Hot and kickin' Puerto Rican Chicken

I had to blog this recipe just as an excuse to show you this perfect example of a Scotch Bonnet pepper....beautiful!

Yep, the whole of that bad boy went in, along with another hot red chili which had taken up residence in the crisper.  This is one of my favourite recipes of the year, we have made it several times with excellent results.  It cooks itself.  It is a Levi Roots recipe, and apparently one if his favourites too.  So here goes, for once I am going to give you the whole recipe:

Puerto Rican Chicken and Rice (serves 4)
175g (6oz) basmati rice
3tbsp sunflower or groundnut oil
8 chicken pieces (thighs, drumsticks, whatever)
2 tbsp all-purpose seasoning
salt and pepper
1 onion, roughly chopped
1 red pepper, deseeded and thinly sliced
1 green pepper, as above
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
6 allspice berries, crushed
1.5 tsp turmeric
2cm piece of root ginger, finely chopped
1 hot red chilli (ideally scotch bonnet) sliced into rings, or more if you like it fiery, like me
600ml chicken stock (I use Kallo organic free range chicken stock cubes, they are ace)
3 sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
100g pitted green olives, ideally stuffed with pimento
lime wedges to serve.

Phew!  Now do the following with the above:

1. Wash the rice lots, until the water runs clear, or as much as you can be bothered.
2. Season the chicken with the all-purpose seasoning, salt and pepper.
3. Heat the oil in a frying pan and brown the chicken on all sides.
4. Remove the chicken from the pan, add the onion, peppers and garlic and saute until peppers soften. 
5. Add the allspice, turmeric, ginger and chili and cook for a minute longer.
6. Put the chicken in a casserole dish, big enough so it can all fit in one layer.  
7. Add the veg.
8. Pour the rice round the chicken, add the stock, thyme and bay and season well.
9. Oven cook for 40 minutes at gas mark 5/6, no need to stir or anything like that.
10. 15 minutes before the end of cooking time add the olives.

When it is done there should be a golden crust of rice on the top, the stock should be absorbed and the chicken cooked through, check this by piercing to make sure the juices run clear.  Serve with lime wedges to squeeze over.  I'm starving now I've written that; tea time!

Ciao Bella!

This is just a little heads up for y'all, to check out a new, authentic Italian street food eatery in the Eagle Centre Market Hall. Run by Manuele Schiavone, his father Beppe and mother Rosetta who hail from near Lake Garda in Italy, the stall is named Ciao and is open 6 days a week during the market hall's opening hours.  If you walk up the far left side of the market hall, looking to the right, you will find Ciao.
Ciao has only been open for 10 days but things were bustling when I took a look.  As well as serving great Lavazza filter coffee, Manuele spends half the week making the food that they sell; delicious pizzas and paninis made from scratch, including one with a potato topping; truly authentic and last encountered in Sardinia (on a gastro holiday of magnificent proportions, how I wish I'd been blogging then!)  He also makes his own ice cream, which I have yet to try, but the Zuppa Inglese (trifle) flavour certainly caught my eye.  Manuele greeted me with a huge smile and a true Italian generosity of spirit.  He has big plans for Ciao, with Porchetta (roast suckling pig) coming soon, as well as liqueur coffees to warm your cockles (whatever those are) after some Christmas shopping. 
I really urge people to support small businesses like this, so much care and attention has gone into Ciao.  If you work in Derby city centre it is a really convenient place to grab lunch.  You would be mental to go to Greggs (or one of many other bland, generic high street snackeries) instead, but sadly so many people do...why not add a little Italian to your afternoon instead?

Falafel King.

