Category: cheese

Categories
avocado cheese food lettuce pumpkin seeds tortilla

pick and mix salad

tortilla and avocado salad

A curious blend of salads here, a hybrid of two of salad-loving Jamie Oliver’s recipes: the Mad Dog salad from Jamie’s America and cheese and onion salad from Jamie at Home. I love meals like this: every forkful brings new delights. Crunchy, chewy, fresh and wholesome. Go get some.

Pick and mix salad:

2 avocados, de-stoned and cut into pieces

A swig of pumpkin seed oil

A big bag of plain tortilla chips

100g cheddar, grated

Small handful of pumpkin seeds

Small handful of pine nuts

1 large romaine lettuce, torn into pieces

2 red onions, sliced

Extra virgin olive oil

White wine vinegar

200g feta, diced

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.
  2. Put the avocado on a baking tray and splash with pumpkin oil. Add a little salt and pepper and roast for 15 minutes.
  3. Scatter the tortillas in one layer on a baking sheet and toss over the cheddar, pumpkin seeds and pine nuts. After the avocados have had 10 minutes, pop this lot in the oven for the remaining 5 minutes.
  4. Cover the onion in white wine vinegar and a pinch of salt.
  5. Toss the feta and romaine together. Scrunch the onion up with your hand and add this to the lettuce mix. Dress all of it with oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.
  6. Scatter some tortillas on the bottom of a plate, add some salad and poke some pieces of avocado in there. Grab a final handful of tortillas, nuts and seeds, crush them a little with your hand and sprinkle over the salad.
Categories
cheese chicken coriander cumin food tortilla

chicken hawaij quesadillas

Cultures collide in one of my favourite sandwiches: the quesadilla. Hawaij is a Lebanese Jewish spice mix, with a lovely cardamom perfume kick. Wedged into some tortillas with cheese and chicken, I could eat this kind of thing all day.

Chicken hawaij quesadillas:

For the hawaij mix:

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon salt

Crushed seeds of 2 cardamom pods (discard pods)

2 chicken breasts, diced

4 flour tortillas

1 red onion, sliced

A couple of handfuls of grated cheese

Chopped coriander leaves

Creme fraiche and salsa to serve

  1. Mix all the hawaij ingredients together and marinate the chicken for at least an hour.
  2. Fry the onion in a pan for a minute, then add the chicken mixture. Continue to stir fry until the chicken is cooked through, then set to one side.
  3. Lay a tortilla out, sprinkle some cheese on it, add some chicken then top with more cheese and a blast of coriander. Sandwich another tortilla on top.
  4. In a dry pan fry the tortilla sandwich, pressing down to glue it together. Keep your nose peeled for burning smells, you want to catch it about a minute before this! Flip over and fry the other side.
  5. Cut into wedges and munch with a scoop each of creme fraiche and salsa, or guacamole if that’s your thing.
Categories
artichoke cheese food ham olives sandwich

muffuletta

muffuletta wedge

Gor blimey I luv a sarnie. And the Americans really know how to do it. This Scooby snack of a sandwich is a New Orleans specialty, supposed to be a big enormous circular loaf that lasts a working man all day. The olive mix is the base of this, the rest is essentially a deli in a bun. As you sink your teeth through the bread you get all sorts of wonderful flavours popping through, pickled veg, smoked cheese, salty ham, sweet tomato… a real treat. The recipe listed below is a suggestion, nothing more. Add or delete as your cupboard and deli provide.

I first saw this sandwich back in 1998, back on the inspiring and pornographic Nigel Slater’s Real Food, where calm Kiwi cook Peter Gordon pressed layer upon layer of ingredient on to this bap. I salivated over it at the time then promptly never made it. Fastforward 11 years, I finally get round to it. If you want to see it, as with much of Channel 4’s content, it can now be seen on Youtube.

Muffuletta:

1 large round loaf, about 30cm across (focaccia works well)

Mixed olives

Sundried tomatoes

Sliced fresh tomato

Sliced artichoke

Parsley, chopped

Spring onions, sliced

Pancetta, grilled

Gruyere cheese, thinly sliced

  1. Slice the loaf horizontally and drizzle olive oil on both sides.
  2. Layer the ingredients as generously as you can. Season the fresh tomatoes when you get there. It’s also a good idea to dribble a little extra oil near the top layers to allow the flavours to be drawn down.
  3. Put the lid back on, cover with clingfilm and press down with tins and other heavy things. Leave for a couple of hours if possible.
Categories
broccoli cauliflower cheese food garlic pasta roux

killer mac ‘n’ cheese

Jamie Oliver’s title, not mine. Yes it’s another recreation from Jamie’s America. I have a macaroni cheese recipe I’m pretty happy with so it would be interesting to see what this brought to it. You start with a roux, add sliced garlic, whisk in milk, add cheese and then add boiled pasta and tomatoes. For some reason tomatoes weren’t on the menu tonight so I bunged in broc and cauli instead. Breadcrumbs on top, then in the oven for half an hour.

The key differences to mine were to add sliced garlic to the roux. This did lend an interesting smoky note to it which I enjoyed, but I didn’t feel adding both cheddar and parmesan did much for it. If I was going to improve on it, some pancetta would be nice and chewy. This is still a work in progress.

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