Roasties
PERFECT ROAST POTATOES
To go with any roast diner as part of the trimmings, great roast potatoes are an essential part of any roast dinner, this is the way I like to cook them, give it a try and tell me what you think.
Ingredients as with all cooking is very important as any person that chooses cooking as a hobby should know. Chose a flowery potato, I find maris piper is a good variety, also the fat that you use to roast the potatoes in is also very important. For every day use normal vegetable oil will be fine but for those special occasion try goose fat, believe me it does add that extra depth of flavour to these roasties.
Put your roasting pan in a hot oven with the oil, whilst putting your potatoes on the hob and let them boil for a few minutes until they are just starting to become soft. Drain the potatoes and shake gently in the pan, this helps to give the potatoes a rough edge and makes them more crispy.
Put the potatoes into the hot roasting tin and baste in the cooking oil/fat, season and for the extra flavour add some chopped fresh rosemary. Then leave to roast in the top half of the oven turning the potatoes every half hour or so to ensure crispness all over.
Yum Yum!!
Cooking | Comment (0)Sunday Lunch
ROAST CHICKEN DINNER
Cooked Sunday dinner this weekend, had a free-range chicken and the usual trimmings. Now chicken at time can be a little bland at times so here are my top tips for ensuring you get a flavoursome bird!
You pay for what you get, try and go for free range corn fed chicken, the cheaper ones that you get at the supermarket tend to be grown inside in confined spaces, get no exercise etc A happy chicken is a tasty chicken.
Mix up some herbs, what ever takes your fancy with some butter, lemon thyme goes great with chicken, I also like to mix in some garlic, salt and pepper. Then make a pocket between the skin and the breast meat and push the butter in smooth it out to get an even covering. Smooth the remaining butter over the chicken, this will help to baste the chicken whilst cooking whilst imparting a great flavour. Inserting half a lemon into the cooking cavity also helps to keep the bird moist.
Then stick the chicken in the oven around gas mark 5, about 45 mins per kilo plus 20 mins, once done leave to rest for 10 minutes under some foil to keep it warm.
Cooking | Comment (0)Couscoustastic
I mentioned before about couscous that I had with my lamb tagine that I made the other week, so what is couscous?
Couscous is actually made from semolina which is sprinkled with water and rolled with the hands to form small pellets it is then sprinkled with dry flour to keep the pellets separate, and then sieved. The pellets which are too small to be finished grains of couscous fall through the sieve to be again sprinkled with dry semolina and rolled into pellets. This process continues until all the semolina has been formed into tiny grains of couscous.
To cook the couscous take a large cup fill it with water/stock and then pour it in a pan and heat (do not boil), add the same amount of couscous, stir then place on the lid and leave for 5 mins. Remove the lid then stir, the couscous should now be cooked but it can be fairly bland so you need to add flavours, depending on what you are serving it with.
Here are some of my favourites
- Oilve oil, pomegranate seeds and coriander
- Tomatoes, spring onions, pepper, coriander and diced dried fruit
- Cashew nuts
Basically use your imagination and add whatever you like!
Cooking | Comment (0)Lamb Tagine
One of my favourite hobbies with which I like to experiment with , is my love of cooking, we had friends around for dinner the other week so I decided to go for a Moroccan influence and cook a lamb tagine. Well it went down very well so here is the basic recipe which is easy and simple to follow.
Chop up two onions a place them in a casserole dish along with two teaspoons of cumin, ground coriander seeds, turmeric, cinnamon, 2-3 cloves of crushed garlic and and about two inches of grated ginger.
Cook the onions and spices till soft, then add some diced lamb, two table spoons of tomato puree, two tins of chopped tomatoes and a two table spoons of honey or more if you like it sweeter.
Bring it to the boil then place on a low heat in the oven for 2-3 hours until the lamb is tender.
Serve with cous cous, which I ,like mixed in with coriander and pomegranate seeds
Enjoy!
Cooking | Comment (0)