Category: vegetable recipes

Categories
cauliflower chicken curry food

chicken tikka gobi

Quite often, when you get a new kitchen gadget, you play with it for a bit, then goes in a box never to be seen again. I’m sure many of us have consigned bread makers, ice cream machines and rice cookers to garages and lofts.

But this hasn’t happened with my Actifry. At least once I week I plonk it on the counter to rustle up some potatoey goodies, whether it’s chips, wedges or similar. I’ve been trying to branch out with it inspired by the accompanying mini recipe book that implies it can practically do anything. There’s a proper community out there for Actifry recipes – check out this Pinterest board for example. A curry seemed like an interesting place to go with it. So I went for a chicken tikka gobi, a tomatoey chicken and cauliflower curry.

I load up the ingredients for the first few minutes and let it do it’s thing. Because it churns and turns you don’t have to stir it, you can just leave it to get on with it.

The results were great. Really comforting midweek stuff. It tasted like a casserole-style curry that you’d make yourself at home in a similar timeframe, but just leaving it alone while you Netflix another episode of Fringe is very convenient. This isn’t the last Actifry experiment I’ll be trying, that’s for sure.

As part of the recipe, I used a jar of tikka paste that I had knocking about. It’s a Sainsbury’s one. I idly looked at the back of the jar at the recipe and had to do a double-take. I was surprised to see the old “seal the meat” line stinking up the place. I’d assumed that myth had been long since buried.

Print

chicken tikka gobi

Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon tikka paste heaped
  • 1 tablespoon yoghurt heaped
  • 1/2 lemon
  • 2 chicken breasts diced
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • 1 onion diced
  • 1 head cauliflower chopped quite small
  • 1 tin tomatoes

Instructions

  • Mix the paste, yoghurt, lemon and chicken together in a bowl and refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight if you have the time.
  • Turn the Actifry on, add a spoon of oil and the seeds and leave it for a couple of minutes to heat up.
  • Add the onion and cauliflower and give them 5 minutes to cook. After 5 minutes add the chicken.
  • After another 10 minutes cooking add the tomatoes and half a tin of water and a pinch of salt.
  • Leave to cook for another 20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Do check for seasoning and whether it needs a little more salt or lemon juice. Serve with rice, naan or flour tortillas.
Categories
bacon brussels sprouts chicken cream food potatoes red onion

parmesan chicken with potato and sprout gratin

Yes! It’s sprout season again. Please don’t just boil them and leave them alone, there’s so much more to the little farty ball. Like here, a Brussels Sprout gratin baked with potatoes and cream for a great side dish.

There’s a video version of the gratin on my YouTube channel here:

I was chuffed with how everything turned out save for one flaw. To quote Michel Roux Jr “where’s the sauce?!” It needed a meaty gravy just to lend a little more moisture. But beyond that, it was dead good. A sprout is for Winter, not just Christmas.

Want more Brussels Sprout recipes? My Christmas dinner isn’t complete without sprouts and chestnuts, and you must check out my legendary sproutotto.

Print

parmesan chicken with potato and sprout gratin

Course Side Dish
Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 500 g potatoes
  • 250 g Brussels Sprouts
  • 1 chicken stock cube
  • 1 red onion
  • 4 rashers smoked streaky bacon
  • 150 ml single cream
  • teaspoon wholegrain mustard heaped
  • 2 skinless chicken breasts
  • 1 tablespoon flour
  • 1 egg beaten
  • 2 handfuls panko breadcrumbs
  • 1 handful parmesan finely grated

Instructions

  • Get a large pan of water on to boil and preheat the oven to 200C.
  • Use a food processor to thinly slice the potatoes, and add them to the water with the stock cube. After 5 minutes pass the Brussels through the processor too and add to the water.
  • Heat a casserole dish over a medium heat. Thinly slice the onion and bacon and fry in a little oil in the dish until starting to colour. After the sprouts and potatoes have had 3 or 4 more minutes drain and add to the casserole dish. Stir well, season, pour in the cream, stir in the mustard and then transfer to the oven to cook uncovered for 15 minutes, until golden on top.
  • Meanwhile heat a frying pan over a medium heat. Bash the chicken breasts with a rolling pin until thin and season. Dust lightly in flour, roll in beaten egg and then in the parmesan and breadcrumbs. Fry in shallow oil on both sides until golden. To be sure use a probe thermometer checking it reaches at least 65C inside. Serve on top of the gratin.
Categories
aubergine coconut courgettes creme fraiche cumin food lime rice tomato video

