Tag Archives: Jamie Oliver

Middle Eastern Dinner Party – Part 2 – Chicken, Olive and Preserved Lemon Tagine

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Moroccan Chicken

This is another recipe I’ve gleaned from Jamie Does, Marrakesh.

It starts by infusing flavour into the chicken with a spice rub, so it’s best to start this recipe a day in advance, or early in the morning.  But once it gets going, it’s happy to blip away without much interference.  This makes it a perfect dinner party dish, because it feeds a crowd and leaves you free to set the table and make a cracking dessert.

Tagines are, obviously, meant to be made in tagines.  Whilst it might be difficult for my friends and husband to believe, there are some pieces of kitchen equipment I don’t have, and a tagine is one of them.  I used a big cast iron pot and the results could not have been any more tender or delicious.  I would love to hear if people  think tagines are really worth the investment though.  I do think they look amazing, but I’m not convinced I really need one.  And, I’m normally fairly easily convinced that I need something for the kitchen!

I was a bit concerned that the fennel bulbs would be too strong in the dish.  But they mellowed out to leave a wonderfully warm and subtle aniseed flavour.

The recipe calls for a whole chicken, of about 1.5kg, broken down.  Instead, I used a 2kg mix of marylands and supremes so that it could stretch to feed 8 with some left overs.  Marylands are a butcher’s cut comprising of the whole thigh and drumstick.  Supremes are a butcher’s cut comprising of the whole breast with the wing bone attached.  I did this because I find these cuts have much easier to navigate bones – an important consideration for a dinner party (plus I use to have a bit of a chicken bone phobia, which I’m now over, but I still prefer not to pick through my chicken in the company of others).  Having said that, don’t use boneless cuts.  You get such an amazing flavour boost from cooking meat on the bone.

Ingredients
1 whole chicken broken down into four, or equivalent in other cuts (I used a bit more to stretch to feed 8+)
olive oil
1-2 large fennel bulbs, chopped into 8 wedges each
2 onions, roughly chopped
1 bunch of coriander, stalks chopped finely, leaves reserved for garnish
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
2-3 small preserved lemons, deseeded and chopped
80g stoned black and green olives
good pinch of saffron
500ml hot chicken stock (or more if you like it really saucy, like me)
cooked couscous to serve (mixed with fresh mint, sultanas and toasted pine-nuts is great!)
yogurt and harissa to serve (optional)

For the spice rub:
1 heaped teaspoon coriander seeds, freshly ground
1 level teaspoon ground cumin
1 heaped teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper 

Massage your chicken pieces in the spice rub and leave covered in a bowl in the fridge for a few hours (overnight is preferable).

Over a medium-high heat, fry your chicken pieces in some olive oil (skin side down first) for about 5 minutes a side until golden brown.  Remove chicken from the pot temporarily.

Fry off your onions, fennel wedges, coriander stalks and garlic for a couple of minutes.  Then mix in the preserved lemons, olives and saffron.  Add the chicken back to the pot and evenly distribute the ingredients before adding your hot stock.

Cover the pot (or tagine) and simmer on a low heat for 1.5 hours, or until the meat starts to fall away from the bone.  Mine ticked away happily for about 2 hours (without the lid for last 1/2 hour to thicken the sauce up).

Give the mix a bit of a gentle stir half way through and add more liquid if it looks dry.  Taste, and season with salt and pepper if required.

Serve on a bed of couscous, topped with reserved coriander leaves and be ready to soak up the complements from your guests.  This fancy stew (well, really, that’s what it is), elicited ohhs and ahhhs as I presented it to the table, but (most importantly) it tasted good! 

You’ll see in the photo above that I served this with a super quick and easy side salad of grated carrot, ginger, mint, parsley and coriander with a pistachio oil and orange juice dressing.  A great, refreshing accompaniment.

 

Middle Eastern Dinner Party – Part 1 – Ratatouille-Style Briouats

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Middle Eastern filo rolls

We recently had a Middle Eastern themed dinner party.  For entrée, I served these tasty Ratatouille-Style Briouats (I understand it to be pronounced bree-wat).

