I’ve made variations on this before, but the one killer ingredient I’ve added here that I wanted to shine a spotlight on is nigella seeds. I saw a Tweet from the excellent @pearcafe, and thought the addition of nigella seeds to their soup of the day was inspired. So I threw some into this stew and it was ace. Thanks ‘E’! I’ve never been to Bristol but if I do The Pear Café will be first on my list of places to visit 🙂
Spiced chorizo and chickpea stew (serves 4):
1 teaspoon nigella seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 onion, diced
200g chorizo, in chunks
1 tin of chickpeas
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 tin tomatoes (I’ve got a bit of a thing for tinned cherry tomatoes at the moment)
250ml chicken stock
2 slices of brown bread
1 clove of garlic, peeled
Get a large casserole on a high heat and add a splash of olive oil. When hot, throw in the seeds and allow to pop and sizzle for a minute. Add the onion and chorizo and stir often until the chorizo starts to bleed.
Add the chickpeas (don’t bother to drain), tomatoes, paprika and stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 15 minutes.
While that simmers throw the brown bread and garlic in a food processor and whizz to a powder with a pinch of salt.
In a separate pan melt some butter and when foaming add the breadcrumbs. Toss often until browned all over, then drain on kitchen paper until the stew is ready.
Check the seasoning on the stew. You may find in addition to salt and pepper you may need some red wine vinegar to balance it all out. Ladle into serving dishes and top with the breadcrumbs. If you have any, a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil would be brill.
What a triumph this is. Just when I was feeling a bit indifferent to Jamie Oliver’s Great Britain along comes this absolute belter. Jamie introduces this by saying most people when asked about their favourite foods will mention roast chicken and curries, and this utterly unites the heart of both of these.
With blackened, tangy skin the chicken comes out juicy and tickling on the tongue, although be warned it will make a mess of your oven as it sits on the rack.
Being the kind of blog this is though, I have to talk about the roast potatoes. They are a triumph. I used to get “spicy spuds” from a dubious takeaway near me and these are very, very close to those – crispy, spicy and fluffy.
I’ve made a few changes to the spices in the potatoes based on what I had, and used floury over new pots to get them really crispy. I’ve served mine with a refreshing salad.
Empire chicken, Bombay roasties, Indian gravy and refreshing salad (serves 4):
For the chicken and marinade
1.4kg free-range chicken
1 heaped tablespoon each finely grated garlic, fresh ginger and fresh red chilli
1 heaped tablespoon tomato purée
1 heaped teaspoon each of ground coriander, turmeric, garam masala and ground cumin
2 heaped teaspoons natural yoghurt
2 level teaspoons sea salt
For the gravy
1 stick of cinnamon
2 small red onions, peeled
10 cloves
3 tablespoons each of white wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce
3 level tablespoons plain flour
500ml chicken stock
For the Bombay-style potatoes
800g new potatoes
sea salt and ground pepper
1 lemon
2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil
a knob of butter
1 heaped teaspoon each of nigella seeds, ground coriander, garam masala, fenugreek and turmeric
1 bulb of garlic
Pinch of chilli flakes
For the salad
½ a cucumber, peeled
3 carrots, peeled
1 red onion, peeled
½ lemon
Slash the chicken’s legs a few times right down to the bone. Mix all the marinade ingredients together and smear all over the chicken. Leave to marinate overnight.
Preheat the oven to 200°C and organize your shelves so the roasting tray can sit right at the bottom, the chicken can sit directly above it, right on the bars of the shelf, and the potatoes can go at the top.
Cut the potatoes into golf-ball size pieces then parboil them in a large pan of salted boiling water with a whole lemon for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through. Drain the potatoes then let them steam dry. Stab the lemon a few times with a sharp knife and put it right into the chicken’s cavity.
Roughly chop the onions and add to a roasting tray along with the cinnamon stick, cloves, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce, then whisk in the flour. Pour in the stock or water, then place this right at the bottom of the oven. Place the chicken straight on to the bars of the middle shelf, above the roasting tray. Cook for 1 hour 20 minutes.
Put a roasting tray in the oven for five minutes to get hot. Add the olive oil, butter, the spices, halve a bulb of garlic and add it straight to the pan. Add your drained potatoes to the tray, mix everything together, then season well. After the chicken has been in for 40 minutes, put the potatoes in.
Once the chicken is cooked, move it to a board to rest. Pass the gravy through a coarse sieve into a pan, whisking any sticky goodness from the pan as you go. Bring to the boil and either cook and thicken or thin down with water to your preference (I had to add some boiling water to deglaze the surface and make a sauce out of it.
For the salad, use a vegetable peeler to make thin strips of the carrot and cucumber. Then finely slice the onion and add this to it. Add a pinch each of salt and sugar, then squeeze over the lemon and toss to combine. Leave for 15 minutes while everything else finishes off.