roasted vegetable chilli with parmesan wedges

Those lovely people at Vouchercodes.co.uk asked me to come up with a family-friendly money-saving recipe.  Just for them I made roasted vegetable chilli with parmesan wedges. They filmed it to boot. Watch the whole recipe below on YouTube:

Fun fact: I wasn’t going to make wedges, it was supposed to be polenta fingers. Unfortunately the wrong ingredients were delivered! Disaster. A quick rummage around the store cupboard and I settled on (what else) potatoes instead.

Make sure you pop along to see others in the series, such as Meemalee’s Burmese Chicken Noodles and Helen’s Blue Cheese and Fig Gnocchi.

My full recipe is below:

Print

roasted vegetable chilli with parmesan wedges

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • 3 courgettes
  • 1 teaspoon fennel seeds heaped
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds heaped
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 red onion
  • 1 tin tomatoes
  • 2 red peppers
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika rounded
  • 1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
  • 1 tin kidney beans
  • 300 g long-grain rice
  • 1 tin coconut milk
  • 4 baking potatoes
  • 2 tablespoons grated parmesan
  • 1 lime
  • 300 ml creme fraiche

Instructions

  • First the veg prep: peel and quarter the onion, thickly slice the courgette, half the peppers and deseed, and quarter the lime. Cut the potatoes into wedges.
  • Get a large casserole dish over a low heat, the oven on to 180C, and a saucepan over a medium heat.
  • Lay the wedges in a single layer on a baking tray. Scatter over half the parmesan with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Roast for 40 minutes, turning occasionally.
  • Put the fennel seeds, cumin seeds, garlic and onion into the food processor with a pinch of salt and whizz to a paste, then add the tomatoes to blitz further. Add to the large casserole pan. Add the paprika and chilli powder.
  • Add the courgettes and peppers to the baking tray, season with salt, pepper and oil and put in the oven for 20 minutes until softened.
  • In the saucepan, dry fry the cumin seeds for a minute to get nice and aromatic, then add the kidney beans and their juices. Allow this to simmer away. After 5 minutes add it to the tomato pan.
  • Wipe out the kidney bean pan and add the rice and coconut milk. Simmer until the rice is tender, then leave covered until needed.
  • 5 minutes before they're done, scatter the remaining parmesan over the potatoes and allow to crisp.
  • Roughly chop the griddled veg and also add to the tomato pan.
  • Check the chilli for seasoning and then serve with rice, potatoes, lime wedges and a blob of creme fraiche.

Video

Categories
bacon broccoli egg parmesan tomato

bbt tortilla

What a great year it’s been for tomatoes. The plants in my garden have been raving with fruit, and they’ve been bursting with sweetness. A really bumper crop. Most of them have ended up in pasta sauce and pizza topping but these ones were deserving of a little more.

And so I happened across a recipe for a “BLT tortilla” in the SORTED cookbook but didn’t fancy rocket in mine, so some frozen broccoli jumped in instead. Coupled with refreshing, sweet tomatoes what you get is a portable and tasty lunch that’d be great in a picnic or easily upgraded to main meal status with a decent salad.

BBT tortilla (serves 4 – 6):

6 rashers smoked bacon, diced

About 12 frozen broccoli florets

8 eggs

A couple of handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

A handful of grated parmesan

  1. Get a frying pan over a high heat and preheat the oven to 180°C. Add a dash of oil to the pan and fry the bacon briskly until coloured, and then add the broccoli. Stir fry until the broccoli has started to soften.
  2. Mix the eggs in a bowl with the parmesan, a pinch of salt and a few grinds of black pepper. Pour this and the tomatoes into the pan, and take this opportunity to space the veg around the pan evenly. When that’s done transfer to the oven and bake for 15 – 20 minutes until the wobble has just gone. Leave to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out and serving.
Exit mobile version