Mediterranean Style One Pot Meal

NAME: _Mediterranean Style One Pot Meal

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INGREDIENTS/UTENSILS:
(See Notes - quantities are quite flexible)
500g beef or lamb, sliced about 1cm - 2cm thick
1 medium brown onion
handful fresh basil, say about 1/2 cupful to one cupful when chopped coarsely
250g - 500g string or runner beans
1 to 3 sticks celery
1/2 a medium green capsicum, give or take.
1 can chopped roma tomatoes (or 6 - 8 fresh roma tomatoes)
1/2 small green apple
2 tsp cornflour
1 tsp raw sugar
1 clove garlic
salt to taste
1 tbsp olive oil/grapeseed oil mixed

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METHOD:

Cut sliced meat down to about bite sized pieces.  Slice onion into thick rings, slice the half green apple into very thin slices.  Remove centre and seeds if desired.  If using fresh tomatoes chop finely.  Put the meat into a heavy saucepan or slow cooker or crockpot along with enough oil to wet the base of the pot, then layer onions and apple slices over, sprinkle with salt, and cover with chopped tomato.  Cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes then reduce to lowest simmer.  Go away for about two hours.

Chop celery and capsicum into strips about as wide as the beans, and then chop the lot into quite small cubes, maybe 1/2cm (1/4") or so.  Crush the whole clove of garlic with the back of the knife, once.  Place all into a small saucepan, barely cover with water, and sprinkle with a bit of salt and sugar.  Bring to a fast simmer, let simmer for 5 minutes, then strain the vegetables and keep the water.  Once water has cooled, beat in the cornflour and slowly bring back to heat until it thickens.  Set both aside.

By now the meat should have been simmering for 2 - 3 hours and be very tender.  (Test with a skewer or fork, should be very soft.) Add the vegetables and stir in as much cornflour paste as needed to make the gravy to your preferred consistency, then let is simmer for another 30 minutes or so.

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SERVING:
When it's done, cook up some pasta or gnocchi, serve meal over pasta.  Side of salad optional; but a nice touch.  Depending on quantities and pasta etc, this can serve up to four people.

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NOTES:
Did I say "fresh basil?"  I did of course mean FRESH basil - preferably "grow your own and pick it a minute beforehand" kind of fresh.  All quantities in this are a bit flexible - but the fresher the vegetables, the better.  The meat is best if it's aged a little bit - buy it the day before and let it age loosely covered in the refrigerator or a cool place in the kitchen - it's just the flavouring, so make it good flavouring.

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Squirrel In Your Pie?

How times and tastes have changed!  I kind of like this recipe, and yet some of it makes me wonder - would I eat squirrels if the recipe called for it?  I think I would, if there were a need to.  And this recipe from 1867 will give me at least one recipe for the little rodents:

"Boil two calf's feet; take the feet out when done; reduce the broth to a quart. The feet may be fried and used, first removing the bones. Let the broth become cold in an earthen vessel; scrape off all the grease; wipe the top of the jelly with a coarse towel; put the cake of jelly into a kettle lined with tin or porcelain; season it with two lemons cut up (removing the seed), fine blades of mace, a stick of cinnamon, pepper (white pepper is best), and salt to taste. Beat to a froth the whites of six eggs; stir these to the jelly just as it melts; it must then be left to clarify and not stirred again. When it simmers long enough to look clear at the sides, strain it through a flannel bag before the fire; do not squeeze the bag. Suspend it by running a stick through a loop made by tying the bag; rest each end of the stick upon a chair, and throw a table-cloth over all to keep out the dust. If the jelly does not run through clear the first time, pour it through the jelly-bag again. Set this aside. "Prepare the meat and seasoning for the pie. Put into a stew-pan slices of pickled pork, using a piece of pork four inches square; if it is very salt[y] lay it an hour in tepid water. Cut up two young, tender chickens--a terrapin, if it is convenient--two or three young squirrels, half a dozen birds or squabs. Stew them gently, cutting up and adding a few sprigs of parsley. Roll into half a pound of butter two tablespoonfuls of flour; add this to the stew until the meat is nearly done. Line a fire-proof dish, or two fire-proof dishes (this quantity of stew will fill two common-sized or quart dishes;) with good pastry; mix the different kinds of meats; put in Irish potato dumplings; season to taste; pour in the gravy and bake. When done, remove the upper crust when the pie is cold and pack in the jelly, heaping the jelly in the middle. Return the crust and serve cold or hot. The jelly will prevent them become too dry. They are good Christmas pies and will keep several days. Very little gravy should be used, and that rich. Should there be too much, leave the stew-pan open until reduced sufficiently. This kind of pie keeps well if made in deep plates, and by some is preferred to those baked in deep moulds."

