Jambalaya

Hello lovely readers! After far too long, it's time for a new recipe... Jambalaya! Having grown up primarily outside of the United States, I was ashamed to realize that I'd never actually tried this delicious dish before. However, with a recipe this easy, I can safely say I'll be repeating the experience as often as possible! 

An export of Louisiana Creole country, this spicy and filling dinner was surprisingly quick and easy to knock together - chopping up the ingredients was the most time consuming element. Although most recipes use Andouille sausage, I went with this recipe's suggestion of chorizo since it's much easier to come by here in Britain. However, I'm sure this version would work equally well with either ingredient. 

Please don't be put off by the long list of ingredients! Although it looks like it could add up at the supermarket, you'll be surprised at how many items you probably already have - such as the garlic, spices, stock and rice. Also, this recipe calls for chicken, chorizo and prawns but you could easily skip the prawns if you prefer. Finally, I've tried this recipe with both canned tomatoes and fresh ones and didn't see any difference between the two so use whatever is more convenient. 

Recipe via www.hairybikers.com

Prep Time: 5 - 10 min

Cook Time: 20 - 30 min

Serves: 6

Ingredients: 

4 large chicken breasts, cut into bite size pieces
200g chorizo, outer skin removed and chopped
Olive oil
1 large onion, roughly chopped
2 large celery sticks, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 yellow pepper, chopped
5 large tomatoes, chopped (or 1 can of chopped tomatoes)
3-5 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tbsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano
2 bay leaves
200g long-grain rice (easy cook version)
450ml chicken stock
150g cooked and peeled prawns (or shrimp if you're American)
6 spring onions, sliced
salt
pepper
Fresh coriander/cilantro

Method: 

Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a large pot. Sauté the chicken for three to five minutes until starting to brown. Add the chorizo and cook for a minute until fragrant. Remove the chicken and chorizo from the pot and set aside.

Next, remove most of the oil from the pot - leaving just enough to sauté the vegetables (about a tablespoon). Stir in the onion, celery and peppers. Over a low heat, cook the vegetables for eight to ten minutes until they soften, stirring occasionally so they don't stick to the pot.

When the vegetables are ready, stir in the spices. After a minute, add in the chopped tomatoes and their juice. Increase the heat to medium and cook for five minutes or until the tomatoes have softened.

Add the chicken and chorizo back into the pan along with the rice. Cook for a minute, stirring to make sure the rice is fully incorporated. Next pour over the stock and add salt and pepper to taste.

Bring the pot to a simmer and cook for ten minutes or until the rice is ready, stirring occasionally. The rice will absorb most of the liquid but if the pot is looking too dry, add a little more stock and stir to combine.

Finally, stir in the prawns/shrimp and the spring onions and cook for about two minutes or until the prawns have heated through.

Serve with a sprinkle of coriander/cilantro and enjoy! 

Chorizo and Chickpea Stew

So. This is awkward. It's been a shockingly long time since my last post! Apologies, apologies. However, I have a very good reason for this: I got a job! Well, sort of. It's a temporary position teaching a new summer school course at my university. Two weeks long, this course is designed to teach students who have just finished their first year a range of different skills that they might not have come across in their degree classes since they come from such a wide variety of subjects. For example, we have representatives from physics to english to history or art which makes for a really fantastic class mix. I'm really enjoying my time as a teaching assistant although it means that a lot of my other pursuits (like this blog!) have fallen a bit by the way side. The working world is tough! Although the class is short in duration, it is pretty full on in terms of contact hours with lectures and seminars from 10 am to 5 pm or even later some days. As TAs we need to be there for almost everything so it's been an exhausting week.

Chorizo and chickpea stew ready for the fridge

While I haven't been cooking too much this week, I have been focusing on my lunches since the short lunch breaks we have with the course mean that bringing my lunch with me in the morning makes a lot of sense (and saves money!). To this end, I made up a huge batch of this chorizo and chickpea stew at the weekend and basically have just been enjoying it with lots of extra veggies and tasty goodness piled on top every day for either lunch or dinner... and occasionally both! Inspired by an episode of Nigella Express, this recipe is perfect and super easy with only three main  ingredients. I added a dash of Greek yogurt and a sprinkle of fresh coriander the first time and ever since I've been basically just adding other leftovers to my bowl... all successfully since this dish is happy to share the spotlight. I added a few bits and pieces to Nigella's original recipe so I'll include those to the list below. The following pictures are of my most recent masterpiece with some beetroot salad, yellow bell pepper, feta and green onions. Finally, this recipe makes a massive amount but can easily be halved...

