Farmersgirl Kitchen

Monday, 2 February 2015

Butternut Chicken Thai-Style and the Slow Cooked Challenge - February 2015

This recipe was inspired by Lucy's (Baking Queen 74) recipe for Malaysian Style Veggie Curry with Lime, from the January Slow Cooked Challenge, you can find it in the January round up. The other influence was the large box which arrived from Knorr on Saturday morning. A box packed with vegetables, some tins and dry goods and the full range of Knorr Flavour Pots The Slow Cooked Butternut Chicken Thai-Style was delicious with the flavours from the Knorr Flavour Pots, shining through and still fresh after long slow cooking.

Knorr Flavour Pots have just collected first prize in the Sauce and Seasoning category for this year’s Product of the Year awards. Knorr Flavour Pots allow you to easily infuse your cooking with the flavour of fresh herbs and spices but with the handy convenience of dried. The range features nine different tantalising flavours, including Mixed Herbs, Three Peppercorn, Curry, Garlic, Mixed Chillies, Garden Herbs, Ginger & Lemongrass, Paprika, and Mexican.

This is part of a series of posts using Knorr Flavour Pots and celebrating them winning first prize in the Sauce and Seasoning category for this year’s Product of the Year awards. It's also one of three dishes I made from one chicken.

Slow Cooked Butternut Chicken Thai-Style

Serves 6

Two chicken thighs, two chicken drumsticks, two chicken wings

1 medium butternut squash, cut into chunks

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 tin coconut milk

1 Knorr Chicken Stock cube

200ml boiling water

1 Knorr Flavour Pot Lemongrass and Ginger

1 Knorr Flavour Pot Garlic

1 tbsp Tamarind (Imli) Sauce

1 small can sweetcorn

1 small head of broccoli

Chilli sprinkles

1. Put all the ingredients except the sweetcorn, broccoli and chilli sprinkles into the Slow Cooker.

2. Cook for 8 hours on low.

3. Remove the chicken pieces and take the meat from the bones and then add the chicken back into the sauce.

4. Add the sweetcorn.

5. Steam the broccoli until just cooked.

6. Serve the sauce over rice and place the broccoli in the centre, sprinkle with the Chilli sprinkles.

If you don't have any Chilli Sprinkles you could use fried breadcrumbs, finely chopped peanuts or seeds, something crunchy!

If you would like to take part in the Slow Cooked Challenge, then please:

Make your recipe in your Slow Cooker or other slow cooking method and post a photograph and the recipe, or a link to a recipe, on your blog
Link to Farmersgirl Kitchen
Use the Slow Cooked Challenge logo in your post
If you use twitter, tweet your post with @FarmersgirlCook and #SlowCookedChallenge and I will re-tweet it to my followers AND post your picture on the dedicated Pinterest Board.

Rules:

Please do not publish recipes from cookbooks on your blog without permission, they are copyright.
If you are using recipes from another website, please link to the recipe on the website rather than publishing the recipe.
One entry per blog.
Recipes must be added to the linky by the 28th of each month.

THERE IS NO THEME THIS MONTH, ENTER ANY SLOW COOKED RECIPE YOU WISH!

An InLinkz Link-up

Labels: butternut squash, Chicken, coconut milk, garlic, Knorr Flavour Pot, Lemongrass and Ginger, Slow Cooked Challenge, Thai

Sunday, 5 January 2014

Vietnamese Chicken Curry - ca ri ga

The light fresh flavours of the recipes in My Vietnamese Kitchen by Uyen Luu seem very appealing now that the festive season is over.

The Author
Uyen Luu hosts a Vietnamese supper club in her East London apartment where she cooks dishes she learned from her mother, she also holds Vietnamese cookery classes and teaches people from all over Europe. Visit Uyen's blog and find out more about her interests, including photography and film making.

The Photographer
Clare Winfield specialises in photographing food, her work has appeared in magazines and cookery books.

Introduction
The book has a foreword by Raymond Blanc who met Uyen durng the filming of his television series, How to Cook Well. The introduction goes on to tell of Uyen's childhood an cooking inspiration. This is followed by a glossary of ingredients with alternatives which is always useful.