After having massive pork chops for dinner on Friday I felt the need to embrace my inner veggie last Saturday, so turned to an old favourite, Falafel burgers.  Falafel are a delight, but fiddly and demanding of large quantities of oil to cook; these burger versions are simpler and just as tasty.  They are probably healthier too as you use a lot less oil, and the mixture sticks together really well (just add a little water if it seems too dry.  If you are a purist, you can soak / boil your chickpeas, it does taste better, but it takes away the instant store cupboard ease of this recipe.  The recipe is a BBC Good Food one:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5605/falafel-burgers
I use / modify a lot of the recipes from this site as they are nice and simple, sometimes too simple, but there are lots of winners on there.  I stick to this recipe pretty faithfully, but I always add lashings of greek yoghurt to the finished product, sometimes tahini and always, always gallons of the to die for harissa I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs.  I love this recipe for being really easy, tasty and satisfying whilst having no meat and no cheese in it, as I find that cheese is my default setting for protein if I'm not careful (and I'm never careful where cheese is concerned.)

I must also mention the meal we had last night, and by proxy the fabulous fishmongers in Nottingham's Victoria Market.
http://www.thefishmongers-nottingham.co.uk/
lucky me, I work close enough to nip there in my lunch break and on Friday I picked up two fat and fresh tuna steaks for a fraction of the price they would have cost across the road at Waitrose (although their fish counter is quite nice as supermarket fish counters go).
I had the basic ingredients for a mean salsa hanging out in my fridge at home, red onion, red chili, garlic, lime juice, diced tomatoes and avocado, finished with a pinch of sea salt and a glug of olive oil.
I marinaded the tuna in sesame oil, lime juice, ginger and garlic, it only needs half an hour or so as the lime starts to cook the tuna.  I ditched the marinade and pan fried the fish in a smidgen of olive oil; it only needs about 3 minutes on each side, if that.
Served with a side of diced and roasted potatoes, this was Friday fish 'n' chips with a difference.

I've Bean Away....

Well no I haven't, I've just bean lazy, and a bit busy.  It's over two weeks since I last blogged, so let me update you with some of my most recent culinary escapades.

A mooch in Waitrose, where everything is packaged so alluringly, and lit so beautifully, inspired me to purchase a bag of mixed dried beans, just because they were so pretty.  Look at that, ten kinds of bean in a bag, like shiny pebbles.

 The obvious choice was a bean chili, a decidedly non vegetarian one, given the addition of organic beef stock. 

This behemoth of a con carne encompassed 3 different types of chili, one grown by my own fair hand.  Totally tasty, the one issue was cooking so many beans in one go, with all the soaking and boiling that entails, meant that the biggest beans remained a bit tough.  Still gorge though, perfick Autumnal grub. 

From Autumn to winter and the dark evenings are already getting seriously depressing.  Earlier in the week I felt the need for some pure escapism, an edible vacation.  I often browse the aisles in Lidl, I like it for a number of reasons:
1. It is the closest supermarket to work, allowing me to pop there in my lunch hour and avoid miserable after work shopping.
2. It stocks lots of German things which I like and it makes me nostalgic for Deutschland.
3.  It has the cheapest and best veg around and often stocks unusual things.
I struck gold and found bags of fresh Padron peppers, which I waxed lyrical about in my Escabeche blog.  Basically Spain on a plate.  I also found Serrano ham on special offer, at the bargain price of £1.49.  Low price doesn't equate to low quality here, like budget supermarket "value" ranges.  Around Christmas you'll find dirt cheap Stilton cheese, with the name of some implausible sounding dairy emblazoned across the packaging.  Check the small print though, and you'll find it's from the Long Clawson dairy.

Anyway, I digress about cheese (often).  Obviously it was going to be Tapas:

A delectable nibble of cornichons (that should be the collective noun), afore mentioned ham and Manchego cheese, sourced dirt cheap from the brill cheese stall in the Eagle Centre market.

Padron peppers and crisp, cold lager.  Heaven, I am in Spain.

 Fiery Gambas Pil Pil, using fresh raw prawns and gallons of olive oil, garlic and chili.

That's better, for a while :-)

I've had some Confit du Canard (duck legs preserved in duck fat in a tin roughly the size of a Quality Street tin) since last Christmas, and I have been waiting for the nights to draw in again before using them to full effect.  I'm planning a proper Cassoulet in the next couple of weeks, and I promise to include an actual recipe.  This is gonna be BIG. A table, tout le monde.