Category: vegetable recipes

Categories
carrots chicken food sausages

christmas dinner pie

A Christmas dinner in a pie! What a novel idea. After seeing one on the shelves from Pukka Pies I thought it was worth looking into.

Not content with dominating the Christmas music charts, YouTube channel LadBaby have come out with a pie:

Pukka Pies have been around for ages so it sort of makes sense that these would be the guys to come out with such a pie. This is a fairly straightforward idea so I thought I would give it a go at making at home.

One downside of making the pie yourself is the charity missing out. Sales of the pie give a 10p donation to the Trussell Trust, an organisation that works with food banks in the UK. If you’re able, why not consider a donation by following the link or scanning the QR code?

Donate to the Trussell Trust

My version of the pie has chicken, carrots, stuffing, sausages and bacon, covered in gravy and wrapped in a flaky pastry. You could easily swap out ingredients as you prefer. Serve with mash and veg with extra gravy for a satisfying treat.

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christmas dinner pie

A simple and homely pie with all your favourites
Course Main Course
Cuisine British
Keyword pukka pie
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Resting time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 4 pies

Equipment

  • muffin tin or pie dish

Ingredients

For the pastry:

  • 250 g butter refrigerated
  • 300 g flour

For the filling:

  • 1 chicken breast diced
  • 1 carrot large, peeled and diced
  • 2 chipolata sausages skinned
  • 65 g bacon diced, about 2 rashers
  • 80 g sage and onion stuffing made as per packet instructions, formed into small balls
  • pinch dried sage
  • 400 ml chicken stock
  • 1 teaspoon cornflour

Instructions

For the pastry:

  • Grate the butter and mix with the flour. Add a pinch of salt and add small amounts of ice cold water until it comes together and clean away from the bowl (this will not be much, maybe 20-50ml). Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before using.

For the filling:

  • Bake the stuffing balls according to the packet instructions. You can cook the rest of the filling while they bake.
  • Cook the carrots until tender - I put them in the microwave with a splash of water in a covered dish for 4 minutes.
  • Get a pan over a medium heat and add a splash of oil. Add the bacon and fry for a couple of minutes. Squeeze the sausages into 4 pieces each and add to the pan along with the chicken. Stir fry for a couple of minutes, colouring on all sides.
  • Add the sage and stock to the pan, followed by the cooked carrots. Bring to the boil. Mix the cornflour with a teaspoon of water and then stir thoroughly into the pie filling. Once blended remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
  • Preheat the oven to 200°C. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to 3mm thick. Cut out circles and line into a greased muffin tin. Add the pie filling and top with another pastry circle. Brush with beaten egg and bake for 30-35 minutes until puffed up and golden.

Video

Notes

Can easily be frozen at any stage. Even the pie filling itself can be frozen separately for making another day.
Categories
broccoli garlic rice

adam ragusea’s broccoli in garlic sauce

This vaguely American-Chinese recipe for broccoli in garlic sauce is solely, unashamedly and wholesale lifted from Adam Ragusea. Go watch the video for it here, it’s great.

I’ve cooked it a bunch and I love the powerful, salty sauce you make. I only reproduce it in my blog because it’s easier for me to browse the ingredients here than it is to rewatch the video for the 18th time or scrubbing through the description.

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broccoli in garlic sauce

Course Main Course
Cuisine American, Chinese
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Servings 2 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 1 medium-large crown of broccoli about 350g
  • 3-4 garlic cloves
  • 1 small thumb of ginger about the same amount as the garlic
  • 1/2 a small fresh chili or throw the whole thing in
  • 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
  • 60 ml soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 teaspoons mustard
  • 3 tablespoons oyster sauce
  • 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
  • 2 tablespoons cornflour
  • pepper
  • MSG to taste
  • sesame seeds for garnish
  • 200 g white rice to serve