One day I may let you know how this turns out...  Who knows...

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Moroccan Mango Chicken

NAME: _Moroccan Mango Chicken

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INGREDIENTS/UTENSILS:
500g - 1kg chicken meat
2 or 3 barely ripe mangoes (depending on the size of them, may only need 1 or 2)
1 medium white onion
1 - 2 orange sweet potatoes
several cupfuls mashed orange sweet potato
about 1 - 2cm chunk of palm sugar
1 cup reduced chicken stock
2 tbsp Moroccan spice mix
2 tbsp rice bran oil (or use peanut oil if you want that flavour)
1 egg
1 tbsp milk
salt

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METHOD:

Slice the onion thinly and fry in 1 tbsp oil with a few flakes off the sugar and a pinch of salt.  Reduce heat and fry until mostly brown, then lift the onions out and line the bottom of a casserole pan with them.

Slice the chicken into fairly thin flat slabs, place in a bag with the Moroccan spice blend and a pinch of salt, shake until lightly coated with spice.  Add the other tbsp of oil to the pan, increase heat again, and fry off the chicken until the outside is seared.  Place chicken in a layer atop the onions in the casserole.

Peel the mangoes and slice the flesh off the stone, put the flesh in the pan along with the remaining palm sugar, crushed, and warm over medium heat until the mango loses texture.  Add the chicken stock, stir well, and pour evenly over the chicken and onions.

Peel sweet potato and slice about 5-7mm thick (about 1/4" or a touch thicker) and place in frypan, use to absorb all the pan juices, then place the slices over the chicken mixture in the casserole.  Add the mashed sweet potato over the top, spread out evenly.

Place in medium hot oven for about 45 minutes, test with a skewer if the sweet potato slices are done.  If they feel done, increase the oven heat, beat the egg and milk together and pour over the top of the dish before returning it to the oven for another 30 or so minutes, until the egg starts to brown in spots.

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SERVING:

Let stand for ten minutes or so before serving.

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NOTES:
Theoretically, you could use normal potato mash and potatoes for the top, but it's the taste of mango and sweet potato which makes this dish. You could steam or boil the all the sweet potato in slices and top the dish with that - I like the mash and slices because it gives a texture (the slices) and a smooth top.

The idea of the palm sugar is to A) add some caramel tones to the onions and B) take the acid edge off the mango.  Adjust the amount according to taste and how ripe your mangoes are.  Ditto with the salt - if you have to use more sugar, add a smidgen more salt.  If your chicken stock is salty, use a bit less.  The key is to have just enough sugar to tone off the sweet potato and mango, and just enough salt to round out the sugar flavour.  I generally wing this as I go, tasting and adjusting.  It's actually pretty hard to stuff it up, unless you tip in a pot of salt or use ultra green mangoes.

NOTE to the NOTE: I got green chutney mangoes once, some were so unripe they were soft but still white inside.  I added extra palm sugar and used the more ripe, yellowish-fleshed chutney mangoes, and sliced up the white-fleshed ones and sprinkled those with salt and munched on them while I cooked the rest of the meal.  You win some, and you win even more sometimes... Om nom nom!

