Tuesday 21 February 2012

Chicken and Chorizo triangles

Now, I'm a girl who likes leftovers, and manys the day that I will deliberarely plan leftovers to make "tomorrows" meal as I find it economical both in money and often just as importantly TIME....  As there are just 2 in my household, when we have roast chicken, there are always leftovers - and if you strip the little birdie properly, a lot more than you can sometimes believe!  So I do love things I can make with little bits of chicken.  This recipe is inspired on a squash and feta triangle from Cooking with Pumkins and Squash by Brian Glover - a very fine book indeed if like me you like a good squash and it makes a fantastic party nibble.  So when we decided to throw a surprise 50th for a friend this week, and I had half a chicken going spare, I decided to adapt the veggie delight into something altogether more carniverous.


Chicken, Chorizo and Courgette Filo Triangles:

Left over chicken
Chorizo (cured not raw)
Small onion
Medium courgette
gherkins
rose harissa
honey
lemon
parsley
1 pack of filo
melted butter/olive oil

The measurements aren't precise - it all depends on how many triangles you want to make.  One pack of pastry will make 12 good sized parcels of 16 smaller ones.  My starting point was how much chicken I had left - I used the meat from 2 wings, one leg, the oysters and all the other "bits" under and around but no breast.  This yielded me about 6 tablespoons of chicken once cut into cubes (very small -  a little less than 1cm cubes).  I then added everything else to balance - about half the amount of onion, courgette and chorizo to chicken - all cubed to the same size.

Fry the chorizo to get it a little crispy and release the oil - remove with slotted spoon reserving the oil.  Add the onion and courgette and soften in the chorizo oil.  Add 1 teaspoon of harissa (or more if you prefer it with a kick) and a drizzle of honey.  Once the onion is softened and transluscent, remove from the heat and add the chicken and chorizo (you can do it in a bowl if you prefer, I was trying to reduce washing up!)  Add the zest of a lemon and a large handfull of chopped parsley, season and stir.  Add chopped gherkins (or capers) to taste - you want a bit of balance between the heat, the sweet and the sour which the pickles and lemons provide.

Leave to cool slightly while you prepare the filo.  Cut the sheets into 3 (or 4) equal strips from top to bottom on the longest length of the sheets.  I take them 3 at a time and leave the rest covered to avoid drying.   Brush half of each length with melted butter or olive oil (or I use a mix of the two).  On the non buttered half put a spoonful of the chicken mixture in a triangle as pictured below.  Getting a rough triangluar shaped pile is important as this is what creates the finished shape.





 All we need to do now is keep folding the triangles over each other so that all the open edges are eventually sealed in.  See the series of photos below as I photographed each stage to hopefully indicate where to fold it as its quite complicated to explain in writing.


Now all the edges are sealed, just fold them over again so the triangles are 2 layers thick all the way around.

Bake at 180 for 10 - 15 minutes until golden and crispy.  Eat hot or cold.  If like me you need to take them to a party, they can also be part cooked (just about 7 minutes until the pasty cooks enough to hold its shape) then open freeze.  They can then be reheated and the cooking process finished on party day.



Tuesday 14 February 2012

Chocolate and Caramel Cake

One of my close friends turned 50 today - and normally we don't celebrate her birthday with her on the day itself, what with it being that one day in the year we are "obliged" to be romantic with our other halves and all.  BUT this was a special birthday, and in a year that has been pretty tough for said friend so, we promptly all ditched our other halves on Valentines day and set off for a surprise "party" instead.  The friend thought she was just coming to another friend's house for tea and was totally flabbergasted when we were all hiding in the kitchen with this monster cake!



Cakes for my friends need to involve chocolate, but I wanted to add a different dimension so decided to go tripple layer with a yummy layer of caramel cake sandwiched with salted caramel cream between the two chocolate layers.  I did decide to cover the whole of that with whipped chocolate ganache - the result was probably the biggest cake I've ever made - tasted blumming lovely though ;-) There were 8 of us, and this is the most we could manage!



The caramel layer was a recipe I found on the delightful Pink Whisk's blog - Ruth's recipes are super to follow and work really wonderfully - well they would wouldn't they, her being the almost (and IMHO should have been) winner of GBBO Series 1.  I followed the cake recipe pretty much as is, but I did add the whole can of caramel as I wanted the flavour strong enough to stand up against my chocolate buttermilk cake.  If I give it another go I will definately make thinner layers!

Book Group Dinner - Angelsey Eggs

There was a slight slip in my plan for 2012 to record all the dinners - I forgot to photograph the January dish (epic fail, month one!)   However, we liked the dish so much, that I made it again the other night just for me and hubby so I photographed that one instead.  Call it cheating if you will, but at least we have something to show on the first of these posts rather than lost of text and little else....

As our egg hater wasn't coming to January's group, it seemed the perfect opportunity to make a dish I'd been wanting to make ever since I saw it on the Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Great Britain about 3 years ago - Angelsey Eggs.  However, as my hubby doesn't do cheese it wasn't a dish I could make for him so it had to wait for cheese and egg loving friends.  I do adapt dishes for him without cheese but it seemed a waste on this one, especially for a first outing, and I wanted to try it "properly" first.

I took the recipe from the book that went with the series, but it is currently on the BBC site with it being a BBC show too and you can find it here in full if you want it  http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/angleseyeggs_92117 but essentially it is mash potato with leeks in, with a layer of hard boiled eggs, covered with cheese sauce which is then topped with a mixture of cheese and breadcrumbs.  It's a proper rib sticking winter warmer so was perfect for the recent chilly weather.

