Foooooood

Whole chicken comes in units of one. Affordable, and really nice roasted à la beer can. Feeds a family.

Problem comes when your family have all buggered off* and there’s just the two of you and the cats who in this case actually don’t eat chicken***.

And then the weather in Fish Hoek turned all cold and foggy and conducive to soup.

So… in a small pot (because there are only two of you, remember) boil about a litre of light stock if you have it (I didn’t****, this was a last-moment decision) or water + chicken stock powder. Add a double handful of whatever pasta is available (tagliatelle or shells would probably be best, I had penne), when it’s getting toothy add your leftover chicken (in this case a breast and a half) in bits. Mix 1/3 to 1/2 of a packet of mushroom soup powder with water to form a paste, stir that in, call it supper.

You can zhuzh it up with parsley or chives or spring onions or Worcestershire sauce if you feel the need.

(I found the inspiration here).

* Technical term**
** Someone said reading Pratchett as a kid completely ruined footnotes for them, because they assumed that footnotes had to be humorous.
*** Hills FTW.
**** I mean, of course I had. In the freezer. Frozen solid.

Assuming you have too much red curry and tamarind paste, this recipe is good.

I used drumsticks and thighs (2 ea), deboned towards the end of the cook.

Three tablespoons red curry paste is a bit excessive, as is a tablespoon of fish sauce (too salty). Add less, adjust up later if you feel the need.

This started off as Harissa beef and crispy potatoes* in a way reminiscent of Theseus’s ship.

Mince, potatoes, onions, check. But then I realised I also had carrots and butternut and then, minutes before the stores close, I realised I had no harissa paste.

So I scratched around the far back end of the ‘fridge, found some gochujang, harissa, tamarind, red curry paste, green curry paste, tahini… no harissa.

So I Made A Plan.

Black pot, some oil, start heating it up.

Add one large potato cubed, one large red onion sliced into 8, one large carrot diced, about as much cubed butternut as potato, salt, pepper, maybe some herbs. Fry that for maybe 20 minutes.

Crank the oven to 180 grill only, stick the black pot in there when it’s warm enough.

Meanwhile heat some more oil in a pan, fry 300-ish grams of mince, add 2 teaspoons gochujang and 1 teaspoon hoisin, add a tin of tomatoes, rinse the tin with water. Simmer that until it looks good, by now the veggies should be great.

Cover the veg with the mince, grill for another five minutes, allow to rest for maybe 15, add feta if you’re that way inclined, serve.

Now I have to find something to do with the tamarind, curry pastes, tahini…

* Which I make often (with baby potatoes normally — and it works well with game mince)

A couple of weeks a year, red bell peppers are plentyful and not ridiculously expensive.

This is a recipe for those weeks.

I made it with 700 grams of red peppers, about 400 grams red onions, and 1.5kg fresh tomatoes. I also snuck in two habanero chillies. For the rest, just follow the recipe. If you’re using fresh tomatoes, remove the skins with boiling water.

Blend and keep in the fridge or freeze.

The Fruit & Veg had a special on green bell peppers, so I bought too many. This… is not uncommon.

Looking for a way to use them, I found a recipe for white chicken chili which is pretty damn good. The recommended cooking times are a bit screwy though — it’s a 6-8 hour slow cooker dish which only takes 5+7+1+10 minutes on the stove? Nah-ah.

So what I did. Two chicken breasts, on the bone, cut into four pieces each. Black pot with some oil, fry until brown all over, maybe ten minutes. Remove from pot. Add some more oil, slowly fry celery, one onion, one large green pepper (all diced). Aim for 15 to 20 minutes. More if you have it. Add the four cloves of garlic, two teaspoons cumin, some chili flakes (which is what I had on hand) and maybe half a teaspoon red and another half black pepper.

Then I added some frozen chicken stock and a stock cube and one tin white beans, simmered the whole thing for maybe half an hour.

In the mean time, cook rice in the instant pot, 3/4 cup rice, one cup water, 2 minutes on high, open up, add a handful of frozen corn, close the lid and give it some time to percolate.

Fish out the chicken, shred it off the bones, stir back into the pot, serve.