This was a recipe I gleaned from Jamie Does.  I was very taken by the episode where Jamie Oliver went to Marrakesh.  It made my feet itchy.

One of the great things about cooking, is that you can travel from your dining room table.  We’re so fortunate to be able to get amazing spices and interesting international foods now days at the local deli.  This dish is described as Moroccan street food.

I’ve heard stories of my Opa going to Morocco in his younger years.  It would have been years before the movie Casablanca came out.  Whilst making this entrée I wondered to myself whether my Opa would have ever eaten something like this in a market place in those days.  It must have been a very adventurous time to be in Morocco.

Ingredients
2 tomatoes, halved
2 zucchinis, halved length-ways and sliced
1 onion, peeled and cut into 8 wedges
1 red capsicum, deseeded and roughly chopped
1 eggplant, halved length-ways and sliced
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
2-4 teaspoons of ras el hanout spice mix
a good glug of olive oil
salt and pepper
2 handfuls of breadcrumbs 
2 lemons, one juiced and one cut in quarters
8-16 sheets of filo pastry
2 teaspoons sesame seeds (optional)
100g melted butter
150g greek yoghurt
2 teaspoons harissa
coriander or parsley to serve

Serves 4-6

Preheat oven to 180°C (or 160°C fan forced).  Toss the prepared veg, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper and spices together in a large roasting tray and bung that in the oven for 45 minutes or so, until everything is cooked through and deliciously golden.  You may want to visit the vegetables half way through that cooking time to give them another little toss, so they colour and cook evenly.

When the vegetables are ready, pull them out and let them cool until they are cool enough to handle and roughly chop them until they are well mixed but not mush.  In a bowl, combine the chopped, roasted vegetables and the juice of one of the lemons.  Taste for seasoning.

At this point, turn your oven up to 220°C (or 200°C fan forced).  

To roll the Briouats, wet and wring out a clean tea-towel to lay your filo pastry on, so it won’t become dry and brittle.  Next, take your filo pastry and lay 2-4 sheets on top of each other, brushing in-between each layer with melted butter (yum) or oil.

I then sprinkled a half a handful of breadcrumbs along one long side of the filo (leaving a 3cm border) and spooned the vegetable mixture along that line too.  Breadcrumbs weren’t in the original recipe, but I wanted to make sure the pastry remained crispy and breadcrumbs are great at absorbing any extra liquid in the filling.  It may sound odd, but I do the same for apple strudel as well (you don’t taste it and it works a treat).

Use the tea-towel to assist you in rolling the pastry into a cigar shape, tucking in the short sides as you go to seal it up.  Use more melted butter as glue.  Mine came out looking more like sausage rolls.  I was running a little late and I didn’t take as much time or care as perhaps I should have… but it tasted good!  However, you could roll them to be much smaller, and more delicate cigars.

Placing the rolls in a baking dish, I then brushed them liberally with the melted butter (is there any other way to brush butter onto pastry?!), and sprinkled with some sesame seeds and a bit of left over spice mix and put it in the oven for about 20 minutes, until all crispy and golden.  Keep an eye on them intermittently.

Serve with wedges of lemon, fresh herbs, and a pot of yoghurt swirled with hot harissa - delicious!

The genius thing about this for an entrée, is that you can par-cook the rolls and pop them back in the oven for final browning when your guests are having a welcome drink with nibbles.

Stay tuned for Middle Eastern Dinner Party – Part 2 – Chicken, Olive and Preserved Lemon Tagine (without a tagine)… and the grand finale of Part 3 – Almond Honey Spice Syrup Cake with Fig, Date and Apricot Compote.

Tips Tuesday – Screaming from the bath tub

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Hubby and I took a lovely trip last weekend to a small town called Berry, on the NSW south coast.  When we arrived on Friday afternoon, I thought some pampering was in order to make myself relaxed and beautiful before our romantic dinner for two at the silos estate – the magnificent boutique winery where we were staying.

Apologies – I would have reviewed their beautiful restaurant here, but I was too busy enjoying hubby’s company and the food (plus I forgot to take my camera or phone to the restaurant with me – whoopsies).