Couscous with a ladle of stew

Adding in the beetroot salad 

Bell pepper, feta and green onion on top 

Finished product ready to eat! 

Recipe inspired by www.foodnetwork.co.uk 

Prep Time: 1 min

Cook Time: 30 min

Serves:  6-8 

Ingredients: 

Splash of olive oil

1 onion, chopped

320 g Chorizo, sliced into half circles 

2 cans of chickpeas, drained

2 cans of cherry tomatoes with their juice 

1/2 tsp mixed herbs

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes 

1/2 tsp paprika 

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper 

30g Greek yogurt per bowl

30g couscous per bowl

Sprinkling of fresh coriander, chopped 

Method: 

In a large pot, heat the splash of oil over medium heat and add the onion. When it's beginning to become translucent, add the chorizo and allow to saute for a few minutes. Next, add the chickpeas and the tomatoes with half a can of water. Stir in the herbs and spices and leave to simmer for half an hour. While waiting, pour the couscous into a bowl and cover with boiling water (adding a half centimeter of water above the top of the couscous) and place a plate on top to keep in the steam. Set aside for fifteen minutes. When ready top the couscous with the stew and add a dollop of Greek yogurt and a tablespoon or so of fresh coriander. Enjoy! 

Food Challenge April: Okonomiyaki Pancake

At the beginning of April, I joined a very unusual enterprise: a year round food challenge. A product of the imaginations of my lovely friends Laura and Kate (and Rachel who I haven't met but am sure is also lovely), the challenge requires all members to submit three ingredients each month which are then placed into a hat. Laura draws out three at random and those ingredients then form the basis of a dish that we all have to individually come up with before submitting our results at the end of each month. While it isn't a competition, the goal is to push ourselves to try out new and unusual recipes. The only rule is that you have to come up with the final dish on your own, although you can look at other recipes for inspiration. I've never tried anything like this before so I was really excited to jump on board and get cooking! I'll be posting my resulting recipes here as well every month. So, without further ado, April's ingredients were: beetroot, cabbage and chorizo.

Food challenge ingredients

Chopped cabbage

Now, I'm sure like most of you, my mind immediately went to cabbage rolls. But with the weather getting warmer, I just wasn't in the mood for something that was quite heavy when I'd tried it previously. Another thought I had was of course coleslaw (especially since I immediately remembered my cousin Wendy's delicious version!) but I thought that might be a bit greedy as a main dish. So, I put the food challenge to the side until I happened to be reading an article about Japanese restaurants and they mentioned Okonomiyaki. I'd never heard of this Japanese pancake dish before but since on of the main ingredients is cabbage, I thought it deserved more of an investigation. Much to my surprise, the name essentially means "whatever you want" and you can customize your pancake with whatever ingredients you fancy. Perfect for my first food challenge!

Chopped chorizo

Grated cabbage

I grated the beetroot so that it would color the pancake and that way we wouldn't have massive lumps of beetroot strewn throughout the dish. I liked the effect but I can understand how others might be a bit put off by a Pepto colored pancake! Another option would be to pickle the beetroot so that it is closer to the original Okonomiyaki dish, which is served with different sauces and pickles. While I'm calling this an Okonomiyaki pancake, I am also fully aware that it's not a very true representation. For example, Okonomiyaki is usually served as one big pancake but my pans weren't going to accommodate a behemoth like that so I split the batter into four smaller versions. However, I really liked the idea of having a dish that would make using leftovers really easy and I think I'll try this again in the future. The only change I would make is to add some green onion for color to the final dish... I didn't have any this time unfortunately. Another dish that I'm looking forward to trying is Kimchijeon (kimchi pancake) with some homemade kimchi I made using the leftovers from this dish... so stay tuned!

Basic batter ready for ingredients!

Pancake ready to flip

Finished version... needs something green!

