook-Your-Books #10 hosted by Kitchen Flavours

Jamie's Tomato and Coriander Omelete

What's for lunch today? Jamie Oliver's Tomato and Coriander Omelete. Well, the original recipe uses basil leaves, and since I do not have any basil leaves (my plant died!! so sad!), but I do have a big bunch of coriander leaves which I bought from the market this morning, so I used that instead. What can I say when it comes to omelete, an absolute favourite in my house.  In fact, as I'm writing this post, my son is happily enjoying his meal right now.

Thinking of what to prepare for lunch can be a headache sometimes! Since I have some 2 packs of cherry tomatoes in my fridge, and a packet of cheddar cheese, JO's omelete is just perfect! No basil, no problem, just replace with coriander leaves instead.

I love cherry tomatoes, popped several into the mouth as I was cutting them. They are juicy and sweet and love the "burst!" when you bite into a whole tomato! The cherry tomatoes are stir-fried in a saucepan or skillet  for a minute with a little bit of  oil, Jamie uses a mixture of butter and oil, I omit the butter. Pour in the beaten eggs. And since the beaten eggs are already seasoned with salt and pepper, I omitted the salt in the tomatoes too. Cook until egg is set, but still slightly raw on the top, scatter some cheddar cheese and the coriander leaves over. Cook further for a short while till the eggs are set and the cheese melts, then slide the cooked omelete onto a serving plate.

There, a simple lunch of Tomato and Coriander Omelete, some cheese sausages, toasted bread and some greens is ready. This simple lunch puts a happy smile on my son's face.

That's not all.....

Cut a piece of the yummy omelete and place it on the toasted bread, spread with a generous serving of chimichurri (pesto), delicious! Post on the chimichurri coming up soon!

I'm linking this with "Cook Like A Star", an event organized by my baking buddy, Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids where the featured chef for this month of July, is Jamie Oliver. Head on over to Zoe's to see the delicious Jamie Oliver's yummies that everyone has made.

I'm sharing this too, with :
Recipe Box hosted by Bizzy Bakes


Tomato and Coriander Omelete
(Jamie's Food Revolution, by Jamie Oliver)
Serves 1
2-3 large eggs
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
a pat of butter
a small handful of grated Cheddar cheese
a handful of basil (or coriander leaves)
a handful of cherry tomatoes

Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl with a pinch of salt and pepper. Beat well with a fork.

Pick the leaves off 2 or 3 sprigs of fresh basil (or coriander leaves) and roughly tear them. Cut a handful of cherry tomatoes in half and add to a hot frying pan with a small pat of butter, a drizzle of olive oil, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Fry and toss around for about 1 minute, then turn the heat down to medium. Add your eggs and move the pan around to spread them out evenly. When the omelete begins to cook and firm up, but still has a little raw egg on top, sprinkle over the Cheddar and the basil leaves. Using a spatula, ease around the edges of the omelete. When it starts to turn golden brown underneath, remove the pan from the heat and slide the omelete on to a plate.

Jamie's Tomato Soup

"Cook Like A Star", an event organized by my baking buddy, Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids is a bi-monthly event where a celebrity chef will be featured for the whole month, and everyone is free to cook or bake from the chosen celebrity chef's recipes and join in the blog-hop fun! For this month of July, the featured chef is Jamie Oliver. I'm sure EVERYONE knows who Jamie Oliver is! 

Years ago when I first watched his cooking shows on TV, I find him a very "messy chef" LOL! There was one episode, when I watched him, opened his kitchen window, which is facing the busy street below, snipped off some herbs and straight into his cooking pot! He did not rinse them first, surely there must be some dust outside the kitchen window right above the busy street! And he mixes his minced meat with whatever ingredients or seasonings he added in, with his hands! And that's not all, he even toss a bowl of salad with his hands! At first, I was like, argh.... I would never use my hands to mix mince meat together! But then, he is Jamie Oliver, and that is his fuss-free style! And now, he is one of my favourite chefs today! *~*

To join the blog-hop fun, I've made Jamie's tomato soup. This is a lovely soup, but then it is not as creamy and thick as the soups that I've eaten from western restaurants. I think those restaurants must have added some thickener to the soup. And I guess that the quality of the tomatoes definitely plays the top role in making a thick and creamy soup. I did not use plum tomatoes, since the store near my place do not have them and even if I do find them, it is very costly, Roma Tomatoes costs about more than RM30/kg, our local tomatoes are priced at RM2.90/kg, see the difference? So I used our local ripe tomatoes instead. Our local tomatoes are not as fleshy as the plum tomatoes, in fact they contain more juice, so that makes the soup not as thick. 

