I quite like jacket potatoes, but the observant among you will note I’m more of a roast potato man. To my mind a jacket should be crisp and earthy on the outside, yet fluffy and yielding inside. Is there any other way? Mrs. RP is an absolute fiend for the jak pot however, and could have them every day.
Something else that divides the Roast Potato household is BEANS. BAKED BEANS. I have a rabid, horrific hatred of them. It’s the one food I will turn over tables rather than eat. Even the smell brings me out in a bilious fit. They’re one of Mrs. RP’s favourite foods. This gives me an idea… see next post.
Anyways, I’ve prepared baked potatoes the same way every time: slap a bit of oil on, s&p, bake for a bit. I’d never questioned it. Very un-Heston of me. But then the Guardian comes along comparing tons of methods. Felicity Cloake tries out a few, and summarises her perfect pot. So I tried it.
It was quite good – I still don’t think it’s there. By placing it directly on the rack, you lose that chunky callousy bit which I really like. And somehow the skin goes a bit papery. I prefer mine a little thicker. It’s tasty though, but needs a little work. Give it a try, see what you think. Or, how do you do it?
Perfect jacket potato:
1 large Vivaldi potato per person
A shedload of Maldon salt
Pre-heat the oven to 220°C.
Wash the potatoes thoroughly, and don’t bother drying. Roll in salt and pop in the oven straight on the rack.
Bake for 1 hour, until tender inside. Don’t serve with beans.
This is the rice from the chicken tikka masala recipe. I’ve broken it out to it’s own page otherwise I have trouble finding it!
Aromatic rice:
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and bashed
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
4 cardamom pods
1 cupful rice per person
Fry the onion gently until softened, then add the garlic.
Add the spices and stir, allowing them to warm.
Add the rice and a generous sprinkle of salt, stir will to coat the rice in the spiced oil. Top up the pan with three times the amount of water to rice. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer.
Cover the pan and allow to simmer for ten minutes – do not lift the lid.
Turn off the heat and leave for a further ten minutes, leaving the lid on.
Stir through with a fork and grind over plenty of black pepper. If you have any left over from the curry, throw in some parsley too.
Every couple of months I get the urge to make another curry, and I’ve made plenty in the last year. It was a Saturday dish, so I had to time to put a little effort in. After a little research I settled on Jamie Oliver’s chicken tikka masala from Jamie’s Dinners. I still had some garam masala left over from a Heston-inspired blend some months ago so that was going to be my main spice base. Also with recent experiments in brining being met with a great deal of success I had to stick some brining in as the first stage. You could skip this bit if you wanted to, but I love the moistness and depth of flavour this imparts.
I wanted a vegetable side-dish and love the way cauliflower absorbs curry flavours. The key for me is to almost overcook it – a soft, squishy floret bursting with spice is the way to go here.
Plain rice is always sniffed at in my house so I have to be creative with it. I remembered a delicious rice dish by the cuddly Nigel Slater, from my most favourite of his books Appetite. I’ve eaten it before just on it’s own, but gently pared down it makes a tasty – yet interesting – bowl of rice.
The curry itself was time-consuming (aren’t they all?) but thankfully very, very tasty. In fact about the most ‘authentic’ (yes, of course I mean authentic to that you find in a takeaway) tikka masala recipe I’ve eaten. Creamy, nutty and boasting spice from within. The cauliflower was a tasty foil for the curry, with aromatic rice to back it up. (On a side note, both Jamie’s and Nigel’s recipe called for at least 1 chilli in each – we’re not so crazy about super-hot things in our house, so I’ve omitted them to let the spices speak for themselves. By all means chuck some in if they’re your thing).
A dead tasty nottakeaway.
Chicken tikka masala (serves 3):
For the brine:
1 litre water
2 tablespoons sea salt
5 tablespoons honey
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cardamom pods, cracked
3 cloves
2 chicken breasts, diced
For the tikka marinade:
6 cloves garlic, grated
3 inches fresh ginger, grated
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 tablespoons garam masala
200g natural yoghurt
For the masala sauce:
2 onions, sliced
2 tablespoons garam masala
2 tablespoons tomato puree
2 tablespoons ground almonds
120ml double cream
Handful parsley, chopped
Mix the brine ingredients together and soak the chicken in the water for at least 2 hours, anywhere up to 8 hours.
Drain and rinse the chicken well. Discard the liquid.
Heat the mustard seeds in a splash of oil until they start to pop (about 2 minutes). Remove the seeds from the pan and stir into the other ingredients. Coat the chicken with the yoghurt mix and leave to marinate for half an hour.
In the same pan the mustard seeds were warmed in, add some butter and fry the onions gently with the garam masala. Leave to sweat and soften for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, grill the chicken pieces on both sides until cooked through.
Back at the onions, ad the tomato puree, almonds, 1 litre water and a good sprinkle of salt. Allow to bubble and reduce until thick.
Add the cream and check the seasoning. Add the chicken into the sauce and stir well to coat the meat and let the flavours mingle.
Stir in the parsley and serve.
Gobi masala:
1 head of cauliflower, cut into small florets to cook evenly
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon garam masala
200ml vegetable stock
Heat the butter in a small saucepan until foaming. Add the spice and cook for a minute.
Add the florets and toss well to coat in the spice butter. Cook for another minute.
Add the stock and boil fairly fast until the cauliflower is knife-tender.
Turn off the heat and put a lid on it for about ten minutes. The cauliflower will soak up some of the excess fluid.
Aromatic rice:
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and bashed
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
4 cardamom pods
1 cupful rice per person
Fry the onion gently until softened, then add the garlic.
Add the spices and stir, allowing them to warm.
Add the rice and a generous sprinkle of salt, stir will to coat the rice in the spiced oil. Top up the pan with three times the amount of water to rice. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer.
Cover the pan and allow to simmer for ten minutes – do not lift the lid.
Turn off the heat and leave for a further ten minutes, leaving the lid on.
Stir through with a fork and grind over plenty of black pepper. If you have any left over from the curry, throw in some parsley too.
Nigel Slater. What a deity of food writing. No-one can conjure more poignant or vivid portraits of cooking that can transport you to the moment of being mid-mouthful. He has pretty much sewn up the childhood nostalgia food writing market, and we love him for it. I have a couple of his books and they are invaluable. I don’t often cook directly from them, but I use them sometimes just for the joy of reading about food, or to jumpstart my cooking brain when I have reached a culinary dead-end.
When I heard Nigel had a new TV show, Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers, I was overjoyed. Essentially it’s a combination of home-grown veg with his usual disdain for actual recipes and finding harmony between the two. The show itself was a touch disappointing, not quite sparking that Nigel fire. It’s not up to the glorious gratuitous gluttony of Real Food, which is an absolute treat.
There’s still some goodness to be had though, such as the following recipe for sausages and mustard. I substituted double cream for creme fraiche as I had some knocking about, and partnered it with some broccoli to round it out. An absurdly simple dish but I love that sort of thing, so that each is singing in harmony. It’s meaty, potent and creamy, and oh-so-perfect for evenings with a nip in the air. Next time I fancy this might contain mushrooms to lend and earthiness to the dish. Cheers Nigel!
Sausage and mustard rigatoni:
2 onions, sliced
6 sausages, meat squeezed from the skins into little balls
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
3 tablespoons creme fraiche
Couple of handfuls pasta (I used rigatoni)
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
Cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.
Fry the onions in a large pan. Cover them and cook for ten minutes until softened.
Add the sausage and fry until slightly brown.
Add the mustards, cook for a minute then add the creme fraiche. You may need some water from the pasta to slacken it down a touch.