Prep Time: 10 min

Cook Time: 10 min

Serves: 2-4

Ingredients: 

1 cup flour

2/3 cup water

1 egg

1/4 of a small white cabbage, chopped into thin strips

100g beetroot, grated

100g chorizo, chopped into small pieces

Oil

Method: 

Mix all of the ingredients except the oil in a large bowl. Heat a large pan over medium heat and add a splash of oil to keep the pancake from sticking. When the pan is hot, carefully pour in your desired amount of the batter and lightly press with a spatula to help it spread out. You should have about a pancake about a centimeter thick (possibly a bit more depending on your ingredients). Allow to cook until the bottom is nicely browned and a bit crispy. I also followed the age old pancake advice and waited until I saw bubbles on the top before flipping. When it's ready, carefully flip the pancake and allow the second side to brown as well. Serve with your choice of dipping sauce, enjoy! 

Chicken and Chorizo Empanadas

Empanadas always seemed like the slightly mysterious cousin of British pasties. Delicous but far too difficult to bother making at home. However, by using store bought puff pastry, you get a tasty (if not all that original) version that makes great party food or a side dish for a tex-mex night. The filling is easily customizable to whatever you happen to have on hand or your favorite flavors. I managed to get 16 empanadas out of 2 packages of ready rolled puff pastry but you could easily get more by making smaller cut outs. These were perhaps slightly too big for a party (3-4 bites) so in the future I'll use a glass to cut out the circles and aim to make them more of a 2 bite option.

Browning chicken

Garlic and Onion

Filling simmering

Ready for the oven!

Fresh from the oven

Finished product!

This recipe was based on a Smitten Kitchen version but with a few changes that go along with my preferences. For exmaple, I used chicken breast where she used chicken legs because I prefer them. Because of this, I used a bit more wine and let it simmer longer so that the chicken wouldn't get dry etc. I also used black olives because they were what I had.

Recipe inspired by www.smittenkitchen.com

Prep Time: 20 min

Cook Time: 25 min

Serves: 16

Ingredients: 

2-3 chicken breasts
Salt
Pepper
90g chorizo, chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 bay leaves
1 cup white wine
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
1/2 cup olives, sliced
2 packages of ready-rolled puff pastry
1 egg

Method: 

Preheat oven to 400F / 205C.

In a saucepan over medium heat, brown the chicken breast with salt and pepper until they are cooked through. Remove from the pan and slice into three pieces. In the same pan, saute the onion, garlic and bay leaves until the onion is translucent and the garlic is aromatic. Add the chorizo and Spanish paprika and saute for a few minutes before adding the olives, wine and chicken stock. Place the chicken pieces back into the sauce pan and let simmer until sauce has reduced. When sauce is ready, remove the chicken and chop before mixing back into the pan with the other ingredients. Remove filling from the heat and let cool.

Meanwhile, roll out the puff pastry and cut out circles. The finished product will be semi-circles so size your original circles accordingly. Fill each circle with a tablespoon or more of the filling. Use an egg wash to seal the edges and crimp before placing on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Brush the empanadas with the egg wash and bake for 25 minutes. Start with trays on the top third and bottom third of your oven and switch them halfway through cooking. Serve with salsa and other condiments. Enjoy! 

Chorizo and Pepper Pittas

Finished sandwich!

Last friday, I was looking for a tasty lunch and remembered a sandwich I had in Borough Market over a year ago. There's a stand where you can get a chorizo sausage and roasted red pepper in a tasty bun. Simple and delicious. My only slight critique I had at the time was that it seemed a bit dry with just the sausage and pepper. So, I wanted to try and jazz it up a bit. This mayonnaise based addition is really flavorful and so easy to make it almost seems silly not to. Add in some sauteed peppers, onions and a little salad and you're ready to go!

Sun dried tomatoes in the mini  chopper

Sun dried tomatoes and basil, chopped

Finished condiment

Peppers and Onions

Prep Time: 15 min 

Cook Time: N/A

Serves: 6

Ingredients: 

3 slices of chorizo per pitta sandwich
1 bell pepper, sliced
1/2 a red onion, sliced
1 handful of salad leaves per pitta sandwich
Pitta breads
10 sun dried tomatoes, either packed in oil or rehydrated
small handful of basil leaves
2-4 tbsp light mayonnaise

Method: 

Toast the pitta breads while mixing the mayonnaise condiment. In a small food processor, blend the sun dried tomatoes, basil and mayonnaise until smooth. Add 2-4 tablespoons of mayonnaise depending on your personal preference. In a small saucepan, saute the chopped peppers and onions until soft. When this is ready, smooth over one side of the pitta and top with three slices of chorizo, some of the peppers and onions and a few salad leaves.