Nevertheless, with lots of seasoning of salt and pepper, as advised by Jamie, this makes a lovely soup. I used my homemade chicken stock, the last batch! Argh... I hate it when I use my last batch of homemade stock, that means that I have to make a fresh batch, and I do not like making stock, it takes a few hours to cook, cool, divide into containers, label and store! But once that's done, it is a relief to know that I have ready made stock at hand whenever I need! OK , back to my soup, we had the tomato soup with my homemade Cheddar Cheese Bread which I toasted till crispy, which is wonderful with the soup. This recipe makes quite a lot, we had this again with toasted bread the next day for lunch, and my kids was looking forward to the leftovers! The soup gets a little thicker and tastier the next day too!

I'm submitting this to :

Cook Like A Star hosted by Bake For Happy Kids

I'm sharing this too with :
Cookbook Sundays hosted by Couscous & Consciousness
Recipe Box hosted by Bizzy Bakes

Tomato Soup
(adapted from "Jamie's Food Revolution" by Jamie Oliver)
Serves 6-8
2 carrots
2 celery stalks
2 medium onions
2 cloves of garlic
1-3/4 quarts chicken or vegetable broth
olive oil
2x14-ounce cans of plum tomatoes
6 large ripe tomatoes
a small bunch of fresh basil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

To make your soup :
Peel and roughly slice the carrots. Slice the celery. Peel and roughly chop the onions. Peel and slice the garlic.
Put the broth in a saucepan and heat until boiling.
Put a large saucepan on a medium heat and add 2 tablepsoons of olive oil. Add all your chopped and sliced ingredients and mix together with a wooden spoon. Cook for around 10 to 15 minutes with the lid askew, until the carrots have softened but are still holding their shape, and the onion is lightly golden.
Add the boiling broth to the pan with your canned and fresh whole tomatoes, including the green stalks that may still be attached to some of them (these give an amazing flavour-trust me!)
Give it a good stir and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes with the lid on. Meanwhile, pick your basil leaves.

To serve your soup :
Remove the pan from the heat. Season with salt and pepper and add the basil leaves. Using an immersion blender or liquidizer, pulse the soup until smooth. Season again before dividing between your serving bowls.

JO's Bacon and Mushroom Cream

I cooked this a couple of weeks ago when my daughter requested for some pasta with creamy sauce. This recipe, from "Jamie's Food Revolution" immediately came to mind as I have been meaning to make this for quite some time. A simple recipe which does not call for a long list of ingredients and quick to put together. Jamie uses Portebello mushrooms, but I used a mixture of fresh Shiitake mushrooms and Oyster mushrooms. 

Bacon makes everything tastes better! I sauteed the garlic and the bacon together, even though garlic is not used in the recipe, but I like the aroma of stir-fried garlic, especially with the bacon, smells even nicer! This recipe does not use any other liquid other than cream fraiche or heavy cream. But since I intend to have this together with pasta, I added in about 1-1/2 cups of homemade chicken stock and additional cream for gravy. It's all up to individual taste, I did not follow the measurements exactly, just taste and adjust as you cook.

These mushrooms would release a little of their own juices during cooking. 

A bowl of creamy Bacon and Mushroom Cream is good on its own. 

This would be lovely with some homemade crusty bread!

Bacon and Mushroom Cream with spaghetti. My kids enjoyed this for their afternoon lunch.

I'm sharing this with :

Cookbook Sundays hosted by Couscous & Consciousness

Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage

Bacon and Mushroom Cream
(adapted from "Jamie's Food Revolution" by Jamie Oliver)
olive oil
4 slices of smoked bacon, preferably free-range or organic
1/2 -1 fresh red chile, to your taste
1/2 pound portobello mushrooms
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
sea salt and freshly grated ground black pepper
1/3 cup creme fraiche or heavy cream
1-1/2 cup chicken stock (my addition)


Put a large pan on a medium heat and add a good lug of olive oil. 
Slice the bacon into small pieces and add to the pan.
Fry for a couple of minutes until golden  and crispy.
While the bacon is cooking, seed and finely slice the chile, thinly slice the mushroom, and pick the thyme leaves off the stalks.
Add the chile, mushrooms, and thyme leaves and continue to fry for a couple of minutes. 
Season carefully with salt and pepper.
Add the creme fraiche, bring the sauce to a boil, and let it bubble and simmer for a minute or so.
Serve  hot, to top a piece of fish, like skate, or with some roast chicken, or stir into hot cooked pasta.

