Roast chicken with tarragon potatoes and green beans

I had some bits and bobs in the fridge to use up so this was a bit of a freestyle dinner, but boy was it good! It turns out creme fraiche, mustard and tarragon are a match made in heaven! Plenty of leftovers for lunch tomorrow from the below recipe (my husband prefers a more ‘minimalist’ plate of food – see the next picture down, whereas I am a farmer’s daughter who loves a big plate of spuds!)

Ingredients (serves 2)

2 chicken thighs & 2 chicken drumsticks (or 4 of either)

100 ml white wine

small bunch of thyme

500g baby new potatoes

200g green beans

200ml creme fraiche

2 tsp wholegrain mustard

small bunch of tarragon, leaves picked and finely chopped

small bunch of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200c. Place a large cast iron skillet over a high heat with a glug of oil. Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper all over. Pop the potatoes into a pan of boiling salted water and bring up to the boil again with a lid on.

2. Place the chicken pieces, skin side down, into the skillet and move them around to prevent them from sticking. Keep moving them around until the skin has gotten crispy, then flip over and cook for a few more minutes.

3. Remove the chicken from the pan. Drain all but a teaspoon of the fat away from the chicken pan, then put it back over the heat and pour in the wine – there will be steam! Add the sprigs of thyme and the chicken, then put a lid on it and place in the oven.

4. Add the green beans to the water with the potatoes. After about 3 minutes, test the potatoes – if they are parboiled, drain everything. If not, wait another few minutes until the potatoes are almost cooked (don’t let them go too far as they’ll turn mushy, and you’ll be finishing them off in the oven anyway).

4. Lift the chicken pan out of the oven. Pick the leaves off the thyme sprigs and discard the stems. Add the potatoes and beans to the pan, mixing well to make sure everything is covered in the nice chicken juices. Pop back in the oven with the lid off for another 20 minutes or so, until the chicken pieces are cooked through and the potato skins have gotten a little brown. Give everything a shake after about 10 minutes, to make sure the potatoes brown all over.

5. While that’s cooking, simply mix the creme fraiche, parsley and mustard in a bowl. Add half the tarragon first, and if it’s not too overpowering keep adding it until the sauce is to your liking. Set aside.

6. When the chicken and potatoes are ready, remove the potatoes with a slotted spoon and mix them in the creme fraiche sauce. Plate them up with the chicken and beans, spooning some of the delicious cooking juices over the beans. Bon appetit! 

Fish Fajitas

This is a quick and pretty light supper – ideal last night, when we were both in the office until after 8pm! The recipe is influenced by Rick Stein’s Baja Fish Tacos, from Coast to Coast. 

I went a bit overboard with the fish, as you can see above! I wanted to try both cod and sea bass to see which one works better in this recipe so I used two fillets of each. I can confirm that cod is the definite winner, and that is reflected in the recipe below. 

I served these with white wraps and shredded iceberg lettuce – if you wanted to be really virtuous, you could use leaves of iceberg as your wrap.
Ingredients (serves 2)

2 fillets of cod, bones and skin removed

100ml sunflower oil

For the batter:

200g flour

200ml sparkling water

2 eggs

For the salsa:

1 red onion, finely chopped

220g baby plum tomatoes, cut into 1/8ths

Juice of one lime

1 tsp sugar

1 red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped (or 2 if you like more heat!)

Handful of coriander, chopped

For the guacamole 

2 avocados, peeled and pitted

Juice of 1 lime

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

To serve

1/2 iceberg lettuce, shredded

4 white wraps

Mayonaise or soured cream (optional)

Method

1. Combine all the ingredients for the salsa in a bowl; season with salt and pepper and set aside.

2. Mash the avocado with the lime juice, add the chilli and mix well. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

3. Cut the cod into 2-inch chunks; season with salt and pepper and dust with a light dusting of flour.

4. Combine all the batter ingredients and mix in a food processor until smooth.

5. Heat the sunflower oil in a large deep pan (if you have a deep fat fryer, it would be handy here. I used a wok!) until very hot. Test it with a drop of batter – if it rises to the top, the oil is hot enough.