Disclaimer: I haven't seen this recipe anywhere else.  As far as I know it's not a Moroccan recipe.  I just had the ingredients at hand and thought how well the flavours would go together.  Luckily, it worked out nice.  I've made it a few times since that first time, and it wasn't a fluke.  My accuracy in measuring ingredients, on the other hand....

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Chicken Nuggets Mexican

NAME: _Chicken Nuggets Mexican

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INGREDIENTS/UTENSILS:
(Approximate for one person, scale to suit size of party.)
chicken meat (you may use dark or white, about one breast's worth per person.)
1/2 carrot
1/2 green capsicum
1/2 jalapeno pepper
1/2 medium onion
1/2 tsp dried crushed chilli
1 clove garlic
1/2 a ripe to overripe tomato
1tsp tomato paste
1 tsp lime juice
1/2 tsp anatto seeds (or turmeric, it's for colour)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup white corn meal (see notes)
1 tbsp cornflour
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 - 2 tbsp EVOO
rice, around 1/2 cup (dry) per person

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METHOD:
Prepare your dusting meal - in a rocket blender or similar, place the dried chilli, the anatto seeds (or turmeric) and about half the salt, whiz to powder. Add the corn meal and blend together. This gets used for several things so set it aside now.

Chop the chicken into approximately 2cm (1") cubes, place in a plastic bag.  Start the rice cooking - add about one cup of water per half cup of rice, a pinch of salt, and once it boils, reduce the heat to a simmer, then later when almost all the water is absorbed, switch off the heat, cover with a lid and let stand while other things are being prepared.

Cut the carrot and capsicum and jalapeno pepper into 5cm (2") strips a bit larger than julienne.  Cut the onion lengthways to same width, and cut the garlic into fine straws, as fine as possible.

Quarter the tomato, place it, the lime juice, the tomato paste, the remaining salt, and the chicken stock into the blender and blend all to liquid, seeds skin and all.

Start about half the olive oil in a good heavy frypan, while it is heating put about 1/2 the dusting meal in the plastic bag with the chicken and shake to coat the pieces.  You may add a bit more dusting meal if needed, but you need about 1/4 of the mixture for the veges.  Place the chicken pieces in the hot oil and let sit for about five minutes on medium high, then toss to turn over all pieces.  Leave for another five minutes.  The nuggets should all be golden and lightly browned.  Scoop them out and place on paper towel to drain.

Add some of the leftover dusting meal (it should be around 1/4 of the initial amount) to the cornflour and mix together well.  (Or blend together.)

Add the strips of vegetables and enough oil to ensure the vegetables are all coated in oil.  Toss a few times, until things are sizzling, then dust some of the cornflour mixture over the vegetables and toss, keep adding dusting mix and tossing until all vegetables are well coated and a bit of flour is loose in the pan.  Keep frying and tossing the vegetables until the cornmeal and cornflour start to smell like tortilla chips, then slowly add the tomato mixture until the cornflour and corn meal start to thicken.  The idea here is to almost embed the vegetables in a corn fritter, not make a liquid sauce, and get the vegetables with "just-cooked" texture, i.e. not too soft.

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SERVING:
Serve rice to one side, vegetables to other side, chicken nuggets between, maybe with a few pickled jalapeno peppers.  Best served immediately so the nuggets and vegetables aren't soggy.

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NOTES:

I haven't tried this with fine polenta, it may work or it may not.  White corn meal is like a rough grade of wheat flour, and the flavour is just right, polenta might be a bit overpowering.

As far as I know this isn't any official Mexican recipe, I just wanted something that looked and tasted the part.  beware of over-salting this - it's easy to do as there's some salt in the dusting flour and then a bit more in the sauce and (usually) more in the chicken stock.  You may be able to serve this over corn chips a la nachos style, I just wanted rice in the meal too.  If doing nachos style forget the avocado but some sour cream would go nicely.  Don't microwave it over the chips though cos that will make the nuggets and vegetables soggy.




