Category: peppers

chicken with chickpeas

Yes, another recipe from Jamie Oliver’s book Jamie’s America. This one is a rich, moist chicken breast over a hearty and fiery chickpea stew. It sounds peasanty – and it is – but like most peasant foods is earthy and satisfying, and dead easy. I’ve used chicken breast with skin on as I want to give it time in the oven, and leaving the skin on retains moisture by allowing fat to drizzle through the meat. This prevents dry ‘orrible flesh. I’ve used tinned chickpeas ‘cos let’s be honest – who wants to soak chickpeas overnight?

The chicken breast was left to marinate before I went out for work in a mashed up blend of parsley, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Back from work a few hours later and it’s the turn of the chickpea. I sweat down an onion, two cloves of garlic and some paprika until soft, and then add four diced tomatoes, half a jar of sweet peppers and a tin of drained chickpeas.

While that simmers I turn my attention back to the chicken. I put it skin-side down on a hot griddle until dark lines appear, then turn 30 degrees to get that fancy criss-cross appear. When there’s more lines I turn them over and put the whole thing in a 200C oven for about 8 minutes. While that continues I look back over the chickpea stew, and adjust seasoning with salt, pepper and red wine vinegar. The chicken looks done now so I bring the chicken out to rest for a couple of minutes, to let all those tasty juices flow back through the breast.

To serve I pile some chickpeas up, top it with sliced chicken breast and few torn basil leaves over. At the last minute I reckon a drizzle of balsamic vinegar will help here, so I get out my best to sprinkle over. It goes really nice with the juicy chicken and peppery chickpeas. It’s a really tasty dinner and fairly easy too. I’ll be seeing this one on my plate again!

Tags jamie oliver

food noodles peppers pork

pork chow mein

I always get too many ingredients for 1 stir fry, so i always have to schedule 2 into a week to make sure those spring onions (and particularly beansprouts) don’t go brown and liquidy at the bottom of my fridge.

Nice two-parter; deal with the meat first in a gloopy sauce, then stir fried quickly along with everything else. Crunchy and tasty. Same rules apply as with yaki soba; ninja-hot pan, and keep those ingredients moving the whole time.

Pork chow mein:

2 pork steaks, cut into strips

2 tablespoons dark soy sauce

2 teaspoons five spice

2 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

1 teaspoon cornflour

1/2 red chilli, finely sliced

1 teaspoon ginger

1 red pepper, sliced

Handfuk of beansprouts

5 – 6 spring onions, sliced

2 sachets udon noodles

Sesame oil to taste

Handful fresh coriander leaves, roughly chopped

Mix the soy, five spice, chilli sauce and cornflour together and then cover the pork strips with it.

In a seriously hot pan heat a little oil, then fry the pork quickly for 2 mins.

Add the chilli, ginger and red pepper and cook for 1 minute, then add beansprouts and spring onions.

Stir fry for a further minute then add the noodles. When the noodles are tender drizzle over some sesame oil and stir through the coriander leaves.

Serve in large bowls and garnish with lime wedges squeezed over and sesame seeds.

aubergine chorizo food mozzarella pasta peppers

chorizo pasta bake

I was passing through Waitrose in need of a lemon Fanta after a great nine holes, when one of their recipe cards caught my eye. And this is me having a bash. There’s lots of disparate parts here. but I’m a sucker for a pasta bake, and one of my favourite meats chorizo has a look in too.

The results were nice, but could’ve been a lot better. The elements were tugging at each other, rather than coming together harmoniously. If I did it again, I’d get the chorizo sweating early in with the tomato sauce, to get a more developed flavour out of it. I’d also be adding a little stock to thin the sauce out, encouraging everything to blend and get a bit more moisture to the whole dish. Finally I’d be slicing the aubergine and pepper before griddling, getting more smoky flavours throughout. Can’t really see what good the basil leaves are doing that early on either. A good first draft though, see you next time. Below is the method on this effort.

Chorizo pasta bake:

1 aubergine, halved

1 red pepper, halved

200g rigatoni

1 tin tomatoes

Handful of basil leaves, torn

1 ball mozzarella, torn

200g chorizo, diced

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.

Griddle the aubergine and pepper until charred on both sides.

Meanwhile, heat the tomatoes and add the basil leaves.

Dice the veg and pour the tomatoes, pasta, chorizo and veg into a baking dish.

Tear over the mozzarella and bake for 15 mins.

chorizo food peas peppers rice

paella

Yes, again. A very simple and rustic one this. I also went against my usual and used the ready-sliced chorizo, which I quickly fried either side to crisp and start to render down. Then in with butter and a red onion with some diced red pepper, and after softening the rice goes in for a minute to toast. Then some white wine for sweetness, then a little paprika and turmeric for colour and flavour. Then veg stock goes over and I leave it alone in my non-stick pan for 20 mins or so. The liquid is almost all gone, so I check for seasoning and add a handful or frozen peas and the chorizo and once the peas are warmed through, it’s done. Munchy, tasty stuff as the soft rice gives way to the mellow paprika.