6. Dip each of your fish pieces in the batter, holding them above the bowl for a minute so that any excess batter drips off, then drop them into the hot oil. Cook for about five minutes, turning once to ensure all the pieces are golden brown all over. Use a slotted spoon to remove them onto a warmed plate with kitchen paper.

7. Warm the tortillas for 30 seconds in the microwave.

I like to serve everything on the table and let everyone help themselves in assembling their tortillas! Enjoy!

Chicken and Cauliflower Curry

This dinner is brought to you by the letter C! The main ingredients are chicken, cauliflower and chickpeas; the sauce uses coconut milk, and it is served with a chapati on the side!

Ingredients (serves 2, with leftovers for lunch)

1 onion, chopped finely

1 thumb-sized piece of garlic, finely chopped

2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 cauliflower, cut into florets 

Handful of spinach leaves

2 chicken breasts, sliced

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp ground coriander 

2 tsp turmeric 

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp garam masala 

2 tsp cumin seeds

1 tin chopped tomatoes 

1 tin chickpeas

1 tin coconut milk

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C.

2. Toss the cauliflower florets in a splash of olive oil with the cumin seeds and some salt & pepper and pop in the oven.

3. Heat a tablespoon of oil (or ghee) in a large saucepan, then add the onion, ginger, garlic and chillies and cook until soft.

4. Add the dried spices and mix well. Allow to cook for a minute or so, until fragrant.

5. Add the chicken pieces, stirring well to cover. Cook for about five minutes, until the chicken is nicely coloured.

6. Add the tomatoes, chickpeas and coconut milk; bring to the boil then simmer for about 20 minutes. Add the roasted cauliflower pieces for the last 10 minutes or so. Towards the end, stir in the spinach until wilted. Serve with chapatis, chutney and yoghurt. Enjoy! 

Harissa salmon, wilted spinach and sweet potato wedges

My husband is away with work this weekend, which means that I can cook all of the things that I love and he doesn’t! Top of this list is sweet potato; I’m not ashamed to admit that there have been entire weeks of my life that I’ve eaten roasted sweet potatoes and cauliflower cheese for dinner every night while el husbando has been away! 

This is a really quick and simple but delicious supper. What’s more, I have a calorie tracker on my phone and was amazed to find that this whole plate comes in at under 500 calories! I made double, keeping the leftovers for lunch; my colleagues in the office will be jealous!

Ingredients (serves 2)

2 salmon fillets (approx 120g each)

2 tsp rose harissa 

3 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 8 long wedges each

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp paprika

1 tsp ground coriander 

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

90g baby spinach

1 tsp ground nutmeg

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200C.

2. Place sweet potato wedges in a large baking tray. Add the olive oil, cumin, paprika and coriander along with a good dash of salt and pepper and use your hands to mix everything well. Pop in the oven on the top shelf and roast for 20 minutes, shaking the tray every 5 minutes or so to make sure the wedges cook evenly on all sides.

3. Place the salmon fillets skin side down on a piece of tinfoil twice their size. Rub a teaspoon of harissa onto each fillet, then fold over the tinfoil to make it into a little parcel. Place on a baking tray and bake for 20 minutes, folding back the the last five minutes to let the salmon fillets crisp up.

4. Pop the spinach into a non-stick frying pan, put a lid over it, and cook over a gentle heat for 5 minutes, until the spinach has wilted. Add the nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste.

Easy Sauce Nantua

I haven’t posted in a while as I have been really busy with work, including a trip to London last week for dinner at the Inner Temple, where I am an Academic Fellow.

I can say without hesitation that I have had some of the best meals of my life at the Inner Temple, and last week’s dinner was no exception! The main course was breast of duck with dauphinoise potatoes, Chantenay carrots, green beans and a black cherry sauce, which had a real kick to it. Desert consisted of a huge portion of sticky toffee pudding with malted milk ice-cream (divine – I cannot wait to get my ice-cream maker out again, once the Welsh weather takes a long-awaited turn for the better!).

However, the star dish of the evening for me was a quenelle of pike with a Sauce Nantua. I had never heard of Sauce Nantua before (and I think this may have been my first time eating pike too), but this intensely fishy sauce was an absolute revelation. I spent most of my train journey back to Bangor wondering how I could recreate this delicious sauce from home!