Chapter 1 - Awaken the Senses, Breakfast
Many of the breakfast recipes would translate well into lunch or even main meal dishes. I particularly liked: Lemongrass Beef or Pork Baguette; Hue Noodle Soup with Beef and Pork, Chicken Curry (see recipe below); Beef Stew with star anise.

Chapter 2 - Feed the Soul, Soups
These are main course soups, full of fish, meat and vegetables including Hot and Sour Fish Soup, Duck Congee and Crab Tomato and Omelette Soup.

Chapter 3 - Sticky Fingers, Snacks
Street food is a major influence on the dishes in this chapter and there some of the tasty bites I liked the look of were Puff Pastry Chicken Pies; Spring Rolls, Sai Gon fresh summer rolls and Sizzling Crepes with pork and prawns.

Chapter 4 - Live Long, Noodles
There are many different kinds of noodles and the dishes in 'My Vietnamese Kitchen' feature a variety of these. Here are my favourites: BBQ Pork Belly Skewers (with rice noodle salad), Stir Fried Beef and Fresh Noodles and Egg Noodles with Chinese Broccoli.

Chapter 5 - Eat and Play, Lunch and Dinner
And so to the main event, I was fascinated by the Fishcakes with Dill which are held together with french baking powder rather than potato, so all that you eat is fish! Fish features heavily with a beautiful Fired Tiliapia with Green Mango and a Baked Seabream both of which I found very appealing. Rich and sticky BBQ Spare Ribs would be hard to beat and a rather surprising Spaghetti Bolognese, included because of the love of Italian food in the new cosmopolitan Vietnam.

Chapter 6 - Happy Endings, Sweets
I love Mango and the Mango Smoothie looks and sounds totally delicious. This chapter also includes Banana Fritters, Creme Caramel and Avocado Ice cream as well as Pandan Cake, coloured with an extract from Pandan Leaves.

The chapters are interspersed with interesting short essays about the Vietnamese way of eating, cooking and dining as well as information about the French influence on their cuisine.

Who is it for? Anyone who enjoys Asian food and would like to expand their repertoire I would suggest you check out Uyen's web site and if you like the recipes she has published there, then you will love this book . Fish, seafood, beef and pork feature throughout the book with a very few vegetarian recipes, so probably not a good buy for vegetarians.

Pros: The book is well laid out, with beautiful, tempting photographs and a fairly wide range of different recipes. The fusion of Asian and French cuisine leads to some really inspired dishes.

Cons: Some of the ingredients may be difficult to source outside a large city, although you may be able to get them online. It would have been helpful to include some information about where to source ingredients.

Ease of Use: While I have eaten curry for breakfast while visiting Malaysia, it's probably not something I would do at home, so I felt that it was easier to ignore the chapter headings when looking for a dish to cook. Otherwise, the recipe I cooked was well laid out and I had no difficulty following the instructions.

The Verdict
At first, I found it quite difficult to get going with this book, I think because of the chapter headings as I've described above. Once I got over this and just looked at the recipes, I found that there were many dishes here that I wanted to make.

The Chicken Curry was one of the best I have made, similar to a Thai Green Curry, with so much flavour and just the right amount of piquancy. I am, therefore, excited and encouraged to make more recipes from My Vietnamese Kitchen.

Chicken Curry (serves 2)
ca ri ga

1 tbsp cooking oil
1 red onion, roughly chopped
1 thumb's worth of fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 lemongrass stalk, finely diced
2 large chicken legs, cut into bite-size pieces or 6 whole drumsticks, skin on
3 teaspoons curry powder
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
165ml (2/3 cup) coconut milk
300ml (1 1/4 cups) chicken stock
2 medium potatoes, cubed
1 carrot roughly sliced
4 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp sugar
ground black pepper
1/2 aubergine/eggplant cubed (optional)
handful of okra, cut into bite-size pieces (optional)
6 Asian shallots, peeled
handful of mangetout/snow peas (optional)
warm baguette and butter, or steamed rice to serve

Garnishes
Thai sweet basil
spring onion/scallion
Bird's eye chillis

1. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over low heat. Gently fry the red onion , ginger and lemongrass.
2. Once the onion has softened, add the chicken legs and fry, turning often until they're evenly browned.
3. Add the curry powder, stirring well until the chicken legs are well coated. Add the garlic, coconut milk, chicken stock, potatoes and carrot and stir.
4. Cover with a lid and simmer for about 10 minutes.
5. Season the curry with the fish sauce, sugar and a pinch of black pepper, then add the aubergine/eggplant, okra, shallots and mangetout pea/snow peas.
6. Cook for a further 8-10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.