So, in preparation I drew myself a lovely bath, lit some candles, poured myself a glass of sparkling and settled in to read the Jamie magazine I had picked up earlier that day.

I don’t usually get the chance to read the Jamie magazine.  Stocking of the magazine here in Canberra is a bit spotty.  But, when ever I see it and I have a little bit of spare time coming up (such as a flight, or a trip away), I buy it.  It had been good fortune that I’d seen a copy to pick up that day.

The Jamie Magazine always seems to be a bit behind here in Australia, so it was the Easter issue.  But that didn’t trouble me.  Especially seeing as the issue was devoted to one of my favourite things – baking!

Eventually I turned a page and landed on the Tweet @ Jamie section, which I always enjoy.

So I’m reading away, sparkling in hand, contemplating @cakeandpiesblog’s question regarding salted and unsalted butter in baking.  Personally, I often just use salted butter because it’s always in the fridge.  Normally it’s not a problem, as I would normally add a pinch or two of salt to a sweet to bring out the flavours anyway.  But I did once find it a bit full on in a chocolate ganache tart I had made.  I now try to keep some unsalted butter in the fridge as well, in case of emergency chocolate ganache tart making situations.  Good question @cakeandpiesblog, I thought.

I kept reading until I got to this question: “What’s your best tip for keeping dishes down?  I love cooking more than hubby liked cleaning!”.  I couldn’t agree with this question more, I thought excitedly.  Then… it happened.  I saw my name in the Jamie Oliver magazine!!

I had entirely forgotten that I had tweeted this exact question to #askJamieO on 28 January.  I screamed…  Hubby could get into the bathroom quick enough to rescue me.

Perhaps I did get a bit over excited about this whole experience.  But, really, it was one of the most exciting things that could have happened at that particular, fabulous moment.

All told, I thought that this was a perfect opportunity to hand this Tips Tuesday to Jamie Oliver to answer.  How does he keep dishes down? With tray bakes (yum!) and by steaming veg over stews (genius! I would never have thought of that one).

I can attest to Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meal’s Chicken Tray Bake being amazing and now vow to try and incorporate more tray bakes into my repertoire.

I must say, we do actually have a dishwasher.  But unfortunately our dishes are not in the habit of growing legs, rinsing themselves and waltzing on into the dishwasher.  So, I’m always striving to use as few dishes as possible.

What’s your best dish saving tip?  I’ve you’ve got a good one, please share a comment below.

Happy Tuesday!

Quick ragout – Jamie’s Jools’ Pasta

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This is a mid-week staple in our house nowadays.  I love pasta and I love rich tomato-based ragouts.  But, the time it takes to make flavours really something special in a ragout, is often a luxury a mid-week cook can’t afford.

The Jamie Oliver 30 Minute Meals series and cookbook has revolutionised my cooking.  The method for this recipe, which produces rich ragout flavours which pack a punch super quickly, comes from a recipe in this book which Jamie calls Jools’ Pregnancy Pasta.  It’s quick, easy and heart warming.  What more could one want after a hard day at work?

You will need a food processor for this recipe.  And indeed for most recipes in the Jamie Oliver 30 Minute Meals collection.  I really do find this to be an indispensable piece for kitchen equipment.

Ingredients
flavour base veg (such as: onions, leeks, carrots, celery, spring onions, zucchini, capsicum – what ever is lurking around in your crisper)
flavour bomb ingredients (such as: tomato paste, garlic, anchovies, dried chilli, fennel seeds, dried mixed herbs, thyme, parsley and any other herbs you have in the garden)
good quality and flavorsome raw pork sausages (or chicken, or beef sausages)
deglazing ingredients (such as: a splash of red wine and a glug of balsamic vinegar)
a handful of cherry tomatoes
1-2 400g can/s of chopped tomatoes, or pasata, (depending how saucy you like your sauce)
soft herbs/greens (such as: basil, baby spinach)
parmesan cheese
double O
salt and pepper 

I’m not going to give you exact quantities for this recipe, because it is the kind of recipe which works with what ever you have and what ever you like best.  By sight, you can work out if you need a bit of extra sauce.  By smell, you can work out if it needs more flavour bomb ingredients.  And, by taste, you can work out if it needs more seasoning.