All in all it took me maybe an hour and a half. I would suck in a quickfire challenge.

(And if you missed the important link above, here it is again. How to Cook Onions and How Recipes Lie.  Go read).

(Oh and I lied about the sex. Nothing to see here. Move right along).

Christmastime is gammon time, this time I tried a recipe, didn’t work that well, tried again, it worked well, made the second recipe again, it worked well again, so it’s a keeper.

The recipe that didn’t work well was Nigella’s Ham in Coca Cola. Way too sweet.

The recipe that works well is Nigella’s Ham in Coca Cola, but use apple juice, not Coke.

Also, like with turkeys, our gammons are smaller. Don’t miss the bit where Nigella says “an hour per kilo”, 2 1/2 hours = 2 1/2 kilos is a huge hunk of meat.

Also, Onion & Mustard Sauce.

This is kind of a weird recipe (to me, at least) but it works. It’s a bit like Miss Windsor’s, but without the “darlings”.

Stick 500ml (give or take) fruit mix (from Foodies), 250ml sugar, 5ml salt, 3 tablespoons butter, 250ml water and 5ml mixed spice in a pot and bring to the boil. Allow to cool before adding 1 large or two small eggs, beaten. Stir in 500ml cake flour and 5ml bicarb, or sommer use self-raising.

Spray your loaf tin, then line the bottom with baking paper. Pour the mix in the tin, stick it in the oven at 160C for half an hour and then 120C for another half an hour.

This stuff goes well with a bit of butter, and keeps for more than a week.

There are many recipes. This is my slow version.

Start with onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, and paprika. As a side for four people start with two onions, three large bell peppers or more smaller ones (use green, yellow and red if you can) and about six nice tomatoes (you can use tinned, or frozen* or a mix).

What works for me is (1) slice the onions really thin. Mandolin thin. I expect you can stick them through a food processor if that’s your thing. Then (2)  low and slow — 40 minutes to an hour at low heat in some left-over fat** until the onions are soft but still on the white side.

Off the stove, stir in two tablespoons of decent sweet paprika, then add the thinly sliced bell peppers and maybe some water and back on the stove for another half hour or more, until the peppers are soft.

Meanwhile chop the tomatoes and season. When you figure the peppers are soft enough, dump in the tomatoes and juice, and give it another  20 minutes. Stick a lid on it if it’s going dry.

This goes well with Pörkölt, but you can make it into a main meal too.

* You buy lots of tomatoes when they’re cheap and freeze them, right?

** You save the fat from pan-frying steaks or pork chops or chicken, right? Right?

Green beans being relatively cheap and quite plentyful at the moment.

The original recipe uses cooked chicken. I used four thighs. Season and fry in the black pot, remove. Fry a chopped onion and some garlic, then add your spices ( original recipe calls for Tandoori spice which is basically paprika, cumin, ginger, coriander and cardamom. I used five spice and added cumin and coriander) and some tomato paste.

Then a tin of chopped tomatoes, a stock cube, a tablespoon honey, and a handful of lentils. Add the chicken and enough water to cover.

Meanwhile boil your fresh green beans cut into 1cm lengths in water with lots of salt. Drain all the water, rinse with cold water.

Cook until the lentils are done, remove the chicken and remove the meat from the bones, stick the meat back in the pot, add the beans, and you’re done. Serve with rice.

So I looked in the fridge. We had carrots, cabbage, sandwich ham, and cream. Yea, with the kids out the house we have what they refer to as a “sauce fridge”.

And I felt like pasta.

Google to the rescue.

Boil some† spaghetti. Water, salt, ‘cmon you don’t need instructions for that.

Fry onions and cabbage (recipe calls for a head of cabbage, I have no idea how big a Napa cabbage is, I used about a third of a Cape Town cabbage). This takes longer than you might think. Pasta was al dente and I was still frying cabbage.

Add ham and more seasoning than the recipe calls for. Add the cream. Add the spaghetti. Add some reserved spaghetti water to make a sauce.

I didn’t have parmesan but I did have mozarella in the freezer.  I left the carrots for another day.

† Technical Term