Category: cream cheese

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cardamom chicken chilli cream cheese food rice saffron

chicken biryani

quick chicken biryani

Give me a few minutes alone in someone’s company, and I’ll soon be asking them about their eating habits. A colleague, originally from Lahore, Pakistan was kind enough to give me a lift. We talked of food, of the curious Anglicisation of Indian cuisine and what he recognised of it. We discussed balti, dhal, obsession with gravy… and he mentioned that he’d never had biryani. A staple of his region, yet somehow it had passed him by.

I love biryani. Fairly often when left to my own devices I’ll make some spiced rice; to push it further in this version I added a chicken curry. It’s hilariously inauthentic, using cream cheese as the dairy ingredient but the tang you’d usually ascribe to yoghurt works great. Don’t be put off by the mountain of spices – it’s worth it.

This one’s for you, Waseem!

Chicken biryani (serves 2):

For the rice:

A pinch of saffron

3 pods green cardamom

1 cinnamon stick

100g white basmati rice

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

4 cloves

2 dried bay leaves

For the curry:

1 tablespoon garam masala

1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes

½ teaspoon turmeric

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 tomatoes, chopped

1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and minced

2 chicken breasts, diced

100g cream cheese

A fistful of roughly chopped coriander leaves

2 roasted red onions, chopped

  1. Cover the saffron with warm water and add a splash of oil to a pan with a lid over a high heat. Add the cardamom, cumin, cloves and bay leaves and stir-fry for 1 minute before adding the rice with a pinch of salt. After a further minute add 200ml water, the saffron and bring to the boil. Pop a lid on, turn the heat down low and leave for exactly 10 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile in another pan heat a little oil and add the garam masala, chilli, garlic, tomatoes, ginger and chicken. Stir fry and season with salt. When the chicken is coloured all over turn the heat down, add the cream cheese, a splash of water and pop a lid on.
  3. Whe the rice’s 10 minutes are up, turn the heat off and leave for a further 10 minutes. Don’t remove the lid!
  4. When the chicken is cooked through add the onions and stir thoroughly. Check for seasoning. When the rice is ready grind over a little pepper and garnish with the coriander. Serve the rice with the curry on top.
Categories
cake cream cheese food

cheesecake rescue pots

I’ve made New York-style cheesecake a bunch of times; I love the dense creaminess and sheer indulgence of it all. A friend of mine said she has inexplicably never eaten it before so I invited her over to have some.

I should’ve spotted disaster was on the horizon: I couldn’t find my usual faithful recipe so guesstimated the ingredients in my head and then looked for another recipe which was probably a mistake. I dug up one from Marcus Wareing, had to scale down quantities, didn’t quite have everything… the omens were not good.

Lo and behold 15 minutes into baking I peered into the oven and it was leaking everywhere. After a little swearing I tried to figure out what to do: I scooped the remaining slop into ramekins, biscuit mingling with batter. I didn’t really have many other options. So I just left them to bake.

And they turned out fine! The flavour was all there, the difference was there wasn’t biscuity base at the bottom but chunks in the mix like croutons in soup. If anything Mrs Spud preferred it this way; biscuit bases being her least favourite thing of many cakes. There wasn’t quite as much of it as I wanted to but there was enough to enjoy for pudding.

I’ll describe it as if you were trying to avoid my mishap yet aim for my final result 🙂

Cheesecake rescue pots (serves 4 after you’ve scraped what you can into ramekins):

30g melted butter

70g malted milk biscuits, crushed

250g cream cheese

100g caster sugar

3 tablespoons double cream

15g cornflour

2 eggs, beaten

  1. Heat the oven to 100°C. Mix the butter and biscuits together, compact a bit and put to one side.
  2. Mix all the other ingredients together until thoroughly combined. Stir through the biscuity mix until distributed.
  3. Spoon into ramekins and put into a high-sided baking tray. Pour in boiling water up to half-way on the ramekins and bake for 45 mins or until just set. Remove from the water and allow to cool to room temperature.
Categories
cream cheese jelly lemon yoghurt

lemon yoghurt cheesecake

[There is supposed to be a photo here, but once I’d seen it I couldn’t inflict it on your poor eyes. It was an awful abomination unto lenses. It did however taste great.]

The lovely people at Frank PR sent me some Onken Sicilian Lemon Yoghurt to try. Trying it neat it’s has a wicked tang, properly lemony. Really nice texture too that coats the tongue. But I couldn’t leave it at that, I thought it would taste perfect in a cheesecake. The version I’ve made has a jelly topping which is completely optional but just gives it one more tart edge. Zestilicious!

Lemon yoghurt cheesecake (makes about 8 servings):

200g shortbread biscuits

25g butter

1 450g pot Onken Sicilian Lemon yoghurt

300g cream cheese

1 tablespoon icing sugar

Juice of 2 lemons

1 gelatine leaf

50g caster sugar

  1. Bash the shortbread to dust and melt the butter. Combine to form a sticky paste and put it in the bottom of a pie dish. Bung in the fridge while you carry on.
  2. Combine the icing sugar and cream cheese and beat in the yoghurt until smooth. Put this on top of the biscuit base and return to the fridge.
  3. Snip the gelatine into bits and soak in the lemon juice on a heatproof bowl. After 10 minutes add the sugar and a splash of water, and sit on top of a saucepan of simmering water. Stir continuously until all the gelatine has dissolved, then pour on to the yoghurt base.
  4. Pop in the freezer for an hour, then transfer to the fridge for another hour or overnight if you can. Serve once the jelly has set.
Categories
cream cheese leeks potatoes soup stock

leek and potato soup

If you’ve got some cracking ham stock knocking about from a recent joint, why not make some amazing leek and potato soup? Especially if Philadelphia give you a hand on Twitter. Stirring cream cheese through it right at the end leaves you with a creamy, tangy finish… lovely.

Adapted from Kraft’s recipe.

Leek and potato soup:

3 leeks, diced

5 maris piper potatoes, peeled and diced

2 pints ham stock (or equivalent other stock)

100g cream cheese

For the croutons:

2 thick slices of bread, cut into chunky cubes

1 tablespoon sunflower oil

Sea salt

Pinch of paprika

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Heat a little oil in a large casserole pot. Drop in the leeks and cook gently for a couple of minutes, until the leeks have softened. Stir in the potatoes then add the stock. Bring up to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.
  3. When the soup is about halfway, toss the bread in the oil, salt and paprika. Pop on a baking tray and roast for 10 minutes, or until the bread is crispy and golden.
  4. When the potatoes are tender, use a hand blender to pulse the soup a little. I like it roughed up a little so there’s plenty of texture remaining. Whisk in the cream cheese in chunks and check for seasoning. Serve with the croutons.
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