Ina's Indonesian Ginger Chicken and Jamie's Broccoli Salad

Ina's Garden's June 16th Linky is featuring any chicken recipe of Ina's and I Heart Cooking Club, currently trending Jamie Oliver where the theme is Get Fresh With Jamie, Celebrating The Best of Early Summer Produce. Put these two themes together and I have a perfect dinner, or so I thought! I'm killing two birds with one stone! :)

For dinner a few nights ago, I made Ina's Indonesian Ginger Chicken and Jamie's Broccoli With Asian Dressing, to go with plain white rice.

Ina's Indonesian Ginger Chicken is really easy and simple to put together. This recipe requires an overnight marination, but I just marinated the chicken about 8  hours or so. There are only four ingredients for the marinade and I only made half the recipe. Baked it for about an hour and the chicken turns out moist and tender. My kids love it, they love anything with honey! But this is not for me. Even my hubby says it is OK but not that great either. I find that somehow it lacks, a certain ingredient, as all I can taste is just the sweetness of the honey. I did add on the ginger and soy sauce as I feel that the flavours does not come  through. I thought that by baking with the chicken, it would be tastier with the taste from the chicken, but even though the chicken itself is moist and tender, the marinade is just lacking of something. Sorry, Ina, this is just not for me! I did thought of adding in some Worstershire sauce and a dash of hot sauce, when I tasted the marinade, before I pour it over the chicken, but decided against it and go for the original instead.

Anyway, for those who would like to give this a try, here's the recipe which can also be found at Food Network's website. The reviews at Food Network are outstanding, and that is one reason enough for me to try this out. Maybe I did not do it right, but I don't think that I'll be making this again, even if I do, I'll go easy on the honey and add on another ingredient or two. 

I'm sharing this with 

Ina's Garden

Indonesian Ginger Chicken
(source from : Food Network, recipe courtesy from Ina Garten)
1 cup honey
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup minced garlic (8 to 12 cloves)
1/2 cup peeled and grated fresh ginger root
2 (3-1/2 pound) chickens, quartered, with backs removed

Cook the honey, soy sauce, garlic and ginger root in a small saucepan over low heat until the honey is melted. Arrange the chicken in 1 layer in a shallow baking pan, skin side down, and pour on the sauce. Cover the pan tightly with aluminium foil. Marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

Preheat the oven to 350 degree F.

Place the baking pan in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover the pan, turn the chicken skin side up, and raise the temperature to 375 degrees F. Continue baking for 30 minutes or until the juice run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh and sauce is a rich, dark brown.

(Halfway during marination, I turned chicken halfway, skin side up, and before baking, turn it back again, skin side down).

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Broccoli with Asian Dressing

Jamie uses broccoli and I add on the carrots as I only have a small head of broccoli. The Asian dressing is really nice, I did not add any sliced fresh onions, but I think that it would be really good and would be a lovely Asian touch!

I'm sharing this with 

I Heart Cooking Club, Get Fresh With Jamie

Broccoli with Asian Dressing
(adapted from "Jamie's Food Revolution" by Jamie Oliver)
Ingredients and instructions :
Serves 4-6
Get yourself around 1-1/4 pounds of broccoli or broccolini or broccoli rabe.
Heat your steamer pan or put a large pan of water on to boil.
Break the broccoli up into little pieces and slice up the stalks.
Place the broccoli in your steamer or in a colander placed over the pan of boiling water and cover with a tight-fitting lid or some aluminium foil. Steam for around 6 minutes, until the stalks are tender.
Meanwhile, make your dressing. Peel a thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger and a clove of garlic and grate into a bowl.
Halve, seed, and finely chop a fresh red or green chili and add to the bowl.
Stir in 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, and the juice from 1 lime. Drizzle in a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar.
Whisk the dressing together and have a taste. What you're looking for is a flavour balance between saltiness from the soy sauce, sweetness from the balsamic vinegar, acid from the lime, and heat from the chili.
When the broccoli is cooked, place it on a big serving platter. Mix up the dressing one last time before pouring it over. Absolute heaven!


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Jamie's Fish Pie

What's for lunch? Jamie Oliver's Fish Pie and Evolution Green Salad with Yoghurt Dressing. This is the first time I've tried baking a fish pie and eat one too! I did make Chicken Pie a number of times but not Fish Pie. This Fish Pie is so easy to put together! You'll be eating it in about less than 1-1/2 hours from the moment you start with the first instruction! 