Instructions

  • Get the rice cooking the way you like it - this will take around 20 minutes and the rest can be made while this cooks. Fluff before serving.
  • While you're getting the rice going, peel and chop the garlic and ginger with the chilli.
  • Get a pan of water on to boil, and use it for the broccoli. This will cook for a maximum of 4 minutes so it's barely tender - it will finish cooking in the sauce.
  • Drain off some of the cooking water - maybe half - into a bowl or mug so you can use it for slackening the sauce.
  • Coat the pan with a thin film of cooking oil (NOT the sesame oil), throw in the garlic, ginger and chili, stir and fry for a couple minutes until soft. Put in a generous splash of water, soy sauce, sugar, mustard, oyster sauce, sesame oil, onion powder and a few grinds of pepper.
  • While that's simmering, dissolve the cornflour in just enough water to make a thick slurry. While one hand stirs, use the other hand to drizzle in slurry until you get a very thick consistency — you might not need all of the slurry.
  • Taste the sauce, consider adding MSG (or salt) or more of any of the other sauce ingredients it might need. Remember that the broccoli and rice are totally unseasoned, so the sauce needs to be strong enough and salty enough to flavor both itself and the broccoli and rice, i.e. too strong on its own. The texture should be very thick, because the broccoli will water it down a little. The sauce is easy to burn when it's this thick, so you might want to turn the heat down (or off).
  • Dump in the broccoli and toss it in the sauce until warm and coated. You can stir in more hot water if the sauce is too thick. Dish out the rice, serve the broccoli and extra sauce on top, optionally garnish with sesame seeds.
Categories
carrots chicken potatoes

one tray roast chicken dinner

I love a roast dinner but I don’t love the mess you have to create to make it. With this one tray roast chicken dinner recipe everything is done in one baking tray, so you only have one thing to clean up at the end. Potatoes, chicken, gravy, peas, carrots all in one pan. It pretty much takes care of itself so you can leave it to get on with cooking while you do other things.

It’s a real time-saver and more importantly, a washing up saver! This would work really well with other meats such as lamb, pork and turkey too.

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one tray roast chicken dinner

A quick and easy way to prepare a roast dinner
Course Main Dish
Cuisine English
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time 3 hours
Servings 4 people
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 1 whole chicken about 1.5kg
  • dried herbs of your choice e.g. sage, rosemary, thyme
  • 4 carrots
  • 500 g potatoes e.g. Maris Piper
  • 500 ml chicken stock
  • 3-4 handfuls frozen peas
  • 2-3 sprigs fresh herbs (optional) e.g. rosemary, sage, bay

Instructions

  • Get the oven on to 180C.
  • Untie the chicken and open the legs so hot air can penetrate the bird. Slather with oil, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle over your favourite dried herbs. Pop in the tray and put in the oven.
  • While the chicken gets started, peel and halve your carrots. Peel your potatoes and chop into golf-ball size chunks.
  • Once the chicken has had 30 minutes, take the tray out and scatter the carrots and potatoes around the chicken. Give them a turn in the fats and oils in the base of the tray, and season the vegetables. Put back in the oven.
  • After a further 20 minutes, you can add fresh herbs if using. 30 minutes after this, check the chicken. The best way to do this is by using a probe thermometer where it should read over 70c, or pierce the thickest part and ensure the juices run clear. Remove the chicken to a board to rest. If the chicken isn't done keep checking every 10 minutes. Once the chicken is removed you can add 500ml chicken stock.
  • After 20 minutes give everything a good turn in the stock and scatter over the frozen peas. Return to the oven.
  • After 10 more minutes everything should be done. Carve your bird, add carrots, peas and potatoes to your plate and ladle over the gravy. Enjoy!

Video

Categories
jackfruit vegetable recipes video

what does jackfruit taste like?

The jackfruit. An ugly little thing, beloved of the vegetarian and vegan cuisine because of it’s meat-like texture. Many people are cutting down their meat intake, jackfruit has become a popular alternative. Because it has a firm, meaty texture it ends up being used where you would use pulled pork, or shredded into patties. But what does jackfruit taste like?

Not the most attractive thing is it? But despite it being everywhere, I have never tried it! So I thought I’d video the whole thing.

I tried it neat from the tin, and also incorporated it as chunks in a stirfry. (Teaser: I cut in part of a video of me cooking from 2008 which has never gone anywhere near YouTube before!)

So what does jackfruit taste like? In the video I conclude that it is largely tasteless, but a slightly bitter aftertaste. But not unpleasant at all, and will absolutely take on strong flavours such as BBQ sauce, or soy sauce as I did here. You should bear in mind I only tasted tinned jackfruit here, and not the fresh stuff. An adventure for another day!

HOWEVER… food expert Kavey had this to say:

She knows what she’s talking about, so clearly I have to try the fresh stuff!

Please check out the video. Hit like, and subscribe while you’re there! I’m recording more kitchen videos of cooking and product reviews. If you have anything you’d like me to cover just let me know.

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