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Some Things I Take For Granted, That You May Not.

Some things I take for granted, that you may not take for granted or know about:

To me, "rice" means basmati, arborio, or very occasionally, jasmine rice.  Basmati is one of the breeds of rice that is better for nutrition, and I tend to use it for most things except some fine flavoured Asian dishes, where jasmine rice is just a smidgen nicer.  And arborio is great for rice/meat stuffings, and of course desserts.  Brown rice is also nice but takes ages to boil, and sometimes, barley is nice to use instead of rice in some dishes, but also takes ages to prepare.

Rice is generally easiest cooked in a pot (or a microwave rice cooker) at the ratio of one cup uncooked rice to two cups of water, plus a sparing teaspooon of salt if cookign for a savoury dish.  Wash the rice first (I use a strainer) and then put the rice and water and salt in a pot and start it boiling, as soon as boiling starts reduce the heat to a fast simmer, then slowly reduce the heat as the water is absorbed.  It's gonna take 15 minutes, get used to it.

"Oil," to me, means extra virgin olive oil. Often, I use a mixture of 1/2 EVOO and 1/2 grapeseed oil.  As a good rule of thumb, anywhere I am asked to use ( for example) beef dripping or other form of fat, I use 2/3 olive oil and 1/3 required fat.  Keeps the flavour but makes it a lot healthier.  Also, if there's a recipe which has good antioxidant ingredients or vitamins (anything with tomato paste, or the livers in the previous recipe) I use 1/2 and 1/2 because grapeseed oil is a good source of oily vitamin E, and that assists the body to absorb the antioxidants and vitamins much more effectively.

When I say "vinegar," I do NOT - ever! - mean plain old white vinegar.  White vinegar is made from fermented wood pulp, not grapes.  Sorry, white vinegar industry - but screw that.  My body deserves something other than rotten wood.  Use white vinegar for cleaning, or to add a bite to pickles made with other, more nutritious vinegars.  Good vinegars to have in your arsenal are rice vinegar, palm or date vinegar, malt vinegar, red and white wine vinegars, and the old standby, balsamic.  Take a good look at what your vinegar is made of, because nowadays the name is no guarantee.  Vinegar manufacturers are labelling it white wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar or whatever - but if you read "acetic acid" as one of the major ingredients they are flavouring and colouring woodpulp vinegar.

I also heartily recommend using red wine, white wine, honey mead, apple cider (same thing - check that it really IS apple cider, honey mead, etc) and good beers in cooking.  By good beers I mean a beer that came from a brewery that doesn't use preservatives or chemicals, or which at least uses very little of them.

When a recipe calls for flour and is not a baking/pasta recipe, I look for ways to get buckwheat flour, or spelt flour, (or anything other than white overprocessed flour,) into the recipe.  Also, think about adding a touch of  psyllum husk - a half teaspoon can make a gravy glossy smooth and beautiful.  Plain white flour is bleached to within an inch of its life and is not very good for you.

On that subject - ANYTHING is better than white sugar in recipes! White sugar also is bleached, and a good friend's doctor father made the observation, almost a century ago now, that wherever he went in Africa and India, there was no major incidence of cancer until a few years after white sugar and white flour arrived.

To anyone that says that's bullshit, I urge you to go to the supermarket and get a bottle of bleach, pour some into a cup, and ask yourself if you'd really drink that.  Because why shouldn't you, it's just white sugar with the sugar taken out... (By the way - DO NOT DO THIS, IT WILL KILL YOU!  I am making an extreme example here, not to be taken as a literal invitation.)  But you do see my point - anything that is bleached is no longer alive or conducive to life.

So those are simple rules of the kitchen that I live by and encourage - and I encourage you to do the same, it may be the difference between a long healthy life and a life with diabetes, cancers, and digestive illnesses and cancers.  And it certainly won't hurt to think about healthier choices.

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