How does it fare with the family? My son loves fish, I can cook it in any way, he will just eat it all up. So I know that it will be OK with him.  My daughter, on the other hand,  does not really like fish, unlike it is fried, and she was kind of disappointed that I'm 'involving' fish for lunch, and that it is not fish and chips (which happens to be her favourite meal when it comes to fish!)

I wasn't sure whether she would like this, so I made only half a recipe, since there are just the three of us. Surprise, surprise, she loves it! She even complimented me on being such a good cook! I've got to thank Jamie Oliver for that one!  LOL!  

This Fish Pie is delicious, the mashed potatoes are so good, I even ate a couple of spoonfuls before I spread it over the veggies and fish! Shh....! I served this Fish Pie with a really simple Jamie's Evolution Salad with Yoghurt Dressing, using my own Homemade Yoghurt.

I'm linking this lovely Fish Pie with
I Heart Cooking Club "Something's Fishy" - Jamie Oliver
Cookbook Sundays - Mom's Sunday Cafe (link will open on June 5th)

If you are like me, who loves to bake and cook from the many cookbooks that are on the bookshelves, I would like to invite you to link your yummies to Cookbook Sundays, hosted by the lovely Melynda of Mom's Sunday Cafe. Cookbook Sundays is a great blog hop that encourages us to make use of our cookbooks, which otherwise will be left collecting dust on the bookshelves! So get that cookbook of yours, and whip up something, or if you already have done so, simply link to Cookbook Sundays, it is alway nice to see other recipes being linked and you just might find something that you have been looking for, you never know! You can cook and bake from your cookbooks as much as you want, and just linked them up.  Cookbook Sundays will be open on the first Sunday of each month and the link will stay open for a week! You can even linked up any favourite recipes from your previous posts.  Hope to see you there!

Fish Pie
(adapted from "Jamie's Food Revolution" by Jamie Oliver)
According to Jamie "You can use whatever fish you like, making this as luxurious as you want it to be. If you like your fish pie to be creamy, feel free to add a few tablespoons of creme fraiche or heavy cream to the fish."
Serves 4-6
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2-1/4 pounds potatoes
1 carrot
2 celery stalks
6 ounces grated good Cheddar cheese
1 lemon
1/2 a fresh red or green chili
4 sprigs of fresh Italian parsley
10 ounces salmon fillet, skin off and bones removed
10 ounces finnan haddie or cod fillets, skin off and bones removed
1/4 pound large shrimp, raw, peeled
olive oil
optional : a good handful of spinach, chopped
optional : a couple of ripe tomatoes, quartered


To prepare your fish pie

Preheat the oven to 400F and bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. Peel the potatoes and cut into 3/4-inch chunks. Once the water is boiling, add your potatoes and cook for around 12 minutes, until soft (you can stick your knife into them to check). Meanwhile, get yourself a deep baking pan or earthenware dish and stand a box grater in it. Peel the carrot. Grate the celery, carrot and Cheddar on the coarse side of the grater. Use the fine side of the grater to grate the zest from the lemon. Finely grate or chop your chili. Finely chop the parsley leaves and stalks and add these to the pan.

To cook and serve your fish pie

Cut the salmon and finnan haddie or cod into bite-size chunks and add to the pan with the shrimp. Squeeze over the juice from the zested lemon (no seeds please!), drizzle with olive oil, and add a good pinch of salt and pepper. If you want to add any spinach or tomatoes, do it now. Mix everything together really well. By now your potatoes should be cooked, so drain them in a colander and return them to the pan. Drizzle with a couple of good lugs of olive oil and add a pinch of salt and pepper. Mash until nice and smooth, then spread evenly over the top of the fish and grated veggies. Place in the preheated oven for around 40 minutes, or until cooked through, crispy and golden on top. Serve piping hot with tomato ketchup, baked beans, steamed vegetables, or a lovely green salad.

(my notes : I did not use any prawns, and for the fish, I used snapper fillet)

Evolution Green Salad
(According to Jamie, you can either have this salad plain with just lettuce, or may add pancetta or smoked bacon, pine nuts and strips of Parmesan cheese. I just had mine plain with some sliced round onions, we love onions!)
1 butterhead lettuce, washed, dried and shred to pieces
Yoghurt dressing

Yoghurt Dressing
Put 1/3 cup of natural yoghurt, 2 tablespoons of white or red wine vinegar, and 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil into a jam jar with a pinch of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Put the lid on the jar and shake well.

Just drizzle over lettuce when it is time to serve.