Get your potatoes out of the oven and put them into a serving bowl, then serve the chicken on a board next to the sizzling roasties and hot gravy.
I’m a big fan of chilli, I’ve probably cooked it more than anything else. I particularly like ones that sit there and blip away under their own steam for hours. I was looking forward to cooking a chilli tonight.
But I’d had a rotten evening. Little Miss Spud was rotten sick and was in no mood for going to bed. There were many changes of clothes (for me and her), things to wash, bottles to fetch… Eventually she dozed off, and it was time to cook. I reached for the takeaway menus… but didn’t. I had planned on doing a chilli and gosh darnit, a chilli I was going to make.
I floated the idea on Twitter about cooking a chilli in 10 minutes. “Not enough time”, scoffed Gary Dickenson. “It can’t be done!” wailed Food Urchin. “Keep us posted” urged Simon Loves Food. Well, that was that – no turning back now. I had to do it.
The problem is to develop those flavours does take time. There needed to be some sneaky shortcuts in there to amp it up and cut down the cooking time, hence the ingredients list is fairly long – but generally full of store cupboard stuff. The hard bit is that it’s one of those dishes where you keep adding stuff but by bit and each part needs to come back to the simmer. So I drew together some ideas that I’ve flirted with before: frying mince to release the oils and then add the onion to that, and creating a thick tomato paste packed with flavourings to form a flavour base. So I cooked these parts separately and combined them at the end.
And I have to say it was really tasty, and really worth it. Of course it’s not the same as a slow-simmered chilli ticking away for hours, and it would’ve been nice to stick some kidney beans in there (I just didn’t have any to hand) to nod back to the ‘usual’ recipe. But it’s a good alternative and great for busy weekday evenings. Oh, and it came out at 11 minutes rather than 10, but I can live with that.
11 minute chilli (serves 2):
400g beef mince
Two cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tin of tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato puree
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 onion, peeled and sliced into half-moons
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon oregano
A large handful of tortilla chips
150ml boiling hot beef stock
Mushroom ketchup
Frank’s Red Hot Sauce (or other chilli sauce you like)
Preheat your oven to top whack, and get two frying pans over a high heat.
Add a splash of oil to both pans. Pop the mince in one of them and let sizzle and stir occasionally to colour all over. Meanwhile in the other pan crush in the garlic and 10 seconds later throw in the tomatoes, puree, and paprika. Keep stirring this too when you have a minute. Both pans should be bubbling fairly furiously.
When the mince is coloured all over it will probably have released some fat. Throw the onions into this along with the cumin, coriander, chilli powder and oregano. Add a pinch of salt and keep stirring.
Scatter the tortilla chips in one layer and pop in the oven for a couple of minutes to warm through and become really brittle.
Now add the beef stock to the mince and again keep stirring and shaking. By now the tomato paste should be quite thick and pulpy, so add this to the mince mixture.
Keep the heat high as you bring it all together and allow it to reduce naturally. Add a shake or two of both mushroom ketchup and hot sauce and check for seasoning. When you’re happy with it serve with the tortillas, grated cheese, soured cream, guacamole, etc. etc. whatever things you like to serve with chilli.
Flushed with the success of Simon Hopkinson’s stunning lamb breast dish, I felt the only way it could be improved is with the addition of curry spices. The Indian flavours I felt would surely go well with rich lamb. At the same time I stumbled upon other people doing the same dish, such as Girl Interrupted Eating. She’d chosen to do this in the slow cooker so I thought I’d do the same. I asked if she’d fried the onions off beforehand, as in my experience onions aren’t good at breaking down in a slow cooker. However in my haste I got on and cooked them off anyway, before Becky could reply that she didn’t!
Mine turned out very nice – warming and spiced and just breaking through the fatty lamb. It kinda tasted like it had been baked in mango chutney. Juicy and filling, not what you’d call a light dinner! Good fun though.
Heat a little oil in a large frying pan and sear the lamb on each side. Put to one side while you fry the onions gently.
Remove the leaves from the coriander bunch and reserve for later. Put the stalks on a chopping board with the garlic and ginger and chop together to a chunky paste. When the onions have softened add the coriander / garlic / ginger mix. Fry for a minute and then add all the spices, frying for another minute.
Add half the onion mix to the slow cooker, pop the lamb on top then add the remaining onions. Add a splash of water and pop the lid on for about 6 hours, or until the lamb can be pushed apart with a spoon.
Remove the lamb to the side for one minute so you can remove any bones or gummy bits of skin 'n' stuff that lamb breast can have. Pop a sieve on a saucepan and put the onions into the sieve. Put the lamb and drained onions with a sprinkle of salt back into the slow cooker while you work on the reserved liquid.
Simmer the liquid until reduced by half, add a dash of white wine vinegar and the coriander leaves. Dish up the lamb and onions, spoon over the sauce and serve with crispy cauliflower.