Garnish with Thai sweet basil, spring onions/scallions and chillies. Serve with a fresh, warm baguette and butter, or a bowl of steamed rice.

What I did differently
I used 6 chicken thighs, doubled up the aubergine, potatoes, carrots and the coconut milk. Used a Korma curry paste rather than powder. No okra or mangetout, so I used a green pepper and some green beans. The fish sauce and coconut milk are both key to the flavour of this dish.

My Vietnamese Kitchen by Uyen Luu
Published by Ryland Peters and Small
RRP £16.99

I'm entering this recipe for Bloggers Around the World, a blogger challenge from Chris at Cooking Around the World blog. This month the country of choice is Vietnam, thanks Chris for motivating me to make this dish and post the review.

Labels: Chicken, coconut milk, cookery book review, curry, fish sauce, kitchen, review, Ryland Peters and Small, Uyen Luu, Vietmanese

Sunday, 18 August 2013

Mixed Vegetable Curry - A Random Recipe

If you had 10 seconds to grab one book, which one would it be?

That's the challenge that Dom set for Random Recipe Challenge #31 I stood in front of my cookery book shelves in the kitchen and panicked! Scanning along the books, I saw so many books that I love to cook and bake from, how could I choose only one? Then I saw it, Good Housekeeping Cookery Book, The Cooks Classic Companion.

When I was growing up my Mum always referred to her Good Housekeeping Cookery Book and she still does. I can't remember when I got this book, it was published in 1998, so probably not that long after that. It has pretty much everything you would ever need in the way of recipes and is definitely my GO TO book.

Now, I know we are supposed to randomly pick the recipe were going to cook, but in this case I had a lot of vegetables in the fridge so I picked randomly from the Vegetarian chapter and came up with 'Mixed Vegetable Curry' on page 228.

Mixed Vegetable Curry

Serves 4-6

1.4kg (3lb) mixed vegetables, including cauliflower, carrots, potato, parsnip and frozen peas

1 onion, peeled and chopped

2.5cm (1inch) piece fresh root ginger, peeled and chopped

1-2 garlic cloves

2 green chillies, halved and deseeded

30ml (2tbsp) ghee or vegetable oil

10ml (2tsp) turmeric

10ml (2 tsp) ground coriander

10ml (2 tsp) ground cumin

5ml (1 tsp) ground fenugreek

8 whole cloves

8 green cardamom pods

1 cinnamon stick

600ml (1 pint) canned coconut milk

300ml (1/2 pint) water

salt and pepper

coriander sprigs, to garnish

1. First prepare the vegetables. Divide the cauliflower into florets. Peel the carrots, potato and parsnip and cut into chunks.

2. Put the onion ginger, garlic and chillies in a blender or food processor and process until almost smooth.

3. Heat the ghee or oil in a large heavy-based saucepan, add the onion mixture and fry for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add all the spices and cook over a high heat for 3-4 minutes, stirring all the time.

4. Add the vegetables to the pan and stir to coat in the spice paste. Gradually stir in the coconut milk and water. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat, cover and simmer for 45-55 minutes or until the vegetables are just tender, depending on the varieties used. Season with the salt and pepper to taste.

5. Leave the curry to stand for 5 minutes to allow the flavours develop before serving. Garnish with coriander and serve with naan bread, pickles and plain rice.

As usual, Good Housekeeping came up trumps, this was a simple but tasty curry which created 8 good sized servings and got better with keeping. Watch out for the whole spices, crunching on a clove or cardamom pod is best avoided.

If you'd like to join in with the Random Recipe Challenge head over the Belleau Kitchen to find out more.

Posted with Blogsy

Labels: Cinnamon, coconut milk, curry, Random Recipes, spices, vegetarian

Monday, 11 March 2013

Seafood Risotto for a Healthy Happy Heart

I love seafood, it is probably the thing I would choose when eating out over any other type of food. While I cook and eat prawns and fish quite frequently I have never actually prepared mussels from scratch before, it was a bit more time consuming but the mussels were much tastier.