I made a couple of adaptions to the bikers recipe - I softened my leeks in butter rather than boiled them and for speed (it was a school night after all) I cheated with a jar of supermarket 4 cheese pasta sauce mixed with cream for my cheese sauce (the cream was to help hubby get over the cheese factor), and whilst not authentic, it worked fine for me.  I did use Caerphilly along with cheddar in my topping though and am glad I did as I'd never had it before and it as, as it turns out, a rather marvellous cheese!

Here's my second cooking of it in pictures:

Leek and potato layer (this time using up leftovers from Sunday lunch - perfect Monday night quick dinner dish):

A layer of lovely free-range golden goodness:


A rich and creamy cheesy blanket (again cheats sauce and cream to make it not too strong for my hubby)


For book group I made a full on cheese version for us girls and a separate one for the hubby sans cheese.  This time we were sharing so I made the sauce weaker, and then added parsley to his "purely breadcrumb" topping to distinguish it for the cheesy side which was all mine!


Here's the golden baked version in all its glory.


Served with pork chops and broccoli - delicious and total comfort food.  Will certainly be a regular winter visitor at our table from now on.

Monday 13 February 2012

Book Group Dinner History

One of the things I've been meaning to do for ages, is to start cataloguing the food I cook so that when I cook something new and interesting I remember it, and can perhaps do it again and make it better rather than merely staring at DH and saying what was that thing I cooked that you really liked and getting the "which one" look in return!

As part of this process I am determined to record the meal I cook each month for what we laughably call at book group at my house each month.  Yes we pick a book each month and yes C & L pretty much read all of them, L2 reads most of them and me and S read them if we can be bothered when we have time, but really it's just an excuse to get together and eat food!  The way it works is that all the girls chuck in a fiver and I rustle up something for them.  We all met on a business course nearly 6 years ago and have been meeting at mine once a month ever since - there was talk of taking it in turns, but I like to cook, they like to be fed so keeping it at mine works all round.  What has happened though, in the most part, that except for special requests and our annual turkey dinner at Christmas (and yes, I cook a turkey AND all the trimmings, on a week night, after a full day at work and have it on the table by 8.30 pm), I have always given them something different - so that is well over 60 different meals.  Now if only I'd thought to keep a record of them from the beginning........

Well I didn't, cos I didn't blog then, I don't even think I'd heard of the concept of it back in 2006/2007, but we did start to discuss how they couldn't believe I kept coming up with new dishes all the time sometime around the middle of 2009, and thanks to great memories and the help of a few emails we managed to get a list together, which I am going to store here for historical purposes and then from now on will do a proper monthly post to record the meal and even the odd photo if I remember to have the camera to hand before the talking and eating begins and we all get carried away.....

So here's the historical headlines:

2011

January
 Chicken & ham / Mackerel, leek and fennel pies with potatoes and braised cabbage.
February
 Vegetarian meatball tagine (meatballs hybrid of falafel and spinach and cheese balls)
March
 Ham & leek /Squash and leek cannelloni with garlic bread and salad.
April
 Asparagus quiche with deconstructed Greek salad (so fussy eaters can pick what they like again!)
May
 Summer minestrone.  Rosemary salted caramel millionaires shortbread for dessert.
June
 No meeting.
July
 Courgette soup (Food Urchin's recipe)  Pan Bagnat.   Lemon buns and/or salted caramel pavlova for dessert (birthday treats)
August
 Cauliflower and chickpea curry with Gujarati aubergine fritters and Indian chicken goujons.
September
No meeting
October
 Shepperd's pie with rumbledethumps topping (meat and lentil and black bean versions)
November
 Squash risotto with crispy bacon topping (mushroom for the veggie)
December
  Christmas dinner - turkey and all the trimmings.  Veggie option was "individual" mushroom wellingtons.   Chocolate and salted caramel tart (guest provided)

2010  (one guest turned veggie in Jan 2010, 2 other guests are "fussy with vegetables" - book group dinners become slightly more challenging!!!)

January
 No meeting
February
 Prawn curry and matter paneer (Hairy Bikers recipe after seeing them live)  non fish eater not present
March
 Spinach and feta frittata
April
 Chilli and cornbread (both meat and veggie bean chilli made)
May
 Asparagus and pea risotto with poached egg/goats cheese for non egg eater who is not the veggie - told you they got more challenging!
June
 One of our group returned to Canada so this was her farewell dinner.  Lamb steaks with roast potatoes, cumin roast aubergines and courgette, and pea and broad bean salad.  Veggie option was a mini asparagus quiche with same sides.
July
 6 onion quiche, ham wrapped potatoes (plain ones for veggie) and salad.  Coffee toffee cupcakes.
August
 "Special" Birthday dinner request to repeat paella - made veggie version for all and had bowls with meat and fish so people could add what they liked and exclude what they didn't!  Chocolate and beetroot birthday cake.
September
 Haddock chowder (no bacon) with fresh bread (non fish eater not present)  Cake for dessert.
October
Massaman curry chicken and potato/prawn and potato with bok choi
November
Chicken (bean for veggie) Quisedillas with spicey vegetable soup.
December
 Christmas dinner - turkey and all the trimmings.  Veggie option was squash and feta and pine nut filo pie.
 Experimental mince pies (with nuts and limited dried fruit for non dried fruit eater!)

2009

January
No meeting
February
Chicken and squash tagine
March
Quiche (variety unknown)
April
Salmon (chicken for non fish eater) on mash with watercress and pea sauce
May
Mezze
June
Tuna and pasta bake
July
Courgette Soup, Courgette bruschetta and St Clements Tart (caramel disaster!)
August
Lamb burgers with onion rings and wedges
September
Paella - mixed meat and seafood
October
Spaghetti and meatballs
November
No meeting
December
Christmas dinner - turkey and all the trimmings.  Chocolate log (guest provided)

Let's see if we can do some proper recipes for 2012 onwards.....