Some internet research revealed that Quenelles de Brochet Sauce Nantua is a popular dish in Lyonnaise cuisine. Amazingly, they even sell a tinned version in France!

The sauce takes its name from Lake Nantua, where the crayfish that give the sauce its fishy base are caught, and pike (‘brochet‘) are caught from the river Rhône. The reason they are served in quenelles is that pike is a very bony fish, so it makes sense to create bone-free dumplings by mixing the de-boned fillets of fish with cream, eggs and seasoning and leaving the mix to set overnight.

Some day, when I manage to source both pike and whole crayfish in North Wales, I will make this recipe. In the meantime, I set to making a cheat’s version, seen above, served with sea bass fillets and wild rice.

Ingredients (serves 2)

25g butter

5 shallots, very finely chopped

1 red chilli, deseeded and very finely chopped

1 clove garlic, very finely chopped

25g flour

1 tbsp tomato puree

pinch of saffron

pinch of cayenne pepper

125ml fish stock (I used one Knorr fish stockpot)

1/2 tin chopped tomatoes

120g crayfish tails (I used these; if you can get unpeeled crayfish tails, even better – use the shells to make an even more intense sauce)

75ml cream

Method

1. Melt the butter, and sauce the shallots, garlic, and chilli over a low heat until soft.

2. Add the flour and stir, then add the tomato puree, saffron, cayenne pepper and a pinch of salt and pepper. Gradually add the tomatoes, stirring constantly, and the fish stock. Bring to a boil then add the crayfish tails. Leave to simmer over a low heat, stirring every now and again, until the sauce has reduced by about half and the flavour has intensified. Taste, adding more seasoning if necessary.

3. Liquidise the sauce in a blender until it is a smooth consistency. You can pass it through a sieve at this stage if you prefer a smoother sauce (I didn’t).

4. Return the sauce to a saucepan, gradually heat, and add the cream. Serve immediately.

—

I had some leftover sauce, which I served for lunch the next day with a boiled egg and some crusty bread, scattered with some parsley leaves. I love throwing together lunch from what’s left in the fridge, and this one was surprisingly tasty (although the photo below admittedly looks a little odd – I wanted to recreate the look of the clean quenelle of pike sitting in the thick, rich, Sauce Nantua that I had seen two nights previous, but failed somewhat on that front!)

 

Celeriac, leek and mushroom pie

Writing this blog has made me realise we eat a lot more red meat than we should! So I decided to remedy this with a vegetarian option tonight. I remember the days when celeriac was a super exotic ingredient seen only on Masterchef (usually in puréed form). These days, you can get it in almost every supermarket, and it’s in season around this time of year.

Ingredients (serves 4)

1 celeriac, peeled and chopped into small chunks

2 leeks, sliced

8 chestnut mushrooms, sliced

2 cloves of garlic, very finely chopped

A couple of sprigs of thyme, leaves picked

50g butter

500ml milk

3 tbsp flour

100g grated cheddar cheese

1 tsp dijon mustard

1 tsp wholegrain mustard

1 sheet ready-rolled puff pastry

1 egg, beaten with a drop of milk, to glaze

Method 

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan.

2. Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the celeriac and leeks, stir, and cover with a lid. Leave them to saute for around 8 minutes, stirring every once in a while.

3. Add the mushrooms, thyme and garlic; stir and cover. Leave for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

4. Add the flour to the mix and leave to cook for 1 minute. Add the milk, stirring constantly. Cover and leave to simmer over a low heat, stirring every once in a while. After  around 10 minutes, test the celeriac to see if it’s soft; if not, leave the mix to cook for another few minutes until it is the texture you like.

5. Add the cheese, the mustards, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Taste and add more seasoning or mustard if you like.

6. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and place the puff pastry sheet over the mix. Trim the edges of the pastry; you can use these to make some shapes on the pastry lid, or set them aside for another purpose. Use a fork to crimp the edges of the pie, brush with your beaten egg mixture and bake for 20 minutes, until the pastry is golden and crispy.

Mmm… Pie!