Jamie's Spaghetti Bolognese, Thank You, Brenda!

Today's post is specially dedicated to the lovely Brenda of Brenda's Canadian Kitchen. Brenda had a giveaway over at her fabulous blog a few weeks ago and she has chosen three lucky winners. And I am happy beyond words that I'm one of the lucky winners! We got to choose between two books, either Rachael Ray's Look+Cook or Jamie's Food Revolution. Since I already have Look+Cook, I chose Jamie's Food Revolution.

Thank you, Brenda 

Jamie's Food Revolution arrived at my doorstep six days later! Wow, that was super quick! I was so excited and did not expect it to arrive so soon! Thank you, Brenda! I really, really love this book! There are lots of exciting and delicious recipes that are just waiting to be tried out. I was unable to make up my mind over which recipe to try out first, so I asked my son to choose, and he chose Spaghetti Bolognese. He has chosen a winner! This is so good and my kids have requested me to cook this again! 

Look at the delicious sauce. This recipe serves 4-6, and Jamie has suggested that even if you are cooking for two, make a full recipe and freeze the balance. Now that is a good idea. I'm gonna make another batch of this  to freeze for later, it will make a great after school lunch and good for days when I'm lazy to be in the kitchen for hours! 

I'm so grateful to Brenda for this fantastic book. I love Jamie's down to earth and casual style approach into making each recipe seems so easy. Reading this book is just like having Jamie telling you in the friendliest and most casual way of understanding the recipe. I have not tried any of Jamie's recipes except for a roast chicken ages ago, and definitely this won't be the last. He has this "Pass It On Pledge" movement where he encourages you to cook at least one recipe from each chapter and pass it on to at least two other people, and I think that is really nice. 

Every recipe comes with a picture and he has included step-by-step photographs for most recipes. Isn't that great! 

Yummy!

Give this a try, I'm sure that you will love it!

I'm sharing this with
Full Plate Thursday over at Miz Helen's Country Cottage
Recipe Swap Thursday over at Prairie Story
I Heart Cooking Clubs "Mad About Herbs - Jamie Oliver"

Bolognese Sauce
(adapted from "Jamie's Food Revolution" by Jamie Oliver)
Serves 4-6
2 slices of smoked bacon, preferably free-range or organic (I use about 8 medium pieces of streaky bacon)
2 medium onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 carrots
2 celery stalks
olive oil
2 heaped teaspoons dried oregano
1 pound good-quality ground beef, pork, or (even better!) a mixture of the two
2 x 14-ounce cans of diced tomatoes
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
a small bunch of fresh basil
4 ounces Parmesan cheese
1 pound dried spaghetti or penne


To make your sauce :

Finely slice the bacon. Peel and finely chop the onions, garlic, carrots, and celery - don't worry about technique, just chop away until fine.

Place a large casserole-type pan on a medium to high heat. Add 2 lugs of olive oil, your sliced bacon, and the oregano and cook and stir until the bacon is lightly golden. Add the vegetables to the pan and stir every 30 seconds for around 7 minutes or until softened and lightly colored.

Stir in the ground meat and the canned tomatoes. Fill one of the empty cans with water and add to the pan. Stir in a good pinch of salt and pepper.

Pick the basil leaves and place in the refrigerator for later. Finely chop the basil stalks and stir into the pan.

Bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer with the lid slightly askew for 1 hour; stirrring every now and then.

Take the lid off and cook for another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Keep an eye on the sauce as it cooks, and if you think it's starting to dry out, add a splash of water.

Remove the Bolognese sauce from the heat. Finely grate the Parmesan and stir half into the sauce.

Tear and stir in any larger basil leaves, keeping the smaller ones for sprinkling over before serving. Mix up, have a taste, and season with a little more salt and pepper if needed - congratulations! You now have a beautiful Bolognese sauce. At this stage you can allow it to cool, bag it up and freeze it, or eat it straightaway with the pasta below.

To cook your pasta and serve :

Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. Add your pasta and stir, following the package cooking times - don't let it cook any longer or it will become too soft - you want it to have a bit of bite. Saving a little of the cooking times, drain the pasta in a colander. Put the drained pasta back into the pan. Add half the Bolognese sauce to the cooked pasta and mix well, adding a little of the reserved cooking water to loosen. Divide between your plates and spoon the remaining sauce over the top. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle over the rest of the Parmesan, and scatter with the small basil leaves - bellissima!

"bellissima", in Italian, means beautiful! (I googled for the meaning  :)  )
Yes, indeed, this is a beautiful sauce!