I'm taking part in an initiative organised by Fish is the Dish called Healthy Happy Hearts Eating seafood gives great health benefits, in fact there is a whole section of the Fish is the Dish website dedicated to them http://www.fishisthedish.co.uk/health Health benefits include better heart, brain development, muscle repair, good skin and hair and so much more.

The Food Standards Agency and experts throughout the world recommend we eat two portions of fish per week, one of which should be oily fish. So I've signed up to do just that and tell you about how I get on.

My first dish is a Seafood Risotto containing, mussels, prawns and salmon fillet. The risotto was delicious, adding coconut milk to the mussel liquor and fish stock made the rice rich and creamy. If you buy mussels already cooked and shelled, they are generally a bit rubbery and tasteless. These were soft and sweet and adding the salmon at the end so it just cooks in the heat of the risotto makes it soft and flaky.

Seafood Risotto (serves 6)
450g mussels in shells, cleaned
50g butter
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2tsp jerk spices
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
225g arborio rice
300ml fish stock (I used Essential Cuisine)
400g coconut milk
2 tomatoes peeled, deseeded and diced
225g raw prawns, peeled
225g salmon fillet, cut into small cubes
125g frozen peas
25bsp chopped fresh coriander
1 tbsp lemon juice, or to taste

1. Put the mussels in a large pan with a dash of water over a high heat. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and steam for 4-5 minutes until cooked; discard any mussels that remain closed. Strain the liquid through a fine sieve into a clean pan. Refresh mussels under cold running water and reserve.
2. Melt the butter in a large pan and fry the onion with the garlic and spices for 10 minutes until softened. Add the rice and stir-fry fr 1 minute until glossy.
3. Add the stock and coconut milk to the mussel liquor; bring to a simmer.
4. Add the tomatoes to the rice, then start adding the coconut liquid, a ladleful at a time, stirring constantly. Continue in this way, allowing each addition of the liquid to be absorbed before adding the next, for about 20 minutes.
5. Add the prawns, squid, tomato and peas with the remaining liquid; cook for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Stir in the mussels, coriander and lemon juice. Cover the pan and leave to rest for 5 minutes. Check the seasoning before serving.

FOR A PRINTABLE RECIPE PLEASE CLICK HERE

More Healthy Happy Heart Dishes

Labels: coconut milk, Fish is the Dish, Healthy Happy Hearts, mussels, prawns, rice, risotto, salmon

Wednesday, 5 October 2011

Spiced Butternut Squash and prawns with coconut and chilli

We don't have a Sainsbury store near my home. But I travel about a bit in my work and at one of the sites I frequent there is a Sainsbury's within walking distance and I like to drop in their in my lunch hour. I picked up a copy of the Sainsbury's Magazine for October as I liked the look of some of the recipes.

I particularly liked this recipe for
Spiced Squash and Prawns with coconut and chilli:

Serves 3-4

Serve with Basmati rice

2 tbsp groundnut or vegetable oil

1 small onion, finely sliced

4 cloves garlic, crushed

2 green chillies, finely chopped, plus sliced chilli to serve (I only had red chillies so used these instead)

1/4 tsp turmeric

2 tbsp jalfrezi or other medium curry paste (I used Pataks Jalfrezi)

1 medium butternut squash, peeled and cubed

I had a couple of little courgettes which I also added.

2 x 400ml tins coconut milk

20 large, raw shelled prawns, ideally with tails left on

juice of 1/2 large lime

2 handfuls of coriander leaves

1 Heat the oil in a shallow-sided pan and gently fry the onion, garlic and chopped chilli for 5-7 minutes, until softened. Stir in the turmeric and curry paste and fry for a further minute.

2. Add the butternut squash and coconut milk, bring to the boil, then simmer for 15 minutes.

3. Stir in the prawns and lime juice ans dimmer for a couple of minutes until the prawns are cooked. Check the seasoning. Add most of the coriander and serve topped with the rest and the slices of chilli.

I really can't recommend this recipe enough, it was easy to make and was lovely and creamy. The recipe says it feeds 3-4, but you could easily feed 6 with this potful. It would also be a great vegetarian dish by simply leaving out the prawns.

Labels: basmati rice, butternut squash, chilli, coconut milk, coriander leaves, prawns

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