First things first.  Put a large, deep, fry pan on a medium-high heat with a swig of double O.  Then blitz all of your flavour base veg in your food processor until finely chopped.

Fry the chopped veg in the fry pan for a few minutes.  Then add your flavour bomb ingredients and fry those for a few minutes, whilst stirring too.

Now, squeeze the mince filling from your sausages into the fry pan. Alternatively, you can throw your sausages into the food processor and blitz them, cases and all, and put this mixture into the fry pan.  I normally do it this way, but this time I forgot and put the food processor in the dishwasher before I remembered the sausages.  It didn’t really matter.  I just had to use a bit more elbow grease to break the sausage mince up and make sure it evenly fried.

Then, once the sausage mince is all evenly browned, add the deglazing ingredients.  I add a splash of red wine (because it legitimises drinking a glass while cooking) and a glug of balsamic vinegar.  The vinegar may seem odd, and it will clear out your sinuses if you breathe it in when it first hits the pan, but trust me.  I thought it would be weird too.  But it reduces and becomes sweet and sticky and fabulous in this recipe.

Once the vinegar smell has cooked off, throw in your cherry tomatoes.

Finally, add your canned tomatoes and a little water and let this bubble away with a lid ajar on the fry pan while you cook the pasta.

Boil a jug of water and add to a pre-heated large saucepan.  Season the water (you may need 2 jugs of boiling water).  Then cook your pasta as per the packet directions.

If you have any soft herbs lying around (such as parsley, basil, or even baby spinach) stir these into the sauce at the last moment to wilt.  Taste and season as desired.

Serve drained pasta topped with sauce and cheese and devour!  Quick and easy….but it tasted good!

Roasted Marinated Lamb

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Well, tonight’s roast, following yesterday’s marinade, was great.  The tart of the preserved lemon along with the sweetness of the red onions was a winner.  (See yesterday’s post for the marinade recipe.)

Because the Lamb had the bone in and I was after a medium rare finish, I cooked it at 180°C for the equivalent of 30 mins per 500 grams.  This piece was 1300 grams, so it was in the oven for about 1 hour 20 minutes (1 hour 18 minutes for those checking my maths).  My maths isn’t great, but nonetheless, it came out perfectly to our liking.

If you prefer it medium to well done, up the cooking time to 35-40 mins per 500 grams.

No matter how long you cook your Lamb for, make sure you allow enough time before serving time for the meat to rest under a foil blanket.  This way the meat feels like it’s just come out of a yoga session – totally relaxed.  It saves all the juice running out when you carve.

Some say you need to rest the meat for half the time it has cooked for.  This works if you’ve got a place warm enough to leave, so that it doesn’t get cold.  I rested this piece for 20 mins.  Not half the cooking time, but it was good enough for me.

To my husbands delight, I served the Lamb with a pile of potatoes roasted in duck fat.  Once you’ve roasted potatoes in duck fat, I’m afraid there is no going back.  I once saw Jamie Oliver do a comparison of roast potatoes: one in olive oil, one in butter and the last in goose fat.  I’ve never actually tried goose fat, but I hazard a guess it’s similar to duck fat.  That Jamie Oliver comparison made me realise I could never be vegan, and the chances of me turning vegetarian are incredibly slim.

I know it isn’t the healthiest option.  But if nothing else, I think it makes me thrifty.

For Christmas last year, I roasted a duck and saved the fat.  When roasting a duck, you need to prick it all over to let the fat ooze out.  During the cooking time, you turn the duck over a few times to make sure you get as much of the fat out as possible in a way which keeps the bird moist, whilst allowing the skin to get crispy.  Otherwise it gets soggy.  I’m still using the fat from the Christmas bird on roast potatoes.  It’s kept perfectly fine in the fridge.

Roast potatoes may only be a ‘sometimes food’ in our house now, but it tasted good!